Fault Diagnosis for Complex Systems Using Coloured Petri Nets

Non

Musical preferences of Brazilian high school students

Music is considered a vital element in young people’s lives. It functions as an important means for expressing the emotions and feelings they experience in a daily basis. As such, this study explores the music preferences of high school Brazilian students (N = 940), 530 female (56.9%) and 410 male (43.1%) participants between 14 and 20 years old (M = 16.14 years old, SD = 1.22). The main instrument for data collection was the Questionnaire on Musical Style Preferences, which was adapted to the Brazilian context and encompassed 33 different music styles. A principal component analysis resulted in five dimensions representing different musical styles: (1) Intense, (2) Unique, (3) Sophisticated, (4) Contemporary, and (5) Mellow. The results of this study reinforced theory of the five-factor model of musical preference. Results also suggest that Mellow music was the most preferred while Sophisticated music was the least preferred among participants. Regarding gender, male participants showed a greater preference towards Contemporary, Intense, and Sophisticated music, whereas women generally preferred Mellow and Unique. Regarding age, participants under 20 years old showed a greater preference towards Mellow musical styles as compared to older participants. On the one hand, regression analyses showed that preferences towards Intense music decrease with age. On the other hand, gender was a better predictor for music preferences than age. Although the results of this study correspond to those of previous studies, more research studies are necessary to further explain musical preferences within the Brazilian contex

Dynamical detection of network communities

A prominent feature of complex networks is the appearance of communities, also known as modular structures. Specifically, communities are groups of nodes that are densely connected among each other but connect sparsely with others. However, detecting communities in networks is so far a major challenge, in particular, when networks evolve in time. Here, we propose a change in the community detection approach. It underlies in defining an intrinsic dynamic for the nodes of the network as interacting particles (based on diffusive equations of motion and on the topological properties of the network) that results in a fast convergence of the particle system into clustered patterns. The resulting patterns correspond to the communities of the network. Since our detection of communities is constructed from a dynamical process, it is able to analyse time-varying networks straightforwardly. Moreover, for static networks, our numerical experiments show that our approach achieves similar results as the methodologies currently recognized as the most efficient ones. Also, since our approach defines an N-body problem, it allows for efficient numerical implementations using parallel computations that increase its speed performance

FIELD EVALUATION OF THE SUSCEPTIBILITY OF EIGHT SORGHUM HYBRIDS TO THE SORGHUM MIDGE, CONTARINIA SORGHICOLA (COQUILLET) (DIPTERA: CECIDOMYIIDAE)

FIELD EVALUATION OF THE SUSCEPTIBILITY OF EIGHT SORGHUM HYBRIDS TO THE SORGHUM MIDGE, CONTARINIA SORGHICOLA (COQUILLET) (DIPTERA: CECIDOMYIIDAE

Los Eleatas: Parménides, Zenón y Meliso

Presentamos la traducción al castellano, hecha directamente del griego, de los Fragmentos conocidos hasta ahora de los tres filósofos eleatas Parménides, Zenón de Elea y Meliso

Los Eleatas: Zenón y Meliso

Al infinito en magnitud lo demostró primeramente mediante la misma argumentación. Habiendo pues antes demostrado que «si no tiene magnitud el ser, no existe», arguye «si pues existe, es necesario que cada parte tenga alguna magnitud y grosor y difieran en esto la una de la otra. Y acerca de la precedente, se diga lo mismo. Pues también ella tendrá magnitud, y tendrá delante de sí, otra. Y haber dicho esto una vez es lo mismo que decirlo para siempre. Pues ninguna de las tales partes del mismo será la última, ni dejará de haber una después de otra. Así, si son muchas partes, es necesario que éstas sean pequeñas y grandes: pequeñas, de tal modo que no tengan magnitud; grandes, de modo que sean infinitas» (= infinitamente extensas)

Importance of Numerical Implementation and Clustering Analysis in Force-Directed Algorithms for Accurate Community Detection

Peer reviewedPostprin

Phage inducible islands in the gram-positive cocci

The SaPIs are a cohesive subfamily of extremely common phage-inducible chromosomal islands (PICIs) that reside quiescently at specific att sites in the staphylococcal chromosome and are induced by helper phages to excise and replicate. They are usually packaged in small capsids composed of phage virion proteins, giving rise to very high transfer frequencies, which they enhance by interfering with helper phage reproduction. As the SaPIs represent a highly successful biological strategy, with many natural Staphylococcus aureus strains containing two or more, we assumed that similar elements would be widespread in the Gram-positive cocci. On the basis of resemblance to the paradigmatic SaPI genome, we have readily identified large cohesive families of similar elements in the lactococci and pneumococci/streptococci plus a few such elements in Enterococcus faecalis. Based on extensive ortholog analyses, we found that the PICI elements in the four different genera all represent distinct but parallel lineages, suggesting that they represent convergent evolution towards a highly successful lifestyle. We have characterized in depth the enterococcal element, EfCIV583, and have shown that it very closely resembles the SaPIs in functionality as well as in genome organization, setting the stage for expansion of the study of elements of this type. In summary, our findings greatly broaden the PICI family to include elements from at least three genera of cocci