Background and purpose
Specific respiratory tract infections, including COVID‐19, may cause smell and/or taste disorders (STDs) with increased frequency. The aim was to determine whether new‐onset ...STDs are more frequent amongst COVID‐19 patients than influenza patients.
Method
This was a case–control study including hospitalized patients of two tertiary care centres. Consecutive patients positive for COVID‐19 polymerase chain reaction (cases) and patients positive for influenza polymerase chain reaction (historical control sample) were assessed during specific periods, employing a self‐reported STD questionnaire.
Results
Seventy‐nine cases and 40 controls were included. No significant differences were found in basal features between the two groups. New‐onset STDs were significantly more frequent amongst cases (31, 39.2%) than in the control group (5, 12.5 %) adjusted odds ratio 21.4 (2.77–165.4, P = 0.003). COVID‐19 patients with new‐onset STDs were significantly younger than COVID‐19 patients without STDs (52.6 ± 17.2 vs. 67.4 ± 15.1, P < 0.001). Amongst COVID‐19 patients who presented STDs, 22 (70.9%) recalled an acute onset and it was an initial manifestation in 11 (35.5%). Twenty‐five (80.6%) presented smell disorders (mostly anosmia, 14, 45.2%) and 28 (90.3%) taste disorders (mostly ageusia, 14, 45.2%). Only four (12.9 %) reported concomitant nasal obstruction. The mean duration of STD was 7.5 ± 3.2 days and 12 patients (40%) manifested complete recovery after 7.4 ± 2.3 days of onset.
Conclusion
New‐onset STDs were significantly more frequent amongst COVID‐19 patients than influenza patients; they usually had an acute onset and were commonly an initial manifestation. The use of STD assessment in anamnesis as a hint for COVID‐19 and to support individuals’ self‐isolation in the current epidemic context is suggested.
While many Latinos suffer the injustices of racial profiling at the hands of law enforcement and immigration officials, differences in immigration status, racial identity, contact with the Black ...community, and the prevalence anti-Black sentiment pose challenges for coalition building with Blacks. This study explores the factors that lead to an avenue for allyship from the Latino community to the Black community. Using attitudes about the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement, a series of hypotheses are tested to examine the structure of Latino-Black compared to white-Black coalitions. Two major findings emerge from the analysis; first, differences between whites and Latinos reveal that the effect of harboring anti-Black stereotypes are extraordinarily predictive of rejecting calls for racial social justice and combatting the scourge of police killings of unarmed Black men among whites but not among Latinos. Second, differences according to Latino racial identity and indicators of acculturation also impact support for the BLM movement in ways that both reaffirm but also challenge previous scholarship. These results suggest that while on the whole Latinos, and especially immigrants, are uninformed about BLM, once aware they exhibit a generally supportive stance toward the movement’s goals of criminal justice reform.
The study of visual illusions has proven to be a very useful approach in vision science. In this work we start by showing that, while convolutional neural networks (CNNs) trained for low-level visual ...tasks in natural images may be deceived by brightness and color illusions, some network illusions can be inconsistent with the perception of humans. Next, we analyze where these similarities and differences may come from. On one hand, the proposed linear eigenanalysis explains the overall similarities: in simple CNNs trained for tasks like denoising or deblurring, the linear version of the network has center-surround receptive fields, and global transfer functions are very similar to the human achromatic and chromatic contrast sensitivity functions in human-like opponent color spaces. These similarities are consistent with the long-standing hypothesis that considers low-level visual illusions as a by-product of the optimization to natural environments. Specifically, here human-like features emerge from error minimization. On the other hand, the observed differences must be due to the behavior of the human visual system not explained by the linear approximation. However, our study also shows that more ‘flexible’ network architectures, with more layers and a higher degree of nonlinearity, may actually have a worse capability of reproducing visual illusions. This implies, in line with other works in the vision science literature, a word of caution on using CNNs to study human vision: on top of the intrinsic limitations of the L + NL formulation of artificial networks to model vision, the nonlinear behavior of flexible architectures may easily be markedly different from that of the visual system.
Objective
This article examines the unresolved puzzle of the Latino vote in the 2016 presidential election. The National Election Pool (NEP) estimated that Trump received 28 percent, which surprised ...many given Trump's rhetoric, but it was just one of several estimates (ranging from 18 to over 30 percent).
Methods
We analyze the 2016 and 2012 American National Election Study, Pew's 2016 and 2012 National Survey of Latinos, the 2016 Cooperative Congressional Election Study, and various media polls.
Results
The data indicate that (1) Trump improved on Romney among key groups of Latinos (Protestants, low income, and the third generation) but lost ground among others; (2) Clinton underperformed Obama across multiple dimensions; and (3) many Latino undecided voters and third‐party supporters broke late for Trump.
Conclusion
Trump did better than expected among Latinos. This highlights an increasingly diverse Latino electorate and complicates our understanding of the political implications of demographic change.
Objective
Scholars have struggled to understand Donald Trump's surprising levels of Latino support in two consecutive presidential elections. We test three hypotheses to better understand the ...strength and weakness of Trump, Biden, and both political parties.
Methods
We conduct bivariate and multivariate analyses of pre‐ and post‐election surveys to identify sources of support (beyond national origin differences) that explain how Trump improved his level of support among Latino voters to reach the low‐ to mid‐ 30 percent range.
Results
Intra‐Latino differences in ideology, identity (gender and religion), and immigration attitudes help explain Trump's relatively strong showing among Latinos in 2020.
Conclusion
While the nation's electorate is becoming more demographically diverse, many predictions associated with the notion of “demography as destiny” should be tempered given the political heterogeneity among Latino voters.
Daemonorops draco (D. draco) commonly known as “Dragon's blood” is one of the most used plants by Momok, Anak Dalam and Talang Mamak tribes from Indonesia as a remedy for wound healing.
Aim of the ...study: This study aimed to identify the extract, fractions and compounds responsible for the anti-inflammatory and pro-proliferative activities of the D. draco resin. Additionally, the antimicrobial activity against two bacteria and one yeast species was analysed.
Bio-guided isolation of compounds with anti-inflammatory, pro-proliferative and antimicrobial activities from the D. draco resin was carried out by measuring: the inhibition of NF-κB and activation of Nrf2 in THP-1, HaCaT, NIH-3T3 cells; cell proliferation in NIH-3T3 and HaCaT cells; and the antimicrobial effect on E. coli, S. aureus and C. albicans.
Guided isolation by bioassay gave rise to the isolation and characterisation by nuclear magnetic resonance and mass spectrometry of three compounds: 1 (Bexarotene), 2 (Taspine) and 3 (2-hydroxy-1-naphthaldehyde isonicotinoyl hydrazone). All compounds showed NF-κB inhibitory activity with IC50 values of 0.10–0.13, 0.22–0.24 and 3.75–4.78 μM, respectively, while the positive control, Celastrol, had an IC50 of 7.96 μM. Likewise, all compounds showed an activating effect of Nrf2 with EC50 values of 5.34–5.43, 163.20–169.20 and 300.82–315.56 nM, respectively, while the positive control, CDDO-Me, had an EC50 of 0.11 nM. In addition, concerning the pro-proliferative activity, compound 1 (IC50 = 8.62–8.71 nM) showed a capacity of 100%, compound 2 (IC50 = 166–171 nM) showed a capacity of 75%, and compound 3 (IC50 = 469–486 nM) showed a capacity of 65%, while FSB 10% (positive control) had a pro-proliferative activity of 100% in the NIH3T3 cell lines (fibroblasts) and HaCaT (keratinocytes).
Finally, all the compounds showed antimicrobial activity with MIC values of 0.12–0.16, 0.31–0.39 and 3.96–3.99 μM, respectively, in S. aureus, E. coli and C. albicans strains, while the positive control, Ofloxacin, had a MIC of 27.65 μM.
This study managed to isolate, for the first time, three compounds (Bexarotene, Taspine and 2-hydroxy-1-naphthaldehyde isonicotinoyl hydrazone) from the resin of D. draco, with anti-inflammatory, and pro-proliferative as well as antimicrobial activities.
Display omitted
•Daemonorops draco extracts showed anti-inflammatory, as well as pro-proliferative and antimicrobial activities.•Bexarotene, Taspine and 2-hydroxy-1-naphthaldehyde isonicotinoyl hydrazone have been isolated from the Daemonorops draco.•All three compounds showed inhibition of NF-kB production and activating effect of Nrf2 in NIH-3T3 and HaCaT cell lines.•All three compounds showed pro-proliferative activity of the NIH-3T3 and HaCaT cell lines.•All three compounds showed antimicrobial activity against Gram-negative bacteria, Gram-positive bacteria, and yeast.
Bone marrow adipose tissue (BMAT) comprises >10% of total adipose mass, yet unlike white or brown adipose tissues (WAT or BAT) its metabolic functions remain unclear. Herein, we address this critical ...gap in knowledge. Our transcriptomic analyses revealed that BMAT is distinct from WAT and BAT, with altered glucose metabolism and decreased insulin responsiveness. We therefore tested these functions in mice and humans using positron emission tomography-computed tomography (PET/CT) with
F-fluorodeoxyglucose. This revealed that BMAT resists insulin- and cold-stimulated glucose uptake, while further in vivo studies showed that, compared to WAT, BMAT resists insulin-stimulated Akt phosphorylation. Thus, BMAT is functionally distinct from WAT and BAT. However, in humans basal glucose uptake in BMAT is greater than in axial bones or subcutaneous WAT and can be greater than that in skeletal muscle, underscoring the potential of BMAT to influence systemic glucose homeostasis. These PET/CT studies characterise BMAT function in vivo, establish new methods for BMAT analysis, and identify BMAT as a distinct, major adipose tissue subtype.
Nivolumab has been associated with longer overall survival than docetaxel among patients with previously treated non-small-cell lung cancer (NSCLC). In an open-label phase 3 trial, we compared ...first-line nivolumab with chemotherapy in patients with programmed death ligand 1 (PD-L1)-positive NSCLC.
We randomly assigned, in a 1:1 ratio, patients with untreated stage IV or recurrent NSCLC and a PD-L1 tumor-expression level of 1% or more to receive nivolumab (administered intravenously at a dose of 3 mg per kilogram of body weight once every 2 weeks) or platinum-based chemotherapy (administered once every 3 weeks for up to six cycles). Patients receiving chemotherapy could cross over to receive nivolumab at the time of disease progression. The primary end point was progression-free survival, as assessed by means of blinded independent central review, among patients with a PD-L1 expression level of 5% or more.
Among the 423 patients with a PD-L1 expression level of 5% or more, the median progression-free survival was 4.2 months with nivolumab versus 5.9 months with chemotherapy (hazard ratio for disease progression or death, 1.15; 95% confidence interval CI, 0.91 to 1.45; P=0.25), and the median overall survival was 14.4 months versus 13.2 months (hazard ratio for death, 1.02; 95% CI, 0.80 to 1.30). A total of 128 of 212 patients (60%) in the chemotherapy group received nivolumab as subsequent therapy. Treatment-related adverse events of any grade occurred in 71% of the patients who received nivolumab and in 92% of those who received chemotherapy. Treatment-related adverse events of grade 3 or 4 occurred in 18% of the patients who received nivolumab and in 51% of those who received chemotherapy.
Nivolumab was not associated with significantly longer progression-free survival than chemotherapy among patients with previously untreated stage IV or recurrent NSCLC with a PD-L1 expression level of 5% or more. Overall survival was similar between groups. Nivolumab had a favorable safety profile, as compared with chemotherapy, with no new or unexpected safety signals. (Funded by Bristol-Myers Squibb and others; CheckMate 026 ClinicalTrials.gov number, NCT02041533 .).
We report on a detailed optical spectroscopic follow-up of the black hole (BH) transient MAXI J1820+070 (ASASSN-18ey). The observations cover the main part of the X-ray binary outburst, when the ...source alternated between hard and soft states following the classical pattern widely seen in other systems. We focus the analysis on the He i emission lines at 5876 and 6678 , as well as on H . We detect clear accretion disk wind features (P-Cyg profiles and broad emission line wings) in the hard state, both during outburst rise and decay. These are not witnessed during the several months long soft state. However, our data suggest that the visibility of the outflow might be significantly affected by the ionization state of the accretion disk. The terminal velocity of the wind is above ∼1200 km s−1, which is similar to outflow velocities derived from (hard-state) optical winds and (soft-state) X-ray winds in other systems. The wind signatures, in particular the P-Cyg profiles, are very shallow, and their detection has only been possible thanks to a combination of source brightness and intense monitoring at very high signal-to-noise. This study indicates that cold, optical winds are most likely a common feature of BH accretion, and therefore, that wind-like outflows are a general mechanism of mass and angular momentum removal operating throughout the entire X-ray binary outburst.
PDF
