Burgeoning Desert Locust Population as a Transboundary Plant Pest: A Significant Threat to Regional Food Security

Desert locust, Schistocerca gregaria (Orthoptera: Acrididae), is a spectacular example of nature but also a menacing scourge. Its breeding area extends from Morocco to Pakistan and India. Unprecedented movement and migration of desert locust occurred during the current upsurge of 2019-2021. It has migrated and invaded green crops up to Nepal during this gregarious phase. For monitoring, forecasting, and early warning of desert locust in the countries where the crops are under direct threat of this pest, FAO established the Desert Locust Information Service (DLIS), nearly five decades ago. DLIS has a state-of-the-art technology, a very unique expertise, and field presence with the ability to link up different governments to strengthen their capacities in desert locust management. The right to food is a human right, and food needs to be available, abundant, and accessible to all. The current COVID-19 pandemic, in amalgamation with desert locust, has created an extraordinary situation that has shaken the food security and economy of the whole region (from Morocco to Pakistan and India). In the wake of this pandemic, we need to find out the prudent ways to fight this scourge by our own resources in collaboration with the FAO-based contingency plans. Proper control and management of desert locust in the region under direct threat are needed in order to save the crops from damage and ensure food security. © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022.

Transgenic animal models for the functional analysis of ACE2

Angiotensin-converting enzyme 2 (ACE2) is a carboxypeptidase involved in the metabolism of biologically active peptides. Its most important physiological function is the conversion of angiotensin II to angiotensin-(1–7), which initiates the protective arm of the renin–angiotensin system (RAS). To evaluate the physiological relevance of this revision of the RAS, numerous different animal models have been engineered with genetic alterations in ACE2 expression. The characterization of ACE-deficient mice led to the discovery of a second function of the protein being responsible for the trafficking of the neutral amino acid transporter B(0)AT1 to the plasma membrane of gut epithelial cells, thereby promoting the intestinal uptake of certain amino acids. These two different functions are mediated by two domains of ACE2 with homologies to ACE and to collectrin, respectively, which have been fused during evolution. Moreover, some coronaviruses, such as SARS-CoV and SARS-CoV-2, hijack ACE2 for their entry into host cells, and again genetically altered mouse models expressing human ACE2 became instrumental to study virus infection and to develop therapeutic strategies. This chapter will summarize the different transgenic and knockout mouse and rat models with altered expression of ACE2 and the insights they have provided for the functions of this versatile protein. © 2023 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Studying the Effect of Face Masks in Identifying Speakers using LSTM

During the COVID-19 pandemic, it has been a standard procedure for people all around the world to use Respiratory Protection Masks (RPM) that cover both the nose and the mouth. The Consequences of wearing RPMs, those pertaining to the perception and production of spoken communication, are rapidly becoming more prominent. Nevertheless, the utilization of face masks also causes attenuation in voice signals, and this alteration affects speech-processing technologies such as Automatic Speaker Verification (ASV) and speech-to-text conversion. An intervention by a deep learning-based algorithm is considered vital to remedy the issue of inappropriate exploitation of speaker-based technology. Therefore, in the proposed framework, a speaker identification system has been implemented to examine the effect of masks. First, the speech signals have been captured, pre-processed, and augmented by a variety of data augmentation techniques. Afterward, different 'Mel-Frequency Cepstral Coefficients' (MFCC) features have been extracted to be fed into a 'Long Short-Term Memory' (LSTM) for identifying speakers. The system's overall performance has been assessed using accuracy, precision, recall, and Fl-score, which yields 93%, 93.3%, 92.2%, and 92.8%, respectively. The obtained results are still in a rudimentary phase, and they are subjected to further enhancements in the future by data expansion and exploitation of multiple optimization techniques. © 2022 IEEE.

Hybrid CNN-LSTM Speaker Identification Framework for Evaluating the Impact of Face Masks

Following the declaration of COVID-19 as a worldwide pandemic, hindering a multitude number of lives, face mask exploitation has become extremely crucial to barricade the emanation of the virus. The masks available in the market are of various sorts and materials and tend to affect the speaker's vocal characteristics. As a result, optimum communication may be hampered. In the proposed framework, a speaker identification model has been employed. Also, the speech corpus has been captured. Then, the spectrograms were obtained and passed through a two-stage pre-processing. The first stage includes the audio samples. In contrast, the second stage has targeted the spectrograms. Afterward, the generated spectrograms were passed into a hybrid Convolutional Neural Network- Long Short-Term Memory (CNN-LSTM) model to perform the classification. Our proposed framework has shown its capability to identify speakers while they are wearing face masks. Moreover, the system has been evaluated on the collected dataset, where it has attained 92.7%, 92.62%, 87.71%, and 88.26% in terms of accuracy, precision, recall, and F1-score, respectively. The acquired findings are still preliminary and will be refined further in the future by data expansion and the employment of numerous optimization approaches. © 2022 IEEE.

Consequences of SARS-CoV-2 Infection in Pregnant Women and Their Infants: A Systematic Review.

Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is a worldwide health problem, particularly for pregnant women. This review assesses the effects of COVID-19 on pregnant women and their infants. A systematic search was performed of studies published on PubMed, Web of Science, Google Scholar, and Embase from January 2020 to January 2021, without restriction by language. This review included 27 studies (22 from China, one from the United States, one from Honduras, one from Italy, one from Iran, and one from Spain), which cumulatively evaluated 386 pregnant women with clinically confirmed COVID-19 and their 334 newborns. Of the 386 pregnant women, 356 had already delivered their infants, four had medical abortions at the time of research, 28 were still pregnant, and two died from COVID-19 before they were able to give birth. Cesarean sections were performed on 71% of pregnant women with COVID-19 to give birth. Fever and cough were common symptoms among women. Premature rupture of membranes, distress, and preterm birth were pregnancy complications. Low birth weight and a short gestational age were common outcomes for newborns. The common laboratory findings among pregnant women were lymphopenia, leukocytosis, and elevated levels of C-reactive protein. Chest computed tomography revealed abnormal viral lung changes in 73.3% of women. Eleven infants tested positive for severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) infection. There was no evidence of vertical transmission. Most infants were observed to have lymphopenia and thrombocytopenia. The clinical features of pregnant women were found to be similar to those of generally infected patients. There is evidence of adverse pregnancy and neonatal outcomes caused by COVID-19.

Impact of COVID-19 Pandemic Lockdown on the Prognosis, Morbidity, and Mortality of Patients Undergoing Elective and Emergency Abdominal Surgery: A Retrospective Cohort Study in a Tertiary Center, Saudi Arabia.

The SARS-CoV-2 pandemic's main concerns are limiting the spread of infectious diseases and upgrading the delivery of health services, infrastructure, and therapeutic provision. The goal of this retrospective cohort study was to evaluate the emergency experience and delay of elective abdominal surgical intervention at King Abdul-Aziz University Hospital from October 2019 to October 2020, with a focus on post-operative morbidity and mortality before and during the COVID-19 pandemic. This study compares two groups of patients with emergent and elective abdominal surgical procedures between two different periods; the population was divided into two groups: the control group, which included 403 surgical patients, and the lockdown group, which included 253 surgical patients. During the lockdown, surgical activity was reduced by 37.2% (p = 0.014), and patients were more likely to require reoperations and blood transfusions during or after surgery (p= 0.002, 0.021, and 0.018, respectively). During the lockdown period, the average length of stay increased from 3.43 to 5.83 days (p = 0.002), and the patients who developed complications (53.9%) were more than those in the control period (46.1%) (p = 0.001). Our tertiary teaching hospital observed a significant decline in the overall number of surgeries performed during the COVID-19 pandemic and lockdown period. During the lockdown, abdominal surgery was performed only on four patients; they were positive for COVID-19. Three of them underwent exploratory laparotomy; two of the three developed shock post-operative; one patient had colon cancer (ASA score 3), one had colon disease (ASA score 2), and two had perforated bowels (ASA scores 2 and 4, respectively). Two out of four deaths occurred after surgery. Our results showed the impact of the COVID-19 lockdown on surgical care as both 30-day mortality and total morbidity have risen considerably.

DIGITALLY ENHANCED TREAT-TO-TARGET and SHARED DECISION-MAKING APPROACH with A DIGITAL HEALTH APPLICATION: INTERIM RESULTS from A RANDOMIZED CONTROLLED TRIAL

Background: Digital health applications (DHA) became indispensable patient companions accelerated by the current COVID pandemic [1]. In 2020, for the frst time worldwide, a regulatory framework to reimburse DHA was established in Germany. To get listed as a DHA, preliminary evidence needs to be generated-next to fulflling highest standards in quality and safety. The DHA ABATON RA consists of two parts;1) digital shared-decision-making (SDM) including choosing an appropriate electronic patient reported outcome (ePRO) instrument and the respective ePRO target for the next visit, 2) remote patient monitoring and ePRO tracking by the patient. Hereby, ABATON RA supports a digitally guided Treat-to-Target (T2T) approach. Objectives: The objective of this study is to evaluate a potentially benefcial effect for the patient by using ABATON RA. Methods: Three-armed, partially blinded multicenter trial (RCT) including RA patients who regularly use a smartphone. Patients attend 3 visits, 3 months apart (T0, T3, T6), with one follow-up visit (T9). Intervention group (IG): Patients use ABATON RA. Via SDM patients and rheumatologists choose a specifc ePRO and respective treatment target for the next visit in three months, e.g. RAID ≤4. Control group (CG): Standard of care treatment (no DHA). Placebo group (PG): Usage of a placebo version of ABATON RA providing only Regensburger Insomnie Skala (RIS) and Epworth Sleepiness Scale (ESS) as ePROs. No SDM is conducted and ePRO results are not presented to HCP. Results: This interim analysis evaluated the frst 38 patients that completed T3. IG: 13 patients (Av. age 55.9, 61.5% females);PG: 12 (Av. age 50.7, 66.7% females);CG: 13 (Av. age 56.1, 76.9% females). We observe a signifcant improvement in the mean over time in a pairwise comparison within the intervention group for the following: Pt-GA mean difference of 2.98 (p = 0.025, partial η2 = 0.353), pain mean difference of 1.46 (p = 0.049, partial η2 = 0.286) whereas all pairwise comparisons for the two parameters were non-signifcant in PG and CG. The patient reactions assessment (PRA) score, measuring patient perceived quality of the patient-provider relationship, increased by a mean of 4.15 points in IG, compared to a slight decrease of 1.92 for PG and 2.77 for CG. Conclusion: These preliminary fndings show benefcial differences among the groups in favor of IG: 1) for quality of life and 2) the physician-patient-relationship. A digitally enhanced therapy is non-inferior to the gold-standard of exclusive in-person treatment. Patients seem willing and able to get involved in an enhanced treat-to-target and shared decision-making approach.

Impact of COVID-19 on otolaryngology head & neck speciality and residency program in Saudi Arabia.

The SARS-CoV-2 virus, which causes coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), has rapidly swept worldwide since its identification in December 2019. As the spread of the disease accelerated both in Wuhan and elsewhere globally, the WHO declared it a pandemic. There is sound evidence to argue that otolaryngologists run high risks of occupational SARS-COV2 among health care workers due to high viral load in upper respiratory examinations. This review article was conducted to determine the effect of the COVID 19 pandemic on the otolaryngology department and residency program in Saudi Arabia. Since the pandemic outbreak, the government of Saudi Arabia has taken severe measures and issued several decisions to limit the spread of the virus. These decisions included operations, procedures, outpatient clinics by prioritizing emergency and time-sensitive cases while rescheduling all electives and routines once. As a result, the residency program was also affected by the substantial reduction of daily surgical activity and preventing endoscopic tests in the clinics, which led to a notable decrease in residents' involvement and risk of procedural skills deterioration which became a concern to many doctors of residency programs. It is difficult to deny that the epidemic will negatively impact. However, adhering to well-prepared guidelines and giving residents an excellent opportunity to overcome the defects will deliver training and patients' care while also protecting safety and health.

Biomaterials-Based Opportunities to Engineer the Pulmonary Host Immune Response in COVID-19.

The COVID-19 pandemic caused by the global spread of the SARS-CoV-2 virus has led to a staggering number of deaths worldwide and significantly increased burden on healthcare as nations scramble to find mitigation strategies. While significant progress has been made in COVID-19 diagnostics and therapeutics, effective prevention and treatment options remain scarce. Because of the potential for the SARS-CoV-2 infections to cause systemic inflammation and multiple organ failure, it is imperative for the scientific community to evaluate therapeutic options aimed at modulating the causative host immune responses to prevent subsequent systemic complications. Harnessing decades of expertise in the use of natural and synthetic materials for biomedical applications, the biomaterials community has the potential to play an especially instrumental role in developing new strategies or repurposing existing tools to prevent or treat complications resulting from the COVID-19 pathology. Leveraging microparticle- and nanoparticle-based technology, especially in pulmonary delivery, biomaterials have demonstrated the ability to effectively modulate inflammation and may be well-suited for resolving SARS-CoV-2-induced effects. Here, we provide an overview of the SARS-CoV-2 virus infection and highlight current understanding of the host's pulmonary immune response and its contributions to disease severity and systemic inflammation. Comparing to frontline COVID-19 therapeutic options, we highlight the most significant untapped opportunities in immune engineering of the host response using biomaterials and particle technology, which have the potential to improve outcomes for COVID-19 patients, and identify areas needed for future investigations. We hope that this work will prompt preclinical and clinical investigations of promising biomaterials-based treatments to introduce new options for COVID-19 patients.