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Metabolomics supports uncovering relevant pathophysiological mechanisms and identifying biomarkers of risk and progression in diseases. Furthermore, metabolomics has allowed the characterization of the proteins and metabolites of COVID-19, neurodegenerative processes, gestational diabetes mellitus, cancer breast, process of kidney transplantation, and Parkinson diagnosis, among other diseases (Table 7.1). Metabolomics employs noninvasive human biological samples such as serum, breath, and urine to screen and identify novel biomarkers. The combination of NMR, LC/MS, and CG/MS is desirable to detect, identify, and quantify hundreds of thousands of metabolites, useful in biomarker discovery toward clinical applications. The generation of biological information has led to the creation of databases such as BioBankWarden, which can be used to store and retrieve specific information from different clinical fields linked to biomaterials collected from patients. The use of metabolomics allows greater precision in the diagnosis and follow-up of the treatment of any disease. © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022.
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Objective: To estimate the recovery time of the employees of a university infected by COVID 19 in the period from March 2020 to June 2021. Materials and methods: An observational study was carried out in which sixty-three employees confirmed with COVID-19 participated, they were characterized through the anamnesis and post-infection physical assessment with the bioimpedance method. Data analysis was done in the statistical package Stata 19.0 for Windows. Results: the average age was 42 years, 54% belonged to the female sex, the socioeconomic stratum with the highest prevalence was three with 52%, 44% of the participants had some alteration in body weight, and a protein percentage down 54%. Conclusion: The average recovery time of officials after infection by COVID 19 was 10 days, factors that impact recovery time were identified and ratified, such as age over 60 years, socioeconomic level 1,2 and 3, the low percentage of protein and the high percentage of fat. © 2023 Federacion Espanola de Docentes de Educacion Fisica. All rights reserved.
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In 2020, when COVID-19 struck, social media gained even more influence in people's lives due to increased online activity. This event led to a surge of false information and cyberbullying, making content moderation harder than ever. Given this challenge, exploring opportunities to explore content moderation solutions to reduce hate speech and fake news on social media is vital. In this paper, we examine if existing content moderation systems are enough during global pandemics and, if not, where gaps may lie. Due to its intriguing Decentralized Content Management System (DCMS), we chose Reddit as the key social networking platform for our hypothesis testing. We used 1.8 million Reddit posts from COVID-19-related subreddits from January 2020 to April 2021. Our findings reveal several significant trends regarding the effect of a worldwide event on content moderation methods designed to lessen the prevalence of hazardous content and fake news. In light of these considerations, we provide the results of comprehensive research conducted with particular attention paid to the user-generated material and the DCMS of Reddit. © 2022 ACM.
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Technological advancements in medical field gave birth to smart watches, handheld devices that can read your vital signs real-time. However, home quarantined COVID-19 patients, even with the help of smartwatches, are still needed to be monitored physically by health practitioners, therefore posing a threat of transmission of the virus. This paved the way to the investigation of designing a wearable device that read health vital statistics and the location of home quarantined patients and a system that will remotely monitor it. Thus, this work developed Vitaband, a health-monitoring system made up of a node, gateway, and a web application. The node consists of sensors - pulse meter, oximeter, IR sensor and GPS module - that will read the vital signs of the patient and display it through an OLED screen. Two Raspberry Pico Pi microcontrollers will process the data gathered by these sensors and send them to the gateway through the Lora module. The gateway then, housing the ESP32 microcontroller, will connect to the internet and transmit the received data to the MongoDB database. The web application finally, which is programmed using REACT framework, shall display the data for remote monitoring. Vitaband is tested and evaluated using the ISO/IEC 25010 model. Results revealed that Vitaband received an overall rating of Very Satisfactory from the Bulacan State University Nursing student during their training as the respondents and Excellent from medical professionals which are registered nurses and barangay health workers, respectively. © 2022 IEEE.
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Background: The use of compounds against highly conserved cellular host factors required to complete the replication cycle of distinct viruses such as SARS-CoV-2 offers a common solution to diverse viral threats. This approach is especially relevant for pan-antiviral effects given that viruses converge at intracellular steps such as viral genome replication and protein production. Currently, there are only a limited number of approved drugs involved in targeting intracellular host factors. One of these compounds is plitidiepsin, which has shown a potent preclinical efficacy against SARS-CoV-2 by targeting the host protein eEF1A. Plitidepsin inhibits nucleocapsid viral protein expression and viral induced cytopathic effect in vitro. In addition, it also reduces genomic and subgenomic RNA expression. However, how plitidepsin exerts its antiviral activity remains unknown. Methods: Current models of SARS-CoV-2 replication propose that upon viral fusion, non-structural viral proteins form a replication-transcription complex that associates to compartments with a double membrane vesicle (DMV) morphology that shelters the viral genome replication. Here we have used an electron microcopy analysis to explore the antiviral effect of plitidepsin and its impact on SARS-CoV-2 replication and DMV formation on target Vero E6 cells. Results: This ultrastructural analysis allowed to recapitulate the SARS-CoV-2 infectious life cycle, where evident viral DMV formation was observed as well as viral budding events along with cell-associated viruses. However, in cells treated with plitidepsin at different non-toxic concentrations (0.2 and 0.05 μ M) there was a lack of viral DMV formation and a complete absence of viral particles. Complementary SARS-CoV-2 nucleocapsid and dsRNA immunogold labelling unambiguously confirmed the lack of viral replication in plitidepsin-treated cells. Overall, these data indicate that plitidepsin treatment abrogated the formation of DMVs, and the detection of nucleocapsid or dsRNA viral products. Conclusion: Electron microscopy ultrastructural analysis coupled to immunogold labelling of SARS-CoV-2 products offer a unique approach to understand how antivirals work. This knowledge is key to identify the mechanism of action of promising compounds interfering with host factors whose implication in strategic biological processes can be applied as pan-antiviral strategies.
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Background: Childhood obesity is highly prevalent in the US and disproportionately impacts minorities;these disparities have worsened during the COVID-19 pandemic. Adoption of effective pediatric weight management interventions (PWMI) that have been evaluated among low-income minority populations is needed. Connect for Healthy Weight, a package co-developed by the AAP and MGH, helps federally qualified health centers (FQHC) establish multidisciplinary healthy weight clinics based on previous effective RCTs. We sought to identify the determinants to successful adoption of Connect for Healthy Weight in pre-and post-implementation sites. Methods: We interviewed 19 stakeholders, 10 from two FQHCs in MS where Connect for Healthy Weight will be piloted and 9 from health centers that have previously implemented it. Separate interview guides informed by the Consolidated Framework for Implementation Research were developed. Qualitative data analysis was conducted using the immersion-crystallization method. Results: In pre-implementation sites, an inner setting facilitator mentioned was a positive learning climate. Characteristics of individuals that can facilitate adoption include staff willingness to learn, valuing evidence-based care for childhood obesity, and culturally and weight-sensitive staff. In terms of patient needs and resources (outer setting), social determinants of health are barriers to adoption, but creative solutions were suggested to mitigate these. Other facilitators related to the intervention included its multidisciplinary model and adaptability. Similar themes were elicited from post-implementation sites;adaptations brought on by the pandemic, such as telehealth visits and content modification to align with distancing guidelines and the effects of social isolation were also described. Conclusions: Understanding the determinants to adoption of an evidence-based PWMI allows for necessary adaptations to be made to facilitate adoption and nationwide dissemination.
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The spread of the coronavirus (COVID-19) caused institutions to adapt to virtuality around the world. With the social changes brought by new technologies, universities must adapt and get to know their students. Student eXperience (SX) refers to the totality of experiences that students live in higher education, incorporating academic and pedagogical resources, research, information systems, libraries, study rooms, as well as extracurricular activities such as social, recreational, cultural activities, among others. Therefore, SX is associated with the institution’s sense of identity. Our exploratory comparative study was conducted to know the experiences of students in the context of pandemic in several Argentinian universities. The survey includes students from different universities, both public and private. The aim is to know what kind of experiences students had in 2020 with virtual learning environments. The results indicate that students show a rather significant satisfaction with online learning. © 2021, Springer Nature Switzerland AG.
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The worldwide spread of COVID-19 has prompted extensive online discussions, creating an 'infodemic' on social media platforms such as WhatsApp and Twitter. However, the information shared on these platforms is prone to be unreliable and/or misleading. In this paper, we present the first analysis of COVID-19 discourse on public WhatsApp groups from Pakistan. Building on a large scale annotation of thousands of messages containing text and images, we identify the main categories of discussion. We focus on COVID-19 messages and understand the different types of images/text messages being propagated. By exploring user behavior related to COVID messages, we inspect how misinformation is spread. Finally, by quantifying the flow of information across WhatsApp and Twitter, we show how information spreads across platforms and how WhatsApp acts as a source for much of the information shared on Twitter.
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Brazilian national strategies for the control of anemia and vitamin A deficiency in children are based on estimates of their nationwide prevalence rates in 2006 with methods not validated for this age group and with disaggregation at the level of major geographic regions. To back local administrations in (re)directing control measures for these two disorders, the current study presents estimates of their prevalence and markers of dietary intake of sources of micronutrients and use of vitamin and mineral supplements in a probabilistic sample of children 6 to 59 months of age, users of primary healthcare in the city of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil (n = 536). Venous blood samples were drawn for analysis of hemoglobin, ferritin, and serum retinol, besides collection of data on food consumption, use of vitamin and mineral supplements, and sociodemographic characteristics. Prevalence rates for anemia, iron deficiency anemia, and vitamin A deficiency were 13.7%, 5.5%, and 13%, respectively. Nearly all the children had consumed ironrich food the day before the interview, with high prevalence of animal sources. Only 49.4% had consumed foods high in vitamin A. The prevalence rates for use of any supplement, iron supplements, and vitamin A supplements were 51%, 14.7%, and 24.4%, respectively. The findings point to the need to redirect the strategies for prevention and control of anemia and vitamin A deficiency. Future studies are necessary to examine trends in these indicators, focusing on austerity policies implemented in recent years and the economic crisis resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic.
ABSTRACT
Brazilian national strategies for the control of anemia and vitamin A deficiency in children are based on estimates of their nationwide prevalence rates in 2006 with methods not validated for this age group and with disaggregation at the level of major geographic regions. To back local administrations in (re)directing control measures for these two disorders, the current study presents estimates of their prevalence and markers of dietary intake of sources of micronutrients and use of vitamin and mineral supplements in a probabilistic sample of children 6 to 59 months of age, users of primary healthcare in the city of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil (n = 536). Venous blood samples were drawn for analysis of hemoglobin, ferritin, and serum retinol, besides collection of data on food consumption, use of vitamin and mineral supplements, and sociodemographic characteristics. Prevalence rates for anemia, iron deficiency anemia, and vitamin A deficiency were 13.7%, 5.5%, and 13%, respectively. Nearly all the children had consumed iron-rich food the day before the interview, with high prevalence of animal sources. Only 49.4% had consumed foods high in vitamin A. The prevalence rates for use of any supplement, iron supplements, and vitamin A supplements were 51%, 14.7%, and 24.4%, respectively. The findings point to the need to redirect the strategies for prevention and control of anemia and vitamin A deficiency. Future studies are necessary to examine trends in these indicators, focusing on austerity policies implemented in recent years and the economic crisis resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic.