Voluntary suspension of medically-assisted reproduction during the COVID-19 pandemic in Japan: a nationwide internet survey.

We explored whether coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19)-related distress was associated with voluntary suspension of medically-assisted reproduction (MAR) treatment from April to May 2020 in Japan. Data for 1,096 candidate respondents were collected from a Japanese nationwide cross-sectional internet survey distributed from August 25 to September 30, 2020. Multiple logistic regression was performed to clarify the association between voluntary suspension of MAR treatment and the Fear of COVID-19 Scale (FVC-19S) score. High FCV-19S score was inversely associated with voluntary suspension of MAR treatment compared to low FCV-19S score among women (OR = 0.28, 95% CI = 0.10-0.84). Age-stratified analyses revealed that low FVC-19S score was significantly associated with voluntary suspension of MAR treatment among women aged < 35 years (OR = 3.86, 95% CI = 1.35-11.0). In contrast, the association between FVC-19S score and voluntary suspension of MAR treatment was reversed and not significant among women aged ≥ 35 years (OR = 0.67, 95% CI = 0.24-1.84). COVID-19-related distress was significantly associated with voluntary suspension of MAR treatment among women aged < 35 years, and this association was reversed but not significant among women aged ≥ 35 years.

COVID-19 Lockdown Effects on a Highly Contaminated Coastal Site: The Mar Piccolo Basin of Taranto

The COVID-19 pandemic has had a dramatic socio-economic impact on mankind;however, the COVID-19 lockdown brought a drastic reduction of anthropic impacts on the environment worldwide, including the marine–coastal system. This study is concentrated on the Mar Piccolo basin of Taranto, a complex marine ecosystem model that is important in terms of ecological, social, and economic activities. Although many numerical studies have been conducted to investigate the features of the water fluxes in the Mar Piccolo basin, this is the first study conducted in order to link meteo-oceanographic conditions, water quality, and potential reduction of anthropic inputs. In particular, we used the model results in order to study the response of the Mar Piccolo basin to a drastic reduction in the leakage of heavy metal IPAs from industrial discharges during the two months of the mandated nationwide lockdown. The results show the different behavior of the two sub-basins of Mar Piccolo, showing the different times necessary for a reduction in the concentrations of heavy metals even after a total stop in the leakage of heavy metal IPAs. The results highlight the high sensitivity of the basin to environmental problems and the different times necessary for the renewal of the water in both sub-basins. © 2023 by the authors.

SARS-CoV-2 Infection in a Hippopotamus, Hanoi, Vietnam.

While investigating the death of a hippopotamus at a zoo in Hanoi, Vietnam, we isolated SARS-CoV-2 and sequenced the RNA-dependent RNA polymerase gene from different organs. Phylogenetic analysis showed that the SARS-CoV-2 strain was closely related to 3 human SARS-CoV-2 strains in Vietnam.

Inquilinus limosus Bacteremia in Lung Transplant Recipient after SARS-CoV-2 Infection.

Inquilinus limosus is an environmental bacterium associated with respiratory tract colonization in cystic fibrosis patients. We report a case of I. limosus bacteremia in a patient in France who received a lung transplant and experienced chronic graft dysfunction and SARS-CoV-2 infection. This case suggests I. limosus displays virulence factors associated with invasion.

The 21st century water quality challenges for managed aquifer recharge: towards a risk-based regulatory approach.

Sustained environmental and human health protection is threatened by ~350,000 chemicals available in global markets, plus new biological entities including coronaviruses. These water-quality hazards challenge the proponents of managed aquifer recharge (MAR) who seek to ensure the integrity of groundwater. A risk-based regulatory framework accounting for groundwater quality changes, adoption in subsurface attenuation zones, and use of advanced monitoring methods is required to support confidence in the sustainability of MAR.

La protection durable de l'environnement et de la santé humaine est menacée par ~350,000 substances chimiques disponibles sur les marchés mondiaux, à quoi s'ajoutent de nouvelles entités biologiques, incluant les coronavirus. Ces risques sur la qualité de l'eau sont un défi pour les partisans de la recharge raisonnée des aquifères (RRA) qui cherchent à assurer l'intégrité des eaux souterraines. Un cadre réglementaire basé sur les risques, tenant compte des changements de qualité des eaux souterraines, de l'adoption de zones d'atténuation souterraine, de l'utilisation de méthodes de contrôle avancées, est nécessaire pour soutenir la confiance dans la durabilité de la RRA.

La sostenibilidad del medio ambiente y la protección de la salud humana se ve amenazada por unas 350,000 sustancias químicas disponibles en los mercados mundiales, además de nuevas entidades biológicas como el coronavirus. Estos peligros para la calidad del agua suponen un desafío para los defensores de la recarga gestionada de acuíferos (MAR), que pretenden garantizar la integridad de las aguas subterráneas. Se necesita un marco normativo basado en el riesgo que tenga en cuenta los cambios en la calidad de las aguas subterráneas, la incorporación a las zonas de atenuación del subsuelo y el uso de métodos avanzados de control para respaldar la confianza en la sostenibilidad de la recarga acuífera gestionada.

A proteção sustentável do meio ambiente e da saúde humana está ameaçada por cerca de 350,000 produtos químicos disponíveis nos mercados globais, além de novas entidades biológicas, incluindo coronavírus. Esses riscos de qualidade da água desafiam os proponentes da recarga gerenciada de aquíferos (RGA) que buscam garantir a integridade das águas subterrâneas. Uma estrutura regulatória baseada em risco que considere as mudanças na qualidade das águas subterrâneas, a adoção em zonas de atenuação do subsolo e o uso de métodos avançados de monitoramento são necessários para apoiar a confiança na sustentabilidade da RGA.

Joint Resource Scheduling for UAV-Enabled Mobile Edge Computing System in Internet of Vehicles

The sudden outbreak of COVID-19 brings many unpredictable situations to human travel, such as temporarily closed highways, parking lots, etc. The scenarios mentioned above will lead to a large backlog of vehicles, and the requirements of Internet of vehicle (IoV) applications increase sharply in a period of short time correspondingly. Mobile edge computing (MEC) is a key enabling technology that can guarantee the diverse requirements of IoV applications through the optimization of resource scheduling. However, the sharp increasing in requirements of IoV applications caused by the congestion of highways or parking lots still bring great challenges to the deployment of traditional MEC. Therefore, in this paper, we construct an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) enabled MEC system, in which the data generated from IoV applications is processed by offloading to UAVs with MEC servers to ensure the efficiency of data processing and the response time of IoV applications. In order to approximate real-world UAV enabled MEC system, we consider the stochastic offloading and downloading processing time. Moreover, the priority constraints of sensors from the same vehicle are taken into consideration since they have different importance degrees. Then, we propose an Markov network-based cooperative evolutionary algorithm (MNCEA) to search out the optimal UAV scheduling solution to guarantee the shortest response time, in which the solution space is divided into multiple sub-solution spaces with the help of MN structure and parameters. Finally, we construct multiple simulation experiments with different probability distributions to simulate uncertainty factors. The simulation results verify the validity of MNCEA compared with the state-of-the-art methods, which is reflected by the shortest response time of requirements of IoV applications IEEE

A Medical Assistive Robot for Telehealth Care During the COVID-19 Pandemic: Development and Usability Study in an Isolation Ward.

BACKGROUND: The COVID-19 pandemic is affecting the mental and emotional well-being of patients, family members, and health care workers. Patients in the isolation ward may have psychological problems due to long-term hospitalization, the development of the epidemic, and the inability to see their families. A medical assistive robot (MAR), acting as an intermediary of communication, can be deployed to address these mental pressures. OBJECTIVE: CareDo, a MAR with telepresence and teleoperation functions, was developed in this work for remote health care. The aim of this study was to investigate its practical performance in the isolation ward during the pandemic. METHODS: Two systems were integrated into the CareDo robot. For the telepresence system, a web real-time communications solution is used for the multiuser chat system and a convolutional neural network is used for expression recognition. For the teleoperation system, an incremental motion mapping method is used for operating the robot remotely. A clinical trial of this system was conducted at First Affiliated Hospital, Zhejiang University. RESULTS: During the clinical trials, tasks such as video chatting, emotion detection, and medical supplies delivery were performed via the CareDo robot. Seven voice commands were set for performing system wakeup, video chatting, and system exiting. Durations from 1 to 3 seconds of common commands were set to improve voice command detection. The facial expression was recorded 152 times for a patient in 1 day for the psychological intervention. The recognition accuracy reached 95% and 92.8% for happy and neutral expressions, respectively. CONCLUSIONS: Patients and health care workers can use this MAR in the isolation ward for telehealth care during the COVID-19 pandemic. This can be a useful approach to break the chains of virus transmission and can also be an effective way to conduct remote psychological intervention.

Inducible nitric oxide synthase deficiency leads to early and severe demyelination in a murine coronavirus induced disease model of multiple sclerosis

Introduction: Inducible nitric oxide synthase (iNOS) catalyses production of nitric oxide during an inflammatory stimuli and is a signature marker of M1-like microglia/macrophages. iNOS mRNA and protein were found in brain lesions of MS patients however its role in demyelination remains unclear. We employed RSA59, a mild hepatoneurotropic strain of Mouse hepatitis virus (MHV) which in 4-weeks-old C57BL/6 mice causes biphasic CNS disease characterised by acute neuroinflammation (day5 p.i.) and chronic demyelination and axonal loss (day30 p.i.). Microglia/ macrophages are central to the disease pathology and require assistance from infiltrating CD4+ T cells to mount protective host immune response. The CNS immune interactions during the acute-adaptive transition stage thus determine disease trajectory. Objective(s): To understand the role of iNOS in microglia/macrophage and peripheral T cell communication and assess its effect on demyelination. Aim(s): To study the role of iNOS in demyelination. Method(s): 4-5-weeks-old MHV-free wildtype C57BL/6 (WT) and iNOS knockout (iNOS-/-) mice were infected intracranially with 20000 or 10000 pfus of RSA59 and assessed daily for weight loss and disease score. Mice were sacrificed at day9/10 and day30 p.i. CNS viral titers were detected by plaque assay. Transcript levels of anti-inflammatory and phagocytic M2-like phenotype markers were analysed by qRT PCR. Differential CNS immune cell infiltration was assessed by flow cytometry. LFB and Iba1 staining was used to study demyelination and microglia/macrophage activation in the CNS. Result(s): iNOS-/- mice infected with RSA59 at 20000 pfus exhibited aggravated disease and high mortality at the acute-adaptive transition stage i.e., day9/10 p.i. as compared to wildtype controls despite being no differences in virus clearance by the CNS. Histopathology at this stage showed early demyelination in the spinal cords accompanied by presence of amoeboid microglia macrophages;high CNS mRNA expression of M2-like phenotype markers, TGFbeta, Arg1, CD206 and TREM2;and more infiltration of T regulatory cells. iNOS-/- mice infected at low pfus of virus i.e., 10000 also showed significantly more chronic demyelination at day30 p.i. Conclusion(s): Our studies reveal a protective role of iNOS against RSA59 induced demyelination by regulating the CNS inflammatory phenotype specifically the phenotypic transition of microglia/macrophages and thereby their interaction with peripheral immune cells.

Measuring Volatility Spillover And Connectedness of the Global Markets With a Focus on India

Being able to understand the interconnectedness of the global markets can be of great help to global investors and portfolio managers. Identifying the direction of the shock propagations can be critical in managing the risk of a portfolio. In this research, we discuss a framework to study the connectedness of some selected international markets and study the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on this interconnectedness. We compute the h-step ahead generalized forecast error variance using a vector auto-regression (VAR) model with order p to study the volatility spillover and connectedness of the nations. Further, we use network topology to represent the net pairwise directional connectedness and use it to study the direction of volatility spillover. © 2022 IEEE.

Survival during Times of Disruptions: Rethinking Strategies for Enabling Business Viability in the Developing Economy

There exists a noticeable void in the literature about strategies that business operators, especially those in highly vulnerable economies, can adapt to sustain their survival and to achieve growth in economically turbulent times. This study investigated strategies that can support the viability and survival of businesses in times of environmental disruptions. The study adopted a qualitative research design that involved the interview of 31 business owners across different sectoral groups including fashion and telecommunication that are operating in Nigeria's Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) sector. The interview sessions were audio recorded, transcribed verbatim and thematically analysed. The findings reveal that amid disruptions, the business owners were resilient and established diverse digital strategies that helped them to keep their businesses afloat throughout the time of disruption. This finding contributes to the field of entrepreneurship as it offers practical strategies for supporting business owners during times of disruptions, especially in a developing country context.

An epidemic model for COVID-19 transmission in Argentina: Exploration of the alternating quarantine and massive testing strategies.

The COVID-19 pandemic has challenged authorities at different levels of government administration around the globe. When faced with diseases of this severity, it is useful for the authorities to have prediction tools to estimate in advance the impact on the health system as well as the human, material, and economic resources that will be necessary. In this paper, we construct an extended Susceptible-Exposed-Infected-Recovered model that incorporates the social structure of Mar del Plata, the 4°most inhabited city in Argentina and head of the Municipality of General Pueyrredón. Moreover, we consider detailed partitions of infected individuals according to the illness severity, as well as data of local health resources, to bring predictions closer to the local reality. Tuning the corresponding epidemic parameters for COVID-19, we study an alternating quarantine strategy: a part of the population can circulate without restrictions at any time, while the rest is equally divided into two groups and goes on successive periods of normal activity and lockdown, each one with a duration of τ days. We also implement a random testing strategy with a threshold over the population. We found that τ=7 is a good choice for the quarantine strategy since it reduces the infected population and, conveniently, it suits a weekly schedule. Focusing on the health system, projecting from the situation as of September 30, we foresee a difficulty to avoid saturation of the available ICU, given the extremely low levels of mobility that would be required. In the worst case, our model estimates that four thousand deaths would occur, of which 30% could be avoided with proper medical attention. Nonetheless, we found that aggressive testing would allow an increase in the percentage of people that can circulate without restrictions, and the medical facilities to deal with the additional critical patients would be relatively low.

Retos de seguridad y salud en el trabajo para la gente de mar en actividades esenciales durante la pandemia mundial de COVID-19

Resumen La pandemia de COVID-19 ha transformado el mundo del trabajo, pero el comercio mundial sigue considerándose una esfera de actividad esencial y el transporte marítimo, como motor de la globalización, no puede detenerse. En este contexto, pocos Gobiernos han permitido a la gente de mar ?que transporta más del 90 por ciento de las mercancías mundiales? abandonar sus barcos y regresar a casa. Las restricciones de viaje relacionadas con la COVID-19 han provocado una crisis de seguridad y salud en el trabajo marítimo. Este artículo, basado en 29 entrevistas, explora los retos de SST que ha afrontado la gente de mar de todo el mundo durante la pandemia.

COVID-Related Stress and Work Intentions in a Sample of US Health Care Workers.

OBJECTIVE: To evaluate relationships between coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19)-related stress and work intentions in a sample of US health care workers. PATIENTS AND METHODS: Between July 1 and December 31, 2020, health care workers were surveyed for fear of viral exposure or transmission, COVID-19-related anxiety or depression, work overload, burnout, and intentions to reduce hours or leave their jobs. RESULTS: Among 20,665 respondents at 124 institutions (median organizational response rate, 34%), intention to reduce hours was highest among nurses (33.7%; n=776), physicians (31.4%; n=2914), and advanced practice providers (APPs; 28.9%; n=608) while lowest among clerical staff (13.6%; n=242) and administrators (6.8%; n=50; all P<.001). Burnout (odds ratio [OR], 2.15; 95% CI, 1.93 to 2.38), fear of exposure, COVID-19-related anxiety/depression, and workload were independently related to intent to reduce work hours within 12 months (all P<.01). Intention to leave one's practice within 2 years was highest among nurses (40.0%; n=921), APPs (33.0%; n=694), other clinical staff (29.4%; n=718), and physicians (23.8%; n=2204) while lowest among administrators (12.6%; n=93; all P<.001). Burnout (OR, 2.57; 95% CI, 2.29 to 2.88), fear of exposure, COVID-19-related anxiety/depression, and workload were predictors of intent to leave. Feeling valued by one's organization was protective of reducing hours (OR, 0.65; 95% CI, 0.59 to 0.72) and intending to leave (OR, 0.40; 95% CI, 0.36 to 0.45; all P<.01). CONCLUSION: Approximately 1 in 3 physicians, APPs, and nurses surveyed intend to reduce work hours. One in 5 physicians and 2 in 5 nurses intend to leave their practice altogether. Reducing burnout and improving a sense of feeling valued may allow health care organizations to better maintain their workforces postpandemic.

Restaurant-Based Measures to Control Community Transmission of COVID-19, Hong Kong.

Controlling transmission in restaurants is an important component of public health and social measures for coronavirus disease. We examined the effects of restaurant measures in Hong Kong. Our findings indicate that shortening operating hours did not have an effect on time-varying effective reproduction number when capacity was already reduced.

Nowcasting (Short-Term Forecasting) of COVID-19 Hospitalizations Using Syndromic Healthcare Data, Sweden, 2020.

We report on local nowcasting (short-term forecasting) of coronavirus disease (COVID-19) hospitalizations based on syndromic (symptom) data recorded in regular healthcare routines in Östergötland County (population ≈465,000), Sweden, early in the pandemic, when broad laboratory testing was unavailable. Daily nowcasts were supplied to the local healthcare management based on analyses of the time lag between telenursing calls with the chief complaints (cough by adult or fever by adult) and COVID-19 hospitalization. The complaint cough by adult showed satisfactory performance (Pearson correlation coefficient r>0.80; mean absolute percentage error <20%) in nowcasting the incidence of daily COVID-19 hospitalizations 14 days in advance until the incidence decreased to <1.5/100,000 population, whereas the corresponding performance for fever by adult was unsatisfactory. Our results support local nowcasting of hospitalizations on the basis of symptom data recorded in routine healthcare during the initial stage of a pandemic.

Prevention related to the occupational exposure of health professionals workers in the COVID-19 scenario

Objective: to describe the main recommended actions on prevention actions related to occupational exposure of health professionals working at COVID-19, available until March 2020. Content: The current pandemic disease caused by the new SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus has its transmission favored by close and unprotected contact with secretions or excretions from infected patients, mainly through salivary droplets. Organizational prevention practices should be prioritized, since patient's arrival at the health service, optimizing the flow of care, the first care and during health care actions, to minimize occupational exposure to the biological agent. Health professionals classified as a risk group should be removed from activities at risk of contamination. Those contaminated or adulterated must remain in quarantine to minimize the spread of COVID-19. Final considerations: care to avoid contamination of workers in this pandemic by the new coronavirus must be prioritized, prevented from affecting the assistance to the population that seeks assistance in health services. © 2020, Centro de Estudos da Faculdade de Enfermagem da UERJ. All rights reserved.