Fuzzy topological spaces

(1) We define normality for fuzzy topological spaces, define a fuzzy unit interval, and prove a Urysohn type lemma. (2) We define uniformities on fuzzy lattices, and characterise uniformizability in terms of complete regularity. (3) We define the product of a collection of fuzzy topological spaces. We define compactness and connectedness, and show that the product is compact (connected) iff each factor space is. (4) We place normality and complete regularity within a coherent hierarchy of separation and regularity axioms. We prove the usual implications, and the usual theorems about compactness and products. (5) We give alternative definitions of uniformities and pseudometrics, and show a compact R1 space has a unique uniformity

Disease Risks Associated with Increasing Feral Swine Numbers and Distribution in the United States

Feral hogs or “wild boars” come from several sources and include released or escaped domestic swine and the truly wild European boar. When free-roaming in North America, all are included in the term “feral swine,” as are hybrids of the two types. Although morphologically distinct, both the feral swine and European wild swine are recognized as Sus scrofa. The physical damage caused by feral swine has been well documented and includes damage to vehicles, vineyards, tree plantings, archaeological sites, agricultural crops, turf, soils, rare plant communities, and wildlife habitat (Seward et al. 2004). In addition they compete with livestock and native wildlife for food resources; prey on domestic animals and wildlife; and carry diseases that affect pets, livestock, wildlife and people (Seward et al. 2004). Texas, the state with the largest feral hog population, reports the annual damage to agriculture at $51.8 million (Adams et al. 2005). The total damage caused by feral swine in the United States is estimated to be approximately$800 million annually (Pimentel et al. 2000). This estimate is approximate, and probably conservative, because environmental damage costs attributable to feral swine are not easily quantified nor are the costs of potential disease outbreaks

Persistence of Supplemented Bifidobacterium longum subsp. infantis EVC001 in Breastfed Infants.

Attempts to alter intestinal dysbiosis via administration of probiotics have consistently shown that colonization with the administered microbes is transient. This study sought to determine whether provision of an initial course of Bifidobacterium longum subsp. infantis (B. infantis) would lead to persistent colonization of the probiotic organism in breastfed infants. Mothers intending to breastfeed were recruited and provided with lactation support. One group of mothers fed B. infantis EVC001 to their infants from day 7 to day 28 of life (n = 34), and the second group did not administer any probiotic (n = 32). Fecal samples were collected during the first 60 postnatal days in both groups. Fecal samples were assessed by 16S rRNA gene sequencing, quantitative PCR, mass spectrometry, and endotoxin measurement. B. infantis-fed infants had significantly higher populations of fecal Bifidobacteriaceae, in particular B. infantis, while EVC001 was fed, and this difference persisted more than 30 days after EVC001 supplementation ceased. Fecal milk oligosaccharides were significantly lower in B. infantis EVC001-fed infants, demonstrating higher consumption of human milk oligosaccharides by B. infantis EVC001. Concentrations of acetate and lactate were significantly higher and fecal pH was significantly lower in infants fed EVC001, demonstrating alterations in intestinal fermentation. Infants colonized by Bifidobacteriaceae at high levels had 4-fold-lower fecal endotoxin levels, consistent with observed lower levels of Gram-negative Proteobacteria and Bacteroidetes. IMPORTANCE The gut microbiome in early life plays an important role for long-term health and is shaped in large part by diet. Probiotics may contribute to improvements in health, but they have not been shown to alter the community composition of the gut microbiome. Here, we found that breastfed infants could be stably colonized at high levels by provision of B. infantis EVC001, with significant changes to the overall microbiome composition persisting more than a month later, whether the infants were born vaginally or by caesarean section. This observation is consistent with previous studies demonstrating the capacity of this subspecies to utilize human milk glycans as a nutrient and underscores the importance of pairing a probiotic organism with a specific substrate. Colonization by B. infantis EVC001 resulted in significant changes to fecal microbiome composition and was associated with improvements in fecal biochemistry. The combination of human milk and an infant-associated Bifidobacterium sp. shows, for the first time, that durable changes to the human gut microbiome are possible and are associated with improved gut function

Contact Sports as a Risk Factor for Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis: A Systematic Review.

Study Design: Systematic review. Introduction: Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) is a progressive neurodegenerative disease, ultimately resulting in paralysis and death. The condition is considered to be caused by a complex interaction between environmental and genetic factors. Although vast genetic research has deciphered many of the molecular factors in ALS pathogenesis, the environmental factors have remained largely unknown. Recent evidence suggests that participation in certain types of sporting activities are associated with increased risk for ALS. Objective: To test the hypothesis that competitive sports at the highest level that involve repetitive concussive head and cervical spinal trauma result in an increased risk of ALS compared with the general population or nonsport controls. Methods: Electronic databases from inception to November 22, 2017 and reference lists of key articles were searched to identify studies meeting inclusion criteria. Results: Sixteen studies met the inclusion criteria. Sports assessed (professional or nonprofessional) included soccer (n = 5), American football (n = 2), basketball (n = 1), cycling (n = 1), marathon or triathlon (n = 1), skating (n = 1), and general sports not specified (n = 11). Soccer and American football were considered sports involving repetitive concussive head and cervical spinal trauma. Professional sports prone to repetitive concussive head and cervical spinal trauma were associated with substantially greater effects (pooled rate ratio [RR] 8.52, 95% CI 5.18-14.0) compared with ( Conclusions: Our review suggests that increased susceptibility to ALS is significantly and independently associated with 2 factors: professional sports and sports prone to repetitive concussive head and cervical spinal trauma. Their combination resulted in an additive effect, further increasing this association to ALS

On religion and cultural policy: notes on the Roman Catholic Church

This paper argues that religious institutions have largely been neglected within the study of cultural policy. This is attributed to the inherently secular tendency of most modern social sciences. Despite the predominance of the ‘secularisation paradigm’, the paper notes that religion continues to promote powerful attachments and denunciations. Arguments between the ‘new atheists’, in particular, Richard Dawkins, and their opponents are discussed, as is Habermas’s conciliatory encounter with Joseph Ratzinger (later Pope Benedict XVI). The paper then moves to a consideration of the Roman Catholic Church as an agent of cultural policy, whose overriding aim is the promotion of ‘Christian consciousness’. Discussion focuses on the contested meanings of this, with reference to (1) the deliberations of Vatican II and (2) the exercise of theological and cultural authority by the Pope and the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF). It is argued that these doctrinal disputes intersect with secular notions of social and cultural policy and warrant attention outside the specialist realm of theological discourse

Assessing the cost of global biodiversity and conservation knowledge

Knowledge products comprise assessments of authoritative information supported by stan-dards, governance, quality control, data, tools, and capacity building mechanisms. Considerable resources are dedicated to developing and maintaining knowledge productsfor biodiversity conservation, and they are widely used to inform policy and advise decisionmakers and practitioners. However, the financial cost of delivering this information is largelyundocumented. We evaluated the costs and funding sources for developing and maintain-ing four global biodiversity and conservation knowledge products: The IUCN Red List ofThreatened Species, the IUCN Red List of Ecosystems, Protected Planet, and the WorldDatabase of Key Biodiversity Areas. These are secondary data sets, built on primary datacollected by extensive networks of expert contributors worldwide. We estimate that US$160million (range: US$116–204 million), plus 293 person-years of volunteer time (range: 278–308 person-years) valued at US$14 million (range US$12–16 million), were invested inthese four knowledge products between 1979 and 2013. More than half of this financingwas provided through philanthropy, and nearly three-quarters was spent on personnelcosts. The estimated annual cost of maintaining data and platforms for three of these knowl-edge products (excluding the IUCN Red List of Ecosystems for which annual costs were notpossible to estimate for 2013) is US$6.5 million in total (range: US$6.2–6.7 million). We esti-mated that an additional US$114 million will be needed to reach pre-defined baselines ofdata coverage for all the four knowledge products, and that once achieved, annual mainte-nance costs will be approximately US$12 million. These costs are much lower than those tomaintain many other, similarly important, global knowledge products. Ensuring that biodi-versity and conservation knowledge products are sufficiently up to date, comprehensiveand accurate is fundamental to inform decision-making for biodiversity conservation andsustainable development. Thus, the development and implementation of plans for sustain-able long-term financing for them is critical

Jet-induced cratering of a granular surface with application to lunar spaceports

The erosion of lunar soil by rocket exhaust plumes is investigated experimentally. This has identified the diffusion-driven flow in the bulk of the sand as an important but previously unrecognized mechanism for erosion dynamics. It has also shown that slow regime cratering is governed by the recirculation of sand in the widening geometry of the crater. Scaling relationships and erosion mechanisms have been characterized in detail for the slow regime. The diffusion-driven flow occurs in both slow and fast regime cratering. Because diffusion-driven flow had been omitted from the lunar erosion theory and from the pressure cratering theory of the Apollo and Viking era, those theories cannot be entirely correct.Comment: 13 pages, link to published version: http://cedb.asce.org/cgi/WWWdisplay.cgi?090000

A case study in identifying acceptable bitrates for human face recognition tasks

Face recognition from images or video footage requires a certain level of recorded image quality. This paper derives acceptable bitrates (relating to levels of compression and consequently quality) of footage with human faces, using an industry implementation of the standard H.264/MPEG-4 AVC and the Closed-Circuit Television (CCTV) recording systems on London buses. The London buses application is utilized as a case study for setting up a methodology and implementing suitable data analysis for face recognition from recorded footage, which has been degraded by compression. The majority of CCTV recorders on buses use a proprietary format based on the H.264/MPEG-4 AVC video coding standard, exploiting both spatial and temporal redundancy. Low bitrates are favored in the CCTV industry for saving storage and transmission bandwidth, but they compromise the image usefulness of the recorded imagery. In this context, usefulness is determined by the presence of enough facial information remaining in the compressed image to allow a specialist to recognize a person. The investigation includes four steps: (1) Development of a video dataset representative of typical CCTV bus scenarios. (2) Selection and grouping of video scenes based on local (facial) and global (entire scene) content properties. (3) Psychophysical investigations to identify the key scenes, which are most affected by compression, using an industry implementation of H.264/MPEG-4 AVC. (4) Testing of CCTV recording systems on buses with the key scenes and further psychophysical investigations. The results showed a dependency upon scene content properties. Very dark scenes and scenes with high levels of spatial–temporal busyness were the most challenging to compress, requiring higher bitrates to maintain useful information