Study on Infection Probabilities of COVID-19 by SIR Network

Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2 Related Diseases (COVID-19) is now one of the most challenging and concerning epidemics, which has been affecting the world so much. After that, countries around the world have been actively developing vaccines to deal with the sudden disease. How to carry out more efficient epidemic prevention has also become a problem of our concern. Unlike traditional SIR disease transmission models, network percolation has unique advantages in disease immune modelling, which makes it closer to reality in the simulation. This article introduces the study of SIR percolation network on infection probabilities of COVID-19, and proposes a method to preventing the spread of disease. © 2022 IEEE.

Molecular Crowding Modulates SARS-CoV-2 Aptamer Affinity

SARS-CoV-2 aptamer is a favorable candidate for the recognition and detection of SARS-CoV-2, owing to its small size and easy synthesis. However, the issue of compromised binding affinities in real samples and targeting mutant SARS-CoV-2 hinder wide applications of the aptamer. In this study, it is discovered that molecular crowding could increase binding affinity of CoV2-6C3 aptamer against RBD (Receptor Binding Domain) of SARS-CoV-2 via increasing the absolute value of the enthalpy change. The values of the equilibrium dissociation constant in molecular crowding decrease by 70% and 150%, respectively, against wild-type and mutant RBD compared with those in buffer without crowding. Moreover, the detection limit of SARS-CoV-2 pseudovirus is up to 5 times lower under molecular crowding compared to dilute conditions. The discovery deepens the understanding of aptamer-target interaction mechanisms in crowding conditions and provides an effective way to apply SARS-CoV-2 aptamer for virus recognition and detection.

An observational study on the safety of COVID-19 vaccination in patients with myasthenia gravis.

OBJECTIVE: There is concern that the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) vaccine may trigger or worsen autoimmune diseases. The objective of this study was to determine the impacts of COVID-19 vaccination on symptom severity in patients with myasthenia gravis (MG). METHODS: A total of 106 enrolled patients with MG who were vaccinated against COVID-19 were followed up, and a questionnaire was used to document in detail the exacerbation of muscle weakness after vaccination and all other uncomfortable reactions after vaccination. Demographic, clinical characteristics, medication, and vaccination data were collected by follow-up interview. The main observation outcome was whether the MG symptoms of patients were exacerbated. The definition of exacerbation is according to the subjective feeling of the patient or a 2-point increase in daily life myasthenia gravis activity score relative to before vaccination, within 30 days after vaccination. RESULTS: Of 106 enrolled patients [median age (SD) 41.0 years, 38 (35.8%) men, 53 (50.0%) with generalized MG, 74 (69.8%) positive for acetylcholine receptor antibody, and 21 (19.8%) with accompanying thymoma], muscle weakness symptoms were stable in 102 (96.2%) patients before vaccine inoculation. Muscle weakness worsened in 10 (9.4%) people after vaccination, of which 8 patients reported slight symptom worsening that resolved quickly (within a few days). Two (1.9%) of patients showed serious symptom aggravation that required hospitalization. CONCLUSION: Our results suggest that inactivated virus vaccines against COVID-19 may be safe for patients with MG whose condition is stable. Patients with generalized MG may be more likely to develop increased muscle weakness after vaccination.

Preventing Domain Name Infringement: An Introduction to Approaches Adopted by the United Nations, the European Union, and Taiwan

The boom in e-commerce around the world since the COVID-19 outbreak has indirectly yet markedly affected business brands and the marketing strategies they use to promote products and services. To effectively respond to this e-commerce trend, companies must formulate plans to navigate the new digital business landscape and to ensure that their brands stand out from those of competitors. A domain name is a string of text that represents a company. Users type a domain name or URL into a browser's search bar to reach a particular website that they wish to view. All registered domain names are unique and cannot be used by anyone other than their owner. For these reasons, some scholars suggested that domain names must be protected through intellectual property laws. However, because the owner of a registered domain name is only entitled to use that particular domain name for a specific period and thus does not have full ownership of it, domain names are not protected by copyright. Because domain names can be used to promote businesses, improve companies' reputation, and create business opportunities similar to any other form of intellectual property, many cases of domain name infringement have been occurred. Such cases include copying of the domain name owned by somebody else to deceive customers into believing a camouflage website is the corresponding official website. Various preventive measures and policies have been adopted in many countries to resolve such disputes. Taiwan's legal system, however, has not yet taken action to avoid such disputes. Any cases regarding the infringement of domain names can only be handled through negotiation, investigation, and evidence collection. First of all, this paper will introduce the definition of a domain name and then describe the types of infringement may occur in various situations as well as the policies regarding domain name management and protection. This study can serve as a useful reference for Taiwan's legal practitioners and future researchers.

Prevalence of psychological symptoms and associated risk factors among nurses in 30 provinces during the COVID-19 pandemic in China

Background With the outbreak of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), nurses have won well-deserved recog-nition for their indispensable roles in providing humane and professional healthcare for patients. However, by the nature of their role working at the forefront of patient care, nurses are prone to experiencing mental health conse-quences. Therefore, we pay attention to measuring the magnitude of psychological symptoms and identifying associ-ated factors among nurses in China.Methods We launched a nationwide, cross-sectional survey of nurses who worked in secondary or tertiary hospitals and public or private hospitals from 30 provinces in China. The prevalence and severity of symptoms of burnout, depression, and anxiety were investigated, respectively. Multivariable logistic regression analyses were performed to identify factors associated with each psychological symptom.Findings A total of 138 279 respondents who worked in 243 hospitals completed this survey. A substantial propor-tion of nurses reported symptoms of burnout (34%), depression (55.5%), and anxiety (41.8%). In line with the dispro-portionality of economic development, we noted that the middle or western region was an independent risk factor for depression and anxiety. Compared with those working in the secondary hospital, nurses who worked in tertiary hospitals were associated with a higher likelihood of burnout and depression.Interpretation Nurses are experiencing emotional, physical, and mental exhaustion during the COVID-19 epidemic. Governments and health policymakers need to draw attention to reinforcing prevention and ameliorating counter-measures to safeguard nurses' health.Funding The strategic consulting project of the Chinese Academy of Engineering [2021-32-5]. Advanced Institute of Infomation Technology, Peking University, Zhejiang Province [2020-Z-17]Copyright (c) 2022 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/)

Collapsing Spaces, Colliding Places: Leveraging Constructs from Humanistic Geography to Explore Mathematics Classes

Humanistic geographers distinguish between space and place: "What begins as undifferentiated space becomes place as we get to know it better and endow it with value" [19, page 6]. In this essay, we seek to demonstrate how mathematics education researchers and mathematics instructors may find space and place il-luminating for understanding important aspects of students' learning experiences during the coronavirus pandemic - and possibly beyond. Specifically, after in-tro ducing the terms and relating them to the context of a university mathematics class, we exemplify how home and class places collided for three undergraduate mathematics students forced to deal with the abrupt transition to online educa-tion. We conclude by discussing implications of attending to space and place for designers and researchers of (pandemic) online instruction and make connections to how the pandemic and attending to space and place can serve as a catalyst for reshaping undergraduate mathematics education.

REDACS: Regional emergency-driven adaptive cluster sampling for effective COVID-19 management

As COVID-19 is spreading, national agencies need to monitor and track several metrics. Since we do not have perfect testing programs on the hand, one needs to develop an advanced sampling strategies for prevalence study, control and management. Here we introduce REDACS: Regional emergency-driven adaptive cluster sampling for effective COVID-19 management and control and justify its usage for COVID-19. We show its advantages over classical massive individual testing sampling plans. We also point out how regional and spatial heterogeneity underlines proper sampling. Fundamental importance of adaptive control parameters from emergency health stations and medical frontline is outlined. Since the Northern hemisphere entered Autumn and Winter season (this paper was originally submitted in November 2020), practical illustration from spatial heterogeneity of Chile (Southern hemisphere, which already experienced COVID-19 winter outbreak peak) is underlying the importance of proper regional heterogeneity of sampling plan. We explain the regional heterogeneity by microbiological backgrounds and link it to behavior of Lyapunov exponents. We also discuss screening by antigen tests from the perspective of "on the fly" biomarker validation, i.e., during the screening. [ FROM AUTHOR] Copyright of Stochastic Analysis & Applications is the property of Taylor & Francis Ltd and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full . (Copyright applies to all s.)

Imaging features of COVID-19: a series of 56 cases.

Objective: To evaluate the imaging features of CT scan in patients with COVID-19. Method(s): Clinical data of 56 patients with COVID-19 from January 17 to 19, 2020 admitted to Wenzhou Central Hospital and the Second Affiliated Hospital of Wenzhou Medical University were retrospectively reviewed. The clinical manifestations, lung imaging characteristics and treatment outcomes of patients with different severity were analyzed with SAS software. Result(s): Fever (92.8%, 52/56), dry cough (75.0%, 42/56) and asthenia (58.9%, 33/56) were the first symptoms in most of the patients;some patients also had shortness of breath (25.0%, 14/56) and pharyngeal pain (10.7%, 6/56). Chest high-resolution CT scan showed that in 42 moderate patients, ground glass-like high-density shadows in the lung were observed in 30 cases (71.4%);localized plaque consolidation shadows and bronchial inflation signs were observed in 10 cases (23.8%). In 12 severe patients, 11 had high-density patches involving multiple lung lobes (>=3). In 2 critically ill patients the patches and stripes involving the entire lung were observed;and cord-like high-density shadow, local consolidation and fibrosis were also shown. Conclusion(s): The multiple ground-glass changes outside the lungs are early imaging manifestations of COVID-19 patients. The increase in pulmonary lobe consolidation and fibrosis may indicate the disease progression, and the degree of lung consolidation and fibrosis is closely related to the disease severity.Copyright © 2020 by the Chinese Medical Association.

COVID-19 fake news on Twitter: A statistical and sentimental analysis

There have been increasing concerns about spreading COVID-19 fake news and misinformation from social media sites (SNSs) such as Facebook and Twitter, as they facilitate connection and communication on a large scale. Because of the massive amount of information transmitted through SNSs, manual verification of such information is impossible, prompting the development and implementation of automated methods for fake news identification, aka automatic fact-checking. Fake news creators employ a variety of aesthetic tactics to increase their success rates, one of which is to excite the readers' sentiment. Therefore, this research uses sentiment analysis to analyze whether sentimental and emotional words in SNSs content could explain the situations between the spreading of true and fake news. In this way, governments and platform providers could take action to help the general public identify fake news and misinformation and curb them at their source. This research also offers insights to the public on the importance and impacts of sentiment words in SNS content. © 2023, IGI Global. All rights reserved.

Hyperkalemia caused by Qingfei Paidu decoction() in a patient with novel coronavirus pneumonia.

A 23-year-old male patient received moxifloxacin, recombinant human interferon alpha-2b for injection, and lopinavir and ritonavir for 7 days for novel coronavirus pneumonia. There was no abnor-malityof serum potassium. Moxifloxacin was stopped, Qingfei Paidu decoction() was given, and then the patient's serum potassium began to rise. On day 10 after taking the decoction, laboratory tests showed serum potassium 5.7 mmol/L and the patient was diagnosed with hyperkalemia. Insulin injection 4 U diluted to 5% glucose injection 250 ml was given once by IV infusion, and then the serum potassium decreased to 5.0 mmol/L 6 hours later and 4.6 mmol/L 2 days later. After 5 days, the serum potassium rose again and finally to 5.4 mmol/L on day 17 after taking the decoction. Insulin was given once that day and 2 days later once daily according to the previous method. Then the serum potassium decreased and did not rise again. The patient recovered from novel coronavirus pneumonia and was discharged on day 28 after hospitalization.Copyright © 2020 by the Chinese Medical Association.

Cell surface GRP78 functions as an alternative virus entry receptor on monocytes during SARS-CoV- 2 infection

Background: It has been widely acknowledged that severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV- 2) infects host cells via the angiotensin-converting enzyme 2 (ACE2) and transmembrane serine protease 2 (TMPRSS2) entry mechanism. However, ACE2 and TMPRSS2 cannot explain the Toll-like receptor driven response of monocytes since there is no ACE2 expressed on monocytes, suggesting alternative receptor(s) on these cells. Here, we report cell surface glucose-regulated protein 78 (csGRP78) which is abundantly expressed on monocytes to function as an alternative receptor for SARS-CoV- 2 internalization. Method(s): Blood from COVID-19 patients and healthy donors were collected for csGRP78 and monocyte activation marker as well as cytokine concentration. In vitro SPR, GST pull-down and Co-IP assay were used to determine interaction between SARS-CoV- 2 spike protein and GRP78. Cytokine mixture of IL-1beta, IL-6, TNF and IFN-gamma were used to stimulated csGRP78 upregulation on human monocytic cell line THP-1. GRP78-overexpressing- THP- 1 was also established. pseudo-typed virus expressing spike protein was used to infect mock or GRP78 over-expressing THP-1 cells. Result(s): Our results show that csGRP78 is upregulated on the monocyte of COVID-19 patients. Moreover, in vitro cell culture experiments revealed that stimulation of wtTHP-1 and GRP78 over-expressing THP-1 with the relevant cytokines IL-1beta, IL-6, TNF and IFN-gamma induces similar csGRP78 and activation marker upregulation on cell surface as found on patients' monocytes. In vitro spike protein and GRP78 interaction tests, confirmed direct binding of spike protein and GRP78. Finally, pseudo-typed virus infection assay showed that virus entered GRP78 over-expressing THP-1 cells but not control THP-1 cells. Conclusion(s): Our results demonstrate that csGRP78 acts as a potential functional receptor for SARS-CoV- 2 spike protein and mediates ACE2 independent SARS-CoV- 2 entry into monocytes. These findings provide insight into role of monocytes in the pathophysiology of COVID-19, and suggest a new therapeutic target candidate for anti-SARS- CoV- 2 treatment.

CampusX: An IoT-Powered Real-Time Monitoring System for University Campuses

There is an ever-urgent need for accessing real-time crowdedness and airflow information for indoor study spaces in universities, for example, to control COVID-19 transmission risk. Even before the pandemic, many students spent valuable time finding suitable study areas with proper lighting, low noise, and ample seating. This paper presents a pilot system, CampusX, which aims to provide students with useful real-time information about study spaces on campus. Our system collects and analyzes environmental data before presenting them to students as useful information. This helps them to select the most suitable study spaces. The main components of this system include a sensor platform, data collection and processing pipelines, networking, and an interactive web-application. © 2023 IEEE.

Impact of Environmental Factors on Short-Term Eye Strain Relief during COVID-19 Quarantine: A Pilot Study

Some policies implemented during the pandemic extended the time that students spend on electronic devices, increasing the risk of physical and eye strain. However, the role of different environments on eye strain recovery has not been determined. We recruited 20 undergraduate students (10 males and 10 females) from a university in eastern China and explored the restoration effects of their eye strain in different types of spaces (wayside greenspace, a playground, a square, and woodland) on campus through scale measurements. The results showed that the eye strain of the students accumulated by 15 min of e-learning was significantly relieved after 10 min of greenspace exposure compared to the indoor environment, and the recovery effect varied depending on the type of landscape. The effect of eye strain relief was found to be positively correlated with temperature, wind speed, visible sky ratio, canopy density, tree density, and solar radiation intensity, while it was negatively correlated with relative humidity. These findings enrich the research on the restoration benefits of greenspaces and provide a basis for predicting the effect of different environments on the relief of eye strain. © 2022 by the authors.

Where do people meet? Time-series clustering for social interaction levels in daily-life spaces during the COVID-19 pandemic

The persistence of spatial segregation with respect to income and race is well documented. However, assessment of spatial segregation in daily activities is challenging due to the limited availability of human movement data. With the ubiquitous availability of mobile phones and location-based service applications, human movement data has become widely available. It is now possible to explore spatial interactions and assess the extent of social segregation in daily activity spaces. Using Los Angeles County as our case study, we perform a temporal analysis by conducting K-means time-series clustering using mobile phone data to examine social interaction levels among various sociodemographic groups during the COVID-19 pandemic. Selected sociodemographic variables are assessed among the identified time-series clusters. We find a strong association between sociodemographic characteristics and social interaction levels, potentially leading to disparate exposures to the risk from COVID-19. Socially disadvantaged populations tend to be more segregated from other groups in daily activities, and the COVID-19 pandemic increases the disparity. Low-income and ethnic minority populations became more isolated from Whites and the more economically affluent during the COVID-19 pandemic. Policies that aim to encourage social interactions and mitigate segregation effectively should further consider people's sociodemographic variables and relevant neighborhood characteristics. © 2023 Elsevier Ltd

Expert consensus on diagnosis and treatment of adult mental stress-induced hypertension in China (2022 Revision): Part B

Mental stress has been recognized as an essential risk factor for hypertension. Therefore, experts specializing in cardiology, psychiatry, and Traditional Chinese Medicine organized by the Psycho-cardiology Group, College of Cardiovascular Physicians of Chinese Medical Doctor Association, and Hypertension Group of the Chinese Society of Cardiology proposed the expert consensus on the diagnosis and treatment of adult mental stress-induced hypertension in March 2021, which includes the epidemiology, etiology, diagnosis, and treatment of the mental stress-induced hypertension. This consensus will hopefully facilitate the clinical practice of this disorder. In addition, the COVID-19 pandemic has become one of the primary global sources of psychosocial stressors since the beginning of 2020, and the revision of this expert consensus in 2022 has increased the relevant content. This consensus consists of two parts. The sections of Part A include (I) Background and epidemiological characteristics, (II) Pathogenesis, and (III) Diagnosis. The sections of Part B contain (IV) Treatment recommendations, and (V) Prospects. This article presents Part B of the consensus. © 2022 Heart and Mind ;Published by Wolters Kluwer - Medknow.

Expert consensus on diagnosis and treatment of adult mental stress induced hypertension in China (2022 revision): Part A

Mental stress has been recognized as an essential risk factor for hypertension. Therefore, experts specializing in cardiology, psychiatry, and Traditional Chinese Medicine organized by the Psycho-Cardiology Group of College of Cardiovascular Physicians of Chinese Medical Doctor Association and Hypertension Group of Chinese Society of Cardiology proposed the expert consensus on the diagnosis and treatment of adult mental stress-induced hypertension in March 2021, which includes the epidemiology, etiology, diagnosis, and treatment of the mental stress-induced hypertension. This consensus will hopefully facilitate the clinical practice of this disorder. In addition, the COVID-19 pandemic has become one of the primary global sources of psychosocial stressors since the beginning of 2020, and the revision of this expert consensus in 2022 has increased the relevant content. This consensus consists of Part A and Part B. Part A includes (I) Background and epidemiological characteristics, (II) Pathogenesis, and (III) Diagnosis and Part B includes (IV) Treatment recommendations and (V) Prospects. This part presents the content of Part A. © 2022 Heart and Mind ;Published by Wolters Kluwer - Medknow.

SD-GAN: A Style Distribution Transfer Generative Adversarial Network for Covid-19 Detection through X-ray Images

The Covid-19 pandemic is a prevalent health concern around the world in recent times. Therefore, it is essential to screen the infected patients at the primary stage to prevent secondary infections from person to person. The reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) test is commonly performed for Covid-19 diagnosis, while it requires significant effort from health professionals. Automated Covid-19 diagnosis using chest X-ray images is one of the promising directions to screen infected patients quickly and effectively. Automatic diagnostic approaches are used with the assumption that data originating from different sources have the same feature distributions. However, the X-ray images generated in different laboratories using different devices experience style variations e.g., intensity and contrast which contradict the above assumption. The prediction performance of deep models trained on such heterogeneous images of different distributions with different noises is affected. To address this issue, we have designed an automatic end-to-end adaptive normalization-based model called style distribution transfer generative adversarial network (SD-GAN). The designed model is equipped with the generative adversarial network (GAN) and task-specific classifier to transform the style distribution of images between different datasets belonging to different race people and carried out Covid-19 detection effectively. Evaluated results on four different X-ray datasets show the superiority of the proposed model to state-of-the-art methods in terms of the visual quality of style transferred images and the accuracy of Covid-19 infected patient detection. SD-GAN is publicly available at: https://github.com/tasleem-hello/SD-GAN/tree/SD-GAN. Author

Cell surface GRP78 functions as an alternative virus entry receptor on monocytes during SARS-CoV-2 infection

It has been widely acknowledged that severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) infects host cells via the angiotensin-converting enzyme 2 (ACE2) and transmembrane serine protease 2 (TMPRSS2) entry mechanism. However, ACE2 and TMPRSS2 cannot explain the Toll-like receptor driven response of monocytes since there is no ACE2 expressed on monocytes, suggesting alternative receptor(s) on these cells. Here, we report cell surface glucose-regulated protein 78 (csGRP78) which is abundantly expressed on monocytes to function as an alternative receptor for SARS-CoV-2 internalization. Our results show that csGRP78 is upregulated on the monocyte of COVID-19 patients. Moreover, in vitro cell culture experiments revealed that GRP78 over-expressing THP-1 cells and stimulation of wtTHP-1 cells with the relevant cytokines IL-1beta, IL-6, TNF and IFN-gamma induces similar csGRP78 and activation marker upregulation on cell surface as found on patients' monocytes. In vitro spike protein and GRP78 interaction tests (SPR assay, GST-pull down and Co-IP), confirmed direct binding of spike protein and GRP78. Finally, pseudo-typed virus expressing spike protein was used to infect mock or GRP78 over-expressing THP-1 cells. We found that pseudo-typed virus entered GRP78 over-expressing THP-1 cells but not control THP-1 cells. Our results demonstrate that csGRP78 acts as a potential functional receptor for SARS-CoV-2 spike protein and mediates ACE2 independent SARS-CoV-2 entry into monocytes. These findings provide insight into role of monocytes in the pathophysiology of COVID-19, and suggest a new therapeutic target candidate for anti-SARS-CoV2 treatment.

Multicenter post-marketing clinical evaluation on the clinical performance of the five domestic fast nucleic acid detection reagents for 2019-nCoV.

Objective This multicenter clinical evaluation analyzed the clinical performance of five fast nucleic acid detection systems for 2019-nCoV. Methods Clinical performance of the five fast nucleic acid detection reagents approved in China was evaluated in the present study. Fifty-seven throat swabs samples from COVID-19 patients and fifteen throat swabs samples from healthy people were collected from the First Affiliated Hospital of Zhejiang University school of Medicine, Tongji Hospital of Tongji Medical College of HUST, and National Institute of Viral Disease Control and Prevention of CDC to evaluate the positive coincidence rate, negative coincidence rate, total coincidence rate, the detection time and retest rate as well as the relation between positive intensity and positive coincidence rate of the five fast nucleic acid detection systems in November 2020. Results The positive coincidence rates of the five kits were 92.59% (50/54), 83.64% (46/55), 98.25% (56/57), 94.44% (51/54) and 98.18% (54/55);and the negative coincidence rates were 93.33% (14/15), 93.33% (14/15), 86.67% (13/15), 100% (14/14) and 93.33% (14/15);and the total coincidence rates were 92.75% (64/69), 85.71% (60/70), 95.83% (69/72), 94.20% (65/69) and 97.14% (68/70), respectively. The positive coincidence rate of the five kits reached 100% for the strong-positive (90/90) and medium-positive samples (84/84), but only 82.18% (83/101) for weak-positive samples (cycle threshold value>33), and the retest rate of two kits were 15.28% (11/72) and 12.50% (9/72), which were both higher than 10%. Total time from sample extraction to amplification was between 32.33-65.33 minutes for these five kits. Conclusion The five fast nucleic acid detection reagents have good performance and can be used as a supplement to routine nucleic acid detection reagents.Copyright © 2022 Chinese Journal of Laboratory Medicine. All rights reserved.