Acoustic surveillance of cough for detecting respiratory disease using artificial intelligence

Research question Can smartphones be used to detect individual and population-level changes in cough frequency that correlate with the incidence of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) and other respiratory infections? Methods This was a prospective cohort study carried out in Pamplona (Spain) between 2020 and 2021 using artificial intelligence cough detection software. Changes in cough frequency around the time of medical consultation were evaluated using a randomisation routine; significance was tested by comparing the distribution of cough frequencies to that obtained from a model of no difference. The correlation between changes of cough frequency and COVID-19 incidence was studied using an autoregressive moving average analysis, and its strength determined by calculating its autocorrelation function (ACF). Predictors for the regular use of the system were studied using a linear regression. Overall user experience was evaluated using a satisfaction questionnaire and through focused group discussions. Results We followed-up 616 participants and collected >62 000 coughs. Coughs per hour surged around the time cohort subjects sought medical care (difference +0.77 coughs.h(-1); p=0.00001). There was a weak temporal correlation between aggregated coughs and the incidence of COVID-19 in the local population (ACF 0.43). Technical issues affected uptake and regular use of the system. Interpretation Artificial intelligence systems can detect changes in cough frequency that temporarily correlate with the onset of clinical disease at the individual level. A clearer correlation with population-level COVID-19 incidence, or other respiratory conditions, could be achieved with better penetration and compliance with cough monitoring

Spatializing the Ecological Leviathan: Territorial Strategies and the Production of Regional Natures

This paper explores a dual absence – the absence of the state within contemporary geographical analyses of nature; and the absence of nature within contemporary explorations of state power. We argue that the modern state continues to play a crucial role in framing social interactions with nature, while nature is still vital to states within their realization of different forms of material and ideological power. In order to reconnect analyses of the state and nature, this paper combines work on the production of nature and state strategy with Lefebvre’s recently translated writings on state space and territory. By focusing on the production of territory (or state space), we explore the interaction of the state and nature in the context of the political management of social and ecological space. We unravel the spatial entanglements of the state and nature through an analysis of the British state’s territorial strategies within the West Midlands region. By considering three key historical periods within the history of the West Mid-lands we reveal how the emergence of the regional space called the West Midlands is a product of the ongoing spatial dialectics of state and nature therein

Key Middle Pleistocene localities of the Lower Thames: site conservation issues, recent research and report of a Geologists' Association excursion, 8 July, 2000.

A review of published data spanning two centuries, combined with new investigations at a number of critical sites, has confirmed the Lower Thames terrace staircase to be one of the most complete and best dated archives of late Middle Pleistocene environmental change in Europe. This recognition comes at a time when access to exposures of the key sediments has diminished to just a handful of conservation sites, mainly Sites of Specific Scientific Interest (SSSI's), under increasing pressure from development. Four such sites, central to the recognition of the oxygen isotope stage (OIS) 9 and OIS 7 interglacials within the Lower Thames sequence, were visited by a GA excursion in July 2000. This paper combines a report of the excursion with discussion of the importance of the sites as well as conservation management issues

Biostratigraphical correlation between the late Quaternary sequence of the Thames and key fluvial localities in Central Germany.

The shared characteristics of limestone bedrock geology and resultant calcareous groundwater have allowed excellent preservation of mammalian and molluscan faunas within the terrace sequences of the Lower Thames and the rivers of the Muschelkalk region of Thuringia, central Germany. The mammalian and molluscan assemblages from the Lower Thames have underpinned the dating of one of the most important late Middle Pleistocene sequences in Britain and probably also Europe; one that is the repository of a highly significant Lower and Middle Palaeolithic archive. The most complete terrace records in Thuringia are those from the River Wipper, in the region of Bilzingsleben, and the Ilm, around Weimar. Both here and in the Lower Thames, interglacial deposits representing the four major post-Elsterian temperate-climate complexes (=oxygen isotope stages (OIS) 11, 9, 7 and 5 of the oceanic record) have been identified. In the Thames the interglacials are represented by fluvially deposited sediments, whereas in Thuringia they are frequently represented by travertines that formed around calcareous springs, often containing exquisitely preserved fossils. Evidence from Lower Thames interglacial deposits within four different terrace formations (Boyn Hill/Orsett Heath, Lynch Hill/Corbets Tey, Taplow/Mucking and Kempton Park/East Tilbury Marshes) is reviewed, in addition to which new evidence from a site at Hackney Downs, East London, is summarized. The deposits at the last-mentioned site are part of the Lynch Hill/Corbets Tey Formation and include interglacial sediments attributed to OIS 9. As well as the record of travertine complexes from each terrace level within the Bilzingsleben staircase, the celebrated travertine sequence at Weimar-Ehringsdorf, on Terrace 4 of the Ilm, is described. The biostratigraphical and palaeoenvironmental evidence from the Ehringsdorf travertines compares closely with that from interglacial deposits at Aveley, in the Mucking Formation of Lower Thames; both are attributed to OIS 7, with comparison possible at the oxygen isotope substage level. © 2004 Geologists' Association

Middle Pleistocene molluscan and ostracod faunas from Allhallows, Kent, UK

Although known from the nineteenth century, the terraces of the Medway have been far less frequently described in the literature than those of the Thames. In particular, the well known fossiliferous occurrences of such sites as Swanscombe, Purfleet and Aveley have no counterpart in the Medway, despite the two rivers forming part of the same basin. Here we describe molluscan and ostracod faunas of Middle Pleistocene age from Allhallows, Kent close to the modern confluence of the two rivers, which begin to allow correlation of the Medway terraces with the better known Thames succession