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.


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.


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.


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.


title: Zika Outbreak of 2016: Insights from Twitter

text: An outbreak of the Zika virus in 2016 caused great concern among the general public and generated a burst of tweets. The aim of this study was to develop a better understanding of the types of discussions taking place. Tweets were retrieved from the peak of the Zika outbreak (as identified by Google Trends). Tweets were then filtered and entered in NVivo to be analysed using thematic analysis. It was found that tweets on Zika revolved around seven key themes: pregnancy, travel and the Olympics, mosquitoes and conspiracy, health organisations, health information, travel and tracking, and general discussions around Zika. Our results are likely to be of interest to public health organisations disseminating information related to future outbreaks of Zika and we develop a set of preliminary recommendations for health authorities.


title: Managing Information in the Case of Opinion Spamming

text: The rapid innovation of information and communication technology (ICT) within the last decades has come along with the development of new opportunities and challenges, new business models, new systems, etc. Companies like Amazon, Google or Alibaba shape business functions and percolate our daily life. Business operations go hand in hand with new types of user experiences when buying goes different than just traditional ways. Often it is not only the buying behavior but also the way recommendations are perceived as they may be readily available. This relates to opinion mining and, unfortunately, opinion spamming. We survey the issue of opinion spamming and fake review detection and focus on both sides of fake review groups, i.e., how to detect such groups but also how to set up a group that might be undetected with current methods. As both directions go hand in hand we elaborate on learning in both directions with the aim to improve related methods.


title: Investigating Key Factors for Social Network Evolution and Opinion Dynamics in an Agent-Based Simulation

text: In recent years social media platforms have experienced increasing attention of researchers due to their capabilities of providing information and spreading opinions of individuals, thus establishing a new environment for opinion formation on a societal level. To gain a better understanding of the occurring opinion dynamics, the interactions between the users and the content that has been shared in those environments has to be investigated. With our work, we want to shed light on the part played by the underlying network structure as information spread relies directly on it and every user of social media is affected by it. Therefore, we analyzed the role of network properties and dealing with friendships in such networks using an agent-based model. Our results reveal the capability of such models for investigating the influence of these factors on opinion dynamics and encourage further investigation in this field of research.


title: A Two-Phase Framework for Detecting Manipulation Campaigns in Social Media

text: The identification of coordinated campaigns within Social Media is a complex task that is often hindered by missing labels and large amounts of data that have to be processed. We propose a new two-phase framework that uses unsupervised stream clustering for detecting suspicious trends over time in a first step. Afterwards, traditional offline analyses are applied to distinguish between normal trend evolution and malicious manipulation attempts. We demonstrate the applicability of our framework in the context of the final days of the Brexit in 2019/2020.


title: Research Upon the Relativity Between Digital Media and Tourism

text: This thesis originates from the authors both as tourism educators and multimedia professionals loving nature and travelling. In this information era, digital media has turned out to be the most common medium of social life with the content of communication shifting from text-centered ones to interactive multimedia forms of images and videos. Mingling in the Nature, human society and the virtual world, digital media is developing rapidly with dazzling new concepts and technologies such as new media, We Media, and media convergence. Digital media has its unique tool in creation which is further fortified by computer and network technology at the aim of comprehensive artistic interaction. Hence a variety of VR, AR, and H5 are being widely used. The nature of tourism activities is the interaction between people and nature. The development of society and the improvement of people’s living standards have gradually increased the proportion of tourism activities in people’s daily lives. Tourists have a strong dependence on information. Whether it is communication or expression, the traditional tourism industry cannot meet the needs of the public. The combination of the fastest growing digital media and the broadest travel culture will inevitably produce unique and fascinating products. In view of the characteristics of digital media and modern tourism, the relationship between them is mutually reinforcing and inseparable. The promotion, promotion and implementation of tourism are inseparable from digital media. Every step of social development is driven by innovation and demands. Digital media and tourism are entering into the era of individuality, both complimenting, incorporating, and improving for mutual success and representing a vigorous and promising prospect for us.


title: Sedation with ketamine and fentanyl combination improves patient outcomes in intensive care units

text: Psychological manifestations such as depression and suicidal ideation are commonly caused by poorly controlled pain, anxiety, and sleep deprivation in intensive care unit (ICU) patients. We are concerned that previous analgesic and sedative techniques administered as single-medication approaches are outdated and inadequate. It is imperative that ICU practitioners are knowledgeable in multimodal approaches to pain and sedation in high acuity settings. We have shown that appropriate combinations of ketamine and fentanyl are effective, and if further supplementation is needed, we utilize additional pharmacological agents in low doses and regional techniques that ultimately lower the overall opioid consumption. We acknowledge that a variety of medication supplementations tailored to the patient’s clinical needs and nature of surgery improves a patient’s outcome in ICU and overall quality of life.


title: Sambucus nigra (black elder) as alternative treatment for cold and flu

text: Common cold and flu are caused by common respiratory viral pathogens, which results in hospitalization and death in the world. Among the viral infections, influenza viruses have worldwide spread with major effects on health of societies. Change in antigenic structures of influenza viruses is associated with the lack of effective treatments. Therefore, the use of herbal medicine as alternative choice can be used for management of flu and cold. The flowers of Sambucus nigra or black elders have been approved by commission E for cold, and flu. Although, elders are used in different herbal formulates, but there is no comprehensive study. The subject of this review article was to summarize the efficacy of black elder in treatment of cold and flu. For preparing this manuscript, the electronic resources, books, and thesis were searched by key words of Sambucus, elder, cold, flu, and viral infections. The results of investigations exhibited that there are four clinical trials for elder berries, which it reduced the cold duration and severity (fever, pain, congestion, cough), while there is no clinical trial for elder flower on common cold and flu in spite of its approval by commission E. So, evaluating the efficacy of elder flowers in comparison with its berries and standard treatment on patients with viral respiratory infections should be the subject of large clinical studies.


Cross-country comparison of media reporting of celebrity suicide in the immediate week: A pilot study


Proportionality, Pandemics and Medical Ethics


Allocating Vaccines in a Pandemic: The Ethical Dimension


To our readers: Important notice


Ethical Reflection on the Emergency Engineering Management of COVID-19 Epidemic Prevention and Control


International beachtet: Das Heidelberger Corona-Taxi


How much will the vaccine cost (if ever discovered….)


title: Pandemic pushes polarisation: the Corona crisis and macroeconomic divergence in the Eurozone

text: This paper discusses the uneven consequences of the macroeconomic fallout from the Coronavirus and related economic policy responses against the background of an analysis of longer-term macroeconomic divergence in the Eurozone. We show that the macroeconomic impact of the Corona crisis is estimated to be more severe in Southern Eurozone countries than in Northern Eurozone countries, which further reinforces the tendency of an increasing economic polarisation. This polarisation process can be traced back to existing differences in production structures and uneven vulnerabilities of the underlying growth models. As a consequence, any policy response to the Corona crisis that does not take the deeper problems of structural polarisation into account will suffer from limited impact in the medium to long run. ELECTRONIC SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL: The online version of this article (10.1007/s40812-020-00163-w) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.


title: Research progress of TiO(2) photocathodic protection to metals in marine environment

text: Corrosion protection has become an important issue as the amount of infrastructure construction in marine environment increased. Photocathodic protection is a promising method to reduce the corrosion of metals, and titanium dioxide (TiO(2)) is the most widely used photoanode. This review summarizes the progress in TiO(2) photogenerated protection in recent years. Different types of semiconductors, including sulfides, metals, metal oxides, polymers, and other materials, are used to design and modify TiO(2). The strategy to dramatically improve the efficiency of photoactivity is proposed, and the mechanism is investigated in detail. Characterization methods are also introduced, including morphology testing, light absorption, photoelectrochemistry, and protected metal observation. This review aims to provide a comprehensive overview of TiO(2) development and guide photocathodic protection.


Policy options discussed for pricing novel COVID-19 vaccines/treatment


ICER update to pricing models of remdesivir for COVID-19


title: Einleitung

text: Wirft man heute einen Blick in die Naturabteilungen der Buchhandlungen, wächst einem das Grün beinahe entgegen; Waldbaden ist in aller Munde und ein Modebegriff. Zahlreiche Publikationen zur Liebe zu Wäldern, Bäumen und der Natur finden unzählige Abnehmerinnen und Abnehmer. Das legt den Schluss nahe, dass dieser Trend wohl einer Sehnsucht folgt.


Multiple drugs: Bradycardia, atrioventricular block and off-label use: case report


Immunosuppressants: Coronavirus-2019 infection: 15 case reports


Hydroxychloroquine: Acute haemolysis, that lead to acute renal failure: case report


title: Nurses’ attitude towards oral care and their practicing level for hospitalized patients in Orotta National Referral Hospital, Asmara-Eritrea: a cross-sectional study

text: BACKGROUND: Effective and routine mouth care is necessary for hospitalized patients as it helps to maintain the health of oral cavity and overall health. However, oral care is often overlooked and not prioritized in daily activity plan of nurses even when oral problems are apparent. Therefore, the aim of this study was to assess nurses’ attitude towards oral care and their practicing level for hospitalized patients. METHODS: A cross-sectional study design was conducted in adult medical-surgical department of Orotta hospital from December 2017 to January 2018. Data was collected from all (N = 73) diploma and associate nurses through face to face interview using a pretested and structured questionnaire. Kruskal-Wallis, Mann-Whitney U tests and spearman rank correlation coefficient tools were performed to analyze the data using SPSS (Version 22). RESULTS: Out of the 79 participants, 73 completed the interview successfully with a response rate of 92.4%. Of the total, 56.2% were diploma nurses and 43.9% were associate nurses. The median attitude score was 68.89/100 (IQR = 48.89). The majority (94.5%) of the nurses agreed that oral cavity assessment is nurse’s responsibility and 94.5% reported adequate training is needed to provide quality oral care. On the other hand, the median practice score was 50.00/100 (IQR = 17.86). Majority of the participants (76.7%) did not perform routine oral health assessment. Almost all (98.4%) used gauze and normal saline for oral care. Practice score was significantly different across the various wards (p < 0.001), however, it was not significantly correlated with attitude (p = 0.646). CONCLUSIONS: The participants had poor level of oral care practice to hospitalized patients, nevertheless, they had favourable attitude. Therefore, Orotta National Referral Hospital needs to give further effort to train the nursing staff, ensure the availability of adequate oral care equipment and provide clear guidelines regarding oral care of hospitalized patients.


Lopinavir/ritonavir: vomiting and watery diarrhoea: case report


title: Guidelines for planning and conducting high-quality research and testing on animals

text: There are important scientific, legal and ethical reasons for optimising the quality of animal research and testing. Concerns about the reproducibility and translatability of animal studies are now being voiced not only by those opposed to animal use, but also by scientists themselves. Many of the attempts to improve reproducibility have, until recently, focused on ways in which the reporting of animal studies can be improved. Many reporting guidelines have been written. Better reporting cannot, however, improve the quality of work that has already been carried out - for this purpose better planning is required. Planning animal studies should involve close collaboration with the animal facility where the work is to be performed, from as early a stage as possible. In this way, weaknesses in the protocol will be detected and changes can be made before it is too late. Improved planning must focus on more than the “mathematical” elements of experimental design such as randomisation, blinding and statistical methods. This should include focus on practical details such as the standard of the facility, any need for education and training, and all the factors which can improve animal welfare. The PREPARE (Planning Research and Experimental Procedures on Animals: Recommendations for Excellence) checklist was developed to help scientists be more aware of all the issues which may affect their experiments. The checklist is supported by comprehensive webpages containing more information, with links to the latest resources that have been developed for each topic on the list.


Tocilizumab: Neutropenia: case report


Hydroxychloroquine/lopinavir/ritonavir/methylprednisolone: Manic episode with psychotic features during an off-label use: case report


title: The emerging landscape of circular RNAs in immunity: breakthroughs and challenges

text: Circular RNAs (circRNAs) are covalently linked RNAs that exhibit individual strand with a closed-loop framework compared with a conserving, steady and abundant linear counterpart. In recent years, as high-throughput sequencing advancement has been developing, functional circRNAs have been increasingly recognized, and more extensive analyses expounded their effect on different diseases. However, the study on the function of circRNAs in the immune system remains insufficient. This study discusses the basic principles of circRNAs regulation and the systems involved in physiology-related and pathology-related processes. The effect of circRNAs on immune regulation is elucidated. The ongoing development of circRNAs and basic immunology has multiplied their potential in treating diseases. Such perspective will summarize the status and effect of circRNAs on various immune cells in cancer, autoimmune diseases and infections. Moreover, this study will primarily expound the system of circRNAs in T lymphocytes, macrophages and other immune cells, which creates a novel perspective and lay a theoretical basis for treating diseases.


title: Food systems for resilient futures

text: In this time of the pandemic, nothing is as it used to be. This change creates space for new narratives towards resilience. The resilience perspective implies preparing for shocks as well as various futures that might evolve. Thus, more sustainable food systems cannot only be built to be pandemic proof. This preparation can be facilitated by co-designing contrasting future narratives, identifying means for developing capacity to adapt to those futures and developing tools to enhance that capacity, such as demonstrated here. The capacity of food systems to adapt and transform is enhanced by dialogue, transparency and collective learning in food value chains and networks, sovereignty over resources, and built-in diversity in response to change. In market-led global food chains, supplier-buyer diversity is important, while in public-led regions with some market protection, farm and crop diversity might matter more in response to variability in weather, price and policies. During, for example, an international conflict, or the time of a pandemic, diverse food sourcing from local producer-consumer cooperatives to community-supported and urban agriculture could secure food for citizens. Assessments of critical diversity in response to shocks and volatility can help actors to tailor effective diversity to manage resilience while avoiding the long-feared trade-off between diversity and resource-use efficiency. The interdependence of humanity deserves attention, as food systems are only as resilient as their weakest actor. A truly resilient global food system implies not only preparedness for coming shocks and changes but also a foundation that makes shocks less probable and critical.


Multiple drugs interaction: Reduction in drug level and QTc prolongation following off label use: 2 case reports


Multiple drugs interaction: Serotonin syndrome and off-label use: 2 case reports


title: Contextual factors associated with depression among urban refugee and displaced youth in Kampala, Uganda: findings from a cross-sectional study

text: BACKGROUND: Advancing mental health among refugee and displaced adolescents and youth is critically important, as chronic psychological stress can have lifelong harmful impacts. These groups experience socio-environmental stressors that can harm mental health. Informed by a social contextual framework, this study explored the prevalence of depression among urban refugee and displaced youth in Kampala, Uganda and associations with symbolic (violence), relational (social support), and material (food and community insecurity) contexts. METHODS: We implemented a cross-sectional survey with refugee and displaced adolescent girls and young women and adolescent boys and young men aged 16–24 living in Kampala’s informal settlements. We conducted peer-driven recruitment, whereby peer navigators shared study information with their networks and in turn participants were invited to recruit their peers. We conducted gender disaggregated analyses, including stepwise multiple regression to examine factors associated with depression. We then conducted structural equation modeling (SEM) using weighted least squares estimation to examine direct paths from violence, food insecurity, and community insecurity to depression, and indirect effects through social support. RESULTS: Among participants (n = 445), young women (n = 333) reported significantly higher depression symptoms than young men (n = 112), including any symptoms (73.9% vs. 49.1%, p < 0.0001), mild to moderate symptoms (60.4% vs. 45.5%, p = 0.008), and severe symptoms (13.5% vs 3.6%, p = 0.002). SEM results among young women indicate that the latent violence factor (lifetime sexual and physical violence) had direct effects on depression and social support, but social support did not mediate the path from violence to depression. The model fit the data well: χ2(3) = 9.82, p = 0.020; RMSEA = 0.08, 90% CI [0.03, 0.14], CFI = 0.96). Among young men, SEM findings indicate that food insecurity had direct effects on social support, and an indirect effect on depression through the mediating role of social support. Fit indices suggest good model fit: χ2(3) = 2.09, p = 0.352; RMSEA = 0.02, 90% CI [0.000, 0.19], CFI = 0.99. CONCLUSIONS: Findings reveal widespread depression among urban refugee and displaced youth in Kampala, disproportionately impacting young women. Contextual factors, including food insecurity and violence, increase depression risks. Strategies that reduce gender-based violence and food insecurity, and increase social support networks, have the potential to promote mental health among urban refugee and displaced youth.


Remdesivir: Various toxicities: 4 case reports


Levosimendan/norepinephrine: Lack of drug effect: case report


Enoxaparin-sodium: Intracranial haemorrhage: case report


Hydroxychloroquine: Hepatotoxicity following off-label treatment: case report


Natalizumab: Pneumonia caused by COVID-19: case report


title: Development of a hexavalent recombinant protein vaccine adjuvanted with Montanide ISA 50 V and determination of its protective efficacy against acute toxoplasmosis

text: BACKGROUND: Toxoplasma gondii is an obligate intracellular parasite that can infect almost all warm-blooded animals, avian species and humans. Toxoplasmosis is asymptomatic in healthy individuals, whereas it may lead to death in immune suppressed or deficient patients. A vaccine against T. gondii is required to prevent consequences of the infection. The aim of this study is to generate a multivalent recombinant protein vaccine against T. gondii. METHODS: 49 previously discovered antigenic proteins of T gondii were evaluated by their expression level in E. coli and by comprehensive bioinformatics analyses to determine antigenic epitopes. Based on these analyses, six vaccine candidate proteins were selected to generate a hexavalent recombinant protein vaccine adjuvanted with Montanide ISA 50 V. Humoral and cellular immune responses were determined by flow cytometry and ELISA. Vaccinated mice were challenged with T. gondii Ankara strain tachyzoites. RESULTS: In mice vaccinated with hexavalent vaccine, strong total IgG (P < 0.0001) and IgG2a (P < 0.001) responses were induced compared to controls, the ratio of CD4(+) and CD8(+) T lymphocytes secreting IFN-γ increased, and significantly higher extracellular IFN-γ secretion was achieved compared to the controls (P < 0.001). The survival time of the vaccinated mice increased to 8.38 ± 2.13 days which was significantly higher than controls (P < 0.01). CONCLUSIONS: Altogether, these results show that the hexavalent vaccine which is developed for the first time against T. gondii induced strong and balanced Th1 and Th2 immune responses as well as conferred significant protection against challenge with lethal toxoplasmosis in murine model.


Fingolimod: Lymphopenia and COVID-19 infection complicated by pneumonia: case report


title: Toolbox: Verbreitete und leistungsfähige Fragebögen, Tests und Skalen

text: Es gibt ein breites Repertoire an wissenschaftlichen, validierten Fragebögen, Tests und Skalen zur Erfassung verschiedener Aspekte von Führung. Viele davon sind frei verfügbar, leistungsfähig und ohne größeren Entwicklungsaufwand auch für die nicht-akademische Praxis einsetzbar. Dies macht es möglich – wenn die entsprechende Statistik-Expertise vorhanden ist – eigene Untersuchungen zu konzipieren, ohne auf kommerzielle Verfahren mit teilweise sehr hohen Lizenzgebühren zurückzugreifen. Mögliche Untersuchungsfelder sind die Leistungsfähigkeit, die Persönlichkeit und die Einstellungen von Führungskräften, die Führungsmotivation, verschiedene Aspekte des Führungsverhaltens sowie komplexe führungsbezogene Verhaltensmuster bzw. Führungsstile.


Young dentists create new online community


Nursing oral care


Dental dam: the time is right


Family bubbles


Within spitting distance


Déjà vu!


Updated oral health strategy


A centralised approach


Thanks are due


Finding the positives


For the record


Dexamethasone for pulpitis


title: Dependence of new environmental nano organic semiconductor nickel-(II)-tetraphenyl-21H,23H-porphyrin films on substrate type for energy storage applications

text: Characterization of organic nickel-(II)-tetraphenyl-21H,23H-porphyrin films as a function of substrate type was performed for energy storage applications and consequently environmental enhancement. Nickel-(II)-tetraphenyl-21H,23H-porphyrin films show an amorphous phase. They have a crystallite size of 8–11 nm. Strain caused a shift of different humps’ positions. The measured transmittance has high values within the range of 85–91%, and the absorption coefficient values were included within the high-absorption region. Both optical gap and fundamental gap, refractive index, carrier-concentration-to-effective-mass ratio and lattice dielectric constant were calculated, and they were found to be increased, except refractive index and lattice dielectric constant. The obtained data indicated that nickel-(II)-tetraphenyl-21H,23H-porphyrin films are a candidate for energy storage applications.


PC-FACS July 2, 2020


Evidence-based medicine in times of crisis


Limiting positive end-expiratory pressure to protect renal function in SARS-CoV-2 critically ill patients


COVID-19 Presenting as Takotsubo Cardiomyopathy Complicated with Atrial Fibrillation


Editors’ page


title: Food defense—“Back to the basics”

text: This is a chapter about food defense that focuses on “Back to the Basics” with a significant study of risk, vulnerability, and threat. Many key food defense terms are defined in an effort to “level set” on them before looking at historical perspectives, consumer education, and federal government/food and agriculture sector specific plans. Several case studies (the Bagwan Shree Rajneesh attempt in Oregon, 1984; EHEC O104 in Germany, 2011; Horsemeat Scandal in UK, 2013) are explored before outlining the next steps.


Bronchitis and Pneumonia


Glycyrrhiza glabra (Licorice)


title: Data and food supply chain: Blockchain and GS1 standards in the food chain: a review of the possibilities and challenges

text: This chapter examines the integration of GS1 standards with the functional components of Blockchain technology as an approach to realize a coherent standardized framework of industry-based tools for successful food supply chain transformation. The vulnerability of food supply chains is explored through traceability technologies and standards with particular attention paid to interoperability.


Wir beweisen Gestaltungswillen


title: Oral Management in Rehabilitation Medicine: Oral Frailty, Oral Sarcopenia, and Hospital-Associated Oral Problems

text: Oral health is a crucial but often neglected aspect of rehabilitation medicine. Approximately 71% of hospitalized rehabilitation patients and 91% of hospitalized acute care patients have impaired oral health. Poor oral condition in hospitalized patients can be attributed to factors such as age, physical dependency, cognitive decline, malnutrition, low skeletal muscle mass and strength, and multimorbidity. Another major factor is a lack of knowledge and interest in oral problems among health care workers. Recently, new concepts have been proposed, such as oral frailty, oral sarcopenia, and hospital-associated oral problems. Oral frailty, the accumulation of a slightly poor status of oral conditions and function, strongly predicts physical frailty, dysphagia, malnutrition, need for long-term care, and mortality in community-dwelling older adults. Oral sarcopenia refers to sarcopenia associated with oral conditions and function, although its definition has not yet been fully discussed. Hospital-associated oral problems are caused by disease, disease treatment, surgery, endotracheal intubation, poor self-care abilities, lack of care by medical staff, drugs, and iatrogenic factors during hospitalization. Furthermore, oral problems have negative impacts on rehabilitation outcomes, which include functional recovery, length of hospital stay, discharge home, and in-hospital mortality. Oral health management provided by dental hygienists improves not only oral status and function, swallowing function, and nutritional status but also activities of daily living, discharge home, and in-hospital mortality in post-acute rehabilitation. Oral rehabilitation, promotion, education, and medical-dental collaboration can be effective interventions for oral problems and therefore are necessary to improve rehabilitation outcomes.


title: Diabetes Update 2020: das Wichtigste für die ärztliche Praxis

text: At the virtual event Diabetes Update 2020, numerous new findings and recommendations on diagnosis, therapy and management of diabetes and related topics were presented, of which the topics type 2 diabetes, diabetes and heart, diabetes and pregnancy as well as vaccinations are described in detail in separate articles in the current issue of Der Diabetologe. In the following, the most important and, from the author’s point of view, most relevant news from the other diabetes-related subject areas are briefly presented.


Eine Frage der Haltung


"Wir können dankbar sein, in diesem System zu arbeiten"