ABSTRACT
Even more than the Great Recession, the COVID-19 pandemic has severely tested the assumptions on which many real estate models are based. This chapter vividly illustrates this through quotes from financial news publications. These news articles address the potentially irreversible changes in financial and social systems that impact real estate investing, providing the motivation for the central topics addressed in this book: portfolio optimization, backtesting, risk management, option pricing to enable hedging strategies, and the incorporation of ESG considerations into real estate investing. Critically, these topics are presented under a unified rational finance framework, solely in the context of the real estate investment market, using model portfolios of REIT-based assets. © 2022, The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG.
ABSTRACT
Due to our mistake in entering the affiliation and name of Mojgan Sarmadi in our article (Article ID: 110201, DOI: 10.5812/pedinfect.110201), we would like to apologize for any inconvenience made to our author and her affiliated organization, which is "National Institute of Dental and Craniofacial Research, Oral Immunity and Infection Unit, Oral and Pharyngeal Cancer Branch, National Institute of Health, Bethesda, MD 20892, US". We declare the correct affiliation of Mojgan Sarmadi is a private practice. © 2022, Author(s).
ABSTRACT
Context: In the era of the SARS-CoV-2 virus pandemic, new scoring systems need to be developed to estimate the risk of COVID-19 complications aiding in the accurate prognosis. Improved scoring systems by combining multiple variables allow clinicians to optimize the allocation of limited medical resources for the best clinical outcomes. Methods: Published articles were selected that assessed the relationship between clinical, para-clinical, demographics, comorbidities, and outcomes of COVID-19 patients in a systematic review to develop a novel scoring system. Results: In this study, by summarizing the results of 97 studies and the experiences of experts, prognostic factors were determined and divided into four groups: Age, clinical symptoms, co-morbidities, and tests. Twenty-three published articles met the selection criteria and were included in this study. Accordingly, by the opinion of experts, prognostic factors were categorized into four main groups: Age, clinical symptoms, co-morbidities, and specific test results. Conclusions: This novel scoring model helps physicians to early identify critical COVID-19 patients and optimize patient management based on recent comprehensive data of the most significant predictive factors.
ABSTRACT
Context: This scoping review tries to synthesize early findings on the immunopathogenicity of SARS-CoV-2 to assess the emerging therapies and vaccines by evaluating their impact based on the mechanism of pathogenicity. Methods: The three databases of PubMed, Scopus, and Google Scholar were searched from January 1, 2020, to March 15, 2020. To extract the results from the studies, the content, thematic analysis method was used. In this method, the topics studied were coded in the articles, and then major topics related to the articles were determined. After identifying major issues, the contents of the articles were reviewed. Results: A total of 2,250 articles were retrieved after deleting duplications, and after reviewing the thematic relevance, 45 of them were selected for the final analysis. Topics studied in the articles were classified into four main areas, including “virus entry inhibi-tion and immune response”, “vaccine and treatment targets”, “genome structure similarity to other coronaviruses,” and “pathogen-sis”. Conclusions: Results of this review showed that we have a long way to develop an effective and safe vaccine due to the structural and behavioral complexities of this virus. In the meantime, the scientific community should use results of megatrials, but until their accomplishing them, we have to use results of systematic reviews of randomized controlled trials.
ABSTRACT
The laboratory diagnosis of SARS-CoV-2 should be done to confirm coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) in suspected patients. Although several diagnostic methods have been developed in this regard, their accuracy for clinical application is not very clear yet. To compare the diagnostic value of laboratory tests for the detection of COVID-19 infection, this study provides an upcoming review of the newly developed detection methods. Sensitivity, specificity, detection limit, and turn-around-time of these methods are compared and challenges for their application in clinical settings are reviewed. PubMed and Google Scholar web sites were used for the systematic search until April 9, 2020 to identify the published studies based on the following keywords: "Detection", "Coro-navirus 2019", "SARS-CoV-2", and "Sensitivity". Out of 526 results, a total of 54 articles, including 46 studies on detection methods, were considered eligible for the review. The results showed that most of the proposed tests focused on molecular methods, while immunological and point-of-care tests were investigated in 13 studies. There were also a few commercial automated methods for the qualitative detection of SARS-CoV-2 in clinical samples, most of which are not examined in the current review, as no data about their sensitivity and specificity were presented. Although the assessment of publication biases showed that 64% sensitivity and nearly 100% specificity for RT-PCR are close to reality, most of the related reports for serological methods are not valid and further studies are needed to confirm their utility in clinical settings. Moreover, the RT-PCR test alone cannot act as a gold standard because of bias in measurements. Therefore, antibody tests and other proposed methods could be used as supplementary diagnostic tests to improve RT-PCR accuracy. Although clinical findings are invaluable, in many cases, they can provide more valuable supportive data than serological tests. Copyright © 2020, Author(s).