Mediating role of resilience in relationship between occupational stress and depression of staff of centers for disease control and prevention.

[Background] Since the outbreak of the COVID-19 epidemic, staff of the centers for disease control and prevention (CDC) have been burdened with heavy epidemic prevention control, and excessive occupational stress can cause depression and other psychological problems. [Objective] To explore the status of occupational stress, resilience, and depression of CDC staff and potential relationships between them. [Methods] From December 2020 to April 2021, a survey was conducted at provincial and municipal levels, and the stratified cluster sampling method was used at county (district) level to select a total of 3 514 samples. Their occupational stress, resilience, and depression status were evaluated using the Chinese Effort-Reward Imbalance Scale (ERI), the Chinese Connor-Davidson Resilience Scale (CD-RISC), and the Patient Health Questionnaire (PHQ-9). Independent sample t test, analysis of variance, chi2 test, Pearson correlation analysis, and mediation test (structural equation model) were conducted. [Results] The positive rate of occupational stress was 34.29% in the CDC staff, the resilience score was 66.28+/-15.32, and the positive rate of depression was 48.58%. Significant differences were found in the positive rates of occupational stress among different groups of gender, age, education background, marital status, administrative duty, weekly exercise frequency, chronic disease prevalence, and participation in epidemic control (P < 0.05);in the resilience scores among different groups of gender, age, administrative duty, weekly exercise frequency, chronic disease prevalence, and participation in epidemic control (P < 0.05);in the positive rates of depression among different groups of gender, age, educational background, personal monthly income, weekly exercise frequency, chronic disease prevalence, and participation in epidemic control (P < 0.05). Occupational stress was negatively correlated with resilience (r=-0.165, P < 0.01). Resilience was negatively correlated with depression (r=-0.383, P < 0.01). Occupational stress was positively correlated with depression (r=0.343, P < 0.01). The structural equation embracing a partial mediating effect of resilience on the relationship occupational stress and depression was established, and the partial mediating effect was 0.039, accounting for 10.46% of the total effect. [Conclusion] High positive rates of occupational stress, reduced resilience, and depression are shown among CDC staff in the context of the COVID-19 epidemic, and resilience partially mediates the effect of occupational stress on depression. The study findings suggest that improving resilience may reduce occupational stress and depression in CDC staff.Copyright © 2022, Shanghai Municipal Center for Disease Control and Prevention. All rights reserved.

COVID-19 and Long-Term Economic Growth

This article investigates the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the long-term economic growth of South Africa. We embed an epidemiological model in a modified Solow–Swan model and explore various channels such as morbidity, mortality, unemployment, loss of school days and capital accumulation. We demonstrate that COVID-19 will lower the average annual growth rate of GDP per capita of South Africa by 0.07 percentage points in the next four decades, a 25 per cent decline relative to the no-COVID benchmark. We show that human capital losses due to school closures account for more than half of the economic slowdown. © 2023 The Authors. The Australian Economic Review published by John Wiley & Sons Australia, Ltd on behalf of The University of Melbourne, Melbourne Institute: Applied Economic & Social Research, Faculty of Business and Economics.

Principles of management for patients with oral cancer during the COVID-19 pandemic

The outbreak of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) affects the world. It is highly contagious and spreads quickly. COVID-19 severely increases the medical burden and interferes with our normal work. This article introduces our experience on treat oral cancer patients during the epidemic. The negative impact can be minimized through reasonable and orderly arrangement.Copyright © 2021 The Authors

Analysing the factors affecting medical waste generation in China

Medical waste deserves particular attention due to its potential for causing serious damage to people and the environment. Although the factors influencing the generation of medical waste are critical for designing policies aimed at effectively reducing medical waste and improving medical waste management, they have not been extensively studied. The rapid development of China's medical and health services and the sudden outbreak of Covid-19 have brought significant challenges to managing medical waste in China. Therefore, based on panel data from eight cities in China from 2013 to 2019, this study used a fixed-effects model to investigate the influencing factors of medical waste generation (MWG) in China, and tested the environmental Kuznets curve (EKC) hypothesis. The results show that there is a non-linear N-shaped curve relationship between MWG and per capita gross domestic product (GDP);MWG will continue to increase with economic growth, but the growth rate will slow down from fast to slow, and then from slow to fast with economic growth. The analysis also reveals that implementing a tiered diagnosis and treatment policy may negatively affect MWG by reducing the waste of medical resources and thus reducing the generation of medical waste. The positive effect of population size on MWG is also highly significant, so when the aging of the population increases, the generation of medical waste also increases. The three policy suggestions are provided: 1) improve the disposal capacity and efficiency of medical waste;2) give full play to the advantages of hierarchical diagnosis and treatment policy;3) improve the management level of medical waste in primary medical institutions. © 2023

An Investigation Into the Impact of Test Session Disruptions for At-Home Test Administrations

In response to the closures of test centers worldwide due to the COVID-19 pandemic, several testing programs offered large-scale standardized assessments to examinees remotely. However, due to the varying quality of the performance of personal devices and internet connections, more at-home examinees likely suffered "disruptions” or an interruption in the connectivity to their testing session compared to typical test-center administrations. Disruptions have the potential to adversely affect examinees and lead to fairness or validity issues. The goal of this study was to investigate the extent to which disruptions impacted performance of at-home examinees using data from a large-scale admissions test. Specifically, the study involved comparing the average test scores of the disrupted examinees with those of the non-disrupted examinees after weighting the non-disrupted examinees to resemble the disrupted examinees along baseline characteristics. The results show that disruptions had a small negative impact on test scores on average. However, there was little difference in performance between the disrupted and non-disrupted examinees after removing records of the disrupted examinees who were unable to complete the test. © The Author(s) 2022.

Identification of shared genes and possible therapeutic target between systemic lupus erythematosus and COVID-19

Background/purpose: Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) has led to a rapid increase in mortality worldwide. Systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) was a high-risk factor for severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV- 2) infection, Whereas the molecular mechanisms underlying SLE and CVOID-19 are not well understood. This study aims to discover the common molecular mechanisms and genetic biomarkers of SLE and COVID-19, providing new ideas for the treatment of COVID-19. Method(s): RNA sequencing data of peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMC) from 6 SLE datasets and 8 COVID-19 datasets were obtained from the GEO database. Highly related modular genes associated with COVID-19 and SLE were identified by weighted gene co-expression network analysis (WGCNA). The differentially expressed genes (DEGs) between patients and healthy controls (HCs) were identified by the limma package. Common shared DEGs from COVID-19 and SLE were identified. Cytoscape and MCODE plugin were utilized for exploring the protein-protein interaction network (PPI) and identifying shared hub genes. Potential biological functions and pathways were also explored from the common DEGs. For better analysis of detailed biological mechanisms, both xCell algorithm and the cMap in CLUE (https://clue.io/) were utilized for discovering immune cell infiltration and predicting potential drugs that negatively regulate the highly expressed genes. Result(s): With identified 498 up-regulated common DEGs in SLE and COVID-19 related genes, total 11 and 13 gene modules of SLE and COVID-19 were identified espectively After overlapping differential genes, the final intersection gene set contains 218 genes. The PPI, especially the functional subnet module consists of upregulated genes by MCODE showed a great deal IFN related genes involved in the regulation of immunity. GO biological processes also showed possible functions were defense response to virus and mitotic cell cycle. Moreover, changes of most immune cells were strongly consistent between SLE and COVID-19. CDK inhibitors identified may be more likely to inhibit two diseases. Conclusion(s): Our study examined in detail the common molecular mechanisms of SLE and COVID-19, in which cellular response to cytokine stimulus, like regulating IFN, which might be the key target of both diseases. CDK is associated with the progression of SLE and COVID-19, which may be the potential therapeutic drug for SLE patients with COVID-19 infection.

Molecular mechanisms underlying regulatory T cell deficiency and potential drugs in COVID-19

Background/Purpose: The 2019 outbreak of coronavirus disease COVID-19 causes immune system disruption. Recent studies reported that the decrease or depletion of regulatory T cell (Treg) may be responsible for overstimulation of the immune system and lung damage in patients with severe COVID-19. This study aims to find the molecular mechanisms and genetic biomarkers associated with Tregs in COVID-19, providing new ideas for the treatment of COVID-19. Method(s): RNA sequencing data of peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMC) from 252 COVID-19 infected patients and 69 healthy controls (HC) were obtained from the GEO database. The Tregs composition of COVID-19 samples was quantified using the CIBERSORT deconvolution method. The differential genes (DEGs) were identified by the limma R package. Gene co-expression network analysis (WGCNA) was used to identify the gene. Differentially expressed Tregs-related genes (DETregRGs) were obtained by intersecting DEGs with the highly related modular genes obtained in the previous step. The potential biological functions and pathways of DETregRGs were then explored. Protein-protein interaction (PPI) networks were subsequently constructed to identify hub genes. In addition, the prediction of small molecule drugs for the potential treatment of COVID-19 was made using the CMap database. Result(s): After the weighted gene co-expression network analysis (WGCNA), the turquoise module was highly correlated with Treg expression and a total of 134 DEGs was identified as DETregRGs. These genes were mainly involved in GO biological processes, such as the inflammatory response, and T cell differentiation of thymus. Then, 11 hub genes (including RPS12, RPL21, RPS3A, CD8B, CD3D, TRAT1, RPS6, CD3E, CD28, RPL3, and CD4) were ranked based on Molecular Complex Detection (MCODE) analysis. The TregRG score of COVID-19 patients showed significantly lower than HC, calculated by the 'singscore' algorithms. After the signature query of the CMap database, the KU-0063794, an mTOR inhibitor ranked second in the negative enrichment score, may restore immune system dysregulation caused by increased Th17 differentiation and decreased Treg differentiation during SARS-CoV- 2 infection. Conclusion(s): Our study examined in detail the molecular mechanisms underlying the inadequacy of Tregs in patients with COVID-19 infection. mTOR inhibitors may improve COVID-19 symptoms by expanding Tregs which may be one of the potential therapeutic methods that need further investigation. (Figure Presented).

Social Distance Measuring Based on Monocular Vision

Socia1 distance has been a growing concern since the COVID-19 pandemic broke out globally. Statistics indicate that keeping social distance is of great practical significance in slowing the spread of the pandemic. Traditional ranging methods rely on ultrasonic, infrared, laser or others. Unfortunately, most of these methods require Bluetooth modules or particular measuring sensors and need to fix hardwire devices on objects, which makes it costly and difficult to apply for measuring distances in various scenes. In order to reduce cost and extend application scope, this paper studies a novel ranging method based on monocular vision, which is proposed to estimate the distance between people in surveillance images. Our approach is to measure the social distance via the world coordinate relationship transformation or the principle of pinhole imaging after performing pedestrian detection. It is worth mentioning that this method only needs computer monocular vision technology, which is low in cost and suitable for an abundance of application scenarios. Through the experiment and analysis, our method shows good performance of social distance measuring in application. © 2022 IEEE.

Quantum ozone emission effect in needle-to-plate negative ion generators

Ozone is a highly effective and broad-spectrum non-residual gas disinfectant.The global COVID-19 pandemic has significantly affected public safety and health, and low concentrations of ozone can inactivate the novel coronavirus.The negative ion generator is a safe and efficient method to generate ozone.Through corona discharge on the needle plate, an ion current can be formed between the needle-plate electrodes and a certain concentration of ozone can be released.In the research on the relationship between the electrode-to-plate distance and ozone release in the negative ion generator, different experimental observations show contradictory results, making the theoretical explanation very difficult and complicated.As the needle-to-plate electrode distance increases, the continuous exponential decreasing trend of ozone emission rate changes to a non-continuous step-wised decreasing pattern, which is defined as the Quantum Ozone Emission Effect (QOEE).The QOEE was observed in all negative ion generators when the plate material was aluminium, stainless steel, yellow brass, or copper.The observed quantum ozone emission effect in negative ion generators may be related to the gas ionization potential of the oxygen molecule and to the electron avalanche theory.The quantum effect of ozone emission is a manifestation of the quantum behavior of the microscopic electron world in the macroscopic world.The ozone emission quantum effect provides a novel technical method for measuring the microscopic properties and corona discharge characteristics of materials. © 2022, Editorial Department of Journal of Xidian University. All right reserved.

ABLE Family: Remote, Intergenerational Play in the Age of COVID-19

ABLE Family is a co-located play platform that engages older adults and their family members in intergenerational play and creation, meeting needs during the COVID-19 crisis. Physical distancing is required to ensure the safety of older adults, though, isolation and loneliness contributes to worsening mood, physical and cognitive health. The platform is designed to provide these benefits, by attending to the distinct needs of older adults who are frail and live with dementia. It allows for easy gesture-based engagement for older adults and more sophisticated play for children who, together, draw or paint a picture. The platform encourages low intensity, short duration activity proven to enhance cognitive health in older adults with cognitive impairment and to enhance well-being and mood. ABLE Family also aims to relieve the proven strain experienced by caregivers caring for older adults across private homes, adult residences and care facilities. The platform will operate as an elevated zoom-type platform, allowing multiple players to talk and see each other in real time as they paint and draw together. The final artistic creations can be saved, downloaded and used as screensavers, digital photos or printed. © 2021, Springer Nature Switzerland AG.

Benchmark Keystroke Biometrics Accuracy From High-Stakes Writing Tasks

Biometrics are physical or behavioral human characteristics that can be used to identify a person. It is widely known that keystroke or typing dynamics for short, fixed texts (e.g., passwords) could serve as a behavioral biometric. In this study, we investigate whether keystroke data from essay responses can lead to a reliable biometric measure, with implications for test security and the monitoring of writing fluency and style changes. Based on keystroke data collected from a high-stakes writing testing setting, we established a preliminary biometric benchmark for detecting test-taker identity by using features extracted from their writing process logs. We report a benchmark keystroke biometric accuracy of equal error rate of 4.7% for identifying same versus different individuals on an essay task. In particular, we show that the inclusion of writing process features (e.g., features designed to describe the writing process) in addition to the widely used typing-timing features (e.g., features based on the time intervals between two-letter key sequences) improves the accuracy of the keystroke biometrics. The proposed keystroke biometrics can have important implications for the writing assessments administered through the remotely proctored tests that have been widely adopted during the COVID pandemic. © 2021 Educational Testing Service

Surveillance of enteric pathogens in imported seafood and environmental surfaces in five seafood markets before the outbreak of COVID-19

To monitor the presence of enteric pathogens in imported seafood, a total of 140 seafood samples imported from eight overseas countries were collected from Beijing, Dalian, Shanghai, Guangzhou, and Wuhan seafood markets from June to November 2019. Additionally, 116 viral, environmental swab samples were also collected from the Wuhan and Guangzhou seafood markets. Five typical enteric bacterial pathogens (Aeromonas spp., Shigella spp., Salmonella spp., Vibrio spp., and Listeria monocytogenes) and four viruses (Rotavirus, Norovirus, Astrovirus, and Sapovirus) were detected positive. Results showed that eight Vibrio parahaemolyticus isolates appeared in seafood imported to Dalian, Wuhan, Shanghai, Guangzhou, and Beijing. In contrast, Vibrio fluvialis and Aeromonas were isolated in another two samples. Norovirus was detected in one oyster sample imported from France and environmental surface in Guangzhou. The remaining pathogens were negative in all the samples being tested. With 120 V. parahaemolyticus isolates from the above countries, the genomic analysis revealed that sequence type ST1152 isolates imported from Canada were clustered with two V. parahaemolyticus isolates from Canada. This study presented the first microbiological analysis of the Wuhan seafood market before the outbreak of COVID-19, which demonstrated that supervision should be strengthened to prevent enteric pathogens via imported seafood. © 2021

Examination of Nanoparticle Filtration by Filtering Facepiece Respirators during the COVID-19 Pandemic

The onset of the COVID-19 pandemic in spring 2020 resulted in a spike in the demand for face masks and respirators. Due to their effectiveness at filtering aerosols that could potentially contain viruses, the N95-type filtering facepiece respirators (FFRs) are frequently used by healthcare workers and first responders. However, due to a shortage of domestic N95 FFRs in the US at the beginning of the pandemic, internationally produced respirators were imported and deployed under an Emergency Use Authorization by the Food and Drug Administration. Due to concerns raised at the time, there was an urgent need to verify their effectiveness and usability. In this study, we summarize our characterization of the nanoparticulate filtration performances of 136 such respirators, measured between April 1 and June 30, 2020. Our results indicate that about 42% of the respirators showed filtration efficiencies better than 90% (≤10% penetration), but only 17% performed better than 95% (≤5% penetration). On the other hand, about 35% showed filtration efficiencies below 80% (≥20% penetration). A representative subset of devices was analyzed for the origin of such variations in filtration performance. We found that filtration efficiency increased with the level of electrostatic charge on the FFRs and that the poor performance of the internationally sourced FFRs could be traced to a lack of electrostatic filtration mechanisms. Furthermore, electrostatics shifted the particle size at which aerosol penetration through the FFR was maximal from around 200 nm to less than 100 nm for the highest-performing FFRs, a size range that largely goes undetected in standardized tests. © 2021 American Chemical Society.

Use of convalescent plasma therapy in eight individuals with mild COVID-19.

Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is still a global epidemic. Several studies of individuals with severe COVID-19 regard convalescent plasma (CP) transfusion as an effective therapy. However, no significant improvements are found in randomized clinical trials of CP treatment. Until now, data for individuals with mild COVID-19 transfused CP were lacking. This study recruited eight individuals with mild COVID-19 who received at least one dose of CP transfusion. After CP therapy, the clinical symptoms of all individuals improved. Lymphocyte counts tended to increase, and lactate dehydrogenase, creatine kinase and aspartate aminotransferase tended to decrease. However, C-reactive protein increased transiently in three individuals. The median time for the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) nucleic acid test to become negative was 2.5 days after CP transfusion. The study shows the potential benefits of CP. Meanwhile, CP probably enhances the inflammatory response to SARS-CoV-2 temporarily in people with insufficient antiviral immunity. However, the effects of CP are not permanent.

Bio-JOIE: Joint Representation Learning of Biological Knowledge Bases

The widespread of Coronavirus has led to a worldwide pandemic with a high mortality rate. Currently, the knowledge accumulated from different studies about this virus is very limited. Leveraging a wide-range of biological knowledge, such as gene ontology and protein-protein interaction (PPI) networks from other closely related species presents a vital approach to infer the molecular impact of a new species. In this paper, we propose the transferred multi-relational embedding model Bio-JOIE to capture the knowledge of gene ontology and PPI networks, which demonstrates superb capability in modeling the SARS-CoV-2-human protein interactions. Bio-JOIE jointly trains two model components. The knowledge model encodes the relational facts from the protein and GO domains into separated embedding spaces, using a hierarchy-Aware encoding technique employed for the GO terms. On top of that, the transfer model learns a non-linear transformation to transfer the knowledge of PPIs and gene ontology annotations across their embedding spaces. By leveraging only structured knowledge, Bio-JOIE significantly outperforms existing state-of-The-Art methods in PPI type prediction on multiple species. Furthermore, we also demonstrate the potential of leveraging the learned representations on clustering proteins with enzymatic function into enzyme commission families. Finally, we show that Bio-JOIE can accurately identify PPIs between the SARS-CoV-2 proteins and human proteins, providing valuable insights for advancing research on this new disease. © 2020 ACM.