In-Q-Tel

The detection of pathogens causing infections by conventional diagnostic methods can be challenging and next-generation sequencing (NGS) technology offers a promising alternative method. In this study, we evaluated the performance of real-time metagenomic next-generation sequencing (rt-mNGS) for the detection of pathogens in respiratory samples. We used rt-mNGS, using the Seqstant LiveGene Analysis platform, on 335 respiratory samples in comparison to conventional culture results. We observed an overall good concordance in 71.64% (240/335) of the methods. The rt-mNGS outperformed the gold standard culture in 16.12% (54/335) of the samples, while the culture was superior in detecting the clinically relevant pathogen in 12.24% (41/335) of the samples. The non-inferiority of rt-mNGS was statistically significant (δ = 10, α = 0.05, 1 - β = 0.8). We also observed that the real-time analysis of NGS data is beneficial in obtaining reliable, timely results, as the initial report at cycle 46 exhibits a Positive Predictive Value (PPV) of 93.75% at the species-level with a sensitivity of 32.09%. Overall, our study showed the non-inferiority of rt-mNGS compared to the standard-of-care microbiology for respiratory samples with statistical significance. Moreover, the rt-mNGS method exhibited superior sensitivity and superior overall performance. It also uniquely detected certain organisms that are typically hard to culture. However, rt-mNGS reported a higher number of false positives and faced limitations in detecting Aspergillus spp. In conclusion, the study highlights the potential of rt-mNGS as a powerful tool in clinical diagnostics of respiratory infections and beyond.

<title>Abstract</title> Context Insect outbreaks are an important cause of tree mortality in North America. The recurrent outbreaks of spruce budworm ( <italic>Choristoneura fumiferana</italic> , Clem., SBW) can extend beyond millions of hectares and cause extensive mortality and growth reduction in host trees, with important ecological and economic consequences. Objectives While prior research has focused on stand-level impacts of outbreaks, fewer studies have focused on mortality at the landscape level. We aimed to assess the performance of machine learning (ML) algorithms to predict SBW-induced mortality, inferred from biomass loss, and to identify key contributing drivers. Methods The study was carried out across forest landscapes in Québec, Canada. We compared eight ML algorithms and developed an ensemble model from the best-performing models. Predictors included stand-scale variables (forest composition, climate, topography) and neighbourhood variables (host proportion, patch complexity and abundance) computed at 10, 18 and 26 km. Results Ensemble models achieved an Area Under the Precision-Recall Curve (AUC-PR) of 0.689–0.707 and a Kappa score of 0.535–0.548. Mortality probability increased with higher primary host proportion, patch complexity and summer temperature, but decreased with secondary host proportion at the local and neighbourhood scale. Using these models, we mapped mortality probability for the ongoing outbreak that started in 2006. Conclusions By identifying vulnerable areas, this study can be used in targeting suppression activities. Furthermore, it demonstrates the performance of ML in modelling ecological disturbances across broad environmental gradients, with potential applications to other regions and insect outbreak systems.

هدف البحث إلى الكشف فاعلية برنامج تعليمي قائم على مجالات الاقتصاد الأخضر في تنمية مهارات التفكير المستقبلي والقيمي لدى طالبات الصف العاشر بسلطنة عمان، استخدم الباحثتان التصميم شبة التجريبي لتحقيق أهدافهما، وتكونت عينة البحث من مجموعتين، إحداهما تجريبية ضمت (٦٦) طالبة، تم تطبيق البرنامج عليها، والأخرى ضابطة تكونت من (٦٢) طالبة. وللإجابة عن أسئلة البحث، أُعد اختباران للتفكير المستقبلي وآخر للتفكير القيمي تكون كلا منهما من (٢٤) مفردة، موزعة على ثلاث قضايا بيئية، واقتصادية، واجتماعية بواقع (٨) مفردات لكل قضية وبعد تحكيمهما لدى مجموعة من الخبراء، تم استخراج معدل ثباتهما باستخدام معامل ألفا كرونباخ، حيث بلغ(٩٤٣,٠)، ((٨٩٨,٠) على التوالي. وكشـــفت النتــائج فروقًا ذات دلالة إحصائية عند مستوى دلالة (٠،٠٥) بين متوسطات الأداء لطالبات المجموعة التجريبية، والضابطة في اختبار التفكير المستقبلي والتفكير القيمي لصالح المجموعــة التجريبية في المستوى الكلي؛ مما يشير إلى فاعلية البرنامج التعليمي القائم على مجالات الاقتصاد الأخضر في تنمية مهارات التفكير المستقبلي والقيمي، كما توصل البحث إلى وجود علاقة إيجابية قوية بين مستوى مهارات التفكير المستقبلي والقيمي. وفي ضوء النتائج التي توصل إليها البحث فقد خلصت إلى مجموعة من التوصــــــيات منها: ضرورة تضمين مجالات الاقتصاد الأخضر في المناهج التعليمية في مراحل تعليمية مختلفة، وتصميم برامج مماثلة قائمة على التكامل بين الأبعاد القيمية والمستقبلية.

Repetitive head impacts due to heading in soccer may bear the potential to induce brain changes. To investigate how brain development is affected by heading, effects of heading exposure on neurocognitive and vestibular performance in adolescent soccer players were prospectively examined. In this longitudinal cohort study, male and female high-level youth soccer players of different ages were enrolled in two seasons. Age-matched athletes of other ball sports were included as controls. Before and after each season, neurocognitive performance (six domain scores), vestibulo-ocular reflex, dynamic visual acuity, and postural control (sway velocity) were objectively assessed in all athletes. Every soccer training and match during the observation period was videotaped to analyze individual heading exposure. Associations between heading frequency (total, in duels, >20-m flight distance) and pre- to post-changes were investigated via the Spearman correlation. A total of 103 soccer and 51 control athletes (9-19 yr) participated. Neurocognitive scores and sway velocity significantly improved in each season in soccer and control athletes. There were no associations between total heading numbers and changes in any parameter. Over the first season, the more headers played in duels ( r = -0.255; 95% confidence interval (CI), -0.474 to -0.006; P = 0.04) and from >20-m distance ( r = -0.299; 95% CI, -0.510 to -0.055; P = 0.02), the less psychomotor speed improvement occurred. In the second season, improvements in reaction time were significantly smaller with higher numbers of headers played in duels ( r = 0.375; 95% CI, 0.043 to 0.632; P = 0.02) and from >20-m distance ( r = 0.359; 95% CI, 0.025 to 0.621; P = 0.03). Potential high-impact headers may have affected neurocognitive improvements, exhibiting small to moderate effects. Therefore, more high-impact headers may be more important to consider than solely the overall heading exposure in discussions about adverse effects in youth soccer.

In this paper we have investigated the characteristics of a wide-bandgap materials bilayer by aluminum nitride (AlN) and aluminum oxide (AlO) on different substrates of GaN and Si on 200 mm platform by batch atomic layer deposition (ALD) of 100+ wafers. Among III-Nitride wide-bandgap semiconductors, AlN is proven to be a suitable candidate for passivation on GaN-based devices since it has excellent miscibility with similar III-V semiconductor like AlGaN. Additionally, lower lattice mismatch of these two wurtzite structures offers the adjustable bandgap and piezoelectricity which can eventually enhance the 2DEG channel carrier concentration in high electron mobility transistors (HEMT). Beside that the non-centrosymmetricity of the AlN wurtzite unit cell causes intrinsic polarization, making it a good choice for piezoelectric sensors. ALD offers an attractive advantage for depositing AlN at lower temperatures than conventional MOCVD or MBE and therefore, eliminates the problem associated with thermal expansion coefficient mismatch between film and substrate. Moreover, ALD also open the opportunity to deposit varying crystallinity of AlN on patterned substrate for barrier layer as well as passivation layer for power HEMT devices. However, AlN has a significant problem that it forms passive oxide layer at the surface when exposed to ambient air. It has been demonstrated that the small amount of oxygen has significantly affects the electrical and optical properties of AlN. Although, this effect can be exploited to desirably oxides by depositing a thin layer of oxides on top at the clean deposition environment which provide the exact chemical environment and lattice distribution of oxygen atoms. Thereby, AlN has been deposited at 350°C by Tokyo Electron (TEL) ALD on GaN heterostructure (here it is AlGaN/GaN) followed by low temperature Al2O3 cap layer at 300°C, as shown in Fig 1(a). In-depth X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), cross-sectional scanning transmission electron microscopy (STEM) image along with elemental composition by electron energy loss spectroscopy (EELS) has been investigated to understand the miscibility of AlN and AlO at the heterointerface. It has been observed that aluminum oxynitride (AlON) formed at the heterointerface and clearly identifiable in high resolution cross-sectional STEM image in Fig 1(b). Oxygen diffusion from top AlO to the AlN considered to be the main reasons behind this chemical intermixing. With each layer thickness of 10 nm demonstrated around 25 – 30 Å of AlON on Si substrate, as shown in Fig 1(c) of EELS. Both the XPS depth analysis and EELS results show the thickness of the AlON is mainly depends on the thickness of AlO on Si substrate irrespective of AlN thickness variations, as shown in Fig 1(d) of XPS survey. Another noteworthy finding of this work is that the thickness of AlON significantly influenced by the material properties of the substrate surface. On GaN substrate AlON thickness is different than Si. We also observed that thickness is subject to the pretreatment as well as deposition conditions of AlN. The pretreatment of GaN substrate surface has great influence on the crystallinity of the AlN layer and that has substantial role on the miscibility of AlN/AlO. Near single crystalline AlN has been seen to be less susceptible to the chemical intermixing by oxygen diffusion than the amorphous one which may be because of bigger grain boundaries of the later crystal. In-depth XPS depth analysis of Al2p, N1s, O1s, as shown in Fig 1(e) reveals the nature of chemical compositions of the elements and their bonding inside the entire ALD film thickness. The area under the curve of Al2p, N1s and O1s have been considered to estimate how oxygen atoms substitute nitrogen atoms, creating a cation vacancy in the process and bonds in the AlN wurtzite structure. As an application point of view, AlON possess high-k and exhibits low leakage current, high breakdown voltage and stable threshold voltage while used as a gate dielectric. Despite low temperature of deposition, no significant carbon incorporation has been observed from the TMA precursors. The TEL batch ALD at 200 mm platform exhibits excellent thickness uniformity of only 0.33% standard deviation (STDV) in wafer-within-wafer with 49 measurement points and 0.56% STDV of wafer-to-wafer (wtow) along the 100+ wafer boat. Figure 1

آلیاژ فرومغناطیس نیکل- مس با درصد وزنی (29/6-70/4%)، پوشش داده شده با لایه جاذب ید-125 به عنوان هسته مورد استفاده در سیستم ترموبراکی‏‌تراپی ساخته شد. لایه جاذب با ضخامت حدود 100μm، متشکل از کربن فعال با ساختار گرافیت میکروکریستالی، حاوی نقره و پلی‌‏استایرن با نسبت وزنی 70 به 30 می‌‏باشد. کربن فعال به دلیل ساختار متخلخل، یکی از جاذب‌‏های ترجیحی ید است. جذب ید-125 به واسطه جذب شیمیایی آن بر نقره دوپ شده در ساختار کربن فعال افزایش می‌‏یابد. پلی‌‏استایرن علاوه بر آنکه به عنوان چسب در ساختار لایه جاذب عمل می‌‏کند، جذب فیزیکی ید را بر روی سطح هسته پوشش داده شده تسهیل می‌‏کند. نتایج به‌دست‌آمده نشان داد که راندمان جذب ید-125، به صورت محلول یدید سدیم و با اکتیویته میانگین 5mCi بر روی هسته نیکل- مس/ پلی‌‏استایرن/ کربن فعال دوپ شده با نقره پس از 2 ساعت غوطه‌‏وری 20/31­% بود. در حالی که، پوشش طلا و نقره بر هسته فرومغناطیس نیکل- مس قبل از انباشت لایه جاذب، راندمان جذب ید-125 را به ترتیب تا 32/77% و 60/23% پس از 2 ساعت غوطه‌‏وری افزایش داد. یافته‏‌ها تأثیر قابل توجه پوشش طلا یا نقره بر افزایش راندمان استخراج را نشان می‌‏دهند. در تحقیق حاضر به منظور افزایش راندمان جذب ید-125 از روش استخراج مرحله به مرحله استفاده شده است.

Mazkur maqolada Qoraqalpog‘istonda qo‘ylarda parazitlik qiladigan nematodalarning sistematik holati, ularning tarqalishi, mavsumiy dinamikasi, invaziya ekstensivligi va invaziya intensivligi to‘g‘risidagi ma’lumotlar keltirilgan.

The aim of this paper is to introduce Bundle in Bundle Encapsulation (BIBE). BIBE is an experimental extension of the Bundle Protocol (BP), the pillar at the foundation of the Delay-/Disruption- Tolerant Networking architecture, whose use is planned in next space mission to Moon, and, in longer terms, to build an Interplanetary network. Among BIBE features, the paper analyzes in detail the optional BIBE retransmission mechanism, which should offer all the advantages of the Custody Transfer option that was present in previous versions of BP, but without its problems. BIBE applications are potentially so numerous that they cannot all be examined in one paper, thus here the focus is on those that are non-security related, such as BIBE retransmission on both unidirectional and space links, transient QoS, and transient “critical” forwarding. All these cases have been exercised using the latest version of ION, the DTN suite maintained by NASA JPL, by means of an enhanced version of a pre-existing test program. The paper concludes with a detailed study of an example of BIBE traffic, based on the use of the Wireshark network analyzer, for which a specific BIBE dissector was designed by the authors.

The document statistics tool, which authors use to review their work before submission, is explained. The tool yields readability statistics, which assess the document's ease of reading. Authors are encouraged to take advantage of its features, which are described in full.

With the advancement in semiconductor technology, sophisticated multidimensional geometries are being formed resulting in nonconfined spaces. Wet etching these nanoconfined spaces uniformly across different CD sizes is challenging. Typically, etch (ER) decreases with decrease in CD size. One of the reported mechanisms to explain this behavior is the overlapping of electrical double layer (EDL) which prevents the etchants from entering to the nanochannels. In our previous experimental work, we reported a reverse ER trend (ER increase with decrease in CD size) of SiO2 using HF in organic as medium compared to water as medium. These results suggested that EDL model alone cannot explain the full mechanism and other factors need to be considered. Hence, molecular dynamics (MD) simulations are used to explain the mechanism of nanoconfined etching of SiO2 in water and organic solvent. Fig.1 shows the MD simulation result of the number density distribution of diluted HF at the solid-liquid interface in a nanoconfined spaces. When water is the solvent, HF molecules are strongly adsorbed in the solid interface. However, with the organic solvent, the HF molecules are more uniformly distributed in the volume near the surface. As the CD becomes smaller, the HF molecular density in the intermediate region in the space tends to decrease in the aqueous solution and increase in the organic solution. Next, we calculated the diffusion time of HF molecules in the nano-confined trench using the MD simulations, where we found that HF molecules have a faster diffusion time in water than in the organic solvent. This is due to the difference in the interaction between the solid interface, the HF molecules, and the solvent in addition to the viscosity of the solvent. Using EDL model and etching reaction, here we report the wet etching mechanism of nanoconfined spaces from the MD simulation result. Figure 1