Curo — Patient home recovery guide for stressfree and better recovery after hospitalization

The transition from in-hospital illness management to self-management exposes patients to many risks such as inadequate training before leaving the hospital and medication errors which can lead to patient re-hospitalization. Effective care after discharge can improve patients’ health, reduce chances of re-hospitalization and decrease healthcare costs. A patient leaves the hospital with a complex and verbose discharge summary. Once home they rely on this discharge summary to guide their recovery. Most of the printed summaries use medical jargon that informs the clinicians more than the patients. To help patients understand better, nurses go through the discharge papers with the patient and caregivers orally. Still, patients find it difficult to process and remember all this information. It becomes overwhelming. This makes them unprepared to manage their care at home. Often times the delicate mental and physical condition of the patient also contributes to the loss of information. All these factors open the opportunity for design intervention for the cause of better post-discharge patient care. This thesis provides an auxiliary design solution that provides patients with timely, easy to follow information without overwhelming them. Patients would focus on monitoring their health alone rather than struggling to understand complex hospital instructions. The interactive system serves as a guide that helps patients on their road to recovery. Finally, this thesis endeavors to make the process of patient recovery an easy and stress-free journey

New results in Branching processes using Stochastic Approximation

We consider various types of continuous-time two-type population size-dependent Markov Branching Process (BP). The offspring distribution can depend on the current population (those alive at the given time) and or on the total population (dead and alive) of the two types. Using stochastic approximation techniques, we propose an ODE-based framework to study a general class of such BPs. We primarily focus on time-asymptotic proportion of the two types, via ODE limits; while, the ODE solution approximates certain normalized trajectories. In addition to extending the analysis of several existing BPs, we analyze two new variants: BP with attack and acquisition, and BP with proportion-dependent offsprings. Using these results, we study competition in viral markets and fake news control on online social networks.Comment: 54 pages; 1 table; 5 figure

Nucleotide substrate binding characterization in human pancreatic-type ribonucleases

Human genome contains a group of more than a dozen similar genes with diverse biological functions including antiviral, antibacterial and angiogenesis activities. The characterized gene products of this group show significant sequence similarity and a common structural fold associated with binding and cleavage of ribonucleic acid (RNA) substrates. Therefore, these proteins have been categorized as members of human pancreatic-type ribonucleases (hRNases). hRNases differ in cell/tissue localization and display distinct substrate binding preferences and a wide range of ribonucleolytic catalytic efficiencies. Limited information is available about structural and dynamical properties that influence this diversity among these homologous RNases. Here, we use computer simulations to characterize substrate interactions, electrostatics and dynamical properties of hRNases 1–7 associated with binding to two nucleotide substrates (ACAC and AUAU). Results indicate that even with complete conservation of active-site catalytic triad associated with ribonucleolytic activity, these enzymes show significant differences in substrate interactions. Detailed characterization suggests that in addition to binding site electrostatic and van der Waals interactions, dynamics of distal regions may also play a role in binding. Another key insight is that a small difference in temperature of 300 K (used in experimental studies) and 310 K (physiological temperature) shows significant changes in enzyme-substrate interactions

Determination of dynamical ages of open clusters through the A+^+ parameter -- II

Blue straggler stars (BSS), one of the most massive members of star clusters, have been used for over a decade to investigate mass segregation and estimate the dynamical ages of globular clusters (GCs) and open clusters (OCs). This work is an extension of our previous study, in which we investigated a correlation between theoretically estimated dynamical ages and the observed $A^+_{\mathrm{rh}}$ values, which represent the sedimentation level of BSS with respect to the reference population. Here, we use the ML-MOC algorithm on \textit{Gaia} EDR3 data to extend this analysis to 23 OCs. Using cluster properties and identified members, we estimate their dynamical and physical parameters. In order to estimate the $A^+_{\mathrm{rh}}$ values, we use the main sequence and main sequence turnoff stars as the reference population. OCs are observed to exhibit a wide range of degrees of dynamical evolution, ranging from dynamically young to late stages of intermediate dynamical age. Hence, we classify OCs into three distinct dynamical stages based on their relationship to $A^+_{\mathrm{rh}}$ and $N_{\text{relax}}$. NGC 2682 and King 2 are discovered to be the most evolved OCs, like Familly III GCs, while Berkeley 18 is the least evolved OC. Melotte 66 and Berkeley 31 are peculiar OCs because none of their dynamical and physical parameters correlate with their BSS segregation levels.Comment: Accepted for publication at MNRA

Impact of Heterogeneous Neutrality Rules with Competitive Content Providers

International audienceNetwork neutrality has recently been repealed in the United States, leading to a worldwide Internet with different imposed policies. We build and analyze in this paper a game-theoretic model representing the interactions between users, network providers and content providers in this heterogeneous regulation context, and investigate the impact of two neutrality relaxation policies in a part of the world on all actors, compared with a fully-neutral network. Our results show that neutrality repeal may only favor the ISP in the differentiation-authorized zone, but no other actor, and that it can be worse off for everybody if the regulation procedures are very strict in the neutral area

Nucleotide substrate binding characterization in human pancreatic-type ribonucleases.

International audienceHuman genome contains a group of more than a dozen similar genes with diverse biological functions including antiviral, antibacterial and angiogenesis activities. The characterized gene products of this group show significant sequence similarity and a common structural fold associated with binding and cleavage of ribonucleic acid (RNA) substrates. Therefore, these proteins have been categorized as members of human pancreatic-type ribonucleases (hRNases). hRNases differ in cell/tissue localization and display distinct substrate binding preferences and a wide range of ribonucleolytic catalytic efficiencies. Limited information is available about structural and dynamical properties that influence this diversity among these homologous RNases. Here, we use computer simulations to characterize substrate interactions, electrostatics and dynamical properties of hRNases 1-7 associated with binding to two nucleotide substrates (ACAC and AUAU). Results indicate that even with complete conservation of active-site catalytic triad associated with ribonucleolytic activity, these enzymes show significant differences in substrate interactions. Detailed characterization suggests that in addition to binding site electrostatic and van der Waals interactions, dynamics of distal regions may also play a role in binding. Another key insight is that a small difference in temperature of 300 K (used in experimental studies) and 310 K (physiological temperature) shows significant changes in enzyme-substrate interactions

Thermal transport in enhanced thermoelectric performance high FOM Sb2Te3/MoS2 heterostructure

The control of the phonon scattering and the understanding of thermal transport at nanoscale level poses a big challenge in upgrading the efficiencies of nanostructured devices and materials. Furthermore, the lack in analysis of the anisotropic and multi-layered materials restrict the implementation of exotic structures in manufacturing processes. Particularly, for the thermoelectric (TE) devices the understanding of underlying mechanisms of enhancement of phonon scattering paves new pathways for increasing ZTs and enabling efficient commercial applications. In the present study, our aim is to establish the role of multiple interfaces on the thermal transport in Sb2Te3/MoS2 superlattice. We use Scanning Thermal Microscopy (SThM) that provides a flexible approach that can be easily adapted to varying nanoscale structure and geometry of the multilayer sample. In particular, we use a novel approach of cross-sectional SThM (xSThM) that measures the heat transport in the nanoscale sample with the layer of interest is polished using Ar ion beam to produce a damage free nanoscale-flat wedge shaped structure [1]. With the typical wedge angle of about 3-50, two-dimensional xSThM scans map the thermal transport of the Sb2Te3/MoS2 multilayer sample layer as a function of it thickness, allowing to investigate specific contribution of the in-plane and out-of-plane thermal conductivity of the multi-layer samples. In our studies we demonstrate that due to the effective majority carrier filtering and phonon scattering at the potential barrier present at the multiple interfaces, a major enhancement in the value of TE power factor was observed. The present study is important not only for enhancing the TE performance but also helps to establish the efficient approach to quantifying the thermal transport in 2D-3D interfaces, multilayers, as well as in hybrid or buried nanostructures and hence overcome a critical bottleneck in understanding the thermal transport in these complex structures