COVID-19 Pandemic, CLABSI, and CAUTI: The Urgent Need to Refocus on Hardwiring Prevention Efforts

Background: The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has had a considerable impact on US hospitalizations, affecting processes and patient population. Methods: We evaluated the impact of COVID-19 pandemic in 78 US hospitals on central line associated bloodstream infections (CLABSI) and catheter associated urinary tract infections (CAUTI) events 12 months pre-COVID-19 and 6 months during COVID-19 pandemic. Results: There were 795,022 central line-days and 817,267 urinary catheter-days over the two study periods. Compared to pre-COVID-19 period, CLABSI rates increased during the pandemic period from 0.56 to 0.85 (51.0%) per 1,000 line-days (p<0.001) and from 1.00 to 1.64 (62.9%) per 10,000 patient-days (p<0.001). Hospitals with monthly COVID-19 patients representing >10% of admissions had a NHSN device standardized infection ratio for CLABSI that was 2.38 times higher compared to those with <5% prevalence during the pandemic period (p=0.004). Coagulase-negative staphylococcus CLABSI increased by 130% from 0.07 to 0.17 events per 1,000 line-days (p<0.001), and Candida sp. by 56.9% from 0.14 to 0.21 per 1,000 line-days (p=0.01). In contrast, no significant changes were identified for CAUTI (0.86 vs. 0.77 per 1,000 catheter-days; p=0.19). Conclusions: The COVID-19 pandemic was associated with substantial increases in CLABSI but not CAUTI events. Our findings underscore the importance of hardwiring processes for optimal line care, and regular feedback on performance to maintain a safe environment.

MATLAB modelling of double sided photovoltaic cell module

In this paper, the equatorial coordinate system is taken as the celestial coordinates, the double-sided photovoltaic module irradiance model is established by using the MATLAB simulation software, and the double-sided photovoltaic module irradiance model is combined with the photovoltaic module model (Jianhui (2001)) to form the mathematical model of the real-time generation system of double-sided photovoltaic modules. The effectiveness of the simulation model was verified by building an experimental platform, and the output characteristics of the optimal line spacing between the double-sided p-v module and the single-sided p-v module were further tested and compared.

Neutralizing the Hostile Speech of the Interrogated Person as a Measure of Tactical-Psychological Support of Crime Counteraction

The authors examine some issues arising in the situations when inquiry officers and investigators face hostile speech from interrogated persons during the pre-trial interrogations. The authors analyze research publications that present a variety of views on the concept of «hostile speech» in psychology and jurisprudence; they also identify the reasons why interrogated persons use such speech. It is stressed that when an inquiry officer or an interrogator faces such a reaction during the preliminary investigation, they should immediately neutralize hostile speech and eliminate its causes (the first group of tasks), preserve self-control (restraint) and ability to work (the second group of tasks), and choose the optimal line of behavior (line of interrogation). The authors justify the choice of the corresponding line of interrogation depending on the behavior of the interrogated person: in cases of hostile speech, the line of interrogation could be passive wait-and-see, i.e. without any reaction to the outbursts of the interrogated person if the aggression has objective causes, or active wait-and-see if there are no such causes. Additional mechanisms of counteracting hostile speech from an interrogated person or reducing its intensity, as well as preserving the self-control of the inquiry officer or an interrogator, include using different psychological methods of interrogation: shifting the gaze; activating the positive features of the interrogated person; blocking the negative content; silence; stopping or putting off the interrogation. Since targeted hostile speech leaves a strong trace in the mental state of the recipient and creates a high possibility of conflict between the participants of preliminary investigation, an inquiry officer or an interrogator should learn to control their verbal and non-verbal reactions. The authors stress the necessity of developing self-control through special exercises because it is very important for an interrogator to develop an ability to regulate their own emotional state, manifested in the ability to concentrate, sustain and switch volitional attention though the creation of mental images.

OPTIMAL LINE PACKINGS FROM FINITE GROUP ACTIONS

We provide a general program for finding nice arrangements of points in real or complex projective space from transitive actions of finite groups. In many cases, these arrangements are optimal in the sense of maximizing the minimum distance. We introduce our program in terms of general Schurian association schemes before focusing on the special case of Gelfand pairs. Notably, our program unifies a variety of existing packings with heretofore disparate constructions. In addition, we leverage our program to construct the first known infinite family of equiangular lines with Heisenberg symmetry.

On Optimal Thickness of the Curve at Calculating the Fractal Dimension Using the Box-Counting Method

Fractal curves are found in various fields of science and technology, and the calculation of the dimensions of the curves is an actual direction. The fractal dimension (FD) is a metric used to characterize the filling of a plane with a curve. The choice of the thickness of the curve line at calculating its FD using the box-counting method (BCM) is not obvious. This is the subject of the present paper. First, we consider a straight horizontal line with different thicknesses, and calculate FD for different thicknesses, using BCM. Using the exact dimensional value for a straight line, the initial conclusion is made about the thicknesses that give a correct FD. In the next step, the dimensions of straight lines rotated by a certain angle in the range from to 90 degrees are calculated. At any angle of inclination of the line, the FD values should also remain equal to unity. The range of FD values depending on the rotation angle is analyzed. The result is an “optimal” line thickness equal to 3 px. At this value, the FD values are the closest to one for any angle of inclination. As a result it is received that at dimensional calculation by means of BCM, it is enough to choose the initial image of 200 on 200 pixels, and boxes to choose the sizes from 2 to 50 pixels with step of 2 pixels. The stability of dimension calculations on the grid offset has been verified. The algorithm’s error is estimated on the example of the calculation of FD for the Koch fractal.

Efficient agent-based negotiation by predicting opponent preferences using AHP

Negotiation is a process essential for a wide range of applications. The complex decision making involved in negotiation makes its automation difficult. The complexity is further increased as negotiators hide their individual preferences from each other to avoid exploitation by the opponent. Even though sharing of private preference information leads to better agreement for both sides, it is never done in the absence of trust. In this work, we learn opponent’s preference information from the offers given by the opponent using Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP). We apply our approach to the negotiation of Quality-of-Service (QoS) parameters for the establishment of Service Level Agreements (SLA) between a provider and a consumer. Experiments show that using AHP, the negotiations are faster and the agreements are on or nearer to the pareto-optimal line.