Beyond the Limits of Predictability in Human Mobility Prediction: Context-Transition Predictability

Urban human mobility prediction is forecasting how people move in cities. It is crucial for many smart city applications including route optimization, preparing for dramatic shifts in modes of transportation, or mitigating the epidemic spread of viruses such as COVID-19. Previous research propose the maximum predictability to derive the theoretical limits of accuracy that any predictive algorithm could achieve on predicting urban human mobility. However, existing maximum predictability only considers the sequential patterns of human movements and neglects the contextual information such as the time or the types of places that people visit, which plays an important role in predicting one's next location. In this paper, we propose new theoretical limits of predictability, namely Context-Transition Predictability, which not only captures the sequential patterns of human mobility, but also considers the contextual information of human behavior. We compare our Context-Transition Predictability with other kinds of predictability and find that it is larger than these existing ones. We also show that our proposed Context-Transition Predictability provides us a better guidance on which predictive algorithm to be used for forecasting the next location when considering the contextual information. Source code is at https://github.com/zcfinal/ContextTransitionPredictability.

Follow-up 24-Urine Studies during and Post-Covid-19 Pandemic

INTRODUCTION AND OBJECTIVE: In New York State, March 16, 2020 marked the end of any in-restaurant dining due to the COVID- 19 pandemic. The general population was forced to do more cooking at home and less dining out. Dietary modifications like this are considered first line therapy for calcium stone formers due to an effort to reduce dietary sodium intake which is known to affect lithogenic risk factors including hypernatriuria and hypercalciuria. This study aims to see if dietary changes made during the pandemic changed the risk of stone disease as evidenced in 24-hour urine studies and if these changes ceased after the end of widespread shutdowns. METHOD(S): All patients with nephrolithiasis seen for an outpatient visit from April 1, 2020-December 31, 2020 were queried and included if they had a 24-hour urine study pre-COVID (before March 16, 2020) and during-COVID (March 16, 2020-December 31, 2020);a post- COVID study was included if available (January 1, 2021- October 31, 2022). Values were compared using paired, 2-tailed t-tests. RESULT(S): 93 patients (54 males, 39 females, mean age 60.1) were studied pre-COVID, during-COVID, and post-COVID time periods with 24-hour urine studies. Stone analysis revealed calcium oxalate (61%), calcium phosphate (15%), uric acid (15%), other (9%). The 24-hour urine revealed a significant reduction in urinary sodium (uNa) and urinary calcium (uCa) in these patients. uNa levels decreased from 166.15+/-7.5 mEq/L pre-COVID to 149.09+/-7.6 mEq/L during- COVID (p=0.015) and maintained improved at 138.55+/-6.83 mEq/L post-COVID era (p=0.0035). uCa levels decreased from 214.18+/-13.05 mEq/L pre-COVID to 191.48+/-13.03 mEq/L during- COVID levels (p=0.010) and remained improved at 185.33+/-12.61 mEq/L post-COVID (p=0.012). There were no significant differences in 24-hour urine total volume, magnesium, or citrate levels. CONCLUSION(S): During the COVID-19 lockdown, dietary choices limited to home cooked meals allowed patients to better identify their food choices. This study demonstrates that known urinary risk factors for lithogenesis, such as urinary sodium and calcium, improved during the lockdown and these improvements were maintained even after restrictions in restaurants were lifted. Moving forward, it will be imperative to monitor patient's 24-hour urine to ensure these dietary modifications are continued in the postpandemic era and to see if these improved urinary parameters will impact stone formation in these patients.

[Establishment and preliminary application of quantitative real-time PCR assay for the detection of SARS-CoV-2 subgenomic nucleocapsid RNA].

Objective: To establish a rapid and specific quantitative real-time PCR (qPCR) method for the detection of SARS-CoV-2 subgenomic nucleocapsid RNA (SgN) in patients with COVID-19 or environmental samples. Methods: The qPCR assay was established by designing specific primers and TaqMan probe based on the SARS-CoV-2 genomic sequence in Global Initiative of Sharing All Influenza Data (GISAID) database. The reaction conditions were optimized by using different annealing temperature, different primers and probe concentrations and the standard curve was established. Further, the specificity, sensitivity and repeatability were also assessed. The established SgN and genomic RNA (gRNA) qPCR assays were both applied to detect 21 environmental samples and 351 clinical samples containing 48 recovered patients. In the specimens with both positive gRNA and positive SgN, 25 specimens were inoculated on cells. Results: The primers and probes of SgN had good specificity for SARS-CoV-2. The minimum detection limit of the preliminarily established qPCR detection method for SgN was 1.5×102 copies/ml, with a coefficient of variation less than 1%. The positive rate of gRNA in 372 samples was 97.04% (361/372). The positive rates of SgN in positive environmental samples and positive clinical samples were 36.84% (7/19) and 49.42% (169/342), respectively. The positive rate and copy number of SgN in Wild strain were lower than those of SARS-CoV-2 Delta strain. Among the 25 SgN positive samples, 12 samples within 5 days of sampling time were all isolated with virus; 13 samples sampled for more than 12 days had no cytopathic effect. Conclusion: A qPCR method for the detection of SARS-CoV-2 SgN has been successfully established. The sensitivity, specificity and repeatability of this method are good.

A review of the immune activity of chitooligosaccharides

Under the influence of the COVID-19, people's awareness of physical health and immunity has increased significantly. Chitooligosaccharide is an oligomer of β-(1, 4)-linked D-glucosamine, furthermore, is one of the most widely studied immunomodulators. Chitooligosaccharide can be prepared from the chitin or chitosan polymers through enzymatically, chemically or physically processes. Chitooligosaccharide and its derivatives have been proven to have a wide range of biological activities including intestinal flora regulation, immunostimulant, anti-tumor, anti-obesity and anti-oxidation effects. This review summarizes the latest research of the preparation methods, biological activities in immunity and safety profiles of Chitooligosaccharide and its derivatives. We recapped the effect mechanisms of Chitooligosaccharide basing on overall immunity. Comparing the effects of Chitooligosaccharide with different molecular weights and degree of aggregation, a reference range for usage has been provided. This may provide a support for the application of Chitooligosaccharide in immune supplements and food. In addition, future research directions are also discussed. © 2023, Sociedade Brasileira de Ciencia e Tecnologia de Alimentos, SBCTA. All rights reserved.

Remote Graphic-Based Teaching for Pupils with Visual Impairments: Understanding Current Practices and Co-designing an Accessible Tool with Special Education Teachers

The lockdown period related to the COVID-19 pandemic has had a strong impact on the educational system in general, but more particularly on the special education system. Indeed, in the case of people with visual impairments, the regular tools relying heavily on images and videos were no longer usable. This specific situation highlighted an urgent need to develop tools that are accessible and that can provide solutions for remote teaching with people with VI. However, there is little work on the difficulties that this population encounters when they learn remotely as well as on the current practices of special education teachers. Such a lack of understanding limits the development of remote teaching systems that are adapted. In this paper, we conducted an online survey regarding the practices of 59 professionals giving lessons to pupils with VI, followed by a series of focus groups with special education workers facing teaching issues during the lockdown period. We followed an iterative design process where we designed successive low-fidelity prototypes to drive successive focus groups. We contribute with an analysis of the issues faced by special education teachers in this situation, and a concept to drive the future development of a tool for remote graphic-based teaching with pupils with VI. © 2022 ACM.

Highly Prevalent SARS-CoV-2 Antigenemia in COVID-19 Patients

Background:Many issues, such as severity assessment and antibody responses, remain to be answered eagerly for evaluation and understanding of COVID-19. Immune lesion is one of key pathogenesis of the disease. It would be helpful to understand the disease if an investigation on antigenemia and association was conducted in the patients with SARS-CoV-2 infection.Methods:A total of 156 patients admitted to the First People's Hospital of Hefei or Anhui Provincial Hospital on January to February 2020 were involved in this study. SARS-CoV-2 nucleocapsid (NP) antigen, specific IgM/IgG antibodies, and RNA were detected in sequential sera from three COVID-19 patients, and additional 153 COVID-19 patients by means of NP-antigen capture enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay, colloidal gold quick diagnosis, and real-time RT-PCR, respectively. The clinical types of COVID-19 patients were classified into asymptomatic, mild, moderate, severe, and critical, following on the Chinese guideline of COVID-19 diagnosis and treatment. The demographic and clinical data of patients were obtained for comparable analysis.Results:NP antigen was detected in 5 of 20 sequential sera collected from three COVID-19 patients with typically clinical symptoms, and 60.13% (92/153) expanded samples collected within 17 days after illness onset. No SARS-CoV-2 RNA segment was detected in these sera. The NP positive proportion reached a peak (84.85%, 28/33) on 6 to 8 days after illness onset. Both NP concentration and positive proportion were increased with the increase of clinical severity of COVID-19. Compared to NP negative patients, NP positive patients had older age [years, medians (interquartile ranges (IQR)), 49 (6) vs. 31 (11)], lower positive proportion of NP specific IgM [27.17% (25/92) vs. 59.02% (36/61)], and IgG [21.74% (20/92) vs. 59.02% (36/61)] antibodies, and longer duration [days, medians (IQR), 24 (10) vs. 21 (13)] from illness to recovery.Conclusions:SARS-CoV-2 NP antigenemia occurred in COVID-19, and presented highly prevalent at early stage of the disease. The antigenemia was related to clinical severity of the disease, and may be responsible for the delay of detectable SARS-Cov-2 IgM. © 2022 Journal of Bone and Joint Surgery Inc.. All rights reserved.

A review of the immune activity of chitooligosaccharides

Under the influence of the COVID-19, people's awareness of physical health and immunity has increased significantly. Chitooligosaccharide is an oligomer of β-(1, 4)-linked D-glucosamine, furthermore, is one of the most widely studied immunomodulators. Chitooligosaccharide can be prepared from the chitin or chitosan polymers through enzymatically, chemically or physically processes. Chitooligosaccharide and its derivatives have been proven to have a wide range of biological activities including intestinal flora regulation, immunostimulant, anti-tumor, anti-obesity and anti-oxidation effects. This review summarizes the latest research of the preparation methods, biological activities in immunity and safety profiles of Chitooligosaccharide and its derivatives. We recapped the effect mechanisms of Chitooligosaccharide basing on overall immunity. Comparing the effects of Chitooligosaccharide with different molecular weights and degree of aggregation, a reference range for usage has been provided. This may provide a support for the application of Chitooligosaccharide in immune supplements and food. In addition, future research directions are also discussed. © 2023, Sociedade Brasileira de Ciencia e Tecnologia de Alimentos, SBCTA. All rights reserved.

Assembling social determinants of health: COVID-19 vaccination inequities for international students in Canada

In this article, we apply theories of non-citizenship assemblage to conceptualise the dynamic relationship of social determinants of health for international students in Canada who face barriers to accessing COVID-19 vaccines and verifying their vaccination status. Social workers' roles in responding to and reducing these inequities are also discussed with attention to micro practice, meso service integration, and macro public policy advocacy. Through theorising assembled inequities emerging from Canada's COVID-19 vaccination policies, this article offers guidance for future social work research and practice towards promoting justice and equity for transnational populations who are often excluded from domestic social welfare programmes.

Antibacterial, efficient and sustainable CS/PVA/GA electrospun nanofiber membrane for air filtration

Since the outbreak of the COVID-19 epidemic, a large number of disposable protective masks have been manufactured and used, and the abandonment of masks has caused enormous pollution. In this paper the chitosan (CS), polyvinyl alcohol (PVA), and water were used as raw materials and the nanofiber membranes were prepared by electrostatic spinning. The CS/PVA fiber membranes were crosslinked by glutaraldehyde hydrochloric acid vapour. The fiber morphology, hydrolysis resistance, antibacterial properties, chemical structure, thermal stability and filtration performance of nanofiber membranes were characterized. Results shows that the antibacterial performance of the crosslinked composite nanofibers exceeds 97%, the thermal stability is improved, and the fiber morphology is not destroyed. The hybridized fiber membrane has high filtration performance, excellent antibacterial and hydrolysis resistance, which broadening the PVA fiber membrane application. It is expected to replace traditional protective materials and relieve environmental pressure.

Is the "cOVID-19 Diet" Non-Lithogenic?

Introduction &Objective: The COVID-19 pandemic and subsequent world-wide quarantine resulted in a major change in individual lifestyles. In New York State, March 16, 2020 marked the end of any in-restaurant dining and the general population reported a shift to more cooking at home. Reducing dietary sodium intake, such as less dining out, is often considered first line dietary therapy for calcium stone formers due to known risk factors of hypernatriuria and hypercalciuria. We investigated the 24-hour urine of our patients with known history of nephrolithiasis to see if these dietary changes during COVID-19 pandemic may have also changed the risk of stone disease. Method(s): Retrospectively, patients with a history of nephrolithiasis seen for an outpatient visit from April 1, 2020-December 31, 2020 were studied. All patients included had a 24-hour urine study pre-COVID, defined as before March 16, 2020 as well as a study during-COVID, March 16, 2020-December 31, 2020;a post-COVID study including January 1, 2021-December 31, 2021 was also included. Mean pre-COVID, during-COVID and post-COVID values were compared using paired, 2-tailed t-tests. Result(s): 94 patients (M = 54, F = 40) with a mean age of 60 years were evaluated. Stone analysis revealed calcium oxalate (61%), calcium phosphate (15%), uric acid (15%), other (9%). The 24-hour urine revealed a significant reduction in urinary sodium (uNa) levels from pre-COVID (165.64 +/- 7.5 mEq/L) compared to during-COVID (149.16 +/- 7.6 mEq/L) (p = 0.018). There was also a significant reduction in urinary calcium (uCa) from pre-COVID (214.18 +/- 13.05mEq/L) compared to during-COVID levels (191.48 +/- 13.03 mEq/L) (p = 0.010). Post-COVID 24-hour urine (N = 59) levels for both post-COVID uNa (137.43 +/- 8.03mEq/L, p = 0.02) and post-COVID uCa (193.07 +/- 13.23, p = 0.035) remained significantly reduced compared to the pre-COVID values, but with no difference compared to during-COVID values. There were no significant differences in 24 hour urine total volume, magnesium, or citrate levels. Conclusion(s): During the COVID-19 lockdown, dietary choices limited to home cooked meals allowed patients to better identify their food choices. This study demonstrates that home cooked meals improved urinary parameters to minimize the lithogenic risk factors for stone formation including hypernatriuria and hypercalciuria. Persistently improved urinary factors during the post-COVID period may be secondary to improved dietary practices combined with continued lockdown as a result of new virus variants.

LIBKDV: A Versatile Kernel Density Visualization Library for Geospatial Analytics

Kernel density visualization (KDV) has been widely used in many geospatial analysis tasks, including traffic accident hotspot detection, crime hotspot detection, and disease outbreak detection. Although KDV can be supported by many scientific, geographical, and visualization software tools, none of these tools can support high-resolution KDV with large-scale datasets. Therefore, we develop the first versatile programming library, called LIBKDV, based on the set of our complexity-optimized algorithms. Given the high efficiency of these algorithms, LIBKDV not only accelerates the KDV computation but also enriches KDV-based geospatial analytics, including bandwidth-tuning analysis and spatiotemporal analysis, which cannot be natively and feasibly supported by existing software tools. In this demonstration, participants will be invited to use our programming library to explore interesting hotspot patterns on large-scale traffic accident, crime, and COVID-19 datasets. © 2022, VLDB Endowment. All rights reserved.

COVID-19 Related Hashimoto ' s and VGKC Encephalitis

Objective: We aim to discuss a case of COVID-19-related Hashimoto's and VGKC Encephalitis Background: COVID-19 has been associated with many common neurological sequalae. However, autoimmune encephalitis has been reported only 6 times in the literature. Design/Methods: Retrospective Case Review Results: A 67-year-old male presented to the ED for dyspnea, tested positive for COVID-19, and was treated accordingly. He began to have frequent anger outbreaks and disorientation. His neurological examination was unremarkable. EEG, MRI brain and CSF studies did not reveal abnormalities. While CSF autoimmune panels were pending (which eventually returned negative), he was administered IVIG and improved somewhat. He was readmitted to the hospital for worsening of his neuropsychiatric condition in 1 month. He was verbally abusive, engaged in impulsive behaviors such as purchasing farm animals and riding motorcycles naked. An MRI brain did not reveal any acute changes. He was started on a course of IVIG. He was advised further workup, but he left against medical advice. He was then admitted again for mania. Serum workup revealed elevated anti-thyroid peroxidase antibodies (71 IU/mL). He was therefore considered as a Hashimoto's Encephalitis and was given pulse steroids. He had remarkable improvement in both his neuropsychiatric symptoms, with anti-TPO normalization. He then presented to the ED with dyspnea 8 months later and diagnosed again with COVID-19. Subsequently he had increased disorientation and mania. Repeat anti-TPO antibodies were negative. CSF Autoimmune encephalitis panel revealed VGCC N-type antibody (62), AChR Gangionic antibody (112) and VGKC antibody (85). Therefore, this admission he was considered as a COVID-19-related VGKC encephalitis and given pulse steroids with significant improvement. He was discharged home in good condition and was tapered off steroids in the outpatient setting Conclusions: Per our literature search, this is the only case of both Hashimoto's and VGKC related encephalitis found in a single patient post-COVID-19.

Conceptualizing anti-Asian racism in Cnada during the COVID-19 pandemic: A call for action to social workers

Anti-Asian racism in Canada has emerged from the COVID-19 pandemic and become more rampant. This article integrates Canadian postcolonialism, a critique of Canadian multiculturalism, and a framework of intergroup prejudice to conceptualize the covert anti-Asian racism that is entrenched in Canadian society. How COVID-19 exposes and "legitimizes" anti-Asian racism is further analyzed and included in this conceptualization. This conceptualization also includes social workers' leading roles in combating anti-Asian racism through reforming and integrating client interventions, cultural policy, social context, and offers directions that can guide future social work research and practice in improving social justice during this crisis.

An Advanced Machine Learning Algorithm for Intensive Care Decisions of COVID-19 Patients

COVID-19, an infectious respiratory disease, is a global health crisis and severely taxed healthcare systems. The SARS-CoV-2 virus damages lungs and other vital organs and even causes acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS). Currently, intensive care, including supplemental oxygen and ventilation, is used to treat severe cases. In this project, a Machine Learning algorithm was developed to predict intensive care needs for patients in the early stage of Covid-19. An advanced convolutional neural network (CNN) model was trained for image classification based on patient chest x-rays. After studying and comparing the performance of several advanced models, including Inception V3,ResNet50, Xception, EfficientNetB0, EfficientNetB7 and VGG16, It is identified that Inception V3showed the highest accuracy of the prediction. Based on Inception V3,an algorithm that demonstrates the highest accuracy of over 99% on both validation and testing datasets has been developed. The algorithm accurately makes predictions for which patients need immediate intensive care, so as to help the COVID19 patients' recovery and save more lives. © 2021 IEEE.

Beyond The Limits of Predictability in Human Mobility Prediction: Context-Transition Predictability

Urban human mobility prediction is forecasting how people move in cities. It is crucial for many smart city applications including route optimization, preparing for dramatic shifts in modes of transportation, or mitigating the epidemic spread of viruses such as COVID-19. Previous research propose the maximum predictability to derive the theoretical limits of accuracy that any predictive algorithm could achieve on predicting urban human mobility. However, existing maximum predictability only considers the sequential patterns of human movements and neglects the contextual information such as the time or the types of places that people visit, which plays an important role in predicting one's next location. In this paper, we propose new theoretical limits of predictability, namely Context-Transition Predictability, which not only captures the sequential patterns of human mobility, but also considers the contextual information of human behavior. We compare our Context-Transition Predictability with other kinds of predictability and find that it is larger than these existing ones. We also show that our proposed Context-Transition Predictability provides us a better guidance on which predictive algorithm to be used for forecasting the next location when considering the contextual information. Source code is at https://github.com/zcfinal/ContextTransitionPredictability. IEEE

Application of chest CT scans in the diagnosis and treatment of COVID⁃19

Objective: To investigate the role of chest CT scan in the diagnosis and evaluation of COVID⁃19 by analyzing the imaging features of patients with COVID⁃19 at different stages. Methods: The clinical data and radiologic findings were retrospectively collected in medical staff who were confirmed COVID⁃19 and admitted in our hospital from January 10 to March 20, 2020. We analyzed the characteristics of clinical manifestations, the frequency and interval of chest CT scans in the course of illness, imaging features in different stages of diseases, and the CT imaging outcomes during follow⁃up. Results: A total of 95 patients who met the criteria were included. The average time from symptom onset to aggravation and to alleviation were 8.3 days and 17.6 days, respectively. Patients received an average of 5 chest CT scans. The average intervals from onset to the first positive CT signs, the most serious CT signs, and the CT signs starting to disappear were 3.5 days, 7.8 days and 15.7 days, respectively. The mean CT follow⁃up time were 38.2 days. The lung lesions were completely absorbed on CT images in 38 patients, or presented with disappearing of the CT signs in the other patients. No patients had serious fibrosis residues. Conclusion: Chest CT has high sensitivity for early diagnosis of COVID⁃19. The moderate and some serious COVID⁃19 patients have good outcomes on CT images by recent follow⁃up. The changes of clinical symptoms are consistent with the changes of chest CT signs, and both are easy indicators for the outcomes of COVID⁃19 patients. © 2021, Editorial Board of Medical Journal of Wuhan University. All right reserved.

Clinical efficacy of Lopinavir-Ritonavir combined with interferon alpha in COVID-19

Objective: To evaluate the clinical efficacy of Lopinavir-Ritonavir combined with interferon alpha on coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). Methods: A prospective and real-world observational clinical research was conducted on COVID-19 cases who were admitted to the Renmin Hospital of Wuhan University from January 25, 2020 to February 12, 2020. Of the 109 cases involved, 58 cases were treated with interferon alpha (group A), while 58 cases were treated with Lopinavir-Ritonavir combined with interferon alpha (group B). The recent outcomes were compared between the two groups by Kruskal Wallis test or Chi square test. Results: The baseline data of the two groups were basically the same. On the 7th day after treatment, the lung inflammation in group B was higher than in group A, and the leukocyte count and neutrophil count in the normal range increased as compared with the baseline value in group B. On the 14th day after treatment, the leukocyte count, lymphocyte count, CD4/CD8 cell count increased as compared with the baseline value, while CRP decreased from baseline in the B group, with statistically significant differnce. Conclusion: Lopinavir-Ritonavir combined with interferon alpha can accelerate the improvement of pulmonary inflammation, and increase the levels of immune cells in COVID-19 patients. © 2021, Editorial Board of Medical Journal of Wuhan University. All right reserved.