Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Deletion of an African Swine Fever Virus ATP-Dependent RNA Helicase QP509L from the Highly Virulent Georgia 2010 Strain Does Not Affect Replication or Virulence

African swine fever virus (ASFV) produces a lethal disease (ASF) in domestic pigs, which is currently causing a pandemic deteriorating pig production across Eurasia. ASFV is a large and structurally complex virus with a large genome harboring more than 150 genes. ASFV gene QP509L has been shown to encode for an ATP-dependent RNA helicase, which appears to be important for efficient virus replication. Here, we report the development of a recombinant virus, ASFV-G-∆QP509L, having deleted the QP509L gene in the highly virulent field isolate ASFV Georgia 2010 (ASFV-G). It is shown that ASFV-G-∆QP509L replicates in primary swine macrophage cultures as efficiently as the parental virus ASFV-G. In addition, the experimental inoculation of pigs with 102 HAD50 by the intramuscular route produced a slightly protracted but lethal clinical disease when compared to that of animals inoculated with virulent parental ASFV-G. Viremia titers in animals infected with ASFV-G-∆QP509L also had slightly protracted kinetics of presentation. Therefore, ASFV gene QP509L is not critical for the processes of virus replication in swine macrophages, nor is it clearly involved in virus replication and virulence in domestic pigs.
NLO QCD Predictions for $Wb\bar b$ Production in Association with up to Three Light Jets at the LHC

In this article we present the next-to-leading order QCD predictions for Wbb¯+n-jet (n=0, 1, 2, 3) production at the Large Hadron Collider with s=13 TeV. We work in the four-flavor number scheme with a nonvanishing bottom-quark mass and include all subprocesses at leading electroweak order as well as all heavy-fermion-loop effects. We show the impact of QCD corrections for total as well as differential cross sections and make an assessment of theoretical uncertainties of Wbb¯ production viewed as an irreducible background to H(→bb¯)W studies. For the calculations we have employed an upgraded version of the BlackHat library which can handle massive fermions in combination with SHERPA. Our results can be explored through publicly available n-tuple sets.
Resolved Structure in the Nuclear Region of the Ultraluminous Infrared Galaxy Markarian 273

We have studied the core morphology of the ultraluminous infrared galaxy Mrk 273 by combining a high-resolution adaptive optics near-infrared image with an optical image from the Hubble Space Telescope and interferometric radio continuum data, all at spatial resolutions of 150 mas or better. The near-infrared image reveals that the nucleus has two main components, both of which have radio counterparts. The strongest component (N) shows very similar extended structure in the radio and near-infrared. It has a flat radio spectrum and is resolved into a double-lobed structure (Ne; Nw), with a separation of 90±5 mas (70 pc). A similar structure is detected in the near-infrared. We identify this component as the location of the active nucleus. The second component (SW), strong in the near-infrared but relatively weak in the radio, is located ~1'' to the southwest. We interpret this as an obscured starburst region associated with the merger. The radio continuum images show a third, strong, component (SE) that has previously been interpreted as a second nucleus. However, it shows no associated optical or near-infrared emission, which suggests that it is in fact a background source.
Lagrangian evolution of the invariants of the velocity gradient tensor in a turbulent boundary layer

Lagrangian mean evolution of the invariants of the velocity gradient tensor in different regions of a turbulent boundary layer is investigated using data from a direct numerical simulation of a zero pressure gradient turbulent boundary layer. Conditional mean trajectories (CMTs) are calculated for the evolution of invariants based on their mean rate of change, conditioned on their location in the (RA, QA) plane, which determines the focal or non-focal nature of flow at that point. CMTs are calculated over a larger range of gradients than previously reported boundary layer measurements and show a distinct difference in topological evolution depending on the resolution and the range of invariants considered. In the present case, CMTs for strong gradients in all regions of the boundary layer pass around a focus at the origin and asymptote towards the right-hand side of a saddle point located near the right-hand side of the line dividing unstable focal and unstable nodal structures, consistent with viscous di.
Field theoretical interpretation on dynamics of plastic deformation - Portevin-Le Chatelie effect and propagation of shear band

The shear band and associated stress relaxation classically known as the Portevin-Le Chatelie effect is considered based on physical mesomechanics, a recent field theory on plastic deformation and fracture. Using the mathematical analogy to the Maxwell's electromagnetic theory, the field theoretical meanings of various properties of plastic deformation are considered. For more intuitive understanding, a simple, two-dimensional spring-mass model is introduced. Along these considerations, interpretations are given to various experimental observations, in which the shear band is detected as an optical interferometric band structure. The results of this investigation are consistent with our previous identification of the optical band structure as a current associated with symmetry.
IR-safe and UV-safe integrands in the EFTofLSS with exact time dependence

Because large-scale structure surveys may very well be the next leading sources of cosmological information, it is important to have a precise understanding of the cosmological observables; for this reason, the Effective Field Theory of Large-Scale Structure (EFTofLSS) was developed. So far, most results in the EFTofLSS have used the so-called Einstein-de Sitter approximation, an approximation of the time dependence which is known to be accurate to better than one percent. However, in order to reach even higher accuracy, the full time dependence must be used. The computation with exact time dependence is sensitive to both infrared (IR) and ultraviolet (UV) effects in the loop integrands, and while these effects must cancel because of diffeomorphism invariance, they make numerical computation much less efficient. We provide a formulation of the one-loop, equal-time exact-time-dependence power spectrum of density perturbations which is manifestly free of these spurious IR and UV divergences at the level of the integrand. We extend our results to the total matter mode with clustering quintessence, show that IR and UV divergences cancel, and provide the associated IR- and UV-safe integrand. This also establishes that the consistency conditions are satisfied in this system. We then use our one-loop result to do an improved precision comparison of the two-loop dark-matter power spectrum with the Dark Sky N-body simulation.
The statistical challenge of constraining the low-mass IMF in local group dwarf galaxies

We use Monte Carlo simulations to explore the statistical challenges of constraining the characteristic mass ($m_c$) and width ($\sigma$) of a lognormal sub-solar initial mass function (IMF) in Local Group dwarf galaxies using direct star counts. For a typical Milky Way (MW) satellite ($M_{V} = -8$), jointly constraining $m_c$ and $\sigma$ to a precision of $\lesssim 20\%$ requires that observations be complete to $\lesssim 0.2 M_{\odot}$, if the IMF is similar to the MW IMF. A similar statistical precision can be obtained if observations are only complete down to $0. 4M_{\odot}$, but this requires measurement of nearly 100$\times$ more stars, and thus, a significantly more massive satellite ($M_{V} \sim -12$). In the absence of sufficiently deep data to constrain the low-mass turnover, it is common practice to fit a single-sloped power law to the low-mass IMF, or to fit $m_c$ for a lognormal while holding $\sigma$ fixed. We show that the former approximation leads to best-fit power law slopes that vary with the mass range observed and can largely explain existing claims of low-mass IMF variations in MW satellites, even if satellite galaxies have the same IMF as the MW. In addition, fixing $\sigma$ during fitting leads to substantially underestimated uncertainties in the recovered value of $m_c$ (by a factor of $\sim 4$ for typical observations). If the IMFs of nearby dwarf galaxies are lognormal and do vary, observations must reach down to $\sim m_c$ in order to robustly detect these variations. The high-sensitivity, near-infrared capabilities of JWST and WFIRST have the potential to dramatically improve constraints on the low-mass IMF. We present an efficient observational strategy for using these facilities to measure the IMFs of Local Group dwarf galaxies.
An Interesting Episode of Accretion Activity in UX Orionis

This paper presents observations of an episode of accretion activity in the pre-main-sequence star UX Ori. High-velocity, redshifted absorption is seen in several lines of H, Ca II, Na I, and Fe II during an interval of eight nights in the fall of 1996 with similar velocity and time evolution. A non-LTE analysis of the line optical depths shows that the infalling gas cannot be heavily hydrogen-depleted, as would be expected if it was produced by the evaporation of a solid body of chemical composition similar to solar system comets. On the contrary, the observations are consistent with gas of solar chemical composition at temperature ~6000-7000 K.
Room-Temperature Operation of Optically Pumped Blue-Violet GaN-Based Vertical-Cavity Surface-Emitting Lasers Fabricated by Laser Lift-Off

Room-temperature optically pumped GaN-based vertical-cavity surface-emitting lasers (VCSELs) were demonstrated by laser lift-off. A VCSEL was fabricated by combining a GaN-based cavity with two dielectric distributed Bragg reflectors: SiO2/TiO2 and SiO2/Ta2O5. The Q factor of the VCSEL is 518 indicating a good interfacial layer quality of the structure. The laser emits blue-violet wavelength light at 414 nm under optical pumping at room temperature with a threshold pumping energy of 270 nJ. The laser emission has a narrow linewidth of 0.25 nm and a degree of polarization of 70%. The laser emission patterns clearly indicate a vertical lasing action of the VCSEL.
Weakly Broken Galileon Symmetry in Cosmology

In the present thesis, using an effective field theory point of view, we explore theories of single-field inflation where higher derivative operators become relevant, affecting in a novel way the dynamics and therefore the observations. For instance, concerning the scalar spectrum, they allow for measurable equilateral non-Gaussianity, whose amplitude can differ significantly from the predictions of other existing models. Moreover, we show that the stability and the consistency of such theories are ensured by an approximate Galileon symmetry. Indeed, being generically possible to build an invariant theory under Galileon transformations in flat space-time, it is instead well known that such a symmetry is unavoidably broken by gravity. In principle, this might ruin the nice and interesting properties of the Galileons in flat backgrounds, such as the non-renormalization theorem. However, we find that this does not happen if the Galileon invariance is broken only weakly, in a well defined sense, by a suitable coupling to gravity, providing therefore an extension of the quantum non-renormalization properties in curved space-times. Hence, besides discussing the phenomenological consequences and the observational predictions for inflation, we apply such Galileon theories to the context of the late-time acceleration of the Universe. In the last part, in order to probe non-standard primordial scenarios, they are also employed in a cosmology where the Big Bang singularity is smoothed down and the Universe emerges from a Minkowski space-time, in a well defined extension at all times of the Galilean Genesis scenario.
Thermodynamic equilibrium with acceleration and the Unruh effect

We address the problem of thermodynamic equilibrium with constant acceleration along the velocity field lines in a quantum relativistic statistical mechanics framework. We show that for a free scalar quantum field, after vacuum subtraction, all mean values vanish when the local temperature $T$ is as low as the Unruh temperature ${T}_{U}=A/2\ensuremath{\pi}$ where $A$ is the magnitude of the acceleration four-vector. We argue that the Unruh temperature is an absolute lower bound for the temperature of any accelerated fluid at global thermodynamic equilibrium. We discuss the conditions of this bound to be applicable in a local thermodynamic equilibrium situation.
Molecular gas and star formation in an absorption-selected galaxy: Hitting the bull’s eye at z ≃ 2.46

We present the detection and detailed analysis of a diffuse molecular cloud at zabs = 2.4636 towards the quasar SDSS J 1513+0352 (zem ≃ 2.68) observed with the X-shooter spectrograph at the Very Large Telescope. We measured very high column densities of atomic and molecular hydrogen with log N(H I, H2) ≃ 21.8, 21.3. This is the highest H2 column density ever measured in an intervening damped Lyman-α system but we did not detect CO, implying log N(CO)/N(H2) < −7.8, which could be due to a low metallicity of the cloud. From the metal absorption lines, we derived the metallicity to be Z ≃ 0.15 Z⊙ and determined the amount of dust by measuring the induced extinction of the background quasar light, AV ≃ 0.4. We simultaneously detected Lyman-α emission at the same redshift with a centroid located at a most probable impact parameter of only ρ ≃ 1.4 kpc. We argue that the line of sight is therefore likely passing through the interstellar medium (ISM), as opposed to the circumgalactic medium (CGM), of a galaxy. The relation between the surface density of gas and that of star formation seems to follow the global empirical relation derived in the nearby Universe although our constraints on the star formation rate (SFR) and the galaxy extent remain too loose to be conclusive. We study the transition from atomic to molecular hydrogen using a theoretical description based on the microphysics of molecular hydrogen. We use the derived chemical properties of the cloud and physical conditions (Tk ≃ 90 K and n ≃ 250 cm−3) derived through the excitation of H2 rotational levels and neutral carbon fine structure transitions to constrain the fundamental parameters that govern this transition. By comparing the theoretical and observed H I column densities, we are able to bring an independent constraint on the incident ultra-violet (UV) flux, which we find to be in agreement with that estimated from the observed SFR.
Metallicity of the Intergalactic Medium Using Pixel Statistics. III. Silicon

We study the abundance of silicon in the intergalactic medium by analyzing the statistics of Si IV, C IV, and H I pixel optical depths in a sample of 19 high-quality quasar absorption spectra, which we compare with realistic spectra drawn from a hydrodynamical simulation. Simulations with a constant and uniform Si/C ratio, a C distribution as derived in Paper II of this series, and a UV background (UVB) model from Haardt & Madau reproduce the observed trends in the ratio of Si IV and C IV optical depths, τ/τ. The ratio τ/τ depends strongly on τ, but it is nearly independent of redshift for fixed τ and is inconsistent with a sharp change in the hardness of the UVB at z ≈ 3. Scaling the simulated optical depth ratios gives a measurement of the global Si/C ratio (using our fiducial UVB, which includes both galaxy and quasar contributions) of = 0.77 ± 0.05, with a possible systematic error of ~0.1 dex. The inferred [Si/C] depends on the shape of the UVB (harder backgrounds leading to higher [Si/C]), ranging from ≃ 1.5 for a quasar-only UVB to ≃ 0.25 for a UVB including both galaxies and artificial softening; this provides the dominant uncertainty in the overall [Si/C]. Examination of the full τ/τ distribution yields no evidence for inhomogeneity in [Si/C] and constrains the width of a lognormal probability distribution in [Si/C] to be much smaller than that of [C/H]; this implies a common origin for Si and C. Since the inferred [Si/C] depends on the UVB shape, this also suggests that inhomogeneities in the hardness of the UVB are small. There is no evidence for evolution in [Si/C]. Variation in the inferred [Si/C] with density depends on the UVB and rules out the quasar-only model unless [Si/C] increases sharply at low density. Comparisons with low-metallicity halo stars and nucleosynthetic yields suggest either that our fiducial UVB is too hard or that supermassive Population III stars might have to be included. The inferred [Si/C], if extrapolated to low density, corresponds to a contribution to the cosmic Si abundance of = -2.0, or ΩSi ≃ 3.2 × 10-7, a significant fraction of all Si production expected by z ≈ 3.
The Opacity of Nearby Galaxies from Colors and Counts of Background Galaxies. I. The Synthetic Field Method and Its Application to NGC 4536 and NGC 3664

We describe a new direct method for determining the opacity of foreground galaxies that does not require any a priori assumptions about the spatial distribution or the reddening law of the obscuring material. The method is to measure the colors and counts of background galaxies that can be identified through the foreground system. The method is calibrated and the effects of confusion and obscuration are decoupled by adding various versions of a suitable deep-reference frame containing only field galaxies with known properties into the image of the foreground galaxy and analyzing these "synthetic field" images in the same way as the real images. We test the method on Hubble Space Telescope Wide Field Planetary Camera 2 archived images of two galaxies that are quite different: NGC 4536 is a large Sc spiral, and NGC 3664 is a small Magellanic irregular. The reference frames are taken from the Hubble Deep Field. From the background galaxy counts, NGC 4536 shows an extinction of AI ~ 1 mag in the northwestern arm region and AI < 0.5 mag in the corresponding interarm region (no correction for inclination has been attempted). However, from the galaxy colors, the same reddening of E(V-I) ~ 0.2 is observed in both the arm and the interarm regions. In the interarm region, the combination of extinction and reddening can be explained by a diffuse component with a Galactic reddening law (RV ≈ 3). In the spiral arm, however, the same diffuse, low-opacity component seems to coexist with regions of much higher opacity. Since the exposures are shorter, the results for NGC 3664 are less clear but also appear to be consistent with a two-component distribution.
Formation of solar system analogues – I. Looking for initial conditions through a population synthesis analysis

Population synthesis models of planetary systems developed during the last $\sim$15 years could reproduce several of the observables of the exoplanet population, and also allowed to constrain planetary formation models. We present our planet formation model, which calculates the evolution of a planetary system during the gaseous phase. The code incorporates relevant physical phenomena for the formation of a planetary system, like photoevaporation, planet migration, gas accretion, water delivery in embryos and planetesimals, a detailed study of the orbital evolution of the planetesimal population, and the treatment of the fusion between embryos, considering their atmospheres. The main goal of this work, unlike other works of planetary population synthesis, is to find suitable scenarios and physical parameters of the disc to form solar system analogs. We are specially interested in the final planet distributions, and in the final surface density, eccentricity and inclination profiles for the planetesimal population. These final distributions will be used as initial conditions for N-body simulations, to study the post-oligarchic formation in a second work. We then consider different formation scenarios, with different planetesimal sizes and different type I migration rates. We find that solar system analogs are favored in massive discs, with low type I migration rates, and small planetesimal sizes. Besides, those rocky planets within their habitables zones are dry when discs dissipate. At last, the final configurations of solar system analogs include information about the mass and semimajor-axis of the planets, water contents, and the properties of the planetesimal remnants.
Association between Gender and Clinical examination frequency and confidence of Medical Students in Saudi Arabia: A Cross-Sectional Study

Objectives: Determine the student's confidence and capability in performing examinations by both gender on the same and opposite sex.Methods: A valid questionnaire has been distributed to College of Medicine students at Taiba University in Saudi Arabia. This questionnaire includes questions about the factors which may be related or affect the medical experience during general or intimate examination and questions about the frequency of examinations on the same and opposite sex. Comparison of males and females was done using Chi-square tests analysis using the SPSS version 23.Result: Out of 150 final year medical students, 108 male and female students (72%) have participated in this research. There were 82.8% of males and 62% of females that have agreed that cultural and religious traditions have impacted their clinical experience with the opposite sex. In regard of respiratory examination for patients of the opposite sex, only 1.7% of the males have performed respiratory examination for patients of the opposite sex more than (10) times, compared to 34% of females. Also 44.8% of males have performed male genitalia examination (1-5) times, compared to 12% of females. On the other hand, 1.7% of males have performed vaginal examination compared to 12% of females.Conclusion: This study showed that there is an association between gender and clinical experience in some aspects. Researchers emphasize minimizing the negative effects of gender nature on the clinical experience by using alternatives or encouraging the patients to allow students to complete their clinical examination while ensuring patients privacy and integrity.
Transient neurogenesis in ischemic cortex from Sox2+ astrocytes

The adult cortex has long been regarded as non-neurogenic. Whether injury can induce neurogenesis in the adult cortex is still controversial. Here, we report that focal ischemia stimulates a transient wave of local neurogenesis. Using 5′-bromo-2′-deoxyuridine labeling, we demonstrated a rapid generation of doublecortin-positive neuroblasts that died quickly in mouse cerebral cortex following ischemia. Nestin-CreER-based cell ablation and fate mapping showed a small contribution of neuroblasts by subventricular zone neural stem cells. Using a mini-photothrombotic ischemia mouse model and retrovirus expressing green fluorescent protein labeling, we observed maturation of locally generated new neurons. Furthermore, fate tracing analyses using PDGFRα-, GFAP-, and Sox2-CreER mice showed a transient wave of neuroblast generation in mild ischemic cortex and identified that Sox2-positive astrocytes were the major neurogenic cells in adult cortex. In addition, a similar upregulation of Sox2 and appearance of neuroblasts were observed in the focal ischemic cortex of Macaca mulatta. Our findings demonstrated a transient neurogenic response of Sox2-positive astrocytes in ischemic cortex, which suggests the possibility of inducing neuronal regeneration by amplifying this intrinsic response in the future.