A Fast General-Purpose Clustering Algorithm Based on FPGAs for High-Throughput Data Processing

We present a fast general-purpose algorithm for high-throughput clustering of data "with a two dimensional organization". The algorithm is designed to be implemented with FPGAs or custom electronics. The key feature is a processing time that scales linearly with the amount of data to be processed. This means that clustering can be performed in pipeline with the readout, without suffering from combinatorial delays due to looping multiple times through all the data. This feature makes this algorithm especially well suited for problems where the data has high density, e.g. in the case of tracking devices working under high-luminosity condition such as those of LHC or Super-LHC. The algorithm is organized in two steps: the first step (core) clusters the data; the second step analyzes each cluster of data to extract the desired information. The current algorithm is developed as a clustering device for modern high-energy physics pixel detectors. However, the algorithm has much broader field of applications. In fact, its core does not specifically rely on the kind of data or detector it is working for, while the second step can and should be tailored for a given application. Applications can thus be foreseen to other detectors and other scientific fields ranging from HEP calorimeters to medical imaging. An additional advantage of this two steps approach is that the typical clustering related calculations (second step) are separated from the combinatorial complications of clustering. This separation simplifies the design of the second step and it enables it to perform sophisticated calculations achieving online-quality in online applications. The algorithm is general purpose in the sense that only minimal assumptions on the kind of clustering to be performed are made.Comment: 11th Frontier Detectors For Frontier Physics conference (2009

Diboson physics at CDF

At the Fermilab Tevatron, the CDF detector is used to study diboson production in $p\bar{p}$ collisions at $\sqrt{s}$ = 1.96 TeV. We report recent diboson production measurements, limits on anomalous triple gauge couplings and latest results from semi-leptonic diboson searches.Comment: SUSY 2009 conferenc

Measurement of Heavy Quark cross-sections at CDF

The measurement of heavy quark cross-sections provides important tests of the QCD theory. This paper reviews recent measurements of single b-quark and correlated b-quark cross-sections at CDF. Two new measurements of the single b-quark production at CDF agree with the first result from CDF Run II. This clarifies the experimental situation and confirms the recent agreement of theoretical prediction with data. A new measurement of the correlated $b\bar{b}$ cross-section with dimuon events at CDF is presented. It agrees with theory and it does not confirm the anomalously large $b\bar{b}$ cross-section seen in Run I by CDF and D${\not {\rm O}}$ in dimuon events.Comment: EPS HEP2007 conference held in Mancheste

The Multifaceted Complexity of Genetic Diseases: A Lesson from Pseudoxanthoma Elasticum

Pseudoxanthoma elasticum (PXE) is a rare genetic disorder characterized by mineralization of elastic fibers within all connective tissue, although the most important clinical manifestation affect skin, eyes and the cardiovascular system. Despite the dramatic involvement of the extracellular matrix, the first attempts made by researchers to find out the gene defect among those coding for matrix molecules failed and in 2000 three groups, independently, demonstrated that PXE is due to mutation in the ABCC6 gene belonging to the ABC family of membrane transporters. Today the physiological substrate of this transporter is not know and still elusive are the pathogenetic mechanisms linking a defective cellular transporter mainly expressed in liver and kidney to ectopic calcification of connective tissues. This disease may therefore represent a very interesting example of the complexity that regulate molecular pathways, on the influence of metabolism on several other organs/systems. Moreover, there are also evidence that similar endpoints (i.e. clinical and histological alterations) can be observed in some patients starting from different gene defects (Pseudoxanthoma, Beta-thalassemia, vitamin-k dependent coagulation deficiency). These data support the importance of using wide-spread technologies as transcriptomic or proteomic analysis to have a broader view of the cellular pathways that may be involved. Moreover recent findings in the literature highlights the role of polymorphisms in other genes that could be responsible for phenotypic changes and for a different severity of clinical manifestation in this monogenic disorder

Fibroblast involvement in soft connective tissue calcification

Soft connective tissue calcification is not a passive process, but the consequence of metabolic changes of local mesenchymal cells that, depending on both genetic and environmental factors, alter the balance between pro- and anti-calcifying pathways. While the role of smooth muscle cells and pericytes in ectopic calcifications has been widely investigated, the involvement of fibroblasts is still elusive. Fibroblasts isolated from the dermis of pseudoxanthoma elasticum (PXE) patients and of patients exhibiting PXE-like clinical and histopathological findings offer an attractive model to investigate the mechanisms leading to the precipitation of mineral deposits within elastic fibers and to explore the influence of the genetic background and of the extracellular environment on fibroblast-associated calcifications, thus improving the knowledge on the role of mesenchymal cells on pathologic mineralizatio

Comparison of ex vivo and in vitro human fibroblast ageing models

Several studies have analyzed modulation of gene expression during physiological ageing with interesting, but often contradictory results, depending on the model used. In the present report we compare age-related metabolic and synthetic parameters in human dermal fibroblasts (HDF) isolated from young and old subjects (ex vivo ageing model) and cultured from early up to late cumulative population doublings (CPD) (in vitro ageing model) in order to distinguish changes induced in vivo by the aged environment and maintained in vitro, from those associated with cell senescence and progressive CPD. Results demonstrate that fibroblasts from aged donors, already at early CPD, exhibit an impaired redox balance, highlighting the importance of this parameter during ageing, even in the presence of standard environmental conditions, which are considered optimal for cell growth. By contrast, several proteins, as those related to heat shock response, or involved in endoplasmic reticulum and membrane trafficking, appeared differentially expressed only during in vitro ageing, suggesting that, at high CPD, the whole cell machinery becomes permanently altered. Finally, given the importance of the elastic component for a long-lasting connective tissue structural and functional compliance, this study focuses also on elastin and fibulin-5 synthesis and deposition, demonstrating a close relationship between fibulin-5 and ageing

The effect of serum withdrawal on the protein profile of quiescent human dermal fibroblasts in primary cell culture

The effect of serum deprivation on proliferating cells is well known, in contrast its role on primary cell cultures, at confluence, has not been deeply investigated. Therefore, in order to explore the response of quiescent cells to serum deprivation, ubiquitous mesenchymal cells, as normal human dermal fibroblasts, were grown, for 48 h after confluence, in the presence or absence of 10% FBS. Fibroblast behaviour (i.e. cell morphology, cell viability, ROS production and elastin synthesis) was evaluated morphologically and biochemically. Moreover, the protein profile was investigated by 2-DE and differentially expressed proteins were identified by MS. Serum withdrawal caused cell shrinkage but did not significantly modify the total cell number. ROS production, as evaluated by the dihydroethidium (DH2) probe, was increased after serum deprivation, whereas elastin synthesis, measured by a colorimetric method, was markedly reduced in the absence of serum. By proteome analysis, 41 proteins appeared to significantly change their expression, the great majority of protein changes were related to the cytoskeleton, the stress response and the glycolytic pathway. Data indicate that human dermal fibroblasts in primary cell culture can adapt themselves to environmental changes, without significantly altering cell viability, at least after a few days of treatment, even though serum withdrawal represents a stress condition capable to increase ROS production, to influence cell metabolism and to interfere with cell behaviour, favouring the expression of several age-related features

In the Theater of my Mind: Authorship, Personae, and the Making of Pier Paolo Pasolini's Work

Pier Paolo Pasolini is one of the most important but also most misunderstood Italian artists and intellectuals of last century, a cultural and artistic myth often understood and used in excessively sectorial or expedient ways. This dissertation defines and explores Pasolini's carefully constructed authorial apparatus, in the sense attributed to this term by Michael Foucault. It argues that Pasolini's authorial apparatus is a labyrinthine subjective construction, which functions within the gigantic interdisciplinary macro-structure of Pasolini's body of work, demanding from its audience a comprehensive reading. Pasolini's authorial apparatus is deconstructed in this dissertation while following the making of Pasolini's incredibly complex body of work, which, crossing medium and disciplinary boundaries, includes poetry, narrative, film, but also theater, essays and even painting

Exploring Quantum Speed-up Through Cluster-state Computers

The aim of this thesis is to investigate the nature of quantum computation and the question of the quantum speed-up over classical computation by comparing two different quantum computational frameworks, the traditional quantum circuit model and the cluster-state quantum computer. After an introductory survey of the theoretical and epistemological questions concerning quantum computation, the first part of this thesis provides a presentation of cluster-state computation suitable for a philosophical audience. In spite of the computational equivalence between the two frameworks, their differences can be considered as structural. Entanglement is shown to play a fundamental role in both quantum circuits and cluster-state computers; this supports, from a new perspective, the argument that entanglement can reasonably explain the quantum speed-up over classical computation. However, quantum circuits and cluster-state computers diverge with regard to one of the explanations of quantum computation that actually accords a central role to entanglement, i.e. the Everett interpretation. It is argued that, while cluster-state quantum computation does not show an Everettian failure in accounting for the computational processes, it threatens that interpretation of being not-explanatory. This analysis presented here should be integrated in a more general work in order to include also further frameworks of quantum computation, e.g. topological quantum computation. However, what is revealed by this work is that the speed-up question does not capture all that is at stake: both quantum circuits and cluster-state computers achieve the speed-up, but the challenges that they posit go besides that specific question. Then, the existence of alternative equivalent quantum computational models suggests that the ultimate question should be moved from the speed-up to a sort of “representation theorem” for quantum computation, to be meant as the general goal of identifying the physical features underlying these alternative frameworks that allow for labelling those frameworks as “quantum computation”