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Computational Linguistics and Language Physiology: Insights from Arabic NLP and Cooperative Editing
No full textComputer processing of written Arabic raises a number of challenges to traditional parsing architectures on many levels of linguistic analysis. In this contribution, we review some of these core issues and the demands they make, to suggest different strategies to successfully tackle them. In the end, we assess these issues in connection with the behaviour of neuro-biologically inspired lexical architectures known as Temporal Self-Organising Maps. We show that, far from being language-specific problems, issues in Arabic processing can shed light on some fundamental characteristics of the human language processor, such as structure-based lexical recoding, concurrent, competitive activation of output candidates and dynamic selection of optimal solutions
Aula 40: la scuola incontra la ricerca in radio
No full textL\u27articolo racconta la partecipazione di alcune classi di istituti superiori alla rubrica radiofonica "Auna 40", trasmessa dal Cnr con lo scopo di aprire il mondo della ricerca a un pubblico ampio, proponendo tematiche di attualit? e di interresse generale
CNVScan: detecting border- line copy number variations in NGS data via scan statistics
Get PDFBackground. Next Generation Sequencing (NGS) data has been extensively exploited in the last decade to analyse genome variations and to understand the role of genome variations in complex diseases. Copy number variations (CNVs) are genomic structural variants estimated to account for about 1.2% of the total variation in humans. CNVs in coding or regulatory regions may have an impact on the gene expression, often also at a functional level, and contribute to cause different diseases like cancer, autism and cardiovascular diseases. Computational methods developed for detection of CNVs from NGS data and based on the depth of coverage are limited to the identification of medium/large events and heavily influenced by the level of coverage. Result. In this paper we propose, CNVScan a CNV detection method based on scan statistics that overcomes limitations of previous read count (RC) based approaches mainly by being a window-less approach. The scans statistics have been used before mainly in epidemiology and ecology studies, but never before was applied to the CNV detection problem to the best of our knowledge. Since we avoid window- ing we do not have to choose an optimal window-size which is a key step in many previous approaches. Extensive simulated experiments with single read data in extreme situations (low coverage, short reads, homo/heterozygoticity) show that this approach is very effective for a range of small CNV (200-500 bp) for which previous state-of-the-art methods are not suitable. Conclusion. The scan statistics technique is applied and adapted in this paper for the first time to the CNV detection problem. Comparison with state-of-the art methods shows the approach is quite effective in discovering shortCNVin rather extreme situations in which previous methods fail or have degraded performance. CNVScan thus extends the range of CNV sizes and types that can be detected via read count with single read data
Automatic 3DS Conversion of Historical Aerial Photographs
Get PDFIn this paper we present a method for the generation of 3D stereo (3DS) pairs from sequences of historical aerial photographs. The goal of our work is to provide a stereoscopic display when the existing exposures are in a monocular sequence. Each input image is processed using its neighbours and a synthetic image is rendered, which, together with the original one, form a stereo pair. Promising results on real images taken from a historical photo archive are shown, that corroborate the viability of generating 3DS data from monocular footage
VISIO: A visual approach for singularity detection in recommender systems
No full textReviews are a powerful decision-making tool for potential new customers, since they can significantly influence consumer purchase decisions, hence resulting in financial gains or losses for businesses. In striving for trustworthy review systems, validating reviews that could negatively or positively bias new customers is of utmost importance. To this goal, we propose VISIO: a visualization based representation of reviews that enables quick analysis and elicitation of interesting patterns and singularities. In fact, VISIO is meant to amplify cognition, supporting the process of singling out those reviews that require further analysis. VISIO is based on a theoretically sound approach, while its effectiveness and viability is demonstrated applying it to real data extracted from Tripadvisor and Booking.com.tBus 2015, LNCS 9264, pp. 33?47, 2015
MicroRNA 19a replacement partially rescues fin and cardiac defects in zebrafish model of Holt Oram syndrome
Get PDFHolt-Oram Syndrome (HOS) is an autosomal dominant heart-hand syndrome caused by mutations in the TBX5 gene, a transcription factor capable of regulating hundreds of cardiac-specific genes through complex transcriptional networks. Here we show that, in zebrafish, modulation of a single miRNA is sufficient to rescue the morphogenetic defects generated by HOS. The analysis of miRNA-seq profiling revealed a decreased expression of miR-19a in Tbx5-depleted zebrafish embryos compared to the wild type. We revealed that the transcription of the miR-17-92 cluster, which harbors miR-19a, is induced by Tbx5 and that a defined dosage of miR-19a is essential for the correct development of the heart. Importantly, we highlighted that miR-19a replacement is able to rescue cardiac and pectoral fin defects and to increase the viability of HOS zebrafish embryos. We further observed that miR-19a replacement shifts the global gene expression profile of HOS-like zebrafish embryos towards the wild type condition, confirming the ability of miR-19a to rescue the Tbx5 phenotype. In conclusion our data demonstrate the importance of Tbx5/miR-19a regulatory circuit in heart development and provide a proof of principle that morphogenetic defects associated with HOS can be rescued by transient miRNA modulation
Multihop Beaconing Forwarding Strategies in Congested IEEE 802.11p Vehicular Networks
Get PDFAbstract?Multi-hop propagation of situational information is a promising technique for improving beaconing performance and increasing the degree of situational awareness onboard vehicles. A possible way of achieving this is by piggyback information on the beacon packets that are sent periodically by each vehicle in the network, as prescribed by the DSRC and ETSI standards. However, prescribed limitations on beacon size imply that only information about a very small number of surrounding vehicles can be piggybacked in a beacon packet. In most traffic situations, this number is well below the typical number of vehicles within transmission range, implying that multi-hop forwarding strategies must be devised to select which neighboring vehicle?s information to include in a transmitted beacon. In this paper, we designed different multi-hop forwarding strategies, and assessed their effectiveness in delivering fresh situational information to surrounding vehicles. Effectiveness is estimated in terms of both information age and probability of experiencing a potentially dangerous situational-awareness blackout. Both metrics are estimated as a function of the hop distance from the transmitting vehicle, and in presence of different level of radio channel congestion. The investigation is based on extensive simulations whose multi-hop communication performance is corroborated by real-world measurements. The results show that network-coding based strategies substantially improve forwarding performance as compared to a randomized strategy, reducing the average information age of up to 60%, and the blackout probability of up to two orders of magnitude.We also consider the effect of multi-hop propagation of situational information on the reliability of a forward collision warning application, and show that network-coding based propagation yields a factor three improvement of reliability with respect to arandomized forwarding strategy, and even higher improvements with respect to the case of no propagation
Circulating microRNAs in metastatic colorectal cancer (mCRC) patients (pts) treated with regorafenib
Get PDFIntroduction: Regorafenib is indicated for the treatment of mCRC patients who have failed all other therapies. Nevertheless a substantial percentage of patients experiences rapid disease progression (PD) and serious adverse events may occur. For these reasons, clinical and/or molecular markers able to improve the cost/benefit ratio are urgently needed. Circulating microRNAs (c-miRNAs) have been recognized as possible prognostic and diagnostic markers in mCRC. The aim of this study was to describe the early changes in plasma levels of 10 selected c-miRNAs during the treatment with regorafenib and to investigate their correlation with clinical outcome.Methods: Plasma samples of patients treated with regorafenib at our Institution were collected at baseline (D1) and after 15 days of treatment (D15). Plasma levels of c-miR-17, c-miR-21, c-miR-29, c-miR-34, c-miR-92, c-miR-126, c-miR-141, c-miR-221, c-miR-601, c-miR-760 were analysed by means of real-time PCR. Paired levels at D1 and D15 were compared by means of Wilcoxon test for each c-miRNA. C-miRNAs showing significant changes were further analysed in order to identify possible correlations with outcome.Results: Thirty-four patients were included in the present study. Main characteristics were the following: M/F = 50%/50%; median age = 65 (range 48-78 years); ECOG-PS 0/1-2 = 71%/29%; time from diagnosis of metastases </ ? 18 months 15%/85%. Median PFS and OS were 2.4 and 6.5 months, respectively. One (3%) patient achieved a response and 16 (47%) had disease stabilization (disease control rate: 50%). As compared to D1, the following c-miRNAs increased at D15: c-miR-601 (p = 0.01), c-miR-141 (p = 0.04) and c-miR-21 (p = 0.06). Despite a median increase in the overall population, 12 (35%) out of 34 patients showed reduced level of c-miR-21 at D15. Nine out of 12 (75%) patients with reduced levels of c-miR-21 achieved disease control, as compared to 8 out of 23 (35%) patients with increased levels (Fisher \u27s Exact Test, p = 0.035). Median PFS of patients with increased and decreased level of levels of c-miR-21 were 2.1 and 3.9 months, respectively (HR = 1.89 95%CI 0.92-4.14 p = 0.08). Data on OS are not yet mature. Early modifications of c-miR-21 levels showed a sensitivity of 82% in predicting benefit from regorafenib.Conclusion: The early modulation of c-miR-21 levels may predict benefit from regorafenib in terms of disease control. These results need validation in independent series
A Tool for Managing the X1.V1 Platform on the Cloud
Get PDFThe X1.V1 platform is a service oriented architecture, deployed on a set of Virtual Machines, that integrates services for managing fundamental activities in the ehealth scenario, such as Patient Identification, Clinical Document Repository, Prescription, and many others.The efficient provisioning of such services to citizens and to health professionals requires the adoption of increasingly powerful computing systems, in order to ensure that the growing number of service requests are served in acceptable time, even in case of computational peaks. ?Porting the X1.V1 platform on the Cloud could address the problem of the computational requirement mutability, since Cloud elasticity allows the reallocation of resources to Virtual Machines when necessary.This paper proposes a framework for managing the execution of the X1.V1 platform on the Cloud.This framework enables an easy, quick, and secure management of the Cloud resources allocation and reallocation to X1.V1 Virtual Machines, in order to enhance the platform performances, optimize resource utilization and, consequently, reduce the whole services cost.The design of the framework is focused on security aspects as well, because unauthorized accesses could lead to serious inefficiencies of the ehealth services.?Finally, besides describing the architecture design and implementation of the X1.V1 Cloud manager framework, this paper also presents a set of experimental results which confirms the validity of the proposed approach to solve the X1.V1 platform performance issues in distinct reference scenarios
Towards Safer Information Sharing in the Cloud
Get PDFWeb interactions usually require the exchange of personal and confidential information for a variety of purposes, including enabling business transactions and the provisioning of services. A key issue affecting these interactions is the lack of trust and control on how data is going to be used and processed by the entities that receive it. In the traditional world, this problem is addressed by using contractual agreements, those are signed by the involved parties, and law enforcement. This could be done electronically as well but, in ad- dition to the trust issue, there is currently a major gap between the definition of legal contracts regulat- ing the sharing of data, and the software infrastructure required to support and enforce them. How to enable organisations to provide more automation in this pro- cess? How to ensure that legal contracts can be actually enforced by the underlying IT infrastructure? How to enable end-users to express their preferences and con- straints within these contracts? This article describes our R&D work to make progress towards addressing this gap via the usage of electronic Data Sharing Agree- ments (e-DSA). The aim is to share our vision, discuss the involved challenges and stimulate further research and development in this space. We specifically focus on a cloud scenario because it provides a rich set of?use cases involving interactions and information shar- ing among multiple stakeholders, including users and service providers.?