ABSTRACT
Since massive numbers of images are now being communicated from, and stored in different cloud systems, faster retrieval has become extremely important. This is more relevant, especially after COVID-19 in bandwidth-constrained environments. However, to the best of our knowledge, a coherent solution to overcome this problem is yet to be investigated in the literature. In this paper, by customizing the Progressive JPEG method, we propose a new Scan Script to ensure Faster Image Retrieval. Furthermore, we also propose a new lossy PJPEG architecture to reduce the file size as a solution to overcome our Scan Script's drawback. In order to achieve an orchestration between them, we improve the scanning of Progressive JPEG's picture payloads to ensure Faster Image Retrieval using the change in bit pixels of distinct Luma and Chroma components (Y, C<sub>b</sub>, and C<sub>r</sub>). The orchestration improves user experience even in bandwidth-constrained cases. We evaluate our proposed orchestration in a real-world setting across two continents encompassing a private cloud. Compared to existing alternatives, our proposed orchestration can improve user waiting time by up to 54% and decrease image size by up to 27%. Our proposed work is tested in cutting-edge cloud apps, ensuring up to 69% quicker loading time. IEEE
ABSTRACT
Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) is a global pandemic of the century. The disease is wreaking havoc on human health, the world economy, society, and the environment. It has already caused the loss of millions of lives. Because of the mutation, the virus is constantly evolving itself, changing its nature including the disease transmission rate, virulence, pathogenesis, and clinical manifestations. It was recently reported that certain COVID-19 patients are also suffering from a fungal infection as co-infection commonly known as mucormycosis (black fungus). In India, the outbreak of black fungus in COVID-19 patients has already been declared an epidemic. Only a few reports are noticed in other countries. The focus must now be put toward better management and control of the COVID-19-associated fungal infection. In this review, we have discussed various aspects of black fungus particularly the etiology, taxonomy, risk factors, transmission, pathogenesis, clinical manifestations, diagnosis, and line of treatment to keep up to date on how to manage this fungal infection better.
ABSTRACT
The SARS-CoV-2 infection leads to liver injury and promotes other viral infections such as hepatitis B virus (HBV) in COVID-19 patients. Obesity is involved with an increased risk of mortality in hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) patients. In the current study, we analyzed the SARS-CoV-2 entry receptor ACE2 expression patterns in various HCC patients using different public databases on cancer. We found that the ACE2 and TMPRSS2 mRNA expressions are significantly downregulated in HCC tissues compared with the healthy population. Interestingly, high ACE2 expression is positively associated with HCC patient's obesity and age of 61 to 80 years old. A significantly lower survivability rate is revealed in extremely obese and obese HCC patients with high expression of ACE2. In addition, the expression of important innate immune-related genes such as IKBKB, MAVS, IRF3, and RELA are found to be significantly increased in HCC patients. Therefore, it might be suggested that obesity and age of the HCC patient along with the involvement of innate immune genes, might be the important triggers for COVID-19 pathogenesis.
ABSTRACT
Background: The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) has continued to spread across the world with increasing numbers of confirmed cases and deaths. Due to outbreaks of new variants of the virus and limited treatment options, positive perception and good practice of preventive guidelines have remained essential measures for the prevention of the disease and slowing down its transmission. We aimed to study perception towards COVID-19 and the practice of guidelines for preventing the disease among Bangladeshi adults during the early stage of the rapid rise of the outbreak. Methods: Data was collected data from 320 participants. For measuring their level of practice, we asked a general question: “Are you properly following the WHO-recommended guidelines to avoid COVID-19?” The frequency distribution, Chi-square (χ2) test and binary logistic regression model were used in this study. Results: The average risk perception among the participants was 3.05±0.75 (median, 3.00) (95% CI of mean: 2.96-3.13) where the score ranges from 0 (no risk) to 4 (high risk). More than 27% of participants showed high-risk perceptions. Males (p<0.05), high educated (p<0.05), rich (p<0.01), service holders (p<0.05), and younger adults (p<0.05) had higher odds of high-risk perception. More than 71% of participants had a good practice of always following the WHO guidelines to prevent COVID-19 and living locations in urban areas (p<0.01), high education (p<0.01), rich (p<0.01), and joint family (p<0.01) had the most contributions to good practice. Conclusions: The study findings revealed that special attention should be given to rural areas, and individuals of low literacy, education and socioeconomic level to more effectively prevent COVID-19. © 2021. Wadood et al.;Licensee Lifescience Global. This is an open access article licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) which permits unrestricted use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the work is properly cited.
ABSTRACT
BACKGROUND AND AIMS: Severe acute respiratory syndrome corona virus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) infections emerged in Wuhan, China in December 2019 and rapidly became pandemic. Unfortunately, there is lack of evidence about the optimal management of corona virus disease-2019 (COVID-19) and even less is available in patients on maintenance haemodialysis. Patient receiving maintenance haemodialysis are at increased risk for infection by SARS-CoV-2 with poor outcome. So, the purpose of this study was to identify the incidence of SARS-CoV-2 infection among end-stage kidney disease (ESKD) patients on maintenance haemodialysis. METHOD: A cross-sectional study was conducted at a haemodialysis unit of tertiary care hospital of Bangladesh from April to August 2020. All patients, who were on maintenance haemodialysis, twice or thrice weekly, were screened by reverse transcriptase-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) for SARS-CoV-2, irrespective of symptoms. All data were collected in case record forms and patients were followed-up over phone. RESULTS: During the study period, a total of 133 patients (males 70, 52.6%) were on regular maintenance haemodialysis in the study centre. Most patients were in 5th and 6th decades of life. Twenty-one (15.8%) patients tested positive for SARS-CoV-2 by RT-PCR with female (16, 76.2%) predominance. Eighteen (18/21, 85.7%) patients had symptoms suggestive of SARS-CoV-2 infection and rest three (3/21, 14.3%) patients were diagnosed during routine screening. Common presentations were fever (42.9%), cough (66.7%) and respiratory distress (66.7%) and most had multiple symptoms. The incidence of SARS-CoV-2 infection in blood group A was 8(38%) and blood group O was 8(38%). There were no significant differences of mortality rate among blood groups. Most patients (16/21, 76.2%) infected by SARS-CoV-2 were referred to COVID-dedicated hospitals, five (5/21, 23.8%) were shifted to intensive care unit (ICU). Outcome was poor;17 (17/21, 89%) patients died in hospitals and four (4/21, 19%) patients became free of SARS-CoV-2 infection. Caregivers/relative of our patients acquired COVID-19 in course of disease. CONCLUSION: One-sixth of patients on maintenance haemodialysis acquired SARSCoV-2 infection with nearly ninety percent fatality rates. Despite having risk factors for severe infection by SARS-CoV-2, patients on dialysis must visit health care facilities. So, utmost care should be taken to reduce risk of COVID-19 among such vulnerable group of patients.
ABSTRACT
Coronavirus disease-19 (COVID-19) caused by the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus-2 (SARS-CoV-2) is now a pandemic threat. This virus is supposed to be spread by human to human transmission. Cellular angiotensin-converting enzyme 2 (ACE2) is the receptor of SARS-CoV-2 which is identical or similar in different species of animals such as pigs, ferrets, cats, orangutans, monkeys, and humans. Moreover, a recent study predicted that dogs might be secondary hosts during the evolution of SARS-CoV-2 from bat to human. Therefore, there is a possibility of spreading SARS-CoV-2 through domestic pets. There are now many reports of SARS-CoV-2 positive cases in dogs, cats, tigers, lion, and minks. Experimental data showed ferrets and cats are highly susceptible to SARS-CoV-2 as infected by virus inoculation and can transmit the virus directly or indirectly by droplets or airborne routes. Based on these natural infection reports and experimental data, whether the pets are responsible for SARS-CoV-2 spread to humans;needs to be deeply investigated. Humans showing clinical symptoms of respiratory infections have been undergoing for the COVID-19 diagnostic test but many infected people and few pets confirmed with SARS-CoV-2 remained asymptomatic. In this review, we summarize the natural cases of SARS-CoV-2 in animals with the latest researches conducted in this field. This review will be helpful to think insights of SARS-CoV-2 transmissions, spread, and demand for seroprevalence studies, especially in companion ani-mals. Copyright & ordf;2020, Taiwan Society of Microbiology. Published by Elsevier Taiwan LLC. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).