ABSTRACT
BACKGROUND: The COG-UK hospital-onset COVID-19 infection (HOCI) trial evaluated the impact of SARS-CoV-2 whole-genome sequencing (WGS) on acute infection, prevention, and control (IPC) investigation of nosocomial transmission within hospitals. AIM: To estimate the cost implications of using the information from the sequencing reporting tool (SRT), used to determine likelihood of nosocomial infection in IPC practice. METHODS: A micro-costing approach for SARS-CoV-2 WGS was conducted. Data on IPC management resource use and costs were collected from interviews with IPC teams from 14 participating sites and used to assign cost estimates for IPC activities as collected in the trial. Activities included IPC-specific actions following a suspicion of healthcare-associated infection (HAI) or outbreak, as well as changes to practice following the return of data via SRT. FINDINGS: The mean per-sample costs of SARS-CoV-2 sequencing were estimated at £77.10 for rapid and £66.94 for longer turnaround phases. Over the three-month interventional phases, the total management costs of IPC-defined HAIs and outbreak events across the sites were estimated at £225,070 and £416,447, respectively. The main cost drivers were bed-days lost due to ward closures because of outbreaks, followed by outbreak meetings and bed-days lost due to cohorting contacts. Actioning SRTs, the cost of HAIs increased by £5,178 due to unidentified cases and the cost of outbreaks decreased by £11,246 as SRTs excluded hospital outbreaks. CONCLUSION: Although SARS-CoV-2 WGS adds to the total IPC management cost, additional information provided could balance out the additional cost, depending on identified design improvements and effective deployment.
ABSTRACT
Sleep is an essential behavior to prevent the decrement of cognitive, motor, and emotional performance and various diseases. However, it is not easy to fall asleep when people want to sleep. There are various sleep-disturbing factors such as the COVID-19 situation, noise from outside, and light during the night. We aim to develop a personalized sleep induction system based on mental states using electroencephalogram and auditory stimulation. Our system analyzes users' mental states using an electroencephalogram and results of the Pittsburgh sleep quality index and Brunel mood scale. According to mental states, the system plays sleep induction sound among five auditory stimulation: white noise, repetitive beep sounds, rainy sound, binaural beat, and sham sound. Finally, the sleep-inducing system classified the sleep stage of participants with 94.7% and stop auditory stimulation if participants showed non-rapid eye movement sleep. Our system makes 18 participants fall asleep among 20 participants. © 2023 IEEE.
ABSTRACT
This study confirmed the degree of depression, optimism, academic stress, and COVID-19 life change of college students in the COVID-19 situation. An attempt was made to provide basic data for the development and application of programs to reduce the learning stress of college students. Data collection was conducted from January 1 to February 28, 2022, with the consent of the subjects, and the number of participants used for the final analysis was 170. The collected data were analyzed using descriptive statistics, t-test, ANOVA, Pearson's correlation, and multiple regression using the SPSS 26.0 statistical program. There was a significant difference according to department satisfaction and personality in the difference in depression according to general characteristics. The optimism of college students was significantly different depending on the department satisfaction and personality. There was a significant difference in the academic stress of college students according to their department satisfaction and personality. When examining the correlation between depression, optimism, and academic stress of the subjects, the depression of college students had a statistically significant negative correlation with optimism. The subject's academic stress had a statistically significant positive correlation with depression and a statistically significant negative correlation with optimism. The degree of life change of college students after COVID-19 was found to be an average of 2.33 points (out of four points). As factors affecting academic stress of college students, department satisfaction and depression showed statistically significant results. Explanatory power of academic stress caused by these factors was 37.3%. Under the COVID-19 situation, academic stress, depression, and optimism of college students had a significant effect on department satisfaction and personality. As academic stress increased, depression also increased, and as academic stress decreased, optimism increased. In other words, it was confirmed that academic stress is an important influencing factor on depression and optimism. Reduction of academic stress seems to be essential to lead a positive daily life such as optimism of college students, and it seems that it is necessary to develop various educational programs to reduce the learning stress of college students in the context of COVID-19. © 2022,Journal for ReAttach Therapy and Developmental Diversities. All Rights Reserved.
ABSTRACT
Background: Demand for alcohol-based products, including gel- and aqueous-type hand sanitizers, room sprays, and mouthwashes, has rapidly increased during the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic because of their microbicidal properties. However, toxic methanol can be found from the intentional addition of methanol by manufacturers and invariable production during the manufacturing of alcohol (ethanol). Although the FDA has recommended that such products should contain less than 630 ppm of methanol, it is only a temporary measure established specifically to regulate such products during the current COVID-19 pandemic and hence is not strictly regulated. Objective: This study aims to detect and quantify the level of methanol in alcohol-based products. However, some manufacturers unethically add methanol to their products and promote them as methanol-free. Besides, they do not provide proficiency and toxicity test results. Therefore, these kinds of products need to be analyzed to determine if they are acceptable to use. Methods: This study qualitatively and quantitatively investigates the amount of methanol in commercial alcohol-based products using a newly developed headspace gas chromatography/mass spectrometry method. Moreover, alcoholic beverages which contain methanol are analyzed to be compared with the levels of methanol in alcohol-based products and determine if their methanol levels are acceptable. Results: Methanol concentrations in gel-type hand sanitizers (517 ppm) and mouthwashes (202 ppm) were similar to those in white wine (429 ppm) and beer (256 ppm), respectively, while that of aqueous-type hand sanitizers (1139 ppm) was 1.5 times more than that of red wine (751 ppm). Conclusion: Methanol levels in most of the alcohol-based products did not exceed the FDA-recommended limit.