COVIDFast: A high-throughput and RNA extraction-free method for SARS-CoV-2 detection in swab (SwabFAST) or saliva (SalivaFAST)

There is an urgent need of having a rapid, high throughput, yet accurate SARS-COV-2 PCR testing to control the COVID19 pandemic. However, the RNA extraction step in conventional PCR creates a major bottle neck in the diagnostic process. In this paper we modified the CDC COVID-19 assay and developed an RNA-extraction free RT-qPCR assay for SARS-CoV-2, i.e. COVIDFast. Depending on sample types, the assay is further divided into SwabFAST, which uses anterior nares nasal swab, and SalivaFAST, which uses saliva. By utilizing the proprietary buffer for either swab or saliva samples, the performance of SwabFAST or SalivaFAST is equivalent to RNA-extraction SARS-CoV-2 RT-qPCR in both contrived and clinical samples. The limit of detection of either assay is 4 copies/uL. We further developed a semi-automatic system, which is easy to adapt by clinical lab for implementation of a high-throughput SARS-CoV-2 test. Working together with the COVIDCheck Colorado, we have tested over 400,000 samples using COVIDFast (83.62% SwabFAST and 16.38% SalivaFAST) in less than a year, resulting in significant clinical contribution in the battle against COVID-19 during the pandemic.

Effects of salinity and food on growth and survival rate of mangrove snail (\(\textit{Nerita balteata}\) Reeve, 1885) at the spat larvae stage

Mangrove snail (Nerita balteata) belongs to gastropoda species distributed in the coastal intertidal and offshore islands of Quang Ninh province. Although the artificial seeds production of this species have been successful but still having a bottle neck as a low survival rate in the process by veliger larvae are transformed into spat larvae stage. Experiments were conducted to determine effects of salinity and food on growth rate and survival rate of mangrove snail in the stage of spat larvae in Quang Ninh province. The results showed that the optimal salinity for growth and developtment of spat larvae was 25‰ that resulted in a absoluted growth rate of 16.5 ± 2.19 µm/day and survival rate of 26.5 ± 0.57% and significantly higher compared to other treatments. The diet of benthic microalgae (Navicula sp.) combined with formulated feed (AP0 and Frippak) were most suitable for the growth and development of mangrove snail at the spat larvae stage with absoluted growth rate of 25,7 ± 1,28 µm/day; Whereas the survival rate of larvae of 32,3 ± 2,52% was significantly higher than those in the other treatments.

Self-conscious intelligent technological societies in the universe: a simple direct approach to probable astrosociological realistic scenarios

We present an alternative equation to estimate the probable number N of self-conscious intelligent technological societies (SCITSs) within the radius of the observable universe. This equation has only one poorly-known factor, Pc, the SCITS's formation probability, which can be estimated within an uncertainty by a factor of 102 (10−11 ≤ Pc ≤ 10−9) by applying the restriction imposed by Fermi's Paradox. The SCITS's formation rate for a typical spiral galaxy is then estimated as ≈1 civ Gyr−1. For a very optimistic maximum life expectancy ≈108 yr, the conclusion is that two civilizations never coexist in the same galaxy. Our estimated values for Pc are compatible with current biological and astrophysical evidences. We also propose an alternative astrosociological classification scheme which enables us to speculate about possible evolutionary paths for SCITSs in the universe. The so-called ‘Closed Bottle Neck’ (CBN) scenario suggests that civilizations are no exit evolutionary ways. We argue that simply there would not be interstellar travels nor Galaxy colonization or a Galactic Club. Thus Fermi's Paradox results eliminated, and the perspectives about the future of our own civilization may not be positive.

Response Surface Mesh with the Outer Input Method

Artificial intelligence in general and optimization tasks applied to the design of very efficient structures rely on response surfaces to forecast the output of functions, and are vital part of these methodologies. Yet they have important limitations, since greater precisions require greater data sets, thus, training or updating larger response surfaces become computationally expensive or unfeasible. This has been an important bottle neck limitation to achieve more promising results, rendering many optimization and AI tasks with a low performance.To solve this challenge, a new methodology created to segment response surfaces is hereby presented. Differently than other similar methodologies, this algorithm named outer input method has a very simple and robust operation, generating a mesh of near isopopulated partitions of inputs which share similitude. The great advantage it offers is that it can be applied to any data set with any type of distribution, such as random, Cartesian, or clustered, for domains with any number of coordinates, significantly simplifying any metamodel with a mesh ensemble.This study demonstrates how one of the most known and precise metamodel denominated Kriging, yet with expensive computation costs, can be significantly simplified with a response surface mesh, increasing training speed up to 567 times, while using a quad-core parallel processing. Since individual mesh elements can be parallelized or updated individually, its faster operational speed has its speed increased.

Evaluasi Kinerja Apill dan Geometrik Simpang 3 Sungai Bengkel Kota Bengkalis

Third junction of Sungai Bengkel was a Signalized Intersection which a hasn’t have traffic jam ,which has three approach, are North approach, West approach and East approach. However, the alinyemen for the North approach has problems that make it difficult for vehicles, especially four-wheelers to turn because the effect bottle neck resulting in the slow motion of the vehicle and change of phase time . the problem solving, the evalution of traffic light and intersection geometry were carried out by widening the alinyemen for the North approach and East approaches and doing changes in cycle time. The purpose of evaluating the performance of traffic light and Geometrics at the third intersection of Sungai Bengkel is to determine the value of the degree of saturation and to know the performance of the intersection.At the intersection planning, it refers to the PKJI 2014 for Intersection Performance, while for the Geometrics it refers to Module 4 of the Ministry of Public Works and Public Housing on Geometric Planning of Plane Intersections.Based on the calculation results of the Sungai Bengkel junction performance indicate that, the degree of saturation < 0.85,which is 0.529 for North, 0.537 for East, and 0.570 for West .With the radius is 15 m, and the cycle time of traffic light 50 second, with the delay time as long as 17 second/pcu

COVID-19 Severity among Cancer-COVID Patients with Different Types of Cancer: A Case Series of Five Patients

Background: People with malignancy are under increased threat in the current COVID-19 pandemic. It is crucial to study the severity of COVID-19 in different cancer type as the microenvironments are different. Besides, the effect on specific organs should be studied to understand the long-term consequences of both the diseases and its treatment. Methods: In our retrospective case series, we are presenting degree of severity in 5 cancer-COVID patients based on their clinical characteristics. All the patients were RT-PCR confirmed COVID-19 patients with malignancy. The demographic and clinical data of the patients were retrieved from the hospital database.Results: The cancers include; stomach (1), bladder (2), glioma (3), lungs (4) and hard palate cancer (5). Patient-4 and 5 were receiving chemotherapy when they got infected and had highly dysregulated liver function and higher CT severity score (19/25) compared to the nonrecipients. In patient-2 inflammatory and other haematological parameters we highly dysregulated suggesting a possible bottle neck of older age. Interestingly in the patient-3 the COVID-19 markers like lymphocyte, neutrophil and platelet levels were close to or within the normal limits unlike other patients. Conclusions: All the patents included in our report died during hospitalization. The patients receiving chemotherapy had possible impaired liver function and died early compared to the nonrecipients. The characteristic COVID-19 markers like lymphopenia, neutrophilia and thrombocytopenia did not occur in the glioma patient. The effect of cancer-COVID and its treatment on specific organs like the liver and kidney need to be studied during treatment and follow-up.

Small Alcohols as Surfactants and Hydrate Promotors

Many methods to produce hydrate reservoirs have been proposed in the last three decades. Thermal stimulation and injection of thermodynamic hydrate inhibitors are just two examples of methods which have seen reduced attention due to their high cost. However, different methods for producing hydrates are not evaluated thermodynamically prior to planning expensive experiments or pilot tests. This can be due to lack of a thermodynamic toolbox for the purpose. Another challenge is the lack of focus on the limitations of the hydrate phase transition itself. The interface between hydrate and liquid water is a kinetic bottle neck. Reducing pressure does not address this problem. An injection of CO2 will lead to the formation of a new CO2 hydrate. This hydrate formation is an efficient heat source for dissociating hydrate since heating breaks the hydrogen bonds, directly addressing the problem of nano scale kinetic limitation. Adding limited amounts of N2 increases the permeability of the injection gas. The addition of surfactant increases gas/water interface dynamics and promotes heterogeneous hydrate formation. In this work we demonstrate a residual thermodynamic scheme that allows thermodynamic analysis of different routes for hydrate formation and dissociation. We demonstrate that 20 moles per N2 added to the CO2 is thermodynamically feasible for generating a new hydrate into the pores. When N2 is added, the available hydrate formation enthalpy is reduced as compared to pure CO2, but is still considered sufficient. Up to 3 mole percent ethanol in the free pore water is also thermodynamically feasible. The addition of alcohol will not greatly disturb the ability to form new hydrate from the injection gas. Homogeneous hydrate formation from dissolved CH4 and/or CO2 is limited in amount and not important. However, the hydrate stability limits related to concentration of hydrate former in surrounding water are important. Mineral surfaces can act as hydrate promotors through direct adsorption, or adsorption in water that is structured by mineral surface charges. These aspects will be quantified in a follow-up paper, along with kinetic modelling based on thermodynamic modelling in this work.

Evaluating an internet-delivered fear conditioning and extinction protocol using response times and affective ratings.

Pavlovian fear conditioning is widely used to study mechanisms of fear learning, but high-throughput studies are hampered by the labor-intensive nature of examining participants in the lab. To circumvent this bottle-neck, fear conditioning tasks have been developed for remote delivery. Previous studies have examined remotely delivered fear conditioning protocols using expectancy ratings and affective ratings. Here we replicate and extend these findings using an internet-delivered version of the Screaming Lady paradigm, evaluating the effects on negative affective ratings and response time to an auditory probe during stimulus presentations. In a sample of 80 adults, we observed clear evidence of both fear acquisition and extinction using affective ratings. Response times were faster when probed early, but not later, during presentation of stimuli paired with an aversive scream. The response time findings are at odds with previous lab-based studies showing slower responses to threat-predicting cues. The findings underscore the feasibility of employing remotely delivered fear conditioning paradigms with affective ratings as outcome, and highlights the need for further research examining optimal parameters for concurrent response time measures or alternate modes of non-verbal estimation of conditioned responses in Pavlovian conditioning protocols.

Production Matters

Recent absorbed residue studies have confirmed that ceramic and shell containers were used for consuming Datura in precolumbian times. Until now, no one has identified what tools precolumbian people used to produce a concentrated hallucinogenic concoction. In this study, we used mass spectrometry to identify Datura residues (a flowering plant with hallucinogenic properties) in two late precolumbian composite bottles from the Central Arkansas River valley. Unlike the construction of most Mississippian bottles, the bottles in this study are unique because ceramic disks with a series of concentric perforations were incorporated in the bottles at the juncture of the bottle neck with the globular portion of the body. The organic residue analysis revealed Datura residues in both bottles. We argue that the internal clay disks served as strainers that allowed Datura producers to separate the hallucinogenic alkaloids from the Datura flower to produce a powerful liquid beverage.

Hydrogen Storage in Untreated/Ammonia-Treated and Transition Metal-Decorated (Pt, Pd, Ni, Rh, Ir and Ru) Activated Carbons

Hydrogen storage may be the bottle neck in hydrogen economy, where hydrogen spillover is in dispute as an effective mechanism. In this context, activated carbon (AC) was doped with nitrogen by using ammonia gas, and was further decorated with platinum, palladium, nickel, rhodium, iridium and ruthenium, via an ultrasound-assisted impregnation method, with average particle sizes of around 74, 60, 78, 61, 67 and 38 nm, respectively. The hydrogen storage was compared, before and after modification at both ambient and cryogenic temperatures, for exploring the spillover effect, induced by the decorating transition metals. Ammonia treatment improved hydrogen storage at both 298 K and 77 K, for the samples, where this enhancement was more remarkable at 298 K. Nevertheless, metal decoration reduced the hydrogen uptake of AC for all of the decorated samples other than palladium at cryogenic temperature, but improved it remarkably, especially for iridium and palladium, at room temperature. This observation suggested that metal decoration’s counter effect overcomes hydrogen spillover at cryogenic temperatures, while the opposite takes place at ambient temperature.