Towards collaborative modeling of business processes on large interactive touch display walls

Analyzing and redesigning business processes is a complex task, which requires the collaboration of multiple actors. Current approaches focus on workshops where process stakeholders together with modeling experts create a graphical visualization of a process in a model. Within these workshops, stakeholders are mostly limited to verbal contributions, which are integrated into a process model by a modeling expert using traditional input devices. This limitation negatively affects the collaboration outcome and also the perception of the collaboration itself. In order to overcome this problem we created CubeBPM – a system that allows groups of actors to interact with process models through a touch based interface on a large interactive touch display wall. Using this system for collaborative modeling, we expect to provide a more effective collaboration environment thus improving modeling performance and collaboration.

Destinations: 3 Large Cast Plays for Young People

This book is a collection of three large-cast plays written in response to a very specific problem. My work as a teacher of drama often required me to locate a script that would somehow miraculously work for a cast of unknown number and gender, and most likely uneven skills and enthusiasm, who I hadn’t even met yet. It’s a familiar dilemma for teachers and students of drama in education contexts, at whatever level you’re teaching. I’d first addressed this creative problem with scripts such as Gate 38 (2010). I had tried using scripts that already existed, but found they required such extensive editing to suit the parameters of cast and performance duration that I may as well have been writing them myself. Even in the setting of a closed studio, in altering these plays I felt I was bending the vision of the playwright, and certainly their narrative structure, out of shape. Everyone who’s attempted to stage a performance with a large cast of students in an educational setting knows it takes time to truly connect with a play, its social contexts, themes and characters. It also takes a lot of time to get on top of the practicalities of learning, rehearsing, directing and running a performance with young people. Often the curtain goes up on something unfinished and unstable. I was looking for ways to reduce the complexity of staging a script, while maintaining the potential of this process as a site of rich, enjoyable learning. Two of the plays (Duty Free and Please Be Seated) are comprised of multiple monologues, combined with music-driven ensemble sequences. The monologues enable individuals to develop and polish their own performances, work in small groups, and cut down on the laborious detail of directing naturalistic scenes based in character interaction. The third (Australian Drama) involves a lot of duologues, meaning that its rehearsal process can happily employ that mainstay of the drama classroom: small group work. There’s plenty of room to move in terms of gender-blind casting as well. Please be Seated is mainly young women. The scripts also contain ensemble-based interludes which are non-verbal, music driven, with a choreographic element. They have also springboarded further explorations in form. The ethical and aesthetic complexities of verbatim works; the interaction between music and theatre; and meta-concerns related to the performing of performance: ‘how can the act of acting ‘acted’. The narratives of all three of these plays are deliberately open, enabling the flexible casting and on-the hop editing that large-group, time-poor processes sometimes necessitate. Duty Free is about the overseas ‘adventures’ of young people. Please Be Seated is based in verbatim text about young people falling in and out of love. Australian Drama is about young people in a drama classroom trying to connect with each other and put their own shine on dull fragments of the theatrical canon. The plays were published as a collection in hardcopy and digital editions by Playlab Press in 2015. Please be Seated is a co-write with a large group. These co-author’s names are listed in the publication, and below in ‘additional information’.

Prediction of a large-gap quantum-spin-Hall insulator: Diamond-like GaBi bilayer

A quantum-spin-Hall (QSH) state was achieved experimentally, albeit at a low critical temperature because of the narrow band gap of the bulk material. Twodimensional topological insulators are critically important for realizing novel topological applications. Using density functional theory (DFT), we demonstrated that hydrogenated GaBi bilayers (HGaBi) form a stable topological insulator with a large nontrivial band gap of 0.320 eV, based on the state-of-the-art hybrid functional method, which is implementable for achieving QSH states at room temperature. The nontrivial topological property of the HGaBi lattice can also be confirmed from the appearance of gapless edge states in the nanoribbon structure. Our results provide a versatile platform for hosting nontrivial topological states usable for important nanoelectronic device applications.

A large-scale analysis of genetic variants within putative miRNA binding sites in prostate cancer

Prostate cancer is the second most common malignancy among men worldwide. Genome-wide association studies have identified 100 risk variants for prostate cancer, which can explain approximately 33% of the familial risk of the disease. We hypothesized that a comprehensive analysis of genetic variations found within the 3' untranslated region of genes predicted to affect miRNA binding (miRSNP) can identify additional prostate cancer risk variants. We investigated the association between 2,169 miRSNPs and prostate cancer risk in a large-scale analysis of 22,301 cases and 22,320 controls of European ancestry from 23 participating studies. Twenty-two miRSNPs were associated (P<2.3×10(-5)) with risk of prostate cancer, 10 of which were within 7 genes previously not mapped by GWAS studies. Further, using miRNA mimics and reporter gene assays, we showed that miR-3162-5p has specific affinity for the KLK3 rs1058205 miRSNP T-allele, whereas miR-370 has greater affinity for the VAMP8 rs1010 miRSNP A-allele, validating their functional role. SIGNIFICANCE Findings from this large association study suggest that a focus on miRSNPs, including functional evaluation, can identify candidate risk loci below currently accepted statistical levels of genome-wide significance. Studies of miRNAs and their interactions with SNPs could provide further insights into the mechanisms of prostate cancer risk.

Common SNPs explain a large proportion of the heritability for human height

SNPs discovered by genome-wide association studies (GWASs) account for only a small fraction of the genetic variation of complex traits in human populations. Where is the remaining heritability? We estimated the proportion of variance for human height explained by 294,831 SNPs genotyped on 3,925 unrelated individuals using a linear model analysis, and validated the estimation method with simulations based on the observed genotype data. We show that 45% of variance can be explained by considering all SNPs simultaneously. Thus, most of the heritability is not missing but has not previously been detected because the individual effects are too small to pass stringent significance tests. We provide evidence that the remaining heritability is due to incomplete linkage disequilibrium between causal variants and genotyped SNPs, exacerbated by causal variants having lower minor allele frequency than the SNPs explored to date.

Genome-wide linkage analysis of multiple measures of neuroticism of 2 large cohorts from Australia and the Netherlands

CONTEXT People meeting diagnostic criteria for anxiety or depressive disorders tend to score high on the personality scale of neuroticism. Studying this personality dimension can give insights into the etiology of these important psychiatric disorders. OBJECTIVES To undertake a comprehensive genome-wide linkage study of neuroticism using large study samples that have been measured multiple times and to compare the results between countries for replication and across time within countries for consistency. DESIGN Genome-wide linkage scan. SETTING Twin individuals and their family members from Australia and the Netherlands. PARTICIPANTS Nineteen thousand six hundred thirty-five sibling pairs completed self-report questionnaires for neuroticism up to 5 times over a period of up to 22 years. Five thousand sixty-nine sibling pairs were genotyped with microsatellite markers. METHODS Nonparametric linkage analyses were conducted in MERLIN-REGRESS for the mean neuroticism scores averaged across time. Additional analyses were conducted for the time-specific measures of neuroticism from each country to investigate consistency of linkage results. RESULTS Three chromosomal regions exceeded empirically derived thresholds for suggestive linkage using mean neuroticism scores: 10p 5 Kosambi cM (cM) (Dutch study sample), 14q 103 cM (Dutch study sample), and 18q 117 cM (combined Australian and Dutch study sample), but only 14q retained significance after correction for multiple testing. These regions all showed evidence for linkage in individual time-specific measures of neuroticism and 1 (18q) showed some evidence for replication between countries. Linkage intervals for these regions all overlap with regions identified in other studies of neuroticism or related traits and/or in studies of anxiety in mice. CONCLUSIONS Our results demonstrate the value of the availability of multiple measures over time and add to the optimism reported in recent reviews for replication of linkage regions for neuroticism. These regions are likely to harbor causal variants for neuroticism and its related psychiatric disorders and can inform prioritization of results from genome-wide association studies.

Migraine with aura and migraine without aura are not distinct entities: further evidence from a large Dutch population study

It is often debated whether migraine with aura (MA) and migraine without aura (MO) are etiologically distinct disorders. A previous study using latent class analysis (LCA) in Australian twins showed no evidence for separate subtypes of MO and MA. The aim of the present study was to replicate these results in a population of Dutch twins and their parents, siblings and partners (N = 10,144). Latent class analysis of International Headache Society (IHS)-based migraine symptoms resulted in the identification of 4 classes: a class of unaffected subjects (class 0), a mild form of nonmigrainous headache (class 1), a moderately severe type of migraine (class 2), typically without neurological symptoms or aura (8% reporting aura symptoms), and a severe type of migraine (class 3), typically with neurological symptoms, and aura symptoms in approximately half of the cases. Given the overlap of neurological symptoms and nonmutual exclusivity of aura symptoms, these results do not support the MO and MA subtypes as being etiologically distinct. The heritability in female twins of migraine based on LCA classification was estimated at .50 (95% confidence intervals [CI] .27 - .59), similar to IHS-based migraine diagnosis (h2 = .49, 95% CI .19-.57). However, using a dichotomous classification (affected-unaffected) decreased heritability for the IHS-based classification (h2 = .33, 95% CI .00-.60), but not the LCA-based classification (h2 = .51, 95% CI .23-.61). Importantly, use of the LCA-based classification increased the number of subjects classified as affected. The heritability of the screening question was similar to more detailed LCA and IHS classifications, suggesting that the screening procedure is an important determining factor in genetic studies of migraine.

Do small-aperture presbyopic corrections influence the visual field?

Purpose To explore the effect of small-aperture optics, designed to aid presbyopes by increasing ocular depth-of-focus, on measurements of the visual field. Methods Simple theoretical and ray-tracing models were used to predict the impact of different designs of small-aperture contact lenses or corneal inlays on the proportion of light passing through natural pupils of various diameters as a function of the direction in the visual field. The left eyes of five healthy volunteers were tested using three afocal, hand-painted opaque soft contact lenses (www.davidthomas.com). Two were opaque over a 10 mm diameter but had central clear circular apertures of 1.5 and 3.0 mm in diameter. The third had an annular opaque zone with inner and outer diameters of 1.5 and 4.0 mm, approximately simulating the geometry of the KAMRA inlay (www.acufocus.com). A fourth, clear lens was used for comparison purposes. Visual fields along the horizontal meridian were evaluated up to 50° eccentricity with static automated perimetry (Medmont M700, stimulus Goldmann-size III; www.medmont.com). Results According to ray-tracing, the two lenses with the circular apertures were expected to reduce the relative transmittance of the pupil to zero at specific field angles (around 60° for the conditions of the experimental measurements). In contrast, the annular stop had no effect on the absolute field but relative transmittance was reduced over the central area of the field, the exact effects depending upon the natural pupil diameter. Experimental results broadly agreed with these theoretical expectations. With the 1.5 and 3.0 mm pupils, only minor losses in sensitivity (around 2 dB) in comparison with the clear-lens case occurred across the central 10° radius of field. Beyond this angle, sensitivity losses increased, to reach about 7 dB at the edge of the measured field (50°). The field results with the annular stop showed at most only a slight loss in sensitivity (≤3 dB) across the measured field. Conclusion The present theoretical and experimental results support earlier clinical findings that KAMRA-type annular stops, unlike circular artificial pupils, have only minor effects on measurements of the visual field.

Considering gambling involvement in the understanding of problem gambling: A large cross-sectional study of an Australian population

Instead of regarding a particular type of gambling activity (for example, electronic gambling machines, table games) as an isolated factor for problem gambling, recent research suggests that gambling involvement (for example, as measured by the number of different types of gambling activities played) should also be considered. Using a large sample of the Victorian adult population, this study found that the strength of association between problem gambling and the type of gambling reduced after adjusting for gambling involvement. This finding supports recent research that gambling involvement is an important factor in assessing the risk of problem gambling. The study also provides insights into the measurements of gambling involvement and provides alternative statistical modelling to analyse problem gambling.

Monitoring temporal changes in use of two cathinones in a large urban catchment in Queensland, Australia

Wastewater analysis was used to examine prevalence and temporal trends in the use of two cathinones, methylone and mephedrone, in an urban population (>200,000 people) in South East Queensland, Australia. Wastewater samples were collected from the inlet of the sewage treatment plant that serviced the catchment from 2011 to 2013. Liquid chromatography coupled with tandem mass spectrometry was used to measure mephedrone and methylone in wastewater sample using direct injection mode. Mephedrone was not detected in any samples while methylone was detected in 45% of the samples. Daily mass loads of methylone were normalized to the population and used to evaluate methylone use in the catchment. Methylone mass loads peaked in 2012 but there was no clear temporal trend over the monitoring period. The prevalence of methylone use in the catchment was associated with the use of MDMA, the more popular analogue of methylone, as indicated by other complementary sources. Methylone use was stable in the study catchment during the monitoring period whereas mephedrone use has been declining after its peak in 2010. More research is needed on the pharmacokinetics of emerging illicit drugs to improve the applicability of wastewater analysis in monitoring their use in the population.

R1SVM: A randomised nonlinear approach to large-scale anomaly detection

The problem of unsupervised anomaly detection arises in a wide variety of practical applications. While one-class support vector machines have demonstrated their effectiveness as an anomaly detection technique, their ability to model large datasets is limited due to their memory and time complexity for training. To address this issue for supervised learning of kernel machines, there has been growing interest in random projection methods as an alternative to the computationally expensive problems of kernel matrix construction and sup-port vector optimisation. In this paper we leverage the theory of nonlinear random projections and propose the Randomised One-class SVM (R1SVM), which is an efficient and scalable anomaly detection technique that can be trained on large-scale datasets. Our empirical analysis on several real-life and synthetic datasets shows that our randomised 1SVM algorithm achieves comparable or better accuracy to deep auto encoder and traditional kernelised approaches for anomaly detection, while being approximately 100 times faster in training and testing.

Evaluation of a 7-gene genetic profile for athletic endurance phenotype in Ironman championship triathletes

Polygenic profiling has been proposed for elite endurance performance, using an additive model determining the proportion of optimal alleles in endurance athletes. To investigate this model’s utility for elite triathletes, we genotyped seven polymorphisms previously associated with an endurance polygenic profile (ACE Ins/Del, ACTN3 Arg577Ter, AMPD1 Gln12Ter, CKMM 1170bp/985+185bp, HFE His63Asp, GDF8 Lys153Arg and PPARGC1A Gly482Ser) in a cohort of 196 elite athletes who participated in the 2008 Kona Ironman championship triathlon. Mean performance time (PT) was not significantly different in individual marker analysis. Age, sex, and continent of origin had a significant influence on PT and were adjusted for. Only the AMPD1 endurance-optimal Gln allele was found to be significantly associated with an improvement in PT (model p=5.79 x 10-17, AMPD1 genotype p=0.01). Individual genotypes were combined into a total genotype score (TGS); TGS distribution ranged from 28.6 to 92.9, concordant with prior studies in endurance athletes (mean±SD: 60.75±12.95). TGS distribution was shifted toward higher TGS in the top 10% of athletes, though the mean TGS was not significantly different (p=0.164) and not significantly associated with PT even when adjusted for age, sex, and origin. Receiver operating characteristic curve analysis determined that TGS alone could not significantly predict athlete finishing time with discriminating sensitivity and specificity for three outcomes (less than median PT, less than mean PT, or in the top 10%), though models with the age, sex, continent of origin, and either TGS or AMPD1 genotype could. These results suggest three things: that more sophisticated genetic models may be necessary to accurately predict athlete finishing time in endurance events; that non-genetic factors such as training are hugely influential and should be included in genetic analyses to prevent confounding; and that large collaborations may be necessary to obtain sufficient sample sizes for powerful and complex analyses of endurance performance.

Ratios of T-cell immune-effectors with tumour associated macrophages and PD-1/PD-L1 axis immune-checkpoint molecules, as prognosticators in diffuse large B cell lymphoma: A population-based study

Background Risk-stratification of diffuse large B-cell lymphoma (DLBCL) requires identification of patients with disease that is not cured despite initial R-CHOP. Although the prognostic importance of the tumour microenvironment (TME) is established, the optimal strategy to quantify it is unknown. Methods The relationship between immune-effector and inhibitory (checkpoint) genes was assessed by NanoString™ in 252 paraffin-embedded DLBCL tissues. A model to quantify net anti-tumoural immunity as an outcome predictor was tested in 158 R-CHOP treated patients, and validated in tissue/blood from two independent R-CHOP treated cohorts of 233 and 140 patients respectively. Findings T and NK-cell immune-effector molecule expression correlated with tumour associated macrophage and PD-1/PD-L1 axis markers consistent with malignant B-cells triggering a dynamic checkpoint response to adapt to and evade immune-surveillance. A tree-based survival model was performed to test if immune-effector to checkpoint ratios were prognostic. The CD4*CD8:(CD163/CD68)*PD-L1 ratio was better able to stratify overall survival than any single or combination of immune markers, distinguishing groups with disparate 4-year survivals (92% versus 47%). The immune ratio was independent of and added to the revised international prognostic index (R-IPI) and cell-of-origin (COO). Tissue findings were validated in 233 DLBCL R-CHOP treated patients. Furthermore, within the blood of 140 R-CHOP treated patients immune-effector:checkpoint ratios were associated with differential interim-PET/CT+ve/-ve expression.

Modulatory roles of microRNAs in the regulation of different signalling pathways in large bowel cancer stem cells

There are emerging data to suggest that microRNAs (miRNAs) have significant roles in regulating the function of normal cells and cancer stem cells (CSCs). This review aims to analyse the roles of miRNAs in the regulation of colon CSCs through their interaction with various signalling pathways. Studies showed a large number of miRNAs that are reported to be deregulated in colon CSCs. However, few of the studies available were able to outline the function of miRNAs in colon CSCs and uncover their signalling pathways. From those miRNAs, which are better described, miR-21 followed by miR-34, miR-200 and miR-215 are the most reported miRNAs to have roles in colon CSC regulation. In particular, miRNAs have been reported to regulate the stemness features of colon CSCs mainly via Wnt/B-catenin and Notch signalling pathways. Additionally, miRNAs have been reported to act on processes involving CSCs through cell cycle regulation genes and epithelial-mesenchymal transition. The relative paucity of data available on the significance of miRNAs in CSCs means that new studies will be of great importance to determine their roles and to identify the signalling pathways through which they operate. Such studies may in future guide further research to target these genes for more effective cancer treatment. miRNAs were shown to regulate the function of cancer stem cells in large bowel cancer by targeting a few key signalling pathways in cells.