ABSTRACT
Objective: This study's objective was to know Brazilian university students' social representations regarding the influences on adherence to distancing-social isolation during the new coronavirus pandemic. Methods: The research design of this study was qualitative research, guided by the Theory of Social Representations. The students were selected by convenience by the "snowball" sampling method. The environment for access and invitation to participants consisted of groups on social media. Data were collected through an electronic questionnaire prepared by the authors using the Google Forms platform. For analysis, content analysis was used with the aid of the IraMuTeQ software. Results: Seven hundred and ninety-eight Brazilian university students participated, with a mean age of 23.59 years;71.7% of respondents were female, 28.1% were male, and 0.3% were intersex. As a result, four classes were obtained, organized into two categories, entitled "Reproducing the voice of science: Scientific knowledge as a determinant of conduct" and "Life at home: Risk and fear in everyday life". Conclusions: It appears that the participants structure their representations based on scientific recommendations and assume the position of reproducing the hegemonic discourse on distancing/social isolation;however, the symbolic elaboration process is marked by the fear of infecting close people and the desire to protect them.
ABSTRACT
The COVID-19 pandemic has created an urgency for studies to understand the spread of the virus, in particular, to predict the number of daily cases. This type of investigation depends heavily on the data collected and made available manually. Therefore, data are susceptible to human errors which can cause anomalies in the dataset. Understanding and correcting anomalies in real-world application data is an important task to ensure the reliability of the data analysis and prediction tools. This paper presents a spectral anomaly detection and correction strategy that uses concepts from the graph signal processing (GSP) theory. The main advantage of the introduced strategy is to analyze the variation in the daily number of cases with the proximity relation between the investigated locations. Experiments were carried out with real meteorological and mobility data for predicting the number of COVID-19 cases by the classic prediction model known as autoregressive integrated moving average exogenous (ARIMAX). Then, the anomaly detection method was applied to determine the relationship between the prediction errors and the anomalous variations identified by the tool. The results show a strong relationship between the anomalous variations and the errors made by the model and attest to the increase in the accuracy of the prediction model after the normalization of the anomalies. © 2021 IEEE
ABSTRACT
Background: Dolutegravir/Lamivudine (DTG/3TC) 2-drug regimen (2DR) was non-inferior to a tenofovir alafenamide (TAF)-based 3-/ 4-drug regimen (3/4DR) (TBR) through the Week 48 primary endpoint in TANGO. Here we present prespecified Week 96 secondary analyses from TANGO. Method: TANGO, a randomized, open-label, non-inferiority phase III study, evaluates efficacy and safety of switching to once-daily DTG/3TC in HIV-1- infected, virologically suppressed adults vs remaining on a TBR over 148 weeks. Week 96 analysis assessed non-inferiority with a 4% non-inferiority margin for Snapshot virologic failure (VF) and 8% for virologic success (VS;US Food and Drug Administration Snapshot algorithm, intention-to- treat- exposed [ITT-E] population). Results: 741 participants were randomized/exposed (DTG/3TC: 369;TBR: 372). For Snapshot VF, switching to DTG/3TC was non-inferior to continuing TBR at Week 96 in the ITT-E analysis: 0.3% vs 1.1%;adjusted difference: -0.8% (95% CI: -2.0, 0.4) and superior to TBR in the per-protocol analysis: 0% vs 1.1%;adjusted difference: -1.1% (95% CI: -2.3, -0.0);P = 0.044 (2-sided). Snapshot VS was high in both arms (DTG/3TC: 85.9%;TBR: 79.0%;adjusted difference: 6.8% [95% CI: 1.4-12.3]). Forty-four participants (5.9%) had missing data in the Week 96 window due to COVID-19. No participants on DTG/3TC and 3 (<1%) on TBR met confirmed virologic withdrawal (CVW) criteria, with no resistance observed at failure. Overall adverse event (AE) rates were similar between arms, with more drug-related AEs in the DTG/3TC arm. Total cholesterol (TC), low-density lipoprotein cholesterol, and triglycerides improved significantly with DTG/3TC, whereas high-density lipoprotein (HDL) cholesterol changes significantly favored TBR, with no difference in TC/HDL-cholesterol ratio between arms. Decreases in glomerular filtration rate by cystatin C were observed with significantly lower decreases in the DTG/3TC arm;proximal tubular function marker changes were small and similar across arms. Conclusion: At Week 96, switching to DTG/3TC FDC was non-inferior to continuing a TAF-based 3/4DR in maintaining virologic suppression in HIV-1- infected antiretroviral therapy-experienced adults. The safety profile of DTG/3TC FDC was consistent with the DTG and 3TC respective labels. DTG/3TC 2DR offers a robust switch option with durable efficacy, good safety and tolerability, and a high barrier to resistance with zero CVWs through 96 weeks.