The emergence of the SARS‐CoV‐2 strain of the human coronavirus has thrown the world into the midst of a new pandemic. In the human body, the virus causes COVID‐19, a disease characterized by ...shortness of breath, fever, and pneumonia, which can be fatal in vulnerable individuals. SARS‐CoV‐2 has characteristics of past human coronaviruses, with close genomic similarities to SARS‐CoV, the virus that causes the disease SARS. Like these related coronaviruses, SARS‐CoV‐2 is transmitted through the inhalation of droplets and interaction with contaminated surfaces. Across the world, laboratories are developing candidate vaccines for the virus – with vaccine trials underway in the United States and the United Kingdom – and considering various drugs for possible treatments and prophylaxis. Here, we provide an overview of SARS‐CoV‐2 by analyzing its virology, epidemiology, and modes of transmission while examining the current progress of testing procedures and possible treatments through drugs and vaccines.
This review was written for the purpose of educating the public about the scientific aspects of SARS‐CoV‐2 that may be difficult to gather in the media. This review contains background information of SARS‐CoV‐2 as well as other coronaviruses. It also gives an overview of more technical topics, such as the structure of the virus and how scientists are working to create methods for testing, treatment, and further prevention of outbreaks.
ABSTRACT
BACKGROUND
Many of the five million Americans chronically infected with hepatitis C (HCV) are unaware of their infection and are not in care.
OBJECTIVE
We implemented and evaluated HCV ...screening and linkage-to-care interventions in a community setting.
DESIGN
We developed a comprehensive, community-based HCV screening and linkage-to-care program in a medically underserved neighborhood with high rates of HCV infection in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. We provided patient navigation services to enroll uninsured patients in insurance programs, facilitate referrals from primary care physicians and link patients to an HCV infectious disease specialist with intention to treat and cure.
PATIENTS
Philadelphia residents were recruited through street outreach.
MAIN MEASURES
We measured anti-HCV seroprevalence and diagnosis, linkage and retention in care outcomes for chronically infected patients.
KEY RESULTS
We screened 1,301 participants for HCV; anti-HCV seroprevalence was 3.9 % and 2.8 % of all patients were chronically infected. Half of chronically infected patients were newly diagnosed; the remaining patients were aware of infection but not in care. We provided confirmatory RNA testing and results, assisted patients with attaining insurance and linked most chronically infected patients to a primary care provider. The biggest barrier to retaining patients in care was obtaining referrals for subspecialty providers; however, we obtained referrals for 64 % of chronically infected participants and have retained most in subspecialty HCV care. Several have commenced treatment.
CONCLUSIONS
Non-clinical screening programs with patient navigator services are an effective means to diagnose, link, retain and re-engage patients in HCV care. Eliminating referral requirements for subspecialty care might further enhance retention in care for patients chronically infected with HCV.
Summary
Background
Shellfish allergy in Singapore is highly prevalent, and shrimp allergy is the most common.
Objective
This study aims to evaluate the clinical characteristics and immunological ...phenotype of shellfish allergy in this population.
Methods
Patients with self‐reported shellfish allergy were recruited from outpatient clinics of three large hospitals and from a population survey. Open oral food challenges (OFC) to glass prawn (Litopenaeus vannamei) and tiger prawn (Penaeus monodon) were carried out on all patients except for those who had a history of severe anaphylaxis. Skin prick tests (SPT) and specific IgE to crude and recombinant allergens were carried out to evaluate shrimp and dust mite sensitization. Immunoblots were used to assess IgE‐binding proteins.
Results
The 104 patients recruited were categorized into shellfish allergic (SA) when OFC was positive or had a history of severe anaphylaxis (n = 39), shellfish tolerant (ST) when OFC was negative (n = 27), and house dust mite positive controls (HDM+) who were ST (n = 38). Oral symptoms (87.1%) were the predominant clinical manifestation. Positive challenge doses ranged from 2 to 80 g of cooked shrimp, with 25/52 patients reacting to either one or both shrimps challenged. The presence of specific IgE to shrimp either by SPT and/or ImmunoCAP® assay provided diagnostic test sensitivity of 82% and specificity of 22.2%. The inclusion of specific IgE to shrimp tropomyosin and IgE immunoblots with shrimp extracts did not improve the diagnostic proficiency substantially.
Conclusions and Clinical Relevance
This study highlights the predominance of oral symptoms in shrimp allergy in tropical Asia and that a high provocation dose may be necessary to reveal shrimp allergy. Furthermore, specific IgE diagnostic tests and immunoblots were of limited use in this population.
Contests are widely used as mechanisms to incentivize efforts in various contexts, from research innovation to athletic and employee performance. This paper builds an analytical model and provides ...empirical evidence to assess the effectiveness of a large-scale, real-world residential energy conservation contest in Vietnam. The model suggests that contests offering multiple prizes and requiring a minimum amount of effort can effectively promote conservation. It also identifies factors that influence the conservation effort, such as the cost of effort, size of prizes, and types of contestants. To empirically estimate the effect of the energy conservation contest, this paper uses a unique confidential dataset of monthly residential electricity usage with over 45 million observations. The results indicate that the contest significantly reduced electricity consumption among contestants, and the effect of the contest could persist for months after its conclusion, leading to an average abatement cost of $27 per ton of CO2 emissions.
Query-by-example spoken term detection (QbE-STD) is a task of using speech queries to match utterances, and the acoustic word embedding (AWE) method of generating fixed-length representations for ...speech segments has shown high performance and efficiency in recent work. We propose an AWE training method using a label-adversarial network to reduce the interference information learned during AWE training. Experiments demonstrate that our method achieves significant improvements on multilingual and zero-resource test sets.
More specific and broadly applicable viral gene-targeting tools for labeling neuron subtypes are needed to advance neuroscience research, especially in rodent transgenic disease models and ...genetically intractable species. Here, we develop a viral vector that restricts transgene expression to GABAergic interneurons in the rodent neocortex by exploiting endogenous microRNA regulation. Our interneuron-targeting, microRNA-guided neuron tag, “GABA mAGNET,” achieves >95% interneuron selective labeling in the mouse cortex, including in a murine model of autism and also some preferential labeling of interneurons in the rat brain. We demonstrate an application of our GABA mAGNET by performing simultaneous, in vivo optogenetic control of two distinct neuron subtypes. This interneuron labeling tool highlights the potential of microRNA-based viral gene targeting to specific neuron subtypes.
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•Developed GABA mAGNET, a miRNA-based viral gene delivery tool for interneurons•GABA mAGNET achieves >95% cortical interneuron targeting in mice•GABA mAGNET works in a mouse autism model and exhibits some functionality in rats•GABA mAGNET enables viral-mediated optogenetic manipulation of two neuron subtypes
Viral targeting of neuron subtypes is desirable for neuroscience research. Keaveney et al. developed a microRNA-based viral tool for labeling cortical interneurons. They demonstrate its utility via neuron subtype labeling in a murine disease model and in rats and through dual-color optogenetic control of two neuron types.
Summary Objective Osteoarthritis (OA) is the most common form of arthritis and a leading cause of disability. OA is characterized by articular chondrocyte deterioration, subchondral bone changes and ...debilitating pain. One strategy to promote cartilage regeneration and repair is to accelerate proliferation and matrix production of articular chondrocytes. We previously reported that the protein phosphatase Phlpp1 controls chondrocyte differentiation by regulating the activities of anabolic kinases. Here we examined the role of Phlpp1 in OA progression in a murine model. We also assessed PHLPP1 expression and promoter methylation. Design Knee joints of WT and Phlpp1−/− mice were surgically destabilized by transection of the medial meniscal ligament (DMM). Mice were assessed for signs of OA progression via radiographic and histological analyses, and pain assessment for mechanical hypersensitivity using the von Frey assay. Methylation of the PHLPP1 promoter and PHLPP1 expression were evaluated in human articular cartilage and chondrocyte cell lines. Results Following DMM surgeries, Phlpp1 deficient mice showed fewer signs of OA and cartilage degeneration. Mechanical allodynia associated with DMM surgeries was also attenuated in Phlpp1−/− mice. PHLPP1 was highly expressed in human articular cartilage from OA patients, but was undetectable in cartilage specimens from femoral neck fractures (FNFxs). Higher PHLPP1 levels correlated with less PHLPP1 promoter CpG methylation in cartilage from OA patients. Blocking cytosine methylation or treatment with inflammatory mediators enhanced PHLPP1 expression in human chondrocyte cell lines. Conclusion Phlpp1 deficiency protects against OA progression while CpG demethylation and inflammatory cytokines promote PHLPP1 expression.
Background The federal menu labeling law will require chain restaurants to post caloric information on menus, but the impact of labeling is uncertain. Purpose The goal of the current study was to ...examine the effect of menu labeling on calories purchased, and secondarily, to assess self-reported awareness and use of labels. Design Single-community pre–post–post cross-sectional study. Data were collected in 2008–2010 and analyzed in 2011–2012. Setting/participants 50 sites from 10 chain restaurants in King County, Washington, selected through stratified, two-stage cluster random sampling. A total of 7325 customers participated. Eligibility criteria were: being an English speaker, aged≥14 years, and having an itemized receipt. The study population was 59% male, 76% white non-Hispanic, and 53% aged<40 years. Intervention A regulation requiring chain restaurants to post calorie information on menus or menu boards was implemented. Main outcome measures Mean number of calories purchased. Results No significant changes occurred between baseline and 4–6 months postregulation. Mean calories per purchase decreased from 908.5 to 870.4 at 18 months post-implementation (38 kcal, 95% CI=−76.9, 0.8, p =0.06) in food chains and from 154.3 to 132.1 (22 kcal, 95% CI=−35.8, −8.5, p =0.002) in coffee chains. Calories decreased in taco and coffee chains, but not in burger and sandwich establishments. They decreased more among women than men in coffee chains. Awareness of labels increased from 18.8% to 61.7% in food chains and from 4.4% to 30.0% in coffee chains (both p <0.001). Among customers seeing calorie information, the proportion using it (about one third) did not change substantially over time. After implementation, food chain customers using information purchased on average fewer calories compared to those seeing but not using (difference=143.2 kcal, p <0.001) and those not seeing (difference=135.5 kcal, p <0.001) such information. Conclusions Mean calories per purchase decreased 18 months after implementation of menu labeling in some restaurant chains and among women but not men.
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