Performance Evaluation of Packet Mobile Communications through Level Crossing Analysis

In this paper the performance of a packet mobile radio network is studied inthe presence of shadow fading outage intervals.Under quite general assumptions for the medium access protocol,the probability mass function of the sequence of packets that may be lostdue to an outage interval is derived. It is seen that long sequences of lostpackets are likely to occur for typical values of the mobile speed andshadowing correlation parameters.For delay constrained sources, e.g., voice, the analysis is mainly focused atderiving the probability function of the sequence of dropped packetsand the probability of dropping. For data sources, the delay statistic isalso derived. In the latter case, the effect of finite buffer length isaddressed. Simulation is used to verify the accuracy of approximations introduced in the analysis.     

A multivariate classification of individual household census data for Italy

Never before have regional scientists had access to individual census data for an entire country. The paper describes the application of a taxonomic procedure to classify the 15.6 million households identified by the 1971 Italian census. The results are important both for what they reveal about Italian social structure and because they provide a basis for a constructing aggregate census data so that within area variations are retained.     

Toward automatic phenotyping of developing embryos from videos.

We describe a trainable system for analyzing videos of developing C. elegans embryos. The system automatically detects, segments, and locates cells and nuclei in microscopic images. The system was designed as the central component of a fully automated phenotyping system. The system contains three modules 1) a convolutional network trained to classify each pixel into five categories: cell wall, cytoplasm, nucleus membrane, nucleus, outside medium; 2) an energy-based model, which cleans up the output of the convolutional network by learning local consistency constraints that must be satisfied by label images; 3) a set of elastic models of the embryo at various stages of development that are matched to the label images.     

Development of calibration models for quality control in the production of ethylene/propylene copolymers by FTIR spectroscopy,multivariate statistical tools,and artificial neural networks

Principal component regression (PCR), partial least squares (PLS), StepWise ordinary least squares regression (OLS), and back‐propagation artificial neural network (BP‐ANN) are applied here for the determination of the propylene concentration of a set of 83 production samples of ethylene–propylene copolymers from their infrared spectra. The set of available samples was split into (a) a training set, for models calculation; (b) a test set, for selecting the correct number of latent variables in PCR and PLS and the end point of the training phase of BP‐ANN; (c) a production set, for evaluating the predictive ability of the models. The predictive ability of the models is thus evaluated by genuine predictions. The model obtained by StepWise OLS turned out to be the best one, both in fitting and prediction. The study of the breakdown number of samples to be included in the training set showed that at least 52 experiments are necessary to build a reliable and predictive calibration model. It can be concluded that FTIR spectroscopy and OLS can be properly employed for monitoring the synthesis or the final product of ethylene–propylene copolymers, by predicting the concentration of propylene directly along the process line. © 2008 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Appl Polym Sci, 2008     

Surface adsorption of comb polymers by Monte Carlo simulations

This paper reports off-lattice Monte Carlo simulations of highly-branched comb homopolymers weakly adsorbed on a flat, featureless surface showing only covolume and dispersion interactions with the adsorbate. A minimal coarse-grained model, described by hard spheres connected by harmonic springs, was employed. The interaction energy of the adsorbed combs and linear chains is first discussed as a function of the molecular mass and of the number of beads in contact with the surface. The molecular size is then investigated as a function of backbone length and branching density at a fixed arm size. The apparent swelling exponents of the adsorbed combs are larger than those of the corresponding linear chains, and much larger than that of the free molecules. This result indicates a surface-induced stiffening of the comb backbone, further studied through the persistence length l_pers. It is found that l_pers increases upon adsorption over the free-molecule value, more so the larger is the branching density. Finally, the thickness of the adsorbed layer, the surface-induced molecular anisotropy and the molecular aspect ratio are investigated as a function of branching density and molecular mass.     

From real to metaphoric maps: Cartography as a visual language for organizing and sharing knowledge

In this paper we discuss about geographic representations as a basis for describing, organizing, accessing and understanding heterogeneous shared information on the web. Maps are popular on the web, because of the reference to space, the most important domain of human experience, the proliferation of location aware devices and services and the availability of a set of tools that enable an heterogeneous population of users to explore and even modify these representations.Metaphorical maps, representing concepts and relations of a specific knowledge domain with symbols taken from another well known and widely used domain, couple the benefits of cartographic representation with the power and intuitiveness of the metaphor, permitting the communication and sharing of such knowledge.We introduce a classification of maps based on antinomies between real and imaginary worlds, and between direct and metaphoric knowledge; we argue that cartography can be used as a visual language for organizing and sharing knowledge related to different semantic domains, supporting our arguments with examples. Finally, we define a set of functions and related data structures able to support a user in browsing cartographic representations using state-of-art tools and systems available on the web.     

Delay-bounded data gathering in urban vehicular sensor networks

Vehicular sensor networks are an emerging network paradigm, suitable for various applications in vehicular environment making use of vehicles’ sensors as data sources and Inter-Vehicle Communication systems for the transmissions. We present a solution, based on vehicular sensor networks, for gathering data from a certain geographic area while satisfying with a specific delay bound. The method leverages the time interval during which the query is active in order to make the gathering process efficient, properly alternating data muling and multi-hop forwarding strategies like in delay-bounded routing protocols. Simulations show that our proposed solution succeeds in performing efficient data gathering outperforming other solutions.     

Lipofilling in Breast Oncological Surgery: A Safe Opportunity or Risk for Cancer Recurrence?

Lipofilling (LF) is a largely employed technique in reconstructive and esthetic breast surgery. Over the years, it has demonstrated to be extremely useful for treatment of soft tissue defects after demolitive or conservative breast cancer surgery and different procedures have been developed to improve the survival of transplanted fat graft. The regenerative potential of LF is attributed to the multipotent stem cells found in large quantity in adipose tissue. However, a growing body of pre-clinical evidence shows that adipocytes and adipose-derived stromal cells may have pro-tumorigenic potential. Despite no clear indication from clinical studies has demonstrated an increased risk of cancer recurrence upon LF, these observations challenge the oncologic safety of the procedure. This review aims to provide an updated overview of both the clinical and the pre-clinical indications to the suitability and safety of LF in breast oncological surgery. Cellular and molecular players in the crosstalk between adipose tissue and cancer are described, and heterogeneous contradictory results are discussed, highlighting that important issues still remain to be solved to get a clear understanding of LF safety in breast cancer patients.