Decision-theoretic analysis of forensic sampling criteria using Bayesian decision networks

Sampling issues represent a topic of ongoing interest to the forensic science community essentially because of their crucial role in laboratory planning and working protocols. For this purpose, forensic literature described thorough (Bayesian) probabilistic sampling approaches. These are now widely implemented in practice. They allow, for instance, to obtain probability statements that parameters of interest (e.g., the proportion of a seizure of items that present particular features, such as an illegal substance) satisfy particular criteria (e.g., a threshold or an otherwise limiting value). Currently, there are many approaches that allow one to derive probability statements relating to a population proportion, but questions on how a forensic decision maker - typically a client of a forensic examination or a scientist acting on behalf of a client - ought actually to decide about a proportion or a sample size, remained largely unexplored to date. The research presented here intends to address methodology from decision theory that may help to cope usefully with the wide range of sampling issues typically encountered in forensic science applications. The procedures explored in this paper enable scientists to address a variety of concepts such as the (net) value of sample information, the (expected) value of sample information or the (expected) decision loss. All of these aspects directly relate to questions that are regularly encountered in casework. Besides probability theory and Bayesian inference, the proposed approach requires some additional elements from decision theory that may increase the efforts needed for practical implementation. In view of this challenge, the present paper will emphasise the merits of graphical modelling concepts, such as decision trees and Bayesian decision networks. These can support forensic scientists in applying the methodology in practice. How this may be achieved is illustrated with several examples. The graphical devices invoked here also serve the purpose of supporting the discussion of the similarities, differences and complementary aspects of existing Bayesian probabilistic sampling criteria and the decision-theoretic approach proposed throughout this paper.

Large multi-gene phylogenetic trees of the grasses (Poaceae): progress towards complete tribal and generic level sampling.

In this paper we included a very broad representation of grass family diversity (84% of tribes and 42% of genera). Phylogenetic inference was based on three plastid DNA regions rbcL, matK and trnL-F, using maximum parsimony and Bayesian methods. Our results resolved most of the subfamily relationships within the major clades (BEP and PACCMAD), which had previously been unclear, such as, among others the: (i) BEP and PACCMAD sister relationship, (ii) composition of clades and the sister-relationship of Ehrhartoideae and Bambusoideae + Pooideae, (iii) paraphyly of tribe Bambuseae, (iv) position of Gynerium as sister to Panicoideae, (v) phylogenetic position of Micrairoideae. With the presence of a relatively large amount of missing data, we were able to increase taxon sampling substantially in our analyses from 107 to 295 taxa. However, bootstrap support and to a lesser extent Bayesian inference posterior probabilities were generally lower in analyses involving missing data than those not including them. We produced a fully resolved phylogenetic summary tree for the grass family at subfamily level and indicated the most likely relationships of all included tribes in our analysis.

Tritordeum, wheat and triticale yield components under multi-local mediterranean drought conditions

The species x location interaction was of great importance in explaining the behaviour of genetic material. The study presented here shows, for the first time, the performance, under field conditions of the new tritordeum species, compared to wheat and triticale in a wide range of Mediterranean countries (Spain, Lebanon and Tunisia). The results obtained revealed that despite the diversity of environmental conditions, the main differences in yield were due to genotypes, especially to differences between species. The multi-local study with different growth conditions revealed important information about the water availability effect on yield. In the lowest yielding environments (Tunisia rainfed), Tritordeum and triticale yields were equivalent. However under better growth conditions (Spain), tritordeum yield was shown to be lower than wheat and triticale. Interestingly, when water limitation was extended during the pre-anthesis period, differences in tritordeum versus wheat-triticale yield rate were larger than when water stress occurred during anthesis. These variations were explained by the fact that kernel weight has been found as the limiting factor for yield determination in tritordeum, and a delay in the anthesis date may have been the cause for the low kernel weight and low yield under Mediterranean drought conditions. Such differences in yield between tritordeum and wheat or triticale could be explained by the fact that tritordeum is a relatively new species and far fewer resources have been devoted to its improvement when compared to wheat and triticale. Our results suggest that breeding efforts should be directed to an earlier anthesis date and a longer grain filling period. tritordeum proved to have possibilities to be grown under drought environments as a new crop, since its performance was quite close to wheat and triticale. Besides, it has qualitative added values that may improve farmers' income per unit land.

Vaccination against schistosomiasis and fascioliasis with the new recombinant antigen Sm14: potential basis of a multi-valent anti-helminth vaccine?

Molecular cloning of components of protective antigenic preparations have suggested that related parasite fatty acid binding proteins could form the basis of the well documented protective, immune cross reactivity between the parasitic trematode worms Fasciola hepatica and Schistosoma mansoni. We have now confirmed the cross protective potential of parasite fatty acid binding proteins and suggest that it may be possible to produce a single vaccine that would be effective against at least two parasites, F. hepatica and S. mansoni of veterinary and human importance respectively.

Effects of Bilingualism on Multi-Word Production

It has been shown that bilinguals are disadvantaged on some language production tasks when compared to monolinguals. The present study investigated the effects of bilingualism on lexical retrieval in single and multi-word utterances. To this purpose, we tested three groups of 35 participants each (Spanish monolinguals, highly proficient Spanish-Catalan and Catalan-Spanish bilinguals) in two sets of picture naming experiments. In the first one, participants were asked to name black-and-white object drawings by single words. In the second one, participants had to name colored pictures with determiner adjectival noun phrases (NP) like “the red car”. In both sets of experiments, bilinguals were slower than monolinguals, even when naming in their dominant language. We also examined the articulatory durations of both single word and NP productions for this bilingual disadvantage. Furthermore, response onset times and durations of all groups in both experiments were affected by lexical variables of the picture names. These results are consistent with previous studies (Ivanova & Costa, 2008, Gollan et al., 2005) showing a bilingual disadvantage in single word production and extend these findings to multiword-utterances and response durations. They also support the claim that articulatory processes are influenced by lexical variables.

Gestión de recursos en nodos multi-core de memoria compartida

La gestión de recursos en los procesadores multi-core ha ganado importancia con la evolución de las aplicaciones y arquitecturas. Pero esta gestión es muy compleja. Por ejemplo, una misma aplicación paralela ejecutada múltiples veces con los mismos datos de entrada, en un único nodo multi-core, puede tener tiempos de ejecución muy variables. Hay múltiples factores hardware y software que afectan al rendimiento. La forma en que los recursos hardware (cómputo y memoria) se asignan a los procesos o threads, posiblemente de varias aplicaciones que compiten entre sí, es fundamental para determinar este rendimiento. La diferencia entre hacer la asignación de recursos sin conocer la verdadera necesidad de la aplicación, frente a asignación con una meta específica es cada vez mayor. La mejor manera de realizar esta asignación és automáticamente, con una mínima intervención del programador. Es importante destacar, que la forma en que la aplicación se ejecuta en una arquitectura no necesariamente es la más adecuada, y esta situación puede mejorarse a través de la gestión adecuada de los recursos disponibles. Una apropiada gestión de recursos puede ofrecer ventajas tanto al desarrollador de las aplicaciones, como al entorno informático donde ésta se ejecuta, permitiendo un mayor número de aplicaciones en ejecución con la misma cantidad de recursos. Así mismo, esta gestión de recursos no requeriría introducir cambios a la aplicación, o a su estrategia operativa. A fin de proponer políticas para la gestión de los recursos, se analizó el comportamiento de aplicaciones intensivas de cómputo e intensivas de memoria. Este análisis se llevó a cabo a través del estudio de los parámetros de ubicación entre los cores, la necesidad de usar la memoria compartida, el tamaño de la carga de entrada, la distribución de los datos dentro del procesador y la granularidad de trabajo. Nuestro objetivo es identificar cómo estos parámetros influyen en la eficiencia de la ejecución, identificar cuellos de botella y proponer posibles mejoras. Otra propuesta es adaptar las estrategias ya utilizadas por el Scheduler con el fin de obtener mejores resultados.

Multi-level SLA-driven resource management on Cloud Providers

Nowadays, service providers in the Cloud offer complex services ready to be used as it was a commodity like water or electricity to their customers with any other extra effort for them. However, providing these services implies a high management effort which requires a lot of human interaction. Furthermore, an efficient resource management mechanism considering only provider's resources is, though necessary, not enough, because the provider's profit is limited by the amount of resources it owns. Dynamically outsourcing resources to other providers in response to demand variation avoids this problem and makes the provider to get more profit. A key technology for achieving these goals is virtualization which facilitates provider's management and provides on-demand virtual environments, which are isolated and consolidated in order to achieve a better utilization of the provider's resources. Nevertheless, dealing with some virtualization capabilities implies an effort for the user in order to take benefit from them. In order to avoid this problem, we are contributing the research community with a virtualized environment manager which aims to provide virtual machines that fulfils with the user requirements. Another challenge is sharing resources among different federated Cloud providers while exploiting the features of virtualization in a new approach for facilitating providers' management. This project aims for reducing provider's costs and at the same time fulfilling the quality of service agreed with the customers while maximizing the provider's revenue. It considers resource management at several layers, namely locally to each node in the provider, among different nodes in the provider, and among different federated providers. This latter layer supports the novel capabilities of outsourcing when the local resources are not enough to fulfil the users demand, and offering resources to other providers when the local resources are underused.

Discontinuous Galerkin methods for the Multi-dimensional Vlasov-Poisson problem

We introduce and analyze two new semi-discrete numerical methods for the multi-dimensional Vlasov-Poisson system. The schemes are constructed by combing a discontinuous Galerkin approximation to the Vlasov equation together with a mixed finite element method for the Poisson problem. We show optimal error estimates in the case of smooth compactly supported initial data. We propose a scheme that preserves the total energy of the system.

A prospective randomised multi-centre controlled trial on tight glucose control by intensive insulin therapy in adult intensive care units: the Glucontrol study.

PURPOSE: An optimal target for glucose control in ICU patients remains unclear. This prospective randomized controlled trial compared the effects on ICU mortality of intensive insulin therapy (IIT) with an intermediate glucose control. METHODS: Adult patients admitted to the 21 participating medico-surgical ICUs were randomized to group 1 (target BG 7.8-10.0 mmol/L) or to group 2 (target BG 4.4-6.1 mmol/L). RESULTS: While the required sample size was 1,750 per group, the trial was stopped early due to a high rate of unintended protocol violations. From 1,101 admissions, the outcomes of 542 patients assigned to group 1 and 536 of group 2 were analysed. The groups were well balanced. BG levels averaged in group 1 8.0 mmol/L (IQR 7.1-9.0) (median of all values) and 7.7 mmol/L (IQR 6.7-8.8) (median of morning BG) versus 6.5 mmol/L (IQR 6.0-7.2) and 6.1 mmol/L (IQR 5.5-6.8) for group 2 (p < 0.0001 for both comparisons). The percentage of patients treated with insulin averaged 66.2 and 96.3%, respectively. Proportion of time spent in target BG was similar, averaging 39.5% and 45.1% (median (IQR) 34.3 (18.5-50.0) and 39.3 (26.2-53.6)%) in the groups 1 and 2, respectively. The rate of hypoglycaemia was higher in the group 2 (8.7%) than in group 1 (2.7%, p < 0.0001). ICU mortality was similar in the two groups (15.3 vs. 17.2%). CONCLUSIONS: In this prematurely stopped and therefore underpowered study, there was a lack of clinical benefit of intensive insulin therapy (target 4.4-6.1 mmol/L), associated with an increased incidence of hypoglycaemia, as compared to a 7.8-10.0 mmol/L target. (ClinicalTrials.gov # NCT00107601, EUDRA-CT Number: 200400391440).

Phase II study of weekly plitidepsin as second-line therapy for small cell lung cancer.

OBJECTIVE: To evaluate the antitumor activity and safety profile of plitidepsin administered as a 1h weekly intravenous (i.v.) infusion of 3.2mg/m(2) to patients with small cell lung cancer (SCLC) who relapsed or progressed after one line of chemotherapy. PATIENTS AND METHODS: This was a multicenter, open-label, single-arm, exploratory, phase II clinical trial. Treatment lasted until disease progression, unacceptable toxicity, patient refusal or treatment delay for >2 weeks. Objective response rate (primary efficacy endpoint) was evaluated according to response evaluation criteria in solid tumors (RECIST). The rate of stable disease (SD) lasting for at least 6 months and time-to-event variables were secondary endpoints of efficacy. Toxicity was assessed using National Cancer Institute Common Toxicity Criteria (NCI-CTC) version 2.0. RESULTS: Twenty pretreated SCLC patients (median age, 60 years) with extensive (n=13) or limited-stage disease (n=7) received a total of 24 treatment cycles (median, one cycle per patient; range, 1-2). Objective tumor responses were not observed and only one of the 17 evaluable patients had SD. With a median follow-up of 11.8 months, the progression-free survival and the median overall survival were 1.3 months and 4.8 months, respectively. The most troubling or common toxicities were fatigue, muscle weakness, lymphopenia, anemia (no patients showed neutropenia), and asymptomatic, non-cumulative increase of transaminases levels and alkaline phosphatase. CONCLUSION: This clinical trial shows that a cycle of 1h weekly i.v. infusion of plitidepsin (3.2mg/m(2)) was generally well tolerated other than fatigue and muscle weakness in patients with pretreated SCLC. One patient died due to multi-organ failure. The absence of antitumor activity found here precludes further studies of this plitidepsin schedule as second-line single-agent treatment of SCLC.

International consensus conference on PFAPA syndrome: Evaluation of a new set of diagnostic criteria

The PFAPA syndrome is characterized by periodic fever, associated with pharyngitis, cervical adenitis and/or aphtous stomatitis and belongs to the auto-inflammatory diseases. Diagnostic criteria are based on clinical features and the exclusion of other periodic fever syndromes. An analysis of a large cohort of patients has shown weaknesses for these criteria and there is a lack of international consensus. An International Conference was held in Morges in November 2008 to propose a new set of classification criteria based on a consensus among experts in the field. We aimed to verify the applicability of the new set of classification criteria. 80 patients diagnosed with PFAPA syndrome from 3 centers (Genoa, Lausanne and Geneva) for pediatric rheumatology were included in the study. A detailed description of the clinical and laboratory features was obtained. The new classification criteria and the actual diagnostic criteria were applied to the patients. Only 43/80 patients (53.8%) fulfilled all criteria of the new classification. 31 patients were excluded because they didn't meet one of the 7 diagnostic criteria, 8 because of 2 criteria, and one because of 3 criteria. When we applied the current criteria to the same patients, 11/80 patients (13%) needed to be excluded. 8/80 patients (10%) were excluded from both sets. Exclusion was related only to some of the criteria. Number of patients for each not fulfilled criterion (new set of criteria/actual criteria): age (1/6), symptoms between episodes (2/2), delayed growth (3/3), main symptoms (21/0), periodicity, length of fever, interval between episodes, and length of disease (19/0). The application of some of the new criteria was not easy, as they were both very restrictive and needed precise information from the patients. Our work has shown that the new set of classification criteria can be applied to patients suspected for PFAPA syndrome, but it seems to be more restrictive than the actual diagnostic criteria. A further work of validation needs to be done for this new set of classification criteria in order to determine if these criteria allow a good discrimination between PFAPA patients and other causes of recurrent fever syndromes.

Artificial Snow Optimization in Winter Sport Destinations Using a Multi-agent Simulation

This paper presents the Juste-Neige system for predicting the snow height on the ski runs of a resort using a multi-agent simulation software. Its aim is to facilitate snow cover management in order to i) reduce the production cost of artificial snow and to improve the profit margin for the companies managing the ski resorts; and ii) to reduce the water and energy consumption, and thus to reduce the environmental impact, by producing only the snow needed for a good skiing experience. The software provides maps with the predicted snow heights for up to 13 days. On these maps, the areas most exposed to snow erosion are highlighted. The software proceeds in three steps: i) interpolation of snow height measurements with a neural network; ii) local meteorological forecasts for every ski resort; iii) simulation of the impact caused by skiers using a multi-agent system. The software has been evaluated in the Swiss ski resort of Verbier and provides useful predictions.

Molecular Genetic Analysis of Multi-drug Resistance in Indian Isolates of Mycobacterium tuberculosis

A total of 116 isolates from patients attending the out-patient department at the All India Institute of Medical Sciences, New Delhi and the New Delhi Tuberculosis Centre, New Delhi, India were collected. They were analyzed for resistance to drugs prescribed in the treatment for tuberculosis. The drug resistance was initially determined by microbiological techniques. The Bactec 460TB system was employed to determine the type and level of resistance in each isolate. The isolates were further characterized at molecular level. The multi-drug loci corresponding to rpo b, gyr A, kat G were studied for mutation(s) by the polymerase chain reaction-single strand conformational polymorphism (PCR-SSCP) technique. The SSCP positive samples were sequenced to characterize the mutations in rpo b, and gyr A loci. While previously reported mutations in the gyr A and rpo b loci were found to be present, several novel mutations were also scored in the rpo b locus. Interestingly, analysis of the gyr A locus showed the presence of point mutation(s) that could not be detected by PCR-SSCP. Furthermore, rifampicin resistance was found to be an important marker for checking multi-drug resistance (MDR) in clinical isolates of Mycobacterium tuberculosis. This is the first report on molecular genetic analysis of MDR tuberculosis one from India, highlights the increasing incidence of MDR in the Indian isolates of M. tuberculosis.