Classification of Respiratory Syncytial Virus and Sendai Virus Using Portable Near-Infrared Spectroscopy and Chemometrics

There is evidence that it may be possible to detect viruses and viral infection optically using techniques such as Raman and infrared (IR) spectroscopy and hence open the possibility of rapid identification of infected patients. However, high-resolution Raman and IR spectroscopy instruments are laboratory-based and require skilled operators. The use of low-cost portable or field-deployable instruments employing similar optical approaches would be highly advantageous. In this work, we use chemometrics applied to low-resolution near-IR (NIR) reflectance/absorbance spectra to investigate the potential for simple low-cost virus detection suitable for widespread societal deployment. We present the combination of near-IR spectroscopy (NIRS) and chemometrics to distinguish two respiratory viruses, respiratory syncytial virus (RSV), the principal cause of severe lower respiratory tract infections in infants worldwide, and Sendai virus (SeV), a prototypic paramyxovirus. Using a low-cost and portable spectrometer, three sets of RSV and SeV spectra, dispersed in phosphate-buffered saline (PBS) medium or Dulbecco's modified eagle medium (DMEM), were collected in long- and short-term experiments. The spectra were preprocessed and analyzed by partial least-squares discriminant analysis (PLS-DA) for virus type and concentration classification. Moreover, the virus type/concentration separability was visualized in a low-dimensional space through data projection. The highest virus-type classification accuracy obtained in PBS and DMEM is 85.8% and 99.7%, respectively. The results demonstrate the feasibility of using portable NIR spectroscopy as a valuable tool for rapid, on- site, and low-cost virus prescreening for RSV and SeV with the further possibility of extending this to other respiratory viruses such as SARS-CoV-2.

The Design and Utilisation of PanSim, a Portable Pandemic Simulator

The COVID-19 pandemic has presented a clear and present need for urgent decision making. Set in an environment of uncertain and unreliable data, and a diverse range of possible interventions, there is an obvious need for integrating HPC into workflows that include model calibration, and the exploration of the decision space. In this paper, we present the design of PanSim, a portable, performant, and productive agent-based simulator, which has been extensively used to model and forecast the pandemic in Hungary. We show its performance and scalability on CPUs and GPUs, then we discuss the workflows PanSim integrates into. We describe the heterogeneous, resource-constrained HPC environment available to us, and formulate a scheduling optimisation problem, as well as heuristics to solve them, to either minimise the execution time of a given number of simulations or to maximise the number of simulations executed in a given time frame. © 2022 IEEE.

A Digital Checkup on HIPAA: Modernizing Healthcare Privacy Standards for Telehealth Services

The onset of the COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted ways in which HIPAA should be reformed to address issues with using telehealth services. HHS' Notification of Relaxed Enforcement allows health care providers to offer telehealth services through common platforms such as Facebook Messenger and FaceTime, and thus patients with limited access to more advanced video platforms can connect with their health care team without inperson contact. Although this increased flexibility allows patients and health care providers to easily connect, it also raises privacy concerns. The Notification of Relaxed Enforcement states that OCR will use its enforcement discretion to determine whether to penalize health care providers who utilize non-HIPAA compliant platforms. Allowing providers to use non-HIPAA compliant platforms for telehealth services invites possible security risks to patients' private health information. The risks highlighted from the use of non-HIPAA compliant platforms also highlights inadequacies in HIPAA as it stands outside of a public health emergency.

An Aluminum-Based Microfluidic Chip for Polymerase Chain Reaction Diagnosis.

Real-time polymerase chain reaction (real-time PCR) tests were successfully conducted in an aluminum-based microfluidic chip developed in this work. The reaction chamber was coated with silicone-modified epoxy resin to isolate the reaction system from metal surfaces, preventing the metal ions from interfering with the reaction process. The patterned aluminum substrate was bonded with a hydroxylated glass mask using silicone sealant at room temperature. The effect of thermal expansion was counteracted by the elasticity of cured silicone. With the heating process closely monitored, real-time PCR testing in reaction chambers proceeded smoothly, and the results show similar quantification cycle values to those of traditional test sets. Scanning electron microscope (SEM) and atomic force microscopy (AFM) images showed that the surface of the reaction chamber was smoothly coated, illustrating the promising coating and isolating properties. Energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDS), X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), and inductively coupled plasma-optical emission spectrometer (ICP-OES) showed that no metal ions escaped from the metal to the chip surface. Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) was used to check the surface chemical state before and after tests, and the unchanged infrared absorption peaks indicated the unreacted, antifouling surface. The limit of detection (LOD) of at least two copies can be obtained in this chip.

Understanding the Power of Evolutionary Computation for GPU Code Optimization

Achieving high performance for GPU codes requires developers to have significant knowledge in parallel programming and GPU architectures, and in-depth understanding of the application. This combination makes it challenging to find performance optimizations for GPU-based applications, especially in scientific computing. This paper shows that significant speedups can be achieved on two quite different scientific workloads using the tool, GEVO, to improve performance over human-optimized GPU code. GEVO uses evolutionary computation to find code edits that improve the runtime of a multiple sequence alignment kernel and a SARS-CoV-2 simulation by 28.9% and 29% respectively. Further, when GEVO begins with an early, unoptimized version of the sequence alignment program, it finds an impressive 30 times speedup-a performance improvement similar to that of the hand-tuned version. This work presents an in-depth analysis of the discovered optimizations, revealing that the primary sources of improvement vary across applications;that most of the optimizations generalize across GPU architectures;and that several of the most important optimizations involve significant code interdependencies. The results showcase the potential of automated program optimization tools to help reduce the optimization burden for scientific computing developers and enhance performance portability for domain-specific accelerators. © 2022 IEEE.

A Low-Cost Portable Ventilator Using IoT

The demand of ventilators has been increasing dramatically from the past few years due to the spike in the COVID-19 cases globally. Around the World, the abscence of availability of ventilators have taken a lot of lives in just the past couple of years. The use of ventilators has been proven to be helpful from preventing the danger of lung harm through low- quantity airflow and helps us to get the adequate amount of influx of pure air. The ventilators available are expensive and scarce in supply. They are heavy and would normally weigh around 7 to 8 kgs, which makes it inconvenient to carry from place to place due to its enormous size. Our project aims at developing a smart ventilator system using a microcontroller board and sensors based on Internet of Things (IOT). The smart ventilator will be portable and very light in weight, which makes it handy to use and requires no additional expertise to handle it. The usage of the high torque motor enables us to change the pressure as per the requirement. The sensors used collects the temperature and the Pulse oximetry levels and the same is updated on the LCD display.

Trends in Telehealth Care for Diabetes During the COVID-19 Pandemic

Importance: This very large claims data analysis documents widespread adoption of telehealth use by patients with diabetes during the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic, giving us insight into the potential role of telehealth as we enter a stage of “new normal” of healthcare delivery in the U.S. Objective: The COVID-19 Telehealth Impact Study was designed to describe the natural experiment of telehealth adoption during the pandemic. This focused analysis can assist program development for care of large populations of patients with diabetes. Design, Setting, Participants: In March 2020, the MITRE Corporation and Mayo Clinic founded the COVID-19 Healthcare Coalition (C19HCC) and Telehealth Impact Study to respond to the pandemic. We report trends using a data set of over 2 billion healthcare claims covering over 50% of private insurance activity in the U.S. (January 2019-March 2021). Main Outcomes and Measures: We compared rates of telehealth use in the one-year pre and one-year post onset of the COVID-19 pandemic among a population of 8,339,633 patients with diabetes. Results: Compared to a baseline of very low telehealth use in 2019, there was rapid adoption of telehealth by patients with diabetes in Spring 2020. 27% of diabetics used telehealth in Q2 2020 and use rates declined in the ensuing months to approximately 13%. Diabetics and their providers used telehealth to address a wide variety of health problems. 77% of telehealth visits addressed diabetes, 53% hypertension and over 40% of visits addressed mental and behavioral health diagnoses. Audio-only (telephone visits) accounted for a substantial portion of telehealth encounters (10.0- 16.3%) and will be an important consideration for future telehealth planning. Over the course of the first 12 months of the pandemic, 98% diabetics who used telehealth used 4 or fewer telehealth visit. Conclusions and Relevance: We believe that telehealth will quickly become a best practice for routine care of patients with diabetes and other chronic conditions. Telehealth interactions 2-4 times per year supplemented with remote monitoring for glucose, blood pressure and weight have the potential to greatly enhance patient care. Further research will be needed to measure the telehealth impact on glycemic control, patient satisfaction and other outcomes. We encourage CMS and other payers to embrace and promote use of telehealth based on this real-world experience of patients and providers during the pandemic.

MinION Nanopore Sequencing Accelerates Progress towards Ubiquitous Genetics in Water Research

In 2014, Oxford Nanopore Technologies (ONT) introduced an affordable and portable sequencer called MinION. We reviewed emerging applications in water research and assessed progress made with this platform towards ubiquitous genetics. With >99% savings in upfront costs as compared to conventional platforms, the MinION put sequencing capacity into the hands of many researchers and enabled novel applications with diverse remits, including in countries without universal access to safe water and sanitation. However, to realize the MinION’s fabled portability, all the auxiliary equipment items for biomass concentration, genetic material extraction, cleanup, quantification, and sequencing library preparation also need to be lightweight and affordable. Only a few studies demonstrated fully portable workflows by using the MinION onboard a diving vessel, an oceanographic research ship, and at sewage treatment works. Lower nanopore sequencing read accuracy as compared to alternative platforms currently hinders MinION applications beyond research, and inclusion of positive and negative controls should become standard practice. ONT’s EPI2ME platform is a major step towards user-friendly bioinformatics. However, no consensus has yet emerged regarding the most appropriate bioinformatic pipeline, which hinders intercomparison of study results. Processing, storing, and interpreting large data sets remains a major challenge for ubiquitous genetics and democratizing sequencing applications.

Design and evaluation of a dedicated information environment with both portability and confidentiality

COVID-19 has led to a rapid increase in the use of video conferencing and video calls over the Internet. In this paper, we propose a low-cost, portable, and highly confidential occupied information environment. The authors developed a secure input/output device in the NICT's 'SecHack365' program for fostering young security innovators. By improving the device and integrating it with traditional Japanese culture, we quanti-tatively evaluated that the device can achieve sufficient up-time, lightweight that does not burden the body, and has a price that does not strict on the wallet. © 2022 IEEE.

Policy Activity to Monitor: Proposal to Modernize HIPAA;Continuation of COVID-19 Funding for Providers, and Telehealth Guidelines After the Public Health Emergency Period

The bill would create a new commission to determine "how to modernize the use of health data and privacy laws to ensure patient privacy and trust while balancing the need of doctors to have information at their fingertips to provide care." The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) was created in the 1990s to protect patient and provider interactions, However the law may be seriously outdated as it was written prior to many of the technologies used in patient care and health maintenance today (i.e., smartphones, wearables, telehealth, etc.). Earlier in March, Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Xavier Becerra signaled that the agency would strive to sustain expanded access to telehealth based on its growing presence and significance in care delivery today.

Design Development of Portable (Mini) Multi-function Incinerator for Dry Medical Waste Handling

Medical waste contains biohazard, such as dry medical waste from the Centre of Public Health Services (PUSKESMAS) should be burning out, especially in the pandemic of covid 19. One of the possible solution is burning the waste by using incinerator. Basic concept of incinerator is controlled high temperature combustion, thus it should be perfect condition to burnt out the hazardous waste. Heat energy that exposed while incinerator operated should having high potency to be used for other purposes such as water heater and carbonization process. This research aims to develop an incinerator which can be used not only as high temperature burner (as incinerator’s main function), but also for water heater system and carbonization process, in the same time. The incinerator designed as mini portable incinerator since it will be used in a center of public health services (PUSKESMAS). Both of hot water and charcoal produced while incinerator operation can be used for sanitation purposes in the PUSKESMAS itself. Combustion process temperatures, smoke quality, safety factor, and energy utilities are the parameters which were determined as incinerator performance. Some design improvement has been done to the original design by Pradipta and Agustina [1] in order to improve the incinerator performance. The latest design performance is showing that combustion temperature successfully increased up to 980 °C for combustion rate of 9 kg waste/hour. Utilization of heat energy produced by combustion process inside the chamber has been successfully produce 2-2,5 kg of good quality coconut shell charcoal and hot water of 83 °C at 6 lt/minute flow rate.

Ultralight, Safe, Economical, and Portable Oxygen Generators with Low Energy Consumption Prepared by Air-Breathing Electrochemical Extraction.

Pure oxygen is vital in medical treatment, first aid, and chemical synthesis. Hypoxia can cause severe damage to the organ systems such as respiratory, digestive, and nervous systems and even directly cause death. Notably, the severe Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has exacerbated the shortage of medical oxygen in the world. Hence, a safe, economical, and portable oxygen supply device is urgently needed. Here, we have successfully prepared a device with air-breathing electrochemical extraction of pure oxygen (ABEEPO) with light weight and high energy efficiency. By renovating the structure of the electrolytic cell, the components bipolar plate and end plate are replaced with a plastic membrane, and the component current collector is replaced with a highly conductive graphene composite membrane electrode. Due to the use of the plastic membrane and graphene composite membrane electrode, the weight of the electrolytic cell is reduced from 1319.4 to 1.6 g, and the flexibility of the electrolytic cell is successfully realized. Through optimizing anode catalysts, working area, and operating voltage, a high flow rate per mass (234 mL h-1 g-1) was achieved at a voltage of 1.2 V. The device exhibits high stability in 2 h. The new portable oxygen production device would be effective for hypoxia treatment.

Provoking Actual Mobile Payment Use in the Middle East

Monetary transactions have advanced into a portable, simple, and comfortable process. Regardless of the advantages of a versatile method of disbursement, the global take-up ratio is inadequate. Consequently, greater insight into the factors that influence acceptance by stakeholders is fundamental for industrialists and scholars. This study analyses the goals and real purpose behind portable disbursement by unifying the definition of its concept, which consolidates the “Mobile Technology Acceptance Model” and the “Theory of Planned Behaviour” as well as an updated profound variable that is more synergistic. The new framework incorporated 12 factors influenced by the user’s insight and was analysed by collecting data based on the PLS-SEM condition mix-mode. Identifying the impact of versatile methods of disbursement will shape essential business choices and the community and will change current lifestyles into contactless ones. This article demonstrates the connection between innovative factors and human preferences concerning the use of portable disbursement. Interestingly, we embrace this uniqueness for an incorporated framework that consolidates MTAM as well as the TPB.

A Description of Data Handling Practices and Software Tools Developed by the Boston Children's Hospital Echo Core Laboratory

Ultrasound 'Echocardiogram (echo)' images generated by commercial scanners are non-invasive, economical, and have therefore become an important clinical and research tool for cardiovascular disease. The Boston Children's Hospital (BCH, USA) cardiology department has developed echo image handling processes and software tools to simplify and manage the flow of echo data from sites participating in multi-center research studies. With frequent needs to correlate echocardiographic findings with surgical outcomes and more recently, better understand the acute and long-term effects of the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic on the heart in a multiinstitutional collaborative [1], the need for a central corelab for image review and reporting has spurred the development of new software tools that seamlessly prepare, transmit and measure echocardiographic images and generate reports formatted to merge easily with clinical databases. In this paper we provide a descriptive guide to these software tools, and offer suggested approaches to data preparations that can simplify corelab processing.

Advancements of Lab on Chip in Reducing Human Intervention: A Study

The tremendous advancements in nanotechnology have given life to the technology called Lab-on-Chip (LoC). The Nanoscale impression on semiconductors and the metals are achieved by the Lithography processes. Many of the experiments and analysis which are to be done in the laboratory have been done on this miniaturized module. The LoC technology helps to perform many laboratory functions on a single few centimeters chip size. This helps achieve high-throughput screening and automation. LoC technology requires a very less sample in drops for the analysis of the sample provided and also helps in cost effectiveness and speed response. It has great control over the concentration of samples as well as interactions to reduce the huge chemical waste. LoC through mass production aids to the development of highly compact design of systems. This paper overviews the development in the field of LoC. © 2021 IEEE.

SaaS or not: optimal versioning strategy of releasing enterprise software

Purpose>With the rapid development of cloud computing, most software firms face the significant choice of whether they should change the versioning strategy of enterprise software from releasing the on-premise version to the software-as-a-service (SaaS) version. Data being generated and hosted on SaaS vendors' servers brings multiple effects. It enables customers to enjoy the flexibility of accessing data and using the software remotely, named the “portability” effect. However, on the other hand, the cumulative data resources on the cloud also provide a clear target for external attacks, leading to the concern of information security. Considering these, the authors hope to offer insights for software firms by exploring the strategy selection problem.Design/methodology/approach>Taking the portability effect and security risks of the SaaS licensing model into account, the authors develop a two-period model to figure out the market segmentation and identify the feasible conditions for employing three alternative strategies. Comparative statics analyses are conducted to explore the influencing mechanism of exogenous factors on strategy selection. The authors also discuss the strategy selection in the presence of the network effect and the security loss faced by users of on-premise software.Findings>One significant finding is that the on-premise strategy can be excluded when the potential loss from security risks is small. Under this circumstance, the dual version strategy is optimal provided that the increase of customer valuation caused by portability effect is below a threshold. Otherwise, the SaaS strategy generates the highest profit. When the potential loss from security risks turns large, the on-premise strategy, the dual version strategy and the SaaS strategy are the optimal options in order as the portability effect on customer valuation gets stronger.Originality/value>Previous literature has insufficiently addressed the versioning issue of enterprise software. In this paper, the distinctive features of the SaaS model are considered, and differentiated results compared with previous work are obtained. The research results provide guidelines for software firms in deciding their product releases in the future.

PROTECTING THE SECURITY OF DIGITAL HEALTH RECORDS

A complex web of federal laws and regulations5 protects the security of digital health data, known in legal parlance as protected health information (PHI).6 The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA)7 protects PHI held by certain entities under three primary directives: 1 Privacy Rule, which governs the disclosure of PHI. 2 Security Rule, which sets national standards for EHRs.8 3 Breach Notification Rule, which specifies notice procedures after the discovery of a breach of unsecured PHI.9 The Breach Notification Rule10 applies to the unauthorized access to or disclosure of unsecured PHI.11 Health institutions will likely need to refer to the rule at least once, since they must consult the rule with each discovered PHI breach attempt. In today's digital environment,18 news of violations reaches consumer and business audiences instantaneously and can inflict lasting damage to brand name, reputation and market share.19 Aside from public disgrace, violators may also face hefty fines, litigation by aggrieved parties, and even criminal prosecutions by the U.S. Department of Justice or their state's attorney general.20 Given OCR's trend toward higher penalties21 and increased policing of HIPAA compliance, entities must prioritize compliance issues and adopt best practices for risk assessment and breach response. In either case, the entity must report to HHS through the form on OCR's website.32 HIPAA Risk Analysis It is a practical certainty that every health care institution will be the victim of at least one cyberattack.33 Since attacks have accelerated during COVID-19, they will likely continue to rise as virtual medical care becomes the norm. [...]far, HHS has refused to prescribe a single system to insulate against all liability, due to numerous variables among entities. Consider forming a breach response team, with members responsible for aspects of response according to their areas of expertise. 10 Document how security measures, procedures and policies satisfy HIPAA. 11 Conduct secret audits and test cases of breaches to observe staff compliance with protocols and the effectiveness of the breach response team. 12 Request an assessment of security protocols from a reputable security firm specializing in HIPAA compliance. 13 Schedule periodic auditing and testing of physical and electronic security systems. 14 Train staff in security policies and protocols. 15 Keep a record of all risk assessment activities.

The optimization of an electrochemical aptasensor to detect RBD protein S SARS-CoV-2 as a biomarker of COVID-19 using screen-printed carbon electrode/AuNP

Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) is the virus identified as the cause of the Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) outbreak. The gold standard for detecting this virus is polymerase chain reaction (PCR). The electrochemical biosensor method can be an alternative method for detecting several biomolecules, such as viruses, because it is proven to have several advantages, including portability, good sensitivity, high specificity, fast response, and ease of use. This study aims to optimize an electrochemical aptasensor using an AuNP-modified screen-printed carbon electrode (SPCE) with an aptamer to detect RBD protein S SARS-CoV-2. Aptasensors with the streptavidin-biotin system were immobilized on the SPCE/AuNP surface via covalent bonding with linkers to 3-mercaptopropionic acid (MPA) and electrochemically characterized by the [Fe(CN)6]3-/4-redox system using differential pulse voltammetry. The results showed that the immobilized aptamer on the SPCE/AuNP electrode surface experienced a decrease in current from 11.388 to 4.623 µA. The experimental conditions were optimized using the Box-Behnken experimental design for the three factors that affect the current response. The results of the optimization of the three parameters are the concentration of aptamer, incubation time of aptamer, and incubation time of RBD protein S SARS-CoV-2, each of which is 0.5 µg/mL, 40 minutes, and 60 minutes, respectively. The RBD protein S SARS-CoV-2 with various concentrations was tested on an electrochemical aptasensor to determine the detection limit and quantification limit, and the respective results were 2.63 and 7.97 ng/mL. The electrochemical aptasensor that has been developed in this study can be applied to detect RBD protein S SARS-CoV-2 as a COVID-19 biomarker in a simple, practical, and sensitive way. © 2022 by the authors.

NEWS BRIEFS

In making the nomination, Cathy Roberts, commended his service as the Federal District Trustee to the ADAA Board, noting that "he is always a great addition to the meeting!" Pacific Dental Services and American Diabetes Association Partner To Increase Awareness of the Link Between Oral Health and Diabetes The American Diabetes Association® (ADA) has announced a new partnership with Pacific Dental Services® (PDS) to increase awareness of the link between periodontal disease and diabetes, and how oral health providers can assist patients in preventing and managing this chronic health condition. According to the American Academy of Periodontology, people with diabetes are more likely to have periodontal disease than people without diabetes, probably because people with diabetes are more susceptible to contracting infections. [...]periodontal disease is often considered a complication of diabetes. HIPAA does not prohibit providers from requesting COVID-19 vaccination status The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act does not prohibit any businesses and individuals, including HIPAA-covered entities such as certain health care providers, from asking if someone is vaccinated against COVID-19, according to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services' Office for Civil Rights.