Prevalence of Antimicrobial Resistant Bacteria from Conjunctival Flora in an Eye Infection Prone Breed (Saint Bernard)

The conjunctival bacterial resident and opportunistic flora of dogs may represent a major source of dissemination of pathogens throughout the environment or to other animals and humans. Nevertheless, contamination with bacteria from external sources is common. In this context, the study of the antimicrobial resistance (AMR) pattern may represent an indicator of multidrug resistant (MDR) strains exchange. The present study was focused on a single predisposed breed—Saint Bernard. The evaluated animals were healthy, but about half had a history of ocular disease/treatment. The swabs collected from conjunctival sacs were evaluated by conventional microbiological cultivation and antimicrobial susceptibility testing (AST). The most prevalent Gram-positive was Staphylococcus spp.; regardless of the history, while Gram-negative was Pseudomonas spp.; exclusively from dogs with a history of ocular disease/treatment. Other identified genera were represented by Bacillus, Streptococcus, Trueperella, Aeromonas and Neisseria. The obtained results suggest a possible association between the presence of mixed flora and a history of ocular disease/treatment. A high AMR was generally observed (90%) in all isolates, especially for kanamycin, doxycycline, chloramphenicol and penicillin. MDR was recorded in Staphylococcus spp. and Pseudomonas spp. This result together with a well-known zoonotic potential may suggest an exchange of these strains within animal human populations and the environment.     

Symmetric Groups as Products of Abelian Subgroups

A proof is given that the full symmetric group over any infiniteset is the product of finitely many Abelian subgroups. In fact,289 subgroups suffice. Sharp bounds are also obtained on theminimal number k, such that the finite symmetric group S_n isthe product of k Abelian subgroups. Using this, S_n is provedto be the product of 72n^1/2(log n)^3/2 cyclic subgroups. 2000Mathematics Subject Classification 20B30, 20D40.     

Computing determinantal representation of generalized inverses

We investigate implementation of the determinantal representation of generalized inverses for complex and rational matrices in the symbolic package MATHEMATICA. We also introduce an implementation which is applicable to sparse matrices.     

High-p(T) Tomography of d+Au and Au+Au at SPS,RHIC, and LHC

The interplay of nuclear effects on the p(T)>2 GeV inclusive hadron spectra in d+Au and Au+Au reactions at sqrt[s(NN)]=17, 200, and 5500 GeV is compared to leading order perturbative QCD calculations for elementary p+p (p+p) collisions. The competition between nuclear shadowing, Cronin effect, and jet energy loss due to medium-induced gluon radiation is predicted to lead to a striking energy dependence of the nuclear suppression/enhancement pattern in A+A reactions. We show that future d+Au data can be used to disentangle the initial and final state effects.     

Differential freeze-out and pion interferometry at RHIC from covariant transport theory

Puzzling discrepancies between recent pion interferometry data on Au+Au reactions at square root of s=30 and 200 AGeV from RHIC and predictions based on ideal hydrodynamics are analyzed in terms of covariant parton transport theory. The discrepancies in the R(out)/R(side) ratio are significantly reduced when the finite opacity of the gluon plasma is taken into account. However, the magnitude of the radii is not well accounted for.     

Fuzzy clustering as a means of selecting representative conformers and molecular alignments

This paper describes the first application of fuzzy c-means clustering for the selection of representatives from assemblies of conformations or alignments. In case of alignments, their quality is taken into account using a weighted c-means scheme, developed in this work. The performance of fuzzy cluster validity measures, such as compactness, partition function, and entropy, are studied on several examples, but the visual 3D representation of data points is shown to be most beneficial in determining the optimum number of clusters. Fuzzy clustering is expected to perform better than crisp clustering methods in cases where there are a significant number of "outliers", such as in molecular dynamics simulations and molecular alignments.     

The decoupling problem at RHIC

We investigate whether it is possible to dynamically generate from classical transport theory the observed surprising R_out ≈ R_side in Au+Au at \(\sqrt s = 130A\) GeV at RHIC [1,2]. We obtained covariant solutions to the Boltzmann transport equation via the MPC technique [3], for a wide range of partonic initial conditions and opacities. We demonstrate that there exist transport solutions that yield a freezeout distribution with R _out < R _side for K _⊥ ? 1.5 GeV. These solutions correspond to continuous evaporation-like freezeout, where the emission duration is comparable to the source size. Naively this would mean R _out > R _side. Nevertheless, our sources exhibit R _out < R _side because they are narrower in the‘out’ than in the‘side’ direction and, in addition, a positive x _out-t correlation develops reducing R _out further.     

High-accuracy theoretical study on the thermochemistry of several formaldehyde derivatives

In the case of several formaldehyde derivatives, with importance in atmospheric and combustion chemistry, the currently available thermochemical values suffer from considerably large uncertainties. In this study a high-accuracy theoretical model chemistry has been used to provide accurate thermochemical data including heats of formation at 0 and 298 K and standard molar entropies at 298 K for CF(2)O, FCO, HFCO, HClCO, FClCO, HOCO, and NH(2)CO. For most of the thermochemical quantities studied here, this investigation delivers the best available estimate.     

On the Leverrier-Faddeev algorithm for computing the Moore-Penrose inverse

We present an improvement in the implementation of the Leverrier-Faddeev algorithm for symbolic computation of the Moore-Penrose inverse of one-variable polynomial matrices, introduced in Linear Algebra Appl. 252, 35–60 (1997). Complexity analysis of the original algorithm and its improvement is presented. Algorithm and its improvement are implemented and compared in the symbolic computational package MATHEMATICA. We compare CPU time required for computation of some test matrices by means of the original algorithm and its improvement.