Causal Inference in Disease Spread across a Heterogeneous Social System

Diffusion processes are governed by external triggers and internal dynamics in complex systems. Timely and cost-effective control of infectious disease spread critically relies on uncovering the underlying diffusion mechanisms, which is challenging due to invisible causality between events and their time-evolving intensity. We infer causal relationships between infections and quantify the reflexivity of a meta-population, the level of feedback on event occurrences by its internal dynamics (likelihood of a regional outbreak triggered by previous cases). These are enabled by our new proposed model, the Latent Influence Point Process (LIPP) which models disease spread by incorporating macro-level internal dynamics of meta-populations based on human mobility. We analyse 15-year dengue cases in Queensland, Australia. From our causal inference, outbreaks are more likely driven by statewide global diffusion over time, leading to complex behavior of disease spread. In terms of reflexivity, precursory growth and symmetric decline in populous regions is attributed to slow but persistent feedback on preceding outbreaks via inter-group dynamics, while abrupt growth but sharp decline in peripheral areas is led by rapid but inconstant feedback via intra-group dynamics. Our proposed model reveals probabilistic causal relationships between discrete events based on intra- and inter-group dynamics and also covers direct and indirect diffusion processes (contact-based and vector-borne disease transmissions).Comment: arXiv admin note: substantial text overlap with arXiv:1711.0635

Visible light-mediated gold-catalysed carbon(sp2)-carbon(sp) cross-coupling.

A dual photoredox and gold-catalysed cross-coupling reaction of alkynyltrimethylsilanes and aryldiazonium tetrafluoroborates is described. The reaction proceeds through visible-light mediated oxidative addition of aryldiazoniums, transmetalation of alkynyltrimethylsilanes and aryl-alkynyl reductive elimination. Exclusive selectivity for silyl-substituted alkynes is observed, with no reactivity observed for terminal alkynes

Materiality in Site Responsive Media Art

Daniel Dean and Ben Moren are both longtime contributors to MAW. Sharing an interest in experimental filmmaking, they formed Mobile Experiential Cinema (MEC) in 2011 for a Northern Spark commission to explore site-specific projection. They have subsequently collaborated on several works that explore comparable themes and ideologies. MEC makes use of the Mobile Broadcasting Unit developed by MAW as a platform for their own work, but Dean and Moren make significant changes to the outfit to facilitate their divergent approach to site-specific, responsive projection. The last section highlighted how site was not a central concern in MAW’s public projections. It is this relative disinterest that was one of the inspirations for the formation of MEC. Dean and Moren maintain a more consistent interest in site responsiveness and site specificity in their work. In an interview with Dean and Moren, Moren stated that in addition to a meaningful engagement with site, they were interested in examining three elements through their work: the urban environment, story and narrative elements, and live action sequences. In contrast to the earlier case studies, MEC’s work explores the ways in which the virtual and the material intersect in media interactions. Site can be the screen for projection that extends the virtuality of a narrative cinematic experience. Their site responsive work explores the blurring or hybridization of the virtual and the real, presence and simulation, live and pre-recorded in media performance and art

Neuroethological studies of fear, anxiety, and risky decision-making in rodents and humans

Prey are relentlessly faced with a series of survival problems to solve. One enduring problem is predation, where the prey's answers rely on the complex interaction between actions cultivated during its life course and defense reactions passed down by descendants. To understand the proximate neural responses to analogous threats, affective neuroscientists have favored well-controlled associative learning paradigms, yet researchers are now creating semi-realistic environments that examine the dynamic flow of decision-making and escape calculations that mimic the prey's real world choices. In the context of research from the field of ethology and behavioral ecology, we review some of the recent literature in rodent and human neuroscience and discuss how these studies have the potential to provide new insights into the behavioral expression, computations, and the neural circuits that underlie healthy and pathological fear and anxiety

Graphene field-effect transistors based on boron nitride gate dielectrics

Graphene field-effect transistors are fabricated utilizing single-crystal hexagonal boron nitride (h-BN), an insulating isomorph of graphene, as the gate dielectric. The devices exhibit mobility values exceeding 10,000 cm2/V-sec and current saturation down to 500 nm channel lengths with intrinsic transconductance values above 400 mS/mm. The work demonstrates the favorable properties of using h-BN as a gate dielectric for graphene FETs.Comment: 4 pages, 8 figure

Assessment And Intervention Using The Perspective Of Four Organizational Frames

Effective leaders must possess a sophisticated understanding of their multifaceted organizations. This includes an understanding of the organization from several perspectives. The purpose of this paper is to explore the use of reframing, the perspective that organizations can be viewed from more than one angle (Bolman & Deal, 2003). Included in this paper are descriptions of the four perspectives along with short case studies intended to illustrate the four frames from the standpoint of assessment and intervention. This paper is intended as a resource to persons responsible for leadership at the middle level ranks in their respective organizations. Prior to reading this paper the authors suggest you complete and score the survey (see Appendix A for survey)

Loss of synchronized retinal phagocytosis and age-related blindness in mice lacking alphavbeta5 integrin.

Daily phagocytosis by the retinal pigment epithelium (RPE) of spent photoreceptor outer segment fragments is critical for vision. In the retina, early morning circadian photoreceptor rod shedding precedes synchronized uptake of shed photoreceptor particles by RPE cells. In vitro, RPE cells use the integrin receptor alphavbeta5 for particle binding. Here, we tested RPE phagocytosis and retinal function in beta5 integrin--deficient mice, which specifically lack alphavbeta5 receptors. Retinal photoresponses severely declined with age in beta5-/- mice, whose RPE accumulated autofluorescent storage bodies that are hallmarks of human retinal aging and disease. beta5-/- RPE in culture failed to take up isolated photoreceptor particles. beta5-/- RPE in vivo retained basal uptake levels but lacked the burst of phagocytic activity that followed circadian photoreceptor shedding in wild-type RPE. Rhythmic activation of focal adhesion and Mer tyrosine kinases that mediate wild-type retinal phagocytosis was also completely absent in beta5-/- retina. These results demonstrate an essential role for alphavbeta5 integrin receptors and their downstream signaling pathways in synchronizing retinal phagocytosis. Furthermore, they identify the beta5-/- integrin mouse strain as a new animal model of age-related retinal dysfunction

Mode coupling theory in the FDR-preserving field theory of interacting Brownian particles

We develop a renormalized perturbation theory for the dynamics of interacting Brownian particles, which preserves the fluctuation-dissipation relation order by order. We then show that the resulting one-loop theory gives a closed equation for the density correlation function, which is identical with that in the standard mode coupling theory.Comment: version to be published in Fast Track Communication in Journal of Physics A:Math. Theo