Analysis of CDC social control measures using an agent-based simulation of an influenza epidemic in a city

Background: the transmission of infectious disease amongst the human population is a complex process which requires advanced, often individual-based, models to capture the space-time details observed in reality.Methods: an Individual Space-Time Activity-based Model (ISTAM) was applied to simulate the effectiveness of non-pharmaceutical control measures including: (1) refraining from social activities, (2) school closure and (3) household quarantine, for a hypothetical influenza outbreak in an urban area.Results: amongst the set of control measures tested, refraining from social activities with various compliance levels was relatively ineffective. Household quarantine was very effective, especially for the peak number of cases and total number of cases, with large differences between compliance levels. Household quarantine resulted in a decrease in the peak number of cases from more than 300 to around 158 for a 100% compliance level, a decrease of about 48.7%. The delay in the outbreak peak was about 3 to 17 days. The total number of cases decreased to a range of 3635-5403, that is, 63.7%-94.7% of the baseline value.When coupling control measures, household quarantine together with school closure was the most effective strategy. The resulting space-time distribution of infection in different classes of activity bundles (AB) suggests that the epidemic outbreak is strengthened amongst children and then spread to adults. By sensitivity analysis, this study demonstrated that earlier implementation of control measures leads to greater efficacy. Also, for infectious diseases with larger basic reproduction number, the effectiveness of non-pharmaceutical measures was shown to be limited.Conclusions: simulated results showed that household quarantine was the most effective control measure, while school closure and household quarantine implemented together achieved the greatest benefit. Agent-based models should be applied in the future to evaluate the efficacy of control measures for a range of disease outbreaks in a range of settings given sufficient information about the given case and knowledge about the transmission processes at a fine scal

Conducting Effective Presentations

{Excerpt} From interviews and our own observations, the following scenario is common: the speaker at a seminar shares about 30 slides, skipping over many. Time goes on…and on. Some participants lose interest; others become distracted; some even slip out. Finally, the sponsor says, “Time has run out, but maybe we can have one or two questions.” Yet it looked as though the speaker had just reached the heart of the matter and it was over. What happened? In most organizations, staff are busy and they vote withtheir feet. If they are bored or not actively engaged, they will find excuses to leave. Some will never return to presentations conducted by the same speaker. The good news is that guidelines for conducting effective presentations are simple and do not depend on the speaking ability of the person sharing the message

The influence of CpG and UpA dinucleotide frequencies on RNA virus replication and characterization of the innate cellular pathways underlying virus attenuation and enhanced replication

Most RNA viruses infecting mammals and other vertebrates show profound suppression of CpG and UpA dinucleotide frequencies. To investigate this functionally, mutants of the picornavirus, echovirus 7 (E7), were constructed with altered CpG and UpA compositions in two 1.1–1.3 Kbase regions. Those with increased frequencies of CpG and UpA showed impaired replication kinetics and higher RNA/infectivity ratios compared with wild-type virus. Remarkably, mutants with CpGs and UpAs removed showed enhanced replication, larger plaques and rapidly outcompeted wild-type virus on co-infections. Luciferase-expressing E7 sub-genomic replicons with CpGs and UpAs removed from the reporter gene showed 100-fold greater luminescence. E7 and mutants were equivalently sensitive to exogenously added interferon-β, showed no evidence for differential recognition by ADAR1 or pattern recognition receptors RIG-I, MDA5 or PKR. However, kinase inhibitors roscovitine and C16 partially or entirely reversed the attenuated phenotype of high CpG and UpA mutants, potentially through inhibition of currently uncharacterized pattern recognition receptors that respond to RNA composition. Generating viruses with enhanced replication kinetics has applications in vaccine production and reporter gene construction. More fundamentally, the findings introduce a new evolutionary paradigm where dinucleotide composition of viral genomes is subjected to selection pressures independently of coding capacity and profoundly influences host–pathogen interactions

The Contrasting Soundscapes of Hull and London in David Bowie’s Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars

In this article I apply the concept of the urban soundscape as developed by Long and Collins (2012) in an analysis of the impact musicians from Hull had on the evolution of David Bowie’s seminal 1972 work The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars. I argue that the performance of Ziggy Stardust, both on record and on stage, is doubly coded in relation to place and space. The 'concept' of The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust as a musical, a fictional story with songs performed on stage, and an accompanying album of recorded songs, initially appears to be heavily associated with London. The format of the concept – which the creator described as theatre, rather than a rock and roll show – is derived from Bowie’s experience growing up in London from the late 1940s to the early 1970s, a time of great change in the capital. I suggest that the Ziggy Stardust performance, and its significance, rests on the authenticity of the supporting musicians in the project, musicians from Hull, Yorkshire, with whom Bowie had been playing for more than two years before it was aired. I illustrate that Bowie and his support cast were subject to different cultural settings, and thus influenced by different soundscapes, and the relevant properties from each are compared here. I go on to provide some assessment of how the involvement of these Hull musicians in the Bowie project has impacted upon the city’s historical music culture, and on heritage issues and cultural production in that town. I conclude by noting that Hull has a thriving arts community and is UK Capital of Culture in 2017

Novel shape indices for vector landscape pattern analysis

The formation of an anisotropic landscape is influenced by natural and/or human processes, which can then be inferred on the basis of geometric indices. In this study, two minimal bounding rectangles in consideration of the principles of mechanics (i.e. minimal width bounding (MWB) box and moment bounding (MB) box) were introduced. Based on these boxes, four novel shape indices, namely MBLW (the length-to-width ratio of MB box), PAMBA (area ratio between patch and MB box), PPMBP (perimeter ratio between patch and MB box) and ODI (orientation difference index between MB and MWB boxes), were introduced to capture multiple aspects of landscape features including patch elongation, patch compactness, patch roughness and patch symmetry. Landscape pattern was, thus, quantified by considering both patch directionality and patch shape simultaneously, which is especially suitable for anisotropic landscape analysis. The effectiveness of the new indices were tested with real landscape data consisting of three kinds of saline soil patches (i.e. the elongated shaped slightly saline soil class, the circular or half-moon shaped moderately saline soil, and the large and complex severely saline soil patches). The resulting classification was found to be more accurate and robust than that based on traditional shape complexity indices

Modelling environmental factors correlated with podoconiosis: a geospatial study of non-filarial elephantiasis

Introduction The precise trigger of podoconiosis — endemic non-filarial elephantiasis of the lower legs — is unknown. Epidemiological and ecological studies have linked the disease with barefoot exposure to red clay soils of volcanic origin. Histopathology investigations have demonstrated that silicon, aluminium, magnesium and iron are present in the lower limb lymph node macrophages of both patients and non-patients living barefoot on these clays. We studied the spatial variation (variations across an area) in podoconiosis prevalence and the associated environmental factors with a goal to better understanding the pathogenesis of podoconiosis. Methods Fieldwork was conducted from June 2011 to February 2013 in 12 kebeles (administrative units) in northern Ethiopia. Geo-located prevalence data and soil samples were collected and analysed along with secondary geological, topographic, meteorological and elevation data. Soil data were analysed for chemical composition, mineralogy and particle size, and were interpolated to provide spatially continuous information. Exploratory, spatial, univariate and multivariate regression analyses of podoconiosis prevalence were conducted in relation to primary (soil) and secondary (elevation, precipitation, and geology) covariates. Results Podoconiosis distribution showed spatial correlation with variation in elevation and precipitation. Exploratory analysis identified that phyllosilicate minerals, particularly clay (smectite and kaolinite) and mica groups, quartz (crystalline silica), iron oxide, and zirconium were associated with podoconiosis prevalence. The final multivariate model showed that the quantities of smectite (RR = 2.76, 95% CI: 1.35, 5.73; p = 0.007), quartz (RR = 1.16, 95% CI: 1.06, 1.26; p = 0.001) and mica (RR = 1.09, 95% CI: 1.05, 1.13; p < 0.001) in the soil had positive associations with podoconiosis prevalence. Conclusions More quantities of smectite, mica and quartz within the soil were associated with podoconiosis prevalence. Together with previous work indicating that these minerals may influence water absorption, potentiate infection and be toxic to human cells, the present findings suggest that these particles may play a role in the pathogenesis of podoconiosis and acute adenolymphangitis, a common cause of morbidity in podoconiosis patients

Spatiotemporal subpixel mapping of time-series images

Land cover/land use (LCLU) information extraction from multitemporal sequences of remote sensing imagery is becoming increasingly important. Mixed pixels are a common problem in Landsat and MODIS images that are used widely for LCLU monitoring. Recently developed subpixel mapping (SPM) techniques can extract LCLU information at the subpixel level by dividing mixed pixels into subpixels to which hard classes are then allocated. However, SPM has rarely been studied for time-series images (TSIs). In this paper, a spatiotemporal SPM approach was proposed for SPM of TSIs. In contrast to conventional spatial dependence-based SPM methods, the proposed approach considers simultaneously spatial and temporal dependences, with the former considering the correlation of subpixel classes within each image and the latter considering the correlation of subpixel classes between images in a temporal sequence. The proposed approach was developed assuming the availability of one fine spatial resolution map which exists among the TSIs. The SPM of TSIs is formulated as a constrained optimization problem. Under the coherence constraint imposed by the coarse LCLU proportions, the objective is to maximize the spatiotemporal dependence, which is defined by blending both spatial and temporal dependences. Experiments on three data sets showed that the proposed approach can provide more accurate subpixel resolution TSIs than conventional SPM methods. The SPM results obtained from the TSIs provide an excellent opportunity for LCLU dynamic monitoring and change detection at a finer spatial resolution than the available coarse spatial resolution TSIs

Presbyterian Imitation Practices in Zachary Boyd’s Nebuchadnezzars Fierie Furnace

The university administrator, preacher and poet Zachary Boyd (1585–1653) relied heavily on epithets and similes borrowed from Josuah Sylvester's poetry when composing his scriptural versifications Zion's Flowers(c. 1640?). The composition of Boyd's adaptation of Daniel 3, Nebuchadnezzars Fierie Furnace, provides an unusually lucid example of the reading and imitation practices of a mid-seventeenth-century Scottish Presbyterian in the years preceding civil war. This article begins by re-considering a manuscript transcription of Fierie Furnace held at the British Library previously described as an anonymous playtext from the early 1610s, then establishes the nature of Boyd's reliance on Sylvester by analyzing holograph manuscripts held at Glasgow University Library, a sermon Boyd wrote on the same theme, and the copy of Sylvester's Devine Weekes, and Workes that Boyd probably used.Arts and Humanities Research Counci

Relationships between climate and winter cereal grain quality in Finland and their potential for forecasting

Many studies have demonstrated the effects of climate on cereal yield, but there has been little work carried out examining the relationships between climate and cereal grain quality on a national scale. In this study national mean hectolitre weight for both rye and winter wheat in Finland was modelled using monthly gridded accumulated snow depth, precipitation rate, solar radiation and temperature over the period 1971 to 2001. Variables with significant relationships in correlation analysis both before and after difference detrending were further investigated using forward stepwise regression. For rye, March snow depth, and June and July solar radiation accounted for 66% of the year-to-year variance in hectolitre weight, and for winter wheat January snow depth, June solar radiation and August temperature accounted for 62% of the interannual variance in hectolitre weight. Further analysis of national variety trials and weather station data was used to support proposed biological mechanisms. Finally a cross validation technique was used to test forecast models with those variables available by early July by making predictions of above or below the mean hectolitre weight. Analysis of the contingency tables for these predictions indicated that national hectolitre weight forecasts are feasible for both cereals in advance of harvest