615 research outputs found
Almost Optimal Streaming Algorithms for Coverage Problems
Maximum coverage and minimum set cover problems --collectively called
coverage problems-- have been studied extensively in streaming models. However,
previous research not only achieve sub-optimal approximation factors and space
complexities, but also study a restricted set arrival model which makes an
explicit or implicit assumption on oracle access to the sets, ignoring the
complexity of reading and storing the whole set at once. In this paper, we
address the above shortcomings, and present algorithms with improved
approximation factor and improved space complexity, and prove that our results
are almost tight. Moreover, unlike most of previous work, our results hold on a
more general edge arrival model. More specifically, we present (almost) optimal
approximation algorithms for maximum coverage and minimum set cover problems in
the streaming model with an (almost) optimal space complexity of
, i.e., the space is {\em independent of the size of the sets or
the size of the ground set of elements}. These results not only improve over
the best known algorithms for the set arrival model, but also are the first
such algorithms for the more powerful {\em edge arrival} model. In order to
achieve the above results, we introduce a new general sketching technique for
coverage functions: This sketching scheme can be applied to convert an
-approximation algorithm for a coverage problem to a
(1-\eps)\alpha-approximation algorithm for the same problem in streaming, or
RAM models. We show the significance of our sketching technique by ruling out
the possibility of solving coverage problems via accessing (as a black box) a
(1 \pm \eps)-approximate oracle (e.g., a sketch function) that estimates the
coverage function on any subfamily of the sets
Puerto Rico - Tax Haven or Tax Trap
This article does not encompass the entire subject of foreign taxation but is limited to two specific questions involved therein: 1. Where does a sale take place for purposes of Federal Taxation? 2. If it is determined that the sale takes place partly within and partly without the U. S., how much of the income from such sales is taxable to the U. S.
Nitroheterocyclic drug resistance mechanisms in <i>Trypanosoma brucei</i>
OBJECTIVES: The objective of this study was to identify the mechanisms of resistance to nifurtimox and fexinidazole in African trypanosomes. METHODS: Bloodstream-form Trypanosoma brucei were selected for resistance to nifurtimox and fexinidazole by stepwise exposure to increasing drug concentrations. Clones were subjected to WGS to identify putative resistance genes. Transgenic parasites modulating expression of genes of interest were generated and drug susceptibility phenotypes determined. RESULTS: Nifurtimox-resistant (NfxR) and fexinidazole-resistant (FxR) parasites shared reciprocal cross-resistance suggestive of a common mechanism of action. Previously, a type I nitroreductase (NTR) has been implicated in nitro drug activation. WGS of resistant clones revealed that NfxR parasites had lost >100 kb from one copy of chromosome 7, rendering them hemizygous for NTR as well as over 30 other genes. FxR parasites retained both copies of NTR, but lost >70 kb downstream of one NTR allele, decreasing NTR transcription by half. A single knockout line of NTR displayed 1.6- and 1.9-fold resistance to nifurtimox and fexinidazole, respectively. Since NfxR and FxR parasites are ∼6- and 20-fold resistant to nifurtimox and fexinidazole, respectively, additional factors must be involved. Overexpression and knockout studies ruled out a role for a putative oxidoreductase (Tb927.7.7410) and a hypothetical gene (Tb927.1.1050), previously identified in a genome-scale RNAi screen. CONCLUSIONS: NTR was confirmed as a key resistance determinant, either by loss of one gene copy or loss of gene expression. Further work is required to identify which of the many dozens of SNPs identified in the drug-resistant cell lines contribute to the overall resistance phenotype
Semi-Streaming Set Cover
This paper studies the set cover problem under the semi-streaming model. The
underlying set system is formalized in terms of a hypergraph whose
edges arrive one-by-one and the goal is to construct an edge cover with the objective of minimizing the cardinality (or cost in the weighted
case) of . We consider a parameterized relaxation of this problem, where
given some , the goal is to construct an edge -cover, namely, a subset of edges incident to all but an
-fraction of the vertices (or their benefit in the weighted case).
The key limitation imposed on the algorithm is that its space is limited to
(poly)logarithmically many bits per vertex.
Our main result is an asymptotically tight trade-off between and
the approximation ratio: We design a semi-streaming algorithm that on input
graph , constructs a succinct data structure such that for
every , an edge -cover that approximates
the optimal edge \mbox{(-)cover} within a factor of can be
extracted from (efficiently and with no additional space
requirements), where In particular for the traditional
set cover problem we obtain an -approximation. This algorithm is
proved to be best possible by establishing a family (parameterized by
) of matching lower bounds.Comment: Full version of the extended abstract that will appear in Proceedings
of ICALP 2014 track
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Longitudinal Monitoring of SARS-CoV-2 IgM and IgG Seropositivity to Detect COVID-19.
BackgroundSevere acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), is a novel beta-coronavirus that has recently emerged as the cause of the 2019 coronavirus pandemic (COVID-19). Polymerase chain reaction (PCR) based tests are optimal and recommended for the diagnosis of an acute SARS-CoV-2 infection. Serology tests for viral antibodies provide an important tool to diagnose previous exposure to the virus. Here we evaluate the analytical performance parameters of the Diazyme SARS-CoV-2 IgM/IgG serology assays and describe the kinetics of IgM and IgG seroconversion observed in patients with PCR-confirmed COVID-19 who were admitted to our hospital.MethodsWe validated the performance of the Diazyme assay in 235 presumed SARS-CoV-2 negative subjects to determine specificity. Subsequently, we evaluated the SARS-CoV-2 IgM and IgG seroconversion of 54 PCR-confirmed COVID-19 patients and determined sensitivity of the assay at three different timeframes.ResultSensitivity and specificity for detecting seropositivity at ≥15 days following a positive SARS-CoV-2 PCR result, was 100.0% and 98.7% when assaying for the panel of IgM and IgG. The median time to seropositivity observed for a reactive IgM and IgG result from the date of a positive PCR was 5 days (IQR: 2.75-9 days) and 4 days (IQR: 2.75-6.75 days), respectively.ConclusionsOur data demonstrate that the Diazyme IgM/IgG assays are suited for the purpose of detecting SARS-CoV-2 IgG and IgM in patients with suspected SARS-CoV-2 infections. For the first time, we report longitudinal data showing the evolution of seroconversion for both IgG and IgM in a cohort of acutely ill patients in the United States. We also demonstrate a low false positive rate in patients who were presumed to be disease free
Electronic Structures of SiC Nanoribbons
Electronic structures of SiC nanoribbons have been studied by spin-polarized
density functional calculations. The armchair nanoribbons are nonmagnetic
semiconductor, while the zigzag nanoribbons are magnetic metal. The spin
polarization in zigzag SiC nanoribbons is originated from the unpaired
electrons localized on the ribbon edges. Interestingly, the zigzag nanoribbons
narrower than 4 nm present half-metallic behavior. Without the aid of
external field or chemical modification, the metal-free half-metallicity
predicted for narrow SiC zigzag nanoribbons opens a facile way for nanomaterial
spintronics applications.Comment: 10 pages, 5 figure
Removal of S. Mansoni in patients with hepatosplenig schistosomiasis: An estimate of the Parasitological load by means of quantitative coproscopy
32 Patients with an average age of 18.9 years suffering from schistosomiasis mansoni in its compensated hepatosplenic from who never taken schistosomicidal drugs 'were studied. All the patients were submitted to splenectorrry and filtration of the portal blood for the removal of S. mansoni. A study was made of the relationship between the average number of eggs per gram of faeces obtained from the ana{ysis of 10 successive samples of each patient's faeces b¡r the Kato.,Ifutz method and the number of worms removed from the portal blood. The statistical procedure used revealed a significant relationship between the parameters studied, permitting the establishment of the respective regression equations designed to estimate the numbers of female worms, pairs of ,worms and total worms. From the results and the application of a technique for the constitution of extremé subgroups, the authors propose a classification of the intensity of infection; a) light parasitic load: average number of eggs per gram of faeces less than B0B, corresponding to an estimated parasitic load of less than 226 female worms; b) moderate parasitic load: average number of eggs per gram of faeces between B0B and 3968, corresponding to an estimated. parasitic load. of between 226 and.528 female worms; c) Íntense parasitic load: average number of eggs per gram of faeces greater than 3968, corresponding to an estimated parasitic load greater than 528 female worms. On the basis of the proposed. classification the Authors discuss the indication of specific treatment for schistosomiasis mansoni in patients with the hepatosplenic form of the disease
MGST1, a GSH transferase/peroxidase essential for development and hematopoietic stem cell differentiation.
We show for the first time that, in contrast to other glutathione transferases and peroxidases, deletion of microsomal glutathione transferase 1 (MGST1) in mice is embryonic lethal. To elucidate why, we used zebrafish development as a model system and found that knockdown of MGST1 produced impaired hematopoiesis. We show that MGST1 is expressed early during zebrafish development and plays an important role in hematopoiesis. High expression of MGST1 was detected in regions of active hematopoiesis and co-expressed with markers for hematopoietic stem cells. Further, morpholino-mediated knock-down of MGST1 led to a significant reduction of differentiated hematopoietic cells both from the myeloid and the lymphoid lineages. In fact, hemoglobin was virtually absent in the knock-down fish as revealed by diaminofluorene staining. The impact of MGST1 on hematopoiesis was also shown in hematopoietic stem/progenitor cells (HSPC) isolated from mice, where it was expressed at high levels. Upon promoting HSPC differentiation, lentiviral shRNA MGST1 knockdown significantly reduced differentiated, dedicated cells of the hematopoietic system. Further, MGST1 knockdown resulted in a significant lowering of mitochondrial metabolism and an induction of glycolytic enzymes, energetic states closely coupled to HSPC dynamics. Thus, the non-selenium, glutathione dependent redox regulatory enzyme MGST1 is crucial for embryonic development and for hematopoiesis in vertebrates
Make Research Data Public? -- Not Always so Simple: A Dialogue for Statisticians and Science Editors
Putting data into the public domain is not the same thing as making those
data accessible for intelligent analysis. A distinguished group of editors and
experts who were already engaged in one way or another with the issues inherent
in making research data public came together with statisticians to initiate a
dialogue about policies and practicalities of requiring published research to
be accompanied by publication of the research data. This dialogue carried
beyond the broad issues of the advisability, the intellectual integrity, the
scientific exigencies to the relevance of these issues to statistics as a
discipline and the relevance of statistics, from inference to modeling to data
exploration, to science and social science policies on these issues.Comment: Published in at http://dx.doi.org/10.1214/10-STS320 the Statistical
Science (http://www.imstat.org/sts/) by the Institute of Mathematical
Statistics (http://www.imstat.org
Gamma-ray emission from massive young stellar objects
Massive stars form in dense and massive molecular cores. The exact formation
mechanism is unclear, but it is possible that some massive stars are formed by
processes similar to those that produce the low-mass stars, with
accretion/ejection phenomena occurring at some point of the evolution of the
protostar. This picture seems to be supported by the detection of a collimated
stellar wind emanating from the massive protostar IRAS 16547-4247. A triple
radio source is associated with the protostar: a compact core and two radio
lobes. The emission of the southern lobe is clearly non-thermal. Such emission
is interpreted as synchrotron radiation produced by relativistic electrons
locally accelerated at the termination point of a thermal jet. Since the
ambient medium is determined by the properties of the molecular cloud in which
the whole system is embedded, we can expect high densities of particles and
infrared photons. Because of the confirmed presence of relativistic electrons,
inverse Compton and relativistic Bremsstrahlung interactions are unavoidable.
Proton-proton collision should also occur, producing an injection of neutral
pions. In this paper we aim at making quantitative predictions of the spectral
energy distribution of the non-thermal spots generated by massive young stellar
objects, with emphasis on the particular case of IRAS 16547-4247. We present
spectral energy distributions for the southern lobe of this source, for a
variety of conditions. We show that high-energy emission might be detectable
from this object in the gamma-ray domain (MeV to TeV). The source may also be
detectable at X-rays through long exposures with current X-ray instruments.Comment: 8 pages, 6 figures, accepted for publication in A&
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