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Background: Acute pancreatitis (AP) is an inflammatory process in which the local pancreatic injury leads to systemic inflammation. Neutrophil to lymphocyte ratio (NLR) and platelet to lymphocyte ratio (PLR) have been shown to predict the severity of various diseases related to inflammation. Data about prognostic value of the combination of PLR - NLR and Bedside index of severity in acute pancreatitis (BISAP) score in patients with AP was still limited. This study aimed to investigate the prognostic value of the combination of PLR - NLR and BISAP scorein patients diagnosed with AP and its relationship with the severity of the disease. Methods: A prospective cross-sectional study. Results: The study records a total of 132 patients being enrolled from February 2019 to September 2019 at the Gastrointestinal Department and Intensive Care Unit of Cho Ray Hospital with AP due to alcohol use (n = 42), gallstone (n = 12) and hypertriglyceridemia (n=36). Patients with PLR ≥ 375.55 and/or NLR ≥ 12.46 had a higher rate of severe AP compared to those with PLR < 375.55 and NLR < 12.46 (OR 2.619, 95% CI: 1.206- 5.686, P 0.013). The combination of PLR - NLR and BISAP demonstrated a predictive value of severe AP (AUC 0.667, 95% CI: 0.579-0.748) with sensitivity being 65.7%, specificity being 67.7%, PPV being 43.4% and NPV being 84.0%. Conclusion: Our study demonstrated that the combination of NLR - PLR and BISAP can predict the severity of acute pancreatitis Key words: Acute pancreatitis (AP), Neutrophil to lymphocyte ratio (NLR), Platelet to lymphocyte ratio (PLR), Severity, BISAP score

Background: Results from the latest meta-analysis, in fresh cycles, showed that the application of time-lapse monitoring (TLM) together with an embryo-evaluating algorithm was associated with a significantly higher rate of ongoing pregnancy and a lower rate of early pregnancy loss. The aim of this study was to compare the clinical outcomes of frozen embryos classified according to morphokinetic versus morphologic criteria. Methods: This was a retrospective cohort study, conducted at IVFAS, An Sinh Hospital, Vietnam, from July 2014 to July 2017. Patients undergoing in vitro fertilization (IVF) treatment with antagonist protocol and having freeze-only on day 5 were included. Exclusion criteria were patients (i) treated with in-vitro maturation, (ii) having obstructive azoospermia, or (iii) having uterine abnormalities. Embryos were cultured up to day 5 in TLM system (Primo Vision, Vitrolife, Sweden) or in benchtop (G185, K System, Denmark). The quality of frozen embryos was evaluated based on morphokinetic or morphologic criteria. In the subsequent cycle, endometrial preparation was done by using exogenous estradiol and progesterone. Embryos were thawed and up to 2 embryos were transferred to the uterus. The primary outcome was ongoing pregnancy. The rate of post-thaw survival, post-thawed good/moderate embryo, clinical pregnancy, implantation, miscarriage and ectopic pregnancy were used as secondary endpoints. Results: A total of 276 patients were recruited, with 138 patients in the morphokinetic group and 138 patients in the morphologic group. Baseline characteristics were comparable between the two groups. There was no significant difference in ongoing pregnancy rate in morphokinetic versus morphologic group (57.2% vs. 60.1%, p=0.71). All secondary outcomes were comparable between the two groups. Conclusion: In frozen day-5 embryo transfer, the clinical outcomes were similar when embryos were classified according to morphokinetic versus morphologic criteria for freezing. Using morphokinetic criteria to select embryos for freezing did not improve the ongoing pregnancy rate, as compared to morphologic criteria.

Background As trans women are disproportionately affected by the HIV epidemic, and are still understudied, we aimed to identify and characterize the trans women in the Swiss HIV Cohort Study (SHCS). Methods A combination of criteria from pre-existing cohort data was used to identify trans women. Information on socioeconomic factors, clinical data, risk behaviors, and mental health was collected. We also described their phylogenetic patterns within HIV transmission networks in relation to other risk groups. Results We identified 89 trans women of a total 20 925 cohort participants. Trans women were much more likely to be Asian (30.3%) and Hispanic (15.7%) than men who have sex with men (MSM) (2.5% and 4.1%; P < .001) and cis heterosexual (HET) women (7.0% and 3.3%; P < .001). Trans women were more similar to cis HET women in some measures like educational level (postsecondary education attainment: 22.6% and 20.7% [P = .574] vs 46.5% for MSM [P < .001]), while being more similar to MSM for measures like prior syphilis diagnosis (36.0% and 44.0% [P = .170] vs 6.7% for cis HET women [P < .001]). 11.2% of trans women have been previously hospitalized for psychological reasons compared with 4.2% of MSM (P = .004) and 5.1% of cis HET women (P = .025). Analysis of transmission clusters containing trans women suggested greater affinity within the transmission networks to MSM compared with cis HET women. Conclusions Trans women are epidemiologically distinct in the setting of the Swiss HIV epidemic, warranting better identification and study to better serve this underserved risk group., We identified and characterized 89 trans women from the Swiss HIV Cohort Study. In terms of sociological and clinical data, and high-risk behaviors, they are epidemiologically distinct from cis heterosexual women and MSM, and are found in various transmission contexts.

The four major characteristics of the 21st century context are globalization; information technology, knowledge economy and ethnic issues. They require a strong innovation, synchronization in terms of program, content, methods and evaluation. The use of teaching theories in the direction of capacity development, application of information technology teaching became the trend of modern education. This paper deals with the design of electronic lesson plans based on constructivism theory that help teachers and students access to rich and diverse sources of knowledge. As a result, their needs for exploration, research and problem solving are stimulated. This not only makes the lesson more lively and attractive but also enhances the ability to learn and use the technology of teachers and students.

A theory is developed of the density of states (DOS) of the two-dimensional electron gas (2D EG) in semiconductor heterostructures, taking into account the effect of disorder caused by some random field existing in the sample. For a smooth random field, the calculation is carried out within its Gaussian statistics and a semiclassical approach. A simple closed expression thus obtained includes the classical DOS and its quantum correction as well, which describe the DOS of the 2D EG in explicit dependence on the rms of the potential and of the force of the random field. The disorder effect is found to smear out the step-like singularity of the DOS at an unperturbed band edge of the ideal 2D EG into a tail deep below the band edge. A detailed treatment is given of the case when the disorder is due to remote ionized impurities, which are distributed randomly or correlated in the sample.

A theoretical study is presented of effects from strain fluctuations in a surface quantum well (SQW), which is composed of a strained zinc-blende-structure layer grown on a (001) substrate. It is found that in analogy to a zinc-blende quantum well (QW) with buried interfaces there always exist in the SQW a large fluctuating density of bulk piezoelectric charges and a high random piezoelectric field. However, in contrast to the buried QW case, roughness at a free surface of the SQW causes random fluctuations in the dilatation, which give rise to perturbing deformation potentials. The piezoelectric field and deformation potentials supply strong disorder interactions as new important scattering mechanisms for confined charge carriers in SQW's. A comparison of their effects in a SQW and the QW under equal conditions is given.

We work out a theory of piezoelectricity in an actual semiconductor heterostructure which is composed of a lattice-mismatched zinc-blende layer grown on a [001]-oriented substrate. In contrast to earlier theories, we predict a large density of fixed bulk piezoelectric charges, which are induced by strain fluctuations connected with interface roughness. The piezoelectric charges create a high electric field. The random piezoelectric field presents a conceptually new important scattering mechanism. The system of charge carriers in such a heterostructure becomes strongly disordered and includes generally both free electron-hole pairs near the interface and excitons far from it.

We present the theory of an ad hoc scattering mechanism for carriers confined in a heterostructure (HS) made of polar materials, such as zinc blends, nitrides, and oxides. We show that the carriers in an actual polar HS must be laterally scattered extra from both piezoelectric and spontaneous polarization charges bound on a rough interface of the system. This is due to roughness-induced fluctuations in the position of interface polarization charges, so referred to as polarization roughness (PR) scattering. The new scattering is combined with the normal surface roughness (SR) scattering, giving rise to an effective roughness-related process, which is referred to as polarization surface roughness (PSR) scattering. The PSR scattering is found to be more important for nearly forward events and at small sheet carrier densities, and it is one of the key mechanisms governing transport in polar HSs. This enables a successful explanation of the mobility data on polar HSs made, e.g., of AlGaN/GaN, which has not bee...

We show that the ratio between relaxation lifetimes dominated by roughness-related scatterings in heterostructures is a well-defined function of the correlation length. Thus, we propose an efficient method for individual estimation of the two size parameters of interface profiles from transport data. Instead of the normal simultaneous fitting of both parameters to lifetimes, we adopt a two-step procedure of (i) inferring the correlation length from some lifetime ratio and then (ii) fitting the roughness amplitude to some lifetime. Similarly, the ratio of roughness-induced linewidths in intersubband absorption may give such an estimation from optical data.

We present a theory of the low-temperature transport of holes confined in the Ge strained channel of single-side modulation-doped SiGe/Ge/SiGe square quantum wells (QWs). Besides the well-known scattering mechanisms such as remote impurities and surface roughness, the theory includes misfit deformation potential. We prove that due to the effect from doping-induced band bending, the surface roughness and misfit deformation potential scatterings are considerably strengthened. Accordingly, these are found to be the key scattering mechanisms in the SiGe/Ge/SiGe system, which are still a subject under debate. Our theory can explain all recent experimental data about the transport properties of interest, namely, the carrier-density dependences of the hole mobility and the ratio of the transport to quantum lifetimes. Further, the calculated hole mobility in Ge strained QWs exhibits a special channel-width dependence with a sharp peak, which was observed but has not been explained so far.

Background In Switzerland, HIV-1 transmission among men who have sex with men (MSM) has been dominated by subtype B, whilst non-B subtypes are commonly attributed to infections acquired abroad among heterosexuals. Here, we evaluated the temporal trends of non-B subtypes and the characteristics of molecular transmission clusters (MTCs) among MSM. Methods Sociodemographic and clinical data and partial pol sequences were obtained from participants enrolled in the Swiss HIV Cohort Study. For non-B subtypes, maximum likelihood trees were constructed, from which Swiss MTCs were identified and analyzed by transmission group. Results Non-B subtypes were identified in 8.1% (416/5116) of MSM participants. CRF01_AE was the most prevalent strain (3.5%), followed by subtype A (1.2%), F (1.1%), CRF02_AG (1.1%), C (0.9%), and G (0.3%). Between 1990 and 2019, an increase in the proportion of newly diagnosed individuals (0/123 [0%] to 11/32 [34%]) with non-B subtypes in MSM was found. Across all non-B subtypes, the majority of MSM MTCs were European. Larger MTCs were observed for MSM than heterosexuals. Conclusions We found a substantial increase in HIV-1 non-B subtypes among MSM in Switzerland and the occurrence of large MTCs, highlighting the importance of molecular surveillance in guiding public health strategies targeting the HIV-1 epidemic.

Immersive analytics allows a large amount of data and complex structures to be concurrently investigated. We propose a collaborative analytics system that benefits from new advances in immersive technologies for collaborators working in the early stages of data exploration. We implemented a combination of Star Coordinates and Star Plot visualisation techniques to support the visualisation of multidimensional data and the encoding of datasets using simple and compact visual representations. To support data analytics tasks, we propose tools and interaction techniques for users to build decision trees for visualising and analysing data in a top-down method Refereed/Peer-reviewed

In this paper, we introduce HoloBee, a visual analytics system that enables end users to analyse bee drift data using HoloLens as a head mounted augmented reality interface. HoloBee was designed to allow for interactive exploration of bee behaviour and specifically bee drift: the phenomenon of a bee leaving a hive and returning to another hive. For exploration in the bees' natural environment, bee drift is visualised as arcs connecting bee hives positioned in 3D geospatial maps. We describe in detail the design aspects of HoloBee, including command language, system feedback, and information display. We discuss the unique capabilities and limitations of the HoloLens as a guide to other researchers who intend to use it for visual analytics of spatio-temporal scientific data. Refereed/Peer-reviewed

We present HoloBee, a system for visual analytics of bee drift data using a head-mounted augmented reality interface (Microsoft HoloLens). HoloBee facilitates interactive manipulation and exploration of the bee activity data on 3D geo- spatial terrains to gain insights into the drifting behaviour of honey bees in their natural habitat. We conducted a user study to compare the task performance and user experience of HoloBee with a conventional desktop application. The results show that HoloBee allows for solving tasks in a similar time and accuracy compared to the desktop interface, despite participants' having significantly more experience interacting with a desktop interface. We received positive feedback from a subset of participants on the natural and intuitive interactions that HoloBee provides, while others preferred using the desktop application. We discuss the implications and limitations of these results and provide guidance for future work in this direction. Refereed/Peer-reviewed