In Silico Analysis to Identify IL-6 Inhibitor from Antiviral Compounds of Kabasurakudineer Extract against COVID-19

Background: Novel coronavirus (COVID-19) is an infectious disease which causes the outbreak as a pandemic and reiterated the call for countries to take immediate actions and proportion response to treat, detect and cut back transmission to save lots of people's lives. Several targeting specific functional proteins and ligands against coronavirus have been reported to prevent replication of virus RNA. Aim(s): The study was aimed to targetthe interleukin-6 protein, that may further block the binding of the virus to human cell receptor and signal transduction which activate the intracellular JAK-MAPK (Janus Kinase\Mitogenactivated protein kinase) and JAK- STAT3 (Janus Kinase/Signal Transducer and Activator of Transcription) signaling pathways. Method(s): In this study, we selected 36 reported compounds and 2 standard anti-HIV drugs such as Abacavir and Hydroxychloroquine for the inhibition of IL-6 protein. It has been reportable with their antiviral efficacies against alternative virus-infected diseases. Molecular docking analyses were performed to identify the best affinity compound against IL-6. Result(s): Among 38 reported compounds, gallic acid and luteolin are the best binding affinity against Interleukin-6 protein. Conclusion(s): Therefore, the results suggest that gallic acid and luteolin has a potential inhibitory function against IL-6 protein, which inhibits the interaction and signal transduction of the virus with the host cell and it provide a potential lead molecule for the development of a new drug against COVID-19disease. Copyright © 2022 Wolters Kluwer Medknow Publications. All rights reserved.

Religious Actors, Care, and Mood in the Time of COVID-19

The introduction to this special issue considers the interdisciplinary study of religious sentiments, religious care and social actions during the COvID-19 outbreak in South-, East-and Southeast Asia. Our approach in terms of nodes and polarisation allows one to visualise a bundle of religious and secular actors and interests, as well as original strategies and actions, in time of pandemic, which sometimes challenge local regimes of truth and authority. In many cases, faith-based NGO s have been complementing the State, activating their powerful channels of mission in urban and rural areas, under the guise of combating COVID-19 crisis. The studies presented here examine several Asian religious actors during this period of COvID-19 crisis;and the ways in which their creative digitalised measures of worship, protection and healing, and their participation in urgent public health and care provisions, have given them the opportunity to renegotiate their relationships with States and societies.

Quantifying the Effects of Contact Tracing, Testing, and Containment Measures in the Presence of Infection Hotspots

Multiple lines of evidence strongly suggest that infection hotspots, where a single individual infects many others, play a key role in the transmission dynamics of COVID-19. However, most of the existing epidemiological models fail to capture this aspect by neither representing the sites visited by individuals explicitly nor characterizing disease transmission as a function of individual mobility patterns. In this work, we introduce a temporal point process modeling framework that specifically represents visits to the sites where individuals get in contact and infect each other. Under our model, the number of infections caused by an infectious individual naturally emerges to be overdispersed. Using an efficient sampling algorithm, we demonstrate how to estimate the transmission rate of infectious individuals at the sites they visit and in their households using Bayesian optimization (BO) and longitudinal case data. Simulations using fine-grained and publicly available demographic data and site locations from Bern, Switzerland showcase the flexibility of our framework. To facilitate research and analyses of other cities and regions, we release an open-source implementation of our framework.

Multiclass Deep Transfer Learning for Covid-19 Classification

Over 500 million people have been infected with COVID-19 since it first appeared, including more than 6 million cases in Indonesia. Although COVID-19 has the potential to cause pneumonia, COVID is not always the sole cause of the illness, necessitating the need for another rapid and precise approach to disease classification. Additionally, it is not only dependent on the Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR) technique, which is costly and labor-intensive. The study of chest X-ray images can be one quick and accurate way of helping to confirm the disease. It is necessary to investigate the multiclass classification of diseases with comparable clinical characteristics since COVID-19-related diseases can vary. This investigation chose pneumonia, COVID-19, and Normal as the deep learning model's three target classes. The mobileNet-based deep transfer learning accuracy obtained was 0.95%, while the recall obtained was 0.93%, 0.97%, and 0.96%, respectively, where the targets were three classes (COVID, Pneumonia, and Normal). Additionally, the Covid class precision value received the perfect score, while the Normal and Pneumonia classes received the same for the f1-score. © 2022 IEEE.

COVID-19: An opportunity to promote disruptive innovation in students of the semiotics course

The CO VID-19 pandemic has had serious consequences in various sectors such as health, economy, and Education. The students of the initial, primary, and secondary level, as well as university in the month of March 2020 went to a total confinement and this generated changes in the way of providing education. In universities, the curriculum had to be adapted to the situation, which is why the semiotics course that studies the behavior of signs, sought to promote disruptive innovation in the works presented by students. This research reflects the themes addressed by the students and their creative capacity. © 2022 Latin American and Caribbean Consortium of Engineering Institutions. All rights reserved.

COVID-19 Experiences of Stage Performers

This article focuses on the experiences of artistic performers in Turkey from a primarily interactionist theoretical stance and aims to explore how they have been affected by the C OvID-19 crisis. The lockdown policies implemented in Turkey have had dire consequences for these performers, exposing them to a new social position of insecurity and uncertainty. They have suffered not only from a lack of economic resources but also of the social interaction that in prior circumstances provided them with the grounds upon which they construct and present their social self. The findings of the study show that the closures of performance spaces fractured the day-to-day routines that would normally provide them with a secure social self since they lacked the ground (the physical stage) through which they have physical interaction with others (their audiences). The narratives in the study demonstrate that not being able to be on-stage endangered the process of the social construction of the self as performers and that they sought new ways of reconstituting the performer-audience interaction in order to ease the negative effects of the pandemic conditions and to secure their selves.

[Features of the intestine conditions at patients with a new coronavirus infection].

COVID-19 infection may present with gastrointestinal lesions in up to 25% of patients. One of the target organs of the SARS-CoV-2 virus is the intestine. The pathogenesis of intestinal damage in a new coronavirus infection remains unclear and requires further in-depth study. Possible mechanisms include a direct cytotoxic effect of the virus, a persistent reduction in butyrate-producing bacteria, side effects of drugs, Clostridioides difficile infection, microvascular thrombosis, and the immune-mediated inflammatory reactions in the intestine. The most common symptom of intestinal damage during coronavirus infection, both in the acute phase and in the post-COVID period, is diarrhea. The impact of many aggressive factors on the intestines can form both long-term functional disorders and be the cause of the onset of organic diseases. Treatment should be aimed at possible causes of intestinal damage (Clostridioides difficile), as well as reducing inflammation, restoring intestinal permeability, cytoprotection of mucosal cells, replenishing butyric acid deficiency. When choosing a therapy for intestinal disorders, preference should be given to drugs with a pleiotropic effect in order to influence various possible pathogenetic mechanisms.

Consequences of covid-19 on the economy and public finance in Mexico: Beyond the pandemic.

The health crisis generated by the accelerated spread on the planet of the sars-CoV2 virus—the source of the covid-19 disease—has had an inevitable negative impact on health systems and simultaneously on the dynamics of the global, regional, and national economies. The structural problems of the Mexican economy and the narrowness of the fiscal space did not arise with the pandemic, they were configured during the last three decades with the implementation of the economic model that privileged market-oriented policies and the withdrawal of state intervention in the economy., in search of a supposed efficiency in the allocation of resources and productive factors. This article analyzes the impact of the covid-19 disease on the economy and public finances of Mexico, within a perspective that raises the previous existence of structural weaknesses in the economy to generate greater dynamism in production, income, productive investment, job creation, and labor productivity. The health and economic crises represent an opportunity to promote a new economic model that transcends the policies of neoliberal roots, through the design and implementation of an economic policy for the transformation and diversification of production, industrial development, innovation, science, and technology. A new economic model that goes beyond the pandemic, for the development of productive and technological capacities in which economic policy is not an end for macroeconomic stability, but a means to achieve the central objective of social welfare of the population. (English) [ FROM AUTHOR] La crisis sanitaria generada por la acelerada propagación en el planeta del virus sars- CoV2 —fuente de la enfermedad covid-19— ha tenido un impacto negativo inevitable en los sistemas de salud y, simultáneamente, en la dinámica de las economías global, regional y nacional. Los problemas estructurales de la economía mexicana y la estrechez del espacio fiscal no surgieron con la pandemia, se fueron configurando durante las últimas tres décadas mediante la implementación del modelo económico que privilegió las políticas orientadas al mercado y el retiro de la intervención del Estado en la economía, en busca de una supuesta eficiencia en la asignación de los recursos y los factores productivos. En este artículo se analiza el impacto de la covid-19 en la economía y la hacienda pública de México, desde una perspectiva que plantea la existencia previa de las debilidades estructurales de la economía, a fin de buscar mayor dinamismo de la producción, el ingreso, la inversión productiva, la generación de empleo y la productividad laboral. También se plantea que las crisis de salud y económica representan una oportunidad para impulsar un nuevo modelo económico que trascienda las políticas económicas de raíz neoliberal, mediante el diseño y la instrumentación de una política para la transformación y la diversificación productivas, el desarrollo industrial, la innovación, la ciencia y la tecnología. Se busca un nuevo modelo económico que vaya más allá de la pandemia para el desarrollo de capacidades productivas y tecnológicas en el que la política económica no sea un fin para la estabilidad macroeconómica, sino un medio para alcanzar el objetivo central de bienestar social de la población. (Spanish) [ FROM AUTHOR] Copyright of Trimestre Económico is the property of Fondo de Cultura Economica / Mexico and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full . (Copyright applies to all s.)

Designing social distancing policies for the COVID-19 pandemic: A probabilistic model predictive control approach.

The effective control of the COVID-19 pandemic is one the most challenging issues of recent years. The design of optimal control policies is challenging due to a variety of social, political, economical and epidemiological factors. Here, based on epidemiological data reported in recent studies for the Italian region of Lombardy, which experienced one of the largest and most devastating outbreaks in Europe during the first wave of the pandemic, we present a probabilistic model predictive control (PMPC) approach for the systematic study of what if scenarios of social distancing in a retrospective analysis for the first wave of the pandemic in Lombardy. The performance of the proposed PMPC was assessed based on simulations of a compartmental model that was developed to quantify the uncertainty in the level of the asymptomatic cases in the population, and the synergistic effect of social distancing during various activities, and public awareness campaign prompting people to adopt cautious behaviors to reduce the risk of disease transmission. The PMPC takes into account the social mixing effect, i.e. the effect of the various activities in the potential transmission of the disease. The proposed approach demonstrates the utility of a PMPC approach in addressing COVID-19 transmission and implementing public relaxation policies.

Failure to attend radiation oncology appointments during COVID-19: Analysis of data from an Australian public hospital.

INTRODUCTION: COVID-19 has impacted lives worldwide. Public health guidance has advocated for minimisation of infection risk by encouraging social isolation and physical distancing. In response, many health services have changed delivery practices to increased use of telehealth. We undertook an audit of hospital attendance data collected from a radiation oncology service in a large public hospital in Victoria, Australia between January and September in 2019, and the same period in 2020. The aim was to discern the impact of COVID-19 on attendance at appointments and whether attendance rates differed by appointment type. METHODS: Attendance data and appointment type for the two targeted periods (a total of 62,528 appointments for 3383 patients) were extracted from the database maintained by the radiation oncology service. Logistic generalised estimating equation (GEE) models were run with the final model including the COVID-19 period (pre, during) and all patient and appointment characteristics. RESULTS: Results indicated a small decrease in attendance in 2020 (OR = 1.13, 95% CI 1.01-1.25, P = 0.026) with this predominantly reported for the non-treatment appointments, which consisted of follow-up appointments, nurse appointments, and treatment review appointments. CONCLUSION: Attendance for radiation oncology treatment was largely unaffected by COVID-19 although other services experienced slight reductions. Changes to work practices, specifically the increased use of telehealth, may have moderated the impact. Given the focus on one service in one location, it is not possible to generalise these results and future research should closely monitor both patient and staff satisfaction with services delivered via modified processes.

Simulation of Countermeasures in the Face of Covid-19 Using a Linear Compartmental Model Adaptation of an anatomy graduate course in ultrasound imaging from in-person to live, remote instruction during the Covid-19 pandemic

Summary In this chapter, the authors study the effectiveness of the health countermeasure adopted by half of the countries of the world as a means of dealing with the Covid-19 pandemic. Containment of the population seems to be a well-suited action in the absence of an effective treatment, such as a viral treatment or a vaccine. The SIR (Susceptible?Infected?Recovered) model is known in epidemiology as a compartmental model. The SIR model, in its basic formulation, stratifies the population into three health states: susceptible to the disease, infected with the disease and recovered from the disease. A linear model is proposed for simulation purposes, the authors specify its data, its variables, its objective function and its constraints. Health concerns during the Covid-19 pandemic required the adaptation of a lecture-laboratory course in ultrasound imaging for graduate students from an in-person to a live, remote learning format. The adaptation of in-person lectures to live, remote delivery was achieved by using videoconferencing. The adaptation of in-person laboratory sessions to live, remote instruction was achieved in the first half of the course by providing a hand-held ultrasound instrument to each student who performed self-scanning at their remote locations, while the instructor provided live instruction using videoconferencing. In the second half of the course, the students transitioned to using cart-based, hospital-type instruments and self-scanning in the ultrasound laboratory on campus. The aim of this study was to measure the success of this adaptation to the course by comparing assessment scores of students in the live, remote course with assessment scores of students in the in-person course offered in the previous year. There were no statistically significant differences in the assessment scores of students in the two courses. The adaptation of a course in ultrasound imaging from an in-person to a live, remote learning format during the Covid-19 pandemic described here suggests that contrary to the prevailing view, ultrasound imaging can be taught to students without in-person instruction. The adapted course can serve as a model for teaching ultrasound where instructors and learners are physically separated by constraints other than health concerns during a pandemic.

Impact of Restrictive Measures during the Covid-19 Pandemic on Aerosol Pollution of the Atmosphere of the Moscow Megalopolis.

The COVID-19 pandemic has led to self-isolation and business interruptions around the world. On the basis of measurements of concentrations of an indicator of aerosol emissions from fuel combustion products-black carbon-it is shown that the decrease in economic activity had a significant effect on the pollution of the Moscow atmosphere. The decrease in the intensity of the traffic and the change in the operating mode of industrial and heat-and-power enterprises of the city during the period of restrictive measures in the spring of 2020 were determined by the dynamics of the daily and weekly trend of black carbon levels. The decrease in the fraction of fossil fuel combustion at this time correlates with the increased contribution of biomass combustion in the residential sector and during agricultural fires around the megalopolis. Changes in the intensity and direction of sources of high concentrations of black carbon were observed during the recovery of economic activity in the summer of 2020. The decrease in the concentration of black carbon and fine particles less than 2.5 µm in size (PM2.5) in the urban atmosphere reflects a decline in economic activity and an improvement in air quality and conditions for maintaining the health of the Moscow population during the COVID-19 pandemic.

A novel distance learning ergonomics checklist and risk evaluation methodology: A case of Covid-19 pandemic.

Many governments decided to cancel face-to-face teaching and learning activities in schools and universities. They replaced them with online teaching and distance learning activities to prevent the spread of Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). Due to this sudden change, students experienced some anthropometric, environmental, and psychosocial difficulties at home during the distance learning process. This study focuses on determining the importance of anthropometric, environmental, and psychosocial factors in the distance learning process during the COVID-19 pandemic. This study presents main factors and their subfactors affecting ergonomic conditions of university students during distance learning. A novel distance learning ergonomics checklist is proposed based on the Occupational Safety and Health Administration checklists. The data are collected via a questionnaire filled by 100 university students who attend the Ergonomics course online. Then, the integrated methodology includes Voting Analytic Hierarchy Process integrated Pythagorean Fuzzy Technique for Order Preference by Similarity to An Ideal Solution method is adopted to prioritize the factors determined. Thirty-nine different subfactors are evaluated under five titles, and the most important factors are determined using the proposed methodology. With the results achieved, it is seen that the suggested checklist and proposed methodology can be used by public and private education organizations as a guide for improving their distance learning strategies.

Clinical characteristics and laboratory indicator analysis of 67 COVID-19 pneumonia patients in Suzhou, China.

BACKGROUND: Sudden exacerbations and respiratory failure are major causes of death in patients with severe coronavirus disease 2019(COVID-19) pneumonia, but indicators for the prediction and treatment of severe patients are still lacking. METHODS: A retrospective analysis of 67 collected cases was conducted and included approximately 67 patients with COVID-19 pneumonia who were admitted to the Suzhou Fifth People's Hospital from January 1, 2020 to February 8, 2020. The epidemiological, clinical and imaging characteristics as well as laboratory data of the 67 patients were analyzed. RESULTS: The study found that fibrinogen (FIB) was increased in 45 (65.2%) patients, and when FIB reached a critical value of 4.805 g/L, the sensitivity and specificity、DA, helping to distinguish general and severe cases, were 100 and 14%、92.9%, respectively, which were significantly better than those for lymphocyte count and myoglobin. Chest CT images indicated that the cumulative number of lung lobes with lesions in severe patients was significantly higher than that in general patients (P < 0.05), and the cumulative number of lung lobes with lesions was negatively correlated with lymphocyte count and positively correlated with myoglobin and FIB. Our study also found that there was no obvious effect of hormone therapy in patients with severe COVID-19. CONCLUSIONS: Based on the retrospective analysis, FIB was found to be increased in severe patients and was better than lymphocyte count and myoglobin in distinguishing general and severe patients. The study also suggested that hormone treatment has no significant effect on COVID-19.

Clinical Features of Maintenance Hemodialysis Patients with 2019 Novel Coronavirus-Infected Pneumonia in Wuhan, China.

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES: Previous reports on the outbreak of coronavirus disease 2019 were on the basis of data from the general population. Our study aimed to investigate the clinical features of patients on maintenance hemodialysis. DESIGN, SETTING, PARTICIPANTS, & MEASUREMENTS: In this retrospective, single-center study, we included 49 hospitalized patients on maintenance hemodialysis and 52 hospitalized patients without kidney failure (controls) with confirmed coronavirus disease 2019 at Tongren Hospital of Wuhan University from January 30, 2020 to March 10, 2020. Demographic, clinical, laboratory, and radiologic characteristics and treatment and outcomes data were analyzed. The final date of follow-up was March 19, 2020. RESULTS: The median age of 101 patients was 62 years (interquartile range, 49-72). All patients were local residents of Wuhan. In terms of common symptoms, there were differences between patients on hemodialysis and controls (fatigue [59% versus 83%], dry cough [49% versus 71%], and fever [47% versus 90%]). Lymphocyte counts were decreased (0.8×109/L [patients on hemodialysis] versus 0.9×109/L [controls], P=0.02). Comparing patients on hemodialysis with controls, creatine kinase-muscle and brain type, myoglobin, hypersensitive troponin I, B-type natriuretic peptide, and procalcitonin were increased, and the percentage of abnormalities in bilateral lung was higher in computed tomographic scan (82% versus 69%, P=0.15) and unilateral lung was lower (10% versus 27%, P=0.03). Common complications including shock, acute respiratory distress syndrome, arrhythmia, and acute cardiac injury in patients on hemodialysis were significantly higher. Compared with controls, more patients on hemodialysis received noninvasive ventilation (25% versus 6%, P=0.008). As of March 19, 2020, three patients on hemodialysis (6%) were transferred to the intensive care unit and received invasive ventilation. Seven patients on hemodialysis (14%) had died. CONCLUSIONS: The main symptoms of coronavirus disease 2019 pneumonia, including fever and cough, were less common in patients on hemodialysis. Patients on hemodialysis with coronavirus disease 2019 were at higher risk of death.