Abstract: Systems and methods for diagnosing a disease, a condition, or a characteristic in a subject are provided. In one such method, a future severity of an infection or inflammatory disease in a subject afflicted with the infection or inflammatory disease is predicted by obtaining a plurality of methylation levels. Each respective methylation level in the plurality of methylation levels represents a corresponding methylation level at a CpG site at a corresponding genetic locus in a plurality of genetic loci in a biological sample obtained from the subject. The plurality of methylation levels are inputted into a model comprising a plurality of parameters, where the model applies the plurality of parameters to the plurality of methylation levels to generate as output from the model an indication as to future severity of an infection or inflammatory disease in the subject.

Abstract: A method of removing dust from dust laden gases said method including the sequential steps of: (1) passing a flow of gases laden with dust particles, at a selected first gas stream velocity through a first dust removing mechanism capable of creating multiple vortexes of gases; (2) agglomerating the dust particles of the gases as they pass through the first dust removing mechanism said first gas stream velocity being selected to cause agglomeration of said dust particles; (3) passing the gas stream carrying agglomerated particles at a selected second gas stream velocity through a second dust removing mechanism capable of creating multiple vortexes of gases; (4) removing the agglomerated dust particles as they pass through the second dust removing mechanism at said second gas stream velocity; wherein the second gas stream velocity is substantially slower than the first gas stream velocity.