The influence of COMT Val158Met genotype on the character dimension cooperativeness in healthy females

Objectives: Although the Val(158)Met catechol-O-methyltransferase (COMT) gene has been linked with the temperament dimension Novelty Seeking (NS), new insights in this polymorphism might point to a major role for character features as well. Given that individual life experiences may influence Val(158) and Met(158) allele carriers differently it has been suggested that the character trait cooperativeness could be implicated. Case report: A homogeneous group of eighty right-handed Caucasian healthy female university students were assessed with the TCI and genotyped for the COMT Val(158)Met polymorphism (rs4680). Gene determination showed that eighteen were Val(158) homozygotes, forty-four Val/Met(158) heterozygotes, and eighteen were Met(158) homozygotes. All were within the same age range and never documented to have suffered from any neuropsychiatric illness. Bonferroni corrected non-parametric analyses showed that only for the character scale cooperativeness Val(158) homozygotes displayed significant higher scores when compared to Met(158) homozygotes. No significant differences on cooperativeness scores were found between Val(158) and Val/Met(158) carriers or between Met(158) and Val/Met(158) carriers. No differences were observed for the COMT Val(158) Met polymorphism and the other temperament and character scales. Conclusions: Our findings support the assumption that the Val(158)Met single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) influences character traits and not only temperament. Our results add to the notion that Val(158) homozygotes are considered to be helpful and empathic and it suggest that these cooperativeness character traits are related to the dopaminergic system

ClusterNN: A hybrid classification approach to mobile activity recognition

Mobile activity recognition from sensor data is based on supervised learning algorithms. Many algorithms have been proposed for this task. One of such algorithms is the K-nearest neighbour (KNN) algorithm. However, since KNN is an instance based algorithm its use in mobile activity recognition has been limited to offline evaluation on collected data. This is because for KNN to work well all the training instances must be kept in memory for similarity measurement with the test instance. This is however prohibitive for mobile environment. Therefore, we propose an unsupervised learning step that reduces the training set to a proportional size of the original dataset. The novel approach applies clustering to the dataset to obtain a set of micro clusters from which cluster characteristics are extracted for similarity measurement with new unseen data. These reduced representative sets can be used for classifying new instances using the nearest neighbour algorithm step on the mobile phone. Experimental evaluation of our proposed approach using real mobile activity recognition dataset shows improved result over the basic KNN algorithm

Prospect for Charge Current Neutrino Interactions Measurements at the CERN-PS

Tensions in several phenomenological models grew with experimental results on neutrino/antineutrino oscillations at Short-Baseline (SBL) and with the recent, carefully recomputed, antineutrino fluxes from nuclear reactors. At a refurbished SBL CERN-PS facility an experiment aimed to address the open issues has been proposed [1], based on the technology of imaging in ultra-pure cryogenic Liquid Argon (LAr). Motivated by this scenario a detailed study of the physics case was performed. We tackled specific physics models and we optimized the neutrino beam through a full simulation. Experimental aspects not fully covered by the LAr detection, i.e. the measurements of the lepton charge on event-by-event basis and their energy over a wide range, were also investigated. Indeed the muon leptons from Charged Current (CC) (anti-)neutrino interactions play an important role in disentangling different phenomenological scenarios provided their charge state is determined. Also, the study of muon appearance/disappearance can benefit of the large statistics of CC muon events from the primary neutrino beam. Results of our study are reported in detail in this proposal. We aim to design, construct and install two Spectrometers at "NEAR" and "FAR" sites of the SBL CERN-PS, compatible with the already proposed LAr detectors. Profiting of the large mass of the two Spectrometers their stand-alone performances have also been exploited.Comment: 70 pages, 38 figures. Proposal submitted to SPS-C, CER

On tuning passive black-box macromodels of LTI systems via adaptive weighting

This paper discusses various approaches for tuning the accuracy of rational macromodels obtained via black-box identification or approximation of sampled frequency responses of some unknown Linear and Time-Invariant system. Main emphasis is on embedding into the model extraction process some information on the nominal terminations that will be connected to the model during normal operation, so that the corresponding accuracy is optimized. This goal is achieved through an optimization based on a suitably defined cost function, which embeds frequency-dependent weights that are adaptively refined during the model construction. A similar procedure is applied in a postprocessing step for enforcing model passivity. The advantages of proposed algorithm are illustrated on a few application examples related to power distribution networks in electronic system

Population health and the economy: Mortality and the Great Recession in Europe

We analyze the evolution of mortality‐based health indicators in 27 European countries before and after the start of the Great Recession. We find that in the countries where the crisis has been particularly severe, mortality reductions in 2007–2010 were considerably bigger than in 2004–2007. Panel models adjusted for space‐invariant and time‐invariant factors show that an increase of 1 percentage point in the national unemployment rate is associated with a reduction of 0.5% (p < .001) in the rate of age‐adjusted mortality. The pattern of mortality oscillating procyclically is found for total and sex‐specific mortality, cause‐specific mortality due to major causes of death, and mortality for ages 30–44 and 75 and over, but not for ages 0–14. Suicides appear increasing when the economy decelerates—countercyclically—but the evidence is weak. Results are robust to using different weights in the regression, applying nonlinear methods for detrending, expanding the sample, and using as business cycle indicator gross domestic product per capita or employment‐to‐population ratios rather than the unemployment rate. We conclude that in the European experience of the past 20 years, recessions, on average, have beneficial short‐term effects on mortality of the adult population.Peer Reviewedhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/142224/1/hec3495_am.pdfhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/142224/2/hec3495.pd

Prospects for the measurement of muon-neutrino disappearance at the FNAL-Booster

Neutrino physics is nowadays receiving more and more attention as a possible source of information for the long-standing problem of new physics beyond the Standard Model. The recent measurement of the mixing angle $\theta_{13}$ in the standard mixing oscillation scenario encourages us to pursue the still missing results on leptonic CP violation and absolute neutrino masses. However, puzzling measurements exist that deserve an exhaustive evaluation. The NESSiE Collaboration has been setup to undertake conclusive experiments to clarify the muon-neutrino disappearance measurements at small $L/E$, which will be able to put severe constraints to models with more than the three-standard neutrinos, or even to robustly measure the presence of a new kind of neutrino oscillation for the first time. To this aim the use of the current FNAL-Booster neutrino beam for a Short-Baseline experiment has been carefully evaluated. This proposal refers to the use of magnetic spectrometers at two different sites, Near and Far. Their positions have been extensively studied, together with the possible performances of two OPERA-like spectrometers. The proposal is constrained by availability of existing hardware and a time-schedule compatible with the CERN project for a new more performant neutrino beam, which will nicely extend the physics results achievable at the Booster. The possible FNAL experiment will allow to clarify the current $\nu_{\mu}$ disappearance tension with $\nu_e$ appearance and disappearance at the eV mass scale. Instead, a new CERN neutrino beam would allow a further span in the parameter space together with a refined control of systematics and, more relevant, the measurement of the antineutrino sector, by upgrading the spectrometer with detectors currently under R&D study.Comment: 76 pages, 52 figure

The Green Economy: Functional Domains and Theoretical Directions of Enquiry

The green economy is a highly complex construct in terms of its attempts to integrate economic, environmental, and social concerns, the wide range of actors involved, its material outcomes, and the forms of governance needed to regulate processes of economic greening. As such, it poses new empirical and theoretical challenges for social science research on socioenvironmental futures. This paper has two main aims. The first is to survey the emergent features and functional domains of the green economy. The second is to consider theoretical tools that might be used to analyse the drivers and processes shaping the green economy. Focusing on literature on sociotechnical transitions, ecological modernisation, the ‘green’ cultural economy, and postpolitical governance, we argue that understanding the functional and spatial heterogeneity of the green economy necessitates a multitheoretical approach. We then explore how combining branches of research on socioenvironmental governance can lead to theoretically and ontologically richer insights into the drivers, practices, and power relations within the green economy. In so doing, we respond to calls for socioeconomic research on environmental change which is neither just empirical nor bound to one theoretical outlook to the detriment of understanding the complexity of socioenvironmental governance and human–nature relations.</jats:p

Additive manufacturing of inorganic scintillator-based particle detectors

Inorganic scintillators are widely used for scientific, industrial and medical applications. The development of 3D printing with inorganic scintillators would allow fast creation of detector prototypes for registration of ionizing radiation, such as alpha and beta, gamma particles in thin layers of active material and soft X-ray radiation. This article reports on the technical work and scientific achievements that aimed at developing a new inorganic scintillation filament to be used for the 3D printing of composite scintillator materials: study and definition of the scintillator composition; development of the methods for the inorganic scintillator filament production and further implementation in the available 3D printing technologies; study of impact of the different 3D printing modes on the material scintillation characteristics. Also, 3D printed scintillators can be used for creation of combined detectors for high-energy physics.Comment: 14 pages, 16 figure