Clinical characteristics and progression of COVID-19 confirmed cases admitted to a single British clinical centre-A brief case series report.

OBJECTIVES: In December 2019, a pneumonia-like illness was first reported in Wuhan-China caused by a new coronavirus named corona virus disease-2019 (COVID-19) which then spread to cause a global pandemic. Most of the available data in the literature is derived from Chinese cohorts and we aim to contribute the clinical experience of a single British clinical centre with the characteristics of a British cohort. DESIGN: A prospective case series. SETTING: A single clinical centre in the UK. METHODS: We have collected the demographics and medical characteristics of all COVID-19-positive cases admitted over 2-week period. All cases were diagnosed by PCR. RESULTS: Total of 71 COVID-19 patients were included in this case series. Majority of patients (75%) were ≥75 years old and 58% were men. Pre-existing comorbidities was common (85% of patients). Most patients presented with respiratory symptoms such as fever (59%), shortness of breath (56%) and cough (55%). Gastrointestinal symptoms were second-most common presenting compliant such as diarrhoea (10%) and abdominal pain (7%). Opacification in chest X-rays was demonstrated in 45% of patients. All patients received supportive treatment and no specific antiviral therapy was administered in this cohort. So far, 18 (25%) patients have fully recovered, 9 patients (13%) escalated to a higher level of care and 10 (14%) have died. Patients who died were non-significantly older than those who have recovered (78.0 vs 69.2 years, P = .15) but they had a significantly higher clinical frailty scores (5.75 vs 3.36, P = .005). CONCLUSION: This case series demonstrated that the characteristics of British COVID-19 patients were generally similar to what is published in literature, although we report more gastrointestinal symptoms at presentation. We have identified frailty as a risk factor for adverse outcome in COVID-19 patients and suggest that it should be included in the future vaccination recommendations.

Controlling Structural Transitions in AuAg Nanoparticles through Precise Compositional Design.

We present a study of the transitional pathways between high-symmetry structural motifs for AgAu nanoparticles, with a specific focus on controlling the energetic barriers through chemical design. We show that the barriers can be altered by careful control of the elemental composition and chemical arrangement, with core@shell and vertex-decorated arrangements being specifically influential on the barrier heights. We also highlight the complexity of the potential and free energy landscapes for systems where there are low-symmetry geometric motifs that are energetically competitive to the high-symmetry arrangements. In particular, we highlight that some core@shell arrangements preferentially transition through multistep restructuring of low-symmetry truncated octahedra and rosette-icosahedra, instead of via the more straightforward square-diamond transformations, due to lower energy barriers and competitive energetic minima. Our results have promising implications for the continuing efforts in bespoke nanoparticle design for catalytic and plasmonic applications.

High-throughput detection of ethanol-producing cyanobacteria in a microdroplet platform.

Ethanol production by microorganisms is an important renewable energy source. Most processes involve fermentation of sugars from plant feedstock, but there is increasing interest in direct ethanol production by photosynthetic organisms. To facilitate this, a high-throughput screening technique for the detection of ethanol is required. Here, a method for the quantitative detection of ethanol in a microdroplet-based platform is described that can be used for screening cyanobacterial strains to identify those with the highest ethanol productivity levels. The detection of ethanol by enzymatic assay was optimized both in bulk and in microdroplets. In parallel, the encapsulation of engineered ethanol-producing cyanobacteria in microdroplets and their growth dynamics in microdroplet reservoirs were demonstrated. The combination of modular microdroplet operations including droplet generation for cyanobacteria encapsulation, droplet re-injection and pico-injection, and laser-induced fluorescence, were used to create this new platform to screen genetically engineered strains of cyanobacteria with different levels of ethanol production.

Development of stroke care in Ghana.

The burden of stroke in the developing world is huge and growing. In Ghana, located in West Africa, stroke is in the top five causes of death. Disability resulting from stroke creates many challenges to healthcare staff, patients, their families and the wider society. Health professionals from the South West of England, Ridge Hospital Accra and Korle Bu Teaching Hospital Accra formed an international health partnership to share knowledge of stroke management and service development to support the improvement of stroke care in Ghana.