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Predicting the cumulative medical load of COVID-19 outbreaks after the peak in daily fatalities
(2021)
The distinct ways the COVID-19 pandemic has been unfolding in different countries and regions suggest that local societal and governmental structures play an important role not only for the baseline infection rate, but also for short and long-term reactions to the outbreak. We propose to investigate the question of how societies as a whole, and governments in particular, modulate the dynamics of a novel epidemic using a generalization of the SIR model, the reactive SIR (short-term and long-term reaction) model. We posit that containment measures are equivalent to a feedback between the status of the outbreak and the reproduction factor. Short-term reaction to an outbreak corresponds in this framework to the reaction of governments and individuals to daily cases and fatalities. The reaction to the cumulative number of cases or deaths, and not to daily numbers, is captured in contrast by long-term reaction. We present the exact phase space solution of the controlled SIR model and use it to quantify containment policies for a large number of countries in terms of short and long-term control parameters. We find increased contributions of long-term control for countries and regions in which the outbreak was suppressed substantially together with a strong correlation between the strength of societal and governmental policies and the time needed to contain COVID-19 outbreaks. Furthermore, for numerous countries and regions we identified a predictive relation between the number of fatalities within a fixed period before and after the peak of daily fatality counts, which allows to gauge the cumulative medical load of COVID-19 outbreaks that should be expected after the peak. These results suggest that the proposed model is applicable not only for understanding the outbreak dynamics, but also for predicting future cases and fatalities once the effectiveness of outbreak suppression policies is established with sufficient certainty. Finally, we provide a web app (https://itp.uni-frankfurt.de/covid-19/) with tools for visualising the phase space representation of real-world COVID-19 data and for exporting the preprocessed data for further analysis.
Based on recent perturbative and non-perturbative lattice calculations with almost quark flavors and the thermal contributions from photons, neutrinos, leptons, electroweak particles, and scalar Higgs bosons, various thermodynamic quantities, at vanishing net-baryon densities, such as pressure, energy density, bulk viscosity, relaxation time, and temperature have been calculated up to the TeV-scale, i.e., covering hadron, QGP, and electroweak (EW) phases in the early Universe. This remarkable progress motivated the present study to determine the possible influence of the bulk viscosity in the early Universe and to understand how this would vary from epoch to epoch. We have taken into consideration first- (Eckart) and second-order (Israel–Stewart) theories for the relativistic cosmic fluid and integrated viscous equations of state in Friedmann equations. Nonlinear nonhomogeneous differential equations are obtained as analytical solutions. For Israel–Stewart, the differential equations are very sophisticated to be solved. They are outlined here as road-maps for future studies. For Eckart theory, the only possible solution is the functionality, H(a(t)), where H(t) is the Hubble parameter and a(t) is the scale factor, but none of them so far could to be directly expressed in terms of either proper or cosmic time t. For Eckart-type viscous background, especially at finite cosmological constant, non-singular H(t) and a(t) are obtained, where H(t) diverges for QCD/EW and asymptotic EoS. For non-viscous background, the dependence of H(a(t)) is monotonic. The same conclusion can be drawn for an ideal EoS. We also conclude that the rate of decreasing H(a(t)) with increasing a(t) varies from epoch to epoch, at vanishing and finite cosmological constant. These results obviously help in improving our understanding of the nucleosynthesis and the cosmological large-scale structure.
Recurrent cortical networks provide reservoirs of states that are thought to play a crucial role for sequential information processing in the brain. However, classical reservoir computing requires manual adjustments of global network parameters, particularly of the spectral radius of the recurrent synaptic weight matrix. It is hence not clear if the spectral radius is accessible to biological neural networks. Using random matrix theory, we show that the spectral radius is related to local properties of the neuronal dynamics whenever the overall dynamical state is only weakly correlated. This result allows us to introduce two local homeostatic synaptic scaling mechanisms, termed flow control and variance control, that implicitly drive the spectral radius toward the desired value. For both mechanisms the spectral radius is autonomously adapted while the network receives and processes inputs under working conditions. We demonstrate the effectiveness of the two adaptation mechanisms under different external input protocols. Moreover, we evaluated the network performance after adaptation by training the network to perform a time-delayed XOR operation on binary sequences. As our main result, we found that flow control reliably regulates the spectral radius for different types of input statistics. Precise tuning is however negatively affected when interneural correlations are substantial. Furthermore, we found a consistent task performance over a wide range of input strengths/variances. Variance control did however not yield the desired spectral radii with the same precision, being less consistent across different input strengths. Given the effectiveness and remarkably simple mathematical form of flow control, we conclude that self-consistent local control of the spectral radius via an implicit adaptation scheme is an interesting and biological plausible alternative to conventional methods using set point homeostatic feedback controls of neural firing.
During RUN3 (2021-2023) of the Large Hadron Collider, the Time Projection Chamber (TPC) of ALICE will be operated with quadruple stacks of Gas Electron Multipliers (GEMs). This technology will allow to overcome the rate limitation due to the gated operation of the Multi-Wire Proportional Chambers (MWPCs) used in RUN1 (2009-2013) and RUN2 (2015-2018).
As part of the Upgrade project, long-term irradiation tests, so called "ageing tests", have been carried out. A test setup with a detector using a quadruple stack of 10x10cm2 GEMs was built and operated in Ar-CO2 and Ne-CO2-N2 gas mixtures. The detector performance such as gas gain and energy resolution were monitored continuously. In addition, outgassing tests of materials used for the assembly process of the upgraded TPC were performed. To reach the expected dose of the GEM-based TPC, the detector was operated at much higher gains than the TPC. It was found, that the GEMs could keep their performance within the projected lifetime of the TPC. Most of the tested materials showed no negative impact on the detector. For the tested epoxy adhesive no certain conclusion could be drawn.
At much higher doses than expected for the upgraded TPC, a new phenomenon was observed, which changed the hole geometry of the GEMs and led to a degradation of the energy resolution. Even though its occurrence is not expected during the lifetime of the GEM-based TPC, simulations were carried out to study this effect more systematically. The simulations confirmed, that a change of the hole geometries of the GEMs, lead to an increase of the local gain variation, which results in a decrease of the energy resolution.
Furthermore the effect of methane as quench gas on GEMs was studied, even though this gas is not foreseen to be used in the TPC. From ageing tests with single-wire proportional counters it is well known that hydrocarbons are produced in the plasma of the avalanches, which cover the electrodes and lead to a degradation of the detector performance. Even though GEMs have a quite different geometry, the ageing tests showed, that also this technology tends to methane-induced ageing. A loss of gas gain as well as a degradation of the energy resolution due to deposits on the electrodes was monitored. A qualitative and quantitative comparison between ageing in GEMs and proportional counters was performed.