The Chikungunya Epidemic on La Réunion Island in 2005–2006: A Cost-of-Illness Study

For a long time, studies of chikungunya virus infection have been neglected, but since its resurgence in the south-western Indian Ocean and on La Réunion Island, this disease has been paid greater amounts of attention. The economic and social impacts of chikungunya epidemics are poorly documented, including in developed countries. This study estimated the cost-of-illness associated with the 2005–2006 chikungunya epidemics on La Réunion Island, a French overseas department with an economy and health care system of a developed country. “Cost-of-illness” studies measure the amount that would have been saved in the absence of a disease. We found that the epidemic incurred substantial medical expenses estimated at €43.9 million, of which 60% were attributable to direct medical costs related, in particular, to expenditure on medical consultations (47%), hospitalization (32%) and drugs (19%). The costs related to care in ambulatory and hospitalized cases were €90 and €2000 per case, respectively. This study provides the basic inputs for conducting cost-effectiveness and cost-benefit evaluations of chikungunya prevention strategies

Predicting Academic Performance: A Systematic Literature Review

The ability to predict student performance in a course or program creates opportunities to improve educational outcomes. With effective performance prediction approaches, instructors can allocate resources and instruction more accurately. Research in this area seeks to identify features that can be used to make predictions, to identify algorithms that can improve predictions, and to quantify aspects of student performance. Moreover, research in predicting student performance seeks to determine interrelated features and to identify the underlying reasons why certain features work better than others. This working group report presents a systematic literature review of work in the area of predicting student performance. Our analysis shows a clearly increasing amount of research in this area, as well as an increasing variety of techniques used. At the same time, the review uncovered a number of issues with research quality that drives a need for the community to provide more detailed reporting of methods and results and to increase efforts to validate and replicate work.Peer reviewe

Guidelines for the use and interpretation of assays for monitoring autophagy (3rd edition)

In 2008 we published the first set of guidelines for standardizing research in autophagy. Since then, research on this topic has continued to accelerate, and many new scientists have entered the field. Our knowledge base and relevant new technologies have also been expanding. Accordingly, it is important to update these guidelines for monitoring autophagy in different organisms. Various reviews have described the range of assays that have been used for this purpose. Nevertheless, there continues to be confusion regarding acceptable methods to measure autophagy, especially in multicellular eukaryotes. For example, a key point that needs to be emphasized is that there is a difference between measurements that monitor the numbers or volume of autophagic elements (e.g., autophagosomes or autolysosomes) at any stage of the autophagic process versus those that measure fl ux through the autophagy pathway (i.e., the complete process including the amount and rate of cargo sequestered and degraded). In particular, a block in macroautophagy that results in autophagosome accumulation must be differentiated from stimuli that increase autophagic activity, defi ned as increased autophagy induction coupled with increased delivery to, and degradation within, lysosomes (inmost higher eukaryotes and some protists such as Dictyostelium ) or the vacuole (in plants and fungi). In other words, it is especially important that investigators new to the fi eld understand that the appearance of more autophagosomes does not necessarily equate with more autophagy. In fact, in many cases, autophagosomes accumulate because of a block in trafficking to lysosomes without a concomitant change in autophagosome biogenesis, whereas an increase in autolysosomes may reflect a reduction in degradative activity. It is worth emphasizing here that lysosomal digestion is a stage of autophagy and evaluating its competence is a crucial part of the evaluation of autophagic flux, or complete autophagy. Here, we present a set of guidelines for the selection and interpretation of methods for use by investigators who aim to examine macroautophagy and related processes, as well as for reviewers who need to provide realistic and reasonable critiques of papers that are focused on these processes. These guidelines are not meant to be a formulaic set of rules, because the appropriate assays depend in part on the question being asked and the system being used. In addition, we emphasize that no individual assay is guaranteed to be the most appropriate one in every situation, and we strongly recommend the use of multiple assays to monitor autophagy. Along these lines, because of the potential for pleiotropic effects due to blocking autophagy through genetic manipulation it is imperative to delete or knock down more than one autophagy-related gene. In addition, some individual Atg proteins, or groups of proteins, are involved in other cellular pathways so not all Atg proteins can be used as a specific marker for an autophagic process. In these guidelines, we consider these various methods of assessing autophagy and what information can, or cannot, be obtained from them. Finally, by discussing the merits and limits of particular autophagy assays, we hope to encourage technical innovation in the field

Programmable Photonic Integrated Circuits Using Low Power Consumption MEMS

silicon photonics, photonic integrated circuits, FPPGA, programmable, MEMSⅠ. Introduction 1 1.1 Motivation 1 Ⅱ. Device Architecture 4 2.1 MEMS Devices 4 2.1.1 Vertical Comb-Type MEMS Tunable Directional Coupler 4 2.1.2 Vertical Comb-Type MEMS Tunable Phase Shifter 10 2.1.3 In-plane Comb-Type MEMS Tunable Phase Shifter 15 2.2 Device Concept 19 2.2.1 Sagnac Loop Reflector 19 2.2.2 Field Programmable Photonic Gate Array 21 Ⅲ. Results 24 3.1 Fabrication 24 3.1.1 Fabrication Process 24 3.1.2 Fabrication Results 26 3.2 MEMS Devices 28 3.2.1 Vertical Comb-Type MEMS Tunable Directional Coupler 28 3.2.2 In-plane Comb-Type MEMS Tunable Phase Shifter 30 3.3 Device Configurations 31 3.3.1 Sagnac Loop Reflector 31 3.3.2 Field Programmable Photonic Gate Array 34 Ⅳ. Conclusion 39 References 40MasterdCollectio

Fully Tunable Sagnac Loop Reflector with 0.1 µW Static Power Silicon Photonic MEMS

We report on a MEMS-based integrated tunable Sagnac loop reflector having full reflectivity tuning from 0 to 100% with <0.1 µW static power consumption. A Fabry-Pérot cavity with fine linewidth tunability is also demonstrated. © Optica Publishing Group 2022, © 2022 The Author(s

Ultra-Low-Power Unitary Matrix Multiplier Based on Silicon Photonic MEMS

We propose and demonstrate an ultra-low-power 3×3 unitary matrix multiplier with MEMS-based tunable couplers and phase shifters. The static power consumption and tuning energy per tuning element are less than 0.13 µW and 115 pJ, respectively. © Optica Publishing Group 2022, © 2022 The Author(s