A steady-state genetic algorithm with resampling for noisy inventory control

Noisy fitness functions occur in many practical applications of evolutionary computation. A standard technique for solving these problems is fitness resampling but this may be inefficient or need a large population, and combined with elitism it may overvalue chromosomes or reduce genetic diversity. We describe a simple new resampling technique called Greedy Average Sampling for steady-state genetic algorithms such as GENITOR. It requires an extra runtime parameter to be tuned, but does not need a large population or assumptions on noise distributions. In experiments on a well-known Inventory Control problem it performed a large number of samples on the best chromosomes yet only a small number on average, and was more effective than four other tested technique

Generalized Second Law of Thermodynamics in f(T)f(T) Gravity with Entropy Corrections

We study the generalized second law (GSL) of thermodynamics in $f(T)$ cosmology. We consider the universe as a closed bounded system filled with $n$ component fluids in the thermal equilibrium with the cosmological boundary. We use two different cosmic horizons: the future event horizon and the apparent horizon. We show the conditions under which the GSL will be valid in specific scenarios of the quintessence and the phantom energy dominated eras. Further we associate two different entropies with the cosmological horizons: with a logarithmic correction term and a power-law correction term. We also find the conditions for the GSL to be satisfied or violated by imposing constraints on model parameters.Comment: 17 pages, no figure, title changed, version accepted for publication in Astrophysics and Space Scienc

SARS-CoV-2 infects the human kidney and drives fibrosis in kidney organoids

Kidney failure is frequently observed during and after COVID-19, but it remains elusive whether this is a direct effect of the virus. Here, we report that SARS-CoV-2 directly infects kidney cells and is associated with increased tubule-interstitial kidney fibrosis in patient autopsy samples. To study direct effects of the virus on the kidney independent of systemic effects of COVID-19, we infected human-induced pluripotent stem-cell-derived kidney organoids with SARS-CoV-2. Single-cell RNA sequencing indicated injury and dedifferentiation of infected cells with activation of profibrotic signaling pathways. Importantly, SARS-CoV-2 infection also led to increased collagen 1 protein expression in organoids. A SARS-CoV-2 protease inhibitor was able to ameliorate the infection of kidney cells by SARS-CoV-2. Our results suggest that SARS-CoV-2 can directly infect kidney cells and induce cell injury with subsequent fibrosis. These data could explain both acute kidney injury in COVID-19 patients and the development of chronic kidney disease in long COVID