The Graph Convolutional Networks Framework for Predicting Pandemic Impact on Stock Prices

Covid-19 has dealt an unprecedented hit to the global economy and all industries, with varying degrees of decline from retail to real estate. This volatility is most evident in stock prices. Previous stock price forecasting methods typically used historical data for each stock as a separate input into the system. This paper proposes an attention-based parallel graph convolutional network framework, which consists of two parallel GCNs. The first GCN takes stock features as input, and the second GCN takes other industry features as input, and sets an attention model to reflect the pairwise interactions between networks. Experimental results on selected stock data show that the model outperforms both the LSTM model and the GCN model in accuracy and F1 score. © 2022 IEEE.

CT Imaging Features of Patients Infected with 2019 Novel Coronavirus

Novel coronavirus pneumonia is an acute, infectious pneumonia caused by a novel coronavirus infection. Computed tomographic (CT) imaging is one of the main methods to screen and diagnose patients with this disease. Here, the importance and clinical value of chest CT examination in the diagnosis of COVID-19 is expounded, and the pulmonary CT findings of COVID-19 patients in different stages are briefly summarized, thus providing a reference document for the CT diagnosis of COVID-19 patients. © 2021 The Authors.

PULSERIDER-ASSISTED TREATMENT OF INTRACRANIAL ANEURYSMS IN THE STERLING REGISTRY

Introduction PulseRider (Cerenovus, Irvine, CA) is an adjunctive neck bridging device designed to aid in coiling of wide neck bifurcation intracranial aneurysms. We present outcomes of PulseRider assisted coil embolization of brain aneurysms in routine clinical practice included in the STERLING registry. Materials and Methods STERLING (NCT03642639) is a prospective, global registry of endovascular treatment of intracranial aneurysms with Galaxy and MicrusFrame coils (Cerenovus, Irvine, CA). PulseRider cases from STERLING were included in this interim analysis. Primary outcome measures were core-lab assessed modified Raymond-Roy (mRR) occlusion at final procedural angiogram, and where available, at 6 months (+/-3 months) or 1 year (COVID allowed window: -3 months/+1.5 years). Safety outcomes were procedureand device-related adverse events. Results Seventeen subjects (mean age 64.4 ± 8.69 years, 12 female) were treated with the PulseRider device. All cases were unruptured and two were retreatments of previously coiled aneurysms. All aneurysms had saccular morphology, 14/ 15 (93.3%) were wide neck and 13/15 (86.7%) were at a bifurcation. Target aneurysm locations included basilar artery (6/15, 40.0%), MCA bifurcation (4/15, 26.7%), ACA (3/15, 20%), ICA terminus (1/15, 6.7%), and M2 (distal to bifurcation, 1/15, 6.7%), with a mean parent vessel diameter of 2.65 ± 0.440mm. PulseRider was successfully implanted with the ability to retain the coil mass in all cases. Mean packing density was 29.7 ± 11.32%. Adequate occlusion (mRR I or II) was achieved in 86.7% (13/15) cases immediately post procedure, 100% (3/3) at 6 moths, and 75% (3/4) at 1 year. There were no intraprocedural ruptures, no symptomatic thromboembolic events, and no device related SAEs through the maximum follow up. 87.5% (7/8) subjects had mRS 0-2 at 1 year. There were no aneurysm retreatments. Conclusion In this interim analysis of the ongoing STERLING registry, treatment of intracranial aneurysms with the PulseRider device in conjunction with embolization using Galaxy and MicrusFrame coils showed excellent safety outcomes and high rates of adequate occlusion and good clinical outcome.

Does the source of oil price shocks matter for the systemic risk?

This paper investigates the impact of different oil price shocks on systemic risk under different market conditions. We show that the negative impact of negative oil price shocks on systemic risk is greater than the positive impact of positive oil price shocks. Systemic risk is always negatively affected by oil-specific demand shocks but positively affected by oil supply shocks when the market is under medium and low systemic risk levels. By testing the effect of crises, we find that the influence of positive and negative oil price shocks on systemic risk was declined due to the COVID-19 pandemic. © 2022 Elsevier B.V.

Impact of covid related restrictions on clinical trials-insights from the sterling registry

Introduction The STERLING registry is a prospective collection of aneurysms treated with endovascular techniques. The primary intention is to assess the efficacy and safety of Galaxy and MicrusFrame coils (Cerenovus, Irvine, CA). The Covid pandemic has the potential to alter the delivery of medical care or trial enrollment. Changes to regional or hospital specific research infrastructure will likely affect trials for the worse. Methods A retrospective review of STERLING sites and patients was undertaken to better understand regional variation in adapting to the pandemic and how enrollment was affected. Results 45 global sites currently take part in the STERLING registry. 28 sites began enrolling pre-Covid. 34% of U.S. sites were required to halt research, enrollment or elective surgery, whereas only 8% of EU and none of the Japanese sites were required to significantly change their research protocols respectively. At the 10 (9 US, 1 EU) sites required to put a hold on research, rates of enrollment dropped from an average of 0.6 subjects/month in the US (0.5 in EU) to 0 in the first month and 0.1 subjects/month in the second month of Covid-related restrictions. At the time of this analysis (1/ 2021), the average rate of enrollment across those sites partially recovered to 0.2 subjects/month in the US and 0.2 in EU, although 5 of the 10 sites (all US) had not enrolled any subjects post Covid. Overall, mean actual vs. projected enrollment rates decreased more in the U.S. than in the EU and Japan. The percent of ruptured aneurysms in the per-protocol analysis increased from 23% to 40%, while the percent of unruptured aneurysms decreased from 76% to 60%. There were no significant changes to occlusion rates or adverse events pre/ post Covid. Conclusion The Covid pandemic has the potential to dramatically alter how research is conducted worldwide. U.S. sites faced tougher restrictions than their EU and Japan counterparts. Particularly within the U.S., moratoriums on research and elective surgery may be the driving factor in reducing overall enrollment and increasing the percentage of ruptured aneurysm enrollment. Fortunately, these changes did not appear to negatively affect occlusion rates or adverse events.

Does lock-down of Wuhan effectively restrict early geographic spread of novel coronavirus epidemic during chunyun in China? A spatial model study

BACKGROUND: Prior to Wuhan lock-down in 2020, chunyun, the largest population mobility on this planet, had begun. We quantified impact of Wuhan lock-down on COVID-19 spread during chunyun across the nation. METHODS: During the period of January 1 to February 9, 2020, a total of 40,278 confirmed COVID-19 cases from 319 municipalities in mainland China were considered in this study. The cross-coupled meta-population methods were employed using between-city Baidu migration index. We modelled four scenarios of geographic spread of COVID-19 including the presence of both chunyun and lock-down (baseline);lock-down without chunyun (scenario 1);chunyun without lock-down (scenario 2);and the absence of both chunyun and lock-down (scenario 3). RESULTS: Compared with the baseline, scenario 1 resulted in 3.84% less cases by February 9 while scenario 2 and 3 resulted in 20.22 and 32.46% more cases by February 9. The geographic distribution of cases revealed that chunyun facilitated the COVID-19 spread in the majority but not all cities, and the effectiveness of Wuhan lock-down was offset by chunyun. Impacts of Wuhan lock-down during chunyun on the COVID-19 spread demonstrated heterogenetic geographic patterns. CONCLUSION: Our results strongly supported the travel restriction as one of the effective responses and highlighted the importance of developing area-specific rather than universal countermeasures.