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The present chapter focuses on the mechanisms of the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus-2 (SARS-CoV-2) infection, pathogenesis, and the possible therapeutic strategies targeted to the viral receptors, purinergic and kallikrein-kinin systems. SARS-CoV-2 spike protein binds with high affinity to the human ACE2 receptor on host cells, but it can also interact with other receptors and enzymes. Following viral infection, a plethora of subsequent molecular and cellular alterations occurs in the host. These alterations, which include the cytokine and bradykinin storms, as well as exacerbated ATP signalling, have been implicated in the genesis and progression of the signs and symptoms observed in COVID-19 patients. These routes and systems provide important targets for developing specific and effective anti-COVID-19 drugs, as well as reveal a novel understanding of pathogenesis and tropism of SARS-CoV-2. © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022.
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In March 2020, COVID-19 was declared a pandemic by the World Health Organization, which led to a series of recommendations regarding personal hygiene, among which, the use of alcohol 70% as hand sanitizers. Due to the great demand for this product, it became scarce and the regulatory agencies made the legislation for production by some industries, manipulation pharmacies, and laboratories more flexible. This situation promoted the commercialization of alcohol-based products within concentrations outside of the limits, compromising their efficiency. Therefore, this is important that these products are submitted to rigorous quality control to avoid harm issues to human health. However, ANVISA does not specify an official method for monitoring alcohol 70%, especially when impurities are present. Within this context, the present work aims to present the use of the classic technique, such as the gas chromatography, as well some alternative analytical methods applied to alcohol 70% determination, taking into account literature reports published in the last two pandemic years.
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The 4th Industrial Revolution is causing profound and accelerated changes to work, bringing new opportunities and challenges as new technologies impact practically all occupations. The transformations in the labor market were accelerated even more due to the COVID-19 pandemic. In the scenario where old careers cease to exist, and new occupations are being created, Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) need to be prepared to educate professionals capable of getting and keeping qualified jobs. To do so, HEIs need tools to evaluate their undergraduate courses in the face of the changing demands of the labor market. We propose a novel approach to employability from the perspective of HEIs, creating a framework- called Higher Education Courses Employability (HECE). The framework can help HEI decision-makers to make decisions based on employability data. The framework allows for mitigating the reported gap between the theory taught in HEIs and the labor market demands. We evaluated the HECE framework as useful and relevant by HEI decision-makers and Employability experts from Brazil, a continental country with great social differences between and within its regions, and where the unemployment and underemployment rates demonstrate the mismatch between the labor market demands and the undergraduate course's curricula. The applicability of HECE in different Brazillian regions provides evidence that we can apply the framework in most contexts. This study provides tools to facilitate the implementation of the framework by HEIs. The evaluators reported the innovative nature of the approach of this research. © 2013 IEEE.
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The World Health Organization (WHO) has declared the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak a global pandemic in March 2020. Through a lot of cooperation and the effort of scientists, several vaccines have been created. However, there is no guarantee that the virus will shortly disappear, even if a large part of the population is vaccinated. Therefore, non-invasive methods, with low cost and real-time results, are important to detect infected individuals and enable earlier adequate treatment, in addition to preventing the spread of the virus. An alternative is using forced cough sounds and medical information to distinguish a healthy person from those infected with COVID-19 via artificial intelligence. An additional challenge is the unbalancing of these data, as there are more samples of healthy individuals than contaminated ones. We propose here a Deep Neural Network model to classify people as healthy or sick concerning COVID-19. We used here a model composed by an Convolutional Neural Network and two other Neural Networks with two full-connected layers, each one trained with different data from the same individual. To evaluate the performance of the proposed method, we combined two datasets from the literature: COUGHVID and Coswara. That dataset contains clinical information regarding previous respiratory conditions, symptoms (fever or muscle pain), and a cough record. The results show that our model is simpler (with fewer parameters) than those from the literature and generalizes better the prediction of infected individuals. The proposal presents an average Area Under the ROC Curve (AUC) equal to 0.885 with a confidence interval (0.881-0.888), while the literature reports 0.771 with (0.752-0.783). © 2023, Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul, Institute of Informatics. All rights reserved.
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Self-care refers to disease prevention and health maintenance practices. Self-care capacity can be an important factor in different conditions and contexts and when associated with aspects of an individual's health it can provide direct benefits to this person. During the Pandemic (COVID-19) this ability may be diminished or impaired, and even hindered with affective aspects, influencing their subjective well-being, that is, affecting their assessment of their own well-being. Thus, this study aimed to evaluate the relationship between self-care capacity and the affective attribution (positive or negative) of male and female adults who act as caregivers. The instruments used were a sociodemographic questionnaire, the Positive and Negative Affect Schedule and the Scale to Assess Self-Care Capabilities. After analyzing the frequency of the variables, Pearson's correlation analysis was performed and through it, moderate associations (medium high) were revealed between the measure of positive affect and self-care (r=0.62;p=0.000) and negative affect and self-care, in this case, with a negative coefficient (r=-0.42;p=0.000);thus, this indicates that people tend to have more self-care, have better positive affects and less negative affects, respectively. It was possible to infer the idea that well-being and quality of life are intertwined with the affective attribution of the individual. © 2022 Centro Universitario Sao Camilo. All rights reserved.
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The purpose of this paper is to reveal a set of new results obtained from an ongoing investigation focused on the way that the particular characteristics which are inherent to 'wannabe' digital nomads' activities contribute to the sustainability of the whole digital nomad ecosystem. In line with the premise of this research, we assume the importance of understanding the impacts that are being felt in the personal knowledge management ecology practices and routines of digital nomads as experienced by a specific online population (i.e., Reddit user base), together with a deep and wide examination of their preferences and expectations regarding the technology-mediated work-life issues that exert a direct influence on the digital nomad community. To this end, we gathered and further processed text posts and comments from users in the '/r/digitalnomad' subreddit. From a sociotechnical standpoint, the empirical data extracted from this sample population about the wannabe/how to be digital nomad symbiotic ecosystem can provide insightful information for researchers worldwide about future design-level interventions. © 2022 IEEE.
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Objective: to identify the contributions of the Humanitude Care Methodology in the comprehensive care provided to the elderly in a long-term care institution during the COVID-19 pandemic. Method: a qualitative, exploratory and descriptive research study. Data collection took place through individual online interviews in September and October 2020 with eight caregivers of elderly people from a long-term care institution for aged people in Portugal. Thematic categorization was adopted for analysis and treatment of the information. Results: the contributions of the Humanitude Care Methodology contemplated operationalization of the humanization of care, that is, approach, consolidation, professionalization of the relationship, and intentionality in the interaction. It also contemplated the organizational system with changes in care and opening to the outside and, finally, contributions to aged people such as acceptance of the care provided, decrease in agitation, promotion of autonomy and self-care, respect, satisfaction and promotion of verticality. Conclusion: the strategies related to the Humanitude Care Methodology facilitate the care practices during the COVID-19 pandemic period. Although organizational and operational matters of the care provided were altered, it was possible to maintain comprehensive care for aged people, due to the fact that the principles of Humanitude were already integrated in the institution’s care practices. © 2022, Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina. All rights reserved.
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Introduction: In high-performance athletes, sleep is an important tool in physical and mental recovery due to routine training and competitions. However, given the COVID-19 pandemic, the lives of the entire population were changed. The routine of high-performance athletes, especially team sports, was directly impacted by the measures of social isolation, and understanding the extent of damage to athletes' sleep in this scenario is desirable. Objective: To evaluate the sleep pattern of young athletes in team sports during the Covid-19 pandemic. Methods: Young athletes of both sexes and federated in their respective team sports in the State of São Paulo and Paraná were evaluated. They were evaluated under two conditions: during social isolation (2020) and during the return to presential activities (2021). An anamnesis was carried out and questionnaires that assess sleep (Mini-Sleep, Epworth Sleepiness Scale and Morningness-Eveningness Questionnaire) were applied online through Google Forms. Paired t-test was used to compare the both moments. The study was approved by the UNIFESP Research Ethics Committee via Plataforma Brazil. Results: The sample consisted of 34 young people (24 boys and 10 girls), 15.79 ± 1.38 years, 62.17 ± 8.68 kg, 1.67 ± 0.08 m and BMI 22.12 ± 2.16 kg/m2. Among the sports played, 50% practice futsal, 23.5% handball, 17.6% soccer and 8.9% softball. They maintained a routine of 4.02 ± 1.29 days of training/week before the pandemic began, 4.02 ± 1.64 days/week during isolation, and 3.42 ± 1.09 days/week after return. Regarding the sleep of young athletes, they had good sleep quality and normal sleepiness. The sleep quality (26.20 ± 8.16 vs 25.27 ± 6.79) and daytime sleepiness (8.47 ± 4.88 vs 7.81 ± 3.53) showed no differences between the isolation period and the return, respectively. They had higher Social Jet lag during isolation (2.51 ± 1.31 hours) when compared to the return period (2.05 ± 1.13 hours, p = 0.04), in addition to shorter sleep duration during the week in the isolation period when compared to the return period (7.95 ± 1.55 vs 8.56 ± 1.63, p = 0.01). Conclusion: The young athletes kept their training routines at home during social isolation, and with the return to the presential training and collective activities, they decreased the Social Jet lag and increased the hours of sleep during the week, suggesting that the pandemic negatively influenced their sleep.
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In this paper, we report on new findings about the results of an empirical study which aims to investigate how the COVID-19 pandemic has been shaping nomadic work practices and also challenging the lifestyles of digital nomads (DN). To do this, we collected textual data from posts in a Reddit community. We argue that, in order to understand how to design technical solutions for the so-called 'new normal' working conditions, one way to approach this is to understand how digital nomads are being impacted in their work practices and routines, and also how they are seeing the future of their technology-mediated work-life space. Finally, we show how evidence collected from DNs about their experiences and difficulties perceived during the pandemic period can inform CSCW researchers worldwide about future design-oriented strands. © 2022 IEEE.
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Objective: Report the experience generated from the application of a virtual culture circle on interprofessionalism to face the COVID-19 pandemic. Methods: Sixteen university students from the courses of: medicine, nursing, psychology, physiotherapy and pharmacy participated in the culture circle. In a playful way, the three phases of the culture circle invented were covered, making in analogy with the use of the lab coat, which is a common work implement of the aforementioned courses. Results: Students were able to reveal the interprofessionality in health and to redefine their possible performance as part of a team. The feeling of fear and insecurity were constant among the participants, probably influenced by the political context and the lack of coherent plans with the world health authorities. Conclusions: The experience of participating in the culture circle promoted the awareness of students about the difficulties of being inserted in the health system. © 2021, Fundacion Index. All rights reserved.
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Objective: to reflect on how undergraduate Nursing teachers experience the activities of their work process in the COVID-19 pandemic context. Method: a qualitative and reflection study of the action-participant research type, grounded on Paulo Freire’s assumptions. The participants were 20 undergraduate Nursing teachers from public and private universities in southern Brazil. Paulo Freire’s Research Itinerary was carried out through Thematic Research, Coding, Decoding, and Critical Unveiling, in a Virtual Culture Circle held in August 2020. Results: the Nursing teachers discussed about the repercussions of remote teaching on their health. They reflected on their feelings in facing this teaching modality and on how they develop in the pandemic context. Conclusion: the results contribute to the nurses’ evidence-based practice, strengthening decision-making regarding the teachers’ work process in the COVID-19 pandemic context. © 2021, Universidade Federal do Parana. All rights reeserved.
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Introdução: a Mucormicose é uma infecção fúngica extremamente rara e grave, causada por fungos da ordem Mucorales, a qual pode ser classificada em 6 categorias: cutânea, rinocerebral, pulmonar, gastrointestinal, disseminada e formas raras incomuns. A manifestação clínica imediata varia de acordo com a topografia e o seu diagnóstico frequentemente é atrasado devido a inespecificidade dos sintomas, sendo os exames padrão-ouro para o diagnóstico a biópsia e a avaliação histopatológica dos tecidos infectados. Em relação ao tratamento, este pode ser feito cirurgicamente pelo desbridamento da lesão, ou por meio de antifúngicos, na qual a Anfotericina B com formulação lipídica é o medicamento de primeira escolha. Descrição do caso: Paciente pediátrico do sexo masculino, 10 meses de vida, sem diagnóstico de doenças prévias e com RT-PCR negativo para COVID-19, apresentando lesão aparentemente infiltrativa em face há 4 meses. Foi transferido de hospital oncológico infantil para o Hospital Universitário João de Barros Barreto, referência no tratamento de doenças infecciosas, após a biópsia descartar neoplasia maligna e sugerir infecção fúngica. Neste hospital, o paciente foi admitido acompanhado da mãe, em bom estado geral, sem queixas clínicas, apresentando os resultados diagnósticos do histopatológico e da tomografia computadorizada dos seios da face, os quais demonstraram lesão expansiva, heterogênea e infiltrativa no tecido subcutâneo, compreendendo a área ocular, interocular frontal e nasomalar direita, com inflamação crônica apontando granuloma, necrose e estruturas fúngicas sugestivas de mucormicose. Em sua admissão, realizou exames laboratoriais, os quais apresentaram discreta anemia, microcitose, anisocitose e leucocitose, além de função renal e hepática preservadas e ionograma sem alterações significativas. Iniciou antibioticoterapia no primeiro hospital e deu prosseguimento com Anfotericina B Complexo Lipídico após transferência para o tratamento da mucormicose. Ao finalizar o processo terapêutico, obteve alta hospitalar, na qual a mãe foi instruída a realizar hidratação da pele do bebê, e orientada acerca do tratamento para a anemia e da necessidade de acompanhamento com imunologista. Comentários: Ante o exposto, é imperioso que o diagnóstico seja feito precocemente, para que o manejo da infecção seja o menos traumático e com a menor quantidade de sequelas possíveis para o paciente.
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Purpose This study aims to contribute to the healthy eating literature by analyzing whether fear of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), ability to prepare food and the safety-seeking are antecedents of the intention to consume healthy foods during COVID-19 pandemic. Design/methodology/approach The authors conducted two studies. The first study was done with a sample of 546 valid respondents. Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modeling (PLS-SEM) was used to analyze data. The second study was qualitative, in which 40 subjects took part. Data were analyzed using thematic analysis. Findings The main findings reveal that ability to prepare food and the safety-seeking are strong antecedents of the intention to consume healthy foods. In addition, safety-seeking mediates the relationship between fear of COVID-19 and intention to consume healthy eating. However, high levels of fear did not influence the ability to prepare food and intention to consume healthy foods. Also, the ability to prepare food does not mediate the relation between fear of COVID-19 and intention to consume healthy food. Originality/value This study is among the first to consider terror management propositions to analyze the intention to consume healthy foods during COVID-19 pandemic. From a scientific point of view, it has several contributions to the literature. First, this study provides advances and innovation in the field by identifying new explanatory relations. Second, this study extends the scope of terror management health model (TMHM) by analyzing it in the pandemic context. Third, the findings seem to provide empirical support for recent criticism of TMHM assumptions. Moreover, practical implications are outlined to public health decision-makers and healthy food businesses on increasing consumers' intention to healthy eating.
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Objectives: To present an exploration of the experiences of using focus group methodology to discuss end of life family conversations in families of African and Caribbean heritage;And to explore the change of dynamics of these focus group discussions when COVID 19 required a change from in person discussion to synchronous online discussions. Background: Individual interviews are widely used in qualitative research when exploring sensitive topics such as discussions with people who are dying or around the dying of others. Previous studies have explored many issues that arise in carrying out palliative care research. They have focused on ethical appropriateness, benefits and burdens and consent. When exploring the use of focus group methodology in sensitive research, issues such as confidentiality, anonymity, power imbalances between participants and risk of harm have been concerns. With the rise of participatory forms of research entering the palliative care arena, interest has grown and confidence has been built in utilising group discussions to generate a greater flow of ideas. Method: Process and outcome analysis of five focus groups of people from African and Caribbean heritage discussing end of life family conversations. Two focus groups were undertaken in person and three were conducted online. Results: The process analysis revealed a dynamic of power rebalancing. The groups had more participants than facilitators and the impact of this was noticeable, particularly in the group of older people where participants supported each other to focus on themes that were significant to them. The presence of two group facilitators, a common feature of focus groups provided insightful opportunities for reflexivity. Moving from in person groups to online groups altered the ratio of comments between facilitators and individual participants than between participants. Outcome analysis revealed that fewer themes were generated in the online groups.
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Background and Aims: Liver abnormalities are frequent in COVID-19 disease, AST and ALT abnormalities are present in about 60% of serious disease patients. However, liver insufficiency and liver mortality were not important concerns. Decompensate cirrhotic patients are a group of high risk for morbidity and mortality. Consequently, we aimed to study cirrhotic patients with at least one complication: ascites, encephalopathy or esophageal varices;to investigate mortality, transplantation and hospitalization due to SARS-Covid-19 infection pandemic. Methods: Liver unit patients were enrolled after ethical approval and signed consentiment term. Combined outcomes during pandemic were analyzed. Participants were submitted to SARS-Cov 2 test by PCR oro/pharingeal swab. Call phone and medical records were consulted for covid 19 symptoms and outcomes. Survival, transplantation and clinical complications were studied. Results: Fourthy seven patients were enrolled, 26 followed. Men was 73% of patients and median age was 62,7 years. The cirrhosis etiology in 35% was MAFLD, 32% alcohol, 15% HCV and 18% others. Frequence of COVID-19 infection was 42%, at last 10 months, and three (11%) patients died. Liver-related complications with death were present in 19% of patients without COVID-19 infection. Five patients (19%) were submitted to liver transplantation, without COVID-19 disease. Conclusion: Although an incipient analyzes, our data show high death rate of cirrhotic decompensate patients during COVID-19 pandemic. This population needs a specific approach in order to prevent Covid-19 infection, liver-related mortality and complications during pandemic.
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We report the first findings of an empirical study aimed at investigating how COVID-19 pandemic has impacted the work practices and lifestyles of digital nomads (DN). To do this, we analyzed messages, questions and comments posted by digital nomads in a specific online discussion community of the Reddit social network. Preliminary findings indicate COVID-19 as an opportunity to test DN lifestyle by aspiring digital nomads who want to plan their careers and also present evidence of an overload of online channels for actual DNs. On the other hand, we found that much of the literature on digital nomadism is fragmented and scattered through different disciplines and perspectives, with a strong focus on digital nomads' lifestyles. In order to obtain a holistic and unified understanding of digital nomads, we conducted a comprehensive literature review to further conceptualize the phenomenon under study. © 2021 IEEE.
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The present work aims to make a brief historical analysis of the surfacing concept of agroecological food, initially focused on Nutritional Food Security (SAN in Portuguese), but which encompasses other meanings nowadays, such as social, political, and playful relations. Using rice as a representative food in this article due to its constant presence in Brazilian food, connections with agroecology and its social movement are addressed and used to identify food as a political movement. We also address the consequences of the Covid-19 pandemic in data for the current food industry. The methodology used in this article was the bibliographic and documentary review combined with the analysis of news, websites, and survey of databases. Our final considerations point to the need to rethink the Brazilian agricultural model and the role that small producers play in it and, above all, to the urgency of formulating public policies to encourage the production, price regulation, and distribution of food in Brazil. © Praksis 2021.
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Introduction: In December 2019, China reported a series of atypical pneumonia cases caused by a new Coronavirus, called COVID-19. In response to the rapid global dissemination of the virus, on the 11th of Mars, the World Health Organization (WHO) has declared the outbreak a pandemic. Considering this situation, this paper intends to analyze and improve the current SEIR models to better represent the behavior of the COVID-19 and accurately predict the outcome of the pandemic in each social, economic, and political scenario. Methodology: We present a generalized Susceptible-Exposed-Infected-Recovered (SEIR) compartmental model and test it using a global optimization algorithm with data collected from the WHO. Results: The main results were: (a) Our model was able to accurately fit the either deaths or active cases data of all tested countries using optimized coefficient values in agreement with recent reports;(b) when trying to fit both sets of data at the same time, fit was good for most countries, but not all. (c) Using our model, large ranges for each input, and optimization we predict death values for 15, 30, 45, and 60 days ahead with errors in the order of 5, 10, 20, and 80%, respectively;(d) sudden changes in the number of active cases cannot be predicted by the model unless data from outside sources are used. Conclusion: The results suggest that the presented model may be used to predict 15 days ahead values of total deaths with errors in the order of 5%. These errors may be minimized if social distance data are inputted into the model. © 2020, Sociedade Brasileira de Engenharia Biomedica.