Post-coronavirus disease (COVID-19) syndrome includes persistence of symptoms beyond viral clearance and fresh development of symptoms or exaggeration of chronic diseases within a month after initial ...clinical and virological cure of the disease with a viral etiology. We aimed to determine the incidence, association, and risk factors associated with development of the post-COVID-19 syndrome.
We conducted a prospective cohort study at Dhaka Medical College Hospital between June 01, 2020 and August 10, 2020. All the enrolled patients were followed up for a month after clinical improvement, which was defined according the World Health Organization and Bangladesh guidelines as normal body temperature for successive 3 days, significant improvement in respiratory symptoms (respiratory rate <25/breath/minute with no dyspnea), and oxygen saturation >93% without assisted oxygen inhalation.
Among the 400 recruited patients, 355 patients were analyzed. In total, 46% patients developed post-COVID-19 symptoms, with post-viral fatigue being the most prevalent symptom in 70% cases. The post-COVID-19 syndrome was associated with female gender (relative risk RR: 1.2, 95% confidence interval CI: 1.02-1.48, p = 0.03), those who required a prolonged time for clinical improvement (p<0.001), and those showing COVID-19 positivity after 14 days (RR: 1.09, 95% CI: 1.00-1.19, p<0.001) of initial positivity. Patients with severe COVID-19 at presentation developed post-COVID-19 syndrome (p = 0.02). Patients with fever (RR: 1.5, 95% CI: 1.05-2.27, p = 0.03), cough (RR: 1.36, 95% CI: 1.02-1.81, p = 0.04), respiratory distress (RR: 1.3, 95% CI: 1.4-1.56, p = 0.001), and lethargy (RR: 1.2, 95% CI: 1.06-1.35, p = 0.003) as the presenting features were associated with the development of the more susceptible to develop post COVID-19 syndrome than the others. Logistic regression analysis revealed female sex, respiratory distress, lethargy, and long duration of the disease as risk factors.
Female sex, respiratory distress, lethargy, and long disease duration are critical risk factors for the development of post-COVID-19 syndrome.
Poly(vinyl alcohol) (PVA)/alginate (Alg) nanofibers are prepared using electrospinning method in aqueous solutions with PVA (10
wt.%)/Alg (2
wt.%) blended system in a volume ratios of 100/0, 80/20, ...and 60/40. Because of biocompatibility and non-toxicity of PVA, it could be used in numerous fields. Alginate is an interesting natural biopolymer for many of its merits and good biological properties. The blended nanofibers are characterized by scanning electron microscopy (SEM), thermal gravimetric analysis (TGA), differential scanning calorimetry (DSC), X-ray diffraction (XRD), Fourier transform infrared (FTIR), and mechanical measurement. XRD, FTIR and DSC data demonstrate that there are good interactions between PVA and Alg caused by possibly hydrogen bonds. The study shows that with a higher percentage of Alg in the PVA/Alg blend nanofibers, superior onset temperature of the degradation and higher thermal stability could be obtained above 350
°C. Moreover, the blend nanofibers exhibit improvement in mechanical properties compared to pure electrospun PVA with the addition of Alg.
The history of aquatic environmental pollution goes back to the very beginning of the history of human civilization. However, aquatic pollution did not receive much attention until a threshold level ...was reached with adverse consequences on the ecosystems and organisms. Aquatic pollution has become a global concern, but even so, most developing nations are still producing huge pollution loads and the trends are expected to increase. Knowledge of the pollution sources and impacts on ecosystems is important not only for a better understanding on the ecosystem responses to pollutants but also to formulate prevention measures. Many of the sources of aquatic pollutions are generally well known and huge effort has been devoted to the issue. However, new concepts and ideas on environmental pollution are emerging (e.g., biological pollution) with a corresponding need for an update of the knowledge. The present paper attempts to provide an easy-to-follow depiction on the various forms of aquatic pollutions and their impacts on the ecosystem and organisms.
Respiratory disease caused by a novel coronavirus, COVID-19, has been labeled a pandemic by the World Health Organization. Very little is known about the infection mechanism for this virus. More ...importantly, there are no drugs or vaccines that can cure or prevent a person from getting COVID-19. In this study, the binding affinity of 2692 protease inhibitor compounds that are known in the protein data bank, are calculated against the main protease of the novel coronavirus with docking and molecular dynamics (MD). Both the docking and MD methods predict the macrocyclic tissue factor-factor VIIa (PubChem ID: 118098670) inhibitor to bind strongly with the main protease with a binding affinity of −10.6 and −10.0 kcal/mol, respectively. The TF-FVIIa inhibitors are known to prevent the coagulation of blood and have antiviral activity as shown in the case of SARS coronavirus. Two more inhibitors, phenyltriazolinones (PubChem ID: 104161460) and allosteric HCV NS5B polymerase thumb pocket 2 (PubChem ID: 163632044) have shown antiviral activity and also have high affinity towards the main protease of COVID-19. Furthermore, these inhibitors interact with the catalytic dyad in the active site of the COVID-19 main protease that is especially important in viral replication. The calculated theoretical dissociation constants of the proposed COVID-19 inhibitors are found to be very similar to the experimental dissociation constant values of similar protease-inhibitor systems.
Communicated by Ramaswamy H. Sarma
In data analytics, missing data is a factor that degrades performance. Incorrect imputation of missing values could lead to a wrong prediction. In this era of big data, when a massive volume of data ...is generated in every second, and utilization of these data is a major concern to the stakeholders, efficiently handling missing values becomes more important. In this paper, we have proposed a new technique for missing data imputation, which is a hybrid approach of single and multiple imputation techniques. We have proposed an extension of popular
Multivariate Imputation by Chained Equation (MICE)
algorithm in two variations to impute categorical and numeric data. We have also implemented twelve existing algorithms to impute binary, ordinal, and numeric missing values. We have collected sixty-five thousand real health records from different hospitals and diagnostic centers of Bangladesh, maintaining the privacy of data. We have also collected three public datasets from the UCI Machine Learning Repository, ETH Zurich, and Kaggle. We have compared the performance of our proposed algorithms with existing algorithms using these datasets. Experimental results show that our proposed algorithm achieves 20% higher F-measure for binary data imputation and 11% less error for numeric data imputations than its competitors with similar execution time.
Biofilm-producing rhizobacteria (BPR) enhance productivity and mitigate abiotic stresses in plants. This study showed that 21 out of 65 halotolerant rhizobacteria could build biofilms. The components ...of the biofilm matrices i.e., extracellular polymeric substances (EPS) are proteins, curli, nanocelloluse, nucleic acids, lipids, and peptidoglycans. Various functional groups including carbonyl, carboxyl, amino, hydroxyl, and phosphate were identified. Positions of these groups were shifted by application of 5% NaCl, suggesting Na
biosorption. By sequencing, Glutamicibacter arilaitensis (ESK1, ESM4 and ESM7), G. nicotianae (ESK19, ESM8 and ESM16), Enterobacter ludwigii (ESK15, ESK17, ESM2 and ESM17), E. cloacae (ESM5 and ESM12), Exiguobacterium acetylicum (ESM24 and ESM25), Staphylococcus saprophyticus ESK6, Leclercia adecarboxylata ESK12, Pseudomonas poae ESK16, Bacillus subtilis ESM14, and P. putida ESM17 were identified. These rhizobacteria exhibited numerous plant growth-promoting (PGP) activities including producing IAA, ACC deaminase, and siderophores, and solubilizing phosphate. Under non-stress, bacterized plants increased biomass accumulation (8-23.2% roots and 23-49.4% shoots), while under seawater-induced salt stress only ESK12, ESM4, ESM12, and ESM14 enhanced biomass production (5.8-52.9% roots and 8.8-33.4% shoots). Bacterized plants induced antioxidant defense system (19.5-142% catalase and 12.3-24.2% DPPH radical scavenging activity), retained a greater relative water content (17-124%), showed lesser membrane injuries (19.9-26.5%), and a reduced Na
(6-24% in roots) and increased K
/Na
ratio (78.8 and 103% in roots by ESK12 and ESM24, respectively) than the non-bacterized plants in saline conditions. Thus, native halotolerant BPR can be utilized as ameliorators of salt stress.
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•MF-FO-MD combined process was proposed for treatment of Fracking wastewater.•Direct treatment of fracking wastewater by FO showed a severe fouling propensity.•MF showed a good ...performance to pre-treat fracking wastewater before FO process.•MD showed to be a successful implementation as a downstream separator for the FO process.
The discharge of highly saline fracking wastewater produced by hydraulic fracturing is of great concern due to the adverse effects on the environment and human health. Microfiltration as a pre-treatment process and the emerging forward osmosis (FO)—coupled with membrane distillation (a downstream separator)—as the post-treatment processes were successfully applied for the first time to treat fracking wastewater. Microfiltration as a pre-treatment removed ~52% of TOC and ~98.5% of turbidity. High average water fluxes (19.98 LMH for NaCl and 30.97 LMH for sodium propionate draw solutions) with high solute rejection were obtained via FO process using ain-house fabricated nanocomposite membrane. It was found that 98.5% of initial water flux can be recovered with the fabricated nanocomposite membrane by physical cleaning after desalination of the fracking wastewater. Membrane distillation (demonstrated solute rejection ~ 99.99%) can be used as a downstream separator in order to recycle FO draw solution, along with the production of pure water.
β‐hexosaminidase A (HexA) protein is responsible for the degradation of GM2 gangliosides in the central and peripheral nervous systems. Tay‐Sachs disease occurs when HexA within Hexosaminidase does ...not properly function and harmful GM2 gangliosides begin to build up within the neurons. In this study, in silico methods such as SIFT, PolyPhen‐2, PhD‐SNP, and MutPred were utilized to analyze the effects of nonsynonymous single nucleotide polymorphisms (nsSNPs) on HexA in order to identify possible pathogenetic and deleterious variants. Molecular dynamics (MD) simulations showed that two mutants, P25S and W485R, experienced an increase in structural flexibility compared to the native protein. Particularly, there was a decrease in the overall number and frequencies of hydrogen bonds for the mutants compared to the wildtype. MM/GBSA calculations were performed to help assess the change in binding affinity between the wildtype and mutant structures and a mechanism‐based inhibitor, NGT, which is known to help increase the residual activity of HexA. Both of the mutants experienced a decrease in the binding affinity from −23.8 kcal/mol in wildtype to −20.9 and −18.7 kcal/mol for the P25S and W485R variants of HexA, respectively.
Food security is substantially affected directly by COVID-19 and/or indirectly by the measures adopted for the prevention of COVID-19 transmission. The aim of this systematic review is to summarize ...the impact of COVID-19 on food security and identify the most compromised food security dimension to ease the food security regulators and actors' intervention prioritisation. Primary research focused on the impact of COVID-19 on food security will be searched from three online databases (PubMed, Web of Science, and Scopus), manually using a google scholar search engine, and studies' reference list were also manually searched. The prevalence of food insecurity in each study and the most compromised food security dimension including their associated factors will be identified. The food insecurity before and after COVID-19 emergence and the status of food security dimension before and after COVID-19 will be compared and interpreted. The heterogeneity of the studies and the factors for the variability of outcomes will be discussed. COVID-19 had a negative impact on food security if the food insecurity prevalence before the emergence of COVID-19 is less than during the COVID-19 pandemic. Other confounding factors that can contribute to the high food insecurity prevalence like natural disasters, war, and instability will be considered in addition to COVID-19.
The therapeutic effect of phenolics on neurodegenerative diseases has been attributed to their potent antioxidant properties. In the present study, the neuroprotective activities of vanillin and ...vanillic acid were investigated in Fe
2+
- induced oxidative toxicity in brain tissues by investigating their therapeutic effects on oxidative imbalance, cholinergic and nucleotide-hydrolyzing enzymes activities, dysregulated metabolic pathways. Their cytotoxicity was investigated in hippocampal neuronal cell lines (HT22). The reduced glutathione level, SOD and catalase activities were ameliorated in tissues treated with the phenolics, with concomitant depletion of malondialdehyde and nitric oxide levels. They inhibited acetylcholinesterase and butyrylcholinesterase activities, while concomitantly elevated ATPase activity. Treatment with vanillin led to restoration of oxidative-depleted metabolites and reactivation of the pentose phosphate and purine metabolism pathways, with concomitant activation of pathways for histidine and selenoamino metabolisms. While vanillic acid restored and reactivated oxidative-depleted metabolites and pathways but did not activate any additional pathway. Both phenolics portrayed good binding affinity for catalase, with vanillic acid having the higher binding energy of −7.0 kcal/mol. Both phenolics were not cytotoxic on HT22 cells, and their toxicity class were predicted to be 4. Only vanillin was predicted to be permeable across the blood brain barrier (BBB). These results insinuate that vanillin and vanillic acid confer a neuroprotective effect on oxidative brain damage, when vanillin being the most potent.
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