Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) is a new type of coronavirus that causes the Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19), which has been the most challenging pandemic in this ...century. Considering its high mortality and rapid spread, an effective vaccine is urgently needed to control this pandemic. As a result, the academia, industry, and government sectors are working tightly together to develop and test a variety of vaccines at an unprecedented pace. In this review, we outline the essential coronavirus biological characteristics that are important for vaccine design. In addition, we summarize key takeaways from previous vaccination studies of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus (SARS-CoV) and Middle East Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus (MERS-CoV), highlighting the pros and cons of each immunization strategy. Finally, based on these prior vaccination experiences, we discuss recent progress and potential challenges of COVID-19 vaccine development.
Current methods of chemical vapour deposition (CVD) of graphene on copper are complicated by multiple processing steps and by high temperatures required in both preparing the copper and inducing ...subsequent film growth. Here we demonstrate a plasma-enhanced CVD chemistry that enables the entire process to take place in a single step, at reduced temperatures (<420 °C), and in a matter of minutes. Growth on copper foils is found to nucleate from arrays of well-aligned domains, and the ensuing films possess sub-nanometre smoothness, excellent crystalline quality, low strain, few defects and room-temperature electrical mobility up to (6.0±1.0) × 10(4) cm(2) V(-1) s(-1), better than that of large, single-crystalline graphene derived from thermal CVD growth. These results indicate that elevated temperatures and crystalline substrates are not necessary for synthesizing high-quality graphene.
Caregivers play a major role in providing care for patients with Alzheimer's disease (AD) and are themselves at higher risk of health comorbidities.
To address the impact of neuropsychiatric symptoms ...of patients in different stages of AD on their caregivers' burden.
This prospective study enrolled 260 AD patients with clinical dementia rating (CDR) of 0.5, 1 and 2 at a tertiary medical center.
All patients were tested using the mini-mental state examination (MMSE), the cognitive abilities screening instrument (CASI), the neuropsychiatric inventory (NPI) and the CDR scale. Data regarding therapeutic outcomes of anti-Alzheimer's drugs were also collected. Caregivers were tested using NPI.
The mean follow-up interval was 25.0 ± 12.2 months, and two patients died during follow-up. NPI-burden was positively correlated with NPI-sum ( r = 0.822, P < 0.001) but negatively correlated with years of education ( r = -0.140, P = 0.024), CASI score ( r = -0.259, P < 0.001) and MMSE score ( r = -0.262, P <0.001). Multiple linear regression analysis showed that only NPI-sum was independently associated with mean NPI-burden. Both higher mean CASI and MMSE scores had better therapeutic outcome of anti-Alzheimer's drugs ( P = 0.001 and P = 0.005, respectively).
The severity of neuropsychiatric symptoms in patients with AD was positively associated with caregiver's stress, and patients with better cognitive functions, under treatment with anti-Alzheimer's drugs, had better therapeutic outcomes. To reduce the impact of neuropsychiatric symptoms, it is crucial to detect dementia in its early phases and provide early intervention with anti-Alzheimer's drugs, which might help decrease the caregiver burden, thereby improving their quality of life.
Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) has been the most severe public health challenge in this century. Two years after its emergence, the rapid development and deployment of effective COVID-19 ...vaccines have successfully controlled this pandemic and greatly reduced the risk of severe illness and death associated with COVID-19. However, due to its ability to rapidly evolve, the SARS-CoV-2 virus may never be eradicated, and there are many important new topics to work on if we need to live with this virus for a long time. To this end, we hope to provide essential knowledge for researchers who work on the improvement of future COVID-19 vaccines. In this review, we provided an up-to-date summary for current COVID-19 vaccines, discussed the biological basis and clinical impact of SARS-CoV-2 variants and subvariants, and analyzed the effectiveness of various vaccine booster regimens against different SARS-CoV-2 strains. Additionally, we reviewed potential mechanisms of vaccine-induced severe adverse events, summarized current studies regarding immune correlates of protection, and finally, discussed the development of next-generation vaccines.
Recent developments in the instrumentation and data analysis of synchrotron small‐angle X‐ray scattering (SAXS) on biomolecules in solution have made biological SAXS (BioSAXS) a mature and popular ...tool in structural biology. This article reports on an advanced endstation developed at beamline 13A of the 3.0 GeV Taiwan Photon Source for biological small‐ and wide‐angle X‐ray scattering (SAXS–WAXS or SWAXS). The endstation features an in‐vacuum SWAXS detection system comprising two mobile area detectors (Eiger X 9M/1M) and an online size‐exclusion chromatography system incorporating several optical probes including a UV–Vis absorption spectrometer and refractometer. The instrumentation and automation allow simultaneous SAXS–WAXS data collection and data reduction for high‐throughput biomolecular conformation and composition determinations. The performance of the endstation is illustrated with the SWAXS data collected for several model proteins in solution, covering a scattering vector magnitude q across three orders of magnitude. The crystal‐model fittings to the data in the q range ∼0.005–2.0 Å−1 indicate high similarity of the solution structures of the proteins to their crystalline forms, except for some subtle hydration‐dependent local details. These results open up new horizons of SWAXS in studying correlated local and global structures of biomolecules in solution.
A new endstation for biological small‐ and wide‐angle X‐ray scattering is detailed, which provides development opportunities for studying correlated local and global structures of biomolecules in solution.
Adolescents with intellectual disabilities (ID) who live a sedentary lifestyle may lead to an increased risk of chronic cardiovascular disease in adulthood. The aim of this study is to investigate ...the effects of 8-week progressive rope skipping training on physical, cardiovascular fitness and exercise tolerance of high school students with moderate ID.
Thirty-four senior high school with ID (aged 15-18 years old) were randomised into experimental group received progressive skipping rope exercise (RS, n = 17) and control group no rope skipping exercise intervention group (CON, n = 17). The RS group were received progressive rope skipping exercise for 50 min each time, three times a week, for 8 weeks. The control group was not allowed to participate in intervention activities during the study period. The physical fitness, body composition, arterial stiffness index (ASI) and blood pressure were measured before and after the 8-week intervention.
After the 8-week progressive skipping rope exercise intervention, the participants from the RS group increased in the 3-min step test, sit-up test, grip strength and sit and reach test, when compared to the baseline (P < 0.05). The RS group exhibited lower the area under curve of heart rate (HR) during post-exercise recovery (P < 0.05). The participants in the RS group showed significant decreases in systolic (SBP) and diastolic (DBP) blood pressure, mean arterial pressure (MAP) and HR when compared to the baseline (P < 0.05). Change SBP has moderate positive correlation with change ASI.
The results of this experiment suggest that progressive rope skipping exercise might improve physical fitness and promote cardiovascular health, as well as enhance exercise tolerance for adolescent students with moderate ID.
Summary
Background
The burden of gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD) is increasing in the Asia area and the majority of GERD patients have non‐erosive reflux disease (NERD).
Aim
To evaluate the ...efficacy and safety of sodium alginate suspension compared to omeprazole in adult subjects with NERD.
Methods
In this 4‐week, double‐blind, parallel study, 195 NERD subjects were randomised to one of two treatment groups: sodium alginate suspension 20 mL three times a day and omeprazole 20 mg once daily. The primary efficacy endpoint was the percentage of patients achieving adequate heartburn or regurgitation relief at day 28 assessed by patient diary. The secondary efficacy endpoints included percentage of patients achieving adequate heartburn or regurgitation relief, change from baseline of the Reflux Disease Questionnaire total score at day 14 and 28 from baseline, and patients’ overall satisfaction.
Results
In this study, 183 subjects were included in the intent‐to‐treat population, and 172 subjects were included in the per‐protocol population. Non‐inferiority of sodium alginate to omeprazole was demonstrated in the intent‐to‐treat population difference, 2.7% (53.3% vs. 50.5%, P = 0.175), 95% lower confidence interval −11.9%, above the preset margin of −19%. All of the secondary efficacy endpoints were comparable between two groups. The incidence of adverse event was relatively low and there was no difference between the two groups (5.4% vs. 5.5% for sodium alginate vs. omeprazole). No severe adverse event was noted in this study.
Conclusion
The study showed that sodium alginate was as effective as omeprazole for symptomatic relief in patients with non‐erosive reflux disease (Clinicaltrials.gov NCT01338077).
In response to the emergence of SARS-CoV-2 variants of concern, the global scientific community, through unprecedented effort, has sequenced and shared over 11 million genomes through GISAID, as of ...May 2022. This extraordinarily high sampling rate provides a unique opportunity to track the evolution of the virus in near real-time. Here, we present outbreak.info , a platform that currently tracks over 40 million combinations of Pango lineages and individual mutations, across over 7,000 locations, to provide insights for researchers, public health officials and the general public. We describe the interpretable visualizations available in our web application, the pipelines that enable the scalable ingestion of heterogeneous sources of SARS-CoV-2 variant data and the server infrastructure that enables widespread data dissemination via a high-performance API that can be accessed using an R package. We show how outbreak.info can be used for genomic surveillance and as a hypothesis-generation tool to understand the ongoing pandemic at varying geographic and temporal scales.
Manipulating the surface energy, and thereby the wetting properties of solids, has promise for various physical, chemical, biological and industrial processes. Typically, this is achieved by either ...chemical modification or by controlling the hierarchical structures of surfaces. Here we report a phenomenon whereby the wetting properties of vermiculite laminates are controlled by the hydrated cations on the surface and in the interlamellar space. We find that vermiculite laminates can be tuned from superhydrophilic to hydrophobic simply by exchanging the cations; hydrophilicity decreases with increasing cation hydration free energy, except for lithium. The lithium-exchanged vermiculite laminate is found to provide a superhydrophilic surface due to its anomalous hydrated structure at the vermiculite surface. Building on these findings, we demonstrate the potential application of superhydrophilic lithium exchanged vermiculite as a thin coating layer on microfiltration membranes to resist fouling, and thus, we address a major challenge for oil-water separation technology.
A previous genetic study has suggested that schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, major depressive disorder, autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) share common ...disease-associated genes. However, whether individuals with first-degree relatives (FDRs) with schizophrenia have a higher risk of these major psychiatric disorders requires further investigation. This study used Taiwan's National Health Insurance Research Database and identified 151 650 patients with schizophrenia and 227 967 individuals with FDRs with schizophrenia. The relative risks (RRs) of schizophrenia and other major psychiatric disorders were assessed in individuals with FDRs with schizophrenia. The individuals with FDRs with schizophrenia exhibited higher RRs (95% confidence interval) of major psychiatric disorders, namely schizophrenia (4.76, 4.65-4.88), bipolar disorder (3.23, 3.12-3.35), major depressive disorder (2.05, 2.00-2.10), ASD (2.55, 2.35-2.77) and ADHD (1.31, 1.25-1.37) than were found in the total population. Several sensitivity analyses were conducted to confirm these results. A dose-dependent relationship was observed between the risks of major psychiatric disorders and the numbers of FDRs with schizophrenia. The increased risks of major psychiatric disorders were consistent in different family relationships, namely among parents, offspring, siblings and twins. Our study supports the familial dose-dependent co-aggregation of schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, major depressive disorder, ASD and ADHD, and our results may prompt governmental public health departments and psychiatrists to focus on the mental health of individuals with FDRs with schizophrenia.
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