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During the COVID-19 pandemic, the U.S. power sector witnessed remarkable electricity demand changes in many geographical regions. These changes were evident in population-dense cities. This paper incorporates a techno-economic analysis of energy storage systems (ESSs) to investigate the pandemic's influence on ESS development. In particular, we employ a linear program-based revenue maximization model to capture the revenues of ESS from participating in the electricity market, by performing arbitrage on the energy trading, and regulation market, by providing regulation services to stabilize the grid's frequency. We consider five dominant energy storage technologies in the U.S., namely, Lithium-ion, Advanced Lead Acid, Flywheel, Vanadium Redox Flow, and Lithium-Iron Phosphate storage technologies. Extensive numerical results conducted on the case of New York City (NYC) allow us to highlight the negative impact that COVID-19 had on the NYC power sector. © 2023 IEEE.
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Introduction: in the face of the health emergency, Cuban science undertook a series of protocols with the aim of achieving an effective treatment against COVID-19, thus giving rise to a homeopathic preparation called PrevengHo..-Vir. The trial has not yet finished and there remains a gap of doubts regarding the possible adverse reactions that the preparation could cause. Background: to characterize clinically and epidemiologically five towns' populations that consumed the homeopathic preparation and to identify the main adverse reactions reported by the patients under study. Method: an observational, descriptive, cross-sectional study was carried out in five towns in the municipality of Santa Clara, with the total of patients who used the preparation;with the sample being N=505. Results: a ratio of men and women of 1:1 is presented, with an average of 44.3 years of age, 63.7% have a high school degree (above 12th grade), only 4.8% used the preparation incorrectly, of which 3.2% had a low educational level. A total of 13 subjects presented reactions. Conclusions: Most of the adverse reactions are mild and do not require urgent medical attention. The homeopathic preparation PrevengHo..-Vir is safe and without risk to the lives of consumers.
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The practice course about electric motor controlling is essential in establishing undergraduate students' skills in many electronics and electrical engineering majors. However, due to the current COVID-19 situation, teaching this practical subject has become unlearnable in the laboratory room. Therefore, the urgent requirement is to find a solution to virtualize many electrical-motor control lessons for online learning during the distant social period. In this paper, we propose a potential solution to online practical electrical motor control coursework based on Proteus software. Unlike the common Matlab Simulink approach, the Proteus has the advantage of digitizing both the Arduino device and the electric circuits. We demonstrate the usefulness of Proteus 8.2 software by implementing a circuit to control a 3-phase asynchronous motor using the pulse width control method, named sine PWM. Through the learning on Proteus software, students not only review the theoretical knowledge of electrical motors but also learn how to apply the theory through simulating virtualized Arduino devices and building a control circuit with the control block to control the motor in real-Time. Furthermore, Proteus also supports printing out the control circuit board for the user. Proteus is, therefore, a suitable solution for online teaching of practice subjects for related majors. © 2022 IEEE.
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SESSION TITLE: Imaging, ECMO, and other Procedures in the ICU Case Posters SESSION TYPE: Case Report Posters PRESENTED ON: 10/19/2022 12:45 pm - 01:45 pm INTRODUCTION: Superior sagittal sinus (SSS) thrombosis is a rare cause of stroke that is difficult to identify due to various clinical presentations. It is the most common form of dural sinus thrombosis, and common risk factors include hypercoagulable state, traumatic head injury, pregnancy/postpartum, and malignancy. More than 85 percent of adult patients have at least one risk factor for cerebral venous thrombosis. Some patients with SSS thrombosis do not have clearly identifiable risk factors, and this case highlights one such patient. CASE PRESENTATION: A 60-year-old Caucasian male with hypertension, hyperlipidemia, and a recent intracranial hemorrhage with residual left-sided weakness, presented to the emergency department with worsening left-sided weakness. Upon admission, his physical exam was notable for 4/5 strength in the left upper extremity and 2/5 strength in the left lower extremity. This was a reduction in strength from a baseline of 4/5 in the left upper and lower extremities. Labs on admission were normal except for high-sensitivity troponin of 86 and WBC of 14.5. UA with a small amount of blood. An initial CT brain without contrast showed no acute changes, evolutionary changes in the right frontal temporal lobe, and subtle curvilinear hyperdensity near a site of the intracranial hemorrhage identified in the prior month. This curvilinear hyperdensity was thought to reflect early parenchymal calcification. MRI brain without contrast showed new and evolving areas of abnormal signaling and an evolving hematoma with surrounding vasogenic edema, all of which are in the right lobe. There was no apparent diffusion coefficient correlate. Thus, MRI with contrast and MRV was recommended. EEG showed no evidence of epileptiform activity. Additionally, transthoracic echo demonstrated new non-ischemic cardiomyopathy with an EF of 35-40%. The diagnosis was ultimately made after the patient had a Magnetic Resonance Venography (MRV) which showed evidence of the SSS thrombosis and an indication that the previously visualized curvilinear hyperdensity is suspected to represent slowed flow within a surface vein. Heparin was started to recanalize the sinus and prevent thrombus propagation. After the appropriate treatment was started, the patient's weakness improved dramatically. DISCUSSION: Typically, patients with SSS thrombosis have identifiable risk factors like hypercoagulable states, traumatic head injuries, pregnancy/postpartum, malignancy, and more recently association with COVID-19 infection. In this case, since the patient lacked identifiable risk factors, the MRV played a key role in the diagnosis. CONCLUSIONS: Like our patient, 30-40 percent of patients present with an intracerebral hemorrhage. Differentials of SSS thrombosis should be considered in etiologies for intracerebral hemorrhage, especially when an identifiable cause is lacking, in order to avoid delays in treatment and resolution. Reference #1: Abdalkader M, Shaikh SP, Siegler JE, Cervantes-Arslanian AM, Tiu C, Radu RA, Tiu VE, Jillella DV, Mansour OY, Vera V, Chamorro Á, Blasco J, López A, Farooqui M, Thau L, Smith A, Gutierrez SO, Nguyen TN, Jovin TG. Cerebral Venous Sinus Thrombosis in COVID-19 Patients: A Multicenter Study and Review of Literature. J Stroke Cerebrovasc Dis. 2021 Jun;30(6):105733. doi: 10.1016/j.jstrokecerebrovasdis.2021.105733. Epub 2021 Mar 4. PMID: 33743411;PMCID: PMC7931726. Reference #2: Rehman A, Husnain MG, Mushtaq K, Eledrisi MS. Cerebral venous sinus thrombosis precipitated by Graves’ disease. BMJ Case Rep. 2018 Jun 4;2018:bcr2017224143. doi: 10.1136/bcr-2017-224143. PMID: 29866676;PMCID: PMC5990097. Reference #3: Nakase H, Takeshima T, Sakaki T, Heimann A, Kempski O. Superior sagittal sinus thrombosis: a clinical and experimental study. Skull Base Surg. 1998;8(4):169-74. doi: 10.1055/s-2008-1058178. PMID: 17171061;PMCID: PMC1656696. DISCLOSURES: No relevant rel tionships by Ken Johnson No relevant relationships by Nina Le No relevant relationships by Riaz Mahmood No relevant relationships by Ngoc Phan
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Recently, the Covid-19 pandemic has become very complicated and seriously affecting the economy as well as society in every countries in the world. In this chapter, we explore the solution of Computer Vision for handling the Covid-19 pandemic situation. The given scenarios based on deep learning techniques are used to monitor the traffic of people and vehicles through the checkpoints to control the in-out movement in significant areas. In addition, we also need to pay attention to complying with the regulations on wearing masks and ensuring a safe social distance in public places. From there, the proposed system will effectively support organizations to deal with the Covid-19 pandemic. © 2022, The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG.
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Background: Peru has one of the highest mortality rates due to COVID-19 in the world. Aim: To describe the clinical features, evolution and explore factors associated with mortality in patients with moderate to severe Covid-19. Material and Methods: Prospective analytical study. The clinical, laboratory, imaging, and mortality data of patients admitted at a COVID service of the Santa Rosa de Piura Hospital were recorded from April to June 2020.
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Clinical molecular genetics laboratories have expanded rapidly in the last 15 years, incorporating new technologists at an astounding rate that has brought rare disease testing out of research labs and into standard of care medical practice. These laboratories have had to adapt a succession of new technologies and methods of data analysis while building in-house expertise. When the SARS-CoV-2 virus, the cause of COVID-19, emerged in early 2020 and quickly spread across the globe, many areas of the United States (U.S.) when into lockdown. Noncritical healthcare appointments were postponed resulting in a dramatic drop in the number of samples being referred for genetic testing for rare diseases. As large genetics laboratory experienced the resulting drop in volume, the demand for SARS-CoV-2 testing soared. Equipped with expertise in high throughput testing, as well as clinical technologists trained in high-complexity testing, large genetics laboratories stepped in the fill the gap, a measure that kept laboratories running and staff employed. Our expertise in highthroughput high-complexity led from requests to perform testing in in our genomics laboratory to building new laboratories in both the U.S. and the United Kingdom (U.K.). These efforts resulted in building three laboratories from an empty space to a functioning, staffed clinical laboratory in approximately eight weeks. These laboratories employ over 1200 individuals (∼550 U.S. and ∼700 U.K.) with plans to expand to over 2000. To date, these laboratories have performed ∼2.5 million SARS-CoV-2 assays. Challenges included navigating state, federal, and country regulations and rapidly training a large clinical staff while ensuring optimal assay performance. Clinical testing in the U.S. is governed by the Clinical Laboratory Improvement Amendments (CLIA), which provide very specific requirements for personnel, training, proficiency testing and the quality management system. However, high complexity molecular testing for a viral target could fall into the CLIA category of general chemistry (as does molecular genetic testing) or microbiology, subcategory virology. The category chosen has dramatic effects on the specific experience required for technologists, supervisors and the laboratory director. Outside the U.S., laboratory requirements are dictated by accepted best practices and accrediting agencies, rather than specific laws, sometimes making it difficult to know what requirements need to be met. Various assays with slightly different designs are available, and the assay used must be best suited to the testing workflow. In the U.S., samples collection is supervised by a healthcare provider. A higher sensitivity assay that does not include an internal human control genewas chosen. In the U. K., home collection is allowed, therefore, an assay that includes a human RNAseP gene control but with lower sensitivity for SARS-CoV- 2 was chosen. Given the current global awareness of respiratory virus activity and spread, there is a growing demand for newand expanded testing. Combining SARS-CoV-2 testing with influenza, RSV and potentially other viruses is clinically desirable. Pooling of samples will allow for even greater throughput while reducing the demand for increasingly scarce consumables. Finally, our experience with highthroughput sequencing is allowing us to pivot quickly to viral genome sequencing, which is proving critical to understanding and combating this pandemic. Rare metabolic diseases, intellectual disabilities and hereditary cancer syndromes will always still need attention and continuous innovation. We will need to learn to balance these activities and continue to support testing needs for these in addition to emerging diseases.
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Antibodies, Neutralizing , Antibodies, Viral , Aged , Humans , Immunization, Secondary , RNA, MessengerABSTRACT
The COVID-19 pandemic has created the distinct challenge for the piloting of drones/other UAVs for researchers and educators who are restricted to working remotely. We propose a Remote Visual Line-of-Sight system that leverages the advantages of Virtual Reality (VR) and motion capture to allow users to fly a real-world drone from a remote location. The system was developed while our researcher (VR operator) was remotely working in Vietnam with the enclosed real-world environment located in Australia. Our paper will present the system design and the challenges found during the development of our system. © 2021 Copyright held by the owner/author(s).
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Communicable disease is a challenge that is widely recognized to be a consequence of globalization. Infectious disease threats such as SARS-CoV-2, Ebola, Zika, malaria, and yellow fever are easily transmissible through mass global processes such as migration and trade. Scholars are increasingly recognizing the value of international cooperation and transdisciplinary research to meet these infectious disease challenges and even to anticipate future challenges. However, international collaboration is not an easy process given the often-uneven relationships between the Global North and South due to histories of resource disparities. In the International Congress on Ecology and Evolution of Global Communicable Diseases held in Quito and Galapagos Islands, Ecuador in 2016, researchers developed a concrete framework for international, interdisciplinary collaboration toward tackling infectious disease challenges. We share the insights from the congress here in hopes of enabling other scientific researchers to engage in similar research partnerships and to forge collective progress toward a more efficient infectious disease research agenda. The following core competencies are addressed in this article: Medical knowledge, Interpersonal and communication skills, and Professionalism. © 2021 International Journal of Academic Medicine.
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Study Objectives: Subpleural consolidations and B-lines are common lung ultrasound (LUS) patterns seen in patients infected with COVID-19. The aim of this study is to describe how each LUS pattern correlates with patient vital signs and inflammatory biomarkers. Methods: This is a retrospective analysis of adult patients who presented to a large urban tertiary emergency department between May 1, 2020 and June 30, 2020. Patients were included in the study if they 1) presented with a respiratory chief complaint;2) met systemic inflammatory response syndrome (SIRS) criteria;3) were confirmed to have COVID-19 diagnosed by PCR;and 4) had point-of-care LUS performed and recorded in our imaging storage database. All clinical data was reviewed using the hospital's electronic medical records. The study was approved through the Institutional Review Board (IRB). All LUS images were obtained by emergency medicine physicians during the patient's emergency department course and were considered adequate if they included a minimum of 4 lung fields (bilateral anterior and posterior fields). Images were reviewed by ultrasound fellowship trained emergency physicians who were blinded to patient clinical outcome data. Images were assessed for subpleural consolidations, B-lines, and merging B-lines. LUS patterns were measured against patient vital signs (temperature, heart rate, respiratory rate, SpO2) and inflammatory biomarkers (CRP, D-Dimer, Ferritin, LDH, Procalcitonin) that were collected on initial hospital presentation. Linear correlations were performed using Pearson's r coefficient. Statistical analysis was completed with SPSS. Statistical significance was set at p< 0.05. Results: A total of 39 patients were included in the study. There were 33 men and 6 women ranging in age between 23 and 77 years old with a mean age of 49 years. Conclusions: Subpleural consolidations were found to have a positive correlation with increasing respiratory rate (p=0.046) and ferritin levels (p=0.0016). An increasing percentage of intercostal spaces with B-lines and confluent B-lines had a positivenegative correlation with ferritin levels (SpO2 (p=0.0021).016, 0.034). LUS did not correlate with inflammatory biomarkers. Lastly, merging B-lines were found to have a positive correlation with D-Dimer (p= 0.013) and ferritin levels (p=0.0015). Subpleural consolidations, B-lines, and mergingconfluent B-lines appear to correlate with elevated ferritin, a marker that has been associated with severe COVID-19 disease. Additionally, subpleural consolidations were found to correlate with worse clinical and respiratory status. These LUS patterns may be manifestations of more severe lung injury and systemic pathophysiological processes that take place over the course of a COVID-19 infection., specifically SpO2. However, furthersurprisingly these common LUS findings did not correlate with inflammatory lab values, which some studies suggest may have prognostic value for patients with COVID. Our study has limitations. This study specifically was limited to only patient's that had a recorded LUS image in our storage database. Therefore, many patients with covid may have been excluded. Our study highlights that there is a potential role for US in the assessment of disease severity. Further investigation is needed to determine prognostication of these LUS patterns.
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This paper endeavors to understand the research landscape of finance research in Vietnam during the period 2008 to 2020 and predict the key defining future research directions. Using the comprehensive database of Vietnam's international publications in social sciences and humanities, we extract a dataset of 314 papers on finance topics in Vietnam from 2008 to 2020. Then, we apply a systematic approach to analyze four important themes: Structural issues, Banking system, Firm issues, and Financial psychology and behavior. Overall, there have been three noticeable trends within finance research in Vietnam: (1) assessment of financial policies or financial regulation, (2) deciphering the correlates of firms' financial performances, and (3) opportunities and challenges in adopting innovations and ideas from foreign financial market systems. Our analysis identifies several fertile areas for future research, including financial market analysis in the post-COVID-19 eras, fintech, and green finance.
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Online book fairs are being held in Vietnam to replace traditional offline events that have been shelved owing to the COVID-19 crisis. This study aims to explore book consumers' perceptions regarding digital book fairs and their evaluation of the first-ever national online book fair held in Vietnam. In-depth interviews were conducted to obtain insights from people who had attended the online book event. The findings provide acceptance of and support for the organization of digital book fairs during the COVID-19 pandemic. Attendees generally appreciated the convenience of the national online book fair and the promotional programmes offered by various publishers and distributors. Furthermore, some attendees enjoyed the novelty of the event and the feeling of being included in the reading community. Nevertheless, most of the attendees highlighted several limitations, especially the lack of social and face-to-face interaction. These findings have implications for online book fair organizers, publishers, and book distributors alike. © 2021 Brill Academic Publishers. All rights reserved.
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The ongoing Corona Virus Disease 2019 (Covid-19) pandemic, caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus-2 (SARS-CoV-2), has emphasized the urgent need for antiviral therapeutics. The viral RNA-dependent-RNA-polymerase (RdRp) is a promising target with polymerase inhibitors successfully used for the treatment of several viral diseases. We demonstrate here that Favipiravir predominantly exerts an antiviral effect through lethal mutagenesis. The SARS-CoV RdRp complex is at least 10-fold more active than any other viral RdRp known. It possesses both unusually high nucleotide incorporation rates and higherror rates allowing facile insertion of Favipiravir into viral RNA, provoking C-to-U and G-to-A transitions in the already low cytosine content SARS-CoV-2 genome. The coronavirus RdRp complex represents an Achilles heel for SARS-CoV, supporting nucleoside analogues as promising candidates for the treatment of Covid-19.
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With the current Covid-19 ongoing outbreak originating inWuhan, human pathogenic coronaviruses demonstrate their ability to emerge abruptly and spread serious pulmonary disease. The Orf1b enzymes promote replication and transcription within a complex with unique enzyme having outstanding properties. The RdRp core sequence of the Covid-19 isolate published in january 2020 shows a high (>95% aa) sequence homology to the SARSCoV emerged in 2003. Analysis of polymorphisms show that aa changes are mostly located at the protein surface, unlikely to affect any basic function of the RdRp.We have reconstituted a highly active SARS-CoV RdRp complex made of nsp7, nsp8, and nsp12, and studied its polymerization activity on a variety of RNA templates using steady-state and pre-steady state kinetics. The RdRp is able to incorporate single NTPs at the astonishing rate of >500 s-1, about 10-fold faster than any known viral RdRp. Fast synthesis occurs at the expense of fidelity, which is at least 10-fold lower than that of Dengue virus NS5 or Coxsackie virus RdRps. Such low fidelity must be corrected by the nsp14 ExoN subdomain -able to remove 3'-terminal mismatches to match genome stability observed in infected cells, and account for the large size of the Coronavirus RNA genome. The nsp14 enzyme is a bi-functional enzyme made of an Exonuclease domain, activated through binding to nsp10, and an RNA methyltransferase able to execute N7-guanine methylation of RNA caps. It is the only example of RNA cap MTase which does not have a Rossmann fold, which poses interesting questions given the overwhelming success of the Rossmann fold through evolution. Nsp13 is a type 1 helicase, whose role is unclear. The nsp15 RNA endonuclease is a RNase A type endonuclease specific for Uracile, inhibited by 2'-O methylation of RNA, while nsp16 is a 2'-O methyltransferase also activated by nsp10. Our work provides a structural and functional view of this sophisticated replication complex, with highly active enzyme preparations suitable for robotized high-throughput inhibition assays aiming at the discovery of pan-coronavirus inhibitors Orf1b enzymes.