Disease severity-specific neutrophil signatures in blood transcriptomes stratify COVID-19 patients

BACKGROUND: The SARS-CoV-2 pandemic is currently leading to increasing numbers of COVID-19 patients all over the world. Clinical presentations range from asymptomatic, mild respiratory tract infection, to severe cases with acute respiratory distress syndrome, respiratory failure, and death. Reports on a dysregulated immune system in the severe cases call for a better characterization and understanding of the changes in the immune system. METHODS: In order to dissect COVID-19-driven immune host responses, we performed RNA-seq of whole blood cell transcriptomes and granulocyte preparations from mild and severe COVID-19 patients and analyzed the data using a combination of conventional and data-driven co-expression analysis. Additionally, publicly available data was used to show the distinction from COVID-19 to other diseases. Reverse drug target prediction was used to identify known or novel drug candidates based on finding from data-driven findings. RESULTS: Here, we profiled whole blood transcriptomes of 39 COVID-19 patients and 10 control donors enabling a data-driven stratification based on molecular phenotype. Neutrophil activation-associated signatures were prominently enriched in severe patient groups, which was corroborated in whole blood transcriptomes from an independent second cohort of 30 as well as in granulocyte samples from a third cohort of 16 COVID-19 patients (44 samples). Comparison of COVID-19 blood transcriptomes with those of a collection of over 3100 samples derived from 12 different viral infections, inflammatory diseases, and independent control samples revealed highly specific transcriptome signatures for COVID-19. Further, stratified transcriptomes predicted patient subgroup-specific drug candidates targeting the dysregulated systemic immune response of the host. CONCLUSIONS: Our study provides novel insights in the distinct molecular subgroups or phenotypes that are not simply explained by clinical parameters. We show that whole blood transcriptomes are extremely informative for COVID-19 since they capture granulocytes which are major drivers of disease severity

Service availability and QOS of mobile satellite systems.

Mobile Satellite Communication Systems are the best, and probably the only solution to a full 'global communication coverage'. Despite the intense scrutiny and inherent difficulties in gaining acceptance by the telecommunications market and the recent switch back towards GEO satellites, mobile satellite systems in non-geostationary LEO (500-2000km) and MEO (10000-12000km) constellations still remain an attractive solution in an integrated satellite/terrestrial scenario as they offer lower delays and lower power requirements than GEO satellites (35800km). Since Quality of Service (QoS) and service availability are major subscriber concerns, the investigation of factors which influence them are of central importance to the design of such systems. In non-GEO mobile satellite systems both the QoS and the service availability are very much dependant on the changing dynamics of the constellation and on the time varying nature of the propagation environment. Motivated by the above issues, we present, analyse and evaluate the coverage and availability of first generation constellation proposals in terms of LOS and bit-error-rate (QoS) requirements. Handover management is also identified as an important issue affecting the QoS and therefore handover strategies and mechanisms for various satellite constellations are presented and analysed. Based on the statistical but predefined nature of the constellation dynamics as well as the influence of the propagation channel and its dependence on the constellation design we propose two new channel adaptive handover algorithms in an effort to reduce the handover signalling whilst maximising at the same time the QoS as perceived by the user in terms of reduced call dropping rate for a typical circuit mode telephone call. Finally, as the current trend of the telecommunication services is towards the provision of packet oriented services, we focus the final part of this study on the performance investigation, in terms of throughput versus delay characteristics, on the provision of GPRS-like services over mobile satellite systems and compare GEO and non-GEO delivery. It is concluded, based on the MAC protocol proposed in the last chapter, that depending on the type of traffic and on the network load, the LEO approach doesn't always give superior performance in terms of delay characteristics to that of a MEO. The results and findings presented in this thesis can be used as a reference for optimising and designing future mobile satellite systems. Key words: Availability, QoS, handover, MAC protocols, satellite channel

Service availability and QOS of mobile satellite systems.

Mobile Satellite Communication Systems are the best, and probably the only solution to a full 'global communication coverage'. Despite the intense scrutiny and inherent difficulties in gaining acceptance by the telecommunications market and the recent switch back towards GEO satellites, mobile satellite systems in non-geostationary LEO (500-2000km) and MEO (10000-12000km) constellations still remain an attractive solution in an integrated satellite/terrestrial scenario as they offer lower delays and lower power requirements than GEO satellites (35800km). Since Quality of Service (QoS) and service availability are major subscriber concerns, the investigation of factors which influence them are of central importance to the design of such systems. In non-GEO mobile satellite systems both the QoS and the service availability are very much dependant on the changing dynamics of the constellation and on the time varying nature of the propagation environment. Motivated by the above issues, we present, analyse and evaluate the coverage and availability of first generation constellation proposals in terms of LOS and bit-error-rate (QoS) requirements. Handover management is also identified as an important issue affecting the QoS and therefore handover strategies and mechanisms for various satellite constellations are presented and analysed. Based on the statistical but predefined nature of the constellation dynamics as well as the influence of the propagation channel and its dependence on the constellation design we propose two new channel adaptive handover algorithms in an effort to reduce the handover signalling whilst maximising at the same time the QoS as perceived by the user in terms of reduced call dropping rate for a typical circuit mode telephone call. Finally, as the current trend of the telecommunication services is towards the provision of packet oriented services, we focus the final part of this study on the performance investigation, in terms of throughput versus delay characteristics, on the provision of GPRS-like services over mobile satellite systems and compare GEO and non-GEO delivery. It is concluded, based on the MAC protocol proposed in the last chapter, that depending on the type of traffic and on the network load, the LEO approach doesn't always give superior performance in terms of delay characteristics to that of a MEO. The results and findings presented in this thesis can be used as a reference for optimising and designing future mobile satellite systems. Key words: Availability, QoS, handover, MAC protocols, satellite channel

Προσδιορισμός λοιμογόνων παραγόντων με νεότερες τεχνολογίες στο σηπτικό σύνδρομο

Το σύνδρομο της σήψης διαμορφώνεται από πράγοντες των παθογόνων μικροοργανισμών και του ξενιστή, όπως είναι το φύλο,η φυλή και άλλοι γενετικοί παράγοντες,η ηλικία,οι συννοσηρότητες του ξενιστή,το περιβάλλον,και έχει χαρακτηριστικά που εξελίσσονται με την πάροδο του χρόνου. Το χαρακτηριστικό εκείνο το οποίο διαφοροποιεί τη σήψη από τη λοίμωξη είναι η παρεκκλίνουσα ή διαταραγμένη απόκριση του ξενιστή και η παρουσία οργανικής δυσλειτουργίας. Αυτή η οργανική δυσλειτουργία δεν είναι πάντα φανερή και για το λόγο αυτό,η πιθανότητα ύπαρξής της θα πρέπει να λαμβάνεται υπόψη σε κάθε ασθενή που εμφανίζει μία λοίμωξη. Ο κλινικός και βιολογικός φαινότυπος της σήψης τροποποιείται από την αρχική ασθένεια, τις μακροχρόνιες συννοσηρότητες και τη φαρμακευτική αγωγή(Singer,2016).The syndrome of sepsis is formed from factors of pathogens microorganisms and host, such as the sex,or race and others geneticists factors,or age, the co-morbidities of host, the environment,and has characteristics where evolving with over of time.The feature that one which differentiates sepsis from the infection is or deviating or disturbed response of host and or presence organic malfunction.The organic malfunction is not always obvious and for that reason this, or chance existence her I will must to taken consideration in each patient where displays a infection.The clinical and biological phenotype of sepsis amended from ooriginal disease,the long-term co-morbidities and the pharmaceutical treatment(Singer,2016)

Service availability and QoS of mobile satellite systems

SIGLEAvailable from British Library Document Supply Centre- DSC:DXN055100 / BLDSC - British Library Document Supply CentreGBUnited Kingdo

Maximum-SNR transmit antenna selection with two receive antennas is polynomially solvable

Summarization: The recent increased interest in massive multiple-input multiple-output systems, combined with the cost of the analog RF chains, necessitates the use of efficient antenna selection (AS) schemes. Capacity or SNR optimal AS has been considered to require an exhaustive search among all possible antenna subsets. In this work, we prove that the maximum-SNR transmit AS problem with two receive antennas is polynomially solvable and develop an algorithm that solves it with quartic complexity, independently of the number of selected antennas. Our method also applies to receive AS with two transmit antennas.Παρουσιάστηκε στο: Intern. Conf. Acoust., Speech and Signal Pro