Two major problems, still associated with the SN1987A, are: (a) the signals observed with the gravitational waves detectors, (b) the duration of the collapse. Indeed, (a) the sensitivity of the ...gravitational wave detectors seems to be small for detecting gravitational waves and, (b) while some experimental data indicate a duration of order of hours, most theories assume that the collapse develops in a few seconds. Since recent data of the X-ray NuSTAR satellite show a clear evidence of an asymmetric collapse, we have revisited the experimental data recorded by the underground and gravitational wave detectors running during the SN1987A. New evidence is shown that confirms previous results, namely that the data recorded by the gravitational wave detectors running in Rome and in Maryland are strongly correlated with the data of both the Mont Blanc and the Kamiokande detectors, and that the correlation extends over a long period of time (1 or 2 h) centered at the Mont Blanc time. This result indicates that also Kamiokande detected neutrinos at the Mont Blanc time, and these interactions were not identified because not grouped in a burst.
SAT-based bounded verification of annotated code consists of translating the code together with the annotations to a propositional formula, and analyzing the formula for specification violations ...using a SAT-solver. If a violation is found, an execution trace exposing the failure is exhibited. Code involving linked data structures with intricate invariants is particularly hard to analyze using these techniques. In this paper, we present Translation of Annotated COde (TACO), a prototype tool which implements a novel, general, and fully automated technique for the SAT-based analysis of JML-annotated Java sequential programs dealing with complex linked data structures. We instrument code analysis with a symmetry-breaking predicate which, on one hand, reduces the size of the search space by ignoring certain classes of isomorphic models and, on the other hand, allows for the parallel, automated computation of tight bounds for Java fields. Experiments show that the translations to propositional formulas require significantly less propositional variables, leading to an improvement of the efficiency of the analysis of orders of magnitude, compared to the noninstrumented SAT--based analysis. We show that in some cases our tool can uncover bugs that cannot be detected by state-of-the-art tools based on SAT-solving, model checking, or SMT-solving.
Melanoma-intrinsic activated β-catenin pathway, the product of the catenin beta 1 (CTNNB1) gene, has been associated with low/absent tumor-infiltrating lymphocytes, accelerated tumor growth, ...metastases development, and resistance to anti-PD-L1/anti-CTLA-4 agents in mouse melanoma models. Little is known about the association between the adenomatous polyposis coli (APC) and CTNNB1 gene mutations in stage IV melanoma with immunotherapy response and overall survival (OS).
We examined the prognostic significance of somatic APC/CTNNB1 mutations in the Cancer Genome Atlas Project for Skin Cutaneous Melanoma (TCGA-SKCM) database. We assessed APC/CTNNB1 mutations as predictors of response to immunotherapies in a clinicopathologically annotated metastatic patient cohort from three US melanoma centers.
In the TCGA-SKCM patient cohort (n = 434) presence of a somatic APC/CTNNB1 mutation was associated with a worse outcome only in stage IV melanoma (n = 82, median OS of APC/CTNNB1 mutants vs. wild-type was 8.15 vs. 22.8 months; log-rank hazard ratio 4.20, p = 0.011). APC/CTNNB1 mutation did not significantly affect lymphocyte distribution and density. In the 3-melanoma institution cohort, tumor tissues underwent targeted panel sequencing using two standards of care assays. We identified 55 patients with stage IV melanoma and APC/CTNNB1 genetic aberrations (mut) and 169 patients without (wt). At a median follow-up of more than 25 months for both groups, mut compared with wt patients had slightly more frequent (44% vs. 39%) and earlier (66% vs. 45% within six months from original diagnosis of stage IV melanoma) development of brain metastases. Nevertheless, time-to-development of brain metastases was not significantly different between the two groups. Fortunately, mut patients had similar clinical benefits from PD-1 inhibitor-based treatments compared to wt patients (median OS 26.1 months vs. 29.9 months, respectively, log-rank p = 0.23). Less frequent mutations in the NF1, RAC1, and PTEN genes were seen in the mut compared with wt patients from the 3-melanoma institution cohort. Analysis of brain melanoma tumor tissues from a separate craniotomy patient cohort (n = 55) showed that melanoma-specific, activated β-catenin (i.e., nuclear localization) was infrequent (n = 3, 6%) and not prognostic in established brain metastases.
APC/CTNNB1 mutations are associated with a worse outcome in stage IV melanoma and early brain metastases independent of tumor-infiltrating lymphocyte density. However, PD1 inhibitor-based treatments provide comparable benefits to both mut and wt patients with stage IV melanoma.
Supernova 1987A, 30 Years Later Galeotti, P.; Pizzella, G.
Physics of atomic nuclei,
01/2018, Letnik:
81, Številka:
1
Journal Article
Recenzirano
Most supernova theories state that this phenomenon lasts for a few seconds and ends with a big final explosion. However, these theories do not take into account several experimental results obtained ...with neutrino and gravitational wave detectors during the explosion of SN 1987A, the only supernova observed in a nearby galaxy in modern age. According to these experimental results the phenomenon is much more complex that envisaged by current theories, and has a duration of several hours. Since recent data of the X-ray NASA Satellite NuSTAR show a clear evidence of an asymmetric collapse, we have revisited the experimental data recorded by some underground and gravitational wave detectors running at the time of SN 1987A. New evidence is shown that confirms the previous results, namely that the data recorded by the gravitational wave detectors running in Rome and in Maryland are strongly correlated with the data of both the LSD (Mont Blanc) and the Kamiokande detectors, and that the correlation extends over a long period of time (one or two hours) centered at the Mont Blanc time. In addition, the signals of the GW detectors preceded the signals of the underground detectors by a time of order of one second. This result, obtained by comparing six independent files of data recorded by four different experiments located at intercontinental distances, indicates that also Kamiokande detected neutrinos at theMont Blanc time, but these interactions were not identified because not grouped in a burst. A similar correlation was also found in the data of the underground experiments in Mont Blanc and Baksan.
ABSTRACT The Large Volume Detector (LVD) has been continuously taking data since 1992 at the INFN Gran Sasso National Laboratory. The LVD is sensitive to neutrino bursts from gravitational stellar ...collapses with full detection probability over the Galaxy. We have searched for neutrino bursts in LVD data taken over 7,335 days of operation. No evidence of neutrino signals has been found between 1992 June and 2013 December. The 90% C.L. upper limit on the rate of core collapse and failed supernova explosions out to distances of 25 kpc is found to be 0.114 yr−1.
Verifiers that can prove programs correct against their full functional specification require, for programs with loops, additional annotations in the form of loop invariants-properties that hold for ...every iteration of a loop. We show that significant loop invariant candidates can be generated by systematically mutating postconditions; then, dynamic checking (based on automatically generated tests) weeds out invalid candidates, and static checking selects provably valid ones. We present a framework that automatically applies these techniques to support a program prover, paving the way for fully automatic verification without manually written loop invariants: Applied to 28 methods (including 39 different loops) from various java.util classes (occasionally modified to avoid using Java features not fully supported by the static checker), our DYNAMATE prototype automatically discharged 97 percent of all proof obligations, resulting in automatic complete correctness proofs of 25 out of the 28 methods-outperforming several state-of-the-art tools for fully automatic verification.
Colour polymorphism in birds: causes and functions Galeotti, P.; Rubolini, D.; Dunn, P. O. ...
Journal of evolutionary biology,
July 2003, 2003-Jul, 2003-07-01, 20030701, Letnik:
16, Številka:
4
Journal Article
Recenzirano
Odprti dostop
We studied polymorphism in all species of birds that are presently known to show intraspecific variation in plumage colour. At least three main mechanisms have been put forward to explain the ...maintenance of polymorphism: apostatic, disruptive and sexual selection. All of them make partly different predictions. Our aims were to investigate evolutionary causes and adaptive functions of colour polymorphism by taking into account a number of ecological and morphological features of polymorphic species. Overall, we found 334 species showing colour polymorphism, which is 3.5% of all bird species. The occurrence of colour polymorphism was very high in Strigiformes, Ciconiiformes, Cuculiformes and Galliformes. Phylogenetically corrected analysis using independent contrasts revealed that colour polymorphism was maximally expressed in species showing a daily activity rhythm extended to day/night, living in both open and closed habitats. All these findings support the hypothesis that colour polymorphism probably evolved under selective pressures linked to bird detectability as affected by variable light conditions during activity period. Thus, we conclude that selective agents may be prey, predators and competitors, and that colour polymorphism in birds may be maintained by disruptive selection.
The correlation between the data obtained with two gravitational wave (GW) detectors (in Rome and in Maryland) and two neutrino detectors (LSD in Italy and Kamiokande in Japan) has been studied in ...more detail. If we indicate with U1 the response of the gravitational wave detectors and with U2 the response of the neutrino detectors, we find that there is a clear time correlation between U1 and U2: namely U2 comes later than U1 by an amount depending on the energy measured in the neutrino detectors (the delay decreases with the detected neutrino energy). A straightforward calculation would yield a mass for the U2 particles between 4 and 6 eV. If one further assumes that the U2 is due to neutrinos whose mass has been evaluated to be less than 0.1 eV (at 90% c.l.), we hazard the idea that a slow down during the neutrinos’ 168 000 light-year travel from SN1987A to Earth could be inferred.
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