Melodic track identification in MIDI files considering the imbalanced context

In this paper, the problem of identifying the melodic track of a MIDI file in imbalanced scenarios is addressed. A polyphonic MIDI file is a digital score that consists of a set of tracks where usually only one of them contains the melody and the remaining tracks hold the accompaniment. This leads to a two-class imbalance problem that, unlike in previous work, is managed by over-sampling the melody class (the minority one) or by under-sampling the accompaniment class (the majority one) until both classes are the same size. Experimental results over three different music genres prove that learning from balanced training sets clearly provides better results than the standard classification proces

Additional Physical Interventions to Conventional Physical Therapy in Parkinson’s Disease: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis of Randomized Clinical Trials

Parkinson's disease (PD) represents the second most common neurodegenerative disease. Currently, conventional physical therapy is complemented by additional physical interventions with recreational components, improving different motor conditions in people with PD. This review aims to evaluate the effectiveness of additional physical interventions to conventional physical therapy in Parkinson's disease. A systematic review and meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials were performed. The literature search was conducted in PubMed, Physiotherapy Evidence Database (PEDro), Scopus, SciELO and Web of Science. The PEDro scale was used to evaluate the methodological quality of the studies. A total of 11 randomized controlled trials were included in this review. Five of them contributed information to the meta-analysis. The statistical analysis showed favorable results for dance-based therapy in motor balance: (Timed Up and Go: standardized mean difference (SMD) = −1.16; 95% Confidence Interval (CI):(−2.30 to −0.03); Berg Balance Scale: SMD = 4.05; 95%CI:(1.34 to 6.75)). Aquatic interventions showed favorable results in balance confidence (Activities-Specific Balance Confidence: SMD=10.10; 95%CI:(2.27 to 17.93)). The results obtained in this review highlight the potential benefit of dance-based therapy in functional balance for people with Parkinson's disease, recommending its incorporation in clinical practice. Nonetheless, many aspects require clarification through further research and high-quality studies on this subject

Compact cryogenic Kerr microscope for time-resolved studies of electron spin transport in microstructures

A compact cryogenic Kerr microscope for operation in the small volume of high-field magnets is described. It is suited for measurements both in Voigt and Faraday configuration. Coupled with a pulsed laser source, the microscope is used to measure the time-resolved Kerr rotation response of semiconductor microstructures with ~1 micron spatial resolution. The microscope was designed to study spin transport, a critical issue in the field of spintronics. It is thus possible to generate spin polarization at a given location on a microstructure and probe it at a different location. The operation of the microscope is demonstrated by time-resolved measurements of micrometer distance diffusion of spin polarized electrons in a GaAs/AlGaAs heterojunction quantum well at 4.2 K and 7 Tesla

Suppressed spin dephasing for 2D and bulk electrons in GaAs wires due to engineered cancellation of spin-orbit interaction terms

We report a study of suppressed spin dephasing for quasi-one-dimensional electron ensembles in wires etched into a GaAs/AlGaAs heterojunction system. Time-resolved Kerr-rotation measurements show a suppression that is most pronounced for wires along the [110] crystal direction. This is the fingerprint of a suppression that is enhanced due to a strong anisotropy in spin-orbit fields that can occur when the Rashba and Dresselhaus contributions are engineered to cancel each other. A surprising observation is that this mechanisms for suppressing spin dephasing is not only effective for electrons in the heterojunction quantum well, but also for electrons in a deeper bulk layer.Comment: 5 pages, 3 figure

A distance for partially labeled trees

In a number of practical situations, data have structure and the relations among its component parts need to be coded with suitable data models. Trees are usually utilized for representing data for which hierarchical relations can be defined. This is the case in a number of fields like image analysis, natural language processing, protein structure, or music retrieval, to name a few. In those cases, procedures for comparing trees are very relevant. An approximate tree edit distance algorithm has been introduced for working with trees labeled only at the leaves. In this paper, it has been applied to handwritten character recognition, providing accuracies comparable to those by the most comprehensive search method, being as efficient as the fastest.This work is supported by the Spanish Ministry projects DRIMS (TIN2009-14247-C02), and Consolider Ingenio 2010 (MIPRCV, CSD2007-00018), partially supported by EU ERDF and the Pascal Network of Excellence

The N-terminal domains of syntaxin 7 and vti1b form three-helix bundles that differ in their ability to regulate SNARE complex assembly

The SNAREs syntaxin 7, syntaxin 8, vti1b, and endobrevin/VAMP8 function in the fusion of late endosomes. Although the core complex formed by these SNAREs is very similar to the neuronal SNARE complex, it differs from the neuronal complex in that three of the four SNAREs contain extended N-terminal regions of unknown structure and function. Here we show that the N- terminal regions of syntaxin 7, syntaxin 8, and vti1b contain well folded a-helical domains. Multidimensional NAIR spectroscopy revealed that in syntaxin 7 and vti1b, the domains form three-helix bundles resembling those of syntaxin 1, Sso1p, and Vam3p. The three-helix bundle domain of vti1b is the first of its kind identified in a SNARE outside the syntaxin family. Only syntaxin 7 adopts a closed conformation, whereas in vti1b and syntaxin 8, the N-terminal domains do not interact with the adjacent SNARE motifs. Accordingly, the rate of SNARE complex assembly is retarded about 7-fold when syntaxin 7 contains its N-terminal domain, whereas the N-terminal domains of vti1b and syntaxin 8 have no influence on assembly kinetics. We conclude that three-helix bundles represent a common fold for SNARE N- terminal domains, not restricted to the syntaxin family. However, they differ in their ability to adopt closed conformations and thus to regulate the assembly of SNARE complexes

Mining Disaggregase Sequence Space to Safely Counter TDP-43, FUS, and α-Synuclein Proteotoxicity.

Hsp104 is an AAA+ protein disaggregase, which can be potentiated via diverse mutations in its autoregulatory middle domain (MD) to mitigate toxic misfolding of TDP-43, FUS, and α-synuclein implicated in fatal neurodegenerative disorders. Problematically, potentiated MD variants can exhibit off-target toxicity. Here, we mine disaggregase sequence space to safely enhance Hsp104 activity via single mutations in nucleotide-binding domain 1 (NBD1) or NBD2. Like MD variants, NBD variants counter TDP-43, FUS, and α-synuclein toxicity and exhibit elevated ATPase and disaggregase activity. Unlike MD variants, non-toxic NBD1 and NBD2 variants emerge that rescue TDP-43, FUS, and α-synuclein toxicity. Potentiating substitutions alter NBD1 residues that contact ATP, ATP-binding residues, or the MD. Mutating the NBD2 protomer interface can also safely ameliorate Hsp104. Thus, we disambiguate allosteric regulation of Hsp104 by several tunable structural contacts, which can be engineered to spawn enhanced therapeutic disaggregases with minimal off-target toxicity

Optical probing of spin dynamics of two-dimensional and bulk electrons in a GaAs/AlGaAs heterojunction system

We present time-resolved Kerr rotation measurements of electron spin dynamics in a GaAs/AlGaAs heterojunction system that contains a high-mobility two-dimensional electron gas (2DEG). Due to the complex layer structure of this material the Kerr rotation signals contain information from electron spins in three different layers: the 2DEG layer, a GaAs epilayer in the heterostructure, and the underlying GaAs substrate. The 2DEG electrons can be observed at low pump intensities, using that they have a less negative g-factor than electrons in bulk GaAs regions. At high pump intensities, the Kerr signals from the GaAs epilayer and the substrate can be distinguished when using a barrier between the two layers that blocks intermixing of the two electron populations. This allows for stronger pumping of the epilayer, which results in a shift of the effective g-factor. Thus, three populations can be distinguished using differences in g-factor. We support this interpretation by studying how the spin dynamics of each population has its unique dependence on temperature, and how they correlate with time-resolved reflectance signals.Comment: 14 pages, 7 figure

Ibrutinib versus temsirolimus in patients with relapsed or refractory mantle-cell lymphoma: an international, randomised, open-label, phase study

Background: Mantle-cell lymphoma is an aggressive B-cell lymphoma with a poor prognosis. Both ibrutinib and temsirolimus have shown single-agent activity in patients with relapsed or refractory mantle-cell lymphoma. We undertook a phase 3 study to assess the efficacy and safety of ibrutinib versus temsirolimus in relapsed or refractory mantle-cell lymphoma. Methods: This randomised, open-label, multicentre, phase 3 clinical trial enrolled patients with relapsed or refractory mantle-cell lymphoma confirmed by central pathology in 21 countries who had received one or more rituximab-containing treatments. Patients were stratified by previous therapy and simplified mantle-cell lymphoma international prognostic index score, and were randomly assigned with a computer-generated randomisation schedule to receive daily oral ibrutinib 560 mg or intravenous temsirolimus (175 mg on days 1, 8, and 15 of cycle 1; 75 mg on days 1, 8, and 15 of subsequent 21-day cycles). Randomisation was balanced by using randomly permuted blocks. The primary efficacy endpoint was progression-free survival assessed by a masked independent review committee with the primary hypothesis that ibrutinib compared with temsirolimus significantly improves progression-free survival. The analysis followed the intention-to-treat principle. The trial is ongoing and is registered with ClinicalTrials.gov (number NCT01646021) and with the EU Clinical Trials Register, EudraCT (number 2012-000601-74). Findings: Between Dec 10, 2012, and Nov 26, 2013, 280 patients were randomised to ibrutinib (n=139) or temsirolimus (n=141). Primary efficacy analysis showed significant improvement in progression-free survival (p<0.0001) for patients treated with ibrutinib versus temsirolimus (hazard ratio 0.43 [95% CI 0.32-0.58]; median progression-free survival 14.6 months [95% CI 10.4-not estimable] vs 6.2 months [4.2-7.9], respectively). Ibrutinib was better tolerated than temsirolimus, with grade 3 or higher treatment-emergent adverse events reported for 94 (68%) versus 121 (87%) patients, and fewer discontinuations of study medication due to adverse events for ibrutinib versus temsirolimus (9 [6%] vs 36 [26%]). Interpretation: Ibrutinib treatment resulted in significant improvement in progression-free survival and better tolerability versus temsirolimus in patients with relapsed or refractory mantle-cell lymphoma. These data lend further support to the positive benefit-risk ratio for ibrutinib in relapsed or refractory mantle-cell lymphoma