Novel Type of Streptococcus pneumoniae Causing Multidrug-Resistant Acute Otitis Media in Children

A new multidrug-resistant strain of serotype 19A has been characterized in upstate New York

Lick Observatory Supernova Search Follow-Up Program: Photometry Data Release of 93 Type Ia Supernovae

We present BVRI and unfiltered light curves of 93 Type Ia supernovae (SNe Ia) from the Lick Observatory Supernova Search (LOSS) follow-up program conducted between 2005 and 2018. Our sample consists of 78 spectroscopically normal SNe Ia, with the remainder divided between distinct subclasses (three SN 1991bg-like, three SN 1991T-like, four SNe Iax, two peculiar, and three super-Chandrasekhar events), and has a median redshift of 0.0192. The SNe in our sample have a median coverage of 16 photometric epochs at a cadence of 5.4 days, and the median first observed epoch is ~4.6 days before maximum B-band light. We describe how the SNe in our sample are discovered, observed, and processed, and we compare the results from our newly developed automated photometry pipeline to those from the previous processing pipeline used by LOSS. After investigating potential biases, we derive a final systematic uncertainty of 0.03 mag in BVRI for our dataset. We perform an analysis of our light curves with particular focus on using template fitting to measure the parameters that are useful in standardising SNe Ia as distance indicators. All of the data are available to the community, and we encourage future studies to incorporate our light curves in their analyses.Comment: 29 pages, 13 figures, accepted for publication in MNRA

9 Pregroups with modalities

In this paper we concentrate mainly on the notion ofβ-pregroups, which are pregroups (first introduced by Lambek Lambek (1999) in 1999) enriched with modality operators. β-pregroups were first proposed by Fadda Fadda (2002) in 2001. The motivation to introduce them was to (locally) limit the associativity in the calculus considered. In this paper we present this new calculus in the form of a rewriting system, and prove the very important feature of this system: that in a given derivation the non-expanding rules must always precede non-contracting ones in order for the derivation to be minimal (normalization theorem). We also propose a sequent system for this calculus and prove the cut elimination theorem for it. Keywords Pregroup,β-pregroup,normalizationtheorem,cutelimination Definition 2 A pregroup is a structure (G,≤,·, l, r, 1) such that (G,≤,·, 1) is a partially ordered monoid, and l, r are unary operations on G, fulfilling the following conditions

Indiscernibility Mask Key for Image Steganography

Our concern in this paper is to explore the possibility of using rough inclusions for image steganography. We present our initial research using indiscernibility relation as a steganographic key for hiding information into the stego carrier by means of a fixed mask. The information can be embedded into the stego-carrier in a semi-random way, whereas the reconstruction is performed in a deterministic way. The information shall be placed in selected bytes, which are indiscernible with the mask to a fixed degree. The bits indiscernible with other ratios (smaller or greater) form random gaps that lead to somehow unpredictable hiding of information presence. We assume that in our technique it can modify bits, the change of which does not cause a visual modification detectable by human sight, so we do not limit ourselves to the least significant bit. The only assumption is that we do not use the position when the mask we define uses it. For simplicity’s sake, in this work we present its operation, features, using the Least Significant Bit (LSB) method. In the experimental part, we have implemented our method in the context of hiding image into the image. The LSB technique in its simplest form is not resistant to stegoanalisys, so we used the well-known LSB matching method to mask the presence of our steganographic key usage. To verify the resistance to stegoanalisys we have conducted and discussed Chi-square and LSB enhancement test. The positive features of our method include its simplicity and speed, to decode a message we need to hide, or pass to another channel, a several-bit mask, degree of indiscernibility and size of the hidden file. We hope that our method will find application in the art of creating steganographic keys

Factor structure and reliability of the anxiety sensitivity profile in a Turkish sample

Anxiety sensitivity is an individual difference variable defined as the fear of fear or the fear of anxiety, arising from the belief that the experience of anxiety symptoms leads to illness or additional anxiety. The Anxiety Sensivity Profile (ASP) is a 60 item self-report measurement, and each item is assessed on a 7-point scale. The purpose of this study is to determine the factor structure and reliability of the Turkish version of the ASP. To address this purpose, first the scale was translated into Turkish, and then it was administered to 434 university students. Principal components factor analysis with promax rotation revealed four factors in which all items had a factor loading of 0.30 or more. The factors were as follows: (1) fear of respitory symptoms, (2) fear of cognitive dyscontrol, (3) fear of cardiac symtoms, and (4) fear of gastrointestinal symtoms. The internal consistency of these factors was 0.97,0.93,0.91 and 0.86, respectively. The overall scale also had a high degree of internal consistency, with an alpha coefficient of 0.98. Item-total analysis revealed that the internal consistency of all items was satisfactory (rs 0.30-0.77). Data provided evidence that the Turkish version of the ASP had a multidimensional construct with four lower order factors loaded on a higher order factor