276 research outputs found
Random redundant storage in disk arrays: Complexity of retrieval problems
Random redundant data storage strategies have proven to be a good choice for efficient data storage in multimedia servers. These strategies lead to a retrieval problem in which it is decided for each requested data block which disk to use for its retrieval. In this paper, we give a complexity classification of retrieval problems for random redundant storage
Nitrofurantoin revisited: a systematic review and meta-analysis of controlled trials
The available evidence supports first-line treatment of lower urinary tract infections with nitrofurantoin as clinical efficacy is similar to that seen for trimethoprim/sulfamethoxazole, ciprofloxacin and amoxicillin, rates of microbiological cure are good, short- term toxicity is generally mild and acquired resistance is still relatively rar
ER and PI3K pathway activity in primary ER positive breast cancer is associated with progression-free survival of metastatic patients under first-line tamoxifen
Estrogen receptor positive (ER+) breast cancer patients are eligible for hormonal treatment, but only around half respond. A test with higher specificity for prediction of endocrine therapy response is needed to avoid hormonal overtreatment and to enable selection of alternative treatments. A novel testing method was reported before that enables measurement of functional signal transduction pathway activity in individual cancer tissue samples, using mRNA levels of target genes of the respective pathway-specific transcription factor. Using this method, 130 primary breast cancer samples were analyzed from non-metastatic ER+ patients, treated with surgery without adjuvant hormonal therapy, who subsequently developed metastatic disease that was treated with first-line tamoxifen. Quantitative activity levels were measured of androgen and estrogen receptor (AR and ER), PI3K-FOXO, Hedgehog (HH), NFκB, TGFβ, and Wnt pathways. Based on samples with known pathway activity, thresholds were set to distinguish low from high activity. Subsequently, pathway activity levels were correlated with the tamoxifen treatment response and progression-free survival. High ER pathway activity was measured in 41% of the primary tumors and was associated with longer time to progression (PFS) of metastases during first-line tamoxifen treatment. In contrast, high PI3K, HH, and androgen receptor pathway activity was associated with shorter PFS, and high PI3K and TGFβ pathway activity with worse treatment response. Potential clinical utility of assessment of ER pathway activity lies in predicting response to hormonal therapy, while activity of PI3K, HH, TGFβ, and AR pathways may indicate failure to respond, but also opens new avenues for alternative or complementary targeted treatments
Development of a real-time algorithm for detection of the divertor detachment radiation front using multi-spectral imaging
In this paper we present a novel algorithm to extract the optical plasma boundary and radiation front for detached divertor plasmas. We show that reliable detection of the divertor leg and radiation front is possible using lightweight image processing tools. Using a non-tomographic approach, the detected divertor leg and radiation front can be mapped to the poloidal plane. This approach is fast and accurate enough for real-time control purposes, allowing in particular real-time plasma shape and detachment control, and post-shot detachment physics and dynamics analysis.</p
Influence of polymer excluded volume on the phase behavior of colloid-polymer mixtures
We determine the depletion-induced phase-behavior of hard sphere colloids and
interacting polymers by large-scale Monte Carlo simulations using very accurate
coarse-graining techniques. A comparison with standard Asakura-Oosawa model
theories and simulations shows that including excluded volume interactions
between polymers leads to qualitative differences in the phase diagrams. These
effects become increasingly important for larger relative polymer size. Our
simulations results agree quantitatively with recent experiments.Comment: 5 pages, 4 figures submitted to Physical Review Letter
Nonergodicity transitions in colloidal suspensions with attractive interactions
The colloidal gel and glass transitions are investigated using the idealized
mode coupling theory (MCT) for model systems characterized by short-range
attractive interactions. Results are presented for the adhesive hard sphere and
hard core attractive Yukawa systems. According to MCT, the former system shows
a critical glass transition concentration that increases significantly with
introduction of a weak attraction. For the latter attractive Yukawa system, MCT
predicts low temperature nonergodic states that extend to the critical and
subcritical region. Several features of the MCT nonergodicity transition in
this system agree qualitatively with experimental observations on the colloidal
gel transition, suggesting that the gel transition is caused by a low
temperature extension of the glass transition. The range of the attraction is
shown to govern the way the glass transition line traverses the phase diagram
relative to the critical point, analogous to findings for the fluid-solid
freezing transition.Comment: 11 pages, 7 figures; to be published in Phys. Rev. E (1 May 1999
Prevalence of xenotropic murine leukaemia virus-related virus in patients with chronic fatigue syndrome in the Netherlands: retrospective analysis of samples from an established cohort
Objective The presence of the retrovirus xenotropic murine leukaemia virus-related virus (XMRV) has been reported in peripheral blood mononuclear cells of patients with chronic fatigue syndrome. Considering the potentially great medical and social relevance of such a discovery, we investigated whether this finding could be confirmed in an independent European cohort of patients with chronic fatigue syndrome
Scheduling periodic tasks in a hard real-time environment
We consider a real-time scheduling problem that occurs in the design
of software-based aircraft control. The goal is to distribute tasks
on a minimum number of identical machines and to
compute offsets for the tasks such that no collision occurs. A
task releases a job of running time at each time and a collision occurs if two jobs are
simultaneously active on the same machine.
We shed some light on the complexity and approximability landscape of this problem.
Although the problem cannot be approximated
within a factor of for any , an interesting restriction
is much more tractable: If the periods are dividing (for each one has or ), the problem allows for a better structured representation of solutions, which leads
to a 2-approximation. This result is tight, even asymptotically
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