关键词： Poverty areas   Slums   Assisted living facilities   COVID-19  

摘要： Objectives: In large cities, where a large proportion of the population live in poverty and overcrowding, orders to stay home to comply with isolation requirements are difficult to fulfil. In this article, the use of alternative care sites (ACSs) for the isolation of patients with confirmed COVID-19 or persons under investigation (PUI) in the City of Buenos Aires during the first wave of COVID-19 are described. Study design: This is a cross-sectional study. Methods: All patients with COVID-19 and PUI with insufficient housing resources who could not comply with orders to stay home and who were considered at low clinical risk in the initial triage were referred to refurbished hotels in the City of Buenos Aires (Ciudad Autonoma de Buenos Aires [CABA]). ACSs were divided into those for confirmed COVID-19 patients and those for PUI. Results: From March to August 2020, there were 58,143 reported cases of COVID-19 (13,829 of whom lived in slums) in the CABA. For COVID-19 positive cases, 62.1% (n = 8587) of those living in slums and 21.4% (n = 9498) of those living outside the slums were housed in an ACS. In total, 31.1% (n = 18,085) of confirmed COVID-19 cases were housed in ACSs. In addition, 7728 PUI were housed (3178 from the slums) in an ACS. The average length of stay was 9.0 +/- 2.5 days for patients with COVID-19 and 1.6 +/- 0.7 days for PUI. For the individuals who were housed in an ACS, 1314 (5.1%) had to be hospitalised, 56 were in critical care units (0.22%) and there were 27 deaths (0.1%), none during their stay in an ACS. Conclusions: Overall, about one- third of all people with COVID-19 were referred to an ACS in the CABA. For slum dwellers, the proportion was >60%. The need for hospitalisation was low and severe clinical events were rare. This strategy reduced the pressure on hospitals so their efforts could be directed to patients with moderate-to-severe disease. (C) 2021 The Royal Society for Public Health. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

关键词： Anti-TB   Antituberculosis   CAM   Complementary and alternative medicine   DILI   Drug-induced liver injury   MELD   Model for End-Stage Liver Disease  

关键词： age-stage two-sex life table   Aphelinidae   host-feeding   parasitoid   Smallanthus sonchifolius   Trialeurodes vaporariorum   whiteflies  

摘要： BACKGROUND: Yacon (Smallanthus sonchifolius) is a broadleaf host plant suitable for rearing the greenhouse whitefly, Trialeurodes vaporariorum (Westwood). Here, the possibility of using yacon as an alternative host plant for production of the parasitoid, Encarsia formosa Gahan, one of the most important natural enemies of whiteflies, was explored. Data on the demographic characteristics, parasitism rate, and host-feeding rate were collected and analyzed using the TWOSEX-MSChart, CONSUME-MSChart, and TIMING-MSChart computer programs, and then contrasted with comparable data from the more commonly utilized host plant, tobacco. RESULTS: Higher fecundity (F) (190.13 eggs/female) and more oviposition days (O-d) (16.60 days) were observed in E. formosa when yacon was used as the host plant for rearing T. vaporariorum, compared with when tobacco was used (F = 150.13 eggs/female, O-d = 15.27 days). The intrinsic rate of increase (r), finite rate of increase (lambda), and net reproduction rate (R-0) were significantly higher in E. formosa parasitizing T. vaporariorum reared on yacon compared with those parasitizing tobacco-reared T. vaporariorum. Furthermore, the net host-feeding rate (C-0 = 40.87 prey/parasitoid), net killing rate (Z(0) = 239.73 prey/parasitoid), and finite killing rate (upsilon = 0.2560/day) for E. formosa on yacon-reared whiteflies were significantly higher than those from tobacco-reared whiteflies. CONCLUSION: Our results showed that yacon is more suitable than tobacco as a host plant for mass-rearing E. formosa for biological control programs to manage whiteflies. An innovative application of the multinomial theorem for calculating the exact probability of bootstrap samples in life table research was also introduced. (c) 2021 Society of Chemical Industry

关键词： CAT use   Complementary and Alternative Therapies   Knowledge   Nurse   Perceptions  

摘要： Background and purpose: Use of CAT has increased in the past decade. However, it is unclear if this has impacted nursing practice. The purpose of this study was to explore CAT use and beliefs of academic and clinical nurses. Materials and methods: A cross-sectional design using an electronic survey was sent to 1000 clinical and academic nurses in the US. Results: Academic and clinical nurses were more alike than different, and of the contextual factors that impacted CAT use, lack of knowledge was most cited. Faculty were most likely to teach that which they were knowledgeable about and nurses were most likely to use what was taught in school. Conclusions: There is a need for a standardized CAT curriculum for schools of nursing in the US to facilitate knowledge and use of CAT, but to also train nurse scientists who can develop the clinical research needed to support practice decisions.

关键词： analytic hierarchy process   expert survey   rank reversal effect   Pareto principle   Pareto efficiency   Pareto inefficiency  

摘要： The article provides a general description of the analytic hierarchy process and analyzes the problem of the influence of Pareto-inefficient alternatives on ranking results. It is shown that the presence of Pareto-inefficient alternatives in the original set can lead to erroneous ranking, and the lack of a mechanism within the framework of the analytic hierarchy process that confirms or disproves the existence of such alternatives decreases the level of validity of the obtained results. An approach to the integrated use of the Pareto principle and the analytic hierarchy process is proposed. The possibility of its practical application is shown on a specific example of calculations. The use of this approach will increase the validity of the ranking results of alternatives by either eliminating Pareto-inefficient ones from consideration or confirming their absence.

关键词： Complementary and alternative medicine (CAM)   Herbal remedies   Urinary tract illnesses   Jordan  

摘要： The aim of this study was to assess the extent of Complementary and Alternative Medicine (CAM) usage, especially herbal preparations, in treating urinary tract illnesses, and their perceived efficacy. This was a crosssectional survey that used a convenience sample of 278 adults who reported having any form of urinary tract illness. During the last 3 months, 105 (37.8%) of participants had used CAM for various urinary tract conditions, of which, 87 (82.9%) used herbal remedies. Urinary tract infections (UTIs) were the most reported urinary condition (n = 77, 73.3%) among CAM users. The most commonly used herbs were, parsley (n = 54, 19.2%), followed by chamomile (n = 29, 10.4%), barley (n = 20, 7.4%) and ginger (n = 18, 6.7%).The study provides an overview of various CAM remedies used to treat urinary tract illnesses in the Jordanian society, which would draw attention to the necessity of conducting interventional studies to evaluate the efficacy and safety of CAMs in treating urinary tract illnesses, either as stand-alone or adjuvant treatment.

关键词： alternative splicing   RNA processing   splicing regulation   splicing reporter minigene assay   gateway cloning   pDESTsplice   pSpliceExpress  

摘要： Splicing is an important RNA processing step. Genetic variations can alter the splicing process and thereby contribute to the development of various diseases. Alterations of the splicing pattern can be examined by gene expression analyses, by computational tools for predicting the effects of genetic variants on splicing, and by splicing reporter minigene assays for studying alternative splicing events under defined conditions. The minigene assay is based on transient transfection of cells with a vector containing a genomic region of interest cloned between two constitutive exons. Cloning can be accomplished by the use of restriction enzymes or by site-specific recombination using Gateway cloning. The vectors pDESTsplice and pSpliceExpress represent two minigene systems based on Gateway cloning, which are available through the Addgene plasmid repository. In this review, we describe the features of these two splicing reporter minigene systems. Moreover, we provide an overview of studies in which determinants of alternative splicing were investigated by using pDESTsplice or pSpliceExpress. The studies were reviewed with regard to the investigated splicing regulatory events and the experimental strategy to construct and perform a splicing reporter minigene assay. We further elaborate on how analyses on the regulation of RNA splicing offer promising prospects for gaining important insights into disease mechanisms.

关键词： SARS-Cov-2   COVID-19   Lung injury   Complement activation   Immune complexes  

摘要： Lung inflammation and damage is prominent in people infected with SARS-Cov-2 and a major determinant of morbidity and mortality. We report the deposition of complement components in the lungs of people who succumbed to COVID-19 consistent with the activation of the classical and the alternative pathways. Our study provides strong rationale for the expansion of trials involving the use of complement inhibitors to treat patients with COVID-19.

关键词： OA   octopamine   OAergic   octopaminergic   CDM   chlordimeform   BEN   2-benzylimidazoline hydrochloride (tolazoline)   EPI   epinastine hydrochloride   PHE   phentolamine   Cont   control  

摘要： Male-male combats over females and territories are widespread across animal taxa. The winner of a combat gains resources, while the loser suffers significant costs (e.g. time, energy and injury) without gaining resources. Many animals have evolved behavioral flexibility, depending on their nutritional condition and experience, to avoid combat in order to reduce such costs. In these cases, male aggression often correlates with mating behavior changes, that is, the deployment of alternative reproductive tactics. Therefore, uncovering the physiological mechanism that orchestrates combat and mating behaviors is essential to understand the evolution of alternative mating tactics. However, so far, our knowledge is limited to specific behaviors (i.e., fighting or mating) of specific model species. In this study, we used an armed beetle (Gnatocerus cornutus) and hypothesized that one of the key neuromodulators of invertebrate aggression, octopamine (OA), would control male combat and other mating behaviors. Using receptor agonists (chlordimeform and benzimidazole), we showed that the octopaminergic (OAergic) system down-regulated the combat and courtship behaviors, while it up-regulated locomotor activity and sperm size. This suggests that the OAergic system orchestrates a suite of fighting and mating behaviors, thereby implying that correlated behavioral responses to OAergic signaling may have driven the evolution of alternative mating tactics in this beetle.