COVID-19 treatment: A potential cause of acute pancreatitis.

Remdesivir can precipitate fatal acute necrotizing pancreatitis especially in patients who previously suffer from hypertriglyceridemia.

Dynamic User-Centric Clustered Workplaces for COVID-19 Control Measures Based on Geofencing and Deep Learning

Control measures have been applied in recent years due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Different technologies including artificial intelligence (AI) and geofencing are required to be exploited for developing efficient techniques to deal with this crisis. Workplaces are the most dangerous areas that can lead to the infection of the pandemic. This is due to the increased density of people and transactions in limited places. In this paper, an efficient approach is proposed to monitor and impose COVID-19 control measures in workplaces. The workplace environment is clustered based on a dynamic user-centric clustering scheme, where each person in the workplace is assigned to a set of associated geofences that form its cluster. For each geofence, different wireless and network metrics are used for generating its digital signature. An efficient technique based on deep learning is proposed to generate the geofence digital signature and detect whether the person is inside his associated cluster or not. Experimental results show the effectiveness of the proposed technique for different locations in a real workplace. Specifically, an accuracy of 92.86% is achieved in a workplace environment by the proposed approach. © 2022 ACM.

Biological control of Golovinomyces cichoracearum, the causal pathogen of sunflower powdery mildew

Background: Powdery mildew was found in most of the sunflower fields in Egypt, causing severe yellowing of the blade, petiole, stem and calyx, as well as a considerable defoliation during the summer season of 2018. Out of the fungal mycelium from infected leaves, collected from sunflower fields in the four Egyptian Governorates (Kafr El-Sheikh, Gharbia, Giza and El-Beheira), five isolates of powdery mildew pathogen were obtained and identified using morphological and molecular identification methods. Results: In 2019 and 2020 seasons, five biocontrol agents (Bacillus subtilis, B. pumilus, Trichoderma harzianum, T. viride and T. koningii) were used to control powdery mildew disease on sunflower plants under field conditions compared with the fungicide (Vectra 10% SC). Treatments were significantly effective for controlling the powdery mildew disease relative to the control. The best treatment for reducing disease parameters (final disease severity (FDS%), area under disease progress curve (AUDPC) and efficacy) than the control was T. koningii. Foliar application of all the tested treatments improved plant height, head and stem diameters and seed yield in relation to untreated plants (control). The components (FDS%, AUDPC and efficacy) were extracted and described approximately 95.251% of the pooled data of seasons 2019 and 2020. In such pooled data, the principal components (PC1, PC2 and PC3) of all disease parameters, plant development parameters and yield components were recorded 76.305, 86.635 and 96.265% of the total variance, respectively. Conclusion: A biological control agent, such as T. koningii, can be suggested for disease control based on the experimental findings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR] Copyright of Egyptian Journal of Biological Pest Control is the property of Springer Nature 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 abstract 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 abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Thyroid disease and covid-19 infection: Case series.

Early and frequent evaluation of thyroid profile in COVID-19 infected patients is crucial as it will influence thyroid disease sequelae and management in those patients; moreover, it will facilitate setting an appropriate management plan.

The Pleiotropic Function of Human Sirtuins as Modulators of Metabolic Pathways and Viral Infections.

Sirtuins (SIRTs) are nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide-dependent histone deacetylases that incorporate complex functions in the mechanisms of cell physiology. Mammals have seven distinct members of the SIRT family (SIRT1-7), which play an important role in a well-maintained network of metabolic pathways that control and adapt the cell to the environment, energy availability and cellular stress. Until recently, very few studies investigated the role of SIRTs in modulating viral infection and progeny. Recent studies have demonstrated that SIRT1 and SIRT2 are promising antiviral targets because of their specific connection to numerous metabolic and regulatory processes affected during infection. In the present review, we summarize some of the recent progress in SIRTs biochemistry and their emerging function as antiviral targets. We also discuss the potential of natural polyphenol-based SIRT modulators to control their functional roles in several diseases including viral infections.

STEMI and COVID-19 Pandemic in Saudi Arabia.

The COVID-19 pandemic had significant impact on health care worldwide which has led to a reduction in all elective admissions and management of patients through virtual care. The purpose of this study is to assess changes in STEMI volumes, door to reperfusion, and the time from the onset of symptoms until reperfusion therapy, and in-hospital events between the pre-COVID-19 (PC) and after COVID-19 (AC) period. All acute ST-segment elevation myocardial infarction (STEMI) cases were retrospectively identified from 16 centers in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia during the COVID-19 period from January 01 to April 30, 2020. These cases were compared to a pre-COVID period from January 01 to April 30, 2018 and 2019. One thousand seven hundred and eighty-five patients with a mean age 56.3 (SD ± 12.4) years, 88.3% were male. During COVID-19 Pandemic the total STEMI volumes was reduced (28%, n = 500), STEMI volumes for those treated with reperfusion therapy was reduced too (27.6%, n= 450). Door to balloon time < 90 minutes was achieved in (73.1%, no = 307) during 2020. Timing from the onset of symptoms to the balloon of more than 12 hours was higher during 2020 comparing to pre-COVID 19 years (17.2% vs <3%, respectively). There were no differences between the AC and PC period with respect to in-hospital events and the length of hospital stay. There was a reduction in the STEMI volumes during 2020. Our data reflected the standard of care for STEMI patients continued during the COVID-19 pandemic while demonstrating patients delayed presenting to the hospital.