REDACS: Regional emergency-driven adaptive cluster sampling for effective COVID-19 management.

As COVID-19 is spreading, national agencies need to monitor and track several metrics. Since we do not have perfect testing programs on the hand, one needs to develop an advanced sampling strategies for prevalence study, control and management. Here we introduce REDACS: Regional emergency-driven adaptive cluster sampling for effective COVID-19 management and control and justify its usage for COVID-19. We show its advantages over classical massive individual testing sampling plans. We also point out how regional and spatial heterogeneity underlines proper sampling. Fundamental importance of adaptive control parameters from emergency health stations and medical frontline is outlined. Since the Northern hemisphere entered Autumn and Winter season (this paper was originally submitted in November 2020), practical illustration from spatial heterogeneity of Chile (Southern hemisphere, which already experienced COVID-19 winter outbreak peak) is underlying the importance of proper regional heterogeneity of sampling plan. We explain the regional heterogeneity by microbiological backgrounds and link it to behavior of Lyapunov exponents. We also discuss screening by antigen tests from the perspective of "on the fly" biomarker validation, i.e., during the screening.

On improved volatility modelling by fitting skewness in ARCH models.

We study ARCH/GARCH effects under possible deviation from normality. Since skewness is the principal cause for deviations from normality in many practical applications, e.g. finance, we study in particular skewness. We propose robust tests for normality both for NoVaS and modified NoVaS transformed and original data. Such an approach is not applicable for EGARCH, but applicable for GARCH-GJR models. A novel test procedure is proposed for the skewness in autoregressive conditional volatility models. The power of the tests is investigated with various underlying models. Applications with financial data show the applicability and the capabilities of the proposed testing procedure.

Stability of scaling regimes in d > or = 2 developed turbulence with weak anisotropy.

Fully developed turbulence with weak anisotropy is investigated by means of the renormalization group approach and double expansion regularization for dimensions d > or = 2. Some modification of the standard minimal subtraction scheme has been used to analyze the stability of the Kolmogorov scaling regime which is governed by the renormalization group fixed point. This fixed point is unstable at d=2; thus the infinitesimally weak anisotropy destroys the above scaling regime in two-dimensional space. The restoration of the stability of this fixed point, under a transition from d=2 to 3, is demonstrated at a borderline dimension 2

The Quadriplegia Index of Function (QIF): sensitivity and reliability demonstrated in a study of thirty quadriplegic patients.

The Quadriplegia Index of Function (QIF) was originally developed by the authors in 1980 because the popular Barthel Index was deemed too insensitive to document the small but significant functional gains made by quadriplegics (tetraplegics) during medical rehabilitation. The QIF has now been tested on a group of 30 complete quadriplegic patients at admission to and discharge from inpatient medical rehabilitation. Resultant scores were compared to those simultaneously obtained by the Barthel Index and the Kenny Self-Care Evaluation. The QIF was found to be more sensitive (46 per cent improvement as opposed to 30 per cent by the Kenny Self Care Evaluation and 20 per cent by the Barthel Index). The QIF was also tested for reliability. Ratings by three different nurses, working independently, were found to be significantly positively correlated for all sub-scores (p less than .001). We conclude that the QIF provides a useful option in choosing a functional assessment instrument for use with quadriplegic patients.

Retrospective evaluation of the isolation and identification of herpes simplex virus with Cultureset and human fibroblasts.

A total of 442 specimens from various anatomic sites was cultured for herpes simplex virus during the past 2 years. Most specimens were obtained from the respiratory tracts and cutaneous lesions of immunocompromised hosts (232 specimens) or the female genital tract (138 specimens). Two tubes containing human newborn foreskin fibroblasts and two Ortho Cultureset tubes containing Vero cells were inoculated with each specimen. The 384 inoculated specimens were stained with Cultureset peroxidase-antiperoxidase reagents within 48 h and again at 3, 4, or 5 days if initially negative. Fibroblasts were inspected for cytopathic effect for 7 days. Of these 384 specimens, Cultureset detected 57 of 62 positive specimens within 48 h; fibroblasts detected 58 positive specimens by 7 days. The calculated sensitivity and specificity for Cultureset at 48 h were 91.9 and 100%, respectively. However, when all results were considered, including those that became positive in Cultureset after 48 h, the calculated sensitivity and specificity for Cultureset were 98.8 and 100%, respectively. We conclude that Cultureset is a reliable method for detection of herpes simplex virus when two tubes are inoculated and stained as described.