Grundy domination and zero forcing in Kneser graphs

In this paper, we continue the investigation of different types of (Grundy) dominating sequences. We consider four different types of Grundy domination numbers and the related zero forcing numbers, focusing on these numbers in the well-known class of Kneser graphs Kn,r. In particular, we establish that the Grundy total domination number γ t gr(Kn,r) equals 2r r for any r ≥ 2 and n ≥ 2r + 1. For the Grundy domination number of Kneser graphs we get γgr(Kn,r) = α(Kn,r) whenever n is sufficiently larger than r. On the other hand, the zero forcing number Z(Kn,r) is proved to be n r − 2r r when n ≥ 3r + 1 and r ≥ 2, while lower and upper bounds are provided for Z(Kn,r) when 2r + 1 ≤ n ≤ 3r. Some lower bounds for different types of minimum ranks of Kneser graphs are also obtained along the way.Fil: Bresar, Bostjan. University of Maribor; Eslovenia. Institute Of Mathematics, Physics And Mechanics Ljubljana; EsloveniaFil: Kos, Tim. Institute Of Mathematics, Physics And Mechanics Ljubljana; EsloveniaFil: Torres, Pablo Daniel. Universidad Nacional de Rosario. Facultad de Ciencias Exactas Ingeniería y Agrimensura. Escuela de Ciencias Exactas y Naturales. Departamento de Matemática; Argentina. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - Rosario; Argentin

Antimicrobial resistance in the microbiome of feedlot watering bowls and bovine respiratory disease associated pathogens.

Bovine respiratory disease (BRD) is the primary disease of concern to beef production and is driven by stress, bacteria, viruses, and environmental and management practices. Antimicrobial use (AMU) to control BRD selects for antimicrobial resistance (AMR) genes (ARGs). Treatment failure due to AMR necessitates a rapid switch to an effective antimicrobial before a devastating amount of death loss occurs. Monitoring AMR in a herd through individual animals is impractical. There is a need for a fast, pragmatic, and scalable methodology to monitor AMR within cattle to guide effective AMU. Cattle watering bowls (WB) have been previously shown to harbour BRD pathogens and ARGs but have yet to be explored in the same context as wastewater AMR monitoring is for public health. This thesis outlines a pilot project of WB sampling as a proxy method to monitor the presence of ARGs of relevance to BRD associated pathogens. The microbiomes within watering bowls of two feedlots were genotypically and phenotypically assessed through water, swab, and sediment sampling. A new feedlot was sampled (68 water, 63 swab) as pens filled (up to 9 WB) over a series of 8 weeks. The other, older, feedlot was only sampled in the 8th week (sediment, swab, water) from 20 WB. For phenotypic AMR detection, samples were inoculated into antimicrobial sensitivity test (AST) panels containing microdilutions of four antimicrobials (enrofloxacin, florfenicol (FFN), tulathromycin, oxytetracycline). Bacteria that grew on these plates were isolated (n = 78). A subset (n = 28 new feedlot, n = 3 old feedlot + H. somni from a deep nasopharyngeal swab) of these underwent further characterisation on an AST panel containing 10 different antimicrobials. The whole genome of isolates (n = 10, 6 new, 4 old) was sequenced and analysed for ARGs. These detected ARGs were compared to a custom dataset of 172 BRD genomes from NCBI. The genetic neighbourhood of floR, an ARG encoding for the efflux of FFN, within the WB isolates (n = 4) was also compared to pathogen genomes. For the culture-independent methodology, samples from one feedlot underwent amplified 16S rRNA sequencing (n = 122), while samples from the other underwent shotgun metagenomic sequencing (n = 11). The ARGs detected in WB isolates were compared to the ARGs detected within metagenomic sequencing, and previous datasets of feedlot water. Multi-drug resistant bacteria were routinely isolated from WBs. When environmental samples from the last week of sampling were inoculated into media with FFN (>32 µg/mL), 93/96 samples had bacterial growth. By constructing a genotypic AMR profile from two feedlots and by consulting previous metagenomic datasets from feedlot water, the understudied resistome of the watering bowl microbiome was shown to provide outstanding coverage of the ARGs (15/16) detected within 172 BRD genomes. The overlap in genetic neighbourhoods between copies of floR in WB and BRD genomes confirms the possibility of horizontal gene transfer via a myriad of transposable elements between both populations. Though further studies are needed to reaffirm our findings, in this thesis the understudied environmental microbiome within feedlot watering bowls was found to serve as a potential source of ARGs for BRD pathogens and thus may serve as a proxy for relevant ARGs within feedlot environments

CT-Guided Percutaneous Fine-Needle Aspiration Biopsy of the Inferior Vena Cava Wall: A Posterior Coaxial Approach

A 72-year-old man was referred to our department with an incidentally diagnosed bronchogenic carcinoma of the right upper lobe. Positron emission tomography (PET) combined with computed tomography (PET-CT) revealed an unexpected hot spot in the ventral wall of the infrarenal segment of the inferior vena cava (IVC). Diagnostic biopsy of this lesion was performed under CT guidance with semiautomated 20G fine-needle aspiration (FNA) through a 19G coaxial needle. Cytology revealed few carcinoma cells, which led to the remarkable diagnosis of a distant metastasis to the IVC wall. Both the immediate postinterventional CT control and the further surveillance period of the patient were unremarkable; in particular, no signs of bleeding complications were detected. We conclude that coaxial FNA of an IVC wall lesion is technically feasible and may even help diagnose distant metastasi

Total dominating sequences in trees, split graphs, and under modular decomposition

A sequence of vertices in a graph G with no isolated vertices is called a total dominating sequence if every vertex in the sequence totally dominates at least one vertex that was not totally dominated by preceding vertices in the sequence, and, at the end all vertices of G are totally dominated (by definition a vertex totally dominates its neighbors). The maximum length of a total dominating sequence is called the Grundy total domination number, γgr t(G), of G, as introduced in Brešar et al. (2016). In this paper we continue the investigation of this concept, mainly from the algorithmic point of view. While it was known that the decision version of the problem is NP-complete in bipartite graphs, we show that this is also true if we restrict to split graphs. A linear time algorithm for determining the Grundy total domination number of an arbitrary forest T is presented, based on the formula γgr t(T)=2τ(T), where τ(T) is the vertex cover number of T. A similar efficient algorithm is presented for bipartite distance-hereditary graphs. Using the modular decomposition of a graph, we present a frame for obtaining polynomial algorithms for this problem in classes of graphs having relatively simple modular subgraphs. In particular, a linear algorithm for determining the Grundy total domination number of P4-tidy graphs is presented. In addition, we prove a realization result by exhibiting a family of graphs Gk such that γgr t(Gk)=k, for any k∈Z+∖{1,3}, and showing that there are no graphs G with γgr t(G)∈{1,3}. We also present such a family, which has minimum possible order and size among all graphs with Grundy total domination number equal to k.Fil: Brešar, Boštjan. University of Maribor; Eslovenia. Institute of Mathematics, Physics and Mechanics; EsloveniaFil: Kos, Tim. Institute of Mathematics, Physics and Mechanics; EsloveniaFil: Nasini, Graciela Leonor. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - Rosario; Argentina. Universidad Nacional de Rosario. Facultad de Ciencias Exactas Ingeniería y Agrimensura. Escuela de Ciencias Exactas y Naturales. Departamento de Matemática; ArgentinaFil: Torres, Pablo Daniel. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - Rosario; Argentina. Universidad Nacional de Rosario. Facultad de Ciencias Exactas Ingeniería y Agrimensura. Escuela de Ciencias Exactas y Naturales. Departamento de Matemática; Argentin

Utjecaj medija na turizam

Ovaj rad bavi se oblicima medija te njihovom utjecaju na različite segmente života, a posebna pozornost obraća se na njihov utjecaj na turizam. Poseban fokus je na medijskim fenomenima koji generirajući medije imaju utjecaj na turizam, poput revolucije pametnih telefona i pop- kulturnoga turizma. Radi boljega razumijevanja kako se mediji koriste i kakav utjecaj imaju općenito, ali i kako su povezani s turizmom, u okviru rada provedeno je istraživanje razlika u korištenju medija na uzorku od 194 ispitanika iz Republike Hrvatske i Republike Austrije. Cilj istraživanja bio je utvrditi razlike i sličnosti među ispitanicima prilikom korištenja medija, a koje se odnose i na aktivnosti povezanih s turističkim kretanjima. Rezultati istraživanja pokazali su veći utjecaj televizije kao medija na ispitanike iz Republike Hrvatske, a veći utjecaj tiska na ispitanike iz Republike Austrije. Online mediji pokazali su se značajnima bez obzira na karakteristike ispitanika

PESCAR (Pesticide control and reduction) PROJEKT PREKOGRANIČNE SURADNJE HR‐BIH‐MNE DOPRINOS USPOSTAVLJANJU SUSTAVA PROGNOZE ŠTETNIH ORGANIZAMA U REPUBLICI HRVATSKOJ

Svrha izvještajno‐prognoznih poslova jest pravovremeno, pravilno, učinkovito i ekonomski isplativo provođenje mjera zaštite bilja u praksi, na temelju podataka stalnog promatranja pojave i kretanja štetnih organizama. Glavni cilj izvještajno‐prognoznih poslova jest sprječavanje, odnosno smanjivanje gubitka u poljoprivrednoj proizvodnji koje mogu uzrokovati štetni organizmi bilja i biljnih proizvoda. Poznavanje stanja i statusa te suzbijanje štetnih organizama u nekoj državi međunarodna je obveza preuzeta potpisom „Međunarodne konvencije o zaštiti bilja“ i drugim međunarodnim sporazumima koje je potpisala Republika Hrvatska (www.hcphs.hr). Više smo se puta osvjedočili da štetni organizmi ne poznaju državne granice kao barijeru prelaska na nove prostore. Nekontrolirana i suvišna uporaba pesticida u poljoprivrednoj proizvodnji u kojoj su sudionici: poljoprivredni proizvođači, savjetodavci, državna uprava i znanstvenici, kao i činjenica da je onečišćenje jednog područja potaknuto onečišćenjem drugih, bez obzira na državne granice, rezultirala je sviješću o nužnosti zajedničkog djelovanja. Suradnjom različitih dionika u zaštiti bilja, intenzivnim prijenosom znanja, zajedničkim rješavanjem problema i usuglašavanjem može se doći do dugoročnog rješavanja pitanja zaštite okoliša od nekontrolirane primjene sredstava za zaštitu bilja

The K2-HERMES Survey: Age and Metallicity of the Thick Disc

Asteroseismology is a promising tool to study Galactic structure and evolution because it can probe the ages of stars. Earlier attempts comparing seismic data from the {\it Kepler} satellite with predictions from Galaxy models found that the models predicted more low-mass stars compared to the observed distribution of masses. It was unclear if the mismatch was due to inaccuracies in the Galactic models, or the unknown aspects of the selection function of the stars. Using new data from the K2 mission, which has a well-defined selection function, we find that an old metal-poor thick disc, as used in previous Galactic models, is incompatible with the asteroseismic information. We show that spectroscopic measurements of [Fe/H] and [$\alpha$/Fe] elemental abundances from the GALAH survey indicate a mean metallicity of $\log (Z/Z_{\odot})=-0.16$ for the thick disc. Here $Z$ is the effective solar-scaled metallicity, which is a function of [Fe/H] and [$\alpha$/Fe]. With the revised disc metallicities, for the first time, the theoretically predicted distribution of seismic masses show excellent agreement with the observed distribution of masses. This provides an indirect verification of the asteroseismic mass scaling relation is good to within five percent. Using an importance-sampling framework that takes the selection function into account, we fit a population synthesis model of the Galaxy to the observed seismic and spectroscopic data. Assuming the asteroseismic scaling relations are correct, we estimate the mean age of the thick disc to be about 10 Gyr, in agreement with the traditional idea of an old $\alpha$-enhanced thick disc.Comment: 21 pages, submitted to MNRA

Designing for the Embedding of Employee Voice

Previous research on employee voice has sought to design technological solutions that address the challenges of speaking up in the workplace. However, effectively embedding employee voice systems in organisations requires designers to engage with the social processes, power relations and contextual factors of individual workplaces. We explore this process within a university workplace through a research project responding to a crisis in educational service delivery arising from the COVID-19 pandemic. Within a successful three-month staff-led engagement, we examined the intricacies of embedding employee voice, exploring how the interactions between existing actors impacted the effectiveness of the process. We sought to identify specific actions to promote employee voice and overcome barriers to its successful establishment in organisational decision-making. We highlight design considerations for an effective employee voice system that facilitates embedding employee voice, including assurance, bounded accountability and bias reflexivity

Data on genetic associations of carotid atherosclerosis markers in Mexican American and European American rheumatoid arthritis subjects

Carotid Intima-media thickness (CIMT) and plaque are well established markers of subclinical atherosclerosis and are widely used for identifying subclinical atherosclerotic disease. We performed association analyses using Metabochip array to identify genetic variants that influence variation in CIMT and plaque, measured using B-mode ultrasonography, in rheumatoid arthritis (RA) patients. Data on genetic associations of common variants associated with both CIMT and plaque in RA subjects involving Mexican Americans (MA) and European Americans (EA) populations are presented in this article. Strong associations were observed after adjusting for covariate effects including baseline clinical characteristics and statin use. Susceptibility loci and genes and/or nearest genes associated with CIMT in MAs and EAs with RA are presented. In addition, common susceptibility loci influencing CIMT and plaque in both MAs and EAs have been presented. Polygenic Risk Score (PRS) plots showing complementary evidence for the observed CIMT and plaque association signals are also shown in this article. For further interpretation and details, please see the research article titled A Genetic Association Study of Carotid Intima-Media Thickness (CIMT) and Plaque in Mexican Americans and European Americans with Rheumatoid Arthritis which is being published in Atherosclerosis (Arya et al., 2018) [1].(Arya et al., in press) Thus, common variants in several genes exhibited significant associations with CIMT and plaque in both MAs and EAs as presented in this article. These findings may help understand the genetic architecture of subclinical atherosclerosis in RA populations