Impacts of COVID-19 on reproductive health and prenatal genetics

COVID-19 has a dramatic impact on human health, besides respiratory system, reproduction system would be impaired by SARS-CoV-2. For male, the virus has various negative impacts on testes, including overheating and hormone level fluctuation, which have impacts on the spermatogenesis or spermatogonia development. For female, COVID-19 may increase the risk of endocrine and metabolic dysfunction. However, the impact of SARS-CoV-2 on the ovaries is not clear, and further researches are needed to clarify it. Nearly 60% of the pregnant women develop symptoms of infection and more attention should be paid to the increased risk of adverse pregnancy outcomes including preeclampsia, eclampsia, and severe infection. For the newborns of infected pregnant women, vertical transmission of SARS-CoV-2 is still unclear, and further evaluation are required. Meantime, the pregnant women's fear of the potential infection may reduce their access to the prenatal genetic test. In this chapter, we summarize the latest basic and clinical researches on COVID-19 impacts on male, female reproduction, and prenatal genetic test, hoping to provide guidance and advice for people of reproductive age and reproductive healthcare practitioners. © 2023 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Perceived Stress, Social Support, and Blood Pressure in Urban Haiti

Introduction: Stress is associated with multiple adverse health outcomes, including hypertension. The impact of stress on health may be moderated by social support. The distribution of stress, support, and their association with hypertension have not been well described in low-income countries that face severe poverty. Over the past decade, Haiti has suffered massive natural disasters including the 2010 earthquake, cholera outbreak, COVID-19 pandemic, and recurrent civil instability-all of which may act as prolonged stressors.Hypothesis: We assessed the hypotheses that 1) there are high levels of both stress and support in Haiti, and 2) high support would moderate the relationship between high stress and hypertension. Method(s): We measured stress and social support using validated instruments in a population-representative cohort of adults living in urban Port-au-Prince, Haiti between March 2019 and April 2021. Stress was measured using the Perceived Stress Scale, while social support was measured using the Multidimensional Scale of Perceived Social Support. For visualization, continuous scores were categorized using equal-width groups (stress: low (1-5), moderate (6-10), high (11-16);support: low (7-21), low-moderate (22-35), moderate (36-49), moderate-high (50-64), high (65-77)). Linear regression models were used to quantify the associations between: 1) stress and support adjusting for age and sex, 2) blood pressure and stress adjusting for age and sex. A formal moderation analysis was conducted to assess if support moderated the relationship between stress and blood pressure. Result(s): Among 2,817 adults, 59.7% female and the median age was 40 years (IQR 28-55). The majority had an income of less than 1 US dollar a day (69.7%). The median stress score was 8 out of 16 points, and median support score was 61 out of 77 points. Stress was higher with older ages (60+ years versus 18-29 years: +0.79 points, 95% CI 0.51 to 1.08) and in females (+0.85 points, 95% CI +0.65 to +1.06). Support was higher in males (+3.29 points, 95% CI 2.19 to 4.39). Support was inversely associated with stress, adjusting for age and sex (-0.04 points, 95% CI -0.04 to -0.03). Stress was not associated with systolic or diastolic blood pressure after adjustment for age and sex. Support did not moderate the association between stress and blood pressure. Conclusion(s): In this urban cohort of Haitian adults living with chronic civil instability, stress was moderate and support was high. While support was associated with lower stress, it did not moderate the relationship between stress and blood pressure. Despite the high levels of instability in Haiti, participants displayed resiliency through high levels of support, which may be an underutilized resource in reducing stress and long-term negative health outcomes.

A fast face recognition system based on annealing algorithm to optimize operator parameters

In order to improve the recognition rate and operational efficiency of the system, a method in which the image features compensation coefficients are optimized by using an improved simulated annealing algorithm is proposed. Firstly, eight computational factors with low computational complexity are given, which can be used to compensate image features. Secondly, the design flow of face recognition algorithm is presented. Thirdly, an improved simulated annealing algorithm is designed to solve the optimal combination of feature compensation coefficients in the face recognition system. Fourthly, the results of the feature compensation coefficients recommended by the improved simulated annealing algorithm are applied to the Efficient Face Recognition Algorithm (EFRA) in this paper, and verified on the simulation platform. Experiments show that the recognition rate can reach 100% when the training images are 6 in ORL. The proposed algorithm also performs well in MU_PIE dataset. © 2023 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.

Identifying fire safety in hospitals: Evidence from Changsha, China

Since the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, fires occurred frequently in hospitals managing COVID-19, and caused over 279 deaths. Fire safety in hospitals should be identified clearly and taken seriously. Fire probability and fire service coverage for hospitals from a national perspective in China were analyzed in this study. Calculated with the generalized Barrois model, the annual fire frequency of hospital building exceeds 0.5, when its floor area reaches approximately 180,000 m2. Based on the number of hospital fires in Changsha and that of hospitals in China from 2014 to 2017, the average annual fire probability of a hospital in China was calculated to be 0.017. The total effective coverage rate (TECR) of fire service for hospitals in Changsha, China was esti-mated to be between 11.82 % and 25.74 %, based on real-time travel times extracted from the Baidu Map. The TECR of national fire service for hospitals was estimated to be between 14.18 % and 30.89 %, according to the ratio of the number of hospitals and the number of fire stations in China to that in Changsha. Currently, recruiting medical staff as fire volunteers can quickly improve fire safety in hospitals for a low cost.(c) 2022 THE AUTHORS. Published by Elsevier BV on behalf of Faculty of Engineering, Alexandria University. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/ licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).

Phase 3 Trial (in progress) of the SYK Inhibitor Fostamatinib in Patients Hospitalized with COVID-19: Protocol and Study Implementation Updates

Background. Immune dysregulation associated with COVID-19 includes immune cell activation, inflammatory cytokine release, and neutrophil extracellular trap release (NETosis), which are mediated by spleen tyrosine kinase (SYK) (Fig 1). Fostamatinib, an oral spleen tyrosine kinase (SYK) inhibitor, was approved for immune thrombocytopenia (ITP) in 2018, and the Phase 3 trials showed a lower than expected rate of thrombosis.1 Clinical studies showed a reduction in IL-6 in patients with rheumatoid arthritis.2 The active metabolite of fostamatinib (R406) protected against LPS-induced acute lung injury and thrombosis in mice3,4 and reduced MUC1 in a mouse model of ALI.5 Fostamatinib demonstrated abrogation of the hyperimmune response caused by anti-spike IgG,6 including reduction in hyperactivation of platelets7 and NETosis in neutrophils8 in in vitro studies using plasma from patients with severe COVID-19. A phase 2 study (NCT04579393) evaluated fostamatinib vs. placebo (all received standard of care [SOC]) in 59 hospitalized patients with COVID-19 and demonstrated reduction in mortality, ordinal scale scores, and number of days in the intensive care unit (ICU) as well as meeting the primary endpoint of safety.9 A phase 3 clinical study (NCT04629703) of fostamatinib for the treatment of COVID-19 is underway. (Figure Presented) Methods. A Phase 3, randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled, adaptive design, multi-center study (NCT04629703) is underway to evaluate fostamatinib in 308 adult patients hospitalized with COVID-19 and on oxygen without intubation (Fig 2). Patients will receive fostamatinib 150 mg BID or placebo for 14 days;both arms receive SOC. At baseline, the clinical status score (8-point ordinal scale) had to be 5 or 6. Patients >= 65 years had to have >= 1 risk factor for severe disease and adults < 65 had to have >= 3. The primary outcome is days on oxygen (Day 1 to 29). Other endpoints include change in clinical status score, days in the ICU, time to hospital discharge, all-cause mortality, oxygen-free status and safety. Fostamatinib is investigational for COVID-19. Results. Blinded data from this trial in progress are as of 2 December 2021. See Fig 3. Conclusion. Final results of this Phase 3 trial are anticipated in 2022.

Examining the job burnout of Chinese hospitality management students in internships via the transactional model

The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic has increased the psychological burden on employees in hotels, which is not conducive to the development of the hospitality industry. Based on a survey of 379 hotel interns from higher vocational colleges in China, this study empirically analyzed the status quo of job burnout in future hotel employees and its influencing factors. The results showed that interns’ job burnout and reduced personal accomplishment were at a medium level. Secondly, according to the transaction model, this study classified the antecedents of job burnout into two categories: personal factors and contextual factors. The results showed that personal factors such as attitude and self-efficacy, and contextual factors such as perceived co-worker support and job satisfaction all had a negative effect on job burnout. However, the influence of ability and perceived supervisor support on job burnout was not significant. This study also investigated the influencing factors of each sub-dimension of job burnout. Self-efficacy, attitude and job satisfaction all had a negative influence on the three sub-dimensions. Ability and perceived co-worker support only had a negative impact on reduced personal accomplishment. There was no statistical correlation between perceived supervisor support and the three sub-dimensions. The results of this study will lay a theoretical foundation so that higher vocational colleges can better organize and implement internships, and hotels can recruit energetic future employees.

Striving for educational equity in South Africa: L2 Chinese instruction under COVID-19

When the COVID-19 pandemic hit in 2020, most governments around the world temporarily closed educational institutions and transitioned all teaching and learning activities to remote online teaching mode. In countries such as South Africa, where equity is a major problem, this further widened educational disparities between students from low socio-economic backgrounds and students living with physical and mental challenges on the one hand, and students who were well-off financially or had adequate support on the other. How to mitigate gaps of education equity caused by restrictions and constraints in relation to internet access, financial capacity, family and career duties, home spaces, and personal mental welfare, became a key issue in the higher education institutions in South Africa. In this paper, we share the pedagogical strategies and practices undertaken in the L2 Chinese language programme at the University of Cape Town in South Africa during the COVID-19 lockdown. We demonstrate how multiple and flexible teaching plans including personalized support helped vulnerable students, enabling them to remain engaged in L2 Chinese education. © 2022 selection and editorial matter, Yanyin Zhang and Xiaoping Gao;individual chapters, the contributors.

E-Learning: Inquiry into "O2O Course Characteristic Teaching" in Environmental Design Major under Background of Epidemic

As the pandemic of COVID-19 spreads around the world, the offline teaching of environmental design has been greatly affected. We put forward the application practice of "O2O course teaching"in colleges and universities to explore the characteristic teaching of environmental design in the epidemic situation. Different from traditional teaching, O2O course teaching makes the big data of the course controllable in real-time through the way of course data. The integrated course training of online teaching and offline guarantee enhances the cohesion of teaching and the activity of teachers and students. We have proved that this method has high application value through several teaching practice courses. © 2022 IEEE.

Effect of sampling positions in nucleic acid test on the test result: a report from 47 confirmed COVID-19 cases in Jinan City

Objective: To investigate the effect of sampling positions in nucleic acid test for COVID-19 on test results.

Intelligent Temperature Measurement and Access Control System

Aiming at the problem of long queuing temperature and low efficiency during the period of COVID-19, an intelligent temperature measurement and access control system is designed. It is widely used in enterprises, institutions, scenic spots, commercial areas and other places with large traffic volume. The main control system adopts stm32f407zgt6 embedded chip, hc-sr501 human body infrared sensor is sensitive to human body proximity, and starts the temperature measurement system. Using hc-sr04 ultrasonic sensor to measure people's height and adjust the height of mlx9064esf temperature probe, the system has the characteristics of efficient real-time temperature monitoring, and improves the detection efficiency in places with large flow of people. The experimental results show that the system has good practical application effect. © 2022 IEEE

Questionnaires assessing the anxiety alleviation benefits of indoor plants for self-isolated population during COVID-19

Indoor plants have great benefits to humans, including physical health, cognition and emotion through their repair and purification capabilities, but most of these positiv e effects have not been quantified and valued. In this study, the Corona Virus Disease 2019 (COVID-19), when people must be self-isolated at home and avoid outdoor activities in China, was utilized adequately and the influence of indoor plants was analyzed via the 2031 valid questionnaires, in which indoor plant status, interest degree, interaction frequency and anxiety alleviation were surveyed. Results showed that indoor plants were widely cultivated especially in the living room. Compared to before the COVID-19, the interest degree with indoor plants increased by similar to 33% and their overall interaction frequency increased by similar to 78% during the COVID-19. More than 70% of the surveyed people exhibited anxiety during the COVID-19, and the overall anxiety level was 1.17 (between 'Slight anxiety' and 'Anxiety'). And similar to 61% of the surveyed people supported that indoor plants could alleviate self-isolation anxiety, and the anxiety alleviation degree was 0.79 (tend to 'Releasing the certain anxiety'), which showed that indoor plants had also shown to have an indirect psychological effect on anxiety alleviation.

Cryptic Site of Vulnerability on the Receptor Binding Domain of the SARS-CoV 2 Spike Glycoprotein

SARS-CoV-2 is a zoonotic virus that has caused a pandemic of severe respiratory disease-COVID-19-within several months of its initial identification. Comparable to the first SARS-CoV, this novel coronaviruss surface Spike (S) glycoprotein mediates cell entry via the human ACE-2 receptor, and, thus, is the principal target for the development of vaccines and immunotherapeutics. Molecular information on the SARS-CoV-2 S glycoprotein remains limited. Here we report the crystal structure of the SARS-CoV-2 S receptor-binding-domain (RBD) at a the highest resolution to date, of 1.95 . We identified a set of SARS-reactive monoclonal antibodies with cross-reactivity to SARS-CoV-2 RBD and other betacoronavirus S glycoproteins. One of these antibodies, CR3022, was previously shown to synergize with antibodies that target the ACE-2 binding site on the SARS-CoV RBD and reduce viral escape capacity. We determined the structure of CR3022, in complex with the SARS-CoV-2 RBD, and defined a broadly reactive epitope that is highly conserved across betacoronaviruses. This epitope is inaccessible in the closed prefusion S structure, but is accessible in open conformations. This first-ever resolution of a human antibody in complex with SARS-CoV-2 and the broad reactivity of this set of antibodies to a conserved betacoronavirus epitope will allow antigenic assessment of vaccine candidates, and provide a framework for accelerated vaccine, immunotherapeutic and diagnostic strategies against SARS-CoV-2 and related betacoronaviruses.

DeepTrack: An ML-based Approach to Health Disparity Identification and Determinant Tracking for Improving Pandemic Health Care

The Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has severely impacted countries around the world with unprecedented mortality and economic devastation and has disproportionately and negatively impacted different communities - especially racial and ethnic minorities who are at a particular disadvantage. Black Americans have a long-standing history of disadvantage (e.g., long-standing disparities in health outcomes) and are in a vulnerable position to experience the impact of this pandemic. Some studies indicate high-risk and vulnerability of the elderly and patients with underlying co-morbidities, however, little research paid attention to leveraging geographic information and machine learning (ML) to track the social and structural health determinants, which can provide a lower level of granularity. In this paper, we propose DeepTrack, a geospatial and ML-based approach to identify diverse determinants (including the structural, social, and constructural determinants) of health disparities in COVID-19 pandemic, which provides a lower level of granularity. We provide a thorough analysis of health disparities and diets based on multiple COVID-19 datasets and examine the structural, social, and constructural health determinants to assist in ascertaining why disparities (in racial and ethnic minorities who are particularly disadvantaged) occur in infection and death rates due to COVID-19 pandemic. We track determinants of nutrition and obesity through diet examination. Extensive experimental results show the effectiveness of our approach. The research provides new strategies for health disparity identification and determinant tracking with a goal to improve pandemic health care. © 2021 IEEE.

The Impact of National Stereotypes towards Country-of-Origin Images on Purchase Intention: Empirical Evidence from Countries of the Belt and Road initiative

The purpose of this paper is to explore how the country-of-origin image mediates the effect of national stereotypes along two dimensions of perceived competence and warmth, on consumers' consumption behaviors, especially in today's environment, the capricious COVID-19 and the deepening and expanding "The Belt and Road" initiative. Research design, data, and methodology: After collecting 1500 primary data from twelve countries along the 21st - Century Maritime Silk Road, this paper conducts ANOVA and SEM in SPSS25.0 and AMOS 24.0 separately to analyze measurements, structural models, and hypotheses via using 1277 final samples. The mediation results illustrate the asymmetric dominance of the two dimensions of national stereotypes, indicating that the country-of-origin image shows the complementary mediation in the effect of perceived competence on purchase intention;whereas, the country-of-origin image holds the indirect-only mediation in the impact of perceived warmth on purchase intention. The results of the moderation show that the effect of country-of-origin image on purchase intention is more significant for consumers who perceive COVID-19 in China to be of lesser severity than those who believe it to be of higher severity. Eased on the paper's results, some implications for practice and theory are highlighted.

Therapeutic effects and safety of oral Chinese patent medicine for COVID-19: A rapid systematic review and meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials

Introduction: Chinese patent medicine (CPM) is an indispensable part of traditional Chinese medicine. Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) manifests is an acute respiratory infectious disease. This systematic review aimed to evaluate the therapeutic effects and safety of oral CPM for COVID-19. Methods: We included randomized controlled trials (RCTs) that tested oral CPM for the treatment of COVID-19 identified from publications in CNKI, Wanfang, VIP, Web of Science, SinoMed, PubMed, Embase, BioRxiv, MedRxiv and arXiv before November 2nd, 2020. The risk of bias for each trial was assessed using the Cochrane Risk of Bias Tool 2.0. RevMan 5.4 software was used for data analyses. The certainty of the evidence was assessed using the online GRADEpro tool. Results: Seven RCTs including 1079 participants were identified. The overall bias was assessed as “some concerns” for all included trials. Oral CPM investigated were: Lianhua Qingwen capsule/granules (连花清瘟胶囊/颗粒, LHQW), Jinhua Qinggan granules (金花清感颗粒, JHQG), Huoxiang Zhengqidripping pills (藿香正气滴丸, HXZQ), Toujie Quwen granules (透解祛瘟颗粒, TJQW) and Lianhua Qingke granules (连花清咳颗粒, LHQK). Compared with conventional western therapy alone for people with COVID-19: regarding the main outcomes, the results showed that oral CPM combined with conventional western therapy improved cure rate (RR = 1.20, 95% CI 1.04 to 1.38, involving LHQW and TJQW), reduced aggravation rate (RR = 0.50, 95% CI 0.29 to 0.85, involving LHQW, JHQG, LHQK and TJQW);with regard to additional outcomes, the results showed that add-on oral CPM shortened the duration of fever, cough and fatigue, improved the recovery rate of cough and fatigue, and increased the improvement and recovery rate of chest CT manifestations. There were some differences in therapeutic effects among various CPMs for the same COVID-19 outcome. The use of TJQW and LHQG appeared not to increase the risk of adverse events, but JHQG may cause mild diarrhea. Conclusions: Low-certainty or very low-certainty evidence demonstrated that oral CPM may have add-on potential therapeutic effects for patients with non-serious COVID-19. There are some differences in therapeutic effects between different oral CPMs for the same outcome of COVID-19. The use of TJQW and LHQG probably does not increase the risk of adverse events, but JHQG may cause mild diarrhea in patients. The conclusion of this review needs to be further confirmed by well-designed clinical trials with adequate sample sizes. Keywords: Coronavirus Disease 2019;COVID-19;Chinese patent medicine;Chinese herbal medicine;Systematic review;Meta-analysis

Is my cough COVID-19?

This article tackles the use of artificial intelligence (AI) in predicting COVID-19 and its role in the COVID-19 response. It describes the use of AI as a model for prediction COVID-19 based on different evidences, the crucial issue that the outputs of deep neural networks are fully dependent on the inputs, and how AI can be used to provide an accurate diagnosis of COVID-19.

Learning from the Web: Webly Supervised Meta-Learning for Masked Face Recognition

Mask wearing has been considered as an effective measure to prevent the spread of COVID-19 during the current pandemic. However, most advanced face recognition approaches are not adequate for masked face recognition, particularly in dealing with the issue of training through the datasets covering only a limited number of images with ground-truth labels. In this work, we propose to learn from the large scale of web images and corresponding tags without any manual annotations along with limited fully annotated datasets. In particular, inspired by the recent success of webly supervised learning in deep neural networks, we capitalize on readily-available web images with noisy annotations to learn a robust representation for masked faces. Besides, except for the conventional spatial representation learning, we propose to leverage the power of frequency domain to capture the local representative information of unoccluded facial parts. This approach learns robust feature embeddings derived from our feature fusion architecture to make joint and full use of information from both spatial and frequency domains. Experimental results on seven benchmarks show that the proposed approach significantly improves the performance compared with other state-of-theart methods.