cometadata/datacite-rtg-text-other-reclassification-records huggingface dataset:
Development of a Capillary Electrophoresis-Based Heteroduplex Tracking Assay To Measure In-Host Genetic Diversity of Initial and Recurrent Plasmodium vivax Infections in Cambodia
Creators: name: Givens, M. B.
Publisher: name: The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill University Libraries
Year: 2014

description: A heteroduplex tracking assay used to genotype Plasmodium vivax merozoite surface protein 1 was adapted to a capillary electrophoresis format, obviating the need for radiolabeled probes and allowing its use in settings where malaria is endemic. This new assay achieved good allelic discrimination and detected high multiplicities of infection in 63 P. vivax infections in Cambodia. More than half of the recurrent parasitemias sampled displayed identical or highly related genotypes compared to the initial genotype, suggesting that they represented relapses.
Multilocus Microsatellite Genotyping Array for Investigation of Genetic Epidemiology of Pneumocystis jirovecii
Creators: name: Alvarez-Martinez, M. J.
name: Andama, A.
name: Meshnick, S. R.
name: Parobek, C. M.
name: Taylor, S. M.
name: Patel, J. C.
name: Jiang, L. Y.
name: Juliano, J. J.
name: Huang, L.
name: Miro, J. M.
name: Fong, S.
name: Worodria, W.
Publisher: name: The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill University Libraries
Year: 2014

description: Pneumocystis jirovecii is a symbiotic respiratory fungus that causes pneumonia (PcP) in immunosuppressed patients. Because P. jirovecii cannot be reliably cultured in vitro, it has proven difficult to study and gaps in our understanding of the organism persist. The release of a draft genome for the organism opens the door for the development of new genotyping approaches for studying its molecular epidemiology and global population structure. We identified and validated 8 putatively neutral microsatellite markers and 1 microsatellite marker linked to the dihydropteroate synthase gene (dhps), the enzymatic target of sulfa drugs used for PcP prevention and treatment. Using these tools, we analyzed P. jirovecii isolates from HIV-infected patients from three geographically distant populations: Uganda, the United States, and Spain. Among the 8 neutral markers, we observed high levels of allelic heterozygosity (average He, 0.586 to 0.842). Consistent with past reports, we observed limited global population structuring, with only the Ugandan isolates showing minor differentiation from the other two populations. In Ugandan isolates that harbored mutations in dhps, the microsatellite locus linked to dhps demonstrated a depressed He, consistent with positive directional selection for sulfa resistance mutations. Using a subset of these microsatellites, analyses of individual and paired samples from infections in San Francisco, CA, showed reliable typeability within a single infection and high discriminatory power between infections. These features suggest that this novel microsatellite typing approach will be an effective tool for molecular-epidemiological investigations into P. jirovecii population structure, transmission, and drug resistance.
Exposing Reliability Degradation and Mitigation in Approximate DNNs under Permanent Faults
Creators: name: Siddique, Ayesha
name: Hoque, Khaza Anuarul
Publisher: name: arXiv
Year: 2023
Subjects: subject: Hardware Architecture (cs.AR)
subject: Emerging Technologies (cs.ET)
subject: FOS: Computer and information sciences

description: Approximate computing is known for enhancing deep neural network accelerators' energy efficiency by introducing inexactness with a tolerable accuracy loss. However, small accuracy variations may increase the sensitivity of these accelerators towards undesired subtle disturbances, such as permanent faults. The impact of permanent faults in accurate deep neural network (AccDNN) accelerators has been thoroughly investigated in the literature. Conversely, the impact of permanent faults and their mitigation in approximate DNN (AxDNN) accelerators is vastly under-explored. Towards this, we first present an extensive fault resilience analysis of approximate multi-layer perceptrons (MLPs) and convolutional neural networks (CNNs) using the state-of-the-art Evoapprox8b multipliers in GPU and TPU accelerators. Then, we propose a novel fault mitigation method, i.e., fault-aware retuning of weights (Fal-reTune). Fal-reTune retunes the weights using a weight mapping function in the presence of faults for improved classification accuracy. To evaluate the fault resilience and the effectiveness of our proposed mitigation method, we used the most widely used MNIST, Fashion-MNIST, and CIFAR10 datasets. Our results demonstrate that the permanent faults exacerbate the accuracy loss in AxDNNs compared to the AccDNN accelerators. For instance, a permanent fault in AxDNNs can lead to 56\% accuracy loss, whereas the same faulty bit can lead to only 4\% accuracy loss in AccDNN accelerators. We empirically show that our proposed Fal-reTune mitigation method improves the performance of AxDNNs up to 98%, even with fault rates of up to 50%. Furthermore, we observe that the fault resilience in AxDNNs is orthogonal to their energy efficiency.
description: Accepted for publication in the IEEE Transactions on Very Large Scale Integration Systems (TVLSI) journal
Transition Metal Borides for All-in-One Radiation Shielding
Creators: name: Avcıoğlu, Celal
name: Avcıoğlu, Suna
Publisher: name: Technische Universität Berlin
Year: 2023
Subjects: subject: 600 Technik, Medizin, angewandte Wissenschaften::660 Chemische Verfahrenstechnik::666 Keramiktechnologie und zugeordnete Technologien
subject: radiation shielding
subject: mixed gamma-neutron radiation
subject: transition metal borides
subject: attenuation coefficient
subject: simulation
subject: Phy-X/PSD
subject: NGCal
subject: EpiXS

description: All-in-one radiation shielding is an emerging concept in developing new-generation radiation protection materials since various forms of ionizing radiation, such as neutrons and gamma rays, can occur simultaneously. In this study, we examine the ability of transition metal borides to attenuate both photon and particle radiation. Specifically, fourteen different transition metal borides (including inner transition metal borides) are selected for examination based on their thermodynamic stabilities, molecular weights, and neutron capture cross-sections of the elements they contain. Radiation shielding characteristics of the transition metal borides are computationally investigated using Phy-X/PSD, EpiXS and NGCal software. The gamma-ray shielding capabilities of the transition metal borides are evaluated in terms of the mass attenuation coefficient (μm), the linear attenuation coefficient (µ), the effective atomic number (Zeff), the half-value layer (HVL), the tenth-value layer (TVL), and the mean free path (MFP). The mass and linear attenuation factors are identified for thermal and fast neutrons at energies of 0.025 eV and 4 MeV, respectively. Moreover, the fast neutron removal cross-sections (∑R) of the transition metal borides are calculated to assess their neutron shielding abilities. The results revealed that borides of transition metals with a high atomic number, such as Re, W, and Ta, possess outstanding gamma shielding performance. At 4 MeV photon energy, the half-value layers of ReB2 and WB2 compounds were found as 1.38 cm and 1.43 cm, respectively. Most notably, these HVL values are lower than the HVL value of toxic Pb (1.45 cm at 4 MeV), which is one of the conventional radiation shielding materials. On the other hand, SmB6 and DyB6 demonstrated exceptional neutron attenuation for thermal and fast neutrons due to the high neutron capture cross-sections of Sm, Dy, and B. The outcomes of this study reveal that transition metal borides can be suitable candidates for shielding against mixed neutron and gamma radiation.
Does inflation squeeze cosmological perturbations?
Creators: name: Agullo, Ivan
name: Bonga, Béatrice
name: Metidieri, Patricia Ribes
Publisher: name: arXiv
Year: 2022
Subjects: subject: General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology (gr-qc)
subject: Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics (astro-ph.CO)
subject: High Energy Physics - Theory (hep-th)
subject: Quantum Physics (quant-ph)
subject: FOS: Physical sciences

description: There seems to exist agreement about the fact that inflation squeezes the quantum state of cosmological perturbations and entangles modes with wavenumbers $\vec k$ and $-\vec k$. Paradoxically, this result has been used to justify both the classicality as well as the quantumness of the primordial perturbations at the end of inflation. We reexamine this question and point out that the definition of two-mode squeezing of the modes $\vec k$ and $-\vec k$ used in previous work rests on choices that are only justified for systems with time-independent Hamiltonians and finitely many degrees of freedom. We argue that for quantum fields propagating on generic time-dependent Friedmann-Lemaître-Robertson-Walker backgrounds, the notion of squeezed states is subject to ambiguities, which go hand in hand with the ambiguity in the definition of particles. In other words, we argue that the question "does the cosmic expansion squeeze and entangle modes with wavenumbers $\vec k$ and $-\vec k$?" contains the same ambiguity as the question "does the cosmic expansion create particles?". When additional symmetries are present, like in the (quasi) de Sitter-like spacetimes used in inflationary models, one can resolve the ambiguities, and we find that the answer to the question in the title turns out to be in the negative. We further argue that this fact does not make the state of cosmological perturbations any less quantum, at least when deviations from Gaussianity can be neglected.
description: 19 pages + 8 pages as appendices
Photometric Calibrations of M-dwarf Metallicity with Markov Chain Monte Carlo and Bayesian Inference
Creators: name: Duque-Arribas, C.
name: Montes, D.
name: Tabernero, H. M.
name: Caballero, J. A.
name: Gorgas, J.
name: Marfil, E.
Publisher: name: arXiv
Year: 2023
Subjects: subject: Solar and Stellar Astrophysics (astro-ph.SR)
subject: Earth and Planetary Astrophysics (astro-ph.EP)
subject: Astrophysics of Galaxies (astro-ph.GA)
subject: FOS: Physical sciences

description: Knowledge of stellar atmospheric parameters ($T_{\rm eff}$, $\log{g}$, [Fe/H]) of M dwarfs can be used to constrain both theoretical stellar models and Galactic chemical evolutionary models, and guide exoplanet searches, but their determination is difficult due to the complexity of the spectra of their cool atmospheres. In our ongoing effort to characterize M dwarfs, and in particular their chemical composition, we carried out multiband photometric calibrations of metallicity for early- and intermediate-type M dwarfs. The third Gaia data release provides high-precision astrometry and three-band photometry. This information, combined with the 2MASS and CatWISE2020 infrared photometric surveys and a sample of 4919 M dwarfs with metallicity values determined with high-resolution spectroscopy by The Cannon and APOGEE spectra, allowed us to study the effect of the metallicity in color-color and color-magnitude diagrams. We divided this sample into two subsamples: we used 1000 stars to train the calibrations with Bayesian statistics and Markov Chain Monte Carlo techniques, and the remaining 3919 stars to check the accuracy of the estimations. We derived several photometric calibrations of metallicity applicable to M dwarfs in the range of $-0.45\leq\text{[Fe/H]}\leq +0.45$ dex and spectral types down to M5.0 V that yield uncertainties down to the $0.10$ dex level. Lastly, we compared our results with other photometric estimations published in the literature for an additional sample of 46 M dwarfs in wide binary systems with FGK-type primary stars, and found a great predictive performance.
description: Accepted for publication in ApJ, 24 pages, 14 figures and 7 tables
Experimental Realization of a Quantum Integer-Spin Chain with Controllable Interactions
Creators: name: Senko, C.
name: Richerme, P.
name: Smith, J.
name: Lee, A.
name: Cohen, I.
name: Retzker, A.
name: Monroe, C.
Publisher: name: arXiv
Year: 2014
Subjects: subject: Quantum Physics (quant-ph)
subject: Statistical Mechanics (cond-mat.stat-mech)
subject: Atomic Physics (physics.atom-ph)
subject: FOS: Physical sciences

description: The physics of interacting integer-spin chains has been a topic of intense theoretical interest, particularly in the context of symmetry-protected topological phases. However, there has not been a controllable model system to study this physics experimentally. We demonstrate how spin-dependent forces on trapped ions can be used to engineer an effective system of interacting spin-1 particles. Our system evolves coherently under an applied spin-1 XY Hamiltonian with tunable, long-range couplings, and all three quantum levels at each site participate in the dynamics. We observe the time evolution of the system and verify its coherence by entangling a pair of effective three-level particles (`qutrits') with 86% fidelity. By adiabatically ramping a global field, we produce ground states of the XY model, and we demonstrate an instance where the ground state cannot be created without breaking the same symmetries that protect the topological Haldane phase. This experimental platform enables future studies of symmetry-protected order in spin-1 systems and their use in quantum applications.
Seroepidemiologic Study of Human Infections with Spotted Fever Group Rickettsiae in North Carolina
Creators: name: Nicholson, W. L.
name: Moncayo, A. C.
name: Williams, C.
name: Johnson, J.
name: Bouyer, D. H.
name: Meshnick, S. R.
name: Reber, J.
name: Vaughn, M. F.
name: Daves, G.
name: Mendell, N. L.
name: Delisle, J.
Publisher: name: The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill University Libraries
Year: 2014

description: Increasing entomologic and epidemiologic evidence suggests that spotted fever group rickettsiae (SFGR) other than Rickettsia rickettsii are responsible for spotted fever rickettsioses in the United States. A retrospective seroepidemiologic study was conducted on stored acute- and convalescent-phase sera that had been submitted for Rocky Mountain spotted fever testing to the North Carolina State Laboratory of Public Health. We evaluated the serologic reactivity of the paired sera to R. rickettsii, Rickettsia parkeri, and Rickettsia amblyommii antigens. Of the 106 eligible pairs tested, 21 patients seroconverted to one or more antigens. Cross-reactivity to multiple antigens was observed in 10 patients, and seroconversions to single antigens occurred in 11 patients, including 1 against R. rickettsii, 4 against R. parkeri, and 6 against R. amblyommii. Cross-absorption of cross-reactive sera and/or Western blots identified two presumptive cases of infection with R. parkeri, two presumptive cases of infection with R. rickettsii, and one presumptive case of infection with R. amblyommii. These findings suggest that species of SFGR other than R. rickettsii are associated with illness among North Carolina residents and that serologic testing using R. rickettsii antigen may miss cases of spotted fever rickettsioses caused by other species of SFGR.
Broad chemical transferability in structure-based coarse-graining
Creators: name: Kanekal, Kiran H.
name: Rudzinski, Joseph F.
name: Bereau, Tristan
Publisher: name: arXiv
Year: 2022
Subjects: subject: Chemical Physics (physics.chem-ph)
subject: Computational Physics (physics.comp-ph)
subject: FOS: Physical sciences

description: Compared to top-down coarse-grained (CG) models, bottom-up approaches are capable of offering higher structural fidelity. This fidelity results from the tight link to a higher-resolution reference, making the CG model chemically specific. Unfortunately, chemical specificity can be at odds with compound-screening strategies, which call for transferable parametrizations. Here we present an approach to reconcile bottom-up, structure-preserving CG models with chemical transferability. We consider the bottom-up CG parametrization of 3,441 C$_7$O$_2$ small-molecule isomers. Our approach combines atomic representations, unsupervised learning, and a large-scale extended-ensemble force-matching parametrization. We first identify a subset of 19 representative molecules, which maximally encode the local environment of all gas-phase conformers. Reference interactions between the 19 representative molecules were obtained from both homogeneous bulk liquids and various binary mixtures. An extended-ensemble parametrization over all 703 state points leads to a CG model that is both structure-based and chemically transferable. Remarkably, the resulting force field is on average more structurally accurate than single-state-point equivalents. Averaging over the extended ensemble acts as a mean-force regularizer, smoothing out both force and structural correlations that are overly specific to a single state point. Our approach aims at transferability through a set of CG bead types that can be used to easily construct new molecules, while retaining the benefits of a structure-based parametrization.
description: 15 pages, 7 figures
Cost Savings Realized by Implementation of Routine Microbiological Identification by Matrix-Assisted Laser Desorption Ionization–Time of Flight Mass Spectrometry
Creators: name: Jones, Melissa
name: Tran, Anthony
name: Alby, Kevin
name: Gilligan, Peter H.
name: Kerr, Alan
Publisher: name: The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill University Libraries
Year: 2015

description: Matrix-assisted laser desorption ionization–time of flight (MALDI-TOF) mass spectrometry (MS) is an emerging technology for rapid identification of bacterial and fungal isolates. In comparison to conventional methods, this technology is much less labor intensive and can provide accurate and reliable results in minutes from a single isolated colony. We compared the cost of performing the bioMérieux Vitek MALDI-TOF MS with conventional microbiological methods to determine the amount saved by the laboratory by converting to the new technology. Identification costs for 21,930 isolates collected between April 1, 2013, and March 31, 2014, were directly compared for MALDI-TOF MS and conventional methodologies. These isolates were composed of commonly isolated organisms, including commonly encountered aerobic and facultative bacteria and yeast but excluding anaerobes and filamentous fungi. Mycobacterium tuberculosis complex and rapidly growing mycobacteria were also evaluated for a 5-month period during the study. Reagent costs and a total cost analysis that included technologist time in addition to reagent expenses and maintenance service agreement costs were analyzed as part of this study. The use of MALDI-TOF MS equated to a net savings of $69,108.61, or 87.8%, in reagent costs annually compared to traditional methods. When total costs are calculated to include technologist time and maintenance costs, traditional identification would have cost $142,532.69, versus $68,886.51 with the MALDI-TOF MS method, resulting in a laboratory savings of $73,646.18, or 51.7%, annually by adopting the new technology. The initial cost of the instrument at our usage level would be offset in about 3 years. MALDI-TOF MS not only represents an innovative technology for the rapid and accurate identification of bacterial and fungal isolates, it also provides a significant cost savings for the laboratory.
Enzyklika "Anni Sacri" über einen Gebetstag für die Erneuerung der sittlichen Ordnung und die Eintracht der Völker (12.3.1950)
Creators: name: Pius XII., Papst
Publisher: name: Herder Korrespondenz
Year: 1970

description: Herder Korrespondenz, Bd. 4 Nr. 7 (1949): Herder Korrespondenz, Band 4, Heft 7
Productivity Convergence in Manufacturing: A Hierarchical Panel Data Approach
Creators: name: Feng, Guohua
name: Gao, Jiti
name: Peng, Bin
Publisher: name: Monash University
Year: 2022
Subjects: Econometric and statistical methods
Econometrics not elsewhere classified

description: Despite its paramount importance in the empirical growth literature, productivity convergence analysis has three problems that have yet to be resolved: (1) little attempt has been made to explore the hierarchical structure of industry-level datasets; (2) industry-level technology heterogeneity has largely been ignored; and (3) cross-sectional dependence has rarely been allowed for. This paper aims to address these three problems within a hierarchical panel data framework. We propose an estimation procedure and then derive the corresponding asymptotic theory. Finally, we apply the framework to a dataset of 23 manufacturing industries from a wide range of countries over the period 1963-2018. Our results show that both the manufacturing industry as a whole and individual manufacturing industries at the ISIC two-digit level exhibit strong conditional convergence in labour productivity, but not unconditional convergence. In addition, our results show that both global and industry-specific shocks are important in explaining the convergence behaviours of the manufacturing industries.
title: Το κοινοτικό φαρμακείο ως αναβαθμισμένος πυλώνας πρωτοβάθμιας περίθαλψης και προάσπισης της δημόσιας υγείας
title: Community pharmacy as an upgraded pillar of primary care and defender of public health
titleType: AlternativeTitle
Creators: name: Καλέμαση, Ευγενία
Publisher: name: Πανεπιστήμιο Πειραιώς
Year: 2024
Subjects: subject: Κοινοτικό φαρμακείο
subject: Παροχή πρωτοβάθμιας περίθαλψης

description: Η παρούσα έρευνα είχε ως στόχο της να διερευνήσει, μέσα από μία ποσοτική, ερευνητική προσέγγιση κατα πόσο το κοινοτικό φαρμακείο έχει τη δυνατότητα να δράσει ως αναβαθμισμένος πυλώνας πρωτοβάθμιας περίθαλψης και προάσπισης της Δημόσιας Υγείας, δίνοντας ιδιαίτερη έμφαση στις απόψεις των ίδιων των φαρμακοποιών. Αρχικά, πραγματοποιήθηκε μία προκαταρκτική, δευτερογενής, βιβλιογραφική έρευνα, ενώ έπειτα, ακολούθησε ποσοτική έρευνα που διεξήχθη μέσω ερωτηματολογίου και ολοκληρώθηκε με στατιστική ανάλυση των απαντήσεων του δείγματος. Όπως διαπιστώθηκε από την έρευνα, αν και το κοινοτικό φαρμακείο στην Ελλάδα έχει επεκτείνει σημαντικά τις αρμοδιότητες και τον ρόλο του μετά την Πανδημία, ακόμη υπολείπεται σε σχέση με άλλα κράτη. Σύμφωνα με τις απαντήσεις του δείγματος φαρμακοποιών, οι φαρμακοποιοί διατηρούν μία θετική στάση και πιστεύουν πως πράγματι το κοινοτικό φαρμακείο πρέπει να διαδραματίσει σημαντικότερο ρόλο στην παροχή πρωτοβάθμιας φροντίδας, ωστόσο, χρειάζεται να ανατεθούν περισσότερες αρμοδιότητες αλλά και ενίσχυση από το κράτος. Παράγοντες όπως η στάση απέναντι στη χρηματοδότηση για διενέργεια εμβολιασμού, ο τόπος της επιχείρησης και ο αριθμός απασχολούμενων υπαλλήλων φάνηκε πως αποτέλεσαν σημαντικές μεταβλητές που επηρέαζαν τη στάση των φαρμακοποιών απέναντι στην μετάβαση του κοινοτικού φαρμακείου σε ένα νέο ρόλο.
Tracing the history of an unusual compound presolar grain from progenitor star to asteroid parent body host
Creators: name: Singerling, Sheryl A.
name: Nittler, Larry R.
name: Barosch, Jens
name: Dobrica, Elena
name: Brearley, Adrian J.
name: Stroud, Rhonda M.
Publisher: name: arXiv
Year: 2023
Subjects: subject: Earth and Planetary Astrophysics (astro-ph.EP)
subject: Solar and Stellar Astrophysics (astro-ph.SR)
subject: Geophysics (physics.geo-ph)
subject: FOS: Physical sciences

description: We conducted a TEM study of an unusual oxide-silicate composite presolar grain (F2-8) from the unequilibrated ordinary chondrite Semarkona. The presolar composite grain is relatively large, has an amoeboidal shape, and contains Mg-rich olivine, Mg-Al spinel, and Ca-rich pyroxene. The shape and phase assemblage are reminiscent of amoeboid-olivine-aggregates and add to the growing number of TEM observations of presolar refractory inclusion-like (CAIs and AOAs) grains. In addition to the dominant components, F2-8 also contains multiple subgrains, including an alabandite-oldhamite composite grain within the olivine and several magnetite subgrains within the Mg-Al spinel. We argue that the olivine, Mg-Al spinel, and alabandite-oldhamite formed by equilibrium condensation, whereas the Ca-rich pyroxene formed by non-equilibrium condensation, all in an M-type AGB star envelope. On the other hand, the magnetite subgrains are likely the result of aqueous alteration on the Semarkona asteroidal parent body. Additional evidence of secondary processing includes Fe-enrichment in the Mg-Al spinel and olivine, elevated Al contents in the olivine, and beam sensitivity and a modulated structure for the olivine. Compound presolar grains record condensation conditions over a wide range of temperatures. Additionally, the presence of several different presolar phases in a composite grain can impart information on the relative rates and effects of post-condensation processing in a range of environments, including the interstellar medium, solar nebula, and the host asteroid parent body. The TEM observations of F2-8 provide insights across the lifetime of the grain from its formation by condensation in an M-type AGB star envelope, its transit through the interstellar medium, and aqueous alteration during its residence on Semarkona's asteroidal parent body.
description: 36 total pages, including 6 figures, 3 supplemental figures, 4 tables, and 2 supplemental tables
Disseminated Balamuthia mandrillaris Infection
Creators: name: Almira-Suarez, M. I.
name: Schafer, Katherine R.
name: Reese, Jennifer M.
name: Visvesvara, Govinda
name: Roy, Sharon L.
name: Mandell, James W.
name: Hoke, George M.
name: Shah, Neil
Publisher: name: The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill University Libraries
Year: 2015

description: Balamuthia mandrillaris is a rare cause of human infection, but when infections do occur, they result in high rates of morbidity and mortality. A case of disseminated Balamuthia infection is presented. Early diagnosis and initiation of recommended therapy are essential for increased chances of successful outcomes.
The extended population associated with W40
Creators: name: Comerón, F.
name: Djupvik, A. A.
name: Schneider, N.
Publisher: name: arXiv
Year: 2022
Subjects: subject: Solar and Stellar Astrophysics (astro-ph.SR)
subject: Astrophysics of Galaxies (astro-ph.GA)
subject: FOS: Physical sciences

description: W40 is a heavily obscured bipolar HII region projected in the direction of the Aquila Rift and ionized by hot stars in a central, partly embedded cluster. The study of the cluster and its surroundings has been greatly hampered thus far by the strong extinction in the region. We use the Gaia eDR3 catalog to establish astrometric membership criteria based on the population of the W40 central cluster, reassess the distance of the region, and identify in this way new members, both inside and outside the cluster. We obtain visible spectroscopy in the red spectral region to classify both known and new members, complemented with Gaia and Spitzer photometry to assess the evolutionary status of the stellar population. We derive a high-confidence geometric distance to the W40 region of 502 pc $\pm$ 4 pc and confirm the presence of a comoving extended population of stars at the same distance, spreading over the whole projected area of the HII region and beyond. Spectral classifications are presented for 21 members of the W40 region, 10 of them belonging to the central cluster. One of the newly identified B stars in the extended population is clearly interacting with the shell surrounding the HII region, giving rise to a small arc-shaped nebula that traces a bow shock. The infrared excess properties suggest that the extended population is significantly older ($\sim 3$ Myr) than the W40 central cluster ($< 1$ Myr). The area currently occupied by the W40 HII region and its surroundings has a history of star formation extending at least several million years in the past, of which the formation of the W40 central cluster and the subsequent HII region is one of the latest episodes. The newly determined distance suggests that W40 is behind, and physically detached from, a pervasive large dust layer which is some 60 pc foreground to it as determined by previous studies.
description: Submitted to Astronomy and Astrophysics
Convergence of loop erased random walks on a planar graph to a chordal SLE(2) curve
Creators: name: Suzuki, Hiroyuki
Publisher: name: arXiv
Year: 2014
Subjects: subject: Probability (math.PR)
subject: FOS: Mathematics
subject: 60F17, 60J67, 82B41

description: In this paper we consider the natural random walk on a planar graph and scale it by a small positive number $δ$. Given a simply connected domain $D$ and its two boundary points $a$ and $b$, we start the scaled walk at a vertex of the graph nearby $a$ and condition it on its exiting $D$ through a vertex nearby $b$, and prove that the loop erasure of the conditioned walk converges, as $δ\downarrow 0$, to the chordal SLE$_{2}$ that connects $a$ and $b$ in $D$, provided that an invariance principle is valid for both the random walk and the dual walk of it.
description: 24 pages
Production and backreaction of massive fermions during axion inflation with non-Abelian gauge fields
Creators: name: Adshead, Peter
name: Liu, Aike
name: Lozanov, Kaloian D.
Publisher: name: arXiv
Year: 2022
Subjects: subject: High Energy Physics - Phenomenology (hep-ph)
subject: Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics (astro-ph.CO)
subject: General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology (gr-qc)
subject: FOS: Physical sciences

description: We study the production and backreaction of massive vector-like fermions in the background of a classical SU(2) gauge field during axion-driven inflation. We demonstrate all ultraviolet divergences due to the interactions with the fermions can be absorbed by renormalization of the axion wavefunction and the gauge coupling. The effects of the fermion-axion interaction vanish in the massless limit as required by symmetry. For very massive fermions, contact interactions are induced between the axion, the gauge field and the gravitational field. In this massive limit, we find the usual axion-gauge field interactions are induced, however, in addition we observe the appearance of axion self-interactions, as well as kinetic braiding of the axion with the Einstein tensor. These new axion derivative interactions present intriguing opportunities for model building and phenomenology.
description: 45 pages, 3 figures
From the Boltzmann equation with non-local correlations to a standard non-linear Fokker-Planck equation
Creators: name: Deppman, Airton
name: Golmankhaneh, Alireza K.
name: Megias, Eugenio
name: Pasechnik, Roman
Publisher: name: arXiv
Year: 2023
Subjects: subject: Statistical Mechanics (cond-mat.stat-mech)
subject: High Energy Physics - Theory (hep-th)
subject: FOS: Physical sciences

description: In this work, we study the formal connections between the non-linear Fokker-Planck Equation associated with the non-additive entropy and the Boltzmann Equation with the non-additive correlation functional. The collisional term following the $q$-algebra is adopted. In the derivation of the non-additive Fokker-Planck Equation, two constraints are imposed on the final result: i) that the entropic index $q$ is a characteristic parameter of the non-additive systems with a value that does not change with time, and ii) that for $q \rightarrow 1$ a smooth transition for the standard Fokker-Planck Equation is obtained.
description: 5 pages, no figures
Multiple-index Nonstationary Time Series Models: Robust Estimation Theory and Practice
Creators: name: Dong, Chaohua
name: Gao, Jiti
name: Peng, Bin
name: Tu, Yundong
Publisher: name: Monash University
Year: 2022
Subjects: Econometric and statistical methods
Econometrics not elsewhere classified

description: This paper proposes a class of parametric multiple-index time series models that involve linear combinations of time trends, stationary variables and unit root processes as regressors. The inclusion of the three different types of time series, along with the use of a multiple-index structure for these variables to circumvent the curse of dimensionality, is due to both theoretical and practical considerations. The M-type estimators (including OLS, LAD, Huber’s estimator, quantile and expectile estimators, etc.) for the index vectors are proposed, and their asymptotic properties are established, with the aid of the generalized function approach to accommodate a wide class of loss functions that may not be necessarily differentiable at every point. The proposed multiple-index model is then applied to study the stock return predictability, which reveals strong nonlinear predictability under various loss measures. Monte Carlo simulations are also included to evaluate the finite-sample performance of the proposed estimators.
Compressed sensing quantum process tomography for superconducting quantum gates
Creators: name: Rodionov, Andrey V.
name: Veitia, Andrzej
name: Barends, R.
name: Kelly, J.
name: Sank, Daniel
name: Wenner, J.
name: Martinis, John M.
name: Kosut, Robert L.
name: Korotkov, Alexander N.
Publisher: name: arXiv
Year: 2014
Subjects: subject: Quantum Physics (quant-ph)
subject: FOS: Physical sciences

description: We apply the method of compressed sensing (CS) quantum process tomography (QPT) to characterize quantum gates based on superconducting Xmon and phase qubits. Using experimental data for a two-qubit controlled-Z gate, we obtain an estimate for the process matrix $χ$ with reasonably high fidelity compared to full QPT, but using a significantly reduced set of initial states and measurement configurations. We show that the CS method still works when the amount of used data is so small that the standard QPT would have an underdetermined system of equations. We also apply the CS method to the analysis of the three-qubit Toffoli gate with numerically added noise, and similarly show that the method works well for a substantially reduced set of data. For the CS calculations we use two different bases in which the process matrix $χ$ is approximately sparse, and show that the resulting estimates of the process matrices match each ther with reasonably high fidelity. For both two-qubit and three-qubit gates, we characterize the quantum process by not only its process matrix and fidelity, but also by the corresponding standard deviation, defined via variation of the state fidelity for different initial states.
description: 16 pages, 11 figures
Impact of a Rapid Microarray-Based Assay for Identification of Positive Blood Cultures for Treatment Optimization for Patients with Streptococcal and Enterococcal Bacteremia
Creators: name: Ou, Fang-shu
name: Daniels, Lindsay M.
name: Zeng, Donglin
name: Miller, Melissa B.
name: Tran, Anthony
name: LeCroy, Nicholas
name: Alby, Kevin
name: Weber, David J.
name: Roshdy, Danya G.
Publisher: name: The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill University Libraries
Year: 2015

description: Implementation of the Verigene Gram-positive blood culture test led to reductions in time to acceptable antibiotic overall (1.9 versus 13.2 h, respectively; P = 0.04) and time to appropriate antibiotic for patients with vancomycin-resistant Enterococcus (4.2 versus 43.7 h; P = 0.006) and viridans group Streptococcus (0.2 versus 7.1 h; P = 0.02).
Tracing the Evolution of SMBHs and Stellar Objects in Galaxy Mergers: An Multi-mass Direct N-body Model
Creators: name: Li, Shuo
name: Zhong, Shiyan
name: Berczik, Peter
name: Spurzem, Rainer
name: Chen, Xian
name: Liu, F. K.
Publisher: name: arXiv
Year: 2023
Subjects: subject: High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena (astro-ph.HE)
subject: FOS: Physical sciences

description: By using direct N-body numerical simulations, we model the dynamical co-evolution of two supermassive black holes (SMBHs) and the surrounding stars in merging galaxies. In order to investigate how different stellar components evolve during the merger, we generate evolved stellar distributions with an initial mass function. Special schemes have also been developed to deal with some rare but interesting events, such as tidal disruption of main sequence stars, the plunge of low mass stars, white dwarfs, neutron stars and stellar mass black holes, and the partial tidal disruption of red giants or asymptotic giant branch stars. Our results indicate that the formation of a bound supermassive black hole binary (SMBHB) will enhance the capture rates of stellar objects by the SMBHs. Compared to the equal stellar mass model, the multi-mass model tends to result in a higher average mass of disrupted stars. Instead of being tidally disrupted by the SMBH, roughly half of the captured main sequence stars will directly plunge into the SMBH because of their small stellar radius. Giant stars, on the other hand, can be stripped of their envelopes if they are close enough to the SMBH. Though most remnants of the giant stars can survive after the disruption, a small fraction still could plunge into the SMBH quickly or after many orbital periods. Our results also indicate significant mass segregation of compact stars at the beginning of the merger, and then this effect is destroyed as the two SMBHs form a bound binary.
description: 36 pages, 11 figures, and 1 table. Accepted for publication in ApJ
Detecting Distributional Differences between Temporal Granularities for Exploratory Time Series Analysis
Creators: name: Gupta, Sayani
name: Hyndman, Rob J
name: Cook, Dianne
Publisher: name: Monash University
Year: 2022
Subjects: Econometric and statistical methods
Econometrics not elsewhere classified

description: Cyclic temporal granularities are temporal deconstructions of a time period into units such as hour-of-theday and work-day/weekend. They can be useful for measuring repetitive patterns in large univariate time series data, and feed new approaches to exploring time series data. One use is to take pairs of granularities, and make plots of response values across the categories induced by the temporal deconstruction. However, when there are many granularities that can be constructed for a time period, there will also be too many possible displays to decide which might be the more interesting to display. This work proposes a new distance metric to screen and rank the possible granularities, and hence choose the most interesting ones to plot. The distance measure is computed for a single or pairs of cyclic granularities and can be compared across different cyclic granularities or on a collection of time series. The methods are implemented in the open-source R package hakear.
Constraints on $S_8$ from a full-scale and full-shape analysis of redshift-space clustering and galaxy-galaxy lensing in BOSS
Creators: name: Lange, Johannes U.
name: Hearin, Andrew P.
name: Leauthaud, Alexie
name: Bosch, Frank C. van den
name: Xhakaj, Enia
name: Guo, Hong
name: Wechsler, Risa H.
name: DeRose, Joseph
Publisher: name: arXiv
Year: 2023
Subjects: subject: Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics (astro-ph.CO)
subject: FOS: Physical sciences

description: We present a novel simulation-based cosmological analysis of galaxy-galaxy lensing and galaxy redshift-space clustering. Compared to analysis methods based on perturbation theory, our simulation-based approach allows us to probe a much wider range of scales, $0.4 \, h^{-1} \, \mathrm{Mpc}$ to $63 \, h^{-1} \, \mathrm{Mpc}$, including highly non-linear scales, and marginalises over astrophysical effects such as assembly bias. We apply this framework to data from the Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey LOWZ sample cross-correlated with state-of-the-art gravitational lensing catalogues from the Kilo Degree Survey and the Dark Energy Survey. We show that gravitational lensing and redshift-space clustering when analysed over a large range of scales place tight constraints on the growth-of-structure parameter $S_8 = σ_8 \sqrt{Ω_{\rm m} / 0.3}$. Overall, we infer $S_8 = 0.792 \pm 0.022$ when analysing the combination of galaxy-galaxy lensing and projected galaxy clustering and $S_8 = 0.771 \pm 0.027$ for galaxy redshift-space clustering. These findings highlight the potential constraining power of full-scale studies over studies analysing only large scales, and also showcase the benefits of analysing multiple large-scale structure surveys jointly. Our inferred values for $S_8$ fall below the value inferred from the CMB, $S_8 = 0.834 \pm 0.016$. While this difference is not statistically significant by itself, our results mirror other findings in the literature whereby low-redshift large scale structure probes infer lower values for $S_8$ than the CMB, the so-called $S_8$-tension.
description: 22 pages, 16 figures, submitted to MNRAS, comments welcome
Universality aspects of quantum corrections to transverse momentum broadening in QCD media
Creators: name: Caucal, Paul
name: Mehtar-Tani, Yacine
Publisher: name: arXiv
Year: 2022
Subjects: subject: High Energy Physics - Phenomenology (hep-ph)
subject: Statistical Mechanics (cond-mat.stat-mech)
subject: Nuclear Theory (nucl-th)
subject: FOS: Physical sciences

description: We study non-linear quantum corrections to transverse momentum broadening (TMB) of a fast parton propagating in dense QCD matter in the leading logarithmic approximation. These non-local corrections yield an anomalous super-diffusive behavior characterized by a heavy tailed distribution which is associated with Lévy random walks. Using a formal analogy with the physics of traveling waves, we show that at late times the transverse momentum distribution tends to a universal scaling regime. We derive analytic solutions in terms of an asymptotic expansion around the scaling limit for both fixed and running coupling. We note that our analytic approach yields a good agreement with the exact numerical solutions down to realistic values of medium length. Finally, we discuss the interplay between system size and energy dependence of the diffusion coefficient $\hat q$ and its connection with the gluon distribution function that is manifest at large transverse momentum transfer.
description: 57 pages, 15 figures
Mycobacterium tuberculosis pncA Polymorphisms That Do Not Confer Pyrazinamide Resistance at a Breakpoint Concentration of 100 Micrograms per Milliliter in MGIT: TABLE 1
Creators: name: Sirgel, Frik A.
name: Mercante, Alexandra
name: Posey, James E.
name: Streicher, Elizabeth M.
name: Whitfield, Michael G.
name: Willby, Melisa
name: Hughes, Kelsey
name: van Helden, Paul D.
name: van Rie, Annelies
name: Birkness, Kris
name: Sampson, Samantha L.
name: Warren, Robin M.
name: Morlock, Glenn
Publisher: name: The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill University Libraries
Year: 2015

description: Sequencing of the Mycobacterium tuberculosis pncA gene allows for pyrazinamide susceptibility testing. We summarize data on pncA polymorphisms that do not confer resistance at a susceptibility breakpoint of 100 μg/ml pyrazinamide in MGIT within a cohort of isolates from South Africa and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Scales of quasi-arithmetic means determined by invariance property
Creators: name: Pasteczka, Paweł
Publisher: name: arXiv
Year: 2014
Subjects: subject: Classical Analysis and ODEs (math.CA)
subject: FOS: Mathematics

description: It is well known that if $\mathcal{P}_t$ denotes a set of power means then the mapping $\mathbb{R} \ni t \mapsto \mathcal{P}_t(v) \in (\min v, \max v)$ is both 1-1 and onto for any non-constant sequence $v = (v_1,\dots,\,v_n)$ of positive numbers. Shortly: the family of power means is a scale. If $I$ is an interval and $f \colon I \rightarrow \mathbb{R}$ is a continuous, strictly monotone function then $f^{-1}(\tfrac{1}{n} \sum f(v_i))$ is a natural generalization of power means, so called quasi-arithmetic mean generated by $f$. A famous folk theorem says that the only homogeneous, quasi-a\-rith\-me\-tic means are power means. We prove that, upon replacing the homogeneity requirement by an invariant-type axiom, one gets a family of quasi-arithmetic means building up a scale, too.
description: 11 pages
Performance Characteristics of Xpert Flu/RSV XC Assay
Creators: name: Popowitch, Elena B.
name: Miller, Melissa B.
Publisher: name: The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill University Libraries
Year: 2015

description: The Xpert Flu/RSV XC assay was compared to laboratory-developed tests (LDTs) ( n = 207) and the Xpert Flu assay ( n = 147) using archived nasopharyngeal swabs. The percentages of positive agreements with LDTs were 97.8% for influenza A, 97.2% for influenza B, and 89.3% for RSV. The sensitivity of influenza detection was improved with the Xpert Flu/RSV XC assay compared to the Xpert Flu assay.
Fluid manipulation among individuals with lower urinary tract symptoms: a mixed methods study
Creators: name: Elstad, Emily A
name: McKinlay, John B
name: Tennstedt, Sharon L
name: Maserejian, Nancy N
Publisher: name: The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill University Libraries
Year: 2011

description: To determine, qualitatively and quantitatively, how individuals use fluid manipulation to self-manage the urinary symptoms of daytime frequency, urgency and urine leakage and the underlying rationale for this behaviour.
Supplementary figures, supplementary tables and data for original article entitled: The presence/absence of conspecifics modulates the circadian locomotor activity and body mass in spotted munia (Lonchura punctulata) Khushboo Chaturvedi1,#, Amrita Srivastava1,2,#, Shalie Malik1 and Sangeeta Rani1,* 1 Department of Zoology, University of Lucknow, Lucknow-226007, India. 2 Department of Biotechnology, Dr. Harisingh Gour Vishwavidyalaya, Sagar, Madhya Pradesh-470001, # KC and AS contributed equally to the work *Correspondence: sangeetarani7@yahoo.com
Creators: name: Chaturvedi, Khushboo
name: Srivastava, Amrita
name: Malik, Shalie
name: Rani, Sangeeta
Publisher: name: figshare
Year: 2023
Subjects: classificationCode: 310901
subject: Animal behaviour

description: Biological clocks regulate the behavior and physiology of animals by tracking the local time using diverse time cues. Social cues are relevant in studying the behavior of gregarious animals, but these cues have not been widely studied in birds. Temporal information for circadian timekeeping is socially communicated through visual, physical, olfactory, and auditory means. We examined the efficacy of pulsatile social interactions on locomotor activity and its associated characteristics such as distribution profile of rest and activity, total counts, activity duration, phase shift in activity onset, and circadian periodicity in spotted munia. Besides, we analyzed the effect of such social interactions on their body mass. Spotted munia exhibited phase shift in the onset of activity when subjected to social isolation but these cues could not affect their circadian periodicity. In Pair as well as in Group, social isolation led to increased activity and activity duration, and decreased body mass in guests relative to the host bird. Our results suggest that the circadian rhythm of locomotor activity in spotted munia is quite sensitive to socialization and isolation, and isolation is detrimental for the birds. Consistent with these observations, the decline in body mass revealed the physiological consequences of social isolation on spotted munia.