An Empirical Study of Finding Approximate Equilibria in Bimatrix Games

While there have been a number of studies about the efficacy of methods to find exact Nash equilibria in bimatrix games, there has been little empirical work on finding approximate Nash equilibria. Here we provide such a study that compares a number of approximation methods and exact methods. In particular, we explore the trade-off between the quality of approximate equilibrium and the required running time to find one. We found that the existing library GAMUT, which has been the de facto standard that has been used to test exact methods, is insufficient as a test bed for approximation methods since many of its games have pure equilibria or other easy-to-find good approximate equilibria. We extend the breadth and depth of our study by including new interesting families of bimatrix games, and studying bimatrix games upto size $2000 \times 2000$. Finally, we provide new close-to-worst-case examples for the best-performing algorithms for finding approximate Nash equilibria

An inactivated vaccine made from a U.S. field isolate of porcine epidemic disease virus is immunogenic in pigs as demonstrated by a dose-titration

Citation: Collin, E. A., Anbalagan, S., Okda, F., Batman, R., Nelson, E., & Hause, B. M. (2015). An inactivated vaccine made from a U.S. field isolate of porcine epidemic disease virus is immunogenic in pigs as demonstrated by a dose-titration. BMC Veterinary Research, 11(1). doi:10.1186/s12917-015-0357-1Background: Porcine epidemic diarrhea virus (PEDV), a highly pathogenic and transmissible virus in swine, was first detected in the U.S. in May, 2013, and has caused tremendous losses to the swine industry. Due to the difficulty in isolating and growing this virus in cell culture, few vaccine studies using cell culture propagated PEDV have been performed on U.S. strains in pigs. Therefore, the objective of this study was to evaluate the humoral immune response to the selected inactivated PEDV vaccine candidate in a dose-titration manner. Results: PEDV was isolated from a pig with diarrhea and complete genome sequencing found >99% nucleotide identity to other U.S. PEDV. Inactivated adjuvanted monovalent vaccines were administered intramuscularly to five week old pigs in a dose titration experimental design, ranging from 6.0-8.0 log10 tissue culture infective dose (TCID50/mL), to evaluate immunogenicity using a fluorescent foci neutralization assay (FFN), fluorescent microsphere immunoassay (FMIA), and enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) on sera. Pigs vaccinated with 8.0 log10 TCID50/mL inactivated virus showed significantly higher FFN titers as well as FMIA and ELISA values than 6.0 log10 TCID50/mL vaccinates and the negative controls. Conclusions: These results demonstrate the immunogenicity of a PEDV inactivated viral vaccine with a U.S. strain via dose-titration. A future vaccination-challenge study would illustrate the efficacy of an inactivated vaccine and help evaluate protective FFN titers and ELISA and FMIA responses. © Collin et al; licensee BioMed Central

Intracellular granzyme A expression of peripheral blood lymphocyte subsets in pulmonary tuberculosis

Cell-mediated immunity is a key weapon of host defence against tuberculosis (TB). Granzyme A (GzmA), a serine protease, present in the granules of cytotoxic cells induces caspase-independent cell death. We estimated the proportion of GzmA producing lymphocyte subsets in peripheral blood from 59 normal healthy volunteers and 48 pulmonary TB (PTB) patients using flow cytometry. When compared with normal healthy subjects, we observed a significantly higher percentage of GzmA-positive CD56+ cells (P = 0.01) in PTB patients. However, when the absolute number was compared between the two groups, a significantly decreased number of GzmA-expressing CD16+ (P = 0.01) and CD56+ (P = 0.0001) cells was observed in patients and this could be explained by the significantly reduced number of total lymphocytes (P = 0.0009) seen in the patients. There was no significant difference in the number of CD4+ and CD8+ GzmA double-positive cells between the two study groups. CD56 is a natural killer cell marker and these cells represent innate immune response to TB. We report an increased percentage of CD56+ cells expressing GzmA in TB patients, which shows the relevance of the GzmA-mediated pathway of apoptosis in immunity against Mycobacterium tuberculosis

Usage of Electronic Resources by the Faculty Members of Sri Ramakrishna Engineering College, Coimbatore: A Study

This paper examined the awareness and usage of e-resources by the faculty members of Sri Ramakrishna Engineering College. The present study is based on primary data collected from the faculty members working in the various departments of Sri Ramakrishna Engineering College. This study is conducted using a total number sample of 277 Faculty Members were randomly selected from thirteen departments. The data were collected by using empirical method of the questionnaire. The study aims to analyze the awareness and purpose of e-resources, frequency of using e-resources, Utilization and Satisfaction level of e-resources. It is found that the majority of faculty members are highly aware on IEEE 218 (86.17%), Springer Open 128 (50.59%) and O’reilly Open book and Free Engineering books 91 (35.97%) and further found that majority of 203 (80.24%) faculty members fully satisfied with about NPTEL resources

Family-led rehabilitation after stroke in India (ATTEND): a randomised controlled trial

Background: Most people with stroke in India have no access to organised rehabilitation services. The effectiveness of training family members to provide stroke rehabilitation is uncertain. Our primary objective was to determine whether family-led stroke rehabilitation, initiated in hospital and continued at home, would be superior to usual care in a low-resource setting. Methods: The Family-led Rehabilitation after Stroke in India (ATTEND) trial was a prospectively randomised open trial with blinded endpoint done across 14 hospitals in India. Patients aged 18 years or older who had had a stroke within the past month, had residual disability and reasonable expectation of survival, and who had an informal family-nominated caregiver were randomly assigned to intervention or usual care by site coordinators using a secure web-based system with minimisation by site and stroke severity. The family members of participants in the intervention group received additional structured rehabilitation training—including information provision, joint goal setting, carer training, and task-specific training—that was started in hospital and continued at home for up to 2 months. The primary outcome was death or dependency at 6 months, defined by scores 3–6 on the modified Rankin scale (range, 0 [no symptoms] to 6 [death]) as assessed by masked observers. Analyses were by intention to treat. This trial is registered with Clinical Trials Registry-India (CTRI/2013/04/003557), Australian New Zealand Clinical Trials Registry (ACTRN12613000078752), and Universal Trial Number (U1111-1138-6707). Findings: Between Jan 13, 2014, and Feb 12, 2016, 1250 patients were randomly assigned to intervention (n=623) or control (n=627) groups. 33 patients were lost to follow-up (14 intervention, 19 control) and five patients withdrew (two intervention, three control). At 6 months, 285 (47%) of 607 patients in the intervention group and 287 (47%) of 605 controls were dead or dependent (odds ratio 0·98, 95% CI 0·78–1·23, p=0·87). 72 (12%) patients in the intervention group and 86 (14%) in the control group died (p=0·27), and we observed no difference in rehospitalisation (89 [14%]patients in the intervention group vs 82 [13%] in the control group; p=0·56). We also found no difference in total non-fatal events (112 events in 82 [13%] intervention patients vs 110 events in 79 [13%] control patients; p=0·80). Interpretation: Although task shifting is an attractive solution for health-care sustainability, our results do not support investment in new stroke rehabilitation services that shift tasks to family caregivers, unless new evidence emerges. A future avenue of research should be to investigate the effects of task shifting to health-care assistants or team-based community care. Funding: The National Health and Medical Research Council of Australia

Nanomaterials for the cleaning and pH adjustment of vegetable tanned leather

Leather artifacts in historical collections and archives are often contaminated by physical changes such as soiling, which alter their appearance and readability, and by chemical changes which occur on ageing and give rise to excessive proportion of acids that promote hydrolysis of collagen, eventually leading to gelatinization and loss of mechanical properties. However, both cleaning and pH adjustment of vegetable tanned leather pose a great challenge for conservators, owing to the sensitivity of these materials to the action of solvents, especially water-based formulations and alkaline chemicals. In this study the cleaning of historical leather samples was optimized by confining an oil-in-water (o/w) nanostructured fluid in a highly retentive chemical hydrogel, which allows the controlled release of the cleaning fluid on sensitive surfaces. The chemical gel exhibits optimal viscoelasticity, which facilitates its removal after the application without leaving residues on the object. Nanoparticles of calcium hydroxide and lactate, dispersed in 2-propanol, were used to adjust the pH up to the natural value of leather, preventing too high alkalinity which causes swelling of fibers and denaturation of the collagen. The treated samples were characterized using Scanning Electron Microscopy (FE SEM), controlled environment dynamic mechanical analysis (DMA-RH), and infrared spectroscopy (ATR-FTIR). The analytical assessment validated the use of tools derived from colloid and materials science for the preservation of collagen-based artifacts

The Impact of Self-Efficacy and Social Support Towards Resilience Among Malaysian Working Adults During COVID-19 Pandemic: -

The drastic economic work stoppage during the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic has totally impacted many especially the working population. Resilience acts as a protective factor that emphasizes the potential to manage stress and promote wellbeing. In the working environment, resilience is an important asset to be possessed by every individual. Therefore, this study aimed to examine the relationship between self-efficacy, perceived social support, and resiliency among working adults in Malaysia. A total of 184 respondents were recruited using convenience and purposive sampling methods to answer online surveys anonymously. Findings revealed that self-efficacy, support from friends and family showed a positive significant relationship towards resilience while on the contrary, significant others showed a weak relationship. To sum up, results illustrated that self-efficacy was the strongest predictor for resilience among working adults in Malaysia. This research was intended to fill the main gaps in finding the avenues that uphold the resilience attitude among working adults. This study hopes to shed light and serves as a guideline for the policymakers and human resource firms in generating useful schemes to develop the self-efficacy and social support to thrive towards the difficult circumstances successfully among employees in Malaysia

On Regular Elements in an Incline

Inclines are additively idempotent semirings in which products are less than (or) equal to either factor. Necessary and sufficient conditions for an element in an incline to be regular are obtained. It is proved that every regular incline is a distributive lattice. The existence of the Moore-Penrose inverse of an element in an incline with involution is discussed. Characterizations of the set of all generalized inverses are presented as a generalization and development of regular elements in a ∗-regular ring

New live screening of plant-nematode interactions in the rhizosphere

Abstract Free living nematodes (FLN) are microscopic worms found in all soils. While many FLN species are beneficial to crops, some species cause significant damage by feeding on roots and vectoring viruses. With the planned legislative removal of traditionally used chemical treatments, identification of new ways to manage FLN populations has become a high priority. For this, more powerful screening systems are required to rapidly assess threats to crops and identify treatments efficiently. Here, we have developed new live assays for testing nematode responses to treatment by combining transparent soil microcosms, a new light sheet imaging technique termed Biospeckle Selective Plane Illumination Microscopy (BSPIM) for fast nematode detection, and Confocal Laser Scanning Microscopy for high resolution imaging. We show that BSPIM increased signal to noise ratios by up to 60 fold and allowed the automatic detection of FLN in transparent soil samples of 1.5 mL. Growing plant root systems were rapidly scanned for nematode abundance and activity, and FLN feeding behaviour and responses to chemical compounds observed in soil-like conditions. This approach could be used for direct monitoring of FLN activity either to develop new compounds that target economically damaging herbivorous nematodes or ensuring that beneficial species are not negatively impacted