STRUCTURE OF DEFINITIVE COMPOSITES IN UDINA AND OTHER LESGIN LANGUAGES

In Udi the determinative compound words can be divided according to structure: 1. Composed compound words derived from two or three nominal stems; Compound words consisting of three nominal stems are rarely attested in the Udi language. 2. Compound words the first member of which is the noun root and the second one – determinandum; 3. Compound words , the first member of which is determinandum and the second one – noun root; 4. Compound words derived from the a noun stem and substantized determinandum; 5. Compound words the first member of which in a noun in Relative case and the second one – noun with simple stem; 6. Compound words the first member of which is attributive word and the second one – adjective derived from noun. In Udi an athematic formation of attributive compound words are characteristic of nouns . At this stage of the study, no special affixes have been revealed that are involved in the derivation of the composed stems. The paper present parallels as well as differences in the structure of determinative compound words between Udi and other Lezgian languages.

Case fatality rates for COVID-19 are higher than case fatality rates for motor vehicle accidents for individuals over 40 years of age

The death toll of the COVID-19 pandemic has been unprecedented, due to both the high number of SARS-CoV-2 infections and the seriousness of the disease resulting from these infections. Here, we present mortality rates and case fatality rates for COVID-19 over the past year compared with other historic leading causes of death in the United States. Among the risk categories considered, COVID-19 is the third leading cause of death for individuals 40 years old and over, with an overall annual mortality rate of 325 deaths per 100K individuals, behind only cancer (385 deaths per 100K individuals) and heart disease (412 deaths per 100K individuals). In addition, for individuals 40 years old and over, the case fatality rate for COVID-19 is greater than the case fatality rate for motor vehicle accidents. In particular, for the age group 40-49, the relative case fatality rate of COVID-19 is 1.5 fold (95% CI: [1.3, 1.7]) that of a motor vehicle accident, demonstrating that SARS-CoV-2 infection may be significantly more dangerous than a car crash for this age group. For older adults, COVID-19 is even more dangerous, and the relative case fatality rate of COVID-19 is 29.4 fold (95% CI: [23.2, 35.7]) that of a motor vehicle accident for individuals over 80 years old. On the other hand, motor vehicle accidents have a 4.5 fold (95% CI: [3.9, 5.1]) greater relative case fatality rate compared to COVID-19 for the age group of 20-29 years. These results highlight the severity of the COVID-19 pandemic especially for adults above 40 years of age and underscore the need for large-scale preventative measures to mitigate risks for these populations. Given that FDA-authorized COVID-19 vaccines have now been validated by multiple studies for their outstanding real-world effectiveness and safety, vaccination of all individuals who are over 40 years of age is one of the most pressing public health priorities of our time.

Effectiveness and Impact of the 4CMenB Vaccine against Group B Meningococcal Disease in Two Italian Regions Using Different Vaccination Schedules: A Five-Year Retrospective Observational Study (2014–2018)

Background: A few years after the introduction in Italy of a four-component anti-meningococcal B vaccine (4CMenB), we evaluated the effectiveness and impact of vaccination in two regions using different schedules (2, 4, 6, 12 months in Tuscany vs. 7, 9, 15 months in Veneto) through an observational retrospective study. Methods: Vaccination started in 2014 in Tuscany and in 2015 in Veneto; the data collected referred to the period 2006–2018 for Tuscany and 2007–2018 for Veneto. Cases of invasive meningococcal disease due to N. Meningitidis B were identified by culture and/or real-time PCR. Results: In Tuscany, pre-vaccine incidence was 1.96 (95% CL 1.52; 2.40) and dropped to 0.62 (95% CL 0.60; 0.64) in the post-4CMenB era. Evaluating only vaccinated children, post-4CMenB incidence was 0.12 (95% CL 0.08; 0.15). In Veneto pre-vaccine incidence was 1.94 (95% CL 1.92; 1.96) and dropped to 1.34 (95% CL 1.31; 1.38) in the post-4CMenB era. In the vaccinated population, MenB incidence was 0.53 (95% CL 0.50; 0.56). Vaccine effectiveness was 93.6% (95% CL 55.4; 99.1) in Tuscany and 91.0% (95% CL 59.9; 97.9) in Veneto, with mean vaccine coverages of 83.9% and 81.7%, respectively. The overall impact (evaluating both vaccinated and unvaccinated children) was 0.68 (95% CL 0.10; 0.89) in Tuscany and 0.31 (95% CL −0.56; 0.69) in Veneto; the total impact (evaluating only vaccinated children) was 0.94 (95% CL 0.56; 0.99) and 0.90 (95% CL 0.57; 0.97), respectively. The relative case reduction (RCR) was 65% in Tuscany and 31% in Veneto. Considering the vaccinated population, the RCR was equal to 91% and 80%, respectively. Conclusion: In conclusion, 4CMenB appears to have a very high effectiveness in Italy; the impact of vaccination appears greater where the immunization program is started early.

On Identifying and Mitigating Bias in the Estimation of the COVID-19 Case Fatality Rate

The relative case fatality rates (CFRs) between groups and countries are key measures of relative risk that guide policy decisions regarding scarce medical resource allocation during the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. In the middle of an active outbreak when surveillance data is the primary source of information, estimating these quantities involves compensating for competing biases in time series of deaths, cases, and recoveries. These include time- and severity-dependent reporting of cases as well as time lags in observed patient outcomes. In the context of COVID-19 CFR estimation, we survey such biases and their potential significance. Further, we analyze theoretically the effect of certain biases, like preferential reporting of fatal cases, on naive estimators of CFR. We provide a partially corrected estimator of these naive estimates that accounts for time lag and imperfect reporting of deaths and recoveries. We show that collection of randomized data by testing the contacts of infectious individuals regardless of the presence of symptoms would mitigate bias by limiting the covariance between diagnosis and death. Our analysis is supplemented by theoretical and numerical results and a simple and fast open-source codebase.1

Differential Seasonality of Legionnaires’ Disease by Exposure Category

Legionnaires’ disease (LD) shows a seasonal pattern with most cases occurring in summer. We investigate if seasonality can be observed for all three exposure categories (community-acquired (CALD), travel-associated (TALD) and healthcare-associated (HCA)). Methods: LD cases (2005–2015) were classified by exposure categories and we calculated the relative case ratio for each month from February to December using January as reference. The TALD relative case ratio was compared with flight frequencies. Results: Overall case numbers in Germany (N = 7351) peaked in August. CALD had a curve similar to all cases. TALD displayed a bimodal curve with peaks in June/July and October. The latter was attributable to LD cases aged 60+. The relative case ratio of TALD surpassed clearly that of CALD. The curve was similar to that of the relative flight frequencies, but was shifted by about one month. HCA showed no apparent seasonality. Conclusions: Although the overall seasonality in LD is heavily influenced by CALD, seasonal differences are more pronounced for TALD which may reflect travel behavior. The bimodal pattern of TALD is attributable to the curve among those aged 60+ and may reflect their preference to travel outside school holiday periods. Heightened vigilance for HCA cases is necessary throughout the entire year.

Extending p-divisible Groups and Barsotti–Tate Deformation Ring in the Relative Case

Let $k$ be a perfect field of characteristic $p> 2$, and let $K$ be a finite totally ramified extension of $W(k)\big[\frac{1}{p}\big]$ of ramification degree $e$. We consider an unramified base ring $R_0$ over $W(k)$ satisfying certain conditions, and let $R = R_0\otimes _{W(k)}\mathcal{O}_K$. Examples of such $R$ include $R = \mathcal{O}_K[\![s_1, \ldots , s_d]\!]$ and $R = \mathcal{O}_K\langle t_1^{\pm 1}, \ldots , t_d^{\pm 1}\rangle $. We show that the generalization of Raynaud’s theorem on extending $p$-divisible groups holds over the base ring $R$ when $e < p-1$, whereas it does not hold when $R = \mathcal{O}_K[\![s]\!]$ with $e \geq p$. As an application, we prove that if $R$ has Krull dimension $2$ and $e < p-1$, then the locus of Barsotti–Tate representations of $\textrm{Gal}(\overline{R}\big[\frac{1}{p}\big]/R\big[\frac{1}{p}\big])$ cuts out a closed subscheme of the universal deformation scheme. If $R = \mathcal{O}_K[\![s]\!]$ with $e \geq p$, we prove that such a locus is not $p$-adically closed.

Simplest quartic and simplest sextic Thue equations over imaginary quadratic fields

The families of simplest cubic, simplest quartic and simplest sextic fields and the related Thue equations are well known, see G. Lettl, A. Pethő and P. Voutier, Simple families of Thue inequalities, Trans. Amer. Math. Soc. 351 (1999) 1871–1894, On the arithmetic of simplest sextic fields and related Thue equations, in Number Theory: Diophantine, Computational and Algebraic Aspects, eds. K. Győry et al. (de Gruyter, Berlin, 1998), pp. 331–348. The family of simplest cubic Thue equations was already studied in the relative case, over imaginary quadratic fields. In the present paper, we give a similar extension of simplest quartic and simplest sextic Thue equations over imaginary quadratic fields. We explicitly give the solutions of these infinite parametric families of Thue equations over arbitrary imaginary quadratic fields.