Quantifying the Trendiness of Trends.

News media often report that the trend of some public health outcome has changed. These statements are frequently based on longitudinal data, and the change in trend is typically found to have occurred at the most recent data collection time point-if no change had occurred the story is less likely to be reported. Such claims may potentially influence public health decisions on a national level. We propose two measures for quantifying the trendiness of trends. Assuming that reality evolves in continuous time, we define what constitutes a trend and a change in trend, and introduce a probabilistic Trend Direction Index. This index has the interpretation of the probability that a latent characteristic has changed monotonicity at any given time conditional on observed data. We also define an index of Expected Trend Instability quantifying the expected number of changes in trend on an interval. Using a latent Gaussian process model, we show how the Trend Direction Index and the Expected Trend Instability can be estimated in a Bayesian framework, and use the methods to analyse the proportion of smokers in Denmark during the last 20 years and the development of new COVID-19 cases in Italy from 24 February onwards.

Time series prediction of novel coronavirus COVID-19 data in west Java using Gaussian processes and least median squared linear regression

In 2019, the COVID-19 epidemic swept throughout the globe. The virus was first identified in Wuhan, China. By the time several months had gone by, this virus had spread to numerous locations throughout the world. Consequently, this virus has become a worldwide pandemic. Multiple efforts have been made to limit the transmission of this virus. A possible course of action is to lock down the territory. Unfortunately, this strategy wrecked the economy, worsening the terrible situation. The world health organization (WHO) would breathe a sigh of relief if there were to be no new cases. However, the government should explore employing data from the future in addition to the data it already has. Prediction of time series may be utilized for this purpose. This study indicated that the Gaussian processes method outperformed the least median squared linear regression method (LMSLR). Applying a Pearson VII-based global kernel produces MAE and RMSE values of 23.12 and 53.43, respectively.(c) 2023 by the authors;licensee Growing Science, Canada.

Time series prediction of novel coronavirus COVID-19 data in west Java using Gaussian processes and least median squared linear regression

In 2019, the COVID-19 epidemic swept throughout the globe. The virus was first identified in Wuhan, China. By the time several months had gone by, this virus had spread to numerous locations throughout the world. Consequently, this virus has become a worldwide pandemic. Multiple efforts have been made to limit the transmission of this virus. A possible course of action is to lock down the territory. Unfortunately, this strategy wrecked the economy, worsening the terrible situation. The world health organization (WHO) would breathe a sigh of relief if there were to be no new cases. However, the government should explore employing data from the future in addition to the data it already has. Prediction of time series may be utilized for this purpose. This study indicated that the Gaussian processes method outperformed the least median squared linear regression method (LMSLR). Applying a Pearson VII-based global kernel produces MAE and RMSE values of 23.12 and 53.43, respectively. © 2023 by the authors;licensee Growing Science, Canada.

A dynamic causal modeling of the second outbreak of COVID-19 in Italy.

While the vaccination campaign against COVID-19 is having its positive impact, we retrospectively analyze the causal impact of some decisions made by the Italian government on the second outbreak of the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic in Italy, when no vaccine was available. First, we analyze the causal impact of reopenings after the first lockdown in 2020. In addition, we also analyze the impact of reopening schools in September 2020. Our results provide an unprecedented opportunity to evaluate the causal relationship between the relaxation of restrictions and the transmission in the community of a highly contagious respiratory virus that causes severe illness in the absence of prophylactic vaccination programs. We present a purely data-analytic approach based on a Bayesian methodology and discuss possible interpretations of the results obtained and implications for policy makers.

Toward real-world automated antibody design with combinatorial Bayesian optimization.

Antibodies are multimeric proteins capable of highly specific molecular recognition. The complementarity determining region 3 of the antibody variable heavy chain (CDRH3) often dominates antigen-binding specificity. Hence, it is a priority to design optimal antigen-specific CDRH3 to develop therapeutic antibodies. The combinatorial structure of CDRH3 sequences makes it impossible to query binding-affinity oracles exhaustively. Moreover, antibodies are expected to have high target specificity and developability. Here, we present AntBO, a combinatorial Bayesian optimization framework utilizing a CDRH3 trust region for an in silico design of antibodies with favorable developability scores. The in silico experiments on 159 antigens demonstrate that AntBO is a step toward practically viable in vitro antibody design. In under 200 calls to the oracle, AntBO suggests antibodies outperforming the best binding sequence from 6.9 million experimentally obtained CDRH3s. Additionally, AntBO finds very-high-affinity CDRH3 in only 38 protein designs while requiring no domain knowledge.

Multi-Output Gaussian Process-Based Data Augmentation for Multi-Building and Multi-Floor Indoor Localization

Location fingerprinting based on Received Signal Strength Indicator (RSSI) has become a mainstream indoor localization technique due to its advantage of not requiring the installation of new infrastructure and the modification of existing devices, especially given the prevalence of Wi-Fi-enabled devices and the ubiquitous Wi-Fi access in modern buildings. The use of Artificial Intelligence (AI)/Machine Learning (ML) technologies like Deep Neural Networks (DNNs) makes location fingerprinting more accurate and reliable, especially for large-scale multi-building and multi-floor indoor localization. The application of DNNs for indoor localization, however, depends on a large amount of preprocessed and deliberately-labeled data for their training. Considering the difficulty of the data collection in an indoor environment, especially under the current epidemic situation of COVID-19, we investigate three different methods of RSSI data augmentation based on Multi-Output Gaussian Process (MOGP), i.e., by a single floor, by neighboring floors, and by a single building;unlike Single-Output Gaussian Process (SOGP), MOGP can take into account the correlation among RSSI observations from multiple Access Points (APs) deployed closely to each other (e.g., APs on the same floor of a building) by collectively handling them. The feasibility of the MOGP-based RSSI data augmentation is demonstrated through experiments using a recently-published work based on Recurrent Neural Network (RNN) indoor localization model and the UJIIndoorLoc, i.e., the most popular publicly-available multi-building and multi-floor indoor localization database;the RNN model trained with the UJIIndoorLoc database, augmented by using the whole RSSI data of a building in fitting an MOGP model (i.e., by a single building), outperforms the other two augmentation methods and reduces the mean three-dimensional positioning error from 8.62 m to 8.42 m in comparison to the RNN model trained with the original UJIIndoorLoc database. © 2022 IEEE.

A Machine Learning Framework for Detecting COVID-19 Infection Using Surface-Enhanced Raman Scattering.

In this study, we explored machine learning approaches for predictive diagnosis using surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS), applied to the detection of COVID-19 infection in biological samples. To do this, we utilized SERS data collected from 20 patients at the University of Maryland Baltimore School of Medicine. As a preprocessing step, the positive-negative labels are obtained using Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR) testing. First, we compared the performance of linear and nonlinear dimensionality techniques for projecting the high-dimensional Raman spectra to a low-dimensional space where a smaller number of variables defines each sample. The appropriate number of reduced features used was obtained by comparing the mean accuracy from a 10-fold cross-validation. Finally, we employed Gaussian process (GP) classification, a probabilistic machine learning approach, to correctly predict the occurrence of a negative or positive sample as a function of the low-dimensional space variables. As opposed to providing rigid class labels, the GP classifier provides a probability (ranging from zero to one) that a given sample is positive or negative. In practice, the proposed framework can be used to provide high-throughput rapid testing, and a follow-up PCR can be used for confirmation in cases where the model's uncertainty is unacceptably high.

Analysis of Prediction Data for the Third Wave of COVID-19 in Bogor Regency

The COVID-19 pandemic is far from over. The government has carried out several policies to suppress the development of COVID-19 is no exception in Bogor Regency. However, the public still has to be vigilant especially now we will face a year-end holiday that can certainly be a trigger for the third wave of COVID-19. Therefore, researchers aim to make predictions of the increase in positive cases, especially in the Bogor Regency area to help the government in making policies related to COVID-19. The algorithms used are Gaussian Process, Linear Regression, and Random Forest. Each Algorithm is used to predict the total number of COVID-19 cases for the next 21 days. Researchers approached the Time Series Forecasting model using datasets taken from the COVID-19 Information Center Coordinationn Center website. The results obtained in this study, the method that has the highest probability of accurate and appropriate data contained in the Gaussian Process method. Prediction data on the Linear Regression method has accurate results with actual data that occur with Root Mean Square Error 1202.6262. © 2021 IEEE.

Early Detection of COVID-19 Hotspots Using Spatio-Temporal Data

Recently, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has worked with other federal agencies to identify counties with increasing coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) incidence (hotspots) and offers support to local health departments to limit the spread of the disease. Understanding the spatio-temporal dynamics of hotspot events is of great importance to support policy decisions and prevent large-scale outbreaks. This paper presents a spatio-temporal Bayesian framework for early detection of COVID-19 hotspots (at the county level) in the United States. We assume both the observed number of cases and hotspots depend on a class of latent random variables, which encode the underlying spatio-temporal dynamics of the transmission of COVID-19. Such latent variables follow a zero-mean Gaussian process, whose covariance is specified by a non-stationary kernel function. The most salient feature of our kernel function is that deep neural networks are introduced to enhance the model's representative power while still enjoying the interpretability of the kernel. We derive a sparse model and fit the model using a variational learning strategy to circumvent the computational intractability for large data sets. Our model demonstrates better interpretability and superior hotspot-detection performance compared to other baseline methods. IEEE

Development of Magnetic-Based Navigation by Constructing Maps Using Machine Learning for Autonomous Mobile Robots in Real Environments.

Localization is fundamental to enable the use of autonomous mobile robots. In this work, we use magnetic-based localization. As Earth's geomagnetic field is stable in time and is not affected by nonmagnetic materials, such as a large number of people in the robot's surroundings, magnetic-based localization is ideal for service robotics in supermarkets, hotels, etc. A common approach for magnetic-based localization is to first create a magnetic map of the environment where the robot will be deployed. For this, magnetic samples acquired a priori are used. To generate this map, the collected data is interpolated by training a Gaussian Process Regression model. Gaussian processes are nonparametric, data-drive models, where the most important design choice is the selection of an adequate kernel function. These models are flexible and generate mean predictions as well as the confidence of those predictions, making them ideal for their use in probabilistic approaches. However, their computational and memory cost scales poorly when large datasets are used for training, making their use in large-scale environments challenging. The purpose of this study is to: (i) enable magnetic-based localization on large-scale environments by using a sparse representation of Gaussian processes, (ii) test the effect of several kernel functions on robot localization, and (iii) evaluate the accuracy of the approach experimentally on different large-scale environments.

Reduced renewable energy stability in India following COVID-19: Insights and key policy recommendations.

The COVID-19 pandemic has dramatically altered global energy consumption, particularly affecting investment in renewable energy projects. In India, strict shelter-in-place orders enforced during March 2020 have since led to a considerable change in public and private sector investments in planned renewable energy installations. In this paper, we attempt to highlight trends in energy consumption and installed renewable energy capacity noted in India during a period concurrent with the shelter-in-place orders. We discuss recent policy measures and additions to installed renewable energy capacity, and propose key policy recommendations that may help the sector adopt a growth trajectory similar to one noted pre-pandemic. This paper is organized into four main parts. In the first section, we draw focus to India's renewable energy policies and pay special emphasis on recent interventions and campaigns targeted towards achieving high growth rates in the sector. We briefly discuss the need for effective public-private partnerships in order to meet these targets. In the second part, we quantitatively characterise the growth of renewables in India. We present an overview of several mechanisms and missions the government has launched in line with their policy to mitigate the environmental impact of India's energy mix. In the third part, we analyse the decrease in electricity demand in India from 24 March to 30 June 2020, a period concurrent with shelter-at-home orders issued by the Government. We also characterise changes in installed renewable energy capacity between March to December 2016-2020 to provide causal evidence of the effect of the pandemic on the growth of renewables. In this section, we also compile and analyse data on state-wise stressed assets across renewable energy generators in the country. Lastly, in the fourth and final portion of this paper, we highlight policy recommendations that may help the sector overcome logistical and financial bottlenecks in the short-term. We do this with the hope of outlining key measures that decision makers may employ to achieve pre-COVID sectoral growth in the long term. Our recommendations cover three different policy instruments: investment subsidies, operational subsidies, and recommendations for DISCOMs.

CPAS: the UK's national machine learning-based hospital capacity planning system for COVID-19.

The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) global pandemic poses the threat of overwhelming healthcare systems with unprecedented demands for intensive care resources. Managing these demands cannot be effectively conducted without a nationwide collective effort that relies on data to forecast hospital demands on the national, regional, hospital and individual levels. To this end, we developed the COVID-19 Capacity Planning and Analysis System (CPAS)-a machine learning-based system for hospital resource planning that we have successfully deployed at individual hospitals and across regions in the UK in coordination with NHS Digital. In this paper, we discuss the main challenges of deploying a machine learning-based decision support system at national scale, and explain how CPAS addresses these challenges by (1) defining the appropriate learning problem, (2) combining bottom-up and top-down analytical approaches, (3) using state-of-the-art machine learning algorithms, (4) integrating heterogeneous data sources, and (5) presenting the result with an interactive and transparent interface. CPAS is one of the first machine learning-based systems to be deployed in hospitals on a national scale to address the COVID-19 pandemic-we conclude the paper with a summary of the lessons learned from this experience.