By gathering 680 publicly available Sequence Read Archives from isolates of Mycobacterium tuberculosis complex (MTBC) including 190 belonging to the lineage 2 Beijing, and using an in-house bioinformatical pipeline, the TB-Annotator, that analyses more than 50 000 characters, we describe herein a new L2 sublineage from 20 isolates found in the Tochigi province, (Japan), that we designate as asia ancestral 5 (AAnc5). These isolates harbour a number of specific criteria (42 SNPs) and their intra-cluster pairwise distance suggests historical and not epidemiological transmission. These isolates harbour a mutation in rpoC, and do not fulfil, any of the modern Beijing lineage criteria, nor any of the other ancestral Beijing lineages described so far. Asia ancestral 5 isolates do not possess mutT2 58 and ogt 12 characteristics of modern Beijing, but possess ancestral Beijing SNPs characteristics. By looking into the literature, we found a reference isolate ID381, described in Kobe and Osaka belonging to the ‘G3’ group, sharing 36 out of the 42 specific SNPs found in AAnc5. We also assessed the intermediate position of the asia ancestral 4 (AAnc4) sublineage recently described in Thailand and propose an improved classification of the L2 that now includes AAnc4 and AAnc5. By increasing the recruitment into TB-Annotator to around 3000 genomes (including 642 belonging to L2), we confirmed our results and discovered additional historical ancestral L2 branches that remain to be investigated in more detail. We also present, in addition, some anthropological and historical data from Chinese and Japan history of tuberculosis, as well as from Korea, that could support our results on L2 evolution. This study shows that the reconstruction of the early history of tuberculosis in Asia is likely to reveal complex patterns since its emergence.

Data driven analysis is proven to create a competitive advantage to business. Governments and nonprofit organizations also turn to Big Data to harness its benefits and use it for social good. Among different types of data sources, location data collected from mobile networks is especially valuable for its representativeness, real-time observation, and versatility. There is a distinction between mobile positioning data (MPD) generated by the exchanges between mobile devices and the core network; versus over-the-top or system-level location data collecting individual GPS location. MPD is composed of all mobile network events regardless of the mobile phone brand, operating system, app usage, frequency bands or mobile generation; it is uniform and ubiquitous. Getting the best out of MPD relies on the knowledge of how to create an advanced algorithm for homogeneously processing this massive, complex data into insightful indicators. Anonymized and aggregated MPD enables the testing of multiple combinations with other data sources, fully abiding by GDPR, to arrive at innovative solutions. These unique insights can help tackle societal challenges (the state of mobile data for social good June 2017 GSMA, UN Global pulse). It can help to establish accurate statistics about population movements, density, location, social patterns, finances, and ambient environmental conditions. This article demonstrates how MPD has been used to help combat Covid-19 in Europe, the Middle East, and Africa. Furthermore, depending on the future direction, MPD and data analysis can serve powering economic development as well as working toward the Sustainable Development Goals, whilst respecting data privacy.

We introduce the generalized join the shortest queue model with retrials and two infinite capacity orbit queues. Three independent Poisson streams of jobs, namely a smart, and two dedicated streams, flow into a single-server system, which can hold at most one job. Arriving jobs that find the server occupied are routed to the orbits as follows: Blocked jobs from the smart stream are routed to the shortest orbit queue, and in case of a tie, they choose an orbit randomly. Blocked jobs from the dedicated streams are routed directly to their orbits. Orbiting jobs retry to connect with the server at different retrial rates, i.e., heterogeneous orbit queues. Applications of such a system are found in the modeling of wireless cooperative networks. We are interested in the asymptotic behavior of the stationary distribution of this model, provided that the system is stable. More precisely, we investigate the conditions under which the tail asymptotic of the minimum orbit queue length is exactly geometric. Moreover, we apply a heuristic asymptotic approach to obtain approximations of the steady-state joint orbit queue-length distribution. Useful numerical examples are presented and shown that the results obtained through the asymptotic analysis and the heuristic approach are agreed.

We study weighted ensemble, an interacting particle method for sampling distributions of Markov chains that has been used in computational chemistry since the 1990s. Many important applications of weighted ensemble require the computation of long time averages. We establish the consistency of weighted ensemble in this setting by proving an ergodic theorem for time averages. As part of the proof, we derive explicit variance formulas that could be useful for optimizing the method.

Latouche and Nguyen (2015b) constructed a sequence of stochastic fluid processes and showed that it converges weakly to a Markov-modulated Brownian motion (MMBM). Here, we construct a different sequence of stochastic fluid processes and show that it converges strongly to an MMBM. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first result on strong convergence to a Markov-modulated Brownian motion. Besides implying weak convergence, such a strong approximation constitutes a powerful tool for developing deep results for sophisticated models. Additionally, we prove that the rate of this almost sure convergence is $o(n^{-1/2} \log n)$. When reduced to the special case of standard Brownian motion, our convergence rate is an improvement over that obtained by a different approximation in Gorostiza and Griego (1980), which is $o(n^{-1/2}(\log n)^{5/2})$.

This study quantified CO2 emissions from tropical peat swamp soils in Brunei Darussalam. At each site, soil was collected from areas of intact and degraded peat and CO2 flux, and total organic content were measured ex situ. Soil organic content (~20–99%) was not significantly different between intact and degraded forest samples. CO2 flux was higher for intact forest samples than degraded forest samples (~1.0 vs. ~0.6 μmol CO2 m−2 s−1, respectively) but did not differ among forest locations. From our laboratory experiments, we estimated a potential emissions of ~10–20 t CO2 ha−1 y−1 which is in the lower range of values reported for other tropical peat swamps. However, our results are likely affected by unmeasured variation in root respiration and the lability of resident carbon. Overall, these findings provide experimental evidence to support that clearance of tropical peat swamp forests can increase CO2 emissions due to faster rates of decomposition.

For a non-negative separable random field Z(t), $t\in \mathbb{R}^d$, satisfying some mild assumptions, we show that $ H_Z^\delta =\lim_{{T} \to \infty} ({1}/{T^d}) \mathbb{E}\{{\sup_{ t\in [0,T]^d \cap \delta \mathbb{Z}^d } Z(t) }\} <\infty$ for $\delta \ge 0$, where $0 \mathbb{Z}^d\,:\!=\,\mathbb{R}^d$, and prove that $H_Z^0$ can be approximated by $H_Z^\delta$ if $\delta$ tends to 0. These results extend the classical findings for Pickands constants $H_{Z}^\delta$, defined for $Z(t)= \exp( \sqrt{ 2} B_\alpha (t)- \lvert {t} \rvert^{2\alpha})$, $t\in \mathbb{R}$, with $B_\alpha$ a standard fractional Brownian motion with Hurst parameter $\alpha \in (0,1]$. The continuity of $H_{Z}^\delta$ at $\delta=0$ is additionally shown for two particular extensions of Pickands constants.

A method for the construction of Stein-type covariance identities for a nonnegative continuous random variable is proposed, using a probabilistic analogue of the mean value theorem and weighted distributions. A generalized covariance identity is obtained, and applications focused on actuarial and financial science are provided. Some characterization results for gamma and Pareto distributions are also given. Identities for risk measures which have a covariance representation are obtained; these measures are connected with the Bonferroni, De Vergottini, Gini, and Wang indices. Moreover, under some assumptions, an identity for the variance of a function of a random variable is derived, and its performance is discussed with respect to well-known upper and lower bounds.

Multisystem inflammatory syndrome in adults (MIS-A) is a hyperinflammatory illness related to severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) infection. The characteristics of patients with this syndrome and the frequency with which it occurs among patients hospitalised after SARS-CoV-2 infection are unclear. Using the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention case definition for MIS-A, we created ICD-10-CM code and laboratory criteria to identify potential MIS-A patients in the Premier Healthcare Database Special COVID-19 Release, a database containing patient-level information on hospital discharges across the United States. Modified MIS-A criteria were applied to hospitalisations with discharge from March to December 2020. The proportion of hospitalisations meeting electronic health record criteria for MIS-A and descriptive statistics for patients in the potential MIS-A cohort were calculated. Of 34 515 SARS-CoV-2-related hospitalisations with complete clinical and laboratory data, 53 met modified criteria for MIS-A (0.15%). The median age was 62 years (IQR 52–74). Most patients met the severe cardiac illness criterion through either myocarditis (66.0%) or new-onset heart failure (35.8%). A total of 79.2% of patients required ICU admission, while 43.4% of patients in the cohort died. MIS-A appears to be a rare but severe outcome of SARS-CoV-2 infection. Additional studies are needed to investigate how this syndrome differs from severe coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) in adults.

We consider a variant of a classical coverage process, the Boolean model in $\mathbb{R}^d$. Previous efforts have focused on convergence of the unoccupied region containing the origin to a well-studied limit C. We study the intersection of sets centered at points of a Poisson point process confined to the unit ball. Using a coupling between the intersection model and the original Boolean model, we show that the scaled intersection converges weakly to the same limit C. Along the way, we present some tools for studying statistics of a class of intersection models.

In our data-driven society, personal data affecting individuals as data subjects are increasingly being collected and processed by sizeable and international companies. While data protection laws and privacy technologies attempt to limit the impact of data breaches and privacy scandals, they rely on individuals having a detailed understanding of the available recourse, resulting in the responsibilization of data protection. Existing data stewardship frameworks incorporate data-protection-by-design principles but may not include data subjects in the data protection process itself, relying on supplementary legal doctrines to better enforce data protection regulations. To better protect individual autonomy over personal data, this paper proposes a data protection-focused data commons to encourage co-creation of data protection solutions and rebalance power between data subjects and data controllers. We conduct interviews with commons experts to identify the institutional barriers to creating a commons and challenges of incorporating data protection principles into a commons, encouraging participatory innovation in data governance. We find that working with stakeholders of different backgrounds can support a commons’ implementation by openly recognizing data protection limitations in laws, technologies, and policies when applied independently. We propose requirements for deploying a data protection-focused data commons by applying our findings and data protection principles such as purpose limitation and exercising data subject rights to the Institutional Analysis and Development (IAD) framework. Finally, we map the IAD framework into a commons checklist for policy-makers to accommodate co-creation and participation for all stakeholders, balancing the data protection of data subjects with opportunities for seeking value from personal data.

We investigate properties of random mappings whose core is composed of derangements as opposed to permutations. Such mappings arise as the natural framework for studying the Screaming Toes game described, for example, by Peter Cameron. This mapping differs from the classical case primarily in the behaviour of the small components, and a number of explicit results are provided to illustrate these differences.

Vaccination is a significant preventive measure to contain the coronavirus disease-2019 (COVID-19) pandemic. Vaccination rates can provide useful information on the potential spread of infection in a given population. In this study, vaccination rates and attitudes towards vaccination in cultural sectors, specifically the music sector, have been investigated. In total, 4341 persons in four different areas, including visitors to performances of classical music and musicals, as well as professional and amateur musicians, have participated in this survey. Results show rates of 86% recovered from the COVID-19 virus or vaccinated at least once, with 54.5% fully vaccinated. These vaccination rates were considerably higher compared to the general population. An attitude of hesitation towards vaccination found in 6.4% of those sampled was half that of the general population. These findings drawn from a large sample indicate that in the field of music a high vaccination rate is to be found, as well as a low rejection rate of vaccination on the part of the audience and performers. The results can be used to provide insights into the vaccination status to be found at cultural events and, importantly, to assist in consideration of whether cultural events should be permitted to continue under pandemic circumstances.

Network dynamics with point-process-based interactions are of paramount modeling interest. Unfortunately, most relevant dynamics involve complex graphs of interactions for which an exact computational treatment is impossible. To circumvent this difficulty, the replica-mean-field approach focuses on randomly interacting replicas of the networks of interest. In the limit of an infinite number of replicas, these networks become analytically tractable under the so-called ‘Poisson hypothesis’. However, in most applications this hypothesis is only conjectured. In this paper we establish the Poisson hypothesis for a general class of discrete-time, point-process-based dynamics that we propose to call fragmentation-interaction-aggregation processes, and which are introduced here. These processes feature a network of nodes, each endowed with a state governing their random activation. Each activation triggers the fragmentation of the activated node state and the transmission of interaction signals to downstream nodes. In turn, the signals received by nodes are aggregated to their state. Our main contribution is a proof of the Poisson hypothesis for the replica-mean-field version of any network in this class. The proof is obtained by establishing the propagation of asymptotic independence for state variables in the limit of an infinite number of replicas. Discrete-time Galves–Löcherbach neural networks are used as a basic instance and illustration of our analysis.

We investigate vertex levels of containment in a random hypergraph grown in the spirit of a recursive tree. We consider a local profile tracking the evolution of the containment of a particular vertex over time, and a global profile concerned with counts of the number of vertices of a particular containment level.

For the local containment profile, we obtain the exact mean, variance, and probability distribution in terms of standard combinatorial quantities such as generalized harmonic numbers and Stirling numbers of the first kind. Asymptotically, we observe phases: the early vertices have an asymptotically normal distribution, intermediate vertices have a Poisson distribution, and late vertices have a degenerate distribution.

As for the global containment profile, we establish an asymptotically normal distribution for the number of vertices at the smallest containment level as well as their covariances with the number of vertices at the second smallest containment level and the variances of these numbers. The orders in the variance–covariance matrix establish concentration laws.

We introduce a notion of finite sampling consistency for phylogenetic trees and show that the set of finitely sampling-consistent and exchangeable distributions on n-leaf phylogenetic trees is a polytope. We use this polytope to show that the set of all exchangeable and sampling-consistent distributions on four-leaf phylogenetic trees is exactly Aldous’ beta-splitting model, and give a description of some of the vertices for the polytope of distributions on five leaves. We also introduce a new semialgebraic set of exchangeable and sampling consistent models we call the multinomial model and use it to characterize the set of exchangeable and sampling-consistent distributions. Using this new model, we obtain a finite de Finetti-type theorem for rooted binary trees in the style of Diaconis’ theorem on finite exchangeable sequences.

This paper studies estimation of stochastic block models with Rissanen’s minimum description length (MDL) principle in the dense graph asymptotics. We focus on the problem of model specification, i.e., identification of the number of blocks. Refinements of the true partition always decrease the code part corresponding to the edge placement, and thus a respective increase of the code part specifying the model should overweight that gain in order to yield a minimum at the true partition. The balance between these effects turns out to be delicate. We show that the MDL principle identifies the true partition among models whose relative block sizes are bounded away from zero. The results are extended to models with Poisson-distributed edge weights.