Autochthonous Case of Pulmonary Histoplasmosis, Switzerland.

In Europe, pulmonary histoplasmosis is rarely diagnosed except in travelers. We report a probable autochthonous case of severe chronic pulmonary histoplasmosis in an immunocompetent man in Switzerland without travel history outside of Europe. Diagnosis was achieved by histopathology, fungal culture, and serology, but the source of the infection remains speculative

What's Decidable About Sequences?

We present a first-order theory of sequences with integer elements, Presburger arithmetic, and regular constraints, which can model significant properties of data structures such as arrays and lists. We give a decision procedure for the quantifier-free fragment, based on an encoding into the first-order theory of concatenation; the procedure has PSPACE complexity. The quantifier-free fragment of the theory of sequences can express properties such as sortedness and injectivity, as well as Boolean combinations of periodic and arithmetic facts relating the elements of the sequence and their positions (e.g., "for all even i's, the element at position i has value i+3 or 2i"). The resulting expressive power is orthogonal to that of the most expressive decidable logics for arrays. Some examples demonstrate that the fragment is also suitable to reason about sequence-manipulating programs within the standard framework of axiomatic semantics.Comment: Fixed a few lapses in the Mergesort exampl

On the Sets of Real Numbers Recognized by Finite Automata in Multiple Bases

This article studies the expressive power of finite automata recognizing sets of real numbers encoded in positional notation. We consider Muller automata as well as the restricted class of weak deterministic automata, used as symbolic set representations in actual applications. In previous work, it has been established that the sets of numbers that are recognizable by weak deterministic automata in two bases that do not share the same set of prime factors are exactly those that are definable in the first order additive theory of real and integer numbers. This result extends Cobham's theorem, which characterizes the sets of integer numbers that are recognizable by finite automata in multiple bases. In this article, we first generalize this result to multiplicatively independent bases, which brings it closer to the original statement of Cobham's theorem. Then, we study the sets of reals recognizable by Muller automata in two bases. We show with a counterexample that, in this setting, Cobham's theorem does not generalize to multiplicatively independent bases. Finally, we prove that the sets of reals that are recognizable by Muller automata in two bases that do not share the same set of prime factors are exactly those definable in the first order additive theory of real and integer numbers. These sets are thus also recognizable by weak deterministic automata. This result leads to a precise characterization of the sets of real numbers that are recognizable in multiple bases, and provides a theoretical justification to the use of weak automata as symbolic representations of sets.Comment: 17 page

Ecological strategies in stable and disturbed environments depend on species specialisation

Ecological strategies are integral to understanding species survival in different environments. However, how habitat specialisation is involved in such strategies is not fully understood, particularly in heterogeneous and disturbed environments. Here, we studied the trait associations between specialisation, dispersal ability, competitiveness, reproductive investment and survival rate in a spatially explicit metacommunity model under various disturbance rates. Though no unique trait values were associated with specialisation, relationships were uncovered depending on environmental factors. We found strong trait associations mainly for generalist species, while specialist species exhibited a larger range of trait combinations. Trait associations were driven first by the disturbance rate and second by species’ dispersal ability and generation overlap. With disturbance, low dispersal ability was strongly selected against, for specialists as well as for generalists. Our results demonstrate that habitat specialisation is critical for the emergence of trait strategies in metacommunities and that disturbance in interaction with dispersal ability limits not only the range of trait values but also the type of possible trait associations

Patient well‐being after general anaesthesia: a prospective, randomized, controlled multi‐centre trial comparing intravenous and inhalation anaesthesia

Background. The aim of this study was to assess postoperative patient well‐being after total i.v. anaesthesia compared with inhalation anaesthesia by means of validated psychometric tests. Methods. With ethics committee approval, 305 patients undergoing minor elective gynaecologic or orthopaedic interventions were assigned randomly to total i.v. anaesthesia using propofol or inhalation anaesthesia using sevoflurane. The primary outcome measurement was the actual mental state 90 min and 24 h after anaesthesia assessed by a blinded observer using the Adjective Mood Scale (AMS) and the State‐Trait‐Anxiety Inventory (STAI). Incidence of postoperative nausea and vomiting (PONV) and postoperative pain level were determined by Visual Analogue Scale (VAS) 90 min and 24 h after anaesthesia (secondary outcome measurements). Patient satisfaction was evaluated using a VAS 24 h after anaesthesia. Results. The AMS and STAI scores were significantly better 90 min after total i.v. anaesthesia compared with inhalation anaesthesia (P=0.02, P=0.05, respectively), but equal 24 h after both anaesthetic techniques (P=0.90, P=0.78, respectively); patient satisfaction was comparable (P=0.26). Postoperative pain was comparable in both groups 90 min and 24 h after anaesthesia (P=0.11, P=0.12, respectively). The incidence of postoperative nausea was reduced after total i.v. compared with inhalation anaesthesia at 90 min (7 vs 35%, P<0.001), and 24 h (33 vs 52%, P=0.001). Conclusion. Total i.v. anaesthesia improves early postoperative patient well‐being and reduces the incidence of PONV. Br J Anaesth 2003; 91: 631-

Formats of Winning Strategies for Six Types of Pushdown Games

The solution of parity games over pushdown graphs (Walukiewicz '96) was the first step towards an effective theory of infinite-state games. It was shown that winning strategies for pushdown games can be implemented again as pushdown automata. We continue this study and investigate the connection between game presentations and winning strategies in altogether six cases of game arenas, among them realtime pushdown systems, visibly pushdown systems, and counter systems. In four cases we show by a uniform proof method that we obtain strategies implementable by the same type of pushdown machine as given in the game arena. We prove that for the two remaining cases this correspondence fails. In the conclusion we address the question of an abstract criterion that explains the results

Imitation in Large Games

In games with a large number of players where players may have overlapping objectives, the analysis of stable outcomes typically depends on player types. A special case is when a large part of the player population consists of imitation types: that of players who imitate choice of other (optimizing) types. Game theorists typically study the evolution of such games in dynamical systems with imitation rules. In the setting of games of infinite duration on finite graphs with preference orderings on outcomes for player types, we explore the possibility of imitation as a viable strategy. In our setup, the optimising players play bounded memory strategies and the imitators play according to specifications given by automata. We present algorithmic results on the eventual survival of types

Trees over Infinite Structures and Path Logics with Synchronization

We provide decidability and undecidability results on the model-checking problem for infinite tree structures. These tree structures are built from sequences of elements of infinite relational structures. More precisely, we deal with the tree iteration of a relational structure M in the sense of Shelah-Stupp. In contrast to classical results where model-checking is shown decidable for MSO-logic, we show decidability of the tree model-checking problem for logics that allow only path quantifiers and chain quantifiers (where chains are subsets of paths), as they appear in branching time logics; however, at the same time the tree is enriched by the equal-level relation (which holds between vertices u, v if they are on the same tree level). We separate cleanly the tree logic from the logic used for expressing properties of the underlying structure M. We illustrate the scope of the decidability results by showing that two slight extensions of the framework lead to undecidability. In particular, this applies to the (stronger) tree iteration in the sense of Muchnik-Walukiewicz.Comment: In Proceedings INFINITY 2011, arXiv:1111.267

Journeying through Dementia: the story of a 14 year design-led research enquiry

Consider a linear ordering equipped with a finite sequence of monadic predicates. If the ordering contains an interval of order type \omega or -\omega, and the monadic second-order theory of the combined structure is decidable, there exists a non-trivial expansion by a further monadic predicate that is still decidable.Comment: 18 page

Logics for Unranked Trees: An Overview

Labeled unranked trees are used as a model of XML documents, and logical languages for them have been studied actively over the past several years. Such logics have different purposes: some are better suited for extracting data, some for expressing navigational properties, and some make it easy to relate complex properties of trees to the existence of tree automata for those properties. Furthermore, logics differ significantly in their model-checking properties, their automata models, and their behavior on ordered and unordered trees. In this paper we present a survey of logics for unranked trees