text:
41 Years of Ransom Riggs
Ransom Riggs, one of New York Times Bestselling Authors, is celebrating 41 years of life today. Ransom was born on a 200-year-old farm in Maryland in 1979. From there his family moved to Englewood, Florida, where he grew up learning to love the power of the arts. Image via ShutTerstock At a young age, Riggs started writing stories on an old typewriter that was in his childhood home. His interest in the arts quickly grew, when he became obsessed with photography after receiving a camera as a Christmas present. Photography turned into films when he found a half-broken …
Emilia Rivera – February 3rd, 2020
Book Culture Debut Authors
Ransom Riggs, one of New York Times Bestselling Authors, is celebrating 41 years of life today. Ransom was born on a 200-year-old farm in Maryland in 1979. From there his family moved to Englewood, Florida, where he grew up learning to love the power of the arts.
Image via ShutTerstock
At a young age, Riggs started writing stories on an old typewriter that was in his childhood home. His interest in the arts quickly grew, when he became obsessed with photography after receiving a camera as a Christmas present. Photography turned into films when he found a half-broken video camera. This inspired Riggs and his friends to create their own videos, where they were the stars in their own bedrooms and backyards.
Riggs attended the Pine View School for the Gifted in Florida, where he continued to work on the development of his skills. He went onto Kenyon College where he received a degree in English Literature, and later attended the University of Southern California earning a degree in film.
With his growing knowledge of the arts, Riggs hoped to enter the film festival in order to be discovered. Instead, he went on to blogging for Mental Floss, which granted him the opportunity to work on The Sherlock Holmes Handbook "that went along with the 2009 Sherlock Holmes film."
In 2011, Riggs published his first novel Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children, which was based on many old photographs that he collected. A year later, Riggs "published another book inspired by old photographs, called Talking Pictures," and later went on to publish two sequels to the Miss Peregrine's Home series, Hollow City and Library of Souls.
Image Via Goodreads
Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children was later adapted into a movie on September 30, 2016. Receiving mixed reviews, the movie adaptation was able to gross $296.5 million worldwide with its budget of $110 million. This leads me to believe that the movie did well in profit, despite the mixed reviews that it received.
Riggs has his own page, RϟR where he provides insight into the books that he has done, short films that he has created, photos he has taken, and any events that he will hold. Riggs is more than a novelist; he is an artist that continues to find ways to express his passions.
Featured Image Via The Times
Bookstr is community supported. If you enjoy Bookstr's articles, quizzes, graphics and videos, please join our Patreon to support our writers and creators or donate to our Paypal and help Bookstr to keep supporting the book loving community.
Will I Celebrate Joyce's Birthday? Yes I Said Yes I Will
Protected: Banker Turned Author Makes A Difference in The World


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Q: How to dynamically append to a lightning map marker list I am building a LWC which shows markers on a map after a user searches for an item. I have tried to create the markers dynamically but I can't seem to get the proper way of doing it.
I have an array that contains the list which is used to search created like this..
//partial code
 pEngage.state = element.State__c;
 pEngage.city = element.City__c;
 pEngage.zip = element.Zip_code__c;
 pEngage.street = element.Street__c;

 prepEng.push(pEngage);
 this.searchList =  prepEng;

To search the item..
if(this.num > 0){
  for(var i = 0; i< this.searchResult.length; i++){
    let searchId = this.searchResult[i];
    var index = this.searchIds.findIndex(engId => engId === searchId);
    this.finalDisplay = [...this.finalDisplay, this.searchList[index]];
    this.mapArray = [...this.mapArray, this.searchList[index]];
  }
}

So I am now using mapArray to create the mapMarkers which according to the documentation should be created like this..
mapMarkers = [{
    location: {
        Street: '1 Market St',
        City: 'San Francisco',
        Country: 'USA'
    },
    title: 'The Landmark Building',
    description: 'Historic 11-story building completed in 1916'
}];

My code which is not working..
viewMaps(){
  this.mapVisible =  true;

  for(var i = 0; i<this.mapArray.length; i++){
    let markers = [{
      location: {
        Street:this.mapArray[i].street,
        City: this.mapArray[i].city,
        PostalCode: this.mapArray[i].zip,
        State: this.mapArray[i].state
      },
      description: 'Name of Engagement Initiative/Project/Program: ' + this.mapArray[i].name
    }];

    this.map.splice(i, 0, markers);
  }
  this.mapMarkers = this.map;
  console.log('Map markersy '+ JSON.stringify(this.mapMarkers));
}

The template is checking whether mapMarkers is true.
 <template if:true={mapMarkers}>
                <lightning-map
                    map-markers={mapMarkers}
                    markers-title="Engagement Distribution"
                    zoom-level={zoomLevel}
                    list-view={listView}>
                    </lightning-map>
         </template>

I have tried using the spread operator as well as object.assign but they both return a list of lists of objects which cause the error
(Cannot read property 'Latitude' of undefined] Failing descriptor: {markup://lightning:map})
Any ideas? Thanks.
The returned object is shown in this image

A: I still can't really see what you are trying to do. For example - searching on an Id using an exact match - that's not really a search is it?
Because I don't know what you are trying to do, I can't point to the exact problem.
However, I can offer some help in general - which may potentially fix your issue(s)
To search the item, you should be using some sort of Array.prototype method, like
Array.forEach or Array.some. Something like this:
searchResult.forEach( searchId => {
  let index = this.searchIds.findIndex(engId => engId === searchId);
  this.mapArray = [...this.mapArray, this.searchList[index]];
});

Also, I'm not sure why you are destructuring the mapArray every time. This could get expensive.
Are you trying to keep old results in the array? Also, you could potentially end up with duplicates there - at no point to do you clear that array.
You could just push to an intermediateResults array and write that to the mapArray ouside of the loop.
For the next loop, you should be doing something similar - and you can use the built in Array.prototype.map function to process all the items. I don't see why you need splice here.
Also, you were adding in an Array containing a single Object to the mapMarker array, which would have resulted in an Array[Array[{},{}]] structure - which I don't think will work for you.
Do something like this:
viewMaps(){
  this.mapVisible =  true;
  this.mapMarkers = this.mapArray.map( mapItem => {
    return {
      location: {
        Street:mapItem.street,
        City: mapItem.city,
        PostalCode: mapItem.zip,
        State: mapItem.state
      },
      description: 'Name of Engagement Initiative/Project/Program: ' + mapItem.name
    };
  });
}

Also, your template code is looking for the wrong variable:
<template if:true={mapMarkers}>

I think you meant:
<template if:true={mapVisible}>

Finally, none of this will really fix the issue unless you have a clear vision of what you are trying to do.
It might be a good idea to sketch out the various data flows and variables so you know what they are going to be doing.
Good luck - you are doing well!

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


Bring out these beautifully dainty pastry forks for delicious desserts or afternoon teas. Perfectly weighted, hard wearing and designed with a celebration in mind, the forks have a subtly pretty pattern on the handles was inspired by seashells. This set of six pastry forks makes a fabulous gift for someone with a sweet tooth, and is a wonderful accompaniment to our matching Dune 24 Piece Cutlery Set.


SiteLink leads the industry in cloud-based and Windows self-storage management software and built-in, in-house payment processing. Client base feedback, the industry's largest, and continued innovation result in the fastest, fewest clicks and most modern interface. Profit tools, integrations, quality service and regular updates make SiteLink the favorite of single and multi-store operators, including most top 100 operators. Stores with fewer than 250 units enjoy special bundle pricing.
As the leader in website integration and payment processing, SiteLink offers online marketing, reservations, rentals and payment solutions. Built-in electronic signature and document management, TOTAL CRM, revenue management, TeleTracker phone integration and text messaging boost profits. More than fifty SiteLink Marketplace partners like web designers, call centers, kiosks, insurance, access systems and listing services deliver tighter integrations with SiteLink vs. other software. PCI Level 1 & SOC 1 Type II Certifications and industry-first OneSupport deliver software and payment processing support under one roof.
Sitelink allows us to get the job done both efficiently and effectively.
Helps me manage my facility with ease.It is very user friendly and our new employees are able to catch on fairly quickly especially with Sitelinks training function which makes our training on the software a breeze. Leads are also very easy to track and this helps us convert more of them into actual rentals.
It is very user friendly and our new employees are able to catch on fairly quickly especially with Sitelinks training function which makes our training on the software a breeze. Leads are also very easy to track and this helps us convert more of them into actual rentals.
Speed. Because it is web based we are at times at the mercy of bad internet speeds. Updates are not user friendly. We would also like to know what are the updates or changes to the software with every update Sitelink runs so we have a better idea of what the updates are actually for. Also when using the search on corporate control I often have trouble finding some of the accounts when I use the search queue. It pulls a ton of old moved out accounts and i have to use more information to narrow my search and pull current primary accounts. It also often takes way too long to launch Sitelink from corporate control in order to access a customer account in more detail.
Thank you Claudia for the feedback and mentioning your positive experiences with the free SiteLink Certified Professional training program and our Lead to Lease workflow!
We understand having to rely on Internet speed can be frustrating. To minimize problems, we use top-tier data centers that are widely known for consistently fast response times, documented 99.997% server uptime and overall reliability. The SiteLink development team continually seeks to enhance infrastructure performance to boost transaction speed on all devices, including tablets and mobile phones.
We communicate SiteLink Web Edition software updates in bulletins within the software and via email starting a week prior to an update. We include a link to release notes with details about the update. Please reach out to customer support if you are not receiving our notices. Customer support can address your Corporate Control Center search issues which may be a result of poor Internet speed or incorrect setting.
Without Sitelink we would have gotten sloppy with tenant records, gate codes, etc. Sitelink provides a common sense place for all of the information pieces. This has been especially helpful. The integrations and partnerships from the Sitelink Marketplace has made it much less time consuming to find and execute these additional services. Without these pre-vetted solutions i would have had trouble finding the right vendors. I have used only Sitelink partners and have only made one change in the 10 years which was to switch credit card processing to Sitelink Merchant Services.Easy to learn and covers all of the bases. Very tight package, with vetted integrations and few bugs. Almost never have issues. Reminds me of the Apple ecosystem in its simplicity and reliability. Also I understand that the way they have built the server/pc standalone client/ and web client is the most reliable/secure. I simply wouldn't trust to do business with a web only version, because most of our issues over the years have been internet short outages. My manager started using Sitelink in 2007 had only used a computer in a very limited basis. She was able to rent units and do basic functions on day one. My appreciation to the Sitelink Team!
Easy to learn and covers all of the bases. Very tight package, with vetted integrations and few bugs. Almost never have issues. Reminds me of the Apple ecosystem in its simplicity and reliability. Also I understand that the way they have built the server/pc standalone client/ and web client is the most reliable/secure. I simply wouldn't trust to do business with a web only version, because most of our issues over the years have been internet short outages. My manager started using Sitelink in 2007 had only used a computer in a very limited basis. She was able to rent units and do basic functions on day one. My appreciation to the Sitelink Team!
The only thing i'm going to say is a pro as well as a con. The price seems like alot sometimes when i think of the free or low cost options. HOWEVER; Sitelink has maintained a fixed price for us i'm going to say since we upgraded to the Web version. I believe this was 5-6 years ago. Most recently they even lowered the monthly fee thru the bundled promotion. The biggest thing is this, all of the integrations, pricing assistance, competitor tracking, website integration is beautiful as well as the credit card billing. I know these have allowed us to get and keep more customers per month, at a higher rent and longer stays. At my pricing level that only take 2-3 units to pay for the service. Again seems like alot but i can't imagine where we would be without this nice package. Recently swithed my credit card processing to Sitelink Merchant Services based on my trust of their partnership.
"What a wonderful testimony Wendell, thank you! You hit on a key point sometimes overlooked by those shopping for self-storage software–properly implemented, feature-rich software should help bring in substantially more revenue than its cost. Increased efficiency, automation, reminders, revenue management, detailed reporting and Customer Relationship Management are just a few of the features that make SiteLink the self-storage industry's software of choice.
Implementing decades of customer feedback helps keep SiteLink's user interface easy to use and operate. Have you tried our browser-based SiteLink myHub to log into your SiteLink Web Edition databases from any computer, smartphone or tablet? Move tenants in and out, take payments, manage leads to lease, view graphic reporting and much more. Try it out at myhub.sitelink.com, it is free with your Web Edition subscription. As always, please call our customer support staff should you need any assistance.
You also hit on another key differentiation, the power of integrations. SiteLink's API is touted as the most comprehensive and preferred by 3rd party vendors who supply additional products and services to operators. Services like tenant insurance, web design, call centers, listing services and more. In fact, there are more than sixty SiteLink Marketplace partners to choose. It's important to find the best fit for one's business, and we are glad SiteLink's vetted partnerships helped you find integrated services, which run right out of SiteLink. Thanks again for taking the time to outline the benefits you are receiving from SiteLink and SiteLink Merchant Services. Here is to another ten years working together!"
SL Tech Support is THE BEST & AWESOME!!!
I called in to ask basically a couple of questions on the Rent Roll report. After about 30 minutes on the phone with Customer support representative, I HAVE LEARNED A PLETHORA OF KNOWLEDGE ON HOW SITELINK REPORTING, TENANT MANAGEMENT, AND SET UP OPTIONS WORK! I AM SO EXCITED!! I AM CALLING THE OWNERS RIGHT NOW AND TELLING THEM I WANT TO HAVE A SL SPECIALIST TO TEACH ME MORE! I'M NOT TYPICALLY THIS "GEEKY", BUT that Customer support representative HAS ME SO EXCITED ABOUT LEARNING MORE AND MORE! I WANT TO NOW TACKLE SITELINKS MERCHANT PROGRAM BECAUSE WE ARE NOT USING THEM RIGHT NOW (WE USE SBOA) AND I WANT TO KNOW MORE ABOUT SL'S PROGRAM! Additionally, EVERY SINGLE TIME I CALL IN TO SL'S , CHOOSE OPTION #2, I ALWAYS GET PROMPT ATTENTION, EVERY SINGLE TIME IT'S LITERALLY LESS THAN ONE MINUTE TO GET A LIVE PERSON ON THE PHONE. IN TODAY'S WORLD, WHERE BIG CORPORATIONS DO NOT UNDERSTAND HOW IMPORTANT GOOD CUSTOMER SERVICE IS TO THEIR USERS, SL NAILS IT - I AM ONE EXCITED GIRL RIGHT NOW BECAUSE OF SITELINK AND WHAT'S TO COME IN THE FUTURE! BIG THANKS TO ALL, BUT A VERY SPECIAL THANKS TO Customer support representative guy BECAUSE HE CLEARED UP SO MANY THINGS FOR ME TODAY AND TAUGHT ME A LOT OF STUFF THAT I CAN PASS ON. I AM LOVING IT! THANK YOU! :)USER FRIENDLY, INTUITIVE, TECH SUPPORT, THE FACT YOU HAVE A REPORTING SPECIALIST I CAN ACTUALLY CALL AND HE WILL ANSWER, AND SL'S DEDICATION TO PROVIDING EXCELLENT CUSTOMER SERVICE, AS WE DO AT OUR FACILITY, LOVING THIS "PARTNERSHIP" WITH THEM!
USER FRIENDLY, INTUITIVE, TECH SUPPORT, THE FACT YOU HAVE A REPORTING SPECIALIST I CAN ACTUALLY CALL AND HE WILL ANSWER, AND SL'S DEDICATION TO PROVIDING EXCELLENT CUSTOMER SERVICE, AS WE DO AT OUR FACILITY, LOVING THIS "PARTNERSHIP" WITH THEM!
Your passion is contagious, thank you! Thank you for your effort to reach out and ask questions. You can get so many ideas out of the same one report (like the Rent Roll), depending on your goal.
1. our people make the difference. Every visitor has been blown away by the discipline, knowledge and professionalism of our group.
2. the collegial, cooperative culture (including canine companions) delivers quality output.
So please, visit! Thank you!
My name is Frances, manager of 325 unit facility. I wasn't to happy changing from site link stand alone to web edition. I was always rushing cause seems like the 1st of the month was tomorrow, that meant that I had to spend 2.5 hrs running credit cards, whether it was my day off (Sunday) credit cards had to be processed. 2 part tickets were cut and file, (don't have to do that anymore, don't have all that bulk). The 2nd part detach for the end of day summary report. My day started at 7am rushing to be ready to open at 9am. NOW it takes me 5-7 mins to run my credit cards, I don't have to worry if someone will interrupts me, causing me to have a mistake, then taking time to track , correct , double entry, no entry, this is an experience that has been worth the money that the owner invested. Site Link has allowed me to do early walk thrus, remove old leases, and files. A smoother start of day, take a break, lunch away from office. I met our rep, an angel with knowledge of how to teach someone that is needing assistance, a people person, he is a good asset to Site Link. I recommend this software to you and a teacher like our rep. The credit card process I like the most cause I have the time I needed to do other stuff, with out a maintenance man on the 1st it was awful.
The credit card process I like the most cause I have the time I needed to do other stuff, with out a maintenance man on the 1st it was awful.
Give a credit when customer has zero balance, or maybe I don't know how.
Thank you for the kind words. Sebastian is one of 6 sales people who are not "typical" sales. Sales has to know the program inside and out, not just "sell" it. Every person here worked in technical support when they first started at SiteLink. Everyone here has to know our product.
I am glad you see the faster operation and added features of Web Edition, vs the older PC-based SiteLink. Web Edition is a huge step up, not just "doing the same as PC-based SiteLink, just on the Internet."
Consider adding ACH or bank draft to eliminate credit card fees. Ask us to get started - SiteLink Merchant Services offers both ACH and credit card processing!
Finally, there are ways to give tenants credits even if they do not owe anything. Please call or email us to show how. One such method: create a new charge, apply a credit. That way, we track all liabilities and respective dates on financial reports; both on the accrual or cash basis of accounting.
We have been using Sitelink Web Edition and Corporate Control Centre for years. When they said they had become merchant service providers, we were immediately intrigued by the idea. We thought we'd give it a try with a handful of new acquisitions, I mean - why not? We had such a positive experience that we chose to move all our merchant services to Sitelink.The biggest advantage of using Sitelink and Sitelink Merchant Services is the seamless usage. What I mean about that is...when a transaction doesn't record properly in Sitelink, or on a tenants card, there is no ability for finger pointing between Management system and Merchant supplier, no back and forth - Sitelink just handles it. And I must say, we haven't even had any instances of that - our prior Management System and Merchant supplier, would send us back and forth so many times that we would just give up and manually record or refund to make it right. We've seen a lot of systems over the years, as we acquire and take on previous systems and convert them. We now convert to Sitelink - Day One! We also smile to ourselves when we learn a selling location is already ON Sitelink , we know our lives are going to be so much easier. The Sitelink team are top-notch, they not only know what THEY are doing, the are not satisfied until WE know what we are doing - quite a feat for a technology company! Unsurpassed!! As far as conversions go - Sitelink does it all - easy peasy!
The biggest advantage of using Sitelink and Sitelink Merchant Services is the seamless usage. What I mean about that is...when a transaction doesn't record properly in Sitelink, or on a tenants card, there is no ability for finger pointing between Management system and Merchant supplier, no back and forth - Sitelink just handles it. And I must say, we haven't even had any instances of that - our prior Management System and Merchant supplier, would send us back and forth so many times that we would just give up and manually record or refund to make it right. We've seen a lot of systems over the years, as we acquire and take on previous systems and convert them. We now convert to Sitelink - Day One! We also smile to ourselves when we learn a selling location is already ON Sitelink , we know our lives are going to be so much easier. The Sitelink team are top-notch, they not only know what THEY are doing, the are not satisfied until WE know what we are doing - quite a feat for a technology company! Unsurpassed!! As far as conversions go - Sitelink does it all - easy peasy!
The only Con I can think of for Merchant Services is the paperwork to get through! I have to say this was a complaint of mine on our previous suppliers as well, however. Really, there is no different, but once it's all signed up - it's just a sit back and wait until the debit machines are delivered, charge them up and plug them in - it's just that easy!
Thank you so much for the comments! We are always working on reducing the application process. It does depend on the store - the first one can take longer than all subsequent ones, for example. And, our OneSupport, our in-house service for software and merchant processing under 1 roof sets up your merchant accounts in SiteLink. You no longer need to waste time doing that yourself...Thanks so much!
Contact SiteLink sales to request regional pricing quotes.
Centralized cloud-based self-storage management for single or multi-store operators to manage tenants, rent rolls, leasing, leads, revenue management, reporting and 3rd party integrations.
Capture more leads and raise conversions with SiteLink's TOTAL CRM for automating follow-ups, while utilizing TOTAL Accounting support for financials with leading application integrations.
Integrate a customer payment portal, real-time inventory and pricing, reservations and online rentals with SiteLink eSign electronic signature into existing websites or use SiteLink Web Edition's free eCommerce website solution for your business.
Leverage business intelligence with rich SiteLink reporting options, plus graphical data visualization via SiteLink myHub.
Automated tenant notification tools handle messaging, customized letters, HTML emails, SMS (TEXT) and mail outsourcing, with the ability to personalize any aspect of correspondence.
Integrate with property gates and access control systems.
Below are some frequently asked questions for SiteLink Web Edition.
Q. What type of pricing plans does SiteLink Web Edition offer?
Q. Who are the typical users of SiteLink Web Edition?
Q. What languages does SiteLink Web Edition support?
Q. Does SiteLink Web Edition support mobile devices?
Q. Does SiteLink Web Edition offer an API?
Yes, SiteLink Web Edition has an API available for use.
Q. What other apps does SiteLink Web Edition integrate with?
Q. What level of support does SiteLink Web Edition offer?
Q. Which apps is SiteLink Web Edition compared to most often?


Holy Spirit: Listen to Me, I will be giving you lessons in obedience, and you will be fulfilling everything that I will tell you. Trust Me. I am such a good God. Do you think that if I did not love you so, I could let you bear sufferings? Your fate would have been indifferent to Me, and I am choosing crosses for you. Child, such crosses that will add Me glory and exalt you on your way to Me. They are not too heavy, they are not too small. I will not allow that you do not use all the graces, which I have for you. This is why I am testing you so. I know that I threw you into deep water.
Lord Jesus: My child, I entrusted to you the care of My Heart. Leave the care for the world to Me, and you, take care of that what I called you for. Contemplate the treasures of My Sacred Heart. This Heart descended from Heaven to Earth, to spill its love upon mankind. My infinite and eternal love in the Divine dimension was shown to you through My Heart, so that you may get to know what is unimaginable. The Holy Spirit created My human Heart and enclosed in it My entire Divine love. My infant Heart possessed the fullness of love. Although as an infant I was learning how to talk and how to walk like an ordinary man, My Heart possessed the fullness of Divinity and did not need to learn how to love.
The home in which I lived, the purest womb of the Virgin, was a home filled with love. The immaculately conceived Mary became the Mother of God, the Mother of Love, the Mother of My Sacred Heart. Carrying Me in Her immaculate womb, Mary was learning love and humility from My infant Heart. She listened to its love and imitated it. By giving Her My Heart, I was shaping Her perfection. By giving Her My Spirit, I was drawing strength from Her immaculate body. Mary gave Me a physical likeness, and I gave Her a spiritual likeness. We were joined by the love of our Hearts, which, beating in one rhythm, bonded forever, in order to unite for the glory of My Father.
From the beginning I was God. Mary from the beginning was human. Our connection did not change My Divinity and did not add Divinity to My Mother. I remained God, and Mary remained human. However, by assuming the human nature of My Mother, I exalted Her and gave Her a true filial dignity, so that the fallen man may return to paradise greater and more beautiful than when he was leaving it. The new man received a perfect Mother, a model of human love, so that he may draw life and strength from Her to retain fidelity. Although I am God, My human nature leaned upon Mary, and My Divine Heart drew consolation from Her Heart.
The Immaculate Heart of My Mother, by the grace of the Holy Spirit, joined with My Sacred Heart in the body of Mary. The beating of the Heart of Mary gave life to My Heart in Her womb, and the beating of My Heart gave life to Her soul, which lived off love. Our Hearts remained henceforth inseparable. They suffered jointly and jointly They received consolation. On the Golgotha, They were pierced by the same blade, giving vent to the love of these Hearts, which spilled over upon the new offspring of the new Adam and the new Eve. Love always gives life. And the love of these two Hearts was so great that it gave life to a new, holy people, who will give glory to God. Therefore, My Sacred Heart is always united with the Immaculate Heart of My Mother, who will always remain a Virgin and will always remain the Mother of God. Amen.


text:
Q: create a table sorted by attribute value I am new to xslt and i've been struggling to find a solution to this, I need to create a table where my xml document sorted by the attribute "level" (niveau here) and then in alphabetical order
here is the xml document (it's in french in case you're wondering)

   <dico
       xmlns:xsi='http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance'
       xsi:noNamespaceSchemaLocation='dico.xsd'>
       <mot niveau="2">arbre</mot>
       <mot niveau="2">jeu</mot>
       <mot niveau="3">essence</mot>
       <mot niveau="5">convalescence</mot>
       <mot niveau="5">mot-valise</mot>
       <mot niveau="1">pain</mot>
       <mot niveau="4">maintenance</mot>

   </dico>

and here is my xslt
<xsl:template match="/">

                <title>Dictionnaire</title>

                <xsl:apply-templates select="dico/mot">
                    <xsl:sort select="@niveau"/>
                    <xsl:sort select="."/>
                </xsl:apply-templates>

    </xsl:template>

    <xsl:template match="mot">

                <colgroup>
                    <col style="width: 33%" />
                    <col style="width: 33%" />
                    <col style="width: 33%" />
                </colgroup>

                    le mot est : <xsl:value-of select="."/>

                    niveau : <xsl:value-of select="@niveau"/>

    </xsl:template>`

A: Please try the following XSLT.
XSLT
<?xml version="1.0"?>
<xsl:stylesheet version="1.0" xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform">
    <xsl:output indent="yes" method="html"/>

    <xsl:template match="/dico">

                <title>Dictionnaire</title>

                            mot
                            niveau

                        <xsl:for-each select="mot">
                            <xsl:sort select="@niveau"/>
                            <xsl:sort select="."/>

                                le mot est : <xsl:value-of select="."/>
                                niveau : <xsl:value-of select="@niveau"/>

                        </xsl:for-each>

    </xsl:template>
</xsl:stylesheet>


text:
FASB Issues Update to its Conceptual Framework
The Financial Accounting Standards Board ("FASB") continues to advance efforts to write consistent and effective disclosure rules in its standards. On August 28, the board published Concepts Statement ("CON") No. 8, Conceptual Framework for Financial Reporting: Notes to the Financial Statements, which the FASB will use as a guide clarifying what information to consider when developing new disclosure requirements for future Accounting Standards Updates.
Known as the "disclosure framework," CON No. 8 will attempt to resolve a years-long debate over how much information should the board require from companies without them overloading financial statement footnotes with irrelevant details. The framework explains why footnotes exist, when to use relevant content, and what the general limitations are for financial statement disclosures. It also offers guidance for addressing quarterly disclosure requirements.
The framework also includes an update to the "materiality" definition as applied under the Conceptual Framework. The updated meaning aligns the FASB's idea of materiality to decide what information in a financial statement should be included and what can be left out. The board's materiality definition is now consistent with definitions by the Securities and Exchange Commission, the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board, the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants, and the U.S. judicial system.
In a statement, FASB chairman Russell Golden said the latest changes to the Conceptual Framework would help the FASB identify and review disclosure rules in its standards and clear up the concept of materiality.
It is uncertain whether CON No. 8 will satisfy everyone. Companies and preparer groups argued that the FASB fell short in reducing disclosures, and investors and analysts informed the board that it gave up too much. Also, two FASB members voted no on issuing the final document.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


text:
Literacy Program Overview
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This affordable 36-credit online program can be completed in less than two years and will equip you with the specialized skills and knowledge you need to:
Collaborate with educators, psychologists, and parents to develop and implement needs-based reading programs for students.
Assess reading strengths, identify deficiencies, and create intervention plans and strategies for at-risk students.
Provide recommendations to district administration on improving the instruction of reading and language arts.
Click here to read program testimonials from literacy alumni.
Reading Specialist Certification
This program is aligned with the Texas Education Agency (TEA)'s reading specialist certification. If you are outside of Texas and would like to be certified as a reading specialist, check with your state agency for requirements to obtain certification in your state and to determine if this program meets your state's eligibility requirements. The requirements for reading specialist certification in Texas are provided below:
Master's degree from an accredited university
Valid classroom teaching certificate in the state of Texas
Two years of classroom teaching experience in an accredited PK-12 school
Successful completion of an approved educator preparation program
Successful completion of the required exam
The Teacher Education Assistance for College and Higher Education (TEACH) Grant provides up to $4,000 per year to students who are completing coursework needed to begin a career in a high-need teaching field. UT Permian Basin participates in the TEACH Grant program.
To be eligible to receive a TEACH Grant, you must meet basic eligibility criteria for federal student aid programs , complete the FAFSA, be enrolled at a school that participates in the TEACH Grant program, maintain a minimum GPA of 3.25, receive TEACH Grant counseling for each year you receive the grant, and sign a TEACH Grant agreement. For more information about the TEACH Grant and its service requirements post-graduation, please click here.
Nationally recognized Reading/Literacy Specialist Preparation Program by the International Literacy Association (ILA)
Nationally accredited by the prestigious Council for Accreditation of Educator Preparation (CAEP)
Texas Education Agency - State approved/accredited Accountability System for Educator Preparation (TEA/ASEP)
If you have any program-specific questions, please email us directly at mastersinreading@utpb.edu.
36 Credits. Please consult with your faculty advisor regarding courses.
EDUC 6302 - Cultural Diversity in Education and the Social Sciences
This course gives candidates the opportunity to develop cultural diversity competence in order to face challenges in education and the social sciences. Research and reflection are emphasized.
Prerequisites: N/A
Semesters Offered: Spring B 2023 Summer B 2023 Fall B 2023 Spring B 2024 Summer B 2024 Fall B 2024 Spring B 2025 Summer B 2025 Fall B 2025 Spring B 2026 Summer B 2026
EDUC 6303 - Human Growth and Development
This course explores human development from conception to death. Development is viewed as change in cognitive, socio-emotional, and physical processes and analyzed from the perspective of various theoretical frameworks. If taken to fulfill initial certification requirements, TExES pre-tests may be required.
Semesters Offered:
EDUC 6304 - Educational Psychology
Review of theories of behavior, learning, and instruction, research on human ontological development, and consideration of applications of such theory and research to classroom practices, including issues related to their measurement and evaluation.
Semesters Offered: Spring A 2023 Summer A 2023 Fall A 2023 Spring A 2024 Summer A 2024 Fall A 2024 Spring A 2025 Summer A 2025 Fall A 2025 Spring A 2026 Summer A 2026
EDUC 6329 - Language Development and Acquisition
Theories of psycholinguistics and sociolinguistics applied to the acquisition of one or more languages in early childhood and school learning.
Semesters Offered: Spring A 2023 Summer B 2023 Spring A 2024 Summer B 2024
EDRD 6305 - Research Design in Reading
This course is designed to acquaint students with how research is conducted in the fields of education and the social sciences. Students will select and evaluate research findings within their specific fields, and learn how to plan their own research studies.
Semesters Offered: Spring B 2023 Whole Summer 2023 Fall A 2023 Spring B 2024 Whole Summer 2024 Fall A 2024 Spring B 2025
EDRD 6315 - Foundations of Literacy
This course is focused on building background knowledge in teaching literacy in the elementary and middle school grades for the post-bac student seeking a teaching certificate or a Master of Arts in Reading. Students explore the foundations of teaching literacy by investigating constructive education methodology in the elementary and middle school classroom. Such topics as phonemic awareness, phonics, scaffolding, differentiating instruction, spelling approaches, vocabulary building, reading comprehension, and other timely issues will be addressed.
Semesters Offered: Summer A 2023
EDRD 6317 - Materials, Methods and Media in Reading
Students examine concepts of learning as a social process to construct meaning in oral and written language. By combining theory and practice, students implement current reading strategies in an integrated approach to using materials, methods, and media in the classroom. An online presentation component is included.
Semesters Offered: Spring A 2023 Summer A 2023 Spring B 2024 Summer B 2024 Spring A 2025
EDRD 6318 - Analysis and Selection of Literature
This course emphasizes literature-based reading instruction focusing on the selection of literature which enhances interdisciplinary instruction.
Semesters Offered: Spring A 2023 Spring A 2024 Spring A 2025
EDRD 6319 - Content Area Literacy
This course offers participants the opportunity to identify and discuss important problems, trends, and issues related to content area literacy in the diverse classroom. Students explore content area literacy, methodology, study the reading and writing process, become familiar with available resources in content area literacy, and discover the connection between learning and teaching content area literacy. There is a field tutorial component.
Semesters Offered: Fall B 2024
EDRD 6320 - Vocabulary and Spelling Practicum
Graduate students apply their knowledge of vocabulary and spelling by assessing a student's spelling and vocabulary needs. Through interventions and gathered data, the student's growth is assessed and compiled into a final analysis in a practicum approach. Graduate students also study how reading, spelling, and vocabulary interrelate and then construct a literacy project to share with area schools.
Semesters Offered: Whole Spring 2023
EDRD 6321 - Reading Diagnosis Practicum
This course focuses on identifying literacy needs of struggling readers. Graduate students diagnose, evaluate, and remediate students by analyzing collected data. Students administer and score formal and informal reading tests and apply knowledge of rubrics for spelling and writing. Intervention strategies and tutorials are included in this practicum approach coursework as well as ongoing assessments.
Semesters Offered: Whole Fall 2024
EDRD 6322 - Problems in Literacy
This course offers in-depth analysis and synthesis of contemporary research in problems, theories and issues in literacy education including representation in literature. Students participate in written responses and oral discussions to demonstrate understanding. Class is conducted in a seminar style where the professor and students jointly investigate the topic of representation in literature and build an appreciation for process writing. What is critical literacy? Who is included in the literature? Who is excluded? How will the educators better assist students to become critically literate? How can educators use theory to guide their practices?
Semesters Offered: N/A
EDRD 6323 - Advanced Problems in Reading
Students explore psychological, cognitive, and methodological issues in reading currently discussed and researched in scholarly journals, professional books, and TEA publications. Topics may include phonemic awareness, phonics, comprehensive literacy, adult literacy, and intervention strategies to build comprehension in struggling readers.
Prerequisites: EDRD 6318 - Analysis and Selection of Literature
EDRD 6324 - Leadership in Literacy
Leadership in Literacy is a practicum course that focuses on how to disseminate literacy research effectively to educational stakeholders (i.e. campus/district administrators, teachers, parents). Some of the techniques addressed are instructional coaching, mentoring, and collaborating with colleagues. Students will spend 55 hours in the field.
EDRD 6333 - Clinical and Remedial Reading Practicum
This is the third course in a continuum of courses on assessment and intervention for school-age children and adults who struggle in areas of literacy. Individual assessment and tutoring of a student will be directed by the instructor in a practicum setting. The reading assignments are interrelated and designed to provide a scaffolding approach to introducing strategies to struggling readers.
EDRD 6392 - Practicum in Reading
This course offers supervised practical application of previously studied reading theory. Students are expected to meet regularly with their University supervisor to ensure continued growth throughout their practicum experience.
Prerequisites: EDRD 6317 - Materials, Methods and Media in Reading EDRD 6319 - Content Area Literacy EDRD 6320 - Vocabulary and Spelling Practicum EDRD 6323 - Advanced Problems in Reading
EDRD 6397 - Research in Literacy
Graduate students choose between writing a thesis or researching three questions that are provided by their committee. The thesis and the questions each reflect a current issue in literacy that requires an in-depth investigation of scholarly research.
Regular Admission Requirements
A bachelor's degree from an accredited institution
GPA of at least 3.0 in the last 60 credit hours leading towards a bachelor's degree
Essay that answers the following prompt:
What is your vision of why you want to become a reading specialist?
Conditional Admission Requirements
If you do not meet the GPA requirements for this program, you may qualify for conditional admission with the following requirements:
GPA between 2.5 and 3.0 in the last 60 credit hours leading towards a bachelor's degree
Essay that answers the following prompt (see below for additional details about the essay):
Other evidence (at least one of the following):
Minimum GRE score of 282 (verbal and quantitative combined)
May also consider cultural components including, but not limited to, English as a second language, weak academic preparation that can be remediated, student motivation and desire to succeed, evidence of success in career field (e.g., teaching or service awards), and/or candidate's diverse experiences and perspectives. (This is submitted in the form of a low GPA document explaining the reasons surrounding the lower GPA and evidence of ability to succeed in graduate study.)
The essay prompt is: What is your vision of why you want to become a reading specialist? An acceptable essay will clearly state your purpose in pursuing an MA in literacy. To support your commitment to becoming a literacy educator, include specific examples detailing your understanding of the role of reading specialist and how your prior experiences have informed and motivated your pursuit of an MA and your future goals in the classroom. Your essay should be at least one page in length, but no more than three pages, and written in an academic tone. It should be clear, concise, and well organized. This essay will demonstrate your capability to take on graduate studies.
Official copies of transcripts must come directly from the school in a sealed envelope and should be mailed to:
UT Permian Basin
Graduate Studies Office
Official transcripts in electronic format can be sent to gradstudies@utpb.edu.
All supporting documents related to a graduate program, such as letters of recommendation, essays, statements of interest, resumes, professional work experience, and awards should be sent to the Graduate Studies Office:
Odessa, TX 79762-0001
Electronic versions of supporting documents may be emailed to gradstudies@utpb.edu.
The application fee is $40.
If you have any questions regarding the admission requirements, please email gradstudies@utpb.edu.
Tara Wilson, EdD
Literacy Program Coordinator
wilson_t@utpb.edu
Dr. Wilson teaches literacy courses for undergraduate and graduate students and is the literacy program coordinator at UT Permian Basin. Prior to working in higher education, she taught in Texas public education for 11 years, first as a kindergarten teacher and later as a literacy specialist. She received her Doctorate of Education in literacy from Sam Houston State University, publishes in literacy and early childhood journals, and presents at the local, state, regional, national, and international levels.
Click here to read more about Dr. Wilson and her experience with UT Permian Basin's literacy program.
Shelly Landreth, EdD
landreth_s@utpb.edu
Dr. Landreth is an assistant professor of literacy at UT Permian Basin. Prior to joining the University, she spent 23 years as a teacher, librarian, and administrator in Texas public schools. Dr. Landreth is passionate about sharing her knowledge about and enthusiasm for literacy with pre-service and in-service teachers to prepare them for the challenge of classroom teaching. Her research interests include developing fluency in struggling adolescent readers, effective vocabulary instruction, and motivating adolescents to read.
Click here to read more about Dr. Landreth and her experience with UT Permian Basin's literacy program.
We're pleased to offer program admission on a rolling basis.
Rolling admission refers to our process of accepting and evaluating applications as we receive them and moving any applications that miss the deadline to the next semester. However, if you want to enroll in courses for a specific semester, you will need to make note of the application deadlines found below. If you don't complete your application and submit the required materials by the deadline, your application will be rolled over to the next semester.
Document Deadline
Payment Deadline
Courses Begin
Courses End
Whole Spring 1/3/23 1/10/23 1/13/23 1/17/23 5/12/23
Spring A 1/3/23 1/10/23 1/13/23 1/17/23 3/10/23
Spring B 3/6/23 3/13/23 3/17/23 3/20/23 5/12/23
Whole Summer 5/8/23 5/15/23 5/19/23 5/22/23 8/17/23
Summer A 5/1/23 5/8/23 5/12/23 5/15/23 6/30/23
Summer B 6/19/23 6/26/23 6/30/23 7/3/23 8/17/23
Whole Fall 8/14/23 8/21/23 8/25/23 8/28/23 12/15/23
Fall A 8/14/23 8/21/23 8/25/23 8/28/23 10/20/23
Fall B 10/9/23 10/16/23 10/20/23 10/23/23 12/15/23
Literacy:
(* additional fees may be added).
Rolling Admissions
Upcoming Deadlines:
For Spring 2023, UTPB is offering a $500 scholarship to new, online students enrolling in a College of Education program. Find out more.
Please note summer A and B sessions are 7 weeks long. Whole summer sessions are 10 weeks long.
Apply to Program


The first pictures of an Italian couple and their 11-year-old son who were killed after falling into a volcanic crater have emerged.
Massimiliano Carrer, 45, Tiziana Zaramella, 42, and Lorenzo, 11, from Venice, died when a hole opened up in the ground at the bubbling Solfatara volcano near Naples, a popular tourist site.
The couple's other son Alessio, 7, survived and called for help.
Initial reports suggested Lorenzo walked into a cordoned off zone, fainted due to fumes emitted by the crater and fell into the boiling mud surrounding it, prompting his parents to try and save him.
Firemen on the scene said the three victims appeared to have died from asphyxia, possibly because of hot gases emanating from the ground. The official cause of death will be determined by an autopsy.
The family had been on a short holiday before the boys were due to start school again on Wednesday.
Alessio is being cared for by his paternal grandparents in the wake of the tragedy.
The Solfatara volcano is one of many volcanic craters in the Campi Flegrei area, 20km west of Naples, which first opened up to tourists in 1900, according to its website. The accident happened at the Bocca Grande (Big Mouth), the largest of the fumaroles in the area, which the ancient Romans called the home of the God of fire.
The ground at the site emits water vapours of 160C and gases including poisonous hydrogen sulphide, the website said.


Chatsworth are taking up the apparent dispute with the owner of Holme Hall over access to the bottom entrance to the Mine. In the meantime DCA understands that applications to visit the Mine should continue to be made as usual to Oldfield Design and that for divers and others access will be allowed via Entrance No. 2 known as Smiths Level.
Parking should be as discreet as possible and on no account should the bridleway or the driveway to Holme Hall be obstructed.
However, Smiths Level cannot be used for Wheelchair Access and it is not yet clear whether access via that route is approved by the Mine Inspector for instructed parties.
A further visit to Eldon Hole was made today, and the remaining old bollards have now been removed and await transport away from the site. The single new bollard anchor that the DCA team installed last week on the West route appears to have set correctly and I've had reports that it has been satisfactorily used by the Eldon diggers. At this time there 's only the single bollard on the West route but it is hoped to install a second back up as soon as weather and volunteers allow.
The East route currently has no ground anchors so unfortunately this route is not safely passable for the time being. There are 3 new bollards in storage ready to be installed here. Weather and a bogged down Landrover last week forced the team to carry all the supplies up so the installation of the remaining anchors will need to wait for drier ground conditions. It is hoped that volunteers will come forward and we can get this project completed as soon as possible.
Please continue to check all safety anchors, bolt, bollard or other, as part of your safe caving practice and if in doubt, contact the DCA Equipment Projects team.
Access to Holme Bank Mine in doubt DCA has been warned that someone unknown has recently placed an extra padlock on the entrance to Holme Bank Mine, Bakewell in an attempt to prevent people accessing it using Mr. Oldfield's key.
Mr. Oldfield has been happy to allow access to the mine, asking only for a donation to a charity by people who use the key he continues to provide, so we have to assume he knows nothing of this new attempt to exclude cavers by placing an additional lock on the gate.
The mine is popular with instructed groups and also with cave divers, who use it as a training site, so DCA will be tackling this as a matter of urgency. It is thought that the problem may be related to a dispute over ownership of the mine so, for the time being, it is probably best if groups avoid the site rather than risk stirring up further antagonism. We will try to keep cavers informed while negotiations take place.
Do NOT use bollards for East and West routes in Eldon Hole.
The Eldon Hole Ground anchors are being replaced by DCA and the bollards at the top of the East and West routes were partly cut through yesterday before the grinder battery ran out.
These two damaged bollards will be replaced completely within a couple of weeks but, for the time being, please avoid using them.
On the 18th September 2015, a group of volunteers from Crewe Climbing & Potholing Club, armed with loppers, chain saws and petrol driven strimmers, cleared back the vegetation at the caver's car park at Waterways Swallet. Looking after this site used to be the job of Melissa Milner, who sadly passed away recently. Upkeep of the site forms part of an access agreement between cavers and the Okeover Estate. Today's work party was organised by Heather Simpson.
Waterways Swallet is one of the top ten deepest caves in the Peak District caving area, but is (more or less) devoid of pitches. The result is a classic trip which is always satisfying, although care is needed in parts, and the cave should be avoided in very wet weather, especially if there is a stream flowing into the entrance.


Justin Bieber and Hailey Baldwin are waiting until next year 2019 to tie the knot, despite getting engaged last month. TMZ said the pair have decided to postpone their wedding until 2019, as they don't want to 'put pressure' on themselves and rush the big day. But Justin and his model girlfriend are still excited about becoming man and wife, but feel making the 'commitment' to each other is what really matters. While the couple have faced criticism for getting engaged so quickly, the source revealed the pop star Justin is sure Hailey is the one, having been besotted with her for many years. So look out for the tie of knot with Justin and model Hailey 2019.


text:
United States Connecticut state government Ned Lamont General news Health 2019-2020 Coronavirus pandemic Disease outbreaks Public health Genomics Biology Science Immunizations State governments Government and politics Youth hockey Youth sports Sports Hockey Residential care facilities Health care facility operation Health care services Health care industry Business Nursing homes Aging and disability services Coronavirus Infectious diseases Diseases and conditions Lung disease
Who's next? Plans for 2nd round of shots expected next week
By SUSAN HAIGH - Dec. 30, 2020 07:33 PM EST
An advisory group is expected to recommend to Gov. Ned Lamont which Connecticut residents should receive the next round of COVID-19 vaccinations, now that distribution is well underway for health care workers and for nursing home residents and staffers.
Dr. Deidre Gifford, the acting public health commissioner, said the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's immunization advisory committee's recommendation that frontline essential workers and people over age 75 be included in phase 1B will be the foundation for Connecticut's plan.
"They may opt to make some additions to that group. But I don't want to speculate on what they're going to advise until after they've met," said Gifford, who expects Lamont will have the recommendations by Thursday. The group is scheduled to meet Tuesday.
State officials previously said they expected "critical" workers, those living in other congregate settings, adults over age 65 and high-risk people under age 65 would be eligible for vaccination in the phases between January and May, but the list had not yet been finalized.
Meanwhile, at least four assisted living facilities are expected to begin vaccinations next week, followed by several more the week afterward, according to a Department of Public Health spokeswoman. More than 7,400 people live in assisted living residences across Connecticut.
Lamont reiterated Wednesday he is pleased so far with the pace of vaccinations in Connecticut, despite news reports of a slow rollout in other parts of the country. He said that the state's more than 200 nursing homes are on track to complete their first round of shots by the end of next week and that everyone in the first phase, including hospital staff, frontline health care providers and nursing home residents and staff, should be fully vaccinated with the two doses "over the course of the next month or so."
He said nearly 55,000 doses have been distributed so far in Connecticut, which Lamont said is the highest percentage of people vaccinated so far in the Northeast.
Josh Geballe, Lamont's chief operating officer, acknowledged, however, that it's going to become "increasingly challenging" to progress to phase 1B and beyond because there will be many more people to vaccinate and larger shipments of vaccine arriving in Connecticut. The state is working now to expand the number of vaccinators across Connecticut, bringing in retail pharmacies and others into the mix as eligibility for the vaccine expands.
Meanwhile, Gifford said she expects Connecticut to maintain its current COVID-19 testing infrastructure for the "foreseeable future," until the majority of the population is vaccinated.
There have been nearly 1,700 probable or confirmed new COVID-19 cases reported to the state since Tuesday. While the number of hospitalizations declined by 59 to 1,167. The number of COVID-associated deaths increased by 40, for a total of 5,964 people.
In other coronavirus-related news in Connecticut:
VIRUS VARIANT
While the U.S. in general does less genetic sequencing of virus samples than other developed nations to discover variants, such as the one circulating in England, Geballe said there's a "tremendous amount of sequencing capacity" in Connecticut with local institutions such as Jackson Laboratory for Genomic Medicine in Farmington.
"Connecticut is actually one of the real pioneers of the high sequencing innovations occurring in the last five to 10 years," Geballe said.
He said many of the state's different testing partners use an instrument that can detect a marker for this particular strain of the coronavirus, which was confirmed Tuesday in California and is considered more contagious. Those without the equipment, Geballe said, will send positive samples to the state's laboratory. Ultimately, samples that meet the particular pattern can be sent to the local experts for genomic sequencing.
NURSING HOME FUNDING
Lamont announced Wednesday that nursing homes in Connecticut will receive more government funding as they continue to operate amid a pandemic.
The Democrat said the latest package includes an additional $31.2 million in payments and Medicaid rate increases for nursing homes, continued funding for COVID recovery facilities and other assistance, including a yearlong deferral of $23.4 million that homes were scheduled to pay back to the state under an earlier arrangement.
This latest aid package is in addition to more than $150 million the state previously spent on nursing homes for COVID response.
"As we are dealing with a resurgence of the coronavirus statewide, we have taken action to mitigate a repeat of the first occurrence and reduce infections and spread in our nursing homes," Lamont said in a statement. He noted that the cost to combat the coronavirus remains high and it's "essential" to give the facilities the resources they need.
There are more than 200 licensed nursing homes in the state.
Lamont joined the governors of Massachusetts, Maine, New Jersey, Rhode Island, Vermont, and New Hampshire on Wednesday in extending the suspension of interstate youth hockey competitions for public and private schools and youth hockey leagues through at least Jan. 31, 2021. The prohibition will not affect interstate collegiate, professional, or U.S. national team hockey activities.
The regional suspension was originally scheduled to run through at least Thursday. But officials said they reassessed the need for continued restrictions on interstate sports activities after reviewing the latest COVID-19 data.


text:
Year : 2021 | Volume : 14 | Issue : 12 | Page : 564-574
Predicting COVID-19 fatality rate based on age group using LSTM
Zahra Ramezani1, Seyed Abbas Mousavi2, Ghasem Oveis3, Mohammad Reza Parsai4, Fatemeh Abdollahi5, Jamshid Yazdani Charati1
1 Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics, School of Health, Mazandaran University of Medical Sciences, Sari, Iran
2 Department of Psychiatry, Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences Research Center, Addiction Institute, Mazandaran, University of Medical Sciences, Sari, Iran
3 Health vice-chancellor of Mazandaran University of Medical Sciences, Sari, Iran
4 Control Disease Center, Mazandaran University of Medical Sciences, Sari, Iran
5 Department of Public Health, Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences Research Center, Mazandaran University of Medical Sciences, Sari, Iran
Date of Decision 06-Dec-2021
Date of Acceptance 09-Dec-2021
Jamshid Yazdani Charati
Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics, School of Health, Mazandaran University of Medical Sciences, Sari
Objective: To predict the daily incidence and fatality rates based on long short-term memory (LSTM) in 4 age groups of COVID-19 patients in Mazandaran Province, Iran.
Methods: To predict the daily incidence and fatality rates by age groups, this epidemiological study was conducted based on the LSTM model. All data of COVID-19 disease were collected daily for training the LSTM model from February 22, 2020 to April 10, 2021 in the Mazandaran University of Medical Sciences. We defined 4 age groups, i.e., patients under 29, between 30 and 49, between 50 and 59, and over 60 years old. Then, LSTM models were applied to predict the trend of daily incidence and fatality rates from 14 to 40 days in different age groups. The results of different methods were compared with each other.
Results: This study evaluated 5 0826 patients and 5 109 deaths with COVID-19 daily in 20 cities of Mazandaran Province. Among the patients, 25 240 were females (49.7%), and 25 586 were males (50.3%). The predicted daily incidence rates on April 11, 2021 were 91.76, 155.84, 150.03, and 325.99 per 100 000 people, respectively; for the fourteenth day April 24, 2021, the predicted daily incidence rates were 35.91, 92.90, 83.74, and 225.68 in each group per 100 000 people. Furthermore, the predicted average daily incidence rates in 40 days for the 4 age groups were 34.25, 95.68, 76.43, and 210.80 per 100 000 people, and the daily fatality rates were 8.38, 4.18, 3.40, 22.53 per 100 000 people according to the established LSTM model. The findings demonstrated the daily incidence and fatality rates of 417.16 and 38.49 per 100 000 people for all age groups over the next 40 days.
Conclusions: The results highlighted the proper performance of the LSTM model for predicting the daily incidence and fatality rates. It can clarify the path of spread or decline of the COVID-19 outbreak and the priority of vaccination in age groups.
Keywords: COVID-19; Long short-term memory model; Incidence rate; Fatality rate; Prediction; Age classification
Ramezani Z, Mousavi SA, Oveis G, Parsai MR, Abdollahi F, Charati JY. Predicting COVID-19 fatality rate based on age group using LSTM. Asian Pac J Trop Med 2021;14:564-74
Ramezani Z, Mousavi SA, Oveis G, Parsai MR, Abdollahi F, Charati JY. Predicting COVID-19 fatality rate based on age group using LSTM. Asian Pac J Trop Med [serial online] 2021 [cited 2023 Jan 27];14:564-74. Available from: https://www.apjtm.org/text.asp?2021/14/12/564/332809
The coronavirus disease caused by COVID-19 virus has urged many countries to control its spread through social distancing, masking, and determining the number of people who contact an infected person[1],[2],[3]. Many scientific and medical studies have investigated how to prevent its spread[4],[5]. However, one of the most important issues is predicting the epidemic trend of COVID-19[6],[7]. Although traditional time series methods work well in time-dependent sequence observations, they have many limitations. For example, outliers can cause biased estimation of model parameters; when a large number is estimated, direct human intervention and evaluation are necessary to select the final model[8]. Time series models are often linear; they might not be able to explain nonlinear behavior well. Many traditional statistical methods do not learn new data entry well; they require periodical reevaluation. Neural networks can overcome these limitations, or at least they have fewer problems compared to traditional time series statistical methods[9]. Although they are inherently nonlinear, they are also able to model linear patterns[8],[10].
Kırbaş et al. performed a comparative analysis in Turkey and employed AutoRegressive Integrated Moving Average (ARIMA), Nonlinear AutoRegressive Neural Network (NARNN), and long short-term memory (LSTM) methods to model the COVID-19 confirmed cases in Denmark, Belgium, Germany, France, the United Kingdom, Finland, Switzerland, and Turkey. They used six model performance metrics (i.e., MSE, PSNR, NMSE, MAPE, and SMAPE) to choose the most precise model. The results of the first stage of their study confirmed LSTM as the most precise model. However, the second stage revealed that it was successful in predicting a 14-day view. It showed that the growth rate would slightly drop in many countries[11]. In 2020, Arora et al. conducted a study to predict and analyze positive cases of COVID-19 using deep learning-based models in India. To achieve their goal, they employed different LSTM models based on recurrent neural networks (RNNs), including Deep LSTM, Convolutional LSTM, and Bi-directional LSTM. Finally, they selected the LSTM model with minimal error to predict the daily and weekly cases[12]. Moreover, Rashed et al. proposed an LSTM architecture to predict the spread of COVID-19 considering various factors such as public mobility estimates and meteorological data; finally, they applied it to the data collected in Japan. They predicted the positive cases in six prefectures of Japan for different time frames[13]. Other studies have been performed for forecasting new cases and deaths consisting of vanilla, stacked, bidirectional, and multilayer LSTM models. Chatterjee et al. tried to limit the exponential spread to slow down the transmission rate (spread factor) and then assessed the risk factors associated with COVID-19. However, the results indicate that vanilla, bidirectional, and stacked LSTM models outperformed multilayer LSTM models[14]. Albahli et al. applied a semantic analysis of three levels (negative, neutral, and positive) to measure the people's feelings towards the pandemic and lockdown in the Gulf countries[15]. In another study by Odhiambo et al., an RNN within LSTM was compared to the traditional ARIMA method in countries with limited data availability, such as Kenya. The results demonstrated that the LSTM network was precise when forecasting the future systematic fatality risks compared to the traditional time series method[16].
Unlike previous studies, we predict the daily incidence and fatality rates in each age group in detail. The daily incidence rate is the proportion of the number of cases to the total population multiplied by WHO Standard Population per 100 000 people. Also, the fatality rate is the proportion of the number of fatality to the total population multiplied by WHO Standard Population per 100 000 people. The advantage of this study is predicting the daily incidence and fatality rates of COVID-19 cases in different age groups based on different populations by LSTM in areas near the Caspian Sea. In this way, a proper decision can be made to prevent the spread of the disease and prioritize vaccination. To predict the daily incidence and fatality rates from 14 to 40 days for each age group, we focused our analysis on the data recorded by Mazandaran University of Medical Sciences.
2.1. Study design and data collection
To predict the daily incidence and fatality rates of COVID-19 by age groups in Mazandaran Province, diagrams and descriptive statistics tables have been used to describe the existing conditions. This could help us to investigate the effect of age on the increased daily incidence and fatality rate. Then, the groups have been compared in terms of prevalence and prediction of daily incidence and fatality rate. As for modeling, we attempted to predict the daily incidence and fatality rate daily and monthly. Thus, the data have been collected for training based on 50 826 admitted patients and 5 109 deaths of COVID-19 in 20 cities in Mazandaran Province from February 22, 2020 to April 10, 2021. After we prepared the data, regression coefficients, confidence interval, correlation heatmap, and comparison graphs for daily incidence and fatality rate were presented for clear descriptions and better decision making. Then, the traditional ARIMA model and the LSTM models have been implemented for forecasting.
2.2. Proposed model
We used an expert-based standard checklist to collect data, including disease symptoms, demographic characteristics, history of disease, and other risk factors. This study attempted to predict the daily incidence and fatality rates in Mazandaran Province based on WHO standard population[17].
Due to the time series data and the large volume of data, we could use the LSTM networks, widely applicable in time-dependent studies, for forecasting. Statistical analyses were done by SPSS software version 26 and Python software version 3.7.
The LSTM model is an RNN in which the prediction result for the next time unit is based on the current situation and previous knowledge[18],[19]. This can also consider short-term and long-term correlations within the time series in the LSTM network by using the hidden layer as a memory block, which can learn long-term dependencies of the content[20]. Each LSTM cell consists of input, output, and forget gates in a hidden layer. The LSTM cell internal memory stores only useful and relevant information. [Figure 1] depicts the structure of an LSTM network with 3 gates. The LSTM network is defined using the following equations:
Figure 1: The presentation of LSTM memory cell structure follows Fischer and Krauss[10].
Where xt and ht are input and output vectors, respectively, ft is a forget gate vector, ct represents the cell state vector, it is the input gate vector. ot is the output gate vector, and W and b show the parameter matrices.
By assigning different functions to gates, the LSTM memory block can record complex features correlations in short-term and long-term time series; it is a significant advantage over RNN[21]. We should note that other appropriate transformations may be used if necessary to establish conditions and assumptions along with better estimates. The data are divided into two datasets of training and testing, and finally, the prediction occurs through experimental data. The purpose of normalization is generally to reduce the computation time due to the shrinking of the numbers. The mean squared logarithmic error (MSLE) criteria and Adam optimizer are chosen for better forecasting. The lower the value, the better the model estimate.
Before predicting the daily incidence and fatality rates, we compared different age groups according to the available data from 20 cities in Mazandaran Province. COVID-19 case data were recorded daily from February 22, 2020 to April 10, 2021 in Mazandaran University of Medical Sciences. The daily incidence and fatality rates of different age groups were calculated daily according to the WHO World Standard Population.
[Table 1] indicates the characteristics and behavior of COVID-19. Among the patients infected with this virus, 25 240 were females (49.7%), and 25 586 were males (50.3%). A total of 5 109 patients died, among which 2 763 (54.1%) were women and 2 346 (45.9%) were men. [Table 2] shows the population of the province in age groups and the population of urban/rural men and women. Of the total population, 1 581 594 were urban and 1 175 263 were rural. We classified the data into 4 age groups, patients under 29, between 30 and 49, between 50 and 59, and over 60 years old in [Table 2]. The P-value is calculated based on the Chi-square test among the 4 age groups (P<0.001).
Table 1: Clinical characteristics and outcomes of patients referred for COVID-19 treatment in 20 cities of Mazandaran Province from February 22, 2020 to April 10, 2021.
Table 2: Population of 20 cities of Mazandaran Province based on demographic characteristics.
In the following, we analyzed the collected data to identify patterns and trends. [Table 3] examines the effects of several specific disease histories on the fatality age of COVID-19 patients. The coefficient estimates the marginal effect of a one-unit increase (a disease) in that independent variable on the dependent variable (age category), holding constant all other variables in the model. According to the disease history of the people of the region, the results show that the effects of cardiovascular and diabetic diseases and other diseases, including asthma, have the greatest impact on the age categories. It is shown that COVID-19 patients with diabetes (the regression coefficient 0.545) were at a higher risk in the age groups. Although the coefficient in the model on cardiovascular disease (the regression coefficient 0.610) is larger than the coefficient on diabetes (the regression coefficient 0.545), it does not make sense to compare those coefficients directly. Other diseases, including asthma, are in the next ranks in terms of regression coefficients. Also, smaller regression coefficients have a lesser effect on the age categories. The negative coefficient of liver disease is due to the low frequency of this disease in the study population or the lack of registration of this type of disease in COVID-19 patients. Regression coefficients and confidence intervals were presented for considering significance level in [Table 3]. The history of various diseases is significant for P<0.001, such as diabetes.
Table 3: The effect of comorbidity of COVID-19 patients on the dependent variable of age categories using regression coefficients and 95% confidence interval.
The correlation heatmap of real COVID-19 data is depicted in [Figure 2]. As age increases, the number of new fatalities increases due to the high correlation value of |r|.
Figure 2: Correlation heatmap of real data. ICU: intensive care unit; CVD: cardiovascular disease; SOB: shortness of breath.
[Figure 3] shows the average daily incidence and fatality rates of the groups based on the World Standard Population per 100 000 people. [Figure 4]A shows the daily incidence trend of the registered cases in 20 cities in Mazandaran Province. [Figure 4]B and [Figure 4]C show the evaluation of the daily incidence and fatality rate for each age groups in Mazandaran Province regarding the population per 100 000 people. As shown in [Figure 4]C which evaluates and compares the COVID-19 fatality rate in 4 age groups in Mazandaran Province, patients over 60 and between 50 and 59 have the highest fatality rate according to the WHO World Standard Population.
Figure 3: Mean comparison of COVID-19 incidence rate and fatality rate in 4 age groups according to the WHO World Standard Population in 20 cities of Mazandaran Province from February 22, 2020 to April 10, 2021. Simple bar mean of age (A) incidence rate and (B) fatality rate by category.
Figure 4: The trend of COVID-19 outbreaks. (A) The general incidence rate of COVID-19 patients for 20 cities in Mazandaran Province; (B)Comparison of COVID-19 incidence rate in 4 age groups; (C) Comparison of COVID-19 patients' fatality rate in 4 age groups.
3.1. Time series ARIMA model
ARIMA is a time series prediction model which is a form of regression analysis and is used to forecast the future trends in the time series dataset. This model is applied to capture the autocorrelation from the data which computes the future values based on the correlations between the previous values. A traditional ARIMA model has been implemented to the COVID-19 data before considering the LSTM model. Then, the predicted results of COVID-19 cases using the ARIMA model have been presented.
At first, the Dickey-Fuller test is used to examine if the time series is stationary. The null hypothesis (H0) was rejected with a P-value ≤ 0.05 in the Dickey-Fuller test, indicating that the data do not have a unit root and are stationary. If the test statistic is less than critical values, we reject the null hypothesis. If the test statistic is greater than critical values, we accept the null hypothesis.
Here, the test statistics value=-2.83 is greater than the critical value(1%)=-3.45 and the critical value(5%)=-2.87, thus the data is not stationary. The test statistic is less than the critical value(10%)=-2.57 and the data is stationary.
We have to transform the data to make the data more stationary for critical value 1% and critical value 5%. But, the data are stationary in significant value 10% and we apply the ARIMA model for a significant value 10%. An ARIMA statistical model has been used to predict the daily incidence trend of the COVID-19 outbreak in the time series [Figure 5].
Figure 5: Predicting COVID-19 outbreaks based on ARIMA model in Mazandaran Province. (A) The number of fatalities for 7 days. (B) The number of confirmed cases for 40 days. The shade is the prediction interval that predicts in what range a future observation will put.
Note that for a series to be stationary, it must follow some principles such as modeling, estimating trends, and seasonal changes in the series, along with their removal from the series. Then, the forecasting techniques can be implemented in the data. In the following, it can be seen that the LSTM models do not have the complexities of traditional time series methods and produce more accurate results and are closer to the actual data.
3.2. LSTM model
We have illustrated applied hyper-parameters, various LSTM models, and loss functions to consider the proposed model in this section.
Optimizer explores specific configurations to speed up or slow down learning that leads to benefits. Adam optimizer applies the learning rate of 0.001, provides a reliable method in the stochastic gradient descent algorithm, and computes adaptive learning rates for each parameter. The 50 epochs have been specified for observing the loss curve during training and convergence of the loss curve. The main hyper-parameters, including the sequence length, activation function, learning rate, batch size, epochs, optimizer, loss function, and n_hidden, are listed in [Table 4].
Table 4: Hyper-parameter used in the LSTM model.
The training set is 85% of the data, while the remaining 15% are applied as testing set[11]. We considered an approximately 14- to 40-day prediction period for testing data. More specifically, the data were split into two subsets. The first subset was composed of training (from February 22, 2020 to April 10, 2021) and test data (the last 14 days, from April 11, 2021 to April 24, 2021). On the other hand, the second subset was composed of training (from February 22, 2020 to April 10, 2021) and test data (the last 40 days, from April 11, 2021 to May 25, 2021) for prediction analysis.
[Table 5] illustrates the average performance results of various LSTM models. In this study, the differences in various loss values between models are insignificant due to the sufficient data availability and a more detailed investigation in each age group. Although the results show that vanilla, stacked, and bidirectional LSTM models outperform other LSTM models, we selected a simple LSTM model for faster training and prediction with lower loss. An MSLE loss function was selected as the suitable metric to train to predict the daily incidence and fatality rates in the LSTM model. For models without data grouping, selecting stacked LSTM is more appropriate due to being a deeper model.
Table 5: Comparative analysis of various LSTM models in terms of error metrics for predicting COVID-19 outbreak in Mazandaran Province.
Daily incidence and fatality rates of real data have been evaluated in [Table 6] from March 20, 2020 (March 20 is the first day of the first month of the year in Iran) for 12 consecutive months. Since, in the first days of the disease outbreak in the country, the data were not well recorded or the disease was not diagnosed, the daily incidence and fatality rate of real data have been calculated from March 20, 2020. In general, training data from February 22, 2020 (i.e., the first recorded data) have been used daily to predict the COVID-19 outbreaks using the LSTM model.
Table 6: Daily incidence rate of confirmed cases and fatality rate of real data in each age group in per 100 000 people for 12 consecutive months.
[Table 6] separately displays the COVID-19 daily incidence rate for 12 consecutive months in 4 groups. For example, the 10th month has the highest daily incidence rate, and the vulnerable class of the category of over 60 years old has the highest rate of 405.53 person per 100 000 people. In the same way, [Table 6] also depicts the fatality rate in each age group for 12 consecutive months, indicating a trend similar to the daily incidence rate in the groups.
Training data from February 22, 2020 to April 10, 2021 were trained by LSTM architecture. [Figure 6] shows the trend of loss function values of training and validation to predict the confirmed cases and fatality rate in the two age groups as examples. Moreover, similar results have been achieved for other groups. Predictions of group 1 are related to under 29, group 2 between 30 and 49, group 3 between 50 and 59, and group 4 over 60 years old. Then, we predicted the daily incidence and fatality rates for 14 to 40 days from April 11, 2021.
Figure 6: Loss function diagram of LSTM model to predict the number of confirmed cases and fatality rate in age category of (A) ≤29 years and (B) above 60 years as examples.
[Figure 7] and [Figure 8] illustrate the performance of the proposed model and prediction by age groups in Mazandaran Province. [Figure 7] shows the predicted values of the COVID-19 patients in Mazandaran Province by 4 age groups with the LSTM model for 14 days after the last date of the training. On the other hand, [Figure 8] depicts the prediction of the daily incidence rate of Mazandaran Province for 4 age groups in 40 days by the LSTM model. Before the vertical line, the trend of the training data daily incidence rate before April 11, 2021 is shown, and the trend of predicting the daily incidence rate can be observed after this line.
Figure 7: Prediction of the COVID-19 cases in Mazandaran Province by 4 age groups with the LSTM model in 14 days from April 11, 2021 to April 24, 2021. Group 1: ≤29 years; Group 2: 30-49 years; Group 3: 50-59 years; Group 4: ≥60 years.
Figure 8: Predicting the trend of incidence rate COVID-19 outbreak for 40 days in 4 age groups by the LSTM model in Mazandaran Province. (A) Incidence rate of age ≤29 (Y-axis) vs. days (X-axis); (B) Incidence rate of age between 30-49 (Y-axis) vs. days (X-axis); (C)Incidence rate of age between 50-59 (Y- axis) vs. days (X-axis). (D) Incidence rate of age ≥ 60 (Y-axis) vs. days (X-axis). The vertical line separates the incidence rate trend of the previous days and the prediction trend of incidence rate.
[Table 7] shows the prediction of cases and daily incidence rates for the four groups from April 11, 2021 to April 24, 2021 for 14 consecutive days. For a simpler and more meaningful representation of the prediction values for 40 consecutive days, we have shown the prediction trend of daily COVID-19 cases in [Figure 8] for all 4 groups.
Table 7: Predicting COVID-19 cases and daily incidence rate for the 4 age groups in 14 consecutive days from April 11, 2021 to April 24, 2021 as per 100 000 people.
In addition, the average predicted values of daily incidence and fatality rates for 40 days have been shown for each age category in [Table 8]. Predictions in stable conditions are very close to the actual values[22].
Table 8: Predicting average daily incidence and fatality rate of COVID-19 outbreak for 40 days in each age category as per 100 000 people in Mazandaran Province.
Previous studies have mainly focused on the effective factors such as age, underlying diseases, and fatality rate of COVID-19[23],[24]. Moreover, they investigated the COVID-19 disease predictions and fatality rate regardless of the incidence rate in age groups[12],[25]. For example, Sasson showed that the age pattern of COVID-19 fatality in different countries might indicate a difference in population health, clinical care standards, or data quality[26].
Researchers have shown that COVID-19 is very common in elderly patients with underlying diseases such as cardiovascular disease, high blood pressure, and diabetes. Due to the diversity in the demographic statistics, underlying diseases, and health systems, the fatality rate of COVID-19 disease was predicted for 187 countries, ranging from 0.43% in Sub-Saharan Africa to 1.45% in Eastern Europe[27].
What distinguishes this research from other studies is the accurate prediction of incidence and fatality rates by different age groups using the LSTM deep learning technology. Furthermore, we achieved accurate results compared to those who worked on the general case disregarding age grouping. Thus, the diagnosis of the high-risk age group and the predicted values illuminates the future of the disease outbreak.
A meta-analysis with a large number of patients highlights the determining effect of age on fatality. The data of this study were collected from the patients in 20 cities near the Caspian Sea in Mazandaran Province, and the daily incidence and fatality rates of each age group were predicted in detail. Due to the time series data and their large volume, the researchers selected LSTM networks, widely applicable in the study of time-dependent issues for forecasting.
Evaluation metrics are loss functions such as mean absolute error (MAE), mean squared error (MSE), mean squared logarithmic error (MSLE), binary cross-entropy, categorical cross-entropy, residual forecast error/forecast error, forecast bias/mean forecast error, root mean square error (RMSE), and R2 score as adjusted R-squared for the model. To assess individual regression models, we applied MAE, MSE, MSLE, and R2 regression metrics. The LSTM model is compiled with Adam optimizer, loss function of MSLE, and accuracy.
In a comparative study with national reports data on May 7, 2020, from China, Italy, Spain, the United Kingdom, and New York State, Bonanad et al. showed an overall fatality rate of 12.10%. The fatality rate changes between countries with the relevant thresholds on age >50 and age >60 years old. The lowest fatality rate was in China (3.1%), and the highest was in the United Kingdom (20.8%) and New York State (20.99%). The fatality rate was <1.1% in patients aged <50 years, and it has exponentially increased in older ones in the recorded data in 5 countries. Besides, the highest fatality rate occurred in patients aged 80 years[24].
This study scrutinized 50 826 COVID-19 patients with 5 109 deaths in 20 cities of Mazandaran Province from February 22, 2020 to April 10, 2021. The researchers assessed the mean standardized incidence and fatality rates by age group based on training data available for 12 months. The results revealed that in each age group, that is, patients under 29, between 30 and 49, between 50 and 59, and over 60 years old, the standard incidence rates per 100 000 people were 31.27, 57.13, 28.70, and 70.69 in the first month, respectively. In the 12th month, the standard incidence rates were 61.18, 70.83, 52.92, and 193.92 in each age group, respectively. Moreover, the fatality rates in each age group in the first month were 2.32, 4.35, 6.08, and 33.97 per 100 000 people, while in the 11th month it was 1.73, 3.30, 6.28, and 55.58, and in the 12th month, it was 0.53, 2.70, 2.33, and 31.07 per 100 000 people.
The results demonstrate the daily incidence rates fluctuations in different months and the increase in the incidence rates with the increase in age. In addition, we obtained the daily number of incidence and fatality by age groups. Finally, we predicted the standard incidence and fatality rates in each age group for the next 14 to 40 days. The prediction values were close to the real values. The daily incidence rates in April 11, 2021 were at 91.76, 155.84, 150.03, and 325.99 per 100 000 people, respectively. In general, the average standard daily incidence rate for 4 age groups per 100 000 people were 34.25, 95.68, 76.43, and 210.80 for the next 40 days, respectively. Correspondingly, the average daily fatality rate for the 4 age groups were 8.38, 4.18, 3.40, and 22.53, respectively.
Although a fixed parameter cannot be a single factor, COVID-19 infections are inherently associated with the age pattern. In this article, all indices were based on the WHO standard population. We also underestimated our calculations; that is, the patients with mild COVID-19 had not been included in the study. Overall, the results show that COVID-19 is life-threatening not only for older adults but for middle-aged people, and the high or low risk is predictable in the coming days.
Similar to any other study, this research is subject to several limitations. First, model training with more data leads to better results when compared to different countries. In addition, the accuracy of the LSTM prediction improves after considering more parameters instead of relying on the univariate trend of time series data. Currently, this model can predict 14 to 40 days with acceptable accuracy. Moreover, we had an underestimation in the calculation due to not including the mild disease in the study. According to the purpose of the study, i.e., predicting the growth of coronavirus disease in different age groups, we applied the LSTM models. Since the results were obtained with limited data availability (i.e., 20 cities near the Caspian Sea in Mazandaran province), the researchers used the results of the other studies conducted in different countries. However, information on transmission distance based on different variants was not available due to the lack of appropriate technology. This can be a recommended issue to be studied in the future, considering different age groups.
The results show that the main priority in the preventive measures should be older patients who are more susceptible to this disease. If public health proceedings reduce infection in the old patients, it can significantly reduce fatality. By predicting the number of admitted patients and the fatality and incidence rates of patients in each age group, we can prevent COVID-19 prevalence.
In conclusion, we predicted COVID-19 incidence and fatality rates by age groups using the LSTM network based on the WHO population. The LSTM network predicted the number of confirmed cases and incidence and fatality rates in 14 to 40 days. For example, the incidence rate for over 60 years old patients was obtained 210.80 per 100 000 people. The results showed that the incidence and fatality rates of COVID-19 patients in Mazandaran Province in the age group of 60 years and above are higher than other groups. The prediction results show fluctuations in the incidence and fatality rates, though the values are accurately predicted for each age group. By differentiating age groups in predicting the number or rates of incidence and fatality, the researchers obtained accurate results compared to predictions without differentiating groups. Predicting the incidence and fatality rates of different groups, we can make better decisions about the essential health proceedings as well as vaccination prioritization.
The authors declare that there is no conflict of interest.
ZR performed research, designed the analysis, implemented python programming, analyzed, interpreted the data, wrote and revised the manuscript. SAM contributed to COVID-19 data acquisition. GO participated in the discussion. MRP contributed to COVID-19 data acquisition. FA participated in the discussion. JYCh designed research, contributed to the interpretation and edited the manuscript.
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[Figure 1], [Figure 2], [Figure 3], [Figure 4], [Figure 5], [Figure 6], [Figure 7], [Figure 8]
[Table 1], [Table 2], [Table 3], [Table 4], [Table 5], [Table 6], [Table 7], [Table 8]
Ramezani Z
Mousavi SA
Oveis G
Parsai MR
Abdollahi F
Charati JY
COVID-19; Long short-term memory model; Incidence rate; Fatality rate; Prediction; Age classification
2. Materials and...