LH-moment estimation for statistical analysis on the wave crest distributions of a deepwater spar platform model test

The design of fixed and compliant offshore platforms requires the reliable estimation of extreme values with small probabilities of exceedance based on an appropriate probability distribution. The Weibull distribution is commonly utilised for the statistical analysis of wave crests, including near-field wave run-ups. The parameters are estimated empirically from experimental or onsite measurements. In this paper, the data set of wave crests from a Spar model test was statistically analysed by using the method of LH-moments for parameter estimation of the Weibull distribution. The root-mean-square errors (RMSEs) and the error of LH-kurtosis were used to examine the goodness-of-fit. The results for the first four LH-moments, the estimated parameters, and the probability distributions showed that the level of the LH-moments has a significant influence. At higher levels, the estimation results gave a more focused representation of the upper part of the wave crest distributions, which indicates consistency with the intention of the method of LH-moments. The low tail RMSE values of less than 2.5% demonstrated that a Weibull distribution model estimated by using high-level LH-moments can accurately represent the probability distribution of large extreme wave crests for incident waves, wave run-ups, and moon pool waves. Goodness-of-fit test on the basis of comparison of sampling LH-kurtosis and theoretical LH-kurtosis was recommended as a procedure for selecting an optimum level

A Research on Dimension Reduction Method of Time Series Based on Trend Division

The characteristics of high dimension, complexity and multi granularity of financial time series make it difficult to deal with effectively. In order to solve the problem that the commonly used dimensionality reduction methods cannot reduce the dimensionality of time series with different granularity at the same time, in this paper, a method for dimensionality reduction of time series based on trend division is proposed. This method extracts the extreme value points of time series, identifies the important points in time series quickly and accurately, and compresses them. Experimental results show that, compared with the discrete Fourier transform and wavelet transform, the proposed method can effectively process data of different granularity and different trends on the basis of fully preserving the original information of time series. Moreover, the time complexity is low, the operation is easy, and the proposed method can provide decision support for high-frequency stock trading at the actual level

FTY720 inhibits mesothelioma growth in vitro and in a syngeneic mouse model

Background: Malignant mesothelioma (MM) is a very aggressive type of cancer, with a dismal prognosis and inherent resistance to chemotherapeutics. Development and evaluation of new therapeutic approaches is highly needed. Immunosuppressant FTY720, approved for multiple sclerosis treatment, has recently raised attention for its anti-tumor activity in a variety of cancers. However, its therapeutic potential in MM has not been evaluated yet. Methods: Cell viability and anchorage-independent growth were evaluated in a panel of MM cell lines and human mesothelial cells (HM) upon FTY720 treatment to assess in vitro anti-tumor efficacy. The mechanism of action of FTY720 in MM was assessed by measuring the activity of phosphatase protein 2A (PP2A)-a major target of FTY720. The binding of the endogenous inhibitor SET to PP2A in presence of FTY720 was evaluated by immunoblotting and immunoprecipitation. Signaling and activation of programmed cell death were evaluated by immunoblotting and flow cytometry. A syngeneic mouse model was used to evaluate anti-tumor efficacy and toxicity profile of FTY720 in vivo. Results: We show that FTY720 significantly suppressed MM cell viability and anchorage-independent growth without affecting normal HM cells. FTY720 inhibited the phosphatase activity of PP2A by displacement of SET protein, which appeared overexpressed in MM, as compared to HM cells. FTY720 promoted AKT dephosphorylation and Bcl-2 degradation, leading to induction of programmed cell death, as demonstrated by caspase-3 and PARP activation, as well as by cytochrome c and AIF intracellular translocation. Moreover, FTY720 administration in vivo effectively reduced tumor burden in mice without apparent toxicity. Conclusions: Our preclinical data indicate that FTY720 is a potentially promising therapeutic agent for MM treatment

Flow prediction meets flow learning : combining different learning strategies for computing the optical flow

Optical flow estimation is an important topic in computer vision. The goal is to computethe inter-frame displacement field between two consecutive frames of an image sequence. In practice, optical flow estimation plays a significant role in multiple application domains including autonomous driving and medical imaging. Different categories of methods exist for solving the optical flow problem. The most common technique is based on a variational framework, where an energy functional is designed and minimized in order to calculate the optical flow. Recently, other approaches like pipeline-based approach and learning-based approach also attract much attention. Despite the great advances achieved by these algorithms, it is still difficult to find an algorithm that can perform well under all the challenges, e.g. lightning changes, large displacements, and occlusions. Hence, it is worth combining different algorithms to create a new approach that can combine their advantages. Inspired by this idea, in this thesis we select two top-performing algorithms PWC-Net and ProFlow as candidate approaches and conduct a combination of these two algorithms. While PWC-Net performs generally well in the estimation of non-occluded areas, ProFlow can especially provide an accurate estimation for the occluded areas. Thereby, we expect that the combination of these two algorithms can yield an algorithm that performs well in both occluded and non-occluded areas. Since ProFlow is a pipeline approach, we first integrate the PWC-Net in the ProFlow pipeline, then evaluate the new created pipeline PWC-ProFlow based on the MPI Sintel and KITTI 2015 benchmarks. Contrary to our expectations, the newly created algorithm does not exceed the candidate methods PWC-Net and ProFlow on either benchmark. Through the analysis of the evaluation results, we explore the problems hidden in the PWC-ProFlow pipeline that can lead to its underperformance, and organize some modification ideas. Based on these ideas, we propose six new pipelines with the purpose of improving the estimation accuracy of PWC-ProFlow. All the new generated pipelines are also evaluated on the Sintel and KITTI benchmarks. The experiment results demonstrate that all the modifications created achieve great improvements on both datasets compared to PWC-ProFlow. Further, all of them also outperform the ProFlow pipeline on both benchmarks. Compared to PWC-Net, one modification exceeds PWC-Net on the KITTI dataset, however, all our modifications achieve a better performance on the Sintel dataset, in particular, one modification presents a significant improvement with a more than 10% lower average endpoint error on the Sintel dataset

Studi Potensi Jumlah Penumpang Bus Pemadu Moda Rute Malang – Bandar Udara Juanda Pp

Bandar Udara Malang yang belum melayani banyak tujuan penerbangan membuat pengguna moda pesawat memilih Bandar Udara Juanda. Disisi lain angkutan yang melayani rute Malang-Juanda PP hanya angkutan travel. Untuk itu dibutuhkan moda lain yang lebih ekonomis dan memiliki kapasitas lebih banyak dibandingkan angkutan travel. Bus pemadu moda adalah moda alternatif yang dapat memenuhi kebutuhan tersebut.Pengumpulan data dilakukan dengan penyebaran kuisioner karakteristik sosial-ekonomi, karakteristik perjalanan serta kuisioner dengan teknik penyusunan stated preference. Stated preference memiliki atribut biaya perjalanan, waktu tempuh dan frekuensi keberangkatan. Sedangkan untuk prediksi tarif bus pemadu moda yang direncanakan diperoleh dari perhitungan BOK. Tarif yang telah diperoleh dari perhitungan BOK dibandingkan dengan nilai ATP dan WTP yang diperoleh dari kuisioner yang telah disebarkan. Sehingga didapatkan tarif ideal yang akan diberlakukan apabila bus pemadu moda tersebut direalisasikan.Setelah melakukan perhitungan tarif berdasarkan BOK diperoleh tarif sebesar Rp 23.374,- serta berdasarkan ATP dan WTP diperoleh tarif sebesar Rp 43.675,-. Dengan demikian perkiraan awal tarif bus pemadu moda sebesar Rp 40.000,- dapat diberlakukan. Hasil dari pemodelan pemilihan moda dengan metode stated preference untuk selisih biaya perjalanan Malang-Juanda: dan Juanda-Malang : , untuk selisih waktu tempuh perjalanan () rute Malang-Juanda : dan rute Juanda-Malang : , sedangkan untuk selisih Frekuensi Keberangkatan () rute Malang-Juanda : dan rute Juanda-Malang : .Potensi perpindahan pengguna travel ke bus pemadu moda rute Malang-Juanda sebanyak 705 orang per hari (83,97%). Sedangkan untuk rute Juanda-Malang sebanyak 1516 orang per hari (90,24%)

Motor neuron apoptosis and neuromuscular junction perturbation are prominent features in a Drosophila model of Fus-mediated ALS

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Backgound</p> <p>Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) is progressive neurodegenerative disease characterized by the loss of motor function. Several ALS genes have been identified as their mutations can lead to familial ALS, including the recently reported RNA-binding protein fused in sarcoma (Fus). However, it is not clear how mutations of Fus lead to motor neuron degeneration in ALS. In this study, we present a <it>Drosophila </it>model to examine the toxicity of Fus, its <it>Drosophila </it>orthologue Cabeza (Caz), and the ALS-related Fus mutants.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Our results show that the expression of wild-type Fus/Caz or FusR521G induced progressive toxicity in multiple tissues of the transgenic flies in a dose- and age-dependent manner. The expression of Fus, Caz, or FusR521G in motor neurons significantly impaired the locomotive ability of fly larvae and adults. The presynaptic structures in neuromuscular junctions were disrupted and motor neurons in the ventral nerve cord (VNC) were disorganized and underwent apoptosis. Surprisingly, the interruption of Fus nuclear localization by either deleting its nuclear localization sequence (NLS) or adding a nuclear export signal (NES) blocked Fus toxicity. Moreover, we discovered that the loss of <it>caz </it>in <it>Drosophila </it>led to severe growth defects in the eyes and VNCs, caused locomotive disability and NMJ disruption, but did not induce apoptotic cell death.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>These data demonstrate that the overexpression of Fus/Caz causes <it>in vivo </it>toxicity by disrupting neuromuscular junctions (NMJs) and inducing apoptosis in motor neurons. In addition, the nuclear localization of Fus is essential for Fus to induce toxicity. Our findings also suggest that Fus overexpression and gene deletion can cause similar degenerative phenotypes but the underlying mechanisms are likely different.</p

Motor neuron apoptosis and neuromuscular junction perturbation are prominent features in a \u3cem\u3eDrosophila\u3c/em\u3e model of Fus-mediated ALS

BACKGROUND: Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) is progressive neurodegenerative disease characterized by the loss of motor function. Several ALS genes have been identified as their mutations can lead to familial ALS, including the recently reported RNA-binding protein fused in sarcoma (Fus). However, it is not clear how mutations of Fus lead to motor neuron degeneration in ALS. In this study, we present a Drosophila model to examine the toxicity of Fus, its Drosophila orthologue Cabeza (Caz), and the ALS-related Fus mutants. RESULTS: Our results show that the expression of wild-type Fus/Caz or FusR521G induced progressive toxicity in multiple tissues of the transgenic flies in a dose- and age-dependent manner. The expression of Fus, Caz, or FusR521G in motor neurons significantly impaired the locomotive ability of fly larvae and adults. The presynaptic structures in neuromuscular junctions were disrupted and motor neurons in the ventral nerve cord (VNC) were disorganized and underwent apoptosis. Surprisingly, the interruption of Fus nuclear localization by either deleting its nuclear localization sequence (NLS) or adding a nuclear export signal (NES) blocked Fus toxicity. Moreover, we discovered that the loss of caz in Drosophila led to severe growth defects in the eyes and VNCs, caused locomotive disability and NMJ disruption, but did not induce apoptotic cell death. CONCLUSIONS: These data demonstrate that the overexpression of Fus/Caz causes in vivo toxicity by disrupting neuromuscular junctions (NMJs) and inducing apoptosis in motor neurons. In addition, the nuclear localization of Fus is essential for Fus to induce toxicity. Our findings also suggest that Fus overexpression and gene deletion can cause similar degenerative phenotypes but the underlying mechanisms are likely different

Consensus Report of the 2015 Weinman International Conference on Mesothelioma.

On November 9 and 10, 2015, the International Conference on Mesothelioma in Populations Exposed to Naturally Occurring Asbestiform Fibers was held at the University of Hawaii Cancer Center in Honolulu, Hawaii. The meeting was cosponsored by the International Association for the Study of Lung Cancer, and the agenda was designed with significant input from staff at the U.S. National Cancer Institute and National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences. A multidisciplinary group of participants presented updates reflecting a range of disciplinary perspectives, including mineralogy, geology, epidemiology, toxicology, biochemistry, molecular biology, genetics, public health, and clinical oncology. The group identified knowledge gaps that are barriers to preventing and treating malignant mesothelioma (MM) and the required next steps to address barriers. This manuscript reports the group's efforts and focus on strategies to limit risk to the population and reduce the incidence of MM. Four main topics were explored: genetic risk, environmental exposure, biomarkers, and clinical interventions. Genetics plays a critical role in MM when the disease occurs in carriers of germline BRCA1 associated protein 1 mutations. Moreover, it appears likely that, in addition to BRCA1 associated protein 1, other yet unknown genetic variants may also influence the individual risk for development of MM, especially after exposure to asbestos and related mineral fibers. MM is an almost entirely preventable malignancy as it is most often caused by exposure to commercial asbestos or mineral fibers with asbestos-like health effects, such as erionite. In the past in North America and in Europe, the most prominent source of exposure was related to occupation. Present regulations have reduced occupational exposure in these countries; however, some people continue to be exposed to previously installed asbestos in older construction and other settings. Moreover, an increasing number of people are being exposed in rural areas that contain noncommercial asbestos, erionite, and other mineral fibers in soil or rock (termed naturally occurring asbestos [NOA]) and are being developed. Public health authorities, scientists, residents, and other affected groups must work together in the areas where exposure to asbestos, including NOA, has been documented in the environment to mitigate or reduce this exposure. Although a blood biomarker validated to be effective for use in screening and identifying MM at an early stage in asbestos/NOA-exposed populations is not currently available, novel biomarkers presented at the meeting, such as high mobility group box 1 and fibulin-3, are promising. There was general agreement that current treatment for MM, which is based on surgery and standard chemotherapy, has a modest effect on the overall survival (OS), which remains dismal. Additionally, although much needed novel therapeutic approaches for MM are being developed and explored in clinical trials, there is a critical need to invest in prevention research, in which there is a great opportunity to reduce the incidence and mortality from MM