SARS-CoV-2 is a newly identified member of the coronavirus family that has caused the Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic. This rapidly evolving and unrelenting SARS-CoV-2 has disrupted the ...lives and livelihoods of millions worldwide. As of 23 August 2021, a total of 211,373,303 COVID-19 cases have been confirmed globally with a death toll of 4,424,341. A strong understanding of the infection pathway of SARS-CoV-2, and how our immune system responds to the virus is highly pertinent for guiding the development and improvement of effective treatments. In this review, we discuss the current understanding of neutralising antibodies (NAbs) and their implications in clinical practice. The aspects include the pathophysiology of the immune response, particularly humoral adaptive immunity and the roles of NAbs from B cells in infection clearance. We summarise the onset and persistence of IgA, IgM and IgG antibodies, and we explore their roles in neutralising SARS-CoV-2, their persistence in convalescent individuals, and in reinfection. Furthermore, we also review the applications of neutralising antibodies in the clinical setting-from predictors of disease severity to serological testing to vaccinations, and finally in therapeutics such as convalescent plasma infusion.
Olfactory impairment is highly prevalent and associated with multiple comorbidities, including neurodegenerative, cardiovascular, nutritional, and immune disorders. However, epidemiologic ...associations between olfactory impairment and mortality are discordant.
To systematically clarify the epidemiologic associations between olfactory impairment and mortality.
The PubMed, Embase, and Cochrane Library databases were searched from inception to August 13, 2021.
Two blinded reviewers selected observational studies published as full-length, English-language articles in peer-reviewed journals that reported the presence or severity of chronic olfactory impairment, whether objectively measured or self-reported, in association with any mortality estimate, among adults aged 18 years or older.
Two reviewers independently extracted data, evaluated study bias using the Newcastle-Ottawa Scale, and appraised the quality of the evidence using the Grading of Recommendations Assessment, Development and Evaluation framework, following Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-analyses (PRISMA) and Meta-analysis of Observational Studies in Epidemiology (MOOSE) guidelines and a PROSPERO-registered protocol. Maximally adjusted estimates were pooled using mixed-effects models, heterogeneity was measured using I2 statistics, sources of heterogeneity were investigated using meta-regression and subgroup meta-analyses, and publication bias was qualitatively and quantitatively assessed.
Hazard ratios for all-cause mortality.
One retrospective cohort study and 10 prospective cohort studies (with a total of 21 601 participants) from 1088 nonduplicated records were included. Ten studies had a low risk of bias, whereas 1 study had a moderate risk; exclusion of the latter did not alter conclusions. Nine studies were included in the meta-analysis. Olfactory loss was associated with a significantly higher pooled hazard of all-cause mortality (hazard ratio, 1.52; 95% CI, 1.28-1.80; I2 = 82%). Meta-regression sufficiently explained heterogeneity, with longer mean follow-up duration weakening the pooled association, accounting for 91.3% of heterogeneity. Self-reported and objective effect sizes were similar. Associations were robust to trim-and-fill adjustment and the Egger test for publication bias. The overall quality of evidence was moderate.
The findings of this systematic review and meta-analysis suggest that olfactory impairment is associated with all-cause mortality and may be a marker of general health and biological aging. Further research is required to establish the underlying mechanisms and the scope for interventions.
Myocardial infarction (MI) is the most prevalent non‐communicable disease worldwide. Nanotheranostics have made significant progress in the biomedical field, presenting an avenue to overcome the ...limitations of conventional approaches towards MI, in which personalized interventions have enhanced nanotherapeutic efficacy. The pharmacokinetics and pharmacodynamics of nanoscale materials have been modified through alteration of their physical and chemical properties such as structure, size, and surface, thereby improving target sensitivity and specificity. This revolutionary technology has also been accomplished through precision therapeutics in MI. In this review, we discuss advanced nanoparticle designs utilized in the diagnosis and treatment of MI that could be applied to deliver personalized treatment and improve patient outcomes.
Nanotheranostics has revolutionized our understanding of the pathophysiology underlying myocardial infarction (MI), guiding the development of appropriate therapeutic strategies. This review provides an overview of the technological breakthroughs of nanoparticles (NPs) in drug delivery systems (DDS) for treating MI, describes advanced NP designs used to deliver personalized treatment and improve patient outcomes, and highlights future directions.
Little has been known about China’s policing of the Internet until recently, when researchers began publishing insights on the types of messages that gets deleted and permitted on various social ...media platforms, as well as whether or not such moderations are performed automatically. Many discussions have focused on how such efforts may undermine the democratic potential and civic actions that may be empowered and facilitated by the Internet. Two cases discussed in this paper show a different picture: the aftermath of a train collision in Wenzhou in 2011, and an elaborate plan by a company to take out its competition – both utilizing social media. Structuration theory is used to analyse the types of agency, structures, and power negotiations that can be observed in both cases. The paper then reports a survey carried out with 499 participants on their perceptions of both cases, focusing on how trust propensity and types of information may shape their perceptions of media credibility. Results show that trust propensity was only significant in shaping perceptions of credibility for social media, but the types of information is significant in shaping perceptions of credibility for both mainstream and social media. Implications are drawn for media literacy as well as how civic actions function within China.
Atherosclerosis continues to be a leading cause of morbidity and mortality globally. The precise evaluation of the extent of an atherosclerotic plaque is essential for forecasting its likelihood of ...causing health concerns and tracking treatment outcomes. When compared to conventional methods used, nanoparticles offer clear benefits and excellent development opportunities for the detection and characterisation of susceptible atherosclerotic plaques. In this review, we analyse the recent advancements of nanoparticles as theranostics in the management of atherosclerosis, with an emphasis on applications in drug delivery. Furthermore, the main issues that must be resolved in order to advance clinical utility and future developments of NP research are discussed. It is anticipated that medical NPs will develop into complex and advanced next-generation nanobotics that can carry out a variety of functions in the bloodstream.
This book reflects on the role of social media in the past two decades in Southeast Asia. It traces the emergence of social media discourse in Southeast Asia, and its potential as a liberation ...technology in both democratizing and authoritarian states. It explains the growing decline in internet freedom and increasingly repressive and manipulative use of social media tools by governments, and argues that social media is now an essential platform for control. The contributors detail the increasing role of disinformation and fake news production in Southeast Asia, and how national governments are creating laws which attempt to address this trend, but which often exacerbate the situation of state control.From Grassroots Activism to Disinformation explores three main questions: How did social media begin as a vibrant space for grassroots activism to becoming a tool for disinformation? Who were the main actors in this transition: governments, citizens or the platforms themselves? Can reformists reclaim the digital public sphere? And if so, how?
In crises and disasters, social media not only facilitates mobilization, sharing of critical information, but also enables people to watch and participate as the crisis unfolds. Participation is now ...much more open to those beyond the immediately affected: the victims, the rescue workers and other stakeholders. This paper reports on a study of tweets collected during and after a rare occurrence of a violent riot in Singapore, illustrating the evolution of crisis responses, emotive cues information seeking and sharing behavior on Twitter over the lifecycle of the riot. Evidence of orientation of responses from the self towards the community as the riot progresses was found, contributing to ongoing research on community building in crises. Emotive cues were most dominant in the first hour of the riot, with various responses fluctuating over the riot's lifecycle. Emotive cues predicted most responses except for tweets that were reasoning about the riot, and also had an effect on informational tweets. Retweets drove most activity, and users also shared information and formed communal dialogue within their own networks. Despite the dominance of negative emotive cues and responses to the crisis, positive tweets – those singing praises and thanking stakeholders – were more likely to be retweeted.
•The use of Twitter was studied over the lifecycle of a riot.•Time predicted collectivistic responses towards the community as a riot evolves.•Emotive levels impacted responses, information sharing and exchange.•Over a riot's lifecycle, loose and multi-layered communal dialogue was observed.
Much work has been done on the role and impacts of social media in social movements, but less attention has been paid to the use of content features such as hashtags and URLs, and visual rhetoric ...used in persuading and mobilizing in social movements. We address this gap by analyzing a sample of 1271 tweets during World Environment Day, a yearly and global movement to commemorate and promote awareness about the environment. We examine the impacts of content features and the use of three types of visual rhetoric (ethos, pathos and logos) on retweeting, as retweeting is a measure of retransmission and expressive participation in the movement. The use of URLs was positively associated with retweeting, but the relationship is reverse for hashtags and retweeting. Ethos was the dominant persuasion strategy present in the visual rhetoric, and the use of both Ethos and Pathos were significantly associated with retweeting.
•We analyze a sample of 1271 tweets collected during World Environment Day.•Hashtags and URLs had a significant but mixed relationships with retweeting.•Three strategies, Ethos, Pathos and Logos were found in the visual netoric.•Ethos is the most dominant strategy in the visual netoric of the movement.•Ethos and Pathos were significantly associated with retweeting.
This meta-analytic study reviews empirical research published from 2007 to 2013 with an aim of providing robust conclusions about the relationship between social media use and citizen engagement. It ...includes 22 studies that used self-reported measures of social media use and participation, with a total of 116 relationships/effects. The results suggest that social media use generally has a positive relationship with engagement and its three sub-categories, that is, social capital, civic engagement, and political participation. More specifically, we find small-to-medium size positive relationships between expressive, informational, and relational uses of social media and the above indicators of citizen engagement. For identity- and entertainment-oriented uses of social media, our analyses find little evidence supporting their relationship with citizen engagement.
In this paper, we have investigated the concept of “Cultural Robotics” with regard to the evolution of social into cultural robots in the 21st Century. By defining the concept of culture, the ...potential development of a culture between humans and robots is explored. Based on the cultural values of the robotics developers, and the learning ability of current robots, cultural attributes in this regard are in the process of being formed, which would define the new concept of cultural robotics. According to the importance of the embodiment of robots in the sense of presence, the influence of robots in communication culture is anticipated. The sustainability of robotics culture based on diversity for cultural communities for various acceptance modalities is explored in order to anticipate the creation of different attributes of culture between robots and humans in the future.
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