There is, I think, something ethereal about i —the square root of minus one. I remember first hearing about it at school. It seemed an odd beast at that time—an intruder hovering on the edge of reality.

Usually familiarity dulls this sense of the bizarre, but in the case of i it was the reverse: over the years the sense of its surreal nature intensified. It seemed that it was impossible to write mathematics that described the real world in …

I and i

Summary Background Since December, 2019, Wuhan, China, has experienced an outbreak of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), caused by the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). Epidemiological and clinical characteristics of patients with COVID-19 have been reported but risk factors for mortality and a detailed clinical course of illness, including viral shedding, have not been well described. Methods In this retrospective, multicentre cohort study, we included all adult inpatients (≥18 years old) with laboratory-confirmed COVID-19 from Jinyintan Hospital and Wuhan Pulmonary Hospital (Wuhan, China) who had been discharged or had died by Jan 31, 2020. Demographic, clinical, treatment, and laboratory data, including serial samples for viral RNA detection, were extracted from electronic medical records and compared between survivors and non-survivors. We used univariable and multivariable logistic regression methods to explore the risk factors associated with in-hospital death. Findings 191 patients (135 from Jinyintan Hospital and 56 from Wuhan Pulmonary Hospital) were included in this study, of whom 137 were discharged and 54 died in hospital. 91 (48%) patients had a comorbidity, with hypertension being the most common (58 [30%] patients), followed by diabetes (36 [19%] patients) and coronary heart disease (15 [8%] patients). Multivariable regression showed increasing odds of in-hospital death associated with older age (odds ratio 1·10, 95% CI 1·03–1·17, per year increase; p=0·0043), higher Sequential Organ Failure Assessment (SOFA) score (5·65, 2·61–12·23; p Interpretation The potential risk factors of older age, high SOFA score, and d-dimer greater than 1 μg/mL could help clinicians to identify patients with poor prognosis at an early stage. Prolonged viral shedding provides the rationale for a strategy of isolation of infected patients and optimal antiviral interventions in the future. Funding Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences Innovation Fund for Medical Sciences; National Science Grant for Distinguished Young Scholars; National Key Research and Development Program of China; The Beijing Science and Technology Project; and Major Projects of National Science and Technology on New Drug Creation and Development.

Clinical course and risk factors for mortality of adult inpatients with COVID-19 in Wuhan, China: a retrospective cohort study

With digital equipment becoming increasingly networked, either on wired or wireless networks, for personal and professional use alike, distributed software systems have become a crucial element in information and communications technologies. The study of these systems forms the core of the ARLES' work, which is specifically concerned with defining new system software architectures, based on the use of emerging networking technologies. In this context, we concentrate on the study of distributed systems which bring to life the vision of ubiquitous computing systems, also known as ambient intelligence.

반도체 공정 overview

Background: About a third of home-dwelling older people fall each year, and institutionalized older people even report a two- or threefold higher rate for falling

Sensitivity and false alarm rate of a fall sensor in long-term fall detection in the elderly

Mobile devices are becoming increasingly sophisticated and the latest generation of smart cell phones now incorporates many diverse and powerful sensors These sensors include GPS sensors, vision sensors (ie, cameras), audio sensors (ie, microphones), light sensors, temperature sensors, direction sensors (ie, magnetic compasses), and acceleration sensors (ie, accelerometers) The availability of these sensors in mass-marketed communication devices creates exciting new opportunities for data mining and data mining applications In this paper we describe and evaluate a system that uses phone-based accelerometers to perform activity recognition, a task which involves identifying the physical activity a user is performing To implement our system we collected labeled accelerometer data from twenty-nine users as they performed daily activities such as walking, jogging, climbing stairs, sitting, and standing, and then aggregated this time series data into examples that summarize the user activity over 10- second intervals We then used the resulting training data to induce a predictive model for activity recognition This work is significant because the activity recognition model permits us to gain useful knowledge about the habits of millions of users passively---just by having them carry cell phones in their pockets Our work has a wide range of applications, including automatic customization of the mobile device's behavior based upon a user's activity (eg, sending calls directly to voicemail if a user is jogging) and generating a daily/weekly activity profile to determine if a user (perhaps an obese child) is performing a healthy amount of exercise

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Activity recognition using cell phone accelerometers

Monitoring of aortic valve (AV) opening and closure during heart pump support by a left ventricular assist device (LVAD) is crucial in preventing adverse events such as thrombus formation near the AV. In preventing adverse events such as thrombus formation near the AV. In this paper, simulations of LVAD motor current waveform were undertaken to evaluate its suitability for ascertaining aortic valve status. A two-dimensional fluid-structure interaction finite-element model is presented to predict AV closure during LVAD outflow, useful in the development of a pump speed controller.

Simulation of motor current waveform as an index for aortic valve open-close condition during ventricular support

Effecting improved prosthetic visual acuity via image processing in a fixation–pursuit task

The present invention relates to a method and apparatus for facilitating artificial vision using retinal electrical neuro-stimulation. Retinal ganglion cells are stimulated at two different sites in order to elicit better visual percepts. Primary stimulation is implemented at first site on the retina. Secondary stimulation is applied in the vicinity of the optic disc or optic nerve. The secondary stimulation modulates the signals elicited by the primary stimulation.

A method and apparatus for facilitating artificial vision

SARS-CoV-2, the causative agent of COVID-19, has an RNA genome, which is, overall, closely related to the bat coronavirus sequence RaTG13. However, the ACE2-binding domain of this virus is more similar to a coronavirus isolated from a Guangdong pangolin. In addition to this unique feature, the genome of SARS-CoV-2 (and its closely related coronaviruses) has a low CpG content. This has been postulated to be the signature of an evolutionary pressure exerted by the host antiviral protein ZAP. Here, we analyzed the sequences of a wide range of viruses using both alignment-based and alignment free approaches to investigate the origin of SARS-CoV-2 genome. Our analyses revealed a high level of similarity between the 5’UTR of SARS-CoV-2 and that of the Guangdong pangolin coronavirus. This suggests bat and pangolin coronaviruses might have recombined at least twice (in the 5’UTR and ACE2 binding regions) to seed the formation of SARS-CoV-2. An alternative hypothesis is that the lineage preceding SARS-CoV-2 is a yet to be sampled bat coronavirus whose ACE2 binding domain and 5’UTR are distinct from other known bat coronaviruses. Additionally, we performed a detailed analysis of viral genome compositions as well as expression and RNA binding data of ZAP to show that the low CpG abundance in SARS-CoV-2 is not related to an evolutionary pressure from ZAP.

/pdf/insight-into-the-origin-of-5-utr-and-source-of-cpg-reduction-36isy5hno5.pdf

Insight into the origin of 5’UTR and source of CpG reduction in SARS-CoV-2 genome

Cardiac period responses after cessation of vagai stimulation were analyzed in the cat and the dog using non-linear curve fittting techniques. The relative undershoot (post vagai tachycardia) was investigated before and after muscarinic blockade with atropine. It was found that after atropine the tachycardia was abolished in the cat but persisted in the dog. However the altered temporal dynamics to that pre-atropine indicated that this tachycardia had a different etiology to that before blockade. It is hypothesized that this tachycardia is due to co-release of vasoactive intestinal polypeptide (VIP) from vagai nerve terminals.

Nigel H. Lovell

Papers

Simulation of motor current waveform as an index for aortic valve open-close condition during ventricular support

Effecting improved prosthetic visual acuity via image processing in a fixation–pursuit task

A method and apparatus for facilitating artificial vision

Insight into the origin of 5’UTR and source of CpG reduction in SARS-CoV-2 genome

Investigation of post vagai tachycardias by analysis of the dynamics of cardiac period responses