Constellation Queries over Big Data

A geometrical pattern is a set of points with all pairwise distances (or, more generally, relative distances) specified. Finding matches to such patterns has applications to spatial data in seismic, astronomical, and transportation contexts. For example, a particularly interesting geometric pattern in astronomy is the Einstein cross, which is an astronomical phenomenon in which a single quasar is observed as four distinct sky objects (due to gravitational lensing) when captured by earth telescopes. Finding such crosses, as well as other geometric patterns, is a challenging problem as the potential number of sets of elements that compose shapes is exponentially large in the size of the dataset and the pattern. In this paper, we denote geometric patterns as constellation queries and propose algorithms to find them in large data applications. Our methods combine quadtrees, matrix multiplication, and unindexed join processing to discover sets of points that match a geometric pattern within some additive factor on the pairwise distances. Our distributed experiments show that the choice of composition algorithm (matrix multiplication or nested loops) depends on the freedom introduced in the query geometry through the distance additive factor. Three clearly identified blocks of threshold values guide the choice of the best composition algorithm. Finally, solving the problem for relative distances requires a novel continuous-to-discrete transformation. To the best of our knowledge this paper is the first to investigate constellation queries at scale

A técnica de PMM na avaliação da exposição “Era uma vez… Ciência para quem gosta de histórias”

Inspirada nas histórias e fábulas infantis, a exposição “Era uma vez... Ciência para quem gosta de histórias”, produzida pelo Pavilhão do Conhecimento - Ciência Viva e realizada em 2015 na cidade de Guimarães, serviu de oportunidade para explorar, com recurso a técnicas alternativas de avaliação como o Personal Meaning Mapping (PMM), a eficácia comunicativa da exposição junto do público, bem como a aprendizagem em contexto informal. O PMM foi utilizado por John H. Falk (1998) para “medir”, em relação a exposições e museus, a relação entre a experiência prévia (o que já sabemos sobre determinado tema) e a experiência da visita (o que aprendemos de novo. A avaliação por PMM tem natureza construtivista, não pressupõe respostas “certas” ou “erradas” e permite analisar diferentes dados, tais como contributos individuais ou padrão de resposta do grupo. A avaliação da experiência de aprendizagem faz-se de maneira simples: no centro de uma folha branca coloca-se uma palavra ou expressão e pede-se ao participante que escreva em seu torno, todas as ideias que ela lhe suscita. Depois da visita à exposição os participantes retomam às suas folhas e acrescentam ou alteram (com caneta de cor diferente) as “novas ideias” em redor da palavra-chave. Com a ajuda de assistentes clarificam-se algumas expressões menos perceptíveis do ponto de vista de caligrafia e anota-se tudo. No presente trabalho apresentamos os resultados obtidos com a aplicação de PMM a três amostras de visitantes à exposição em causa: duas escolas (uma urbana, outra da periferia de Guimarães) e público geral (visitantes de fim de semana, famílias, adultos), num total de 36 formulários preenchidos. Para realizar esta avaliação foram seleccionados três módulos da exposição correspondentes a três histórias, - “Capuchinho Vermelho” (biologia, ecologia), “Ali Babá e os 40 Ladrões” (matemática, reconhecimento biométrico) e “João e o Pé de Feijão” (biologia, ecologia) — aos quais fizemos corresponder as três palavras-chave “lobo”, “palavra-passe” e “pegada hídrica”, respectivamente. A selecção dos termos pretendeu focar assuntos de grande actualidade como sejam extinção de espécies, património genético, sustentabilidade, protecção ambiental, escassez de recursos, cifras, códigos, palavra-passe... Através da análise qualitativa dos formulários foi possível cruzar os objectivos de aprendizagem inerentes a cada módulo da exposição e aquilo que cada visitante aprendeu efectivamente com a experiência de visita.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Adsorption equilibrium of fructose, glucose and sucrose for cationic resins in the sodium and potassium form

Separation of glucose from mixtures of fructose and sucrose in molasses is a major challenge in industrial sugar chromatographic separations. The efficiency of a chromatographic process is largely dependent on the adsorbent used. Sulfonated poly(styrene-co-divinylbenzene) (PS-DVB) ion exchange resins are the most frequently used for sugars separation, generally in a cationic form. The cation will complex with the hydroxyl group of the sugar leading to a selective adsorption according to the orientation of the hydroxyl group. Thus, the conformation of the sugar determines its relative affinity for the resin and its distribution coefficient. Consequently, fructose forms the more stable sugar-cation complex being preferentially adsorbed in the resin followed by glucose. Sucrose interacts very weakly with the cation and is partially or totally excluded from the resin matrix owing to its larger molecular size. The separation process is usually carried out at high temperatures. However, this implies high energy costs and an elevated level of hydrolysis. Adsorption isotherms of the sugars present in a mixture are a very important parameter for the selection of the adsorbent to be used in the chromatographic separation. Therefore, in this study, the adsorption isotherms of glucose, fructose and sucrose were determined for two resins of PS-DVB in the sodium and potassium forms. Potassium and sodium are the most recommended cations for the separation of sucrose, fructose and glucose. The sodium and potassium resins matrix used in this work consist in meshes of 500-600 μm and 290-350 μm, respectively. Solutions with single and multi-component mixtures of the three sugars were used at 25ºC and 40ºC. A static method was used to determine the equilibrium adsorptions: 3.5 mL of solutions with different sugar concentrations were added to a known amount of adsorvent. The mixture was held for 8h under agitation and a fixed temperature and a final concentration in equilibrium with resin was determined by HPLC. As expected, the results achieved showed that for all the conditions, fructose is the most adsorved sugar followed by glucose and sucrose. For both resins, the increase of temperature conducted to a decrease on the adsorption constant for all the sugars in the mono-component mixtures. Nevertheless, the adsorption in multi-component mixtures was not significantly affected by the temperature in the sodium resin, and regarding the potassium resin only a small increase in the adsorption was observed. Multi-component mixtures at 25 ºC showed a decrease in the adsorption as compared with mono-component mixtures. However, at 40ºC the adsorption observed for the multi-component mixtures was higher than the observed for the mono-component ones. The sugars that demonstrated lower selectivity values were fructose/glucose since these sugars have the same molecular weight. Sucrose/fructose selectivity showed a higher value when compared with sucrose/glucose because of the complex formed between fructose and the resin. This profile was found for both resins used, regardless of temperature. Selectivity of both resins decreased with the increase of the temperature values. Nevertheless, the selectivity obtained for the potassium resin was higher as compared to the selectivity obtained for the sodium resin. In sum, potassium resin appears to be the most suitable adsorvent and an operational temperature of 25 ºC showed the best results

Different antibody-associated autoimmune diseases have distinct patterns of T follicular cell dysregulation

© The Author(s) 2022. Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.Autoantibodies are produced within germinal centers (GC), in a process regulated by interactions between B, T follicular helper (Tfh), and T follicular regulatory (Tfr) cells. The GC dysregulation in human autoimmunity has been inferred from circulating cells, albeit with conflicting results due to diverse experimental approaches. We applied a consistent approach to compare circulating Tfr and Tfh subsets in patients with different autoimmune diseases. We recruited 97 participants, including 72 patients with Hashimoto's thyroiditis (HT, n = 18), rheumatoid arthritis (RA, n = 16), or systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE, n = 32), and 31 matched healthy donors (HD). We found that the frequency of circulating T follicular subsets differed across diseases. Patients with HT had an increased frequency of blood Tfh cells (p = 0.0215) and a reduced Tfr/Tfh ratio (p = 0.0338) when compared with HD. This was not observed in patients with systemic autoimmune rheumatic diseases (RA, SLE), who had a reduction in both Tfh (p = 0.0494 and p = 0.0392, respectively) and Tfr (p = 0.0003 and p = 0.0001, respectively) cells, resulting in an unchanged Tfr/Tfh ratio. Activated PD-1+ICOS+Tfh and CD4+PD-1+CXCR5-Tph cells were raised only in patients with SLE (p = 0.0022 and p = 0.0054), without association with disease activity. Our data suggest that GC dysregulation, assessed by T follicular subsets, is not uniform in human autoimmunity. Specific patterns of dysregulation may become potential biomarkers for disease and patient stratification.This work was supported by the Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia, Portugal (EJPRD/0003/2019).info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Supine sleep and positional sleep apnea after acute ischemic stroke and intracerebral hemorrhage

OBJECTIVE: Obstructive sleep apnea is frequent during the acute phase of stroke, and it is associated with poorer outcomes. A well-established relationship between supine sleep and obstructive sleep apnea severity exists in non-stroke patients. This study investigated the frequency of supine sleep and positional obstructive sleep apnea in patients with ischemic or hemorrhagic stroke. METHODS: Patients who suffered their first acute stroke, either ischemic or hemorrhagic, were subjected to a full polysomnography, including the continuous monitoring of sleep positions, during the first night after symptom onset. Obstructive sleep apnea severity was measured using the apnea-hypopnea index, and the NIHSS measured stroke severity. RESULTS: We prospectively studied 66 stroke patients. The mean age was 57.6±11.5 years, and the mean body mass index was 26.5±4.9. Obstructive sleep apnea (apnea-hypopnea index >5) was present in 78.8% of patients, and the mean apnea-hypopnea index was 29.7±26.6. The majority of subjects (66.7%) spent the entire sleep time in a supine position, and positional obstructive sleep apnea was clearly present in the other 23.1% of cases. A positive correlation was observed between the NIHSS and sleep time in the supine position (r s = 0.5;

Tricritical Points in the Sherrington-Kirkpatrick Model in the Presence of Discrete Random Fields

The infinite-range-interaction Ising spin glass is considered in the presence of an external random magnetic field following a trimodal (three-peak) distribution. The model is studied through the replica method and phase diagrams are obtained within the replica-symmetry approximation. It is shown that the border of the ferromagnetic phase may present first-order phase transitions, as well as tricritical points at finite temperatures. Analogous to what happens for the Ising ferromagnet under a trimodal random field, it is verified that the first-order phase transitions are directly related to the dilution in the fields (represented by $p_{0}$). The ferromagnetic boundary at zero temperature also exhibits an interesting behavior: for $0<p_{0}<p_{0}^{*} \approx 0.30856$, a single tricritical point occurs, whereas if $p_{0}>p_{0}^{*}$ the critical frontier is completely continuous; however, for $p_{0}=p_{0}^{*}$, a fourth-order critical point appears. The stability analysis of the replica-symmetric solution is performed and the regions of validity of such a solution are identified; in particular, the Almeida-Thouless line in the plane field versus temperature is shown to depend on the weight $p_{0}$.Comment: 23pages, 7 ps figure

The invertebrate lysozyme effector ILYS-3 is systemically activated in response to danger signals and confers antimicrobial protection in C. elegans

Little is known about the relative contributions and importance of antibacterial effectors in the nematode C. elegans, despite extensive work on the innate immune responses in this organism. We report an investigation of the expression, function and regulation of the six ilys (invertebrate-type lysozyme) genes of C. elegans. These genes exhibited a surprising variety of tissue-specific expression patterns and responses to starvation or bacterial infection. The most strongly expressed, ilys-3, was investigated in detail. ILYS-3 protein was expressed constitutively in the pharynx and coelomocytes, and dynamically in the intestine. Analysis of mutants showed that ILYS-3 was required for pharyngeal grinding (disruption of bacterial cells) during normal growth and consequently it contributes to longevity, as well as being protective against bacterial pathogens. Both starvation and challenge with Gram-positive pathogens resulted in ERK-MAPK-dependent up-regulation of ilys-3 in the intestine. The intestinal induction by pathogens, but not starvation, was found to be dependent on MPK-1 activity in the pharynx rather than in the intestine, demonstrating unexpected communication between these two tissues. The coelomocyte expression appeared to contribute little to normal growth or immunity. Recombinant ILYS-3 protein was found to exhibit appropriate lytic activity against Gram-positive cell wall material

Prevention of hypertension in patients with pre-hypertension: protocol for the PREVER-prevention trial

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Blood pressure (BP) within pre-hypertensive levels confers higher cardiovascular risk and is an intermediate stage for full hypertension, which develops in an annual rate of 7 out of 100 individuals with 40 to 50 years of age. Non-drug interventions to prevent hypertension have had low effectiveness. In individuals with previous cardiovascular disease or diabetes, the use of BP-lowering agents reduces the incidence of major cardiovascular events. In the absence of higher baseline risk, the use of BP agents reduces the incidence of hypertension. The PREVER-prevention trial aims to investigate the efficacy, safety and feasibility of a population-based intervention to prevent the incidence of hypertension and the development of target-organ damage.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>This is a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled clinical trial, with participants aged 30 to 70 years, with pre-hypertension. The trial arms will be chlorthalidone 12.5 mg plus amiloride 2.5 mg or identical placebo. The primary outcomes will be the incidence of hypertension, adverse events and development or worsening of microalbuminuria and of left ventricular hypertrophy in the EKG. The secondary outcomes will be fatal or non-fatal cardiovascular events: myocardial infarction, stroke, heart failure, evidence of new sub-clinical atherosclerosis, and sudden death. The study will last 18 months. The sample size was calculated on the basis of an incidence of hypertension of 14% in the control group, a size effect of 40%, power of 85% and P alpha of 5%, resulting in 625 participants per group. The project was approved by the Ethics committee of each participating institution.</p> <p>Discussion</p> <p>The early use of blood pressure-lowering drugs, particularly diuretics, which act on the main mechanism of blood pressure rising with age, may prevent cardiovascular events and the incidence of hypertension in individuals with hypertension. If this intervention shows to be effective and safe in a population-based perspective, it could be the basis for an innovative public health program to prevent hypertension in Brazil.</p> <p>Trial Registration</p> <p>Clinical Trials <a href="http://www.clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT00970931">NCT00970931</a>.</p