Recent advances in the study of a novel Omicron variant of SARS-CoV-2

Due to the continued emergence of multiple variants of SARS-CoV-2, the ongoing pandemic has resulted in severe mortality over the past two years. After the Alpha, Beta, Gamma and Delta variants, the most recent new variant of concern (VOC) strain to emerge is Omicron (B.1.1.529), which evolved as a result of the accumulation of a large number of mutations. The Omicron variant, which has a much higher transmission rate than the Delta variant, soon replaced the Delta variant and others, is now the dominant variant worldwide. The emergence of Omicron poses new challenges for the prevention and control of COVID-19 and has raised a number of concerns worldwide. Recently, cases of Omicron infection have been reported in several parts of China, and therefore this paper provides a comprehensive analysis and summary of the epidemiology and immune escape mechanisms of the Omicron variant. We also suggest some therapeutic strategies against the Omicron variant, including rapid diagnosis, genome analysis of emerging variants, ramping up of vaccination drives and receiving booster doses, updating the available vaccines, designing of multivalent vaccines able to generate hybrid immunity, up-gradation of medical facilities and strict implementation of adequate prevention and control measures need to be given high priority to handle the on-going COVID-19 pandemic successfully. © 2022 by the Author(s).

Photodynamic viral inactivation assisted by photosensitizers

The deadly viruses, which are spreading worldwide at an alarming rate, are a major challenge for the life sci-ences. More efficient and cost-effective methods with fewer side effects can provide a good alternative to traditional drug-based methods. Currently, physical phenomena such as light in the form of photodynamic action are increasingly being used to inactivate viruses. Photodynamic inactivation (PDI) uses a photosensitizer (PS), light, and oxygen to generate reactive oxygen species (ROS) to inactivate microorganisms. This article reviews the use of existing PSs, as one of the essential anti-viral agents, and introduces new materials and strategies combined with PDI. Physiochemical properties of PSs and their role in interaction with virus components are discussed. Furthermore, the effectiveness of optical sensitizers with radiation methods to inactivate viruses is highlighted.

Activity Trajectory Generation via Modeling Spatiotemporal Dynamics

Human daily activities, such as working, eating out, and traveling, play an essential role in contact tracing and modeling the diffusion patterns of the COVID-19 pandemic. However, individual-level activity data collected from real scenarios are highly limited due to privacy issues and commercial concerns. In this paper, we present a novel framework based on generative adversarial imitation learning, to generate artificial activity trajectories that retain both the fidelity and utility of the real-world data. To tackle the inherent randomness and sparsity of irregular-sampled activities, we innovatively capture the spatiotemporal dynamics underlying trajectories by leveraging neural differential equations. We incorporate the dynamics of continuous flow between consecutive activities and instantaneous updates at observed activity points in temporal evolution and spatial transformation. Extensive experiments on two real-world datasets show that our proposed framework achieves superior performance over state-of-the-art baselines in terms of improving the data fidelity and data utility in facilitating practical applications. Moreover, we apply the synthetic data to model the COVID-19 spreading, and it achieves better performance by reducing the simulation MAPE over the baseline by more than 50%. The source code is available online: https://github.com/tsinghua-fib-lab/Activity-Trajectory-Generation. © 2022 ACM.

Transnational Proximity and Universality in Korean Culture: Analysis of Squid Game and BTS

By utilizing transnational proximity as a primary theoretical framework, I analyze the reasons why global audiences beyond Asia prefer contemporary Korean popular culture to other cultural products. I investigate several distinctive cultural programs and Korean screen spheres—BTS and Squid Game (2021) in particular—as well as fan communities. I mainly discuss whether “transnational proximity” based on similar socio-cultural experiences, including social inequality and social injustice, which are rampant in late capitalist society, works as a new theoretical frame in comprehending the global success of Hallyu. Finally, I discuss whether transnational proximity plays a pivotal role in determining the growth of local popular culture in the global cultural sphere. © 2022 Kyujanggak Institute for Korean Studies.

The Tasmanian TAVI Service: Initial Experience and Outcomes

Background: Transcatheter aortic valve implantation (TAVI) is now guideline treatment for severe aortic stenosis in patients over the age of 80 years. Objective: We report the initial experience of the first 50 patients for the Tasmanian TAVI Service at the Royal Hobart Hospital established during the COVID-19 pandemic. Methods: The records of patients undergoing TAVI with a balloon-expandable device between June 2020 and March 2021 at the Royal Hobart Hospital were reviewed. We report the procedural success and outcome, including major adverse events and haemodynamic results at the 30-day follow-up. Results: Mean age was 83.2±0.7 and mean EuroSCORE II and Society of Thoracic Surgeons’ scores were 5.6%±0.4% and 6.2%±1.0%, respectively;18% had undergone prior cardiac surgery. Successful transfemoral deployment of the valve was achieved in all patients. The cumulative stroke and mortality rates at 30 days were 0%. The minor vascular complication rate was 3.8%, with no major vascular complications, as per the Valve Academic Research Consortium-2 (VARC-2) criteria. No/trivial paravalvular aortic regurgitation (pAR) was observed in 79%, with 21% mild pAR. The mean AVA (cm2) increased from 0.73 to 2.1, with a subsequent mean reduction in mean gradient (mmHg) from 40 to 10. Post-TAVI permanent pacemaker rate was 12%. Median length of hospital stay was 1.48 days. Conclusion: TAVI is now readily accessible locally for Tasmanians deemed suitable for intervention as per the state-wide heart team. Early results are excellent and indicate that TAVI is being used appropriately, according to current national and international guidelines.

Disruption in Chinese E-Commerce During COVID-19

The recent outbreak of the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) has infected millions of citizens worldwide and claimed many lives. This paper examines the impact of COVID-19 on Chinese e-commerce by analyzing behavioral changes observed on a large online shopping platform. We first conduct a time series analysis to identify product categories that faced the most extensive disruptions. The time-lagged analysis shows that behavioral patterns of shopping actions are highly responsive to the epidemic's development. Based on these findings, we present a consumer demand prediction method by encompassing the epidemic statistics and behavioral features of COVID-19-related products. Experimental results demonstrate that our predictions outperform existing baselines and further extend to long-term and province-level forecasts. Finally, we discuss how our market analysis and prediction can help better prepare for future pandemics by gaining extra time to launch preventive measures.

Word and graph embeddings for covid-19 retweet prediction

In this paper, we present our solution for COVID-19 retweet prediction challenge. The proposed approach consists of feature engineering and modeling. For feature engineering, we leverage both hand-crafted and unsupervised learning features. As the provided data set is large, we implement auto-encoding algorithms to reduce feature dimension. To develop predictive models, we utilize ensemble learning and deep learning algorithms. We then combine these models to generate the final blended model. Moreover, to stabilize the predictions, we also apply bagging as well as down-sampling techniques to remove the tweets where number of retweets equals to zero. Our solution is ranked First on the public test set and second on the private test set. © 2020 CEUR-WS. All rights reserved.

Integrating group homophily and individual personality of topics can better model network communities

Community detection is an important research field in the understanding of networks. The definition of network communities focuses on denser intracommunity links and sparpser intercommunity links. It cannot explain the fundamental generation mechanisms of the two types of links, which is challenging to reveal. Unfortunately, none of existing works can solve this challenge which is important for accurately modeling community structures. This paper investigates a typical category of networks which possess contents on links. Based on analyses of real networks, we get an observation that nodes with distinctive personality regarding content topics are more active across communities, while nodes without it are more active inside a community, behaving in a similar way known as homophily. This observation provides clues to the generation of intracommunity and intercommunity links. Based on above observation, this paper proposes a novel generative community detection model called GHIPT (Group Homophily and Individual Personality of Topics) by integrating group homophily and individual personality of topics. Besides deriving more precise community results by accurately modeling intracommunity and intercommunity links, GHIPT is able to identify those nodes with distinctive personality who are more willing to interact with others from different communities. It further validates that they change their community memberships more frequently. GHIPT is evaluated on two real networks, i.e., Reddit and DBLP. Experimental results show that it outperforms all the state-of-the-art baselines. In addition to case studies on above two datasets, a case study on COVID-19 dataset provides new insights to support the ongoing fight against COVID-19 pandemic. © 2020 IEEE.

Experiences of nurses at a general hospital in Seoul which is temporarily closed due to COVID-19

Purpose: This study is aimed at preparing basic data to increase professionalism in nursing and effective counter-strategies against future infectious diseases. For that purpose, this study investigated the experiences of nurses in a general hospital with an 800-bed size, temporarily closed after a confirmed case of COVID-19. Methods: This study was a qualitative study using individual in-depth interviews, and data were collected from 10 nurses in a university hospital temporarily closed from May 1 to June 13, 2020. Results: As a result of this study, the subjects were classified into 'COVID-19 and nursing', 'nursing work and vocation' and 'life changed with COVID-19'. Conclusion: In conclusion, there is a need for education that nurtures the ability of nurses to screen patients with infectious diseases well and to skillfully wear and remove protective clothing. In addition, in order to cultivate the expertise of nurses and respond efficiently to infectious diseases, a separate compensation, such as a risk allowance, is required along with the establishment of an infrastructure that fully supports personnel and supplies. A mental health program to relieve stress is also required. © 2020, Official of Journal of Korean Academic Society of Nursing Education. All right reserved.

Progress in the diagnosis and treatment of novel coronavirus pneumonia by traditional Chinese medicine

In December 2019, a new type of coronavirus pneumonia emerged and spread rapidly, but there is no specific antiviral vaccine or drug. At present, traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) prevention and treatment programs have been introduced in many places in China. This paper systematically reviews and summarizes the etiology and pathogenesis of novel coronavirus pneumonia 2019 (COVID-19), the prevention programs for different populations in different regions and the treatment programs by stages. We analyzed the TCM prevention and treatment programs of COVID-19 in various regions and the clinical characteristics of the first-line patients. It is verified that the disease belongs to the category of "wet poison epidemic" according to TCM, and the disease is located in the lung and the spleen. The core pathogenesis of the disease is "dampness, heat, poison, blood stasis and deficiency" because of the rage of the disease. According to the relevant plan, TCM prevention should adopt different prescriptions according to the constitution of different populations and pay attention to comprehensive prevention according to different climates, regions and populations. Treatment should focus on eliminating filth and resolving turbidity, with clearing dampness as the key point. The corresponding treatment plan should be made according to the development of the disease, and the treatment should be divided into five stages (observation stage, initial stage, middle stage, severe stage and convalescence stage) according to the rules of syndrome development. Through the systematic analysis of the progress of TCM applied in various regions during the epidemic period, this paper hopes to provide useful help and guidance for the prevention and control of the epidemic and rational application and further research on the clinical treatment with TCM.