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Supercomputer analysis of Covid-19 leads to new theory

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Re: Supercomputer analysis of Covid-19 leads to new theory

#31

Post by pacaro »

falcor84 wrote: post #20
klysm wrote: post #3

The anthropomorphization of computers (especially powerful ones) is pretty annoying. A _person used a supercomputer_ to analyze Covid-19, and I’m guessing the theory didn’t just ‘emerge’ from the computer.

I remember a professor of mine (I forgot in which class) saying that humans generally make up 3 kinds of explanations about a system's behavior: 1. When a system is very simple, we explain its actions in terms of its properties and external forces acting on it. 2. When it's a medium complexity system, we tend to explain its actions in terms of its design, putting ourselves in the designer's shoes. 3. When it's a comp…

For category three I feel that goal-seeking (or the appearance of such) is sufficient for the anthropomorphism to kick in. The braitenberg vehicles thought experiment is a good example of this.

Quoting from wikipedia "For the simplest vehicles, the motion of the vehicle is directly controlled by some sensors (for example photo cells). Yet the resulting behaviour may appear complex or even intelligent."

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Braitenberg_vehicle

Re: Supercomputer analysis of Covid-19 leads to new theory

#32

Post by dekhn »

mnw21cam wrote: post #21
dekhn wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The issue is that, from what I can tell, the authors just used R to analyze some data, with no explicit parallelism. You would do a better job just renting time on AWS, saving money for everybody.

Depends how much of the "supercomputer" the calculation used. If it reserved a single CPU core on a single node, then that'd be cheap, allowing the rest of the system to get on with something else. There's no reason AWS would be cheaper.

The supercomputer nodes cost far more, per node, than AWS machines- 15% or more of the budget was spent on interconnect. SUpercomputers don't partition CPUs like that, because interference causes small performance degradation. Unfortunately, CPU is not perfectly compressible- in particular, the cache is shared by all processes that run on the CPU, so if you run another job on the same node, you will see slower performance due to higher cache replacement (this is measured using Cycles Per Instruction).

Re: Supercomputer analysis of Covid-19 leads to new theory

#33

Post by vardump »

dekhn wrote: post #28
vardump wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't we all have supercomputers in our pockets?

No. Although our phones are extraordinary, they are not supercomputers. Supercomputers, more or less by legacy historical defintions, are collections of computing resources connected by a fast network with the goal of scaling to solve problems that could not be solved with conventional systems. Phones aren't really designed to solve that kind of problem. That said, many problems that previously would have required a…

I think my sarcasm tag had some kind of issue and it wasn't visible.

Re: Supercomputer analysis of Covid-19 leads to new theory

#34

Post by raverbashing »

shubhamjain wrote: post #27
hellofunk wrote: post #18

> Interestingly, Jacobson’s team also suggests vitamin D as a potentially useful Covid-19 drug. The vitamin is involved in the RAS system and could prove helpful by reducing levels of another compound, known as REN. Again, this could stop potentially deadly bradykinin storms from forming. The researchers note that vitamin D has already been shown to help those with Covid-19. The vitamin is readily available over the…

This Medium article was written on March 10 [1]. "Put simply, medics found that severely ill flu patients nursed outdoors recovered better than those treated indoors. A combination of fresh air and sunlight seems to have prevented deaths among patients; and infections among medical staff.[1] There is scientific support for this. Research shows that outdoor air is a natural disinfectant. Fresh air can kill the flu vir…

Yes but can it kill viruses and bacteria in vivo?

Re: Supercomputer analysis of Covid-19 leads to new theory

#35

Post by glaberficken »

SideburnsOfDoom wrote: post #25
nr2x wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Likewise while a computer can produce data quite well, theories are still a purely human domain.

A set of correlations identified automatically in the input data - is that a theory, or merely output data?

Exactly what I thought. A theory has to make a falsifiable prediction. A correlation is not a falsifiable prediction.

Re: Supercomputer analysis of Covid-19 leads to new theory

#36

Post by DoofusOfDeath »

woeirua wrote: post #29

Seems like it should be really straightforward to determine if this hypothesis is right by measuring bradykinin levels in Covid patients versus non-Covid patients. One thing that I think strongly suggests that this hypothesis is wrong is that there is no strong relation between ACE-inhibitors and Covid mortality. Indeed, most of the studies that I've seen suggest that ACE-inhibitors have a somewhat protective effect…

> One thing that I think strongly suggests that this hypothesis is wrong is that there is no strong relation between ACE-inhibitors and Covid mortality.

Perhaps you can clear up something for me. We've all heard how obesity and hypertension are risk factors for covid morbidity. But I could never get a clarification regarding treated vs. untreated hypertension.

AFAIK, many obese people take ACE inhibitors to treat hypertension. If we divide obese people into three groups: (a) untreated, (b) treated with ACE inhibitors, and (c) treated with other medications, how do their covid moribity rates compare?

Re: Supercomputer analysis of Covid-19 leads to new theory

#37

Post by kovek »

shubhamjain wrote: post #27
hellofunk wrote: post #18

> Interestingly, Jacobson’s team also suggests vitamin D as a potentially useful Covid-19 drug. The vitamin is involved in the RAS system and could prove helpful by reducing levels of another compound, known as REN. Again, this could stop potentially deadly bradykinin storms from forming. The researchers note that vitamin D has already been shown to help those with Covid-19. The vitamin is readily available over the…

This Medium article was written on March 10 [1]. "Put simply, medics found that severely ill flu patients nursed outdoors recovered better than those treated indoors. A combination of fresh air and sunlight seems to have prevented deaths among patients; and infections among medical staff.[1] There is scientific support for this. Research shows that outdoor air is a natural disinfectant. Fresh air can kill the flu vir…

That air is a natural disinfectant is super interesting.

I read that vitamin D and observed benefits for those who have vitamin D is a correlation. Meaning that taking vitamin D supplements might not be as helpful as getting sunlight (a natural way to get vitamin D)

Re: Supercomputer analysis of Covid-19 leads to new theory

#38

Post by R0b0t1 »

pacaro wrote: post #31
falcor84 wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I remember a professor of mine (I forgot in which class) saying that humans generally make up 3 kinds of explanations about a system's behavior: 1. When a system is very simple, we explain its actions in terms of its properties and external forces acting on it. 2. When it's a medium complexity system, we tend to explain its actions in terms of its design, putting ourselves in the designer's shoes. 3. When it's a comp…

For category three I feel that goal-seeking (or the appearance of such) is sufficient for the anthropomorphism to kick in. The braitenberg vehicles thought experiment is a good example of this. Quoting from wikipedia "For the simplest vehicles, the motion of the vehicle is directly controlled by some sensors (for example photo cells). Yet the resulting behaviour may appear complex or even intelligent." https://en.m.w…

But if you observe the behavior of a bacterium, operating under similar principles but seeking instead a salt or pH value, you would do well to describe it similarly. The bacterium is seeking a certain condition. It can not think, but it is a machine that acts with purpose and must be modeled accordingly.

Re: Supercomputer analysis of Covid-19 leads to new theory

#39

Post by ISL »

pacaro wrote: post #31
falcor84 wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I remember a professor of mine (I forgot in which class) saying that humans generally make up 3 kinds of explanations about a system's behavior: 1. When a system is very simple, we explain its actions in terms of its properties and external forces acting on it. 2. When it's a medium complexity system, we tend to explain its actions in terms of its design, putting ourselves in the designer's shoes. 3. When it's a comp…

For category three I feel that goal-seeking (or the appearance of such) is sufficient for the anthropomorphism to kick in. The braitenberg vehicles thought experiment is a good example of this. Quoting from wikipedia "For the simplest vehicles, the motion of the vehicle is directly controlled by some sensors (for example photo cells). Yet the resulting behaviour may appear complex or even intelligent." https://en.m.w…

I routinely anthropomorphize PID loops when tuning them.

One of the best nuclear astrophysicists I know thinks about stars as entities that want to stay alive -- "I'm running out of hydrogen, what can I burn next?" That approach yields the right phenomenology almost all the time.

Re: Supercomputer analysis of Covid-19 leads to new theory

#40

Post by martinflack »

falcor84 wrote: post #20
klysm wrote: post #3

The anthropomorphization of computers (especially powerful ones) is pretty annoying. A _person used a supercomputer_ to analyze Covid-19, and I’m guessing the theory didn’t just ‘emerge’ from the computer.

I remember a professor of mine (I forgot in which class) saying that humans generally make up 3 kinds of explanations about a system's behavior: 1. When a system is very simple, we explain its actions in terms of its properties and external forces acting on it. 2. When it's a medium complexity system, we tend to explain its actions in terms of its design, putting ourselves in the designer's shoes. 3. When it's a comp…

Interestingly, extrapolated, that has predictive value for how robotic AI (i.e. androids) will be treated (eventually).
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