Your Friends Mention It. What About Visiting It? A Mobile Social-Based Sightseeing Application

In this short poster paper, we present an application for suggesting attractions to be visited by users, based on social signal processing technique

Cultural modulation of face and gaze scanning in young children

Previous research has demonstrated that the way human adults look at others’ faces is modulated by their cultural background, but very little is known about how such a culture-specific pattern of face gaze develops. The current study investigated the role of cultural background on the development of face scanning in young children between the ages of 1 and 7 years, and its modulation by the eye gaze direction of the face. British and Japanese participants’ eye movements were recorded while they observed faces moving their eyes towards or away from the participants. British children fixated more on the mouth whereas Japanese children fixated more on the eyes, replicating the results with adult participants. No cultural differences were observed in the differential responses to direct and averted gaze. The results suggest that different patterns of face scanning exist between different cultures from the first years of life, but differential scanning of direct and averted gaze associated with different cultural norms develop later in life

X-ray Imaging Investigation on the Gilding Technique of an Ancient Egyptian Taweret Wooden Statuette

Diagnostic physical methods are increasingly applied to Cultural Heritage both for scientific investigations and conservation purposes. In particular, the X-ray imaging techniques of computed tomography (CT) and digital radiography (DR) are non-destructive investigation methods to study an object, being able to give information on its inner structure. In this paper, we present the results of the X-ray imaging study on an ancient Egyptian statuette (Late Period 722–30 BCE) belonging to the collection of Museo Egizio in Torino and representing an Egyptian goddess called Taweret, carved on wood and gilded with some colored details. Since few specific studies have been focused on materials and techniques used in Ancient Egypt for gilding, a detailed investigation was started in order to verify the technical features of the decoration in this sculpture. Specifically, DR and CT analyses have been performed at the Centro Conservazione e Restauro “La Venaria Reale” (CCR), with a new high resolution flat-panel detector, that allowed us to perform tomographic analysis reaching a final resolution better than the one achievable with the previous apparatus operating in the CCR

parSMURF, a high-performance computing tool for the genome-wide detection of pathogenic variants.

BACKGROUND: Several prediction problems in computational biology and genomic medicine are characterized by both big data as well as a high imbalance between examples to be learned, whereby positive examples can represent a tiny minority with respect to negative examples. For instance, deleterious or pathogenic variants are overwhelmed by the sea of neutral variants in the non-coding regions of the genome: thus, the prediction of deleterious variants is a challenging, highly imbalanced classification problem, and classical prediction tools fail to detect the rare pathogenic examples among the huge amount of neutral variants or undergo severe restrictions in managing big genomic data. RESULTS: To overcome these limitations we propose parSMURF, a method that adopts a hyper-ensemble approach and oversampling and undersampling techniques to deal with imbalanced data, and parallel computational techniques to both manage big genomic data and substantially speed up the computation. The synergy between Bayesian optimization techniques and the parallel nature of parSMURF enables efficient and user-friendly automatic tuning of the hyper-parameters of the algorithm, and allows specific learning problems in genomic medicine to be easily fit. Moreover, by using MPI parallel and machine learning ensemble techniques, parSMURF can manage big data by partitioning them across the nodes of a high-performance computing cluster. Results with synthetic data and with single-nucleotide variants associated with Mendelian diseases and with genome-wide association study hits in the non-coding regions of the human genome, involhing millions of examples, show that parSMURF achieves state-of-the-art results and an 80-fold speed-up with respect to the sequential version. CONCLUSIONS: parSMURF is a parallel machine learning tool that can be trained to learn different genomic problems, and its multiple levels of parallelization and high scalability allow us to efficiently fit problems characterized by big and imbalanced genomic data. The C++ OpenMP multi-core version tailored to a single workstation and the C++ MPI/OpenMP hybrid multi-core and multi-node parSMURF version tailored to a High Performance Computing cluster are both available at https://github.com/AnacletoLAB/parSMURF

DO JURORS HOLD AUDITORS TO A DIFFERENT NEGLIGENCE STANDARD UNDER U.S. GAAP AND IFRS?

In order to fulfill the requirements of East Carolina University’s Honors College, I created the research study described in this paper to examine the effects on auditor liability under United States Generally Accepted Accounting Principles compared to the International Financial Reporting Standards. The Financial Accounting Standards Board and the International Accounting Standards Board have been working towards convergence between U.S. GAAP, a rules-based system, and IFRS, a principles-based system. This research study examines whether potential jurors would hold auditors to a different negligence standard between rules-based and principles-based accounting. This study also explores how juror assessments of auditor responsibility differ when auditor liability is limited, as opposed to, unlimited. An experiment was conducted with students at a large state university representing jurors. I found evidence that auditor liability was held to a higher dollar value under unlimited liability and when relevant accounting standards were rules-based

SARS-CoV-2/COVID-19 Testing: The Tower of Babel

Background and aim: Testing represents one of the main pillars of public health response to SARS-CoV-2/COVID-19 pandemic. This paper shows how accuracy and utility of testing programs depend not just on the type of tests, but on the context as well. Methods: We describe the testing methods that have been developed and the possible testing strategies; then, we focus on two possible methods of population-wide testing, i.e., pooled testing and testing with rapid antigen tests. We show the accuracy of split-pooling method and how, in different pre-test probability scenarios, the positive and negative predictive values vary using rapid antigen tests. Results: Split-pooling, followed by retesting of negative results, shows a higher sensitivity than individual testing and requires fewer tests. In case of low pre-test probability, a negative result with antigen test could allow to rule out the infection, while, in case of a positive result, a confirmatory molecular test would be necessary. Conclusions: Test performance alone is not enough to properly choose which test to use; goals and context of the testing program are essential. We advocate the use of pooled strategies when planning population-wide screening, and the weekly use of rapid tests for close periodic monitoring in low-prevalence populations

Severe acquired cytomegalovirus infection in a full-term, formula-fed infant: Case Report

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Cases of cytomegalovirus colitis are exceptionally reported in immuno-competent infant. The pathogenesis is uncertain but breast-feeding is considered as a main source of postnatal infection.</p> <p>Case Presentation</p> <p>Here we report a full-term, formula-fed infant who developed a severe cytomegalovirus anaemia and colitis when aged 2 months.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>Even if the molecular identity between the cytomegalovirus-isolate of the infant and the maternal virus could not be demonstrated, we confirmed through laboratory investigation that cytomegalovirus infection was acquired postnatally. However, the source of cytomegalovirus infection remained unclear. Alternative modes of cytomegalovirus transmission are discussed.</p

A B-cell receptor-related gene signature predicts survival in mantle cell lymphoma: Results from the Fondazione Italiana Linfomi MCL-0208 trial

Mantle cell lymphoma patients have variable clinical courses, ranging from indolent cases that do not require immediate treatment to aggressive, rapidly progressing diseases. Thus, diagnostic tools capable of stratifying patients according to their risk of relapse and death are needed. This study included 83 samples from the Fondazione Italiana Linfomi MCL-0208 clinical trial. Through gene expression profiling and quantitative real-time PCR we analyzed 46 peripheral blood and 43 formalin-fixed paraffin-embedded lymph node samples. A prediction model to classify patients was developed. By analyzing the transcriptome of 27 peripheral blood samples, two subgroups characterized by a differential expression of genes from the B-cell receptor pathway (B-cell receptor low and B-cell receptor high ) were identified. The prediction model based on the quantitative real-time PCR values of six representative genes (AKT3, BCL2, BTK, CD79B, PIK3CD, and SYK), was used to classify the 83 cases (43 B-cell receptor low and 40 B-cell receptor high ). The B-cell receptor high signature associated with shorter progression-free survival (P=0.0074), selected the mantle cell lymphoma subgroup with the shortest progression-free survival and overall survival (P=0.0014 and P=0.029, respectively) in combination with high ( extgreater30%) Ki-67 staining, and was an independent predictor of short progression-free survival along with the Mantle Cell Lymphoma International Prognostic Index-combined score. Moreover, the clinical impact of the 6-gene signature related to the B-cell receptor pathway identified a mantle cell lymphoma subset with shorter progression-free survival intervals also in an external independent mantle cell lymphoma cohort homoge-nously treated with different schedules. In conclusion, this 6-gene signature associates with a poor clinical response in the context of the MCL-0208 clinical trial. (clinicaltrials.gov identifier: 02354313)