Since the outbreak of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) in China in December 2019, considerable attention has been focused on its elucidation. However, it is also important for clinicians and ...epidemiologists to differentiate COVID-19 from other respiratory infectious diseases such as influenza viruses.
The aim of this study was to explore the different clinical presentations between COVID-19 and influenza A (H1N1) pneumonia in patients with ARDS.
This analysis was a retrospective case-control study. Two independent cohorts of patients with ARDS infected with either COVID-19 (n = 73) or H1N1 (n = 75) were compared. Their clinical manifestations, imaging characteristics, treatments, and prognosis were analyzed and compared.
The median age of patients with COVID-19 was higher than that of patients with H1N1, and there was a higher proportion of male subjects among the H1N1 cohort (P < .05). Patients with COVID-19 exhibited higher proportions of nonproductive coughs, fatigue, and GI symptoms than those of patients with H1N1 (P < .05). Patients with H1N1 had higher Sequential Organ Failure Assessment (SOFA) scores than patients with COVID-19 (P < .05). The Pao2/Fio2 of 198.5 mm Hg in the COVID-19 cohort was significantly higher than the Pao2/Fio2 of 107.0 mm Hg in the H1N1 cohort (P < .001). Ground-glass opacities was more common in patients with COVID-19 than in patients with H1N1 (P < .001). There was a greater variety of antiviral therapies administered to COVID-19 patients than to H1N1 patients. The in-hospital mortality of patients with COVID-19 was 28.8%, whereas that of patients with H1N1 was 34.7% (P = .483). SOFA score-adjusted mortality of H1N1 patients was significantly higher than that of COVID-19 patients, with a rate ratio of 2.009 (95% CI, 1.563-2.583; P < .001).
There were many differences in clinical presentations between patients with ARDS infected with either COVID-19 or H1N1. Compared with H1N1 patients, patients with COVID-19-induced ARDS had lower severity of illness scores at presentation and lower SOFA score-adjusted mortality.
Macrophages are crucial for a successful pregnancy, and malfunctions of decidual macrophages correlate with adverse pregnancy outcomes, such as spontaneous abortion and preeclampsia. Previously, ...decidual macrophages were often thought to be a single population. In the present study, we identified three decidual macrophage subsets, CCR2-CD11cLO (CD11c
, ~80%), CCR2-CD11cHI (CD11c
, ~5%), and CCR2+CD11cHI (CD11c
, 10-15%), during the first trimester of human pregnancy by flow cytometry analysis. CCR2-CD11cLO macrophages are widely distributed in the decidua, while CCR2-CD11cHI and CCR2+CD11cHI macrophages are primarily detected close to extravillous trophoblast cells according to immunofluorescence staining. According to RNA sequencing bioinformatics analysis and in vitro functional studies, these three subsets of macrophages have different phagocytic capacities. CCR2+CD11cHI macrophages have pro-inflammatory characteristics, while the CCR2-CD11cHI population is suggested to be anti-oxidative and anti-inflammatory due to its high expression of critical heme metabolism-related genes, suggesting that these two subsets of macrophages maintain an inflammatory balance at the leading edge of trophoblast invasion to facilitate the clearance of pathogen infection as well as maintain the homeostasis of the maternal-fetal interface. The present study physiologically identifies three decidual macrophage subsets. Further clarification of the functions of these subsets will improve our understanding of maternal-fetal crosstalk in the maintenance of a healthy pregnancy.
In last two decades, various monitoring systems have been designed and deployed in urban environments, toward the realization of the so called smart cities. Such systems are based on both dedicated ...sensor nodes, and ubiquitous but not dedicated devices such as smart phones and vehicles' sensors. When we design sensor network monitoring systems for smart cities, we have two essential problems: node deployment and sensing management. These design problems are challenging, due to large urban areas to monitor, constrained locations for deployments, and heterogeneous type of sensing devices. There is a vast body of literature from different disciplines that have addressed these challenges. However, we do not have yet a comprehensive understanding and sound design guidelines. This paper addresses such a research gap and provides an overview of the theoretical problems we face, and what possible approaches we may use to solve these problems. Specifically, this paper focuses on the problems on both the deployment of the devices (which is the system design/configuration part) and the sensing management of the devices (which is the system running part). We also discuss how to choose the existing algorithms in different type of monitoring applications in smart cities, such as structural health monitoring, water pipeline networks, traffic monitoring. We finally discuss future research opportunities and open challenges for smart city monitoring.
In December 2019, a novel coronavirus (2019-nCoV) caused an outbreak in Wuhan, China, and soon spread to other parts of the world. It was believed that 2019-nCoV was transmitted through respiratory ...tract and then induced pneumonia, thus molecular diagnosis based on oral swabs was used for confirmation of this disease. Likewise, patient will be released upon two times of negative detection from oral swabs. However, many coronaviruses can also be transmitted through oral-fecal route by infecting intestines. Whether 2019-nCoV infected patients also carry virus in other organs like intestine need to be tested. We conducted investigation on patients in a local hospital who were infected with this virus. We found the presence of 2019-nCoV in anal swabs and blood as well, and more anal swab positives than oral swab positives in a later stage of infection, suggesting shedding and thereby transmitted through oral-fecal route. We also showed serology test can improve detection positive rate thus should be used in future epidemiology. Our report provides a cautionary warning that 2019-nCoV may be shed through multiple routes.
Alzheimer's disease (AD) is the most prevalent type of dementia, characterized by the presence of amyloid‐β (Aβ) plaques. We previously reported that Klotho lowered Aβ levels in the brain and ...protected against cognitive deficits in amyloid precursor protein/presenilin 1(APP/PS1) mice. However, the underlying mechanism remains unclear. In this study, we induced intracerebral Klotho overexpression in 13‐month‐old APP/PS1 mice by injecting lentivirus that carried full‐length mouse Klotho cDNA in the lateral ventricle of the brain. We examined the effects of Klotho overexpression on cognition, Aβ burden, Aβ‐related neuropathology, microglia transformation, and Aβ transport systems in vivo. Additionally, we investigated the effects of Klotho on Aβ transport at the blood–cerebrospinal fluid barrier by knocking down Klotho in primary human choroid plexus epithelial cells (HCPEpiCs). The upregulation of Klotho levels in the brain and serum significantly ameliorated Aβ burden, neuronal and synaptic loss and cognitive deficits in aged APP/PS1 mice. Klotho treatment significantly inhibited NACHT, LRR, and PYD domain‐containing protein 3 (NLRP3) and the subsequent transformation of microglia to the M2 type that may enhance microglia‐mediated Aβ clearance. Meanwhile, Klotho overexpression also regulated Aβ transporter expression, which may promote Aβ transporter‐mediated Aβ clearance. Moreover, the ability of HCPEpiCs to transport Aβ in vitro was also significantly impaired by Klotho knockdown. Given the neuroprotective effect of Klotho overexpression, the present findings suggest that Klotho should be further investigated as a potential therapeutic target for AD.
Klotho, as an anti‐aging gene, has been studied in the field of AD in recent years. Our data showed that Klotho overexpression inhibited NLRP3 inflammasome activation and promoted Aβ clearance through an increase in M2 type microglia and the regulation of Aβ transporters in APP/PS1 mice, which effectively relieved neuroinflammation and Aβ burden and ameliorated AD‐like phenotypes.
In this paper, according to the complete discriminant system for polynomial method, a series of analytical solutions of the perturbed nonlinear Schrödinger equation with variable coefficient and Kerr ...law are obtained. These solutions show the abundant propagation patterns of optical waves with Kerr law.
In this article, a novel vibration control scheme of suspension systems is proposed. It combines the advantages of quasi-zero stiffness isolator, nonlinear energy sink absorber, and inerter. This ...proposed scheme can achieve low transmissibility, low amplitude, and low additional weight and resolve the conflict between riding comfort and handling stability. Strong nonlinear vibration equations of a quarter-vehicle suspension system are established. It also presents the detailed process of high-order harmonic approximation to obtain steady-state responses. Moreover, approximate solutions are validated by a numerical method. Furthermore, based on riding comfort and handling stability, the following four suspension systems are evaluated and compared, namely, 2-degree-of-freedom quarter-vehicle model, 2-degree-of-freedom quarter-vehicle with quasi-zero stiffness isolator, 2-degree-of-freedom quarter-vehicle with inerter-nonlinear energy sink absorber, and 2-degree-of-freedom quarter-vehicle integrated control scheme with quasi-zero stiffness and inerter-nonlinear energy sink. It is found that the integrated control scheme with quasi-zero stiffness and inerter-nonlinear energy sink can significantly improve the riding comfort and handling stability at the same time. In addition, the effects of system parameters are studied carefully. The results show that based on the reasonable design of the control system parameters, better riding comfort and handling stability can be obtained. In short, this article provides a theoretical basis for integrating quasi-zero stiffness isolators and inerter-nonlinear energy sink absorbers to improve the riding comfort and handling stability.
Most IoT devices cannot afford to be a blockchain node due to the high computation and storage loads. Thus, the blockchain is usually deployed on one delegate node, e.g., the edge device or cloud, ...which may encounters three drawbacks: (1) The delegate node becomes the single failure point when the number of delegate notes are limited. (2) The delegate node replicating the blockchain data can lead to privacy information leak. (3) The delegate node is vulnerable to the Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attack. To tackle these drawbacks, we consider to minimize the redundant of blockchain to make the IoT devices as the specialized blockchain nodes. In this paper, we integrate a permissioned blockchain (HLF), an attribute-based access control (ABAC) and an identity-based signature (IBS) to build a security, lightweight, and cross-domain blockchain-based IoT access control system. Specifically, we divided the IoT system into different function domains, named IoT domains. Then, we establish a local blockchain ledger for each IoT domain to enable more IoT devices as blockchain nodes. The local blockchain ledger records the IoT domain entities' attributes, policy files' digests, and access decisions. Meanwhile, we use the channel technology of HLF to realize cross-domain access and use the IBS to filter the legal access requests for each IoT domain to prevent DDoS attacks. We also design a policy decision point (PDP) selection algorithm that select multiple IoT devices (blockchain nodes) to achieve the real-time distributed policy decisions (off-chain). Finally, we implement and evaluate the proposed system to demonstrate its practicality.
The aim of this study was to identify factors associated with the death of patients with COVID-19 pneumonia caused by the novel coronavirus SARS-CoV-2.All clinical and laboratory parameters were ...collected prospectively from a cohort of patients with COVID-19 pneumonia who were hospitalised to Wuhan Pulmonary Hospital (Wuhan City, Hubei Province, China) between 25 December 2019 and 7 February 2020. Univariate and multivariate logistic regression analysis revealed that age ≥65 years (OR 3.765, 95% CI 1.146–17.394; p=0.023), pre-existing concurrent cardiovascular or cerebrovascular diseases (OR 2.464, 95% CI 0.755–8.044; p=0.007), CD3+CD8+ T-cells ≤75 cells·μL−1 (OR 3.982, 95% CI 1.132–14.006; p<0.001) and cardiac troponin I ≥0.05 ng·mL−1 (OR 4.077, 95% CI 1.166–14.253; p<0.001) were associated with an increase in risk of mortality from COVID-19 pneumonia.” has been corrected to: “Univariate and multivariate logistic regression analysis revealed that age ≥65 years (OR 3.765, 95% CI 1.201−11.803; p=0.023), pre-existing concurrent cardiovascular or cerebrovascular diseases (OR 2.464, 95% CI 1.279−4.747; p=0.007), CD3+CD8+ T-cells ≤75 cells·μL−1 (OR 3.982, 95% CI 1.761–9.004; p<0.001) and cardiac troponin I ≥0.05 ng·mL−1 (OR 4.077, 95% CI 1.778–9.349; p<0.001) were associated with an increase in risk of mortality from COVID-19 pneumonia. In a sex-, age- and comorbid illness-matched case-control study, CD3
CD8
T-cells ≤75 cells·μL
and cardiac troponin I ≥0.05 ng·mL
remained as predictors for high mortality from COVID-19 pneumonia.We identified four risk factors: age ≥65 years, pre-existing concurrent cardiovascular or cerebrovascular diseases, CD3
CD8
T-cells ≤75 cells·μL
and cardiac troponin I ≥0.05 ng·mL
The latter two factors, especially, were predictors for mortality of COVID-19 pneumonia patients.
Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS‐CoV‐2) is a new type of coronavirus that has caused fatal infectious diseases and global spread. This novel coronavirus attacks target cells ...through the interaction of spike protein and angiotensin‐converting enzyme II (ACE2), leading to different clinical symptoms. However, for a successful pregnancy, a well‐established in‐uterine environment includes a specific immune environment, and multi‐interactions between specific cell types are prerequisites. The immune‐related changes in patients infected with novel coronavirus could interfere with the immune microenvironment in the uterus, leading to fetal loss. We first reviewed the intrauterine environment in the normal development process and the possible pregnancy outcome in the infection state. Then, we summarized the immune response induced by SARS‐CoV‐2 in patients and analyzed the changes in ACE2 expression in the female reproductive system. Finally, the present observational evidence of infection in pregnant women was also reviewed.
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