Lowyat.NET: Latest topics by DontSneeze

The Coming War On China - Full Documentary

DontSneeze — Sat, 20 Nov 2021 11:14:32 +0800

[YOUTUBE]bs3bIHHIoXU[/YOUTUBE]

Keywords: Pivot to Asia.

From the comments:

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Growing up in the USA, born to very poorly educated parents, I taught five days a week, 7 1/2 hrs a day to love this country. My great grandparents as many, were immigrants. By the time my parents were old enough to marry and work, they migrated up North where they built a decent life for themselves and their children. It wasn't extravagant but we had shelter, food and were sent to public school. I remember being very young and learning about the Native American's, my mom's mothers side were decedent's of the natives and when I would come home and tell her what I learned she would be upset and tell me something different. I knew my grandma loved me and would not lie to me so I was already aware of how certain people twisted and often made up things we were taught as truths. It breaks my heart to learn these things about a country I was raised to love, respect, believe in, and defend. I pray the people of this world look at the average everyday American and understand we too have been lied to, we have been tricked and deceived. I am certain that a majority of my fellow American's are as upset with what happened on this Island as we are upset about all the possible lies that took us to the middle East to do such destructive things. It's a sad thing not to trust those who are in charge. It can be down right debilitating.

COVID-19 Phylogeny & Test Kits

DontSneeze — Fri, 03 Apr 2020 19:37:26 +0800

[YOUTUBE]f92wnnQ8nzI[/YOUTUBE]Ketepatan Kit Ujian Covid-19 Dari Korea Selatan 56.6 Peratus

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2nd April 2020 - Hasil ujian terhadap kit pengesanan pantas antigen dari Korea Selatan oleh Kementerian Kesihatan Malaysia (KKM) mendapati kadar ketepatan alat itu hanya 56.6 peratus bagi koronavirus baharu (Covid-19). Ketua Pengarah Kesihatan, Datuk Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah berkata, setiap kit ujian perlu mencapai keputusan antara 75 hingga 80 peratus baru ia boleh digunakan. Menurutnya, syarikat membekalkan kit pengesanan pantas antigen kepada KKM adalah dua dari China dan satu syarikat dari Korea Selatan.

“Jadi kita tunggu untuk menggunakan 'fluorescent reader', bila (ia mencapai) ketepatannya mencecah 75 hingga 80 peratus baru kita gunakan,” katanya.

Beliau berkata demikian pada sidang media harian Covid-19 di Putrajaya, hari ini.

China COVID-19 Phylogeny

South Korea COVID-19 Phylogeny

Malaysia COVID-19 Phylogeny

Radial (above) & Rectangular Layouts on COVID-19 phylogeny showing some 2856 genomes sampled between Dec 2019 and Mar 2020.
Source: Genomic Epidemiology Of Novel Coronavirus (GISAID)

It's arguable that the current batch of test kits suffered a low percentage of accuracy as they are targeting earlier or different variations of genome sequences as highlighted in the COVID-19 phylogeny.

Interaction of Disinfectant and COVID-19 Droplets

DontSneeze — Sun, 29 Mar 2020 18:00:33 +0800

Let the cough of air-suspended COVID-19 droplets per cc in the air be defined as

and the particles of air-sprayed disinfectant per cc into the same volume of social spacing be defined as

The respective averaged mass for COVID-19 droplet and disinfectant particle used in the above equations is taken by

The interactive collision between the COVID-19 droplets and air-sprayed disinfectant particles within the social spacing is then given by

where R = Gas Law Constant, T = Absolute Temperature, η = Viscosity of Air, N = Avogadro Number and mean radii of the interaction. Let

then the disinfection of air-suspended COVID-19 droplets will be

Comprehensive list of COVID-19 disinfectants is available from
List N: Disinfectants for Use Against SARS-CoV-2

My preliminary finding is that radii of disinfectant particles sprayed must be larger than coughed COVID-19 air-suspended droplets for improving their collisions rate in the social distancing space.

The Use Case of RT-LAMP as Test Kit for COVID-19

DontSneeze — Wed, 25 Mar 2020 14:17:59 +0800

Unlike RT-PCT presently deployed as a test kit for COVID-19 in Malaysia, RT-LAMP does not suffer the disadvantages of:
- The time urgency requirement for repetitive thermal cycles amplification/multiplication i.e 30 ~ 40 cycles.
- Expensive thermocycler as a further cost-saving option.
- Sensitive towards a certain type of carcinogenic materials thus reducing false negative/positive likelihood.
- Isothermal operating condition or specialized lab environment.

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"LAMP" which stands for Loop-mediated Isothermal Amplification is a simple, rapid, specific and cost-effective nucleic acid amplification method solely developed by Eiken Chemical Co., Ltd. It is characterized by the use of 4 different primers specifically designed to recognize 6 distinct regions on the target gene and the reaction process proceeds at a constant temperature using strand displacement reaction. Amplification and detection of gene can be completed in a single step, by incubating the mixture of samples, primers, DNA polymerase with strand displacement activity and substrates at a constant temperature (about 65°C). It provides high amplification efficiency, with DNA being amplified 109-1010 times in 15-60 minutes. Because of its high specificity, the presence of amplified product can indicate the presence of target gene.

Source: LAMP Primer Designning Software

Standard Procedures Using LAMP Method

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The RT-LAMP assay was capable of detecting as few as 3.4 copies of MERS-CoV RNA, and was highly specific, with no cross-reaction to other respiratory viruses. Pilot experiments to detect MERS-CoV from medium containing pharyngeal swabs inoculated with pre-titrated viruses were also performed. The RT-LAMP assay exhibited sensitivity similar to that of MERS-CoV real-time RT-PCR.

Source: Detection Of Middle East Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus Using Reverse Transcription Loop-Mediated Isothermal Amplification (RT-LAMP)

Open Suggestion COVID-19 MCO Improvision

DontSneeze — Fri, 20 Mar 2020 09:00:15 +0800

The General Idea:
Geotagging (GPS & time stamping) registered applicants through their smartphone in this MCO period of his/her whereabouts for essential necessities i.e. home location, frequented grocery outlet, etc. all subjected to controlling terms for different demographic groups.

Rules:
The participant needs to check-in at appointed times and location as persuaded by MCO regulations.

Rewards:
Payout from the COVID-19 Fund to those affected under the MCO period according to accumulated points collected each day during the period.

I'll just leave the idea here. Everybody is welcome to modify, add other detail or suggestion for turning it into a workable COVID-19 MCO app.

Wuhan University of Technology (WUT) - Researcher

DontSneeze — Wed, 05 Feb 2020 09:02:28 +0800

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HARVARD CHEMISTRY CHIEF’S ARREST OVER CHINA LINKS SHOCKS RESEARCHERS
Researchers have reacted with shock to the arrest of Charles Lieber, a prominent Harvard University chemist and nanotechnology pioneer, who has been charged with making false statements to the US government about receiving research funding from China.

Lieber, who is known for engineering new nanomaterials and developing their applications in medicine and biology, was arrested on 28 January. Two days later, a federal judge approved his release on cash bail of US$1 million.

The charges focus on Lieber’s alleged involvement in China’s Thousand Talents Plan, a prestigious programme designed to recruit leading academics to the country. Documents outlining the charges allege that Lieber received hundreds of thousands of dollars from the Wuhan University of Technology (WUT) in China and agreed to lead a lab there — and that when US government agencies asked about his involvement with the programme he stated that he was not a participant and denied any formal affiliation with WUT. Lieber’s legal team did not respond to Nature’s requests for comment.

The arrest comes as US authorities are increasingly scrutinizing universities’ foreign links, amid fears that overseas governments could be stealing intellectual property or influencing US research.

Shockwaves
Colleagues and former students of Lieber contacted by Nature are stunned by the detainment of such a high-profile scientist. Lieber has been a faculty member at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts, since 1991, and is currently chair of the university’s department of chemistry and chemical biology. His work, which has included the development of nanometre-diameter wires that can be used as sensors, has won him top awards, among them the 2017 NIH Director’s Pioneer Award and the 2012 Wolf Prize in Chemistry. In 2008, he was tipped by Thomson Reuters as a potential Nobel prizewinner.

“Charlie is the purest scientific scholar I have ever seen and personally I have 100% trust and confidence in him. I think there must be some misunderstanding during the handling of the case,” says Xiaocheng Jiang, a former student of Lieber’s who is now a biomedical engineer at Tufts University in Medford, Massachusetts.

“I was shocked,” says Joshua Sanes, a molecular biologist at Harvard who has co-authored two papers on the use of electronic devices to measure nerve activity in the mouse eye with Lieber. “I didn’t know anything about it until I saw the report in The New York Times.” The newspaper reported the allegations on 28 January.

Harvard University, where Lieber’s lab hosts more than a dozen graduate students and postdoctoral researchers, has placed Lieber on paid administrative leave, barred him from campus, and suspended his research and teaching roles. “The charges brought by the US government against Professor Lieber are extremely serious,” a spokesperson for the university told Nature. “Harvard is cooperating with federal authorities, including the National Institutes of Health, and is conducting its own review of the alleged misconduct.”

A spokesperson for the National Institutes of Health (NIH) — from which Lieber also received funds — referred Nature’s queries to the FBI, citing an ongoing investigation.

Links to China
Details of Lieber’s alleged offences appear in a charging document submitted by the FBI in connection with his arrest. It says that for periods of time between 2012 and 2017, Lieber agreed to be paid a salary of $50,000 per month, as well as about $150,000 a year in personal and living expenses, by WUT, and was given more than $1.5 million to set up a research lab there. According to a contract cited in the document, Lieber was to work at or for WUT for at least nine months a year. Lieber also agreed to host visiting scientists for two-month stints at his US lab, according to the FBI, an agreement that Harvard was not aware of.

At the same time, Lieber continued his tenure at Harvard University and applied for funding from US agencies, receiving at least $15 million in federal grants from the Department of Defense (DOD) and the NIH since 2008. NIH policies require that researchers applying for federal funds disclose any funding they receive from other governments or universities outside the United States. Lieber was asked about his participation in the Thousand Talents Plan in April 2018 by DOD investigators, and by Harvard in late 2018 in response to an enquiry from the NIH. In both instances, the FBI says, he denied being part of it.

Talent programme
China’s Thousand Talents Plan has been one focus of the US government’s efforts to crack down on foreign interference in research. In November last year, a US Senate panel suggested that the programme could be a means by which the Chinese government diverts US intellectual property for the state’s own benefit. Michael Lauer, a deputy director at the NIH, told lawmakers that the contracts encouraged participants to set up ‘shadow labs’ in China that replicated their work at US institutions. In December, an elite science advisory group known as JASON recommended in a report that US agencies support fruitful international collaborations while strengthening policies that require scientists to be transparent about conflicts of interest.

However, Chinese-American scientists have raised concerns that these measures are leading to researchers of Chinese descent being unfairly targeted, and that increased scrutiny will damage those collaborations that do follow federal guidelines.

William Jorgensen, a computational chemist at Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut, says he is worried that the publicity surrounding Lieber’s arrest will prejudice US researchers against scientists in China. “Don’t confuse the Chinese government with the rank and file faculty in China,” he says, adding that his own experience of working alongside researchers at Chinese universities has been positive.

Lieber is not the first US scientist to become embroiled in ongoing political tensions between the United States and China. Last month, a former scientist at Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico, who was accused of applying to and being recruited by the Thousand Talents Plan, pleaded guilty to making a false statement to the US government. And the Moffitt Cancer Center in Tampa, Florida, recently reported that six employees, including the chief executive, were forced to resign over failing to disclose their connection to the programme.

In before /k experts are double agents.