ANALYSIS OF PRODUCTION TRENDS INJURIES IN RUSSIA IN 2000-2020

The analysis of trends in industrial injuries indicators for 2000-2020 has been carried out. in Russia and revealed their exponential decline. The adequacy of the obtained models 98-99% allows them to be used for forecasting. It was found that with an increase in funding for labor protection measures more than 14 thousand rubles / person. there is no significant decrease in the values of indicators

Reinsurance and Solvency Capital: Mitigating Insurance Companies’ Ruin Probability

ABSTRACT Context: insurance companies are important to society, since they guarantee financial protection to individuals from property losses, in addition to fostering the capital market through the allocation of guarantee assets. Thus, it is essential to evaluate the instruments that guarantee their long-term financial solvency. Among them are the adoption of reinsurance treaties, the sizing of the solvency capital, and the actuarial modeling of risk processes, which allow the measurement of the ruin probability. Objective: estimate the ruin probability in risk processes with the adoption of reinsurance contracts (quota share and excess of loss), compared to scenarios without such treaties. Methods: the Cramér-Lundberg process was simulated using the Monte Carlo method, adjusting several probabilistic distributions to the severity of the compound Poisson process, which is calibrated with a set of 3,917,863 real microdata, from 30 insurance lines of business. Results: it was found that, although each branch presents particularities in the claim severity, the correct choice of reinsurance (proportional or not) implies the reduction of the ruin probability for a fixed solvency capital. Conclusion: the appropriate choice of the reinsurance contract, especially when there is evidence of high kurtosis in the claim values, intensifies the exponential decline in the relationship between the solvency capital and the ruin probability.

Resseguro e Capital de Solvência: Atenuantes da Probabilidade de Ruína de Seguradoras

ABSTRACT Context: insurance companies are important to society, since they guarantee financial protection to individuals from property losses, in addition to fostering the capital market through the allocation of guarantee assets. Thus, it is essential to evaluate the instruments that guarantee their long-term financial solvency. Among them are the adoption of reinsurance treaties, the sizing of the solvency capital, and the actuarial modeling of risk processes, which allow the measurement of the ruin probability. Objective: estimate the ruin probability in risk processes with the adoption of reinsurance contracts (quota share and excess of loss), compared to scenarios without such treaties. Methods: the Cramér-Lundberg process was simulated using the Monte Carlo method, adjusting several probabilistic distributions to the severity of the compound Poisson process, which is calibrated with a set of 3,917,863 real microdata, from 30 insurance lines of business. Results: it was found that, although each branch presents particularities in the claim severity, the correct choice of reinsurance (proportional or not) implies the reduction of the ruin probability for a fixed solvency capital. Conclusion: the appropriate choice of the reinsurance contract, especially when there is evidence of high kurtosis in the claim values, intensifies the exponential decline in the relationship between the solvency capital and the ruin probability.

Impact of visits on the microclimates of caves, Experimental evidence from Škocjan Caves

Tourism activities in caves can result in changes in the microclimates of caves. The natural microclimate in closed caves is constant due to the balance between cave air and cave walls, while in open caves exchanges with outside air influence the microclimate. Visits to caves, especially in closed smaller caves, can thus endanger the natural balance if the microclimate does not return to natural conditions quickly enough.Continuous monitoring of the temperature and concentration of carbon dioxide in Škocjan Caves enables the assessment of the impact of visits. For this purpose, we used data measured in the relatively closed Silent Cave, at the locations named Calvary (Kalvarija), Tent (Šotor), and Passage (Prehod) in 2016, and in the wide open Murmuring Cave, at the locations named Bridge (Most) and Rimstone Pools (Ponvice), in 2013. The outdoor air temperature, as measured at the Škocjan meteorological station on the surface plateau, was considered in both cases. Along the tourist part of Škocjan Caves, the most closed part of the cave in Silent Cave is the location at Calvary, when the entrance doors through an artificially dug tunnel are closed. During the visits, the microclimate is subjected to draughts through open doors and to anthropogenic emissions. The data suggest that the influence of draughts predominates over direct anthropogenic emissions. In winter or on cold days air flows upwards and through the tunnel out of the cave, whereas in summer or on warm days it flows downwards. In such cases, the CO2 concentration decreases markedly due to the downwards chimney effect as the concentration in the outside air is much lower than in the cave. The data show that the temperature overnight and towards morning always returns to its natural value even in this rather small location in the cave. The changes in CO2 concentration persist for a longer period, until the time of the first visit the next morning, when it is again perturbed by a new visit. The data on time courses support the theoretically estimated characteristic of the exponential decline of disturbances backward towards natural conditions, depending on the size of a cave and on the efficiency of exchanges with its walls. For tem­perature, this characteristic time tT is about three to six hours at the Calvary site. The return of CO2 to natural conditions tCO2 is longer and its estimate less reliable than the one for temperature. In the wide-open and large Murmuring Cave, the impact of visits is negligible throughout the year. In this part of the cave we can observe the influence of external daily and annual changes, the amplitudes of which get smaller, and their phase lags bigger, deeper in the cave.

Safety, Tolerability, and Pharmacokinetics of Telacebec (Q203), a New Antituberculosis Agent, in Healthy Subjects

Telacebec (Q203) is a potent drug candidate under clinical development for the treatment of drug-naïve and drug-resistant tuberculosis. The first-in-human randomized, placebo-controlled, double-blind, dose-escalation Phase 1A trial (Q203-TB-PI-US001) was conducted to evaluate the safety, tolerability, and pharmacokinetics of telacebec. A total of 56 normal, healthy, male and female subjects (42 active and 14 placebo) were enrolled in the study. The doses of telacebec were 10 mg (Cohort 1), 30 mg (Cohort 2), 50 mg (Cohort 3), 100 mg (Cohort 4), 200 mg (Cohort 5), 400 mg (Cohort 6), and 800 mg (Cohort 7) in a fasted state. Subjects participating in Cohort 4 were also enrolled in Cohort 8 to investigate the food effect on the pharmacokinetics of telacebec after a high-fat meal. In all subjects dosed with telacebec (10 – 800 mg), telacebec was well tolerated and did not lead to any significant or serious adverse events. Following a single oral administration of telacebec (10 – 800 mg), telacebec plasma concentration reached the maximal plasma concentration (C max ) in average 2.0 – 3.5 h and showed multi-exponential decline thereafter. The area under the plasma concentration vs. time curve (AUC) was approximately dose-proportional. A significant increase in plasma concentrations was observed in the fed condition compared with the fasted condition with the geometric mean ratio of 3.93 for C max . Moderate delay in T max (4.5 h) was also observed in the fed condition. These results, combined with the demonstrated activity against drug-sensitive and multidrug-resistant Mycobacterium tuberculosis , support further investigation of telacebec for the treatment of tuberculosis.

Dynamics and turnover of memory CD8 T cell responses following yellow fever vaccination

Understanding how immunological memory lasts a lifetime requires quantifying changes in the number of memory cells as well as how their division and death rates change over time. We address these questions by using a statistically powerful mixed-effects differential equations framework to analyze data from two human studies that follow CD8 T cell responses to the yellow fever vaccine (YFV-17D). Models were first fit to the frequency of YFV-specific memory CD8 T cells and deuterium enrichment in those cells 42 days to 1 year post-vaccination. A different dataset, on the loss of YFV-specific CD8 T cells over three decades, was used to assess out of sample predictions of our models. The commonly used exponential and bi-exponential decline models performed relatively poorly. Models with the cell loss following a power law (exactly or approximately) were most predictive. Notably, using only the first year of data, these models accurately predicted T cell frequencies up to 30 years post-vaccination. Our analyses suggest that division rates of these cells drop and plateau at a low level (0.1% per day, ∼ double the estimated values for naive T cells) within one year following vaccination, whereas death rates continue to decline for much longer. Our results show that power laws can be predictive for T cell memory, a finding that may be useful for vaccine evaluation and epidemiological modeling. Moreover, since power laws asymptotically decline more slowly than any exponential decline, our results help explain the longevity of immune memory phenomenologically.

Simulated impacts of vertical distributions of black carbon aerosol on meteorology and PM_2.5 concentrations in Beijing during severe haze events

Vertical profiles of black carbon (BC) play a critical role in BC-meteorology interaction which influences PM2.5 (particulate matter with a diameter of 2.5 μm or less) concentrations. In this study, we used the Weather Research and Forecasting with Chemistry model (WRF-Chem) coupled with an improved integrated process (IPR) analysis scheme to investigate the direct radiative effect (DRE) of BC with different vertical profiles on meteorology and PM2.5 concentrations in Beijing during two severe haze events (11–12 December 2016 and 16–19 December 2016). The vertical profiles of BC in Beijing collected by King-Air350 aircraft can be classified into two types: the first type was characterized by decreases in BC concentration with altitude, which was the case mainly controlled by local emissions; the second type had maximum BC concentration around 900 hPa, which was mainly affected by regional transport from the polluted south/southwest region. Compared with measurements in Beijing, the model overestimated BC concentrations by 87.4 % at the surface and underestimated BC mass by 14.9 % at altitudes of 300–900 m altitude as averaged over the two pollution events. The BC DRE with the default vertical profiles from the model heated the air around 300 m altitude but the warming would be stronger when BC vertical profiles were modified for each day using observed data during the two severe haze events. Accordingly, compared to the simulation with the default vertical profiles of BC, planetary boundary layer heights (PBLH) were reduced further by 24.7 m (6.7 %) and 6.4 m (3.8 %) in Beijing and simulated PM2.5 concentrations were higher by 9.3 μg m−3 (4.1 %) and 5.5 μg m−3 (3.0 %) over central Beijing in the first and second haze events, respectively, with modified vertical profiles. Furthermore, we quantified by sensitivity experiments the roles of BC vertical profiles with six exponential decline functions (C(h) = C0 × e−h/hs and hs = 0.35, 0.48, 0.53, 0.79, 0.82 and 0.96) parameterized on the basis of the observations and the vertical profile dominated by regional transport. A larger hs leads to a sharper decline of BC concentrations with altitude (less BC at the surface and more BC in the upper atmosphere), resulting in a stronger cooling at the surface (+0.21 with hs of 0.35 vs. −0.13 °C with hs of 0.96) and hence larger reductions in PBLH (larger BC-induced increases in PM2.5). Relative to the simulation without BC DRE, the mean PM2.5 concentrations were increased by 5.5 μg m−3 (3.4 %) and 7.9 μg m−3 (4.9 %) with BC DRE when hs values were 0.35 and 0.96, respectively. Our results indicate that it is very important to have accurate vertical profiles of BC in simulations of meteorology and PM2.5 concentrations during haze events.

Wolbachia in scale insects: a distinct pattern of infection frequencies and potential transfer routes via ant associates

Wolbachia is one of the most successful endosymbiotic bacteria of arthropods. Known as the master of manipulation, Wolbachia can induce a wide range of phenotypes in its host that can have far-reaching ecological and evolutionary consequences and may be exploited for disease and pest control. However, our knowledge of Wolbachia's distribution and infection rate is unevenly distributed across arthropod groups such as scale insects. We fitted a distribution of within-species prevalence of Wolbachia to our data and compared it to distributions fitted to an up-to-date dataset compiled from surveys across all arthropods. The estimated distribution parameters indicate a Wolbachia infection frequency of 43.6% (at a 10% prevalence threshold) in scale insects. Prevalence of Wolbachia in scale insects follows a distribution similar to exponential decline (most species are predicted to have low prevalence infections), in contrast to the U-shaped distribution estimated for other taxa (most species have a very low or very high prevalence). We observed no significant associations between Wolbachia infection and scale insect traits. Finally, we screened for Wolbachia in scale insect's ecological associates. We found a positive correlation between Wolbachia infection in scale insects and their ant associates, pointing to a possible route of horizontal transfer of Wolbachia.

The Impact of a Health-run on Remittances and Financial Inclusion

The study examines the impact of health runs or crises on financial remittances and inclusion. Data were collected through a survey questionnaire administered to a sample of 60 respondents made up of financial services employees and users of financial services, irrespective of their age and years of trade experience. Results show that remittances and financial inclusion levels should be affected adversely due to the coronavirus ( COVID-19) health run. The magnitude of the negative effect of a health crisis on financial remittances and inclusion as measured by the correlation matrix is strong, but comparatively the same for the assessed variables. Our findings reveal that a severe global health crisis would force an exponential decline in remittances and financial inclusion. Findings further reveal that there exists no relationship between financial remittances and financial inclusion under a health crisis. The study here recommends measures policymakers can use to boast financial flows and inclusion during a period of a severe global health crisis.

EARLY LABORATORY DIAGNOSIS OF COVID-19 BY ANTIGEN DETECTION IN BLOOD SAMPLES OF THE SARS-COV-2 NUCLEOCAPSID PROTEIN

The purpose of this study was to characterize the diagnostic performance of a newly developed enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) for detection of SARS-CoV-2 nucleocapsid protein (NP) in blood. Blood samples were collected during hospitalization of 165 inpatients with PCR-confirmed SARS-CoV-2 infection, and from 505 outpatients with relevant symptoms of COVID-19 simultaneously with PCR-testing. For the 143 inpatients who had their first blood sample collected within 2 weeks after PCR-confirmed infection, the diagnostic sensitivity of the ELISA was 91.6%. The mean NP concentration of the 131 ELISA-positive blood samples was 1,734 pg/ml (range: [10-3,840] pg/ml). An exponential decline in NP concentration was observed for 368 blood samples collected over the first 4 weeks after PCR-confirmed SARS-CoV-2 infection, and all blood samples taken later had an NP concentration below the 10 pg/ml diagnostic cut-off. The diagnostic sensitivity of the ELISA was 81.4% for the 43 blood samples collected from outpatients with a simultaneous positive PCR-test, and the mean NP concentration of the 35 ELISA-positive samples was 157 pg/ml (range: [10-1,377] pg/ml). For the 462 outpatients with a simultaneous negative PCR-test, the diagnostic specificity of the ELISA was 99.8%. In conclusion, the SARS-CoV-2 NP ELISA is a suitable laboratory diagnostic test for COVID-19. Particularly, for hospitals, where blood samples are readily available, screening of serum or plasma samples by ELISA can facilitate prevention of nosocomial infections and reduce the requirement for laborious swab sampling and subsequent PCR-analysis to confirmatory tests.