We consider the problem of estimating the parameters of a non-stationary Hawkes process with time-dependent reproduction rate and baseline intensity. Our approach relies on the standard maximum likelihood estimator (MLE), coinciding with the conventional approach for stationary point processes characterised by [Ogata, 1978]. In the fully parametric setting, we find that the MLE over a single observation of the process over $[0, T]$ remains consistent and asymptotically normal as $T \to \infty$. Our results extend partially to the semi-nonparametric setting where no specific shape is assumed for the reproduction rate $g \colon [0, 1] \mapsto \mathbb{R}_+$. We construct a time invariance test with null hypothesis that g is constant against the alternative that it is not, and find that it remains consistent over the whole space of continuous functions of [0, 1]. As an application, we employ our procedure in the context of the German intraday power market, where we provide evidence of fluctuations in the endogeneity rate of the order flow.
Rationale. The specificity of injuries in combatants determines the feasibility of studying the relationship between the state of cerebral energy metabolism (CEM) and changes in the mental sphere to establish the role of adaptive reactions of the nervous system in the development of psychogenic lesions of various levels.The arm. Compare changes in psychological indicators and the level of constant brain potential in combatants.Materials and methods. Fifty four combatants were examined. Used methods of neuroenergy mapping, psychological diagnosis.Results. Compared with the comparison group, combatants had the increased average DC-potential level (Хav.) (69.7 % and 17.6 %, p = 0.031, respectively). An increase in the local DC-potential level in the central and right frontal, the right temporal, central, and left parietal parts of the brain (12.3 (8.1–20.3); 10.1 (7.8–34.4); 8.6 (4.2–17.4); 5.8 (1.1–15.2); 5.4 (3.0–15.3), and 0.8 (-3.1–4.3); -5.8 (-12.1–5.1); -2.2 (-4.9–4.3); 1.7–(-0.7–5.4); 0.1 (-4.9–2.8) mV, р = 0.005, 0.007, 0.011, 0.003, 0.004, respectively) was registered. More than 58.8 % of the combatants had an adaptation violation in the form of a rigid reaction to stress. When modeling physical and emotional stress, correlation ties between the DC-potential level were established in the post-hypertension period and indicators of the test of visual perception (rs = 0.52, p = 0.018), the symptom of acute stress disorder (ASD) “Event of the injury” (rs = 0.52 p = 0.009; rs = 0.54 p = 0.011; rs = 0,53 p = 0.017, respectively).Limitations. The study is limited by the sample of patients and the lack of clinical characteristics of examined combatants, taking into account psychoneurological conditions.Conclusion. Violation of physiological adaptation to combat stress is manifested by a rigid reaction of the DC-potential level (Хav.). During functional trials, the conjunction of the reactivity of the cerebral energy exchange with the severity of the symptom of the “Event of the injury”, an indicator of visual perception, reflecting the vulnerability of the right hemisphere, which leads in the development of adaptation and stress.
BackgroundCongenital tuberculosis (CTB) is an extremely rare and potentially life-threatening infection in premature infants that is frequently misdiagnosed. There is still a lack of thorough characterization of this condition in preterm neonates, particularly in high TB-burden settings.MethodsPremature infants with CTB were identified from hospital medical records from January 2016 to December 2023 in a high-burden, resource-limited neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) in southwest China. Diagnosis was based on etiology and clinical evidence. Data extracted included demographics, maternal history of tuberculosis (TB) exposure, symptoms, laboratory markers, microbiological findings, imaging findings, treatment regimens, and prognosis. These were evaluated during the pre-diagnosis, diagnosis, and posttreatment stages.ResultsA total of 11 premature infants with CTB were included. Maternal TB was common in this cohort; 7 of the 11 mothers were diagnosed with TB following in vitro fertilization and embryo transfer. Clinical manifestations were atypical and consisted primarily of non-specific symptoms, including low fever, shortness of breath, poor reaction, less eating, and coughing. Laboratory findings during the active phase of CTB revealed statistically significant elevations in C-reactive protein levels (P = 0.001), thrombocytopenia (P = 0.007), hyponatremia (P = 0.040), hypocalcemia (P = 0.022), and hypomagnesemia (P = 0.025). Sputum acid-fast bacillus (AFB) smear was positive in 4 out of 11, while gastric juice AFB smear was positive in 6 out of 11. Mycobacterial liquid culture produced the highest positivity with 7 out of 11, followed by solid culture and interferon-gamma release assays with 5 out of 11. All nucleic acid amplification tests were positive, and chest CT scans showed abnormalities in each patient. Among the patients, five experienced liver function impairment after anti-TB treatment, as evidenced by elevated alanine aminotransferase levels.ConclusionsIn this study, preterm infants with CTB frequently demonstrated non-specific clinical signs with a reversible pattern of inflammation, anemia, thrombocytopenia, and electrolyte disturbances that normalized after anti-TB therapy. These patterns, together with maternal TB risk or in vitro fertilization and embryo transfer history, may raise clinical suspicion and justify the early use of nucleic acid amplification testing, and generalizability outside this setting requires larger, controlled cohorts.
Toxoplasma gondii infects almost all warm-blooded animals, including marine mammals. Toxoplasmosis has been reported in wild and captive marine mammals in North America; however, no viable T. gondii strains have been isolated from northern fur seals. In this study, reproduction and T. gondii infection status were investigated in 10 northern fur seals (Callorhinus ursinus), from tissues collected from 2012 to 2024 in China. Toxoplasma gondii infections were determined by the modified agglutination test (MAT), PCR, immunohistochemical (IHC) staining, and isolation of the parasite by bioassay in mice. MAT was performed using placenta or tissue exudates to detect anti-T. gondii IgG antibodies. Four of the 10 seals had anti-T. gondii antibodies; Toxoplasma gondii DNA was detected by PCR in placenta tissues of two of these four animals, and T. gondii antibody positive reactions were observed in four seals by IHC. A viable T. gondii strain, TgFurSealCHn1, was isolated from placenta of one seal by bioassay in mice. In all, five seals had signs of T. gondii infection, and three of them had fetal stillbirth. One stillborn fetus had T. gondii nucleic acid detected by PCR, indicating potential vertical transmission of the parasite. Multilocus genetic typing of the TgFurSealCHn1 isolate revealed ToxoDB #5 genotype, which had demonstrated avirulence in Swiss Webster outbred mice, and the ROP18/ROP5 type was 2/2. ToxoDB #5 is the dominant genotype of wild terrestrial and marine mammals in North America. This is the first report of a viable T. gondii strain isolated from northern fur seal placenta.
ABSTRACT Biodiversity is decreasing worldwide, and early indicators are needed to identify endangered populations before they start to decline in abundance. In mammals, body mass (BM) is regarded as an indicator of fitness, and its loss is used as an early warning signal preceding population decline. The garden dormouse (Eliomys quercinus, Gliridae, BM: 60–110 g) is a small mammalian hibernator that has disappeared from over 50% of its former range in the last decades. The aim of this study was to investigate whether garden dormice from a presumably thriving and stable population already show early warning signals, which may precede a population decline. We therefore conducted capture‐mark‐recapture studies during 2003–2005 (Period 1) and 2018–2021 (Period 2) in the Northern Black Forest, one of its last natural distribution areas in Germany. We collected fecal samples, measured BM, and tibia length as a proxy for size and age. Results revealed that in Period 2 adult dormice had a significantly lower (12%) pre‐hibernation BM, corrected for body size, and juveniles showed a significantly lower BM gain after weaning than nearly two decades ago. Fecal samples collected in Period 2 showed that arthropods represented the main food residues in fecal samples during juvenile growth and pre‐hibernation fattening. Ambient temperature during hibernation showed no correlation with BM at emergence. We could not detect a phenological time shift in reproduction; however, we found only one birth peak in Period 2, compared with two birth peaks in Period 1. Observed changes in BM and reproduction pattern represent early warning signals, as they point to an insufficient availability of high‐quality food, which prevents dormice from meeting their nutritional requirements, with potentially serious consequences for their reproductive success and survival. As arthropods are the dominant food resource, their decline may at least partly explain this phenomenon.
We derive a central limit theorem for a spatial $Λ$-Fleming-Viot model with fluctuating population size. At each reproduction, a proportion of the population dies and is replaced by a not necessarily equal mass of new individuals. The mass depends on the local population size and a function thereof. Additionally, as new individuals have a single parental type, with growing population size, events become more frequent and of smaller impact, modelling the successful reproduction of a higher number of individuals. From the central limit theorem we derive a Wright-Malécot formula quantifying the asymptotic probability of identity by descent and thus isolation by distance. The formula reflects that ancestral lineages are attracted by centres of population mass and coalesce with a rate inversely proportional to the population size. Notably, we obtain this information despite the varying population size rendering the dual process intractable.
Consider a supercritical birth and death process where the children acquire mutations. We study the mutation rates along the ancestral lineages in a sample of size $n$ from the population at time $T$. The mutation rate is time-inhomogenous and has a natural probabilistic interpretation. We use these results to obtain asymptotic results for the site frequency spectrum associated with the sample.
Diego Kozlowski, Thema Monroe-White, Vincent Larivière
et al.
The US higher education system concentrates the production of science and scientists within a few institutions. This has implications for minoritized scholars and the topics with which they are disproportionately associated. This paper examines topical alignment between institutions and authors of varying intersectional identities, and the relationship with prestige and scientific impact. We observe a Howard-Harvard effect, in which the topical profile of minoritized scholars are amplified in mission-driven institutions and decreased in prestigious institutions. Results demonstrate a consistent pattern of inequality in topics and research impact. Specifically, we observe statistically significant differences between minoritized scholars and White men in citations and journal impact. The aggregate research profile of prestigious US universities is highly correlated with the research profile of White men, and highly negatively correlated with the research profile of minoritized women. Furthermore, authors affiliated with more prestigious institutions are associated with increasing inequalities in both citations and journal impact. Academic institutions and funders are called to create policies to mitigate the systemic barriers that prevent the United States from achieving a fully robust scientific ecosystem.
Factors affecting sperm freezability in goat seminal plasma were investigated. Based on the total motility of thawed sperm, goats were divided into a high-freezability (HF) group with >60% total motility (n = 8) and a low-freezability (LF) group with <45% total motility (n = 8). Sperm and seminal plasma from the HF and LF groups were separated, HF seminal plasma was mixed with LF spermatozoa, LF seminal plasma was mixed with HF sperm, and the products were subjected to a freeze-thaw procedure. Semen from individual goats exhibited differences in freezability. HF semen had higher sperm motility parameters and plasma membrane and acrosome integrity after thawing; this difference could be related to the composition of seminal plasma. Seminal plasma from the HF and LF groups was evaluated using metabolomic analysis, and multivariate statistical analysis revealed a clear separation of metabolic patterns in the seminal plasma of goats with different freezability classifications. Forty-one differential metabolites were identified using the following screening conditions: variable importance in the projection > 1 and 0.05 < P-value < 0.1. Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes pathway analysis revealed significant enrichment of central carbon metabolism in cancer, protein digestion and absorption, aminoacyl-tRNA, and other pathways and significant differences in the abundance of seven differential metabolites, including L-glutamine, L-aspartate, L-arginine, phenylpyruvate, benzoic acid, ketoisocaproic acid, and choline between seminal plasma from the HF and LF groups (P-value < 0.05). These significantly differentially-expressed metabolites may be potential biomarkers for sperm freezability. L-glutamine, L-aspartate, and L-arginine may directly affect sperm freezability. Benzoic acid, ketoisocaproic acid, and choline may regulate sperm freezability by participating in anabolic processes involving phenylalanine, leucine, and phosphatidylcholine in sperm.
Eva Lusekelo, Mlyashimbi Helikumi, Dmitry Kuznetsov
et al.
In recent decades, media campaigns have played an important role in assessing, preventing and controlling infectious diseases. However, little progress has been made in quantifying its impact during chikungunya epidemics. In order to address this critical gap, this paper develops and analyzes a climate-based model of chikungunya virus disease that incorporates mass media campaigns and heterogeneous biting exposures. We obtained the basic reproduction numbers associated with the proposed model and determined the results of the threshold dynamics. We calibrated our model based on literature data and validated it with monthly observed chikungunya cases in Madhya Pradesh, India (2016–2017). The results show that mass media campaigns can significantly reduce the spread of the disease. It can also limit the occurrence of future outbreaks in the next few years. We also observed that media fatigue may reduce the impact of media to mitigate the spread of chikungunya virus.
Computer applications to medicine. Medical informatics
Attempts at assessing endometrial receptivity through its transcriptomic signature have unfortunately failed. On the contrary, RCTs have indicated that the period of receptivity is fairly wide, lasting 48–72 hours. Today, the ultimate challenge is to optimize hormonal preparation for frozen embryo transfers (FETs). Recent data have provided compelling evidence that vaginal progesterone provides insufficient plasma levels of progesterone in a large fraction of patients, which leads to lower live birth rates and increased risks of miscarriage. The most efficient option consists in delivering injectable progesterone, or opting for a combo approach associating vaginal and injectable progesterone.
Empty follicle syndrome (EFS) is a rare condition in female infertility. It is characterized by the inability to retrieve oocytes from visibly large, normally developing follicles in the ovaries, despite ovarian stimulation. The genetic factors contributing to this syndrome remain unclear. This study focused on patients who underwent three consecutive ovarian stimulation procedures for oocyte retrieval but experienced unsuccessful outcomes, despite the presence of observable large follicles. Ultrasound examinations were conducted to assess follicular development during each procedure. In order to investigate potential genetic causes, we performed whole exome sequencing on peripheral blood samples from the patient. Interestingly, we identified that this patient carries a homozygous mutation in the ZP3 genes. Within the ZP3 gene, we identified a homozygous variant [NM_001110354.2, c.176T>A (p.L59H)] specifically located in the zona pellucida (ZP) domain. Further analysis, including bioinformatics methods and protein structure modeling, was carried out to investigate the conservation of the ZP3L59H variant across different species. This homozygous variant exhibited a high degree of conservation across various species. Importantly, the homozygous ZP3L59H variant was associated with the occurrence of empty follicle syndrome in affected female patients. The homozygous ZP3L59H variant represents a newly discovered genetic locus implicated in the development of human empty follicle syndrome. Our findings contribute to a deeper understanding of the role of zona pellucida-related genes in infertility and provide valuable insights for the genetic diagnosis of female infertility.
In this work we study the bisexual Galton-Watson process with a finite number of types, where females and males mate according to a ''mating function'' and form couples of different types. We assume that this function is superadditive, which in simple words implies that two groups of females and males will form a larger number of couples together rather than separate. In the absence of a linear reproduction operator which is the key to understand the behaviour of the model in the asexual case, we build a concave reproduction operator and use a concave Perron-Frobenius theory to ensure the existence of eigenelements. Using this tool, we find a necessary and sufficient condition for almost sure extinction as well as a law of large numbers. Finally, we study the almost sure long-time convergence of the rescaled process through the identification of a supermartingale, and we give sufficient conditions to ensure a convergence in $L^1$ to a non-degenerate limit.
In this article, we investigate the importance of demographic and contact patterns in determining the spread of COVID-19 and to the effectiveness of social distancing policies. We investigate these questions proposing an augmented epidemiological model with an age-structured model, with the population divided into susceptible (S), exposed (E), infected and asymptomatic (A), hospitalized (H), infected and symptomatic (I), and recovered individuals (R), to simulate COVID-19 dissemination. The simulations were carried out using six combinations of four types of isolation policies (work restrictions, isolation of the elderly, community distancing and school closures) and four representative fictitious countries generated over alternative demographic transition stage patterns (aged developed, developed, developing and least developed countries). We concluded that the basic reproduction number depends on the age profile and the contact patterns. The aged developed country had the lowest basic reproduction number ($R0=1.74$) due to the low contact rate among individuals, followed by the least developed country ($R0=2.00$), the developing country ($R0=2.43$) and the developed country ($R0=2.64$). Because of these differences in the basic reproduction numbers, the same intervention policies had higher efficiencies in the aged and least developed countries. Of all intervention policies, the reduction in work contacts and community distancing were the ones which produced the highest decrease in the $R0$ value, prevalence, maximum hospitalization demand and fatality rate. The isolation of the elderly was more effective in the developed and aged developed countries. The school closure was the less effective intervention policy, though its effects were not negligible in the least developed and developing countries.