(Press-News.org) Using an approach based on computer vision technology, researchers can work back from COVID-19 mortality data to see how infection rates changed on the day a lockdown or similar measure was introduced. The approach could be generally useful in future epidemics and pandemics. The work is published July 14 in Science Advances.
Coauthors Leonor Saiz, professor of biomedical engineering at the University of California, Davis, and Jose Vilar, University of the Basque Country, Spain, wanted to see the effects of non-pharmaceutical interventions such as social distancing, lockdowns and masking in the first year of the pandemic. They looked at daily death reports from European countries including the United Kingdom, Italy, Spain, Denmark and Switzerland to infer the daily rate of new cases.
In computing terms, the daily incidence of infection is the input, and the mortality rate is an output. Taking an output and working backwards to figure out the input is what mathematicians call an inverse process. An example of this is in medical image processing, where you may need to improve image quality. Mathematicians and engineers have developed techniques to work back from a blurred image to a clear, sharp original. This is called deconvolution.
Inferring the daily rate of new infections from daily death rates is a difficult problem, Saiz said. Most cases of COVID-19 are not fatal, and when they are, death can typically occur from 10 to 30 days after infection. This means that the output signal is smeared or blurry across time, in the same way that an image seen through cloudy glass could appear blurred or distorted in space.
Deconvolution for epidemiology
Saiz and Vilar developed a deconvolution method for epidemiology. Using a neural network, including the behavior of the virus and the dynamics of infection, the model can work back from death rate data (output) to the daily incidence rate (input).
“We borrowed a concept from vision technology to apply it to epidemiology,” Saiz said.
The researchers benchmarked their model by looking at the effect of non-pharmaceutical interventions (e.g., other than vaccines or drug treatments) in the first year of the pandemic. Because such measures were typically imposed across an entire country on the same day, they wanted to see if their model could identify the day they were introduced.
For example, they were able to see the days lockdowns were imposed and removed in England within a day of their actual date. In Spain, they could observe how infections rose when travel restrictions were lifted and in Italy, the day in October 2020 when face masks were required outdoors.
The approach could be used to assess the effectiveness of steps or combinations of steps such as quarantines and mask mandates in reducing the infection rate.
“We can at least have confidence that lockdowns decreased infection transmission instantaneously,” Saiz said.
The work was supported by grants from the government of Spain.
END
Bringing COVID-19 data into focus
2023-07-14
ELSE PRESS RELEASES FROM THIS DATE:
DBST: a lightweight block cipher based on dynamic S-box
2023-07-14
Block ciphers, a branch of modern cryptography, are playing a more prominent role in protecting information security as 5G technology develops. Although encryption algorithms of the traditional Feistel structure have great advantages in terms of consistent encryption and decryption, they have poor diffusion effects. Besides, they cannot adapt to the high throughput communication environment and resource-constrained devices. The S-box is the crucial nonlinear component in the block cipher and significantly determines the security of an algorithm. Unfortunately, the vast proportion of S-boxes exist in a static manner, which ...
Understanding metabolites underlying eye development
2023-07-14
CHICAGO --- Aerobic glycolysis, the process by which cells transform glucose into lactate, is key for eye development in mammals, according to a new Northwestern Medicine study published in Nature Communications.
While it has been well known that retinal cells use lactate during cell differentiation, the exact role that this process plays in early eye development was not previously understood.
The findings further the field’s understanding of the metabolic pathways underlying organ development, according to ...
Gender, race and socioeconomic status are associated with comorbidity in people with HIV who smoke
2023-07-14
July 14, 2023 – High rates of smoking among people with HIV are associated with high rates of comorbid health problems – which are associated with characteristics including gender, race/ethnicity, and socioeconomic status, according to a study in the July issue of The Journal of the Association of Nurses in AIDS Care (JANAC). The official journal of the Association of Nurses in AIDS Care, JANAC is published in the Lippincott portfolio by Wolters Kluwer.
"People with HIV who smoke are at high risk of accompanying physical and mental health conditions," comments lead author Jessica L. Elf, PhD, of Colorado ...
Atypical infections in chronic sinusitis: thinking outside the box
2023-07-14
“[...] in many cases [of chronic sinusitis] only symptom control is achieved.”
BUFFALO, NY- July 14, 2023 – A new research perspective was published in Oncoscience (Volume 10) on May 27, 2023, entitled, “Think outside the box – atypical infections in chronic sinusitis.”
Inflammations of the paranasal sinuses represent a common clinical picture. The annual prevalence of chronic sinusitis in Europe is up to 10%. Sinusitis can be divided into acute and chronic forms. In particular, the chronic forms (>12 weeks duration) are often challenging in the context of therapy.
Generally, all ventilation disorders of the paranasal sinuses (concha bullosa, ...
New study demonstrates how music therapy can be integrated across a large health system
2023-07-14
CLEVELAND – A new study from University Hospitals (UH) Connor Whole Health describes the scope and integration of their music therapy program within10 UH medical centers. The study, entitled “Effectiveness of Medical Music Therapy Practice: Integrative Research using the Electronic Health Record (EMMPIRE): Rationale, Design, and Population Characteristics” is the largest such observational study of medical music therapy practice to date. Unlike other music therapy programs, which may be limited to specific hospital units, the program at UH Connor ...
Genes for learning and memory are 650 million years old, study shows
2023-07-14
A team of scientists led by researchers from the University of Leicester have discovered that the genes required for learning, memory, aggression and other complex behaviours originated around 650 million years ago.
The findings led by Dr Roberto Feuda, from the Neurogenetic group in the Department of Genetics and Genome Biology and other colleagues from the University of Leicester and the University of Fribourg (Switzerland), have now been published in Nature Communications.
Dr Feuda said: “We’ve known for a long ...
Precision technology, machine learning lead to early diagnosis of calf pneumonia
2023-07-14
UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — Monitoring dairy calves with precision technologies based on the “internet of things,” or IoT, leads to the earlier diagnosis of calf-killing bovine respiratory disease, according to a new study. The novel approach — a result of crosscutting collaboration by a team of researchers from Penn State, University of Kentucky and University of Vermont —will offer dairy producers an opportunity to improve the economies of their farms, according to researchers.
This ...
Researchers study lingering Lyme disease symptoms
2023-07-14
An estimated 1,200 Americans, on average, are diagnosed with Lyme disease each day. Some of those patients continue to experience negative effects, even after treatment.
Lyme disease researcher Brandon Jutras, associate professor in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences and affiliated faculty of the Fralin Life Sciences Institute, recently received a $2.7 million grant from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, part of the National Institutes of Health, to study what causes the disease to linger long after treatment.
“Using a series of sophisticated molecular techniques, in combination with both bacterial and host genetics, we’re working ...
BU cardiologist awarded NIH grant to study impact of environmental toxins on the heart
2023-07-14
(Boston)—Noyan Gokce, MD, professor of medicine at Boston University Chobanian & Avedisian School of Medicine, has been awarded a $453,750 National Institutes of Health (NIH) R-21 grant for his research study “Impact of Per/Polyfluoroalkyl (PFAS) pollutants on vascular disease mechanisms.” This work will be performed in collaboration with co-investigator Jennifer Schlezinger, PhD from the Boston University School of Public Health.
Per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) are manmade chemicals that are extensively used in industrial and consumer products such as stain- and ...
Liverpool chemist wins prestigious Eni Energy Frontiers Award
2023-07-14
Professor Matt Rosseinsky, from the University’s Department of Chemistry and Materials Innovation Factory, has won the 2023 Eni Energy Frontiers Award for the digital design and discovery of next-generation energy materials.
A globally-prestigious prize for research in the fields of energy and environment, previous Eni Award winners include Nobel laureates such as Harold W. Kroto and Alan Heeger.
Professor Rosseinsky’s research is pushing new boundaries in how new energy materials are designed and discovered through the use of digital tools.
For the past 50 years, the scientific approach ...