Ellipsoidal classification via semidefinite programming

We propose a classification approach exploiting relationships between ellipsoidal separation and Support-vector Machine (SVM) with quadratic kernel. By adding a (Semidefinite Programming) SDP constraint to SVM model we ensure that the chosen hyperplane in feature space represents a non-degenerate ellipsoid in input space. This allows us to exploit SDP techniques within Support-vector Regression (SVR) approaches, yielding better results in case ellipsoid-shaped separators are appropriate for classification tasks. We compare our approach with spherical separation and SVM on some classification problems

IS 2000 Progress Report on Undergraduate IS Curriculum Development

Undergraduate IS Curricula have been under development since the early 1970\u27s and have resulted in a series of curriculum reports. Initially the DPMA (now AITP) and the ACM organizations produced separate models. Beginning in the early 1990\u27s faculty associated with AITP, ACM and AIS have worked jointly to research and publish reports and curricula for undergraduate programs of Information Systems (Longenecker, et al 1994; Couger et al 1995) culminating in IS’97 (Davis, et al 1997). Survey results of IS faculty regarding the required depth of knowledge for the IS Body of Knowledge, as well as the necessity for achieving specific entry level skills will be presented and discussed. Results of the analysis of Learning Unit composition will be presented and discussed. Revision of the learning units will be identified. Approaches for funding and involvement of IS faculty and Industry professionals will be conducted. Participation will be solicited. Also, a schedule for the update process will be made available

IS 2002 Model Curriculum and Guidelines for Undergraduate Degree Programs in Information Systems

This article contains the official text of the IS 2002 Model Curriculum for Undergraduate Degree Programs in Information Systems as approved by The Association for Computing Machinery, The Association for Information Systems, and The Association of Information Technology Professionals. It is presented in its original form

A Summary of the Collaborative IS Curriculum Specification of the Joint DPMA, ACM, AIS Task Force

Information Systems \u2795 (IS \u2795), a model curriculum for a bachelor\u27s degree in Information Systems (IS), is the resulting development of collaborative work of a Joint Task Force of the Data Processing Management Association (DPMA), the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM), and Academy for Information Systems (AIS). Representation on the task force includes both academic and industrial members. This paper summarizes the full report (Figure 1). A definition of the IS discipline and its relevance within the business and university community is discussed. Resources needed to support a viable program are identified, including faculty, and information technology. Courses are identified and the characteristics of graduates defined. A paradigm is provided which couples a definition of the IS discipline and its underlying principles to the of characteristics of the IS graduate. An updated IS body of knowledge is presented. It is based on previous efforts of DPMA and ACM (Longenecker and Feinstein 1991a,b,c; Ashenhurst 1972; Couger 1972; ACM 1983 and ACM 1990; DPMA 1981, 1986). The current body of knowledge contains the Computer Science and Engineering body of knowledge (Turner and Tucker 1991). A cognitive behavioral metric is presented for specifying and evaluating depth of knowledge. The specification includes a numeric depth indicator and appropriate language to describe presentation goals and resultant behavior expected of students completing study of specific aspects of the curriculum. A modular concept of learning units is defined and utilized in specifying proposed courses. Methods for mapping the learning units to alternate course plans are discussed. Elements from the body of knowledge are combined in a logical top-down manner to form Learning Units (LU). Each LU contains a goal statement, behavioral objectives and associated elements from the body of knowledge. Five curriculum areas with 20 sub-areas form clusters of these learning units. A complete set of 128 learning units form meta-presentation units which can be organized in different schemes to meet individual institutional missions. One possible organization of these units into ten courses is presented. This paper provides curriculum guidelines for implementing undergraduate programs in information systems. The full report, IS\u2795, provides the detail necessary for design and implementation of courses. Dissemination of the curriculum and plans for review and updating the curriculum are presented

A versatile ultrasound system for in vitro experiments

Objective One of the most difficult tasks to achieve with the available instrumentations used to study the interaction between ultrasound (US) and cellular model systems is to design an experiment, where only the effects of one physical parameter at a time is evaluated, while all the others are kept constant. The set-ups are usually custom-made, often by means of clinical instrument intended for a different therapeutic purpose. Furthermore, the results are not strictly comparable with others obtained with techniques considered standard in molecular and cellular biology at this time, because there is the need to use non-standard devices to contain biological samples. Sterility, as well as temperature, is not well controlled and reproducibility is usually a major concern. In our study we show the effects of ultrasound treatments on different cellular systems. The experiments are performed with a versatile bench-top US apparatus to be adapted for several in vitro experiments and that allows easy and robust reproducibility using standard set-ups for the cell samples. Methods One main feature of our bench-top US system is that it has been designed in order to use standard plasticware commonly used in molecular biology labs, ensuring the temperature control and sterility conditions needed in the field. We present a set-up where the simultaneous use of a set of transducers operating at different frequencies on the same plate, allows the comparison of the deposition of the same acoustic pressure, whilst evaluating the effect of frequency alone on the readout of the cell experiments. The apparatus modular design also allows the use of a set of transducers operating at the same frequency, in experiments where the throughput is a relevant factor. We demonstrate that it is possible to define the position of the target within all the achievable areas of the acoustic field with sub-millimetric accuracy. Tests for several applications based on biologic effects by ultrasound have been carried out by varying the acoustic parameters such as power, frequency range, sonication time and duty cycle, all controlled within robust protocols executed in automation. Results The resulting data proves that it is possible to perform in vitro experiments for different purposes (i.e. drug delivery, cellular sonoporation, nanoparticles or microbubbles swelling, tissue regeneration, neuronal cell stimulation etc.) keeping the relevant physical parameters of sonication constant, for instance acoustic pressure, but varying the others parameters (i.e. frequency, pulse length or duty cycle etc) one at the time. Conclusions We show that with our apparatus it is possible to obtain robust and reproducible results on cellular experiments, using all the standard devices that are commonly available in biological labs. The improvement on the side of reproducibility and portability of the experiments allows a straightforward comparison between our results and those obtained with other techniques

SGR J1550-5418 bursts detected with the Fermi Gamma-ray Burst Monitor during its most prolific activity

We have performed detailed temporal and time-integrated spectral analysis of 286 bursts from SGR J1550-5418 detected with the Fermi Gamma-ray Burst Monitor (GBM) in January 2009, resulting in the largest uniform sample of temporal and spectral properties of SGR J1550-5418 bursts. We have used the combination of broadband and high time-resolution data provided with GBM to perform statistical studies for the source properties. We determine the durations, emission times, duty cycles and rise times for all bursts, and find that they are typical of SGR bursts. We explore various models in our spectral analysis, and conclude that the spectra of SGR J1550-5418 bursts in the 8-200 keV band are equally well described by optically thin thermal bremsstrahlung (OTTB), a power law with an exponential cutoff (Comptonized model), and two black-body functions (BB+BB). In the spectral fits with the Comptonized model we find a mean power-law index of -0.92, close to the OTTB index of -1. We show that there is an anti-correlation between the Comptonized Epeak and the burst fluence and average flux. For the BB+BB fits we find that the fluences and emission areas of the two blackbody functions are correlated. The low-temperature BB has an emission area comparable to the neutron star surface area, independent of the temperature, while the high-temperature blackbody has a much smaller area and shows an anti-correlation between emission area and temperature. We compare the properties of these bursts with bursts observed from other SGR sources during extreme activations, and discuss the implications of our results in the context of magnetar burst models.Comment: 13 pages, 10 figures, 2 tables; minor changes, ApJ in pres

BioTIME: A database of biodiversity time series for the Anthropocene.

MotivationThe BioTIME database contains raw data on species identities and abundances in ecological assemblages through time. These data enable users to calculate temporal trends in biodiversity within and amongst assemblages using a broad range of metrics. BioTIME is being developed as a community-led open-source database of biodiversity time series. Our goal is to accelerate and facilitate quantitative analysis of temporal patterns of biodiversity in the Anthropocene.Main types of variables includedThe database contains 8,777,413 species abundance records, from assemblages consistently sampled for a minimum of 2 years, which need not necessarily be consecutive. In addition, the database contains metadata relating to sampling methodology and contextual information about each record.Spatial location and grainBioTIME is a global database of 547,161 unique sampling locations spanning the marine, freshwater and terrestrial realms. Grain size varies across datasets from 0.0000000158 km2 (158 cm2) to 100 km2 (1,000,000,000,000 cm2).Time period and grainBioTIME records span from 1874 to 2016. The minimal temporal grain across all datasets in BioTIME is a year.Major taxa and level of measurementBioTIME includes data from 44,440 species across the plant and animal kingdoms, ranging from plants, plankton and terrestrial invertebrates to small and large vertebrates.Software format.csv and .SQL

The Swift Deep Galactic Plane Survey (DGPS) Phase-I Catalog

The \textit{Swift} Deep Galactic Plane Survey is a \textit{Swift} Key Project consisting of 380 tiled pointings covering 40 deg$^{2}$ of the Galactic Plane between longitude $10$\,$<$\,$|l|$\,$<$\,$30$ deg and latitude $|b|$\,$<$\,$0.5$ deg. Each pointing has a $5$ ks exposure, yielding a total of 1.9 Ms spread across the entire survey footprint. Phase-I observations were carried out between March 2017 and May 2021. The Survey is complete to depth $L_X$\,$>$\,$10^{34}$ erg s$^{-1}$ to the edge of the Galaxy. The main Survey goal is to produce a rich sample of new X-ray sources and transients, while also covering a broad discovery space. Here, we introduce the Survey strategy and present a catalog of sources detected during Phase-I observations. In total, we identify 928 X-ray sources, of which 348 are unique to our X-ray catalog. We report on the characteristics of sources in our catalog and highlight sources newly classified and published by the DGPS team.Comment: Submitted to ApJ

Brain tumor location influences the onset of acute psychiatric adverse events of levetiracetam therapy: an observational study.

To explore possible correlations among brain lesion location, development of psychiatric symptoms and the use of antiepileptic drugs (AEDs) in a population of patients with brain tumor and epilepsy. The medical records of 283 patients with various types of brain tumor (161 M/122 F, mean age 64.9 years) were analysed retrospectively. Patients with grade III and IV glioma, previous history of epileptic seizures and/or psychiatric disorders were excluded. Psychiatric symptoms occurring after initiation of AED therapy were considered as treatment emergent psychiatric adverse events (TE-PAEs) if they fulfilled the following conditions: (1) onset within 4 weeks after the beginning of AED therapy; (2) disappearance on drug discontinuation; (3) absence of any other identified possible concurrent cause. The possible influence of the following variables were analysed: (a) AED drug and dose; (b) location and neuroradiologic features of the tumor, (c) location and type of EEG epileptic abnormalities, (d) tumor excision already or not yet performed; (e) initiation or not of radiotherapy. TE-PAEs occurred in 27 of the 175 AED-treated patients (15.4%). Multivariate analysis showed a significant association of TE-PAEs occurrence with location of the tumor in the frontal lobe (Odds ratio: 5.56; 95% confidence interval 1.95-15.82; p value: 0.005) and treatment with levetiracetam (Odds ratio: 3.61; 95% confidence interval 1.48-8.2; p value: 0.001). Drug-unrelated acute psychiatric symptoms were observed in 4 of the 108 AED-untreated patients (3.7%) and in 7 of the 175 AED-treated patients (4%). The results of the present study suggest that an AED alternative to levetiracetam should be chosen to treat epileptic seizures in patients with a brain tumor located in the frontal lobe to minimize the possible onset of TE-PAEs