Identifying and exploiting homogeneous communities in labeled networks

AbstractAttribute-aware community discovery aims to find well-connected communities that are also homogeneous w.r.t. the labels carried by the nodes. In this work, we address such a challenging task presenting Eva, an algorithmic approach designed to maximize a quality function tailoring both structural and homophilic clustering criteria. We evaluate Eva on several real-world labeled networks carrying both nominal and ordinal information, and we compare our approach to other classic and attribute-aware algorithms. Our results suggest that Eva is the only method, among the compared ones, able to discover homogeneous clusters without considerably degrading partition modularity.We also investigate two well-defined applicative scenarios to characterize better Eva: i) the clustering of a mental lexicon, i.e., a linguistic network modeling human semantic memory, and (ii) the node label prediction task, namely the problem of inferring the missing label of a node

The preclinical discovery and development of brivaracetam for the treatment of focal epilepsy.

INTRODUCTION: Brivaracetam (BRV) is a new AED currently licensed for the adjunctive treatment of adult patients with focal epilepsies. It is a ligand of the ubiquitous synaptic vesicle glycoprotein 2A (SV2A). Areas covered: This paper covers the preclinical and subsequent clinical development of BRV focusing on the discovery of the SV2A protein as the main target for levetiracetam (LEV) and the main similarities and differences between LEV and BRV in terms of pharmacodynamic and pharmacokinetic properties. Phase II and Phase III studies are also presented and data from post-marketing phase IV studies are discussed. Expert opinion: The preclinical development of BRV is quite unique and has raised several doubts on current methodologies adopted for AED development, reinforcing the need for new approaches. The preclinical and clinical profile suggest that BRV is potentially an ideal compound in the emergency setting given the rapid onset of action associated with being water soluble and, therefore, available in intravenous formulation. In addition, data from Phase III studies have already suggested that BRV may be effective not only in focal epilepsies but also in generalised syndromes. Further data from special populations such as children and women of child bearing age are urgently needed

Structify-Net: Random Graph generation with controlled size and customized structure

Network structure is often considered one of the most important features of a network, and various models exist to generate graphs having one of the most studied types of structures, such as blocks/communities or spatial structures. In this article, we introduce a framework for the generation of random graphs with a controlled size -- number of nodes, edges -- and a customizable structure, beyond blocks and spatial ones, based on node-pair rank and a tunable probability function allowing to control the amount of randomness. We introduce a structure zoo -- a collection of original network structures -- and conduct experiments on the small-world properties of networks generated by those structures. Finally, we introduce an implementation as a Python library named Structify-net

Attributed Stream Hypergraphs: temporal modeling of node-attributed high-order interactions

Recent advances in network science have resulted in two distinct research directions aimed at augmenting and enhancing representations for complex networks. The first direction, that of high-order modeling, aims to focus on connectivity between sets of nodes rather than pairs, whereas the second one, that of feature-rich augmentation, incorporates into a network all those elements that are driven by information which is external to the structure, like node properties or the flow of time. This paper proposes a novel toolbox, that of Attributed Stream Hypergraphs (ASHs), unifying both high-order and feature-rich elements for representing, mining, and analyzing complex networks. Applied to social network analysis, ASHs can characterize complex social phenomena along topological, dynamic and attributive elements. Experiments on real-world face-to-face and online social media interactions highlight that ASHs can easily allow for the analyses, among others, of high-order groups' homophily, nodes' homophily with respect to the hyperedges in which nodes participate, and time-respecting paths between hyperedges.Comment: Submitted to "Applied Network Science

Progetto di una scheda di Memoria Associativa basata su link seriali per il processore Fast Tracker all'esperimento ATLAS del CERN

Il lavoro di Tesi è stato svolto presso la Sezione di Pisa dell'Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare dove è in fase di costruzione il nuovo processore Fast Tracker (FTK), che sarà utilizzato nella presa dati dell'esperimento ATLAS prevista per l'anno 2015. FTK è stato ideato per ricostruire in tempo reale la traiettoria delle particelle cariche che attraversano il rivelatore in silicio di ATLAS e migliorare, con questa informazione, le prestazioni del sistema di trigger e di acquisizione dati dell'esperimento. Il componente principale di FTK è costituito dalla Memoria Associativa e con il mio lavoro di Tesi ho dato un contributo significativo ai test ed allo sviluppo di nuovi prototipi di una scheda VME che utilizza massicciamente questa tecnologia. In particolare, ho contribuito ai test di un prototipo esistente di scheda di Memoria Associativa (AMB-FTK) nel quale sono stati individuati vari problemi di natura elettrica, nella distribuzione del clock, nella trasmissione dei dati seriali ad alto rate(2Gbit/s) e nella catena JTAG. Terminati questi test, ho lavorato al progetto di un nuovo prototipo della scheda di Memoria Associativa (AMB-FTK V1) nel quale sono state introdotte le modifiche necessarie per risolvere i problemi individuati. I test del nuovo protipo hanno mostrato che le soluzioni adottate risolvono ottimamente tutti i problemi. Infine, il lavoro si è concluso con il progetto della nuova scheda AMB-FTK V2 che istalleremo nel sistema per la presa dati dell'anno 2015. Nella nuova scheda abbiamo introdotto novità progettuali per migliorare le prestazioni e l'affidabilità: la distribuzione del clock è stata realizzata completamente in formato differenziale e la distribuzione dei dati completamente in formato seriale. Inoltre abbiamo modificato il sistema di generazione e distribuzione delle alimentazioni per adattarlo alle caratteristiche elettriche del nuovo chip di Memoria Associativa, attualmente in fase avanzata di progettazione. Tra gli sviluppi futuri di questo lavoro, i più rilevanti sono il consolidamento del progetto della nuova scheda AMB-FTK V2 ed i test delle prestazioni ed affidabilità del nuovo prototipo in vista della istallazione ed integrazione di FTK nel sistema di trigger ed acquisizione dati di ATLAS

Innovación, portal hacia el futuro

The article presents a series of arguments in order to convince any audience of the need and the benefits of innovation. First it presents a summary of the theories given by three recognized researchers (Joseph A. Schumpeter, Robert Solow and Paul Romer) who state the nature of innovation and how to weight its importance in a country’s or enterprise’s economy. In order to convince a wider audience to embrace and cultivate innovation, to make it a part of their cultivate innovation, make it part of their culture, the article present situations of the recent past, not only to assign a fair value to today’s comforts, but also to present innovation, which undoubtedly will enhance the quality of life of its users. To this end it weaves a historical plot and presents some crucial events that constituted the base for the modern society that we know, such as the electricity revolution and its direct effect on in the appliances revolution, which generated radical social changes by liberating housewife´s from their tedious and hard labor.El artículo consiste en la presentación de una ordenada batería de argumentos para convencer a cualquier oyente sobre la necesidad y las bondades de la innovación. En primer término se expone un resumen de las teorías de tres notables investigadores sobre la naturaleza de la innovación y cómo sopesar su importancia en la economía de los países y de las empresas: Joseph A. Schumpeter, Robert Solow y Paul Romer. Para convencer a un público más amplio, de cultivar la innovación, de hacerla parte de su cultura, presentamos situaciones del pasado reciente, tanto para asignarle su justo valor a las comodidades de hoy, como lo que cabría en un futuro cercano, con los fruto de las innovaciones que se avizoran, las cuales sin duda mejorarán aún más la calidad de vida de sus usuarios. A tal fin se va tejiendo una trama histórica y se presentando algunos eventos cruciales que fueron sentando las bases de la sociedad moderna que conocemos, como es el caso de la revolución de la electricidad y su derivación directa la revolución de los electrodomésticos, las cuales generaron cambios sociales radicales al liberar al ama de casa de trabajos esclavizantes

Adjusting the Ground Truth Annotations for Connectivity-Based Learning to Delineate

Deep learning-based approaches to delineating 3D structure depend on accurate annotations to train the networks. Yet, in practice, people, no matter how conscientious, have trouble precisely delineating in 3D and on a large scale, in part because the data is often hard to interpret visually and in part because the 3D interfaces are awkward to use. In this paper, we introduce a method that explicitly accounts for annotation inaccuracies. To this end, we treat the annotations as active contour models that can deform themselves while preserving their topology. This enables us to jointly train the network and correct potential errors in the original annotations. The result is an approach that boosts performance of deep networks trained with potentially inaccurate annotations