myVCF: a desktop application for high-throughput mutations data management

Abstract Summary Next-generation sequencing technologies have become the most powerful tool to discover genetic variants associated with human diseases. Although the dramatic reductions in the costs facilitate the use in the wet-lab and clinics, the huge amount of data generated renders their management by non-expert researchers and physicians extremely difficult. Therefore, there is an urgent need of novel approaches and tools aimed at getting the 'end-users' closer to the sequencing data, facilitating the access by non-bioinformaticians, and to speed-up the functional interpretation of genetic variants. We developed myVCF, a standalone, easy-to-use desktop application, which is based on a browser interface and is suitable for Windows, Mac and UNIX systems. myVCF is an efficient platform that is able to manage multiple sequencing projects created from VCF files within the system; stores genetic variants and samples genotypes from an annotated VCF files into a SQLite database; implements a flexible search engine for data exploration, allowing to query for chromosomal region, gene, single variant or dbSNP ID. Besides, myVCF generates a summary statistics report about mutations distribution across samples and across the genome/exome by aggregating the information within the VCF file. In summary, the myVCF platform allows end-users without strong programming and bioinformatics skills to explore, query, visualize and export mutations data in a simple and straightforward way. Availability and implementation https://apietrelli.github.io/myVCF/ Supplementary information Supplementary data are available at Bioinformatics online

Experimental investigation on materials and lubricants for sliding-vane air compressors

Abstract. Positive-displacement compressors and, among them, sliding-vane rotary machines are widely used in the compressed air sector. As in many other industrial fields, the efficient utilization of energy has become a major goal also in this sector. The aim of the present activity is the experimental investigation on the influence of two vanes materials (cast iron and aluminium with anodized surface) and of four commercial lubricants (characterized by different formulations and additives concentrations) on the performance of a mid-capacity sliding-vane rotary compressor in a number of operating pressures. The performance is identified by both the volume flow rate and the absorbed mechanical power, evaluated according to the international standard ISO 5167 and ISO 1217. The campaign indicates that the considered lubricants do not affect appreciably the volumetric flow rate. On the other hand, the specific lubricants determine a variation of about 1% of the mechanical power for both materials, while the specific material a variation between 0.9% and 2.6%. The best performance is achieved by aluminium vanes and a synthetic poly-α-olefin lubricant

A stochastic interspecific competition model to predict the behaviour of Listeria monocytogenes in the fermentation process of a traditional Sicilian salami

The present paper discusses the use of modified Lotka-Volterra equations in order to stochastically simulate the behaviour of Listeria monocytogenes and Lactic Acid Bacteria (LAB) during the fermentation period (168 h) of a typical Sicilian salami. For this purpose, the differential equation system is set considering T, pH and aw as stochastic variables. Each of them is governed by dynamics that involve a deterministic linear decrease as a function of the time t and an "additive noise" term which instantaneously mimics the fluctuations of T, pH and aw. The choice of a suitable parameter accounting for the interaction of LAB on L. monocytogenes as well as the introduction of appropriate noise levels allows to match the observed data, both for the mean growth curves and for the probability distribution of L. monocytogenes concentration at 168 h.Comment: 19 pages, 2 figures, 2 tables. To be published in Eur. Food Res. Techno

Super-Soft CP Violation

Solutions of the Strong CP Problem based on the spontaneous breaking of CP must feature a non-generic structure and simultaneously explain a coincidence between a priori unrelated CP-even and CP-odd mass scales. We show that these properties can emerge from gauge invariance and a CP-conserving, but otherwise generic, physics at the Planck scale. In our scenarios no fundamental scalar is introduced beyond the Standard Model Higgs doublet, and CP is broken at naturally small scales by a confining non-abelian dynamics. This approach is remarkably predictive: robustness against uncontrollable UV corrections to the QCD topological angle requires one or more families of vector-like quarks below a few $10$'s of TeV, hence potentially accessible at colliders. Because CP violation is communicated to the SM at these super-soft scales, our solution of the Strong CP Problem is not spoiled by the presence of heavy new states motivated by other puzzles in physics beyond the Standard Model. In addition, these models generically predict a dark sector that may lead to interesting cosmological signatures.Comment: 19 pages. v2: matches the published versio

A call to action for fatty liver disease

not applicabl

Perturbative running of the topological angles

We argue that in general renormalizable field theories the topological angles may develop an additive beta function starting no earlier than 2-loop order. The leading expression is uniquely determined by a single model-independent coefficient. The associated divergent diagrams are identified and a few independent methods for extracting the beta function in dimensional regularization are discussed. We show that the peculiar nature of the topological angles implies non-trivial constraints on the anomalous dimension of the CP-violating operators and discuss how a non-vanishing beta function affects the Weyl consistency conditions. Some phenomenological considerations are presented.Comment: 19 pages plus appendix, 1 figure. v2: version published in JHE

Vector-like symmetries and parity conservation in gauge theories with Yukawa couplings

Non-perturbative results in QCD-like theories can be derived employing positivity of the Euclidean path integral measure, as pioneered by Weingarten, Vafa, Witten. We show that positivity of the measure can be generalized to parity-invariant theories with Yukawa couplings to fundamental scalars, provided the fermions are Dirac and carry a real representation of the gauge group. This result allows us to extend the proof of parity and vector-like flavor symmetries conservation to such theories, as well as to derive exact inequalities among hadrons' masses.Comment: 20 pages plus appendi

Chapter Sulla qualità geometrica del modello di rilievo

The 43rd UID conference, held in Genova, takes up the theme of ‘Dialogues’ as practice and debate on many fundamental topics in our social life, especially in these complex and not yet resolved times. The city of Genova offers the opportunity to ponder on the value of comparison and on the possibilities for the community, naturally focused on the aspects that concern us, as professors, researchers, disseminators of knowledge, or on all the possibile meanings of the discipline of representation and its dialogue with ‘others’, which we have broadly catalogued in three macro areas: History, Semiotics, Science / Technology. Therefore, “dialogue” as a profitable exchange based on a common language, without which it is impossible to comprehend and understand one another; and the graphic sign that connotes the conference is the precise transcription of this concept: the title ‘translated’ into signs, derived from the visual alphabet designed for the visual identity of the UID since 2017. There are many topics which refer to three macro sessions: - Witnessing (signs and history) - Communicating (signs and semiotics) - Experimenting (signs and sciences) Thanks to the different points of view, an exceptional resource of our disciplinary area, we want to try to outline the prevailing theoretical-operational synergies, the collaborative lines of an instrumental nature, the recent updates of the repertoires of images that attest and nourish the relations among representation, history, semiotics, sciences

Modeling And Testing The Thermal Effect Of Lubricating Oil Sprayed In Sliding-Vane Air Compressors Using Pressure-Swirl Nozzles

Positive-displacement compressors and, among them, sliding-vane machines are widely used in the compressed air sector. As in many other industrial fields, the efficient utilization of energy has become a major goal also in this sector. The aim of the present activity is the numerical modeling and the experimental testing of the positive thermal effect due to spraying the lubricating oil inside sliding-vane air compressors using pressure-swirl nozzles. The benefits of proper oil atomization in positive-displacement compressors have been documented already by a number of investigations (Singh and Bowman, 1986; Stosic et al., 1988; Fujiwara and Osada, 1995; Valenti et al., 2013; Cipollone et al. 2014). The novelty of this work resides in the extension of a previous model to describe more accurately the quantity and the diameter distribution of the droplets generated by the nozzles and, consequently, to predict more precisely the heat transfer occurring between the liquid and the gas phase within a compression chamber. The model is applied to a pre-commercial mid-size compressor that is equipped with a number of pressure-swirl nozzles. The numerical data are validated successfully against the measurements of the pressure as a function of the angular position. The results indicate that the specific energy of compression is appreciable reduced with respect to the case of an adiabatic process. The model is applied here to a sliding-vane compressor, but it is general in nature and can be promptly modified for another kind of machine. It may be used also for optimizing type, number and position of the nozzles in order to further improve the performances of air compressors