A Game-Theoretic Model of Monkeypox to Assess Vaccination Strategies

A Game-Theoretic Model of Monkeypox to Assess Vaccination Strategies Sri Vibhaav Bankaru, Depts. of Biomedical Engineering, Math, & Chemistry, Samuel Kossol, William Hou, & Parsa Mahmoudi, with Dr. Jan Rychtar, Dept. of Mathematics Monkeypox (MPX) is a zoonotic disease similar to smallpox. Its fatality rate is about 11% and it is endemic to the Central and West African countries. In this paper, we analyze a compartmental model of MPX dynamics. Our goal is to see whether MPX can be controlled and eradicated by voluntary vaccinations. We show that there are three equilibria - disease free, fully endemic and previously neglected semi-endemic (with disease existing only among humans). The existence of semi-endemic equilibrium has severe implications should the MPX virus mutate to increased viral fitness in humans. We find that MPX is controllable and can be eradicated in a semi-endemic equilibrium by vaccination. However, in a fully endemic equilibrium, MPX cannot be eradicated by vaccination alone.https://scholarscompass.vcu.edu/uresposters/1296/thumbnail.jp

A Game-Theoretic Model of Monkeypox to Assess Vaccination Strategies

A Game-Theoretic Model of Monkeypox to Assess Vaccination Strategies Sri Vibhaav Bankaru, Depts. of Biomedical Engineering, Math, & Chemistry, Samuel Kossol, William Hou, & Parsa Mahmoudi, with Dr. Jan Rychtar, Dept. of Mathematics Monkeypox (MPX) is a zoonotic disease similar to smallpox. Its fatality rate is about 11% and it is endemic to the Central and West African countries. In this paper, we analyze a compartmental model of MPX dynamics. Our goal is to see whether MPX can be controlled and eradicated by voluntary vaccinations. We show that there are three equilibria - disease free, fully endemic and previously neglected semi-endemic (with disease existing only among humans). The existence of semi-endemic equilibrium has severe implications should the MPX virus mutate to increased viral fitness in humans. We find that MPX is controllable and can be eradicated in a semi-endemic equilibrium by vaccination. However, in a fully endemic equilibrium, MPX cannot be eradicated by vaccination alone.https://scholarscompass.vcu.edu/uresposters/1296/thumbnail.jp

Effects of Optical Turbulence and Density Gradients On Particle Image Velocimetry

Particle image velocimetry (PIV) is a well-established tool to collect high-resolution velocity and turbulence data in the laboratory, in both air and water. Laboratory experiments are often performed under conditions of constant temperature or salinity or in flows with only small gradients of these properties. At larger temperature or salinity variations, the changes in the index of refraction of water or air due to turbulent microstructure can lead to so-called optical turbulence. We observed a marked influence of optical turbulence on particle imaging in PIV. The effect of index of refraction variations on PIV has been described in air for high Mach number flows, but in such cases the distortion is directional. No such effect has previously been reported for conditions of isotropic optical turbulence in water. We investigated the effect of optical turbulence on PIV imaging in a large Rayleigh-Bénard tank for various path lengths and turbulence strengths. The results show that optical turbulence can significantly affect PIV measurements. Depending on the strength of the optical turbulence and path length, the impact can be mitigated in post-processing, which may reduce noise and recover the mean velocity signal, but leads to the loss of the high-frequency turbulence signal

Working parents home-schooling children with special educational needs during a pandemic: How best can mainstream schools help through digital technologies?

The competing demands of home-schooling and work commitments during the Covid-19 pandemic left working parents of primary school children with Special Educational Needs (SEN) exhausted, anxious about their ability to cope, and concerned for their children’s learning and their future. This case study explored how mainstream primary schools could best facilitate the numerous challenges of home education using digital technology. Using a qualitative approach, four interviews were conducted with two parents of SEN children, one each before the first lockdown and following the second lockdown. Transcription, facilitating data analysis, was done through Otter Artificial Intelligence software. Research questions focused on the nature and extent of digital communication from schools, adjustments during the second lockdown, inclusive practices, differentiated provision, and guidance to nurture the children’s emotional well-being. The results showed that online school contact with parents and children varied markedly in quality and frequency between different teachers, with more differentiated provision during the second lockdown particularly from the Special Educational Needs Coordinators (SENCOs) and Classroom Assistants (CAs). The value of these paraprofessionals establishing and maintaining online home-school links, namely, the SENCOs’ online engagement with parents to identify and manage new problems, and the CAs’ rapport and direct contact with the children offering practical help and coping strategies, was underlined. For future remote education, parents sought direction from mainstream schools about learning objectives, practical ways for children with special needs to understand abstract concepts, and weekly online activities with peers to work together in small groups and for social interaction. Appropriate levels of challenge were essential for SEN children linked to their developmental, physical and emotional needs, with consistent communication between parents, teachers and SENCOs, and the maintaining of records for subsequent assessment. Once schools re-opened fully, teachers needed to consider pastoral issues including coping strategies for pupils following extended periods of absence

Improving Performance of Private Federated Models in Medical Image Analysis

Federated learning (FL) is a distributed machine learning (ML) approach that allows data to be trained without being centralized. This approach is particularly beneficial for medical applications because it addresses some key challenges associated with medical data, such as privacy, security, and data ownership. On top of that, FL can improve the quality of ML models used in medical applications. Medical data is often diverse and can vary significantly depending on the patient population, making it challenging to develop ML models that are accurate and generalizable. FL allows medical data to be used from multiple sources, which can help to improve the quality and generalizability of ML models. Differential privacy (DP) is a go-to algorithmic tool to make this process secure and private. In this work, we show that the model performance can be further improved by employing local steps, a popular approach to improving the communication efficiency of FL, and tuning the number of communication rounds. Concretely, given the privacy budget, we show an optimal number of local steps and communications rounds. We provide theoretical motivations further corroborated with experimental evaluations on real-world medical imaging tasks

Peptide-based nanoparticles for systemic extrahepatic delivery of therapeutic nucleotides

Peptide-based nanoparticles (PBN) for nucleotide complexation and targeting of extrahepatic diseases are gaining recognition as potent pharmaceutical vehicles for fine-tuned control of protein production (up- and/or down-regulation) and for gene delivery. Herein, we review the principles and mechanisms underpinning self-assembled formation of PBN, cellular uptake, endosomal release, and delivery to extrahepatic disease sites after systemic administration. Selected examples of PBN that have demonstrated recent proof of concept in disease models in vivo are summarized to offer the reader a comparative view of the field and the possibilities for clinical application

b \rightarrow s \gamma AND Z \rightarrow b \overline{b} IN TECHNICOLOR WITH SCALARS

We consider the radiative decay $b\rightarrow s \gamma$, and the correction to the $Zb\overline{b}$ vertex in technicolor models with scalars. In these models, the scalar develops a vacuum expectation value when the technifermions condense, and the ordinary fermions develop masses via Yukawa couplings. Since the symmetry breaking sector involves both a fundamental scalar doublet and an isotriplet of composite scalars (the technipions), the phenomenology associated with the charged scalars is similar to that found in a type-I two-Higgs doublet model. We show that the correction to the $Zb\overline{b}$ vertex is small over the allowed parameter space of the model in the two limits that we consider, and that there can be large, potentially observable, contributions to the $b\rightarrow s \gamma$ branching fraction.Comment: 9pp. LaTeX, 4 figures in a uuencoded compressed .ps file We remove nonstandard LaTeX fonts from the previous versio