The aim of this study was to analyze the psychological impact of COVID-19 in the university community during the first weeks of confinement. A cross-sectional study was conducted. The Depression ...Anxiety Stress Scale (DASS-21) was employed to assess symptoms of depression, anxiety and stress. The emotional impact of the situation was analyzed using the Impact of Event Scale. An online survey was fulfilled by 2530 members of the University of Valladolid, in Spain. Moderate to extremely severe scores of anxiety, depression, and stress were reported by 21.34%, 34.19% and 28.14% of the respondents, respectively. A total of 50.43% of respondents presented moderate to severe impact of the outbreak. Students from Arts & Humanities and Social Sciences & Law showed higher scores related to anxiety, depression, stress and impact of event with respect to students from Engineering & Architecture. University staff presented lower scores in all measures compared to students, who seem to have suffered an important psychological impact during the first weeks of the COVID-19 lockdown. In order to provide timely crisis-oriented psychological services and to take preventive measures in future pandemic situations, mental health in university students should be carefully monitored.
•College students reflected a possible psychological impact of the COVID-19 lockdown.•Symptoms of common mental health disorders were reported by 20-35% of respondents.•Around the half of respondents presented moderate to severe impact of the outbreak.•Students from the Engineering and Architecture area showed lower symptomatic scores.•Mental health from students should be monitored to mitigate the impact of the crisis.
A recombinant enoate reductase was expressed in cyanobacteria and used for the light‐catalyzed, enantioselective reduction of C=C bonds. The coupling of oxidoreductases to natural photosynthesis ...allows asymmetric syntheses fueled by the oxidation of water. Bypassing the addition of sacrificial cosubstrates as electron donors significantly improves the atom efficiency and avoids the formation of undesired side products. Crucial factors for product formation are the availability of NADPH and the amount of active enzyme in the cells. The efficiency of the reaction is comparable to typical whole‐cell biotransformations in E. coli. Under optimized conditions, a solution of 100 mg prochiral 2‐methylmaleimide was reduced to optically pure 2‐methylsuccinimide (99 % ee, 80 % yield of isolated product). High product yields and excellent optical purities demonstrate the synthetic usefulness of light‐catalyzed whole‐cell biotransformations using recombinant cyanobacteria.
Useful bacteria: Recombinant cyanobacteria are able to perform enantioselective redox reactions without the addition of cofactors or sacrificial substrates. This increases the atom efficiency of the process and removes an intrinsic limitation for the use of enzymes in mainstream industrial processes. EWG=electron‐withdrawing group.
We studied the short-term psychological effects of the COVID-19 crisis and the quarantine on 3550 adults from the Spanish population in a cross-sectional survey. Symptoms of anxiety, depression, and ...stress were analyzed using the 21-item version of the Depression Anxiety Stress Scale. Symptoms of posttraumatic stress disorder were analyzed using the Impact of Event Scale. Symptomatic scores of anxiety, depression, and stress were observed in 20% to 30% of respondents. Symptomatic scores indicating psychological stress were found in 47.5% of respondents. Similar to the findings of other multiple studies, confinement has been found to have significant emotional impact in the Spanish population.
The combination of enzymes with traditional chemical catalysts unifies the high selectivity of the former with the versatility of the latter. A major challenge of this approach is the difference in ...the optimal reaction conditions for each catalyst type. In this work, we combined a cofactor‐free decarboxylase with a ruthenium metathesis catalyst to produce high‐value antioxidants from bio‐based precursors. As suitable ruthenium catalysts did not show satisfactory activity under aqueous conditions, the reaction required the use of an organic solvent, which in turn significantly reduced enzyme activity. Upon encapsulation of the decarboxylase in a cryogel, the decarboxylation could be conducted in an organic solvent, and the recovery of the enzyme after the reaction was facilitated. After an intermediate drying step, the subsequent metathesis in pure organic solvent proved to be straightforward. The synthetic utility of the cascade was demonstrated by the synthesis of the antioxidant 4,4′‐dihydroxystilbene in an overall yield of 90 %.
The mutual incompatibility of catalysts and their reaction conditions is a frequent challenge for chemoenzymatic one‐pot reactions. The encapsulation of a decarboxylase in PVA/PEG gel capsules enabled its combination with a ruthenium metathesis catalyst in organic solvents for the synthesis of antioxidants from inexpensive, bio‐based hydroxycinnamic acids in up to 90 % yield.
Peroxidases and peroxygenases are promising classes of enzymes for biocatalysis because of their ability to carry out one‐electron oxidation reactions and stereoselective oxyfunctionalizations. ...However, industrial application is limited, as the major drawback is the sensitivity toward the required peroxide substrates. Herein, we report a novel biocatalysis approach to circumvent this shortcoming: in situ production of H2O2 by dielectric barrier discharge plasma. The discharge plasma can be controlled to produce hydrogen peroxide at desired rates, yielding desired concentrations. Using horseradish peroxidase, it is demonstrated that hydrogen peroxide produced by plasma treatment can drive the enzymatic oxidation of model substrates. Fungal peroxygenase is then employed to convert ethylbenzene to (R)‐1‐phenylethanol with an ee of >96 % using plasma‐generated hydrogen peroxide. As direct treatment of the reaction solution with plasma results in reduced enzyme activity, the use of plasma‐treated liquid and protection strategies are investigated to increase total turnover. Technical plasmas present a noninvasive means to drive peroxide‐based biotransformations.
Ride the lightning: Non‐thermal plasma is applied for noninvasive production of hydrogen peroxide to be used in biocatalysis. Side effects of plasma exposure can be alleviated by enzyme immobilization. Enantiomerically pure (R)‐1‐phenylethanol is produced with plasma‐generated H2O2 and AaeUPO.
Visual corona tests have been broadly applied for identifying the critical corona points of diverse high-voltage devices, although other approaches based on partial discharge or radio interference ...voltage measurements are also widely applied to detect corona activity. Nevertheless, these two techniques must be applied in screened laboratories, which are scarce and expensive, require sophisticated instrumentation, and typically do not allow location of the discharge points. This paper describes the detection of the visual corona and location of the critical corona points of a sphere-plane gap configurations under different pressure conditions ranging from 100 to 20 kPa, covering the pressures typically found in aeronautic environments. The corona detection is made with a low-cost CMOS imaging sensor from both the visible and ultraviolet (UV) spectrum, which allows detection of the discharge points and their locations, thus significantly reducing the complexity and costs of the instrumentation required while preserving the sensitivity and accuracy of the measurements. The approach proposed in this paper can be applied in aerospace applications to prevent the arc tracking phenomenon, which can lead to catastrophic consequences since there is not a clear protection solution, due to the low levels of leakage current involved in the pre-arc phenomenon.
Introduction
Headache is one of the most frequent neurologic manifestations in COVID-19. We aimed to analyze which symptoms and laboratory abnormalities were associated with the presence of headache ...and to evaluate if patients with headache had a higher adjusted in-hospital risk of mortality.
Methods
Retrospective cohort study. We included all consecutive patients admitted to the Hospital with confirmed SARS-CoV-2 infection between March 8th and April 11th, 2020. We collected demographic data, clinical variables and laboratory abnormalities. We used multivariate regression analysis.
Results
During the study period, 576 patients were included, aged 67.2 (SD: 14.7), and 250/576 (43.3%) being female. Presence of headache was described by 137 (23.7%) patients. The all-cause in-hospital mortality rate was 127/576 (20.0%). In the multivariate analysis, patients with headache had a lower risk of mortality (OR: 0.39, 95% CI: 0.17–0.88,
p
= 0.007). After adjusting for multiple comparisons in a multivariate analysis, variables that were independently associated with a higher odds of having headache in COVID-19 patients were anosmia, myalgia, female sex and fever; variables that were associated with a lower odds of having headache were younger age, lower score on modified Rankin scale, and, regarding laboratory variables on admission, increased C-reactive protein, abnormal platelet values, lymphopenia and increased D-dimer.
Conclusion
Headache is a frequent symptom in COVID-19 patients and its presence is an independent predictor of lower risk of mortality in COVID-19 hospitalized patients.
Although several insect orders have been deeply studied in plant–animal interactions (e.g. pollination) cockroaches have traditionally been ignored in taxonomic and ecological studies. However, they ...could be playing a role in the reproduction of several plants. To date, 8 plant species use cockroaches as a pollination agent. In our study, we have reviewed 2865 records from citizen science platforms and our own data from the Iberian Peninsula to find flower visits made by cockroaches. We have detected 51 interaction records involving at least 8 different cockroach species and 35 plant species. Furthermore, nearly half of the detected cockroaches carried pollen on various parts of their bodies. These insects were found to mainly visit white, yellow and pink flowers from Apiaceae, Asteraceae and Cistaceae plant families (among others) mainly in late spring and early summer. However, for the confirmation of effective pollination, new studies must be carried out. Additionally, although the existence of pollination syndrome is far from being understood, we provide new insights that could help shed some light on this unknown relationship. Here we provide the first approximation of cockroach floral perception and we have detected that white flowers show the best fit and higher conspicousness to cockroach colour vision, as suggested for other neglected pollinator insects.
To date, two randomized, controlled studies support the use of candesartan for migraine prophylaxis but with limited external validity. We aim to evaluate the effectiveness and tolerability of ...candesartan in clinical practice and to explore predictors of patient response. Retrospective cohort study including all patients with migraine who received candesartan between April 2008-February 2019. The primary endpoint was the number of monthly headache days during weeks 8-12 of treatment compared to baseline. Additionally, we evaluated the frequency during weeks 20-24. We analysed the percentage of patients with 50% and 75% response rates and the retention rates after three and 6 months of treatment. 120/4121 patients were eligible, aged 45.9 11.5; 100 (83.3%) female. Eighty-four patients (70%) had chronic migraine and 53 (42.7%) had medication-overuse headache. The median number of prior prophylactics was 3 (Inter-quartile range 2-5). At baseline, patients had 20.5 ± 8.5 headache days per month, decreasing 4.3 ± 8.4 days by 3 months (weeks 12-16) and by 4.7 ± 8.7 days by 6 months (paired Student's t-test, p < 0.001). The percentage of patients with a 50% response was 32.5% at 3 months and 31.7% at 6 months, while the retention rate was 85.0% and 58.3%. The number of prior treatments (Odds ratio 0.79, 95% CI 0.64-0.97) and the presence of daily headache (Odds ratio 0.39, 95% CI 0.16-0.97) were associated with a lower probability of response. Candesartan showed beneficial effects in the preventive treatment of migraine in clinical practice, including patients with chronic migraine, medication-overuse headache and resistance to prior prophylactics.
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