Real-Time Assessment of Health-Care Requirements During the Zika Virus Epidemic in Martinique.

The spread of Zika virus in the Americas has been associated with a surge in Guillain-Barré syndrome (GBS) cases. Given the severity of GBS, territories affected by Zika virus need to plan health-care resources to manage GBS patients. To inform such planning in Martinique, we analyzed Zika virus surveillance and GBS data from Martinique in real time with a modeling framework that captured dynamics of the Zika virus epidemic, the risk of GBS in Zika virus-infected persons, and the clinical management of GBS cases. We compared our estimates with those from the 2013-2014 Zika virus epidemic in French Polynesia. We were able to predict just a few weeks into the epidemic that, due to lower transmission potential and lower probability of developing GBS following infection in Martinique, the total number of GBS cases in Martinique would be substantially lower than suggested by simple extrapolations from French Polynesia. We correctly predicted that 8 intensive-care beds and 7 ventilators would be sufficient to treat GBS cases. This study showcased the contribution of modeling to inform local health-care planning during an outbreak. Timely studies that estimate the proportion of infected persons that seek care are needed to improve the predictive power of such approaches

Structural and mechanical properties of the amorphous silicon carbide films for MEMS applications

At present time the development of micro-electro-mechanical-systems (MEMS) technologies is of the great interest and the range of their application is steadily and rapidly increasing. Usually the standard silicon based technology is used for fabrication of functional elements in MEMS devices. But for some applications the use of other materials with unique properties, such as SiC, is strongly needed [1]. But deposition of polycrystalline SiC films is possible only at substrate temperature over 6000С, that strongly restricts the applicability of CMOS technology for MEMS fabrication. But it is known that some mechanical and chemical properties of crystalline SiC can be preserved in amorphous state and amorphous silicon-carbon alloy films can be deposited at low substrate temperature