An updated review of feline coronavirus: mind the two biotypes.

Feline coronavirus (FCoV) includes two biotypes: feline infectious peritonitis virus (FIPV) and feline enteric coronavirus (FECV). Although both biotypes can infect cats, their pathogenicities differ. The FIPV biotype is more virulent than the FECV biotype and can cause peritonitis or even death in cats, while most FECV biotypes do not cause lesions. Even pathogenic strains of the FECV biotype can cause only mild enteritis because of their very low virulence. This article reviews recent progress in FCoV research with regard to FCoV etiological characteristics; epidemiology; clinical symptoms and pathological changes; pathogenesis; and current diagnosis, prevention and treatment methods. It is hoped that this review will provide a reference for further research on FCoV and other coronaviruses.

How tablets/applications enhance social connections and social support in people with dementia: A qualitative systematic review.

The 2020 Lancet issue identified social isolation as one of 12 modifiable risk factors for dementia and revealed that enhanced social connections and social support can effectively reduce the incidence of social isolation. During the COVID-19 pandemic, technology attracted an increasing amount of attention, and it is necessary to synthesize ideas from existing evidence. First, we explored how people with dementia experienced changes in social connection and social support due to tablet/app use. Second, we explored the attitudes of people with dementia towards tablets and mobile applications. Third, we explored the feasibility of using tablets and mobile applications to enhance social connection and social support among people with dementia. We systematically searched the PubMed, Web of Science, Cochrane Library, Embase, CINAHL, CNKI, WanFang, and VIP databases. Two reviewers independently screened the titles and abstracts of studies, extracted the data and performed critical appraisals of each included study. The data synthesis was conducted using thematic analysis. A total of nine studies were included. Eight studies used mobile applications via tablets, and one study collected textual data from Twitter for analysis. Four themes were synthesized: (1) change from the perspective of caregivers; (2) growth of nonsingle aspects; (3) emotional feeling of belonging; and (4) feasibility of using digital technology. Tablet- and mobile application-based interventions can enhance both online and offline social connections and provide multiple types of social support among people with dementia. People with dementia have positive attitudes towards tablets and mobile applications. Overall, it is feasible for people with dementia to use technology.

Mapping the Knowledge Domain of Affected Local Community Participation Research in Megaproject-Induced Displacement

Megaproject-induced displacement of populations will now occur more frequently due to massive infrastructure investment in the post-COVID-19 era. The participatory process for megaprojects starts with those in the vicinity;local communities who are directly involved. However, few studies have attempted to map the global knowledge of local community participation in the planning stage of megaprojects. A systematic literature review of public participation in the context of megaproject-induced displacement was conducted to determine these features, and to provide local community insights which are useful for managing social issues around megaprojects and the effects of participation. A total of 32 journal publications were analyzed from the Web of Science (WoS) database, drawing from an initial group of 456 based on citations from 2012 to 2022 to identify the evolution of knowledge trends. It was found that the nonfulfillment participatory process always fails to recognize groups of residents and assess the impacts of megaproject-induced displacement caused to local communities. This lack of recognition at the governmental level contributes to conflict;placing the local community at risk of uncertain megaproject environments. Broader public participation involves local communities, who be harmed by the development strategies of megaprojects, catalyzing their willingness to participate and encourage greater inclusiveness in their interactions, as well as balancing the megaproject's economic, ecologic, and social interests. The study results demonstrate a consensus was reached, and the effects of megaproject-induced displacement can be mediated.

Seeking bridge symptoms of anxiety, depression, and sleep disturbance among the elderly during the lockdown of the COVID-19 pandemic-A network approach.

Background: Besides physical changes, elderly adults are prone to have mental disorders such as anxiety, depression, and sleep disturbance, and the pandemic of COVID-19 worsened the situation. However, internal relationships and co-occurrence of psychopathologies were scarcely examined. Therefore, in the current study, through network analysis, we inspected relationships among symptoms of depression, anxiety, and sleep disturbance and identified key symptoms that espoused the disease. Methods: We asked 1,302 elderly adults to fill in Patient Health Questionnaire-2 (depressive symptoms), the Generalized Anxiety Disorder-2 (anxiety symptoms), and the Youth Self-rating Insomnia Scale (sleep disturbance) and then constructed three networks for elderly adults, male elderly, and female elderly. Via network analysis, we accomplished four goals. First, we identified symptom with the highest centrality (i.e., strength) index for each network; then, we found the strongest correlation (i.e., edges) in each network; thirdly, we confirmed specific nodes that could bridge anxiety, depression, and sleep disturbance; the last was to compare networks based on genders. Network stability and accuracy tests were performed. Results: Networks of elderly adults, male elderly, and female elderly were stable, accurate, and intelligible. Among all networks, "Nervousness"- "Excessive worry" (GAD-1- GAD-2) had the strongest correlation, and "Nervousness" (GAD-1) had the highest strength and bridge strength value. When we made a comparison between female elderly's and male elderly's networks, except for the significant difference in the mean value of "Difficulty initiating sleep" (YSIS-3), the findings showed that the two networks were similar. Network stability and accuracy proved to be reliable. Conclusions: In networks of anxiety, depression, and sleep disturbance, anxiety played a conspicuous role in comorbidity, which could be a target for practical intervention and prevention.

Centrality and bridge symptoms of anxiety, depression, and sleep disturbance among college students during the COVID-19 pandemic-a network analysis.

Symptoms of depression and anxiety usually co-occur and are inextricably linked to sleep disturbance. However, little is known about the symptom-to-symptom relationships among these three mental disorders. Hence, to improve our understanding of concurrent depression, anxiety, and sleep disturbance, we used the network analysis approach to construct an interplay relationship among the above three mental disorders and identify which specific symptoms bridge these aggregations. We collected data from a large sample (N = 6710, male = 3074, female = 3636; mean age = 19.28) at a university. We estimated the symptom network structure of depression, anxiety, and sleep disturbance as assessed by the Patient Health Questionnaire-9, Generalized Anxiety Disorder-7, and Youth Self-Rating Insomnia Scale during the COVID-19 lockdown. We further investigated four goals: first, identifying the individual core symptoms in the network by the index of "expected influence"; second, determining the bridge symptoms that play roles in linking different mental disorders by the index of bridge expected influence (1-step); third, examining the robustness of all results; and fourth, providing an overall structure that may or may not differ by sex. The network structure was stable, accurate, and predictable. Items referring to sleep dissatisfaction, poor sleep quality, and uncontrollable worry were potentially core symptoms in the interplay among depression, anxiety, and sleep disturbance. Sleep, guilt, restlessness, irritability, and feeling afraid can function as bridges among depression, anxiety, and sleep disturbance, which is clinically relevant and theoretically important. The results suggested that the network structures significantly differed between the female and male networks. Robustness tests also revealed that the results were reliable.

MID-UNet: Multi-input directional UNet for COVID-19 lung infection segmentation from CT images.

Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) has spread globally since the first case was reported in December 2019, becoming a world-wide existential health crisis with over 90 million total confirmed cases. Segmentation of lung infection from computed tomography (CT) scans via deep learning method has a great potential in assisting the diagnosis and healthcare for COVID-19. However, current deep learning methods for segmenting infection regions from lung CT images suffer from three problems: (1) Low differentiation of semantic features between the COVID-19 infection regions, other pneumonia regions and normal lung tissues; (2) High variation of visual characteristics between different COVID-19 cases or stages; (3) High difficulty in constraining the irregular boundaries of the COVID-19 infection regions. To solve these problems, a multi-input directional UNet (MID-UNet) is proposed to segment COVID-19 infections in lung CT images. For the input part of the network, we firstly propose an image blurry descriptor to reflect the texture characteristic of the infections. Then the original CT image, the image enhanced by the adaptive histogram equalization, the image filtered by the non-local means filter and the blurry feature map are adopted together as the input of the proposed network. For the structure of the network, we propose the directional convolution block (DCB) which consist of 4 directional convolution kernels. DCBs are applied on the short-cut connections to refine the extracted features before they are transferred to the de-convolution parts. Furthermore, we propose a contour loss based on local curvature histogram then combine it with the binary cross entropy (BCE) loss and the intersection over union (IOU) loss for better segmentation boundary constraint. Experimental results on the COVID-19-CT-Seg dataset demonstrate that our proposed MID-UNet provides superior performance over the state-of-the-art methods on segmenting COVID-19 infections from CT images.

Analysis of the close contact management mode and epidemiological characteristics of COVID-19 in Chengdu, China.

With the development of the novel coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) epidemic and the increase in cases, as a potential source of infection, the risk of close contact has gradually increased. However, few studies have analyzed the tracking and management of cross-regional personnel. In this study, we hope to understand the effectiveness and feasibility of existing close contact management measures in Chengdu, so as to provide a reference for further prevention and control of the epidemic. The close contact management mode and epidemiological characteristics of 40,425 close contacts from January 22, 2020, to March 1, 2022, in Chengdu, China, were analyzed. The relationship with index cases was mainly co-passengers (57.58%) and relatives (7.20%), and the frequency of contact was mainly occasional contact (70.39%). A total of 400 (0.99%) close contacts were converted into cases, which were mainly found in the first and second nucleic acid tests (53.69%), and the contact mode was mainly by sharing transportation (63.82%). In terms of close contact management time, both the supposed ((11.93 ± 3.00) days vs. (11.92 ± 7.24) days) and actual ((13.74 ± 17.47) days vs. (12.60 ± 4.35) days) isolation times in Chengdu were longer than those of the outer cities (P < 0.001). For the local clustered epidemics in Chengdu, the relationship with indexed cases was mainly colleagues (12.70%). The tracing and management of close contacts is a two-way management measure that requires cooperation among departments. Enhancing existing monitoring and response capabilities can control the spread of the epidemic to a certain extent.

On parents' choice of the school travel mode during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Based on the theory of planned behavior (TPB) and the protection motivation theory (PMT), this study examines the factors that influence parental choice of school travel mode during COVID-19. Structural equation modeling (SEM) and a hybrid choice model (HCM) are used to analyze this decision-making process. The results show that trust, perceived severity, perceived vulnerability, perceived built environment, attitude, subjective norm, and perceived behavioral control are significant factors. Perceived severity, perceived vulnerability, and the evaluation of pandemic risk, significantly impact the choice of public transit and private car, but not walking. Perceived built environment is the most critical factor influencing the choice of walking. The results provide a theoretical basis and reference for relevant government departments to formulate policies and measures during COVID-19.

Rapid PCR-Based Nanopore Adaptive Sequencing Improves Sensitivity and Timeliness of Viral Clinical Detection and Genome Surveillance

Nanopore sequencing has been widely used for the real-time detection and surveillance of pathogens with portable MinION. Nanopore adaptive sequencing can enrich on-target sequences without additional pretreatment. In this study, the performance of adaptive sequencing was evaluated for viral genome enrichment of clinical respiratory samples. Ligation-based nanopore adaptive sequencing (LNAS) and rapid PCR-based nanopore adaptive sequencing (RPNAS) workflows were performed to assess the effects of enrichment on nasopharyngeal swab samples from human adenovirus (HAdV) outbreaks. RPNAS was further applied for the enrichment of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) from nasopharyngeal swab samples to evaluate sensitivity and timeliness. The RPNAS increased both the relative abundance (7.87–12.86-fold) and data yield (1.27–2.15-fold) of HAdV samples, whereas the LNAS increased only the relative abundance but had no obvious enrichment on the data yield. Compared with standard nanopore sequencing, RPNAS detected the SARS-CoV-2 reads from two low-abundance samples, increased the coverage of SARS-CoV-2 by 36.68–98.92%, and reduced the time to achieve the same coverage. Our study highlights the utility of RPNAS for virus enrichment directly from clinical samples, with more on-target data and a shorter sequencing time to recover viral genomes. These findings promise to improve the sensitivity and timeliness of rapid identification and genomic surveillance of infectious diseases.

Mind the feline coronavirus: Comparison with SARS-CoV-2.

Both feline coronavirus (FCoV) and SARS-CoV-2 are coronaviruses that infect cats and humans, respectively. However, cats have been shown to be susceptible to SARS-CoV-2, and FCoV also had been shown to infect human. To elucidate the relationship between FCoV and SARS-CoV-2, we highlight the main characteristics of the genome, the receptor usage, and the correlation of the receptor-binding domain (RBD) of spike proteins in FCoV and SARS-CoV-2. It is demonstrated that FCoV and SARS-CoV-2 are closely related to the main characteristics of the genome, receptor usage, and RBD of spike proteins with similar furin cleavage sites. In particular, the affinity of the conserved feline angiotensin-converting enzyme 2 (fACE2) receptor to the RBD of SARS-CoV-2 suggests that cats are susceptible to SARS-CoV-2. In addition, cross-species of coronaviruses between cats and humans or other domesticated animals are also discussed. This review sheds light on cats as potential intermediate hosts for SARS-CoV-2 transmission, and cross-species transmission or zoonotic infection of FCoV and SARS-CoV-2 between cats and humans was identified.

Mind the feline coronavirus: comparison with SARS-CoV-2

Both feline coronavirus (FCoV) and SARS-CoV-2 are coronaviruses that infect cats and humans, respectively. However, cats have been shown to be susceptible to SARS-CoV-2, and FCoV also had been shown to infect human. To elucidate the relationship between FCoV and SARS-CoV-2, we highlight the main characteristics of the genome, the receptor usage, and the correlation of the receptor-binding domain (RBD) of spike proteins in FCoV and SARS-CoV-2. It is demonstrated that FCoV and SARS-CoV-2 are closely related to the main characteristics of the genome, receptor usage, and RBD of spike proteins with similar furin cleavage sites. In particular, the affinity of the conserved feline angiotensin-converting enzyme 2 (fACE2) receptor to the RBD of SARS-CoV-2 suggests that cats are susceptible to SARS-CoV-2. In addition, cross-species of coronaviruses between cats and humans or other domesticated animals are also discussed. This review sheds light on cats as potential intermediate hosts for SARS-CoV-2 transmission, and cross-species transmission or zoonotic infection of FCoV and SARS-CoV-2 between cats and humans was identified.

Analysis of the Influencing Factors of Organizational Resilience in the ISM Framework: An Exploratory Study Based on Multiple Cases

As an important means to deal with crisis, organizational resilience has attracted the attention of academia and industry. However, research on what factors influence organizational resilience has lagged behind. In view of this, this study proposes the concept of organizational resilience on the basis of existing research and extracts the influencing factors of organizational resilience based on a multi-case analysis approach, using the organizational behavior of five companies in crisis situations as the research object. Based on the Interpretive Structure Model (ISM), the internal logical relationship and hierarchical structure of the factors influencing organizational resilience are analyzed. In this study, the importance of influencing factors of organizational resilience was analyzed by using analytic network process (ANP). It is suggested that strengthening organizational resilience is the key, organizational learning is the important basis, emotion management is the necessary condition, and organizational resources are the basic guarantee, which provides theoretical supplement and practical guidance for the study of organizational resilience.

Ambiguous Pollution Response to COVID-19 in China

Reductions in ambient pollution have been taken as an indisputable "silver lining" to the COVID-19 Pandemic. Indeed, worldwide economic contraction induced by COVID-19 lockdowns should generate global air quality improvements ceteris paribus, including to China's notoriously-poor air quality. We analyze China's official pollution monitor data and account for the large, recurrent improvement in air quality following Lunar New Year (LNY), which essentially coincided with lock-downs in 2020. With the important exception of NO2, China's air quality improvements in 2020 are smaller than we should expect near the pandemic's epicenter: Hubei province. Compared with LNY improvements experienced in 2018 and 2019 in Hubei, we see smaller improvements in SO2 while ozone concentrations increased in both relative and absolute terms (roughly doubling). Similar patterns are found for the six provinces neighboring Hubei. We conclude that COVID-19 had ambiguous impacts on China's pollution, with evidence of relative deterioration in air quality near the Pandemic's epicenter.

Night Nursing for Patients with Corona Virus Disease 2019

Abstract: Objective: To study on the existing nursing problems of patients with Corona Virus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) at night and discuss solutions. Method: 62 COVID-19 patients treated in the general ward of infectious diseases department of a infectious disease hospital in Wuhan on 13-25 February 2020 were selected. The night nursing problems were observed from night sickness, night safety, night medication and psychological support and targeted nursing was implemented. Results: 60 cases were cured and 2 were transferred to ICU for treatment. The patients were safe at night, there is no falling accidents and anxiety or depression was relieved in time. Conclusion: COVID-19 patients’ night care problems are special and it should be highly valued. Effective nursing can ensure patients’ night safety and promote their recovery.

Impact of COVID-19 on the oral health of adults in Wuhan and China: results of a nationwide online cross-sectional questionnaire survey.

BACKGROUND: COVID-19 has seriously threatened the health and lives of people. This study aimed to investigate the impact of COVID-19 on the oral health of adults in Wuhan and other places of China amid the epidemic and to evaluate attitudes towards dental care in the post-epidemic period. METHODS: An online cross-sectional survey based on a questionnaire of 22 questions was conducted. RESULTS: A total of 3352 valid questionnaires were collected. Participants from Wuhan tended to be relatively psychologically affected and more concerned about future dental treatment. Toothbrushing frequency did not differ significantly between participants from Wuhan and other places and was associated with the prevalence of oral problems people encountered. Gingival bleeding, bad breath and oral ulcers were the three most common oral problems amid the epidemic, and significantly more participants in Wuhan experienced oral problems than other places in China. CONCLUSION: The three most common oral problems amid the epidemic were gingival bleeding, bad breath and oral ulcers. Adults in Wuhan tended to be more seriously affected and suffered more oral problems than people from other places in China. Maintaining good oral health behaviours plays an important role in preventing dental problems. It is crucial to establish and to follow the standard guidelines for the provision of dental care during and after the epidemic.

The Inflammatory Factors Associated with Disease Severity to Predict COVID-19 Progression.

Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is associated with immune dysregulation and cytokine storm. Exploring the immune-inflammatory characteristics of COVID-19 patients is essential to reveal pathogenesis and predict progression. In this study, COVID-19 patients showed decreased CD3+, CD4+, and CD8+ T cells but increased neutrophils in circulation, exhibiting upregulated neutrophil-to-lymphocyte and neutrophil-to-CD8+ T cell ratio. IL-6, TNF-α, IL-1ß, IL-18, IL-12/IL-23p40, IL-10, Tim-3, IL-8, neutrophil extracellular trap-related proteinase 3, and S100A8/A9 were elevated, whereas IFN-γ and C-type lectin domain family 9 member A (clec9A) were decreased in COVID-19 patients compared with healthy controls. When compared with influenza patients, the expressions of TNF-α, IL-18, IL-12/IL-23p40, IL-8, S100A8/A9 and Tim-3 were significantly increased in critical COVID-19 patients, and carcinoembryonic Ag, IL-8, and S100A8/A9 could serve as clinically available hematologic indexes for identifying COVID-19 from influenza. Moreover, IL-6, IL-8, IL-1ß, TNF-α, proteinase 3, and S100A8/A9 were increased in bronchoalveolar lavage fluid of severe/critical patients compared with moderate patients, despite decreased CD4+ T cells, CD8+ T cells, B cells, and NK cells. Interestingly, bronchoalveolar IL-6, carcinoembryonic Ag, IL-8, S100A8/A9, and proteinase 3 were found to be predictive of COVID-19 severity and may serve as potential biomarkers for predicting COVID-19 progression and potential targets in therapeutic intervention of COVID-19.

The impact of coronavirus lockdown on oral healthcare and its associated issues of pre-schoolers in China: an online cross-sectional survey.

BACKGROUND: The sudden outbreak of coronavirus disease (COVID-19) epidemic influenced people's daily life. During lockdown of Wuhan city, the oral health and its associated issues of preschool children were investigated and guidance for dental clinics when the epidemic were controlled in the future were also provided. METHODS: A national online survey was conducted among preschool children and completed by their caregivers. The questionnaire related to children's oral health status and care behaviour, caregivers' attitudes. The information was statistically analyzed between Wuhan residents and others residents. RESULTS: 4495 valid questionnaires were collected. In oral health status, during Wuhan lockdown, 60.8%, 35.5% and 18.3% children had self-reported dental caries, toothache and halitosis respectively. In oral health attitudes, respondents who would increase attention to oral health was more than that would decrease. In oral hygiene behaviour, compared to non-Wuhan children, the children in Wuhan became more active in brushing their teeth. In utilization of dental services in the future, less Wuhan residents would choose to have dental visit directly, 28.5% Wuhan residents and 34.7% non-Wuhan residents agreed all of procedures could be done if proper protected. CONCLUSIONS: Oral health status and associated issues of preschool children in Wuhan were significantly different from that of others during lockdown of Wuhan city and in the future. Effective measures should be taken as early as possible to protect children's oral health.

How to evaluate the value of chest CT in COVID-19: case reports and literature review.

The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) that occurred in Wuhan, Hubei Province, China, has been declared a public health emergency of international concern and a pandemic by the World Health Organization. The Chinese government has temporarily taken strong response measures and effective procedures to stop the further expansion and development of the epidemic. It is important for clinicians to screen, diagnose, and monitor COVID-19.

The value of serum amyloid A for predicting the severity and recovery of COVID-19.

The present study aimed to evaluate the value of serum amyloid A (SAA) in coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) and compared the efficacy of SAA and C-reactive protein (CRP) in predicting the severity and recovery of COVID-19. A retrospective study was conducted on COVID-19 patients hospitalized in Wuhan No. 1 Hospital (Hubei, China) from January 21, 2020 to March 4, 2020. A two-way ANOVA analysis was used to compare the serum CRP and SAA levels between mild group and severe group during hospitalization days. Linear regression was used to analyze the relationship between the serum CRP, SAA levels and treatment days in recovered patients. The Logistic regression analysis and the area under curve (AUC) were calculated to determine the probability for predicting the severity and recovery of COVID-19. The severe group displayed higher CRP and SAA levels compared with the mild group during hospitalization (P<0.001). Logistic regression indicated that SAA and CRP were independent risk factors for the severity of COVID-19. The corresponding AUC of CRP and SAA values for severity of COVID-19 were 0.804 and 0.818, respectively. Linear regression analysis revealed that CRP and SAA levels were negatively correlated with treatment days in recovered patients (r=-0.761, -0.795, respectively). Logistic regression demonstrated that SAA was an independent factor for predicting the recovery of COVID-19. However, CRP could not predict the recovery of COVID-19. The corresponding AUC of SAA for the recovery of COVID-19 was 0.923. The results of the present study indicated that SAA can be considered to be a biomarker for predicting the severity and recovery of COVID-19.

The biological characteristics of SARS-CoV-2 spike protein Pro330-Leu650.

SARS-CoV-2 is the cause of the worldwide outbreak of COVID-19 that has been characterized as a pandemic by the WHO. Since the first report of COVID-19 on December 31, 2019, 179,111 cases were confirmed in 160 countries/regions with 7426 deaths as of March 17, 2020. However, there have been no vaccines approved in the world to date. In this study, we analyzed the biological characteristics of the SARS-CoV-2 Spike protein, Pro330-Leu650 (SARS-CoV-2-SPL), using biostatistical methods. SARS-CoV-2-SPL possesses a receptor-binding region (RBD) and important B (Ser438-Gln506, Thr553-Glu583, Gly404-Aps427, Thr345-Ala352, and Lys529-Lys535) and T (9 CD4 and 11 CD8 T cell antigenic determinants) cell epitopes. High homology in this region between SARS-CoV-2 and SARS-CoV amounted to 87.7%, after taking the biological similarity of the amino acids into account and eliminating the receptor-binding motif (RBM). The overall topology indicated that the complete structure of SARS-CoV-2-SPL was with RBM as the head, and RBD as the trunk and the tail region. SARS-CoV-2-SPL was found to have the potential to elicit effective B and T cell responses. Our findings may provide meaningful guidance for SARS-CoV-2 vaccine design.