Diffraction d’ondes acoustiques de surface sur divers substrats présentant des discontinuités a 90ℴ

Annals of Telecommunications - Les auteurs présentent une méthode numérique, basée sur les différences finies, permettant de caractériser le comportement d’une...     

X‐ray Structures and Feasibility Assessment of CLK2 Inhibitors for Phelan–McDermid Syndrome

CLK2 inhibition has been proposed as a potential mechanism to improve autism and neuronal functions in Phelan–McDermid syndrome (PMDS). Herein, the discovery of a very potent indazole CLK inhibitor series and the CLK2 X‐ray structure of the most potent analogue are reported. This new indazole series was identified through a biochemical CLK2 Caliper assay screen with 30k compounds selected by an in silico approach. Novel high‐resolution X‐ray structures of all CLKs, including the first CLK4 X‐ray structure, bound to known CLK2 inhibitor tool compounds (e.g., TG003, CX‐4945), are also shown and yield insight into inhibitor selectivity in the CLK family. The efficacy of the new CLK2 inhibitors from the indazole series was demonstrated in the mouse brain slice assay, and potential safety concerns were investigated. Genotoxicity findings in the human lymphocyte micronucleus test (MNT) assay are shown by using two structurally different CLK inhibitors to reveal a major concern for pan‐CLK inhibition in PMDS.     

Cost analysis of object-oriented bytecode programs

Cost analysis statically approximates the cost of programs in terms of their input data size. This paper presents, to the best of our knowledge, the first approach to the automatic cost analysis of object-oriented bytecode programs. In languages such as Java and C#, analyzing bytecode has a much wider application area than analyzing source code since the latter is often not available. Cost analysis in this context has to consider, among others, dynamic dispatch, jumps, the operand stack, and the heap. Our method takes a bytecode program and a cost model specifying the resource of interest, and generates cost relations which approximate the execution cost of the program with respect to such resource. We report on COSTA, an implementation for Java bytecode which can obtain upper bounds on cost for a large class of programs and complexity classes. Our basic techniques can be directly applied to infer cost relations for other object-oriented imperative languages, not necessarily in bytecode form.     

Quasi-LPV modeling,identification and control of a twin rotor MIMO system

This paper describes the quasi-linear parameter varying (quasi-LPV) modeling, identification and control of a Twin Rotor MIMO System (TRMS). The non-linear model of the TRMS is transformed into a quasi-LPV system and approximated in a polytopic way. The unknown model parameters have been calibrated by means of the non-linear least squares identification approach and validated against real data. Finally, an LPV state observer and state-feedback controller have been designed using an LPV pole placement method based on LMI regions. The effectiveness and performance of the proposed control approach have been proved both in simulation and on the real set-up.     

An LMI approach to robust fault estimation for a class of nonlinear systems

The paper presents a robust fault estimation approach for a class of nonlinear discrete‐time systems. In particular, two sources of uncertainty are present in the considered class of systems, that is, an unknown input and an exogenous external disturbance. Thus, apart from simultaneous state and fault estimation, the objective is to decouple the effect of an unknown input while minimizing the influence of the exogenous external disturbance within the framework. The resulting design procedure guarantees that a prescribed disturbance attenuation level is achieved with respect to the state and fault estimation error while assuring the convergence of the observer. The core advantage of the proposed approach is its simplicity by reducing the fault estimation problem to matrix inequalities formulation. In addition, the design conditions ensure the convergence of the observer with guaranteed performance. The effectiveness of the proposed approach is demonstrated by its application to a twin rotor multiple‐input multiple‐output system. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

A CUDA-powered method for the feature extraction and unsupervised analysis of medical images

The Journal of Supercomputing - Image texture extraction and analysis are fundamental steps in computer vision. In particular, considering the biomedical field, quantitative imaging methods are...     

Juvenile chronic myelogenous leukemia: report of the Italian Registry. Associazione Italiana di Ematologia Oncologia Pediatrica (AIEOP)

BACKGROUND: Since juvenile chronic myeloid leukemia (JCML) represents no more than 2% of leukemia in children, clinical and investigative experience of this disorder has been limited. In order to evaluate the diagnostic criteria currently applied, to provide centralized facilities for blood culture and to collect data on treatment, and to propose a uniform treatment protocol in our country, a National Registry for JCML was recently established in the "Associazione Italiana di Ematologia Oncologia Pediatrica" (AIEOP). PATIENTS: Out of the 24 cases reported from 9/35 centres, 22 were considered sufficiently documented and were enrolled in the Registry. Clonogenic assay on marrow and peripheral blood cells was performed in all available cases. RESULTS: Common features were non-specific clinical (fever, splenomegaly, hepatomegaly, lymphadenomegaly) and hematologic alterations (anemia, thrombocytopenia, leukocytosis usually < 50 x 10(9)/l, monocytosis, circulating immature granulocytes, increased HbF, normal karyotype). In 11 out of 11 cases, in vitro blood cultures showed the spontaneous growth of CFU-C in the absence of any exogenous source of colony-stimulating activity. Twelve of the 22 patients (55%) are alive (probability of survival 47.7%); most patients were treated according to an acute myeloid leukemia-directed schedule; 5/7 children treated with interferon were alive with disease after a median time of 29 months from diagnosis (range 8-95 months); 4/5 children who underwent bone marrow transplantation were alive in complete remission 10, 24, 42 and 118 months, after the diagnosis. Age < 1 year at presentation was the most significant prognostic factor in terms of probability of survival (80% vs 28%; p = 0.0024). CONCLUSIONS: JCML must be considered in young children for whom acute leukemia has been suspected but ruled out; in vitro cultures should be considered mandatory to confirm the diagnosis. Age less than one year at the presentation was associated with prolonged survival. Only bone marrow transplantation was followed by prolonged disease-free survival, whereas intensive chemotherapy seemed not very effective and potentially associated with life-threatening complications. Interferon therapy appears to be a promising alternative to chemotherapy while the value of unrelated marrow donor is explored.