Pediatric allogeneic stem cell transplantation from adult SARS-COV-2 positive donor

Background: Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-COV-2) is the cause of COVID-19. Almost 50% of infected people with the virus are asymptomatic. After the introduction of the COVID-19 vaccine, there is a significant reduction in symptomatic infection among vaccinated individuals. The possibility of viral transmission through blood products is unconfirmed yet. Case report: We report a successful hematopoietic stem cell transplant (HSCT) in a patient with sickle cell anemia from an asymptomatic COVID-19-positive donor who underwent stem cell collection under general anesthesia. No complications were encountered during and after the procedure. The marrow was infused safely with good immune reconstitution in the recipient. Conclusion(s): The report suggests that an asymptomatic COVID-19 positive person might be an acceptable HSCT donor possibly due to existing milder variants of COVID-19.Copyright © 2023 Pediatric Hematology Oncology Chapter of Indian Academy of Pediatrics

QR Codes Cryptography: A Lightweight Paradigm

A QR Code is a two-dimensional barcode scanned by a digital device or smartphone that holds data as a sequence of pixels in a square-shaped pattern. QR codes are widely employed in commercial tracking systems, encoding URLs, contact information, map coordinates, and physical and digital documents. Nowadays, several smartphones have built-in QR readers;they are often employed in marketing and advertising campaigns. More recently, QR codes have recreated a critical role in tracing COVID-19 pandemic exposure and slowing the spread of the virus. Web attackers can encode malicious URLs of custom malware or phishing site into a QR code, which could violate or disclose personal or financial information on a smartphone's data when scanned. This study investigates several symmetrical lightweight cryptography (LWC) algorithms to enhance QR code protection. Modern well-defined LWC features (performance and security) are compared and evaluated. The results adopt reliable and safe mechanisms for QR codes' security issues. © 2023, The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG.

QR Codes Cryptography: A Lightweight Paradigm

A QR Code is a two-dimensional barcode scanned by a digital device or smartphone that holds data as a sequence of pixels in a square-shaped pattern. QR codes are widely employed in commercial tracking systems, encoding URLs, contact information, map coordinates, and physical and digital documents. Nowadays, several smartphones have built-in QR readers;they are often employed in marketing and advertising campaigns. More recently, QR codes have recreated a critical role in tracing COVID-19 pandemic exposure and slowing the spread of the virus. Web attackers can encode malicious URLs of custom malware or phishing site into a QR code, which could violate or disclose personal or financial information on a smartphone’s data when scanned. This study investigates several symmetrical lightweight cryptography (LWC) algorithms to enhance QR code protection. Modern well-defined LWC features (performance and security) are compared and evaluated. The results adopt reliable and safe mechanisms for QR codes’ security issues. © 2023, The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG.

The Content of Breast Milk and the Challenges Experienced by Breastfeeding Mothers during the COVID-19 pandemic: A Systematic Review

Introduction: Every postpartum mother is recommended to breastfeed her baby because breast milk is the main need of newborns. The COVID-19 pandemic has had an impact on life in various aspects, including on the breastfeeding mothers, especially if they suffer from COVID-19 infection. Aim: The study aims to provide comprehensive evidence regarding potential virus transmission and antibody transfer through breastmilk and the experiences of mothers related to breastfeeding during the COVID-19 pandemic. Methods: A systematic review was conducted following the PRISMA guidelines. The search strategy involved the use of keywords related to COVID-19 and breastfeeding in PubMed and Science Direct databases. Articles were selected according to inclusion and exclusion criteria. Results: Breastfeeding has been recommended to be continued during the pandemic due to the benefits associated with it and the absence of sufficient evidence for transmission of COVID-19 infection through breast milk. During the lockdown period, there was a change in breastfeeding patterns, although most mothers believed that breastfeeding should be continued. Anxiety and lack of support affected breastfeeding practices. Breastfeeding mothers reported a dilemmatic situation. They felt protected because of the lockdown policy but also struggled to get support from their social environment. The impact varied in terms of stopping breastfeeding practice altogether, breastfeeding irregularly, and even giving formula milk. Conclusion: Adherence to health protocols can reduce the risk of transmission of COVID-19 infection through breastfeeding from mother to baby. Support from the family and the environment is needed to ensure the continuity of breastfeeding practice. © 2022 Kurniawati et al.

Secure and Usable QR Codes for Healthcare Systems: The Case of Covid-19 Pandemic

Recently, especially during the COVID-19 pandemic, there is a growing interest in employing secure technology in health care systems, enhancing workflow, reducing costs, and developing the flexibility of providing healthcare services to users. QR codes are accessible, free, easy to use, and can be scanned through several free apps on smartphones. QR codes can help healthcare systems as an effective alternative to using paper-based documents for a patient identity system. Sensitive information can be stored in the QR codes of patients and medical staff as offline data or stored in a particular URL. Besides, QR codes can hold prescriptions and electronic permits used during the lockdown period. As there is no standard structure or authentication phase in QR code generation, such codes are vulnerable to fake content. This study's main objective is to protect healthcare information embedded inside QR codes by employing cryptographic mechanisms. Several experiments were conducted to determine how different features and users deal with barcode scanning. We introduce an authentication and integrity phase during QR code generation. We integrated digital signature, encryption, and access control techniques into a secure, real-time barcode generator and scanner implementation to protect QR code content against unauthorized users. The results demonstrate that the proposed system enables generating secure and usable QR codes for healthcare information protection among several scenarios. © 2021 IEEE.

Effect of Psychological Stress during the COVID-19 on Patients with Irritable Bowel Syndrome in Saudi Arabia

This study aims to assess the impact of psychological stress during the COVID-19 pandemic on patients with irritable bowel syndrome in the Saudi Arabia. We used an online questionnaire survey shared on social media to collect data. The cross-sectional study was conducted in Saudi Arabia from 1 June 2020 to 31 August 2020. Inclusion criteria were Saudi citizens aged 18 years and above. The exclusion criteria were Saudi citizens under 18 years. The data were analyzed using the SPSS program. The study included 413 participants;53.3% of participants were affected by IBS. Severe levels of stress, anxiety, and depression were reported in 10.4%, 11.1%, and 8.4% of participants, respectively. There was a significant association between stress level and IBS symptoms based on Rome IV criteria, including frequent abdominal pain (P <0.000) more than 3 bowel movements per day (P <0.025), and less than 3 bowel movements per week (P <0.001). Anxiety level showed a significant association (P <0.000) between the last IBS symptoms, in addition to abnormal stool appearance. A significant association was also reported between depression level and frequent abdominal pain and abdominal bloating (P <0.000). The relationship between IBS medications and other factors that influence IBS symptom development was also considered. The COVID-19 pandemic has affected the psychological state of many individuals, which has led to the triggering of symptoms in IBS patients. Attending to healthy habits and lifestyle, in addition to emotional and psychological support, may decrease the occurrence of IBS symptoms.

Implementation of care near home model (CNH) for cancer patients in response to COVID-19 pandemic

Background: Cancer care is heavily centered in health care facilities due to the requirements of providing complex multidisciplinary care with multiple testing and interventions. We describe our experience in implementing a new model of care to minimize cancer patients visit to health care facilities and to reduce the risk of infections and to decrease the pressure on the health care system. Methods: In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, we reengineered the cancer care process to reduce patients visit to the hospital by the implementation of a Care Near Home (CNH) Model, which comprises offour components: Virtual clinic, laboratory testing near home, shipping medications and supplies, and involving local health care facilities. The effectiveness and acceptance of this new model has been assessed by the delivery of timely care successfully and assessing the satisfaction patients and healthcare providers. Results: On March 18, 2020, we launched the virtual clinics followed by different components of the model. The number of virtual clinic visits has increased significantly from 399 visits in March to 1107 in April 2020. More the 90% of physicians and patients who responded to the survey expressed their acceptance and satisfaction with the virtual clinic services. Medications were shipped to total of 603 patients. Of those, 578 (96%) patients received their medications (378 patients outside city, 200 patients inside city of which, 95% received medications within 24 hours). Only 25 (4%) patients did not receive their medications and we arrange for alternative solutions. Laboratories in various regions were set up to perform the tests for our patients and to communicate the results through our electronic healthcare records system. The process of ordering and performing the test were piloted with success and now we are at the scaling up phase. Conclusions: Although the implementation of CNH Model was driven by COVID-19 pandemic, it will be integrated in our work process and utilized as a long term approach to manage many of our patients because it is more convenient to them and more cost effective to the health care system.

A computational approach to identify apossible SARS-CoV-2 vaccine from receptor bindingdomain peptide sequence on spike glycoproteins

The novel severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus-2 (SARS-CoV-2) is a pathogenic virus responsible for thecoronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) outbreak. The virus has rapidly spread worldwide and caused serious globalhealth and economic issues. The World Health Organization has declared COVID-19 a pandemic and suggestedthat all countries should take extreme countermeasures to stop it from spreading. SARS-CoV-2 targets theangiotensin-converting enzyme 2 (ACE2) receptor on human lung cells through receptor binding domain on thespike proteins (S-RBD) via N487, Y489, and G496 residues as previously reported. The virus uses ACE2 toinoculate mRNA and to replicate inside the cells, which results in a severe respiratory syndrome. Patients mightexperience serious symptoms including fever, cough, inability to taste, shortness of breath, and sometimesrespiratory failure. Therefore, developing a vaccine is highly necessary to control the outbreak, which led to our goalin this study to identify antigenic peptide sequences on the S-RBD domain that may induce the immune response toprovide protection from the virus. We virtually analyzed S-RBD protein structure by multiple sequence alignment(MSA) via CLUSTAL OMEGA to study the homology of the S-RBD domain in both strains (SARS-CoV and SARS-CoV-2), and the results showed 76% identical shared amino acids. Moreover, the S-RBD sequence for SARS-CoV-2was blasted against the sequence “486-FNCYFPLQSYGFQ-498” on Drugbank database with a penalty of -1 foreach indel, -3 for the mismatch, and with an expected value of 8 to screen for potential molecules that might interact with the target sequence. The blast results showed a possible alignment with complement component 4A (C4-A) protein, a protein involved in autoimmunity and antibody signaling, on the residues F490, C488, P491, Y495, G496, F497, and Q498. Lastly, a molecular docking analysis was performed by ClusPro 2.0 docking system to analyze thebinding affinity of C4-A protein to the S-RBD-protein, and the results of the docking analysis showed 30 differentbindings with different weighted energy coefficient scores. The top 10 binding conformations were chosen based onthe coefficient score values between -856.2 to -985.4. The highest binding affinity of C4-A protein was observed onthe target sequence, which might be a therapeutic approach for a possible COVID-19 vaccine. Further experimentsare required to synthesize recombinant peptides for S-RBD protein and test it on animal models to check if it willinduce C4-A production in response to recombinant S-RBD peptide and antibodies signaling to counter SARS-CoV-2 virus and, hopefully, competing with ACE2 binding to S-protein.

Engineering Education Gaming: Case Study of Engineering Ethics Game Modeling

People have become addicted to their electronic devices spending more time playing video games. This addiction could be due to the attractive and rapid development in technology of devices. Additionally, home quarantine precaution imposed by the COVID 19 pandemic increased one's connection to electronic devices. These reasons and much more affected the educational methodology landscape. On the other hand, old teaching techniques especially in the engineering education nowadays are not fulfilling the market needs [1], [2]. Engineers are required to be up to date as market requirements changes [3]. More practical teaching methods are expected to prepare fresh graduate engineers to the market [1]. These practical skills should be developed in safe environments with an economic, and more engaging ways to engineering students. With the help of Virtual Reality (VR) technologies, this goal could be achieved [4]. This research aims to develop a VR game that meets these needs. This work focuses on understanding the system requirements of the VR game for engineering education using engineering ethics as a case study. Requirements investigation, understanding, and documentation are done using Unified Modeling Language (UML) tools. As a result, the system's requirements are identified with seven logical models and an initial physical model. Consequently, three entities are identified for this VR game: learners, instructor and advisor. Entities relationships also have been demarcated. Future work includes the models' validation, game prototyping, and implementation using learners and educators' feedbacks on the proposed VR game. © 2020 IEEE.