Our results highlight the differential in vitro pathogenesis of respiratory viruses during the acute infection phase and their ability to persist under immune tolerance. These data help to appreciate the range of disease severity observed in vivo and the occurrence of chronic respiratory tract infections in immunocompromised hosts.

The spectral density function plays a key role in fitting the tail of multivariate extre-mal data and so in estimating probabilities of rare events. This function satisfies moment con-straints but unlike the univariate extreme value distributions has no simple parametric form. Parameterized subfamilies of spectral densities have been suggested for use in applications, and non-parametric estimation procedures have been proposed, but semiparametric models for multivariate extremes have hitherto received little attention. We show that mixtures of Dirichlet distributions satisfying the moment constraints are weakly dense in the class of all non-parametric spectral densities, and discuss frequentist and Bayesian inference in this class based on the EM algorithm and reversible jump Markov chain Monte Carlo simulation. We illustrate the ideas using simulated and real data. Copyright 2007 Royal Statistical Society.

PURPOSE. To establish corneal cross-linking (CXL) with riboflavin and UV-A in in the mouse cornea in vivo and to develop tools to measure the biomechanical changes observed. METHODS.A total of 55 male C57BL/6 wild-type mice (aged 5 weeks) were divided into 14 groups. Standard CXL parameters were adapted to the anatomy of the mouse cornea, and riboflavin concentration (0.1%-0.5%) and fluence series (0.09-5.4 J/cm 2 ) were performed on the assumption of the endothelial damage thresholds. Untreated and riboflavin only corneas were used as controls. Animals were killed at 30 minutes and at 1 month after CXL. Corneas were harvested. Two-dimensional (2D) biomechanical testing was performed using a customized corneal holder in a commercially available stress-strain extensometer/indenter. Both elastic and viscoelastic analyses were performed. Statistical inference was performed using t-tests and specific mathematical models fitted to the experimental stress-strain and stressrelaxation data. Adjusted P values by the method of Benjamini and Hochberg are reported.RESULTS. For all CXL treatment groups, stress-relaxation showed significant differences (P < 0.0001) after 120 seconds of constant strain application, with cross-linked corneas maintaining a higher stress (441 6 40 kPa) when compared with controls (337 6 39 kPa). Stress-strain analysis confirmed these findings but was less sensitive to CXL-induced changes: at 0.5% of strain, cross-linked corneas remained at higher stress (778 6 111 kPa) when compared with controls (659 6 121 kPa).CONCLUSIONS. Cross-linking was induced in the mouse cornea in vivo, and its biomechanical effect successfully measured. This could create opportunities to study molecular pathways of CXL in transgenic mice.

Background Infectious keratitis is a major cause of global blindness. We tested whether standalone photoactivated chromophore corneal cross-linking (PACK-CXL) may be an effective first-line treatment in early to moderate infectious keratitis, compared with standard antimicrobial treatment. Methods This is a randomized, controlled, multinational phase 3 clinical trial. Participants in five centers in Egypt, India, Iran, Israel, and China, aged ≥ 18 years, with infectious keratitis of presumed bacterial, fungal, or mixed origin, were randomly assigned (1:1) to PACK-CXL, or antimicrobial therapy. Outcomes measures included healing, defined as time to re-epithelialization of the corneal epithelial defect in the absence of inflammatory activity in the anterior chamber and clearance of stromal infiltrates. Treatment success was defined as the complete resolution of signs of infection. Results Between July 21, 2016, and March 4, 2020, participants were randomly assigned to receive PACK-CXL (n = 18) or antimicrobial therapy per American Academy of Ophthalmology (AAO) guidelines (n = 21). No participants were lost to follow-up. Four eyes were excluded from the epithelialization time analysis due to treatment failure: two in the antimicrobial therapy group, and two in the PACK-CXL group. Success rates were 88.9% (16/18 patients) in the PACK-CXL group and 90.5% (19/21 patients) in the medication group. There was no significant difference in time to complete corneal re-epithelialization (P = 0.828) between both treatment groups. Conclusions PACK-CXL may be an alternative to antimicrobial drugs for first-line and standalone treatment of early to moderate infectious keratitis of bacterial or fungal origin. Trial registration This trial is registered at ClinicalTrials.gov, trial registration number: NCT02717871

Individuals share increasing amounts of personal multimedia data, exposing themselves (uploaders) as well as others (data subjects). Non-consensual sharing of multimedia data that depicts others raises so-called multiparty privacy conflicts (MPCs), which can have severe consequences. To limit the incidence of MPCs, a family of Precautionary mechanisms have recently been developed that force uploaders to collaborate with the other data subjects to prevent MPCs. However, there is still very little work on understanding how users perceive the precautionary mechanisms together with which ones they prefer and why. In addition, precautionary mechanisms have some limitations, e.g., they require linking content to the co-owners' identity. Therefore, we also explore alternatives to precautionary mechanisms and propose a new class of solutions-Dissuasive mechanisms-that aim at deterring the uploaders from sharing without consent. We then present a user-centric comparison of precautionary and dissuasive mechanisms, through a large-scale survey ( = 1792; a representative sample of adult Internet users). Our results showed that respondents prefer precautionary to dissuasive mechanisms. These enforce collaboration, provide more control to the data subjects, but also they reduce uploaders' uncertainty around what is considered appropriate for sharing. We learned that threatening legal consequences is the most desirable dissuasive mechanism, and that respondents prefer the mechanisms that threaten users with immediate consequences (compared with delayed consequences). Dissuasive mechanisms are in fact well received by frequent sharers and older users, while precautionary mechanisms are preferred by women and younger users. We discuss the implications for design, including considerations about side leakages, consent collection, and censorship. CCS Concepts: • Security and privacy → Usability in security and privacy; • Human-centered computing;