A Potential Therapeutic Target Underling Binge Alcohol-Triggered Spontaneous Arrhythmia Onset in the Aged Heart

Background: Aging and binge alcohol abuse are both known as independent risk factors for both atrial and ventricular arrhythmias. With the COVID-19 pandemic, increased social isolation has significantly increased alcohol consumption worldwide. Older adults are a high-risk drinking group and alcohol significantly enhances the risk of arrhythmia onset. Yet, how alcohol (a secondary stressor) drives spontaneous atrial and ventricular arrhythmia onset in the aged heart (a primary stressor) remains unclear. Objective(s): We recently reported the stress-response kinase c-jun N-terminal kinase 2 (JNK2) underlies alcohol-enhanced atrial arrhythmia vulnerability (pacing-induced) in healthy young hearts. Here, we reveal a critical role of JNK2 in alcohol-driven arrhythmia onset in the aged heart in vivo. Method(s): Ambulatory ECGs were recorded using wireless telemeters in binge alcohol-exposed aged (24 months) and young mice (2 months). Spontaneous premature atrial and ventricular contractions (PACs, PVCs), atrial and ventricular tachycardia (AT, VT) were quantified as previously described. The role of JNK2 in triggered arrhythmic activities was assessed using a well-evaluated JNK2-specific inhibitor and our unique cardiac-specific MKK7D and MKK7D-JNK2dn mouse models with tamoxifen inducible overexpression of constitutively active MKK7 (a JNK upstream activator) or co-expression of MKK7D and inactive dominant negative JNK2 (JNK2dn). Result(s): We found that binge alcohol exposure in aged mice (n=14) led to spontaneous PACs/PVCs (75% of the mice), and AT/VT episodes (50%) along with a 21% mortality rate. However, alcohol-exposed young (n=5) and non-alcohol-exposed aged mice (n=11) were absent of any spontaneous arrhythmic activities or premature death. Intriguingly, JNK2-specific inhibition in vivo abolished those alcohol-associated triggered activities and mortality in aged mice. The causative role of JNK2 in triggered arrhythmias and premature death was further supported by the high frequency of spontaneous PACs/PVCs and nonsustained AT/VT episodes along with a 50% mortality rate in MKK7D mice (n=10), which was strikingly alleviated in MKK7D-JNK2dn mice (n=5) with cardiac-specific JNK2 competitive inhibition. Conclusion(s): Our findings are the first to reveal that stress kinase JNK2 underlies binge alcohol-evoked atrial and ventricular arrhythmia initiation in aged mice. Modulating JNK2 could be a novel therapeutic strategy to treat and/or prevent binge drinking-evoked cardiac arrhythmias.Copyright © 2023

Manufacturing security strategies for epidemic prevention supplies in response to the COVID-19crisis: a regional emergency manufacturing consortium design based on government regulation

The outbreak of COVID-19 poses a great threat to human life. In the early days of the COVID-19outbreak, lockdown, quarantine, movement restrictions and personal protection became the main preventive measures, which caused a surge in demand for epidemic prevention supplies. The severe shortage of epidemic prevention supplies resulted in panic, the lack of raw material supply upstream, the weakness of manufacturing capacity in midstream and the fluctuating demand downstream when the supply chain was severely disrupted. Therefore, it is imperative to quickly restore or build new manufacturing supply chains of epidemic prevention supplies. In view of this, this research proposes taking administrative regions as the basic unit, focusing on the manufacturing of epidemic prevention supplies in the supply chain, and using the mixed-integer optimization method to select partners with the the objectives of shortest manufacturing time, the highest reliability and the greatest core competitiveness, and establish for the first time a government-led system model of a regional emergency manufacturing consortium for epidemic prevention supplies, aiming to quickly restore the manufacturing supply chain when it is severely disrupted. Finally, the validity of the proposed model is demonstrated through case studies. The widespread adoption of this system model will not only solve the current crisis of short-supply of epidemic prevention supplies, but also make an important contribution to the scientific decision-making of the government in the event of similar crises in the future, which is a concrete manifestation of the overall national security. Author

Collection and quality characteristics of Coronavirus Disease 2019 convalescent plasma

Objective To explore the application and safety of apheresis technology in collection of Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) convalescent plasma (CP), and to analyze the quality characteristics of the plasma. Methods The general data of COVID-19 convalescent plasma (CP) donors, including gender, age, date of discharge or release from medical isolation, were collected based on informed consent. After physical examination, the CP was collected by apheresis technology with plasma separator, inactivated with methylene blue, and determined for severe acute respiratory symptom Coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) nucleic acid and specific antibody (RBD-IgG) against SARS-CoV-2. Results The collection process went well, and no serious adverse events related to plasma collection were reported during or after the collection. The average age of COVID-19 CP donors was 38 years (n = 933). The distributions of blood groups A, B, AB and 0 in RhD (+) COVID-19 CP were 33. 4%, 29. 2%, 10% and 27. 2% respectively. The plasma donation date was 18 d from the discharge date in average. All the test results of SARS-CoV-2 nucleic acid in CP were negative, while the proportion of plasma samples at SARS-CoV-2 antibody titer of more than 1: 160 was 92. 60%. Conclusion Apheresis technology was safe and reliable. The COVID-19 CP contained high titer antibody. Large-scale collection and preparation of inactivated plasma against SARS-CoV-2 played an important role in the treatment of COVID-19.

Thermal conductivity and phonon scattering of AlGaN nanofilms by elastic theory and Boltzmann transport equation

Aluminum gallium nitride (AlGaN) plays an essential role in deep ultra-violet light emitting diodes and high electron mobility transistors etc. For example, 2 nm - 5 nm AlGaN nanofilms consist of the quantum wells in ultra-violet light emitting diodes, which have been attracting extensive attention since the rise of COVID 2019. Since most photons and heat are generated in these AlGaN nanofilms, the thermal properties of AlGaN nanofilms are strongly influenced by the heat dissipation of devices. In this paper, utilizing elastic theory and the Boltzmann transport equation, the phonon dispersion relations, density of states, specific heat capacities and thermal conductivities of 2 nm Al (delta) Ga1-delta N nanofilms with various delta are theoretically calculated at different temperatures. The thermal conductivity of nanofilm is significantly smaller than that of its bulk counterpart. In contrast with bulk AlGaN, due to the dominance of boundary scattering and alloy disorder scattering, the thermal conductivity of Al (delta) Ga1-delta N exhibits a similar dependence on Al concentration to bulk Al (delta) Ga1-delta N. Meanwhile, since the screening of Umklapp scattering, the saturation temperature of thermal conductivity is delayed from 50 to 100 K in bulks to about 300 K in nanofilms. The shrinkage of nanofilms' thermal conductivity is also slower than for bulks. We believe that our work will be helpful in controlling the self-heating effect of devices based on AlGaN nanofilms.

ANALYSIS AND INTERVENTION OF COLLEGE STUDENTS' MENTAL ILLNESS IN THE POST-EPIDEMIC ERA

Background: The COVID-19 epidemic has had an immeasurable impact on all sectors of society and has led to anxiety, depression, fear and other negative psychological reactions among college students. Therefore, it is imperative to investigate, analyze and intervene in such phenomenon. Subjects and methods: In this study, 2,000 college students from a certain university in Zhejiang province are selected as interviewees. Questionnaires are used to summarize and analyze the psychological problems of this group. Besides, statistical methods are conducted to compare the actual effects of different treatments on college students with psychological diseases, so as to find the most appropriate way to alleviate their symptoms. Results: Statistical analysis shows that the main psychological problems affecting college students during the epidemic are anxiety and depression, which account for far more than other possible psychological symptoms. The results of SCL-90 scale test shows that Physical Exercise has the most significant effect (R = 67), while Painting Therapy has the highest stability (sigma = 11.898), compared with the mainstream psychotherapy. Conclusions: The efficacy and stability of different therapies are different. Therefore, when choosing treatment methods, therapists need to analyze both the validity and stability, and consider whether the therapy is easy to operate into practice. The idea of conducting multiple therapies comprehensively deserves further study.

Microbial Aerosol Investigation and Health Risk Assessment of Residential Area in Wuhan City

In order to investigate the distribution and risk of microbial aerosols in residential areas after the COVID-19 in Wuhan Ctiy, Changqing Garden residential area, a mature community was selected as a case in this study. From October to December 2020, the Andersen-sixstage microbial air sampler was used to collect samples in six typical places in this residential area, and the microbial aerosol concentration was determined by the plate count method. In addition, the health risk assessment was evaluated according to the Chinese Population Exposure Parameters Manual (Adult Volume). The results showed that: (1) The concentration of microbial aerosol can be ranked in this order: fresh food market >underground parking lot >food street >central basketball court >central square >green pavilion. (2) The concentration of bacteria and fungus aerosol was different in different places, and the maximum aerosol concentration occurred in the fresh food market ((1525.32±1311.31) CFU/m3) and the food street ((1296.82±113.84) CFU/m3), respectively. (3) Take the air microbial concentration in typical places as the evaluation standard: the central basketball court, green pavilion and central square were clean, the fresh food market and underground parking lot were slightly polluted, and the food court was lightly pollution. (4) The median diameter of microbial aerosols was less than 4.7 μm, which can easily cause lower respiratory tract infections in residents. (5) The Hazard Quotient (HQ) of the typical places from October to December 2020 was less than 1, indicating that the health risk of microbial aerosol exposure in Changqing Garden residential area was relatively small. This research shows that the air quality of the Changqing Garden residential area is good under the epidemic prevention and control normalized measures, which meets the requirements for sanitary conditions in the post-COVID-19 era. © 2021, Editorial Board, Research of Environmental Sciences. All right reserved.

Disentangled Representation Learning in Heterogeneous Information Network for Large-scale Android Malware Detection in the COVID-19 Era and Beyond

In the fight against the COVID-19 pandemic, many social activities have moved online;society's overwhelming reliance on the complex cyberspace makes its security more important than ever. In this paper, we propose and develop an intelligent system named Dr.HIN to protect users against the evolving Android malware attacks in the COVID-19 era and beyond. In Dr.HIN, besides app content, we propose to consider higher-level semantics and social relations among apps, developers and mobile devices to comprehensively depict Android apps;and then we introduce a structured heterogeneous information network (HIN) to model the complex relations and exploit meta-path guided strategy to learn node (i.e., app) representations from HIN. As the representations of malware could be highly entangled with benign apps in the complex ecosystem of development, it poses a new challenge of learning the latent explanatory factors hidden in the HIN embeddings to detect the evolving malware. To address this challenge, we propose to integrate domain priors generated from different views (i.e., app content, app authorship, app installation) to devise an adversarial disentangler to separate the distinct, informative factors of variations hidden in the HIN embeddings for large-scale Android malware detection. This is the first attempt of disentangled representation learning in HIN data. Promising experimental results based on real sample collections from security industry demonstrate the performance of Dr.HIN in evolving Android malware detection, by comparison with baselines and popular mobile security products.

Application of sars-cov-2 antibody sample panel in quality evaluation of test cassettes for colloidal gold lateral flow assay

Objective To establish a SARS-CoV-2 antibody sample panel and apply to the quality evaluation of test cassettes for colloidal gold lateral flow assay. Methods SARS-CoV-2 antibody sample panel was established with the convalescent plasma samples from patients with Corona Virus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) and optimized. Suggestions for modification were put forward on the sample panels from three manufacturers (S, L and H), and the test cassettes after modification were analyzed and compared. Results The accuracy, sensitivity, specificity and Youden index of cassette from manufacturer S were 92. 54%, 90. 78%, 100% and 0. 908 respectively, while the positive test region was light in color and not easy to be recognized. However, after modification, the accuracy, sensitivity, specificity and Youden index were 95. 35%, 98. 91%, 97. 19% and 0. 943 respectively, while the color of positive test region was developed obviously and easy to be recognized. The sensitivity of cassette from manufacturer L was only 14. 28% before modification, while the positive test region was unobvious in color, indicating a high missed detection rate. However, after modification, the sensitivity for IgM was 98. 63% , while the color of positive test region was developed obviously and rapidly. The sensitivity, specificity, accuracy and Youden index were 98. 08%, 100. 00%, 98. 90% and 0. 981 for IgG, while were 84. 50%, 86. 49%, 85. 71% and 0. 710 for IgM, respectively. Conclusion The developed sample panel may be used for the quality evaluation of SARS-CoV-2 antiobdy detection reagents. © 2021 Changchun Institute of Biological Products. All rights reserved.

Analyzing a community worker's stress during the COVID-19 pandemic in China

Purpose Community governance plays an important role in the prevention and control of the Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic in China. Community workers, the main executors in community governance, experience a huge amount of stress, which affects their physical and mental health. Thus, it is crucial to pay more attention to the stressors and stress responses of community workers and propose strategies to alleviate such responses. This paper aims to analyze the work stress of community workers during the COVID-19 pandemic in China. Design/methodology/approach Based on a questionnaire survey of 602 community workers during COVID-19 in China, the four main stressors and 14 stress factors of community workers were identified and six factors at three levels of stress responses were defined. A stress analysis model is proposed that tests the mediating role of psychological capital and the moderating role of organizational climate. Findings The results show that stressors influence stress responses through the moderating role of psychological capital, organizational climate plays a negative mediator role between stressors and psychological capital and the main stressors for community workers are work, safety and performance stress. Originality/value This paper contributes to existing research because it offers suggestions for reducing the impact of stress on the community workers during the COVID-19 pandemic. Further, it can promote the control and prevention of the COVID-19.

Chemoprophylaxis, diagnosis, treatments, and discharge management of COVID-19: An evidence-based clinical practice guideline (updated version)

The novel severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) is the cause of a rapidly spreading illness, coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), affecting more than seventeen million people around the world. Diagnosis and treatment guidelines for clinicians caring for patients are needed. In the early stage, we have issued "A rapid advice guideline for the diagnosis and treatment of 2019 novel coronavirus (2019-nCoV) infected pneumonia (standard version)";now there are many direct evidences emerged and may change some of previous recommendations and it is ripe for develop an evidence-based guideline. We formed a working group of clinical experts and methodologists. The steering group members proposed 29 questions that are relevant to the management of COVID-19 covering the following areas: chemoprophylaxis, diagnosis, treatments, and discharge management. We searched the literature for direct evidence on the management of COVID-19, and assessed its certainty generated recommendations using the Grading of Recommendations, Assessment, Development and Evaluation (GRADE) approach. Recommendations were either strong or weak, or in the form of ungraded consensus-based statement. Finally, we issued 34 statements. Among them, 6 were strong recommendations for, 14 were weak recommendations for, 3 were weak recommendations against and 11 were ungraded consensus-based statement. They covered topics of chemoprophylaxis [including agents and Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) agents], diagnosis [including clinical manifestations, reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR), respiratory tract specimens, IgM and IgG antibody tests, chest computed tomography, chest X-ray, and CT features of asymptomatic infections], treatments [including lopinavir-ritonavir, umifenovir, favipiravir, interferon, remdesivir, combination of antiviral drugs, hydroxychloroquine/chloroquine, interleukin-6 inhibitors, interleukin-1 inhibitors, glucocorticoid, Qingfei Paidu decoction, Lianhua Qingwen granules/capsules, convalescent plasma, lung transplantation, invasive or noninvasive ventilation, and extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO)], and discharge management (including discharge criteria and management plan in patients whose RT-PCR retesting shows SARS-CoV-2 positive after discharge). We also created two figures of these recommendations for the implementation purpose. We hope these recommendations can help support healthcare workers caring for COVID-19 patients. © 2020 People's Military Medical Press. All rights reserved.