In this paper, we present a scalable and exact solution for probabilistic linear discriminant analysis (PLDA). PLDA is a probabilistic model that has been shown to provide state-of-the-art performance for both face and speaker recognition. However, it has one major drawback: At training time estimating the latent variables requires the ...

An approach for retention modeling of double pH/organic solvent gradient data easily generated by automatically mixing two mobile phases with different pH and organic content according to a linear pump program is proposed. This approach is based on retention models arising from the evaluation of the retention data of a ...

A novel α-amylase was isolated successfully from Glaciozyma antarctica PI12 using DNA walking and reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) methods. The structure of this psychrophilic α-amylase (AmyPI12) from G. antarctica PI12 has yet to be studied in detail. A 3D model of AmyPI12 was built using a homology modelling approach ...

`1-minimization refers to finding the minimum `1- norm solution to an underdetermined linear system b = Ax. Under certain conditions as described in compressive sensing theory, the minimum `1-norm solution is also the sparsest solution. In this paper, we study the speed and scalability of its algorithms. In particular, we ...

Much attention has been given to recent predictions that widespread extinctions of tropical ectotherms, and tropical forest lizards in particular, will result from anthropogenic climate change. Most of these predictions, however, are based on environmental temperature data measured at a maximum resolution of 1 km(2) , whereas individuals of most ...

Osmotic-driven plant movements are widely recognized as impressive examples of energy efficiency and low power consumption. These aspects motivate the interest in developing an original biomimetic concept of new actuators based on the osmotic principle exploited by plants. This study takes a preliminary step in this direction, by modelling the ...

OBJECTIVE: In this paper we investigate the security level of a comprehensive RFID solution to enhance inpatient medication safety [2], named IS-RFID, which has been recently proposed by Peris-Lopez et al. METHOD: We analyses the security of the protocol against the known attacks in the context. The main target of ...

A systems approach reveals emergent group behavior of an assembly of interacting elements, networks, and subgroups, using modeling and simulation analyses that are capable of handling massive data and complex structures. As system complexity and data sizes increase, efficient collaboration becomes crucial to construct, refine, and analyze the model in ...

Forty-three years ago, Kok and coworkers introduced a phenomenological model describing period-four oscillations in O2 flash yields during photosynthetic water oxidation (WOC), which had been first reported by Joliot and coworkers. The original two-parameter Kok model was subsequently extended in its level of complexity to better simulate diverse datasets, including ...

This paper is focused on the use of an innovative Process Analytical Technology for the fast design and optimization of freeze-drying cycles for pharmaceuticals. The tool is based on a soft-sensor, a device that uses the experimental measure of product temperature during freeze-drying, a mathematical model of the process, and ...

Hot-melt extrusion is gaining importance for the production of amorphous solid solutions; in parallel, predictive tools for estimating drug solubility in polymers are increasingly demanded. The Hansen solubility parameter (SP) approach is well acknowledged for its predictive power of the miscibility of liquids as well as the solubility of some ...

MOTIVATION: The calculation of reliable alignments for structured RNA is still considered as an open problem. One approach is the incorporation of secondary structure information into the optimisation criteria by using a weighted sum of sequence and structure components as an objective function. Since it is not clear how to ...

Electronic payment fraud is considered a serious international crime by Europol. An important part of this fraud comes from payment card data skimming. This type of fraud consists of an illegal acquisition of payment card details when a user is withdrawing cash at an automated teller machine (ATM) or paying ...

A new method for improved development of latent fingermarks on thermal paper by 1,8-diazafluoren-9-one (DFO) treatment is described. Compared with conventional DFO solution, the mixed solution of DFO/PVP (polyvinylpyrrolidone) described here reduces black background staining without removing the thermosensitive layer and develops fingermarks by the reaction of DFO with amino ...

Fluid bed is an important unit operation in pharmaceutical industry for granulation and drying. To improve our understanding of fluid bed granulation, in-line near infrared spectroscopy (NIRS) and novel environmental temperature and RH data logger called a PyroButton(®) were used in conjunction with partial least square (PLS) and principal component ...

Purpose: We examined the construct validity (ability to discriminate between experienced and inexperienced subjects) of the chicken crop model in the simulation of laparoscopic pyeloplasty. Materials and Methods: Dead chickens were used. The chicken crop and esophagus were used to simulate the human renal pelvis and ureter respectively. The chicken ...

Glacial climate variability is studied integrating simple nonlinear stochastic dynamical systems with palaeoclimatic records. Different models representing different dynamical mechanisms and modelling approaches are contrasted; model comparison and selection is based on a likelihood function, an information criterion as well as various long-term summary statistics. A two-dimensional stochastic relaxation oscillator ...

Supervised examples and prior knowledge on regions of the input space have been profitably integrated in kernel machines to improve the performance of classifiers in different real-world contexts. The proposed solutions, which rely on the unified supervision of points and sets, have been mostly based on specific optimization schemes in ...

Stochastic reaction-diffusion models have become an important tool in studying how both noise in the chemical reaction process and the spatial movement of molecules influences the behavior of biological systems. There are two primary spatially-continuous models that have been used in recent studies: the diffusion limited reaction model of Smoluchowski, ...

This work emphasizes the importance of the fact, that plasma concentration profiles of one- and two-compartment linear pharmacokinetic (PK) models with first-order absorption introduce an uncertainty in data interpretation. PK-curve fitting results in a pair of valid solutions (coupled solutions), for which the derived PK parameters (such as AUC, MRT, ...

Enzyme models on the catwalk! A series of new model complexes of the active site of [Fe]-hydrogenase have been synthesized and characterized. These complexes are monomeric in solution, but dimeric in the solid state.

We present a generalization of the Dodson-Tsao kinematic model of misfit dislocation for graded SixGe1-x/Si(001) layers. The layers were prepared under different growing conditions (temperature). The misfit dislocation distribution has been determined by means of high-resolution x-ray scattering. Analysis of the reciprocal space maps was compared with the kinematic Dodson-Tsao ...

This study presents and analyzes the data of the Italian system for take-back and recovery of waste electrical and electronic equipments (WEEEs) in the start-up period 2008-2010. The analysis was focused particularly on the data about the treatment of end-of-life cooling and freezing equipments. In fact, the wastes of cooling ...

The architecture and design of a compact, multichannel, hybrid-multiplexed potentiostat for performing electrochemical measurements on continuously-biased electrode arrays is presented. The proposed architecture utilises a combination of sequential and parallel measurements, to enable high performance whilst keeping the system low-cost and compact. The accuracy of the signal readout is maintained ...

In this paper, stability analysis and controller design problem in microbial continuous culture with discrete time delay is studied. The dissimilation process of glycerol to 1,3-propanediol cannot avoid the disturbances caused by time delay. Time delay can limit and degrade the achievable performance of controlled systems, and even induce instability. ...

In this paper, a fast and accurate optimization framework is proposed to compute optimal aeration policies in SBR processes under partial nitrification. The optimization framework aims to determine an optimal intermittent aeration profile which minimizes both the operation time of the SBR cycle and the energy required for aeration. Special ...

Most standards and devices for determining clothing properties ignore the physiological state of the wearer and are inadequate to evaluate the transient thermal properties of clothing ensembles. This study evaluated the physiological burden of different types of protective clothing and environmental conditions using the recently developed single-sector thermo-physiological human simulator ...

We consider a simple mathematical model of gradual Darwinian evolution in continuous time and continuous trait space, due to intraspecific competition for common resource in an asexually reproducing population in constant environment, while far from evolutionary stable equilibrium. The model admits exact analytical solution. In particular, Gaussian distribution of the ...

This study presents possible applications of predictive microbiology to model the safety of mold-ripened cheeses with respect to bacteria of the species Listeria monocytogenes during (1) the ripening of Camembert cheese, (2) cold storage of Camembert cheese at temperatures ranging from 3 to 15°C, and (3) cold storage of blue ...

BACKGROUND: Disparities in wages and salaries can be viewed as the dispersion of a statistical distribution that responds to observed and unobserved characteristics, and reflects socioeconomic phenomena such as the interplay of supply and demand, availability of information, and efficiency of markets in their search for equilibrium. OBJECTIVES: The aim ...

In this work it is presented a new model for accurate calculation of binary diffusivities (D12) of solutes infinitely diluted in gas, liquid and supercritical solvents. It is based on a Lennard-Jones (LJ) model, and contains two parameters: the molecular diameter of the solvent and a diffusion activation energy. The ...

In negotiations over land-right acquisitions, landowners have an informational advantage over conservation groups because they know more about the opportunity costs of conservation measures on their sites. This advantage creates the possibility that landowners will demand payments greater than the required minimum, where this minimum required payment is known as ...

The models of anoxic/methanogenic processes in biofilm reactors published until now have supposed that pH does not change between the bulk liquid and biofilm. These assumptions are not necessarily valid for processes in reactors with biofilms. The present work studied an anoxic/methanogenic biofilm reactor incorporating the pH variation in both ...

The anomeric effect has been assigned as being due to hyperconjugation, electrostatic/steric interactions or exchange effects; thus, there is no general consensus about its actual origin. The classical hyperconjugation model, usually investigated using natural bond orbital (NBO) analysis, has been arbitrarily refuted because it would not explain some cases of ...

The NMISA Radioactivity Standards Laboratory participated in the CCRI(II)-S9 inter-comparison of the measurement of the activity concentration of (137)Cs and (40)K in rice material, piloted by the KRISS. The paper describes the equipment used, the measurement set-up and data analysis. The efficiency of the detector for (137)Cs and (40)K was ...

The energy demands of Data Center (DC) worldwide are rapidly increasing, as are their environmental and economic costs. This paper presents a study conducted at Sannazzaro dè Burgondi (Po Valley), Italy, specifically aimed at optimizing the operating conditions of a DC designed for the Italian Oil and Gas Company (ENI) ...

ABSTRACT It has been claimed that an especial skill emerges after massive amounts of basketball practice. Despite this no direct evidence is available to support this claim. The authors aimed to shed light on this question. Thirty-seven male basketball players took part representing four groups: 2 groups of senior players, ...

Abstract We evaluated statistical approaches to facilitate and improve multi-stage designs for clinical proteomic studies which plan to transit from laboratory discovery to clinical utility. To find the design with the greatest expected number of true discoveries under constraints on cost and false discovery, the operating characteristics of the multi-stage ...

OBJECTIVES: This article is a brief commentary in response to "van Leeuwen et al. (Qual Life Res 21:1499-1508, 2012)" METHODS AND RESULTS: The commentary argues that in the context of mixture modeling, assigning individuals to specific subgroups for conducting a secondary set of analyses ignores the original uncertainty in group ...

Ocean acidification and warming are considered two of the greatest threats to marine biodiversity, yet the combined effect of these stressors on marine organisms remains largely unclear. Using a meta-analytical approach, we assessed the biological responses of marine organisms to the effects of ocean acidification and warming in isolation and ...

The group of piecewise projective homeomorphisms of the line provides straightforward torsion-free counterexamples to the so-called von Neumann conjecture. The examples are so simple that many additional properties can be established.

Reports an error in "A further look at the "language-as-fixed-effect fallacy"" by Jeroen G. W. Raaijmakers (Canadian Journal of Experimental Psychology/Revue canadienne de psychologie expérimentale, 2003[Sep], Vol 57[3], 141-151). The corrected version of Table 7 is listed below. The accompanying text on p. 147 should read: "For these data, F' ...

Objectives: The use of organic solvents has been linked to pathologies of different apparatuses. The purpose of this study is to analyze the liver damage induced by organic solvents. Materials and Methods: We analyzed 556 workers, 278 exposed to organic solvents (group 1) and 278 not exposed to organic solvents ...

To investigate the possible changes in material properties of cadaveric abdominal organs due to the preservation methods, the indentation data obtained from porcine abdominal organs (kidney, liver, and spleen) preserved by cooling and freezing are analyzed statistically in this study. Indentation tests were first conducted on fresh specimens. One half ...

This paper has been devoted to the difficulties that practitioners, skilled ergonomists or occupational health experts could find in the assessment of cold environments by means of (insulation required) IREQ model at the base of the (International Standardization Organization) ISO 11079 Standard. The in-depth analysis discussed here has underlined several ...

PURPOSE: Investigating the interaction between particulate matter air pollution (PM) and temperature is important for quantifying the effects of PM on mortality. One approach is stratification-estimating the effect of PM within different temperature strata-but this treats the cutpoints that define the strata as fixed, when in fact they are unknown. ...

ABSTRACT: The lab-scale upflow anaerobic biofilm reactor was successfully operated for the treatment of synthetic wastewater with high nitrogen load by Anammox (anaerobic ammonium oxidation) process. During the entire period of operation, the reactor temperature was kept at 35+/-1[degree sign]C. The operational strategy consisted of both increasing the ammonium and ...

The effects of different pectins on the stabilisation of black currant anthocyanins in viscous model solutions at pH 3.0 were investigated. For this purpose, low esterified amidated (AM), low (LM) and high (HM) methoxylated citrus and apple pectins and a sugar beet pectin were added to a purified anthocyanin extract ...

A distributed adaptation of i-Tree Eco was used to simulate dry deposition in an urban area. This investigation focused on the effects of varying temperature, LAI, and NO(2) concentration inputs on estimated NO(2) dry deposition to trees in Baltimore, MD. A coupled modeling system is described, wherein WRF provided temperature ...

ABSTRACT: BACKGROUND: Automatic recognition of biomedical names is an essential task in biomedical information extraction, presenting several complex and unsolved challenges. In recent years, various solutions have been implemented to tackle this problem. However, limitations regarding system characteristics, customization and usability still hinder their wider application outside text mining research. ...