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Background Acute kidney injury (AKI) is a common complication of COVID-19. While the exact mechanisms remain unclear, direct viral infection of renal tubular epithelial cells is hypothesized. Given the pH-dependent entry of coronaviruses into host cells, urine alkalinization was proposed as a potential preventive strategy. Methods This was a proof-of-concept prospective, randomized clinical trial in critically ill patients with COVID-19. Patients were randomized to urine alkalinization versus usual care. The intervention group received intravenous 8.4% sodium bicarbonate to achieve a urine pH ≥ 7.5 up to 10 days after randomization. The primary outcome was the proportion of patients achieving target urine pH. Secondary outcomes included changes in urine tissue inhibitor of metalloproteinases-2 (TIMP-2) and insulin-like growth factor-binding protein 7 (IGFBP7), AKI development, renal replacement therapy, and adverse effects. Results The trial was terminated early due to slow recruitment and the end of the COVID-19 pandemic. Sixteen patients were enrolled (median age 48 years old, 75% male). More patients in the intervention group achieved target urine pH than in the control group (75% vs 37.5%, P  = 0.315). There was a separation of urine pH between both groups throughout 10 days ( P  = 0.097 for interaction). However, the intervention did not significantly impact urine [TIMP-2]x[IGFBP7] concentrations ( P  = 0.813 for interaction) or clinical outcomes, including AKI occurrence (risk ratio 0.6 (95% confidence interval 0.21, 1.70), P  = 0.619). More patients in the intervention group experienced hypernatremia and metabolic alkalosis. Notably, patients with elevated urine [TIMP-2]x[IGFBP7] concentrations and AKI had higher ICU and 60-day mortality. Conclusions While urine alkalinization is feasible and can increase urine pH, we could not demonstrate differences in AKI rates or changes in urine [TIMP-2]x[IGFBP7] concentrations in critically ill COVID-19 patients.

Notions of hybridity, augmentation and virtual embodiment permeate the technocultural scape of contemporary times. The avalanche of information and technology has ushered in a novel way of perceiving our world. The evolving context of self-improving sentient artificial intelligence and the resultant demand for conferring personhood rights and civil privileges to electronic personality cannot be examined without placing it in the larger milieu of human civil rights and the risks and benefits it entails for the human race. Emerging and converging technologies are shaping and redefining our material world in hitherto unimaginable ways. Hence it becomes imperative that such technologies be designed and deployed in a manner that ensures the safety and survival of the one sentient organic life form on the face of the earth. Regulation of AI rights is quintessential to ensuring human rights. Speculative fiction has time and again come out with cautionary tales of the possible aftermath of exponential technological growth. An AI that is programmed with self-improvement and problem-solving abilities to mimic and act like a human being might consider itself an equal to his organic counterpart. Thus all distinctions between the organic and the non-organic, man and machine would be obliterated and humanity shall witness the emergence of a super intelligent race infinitely stronger and powerful than itself. The present paper discusses the intersection of AI rights with human rights by analysing its diverse fictional treatment by writers such as Isaac Asimov, Brad Aiken and Dan Brown. As autonomous beings with abilities that surpass human intelligence and capabilities would greatly be integrated into our socio-cultural fabric with the coming technological singularity, human rights would be significantly refurbished in terms of AI rights.

Duration of protection from SARS-CoV-2 infection in people living with HIV (PWH) following vaccination is unclear. In a substudy of the phase II/III the COV002 trial (NCT04400838), 54 HIV+ male participants on antiretroviral therapy (undetectable viral loads, CD4+ T cells > 350 cells/μL) received 2 doses of ChAdOx1 nCoV-19 (AZD1222) 4-6 weeks apart and were followed for 6 months. Responses to vaccination were determined by serology (IgG ELISA and Meso Scale Discovery [MSD]), neutralization, ACE-2 inhibition, IFN-γ ELISpot, activation-induced marker (AIM) assay and T cell proliferation. We show that, 6 months after vaccination, the majority of measurable immune responses were greater than prevaccination baseline but with evidence of a decline in both humoral and cell-mediated immunity. There was, however, no significant difference compared with a cohort of HIV-uninfected individuals vaccinated with the same regimen. Responses to the variants of concern were detectable, although they were lower than WT. Preexisting cross-reactive T cell responses to SARS-CoV-2 spike were associated with greater postvaccine immunity and correlated with prior exposure to beta coronaviruses. These data support the ongoing policy to vaccinate PWH against SARS-CoV-2, and they underpin the need for long-term monitoring of responses after vaccination.

In our previous works, we have analyzed the evolution of bulk viscous matter dominated universe with a more general form for bulk viscous coefficient, \\[\\zeta =\\zeta _{0}+\\zeta _{1}\\frac{\\dot{a}}{a}+\\zeta _{2}\\frac{\\ddot{a}}{\\dot{a}}\\] and also carried out the dynamical system analysis. We found that the model reasonably describes the evolution of the universe if the viscous coefficient is a constant. In the present work we are contrasting this model with the standard \\[\\varLambda \\]CDM model of the universe using the Bayesian method. We have shown that, even though the viscous model gives a reasonable back ground evolution of the universe, the Bayes factor of the model indicates that, it is not so superior over the \\[\\varLambda \\]CDM model, but have a slight advantage over it.

Position measurement-induced collapse states are shown to provide a unified quantum description of diffraction of particles passing through a single slit. These states, which we here call `quantum location states', are represented by the conventional rectangular wave function at the initial moment of position measurement. We expand this state in terms of the position eigenstates, which in turn can be represented as a linear combination of energy eigenfunctions of the problem, using the closure property. The time-evolution of the location states in the case of free particles is shown to have position probability density patterns closely resembling diffraction patterns in the Fresnel region for small times and the same in Fraunhofer region for large times. Using the quantum trajectory representations in the de Broglie-Bohm, modified de Broglie-Bohm and Floyd-Faraggi-Matone formalisms, we show that Fresnel and Fraunhofer diffractions can be described using a single expression. We also discuss how to obtain the probability density of location states for the case of particles moving in a general potential, detected at some arbitrary point. In the case of the harmonic oscillator potential, we find that they have oscillatory properties similar to that of coherent states.

Quantum trajectory-based descriptions of interference between two coherent stationary waves in a double-slit experiment are presented, as given by the de Broglie-Bohm (dBB) and modified de Broglie-Bohm (MdBB) formulations of quantum mechanics. In the dBB trajectory representation, interference between two spreading wave packets can be shown also as resulting from motion of particles. But a trajectory explanation for interference between stationary states is so far not available in this scheme. We show that both the dBB and MdBB trajectories are capable of producing the interference pattern for stationary as well as wave packet states. However, the dBB representation is found to provide the `which-way' information that helps to identify the hole through which the particle emanates. On the other hand, the MdBB representation does not provide any which-way information while giving a satisfactory explanation of interference phenomenon in tune with the de Broglie's wave particle duality. By counting the trajectories reaching the screen, we have numerically evaluated the intensity distribution of the fringes and found very good agreement with the standard results.

Complex quantum trajectory approach, which arose from a modified de Broglie-Bohm interpretation of quantum mechanics, has attracted much attention in recent years. The exact complex trajectories for the Eckart potential barrier and the soft potential step, plotted in a previous work, show that more trajectories link the left and right regions of the barrier, when the energy is increased. In this paper, we evaluate the reflection probability using a new ansatz based on these observations, as the ratio between the total probabilities of reflected and incident trajectories. While doing this, we also put to test the complex-extended probability density previously postulated for these quantum trajectories. The new ansatz is preferred since the evaluation is solely done with the help of the complex-extended probability density along the imaginary direction and the trajectory pattern itself. The calculations are performed for a rectangular potential barrier, symmetric Eckart and Morse barriers, and a soft potential step. The predictions are in perfect agreement with the standard results for potentials such as the rectangular potential barrier. For the other potentials, there is very good agreement with standard results, but it is exact only for low and high energies. For moderate energies, there are slight deviations. These deviations result from the periodicity of the trajectory pattern along the imaginary axis and have a maximum value only as much as \\(0.1 \\%\\) of the standard value. Measurement of such deviation shall provide an opportunity to falsify the ansatz.

The quantum mechanical treatment of diffraction of particles, based on the standard postulates of quantum mechanics and the postulate of existence of quantum trajectories, leads to the `position measurement-induced collapse' (PMIC) states. An experimental set-up to test these PMIC states is proposed. The apparatus consists of a modified Lloyd's mirror in optics, with two reflectors instead of one. The diffraction patterns for this case predicted by the PMIC formalism are presented. They exhibit quantum fractal structures in space-time called `quantum carpets', first discovered by Berry (1996). The PMIC formalism in this case closely follows the `boundary bound diffraction' analysed in a previous work by Tounli, Alverado and Sanz (2019). In addition to obtaining their results, we have shown that the time evolution of these collapsed states also leads to Fresnel and Fraunhofer diffractions. It is anticipated that the verification of PMIC states by this experiment will help to better understand collapse of the wave function during quantum measurements.

This paper examines the nature of classical correspondence in the case of coherent states at the level of quantum trajectories. We first show that for a harmonic oscillator, the coherent state complex quantum trajectories and the complex classical trajectories are identical to each other. This congruence in the complex plane, not restricted to high quantum numbers alone, illustrates that the harmonic oscillator in a coherent state executes classical motion. The quantum trajectories are those conceived in a modified de Broglie-Bohm scheme and we note that identical classical and quantum trajectories for coherent states are obtained only in the present approach. The study is extended to Gazeau-Klauder and SUSY quantum mechanics-based coherent states of a particle in an infinite potential well and that in a symmetric Poschl-Teller (PT) potential by solving for the trajectories numerically. For the coherent state of the infinite potential well, almost identical classical and quantum trajectories are obtained whereas for the PT potential, though classical trajectories are not regained, a periodic motion results as t --> \\infty.