Aims
Nowadays, the ongoing pandemic of COVID-19 caused by the novel coronavirus Syndrome-Coronavirus-2 (SARS-CoV-2) is an emerging, rapidly evolving situation. Complications such as hypertension, ...diabetes, COPD, cardiovascular disease, and cerebrovascular disease are major risk factors for patients with COVID-19.
Methods
No meta-analysis has explored if or not diabetes related to mortality of patients with COVID-19. Therefore, this meta-analysis first aims to explore the possible clinical mortality between diabetes and COVID-19, analyze if diabetes patients infected with SARS-CoV-2 are exposed to the worst clinical prognostic risk, and to evaluate the reliability of the evidence.
Results
Our results showed a close relationship between diabetes and mortality of COVID-19, with a pooled OR of 1.75 (95% CI 1.31–2.36;
P
= 0.0002). The pooled data were calculated with the fixed effects model (FEM) as no heterogeneity appeared in the studies. Sensitivity analysis showed that after omitting any single study or converting a random effect model to FEM, the main results still held.
Conclusions
Our meta-analysis showed that diabetes increases the mortality of patients with COVID-19. These results indicated the disturbance of blood glucose in the COVID-19 patients. More importantly, this meta-analysis grades the reliability of evidence for further basic and clinical research into the diabetes dysfunction in COVID-19 patients.
In this paper, a new two-sided looped-functional is introduced for stability analysis of sampled-data systems. The functional fully utilizes the information on both the intervals x(t) to x(tk) and ...x(t) to x(tk+1). Based on the two-sided functional, an improved stability condition is derived in the form of linear matrix inequality (LMI). Numerical examples show that the result computed by the presented condition approximates nearly the theoretical bound (bound obtained by eigenvalue analysis) and outperforms substantially others in the existing literature.
The free-weighting matrix and integral-inequality methods are widely used to derive delay-dependent criteria for the stability analysis of time-varying-delay systems because they avoid both the use ...of a model transformation and the technique of bounding cross terms. This technical note presents a new integral inequality, called a free-matrix-based integral inequality, that further reduces the conservativeness in those methods. It includes well-known integral inequalities as special cases. Using it to investigate the stability of systems with time-varying delays yields less conservative delay-dependent stability criteria, which are given in terms of linear matrix inequalities. Two numerical examples demonstrate the effectiveness and superiority of the method.
This paper focuses on the delay-dependent stability problem of time-varying delay systems. A generalized free-matrix-based integral inequality (GFMBII) is presented. This inequality is able to deal ...with time-varying delay systems without using the reciprocal convexity lemma. It overcomes the drawback that the Bessel–Legendre inequality is inconvenient to cope with a time-varying delay system as the resultant bound contains a reciprocal convexity. Through the use of the derived inequality and by constructing a suitable Lyapunov–Krasovskii function (LKF), improved stability criteria are presented in the form of linear matrix inequalities (LMIs). Two numerical examples are carried out to demonstrate that the results outperform the state of the art in the literature.
This article deals with the stability of neural networks (NNs) with time-varying delay. First, a generalized reciprocally convex inequality (RCI) is presented, providing a tight bound for ...reciprocally convex combinations. This inequality includes some existing ones as special case. Second, in order to cater for the use of the generalized RCI, a novel Lyapunov-Krasovskii functional (LKF) is constructed, which includes a generalized delay-product term. Third, based on the generalized RCI and the novel LKF, several stability criteria for the delayed NNs under study are put forward. Finally, two numerical examples are given to illustrate the effectiveness and advantages of the proposed stability criteria.
This paper focuses on the stability analysis of linear time-invariant (LTI) systems with a time-varying delay. The delay is assumed to be periodically varying. Furthermore, for each period, the delay ...is divided to be on one monotone increasing interval and one monotone decreasing interval. By capturing the monotone characteristic of the delay intervals, two looped functions are proposed for the monotone increasing intervals and the monotone decreasing intervals, respectively. A novel monotone-delay-interval-based Lyapunov functional is established based on these looped functions. On this basis, less conservative stability conditions are obtained. Finally, a benchmark example is provided to demonstrate the efficiency and the benefits of the proposed approach.
This note is concerned with the stability analysis of linear discrete-time system with a time-varying delay. A generalized free-weighting-matrix (GFWM) approach is proposed to estimate summation ...terms in the forward difference of Lyapunov functional, and theoretical study shows that the GFWM approach encompasses several frequently used estimation approaches as special cases. Moreover, an augmented Lyapunov functional with a delay-product type term is constructed to take into account delay changing information. As a result, the proposed GFWM approach, together with the augmented Lyapunov functional, leads to a less conservative delay-variation-dependent stability criterion. Finally, numerical examples are given to illustrate the advantages of the proposed criterion.
The integral inequality technique is widely used to derive delay-dependent conditions, and various integral inequalities have been developed to reduce the conservatism of the conditions derived. In ...this study, a new integral inequality was devised that is tighter than existing ones. It was used to investigate the stability of linear systems with a discrete distributed delay, and a new stability condition was established. The results can be applied to systems with a delay belonging to an interval, which may be unstable when the delay is small or nonexistent. Three numerical examples demonstrate the effectiveness and the smaller conservatism of the method.
: Head and neck squamous cell carcinoma (HNSCC) are head and neck cancers. On the other hand, ferroptosis is a novel iron-dependent and ROS reliant type of cell death observed various disease ...conditions.
: We constructed a prognostic multilncRNA signature based on ferroptosis-related differentially expressed lncRNAs in HNSCC.
: We identified 25 differently expressed lncRNAs associated with prognosis of HNSCC. Kaplan-Meier analyses revealed the high-risk lncRNAs signature associated with poor prognosis of HNSCC. Moreover, the AUC of the lncRNAs signature was 0.782, underscoring their utility in prediction HNSCC prognosis. Indeed, our risk assessment model was superior to traditional clinicopathological features in predicting HNSCC prognosis. GSEA revealed the immune and tumor-related pathways in the low risk group individuals. Moreover, TCGA revealed T cell functions including cytolytic activity, HLA, regulation of inflammationp, co-stimulation, co-inhibition and coordination of type II INF response were significantly different between the low-risk and high-risk groups. Immune checkpoints such as PDCD-1 (PD-1), CTLA4 and LAG3, were also expressed differently between the two risk groups.
A novel ferroptosis-related lncRNAs signature impacts on the prognosis of HNSCC.
This paper examines Carl Dennis’s secularized religious visions in his Pulitzer-winning poetry collection, Practical Gods (2001). Dennis’s secularized religious visions can be quite understandable in ...the context of the ascending trends of secularization, diversification, and globalization of religion in America, and they demonstrate affinities with literary predecessors such as Wallace Stevens, with his aestheticized religion under the influence of Nietzsche, as well as with the innovative religious thinking of William Blake, Kazantzakis, and Oscar Wilde, and with certain aspects of Taoism and Zen Buddhism. This paper addresses Dennis’s perception of theological controversies, such as the contradiction between the omnipotence of God and the existence of evil, theological determinism vs. human free will, theological view of history vs. New Historicism, divinity in man, aestheticized religion, and earthly paradise through the focused lens of Dennis’s “practical religion”. Despite the breadth of the theses in Dennis’s conceived practical religion as examined in this paper, they are all tied up with the core of the phenomenological study of religion: that religion is important to believers of the religion irrespective of the objective truth of the religion or the actual existence of God. In Dennis’s views, as accorded with the phenomenological study of religions, God maybe an idea and a fiction, but it is a necessary fiction for humans. Thus, Dennis humanizes gods with the flaws and fragility of humanity while deifying ordinary humanity in the contemporary context. Contrasting what he views as theological determinism with its view of linear history and the apocalypse of grand events, Dennis embraces human free will, a non-teleological, aestheticized living with necessary fiction, and a transient paradise on earth. Carl Dennis’s religious vision reveals a poststructuralist (even though he did not brand himself so) abolition of the absoluteness of a transcendent signifier as well as binary opposition (between God and man, good and evil, religious/historical truth and fictionality), and it manifests an affinity with New Historicism and the phenomenological study of religion.
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