Search results for "N.I.H."

Effects of the filter-feeding benthic bivalve corbicula fluminea on plankton community and water quality in aquatic ecosystems: A mesocosm study

2021

The influence of filter-feeding bivalves on plankton communities, nutrients, and water quality in a given aquatic ecosystem is so profound that they can be considered ecosystem engineers. In a 70-day mesocosm experiment, we tested the hypothesis that Corbicula fluminea would change plankton community structure by reducing small zooplankton and large phytoplankton and improve water quality by reducing nutrients. We monitored levels of nitrogen and phosphorus, organic suspended solids (OSS), and light at the sediment surface. Within the plankton, phytoplankton biomass (as Chl a, &gt

Direct exposure to solar radiation causes radial growth eccentricity at the beginning of the growing season in Robinia pseudoacacia

2020

Abstract Our study investigated the effect of stem temperature increase on xylem formation in Robinia pseudoacacia tree-trunks, caused by direct exposure to solar radiation. It is important to determine factors which may improve the concentricity of deposited wood tissue and intensify xylogenesis because a strong irregularity of wood tissue deposited in the radial direction in mature trees of R. pseudoacacia reduces the commercial value of the wood. Samples of vascular cambium along with adjacent tissues were collected from the southern (illuminated) and northern (shaded) side of tree-trunks growing in the inner and peripheral (thus exposed to direct sunlight) zones of the research plot. Sa…

Automatic Profiling of Open-Ended Survey Data on Medical Workplace Teaching

2019

On-the-job medical training is known to be challenging due to the fast-paced environment and strong vocational profile. It relies on on-site supervisors, mainly doctors and nurses with long practical experience, who coach and teach their less experienced colleagues, such as residents and healthcare students. These supervisors receive pedagogical training to ensure that their guidance and teaching skills are constantly improved. The aim of such training is to develop participants’ patient, collegiate and student guidance skills in a multiprofessional environment, and to expand their understanding of guidance as part of their work as supervisors of healthcare professionals. In this paper, we …

Large multiple neighborhood search for the soft-clustered vehicle-routing problem

2021

Abstract The soft-clustered vehicle-routing problem (SoftCluVRP) is a variant of the classical capacitated vehicle-routing problem. Customers are partitioned into clusters and all customers of the same cluster must be served by the same vehicle. In this paper, we present a large multiple neighborhood search for the SoftCluVRP. We design and analyze multiple cluster destroy and repair operators as well as two post-optimization components, which are both based on variable neighborhood descent. The first allows inter-route exchanges of complete clusters, while the second searches for intra-route improvements by combining classical neighborhoods (2-opt, Or-opt, double-bridge) and the Balas-Simo…

K-nearest neighbor driving active contours to delineate biological tumor volumes

2019

Abstract An algorithm for tumor delineation in positron emission tomography (PET) is presented. Segmentation is achieved by a local active contour algorithm, integrated and optimized with the k-nearest neighbor (KNN) classification method, which takes advantage of the stratified k-fold cross-validation strategy. The proposed approach is evaluated considering the delineation of cancers located in different body districts (i.e. brain, head and neck, and lung), and considering different PET radioactive tracers. Data are pre-processed in order to be expressed in terms of standardized uptake value, the most widely used PET quantification index. The algorithm uses an initial, operator selected re…

Iterated greedy with variable neighborhood search for a multiobjective waste collection problem

2020

Abstract In the last few years, the application of decision making to logistic problems has become crucial for public and private organizations. Efficient decisions clearly contribute to improve operational aspects such as cost reduction or service improvement. The particular case of waste collection service considered in this paper involves a set of economic, labor and environmental issues that translate into difficult operational problems. They pose a challenge to nowadays optimization technologies since they have multiple constraints and multiple objectives that may be in conflict. We therefore need to resort to multiobjective approaches to model and solve this problem, providing efficie…

Improving the performance of embedded systems with variable neighborhood search

2017

Graphical abstractDisplay Omitted Embedded systems have become an essential part of our lives, mainly due to the evolution of technology in the last years. However, the power consumption of these devices is one of their most important drawbacks. It has been proven that an efficient use of the memory of the device also improves its energy performance. This work efficiently solves the dynamic memory allocation problem, which can be formally defined as follows: given a program that has to be executed by a circuit, the objective is to fit that program in memory in such a way that the computing time required to execute it is minimized. In this work, we propose a parallel variable neighborhood se…

Noninvasive Ventilation and Outcomes Among Immunocompromised Patients

2016

Consequences of single-locus and tightly linked genomic architectures for evolutionary responses to environmental change

2020

AbstractGenetic and genomic architectures of traits under selection are key factors influencing evolutionary responses. Yet, knowledge of their impacts has been limited by a widespread assumption that most traits are controlled by unlinked polygenic architectures. Recent advances in genome sequencing and eco-evolutionary modelling are unlocking the potential for integrating genomic information into predictions of population responses to environmental change. Using eco-evolutionary simulations, we demonstrate that hypothetical single-locus control of a life history trait produces highly variable and unpredictable harvesting-induced evolution relative to the classically applied multi-locus mo…

Right inferior frontal gyrus implements motor inhibitory control via beta-band oscillations in humans

2021

Motor inhibitory control implemented as response inhibition is an essential cognitive function required to dynamically adapt to rapidly changing environments. Despite over a decade of research on the neural mechanisms of response inhibition, it remains unclear, how exactly response inhibition is initiated and implemented. Using a multimodal MEG/fMRI approach in 59 subjects, our results reliably reveal that response inhibition is initiated by the right inferior frontal gyrus (rIFG) as a form of attention-independent top-down control that involves the modulation of beta-band activity. Furthermore, stopping performance was predicted by beta-band power, and beta-band connectivity was directed f…