scholarly journals Simulations of the spread of COVID-19 and control policies in Tunisia

Author(s):  
Slimane BenMiled ◽  
Amira Kebir

AbstractWe develop and analyze in this work an epidemiological model for COVID-19 using Tunisian data. Our aims are first to evaluate Tunisian control policies for COVID-19 and secondly to understand the effect of different screening, quarantine and containment strategies and the rule of the asymptomatic patients on the spread of the virus in the Tunisian population. With this work, we show that Tunisian control policies are efficient in screening infected and asymptomatic individuals and that if containment and curfew are maintained the epidemic will be quickly contained.

Author(s):  
Slimane Ben Miled ◽  
Amira Kebir

Background: On March 11, 2020, the WHO announced that the COVID-19 outbreak had become pandemic, indicating that it was au- tonomous on several continents. Tunisia’s targeted containment and screen- ing strategy aligns with the WHO’s initial guidelines. This method is now showing its limitations. Mass screening in some countries shows that asymptomatic patients play an important role in spreading the virus through the population.Objective: Our goals are first to assess Tunisia’s COVID-19 control policies, and then understand the effect of various detection, quarantine and confinement strategies and the rule of asymptomatic patients on the spread of the virus in the Tunisian population. Methods: We develop and analyze a mathematical and epidemiologi- cal models for COVID- 19 in Tunisia. The data come from the Tunisian Health Commission dataset. Results: We calibrate different parameters of the model based on the Tunisian data, we calculate the expression of the basic reproduction num- ber R0 as a function of the model parameters and, finally, we carry out simulations of interventions and compare different strategies for suppress- ing and controlling the epidemic. Conclusions: We show that Tunisia’s control policies are effective in screening infected and asymptomatic persons.


2021 ◽  
pp. 096466392110208
Author(s):  
Riikka Kotanen

In the context of home, violence remains more accepted when committed against children than adults. Normalisation of parental violence has been documented in attitudinal surveys, professional practices, and legal regulation. For example, in many countries violent disciplining of children is the only legal form of interpersonal violence. This study explores the societal invisibility and normalisation of parental violence as a crime by analysing legislation and control policies regulating the division of labour and involvement between social welfare and criminal justice authorities. An empirical case study from Finland, where all forms of parental violence were legally prohibited in 1983, is used to elucidate the divergence between (criminal) law and control policies. The analysis demonstrates how normalisation operates at the policy-level where, within the same system of control that criminalised these acts, structural hindrances are built to prevent criminal justice interventions.


2018 ◽  
Vol 2018 ◽  
pp. 1-9 ◽  
Author(s):  
Chi-Wei Chang ◽  
Kuo-meng Liao ◽  
Yi-Ting Chang ◽  
Sheng-Hung Wang ◽  
Ying-chun Chen ◽  
...  

Background. It has been reported that harmonics of radial pulse is related to coronary artery disease (CAD) in patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM). It is still unclear whether or not the first harmonics of the radial pulse spectrum is an early independent predictor of silent coronary artery disease (SCAD) and adverse cardiac events (ACE). Objectives. To measure the risk of SCAD in patients with T2DM and also to survey whether or not an increment of the first harmonic (C1) of the radial pulse increases ACE. Methods. 1968 asymptomatic individuals with T2DM underwent radial pulse wave measurement. First harmonic of the radial pressure wave, C1, was calculated. Next, the new occurrence of ACE and the new symptoms and signs of coronary artery disease were recorded. The follow-up period lasted for 14.7 ± 3.5 months. Results. Out of 1968 asymptomatic individuals with T2DM, ACE was detected in 239 (12%) of them during the follow-up period. The logrank test demonstrated that the cumulative incidence of ACE in patients with C1 above 0.96 was greater than that in those patients with C1 below 0.89 (P<0.01). By comparing the data of patients with C1 smaller than the first quartile and the patients with C1 greater than the third quartile, the hazard ratios were listed as follows: ACE (hazard ratio, 2.29; 95% CI, 1.55–3.37), heart failure (hazard ratio, 2.22; 95% CI, 1.21–4.09), myocardial infarction (hazard ratio, 2.44; 95% CI, 1.51–3.93), left ventricular dysfunction (Hazard ratio, 2.01; 95% CI, 0.86–4.70), and new symptoms and signs for coronary artery disease (hazard ratio, 2.03; 95% CI, 1.45–2.84). As C1 increased, the risk for composite ACE (P<0.001 for trend) and for coronary disease (P<0.001 for trend) also increased. The hazard ratio and trend for cardiovascular-cause mortality were not significant. Conclusions. This study showed that C1 of the radial pulse wave is correlated with cardiovascular events. Survival analysis showed that C1 value is an independent predictor of ACE and SCAD in asymptomatic patients with T2DM. Thus, screening for the first harmonic of the radial pulse may improve the risk stratification of cardiac events and SCAD in asymptomatic patients although they had no history of coronary artery disease or angina-related symptom.


Author(s):  
Teppei Sakano ◽  
Mitsuyoshi Urashima ◽  
Hiroyuki Takao ◽  
Kohei Takeshita ◽  
Hiroe Kobashi ◽  
...  

In the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, more than half of the cases of transmission may occur via asymptomatic individuals, which makes it difficult to contain. However, whether viral load in the throat during admission is different between asymptomatic and symptomatic patients is not well known. By conducting a prospective cohort study of patients with asymptomatic or mild COVID-19, cycle threshold (Ct) values of the polymerase chain reaction test for COVID-19 were examined every other day during admission. The Ct values during admission increased more steadily in symptomatic patients and febrile patients than in asymptomatic patients, with significance (p = 0.01 and p = 0.004, respectively), although the Ct values as a whole were not significantly different between the two groups. Moreover, the Ct values as a whole were higher in patients with dysosmia/dysgeusia than in those without it (p = 0.02), whereas they were lower in patients with a headache than those without (p = 0.01). Patients who were IgG-positive at discharge maintained higher Ct values, e.g., more than 35, during admission than those with IgG-negative (p = 0.03). Assuming that viral load and Ct values are negatively associated, the viral loads as a whole and their changes by time may be different by symptoms and immune reaction, i.e., IgG-positive at discharge.


Author(s):  
Dickson K. W. Chiu ◽  
Patrick C. K. Hung ◽  
Kevin Kwok

The demand is increasing to replace the current cost ineffective and bad time-to-market hardcopy publishing and delivery of content in the financial world. Financial Enterprise Content Management Services (FECMS) have been deployed in intra-enterprises and over the Internet to network with customers. This paper presents Web service technologies that enable a unified scalable FECMS framework for intra-enterprise content flow and inter-enterprise interactions, combining existing sub-systems and disparate business functions. Additionally, the authors demonstrate the key privacy and access control policies for internal content flow management (such as content editing, approval, and usage) as well as external access control for the Web portal and institutional programmatic users. Through the modular design of an integrated FECMS, this research illustrates how to systematically specify privacy and access control policies in each part of the system with Enterprise Privacy Authorization Language (EPAL). Finally, a case study in an international banking enterprise demonstrates how both integration and control can be achieved.


Viruses ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
pp. 7 ◽  
Author(s):  
Denis de Castro Silva ◽  
Ednelza da Silva Graça Amoras ◽  
Tuane Carolina Ferreira Moura ◽  
Felipe Teixeira Lopes ◽  
Samara Tatielle Monteiro Gomes ◽  
...  

Human T-lymphotropic virus type 1 (HTLV-1) deregulates the immune system and cell cycle, resulting in loss of immune tolerance and disease, including HTLV-1-associated myelopathy/tropical spastic paraparesis (HAM/TSP). Three prime repair exonuclease 1 (TREX1) maintains innate immune tolerance of the host and host-cell permissiveness to retroviral infections. TREX1 polymorphisms may influence the course of infection and autoimmune manifestations. The influence of TREX1 531C/T polymorphism was investigated in HTLV-1 infection and development of symptoms among 151 persons infected with HTLV-1 (32 HAM/TSP, 19 rheumatologic manifestations, two dermatitis, five more than one diagnosis, two probable HAM/TSP, and 91 asymptomatic individuals) and 100 uninfected persons in the control group. Polymorphism genotyping and proviral load quantification were performed by real-time polymerase chain reaction (PCR) and antinuclear antibodies (ANAs) were screened by an indirect immunofluorescence assay. No statistically significant difference was found in polymorphism genotype and allele frequencies between the infected and control groups. HAM/TSP patients showed higher frequency of TT genotype than asymptomatic persons (p = 0.0339). Proviral load was significantly higher among individuals with CT/TT genotypes and CC genotype carriers had lower proviral load and higher levels of proinflammatory cytokines. ANAs were present only in the HAM/TSP group. TREX1 531C>T polymorphism seems to be associated with TREX-1 regulation and HTLV-1 infection.


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