The contribution of reduced COVID-19 test time in controlling the spread of the disease: A simulation-based approach

The novel coronavirus COVID-19 has known a large spread over the globe threatening human health. Recommendations from WHO and specialists insist on testing on a mass scale. However, health systems do not have enough resources. The current process requires the isolation of testees in the hospitals’ isolation rooms for several hours until the test results are revealed, limiting hospitals’ capacities to test large numbers of cases. The aim of this paper was to estimate the impact of reducing the COVID-19 test time on controlling the pandemic spread, through increasing hospitals’ capacities to test on a mass scale. First, a discrete-event simulation was used to model and simulate the COVID-19 testing process in Morocco. Second, a mathematical model was developed to demonstrate the effect of accurate identification of infected cases on controlling the disease’s spread. Simulation results showed that hospitals’ testing capacities could be increased six times if the test duration fell from 10 hours to 10 minutes. The reduction of test time would increase testing capacities, which help to identify all the infected cases. In contrast, the simulation results indicated that if the infected population is not accurately identified and no precautionary measures are taken, the virus will continue to spread until it reaches the total population. Reducing test time is a vital component of the response to the COVID-19 pandemic. It is essential for the effective implementation of policies to contain the virus.

Investigating the Baryon Cycle in Interacting Dwarfs with the Very Large Array and Pan-STARRS

We present resolved H i synthesis maps from the Very Large Array of three interacting dwarf systems: the NGC 3664 dwarf pair, the NGC 3264 dwarf pair, and the UGC 4638 dwarf triplet. All three dwarf systems are captured at various stages of interaction and span a range of environments. We detect clear hallmarks of tidal interactions through the presence of H i bridges and diffuse H i extensions that surround the dwarfs. We overlay the H i data on Pan-STARRS r-band images and find further evidence of tidal interactions through coincident distorted H i and tidal stellar features in NGC 3264 and UGC 4638, and an unwound spiral arm pointing toward its smaller companion in NGC 3264. In UGC 4638, both the gas and diffuse stars are extended to similar radii east of the primary, which could indicate that the smaller dwarf in the system has already completed one pass through the primary. We additionally find that our three systems, and those from the Local Volume TiNy Titans survey, are not H i deficient and thus the interaction has not resulted in a loss of gas from the systems. A comparison with noninteracting dwarf galaxies shows that the interactions have a significant impact on the kinematics of the systems. Our new resolved H i kinematics, combined with detailed stellar and H i morphologies, provide crucial constraints for future dynamical modeling of hierarchical mergers and the baryon cycle at the low-mass scale.

Prevalence of cestodes infection among school children of urban parts of Lower Dir district, Pakistan

Tapeworms of zoonotic importance have been described as a leading public health problem. Current research was aim to assess the prevalence of tapeworms among 5-12years school children residing in district Lower Dir, Pakistan from January 2019-December 2019. The wet mount preparation in saline/iodine/methods were used for stool examination. Data was analyzed using appropriate descriptive, static methods. Of the 400 children studied 71.7% were infected with one or more species of intestinal parasites. Single infection of cestode species was found in 69 individuals with 17.2% prevalence and multiple parasitic infections were identified in 19.7% (n=79/400) individuals. The multiple infection were comprised as 10% (n=40) double, 6.75% (n=27) triple and 3% (n=12) quadruple. A total of 9 species of helminths and one species of protozoan infection. Among the helminths Ascaris lumbricoides was the most prevalent 33.1% (n=95), Taenia saginata 22.6% (n=65), hookworm 19.8% (n=57), Hymenolepis nana 18.8% (n=54), Enterobius vermicularis and Hymenolepis diminuta 1.39% (n=4each), Trichuris trichura 1.04% (n=3), Toxocara spp 0.69% (n=2) and Schistosoma japonicum 0.34% (n=1) were reported. One protozoan species was Cryptosporidium spp 0.69% (n=2) in current study. In case of A.lumbricoides, hookworm, E.vermicularis, T.trichura, T.saginata, H.nana and H.diminuta the male children of below 8 years of age were highly infected. Other infections are reported in the same prevalence with slight difference if any. We conclude that there is a need for mass scale campaigns to create awareness regarding health and hygiene in children and the need for development of effective poverty control programs because deworming alone is not adequate to control parasitic infections.

Virtual Medicine, Virtual Disease, Real Consequences

This chapter investigates the hypothesis that the COVID-19 pandemic was the perfect storm due to the misalignment of competing elements of the US healthcare system, the economic commoditization of disease, the economic commoditization of healthcare delivery, and inadequate data to inform medical decision making on a mass scale. The culmination of a decades-long devolution away from patient care to healthcare or more appropriately sick-care created a system that was unable to quickly find the common ground needed to deal with the pandemic known as COVID-19.

Self-Presenting Virtually for Remote Social Influence

On the Social Web, social influencers have outsized effects on their peer followers and can influence worldviews, political decisions, aspirations, lifestyles, and buying-and-selling behaviors for varying periods of time. Social influencers attain their influence based on various factors (or combinations): the sharing of insider knowledge, skills, and abilities (KSAs) or information; entertainment; charisma, personality, appearance, communications; engaging storytelling; social identity building for the followers; and parasocial relationship building. This work explores how social influencers self-present to attract and maintain a mass-scale remote audience in a competitive virtual popularity game. This explores “peer lessons” about social influence by masters, based on observed strategic and tactical communications from social video, in a particular target domain, namely survival in the more remote reaches of Alaska.

Role of Indian Print and Digital Media in Learning Analytics

There is a pressing need for data management and learning management systems. Educational data mining and learning analytics are two related aspects of educational technology that promote an overall effective teaching-learning system. The news media has the potential to act as a tool of learning analytics since they can easily access information at a mass scale. There are instances of leading newspapers organizing different educational programs where students from all the social layers have an opportunity to participate. A review of the programs reveals that all the programs collect and analyze educational data, which can form a research base of learning analytics. This chapter presents the description of three such educational programs organized by the leading media houses of India. This chapter also reflects on the contribution to learning management systems and educational data mining for the improvement of the overall educational system.

Observed Mass-Scale Call-Response Dynamics Between Public Health Officials and the American Public in the Surging COVID-19 Pandemic Summer 2020

By any objective measure, the United States has mishandled its response to the SARS-CoV-2 and COVID-19 outbreak, with 177,394 deaths and 5,745,721 cases. In the world, there have been some 796,330 deaths and 22,848,030 validated coronavirus cases (with 15,500,447 recovered). The real rates are thought to be 3x – 10x higher given the low access to tests. In this moment, there are multiple epidemics ongoing in the U.S., resulting in massive government and private industry expenditures, disrupted markets, and social roiling. In journalistic coverage and social image sets, the interactive call-response between public health officials and the general American public may be seen in the Summer of 2020 (in a time of phased shutdowns and re-openings and re-closings). This work offers an original content analysis of over 2,431 journalistic articles and 2,224 social images captured July 3, 2020 to understand where the call-response communications broke down and the message got lost at enormous social and personal cost. A sidebar offers an analysis of COVID-19 social memes.

Criminological Aspects of Sport Policy

Sport policy is a purposeful activity of various subjects connected with organizing and holding sports competitions. Such activity may be state-organized, administrative, financial, commercial, engineering and construction-related, military, security, professional, corporate, training, entertainment, relatively mass-scale, agent, referee, qualifying, and others. It should be taken into account that, besides officially recognized sports, there are also illegal competitions. Criminological aspects, connected with the possibility of crime, can be found everywhere. All of these leads to the necessity of establishing and developing sport criminology as a component of sport policy. Criminological aspects of sport policy are especially evident in the market conditions. Their analysis is necessary for the optimization of preventive work in the most important areas. The authors single out three such areas: criminal law prevention of crime in sports, enforcement of prevention policy for criminal and criminogenic sports, and counteracting sport extremism. The effectiveness of work in the first area is close to zero because special «sport» criminal law norms are not and will not be enforced. The analysis of the second area leads the authors to the conclusion that it is necessary to intensify the counteraction to criminal sports, primarily, dog fighting and street racing. As for the criminogenic sports, they can be conditionally broken into two categories: those promoting violence and cruelty, and those equipping athletes with the skills interesting for the criminal community (organized criminal groups). The first category includes MMA-type female fights. This disgusting spectacle, broadcast on TV, is absolutely contrary both to the female nature and to the traditional values of peoples of Russia. Such fights should be prohibited in the Russian Federation. The third area requires monitoring to prevent fans’ movements from turning into extremist organizations. The promotion of patriotic feelings among fans should be recognized as a strategic direction in the prevention of sport extremism.

Myths of nationhood: Cultural nationalism, political Islam, and the movement against sculptures in Bangladesh

In November 2020, the government of Bangladesh announced plans to erect a 25-foot-tall sculpture of Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman in the national memorial located in the country's capital, Dhaka. This announcement caused a massive uproar among the religious ulema and quickly turned into a quasi-mass scale movement, sparking a torrent of political and religious rhetoric from both sides. This article argues that behind the religious rhetoric, the true cause underlying this fracas was purely political in nature, and tied to the clash of two contrasting nationalist dogmas. The country's Islamic political parties and the Qawmi madrasas leaders face a clear and perceived threat from the nationalist narratives expounded by the ruling political party, the Bangladesh Awami League, and this movement was a retaliatory attempt and will not be the last.