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Vaccines and antiviral treatments for severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus-2 (SARS-CoV-2) are progressing at an incredible rate. To protect further lives, the world is eager for treatment of SARS-CoV-2. Antiviral peptides (AVPs), also termed antimicrobial peptides (AMPs), have antiviral properties, although little is known. AVPs are a group of small polycationic antivirals (8–40 amino acids long) having strong wide-range antiviral activity. Surprisingly, AVPs have been shown to have preventive and therapeutic actions against coronaviruses (CoVs). Peptides and proteins contain significant therapeutic potential. More research is needed to explore the possibilities of a wide range of lipidated (and non-lipidated) peptide medications;lipidation is a helpful tool for reducing drug degradation and extending half-life, with some of these benefits likely due to self-assembly. This chapter aims to use peptides and lipopeptides against SARS-CoV-2. © 2023 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
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Purpose: This study aims to investigate the intentions of individuals' monetary charity during the COVID-19 crisis in Kuwait. The new conditions of COVID-19 enhanced both the theoretical as well as empirical importance of understanding how charities canalize monetary donations toward those in need. Design/methodology/approach: An initial framework is developed based on the theory of planned behavior (TPB) to conceptualize how an individual's intention of donating money to charitable organizations is realized in their behaviors. A cross-sectional study of 276 donors is conducted. Findings: Explained variance gained is 0.73% suggesting that during the pandemic, donors are financially able to donate and prioritize easily accessible channels to transfer monetary charity. Donor attitudes towards charitable organizations were found to be insignificant regardless of the mismanagement reported. Practical implications: This study importantly discusses public behavior toward charities during the pandemic and suggests policies for managing such charities during a pandemic for optimizing their effectiveness. Originality/value: This paper used a contemporary context to measure behavioral intentions including attitude (attitude toward making a financial donation, attitude toward charitable organizations and the attitude toward helping others), perceived behavioral control, descriptive norms, moral norms, injunctive/prescriptive norms and past behavior and thus enhance the empirical base of the TPB. © 2023, Emerald Publishing Limited.
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World scenario after pandemic COVID-19 has been drastically changing and researchers more focusing on, to minimize the post-pandemic effects on economy, energy sustainability and food security. Agriculture sector is playing pivotal role in world food security and energy sustain -ability. There is high need to optimize the mechanization technologies to increase the yield in limited energy inputs and operation time to fulfill the world growing food demand. This research is mainly focused on the design development and structural analysis aiding with Finite Element Analysis (FEA) approach for Cotton Stalk Puller and Shredder machine (CSPS) to cut the crop leftovers, soil conditioning (shredding the plant waste into soil) and sowing of next crop in single run by con-serving input resources. The experimental trials revealed that there is high pressure on cutting blades, chocking of shredder section and excessive pulling load on tractor hitches, which affected the machine's performance. To mitigate deficiencies and design optimization to improve the machine safety/reliability, the structure analysis carried out. Six core components of machine including baseplate, blade, gear system, root digger, pulley and shaft has investigated as per field conditions. The results revealed that the material of blade, root digger and teeth of gear system receiving the high stress under the operational conditions which results the edge wear and damage. The carbonization up to one-millimeter thickness can provide the extra strength to bear the exces-sive load on edge layers.(c) 2022 THE AUTHORS. Published by Elsevier BV on behalf of Faculty of Engineering, Alexandria University. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/ licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).
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Context: The current COVID-19 pandemic has significantly impacted health and socio-economic status worldwide. The only way to combat this situation is to develop an effective vaccine and immunize people around the globe. Aims: To construct a multi-epitope spike glycoprotein-based vaccine from the SARS-CoV-2 Surabaya isolate using a bioinformatics approach. Methods: The spike protein was submitted to IEDB, VaxiJen, AllerTOP, and ToxinPred webservers to predict antigenic, non-allergic, non-toxic, B- and T-cell epitopes. To develop a multi-epitope vaccine, an adjuvant cholera toxin B subunit was linked to B-cell and B-cell with T-cell through EAAAK and GPGPG linkers, respectively. The designed vaccine 3D structure development, refinement, and validation were done through PHYRE2, Galaxy Refine, and RAMPAGE webservers. Moreover, the Cluspro-2.0 webserver was used for the molecular docking of the vaccine designed with TLR3. The vaccine+TLR3 complex was docked with Surfactant protein A as a control to validate the docking results. Finally, immune-simulation and in silico cloning of the vaccine were carried out by C-ImmSim webserver and SnapGene software, respectively. Results: A multi-epitopic vaccine containing B and T-cell was developed using 392 amino acids with a molecular weight of 40825.59 Da. The docking and immunogenicity results of the vaccine met all established parameters for constructing a quality vaccine. Furthermore, the optimized sequence of the vaccine was successfully cloned in expression vector pET 28 a (+) that yielded a colon of 2724 bp. Conclusions: The vaccine's immunogenicity demonstrates its effectiveness against SARS-CoV-2 infection. Further confirmatory testing may therefore be performed as soon as possible in the public interest.
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Aim: To characterize the clinical outcome of COVID-19 patients following discharge from the hospital. Study design: Prospective cohort study. Place and Duration of Study: Department of Infectious Diseases, Liaquat National Hospital, Karachi from 1st May to 31st August 2020. Methodology: Ninety six patients were included, age over 23 years and had a confirmed COVID-19 on PCR. At the time of admission and on discharge, in-hospital data were recorded. The demographic information, symptoms, complete blood count, inflammatory markers, and chest X-ray noted. Results: Diabetes (50%) and Ischemic heart disease (50%) were the most frequent comorbidities. The majority of patients (75%) improved their X-ray findings after being discharged from the hospital. At the time of discharge, 75% of the patients expressed fatigue;none of the patients developed a fever. There was a substantial significant difference in tiredness reported at discharge and in the fourth week. Significant variations in shortness of breath and oxygen consumption were also found between tiredness indicated at discharge and the fourth week. The majority of lab values were within normal limits. Conclusion: Most patients gradually improved after receiving appropriate treatment and supportive care in the hospital and later at home. The most prevalent and prolonged symptom reported by most patients was fatigue. By the fourth week, most symptoms had ameliorated significantly.
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Nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) is a rapid and accurate analytical tool for qualification and quantification. The capacity of NMR of being quantitative can also justify the calibration of other analytical methods. In pharmaceutical domain, quantitative NMR (qNMR) can be applied in the identification and quantification of drug simultaneously. The early drug development stage requires a minimum sample for analysis. Thus, priority should be given to utilize this technique to attain results with least investment, rapid analysis time and minimum sample consumption. This technique is a significant phenomenon to identify impurities, drug substance, residual solvents of in-process control (IPC) samples and characterizing the formulations. From an analyst's perspective, qNMR proved to be a routine practice in pharmaceutical industry to qualify any drug product. The absolute and relative methods offer great help in quantifying the component of interest in the process control samples and finished products. This review highlights the evolution of NMR application in the pharmaceutical industry, where determining the purity of drug substance, drug product and establishing the identity of impurities and its level are the challenging aspects. NMR in medicinal field emerging as a numero uno for Covid-19 severity detection and its dire consequences, accelerated vaccine development and the mapping of SAR-COV-2 RNA and proteins via chemical shift assignments.
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Objective: Acute Appendicitis encounters as the frequent problem in surgical pediatric patients leading to Appendectomy, being one of the most common procedures performed in surgical Emergency. During COVID-19 pandemic, the trends in the management of acute appendicitis have changed. Conservative management of appendicitis with antibiotics is being proposed as an alternative to conventional appendectomy. So, this study is conducted to compare the presentation and outcome of Appendicitis managed during pre and post pandemic period in our settings. Methodology: After approval of Ethical Review Committee, a total of 267 patients of age 1-12 years were selected for the study. It was a retrospective Cohort Study. Patients were divided into group A (n=145) which was pre pandemic group. Data was collected retrospectively from charts regarding demographics, presentation, duration of stay operative findings and complications from May-Oct 2019 and Group B (n=122) during covid-19 was collected from the patients presented with appendicitis over a period of six months from May-Oct 2020 . Similar months of the year were selected to remove seasonal variation in the presentation of Appendicitis. All information was collected on a predesigned Performa. Data was compared and analyzed on SPSS 20. Results: Out of 267 patients, 151 (56.56%) were male. Group A patients presented during pre-pandemic period (n=145) were undergone appendectomy for appendicitis in 129 patients (88.96%) with 59 patients (40.68%) having acutely inflamed appendix and 70 patients (48.27%) had complicated appendicitis such as gangrenous, perforated with generalized peritonitis. In Group A only 16 patients (11.03%) were managed conservatively for appendicular mass. In contrast to group B (n=122) presented during pandemic, only 43 patients (35.24%) were operated with findings of acutely inflamed appendicitis while gangrenous/perforated appendicitis with pelvic abscess and/or generalized peritonitis was found in most of the patients with a number of 69 (56.55%), only 10 (8.19%) patient presented as Appendicular mass hence managed conservatively. Conclusion: Delay in presentation and early conservative management during pandemic crisis has resulted in an increase in the complications of Appendicitis. Early referral to specialized centers with vigilant selection for conservative treatment can save patients from developing complications.
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Background:-Video-based teaching, a distance learning tools is widely beingused in the present COVID-19 pandemic. Present study compares cognitive and affective domains learning outcomes between traditional and video-based physiology lecture. Methods and material:-A total of 25female students of Applied Medical College, Prince Sattam bin Abdul Aziz University, kingdom of Saudi Arabia during 2019 were selected for the study. Physiology course consist of 45 credit hours in a fifteen-week semester. Students were evaluated by various methods for different levels of cognitive and affective domains between traditional method of endocrine physiology lecture session and video-based digestive physiology lecture session. Marks obtained by each student in all the assessment methods of cognitive and affective domains were calculated to get a total mean score and expressed in percentage and compared between the traditional and video-based physiology lecture. Results:-The total mean score for all the assessment methods of the cognitive domains in the digestive physiology lecture with video was 70% and endocrine lecture without video was 50%.The total mean score for affective domain in the digestive physiology lecture with video was 80% and endocrine lecture without video was 50%.Cognitive domain show no major difference between traditional endocrine physiology and video-based digestive physiology lecture, while student performance was good for affective domain in the lecture supported by video. Conclusion:-Video-based teaching helps the learner to achieve objectives of the different levels of affective domain compared to cognitive domain as well as compared to traditional lecture with no video. © 2021, Ibn Sina Trust. All rights reserved.
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This research is being conducted on small and medium enterprises in order to explore the critical areas that have been affected because of COVID-19, so that concerned persons may pay special attention towards those areas. Small and medium enterprises have a significant contribution in gross domestic product, employment, and exports of developing countries. In order to explore the critical factors that have been affected because of COVID-19, a qualitative study has been designed and data was collected through interviews. Based on the literature, interview guide was developed. The owners, managers, and workers working in the small and medium enterprises have been chosen for interviews. After recording the interviews, the data was transcribed and coded. Finally, data reduction took place and significant factors were identified. It has been observed that because of COVID-19 several small and medium enterprises are at the verge of closure, and are facing huge losses. However, those small and medium enterprises that were innovative and explored opportunities in the crucial time not only survived, rather earned profits. Likewise, the management that was flexible, allowed their employees to work from home, and continued their operations with minimum delays in orders, performed in a sustainable way. The findings also revealed that government support, especially in deferring the taxes and provision of financial support, helped small and medium enterprises to survive during pandemic. The research findings are significant for the future researchers to empirically test the constructs and to develop theories for handling small and medium enterprises during crisis. The findings are significant for the policy makers as they can now better understand that which factors needed to be catered. © 2021 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group on behalf of the University of Bahrain.
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Introduction: Several studies have linked obesity to more severe illness and higher mortality in COVID-19 patients. However, the relationship between being underweight and COVID-19 mortality remains inconclusive. Previous dose-response meta-analyses did not enroll or specifically analyze the underweight population. Herein, we conducted a systematic review and dose-response meta-analysis to investigate the relationship between body mass index (BMI) and mortality in both obese and underweight patients with COVID-19. Methods: We searched PubMed, Embase, Cochrane Library, Scopus, and Web of Science databases from inception until August 12, 2020 using the keywords “COVID-19,” “body mass index,” “obesity,” “overweight”, and “underweight.” Three reviewers independently assessed the relevant articles, including the title, abstract, and full text, to identify eligible studies. We performed a two-stage random-effects dose-response meta-analysis, including only studies with at least three quantitative classifications for BMI. The nonlinear trend was evaluated using a restricted cubic splines model with three-knots at the 10th, 50th, and 90th percentiles. A sensitivity analysis was conducted by pooling only those studies which specifically evaluated underweight patients (BMI<18.5 kg/m2). Results: Thirteen studies comprising 25,828 patients were included in the analysis. In the linear model, the mortality of patients with COVID-19 increased by 1.5% for each 1-kg/m2 increase in BMI (pooled relative risk [RR] =1.015, 95% confidence interval [CI] =1.004−1.027). However, a significant non-linear relationship between BMI and mortality was observed (Wald test: Pnon-linearity<0.001). We demonstrated a J-shaped curve, indicating that both underweight and obese patients had a higher mortality than those with normal weight. Interestingly, overweight patients (BMI, 25−30 kg/m2) seemed to have the lowest mortality risk. Using a BMI of 15 kg/m2 as the reference, the RRs of mortality decreased with BMI, and this trend continued until BMI of approximately 28 kg/m2 (RR=0.743, 95% CI=0.576−0.959). The relationship between BMI and mortality was then reversed, and an upward trend was observed when BMI exceeded 30 kg/m2;the RRs (95% CI) at BMIs 30, 35, 40, and 45 kg/m2 were 0.745 (0.570−0.974), 0.841 (0.643−1.100), 1.082 (0.850−1.377), and 1.457 (1.129−1.879), respectively. Conclusion: This study is the first dose-response meta-analysis that showed both underweight and obese COVID-19 patients are at higher risk of increased mortality. A J-curve relationship was demonstrated between BMI and COVID-19 mortality.
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Objectives: The aim of this study is to estimate the recovery rate and death rate of the Covid-19 patients in Pakistan both at provincial level and at national level. Methods: In the current study simple linear regression model is used to estimate the case fatality rate (CFR) and recovery rate (RR). Also, the polynomial regression model has been employed to predict the infected patients of Covid-19 across Pakistan and for all its provinces. Results: The results indicate that the provinces: Punjab, Sindh, KPK and ICT have been projected to be sensitive regarding COVID-19. Conclusion: it is strongly suggested that prevention must be considered, and full attention must be provided by each citizen to follow the SOPs recommend by health department. If responsible attitude will not be expressed by individuals, then there is chance of increase of COVID patients again and put the country back in struggle.
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COVID-19 , Body Mass Index , Humans , Obesity/complications , Risk Factors , SARS-CoV-2 , ThinnessABSTRACT
The aim of this study is to assemble the data and reflect the epidemiological statistics required as well as apply mathematical prototypical approach of the new outbreak that cover all perspectives of the facts and figures as of August 08, 2020, and thereby suggest the direction of the forthcoming epidemic situation in India for all policy makers. The outburst of the new fatal strain of coronavirus from an animal-to-human fall over in China has infected at least 204 countries as well as territories throughout the world. As of April 03, 2020, almost 972,303 confirmed cases and 50,321 deaths have been reported across the world due to severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus-2 (SARS-CoV-2) that attained a huge elevation to 19.3 × 106 confirmed cases on August 08, 2020, of which India contributes a major part of 2.09 × 106 confirmed cases. It is the first neoliberal virus that easily encompasses its danger chiefly to easily susceptible including the malnutrition, the ill, and old people. As the world struggles with pandemic, India with its second largest population of more than 1.3 billion people in the world is likely to have many more cases than the numbers currently being reported. This has put numerous thousand individuals under observation in the country due to clinical symptoms, recent travel to China, Italy, Iran, and concordant entries in the relevant tailing surveys. The novelty of this approach is to rely on the exclusive source of official data, for social media and daily tracking of news reports in India that collected and curated the pertinent information. © 2021, Metrology Society of India.