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Honey bees in beekeeping are commonly involved in honey production and as planned pollinators worldwide. However, at the beginning of the covid-19 pandemic, the hardworking little creatures suffered many difficulties. The entire supply chain was blocked. Consequently, the challenges directly affected honey and crop production worldwide. The pandemic issues like travel restrictions and limited access to apiaries had a detrimental influence on beekeepers' activity. Earlier sales decline during the crisis had an economic impact, with some beneficial impacts, like a rise in demand for health-related goods. However, the challenges come with opportunities, which lead to a pointy surge in demand for honey which paved the way for many women entrepreneurs as beekeepers to meet the local demands, which helps the rural economy to be sustained. Another intriguing benefit is that a drastic drop in pollution helped bees get back to their normal routine, which led to a drastic increase in honey production during the pandemic as opposed to what they experienced in normal times. This article briefly outlines such challenges faced by the beekeepers and the honey producers and also focuses on the new opportunities that rendered many values to the producers during the pandemic © Penerbit UMT
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Trehalulose (1-O-alpha-D-glucopyranosyl-D-fructose) is a naturally occurring disaccharide composed of fructose and glucose. It is a sucrose isomer with a unique alpha-1,1 glycosidic bond that is more stable than the 1,2 glycosidic bond found in sucrose, giving it a lower glycemic index (GI). Trehalulose sugar production is often complicated, and the literature on the production is scarce. However, trehalulose is gaining popularity after a recent study revealed the abundance of this sugar in stingless bee honey (13 to 44 g per 100 g). The current short review discusses the chemical and physiological properties of trehalulose and its potential health benefits based on a bibliometric approach. Furthermore, it evaluates the antidiabetic potential of trehalulose as an emerging alternative sweetener.
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The analysis of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) gene copy numbers in wastewater samples can provide quantitative information on Coronavirus Disease-19 (COVID-19) cases within a sewer catchment. However, many wastewater-based epidemiology (WBE) studies have neglected virus decay during the wastewater transportation process in sewers while back-calculating COVID-19 prevalence. Among various sewer condition parameters, wastewater temperature and dilution by fresh/saltwater infiltration may result in a significant change to the virus decay, in terms of both infectivity and Ribonucleic Acid (RNA). This paper reviewed the literature to identify and discuss the effects of temperature and water types (i.e., wastewater, freshwater, and seawater) on coronavirus decay based on the decay rate constants that were collected from published papers. To evaluate the importance of virus decay, a sensitivity analysis was then conducted with decay rates of SARS-CoV-2 RNA based on a WBE back-calculation equation. Finally, the decay rates of coronavirus in wastewater were also compared with those of other viruses to further understand the difference among virus species. The decay of SARS-CoV-2 RNA was found to be less impacted by temperature variation than viable coronaviruses. Nevertheless, WBE back-calculation was still sensitive to the RNA decay rates increased by warm wastewater (i.e., over 26 °C), which could lead to a two-times higher relative variance in estimated COVID-19 prevalence, considering the wastewater temperature variation between 4 and 37 °C in a sewer catchment with a 12-h hydraulic retention time. Comparatively, the sensitivity of the WBE estimation to the enveloped SARS-CoV-2 was greater than nonenveloped enteric viruses, which were less easily degradable in wastewater. In addition, wastewater dilution by stormwater inflow and accompanied cold weather might alleviate the decay of coronavirus infectivity, thus increasing the potential risk of COVID-19 transmission through wastewater. Overall, this paper aims to better understand the impact of in-sewer processes on coronavirus decay and its potential implications for WBE. The outcome could quantitatively inform WBE and improve awareness of the increased risk of COVID-19 infection via wastewater during heavy rainfall events. Given the identified scarcity of data available for coronavirus decay in salt water or with chemical additions, future research on the fate of SARS-CoV-2 subjected to chemical dosing for sewer or wastewater treatment plant operations is recommended. © 2023 by the authors.
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CONTEXT In the autumn session of 2020, COVID-19 outbreak forced the transition of teaching and learning from face-to-face mode into remote delivery in Australian universities. Over this unplanned, unprepared, and rapid move to remote delivery for lecturers and online learning for students, many strategies, designs, and technologies were applied to replace conventional classes, tutorials, laboratory classes, project assignments, and assessments. PURPOSE OR GOAL This study investigated the design, use and impact of videos for lectures, tutorials, and laboratory experiments for a combined undergraduate and postgraduate Environmental Engineering course during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020. The course was delivered through both face-to-face and online delivery modes, which we employed conventional video recordings and H5P interactive videos to support e-learning on the Moodle platform. APPROACH OR METHODOLOGY/METHODS H5P interactive videos, slides and quizzes were also used to design the pre-lab and recorded lab experiments, as our labs were closed due to social distancing requirements. Students' performance was evaluated through their marks of weekly quizzes;and their engagement was analyzed using Moodle activity logs and anonymous surveys through teacher evaluation and polling in Zoom meetings. ACTUAL OR ANTICIPATED OUTCOMES The attendance to online Zoom lecture and tutorials ranged from 70-87%. These data collectively demonstrate a high level of student engagement and satisfaction under the COVID-19 impacted teaching and learning environment compared to rate of lecture attendance at traditional lectures. H5P interactive videos helped students to achieve higher marks, compared to conventional videos. Student has watched the video more than once to obtain enough information to write the lab class report. CONCLUSIONS/RECOMMENDATIONS/SUMMARY It was shown that H5P interactive videos had higher views than conventional videos, which subsequently led to higher marks in weekly quizzes. The tutorials were delivered using Zoom meetings, supplemented with pre-recorded videos which supported students who could not attend the tutorial or for their revisions. The virtual laboratory experiments enabled with H5P provided adequate data and information for students to write their lab reports comparable to the requirements of a real-life lab class. Different approaches of video design and their limitations and improvements are discussed for the future development of e-learning in the post-COVID era. Copyright © Guangming Jiang, Ashley Ansari, Muttucumaru Sivakumar, Timothy McCarthy, 2021.
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Aim and objective: NIV and HFNC are common modes of respiratory supports in hypoxic respiratory failure, but its use is not adequately supported by literature and guidelines. But in recent times both are used extensively in COVID pneumonia patients. But their success in preventing intubation or reducing mortality were not validated by studies. Hence, our aim was to retrospectively look into the COVID patients admitted to our ICU, observe the outcome benefits of NIV and HFNC use in hypoxic respiratory failure methods. Materials and methods: Retrospective analysis of the COVID pneumonia patients admitted to ICU over 1 year period in our multi-speciality tertiary care hospital in south India was undertaken. And we enrolled retrospectively a total of 50 COVID-19 patients, who used HFNC and NIV as first-line therapy. Details were collected from the electronic charting and patient files. The data on the usage of non-invasive ventilation using NIV and HFNC as the initial mode of ventilation for hypoxic respiratory failure in these patient groups were analysed. And the findings were compared. The outcome benefit in terms of subsequent invasive ventilation need, mortality, and duration of ICU stay were measured. Results and conclusion: Usage of noninvasive ventilation using HFNC as the initial mode for hypoxic respiratory failure has increased in this COVID pandemic compared with other methods of non-invasive ventilation using NIV. The P/F ratio at which escalation of respiratory support was considered in NIV group was higher when compared to HFNC patients. The duration of HFNC usage was found to be longer in COVID patients by accepting lower P/F ratios. We found that HFNC usage was beneficial in preventing invasive ventilation to a larger extent compared to NIV use in COVID-19 patients. No medical staff got a nosocomial infection during this study.
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Introduction: Although NIV is a common mode of respiratory support in hypoxic respiratory failure, its use is not adequately supported by literature and guidelines. But in recent times NIV is used extensively in COVID pneumonia patients. Earlier, H1N1 pneumonia group of patients were identified to benefit from use of NIV. But their success in preventing intubation or reducing mortality were not validated by studies. Objective: Our aim was to retrospectively look into the COVID patients admitted to our ICU, observe the outcome benefits of NIV use and compare the difference in outcome benefits of NIV use in the H1NI patients during the previous year. Materials and methods: Retrospective analysis of the COVID pneumonia patients admitted to ICU over one year period in our multi-speciality tertiary care hospital in south India was undertaken. Details were collected from the electronic charting and patient files retrospectively. The data on the usage of non-invasive ventilation as the initial mode of ventilation for hypoxic respiratory failure in these patient groups were analysed. The findings were compared with the data from the H1N1 pandemic patients in 2018 collected from our ICU. The outcome benefit in terms of subsequent invasive ventilation need, mortality and duration of ICU stay were measured. Results of COVID patients: Average age of patient was 62.6 years and male:female ratio was 50%. All patients had associated significant co-morbidities. Average duration of symptom prior to ICU admission was 5.1 days. Length of ICU days was at an average of 6.75 days with 2-18-day variation. 66% had Severe ARDS. In 83% of patients NIV was used and 16% had HFNC and 41% had both NIV and HFNC during the stay. Overall 41% needed invasive ventilation. Only 30% of those who were on NIV went to receive invasive ventilation. Overall mortality was at 41%. Results compared with H1N1 patients: 78.6% of H1N1 patients received NIV, of which 42% improved, but 57% needed invasive ventilation when compared to 30% in COVID pneumonia. However, mortality was 36%, which was lower compared to COVID patients. Conclusion: Significant proportion of COVID patients when compared to H1N1 had probably benefited from NIV usage. Whether NIV delayed the needed intubation early is not clear and would it have prevented mortality is not clear either. HFNC is newer mode of Non-Invasive ventilation mode that has gained popularity during the COVID pandemic. There is significant mortality associated with the second wave of COVID pandemic from our experience of treating patients with severe ARDS. Conflict of interest: None declared by any of the authors.
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Objective: The focus is to screen the phytoconstituents of various Indian medicinal plants using virtual screening tools against various targets of COVID-19 to develop potential compound for its treatment. Methods: The phytoconstituents of many herbal plants were screened based on literature review and then subjected to drug likeness property along with its bioactivity score. Docking of screened compounds with the targets of CoV being available default in the COVID-19 Docking Server tool based on Schrodinger maestro was demonstrated. Further, the docking was analysed using PyRx and AutoDock 4.2. The phytoconstituents were then taken for ADME estimation by ADME/T tool and SwissADME tool. The toxicity was predicted utilising TEST software. Results: Out of all, eleven phytoconstituents exhibited significant molecular properties and bioactivity score. After docking all compounds using various tools, their top binding scores were tabulated. It shows that the phytoconstituents Amritoside D and Tinocordifolin effectively produces significant action against COVID-19 when compared with the standard drugs currently been used. i.e., Favipiravir and Chloroquine. Further, it exhibited better absorption and distribution parameters for Pharmacokinetics of the drug. Hence, the toxicity estimation was also predicted focusing mainly on Oral Rat LD50 values. Conclusion: From all these results, it suggests that the compounds Amritoside D and Tinocordifolin produce significant results against COVID-19. Hence, further in-vitro and clinical studies have to be performed to develop drug for CoV treatment in a speedy way. © RJPT All right reserved.
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INTRODUCTION: There is strong evidence for the use of corticosteroid in the management of severe coronavirus disease-2019 (COVID-19). However, there is still uncertainty about the timing of corticosteroids. We undertook a modified Delphi study to develop expert consensus statements on the early identification of a subset of patients from non-severe COVID-19 who may benefit from using corticosteroids. METHODS: A modified Delphi was conducted with two anonymous surveys between April 30, 2021, and May 3, 2021. An expert panel of 35 experts was selected and invited to participate through e-mail. The consensus was defined as >70% votes in multiple-choice questions (MCQ) on Likert-scale type statements, while strong consensus as >90% votes in MCQ or >50% votes for "very important" on Likert-scale questions in the final round. RESULTS: Twenty experts completed two rounds of the survey. There was strong consensus for the increased work of breathing (95%), a positive six-minute walk test (90%), thorax computed tomography severity score of >14/25 (85%), new-onset organ dysfunction (using clinical or biochemical criteria) (80%), and C-reactive protein >5 times the upper limit of normal (70%) as the criteria for patients' selection. The experts recommended using oral or intravenous (IV) low-dose corticosteroids (the equivalent of 6 mg/day dexamethasone) for 5-10 days and monitoring of oxygen saturation, body temperature, clinical scoring system, blood sugar, and inflammatory markers for any "red-flag" signs. CONCLUSION: The experts recommended against indiscriminate use of corticosteroids in mild to moderate COVID-19 without the signs of clinical worsening. Oral or IV low-dose corticosteroids (the equivalent of 6 mg/day dexamethasone) for 5-10 days are recommended for patients with features of disease progression based on clinical, biochemical, or radiological criteria after 5 days from symptom onset under close monitoring. HOW TO CITE THIS ARTICLE: How to cite this article: Nasa P, Chaudhry D, Govil D, Daga MK, Jain R, Chhallani AA, et al. Expert Consensus Statements on the Use of Corticosteroids in Non-severe COVID-19. Indian J Crit Care Med 2021;25(11):1280-1285.
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The First International Conference on Advances in Computational Science and Engineering (ICACSE 2020) on December 25 & 26th, 2020 which is planned to be held at Coimbatore, India. As the covid-19 pandemic spreads endless, according to the direction received from the government and suggestions received from some participants, the organizing committee decided to convert ICACSE 2020 into a fully virtual mode conference. ICACSE 2020 conference was organized by the Live4Research Institute of Research and Development, India. The main objective of the conference is to provide a platform for researchers, professors, and engineers to share their contributions to recent trends and developments in Engineering and Sciences. The scientific event brings together more than 300 researchers. Initially, the conference structure was divided into oral presentations and keynote speeches. In the oral presentations, some scholars' papers were selected as excellent papers, were given about 5-10 minutes to present their oral presentations one by one. Then the keynote speakers were each allocated 30-45 minutes for their plenary talks. We have received tremendous response from all over India and overseas (Malaysia, Oman, Ethiopia, Peru, Columbia, USA). Through a rigorous peer-review process, all submissions were performed double blind review to check their quality of content, level of innovation, significance, originality, and readability. Based on the expertise review comments, only 295 papers were accepted, and the corresponding authors were invited to submit their papers for final publication. The accepted papers are published by IOP Conference Series “Journal of Physics: Conference Series (JPCS)”. The conference proceeding is a compilation of the accepted papers and represents an interesting outcome of the conference. This proceeding covers six chapters: 1. Advances in Computational Mathematical Sciences 2. Advances in Computational Physics and Material Sciences 3. Advances in Computer Science Engineering 4. Advances in Computational Electrical Engineering 5. Advances in Computational Electronics and Communication Engineering 6. Advances in Computational Civil Engineering we would like to thank the keynote speakers, authors, and listeners for their excellent contributions. We wish to extend our sincere gratitude to the organizing committee, reviewers, and volunteers for their constant support. We greatly acknowledge our technical partner Cloudin Software Tech Labs Pvt. Ltd, Coimbatore, India for their effort in publicity and promotion of the conference. We greatly acknowledge all of those who supported ICACSE 2020. The support and contribution of each individual and institution were the backbones of the conference. In specific, we would like to extend our privilege to thank the organizing committee for its valuable inputs in steering the conference program to attain a grand success and reviewing the submitted papers. List of COMMITTEE and logos are available in this pdf.
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According to the World Health Organization, the Coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic is causing a worldwide emergency, and one safe way to cover oneself is to wear masks. This pandemic constrained governments everywhere in the world to force lock-downs to avoid the transmission of infection. Reports show that wearing masks at work diminishes the danger of infection. We assemble our model by utilizing the concept of deep neural learning and AI. The dataset comprises pictures with masked faces and non-masked faces. Several computer algorithms are there for face detection. But this analysis centers around two of the most widely recognized procedures: The Viola-Jones algorithm and the Convolution Neural Networks. We will check whether the individual in the image/video wears a mask or not with a CV and Deep neural learning. Not only finding out about face mask detection, but this project also introduced the chance to delve into the field of computer algorithms.
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Introduction: Aim: •To identify the incidence of culture-positive sepsis in critically ill COVID-19 patients at our tertiary intensive care unit. •To categorize patients based on their comorbidities, the severity of illness and treatments underwent to see if there is any correlation toward their predisposition toward culturepositive sepsis. Materials and methods: We studied a total of 23 critically ill COVID- 19 patients admitted over a month retrospectively. We observed that there was no incidence of bloodstream infections in any of the patients during their stay in ICU. The incidence of blood culture testing for BSI was among 43% of the patients. VAP was not observed in any of them either when 21% of the patients underwent culture and sensitivity of their endotracheal aspirate. However, there were six patients with catheter-associated urinary tract infection accounting for nearly 26% of the patients, and the positivity rate was as high as 66% when tested. We observed a very low positivity rate for bloodstream infection and ventilator-associated pneumonia whereas a very high positivity rate for catheter-associated urinary tract infection. All the patients had antiviral drug therapy with remdesivir and steroid therapy during their stay in ICU. Use of procalcitonin to ascertain the presence of infection was also seen in at least 50% of the clinically suspected septic patients. Results: •In our cohort of critically ill COVID19 patients' the incidence of catheter associated urinary tract infection was very high •We also observed that there was surprisingly very low positivity rate for ventilator associated pneumonia and blood stream associated infections when cultures were undertaken •Though the positivity rate was low in tested samples, clinical decision to cover the episodes of suspected sepsis with antibacterial agents might be substantiated due to reduced mortality rate observed within our cohort of patients Discussions: Though the positivity rate was low in tested samples, the clinical decision to cover the episodes of suspected sepsis with antibacterial agents might be substantiated due to the reduced mortality rate observed within our cohort of patients. Conclusion: •In our cohort of critically ill COVID-19 patients, the incidence of catheter-associated urinary tract infection was very high. •We also observed that there was a surprisingly very low positivity rate for ventilator-associated pneumonia and bloodstream associated infections when cultures were undertaken. •Though the positivity rate was low in tested samples, the clinical decision to cover the episodes of suspected sepsis with antibacterial agents might be substantiated due to the reduced mortality rate observed within our cohort of patients.