Gene tree/species tree reconciliation is a recent decisive progress in phylogenetic methods, accounting for the possible differences between gene histories and species histories. Reconciliation consists in explaining these differences by gene-scale events such as duplication, loss, transfer, which translates mathematically into a mapping between gene tree nodes and species tree nodes or branches. Gene conversion is a frequent and important evolutionary event, which results in the replacement of a gene by a copy of another from the same species and in the same gene tree. Including this event in reconciliation models has never been attempted because it introduces a dependency between lineages, and standard algorithms based on dynamic programming become ineffective. We propose here a novel mathematical framework including gene conversion as an evolutionary event in gene tree/species tree reconciliation. We describe a randomized algorithm that finds, in polynomial running time, a reconciliation minimizing the number of duplications, losses and conversions in the case when their weights are equal. We show that the space of optimal reconciliations includes an analog of the last common ancestor reconciliation, but is not limited to it. Our algorithm outputs any optimal reconciliation with a non-null probability. We argue that this study opens a research avenue on including gene conversion in reconciliation, and discuss its possible importance in biology.

To combine the relative strengths of fully preemptive and non-preemptive fixed priority scheduling, we can use limited preemptive scheduling methods. One such method is fixed-priority threshold scheduling (FPTS). This approach defines dual priorities for every task, a priority assigned to the inactive jobs and an equal or a higher one, called preemption threshold, for the jobs that have already started executing. A task can preempt another task's job if and only if its priority is greater than the other task's preemption threshold. FPTS can be implemented by assigning tasks to non-preemptive groups in a one-to-many manner. That is groups of tasks that are mutually non-preemptive.

The objective of this study was to investigate independent risk factors (RFs) connected with healthcare-associated (HA) Clostridium difficile infection (CDI) in surgical patients, its frequency per surgical wards and in-hospital-mortality at a single hospital. Risk factors for the infection were prospectively assessed among surgical patients with laboratory confirmed HA CDI and compared with a control group without HA CDI. The overall incidence rate of HA CDI was 2.6 per 10000 patient-days. Significant independent RFs for HA CDI were the use of carbapenems (P = 0.007, OR: 10.62, 95% CI: 1.93–58.4), the admission to intensive care unit (P = 0.004, OR:3.00, 95% CI:1.41–6.40), and the administration of 3rd generation cephalosporins (P = 0.014, OR:2.27, 95% CI:1.18–4.39). Patients with HA CDI had significantly higher in–hospital mortality compared to controls (P: 0.007; OR: 8.95; 95% CI: 1.84–43.43). CDI is an important HA infection in population of surgical patients and this study emphasizes the importance of the wise use of antibiotics, and other infection control strategies in order to prevent HA CDI, and to decrease the incidence and in-hospital mortality rate.

A stable, transparent financial system inspires confidence among investors and supports the overall economic growth. Inflexible regulation tends to slow down economic progress, making countries less attractive to investors. Economies with bank-oriented financial systems tend to be less attractive to investors, so their long-term goal is to demonstrate flexibility through liberalization, attracting new investors and ensuring survival in highly competitive and unforgiving global conditions. Liberalization success is even more essential for developing countries and their efforts to open the borders for capital flows and attract new investments. While financial liberalization affects all sectors of the economy and directly influences growth, it does not guaranty it. The removal of financial restrictions could affect capital distribution, increase volatility, create challenges for banks, etc. To support the liberalization efforts, it is very important to understand the nature of banking business, criticality of transparent and effective regulatory framework, as well as the expectations of potential investors. The main goal of this paper is to discuss the process of financial liberalization in developing countries and motivate the policy makers to consider available lessons when creating their balanced approach to financial (de)regulation processes towards financial development and integration in the global financial landscape.

Objective : The purpose of this research is to highlight the role which store image and retail service quality can play in private brand image-building in the context of an emerging market in South-Eastern Europe (i.e. Bosnia and Herzegovina). We propose to address this issue by seeking answers to the following questions: (1) Does a ‘halo effect’ take place between the store image and the private brand image? (2) How does consumer’s evaluation of the quality of the service delivered by a retailer affect the image of its private brand? Research Design & Methods : Data were collected through a field survey via the store-intercept method. The sample consisted of 699 customers of two large retail chains. The data were analysed using the Structural Equation Modelling technique. Findings: The findings of the present study suggest that store image and retail service quality are important factors in the formation of the image of product-branded products. Implications & Recommendations: This study offers some important insights for retailers who intend to develop their private brand. First, the image transfer from store brand to private brand suggests that retailers should consider the introduction of a private brand as a brand extension, with their stores as the parent brand. Second, we recommend that retailers put more emphasis on quality improvement initiatives related to the store environment attributes. Contribution & Value Added: This study enhances the discussion on the phenomenon of private branding by analysing the store-level factors which underpin the formation of private brand image in the context of less developed European markets.

The ideal goal of antiviral therapy or cure of chronic hepatitis B is HBsAg clearance and HBsAg seroconversion. According to modern guidelines of all Associations for liver diseases pegylated interferon alfa-2a and nucleos(t)ide analogues (entecavir, tenofovir) are first choice in the treatment of chronic hepatitis B. The aim of the study was to evaluate the success of the treatment of patients with chronic hepatitis B who received pegylated interferon. At the end of ten year period, HBV DNA <50 IU/ml and HBsAg seroconversion achieved 4 (4/55, 7.00%) patients. All were HBeAg negative. Additionally, is presented the case of patients, who, after the treatment, had the shortest period of healing. Patient is a man, aged 47 years, with the newly discovered HBeAg negative chronic hepatitis B and pronounced activity of serum aminotransferases. He was treated with pegylated interferon alfa-2a, 180 µg once a week, for 48 weeks. After antiviral therapy, the patient is HBV DNA negative, HBsAg negative and neat aminotransferases, and 12 months after completion of antiviral therapy comes to HBsAg seroconversion. The degree of cure of chronic hepatitis B, unfortunately, has not been entirely satisfactory, with the exception of the few individual cases.

Purpose To develop and validate a tool aiming to support ophthalmologists in identifying, during routine ophthalmologic visits, patients at higher risk of falling in the following year. Methods A group of 141 subjects (age: 73.2 ± 11.4 years), recruited at our Eye Clinic, underwent a baseline ophthalmic examination and a standardized questionnaire, including lifestyles, general health, social engagement and eyesight problems. Moreover, visual disability was assessed by the Activity of Daily Vision Scale (ADVS). The subjects were followed up for 12 months in order to record prospective falls. A subject who reported at least one fall within one year from the baseline assessment was considered as faller, otherwise as non-faller. Different tree-based algorithms (i.e., C4.5, AdaBoost and Random Forests) were used to develop automatic classifiers and their performances were evaluated by the cross-validation approach. Results Over the follow-up, 25 falls were referred by 13 patients. The logistic regression analysis showed the following variables as significant predictors of prospective falls: pseudophakia and use of prescribed eyeglasses as protective factors, recent worsening of visual acuity as risk factor. Random Forest ranked best corrected visual acuity, number of sleeping hours and job type as the most important features. Finally, AdaBoost enabled the identification of subjects at higher risk of falling in the following 12 months with a sensitivity rate of 69.2% and a specificity rate of 76.6%. Conclusions The current study proposes a novel method, based on classification trees applied to self-reported factors and health information assessed by a standardized questionnaire during ophthalmological visits, to identify ophthalmic patients at higher risk of falling in the following 12 months. The findings of the current study pave the way to the validation of the proposed novel tool for fall risk screening on a larger cohort of patients with visual impairment referred to eye clinics.