Magnetic hydrogel particles improve nanopore sequencing of SARS-CoV-2 and other respiratory viruses.

Presented here is a magnetic hydrogel particle enabled workflow for capturing and concentrating SARS-CoV-2 from diagnostic remnant swab samples that significantly improves sequencing results using the Oxford Nanopore Technologies MinION sequencing platform. Our approach utilizes a novel affinity-based magnetic hydrogel particle, circumventing low input sample volumes and allowing for both rapid manual and automated high throughput workflows that are compatible with Nanopore sequencing. This approach enhances standard RNA extraction protocols, providing up to 40 × improvements in viral mapped reads, and improves sequencing coverage by 20-80% from lower titer diagnostic remnant samples. Furthermore, we demonstrate that this approach works for contrived influenza virus and respiratory syncytial virus samples, suggesting that it can be used to identify and improve sequencing results of multiple viruses in VTM samples. These methods can be performed manually or on a KingFisher automation platform.

The World Poetics of Lockdown in Pandemic Poetry

This essay uses contemporary theories on World Literature to discuss two anthologies of pandemic poetry: Singing in the Dark: A Global Anthology ofPoetry Under Lockdown, and AndWe Came Outside and Saw the Stars Again: Writers from Around the World on the Covid-19 Pandemic. These anthologies develop a new criticality on issues of migration, biopower, and inequality that have long "plagued" cultures of late capitalism. As they representvarious states of lockdown imposed around the world due to the spread of the coronavirus, the anthologies grapple with the paradoxical experience of the "singular -universal" that comes with living in a pandemic. By emphasizing the untranslatability of diverse bodies, races, cultures, and languages, these anthologies deconstruct the per-ceived synchrony of experiencing lockdown. This essay reveals how they attempt to deconstruct the Eurocentrism of "World Literature" by reconfiguring the category of the "global" and representing collective trauma.

Work Environment,Stress andburnout among Security Personnel during Covid 19 Pandemic

Background: Odisha was also affected by the spread of the novel coronavirus (SARS-Cov-2), responsible for the COVID-19 disease. For its mitigation the health system in a tertiary care institution was frantically deploying all personnel like from health , security, food handlers , dealing with transportation. Objective: Our aim was to assess exposure, perceptions, workload, and possible burnout of Security personnel during the COVID-19 pandemic and to suggest specific recommendations based on the study findings. Methodology: The type of study was a cross sectional study, placed at Cuttack district in Odisha. Time Period of this study was Aprilto June 2021. 465 were finally included in the study. On the days of the mental health status assessment security personnel's were appraised and accordingly a predesigned, pretested questionnaire was implemented to them. Results: 57.5% males and 67.2% females were at the risk of burn out while 38.4% and 32.4% were at the edge of severe burn out. There was a significant difference in the mean score between those aged less than 30 years at F (5.434, 2) and those between 30 to 50 years as well as those aged above 50 years with p- value 0.008 and 0.009 respectively. Conclusions: Specific strategies have to be recommended and adapted like changing work pattern taking breaks, avoiding overtime, balance work with life. The task should include different skills to cope with stress, time managementand social support from family, friends and peer. Besides this various relaxation strategies to promote fitness, developunderstanding of life, counseling, better sleep, exercise, and good balanced nutrition.

Measuring Demand and Supply Shocks From COVID-19: An Industry-Level Analysis for India

The present article attempts to decompose the COVID-19-induced shock to output and inflation of the Indian economy at the aggregate and disaggregate levels into demand and supply shocks for the period March 2020 to June 2020, using a structural Bayesian VAR model following Baumeister and Hamilton (2015, 2019). The results of the empirical analysis reveal that while the negative supply shocks dominate at the aggregate and disaggregate levels, their magnitude varies across industries. Demand shocks to output were positive in some industries like the manufacture of food products (10), textiles (13), chemicals and chemical products (20), and electrical equipment (27), but were outweighed by the negative supply shocks. In response to the COVID-19 shock the government announced the three pronged Atmanirbhar Bharat Abhiyan (ABA), which is a blend of demand management, supply management and structural policies. It not only promises to address the short-term distress caused to the industries due to the COVID-19 shock but also attempts to make them self-reliant and resilient to such shocks in future. JEL Classification: E10, C32, C40, E30 © 2022 National Council of Applied Economic Research.

A review on additive manufacturing of polymers composites

Additive Manufacturing, referred to as 3D printing has extended beyond simple prototyping and is being used for the fabrication of fully functional active components. It is one of the flexible manufacturing technique that can apply to polymers, metals, ceramics, concrete, and composites. Owing to the ability to select from a wide range of processible polymers and the enhancement in some of the properties offered by polymers, the AM industry, still predominantly targets the production of polymeric components. This review demonstrates the current state of AM industry regarding polymeric materials. A brief explanation of the additive manufacturing (AM) techniques, polymers, and polymer composites (fibre reinforces, particle reinforced and nanocomposites) utilised in the AM processes is provided. Polymer AM is being applied in different applications such as biomedical, electronics, aerospace, automobile, and sporting industries respectively. The review also emphasizes the rising importance of antimicrobial polymers in the COVID-19 pandemic. The exponential use of polymeric materials in the industrial sector has caused an increase in wastage generation and disposal issues which draws attention to the importance of green composites as well as life cycle assessment (LCA) of products and processes. Finally, the significance of Distributed Recycling via AM due to the disposal issues and low polymer recycling rates is illustrated. © 2020 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Hydrogel particles improve detection of SARS-CoV-2 RNA from multiple sample types.

Here we present a rapid and versatile method for capturing and concentrating SARS-CoV-2 from contrived transport medium and saliva samples using affinity-capture magnetic hydrogel particles. We demonstrate that the method concentrates virus from 1 mL samples prior to RNA extraction, substantially improving detection of virus using real-time RT-PCR across a range of viral titers (100-1,000,000 viral copies/mL) and enabling detection of virus using the 2019 nCoV CDC EUA Kit down to 100 viral copies/mL. This method is compatible with commercially available nucleic acid extraction kits (i.e., from Qiagen) and a simple heat and detergent method that extracts viral RNA directly off the particle, allowing a sample processing time of 10 min. We furthermore tested our method in transport medium diagnostic remnant samples that previously had been tested for SARS-CoV-2, showing that our method not only correctly identified all positive samples but also substantially improved detection of the virus in low viral load samples. The average improvement in cycle threshold value across all viral titers tested was 3.1. Finally, we illustrate that our method could potentially be used to enable pooled testing, as we observed considerable improvement in the detection of SARS-CoV-2 RNA from sample volumes of up to 10 mL.

The COVID-19 Crisis An Opportunity to Invest in Equitable Public Health Systems

India’s public health system has struggled to cope with the COVID-19 crisis. Even before the pandemic, India’s public health infrastructure was inadequate with only 0.55 beds per 1,000 population, while out-of-pocket expenditure was pushing almost 63 million people back into poverty, as a large number of healthcare positions lie vacant across the country. Faced with a growing disease burden, India’s public health system is in dire need of investment and the COVID-19 crisis is the perfect opportunity to back this policy decision with political will. © 2020 Economic and Political Weekly. All rights reserved.

Magnetic Nanotrap Particles Preserve the Stability of Venezuelan Equine Encephalitis Virus in Blood for Laboratory Detection

Most of the modern techniques used for identification of viral-induced disease are based on identification of viral antigens and/or nucleic acids in patient's blood. Diagnosis in the field or in remote locations can be challenging and alternatively samples are shipped to diagnostic labs for testing. Shipments must occur under controlled temperature conditions to prevent loss of sample integrity. We have tested the ability of magnetic Nanotrap (NT) particles to improve stability and detection of Venezuelan equine encephalitis virus (VEEV), viral capsid protein, and viral genomic RNA in whole human blood at elevated temperature and prolonged storage conditions. NT particles have previously been shown to capture and enrich multiple pathogens including respiratory syncytial virus, influenza virus, coronavirus, and Rift Valley fever virus. Our study indicates that samples incubated with NT particles had detectable levels of infectious VEEV in blood equal to or greater than samples without NT treatment across all temperatures. Viral RNA detection was increased in the presence of NT particles at later time points (72 h) and higher temperature (40degreeC) conditions. Likewise, detection of VEEV capsid protein was enhanced in the presence of NT particles up to 72 h at 40degreeC. Finally, we intranasally infected C3H mice with TC-83, the live attenuated vaccine strain of VEEV, and demonstrated that NT particles could substantially increase the detection of VEEV capsid in infected blood incubated up to 72 h at 40degreeC. Samples without NT particles had undetectable capsid protein levels. Taken together, our data demonstrate the ability of NT particles to preserve and enable detection of VEEV in human and mouse blood samples over time and at elevated temperatures. © Copyright © 2020 Akhrymuk, Lin, Sun, Patnaik, Lehman, Altamura, Minogue, Lepene, van Hoek and Kehn-Hall.