ABSTRACT
Considering the millions of COVID-19 patients worldwide, a global critical challenge of low-cost and efficient anti-COVID-19 drug production has emerged. Favipiravir is one of the potential anti-COVID-19 drugs, but its original synthetic route with 7 harsh steps gives a low product yield (0.8%) and has a high cost ($68 per g). Herein, we demonstrated a low-cost and efficient synthesis route for favipiravir designed using improved retrosynthesis software, which involves only 3 steps under safe and near-ambient air conditions. A yield of 32% and cost of $1.54 per g were achieved by this synthetic route. We also used the same strategy to optimize the synthesis of sabizabulin. We anticipate that these synthetic routes will contribute to the prevention and treatment of COVID-19.
ABSTRACT
Background:Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is a serious and even lethal respiratory illness. The mortality of critically ill patients with COVID-19, especially short term mortality, is considerable. It is crucial and urgent to develop risk models that can predict the mortality risks of patients with COVID-19 at an early stage, which is helpful to guide clinicians in making appropriate decisions and optimizing the allocation of hospital resoureces.Methods:In this retrospective observational study, we enrolled 949 adult patients with laboratory-confirmed COVID-19 admitted to Tongji Hospital in Wuhan between January 28 and February 12, 2020. Demographic, clinical and laboratory data were collected and analyzed. A multivariable Cox proportional hazard regression analysis was performed to calculate hazard ratios and 95% confidence interval for assessing the risk factors for 30-day mortality.Results:The 30-day mortality was 11.8% (112 of 949 patients). Forty-nine point nine percent (474) patients had one or more comorbidities, with hypertension being the most common (359 [37.8%] patients), followed by diabetes (169 [17.8%] patients) and coronary heart disease (89 [9.4%] patients). Age above 50 years, respiratory rate above 30 beats per minute, white blood cell count of more than10 × 109/L, neutrophil count of more than 7 × 109/L, lymphocyte count of less than 0.8 × 109/L, platelet count of less than 100 × 109/L, lactate dehydrogenase of more than 400 U/L and high-sensitivity C-reactive protein of more than 50 mg/L were independent risk factors associated with 30-day mortality in patients with COVID-19. A predictive CAPRL score was proposed integrating independent risk factors. The 30-day mortality were 0% (0 of 156), 1.8% (8 of 434), 12.9% (26 of 201), 43.0% (55 of 128), and 76.7% (23 of 30) for patients with 0, 1, 2, 3, ≥4 points, respectively.Conclusions:We designed an easy-to-use clinically predictive tool for assessing 30-day mortality risk of COVID-19. It can accurately stratify hospitalized patients with COVID-19 into relevant risk categories and could provide guidance to make further clinical decisions. © 2021 The Chinese Medical Association, Published by Wolters Kluwer Health, Inc.
ABSTRACT
Literature has shown that temporal focus (TF) is closely related to mental health, and both of them are associated with meaning in life (MIL). Nevertheless, few studies have investigated the functional role of MIL in the relationship between TF and mental health, especially in the context of COVID-19. The present study aims to explore the mediating role of MIL between different categories of TF (i.e., past, present, and future TF) and mental health. A two-wave longitudinal survey was conducted among 538 Chinese participants aged between 22 and 70 (M ± SD = 35.07 ± 8.82). TF was assessed at Time 1, while MIL, anxiety, and life satisfaction were measured at Time 2. The results of SEM showed that past TF negatively predicted MIL, while present and future TF positively predicted MIL. In addition, MIL mediated the relationship between TF and mental health indicators (anxiety and life satisfaction). Specifically, past TF demonstrated a negative indirect effect on life satisfaction by reducing MIL, while present and future TF had a positive indirect effect on life satisfaction by strengthening MIL. In contrast, past TF demonstrated a positive indirect effect on anxiety by reducing MIL, while present and future TF had a negative indirect effect on anxiety by strengthening MIL. Therefore, the present results supported the positive roles of present and future TF in promoting MIL and mental health during the COVID-19 pandemic. For the MIL intervention during the pandemic, the present findings suggested that compared to recalling the past, more attention should be paid to living in the present and hoping for the future. © The Author(s) 2022.
ABSTRACT
The core concept of socialism with Chinese characteristics for the new era is to promote the optimization and upgrading of the economic system and the construction of sustainable ecological civilization. In the wake of the COVID-19, it has become a major issue for countries around the world to pursue green recovery. Green is a necessary condition for sustainable development, finance is the leading force of social economy, and the development of green finance is the core call of today's era. Guangdong, as the main force of the national economic lifeline, took the lead in green finance innovation and promoted the transformation and adjustment of leading industries. At present, the banking industry has repeatedly disclosed the environment, society and governance (ESG) in its social responsibility reports in order to achieve the strategic goal of carbon peak and carbon neutral, but there is a lack of systematic review on the measures and implementation. Aiming at objective problems, this paper mainly discusses how green finance stimulates sustainability and explores the value potential of the future economy and society. Based on this, this paper selected 300 literatures from the Web of Science (WOS) database, mapped the coword cluster, and analyzed their annual trend, topic scope, literature sources, etc. With the help of big data analysis technology and visualization software function, scientometrics is used to demonstrate the possibility and feasibility of the research contents in relevant fields, and to produce cutting-edge academic achievements with insight. In order to achieve the ultimate goal of green development with capital and financial design for diversified and deep thinking, to provide reference value theory for co-construction environment, data-driven investment scale and sustainable development, to accelerate the green finance reform in Guangdong Province and even the country to make a forward-looking small contribution. © 2021 ACM.
ABSTRACT
Objective: To rapidly evaluate the level of healthcare resource demand for laboratory testing and prevention and control of corona virus disease 2019 (COVID-19) in different epidemic situation, and prepare for the capacity planning, stockpile distribution, and funding raising for infectious disease epidemic response. Methods: An susceptible, exposed, infectious, removed infectious disease dynamics model with confirmed asymptomatic infection cases and symptomatic hospitalized patients was introduced to simulate different COVID-19 epidemic situation and predict the numbers of hospitalized or isolated patients, and based on the current COVID-19 prevention and control measures in China, the demands of resources for laboratory testing and prevention and control of COVID-19 were evaluated. Results: When community or local transmission or outbreaks occur and total population nucleic acid testing is implemented, the need for human resources is 3.3-89.1 times higher than the reserved, and the current resources of medical personal protective equipment and instruments can meet the need. The surge in asymptomatic infections can also increase the human resource demand for laboratory testing and pose challenge to the prevention and control of the disease. When vaccine protection coverage reach ≥50%, appropriate adjustment of the prevention and control measures can reduce the need for laboratory and human resources. Conclusions: There is a great need in our country to reserve the human resources for laboratory testing and disease prevention and control for the response of the possible epidemic of COVID-19. Challenges to human resources resulted from total population nucleic acid testing and its necessity need to be considered. Conducting non-pharmaceutical interventions and encouraging more people to be vaccinated can mitigate the shock on healthcare resource demand in COVID-19 prevention and control.
Subject(s)
COVID-19 , Pandemics , Humans , Pandemics/prevention & control , Personal Protective Equipment , SARS-CoV-2ABSTRACT
Background The outbreak of COVID-19 pandemic in China has greatly impacted the radiotherapy (RT) strategy forbreast cancer (BC) patients, which might lead to an increased distressing psychological symptom. Thus, we performa multi-center cross-section survey aiming to investigate the prevalence of fears of cancer recurrence (FCR) andexplore predictors for FCR in BC patients referred for RT during pandemic. Methods: 542 BC patients who referredfor RT between 24 Jan and 30 April 2020 during pandemic were consecutively enrolled from 14 hospitals aroundChina including Yangtze Delta River Region, Guangdong and Shanxi province. Patients' sociodemographic,treatment information as well as psychological characteristics were collected using an information sheet, Fear ofprogression questionnaire-short form (FoP-Q-SF), Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale ( HADS) and EORTCQLQ-C30. The influence of pandemic on RT schedule was divided into four categories: “delay” was defined as >12weeks from surgery to RT in patients without chemotherapy or >8 weeks from last time of anti-tumor therapy(including chemotherapy and surgery) to RT in patients with chemotherapy;“Special normal” was defined thatpatients themselves believed to have delayed RT initiation but actually not;“Interruption” was defined as anyunplanned gaps in original RT regime and all other would be classified into “normal”. Another type of influence on th th Advertisement RT strategy was that patients had to shift planned RT hospital from Grade-A tertiary hospital to local hospitals.Univariable analyses of FCR were performed in a one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) or student t-test orPearson correlation analyses and candidate variables with P<0.2 were included Hierarchical multiple regressionmodels to investigate predictors for FCR. Guangdong province was chosen as reference in models. Results 488patients with complete data were eligible for the present analysis and none of patients and their family members hadbeen diagnosed as COVID-19. The RT strategy was affected in 265 (54.3%) patients, including 143 with delayed RTinitiation, 66 with “special normal” schedule, 24 (4.9%) with RT interruptions, 19 shifting to local hospitals for RT, andthe remaining 13 being influenced on both RT schedule and planned RT hospitals. Most of patients with affected RTstrategy occurred in late January and February, when was peak of COVID-19 pandemic in China. The mean FCRscores was 24.83 (SD=8.554) and 84 patients (17.3%) were classified as dysfunctional level of FCR (sum score≥34). In univariable analyses, FCR were significantly higher in patients who received RT in Guangdong provinceand in hospitals with < 100 BC cases per year. In term of during pandemic, a significant difference in FCR wasobserved in terms of influence on RT schedule (p<0.001). and changes of hospital levels(p=0.009). There weresignificant correlations between FCR and anxiety/depressive in HADS or all five function scales (physical, role,emotional, cognitive and social) and global QoL in QLQ-C30 (p<0.001). Finally, the model explained 59.7% ofobserved variances in FCR and showed that influence of RT strategy during pandemic had significantly impacted onFCR (ΔR2=0.01, ΔF=2.966, p=0.019). Hospitals in Shanxi province (β=-0.117, p=0.001), emotional function(β=-0.19, p<0.001), social function (β=-0.111, p=0.006), anxiety (β=0.434, p<0.001) and RT interruption (β=0.071,p=0.035) were independent predictors for FCR. Conclusions RT strategy for BC patients was greatly influencedduring pandemic. RT interruption is an independent predictor for high FCR. Our findings emphasize the necessity toensure the continuum of RT in BC patients, and efforts should be taken to alleviate the FCR through psychologicalinterventions.
ABSTRACT
Recently, as a highly infectious disease of novel coronavirus (COVID-19) has swept the globe, more and more patients need to be isolated in the rooms of the hospitals, so how to deliver the meals or drugs to these infectious patients is the urgent work. It is a reliable and effective method to transport medical supplies or meals to patients using robots, but how to teach the robot to the destination and to enter the door like a human is an exciting task. In this paper, a novel human-like control framework for the mobile medical service robot is considered, where a Kinect sensor is used to manage human activity recognition to generate a designed teaching trajectory. Meanwhile, the learning technique of dynamic movement primitives (DMP) with the Gaussian mixture model (GMM) is applied to transfer the skill from humans to robots. A neural-based model predictive tracking controller is implemented to follow the teaching trajectory. Finally, some demonstrations are carried out in a hospital room to illustrate the superiority and effectiveness of the developed framework. © 2020 Xin Zhang et al.