Computational modelling of COVID-19: A study of compliance and superspreaders

Background: The success of social distancing implementations of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-Cov-2) depends heavily on population compliance. Mathematical modelling has been used extensively to assess the rate of viral transmission from behavioural responses. Previous epidemics of SARS-Cov-2 have been characterised by superspreaders, a small number of individuals who transmit a disease to a large group of individuals, who contribute to the stochasticity (or randomness) of transmission compared to other pathogens such as Influenza. This growing evidence proves an urgent matter to understand transmission routes in order to target and combat outbreaks. / Objective: To investigate the role of superspreaders in the rate of viral transmission with various levels of compliance. / Method: A SEIRS inspired social network model is adapted and calibrated to observe the infected links of a general population with and without superspreaders on four compliance levels. Local and global connection parameters are adjusted to simulate close contact networks and travel restrictions respectively and each performance assessed. The mean and standard deviation of infections with superspreaders and non-superspreaders were calculated for each compliance level. / Results: Increased levels of compliance of superspreaders proves a significant reduction in infections. Assuming long-lasting immunity, superspreaders could potentially slow down the spread due to their high connectivity. / Discussion: The main advantage of applying the network model is to capture the heterogeneity and locality of social networks, including the role of superspreaders in epidemic dynamics. The main challenge is the immediate attention on social settings with targeted interventions to tackle superspreaders in future empirical work. / Conclusion: Superspreaders play a central role in slowing down infection spread following compliance guidelines. It is crucial to adjust social distancing measures to prevent future outbreaks accompanied by population-wide testing and effective tracing

A Comprehensive Study on Pain Assessment from Multimodal Sensor Data

Pain assessment is a critical aspect of healthcare, influencing timely interventions and patient well-being. Traditional pain evaluation methods often rely on subjective patient reports, leading to inaccuracies and disparities in treatment, especially for patients who present difficulties to communicate due to cognitive impairments. Our contributions are three-fold. Firstly, we analyze the correlations of the data extracted from biomedical sensors. Then, we use state-of-the-art computer vision techniques to analyze videos focusing on the facial expressions of the patients, both per-frame and using the temporal context. We compare them and provide a baseline for pain assessment methods using two popular benchmarks: UNBC-McMaster Shoulder Pain Expression Archive Database and BioVid Heat Pain Database. We achieved an accuracy of over 96% and over 94% for the F1 Score, recall and precision metrics in pain estimation using single frames with the UNBC-McMaster dataset, employing state-of-the-art computer vision techniques such as Transformer-based architectures for vision tasks. In addition, from the conclusions drawn from the study, future lines of work in this area are discussed

Serum levels and removal by haemodialysis and haemodiafiltration of tryptophan-derived uremic toxins in ESKD patients

Tryptophan is an essential dietary amino acid that originates uremic toxins that contribute to end-stage kidney disease (ESKD) patient outcomes. We evaluated serum levels and removal during haemodialysis and haemodiafiltration of tryptophan and tryptophan-derived uremic toxins, indoxyl sulfate (IS) and indole acetic acid (IAA), in ESKD patients in different dialysis treatment settings. This prospective multicentre study in four European dialysis centres enrolled 78 patients with ESKD. Blood and spent dialysate samples obtained during dialysis were analysed with high-performance liquid chromatography to assess uremic solutes, their reduction ratio (RR) and total removed solute (TRS). Mean free serum tryptophan and IS concentrations increased, and concentration of IAA decreased over pre-dialysis levels (67%, 49%, -0.8%, respectively) during the first hour of dialysis. While mean serum total urea, IS and IAA concentrations decreased during dialysis (-72%, -39%, -43%, respectively), serum tryptophan levels increased, resulting in negative RR (-8%) towards the end of the dialysis session (p < 0.001), despite remarkable Trp losses in dialysate. RR and TRS values based on serum (total, free) and dialysate solute concentrations were lower for conventional low-flux dialysis (p < 0.001). High-efficiency haemodiafiltration resulted in 80% higher Trp losses than conventional low-flux dialysis, despite similar neutral Trp RR values. In conclusion, serum Trp concentrations and RR behave differently from uremic solutes IS, IAA and urea and Trp RR did not reflect dialysis Trp losses. Conventional low-flux dialysis may not adequately clear Trp-related uremic toxins while high efficiency haemodiafiltration increased Trp losses

High-throughput biointerfaces for direct, label-free, and multiplexed metaplasmonic biosensing

In recent years, metaplasmonic biosensors have emerged as a novel counterpart of well-established plasmonic biosensors based on thin metallic layers. Metaplasmonic biosensors offer high potential for sensor miniaturiza-tion, extreme sensitivity biosensing, and high multiplexing capabilities with detection methods free of coupling optical elements. These capabilities make metaplasmonic biosensors highly attractive for Point-of-Care and handled/portable devices or novel On-Chip devices; as a result, it has increased the number of prototypes and potential applications that emerged during the last years. One of the main challenges to achieving fully operative devices is the achievement of high-throughput biointerfaces for sensitive and selective biodetection in complex media. Despite the superior surface sensitivity achieved by metaplasmonic sensors compared to conventional plasmonic sensors based on metallic thin films, the main limitations to achieving high-throughput and multiplexed biosensing usually are associated with the sensitivity and selectivity of the bioin-terface and, as a consequence, their application to the direct analysis of real complex samples. This graphical review discusses the potential challenges and capabilities of different biofunctionalization strategies, biorecog-nition elements, and antifouling strategies to achieve scalable and high-throughput metaplasmonic biosensing for Point-of-Care devices and bioengineering applications like Organs-On-Chip

X5Learn: A Personalised Learning Companion at the Intersection of AI and HCI

X5Learn (available at https://x5learn.org ) is a human-centered AI-powered platform for supporting access to free online educational resources. X5Learn provides users with a number of educational tools for interacting with open educational videos, and a set of tools adapted to suit the pedagogical preferences of users. It is intended to support both teachers and students, alike. For teachers, it provides a powerful platform to reuse, revise, remix, and redistribute open courseware produced by others. These can be videos, pdfs, exercises and other online material. For students, it provides a scaffolded and informative interface to select content to watch, read, make notes and write reviews, as well as a powerful personalised recommendation system that can optimise learning paths and adjust to the user's learning preferences. What makes X5Learn stand out from other educational platforms, is how it combines human-centered design with AI algorithms and software tools with the goal of making it intuitive and easy to use, as well as making the AI transparent to the user. We present the core search tool of X5Learn, intended to support exploring open educational materials

Albumin-induced apoptosis of tubular cells is modulated by BASP1

Albuminuria promotes tubular injury and cell death, and is associated with faster progression of chronic kidney disease (CKD) to end-stage renal disease. However, the molecular mechanisms regulating tubular cell death in response to albuminuria are not fully understood. Brain abundant signal protein 1 (BASP1) was recently shown to mediate glucose-induced apoptosis in tubular cells. We have studied the role of BASP1 in albumin-induced tubular cell death. BASP1 expression was studied in experimental puromycin aminonucleoside-induced nephrotic syndrome in rats and in human nephrotic syndrome. The role of BASP1 in albumin-induced apoptosis was studied in cultured human HK2 proximal tubular epithelial cells. Puromycin aminonucleoside induced proteinuria and increased total kidney BASP1 mRNA and protein expression. Immunohistochemistry localized the increased BASP1 to tubular cells. BASP1 expression colocalized with deoxynucleotidyl-transferase-mediated dUTP nick-end labeling staining for apoptotic cells. Increased tubular BASP1 expression was observed in human proteinuric nephropathy by immunohistochemistry, providing evidence for potential clinical relevance. In cultured tubular cells, albumin induced apoptosis and increased BASP1 mRNA and protein expression at 6–48 h. Confocal microscopy localized the increased BASP1 expression in albumin-treated cells mainly to the perinuclear area. A peripheral location near the cell membrane was more conspicuous in albumin-treated apoptotic cells, where it colocalized with actin. Inhibition of BASP1 expression by a BASP1 siRNA protected from albumin-induced apoptosis. In conclusion, albumin-induced apoptosis in tubular cells is BASP1-dependent. This information may be used to design novel therapeutic approaches to slow CKD progression based on protection of tubular cells from the adverse consequences of albuminuriaGrant support: FIS PS09/00447, PI13/00047, CP14/ 00133, ISCIII-RETIC, REDinREN/RD06/0016/and RD012/0021 FEDER funds, Comunidad de Madrid/CIFRA S2010/BMD-2378. Salary support: FIS to MDSN and ABS (Miguel Servet), Beatriz Fernandez-Fernandez (Rio Hortega). Programa Intensificación Actividad Investigadora (ISCIII/Agencia Laín-Entralgo/CM) to AO. IIS-FJD Biobank RD09/0076/0010

The impact of a large object with Jupiter in July 2009

On 2009 July 19, we observed a single, large impact on Jupiter at a planetocentric latitude of 55^{\circ}S. This and the Shoemaker-Levy 9 (SL9) impacts on Jupiter in 1994 are the only planetary-scale impacts ever observed. The 2009 impact had an entry trajectory opposite and with a lower incidence angle than that of SL9. Comparison of the initial aerosol cloud debris properties, spanning 4,800 km east-west and 2,500 km north-south, with those produced by the SL9 fragments, and dynamical calculations of pre-impact orbit, indicate that the impactor was most probably an icy body with a size of 0.5-1 km. The collision rate of events of this magnitude may be five to ten times more frequent than previously thought. The search for unpredicted impacts, such as the current one, could be best performed in 890-nm and K (2.03-2.36 {\mu}m) filters in strong gaseous absorption, where the high-altitude aerosols are more reflective than Jupiter's primary cloud.Comment: 15 pages, 5 figure

Occupational Health and Safety Prevention Plan in Water Treatment Plant

The research was carried out at the "El Guarumo" drinking water plant located in Santa Ana, province of Manabí, Ecuador. The objective of the investigation was the proposal of a plan of prevention of occupational risks that allows the management of the labor risks in said plant. The main tools used were: survey, interview, checklist, LEST questionnaire for the diagnosis of the current situation in terms of working conditions, the risk identification matrix and the binary method of risk assessment. The main results obtained were the identification of the risks in their different categories, observing that the critical risk factors are related to the physical overexertion, the uncomfortable postures and the manual lifting of the load. Among the important risks are falling objects, skin contact with toxic substances and mental overwork, closely related to work pressures and job security? It was possible to carry out the proposal of preventive and corrective measures in order to properly manage the risks and contribute to the safety and health of the workers

Fear of non-employability and of economic crisis increaseworkplace harassment through lower organizational welfare orientation

There is a growing body of evidence suggesting that economic crisis is a preeminent stressor (i.e., economic stress) that may worsen working conditions and expose individuals to negative acts at work (i.e., workplace bullying). Following an occupational health perspective that considers contextual factors as risk factors for workplace bullying, this study aims to examine the mediation effects of organizational orientation to employee welfare in the economic stress-workplace bullying relationship. A cross-sectional study with the participation of 1004 Italian workers from several organizations was conducted. Our results indicate that economic stress (composed of two dimensions: fear of the economic crisis and perceived non-employability) is associated with workplace bullying through the total mediation of organizational orientation to employee welfare. These results have relevant implications for psychosocial risk assessment in turbulent times