Study on the Incidence and Profile of Risk Factors in the Field of Healthcare Practice in Pharmaceutical Care during the Covid-19 Pandemic Period

The profession of pharmacist involves a continuous effort to combat diseases and preserve social health in various urban and rural communities. Pharmacists are exposed to a variety of risk factors while performing their professional activity. The COVID-19 pandemic period introduced an additional risk among occupational risk factors. The aim of the study is to identify occupational risk factors among pharmacists and the health problems they face at work. The study also seeks to propose some recommendations for risk prophylaxis and to facilitate the activity in conditions of good professional practice and to minimize exposure to occupational risk factors. The proposed questionnaire aims to highlight the level of health and habits, lifestyle practices and perceptions of the typology of healthy living in this professional group. The application of the questionnaire can also be the sign for the transition point from the state of health to the pathological status. The correlation of professional and non-professional factors led to the profiling of relationships between all risk factors induced by the specific of the profession and theorizing a set of prophylactic or curative intervention measures. Compliance with a physical activity program and a lifestyle according with the standards of relevant domestic and international bodies will increase the quality of life of these specialists as well as the quality of professional acts in the service of public health.Copyright © 2023, Romanian Society for Pharmaceutical Sciences. All rights reserved.

From the Oligonucleotide purUUpurU to Cytokine Storm, Elevated Blood Viscosity, and Complications of Coronavirus Disease 2019.

Background Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) can be associated with pathologic inflammation. The authors hypothesize that a high copy number of a purine-uridine-rich nucleotide motif is present in the genome of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) and hyperactivates innate immunity. Methods The number of purine-uridine-uridine-purine-uridine (purUUpurU) motifs was counted in the genomes of SARS-CoV-2 and other single-strand RNA viruses. The nucleotides of SARS-CoV-2 in random order were used as a control. Results PurUUpurU occurred 2.8 times more often in the actual SARS-CoV-2 genome than the randomized genome. The number of purUUpurU motifs correlates with the potential severity of acute illness caused by these viruses, except for influenza A. Conclusion The large number of purUUpurU in SARS-CoV-2 may hyperactivate innate immunity, potentially causing the markedly increased concentrations of cytokines, acute phase reactants, and blood viscosity that can be seen in COVID-19.

Collaborative decision-making in software research projects: The innovation challenge

Innovation has the potential to propel organizations to unprecedented levels of performance and to strengthen their competitive advantage. Collaboration plays a significant role in boosting the innovation capabilities and reaching performance goals. Improving collaboration brings substantial overall benefits ranging from faster internal decision making, reduced costs through shared resources, and the development of more innovative products. The COViD-10 outbreak has radically altered traditional collaboration and teamwork patterns, requiring new approaches that would nurture creativity, engagement, and motivation at team level, and that would also streamline decision-making processes. This paper investigates the use of a collaborative platform that can enhance teamwork achievements and decision-making capabilities and presents an analysis of experiments carried out within software research projects. The approach considers key challenges in today's global and fast-changing research and business environments that demand improvements in collaboration among functions ranging from R&D to distribution. The authors explore techniques for improving the effectiveness of teams, capitalizing on the promises of cutting-edge software and the applicability of the Design Thinking methodology and its potential to boost collaboration. This research probes the capacity of technology to support team performance and better decision-making processes. © 2021 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V.

Energy Consumption, Pandemic Period and Online Academic Education: Case Studies in Romanian Universities

Objectively, electricity is the most important current power source and, especially, of the future. Electricity consumption in universities worldwide is achieved by installations and equipment both in laboratories, classrooms, applications, and sports, in the rooms of administrative staff, and campus. Depending on the specializations, each university has a specific footprint of electricity consumption. During the pandemic of 2020, the world introduced several measures to limit the spread of the Covid virus, including online education in academia. Thus, in terms of electricity consumption, universities recorded a decrease during the pandemic, but there was an increase in household consumption for teachers and students. The subject of this paper is a quantitative analysis of the data provided by four universities in Romania on electricity consumption recorded before and during the pandemic. These data are correlated with household electricity consumption for the same two time periods, which were collected from some teachers and students in a university. A percentage of the decrease respectively increase of these electricity consumptions is due to the use of computers in the university respectively at home. That is why the measurements performed on a personal computer connected to the Teams platform used in the online education system are presented and analyzed. All these data and comparative analyses are especially useful for any university in the country or worldwide. © 2021 IEEE.

The use of imaging techniques in cardiac evaluation during COVID-19 pandemic

The new Coronavirus pandemic has exposed the healthcare professionals to a higher risk of morbidity and mortality. In order to protect the medical personnel, the patients and also to reduce the economic burden set upon the medical systems from around the world, the imaging techniques must be applied only in situations that can improve the therapeutic management. This article intends to analyse the existing recommendations in the medical journals regarding the cardiac imaging techniques during this pandemic period. The article also tries to summarize the main indications of those imaging techniques as well as highlighting the protective measures taken by the medical personnel during patient care.

Civil-military cooperation in the early response to the COVID-19 pandemic in six European countries.

BACKGROUND: The COVID-19 pandemic has presented many countries with significant health system and economic challenges. The role of civil-military cooperation in a health crisis of the magnitude presented by COVID-19 remains virtually unexplored. This review aims to detect and identify typologies, if any, of associations between security or military systems and the national response measures during the COVID-19, as adopted by six European countries during the early phase of the outbreak (January to March 2020). METHODS: We designed a structured qualitative literature review (qualitative evidence synthesis), primarily targeting open-source grey literature using a customised Google web search. Our target countries were UK, France, Spain, Italy, Belgium and Sweden. We employed a 'best fit' framework synthesis approach in qualitative analysis of the result records. RESULTS: A total of 277 result records were included in our qualitative synthesis, with an overall search relevance yield of 46%. We identified 19 distinct descriptive categories of civil-military cooperation extending across seven analytical themes. Most prominent themes included how military support was incorporated in the national COVID-19 response, including support to national health systems, military repatriation and evacuation, and support to wider public systems. CONCLUSION: Findings of this review show the significance of military systems in supporting an expansive response during the COVID-19 pandemic, and our proposed methodological approach for capturing military health data in a reproducible manner and providing a comparative view on common types of interventions provided by civil-military cooperation to inform lessons from the use of military capacities during current COVID-19 outbreak.

Knowledge, attitudes and practices related to the COVID-19 outbreak among Romanian adults with cancer: a cross-sectional national survey.

BACKGROUND: The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic outbreak forced cancer care providers to face different challenges in terms of prevention and treatment management due to specific precautions implemented for oncological patients. We aimed to describe the level of knowledge, attitude and practices (KAP) among cancer patients, with the purpose to provide an image of the impact of COVID-19 and evaluate the effectiveness of pandemic response measures. PATIENTS AND METHODS: We developed a cross-sectional multicentric study that targeted adults with active cancer during the COVID-19 outbreak, aiming to describe KAP related to COVID-19 among Romanian oncological patients. A questionnaire investigating 64 items on KAP related to the novel coronavirus was designed and applied in seven Romanian hospitals. The group of participants consisted of 1585 oncological patients who completed the questionnaire during the outbreak (April-May 2020). RESULTS: Only 172 patients (10.8%) had very good knowledge about severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) infection symptoms, treatment options and incubation period. Only 44.3% of patients identified diarrhoea as a sign of COVID-19. About one-third of patients (32.6%) declared that they are 'very worried' about getting infected with the novel coronavirus. More than two-thirds of participants (68%) considered that having cancer represents an additional risk for infection with SARS-CoV-2, but 27.8% would rather not vaccinate against SARS-CoV-2 should a vaccine be available. A small percentage (8.8%) believed that the risk of infection justifies delaying/stopping oncological treatment until after the pandemic. Around half of the participants (55.5%) declared being compliant with all the protective measures against coronavirus infection listed in the questionnaire. CONCLUSION: Romanian oncological patients have a less than expected knowledge about SARS-CoV-2, appropriate prevention behaviours, with limited trust in their efficacy, optimistic attitudes towards COVID-19 and low level of trust in information sources. Good COVID-19 knowledge was associated with appropriate practices towards COVID-19 and optimistic attitudes.