Thinking spatial

The systems community in both academia and industry has tremendous success in building widely used general purpose systems for various types of data and applications. Examples include database systems, big data systems, data streaming systems, and machine learning systems. The vast majority of these systems are ill equipped in terms of supporting spatial data. The main reason is that system builders mostly think of spatial data as just one more type of data. Any spatial support can be considered as an afterthought problem that can be supported via on-top functions or spatial cartridges that can be added to the already built systems. This article advocates that spatial data and applications need to be natively supported in special purpose systems, where spatial data is considered as a first class citizen, while spatial operations are built inside the engine rather than on-top of it. System builders should consider spatial data while building their systems. The article gives examples of five categories of systems, namely, database systems, big data systems, machine learning systems, recommender systems, and social network systems, that would benefit tremendously, in terms of both accuracy and performance, when considering spatial data as an integral part of the system engine

Risk-reducing strategies for women carrying brca1/2 mutations with a focus on prophylactic surgery

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Women who have inherited mutations in the BRCA1 or BRCA2 genes have substantially elevated risks of breast and ovarian cancer. Mutation carriers have various options, including extensive and regular surveillance, chemoprevention and risk-reducing surgery. The aim of this review is to provide an up-to-date analysis and to subsequently summarise the available literature in relation to risk-reducing strategies, with a keen focus on prophylactic surgery.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>The literature review is facilitated by Medline and PubMed databases. The cross-referencing of the obtained articles was used to identify other relevant studies.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Prophylactic surgery (bilateral mastectomy, bilateral salpingo-oophorectomy or a combination of both procedures) has proved to be the most effective risk-reducing strategy. There are no randomised controlled trials able to demonstrate the potential benefits or harms of prophylactic surgery; therefore, the evidence has been derived from retrospective and short follow-up prospective studies, in addition to hypothetical mathematical models.</p> <p>Based on the current knowledge, it is reasonable to recommend prophylactic oophorectomy for BRCA1 or BRCA2 mutation carriers when childbearing is completed in order to reduce the risk of developing breast and ovarian cancer. In addition, women should be offered the options of rigorous breast surveillance, chemoprevention with anti-oestrogens--especially for carriers of BRCA2--or bilateral prophylactic mastectomy.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>The selection of the most appropriate risk-reducing strategy is not a straightforward task. The impact of risk-reducing strategies on cancer risk, survival, and overall quality of life are the key criteria considered for decision-making. Notably, various other factors should be taken into consideration when evaluating individual mutation carriers' individual circumstances, namely woman's age, morbidity, type of mutation, and individual preferences and expectations.</p> <p>Although prospective randomised controlled trials concerned with examining the various interventions in relation to the woman's age and type of mutation are needed, randomisation is extremely difficult and rather deemed unethical given the current available evidence from retrospective studies.</p

The legality of 'war' in Al-Shari'a Al-Islamiya (the Islamic Law) and contemporary international law

This thesis is a comparative study in Al-Shari'a Al-Islamiya (The Islamic Law) and contemporary international law on the subject of the legality of `lq War. It must be pointed out at the outset that the term `lq War is not the precise term to apply to the subject of this thesis, and we often put this term between quotation marks. Other terms have been used in the United Nations Charter; and the meaning of Jihad in Al-Shari'a Al-Islamiya is not compatible with the term `lq war in international law. This thesis is divided into a Prologue, four Parts preceded by an Introductory Part and followed by an Epilogue. The Prologue deals with generalities relating to the topic presented as a necessary background for the Introductory Part. The Introductory Part entitled `lq Al-Shari'a Al-Islamiya And International Law is divided into Six Chapters. The main purpose of this Part is to explain the distinction between the principles of international law in Al-Shari'a Al-Islamiya and public international law, including the different sources and the basis of the obligatory nature of the two systems of law. Part I entitled `lq War and Legality aims to distinguish between certain conceptions in Al-Shari'a Al-Islamiya and public international law. It is divided into Five Chapters dealing with Jihad and legality in Al-Shari'a; and `lq War and legality in international law. Part II entitled `lq The Limitations Of The Legality Of War is divided into three Chapters. The First Chapters deals with the limitations of Jihad in Al-Shari'a Al-Islamiya, and explains, inter alia, the nature of relations between the Islamic State and non-Islamic States; and the legality of certain aspects of the use of force in Al-Shari'a. The Second Chapter deals with the limitations of the legality of `lq War in international law. In this Chapter, we traced the evolution of international law under the League of Nations and the United Nations, and the legality of certain aspects of the use of force in international law. The Third Chapter covers the study of the consequences of the unlawful use of force in Al-Shari'a Al-Islamiya and international law. Part III is entitled `lq The Legality Of `lq War Within The Framework Of Regional Organization. This Part is subdivided into Two Chapters. The First Chapter deals with Universalism and Regionalism in Al-Shari'a Al-Islamiya and international law. A new division of regional organizations is suggested in the Second Chapter to cope with the subject of this thesis. Thus, we divide regional organizations into three categories, regional organizations of Muslim Member States; regional Organizations of Muslim and non-Muslim Member States; and regional Organizations of non-Muslim Member States. Part IV entitled `lq The Judicial Approach To The Legality Of War is divided into Two Chapters. The First Chapter deals with the judicial approach to Muslim States. Thus, we studied the different projects to establish an Arab Court of Justice and an Islamic Court of Justice. In the Second Chapter, we studied the evolution in punishment of war crimes before the First World War, and after the First and Second World Wars. The Epilogue deals with the Conclusions of this comparative study

Detection and tracking of discrete phenomena in sensor-network databases

This paper introduces a framework for Phenomena Detection and Tracking (PDT, for short) in sensor network databases. Examples of detectable phenomena include the propagation over time of a pollution cloud or an oil spill region. We provide a crisp definition of a phenomenon that takes into consideration both the strength and the time span of the phenomenon.We focus on discrete phenomena where sensor readings are drawn from a discrete set of values, e.g., item numbers or pollutant IDs, and we point out how our work can be extended to handle continuous phenomena. The challenge for the proposed PDT framework is to detect as much phenomena as possible, given the large number of sensors, the overall high arrival rates of sensor data, and the limited system resources. Our proposed PDT framework uses continuous SQL queries to detect and track phenomena. Execution of these continuous queries is performed in three phases; the joining phase, the candidate selection phase, and the grouping/output phase. The joining phase employs an in-memory multi-way join algorithm that produces a set of sensor pairs with similar readings. The candidate selection phase filters the output of the joining phase to select candidate join pairs, with enough strength and time span, as specified by the phenomenon definition. The grouping/ output phase constructs the overall phenomenon from the candidate join pairs. We introduce two optimizations to increase the likelihood of phenomena detection while using less system resources. Experimental studies illustrate the performance gains of both the proposed PDT framework and the proposed optimizations

The association between telomerase activity and expression of its RNA component (hTR) in breast cancer patients: the importance of DNase treatment

Telomerase is a ribonucleoprotein enzyme that compensates for the telomere length shortening which occurs during the cell cycle. Telomerase activity has been detected in most tumours but not in somatic cells. However, hTR; the RNA component of telomerase; has been reported to be universally expressed in both cancerous and non-cancerous tissues. Tumour samples from 50 patients with primary invasive breast cancer were collected. The TRAP assay was used to detect telomerase activity. RT-PCR on cDNA and DNased cDNA samples and control groups was used to detect the expression of hTR, GAPDH and PGM1 genes. Seventy-two percent of samples showed telomerase activity. DNA contamination was detected in 36 (72%) of RNA samples. Without performing DNase treatment, 49 (98%) of all samples showed hTR expression, but with the application of this strategy, hTR expression decreased from 98% to 64%. A significant association (p < 0.001) between hTR expression and telomerase activity was observed. Among the 32 hTR positive samples, 30 had telomerase activity and among the 18 hTR negative samples, telomerase activity was observed in 6 cases. Thus the application of this strategy could provide an applicable tool to use instead of the TRAP assay thus facilitating telomerase research in cancer genetic investigations

Towards Mobility Data Science (Vision Paper)

Mobility data captures the locations of moving objects such as humans, animals, and cars. With the availability of GPS-equipped mobile devices and other inexpensive location-tracking technologies, mobility data is collected ubiquitously. In recent years, the use of mobility data has demonstrated significant impact in various domains including traffic management, urban planning, and health sciences. In this paper, we present the emerging domain of mobility data science. Towards a unified approach to mobility data science, we envision a pipeline having the following components: mobility data collection, cleaning, analysis, management, and privacy. For each of these components, we explain how mobility data science differs from general data science, we survey the current state of the art and describe open challenges for the research community in the coming years.Comment: Updated arXiv metadata to include two authors that were missing from the metadata. PDF has not been change

Mobility Data Science (Dagstuhl Seminar 22021)

This report documents the program and the outcomes of Dagstuhl Seminar 22021 "Mobility Data Science". This seminar was held January 9-14, 2022, including 47 participants from industry and academia. The goal of this Dagstuhl Seminar was to create a new research community of mobility data science in which the whole is greater than the sum of its parts by bringing together established leaders as well as promising young researchers from all fields related to mobility data science. Specifically, this report summarizes the main results of the seminar by (1) defining Mobility Data Science as a research domain, (2) by sketching its agenda in the coming years, and by (3) building a mobility data science community. (1) Mobility data science is defined as spatiotemporal data that additionally captures the behavior of moving entities (human, vehicle, animal, etc.). To understand, explain, and predict behavior, we note that a strong collaboration with research in behavioral and social sciences is needed. (2) Future research directions for mobility data science described in this report include a) mobility data acquisition and privacy, b) mobility data management and analysis, and c) applications of mobility data science. (3) We identify opportunities towards building a mobility data science community, towards collaborations between academic and industry, and towards a mobility data science curriculum