title: Challenges of providing healthcare worker education and training in protracted conflict: a focus on non-government controlled areas in north west Syria

text: Without healthcare workers (HCWs), health and humanitarian provision in Syria cannot be sustained either now or in the post-conflict phase. The protracted conflict has led to the exodus of more than 70% of the healthcare workforce. Those remaining work in dangerous conditions with insufficient resources and a healthcare system that has been decimated by protracted conflict. For many HCWs, particularly those in non-government-controlled areas (NGCAs) of Syria, undergraduate education and postgraduate training has been interrupted with few opportunities to continue. In this manuscript, we explore initiatives present in north west Syria at both undergraduate and postgraduate level for physician and non-physician HCWs. Conclusion: Challenges to HCW education in north west Syria can be broadly divided into 1. Organisational (local healthcare leadership and governance, coordination and collaboration between stakeholders, competition between stakeholders and insufficient funding.) 2. Programmatic (lack of accreditation or recognition of qualifications, insufficient physical space for teaching, exodus of faculty affecting teaching and training, prioritisation of physicians over non-physicians, informally trained healthcare workers.) 3. Healthcare system related (politicisation of healthcare system, changing healthcare needs of the population, ongoing attacks on healthcare.) Locally implementable strategies including dedicated funding are key to supporting retention of HCWs and return during post-conflict reconstruction.


title: Poor quality research and clinical practice during COVID-19

text: Breathe Chief Editor @ClaudiaCDobler on how #COVID19 amplifies flaws in clinical research and practice https://bit.ly/3cX0jpO


title: Increased Use of Quaternary Ammonium Compounds during the SARS-CoV-2 Pandemic and Beyond: Consideration of Environmental Implications

text: [Image: see text] Quaternary ammonium compounds (QACs) are active ingredients in over 200 disinfectants currently recommended by the U.S. EPA for use to inactivate the SARS-CoV-2 (COVID-19) virus. The amounts of these compounds used in household, workplace, and industry settings has very likely increased, and usage will continue to be elevated given the scope of the pandemic. QACs have been previously detected in wastewater, surface waters, and sediments, and effects on antibiotic resistance have been explored. Thus, it is important to assess potential environmental and engineering impacts of elevated QAC usage, which may include disruption of wastewater treatment unit operations, proliferation of antibiotic resistance, formation of nitrosamine disinfection byproducts, and impacts on biota in surface waters. The threat caused by COVID-19 is clear, and a reasonable response is elevated use of QACs to mitigate spread of infection. Exploration of potential effects, environmental fate, and technologies to minimize environmental releases of QACs, however, is warranted.


title: The effect of Voki application on students’ academic achievements and attitudes towards English course

text: The purpose of this research is to assess the effect of Voki, a tool of web 2.0 on students’ academic achievement and attitudes towards English courses. The study group of this research, using a quasi-experimental design with a pretest-posttest control group, consists of 5th-grade students at a public secondary school in the Merkezefendi district of Denizli province, Turkey. In the experiment group, the “Party Time” unit was taught via Voki-supported activities while the same unit was taught according to the current curriculum without using Voki in the control group. The entire process of the experiment lasted 6 weeks. In the study, the academic achievement test and attitude scale towards English courses (Cronbach’s Alpha = 0.92) were used to measure dependent variables. The normality distributions of the data were examined after the data were collected, and it was decided to analyze the data through the mean, standard deviation, and independent-sample t-test. According to the results of the research, there was an increase in the achievement test scores of both groups in the English lesson. However, a statistically significant difference was observed in the speaking section of the experimental group in the achievement test. There was no significant difference between the attitudes of the groups towards English courses. It is therefore recommended that English teachers should use Voki application in speaking activities.


title: Excluded futures: the continuity bias in scenario assessments

text: Global scenario assessments in support of climate, biodiversity, energy and other international policy deliberations tend to focus on a narrow bandwidth of possibilities: futures that unfold gradually from current patterns and trends. This “continuity bias” downplays the real risks (and opportunities) of structural discontinuity in the evolution of the global social-ecological system. The inclination to focus on mathematically tractable representations and conventional futures preferred by decision-makers is understandable, but constrains the scientific imagination and the scope of policy guidance. Earlier studies spotlighted discontinuous global futures, thereby revealing a broader spectrum of possibilities and repertoire of actions than found in contemporary scenario analysis. The paper revisits three types of futures introduced 25 years ago; examines three truths they convey about the contemporary moment; and points to three courses of action they suggest. Contemporary assessments centre on incrementally changing Conventional Worlds, yet varieties of global disruption (Barbarization) and progressive transformation (Great Transition) remain plausible alternatives. Corresponding to this triad, three synergistic action prongs—reform (incremental policies), remediation (emergency preparedness and prevention), and redesign (deep cultural and institutional change)—come into focus. Recovering a comprehensive perspective on the global possible would reinvigorate debate on the kind of transformation needed, broaden the action agenda, and stimulate innovative research for illuminating our indeterminate future. The COVID-19 pandemic, a concrete illustration of historical discontinuity, underscores the critical importance of emphasizing nonconventional futures in policy assessments.


title: Prone positioning in severe ARDS requiring extracorporeal membrane oxygenation

text: BACKGROUND: Prone positioning (PP) has shown to improve survival in patients with severe acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS). To this point, it is unclear if PP is also beneficial for ARDS patients treated with veno-venous extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (VV ECMO) support. METHODS: We report retrospective data of a single-centre registry of patients with severe ARDS requiring VV ECMO support between October 2010 and May 2018. Patients were allocated to the PP group if PP was performed during VV ECMO treatment or the supine positioning group. VV ECMO weaning success and hospital survival were analysed before and after propensity score matching. RESULTS: A total of 158 patients could be analysed, and 38 patients (24.1%) received PP. There were no significant differences in VV ECMO weaning rate (47.4% vs. 46.7%, p = 0.94) and hospital survival (36.8% vs. 36.7%, p = 0.98) between the prone and supine groups, respectively. The analysis of 38 propensity score matched pairs also showed no difference in hospital survival (36.8% vs. 36.8%, p = 1.0) or VV ECMO weaning rate (47.4% vs. 44.7%, p = 0.82). Hospital survival was superior in the subgroup of patients treated with early PP (cutoff < 17 h via Youden’s Index) as compared to late or no PP (81.8% vs. 33.3%, p = 0.02). CONCLUSION: In this propensity score matched cohort of severe ARDS patients requiring VV ECMO support, prone positioning at any time was not associated with improved weaning or survival. However, early initiation of prone positioning was linked to a significant reduction of hospital mortality.


title: Proteomic analysis of Rickettsia akari proposes a 44 kDa-OMP as a potential biomarker for Rickettsialpox diagnosis

text: BACKGROUND: Rickettsialpox is a febrile illness caused by the mite-borne pathogen Rickettsia akari. Several cases of this disease are reported worldwide annually. Nevertheless, the relationship between the immunogenicity of R. akari and disease development is still poorly understood. Thus, misdiagnosis is frequent. Our study is aiming to identify immunogenic proteins that may improve disease recognition and enhance subsequent treatment. To achieve this goal, two proteomics methodologies were applied, followed by immunoblot confirmation. RESULTS: Three hundred and sixteen unique proteins were identified in the whole-cell extract of R. akari. The most represented protein groups were found to be those involved in translation, post-translational modifications, energy production, and cell wall development. A significant number of proteins belonged to amino acid transport and intracellular trafficking. Also, some proteins affecting the virulence were detected. In silico analysis of membrane enriched proteins revealed 25 putative outer membrane proteins containing beta-barrel structure and 11 proteins having a secretion signal peptide sequence. Using rabbit and human sera, various immunoreactive proteins were identified from which the 44 kDa uncharacterized protein (A8GP63) has demonstrated a unique detection capability. It positively distinguished the sera of patients with Rickettsialpox from other rickettsiae positive human sera. CONCLUSION: Our proteomic analysis certainly contributed to the lack of knowledge of R. akari pathogenesis. The result obtained may also serve as a guideline for a more accurate diagnosis of rickettsial diseases. The identified 44 kDa uncharacterized protein can be certainly used as a unique marker of rickettsialpox or as a target molecule for the development of more effective treatment.


title: Spitzengastronomie und die Corona-Krise

text: Die Corona-Pandemie hat die Spitzengastronomie massiv getroffen. Wie gingen Köchinnen und Köche zu Beginn des Shutdowns mit den unerwarteten Herausforderungen um? Wie verändert der Corona-Shutdown die Situation der (Spitzen-)Restaurants in Deutschland? Wie reagieren diese auf die Krise? Diese Fragen haben wir im Rahmen einer Studie untersucht. Die zentralen Ergebnisse stellen wir in diesem Kapitel vor.


title: Estimating the costs for the airport operator and airlines of a drone-related shutdown: an application to Frankfurt international airport

text: Commercially-acquired drones threaten airport operations due to limited knowledge of airspace safety regulations or deliberate action by drone operators. This study aims to determine whether the investment cost of a drone-defence system can be justified in relation to the financial cost of a drone-related shutdown. To that end, a case study of Frankfurt Airport is carried out with simulations of different disruptions during a peak-activity period similar to the 2018 Gatwick drone incident. With data on passenger traffic and airline schedules, we developed a passenger recovery algorithm to determine the amount of delays caused by the disruptions and the costs for the airport operator and the airlines. Results show that the investment in a drone-defence system is offset by the costs of a 48-h continued closure or several smaller closures, but since the largest share of costs is borne by the airlines, investments should be shared between both stakeholders.


Operational excellence for improving sustainable supply chain performance


title: Toward a Curry-Howard Equivalence for Linear, Reversible Computation: Work-in-Progress

text: In this paper, we present a linear and reversible language with inductive and coinductive types, together with a Curry-Howard correspondence with the logic [Image: see text] : linear logic extended with least and greatest fixed points allowing inductive and coinductive statements. Linear, reversible computation makes an important sub-class of quantum computation without measurement. In the latter, the notion of purely quantum recursive type is not yet well understood. Moreover, models for reasoning about quantum algorithms only provide complex types for classical datatypes: there are usually no types for purely quantum objects beside tensors of quantum bits. This work is a first step towards understanding purely quantum recursive types.


title: Encoding Reversing Petri Nets in Answer Set Programming

text: Reversing Petri nets (RPNs) have been proposed as a reversible approach to Petri nets, which allows the transitions of a net to be reversed. This work presents an approach towards an implementation of RPNs to support their simulation and analysis. Specifically, we define how to model RPNs in Answer Set Programming (ASP), a declarative programming framework with competitive solvers. We highlight how the methodology can be used to reason about the behavior of RPN models.


title: ReverCSP: Time-Travelling in CSP Computations

text: This paper presents reverCSP, a tool to animate both forward and backward CSP computations. This ability to reverse computations can be done step by step or backtracking to a given desired state of interest. reverCSP allows us to reverse computations exactly in the same order in which they happened, or also in a causally-consistent way. Therefore, reverCSP is a tool that can be especially useful to comprehend, analyze, and debug computations. reverCSP is an open-source project publicly available for the community. We describe the tool and its functionality, and we provide implementation details so that it can be reimplemented for other languages.


title: Reversible Occurrence Nets and Causal Reversible Prime Event Structures

text: One of the well-known results in concurrency theory concerns the relationship between event structures and occurrence nets: an occurrence net can be associated with a prime event structure, and vice versa. More generally, the relationships between various forms of event structures and suitable forms of nets have been long established. Good examples are the close relationship between inhibitor event structures and inhibitor occurrence nets, or between asymmetric event structures and asymmetric occurrence nets. Several forms of event structures suited for the modelling of reversible computation have recently been developed; also a method for reversing occurrence nets has been proposed. This paper bridges the gap between reversible event structures and reversible nets. We introduce the notion of reversible occurrence net, which is a generalisation of the notion of reversible unfolding. We show that reversible occurrence nets correspond precisely to a subclass of reversible prime event structures, the causal reversible prime event structures.


title: Reversible Computations in Logic Programming

text: In this work, we say that a computation is reversible if one can find a procedure to undo the steps of a standard (or forward) computation in a deterministic way. While logic programs are often invertible (e.g., one can use the same predicate for adding and for subtracting natural numbers), computations are not reversible in the above sense. In this paper, we present a so-called Landauer embedding for SLD resolution, the operational principle of logic programs, so that it becomes reversible. A proof-of-concept implementation of a reversible debugger for Prolog that follows the ideas in this paper has been developed and is publicly available.


title: Involutory Turing Machines

text: An involutory function, also called involution, is a function [Formula: see text] that is its own inverse, i.e., [Formula: see text] holds whenever [Formula: see text] is defined. This paper presents a computational model of involution as a variant of Turing machines, called an involutory Turing machine. The computational model is shown to be complete in the sense that not only does an involutory Turing machine always compute an involution but also every involutory computable function can be computed by an involutory Turing machine. As any involution is injective (hence reversible), any involutory Turing machine forms a standard reversible Turing machine that is backward deterministic. Furthermore, the existence of a universal involutory Turing machine is shown under an appropriate redefinition of universality given by Axelsen and Glück for reversible Turing machines. This work is motivated by characterizing bidirectional transformation languages.


title: Fractional Types: Expressive and Safe Space Management for Ancilla Bits

text: In reversible computing, the management of space is subject to two broad classes of constraints. First, as with general-purpose computation, every allocation must be paired with a matching de-allocation. Second, space can only be safely de-allocated if its contents are restored to their initial value from allocation time. Generally speaking, the state of the art provides limited partial solutions, either leaving both constraints to programmers’ assertions or imposing a stack discipline to address the first constraint and leaving the second constraint to programmers’ assertions. We propose a novel approach based on the idea of fractional types. As a simple intuitive example, allocation of a new boolean value initialized to [Image: see text] also creates a value [Image: see text] that can be thought of as a garbage collection (GC) process specialized to reclaim, and only reclaim, storage containing the value [Image: see text]. This GC process is a first-class entity that can be manipulated, decomposed into smaller processes and combined with other GC processes. We formalize this idea in the context of a reversible language founded on type isomorphisms, prove its fundamental correctness properties, and illustrate its expressiveness using a wide variety of examples. The development is backed by a fully-formalized Agda implementation (https://github.com/DreamLinuxer/FracAncilla).


title: Telemedicine and the COVID-19 Pandemic: Are We Ready To Go Live?

text: Telemedicine use in the field of wound care had been increasing in popularity when the novel coronavirus 2019 paralyzed the globe in early 2020. To combat the constraints of healthcare delivery during this time, the use of telemedicine has been further expanded. Though many limitations of telemedicine are still being untangled, the benefits of virtual care are being realized in both inpatient and outpatient settings. In this article, the advantages and disadvantages of telemedicine are discussed through two case examples that highlight the promise of implementation during and beyond the pandemic.


title: Connectivity guided theta burst transcranial magnetic stimulation versus repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation for treatment-resistant moderate to severe depression: study protocol for a randomised double-blind controlled trial (BRIGhTMIND)

text: INTRODUCTION: The BRIGhTMIND study aims to determine the clinical effectiveness, cost-effectiveness and mechanism of action of connectivity guided intermittent theta burst stimulation (cgiTBS) versus standard repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS) in adults with moderate to severe treatment resistant depression. METHODS AND ANALYSIS: The study is a randomised double-blind controlled trial with 1:1 allocation to either 20 sessions of (1) cgiTBS or (2) neuronavigated rTMS not using connectivity guidance. A total of 368 eligible participants with a diagnosis of current unipolar major depressive disorder that is both treatment resistant (defined as scoring 2 or more on the Massachusetts General Hospital Staging Score) and moderate to severe (scoring >16 on the 17-item Hamilton Depression Rating Scale (HDRS-17)), will be recruited from primary and secondary care settings at four treatment centres in the UK. The primary outcome is depression response at 16 weeks (50% or greater reduction in HDRS-17 score from baseline). Secondary outcomes include assessments of self-rated depression, anxiety, psychosocial functioning, cognition and quality of life at 8, 16 and 26 weeks postrandomisation. Cost-effectiveness, patient acceptability, safety, mechanism of action and predictors of response will also be examined. ETHICS AND DISSEMINATION: Ethical approval was granted by East Midlands Leicester Central Research Ethics Committee (ref: 18/EM/0232) on 30 August 2018. The results of the study will be published in relevant peer-reviewed journals, and then through professional and public conferences and media. Further publications will explore patient experience, moderators and mediators of outcome and mechanism of action. TRIAL REGISTRATION NUMBER: ISRCTN19674644


title: Social Media Effects: Hijacking Democracy and Civility in Civic Engagement

text: Perceived as an equalizing force for disenfranchised individuals without a voice, the importance of social networks as agents of change cannot be ignored. However, in some societies, social networks have evolved into a platform for fake news and propaganda, empowering disruptive voices, ideologies, and messages. Social networks such as Twitter, Facebook, and Google hold the potential to alter civic engagement, thus essentially hijacking democracy, by influencing individuals toward a particular way of thinking.


title: Multiorgan Failure With Emphasis on Acute Kidney Injury and Severity of COVID-19: Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis

text: BACKGROUND: Abnormalities in hematologic, biochemical, and immunologic biomarkers have been shown to be associated with severity and mortality in Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19). Therefore, early evaluation and monitoring of both liver and kidney functions, as well as hematologic parameters, are pivotal to forecast the progression of COVID-19. OBJECTIVES: In this study, we performed a systematic review and meta-analysis to investigate the association between several complications, including acute kidney injury (AKI), acute liver injury (ALI), and coagulopathy, with poor outcomes in COVID-19. DESIGN: Systematic review and meta-analysis SETTING: Observational studies reporting AKI, ALI, and coagulopathy along with the outcomes of clinically validated death, severe COVID-19, or intensive care unit (ICU) care were included in this study. The exclusion criteria were abstract-only publications, review articles, commentaries, letters, case reports, non-English language articles, and studies that did not report key exposures or outcomes of interest. PATIENTS: Adult patients diagnosed with COVID-19. MEASUREMENTS: Data extracted included author, year, study design, age, sex, cardiovascular diseases, hypertension, diabetes mellitus, respiratory comorbidities, chronic kidney disease, mortality, severe COVID-19, and need for ICU care. METHODS: We performed a systematic literature search from PubMed, SCOPUS, EuropePMC, and the Cochrane Central Database. AKI and ALI follow the definition of the included studies. Coagulopathy refers to the coagulopathy or disseminated intravascular coagulation defined in the included studies. The outcome of interest was a composite of mortality, need for ICU care, and severe COVID-19. We used random-effects models regardless of heterogeneity to calculate risk ratios (RRs) for dichotomous variables. Heterogeneity was assessed using I(2). Random effects meta-regression was conducted for comorbidities and the analysis was performed for one covariate at a time. RESULTS: There were 3615 patients from 15 studies. The mean Newcastle-Ottawa scale of the included studies was 7.3 ± 1.2. The AKI was associated with an increased the composite outcome (RR: 10.55 [7.68, 14.50], P < .001; I(2): 0%). Subgroup analysis showed that AKI was associated with increased mortality (RR: 13.38 [8.15, 21.95], P < .001; I(2): 24%), severe COVID-19 (RR: 8.12 [4.43, 14.86], P < .001; I(2): 0%), and the need for ICU care (RR: 5.90 [1.32, 26.35], P = .02; I(2): 0%). The ALI was associated with increased mortality (RR: 4.02 [1.51, 10.68], P = .005; I(2): 88%) in COVID-19. Mortality was higher in COVID-19 with coagulopathy (RR: 7.55 [3.24, 17.59], P < .001; I(2): 69%). The AKI was associated with the composite outcome and was not influenced by age (P = .182), sex (P = .104), hypertension (P = .788), cardiovascular diseases (P = .068), diabetes (P = .097), respiratory comorbidity (P = .762), and chronic kidney disease (P = .77). LIMITATIONS: There are several limitations of this study. Many of these studies did not define the extent of AKI (grade), which may affect the outcome. Acute liver injury and coagulopathy were not defined in most of the studies. The definition of severe COVID-19 differed across studies. Several articles included in the study were published at preprint servers and are not yet peer-reviewed. Most of the studies were from China; thus, some patients might overlap across the reports. Most of the included studies were retrospective in design. CONCLUSIONS: This meta-analysis showed that the presence of AKI, ALI, and coagulopathy was associated with poor outcomes in patients with COVID-19.


docid: blwhiycz

title: Proteinase-3-(cANCA)-assoziierte Colitis ulcerosa mit möglicher entzündlicher leukenzephalopathischer ZNS‑Beteiligung


title: QCD axion from a spontaneously broken B − L gauge symmetry

text: In this paper, we show that the Peccei-Quinn (PQ) symmetry with a good quality can be realized in a simple B −L extension of the minimal supersymmetric standard model. The PQ symmetry is a remnant of the B − L gauge symmetry at the renormalizable level. Besides, the sufficient quality of the PQ symmetry is preserved by a non anomalous discrete gauged R-symmetry and a small gravitino mass m(3/2) ≪ 100 GeV. A viable mass range is [Formula: see text] eV which allows a high reheating temperature and many baryogenesis scenarios typified by the thermal leptogenesis without any astrophysical and cosmological problems. Such a light gravitino may be tested in the future 21cm line observations.


title: The future of Europe and the role of Eastern Europe in its past, present and future

text: Thirty years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, and over a decade after its reunification, the European Union (EU) is experiencing increasingly more challenges toward its unity. The EU has experienced a number of crises in the early 2000s, the breakaway of one of its members in 2019, and is challenged by the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020. The latter crisis exhibits, on the one hand, the need for social coherence and unified policies, and on the other, has prompted the physical closure of borders, and divergent responses by domestic political elite. One such reaction—the adopted strengthening of power for Hungary’s Prime Minister—has prompted an international outcry and re-heated the debate of the democratic backtracking of some of the new EU member-states. Analyzing the process of European Enlargement and the changing sentiments about European Integration in a number of East European countries, this symposium brings to the fore important questions about the relationship between Eastern and Western Europe. Although there is a general consensus that both the East and the West have benefited and continue to benefit from their reunion, it is nevertheless the case that the quick assimilation of liberal values has led to policies seen as threatening the liberal democracy model of the EU that we need to address in order to preserve the stability of the Union. ELECTRONIC SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL: The online version of this article (10.1057/s41304-020-00264-z) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.


title: Scaling Logic Locking Schemes to Multi-module Hardware Designs

text: The involvement of third parties in the integrated circuit design and fabrication flow has introduced severe security concerns, including intellectual property piracy, reverse engineering and the insertion of malicious circuits known as hardware Trojans. Logic locking has emerged as a prominent technique to counter these security threats by protecting the integrity of integrated circuits through functional and structural obfuscation. In recent years, a great number of locking schemes has been introduced, thereby focusing on a variety of security objectives and the resiliency against different attacks. However, several major pitfalls can be identified in the existing proposals: (i) the focus on isolated and often small circuit components, (ii) the assumption of unrealistic attack models that enable powerful attacks on logic locking and (iii) the design of very specific locking schemes targeted towards achieving resilience against specific attacks. These observations strongly impair the practicality of logic locking. Therefore, in this paper we present a holistic framework for scaling logic locking schemes to common multi-module hardware designs, thereby showcasing an industry-ready pathway of applying logic locking in a realistic design flow. The framework represents an enhancement of the previously published Inter-Lock methodology, offering several algorithmic improvements as well as toolflow implementation details to facilitate the applicability of the framework to large multi-module designs. The framework is tested and evaluated on a real-life 64-bit RISC-V core.


title: On the Evaluation of SEU Effects on AXI Interconnect Within AP-SoCs

text: G-Programmable System-on-Chips offering the union of a processor system with a programmable hardware gave rise to applications that choose hardware acceleration to offload and parallelize computationally demanding tasks. Due to flexibility and performance they provide at low cost, these devices are also appealing for several applications in avionics, aerospace and automotive sectors, where reliability is the main concern. In particular, the interconnection architecture, and especially the AXI Interconnection for FPGA-accelerated applications, plays a critical role in these systems. This paper presents a reliability analysis of the AXI Interconnect IP Core implemented on Zynq-7000 AP-SoC against SEUs in the configuration memory of the programmable logic. The analysis has been conducted performing a fault injection campaign on the specific section of the configuration memory implementing the IP Core under test, which has been implemented within a benchmark design. The results are analyzed and classified, highlighting the criticality of the AXI Interconnect IP Core as a point of failure, especially for SEU-hardened hardware accelerator relying on mitigation techniques based on fine-grained and coarse-grained replication.


title: Equally Distributed Bus-Communication Access Rights for Inter MCU Communication Using Multimaster SPI

text: With the rising complexity and processing power of modern computer systems, the amount of MCU on a single PCB also rises. These microcontrollers often need to communicate with each other to exchange payload and control information in a bidirectional manner. Today’s well-established communication protocols in MCUs either do not fit modern transmission speed requirements or do have an inappropriate master-slave attribute, which does not allow the communication partners to have equal bus access rights. Therefore, this paper introduces an extension of the Serial Peripheral Interface (SPI) to allow an equally distributed access right for the communication interface between two microcontrollers. It simultaneously does fit modern transmission speed requirements of a common network interface, so that the message transmission does not constitute a bottleneck in data processing. Besides the protocol design, we do also provide a first prototype implementation, which constitutes a proof of concept.


title: Satellite Onboard Data Reduction Using a Risc-V Core Inside an RTG4-Based Data Processing Pipeline

text: The Wide Field Imager (WFI) is one of two scientific instruments onboard the next generation European x-ray observatory ATHENA. It will orbit Lagrange point L2 and send the acquired science data to a single ground station with a downlink that is available for several hours once per day. The data rate of the downlink is a bottleneck, which limits the amount of science data that can be transferred. Measurement data of the eRosita satellite which is in operation since mid of 2019 shows that a high radiation background generates parasitic sensor data that adds to the science data. In order to remove the parasitic data from the science data stream onboard, a Risc-V softcore processor implementation in the RTG4 FGPA has been studied. Depending on the observation scenario, the data rate is reduced by a factor of more than 50. Within this article, we describe the WFI onboard processing architecture, the sensor effects on space radiation and the hard- and software architecture of the Risc-V softcore that can be implemented to reduce the data rate on board. Three test cases are defined and executed to verify the performance of the data reduction scheme.


title: Security Improvements by Separating the Cryptographic Protocol from the Network Stack onto a Multi-MCU Architecture

text: The number of IoT devices in SCADA and ICS systems is rising quickly, especially in the domain of critical infrastructures. But these kinds of systems are performing mission critical tasks like controlling devices in industrial facilities or substations in the smart grid. Therefore, they are subject to a lot of regulatory standards. Yet, to provide remote access over the internet, special architectures are developed to integrate a network interface into these devices without inferring with the actual functionality. However, these architectures either lack security measures against cyber-attacks or do not offer the necessary performance for time-critical communication interfaces. To solve that, an architecture consisting of three units is introduced in this paper to provide a network interface with extensive security measures and a high performance. The main feature is the isolation of the cryptographic functionality onto an additional MCU. After proposing the basic concept, the paper presents many implementation details. Based on the current state of implementation, a concept validation of the realized architecture is described.


title: 3D Optimisation of Software Application Mappings on Heterogeneous MPSoCs

text: Increasing the efficiency of parallel software development is one of the key obstacles in taking advantage of heterogeneous multi-core architectures. Efficient and reliable compiler technology is required to identify the trade-off between multiple design goals at once. The most crucial objectives are application performance and processor power consumption. Including memory power into this multi-objective optimisation problem is of utmost importance. Therefore, this paper proposes the heuristic MORAM solving this three-dimensional Pareto front calculation. Furthermore, it is integrated into a commercially available framework to conduct a detailed evaluation and applicability study. MORAM is assessed with representative benchmarks on two different platforms and contrasted with a state-of-the-art evolutionary multi-objective algorithm. On average, MORAM produces 6% better Pareto fronts, while it is at least [Formula: see text] faster.


title: Evaluating Dynamic Task Scheduling with Priorities and Adaptive Aging in a Task-Based Runtime System

text: The high degree of parallelism of today’s computing systems often requires executing applications and their tasks in parallel due to a limited scaling capability of individual applications. In such scenarios, considering the differing importance of applications while scheduling tasks is done by assigning priorities to the tasks. However, priorities may lead to starvation in highly utilized systems. A solution is offered by aging mechanisms that raise the priority of long waiting tasks. As modern systems are often dynamic in nature, we developed a two-level aging mechanism and analyzed its effect in the context of 6 dynamic scheduling algorithms for heterogeneous systems. In the context of task scheduling, aging refers to a method that increases the priority of a task over its lifetime. We used a task-based runtime system to evaluate the mechanism on a real system in two scenarios. The results show a speed up of the average total makespan in 9 out of 12 conducted experiments when aging is used with the cost of additional waiting time for the applications/jobs with higher priority. However, the job/application with the highest priority is still finished first in all cases. Considering the scheduling algorithms, Minimum Completion Time, Sufferage, and Relative Cost benefit in both experiments by the aging mechanism. Additionally, no algorithm significantly dominates all other algorithms when total makespans are compared.


title: Investigating Transactional Memory for High Performance Embedded Systems

text: We present a Transaction Management Unit (TMU) for Hardware Transactional Memories (HTMs). Our TMU enables three different contention management strategies, which can be applied according to the workload. Additionally, the TMU enables unbounded transactions in terms of size. Our approach tackles two challenges of traditional HTMs: (1) potentially high abort rates, (2) missing support for unbounded transactions. By enhancing a simulator with a transactional memory and our TMU, we demonstrate that our TMU achieves speedups of up to 4.2 and reduces abort rates by a factor of up to 11.6 for some of the STAMP benchmarks.


title: Exploration of Power Domain Partitioning with Concurrent Task Mapping and Scheduling for Application-Specific Multi-core SoCs

text: This paper proposes a novel approach to explore the design space of Power Domain (PD) partitioning in the architecture definition phase of heterogeneous SoCs. By formulating an Integer Linear Program (ILP), task mapping and scheduling is determined concurrently while considering power-off dependencies among cores in the same PD and the power-gating break-even time. Compared to state-of-the-art approaches aiming at design phases where task mapping and scheduling has been frozen, our proposed approach shifts joint exploration into earlier design phases, creates more power-gating opportunities for PD partitions, and thus identifies better trade-offs in terms of energy consumption and design costs.


docid: aprjijvu

title: He..ro DB: A Concept for Parallel Data Processing on Heterogeneous Hardware

text: Due to the growing demand on processing power and energy efficiency by today’s data-intensive applications developers have to deal with heterogeneous hardware platforms composed of specialized computing resources. These are highly efficient for certain workloads but difficult to handle from the software engineering perspective. Even state-of-the-art database management systems do not exploit all heterogeneous hardware components, as their characteristics differ significantly. They are thus hard to integrate within a coherent database architecture. To address this problem, we propose a design concept that is based on a layered system software architecture: He..ro DB transforms a data-flow graph that describes the data-processing application to a task-based execution plan. Task implementations for the different computing resources and a reasonable degree of parallelism are chosen automatically based on available resources. The concept can cover any hardware configuration and application scenario. It is versatile and offers opportunities for independent optimization on each layer.


title: Accelerating Real-Time Applications with Predictable Work-Stealing

text: Modern compute architectures often consist of multiple CPU cores to achieve their performance, as physical properties put a limit on the execution speed of a single processor. This trend is also visible in the embedded and real-time domain, where programmers are forced to parallelize their software to keep deadlines. Additionally, embedded systems rely increasingly on modular applications, that can easily be adapted to different system loads and hardware configurations. To parallelize applications under these dynamic conditions, often dispatching frameworks like Threading Building Blocks (TBB) are used in the desktop and server segment. More recently, Embedded Multicore Building Blocks (EMB[Formula: see text]) was developed as a task-based programming solution designed with the constraints of embedded systems in mind. In this paper, we discuss how task-based programming fits such systems by analyzing scheduler implementation variants, with a focus on classic work-stealing and the libraries TBB and EMB[Formula: see text]. Based on the state of the art we introduce a novel resource-trading concept that allows static memory allocation in a work-stealing runtime holding strict space and time bounds. We conduct benchmarks between an early prototype of the concept, TBB and EMB[Formula: see text], showing that resource-trading does not introduce additional runtime overheads, while unfortunately also not improving on execution time variances.


title: X-CEL: A Method to Estimate Near-Memory Acceleration Potential in Tile-Based MPSoCs

text: Near-memory acceleration strives to tackle the data-to-task locality issue in MPSoCs in order to obtain higher performance and lower power consumption. However, it is not easy to determine whether the advantages arise from the near-memory integration or the hardware acceleration (versus software execution). We propose X-CEL, a method to accurately estimate the potential of near-memory acceleration using an easy-to-integrate near-memory core. We showcase X-CEL’s benefits with three variants of graph copy mechanisms in a tile-based MPSoC. Evaluations reveal that the estimated speedup is in good accordance with the actual speedup achieved by the near-memory accelerator.


title: Engineering an Optimized Instruction Set Architecture for AMIDAR Processors

text: Newly developed instruction set architectures are nowadays typically based on the RISC principle. Yet, more abstract instruction sets also have their advantages. In the AMIDAR project Java Bytecode was used as the instruction set. Instructions are realized as compositions of micro instructions that are distributed to specialized functional units. An explicit timing of these micro instructions is not necessary in AMIDAR processors. This simplifies the conversion of compute intense instruction sequences into hardware structures while the system is running. The relatively high abstraction level of the Bytecode facilitates the analysis and synthesis remarkably. Yet, the native execution of the Bytecode comes with a number of drawbacks. In this contribution, we show a new instruction set architecture that preserves the high abstraction level of Bytecode while at the same time avoiding inefficient data transports. We show that on average the new instruction set reduces the number of clock cycles for our benchmark set by a factor of 3.


title: Scalable, Decentralized Battery Management System Based on Self-organizing Nodes

text: Due to the transition to renewable energy sources and the increasing share of electric vehicles and smart grids, batteries are gaining in importance. Battery management systems (BMSs) are required for optimal, reliable operation. In this paper, existing BMS topologies are presented and evaluated in terms of reliability, scalability and flexibility. The decentralisation of BMSs and associated advantages are shown. A scalable, reconfigurable BMS based on a distributed architecture of self-organized, locally controlled nodes is proposed. For distributed system control, producers, batteries and consumers each are equipped with a local microcontroller based control unit, which monitors and controls the local parameters with its own computing and communication resources. Features, advantages and challenges to overcome of the proposed approach are described.


title: An Architecture for Solving the Eigenvalue Problem on Embedded FPGAs

text: Resource-limited embedded devices like Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) often rely on offloading or simplified algorithms. Feature extraction such as Principle Component Analysis (PCA) can reduce transmission data without compromising accuracy, or even be used for applications like facial detection. This involves solving eigenvectors and values which is impractical on conventional embedded MCUs. We present a novel hardware architecture for embedded FPGAs that performs eigendecomposition using previously unused techniques like squared Givens rotations. That leads to a 3x performance improvement for 16 [Formula: see text] 16 covariance matrices over similar approaches that use much larger FPGAs. Offering higher than 30 fps at only 68.61 [Formula: see text]J per frame, our architecture creates exciting new possibilities for intelligent mobile devices.


title: Approximate Data Dependence Profiling Based on Abstract Interval and Congruent Domains

text: Although parallel processing is mainstream, existing programs are often serial, and usually re-engineering cost is high. Data dependence profiling allows for automatically assessing parallelisation potential; Yet, data dependence profiling is notoriously slow and requires large memory, as it generally requires keeping track of each memory access. This paper considers employing a simple abstract single-trace analysis method using simple interval and congruent modulo domains to track dependencies at lower time and memory costs. The method gathers and abstracts the set of all memory reference addresses for each static memory access instruction. This method removes the need for keeping a large shadow memory and only requires a single pair-wise analysis pass to detect dependencies among memory instructions through simple intersection operations. Moreover, the combination of interval and congruent domains improves precision when compared with only using an interval domain representation, mainly when the data is not accessed in a dense access pattern. We further improve precision through partitioning memory space into blocks, where references in each block abstracted independently. An initial performance study is conducted on SPEC CPU-2006 benchmark programs and polyhedral benchmark suite. Results show that the method reduces execution time overhead by 1.4[Formula: see text] for polyhedral and 10.7[Formula: see text] for SPEC2006 on average; and significantly reduces memory by 109780[Formula: see text] and 6981[Formula: see text] for polyhedral and SPEC2006 respectively; the method has an average precision of 99.05% and 61.37% for polyhedral and SPEC respectively. Using memory partitioning resulted in improving mean precision to be 82.25% and decreasing memory reduction to be 47[Formula: see text] for SPEC2006 suite.


title: ECC Memory for Fault Tolerant RISC-V Processors

text: Numerous processor cores based on the popular RISC-V Instruction Set Architecture have been developed in the past few years and are freely available. The same applies for RISC-V ecosystems that allow to implement System-on-Chips with RISC-V processors on ASICs or FPGAs. However, so far only very little concepts and implementations for fault tolerant RISC-V processors are existing. This inhibits the use of RISC-V for safety-critical applications (as in the automotive domain) or within radiation environments (as in the aerospace domain). This work enhances the existing implementations Rocket and BOOM with a generic Error Correction Code (ECC) protected memory as a first step towards fault tolerance. The impact of the ECC additions on performance and resource utilization are discussed.


title: Towards a Priority-Based Task Distribution Strategy for an Artificial Hormone System

text: This paper presents a priority-based task distribution strategy as an extension to the Artificial Hormone System (AHS). The AHS is a distributed middleware based on self-organization principles. It allows to distribute tasks to processing nodes in a self-organizing way while neither having a single-point-of-failure nor requiring external user input. Node failures are detected automatically, resulting in relocation of any affected tasks to operational nodes. This provides self-healing capabilities if sufficient computational resources are available. Our extension allows tasks to have priorities and enables self-healing by gracefully degrading the system based on the task priorities if the computational resources are not sufficient to completely self-heal the system. We present our extension and analyze its worst-case time bounds for self-configuration as well as self-healing. Quickly degrading the system in overload situations requires a strategy deciding which tasks to stop in such situations. We present a simple strategy and analyze its worst- and average-case self-healing duration.


D-dimer: Well beyond diagnosis!


La edad como factor limitante del ingreso en una unidad de cuidados intensivos


Editorial Overview: Electrochemical Engineering If chemists make chemicals and chemical engineers make money, what do electrochemical engineers do?


Less contact isolation is more in the ICU: pro


title: Patterns, management, and outcomes of traumatic pelvic fracture: insights from a multicenter study

text: BACKGROUND: Traumatic pelvic fracture (TPF) is a significant injury that results from high energy impact and has a high morbidity and mortality. PURPOSE: We aimed to describe the epidemiology, incidence, patterns, management, and outcomes of TPF in multinational level 1 trauma centers. METHODS: We conducted a retrospective analysis of all patients with TPF between 2010 and 2016 at two trauma centers in Qatar and Germany. RESULTS: A total of 2112 patients presented with traumatic pelvic injuries, of which 1814 (85.9%) sustained TPF, males dominated (76.5%) with a mean age of 41 ± 21 years. In unstable pelvic fracture, the frequent mechanism of injury was motor vehicle crash (41%) followed by falls (35%) and pedestrian hit by vehicle (24%). Apart from both extremities, the chest (37.3%) was the most commonly associated injured region. The mean injury severity score (ISS) of 16.5 ± 13.3. Hemodynamic instability was observed in 44%. Blood transfusion was needed in one third while massive transfusion and intensive care admission were required in a tenth and a quarter of cases, respectively. Tile classification was possible in 1228 patients (type A in 60%, B in 30%, and C in 10%). Patients with type C fractures had higher rates of associated injuries, higher ISS, greater pelvis abbreviated injury score (AIS), massive transfusion protocol activation, prolonged hospital stay, complications, and mortality (p value < 0.001). Two-thirds of patients were managed conservatively while a third needed surgical fixation. The median length of hospital and intensive care stays were 15 and 5 days, respectively. The overall mortality rate was 4.7% (86 patients). CONCLUSION: TPF is a common injury among polytrauma patients. It needs a careful, systematic management approach to address the associated complexities and the polytrauma nature.


title: Impact of the perioperative inotropic support in grown-up congenital heart patients undergoing cardiac surgery: a propensity score adjusted analysis

text: BACKGROUND: Grown-up congenital heart (GUCH) patients represent a growing population with a high morbidity risk when undergoing reparative surgery. A main preoperative feature is right ventricular failure, which represents a risk factor for postoperative low cardiac output syndrome. Levosimendan has a potentially beneficial effect. This retrospective study included consecutive GUCH patients with surgeries in a tertiary cardiothoracic centre between 01-01-2013 and 01-10-2017, to test the hypothesis that the postoperative use of levosimendan might be associated with shorter time of mechanical ventilation, when compared with the use of milrinone. To adjust for bias related to the probability of treatment assignment, it uses the inverse propensity score weighting methodology. RESULTS: Overall 363 patients had GUCH surgeries during the study period, their mean age was 31.39 ± 15.31 years, 87 patients were eligible for analysis in the Levosimendan group and 117 in the Milrinone group. The propensity score used pre- and intraoperative variables and resulted in a good balance between covariates. The Levosimendan group included patients with higher preoperative risk scores, a higher prevalence of left and right ventricular failure, who required more often the addition of epinephrine, renal replacement therapy, prolonged mechanical ventilation and intensive care stay. However, after propensity score weighting, patients in the Levosimendan group had shorter durations of mechanical ventilation (average treatment effect − 37.59 h IQR [− 138.85 to − 19.13], p = 0.01) and intensive care stay (average treatment effect − 3.11 days IQR [− 10.03 to − 1.48], p = 0.009). The number of days of additional epinephrine support was shorter and the vasoactive inotropic scores lower. CONCLUSION: We report a beneficial effect in terms of duration of mechanical ventilation and intensive care stay, and on inotropic requirements of the use of levosimendan following GUCH surgeries. The use of levosimendan in this setting requires validation at a larger scale.


title: Supervised-actor-critic reinforcement learning for intelligent mechanical ventilation and sedative dosing in intensive care units

text: BACKGROUND: Reinforcement learning (RL) provides a promising technique to solve complex sequential decision making problems in healthcare domains. Recent years have seen a great progress of applying RL in addressing decision-making problems in Intensive Care Units (ICUs). However, since the goal of traditional RL algorithms is to maximize a long-term reward function, exploration in the learning process may have a fatal impact on the patient. As such, a short-term goal should also be considered to keep the patient stable during the treating process. METHODS: We use a Supervised-Actor-Critic (SAC) RL algorithm to address this problem by combining the long-term goal-oriented characteristics of RL with the short-term goal of supervised learning. We evaluate the differences between SAC and traditional Actor-Critic (AC) algorithms in addressing the decision making problems of ventilation and sedative dosing in ICUs. RESULTS: Results show that SAC is much more efficient than the traditional AC algorithm in terms of convergence rate and data utilization. CONCLUSIONS: The SAC algorithm not only aims to cure patients in the long term, but also reduces the degree of deviation from the strategy applied by clinical doctors and thus improves the therapeutic effect.


title: Clinical Utility of Lefamulin: If Not Now, When?

text: PURPOSE OF REVIEW: The looming threat of antimicrobial resistance requires robust stewardship and new developments in infectious diseases pharmacotherapy. This review discusses the pertinent spectrum and clinical data of lefamulin (Xenleta®), with a focus on potential real-world use. RECENT FINDINGS: Lefamulin is a novel pleuromutilin antibiotic that obtained Food and Drug Administration labeling for community-acquired bacterial pneumonia (CABP) in 2019. Lefamulin is available in both intravenous and oral formulations, and it inhibits bacterial protein synthesis inhibition through interactive binding to unique sites of the peptidyl transferase center of the 50s bacterial ribosome subunit. Resistance, including cross-resistance with other antibiotics, is infrequent. Lefamulin demonstrates activity against most Gram-positive pathogens and other organisms commonly associated with CABP, i.e., Streptococcus pneumoniae, Haemophilus influenzae, Mycoplasma pneumoniae, Legionella pneumophila, and Chlamydophila pneumoniae. Lefamulin may also be an option for serious public health threats like methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, vancomycin-resistant Enterococcus faecium, and multi-drug-resistant organisms associated with sexually transmitted infections, e.g., Neisseria gonorrhoeae, Mycoplasma genitalium. Lefamulin lacks activity against Pseudomonas aeruginosa, Acinetobacter baumannii, Enterobacterales, most anaerobes, and E. faecalis. In Phase III trials, lefamulin monotherapy was non-inferior to moxifloxacin with or without linezolid for CABP. SUMMARY: Lefamulin is a well-tolerated agent with a unique mechanism, availability in both IV and PO formulations, and it has been rigorously studied for safety and efficacy for CABP.


Building Institutions for the Common Good. The Practice and Purpose of Business in an Inclusive Economy


Crystal Structure of the Main Protease of Human Coronavirus NL63


Fünf gute Gründe als Plakat für die Praxis


title: To Make the Water Safer

text: Water quality affects human health and ecological biodiversity, as water ingestion is the primary exposure pathway of human health risk, and water is the most active natural element participating in the transformation of ecological system. In this paper, the background of editing this special issue was outlined, and the main contents and contributions of papers published in this special issue were introduced. Several research directions that are important to guarantee the water safety in the Yellow River basin were proposed. This special issue provides a platform for researchers to share their latest research results, which will not only be helpful for enhancing water protection and management in the Yellow River basin, but also benefit the international community in addressing similar issues.


Gründen in Berlin


Die wirtschaft- lichen Folgen der Pandemie


Hochschul- Report - das StuPa vergleicht


title: Exploring heterologous prime-boost vaccination approaches to enhance influenza control in pigs

text: Influenza A viruses evolve rapidly to escape host immunity. In swine, this viral evolution has resulted in the emergence of multiple H1 and H3 influenza A virus (IAV) lineages in the United States (US) pig populations. The heterologous prime-boost vaccination strategy is a promising way to deal with diverse IAV infection in multiple animal models. However, whether or not this vaccination strategy is applicable to US swine to impart immunity against infection from North American strains of IAV is still unknown. We performed a vaccination-challenge study to evaluate the protective efficacy of using multivalent inactivated vaccine and/or a live attenuated IAV vaccine (LAIV) in pigs following multiple prime-boost vaccination protocols against a simultaneous H1N1 and H3N2 IAV infection. Our data show that pigs in the heterologous prime-boost vaccination group had more favorable outcomes consistent with a better response against virus challenge than non-vaccinated pigs. Additionally, delivering a multivalent heterologous inactivated vaccine boost to pigs following a single LAIV administration was also beneficial. We concluded the heterologous prime boost vaccination strategy may potentiate responses to suboptimal immunogens and holds the potential applicability to control IAV in the North American swine industry. However, more studies are needed to validate the application of this vaccination approach under field conditions.


The Editors’ Choice


title: Search-Based Transformation Synthesis for 3-Valued Reversible Circuits

text: A novel bounded search transformation-based synthesis approach is presented that finds a reversible circuit implementation for a given reversible function. Methods for simplifying the circuit post-synthesis are presented. Quantum implementation constraints are also considered. Experimental results for all 2-input 3-valued functions show the effectiveness of the new approaches compared to earlier transformation-based synthesis approaches. Other examples are given to show both the effectiveness and limitations of the new approach which point to a number of key areas for further research.


docid: kqepagyd

title: Reversible Programming Languages Capturing Complexity Classes

text: We argue that there is a link between implicit computational complexity theory and the theory of reversible computation. We show that the complexity classes [Formula: see text] and [Formula: see text] can be captured by inherently reversible programming languages.


title: On the Expressivity of Total Reversible Programming Languages

text: SRL is a reversible programming language conceived as a restriction of imperative programming languages. Each SRL program that mentions n registers defines a bijection on n-tuples of integers. Despite its simplicity, SRL is strong enough to grasp a wide class of computable bijections and to rise non-trivial programming issues. We advance in the study of its expressivity. We show how to choose among alternative program-branches by checking if a given value is positive or negative. So, we answer some longstanding questions that the literature poses. In particular, we prove that SRL is primitive recursive complete and that its program equivalence is undecidable.


title: Inverse Problems, Constraint Satisfaction, Reversible Logic, Invertible Logic and Grover Quantum Oracles for Practical Problems

text: It is well-known that the “Unsorted Database” quantum algorithm by Grover gives quadratic speedup to several important combinatorial and enumerative problems, such as: SAT, Graph Coloring, Maximum Cliques, Travelling Salesman and many others. Recently, quantum programming languages such as Quipper start to be used to design, verify and simulate practical quantum algorithms for important problems in Quantum Machine Learning. So far, however, no methodologies have been created to program Grover Oracles for particular classes of problems. In contrast, such methodologies have been already created for classical Constraint Satisfaction Problems. The goal of this invited talk is to show results of some initial research towards creating systematic methodologies to program quantum computers that solve search problems in Artificial Intelligence, Logic Design and Machine Learning. Our methods are based on unified oracle blocks for such problem representations as set partition algebra, cube calculus and optimal mappings. For instance, several important problems in CAD and Machine Learning can be solved using only two basic operations on set partitions; Π(1) ≤ Π(2) and Π(1) · Π(2). Moreover, building oracles is the fundamental concept in the new approach to solve CSP proposed here and based on Invertible Logic introduced recently by Supriyo Datta and his team.


title: Maximality of Reversible Gate Sets

text: We investigate collections of reversible gates closed under parallel and serial composition. In order to better understand the structure of these collections of reversible gates, we investigate the lattice of closed sets and the maximal members of this lattice, that is, collections that are not all gates, but the addition of a single new gate will allow us to construct all gates. We find the maximal closed sets over a finite alphabet. We then extend to ancilla and borrow closure for reversible gates. Here we find some structural results, including some examples.


title: Towards a Formal Account for Software Transactional Memory

text: Software transactional memory (STM) is a concurrency control mechanism for shared memory systems. It is opposite to the lock based mechanism, as it allows multiple processes to access the same set of variables in a concurrent way. Then according to the used policy, the effect of accessing to shared variables can be committed (hence, made permanent) or undone. In this paper, we define a formal framework for describing STMs and show how with a minor variation of the rules it is possible to model two common policies for STM: reader preference and writer preference.


title: Quantum CNOT Circuits Synthesis for NISQ Architectures Using the Syndrome Decoding Problem

text: Current proposals for quantum compilers involve the synthesis and optimization of linear reversible circuits and among them CNOT circuits. This class of circuits represents a significant part of the cost of running an entire quantum circuit and therefore we aim at reducing the size of CNOT circuits. In this paper we present a new algorithm for the synthesis of CNOT circuits based on the solution of the syndrome decoding problem. Our method addresses the case of ideal hardware with an all-to-all qubit connectivity and the case of near-term quantum devices with restricted connectivity. Benchmarks show that our algorithm outperforms existing algorithms in both cases of partial and full connectivity.


title: A Reversible Runtime Environment for Parallel Programs

text: We present a reversible runtime environment for simple parallel programs and its experimental implementation. We aim at a light-weight implementation of the backtrack reversibility by the state-saving mechanism using stacks. We translate a program to a sequence of simple commands of an executable intermediate representation for reversible stack machines. The parallel composition is implemented using the multiprocessing feature of Python. While executing the commands, the stack machines collect the information for the backward execution in the auxiliary stacks for the update history of the variables and the history of jumps. The commands for the backward execution is obtained by reversing the commands for the forward execution by replacing each command with the corresponding reversed command. In the purpose of behaviour analysis with reversibility such as debugging, our runtime is more portable than the source-to-source translation of a high-level programming language.


title: Event Structures for the Reversible Early Internal [Formula: see text]-Calculus

text: The [Formula: see text]-calculus is a widely used process calculus, which models communications between processes and allows the passing of communication links. Various operational semantics of the [Formula: see text]-calculus have been proposed, which can be classified according to whether transitions are unlabelled (so-called reductions) or labelled. With labelled transitions, we can distinguish early and late semantics. The early version allows a process to receive names it already knows from the environment, while the late semantics and reduction semantics do not. All existing reversible versions of the [Formula: see text]-calculus use reduction or late semantics, despite the early semantics of the (forward-only) [Formula: see text]-calculus being more widely used than the late. We define [Formula: see text]IH, the first reversible early [Formula: see text]-calculus, and give it a denotational semantics in terms of reversible bundle event structures. The new calculus is a reversible form of the internal [Formula: see text]-calculus, which is a subset of the [Formula: see text]-calculus where every link sent by an output is private, yielding greater symmetry between inputs and outputs.


title: Hermes: A Language for Light-Weight Encryption

text: Hermes is a domain-specific language for writing light-weight encryption algorithms: It is reversible, so it is not necessary to write separate encryption and decryption procedures, and it avoids several types of side-channel attacks, both by ensuring no secret values are left in memory and by ensuring that operations on secret data spend time independent of the value of this data, thus preventing timing-based attacks. We show a complete formal specification of Hermes, argue absence of timing-based attacks (under reasonable assumptions), and compare implementations of well-known light-weight encryption algorithms in Hermes and C.


TELEMEDICINA EN REHABILITACIÓN: NECESIDAD Y OPORTUNIDAD POST-COVID


title: A Tutorial Introduction to Quantum Circuit Programming in Dependently Typed Proto-Quipper

text: We introduce dependently typed Proto-Quipper, or Proto-Quipper-D for short, an experimental quantum circuit programming language with linear dependent types. We give several examples to illustrate how linear dependent types can help in the construction of correct quantum circuits. Specifically, we show how dependent types enable programming families of circuits, and how dependent types solve the problem of type-safe uncomputation of garbage qubits. We also discuss other language features along the way.


The Importance of COVID-19 Prevention and Containment in Hemodialysis Unit


title: From New Materialism to the Postdigital: Religious Responses to Environment and Technology

text: The article traces developments since the publication of John Reader’s Theology and New Materialism (2017) with the aim of establishing conceptual resources that link concerns for the environment with those for digital technology. Drawing on the work of Bruno Latour and Bernard Stiegler, it proposes they share a common concern to provide an ‘earthing’ or form of practical knowledge to shape the discourses in both fields. It then addresses the question of why it remains difficult to operationalize appropriate responses and the concepts of disinhibition (Latour and for Stiegler) and autoimmunity (Derrida) offer possible explanations. To counter these difficulties, the idea of a modest ethics and from within theology, the dynamic between proximity and distance and then panentheism are presented as solutions. Each links back to key ideas from New Materialism such as distributed agency and mini or local transcendences and the concept of God who is ‘beyond in the midst’. It may be that finding our bearings in order to steer a new direction for both environmental and digital challenges require the ‘profound inner conversion’ of which Pope Francis speaks in his (2015) Laudato Si.


docid: jgbcalki

title: Strategic Management in the Family Businesses

text: The “essence” of a family firm is thought to be a function of a family’s influence on the culture, functioning, and behavior of the firm owing to the pursuit of a family’s vision for the firm. Accordingly, a family firm’s strategic behaviors tend to be oriented toward preserving the economic as well as noneconomic value of the firm for the family in the long run. In this chapter, the profile family firm Sheetz exhibits growth as a primary strategy through employee care and empowerment, community engagement, and social responsibility. The fast growth of the convenience store chain is proficiently managed by the family as well as employee ownership. The strategies such as employee care, community engagement, and social responsibility are reflective of the family’s strong commitment to values such as unity, harmony, and continuity not only within the family but also in the communities they serve in.


title: Governance in the Family Businesses

text: The key factor distinguishing family firms from others is the family’s involvement in the governance of their firm through participation in ownership, management, and board (if any) along with their intentions for maintaining family control over the firm across generations. Firma Roleski in the profile of this chapter is an example. The level of family involvement in governance depends on a firm’s being private or publicly traded, firm age, firm size, industry in which it operates, and family size as well as other family dynamics. In the profile firm Firma Roleski, aside from 100% family ownership and involvement in management, a family constitution is in place not only to ensure the continuity of the family business success but also to facilitate the succession to future generations.


title: Intertemporal asset pricing with bitcoin

text: This paper develops and tests an intertemporal regime-switching asset pricing model characterized by heterogeneous agents that have different expectations about the persistence and volatility of bitcoin prices. The model is estimated using daily bitcoin price data from 2013 until 2020 whereby three types of agents are considered: mean–variance optimizers, speculators and fundamentalists, respectively. While mean–variance optimizers trade on the basis of conditional first and second moments of the return distribution, speculators engage in trend chasing and buy when prices are rising and sell when prices are declining. Fundamentalists trade on the basis of fundamental factors that can impact the value of bitcoin. The fractions of agents engaging in one strategy over another shows statistically substantial variation during high and low bitcoin price volatility regimes. Estimation results reveal the following. First, unlike in traditional asset classes, there is evidence of mean–variance optimizers. Second, there is evidence of speculators who engage in ‘bandwagon behavior’ and buy bitcoins during price appreciations and sell bitcoins during price declines. Finally, there is evidence of fundamentalists who trade bitcoins when fundamental factors deviate from their long-run trends. Remarkably, these fundamentalists exhibit contrarian-type behaviors during low price volatility regimes while behaving more like fundamental traders during high price volatility regimes.


title: The divergence between SARS-CoV-2 and RaTG13 might be overestimated due to the extensive RNA modification

text: Aim: Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) has spread throughout the world. There is urgent need to understand the phylogeny, divergence and origin of SARS-CoV-2. Materials & methods: A recent study claimed that there was 17% divergence between SARS-CoV-2 and RaTG13 (a SARS-related coronaviruses) on synonymous sites by using sequence alignment. We re-analyzed the sequences of the two coronaviruses with the same methodology. Results: We found that 87% of the synonymous substitutions between the two coronaviruses could be potentially explained by the RNA modification system in hosts, with 65% contributed by deamination on cytidines (C-T mismatches) and 22% contributed by deamination on adenosines (A-G mismatches). Conclusion: Our results demonstrate that the divergence between SARS-CoV-2 and RaTG13 has been overestimated.


title: The use of corticosteroids for COVID-19 infection

text: The SARS-CoV-2 pandemic is continuing relentlessly in many parts of the world and has resulted in the outpouring of literature on various aspects of the infection, including studies and recommendations regarding the optimal treatment of infected patients. Not surprisingly, the use of corticosteroids in the management of such patients has featured prominently in many of these publications. There is considerable debate in the literature as to the likely benefits, as well as the potential detrimental effects of corticosteroid therapy in general viral respiratory infections and, in particular, COVID-19 infections. While the definitive answer may need to await the results of ongoing randomised, controlled trials recent studies suggest that corticosteroid use in COVID-19 cases with hypoxaemia may benefit from low-dose corticosteroid therapy.


Enfisema subcutáneo masivo en paciente con infección por SARS-COV2


Comparación de la teleconsulta con el modelo presencial tradicional durante la pandemia covid-19


COVID – 19 impacts cities, cultures and societies


Prevention measures for COVID-19 in retail food stores in Braga, Portugal: observational study during the pandemic


Tocilizumab plus glucocorticoids in severe and critically COVID-19 patients. A single center experience


Fracaso de la ventilación no invasiva tras empleo de oxigenoterapia de alto flujo en pacientes afectos de neumonía por SARS-Coronavirus-2


Riesgo de infección por SARS-CoV-2 y resultados clínicos en pacientes con Esclerosis Múltiple en la Rioja (España)


Foreword for the special issue advances in COVID-19: Biology and clinic


Covid-19 e comorbilidades cardiovasculares: uma atualização


Precautions for weaning from invasive mechanical ventilation with critically ill COVID-19


Correlation of indirect markers of hypercoagulability with thromboelastography in severe coronavirus 2019


Pre-existing diabetes is worse for SARS-CoV-2 infection; an endothelial perspective


AtenciÃ³n Temprana, prÃ¡cticas centradas en la familia y logopedia


Opening Pandora’s box: surgical tracheostomy in mechanically ventilated COVID-19 patients


US withdrawal from WHO is unlawful and threatens global and US health and security


Asintomáticos Covid 19, excluidos de protocolos


LA COVID-19 QUELQUES MOIS APRES LE DEBUT DE LA PREMIERE PANDEMIE


Fisioterapia respiratoria con cinturones de vibración en el paciente crítico Covid-19 en posición de prono


Erratum to “Is the lockdown important to prevent the COVID-19 pandemic? Effects on psychology, environment and economy-perspective” [Ann. Med. Surg. 56 (2020) 38–42]


Renin-angiotensin system blockers and outcomes during hydroxychloroquine treatment in patients hospitalized for COVID-19 pneumonia


title: Extended antiplatelet therapy with clopidogrel alone versus clopidogrel plus aspirin after completion of 9- to 12-month dual antiplatelet therapy for ACS patients with both high bleeding and ischemic risk. Rationale and design of the OPT-BIRISK double blinded, placebo controlled randomized trial

text: BACKGROUND: Dual antiplatelet therapy (DAPT) with aspirin and a P2Y12 inhibitor is the cornerstone for prevention ischemic events in patients with acute coronary syndromes (ACS) and undergoing percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI). However, the optimal antiplatelet strategy for ACS patients with both high bleeding and high ischemic risks is unclear. STUDY DESIGN: The Optimal antiPlatelet Therapy for patients with high Bleeding and Ischemic RISK (OPT-BIRISK) trial is a multicenter, double blinded, placebo controlled, randomized study designed to test the superiority of extended antiplatelet therapy with clopidogrel monotherapy compared with aspirin and clopidogrel for reduction of bleeding events in ACS patients with both high bleeding and high ischemic risks (“bi-risk”). A total of 7700 patients who completed 9- to 12-month DAPT after new generation drug eluting stent implantation for the treatment of ACS will be randomized to receive clopidogrel monotherapy or aspirin plus clopidogrel for 9 months, followed by aspirin monotherapy for 3 months. The primary end point is Bleeding Academic Research Consortium type 2, 3 or 5 bleedings at 9 months after randomization. The key secondary endpoint is major adverse cardiac and cerebral events at 9 months after randomization, defined as a composite of all-cause death, myocardial infarction, stroke or coronary artery revascularization. CONCLUSION: OPT-BIRISK is the first large scale, randomized trial aimed to explore the optimal antiplatelet strategy for bi-risk ACS patients after PCI in current clinical practice. The results will add evidence regarding de-escalation antiplatelet therapy for patients at special risk.


Published evidence on COVID-19 in top-ranked journals: A descriptive study


COVID 19: Are we fighting with the monster?


COVID-19 – An avoidable epidemic: A family medicine practitioner's perspective


title: A Statement of Solidarity on COVID-19 Pandemic 2020 by the South Asian Family Physicians

text: The World Organization of Family Doctors (WONCA) is a not-for-profit organization and was founded in 1972 by member organizations in 18 countries. WONCA now has 118 Member Organizations in 131 countries and territories with a membership of about 500,000 family doctors and more than 90 percent of the world's population. WONCA has seven regions, each of which has its own regional Council and run their own regional activities including conferences. WONCA South Asia Region is constituted by the national academies and colleges and academic member organizations of this region namely India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Bhutan, and the Maldives. In the background of the ongoing COVID 19 pandemic, the office bearers, academic leaders, practitioners, and researchers of primary care from the South Asia Region have issued a solidarity statement articulating the role of primary care physicians.


title: Restricting rural-urban connect to combat infectious disease epidemic as India fights COVID-19

text: With declaration of 2019 novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) as a pandemic on 11 March 2020 by World Health Organization, India came to alert for its being at next potential risk. It reached alert Level 2, i.e. local transmission for virus spread in early March 2020 and soon thereafter alert Level 3, i.e. community transmission. With on-going rise in COVID-19 cases in country, Government of India (GoI) has been taking multiple intense measures in coordination with the state governments, such as urban lockdown, active airport screening, quarantining, aggressive calls for 'work from home', public awareness, and active case detection with contact tracing in most places. Feedback from other countries exhibits COVID-19 transmission levels to have shown within country variations. With two-third of Indian population living in rural areas, present editorial hypothesizes that if India enters Level 3, rural hinterland would also be at risk importation (at least Level 1). Hence, we have to call for stringent containment on rural-urban and inter-state fringes. This along with other on-going measures can result in flattening curve and also in staggering 'lockdowns', and thus, helping sustain national economy.


title: Ensuring continuity of care by small family practices and clinics in the primary care setting during COVID 19 pandemic 2020 - A position paper by the Academy of Family Physicians of India

text: The world is passing through a global pandemic of COVID 19. The number of positive cases has crossed over twenty thousand as of April 2020. Like everyone else, it is indeed a very challenging situation for family physicians and primary care providers as most of the guidelines presently have focused on screening, quarantine, isolation, and hospital-based management. Limited information or clarity is available on running small private clinics during pandemic times. The key concern is professional obligation versus risks of community transmission. Family physicians see routine flu-like illnesses throughout the year with seasonal variation within their practices. This document is intended to develop consensus and standard practices for the family physicians and other primary care providers during the pandemic, ensuring optimal continuity of care. This document was reviewed by the national executive of the Academy of Family Physicians of India and approved for dissemination among members. However, due to the dynamic status of the pandemic, all practitioners are advised to closely follow the instructions, guidelines, and advisories of national, state and local health authorities as well.


title: Novel coronavirus: A capsule review for primary care and acute care physicians

text: Novel coronavirus (nCoV) is a new emerging infectious agent causing coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). Since the reporting of early cases of COVID-19 from China on December 29, 2019 till March 15, 2020, it has affected 1,42,539 humans in 135 countries, including 82 cases in India. As it is a difficult task for first-contact physicians, i.e. primary care and acute care physicians, to comprehend the fast-growing knowledge about nCoV and apply for prevention and care of suspected cases of COVID-19, we have tried to provide an updated capsule review of nCoV infection and management of COVID-19. It includes the evidence-based information on epidemiological determinants (agent, host, and environment) of the disease, its clinical features, clinical and laboratory diagnosis, basic infection prevention and control measures, and clinical management of COVID-19 cases. This review also includes the succinct summary of World Health Organization and Center for Diseases Control and Prevention interim guidelines (as of March 15, 2020) on nCoV.


title: Fever, flu and family physicians during COVID 19 pandemic 2020 in India

text: Fevers - undifferentiated, often unacknowledged, is one of the largest morbidity afflicting in primary care settings and the overall healthcare ecosystem in India. FEVER is probably also the largest public health entity in terms of DALY - (Disability Adjusted Life Years) impacting the working population both in urban as well as rural areas; however, it remains unaddressed by public health programs, which are largely organized through vertical disease-focused national programs. The family physicians see a high volume of undifferentiated fevers throughout the year with seasonal and regional variations in India. Family doctors are not formally linked with the public health programs as India continues to march on selective primary care. Family physicians and medical officers are the most vulnerable for exposure to undifferentiated patient load. The first two health workers who died of COVID 19 in India (Indore) were practicing family physicians. Two mohalla clinic doctors tested positive in Delhi and two other general practitioners have been found to be infected in Mumbai. The media discussions have been on increasing capacity for critical care and the number of ventilators etc., It is also important for the governments to urgently review the functionality of PHCs, CHCs and district hospitals, and create a framework of partnership with standalone family physicians and general practitioners as well as nursing home, small hospitals to play a constructive role in managing the epidemic.


title: Coronavirus: An emergency for healthcare professionals

text: Coronavirus infection is a transmissible disease. It was first described in China in December, 2019. It has been said to have a person-to-person transmission after prolonged and unprotected exposure. Patients with a potential SARS-CoV-2 exposure present with symptoms of low-grade pyrexia, dry cough, or shortness of breath. People with these symptoms should contact health-care providers before seeking medical intervention so that appropriate preventive actions may be implemented. Health-care facilities should rapidly isolate suspected individuals and notify local health departments for support involved in performing laboratory tests and efforts in containment. The present article describes the nature of virus, method of detection, and its mode of transmission.


title: Current perspective on pandemic of COVID-19 in the United States

text: Currently, the world is facing its 3(rd) coronavirus outbreak of the 21(st) century, which has turned to a pandemic recently. Starting on December 2019, coronavirus disease (COVID-19) was first detected in Wuhan City, Hubei province, China. As of 31(st) March, 2020, more than 900,000 COVID-19 cases have been reported across the globe involving more than 200 countries. The first case of the United States (US) was confirmed on 20(th) January, 2020 in a 35-year-old male who had a travel history to Wuhan, China, before returning to the U.S. Since then, the SARS-CoV-2 virus has spread to all the 50 states of US, with more cases being reported every day. New York, New Jersey, Michigan, and California are the worst-hit states. As COVID-19 is growing, every day has been marked by novel developments and updates. We hereby talk about how the U.S. is leading the multiagency effort to fight against this pandemic and the steps that have been taken so far.


title: Does temperature and humidity influence the spread of Covid-19?: A preliminary report

text: INTRODUCTION: Climate change has been known to influence infectious diseases. The reason for this being the fact; disease agents and their vectors each have particular environments that are optimal for growth, survival, transport, and dissemination. MATERIALS AND METHODS: The WHO's website was accessed to look for the Novel Coronavirus (COVID-19) situation dashboard and comprehensively study and assess the report. An attempt was made to look for countries, areas or territories with maximum and minimum number of cases of lab confirmed COVID cases. Further, we entered the words “Climate“ in google for each of the aforementioned countries and searched for the results. A comparison was established by including countries from both the hemispheres (northern and southern). The preliminary analysis was based on the reports from countries with established testing facilities for Covid-19. RESULTS: The report suggests that countries with higher number of cases are the countries with cold weather. These are also the countries with low humidity which could be favoring the transmission and survival of the SARS-COV-2. CONCLUSIONS: The results though preliminary point to a pattern which favors the hypothesis that the extensive spread of Covid-19 maybe limited by temperature and humidity.


title: Design of a Training Model for Remote Management of Patients Hospitalized at Home

text: PURPOSE: Hospitalization at Home (HaH) has proven to be more efficient and effective than conventional one, but it also requires a higher number of resources and specialised personnel. Information technologies can make this process scalable and allow physicians and nurses to deliver remote healthcare services for patients hospitalized at home. However, a correct and satisfactory usage of technology requires an adequate training of professionals and patients. This paper describes a new model for training healthcare professionals on managing remote ICT-based services for Hospitalization at Home. METHODS: The model was defined based on mix-method that combined the PICO model and a User Centred Design methodology, oriented to identify and discover the healthcare professionals needs and the training instruments in the literature that directly involved these professionals. These aspects were used in the definition and development of the assessment framework of the proposed training model. RESULTS: A training model for healthcare professionals focused on achieving an effective uptake of complex digital interventions such as Hospitalization at Home was defined. The selected mix-method led to the identification of four different blocks, that were considered as the main areas to include in a training programme. The model identifies measurable elements for assessing acceptability, workability increment and integration into daily clinical practice outcomes, as well as for evaluating the proposed training content and its outcomes. CONCLUSIONS: The proposed training model highlights the key aspects of training health professionals to favour an effective and successful implementation of complex technological healthcare interventions in the context of ICT-based HaH ICT.


title: Application of a Novel and Improved VGG-19 Network in the Detection of Workers Wearing Masks

text: In order to work and travel safely during the outbreak of COVID-19, a method of security detection based on deep learning is proposed by using machine vision instead of manual monitoring. To detect the illegal behaviors of workers without masks in workplaces and densely populated areas, an improved convolutional neural network VGG-19 algorithm is proposed under the framework of tensorflow, and more than 3000 images are collected for model training and testing. Using VGG-19 network model, three FC layers are optimized into one flat layer and two FC layers with reduced parameters. The softmax classification layer of the original model is replaced by a 2-label softmax classifier. The experimental results show that the precision of the model is 97.62% and the recall is 96.31%. The precision of identifying the workers without masks is 96.82%, the recall is 94.07%, and the data set provided has a high precision. For the future social health and safety to provide favorable test data.


title: Stakeholder framing, communicative interaction, and policy legitimacy: anti-smoking policy in South Korea

text: Since the emergence of the argumentative turn in critical policy studies, increasing attention has been paid to the crucial role played by language, context, and communicative practices in the policy process. This study aims to investigate communicative interaction between state elites and societal stakeholders in South Korea with a focus on the anti-smoking policies of two different administrations: the Roh administration (2003–2008) and the Park administration (2013–2017). As a theoretical base, this paper proposes a stakeholder-oriented approach to legitimacy, which incorporates a policy frame analysis with the concept of a three-tier policy structure (i.e., policy goals, policy tools, and tool settings). In assessing policy legitimacy, the stakeholder-oriented approach examines whether there is congruence between the three-tier policy structure and the corresponding stakeholder framing. In the Roh administration, the policy frames among the three tiers of policy structure were centered on public health promotion, whereas in the Park administration, they expanded to the domain of tax policy. The empirical findings underscore the importance of two-way communication between the government and societal stakeholders, which can be evidenced using policy frame analysis. Ultimately, the results show that policy legitimacy is more likely to be guaranteed if there is no hidden or predetermined policy intention that can be detected by stakeholder framing analysis.


title: Luminescence properties and energy transfer of Tb(3+), Eu(3+) co-doped YTaO(4) phosphors obtained via sol–gel combustion process

text: Tantalate is considered as a valuable and efficient luminescence host because of its intense absorption in the ultraviolet area and excellent chemical properties. In this work, a series of pure YTaO(4):Eu(3+) and/or Tb(3+) crystals were prepared via a sol–gel combustion method. The morphology, structure, and optical properties of the samples were discussed in detail. The Eu(3+), Tb(3+) co-doped YTaO(4) samples are consisted of small spherical particles of around 18 nm. The prepared YTaO(4):Tb(3+) and/or Eu(3+) samples exhibit the characteristic wide excitation band around 210–300 nm, the characteristic narrow red emission of Eu(3+) ((5)D(0) → (7)F(2)) transitions and green emission of the Tb(3+) ((5)D(4) → (7)F(5)) transitions when excited by UV light. It is focused on the energy transfer processes from the YTaO(4) to Tb(3+) as well as Eu(3+) ions and from Tb(3+) to Eu(3+) ions of YTaO(4):Eu(3+)/Tb(3+) phosphors. Color-tunable emissions are realized through adjusting the types of rare earth ion (Eu(3+) and Tb(3+)) and relative doping concentrations excited by a single wavelength. That is to say, the obtained Tb(3+) and Eu(3+) co-doped YTaO(4) phosphors have a promising prospect in lasers, white light diodes (WLED), fluorescent lamp, and field emission display devices, etc.


Political events and public views on climate change


The authors' response: Propofol in COVID 19: From basic science to clinical impact()


The art of survival


How to resume elective surgery in light of COVID-19 post-pandemic propofol shortage: An anaesthetist and surgeon indivisible concern


Is there a place for microwave ablation under Pringle maneuver for perivascular colorectal liver metastases?: Reponse to “ Laparoscopic liver resection for liver tumors in proximity to major vasculature: A single-center comparative study”


US Supreme Court upholds abortion rights, for now


The UPMC Hillman Cancer Center Approach to the Management of Colorectal Cancer During the COVID-19 Pandemic Era


Treating GI cancer during the COVID-19 pandemic in Europe


From encephalitis lethargica to COVID-19: Is there another epidemic ahead?


The financial strain placed on America's hospitals in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic


The Asian Approach to the Management of GI Cancer Patients During the COVID-19 Pandemic Era


Food Insecurity and Health: Practices and Policies to Address Food Insecurity among Children


COVID-19: the worst may be yet to come


COVID-19 epidemic phases: criteria, challenges and issues for the future*


Telehealth: the future is now in allergy practice


Propofol in COVID 19 — From basic science to clinical impact


Offline: Restoring trust in WHO


The Vaccine


Standards as a Driver of Economics


"It has been essential to keep noise levels low in the Kuga"


title: Transforming universities in interactive digital platform: case of city university of science and information technology

text: The purpose of this research was to understand the automation of Higher Education Institutes (HEIs), and to evaluate the automated process from the perspective of developing country. A single case study of City University of Science and Information Technology (CUSIT), Pakistan was selected as a unit of analysis. Mix methodology was used in this research. Semi-structured in-depth interviews were conducted from the top management as a primary source while secondary data regarding usage and functions of LMS was collected for the period of 2 years (four semesters Fall-2017–Spring 2019). Data from both sources was utilized, and triangulated for case building and analysis. It was found that CUSIT has a state-of-the-art automated infrastructure, management information system (MIS) and learning management system (LMS) which facilitates faculty, staff and administration. LMS provides an integrated and digital platform to key stakeholders particularly to the teachers for sharing course outlines, lesson plan, assignment generation and submission, announcements and generating assessment reports. Similarly, the student gets access to all course material, assignments, assessment report, notices, and other relevant information at any point of time. However, the system lacks some of the major E-learning features with limited support to the large file size, real time learning, online classes, real time feedback and query system etc. Furthermore, this study identified few seldomly used functions of automated system as well as few duplications and operational activities which requires consideration by the management. The case of CUSIT proves to be a practical case for all those universities who are facing challenges due to corona virus pandemic and are looking for a solution to continue education through distance learning and e-learning platforms. This study supports the automation of HEIs and provides lesson learned for the academia and management of HEIs by identification of success features as well as limitations of the system.