Functional adaptivity for digital library services in e-infrastructures: the gCube approach

We consider the problem of e-Infrastructures that wish to reconcile the generality of their services with the bespoke requirements of diverse user communities. We motivate the requirement of functional adaptivity in the context of gCube, a service-based system that integrates Grid and Digital Library technologies to deploy, operate, and monitor Virtual Research Environments defined over infrastructural resources. We argue that adaptivity requires mapping service interfaces onto multiple implementations, truly alternative interpretations of the same functionality. We then analyse two design solutions in which the alternative implementations are, respectively, full-fledged services and local components of a single service. We associate the latter with lower development costs and increased binding flexibility, and outline a strategy to deploy them dynamically as the payload of service plugins. The result is an infrastructure in which services exhibit multiple behaviours, know how to select the most appropriate behaviour, and can seamlessly learn new behaviours

The important role of intensive induction chemotherapy in the treatment of acute myeloid leukemia.

Introduction: Intensive induction chemotherapy followed by post-remission consolidation and/or allogeneic hematopoietic transplantation has been a standard-of-care therapy for acute myeloid leukemia (AML) for decades. In recent years, a plethora of new agents have been approved for AML treatment, dramatically changing the AML treatment landscape.Areas covered: This review provides an overview of the current role of intensive chemotherapy in the changing AML treatment landscape. PubMed-indexed publications (through 2020) and abstracts presented at major national and international conferences were reviewed for inclusion.Expert opinion: While intensive chemotherapy is standard-of-care therapy for younger patients with AML, older patients were historically viewed as universally ineligible for intensive chemotherapy; however, several studies suggest many older patients benefit from intensive chemotherapy with a curative intent, and a more holistic approach to determining eligibility for intensive treatment is recommended. Intensive strategies have also been expanded to include novel chemotherapy designs and chemotherapy in combination with targeted agents for patients with certain disease characteristics, which may permit more personalized treatment decisions. Intensive chemotherapy continues to play a pivotal role for the management of many AML patients and can offer the best chance of long-term remission, especially when followed by transplantation

The Effect of Varying Bisphosphonate Treatment on Changes in Bone Microdamage in Osteoporotic Women

Bisphosphonates (BPs) are used for the treatment of osteoporosis. This study evaluated changes in bone microdamage with BP treatment duration. Fifty-one iliac crest biopsies were obtained from Caucasian women, ages 41 to 87 years, who were previously diagnosed and treated for osteoporosis with oral BPs for 1-16 years duration. Patients diagnosed with any disease, drug, or substance abuse that may affect bone metabolism were excluded. Bone samples were sectioned, stained, and histologically examined using light and fluorescence microscopy. Bone area, number and length of microcracks were quantified. Following adjustment for age, BMD, BV/TV, trabecular thickness, and turnover, regression analysis revealed a relationship between microcrack density and treatment duration (p=0.018). No significant relationship was observed between microcrack length and treatment duration. This study provides novel data relating microdamage with varying BP treatment duration in human bone. Given information from other studies showing that microdamage amounts are related to changes in bone biomechanics, the BP treatment duration related changes in microdamage shown offer new information that may help optimize osteoporosis treatment

A strongly interacting gas of two-electron fermions at an orbital Feshbach resonance

We report on the experimental observation of a strongly interacting gas of ultracold two-electron fermions with orbital degree of freedom and magnetically tunable interactions. This realization has been enabled by the demonstration of a novel kind of Feshbach resonance occurring in the scattering of two 173Yb atoms in different nuclear and electronic states. The strongly interacting regime at resonance is evidenced by the observation of anisotropic hydrodynamic expansion of the two-orbital Fermi gas. These results pave the way towards the realization of new quantum states of matter with strongly correlated fermions with orbital degree of freedom.Comment: 5 pages, 4 figure

A novel CMB polarization likelihood package for large angular scales built from combined WMAP and Planck LFI legacy maps

We present a CMB large-scale polarization dataset obtained by combining WMAP Ka, Q and V with Planck 70 GHz maps. We employ the legacy frequency maps released by the WMAP and Planck collaborations and perform our own Galactic foreground mitigation technique, which relies on Planck 353 GHz for polarized dust and on Planck 30 GHz and WMAP K for polarized synchrotron. We derive a single, optimally-noise-weighted, low-residual-foreground map and the accompanying noise covariance matrix. These are shown, through $\chi^2$ analysis, to be robust over an ample collection of Galactic masks. We use this dataset, along with the Planck legacy Commander temperature solution, to build a pixel-based low-resolution CMB likelihood package, whose robustness we test extensively with the aid of simulations, finding excellent consistency. Using this likelihood package alone, we constrain the optical depth to reionazation $\tau=0.069^{+0.011}_{-0.012}$ at $68\%$ C.L., on 54\% of the sky. Adding the Planck high-$\ell$ temperature and polarization legacy likelihood, the Planck lensing likelihood and BAO observations we find $\tau=0.0714_{-0.0096}^{+0.0087}$ in a full $\Lambda$CDM exploration. The latter bounds are slightly less constraining than those obtained employing \Planck\ HFI CMB data for large angle polarization, that only include EE correlations. Our bounds are based on a largely independent dataset that does include also TE correlations. They are generally well compatible with Planck HFI preferring slightly higher values of $\tau$. We make the low-resolution Planck and WMAP joint dataset publicly available along with the accompanying likelihood code.Comment: The WMAP+LFI likelihood module is available on \http://www.fe.infn.it/u/pagano/low_ell_datasets/wmap_lfi_legacy

Basic features of the predictive tools of early warning systems for water-related natural hazards: examples for shallow landslides

Abstract. To manage natural risks, an increasing effort is being put in the development of early warning systems (EWS), namely, approaches facing catastrophic phenomena by timely forecasting and alarm spreading throughout exposed population. Research efforts aimed at the development and implementation of effective EWS should especially concern the definition and calibration of the interpretative model. This paper analyses the main features characterizing predictive models working in EWS by discussing their aims and their features in terms of model accuracy, evolutionary stage of the phenomenon at which the prediction is carried out and model architecture. Original classification criteria based on these features are developed throughout the paper and shown in their practical implementation through examples of flow-like landslides and earth flows, both of which are characterized by rapid evolution and quite representative of many applications of EWS