Integrated PCR testing and extended window contact tracing system for COVID-19 to improve comprehensiveness and speed

Testing and contact tracing are standard tools for controlling the spread of COVID-191. Their effectiveness hinges on a sequence of processes encompassing testing coverage and timeliness, testing quality and speed of reporting, contact tracing speed and comprehensiveness and compliance with advice given2–6. We optimized this sequence of processes in the context of a public health program targeting around 33,000 higher education students through a combination of low barrier PCR testing with rapid turn-around-time, close integration of testing and tracing teams and IT infrastructure, community engagement and the implementation of bidirectional contact tracing by extending the contact tracing window from 2 to 7 days before symptom onset or test of the index case. We anticipate this combined intervention to help improve epidemic control.

Integrated PCR testing and extended window contact tracing system for COVID-19 to improve comprehensiveness and speed

Testing and contact tracing are standard tools for controlling the spread of COVID-191. Their effectiveness hinges on a sequence of processes encompassing testing coverage and timeliness, testing quality and speed of reporting, contact tracing speed and comprehensiveness and compliance with advice given2–6. We optimized this sequence of processes in the context of a public health program targeting around 33,000 higher education students through a combination of low barrier PCR testing with rapid turn-around-time, close integration of testing and tracing teams and IT infrastructure, community engagement and the implementation of bidirectional contact tracing by extending the contact tracing window from 2 to 7 days before symptom onset or test of the index case. We anticipate this combined intervention to help improve epidemic control.

Qualitative Comparative Analysis Using R

A comprehensive introduction and teaching resource for state-of-the-art Qualitative Comparative Analysis (QCA) using R software. This guide facilitates the efficient teaching, independent learning, and use of QCA with the best available software, reducing the time and effort required when encountering not just the logic of a new method, but also new software. With its applied and practical focus, the book offers a genuinely simple and intuitive resource for implementing the most complete protocol of QCA. To make the lives of students, teachers, researchers, and practitioners as easy as possible, the book includes learning goals, core points, empirical examples, and tips for good practices. The freely available online material provides a rich body of additional resources to aid users in their learning process. Beyond performing core analyses with the R package QCA, the book also facilitates a close integration with the R package SetMethods allowing for a host of additional protocols for building a more solid and well-rounded QCA.

Oncology on FHIR: A Data Model for Distributed Cancer Research

In the field of oncology, a close integration of cancer research and patient care is indispensable. Although an exchange of data between health care providers and other institutions such as cancer registries has already been established in Germany, it does not take advantage of internationally coordinated health data standards. Translational cancer research would also benefit from such standards in the context of secondary data use. This paper employs use cases from the German Cancer Consortium (DKTK) to show how this gap can be closed using a harmonised FHIR-based data model, and how to apply it to an existing federated data platform.

Effect of sex and dyad composition on speech and gesture development of singleton and twin children

Children's early vocabulary shows sex differences – with boys having smaller vocabularies than age-comparable girls – a pattern that becomes evident in both singletons and twins. Twins also use fewer words than their singleton peers. However, we know relatively less about sex differences in early gesturing in singletons or twins, and also how singletons and twins might differ in their early gesture use. We examine the patterns of speech and gesture production of singleton and twin children, ages 0;10-to-3;4, during structured parent-child play. Boys and girls – singleton or twin – were similar in speech and gesture production, but singletons used a greater amount and diversity of speech and gestures than twins. There was no effect of twin dyad type (boy-boy, girl-girl, boy-girl) on either speech or gesture production. These results confirm earlier research showing close integration between gesture and speech in singletons in early language development, and further extend these patterns to twin children.

Situational analysis of the problem of assessing the effectiveness of cluster development of the territory as an aspect of the implementation of its sustainable development

The development of territorial economic clusters is one of the important conditions for the growth of the competitiveness of economy, for the intensification of public-private partnership instruments and, ultimately, is a significant aspect of ensuring the sustainable development of territories [1,2,3,4]. It should be noted that the sustainability of such development is determined, first of all, by the establishment of close integration links both in terms of resources and products generated by the cluster participants. This leads to their joint interest in the overall end result of the cluster, cross-interest in the efficiency of the participants, insurance of the risks of each of them, and a number of other useful economic and social effects [5,6,7]. At the moment, the cluster approach to the intensification of development has taken a prominent place in the relevant concepts and strategies of a number of Russian regions and their municipalities. Today, it can be argued that a set of mechanisms has been formed at the state and regional levels, allowing, for example, to provide flexible financing for measures for the development of clusters [8,9]. Nevertheless, the situation is paradoxical when, in the presence of tools, the conceptual and methodological-instrumental part of the solution to the problem of assessing the effectiveness of cluster activities has not yet been sufficiently reflected and developed. This article examines this problem and identifies approaches to overcoming it.

Europa Środkowa w polityce zagranicznej Białorusi

The article is dedicated to Central Europe in the foreign policy of Belarus. In the process of shaping the concept of Belarus’ foreign policy in the early 1990s, Minsk considered the Central European option. Already at that time, attention was paid to the region of Central Europe and the need to center the road between East and West. However, NATO enlargement in the region led to the choice of the eastern vector and to close cooperation with Russia. After 20 years of close integration, it turned out that the alliance with Russia is not perfect. Belarus has once again activated the Central European vector in foreign policy. Central Europe is a natural area for the pursuing Belarussian interest. Cooperation with neighboring countries (Poland, Lithuania, Latvia, Hungary) is a positive impulse for comprehensive economic and possibly political reforms in the near future.

Offshore Currency Markets

Non-deliverable forward (NDF) markets in many Asian emerging market currencies are large, rapidly growing, and often exceed onshore markets in transaction volume. NDFs tend to price significant depreciation during market stress episodes including COVID-19. Spillovers from NDFs to onshore markets are a policymaker concern. Our analysis shows that influences tend to run both ways after controlling for differences in timezones between markets. For the COVID-19 pandemic there is some evidence of NDFs leading onshore markets for a few currencies. Policy approaches to NDFs vary widely across Asia from close integration with onshore markets to severe restrictions on NDF trading.

TensorLog: A Probabilistic Database Implemented Using Deep-Learning Infrastructure

We present an implementation of a probabilistic first-order logic called TensorLog, in which classes of logical queries are compiled into differentiable functions in a neural-network infrastructure such as Tensorflow or Theano. This leads to a close integration of probabilistic logical reasoning with deep-learning infrastructure: in particular, it enables high-performance deep learning frameworks to be used for tuning the parameters of a probabilistic logic. The integration with these frameworks enables use of GPU-based parallel processors for inference and learning, making TensorLog the first highly parallellizable probabilistic logic. Experimental results show that TensorLog scales to problems involving hundreds of thousands of knowledge-base triples and tens of thousands of examples.