Worldwide Recommendations and Therapies for Multiple Sclerosis: Are They Safe in the COVID-19 Pandemic Period?


title: Structure-based drug designing and immunoinformatics approach for SARS-CoV-2

text: The prevalence of respiratory illness caused by the novel SARS-CoV-2 associated with multiple organ failures is spreading rapidly due to its contagious human-to-human transmission and inadequate global healthcare systems. Pharmaceutical re-use, reflecting an effective drug development technique using existing drugs, could shorten the time and reduce the costs relative to de novo drug discovery. We have performed virtual screening of antiviral compounds targeting the spike glycoprotein (S), main protease (M(pro)), and the SARS-CoV-2 RBD-ACE2 complex of SARS-CoV-2. PC786, an antiviral polymerase inhibitor, showed improved binding affinity toward all the targets. Furthermore, the post-fusion conformation of the trimeric S protein RBD domain with ACE2 revealed conformational changes associated with the PC786 drug binding. The proposed T cell and B cell epitope identification using the immunoinformatics approach could direct the experimental study with a higher probability of discovering appropriate vaccine candidates with fewer experiments and higher reliability.


title: Police Stress, Mental Health, and Resiliency during the COVID-19 Pandemic

text: The COVID-19 pandemic created social upheaval and altered norms for all members of society, but its effects on first responders have been particularly profound. Law enforcement officers have been expected to coordinate local shutdowns, encourage social distancing, and enforce stay-at-home mandates all while completing the responsibilities for which they are already understaffed and underfunded. The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on officer stress, mental health, resiliency, and misconduct is explored drawing insight from reactions to the HIV epidemic over two decades earlier and the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. COVID-19 policing is hypothesized to serve as a significant stressor for officers and compound the general and organizational stress associated with the occupation. Avenues for providing officer support are discussed and recommendations for research into the phenomenon presented.


title: Stability analysis of leishmania epidemic model with harmonic mean type incidence rate

text: We discussed anthroponotic cutaneous leishmania transmission in this article, due to its large effect on the community in the recent years. The mathematical model is developed for anthroponotic cutaneous leishmania transmission, and its qualitative behavior is taken under consideration. The threshold number [Formula: see text] of the model is derived using the next-generation method. In the disease-free case, local and global stability is carried out with the condition that [Formula: see text] will be less than one. The global stability at the disease-free equilibrium point has been derived by utilizing the Castillo–Chavez method. On the other hand, at the endemic equilibrium point, the local and global stability holds with some conditions, and [Formula: see text] is greater than unity. The global stability at the endemic equilibrium point is established with the help of a geometrical approach which is the generalization of Lyapunov theory, by using the third additive compound matrix. The sensitivity analysis of the threshold number with other parameters is also taken into account. Several graphs of important parameters are discussed in the last section.


Editorial to special issue “Personality and individual differences and healthy organizations”


Where is the evidence that human exposure to microplastics is safe?


From inequity to inclusive prosperity: The corporate role


Commentary: Engineering antibody therapies – May Be the Future of Therapeutics


Hitos de la Sección de Cardiología Geriátrica de la Sociedad Española de Cardiología: la r-evolución desde 1995 a 2020


Rural Surgery: Then, Now, and Beyond


Encomium to Hein JJ Wellens (as he chose to be known)


title: High mobilization of CD133+/CD34+ cells expressing HIF-1α and SDF-1α in septic abdominal surgical patients

text: BACKGROUND: The control of endothelial progenitor cells (CD133+/CD34+ EPCs) migrating from bone marrow to peripheral blood is not completely understood. Emerging evidence suggests that stromal cell-derived factor-1α (SDF-1α) mediates egression of EPCs from bone marrow, while the hypoxia inducible factor (HIF) transcriptional system regulates SDF-1α expression. Our study aimed to investigate the time course of circulating CD133+/CD34+ EPCs and its correlation with the expression of HIF-1α protein and SDF-1α in postoperative laparoscopic abdominal septic patients. METHODS: Postoperative patients were divided in control (C group) and septic group (S group) operated immediately after the diagnosis of sepsis/septic shock. Blood samples were collected at baseline (0), 1, 3 and 7 postoperative days for CD133+/CD34+ EPCs count expressing or not the HIF-1α and SDF-1α analysis. RESULTS: Thirty-two patients in S group and 39 in C group were analyzed. In C group CD133+/CD34+ EPCs count remained stable throughout the study period, increasing on day 7 (173 [0–421] /μl vs baseline: P = 0.04; vs day 1: P = 0.002). In S group CD133+/CD34+ EPCs count levels were higher on day 3 (vs day 1: P = 0.006 and day 7: P = 0.026). HIF-1α expressing CD133+/CD34+ EPCs count decreased on day 1 as compared with the other days in C group (day 0 vs 1: P = 0.003, days 3 and 7 vs 1: P = 0.008), while it was 321 [0–1418] /μl on day 3 (vs day 1; P = 0.004), and 400 [0–587] /μl on day 7 in S group. SDF-1α levels were higher not only on baseline but also on postoperative day 1 in S vs C group (219 [124–337] pg/ml vs 35 [27–325] pg/ml, respectively; P = 0.01). CONCLUSION: Our results indicate that sepsis in abdominal laparoscopic patients might constitute an additional trigger of the EPCs mobilization as compared with non-septic surgical patients. A larger mobilization of CD133+/CD34+ EPCs, preceded by enhanced plasmatic SDF-1α, occurs in septic surgical patients regardless of HIF-1α expression therein. TRIAL REGISTRATION: ClinicalTrials.gov no. NCT02589535. Registered 28 October 2015.


Commentary: The Era of Great Uncertainty


docid: lybkmdgb

title: Cardiac Rehabilitation: You can't have “too much of a good thing.”


Editorial: On continuing to educate during these times


title: Thresholds for oximetry alarms and target range in the NICU: an observational assessment based on likely oxygen tension and maturity

text: BACKGROUND: Continuous monitoring of SpO(2) in the neonatal ICU is the standard of care. Changes in SpO(2) exposure have been shown to markedly impact outcome, but limiting extreme episodes is an arduous task. Much more complicated than setting alarm policy, it is fraught with balancing alarm fatigue and compliance. Information on optimum strategies is limited. METHODS: This is a retrospective observational study intended to describe the relative chance of normoxemia, and risks of hypoxemia and hyperoxemia at relevant SpO(2) levels in the neonatal ICU. The data, paired SpO(2)-PaO(2) and post-menstrual age, are from a single tertiary care unit. They reflect all infants receiving supplemental oxygen and mechanical ventilation during a 3-year period. The primary measures were the chance of normoxemia (PaO(2) 50–80 mmHg), risks of severe hypoxemia (PaO(2) ≤ 40 mmHg), and of severe hyperoxemia (PaO(2) ≥ 100 mmHg) at relevant SpO(2) levels. RESULTS: Neonates were categorized by postmenstrual age: < 33 (n = 155), 33–36 (n = 192) and > 36 (n = 1031) weeks. From these infants, 26,162 SpO(2)-PaO(2) pairs were evaluated. The post-menstrual weeks (median and IQR) of the three groups were: 26 (24–28) n = 2603; 34 (33–35) n = 2501; and 38 (37–39) n = 21,058. The chance of normoxemia (65, 95%-CI 64–67%) was similar across the SpO(2) range of 88–95%, and independent of PMA. The increasing risk of severe hypoxemia became marked at a SpO(2) of 85% (25, 95%-CI 21–29%), and was independent of PMA. The risk of severe hyperoxemia was dependent on PMA. For infants < 33 weeks it was marked at 98% SpO(2) (25, 95%-CI 18–33%), for infants 33–36 weeks at 97% SpO(2) (24, 95%-CI 14–25%) and for those > 36 weeks at 96% SpO(2) (20, 95%-CI 17–22%). CONCLUSIONS: The risk of hyperoxemia and hypoxemia increases exponentially as SpO(2) moves towards extremes. Postmenstrual age influences the threshold at which the risk of hyperoxemia became pronounced, but not the thresholds of hypoxemia or normoxemia. The thresholds at which a marked change in the risk of hyperoxemia and hypoxemia occur can be used to guide the setting of alarm thresholds. Optimal management of neonatal oxygen saturation must take into account concerns of alarm fatigue, staffing levels, and FiO(2) titration practices.


docid: ygilopml

title: Online Teaching During COVID-19: Perception of Medical Undergraduate Students


title: Early autonomic and cognitive dysfunction in PD, DLB and MSA: blurring the boundaries between α-synucleinopathies

text: Differential diagnosis between Parkinson's disease, dementia with Lewy bodies and multiple system atrophy can be difficult, especially because in early phase they might present with overlapping clinical features. Notably, orthostatic hypotension and cognitive dysfunction are common nonmotor aspects of parkinsonian syndromes and can be both present from the earliest stages of all α-synucleinopathies, indicating a common neurobiological basis in their strong relationship. In view of the increasing awareness about the prevalence of mild cognitive dysfunction in multiple system atrophy, the relevance of autonomic dysfunction in demented parkinsonian patients, the critical role of non-motor symptoms in clustering Parkinson's disease patients and the shift to studying patients in the prodromal phase, we will discuss some intrinsic limitations of current clinical diagnostic criteria, even when applied by movement disorder specialists. In particular, we will focus on the early coexistence of autonomic and cognitive dysfunction in the setting of overt or latent parkinsonism as pitfalls in the differential diagnosis of α-synucleinopathies. As early and accurate diagnosis remains of outmost importance for counselling of patients and timely enrolment into disease-modifying clinical trials, a continuous effort of research community is ongoing to further improve the clinical diagnostic accuracy of α-synucleinopathies.


Using Cyclosporine in the COVID era: an emergent need for caution


Atrium


A diagnostic confusion between Serotonin syndrome and Neuroleptic malignant syndrome


Spillover


The Impact of COVID-19 on Medical Education


title: Is it an institution, digital or social inclusion that matters for inclusive growth? A panel data analysis

text: This study empirically examines the impact of institutional quality, social inclusion and digital inclusion on inclusive growth across different economies characterized by different income groups. Particularly, the study examines the impact of institutions on inclusive growth by using the panel data for 83 countries over the period 2010–2017. For empirical specification, we used two-steps system-GMM estimation technique to tackle endogeneity and min–max normalized indexing technique to construct the indices for inclusive growth, social inclusion, digital inclusion and institutional quality. The results of this study show that there is a direct link between institutional quality and inclusive growth for a higher-income group of countries but not in the rest of the income groups. Contribution of social and digital inclusivity is significant in all three income groups, except for social inclusion in middle-income countries. From the policy point of view, these findings suggest that establishing and strengthening the institutional structure in low- and middle-income countries can contribute towards better and higher inclusive growth.


title: Depressive Symptoms, Body Mass Index, and Physical Activity Self-Efficacy in African American Children

text: In recent decades, the prevalence of childhood depression and obesity has increased worldwide. African American (AA) children are more obese than White peers and experience many factors that can influence the onset of depressive symptoms. While depression and obesity have been examined in adolescents, there is a paucity of research in AA children. This study examined the relationships among depressive symptoms, obesity, and physical activity self-efficacy in AA children. A community sample of 65 AA children completed questionnaires for depressive symptoms and physical activity self-efficacy and also had body mass index (BMI) and BMI Z-scores calculated. Correlational statistics were used to examine associations between variables. Clinically significant total depression scores were present in 22% of children, while 48% were overweight or obese. Overall, children reported high physical activity self-efficacy. Higher depressive symptoms were associated with higher BMI Z-scores. Results also indicated significant correlations between the children’s physical activity self-efficacy and depressive symptoms. Findings suggest that the associations between depressive symptoms, BMI, and physical activity self-efficacy in AA children merit additional examination. Early identification of depression in children may inform future approaches to treatment of psychological and physiological problems within the clinical setting. Screening for childhood depressive symptoms in primary care settings, especially those that specifically treat childhood obesity, can be instrumental in early identification of children with depression. Healthcare providers should be knowledgeable of the clinical presentation of depression and engaged in depression screening.


title: Analysis of oral risk factors for ventilator-associated pneumonia in critically ill patients

text: OBJECTIVE: This a cross-sectional study to evaluate the association between oral health findings and ventilator-associated pneumonia (VAP) among critically ill patients in intensive care units (ICU). MATERIAL AND METHODS: Data were collected from medical records, and a detailed oral physical examination was performed on 663 critically ill patients on mechanical ventilation. Data were statistically analysed using univariate and logistic regression models relating the development of VAP with the oral findings. RESULTS: At oral physical examination, the most frequent findings were tooth loss (568–85.67%), coated tongue (422–63.65%) and oral bleeding (192–28.96%). Patients with a coated tongue or oral bleeding on the first day of ICU hospitalization developed more VAP than did patients without these conditions (20.14 vs 13.69%, p = 0.02; 23.44 vs 15.50%, p = 0.01, respectively). In the logistic regression, a coated tongue and oral bleeding were considered independent risk factors for VAP development (OR = 1.61 (1.03–2.51) and OR = 1.69 (1.08–2.66), respectively). CONCLUSIONS: The presence of a coated tongue and oral bleeding in ICU admission could be considered markers for the development of VAP. CLINICAL RELEVANCE: The results of this paper reinforce the importance of proper maintenance of oral hygiene before intubation, which may lead to a decrease in the incidence of VAP in the ICU.


Debate, Research and Critique in Contemporary Youth Studies


title: HPV16-E7 Protein T Cell Epitope Prediction and Global Therapeutic Peptide Vaccine Design Based on Human Leukocyte Antigen Frequency: An In-Silico Study

text: Cervical cancer is the second most common leading cause of women's death due to cancer worldwide, about 528,000 patients’ cases and 266,000 deaths per year, related to human papillomavirus (HPV). Peptide-based vaccines being safe, stable, and easy to produce have demonstrated great potential to develop therapeutic HPV vaccine. In this study, the major histocompatibility complex (MHC) class I, class II T cell epitopes of HPV16-E7 were predicted. Therefore, we designed a plan to find the most effective peptides to prompt appropriate immune responses. For this purpose, retrieving protein sequences, conserved region identification, phylogenic tree construction, T cell epitope prediction, epitope-predicted population coverage calculation, and molecular docking were performed consecutively and most effective immune response prompting peptides were selected. Based on different tools index, six CD8+ T cells and six CD4+ epitopes were chosen. This combination of 12 epitopes created a putative global vaccine with a 95.06% population coverage. These identified peptides can be employed further for peptide analysis and can be used as a peptide or poly-epitope candidates for therapeutic vaccine studies to treat HPV-associated cancers.


AJOE: pasado, presente y futuro. ¿Qué ocurre con los jóvenes oftalmólogos?


Distinct and early increase in circulating MMP-9 in COVID-19 patients with respiratory failure


A New Normal


title: From Boom to Bust: The Economic Crisis in Spain 2008–2013

text: This chapter analyzes the overall economic crisis that started in 2008 in Spain. It is impossible to disentangle the 2008 banking crisis from the overall economic crisis that affected the country at the same time. This chapter looks at the performance of the Spanish economy throughout the 1990s and the first decade of the twentieth century. It examines the reasons for the success of the Spanish economy in the 1990s and provides an overview of the main causes of the 2008–2013 crisis and the governments’ responses.


title: Conclusions: The Implications of ‘Bank Bargains’ for Democratic Politics

text: This concluding chapter provides an overview of the main arguments to explain the fragility of the Spanish banking system. It shows how domestic social, political, and economic factors have been crucial to understand coalition formations and policy choices in Spain. These coalitions have not been neutral, and they have influenced the stability and resilience of the Spanish banking system and its ability to provide credit. It also outlines some lessons from the Spanish experience and analyzes the main implications of the crisis.


title: Introduction: Spanish Banking—How Do We Explain a History of Fragility?

text: This introductory chapter outlines the framework of analysis to explain why banking systems have been unstable in Spain, with a particular emphasis on the 2008 banking crisis and the 2012 financial bailout. It applies the framework developed by Calomiris and Haber (Fragile by Design: The Political Origins of Banking Crises & Scarce Credit. Princeton, Princeton University Press, 2014), and argues that Spanish institutions could not prevent opportunities for the development of rent-seeking coalitions between populist and bankers. This has led to less stable banking system (i.e., more crisis prone) that has provided less abundant credit. The chapter also places the book in the context of the wider literature on financial systems and varieties of capitalism, describes what is unique about this book, and examines the structure of the Spanish banking system.


title: Effects of Covid-19 outbreak on environment and renewable energy sector

text: Many articles have been written in the medical field related to the Covid-19 outbreak that has surrounded the World and killed many people. However, its environmental and energy impacts have not been sufficiently studied. Some sources argue that Covid-19 outbreak reduces pollution environmentally, while others say that environmentally significant damages await us. On the other hand, it is wondered how the global flexible renewable energy sector will react to Covid-19 outbreak. In this study, the effects of Covid-19 outbreak in terms of the environment and renewable energy sector in the literature were examined in detail and the findings obtained were discussed. The main aim of this study is to shed light on the future studies of environmental and renewable energy researchers.


COVID-19 disease: The hospital of the future is already here()


Pulmonary embolism and COVID-19: A paradigm change()


Evolutions’ next major transition


Telemedicine for COVID-19()


CoronARTvirus()


title: SDG 4 and the COVID-19 emergency: Textbooks, tutoring, and teachers

text: COVID-19 once again revealed the inherent weaknesses in relying on classroom-based schooling and ICT to sustain learning, a danger already familiar from earlier man-made and natural disasters. A lack of textbooks and lack of guidance for caregivers to support home-based learning limited the effectiveness of efforts to provide continuity of learning. These same elements are the key to preparing better for the next crisis and keeping SDG 4 on track.


docid: ahyjjgmo

title: Long term optimal investment with regime switching: inflation, information and short sales

text: Financial models are based on the standard assumptions of frictionless markets, complete information, no transaction costs and no taxes and borrowing and short selling without restrictions. Short-selling bans around the world after the global financial crisis and in several exchanges during the COVID 19 period, become more and more important. This paper bridges the gap by providing for the first time in the literature a model that accounting explicitly and simultaneously for inflation, information costs and short sales in the portfolio performance with regime switching. Our model can be used by portfolio managers to assess the impact of these market imperfections on portfolio decisions.


"Die bAV muss haftungsarm sein!"


Mehr Nachhaltigkeit tut not


title: Locating Facilities Under Deliberate Disruptive Attacks

text: Facility disruptions or failures may occur due to natural disasters or a deliberate man-made attack. Such an attack is known as interdiction. Recently, facility location problems, addressing intentional strikes against operating facilities and strategies to reduce their impact, have received particular attention. In this paper, we present a new location-interdiction median problem aimed at designing a distribution network which is robust to the worst-case, long-term facility losses. We suppose that there are two players: defender (system designer) and attacker. The defender decides where to locate facilities to minimize the overall cost of supplying the demands of customers. The attacker determines which r facilities to interdict to maximize the cost of serving the customers from the remaining operational facilities. Note that we suppose that the facilities are attacked simultaneously and interdicted facilities become unavailable. We propose bilevel and single-level integer formulations of this problem. For a particular case when the attacker hits a single facility, we develop a fast local search procedure based on implicit enumeration of interdiction strategies. We test our approaches in a series of computational experiments on well-known test problems.


title: Fabrication and investigation on Ag nanowires/TiO(2) nanosheets/graphene hybrid nanocomposite and its water treatment performance

text: In this paper, a novel Ag nanowires/TiO(2) nanosheets/graphene nanocomposite was fabricated via a facile method of hydrothermal and calcination, and then the water treatment performance of it was evaluated for methylene blue (MB) and Escherichia coli removal. The as-prepared Ag nanowires/TiO(2) nanosheets/graphene nanocomposite was characterized by Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR), X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), X-ray diffraction (XRD), field-emission scanning electron microscopy (FE-SEM), energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDX), UV–visible diffuse reflection spectroscopy (DRS), molecular dynamics simulation, and gas chromatography–mass spectrometry (GC-MS). All data revealed that the Ag/TiO(2)/graphene nanocomposite showed a rich cell structure. The photocatalytic activity of Ag/TiO(2)/graphene nanocomposite is higher than those of pristine TiO(2) nanosheets and TiO(2)/graphene nanocomposite. Under optimized conditions, the degradation efficiency was 100% and 71% for MB (30 mg/L) and with 10 mg Ag/TiO(2)/graphene nanocomposite under UV and visible light irradiation for 2 h, respectively. Ag/TiO(2)/graphene also showed excellent bacteria-killing activity. Meanwhile, the Ag/TiO(2)/graphene nanocomposite exhibited microstructure stability and cyclic stability. The water treatment performance was enhanced mainly attributed to the excellent adsorption performance of graphene and the high efficiency in separation of electron–hole pairs induced by the remarkable synergistic effects of TiO(2), Ag, and graphene. On the basis of the experimental results, the photocatalytic mechanism and MB degradation mechanism were proposed. It is hoped that our work could avert the misleading message to the readership, hence offering a valuable source of reference on fabricating composite photocatalyst with stable microstructure and excellent performance for their application in the environment clean-up. [Figure: see text] ELECTRONIC SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL: The online version of this article (10.1007/s42114-020-00164-2) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.


title: An integrated P2P framework for E-learning

text: The focus of this paper is to design and develop a Peer-to-Peer Presentation System (P2P-PS) that supports E-learning through live media streaming coupled with a P2P shared whiteboard. The participants use the “ask doubt” feature to raise and resolve doubts during a session of ongoing presentation. The proposed P2P-PS system preserves causality between ask doubt and its resolution while disseminating them to all the participants. A buffered approach is employed to enhance the performance of P2P shared whiteboard, which may be used either in tandem with live media streaming or in standalone mode. The proposed system further extends P2P interactions on stored contents (files) built on top of a P2P file sharing and searching module with additional features. The added features allow the creation of mash-up presentations with annotations, posts, comments on audio, video, and PDF files as well as a discussion forum. We have implemented the P2P file sharing and searching system on the de Bruijn graph-based overlay for low latency. Extensive experiments were carried out on Emulab to validate the P2P-PS system using 200 physical nodes.


title: Everyday Nationalism in Unsettled Times: In Search of Normality during Pandemic

text: Pandemics and other crisis situations result in unsettled times, or ontologically insecure moments when social and political institutions are in flux. During such crises, the ordinary and unnoticed routines that structure everyday life are thrust into the spotlight as people struggle to maintain or recreate a sense of normalcy. Drawing on a range of cases including China, Russia, the UK, and USA, we examine three categories of everyday practice during the COVID-19 pandemic that respond to disruptions in daily routines and seek a return to national normality: performing national solidarities and exclusions by wearing face masks; consuming the nation in the form of panic buying and conspiracy theories; and enforcing foreign policies through social media and embodiment. This analysis thus breaks with existing works on everyday nationalism and banal nationalism that typically focus on pervasively unnoticed forms of nationalism during settled times, and it challenges approaches to contentious politics that predict protest mobilization for change rather than restoration of the status quo ante. In highlighting the ways that unsettled times disrupt domestic and international structures, this work also presents a first attempt to link everyday nationalism with growing work on international practices.


title: Deconstructing self-regulated learning in MOOCs: In search of help-seeking mechanisms

text: Researchers see self-regulated learning (SRL) as a fundamental skill for succeeding in massive open online courses (MOOCs). However, there is no sufficient evidence of adequate functioning of SRL dimensions such as environment structuring, goal setting, time management, help-seeking, task strategies, and self-evaluation in the MOOC environment. This study fills the gap in understanding the structure of SRL skills utilising the Online Self-Regulated Learning Questionnaire (OSLQ). The construct-related validity of the OSLQ is evaluated based on self-reported survey responses of 913 Russian MOOC learners with confirmatory factor analysis and criterion-related validity is checked with independent samples t-tests comparison. The results show that the original six-factor hierarchical model does not fit the data adequately. The evidence implies that the dimension ‘help-seeking’ is not effective in the MOOC environment. Therefore, a redefined five-factor hierarchical model of the OSLQ is suggested.


title: The Multiple Casualty Scenario: Role of the Anesthesiologist

text: PURPOSE OF REVIEW: Mass casualty disasters (natural and man-made) present an acute, critical situation that taxes healthcare resources and clinician acumen. This review summarizes the characteristics and management skill sets that anesthesiologists possess that make them valuable clinicians during mass casualty events and why we as anesthesiologists must continually educate ourselves on this important topic. RECENT FINDINGS: Anesthesiologists should be involved in all aspects of emergency preparedness—mitigation, planning, response, and recovery. The anesthesia department should have a plan for how it will deal with managing patients during natural and man-made (unintentional or intentional) disasters, one that takes into account a risk hazard analysis and institutional goals. Unfortunately, most practicing anesthesiologists have not had training and ongoing education for such events, and few academic centers train anesthesiology residents and staff to prepare for mass casualty scenarios. SUMMARY: The everyday clinical practice of anesthesiologists involves the utilization of some of the skills (vascular access, tracheal intubation) commonly required to successfully manage mass casualty scenarios. Anesthesiologists’ knowledge of anti-cholinesterases makes them subject matter experts on nerve agent poisoning, and their experience managing trauma patients will serve them well, depending on the nature of the mass casualty event. Practicing anesthesiologists however need to continually educate themselves on their role during mass casualty events. and current anesthesiology residency programs should develop a curriculum and incorporate simulation training to better prepare future generations of anesthesiologists.


title: Religious education and the new cosmology

text: James Michael Lee (in Forging a better religious education in the third millennium, Religious Education Press, Birmingham, AL, 2000, p. 3) suggests that “religious education visions a broad sweeping future and then makes that future happen earlier than it would have happened if religious education were not there.” Religious Education thus has a prophetic role to play in society. The current generation is between stories—the religious and the scientific. How might religious education be developed in the Catholic school to reflect the growing convergence in theological discourse of the Christian Story with the New Universe Story? How might it energise young students with images that empower them to develop a prophetic stance towards their future and the future of humanity? We first consider the need for a paradigm shift in the way we tell the Christian Story. Then, taking our lead from the theology of Karl Rahner which allows us to take a cosmic view of Christian religious experience, and from various writers who apply such a view to different areas of Christian life, we attempt a synthesis of current theological thought. Lastly, we suggest how this shift might be applied to the religious education curriculum in order to provide an answer to the questions posed above.


title: ssRNA Phages: Life Cycle, Structure and Applications

text: ssRNA phages belonging to the family Leviviridae are among the tiniest viruses, infecting various Gram-negative bacteria by adsorption to their pilus structures. Due to their simplicity, they have been intensively studied as models for understanding various problems in molecular biology and virology. Several of the studied ssRNA characteristics, such as coat protein–RNA interactions and the ability to readily form virus-like particles in recombinant expression systems, have fueled many practical applications such as RNA labeling and tracking systems and vaccine development. In this chapter, we review the life cycle, structure and applications of these small yet fascinating viruses.


Diseases of the Nervous System


zoek naar de motieven van de patiënt


Bedden voor daklozen blijken snel geregeld in coronatijd


Investeren in netwerkpsychiatrie


Zo min mogelijk contact


Motivatie om te bewegen


Kort


Samen met burger interventies ontwikkelen


actueel


Tijd voor schuldhulp 2.0


docid: matvcycp

title: Arbeid hamsteren in coronatijd


Kanjers uit coronateams


Column


Ben ik duidelijk?


title: Effects of diaphragm thickness on rehabilitation outcomes in post-ICU patients with spinal cord and brain injury

text: BACKGROUND: Intensive care unit (ICU) complications affect outcomes but it remains unknown if the diaphragm thickness affects rehabilitation outcomes after ICU. We conducted a pilot study to evaluate the effect of diaphragm thickness on rehabilitation outcomes of post-ICU patients with spinal cord injury (SCI) and traumatic brain injury (TBI) and to evaluate factors that may be associated with diaphragm atrophy. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Fifty-one patients (26 SCI, 25 TBI) who admitted to the rehabilitation clinic from the ICU included in this study. All demographic data were recorded. All participants underwent diaphragmatic ultrasonography evaluation before and after 12 weeks of neurologic rehabilitation program. The diaphragm thickness and outcome parameters were compared in all patient groups and in each patient subgroups. Evaluation parameters of patients before and after treatment were compared in patient subgroups. RESULTS: Diaphragm atrophy was found in 14 patients (64%) in TBI group and 12 patients (46%) in SCI group. The diaphragm thickness negatively correlated with the ICU length of stay and positively correlated with the before/after rehabilitation functional scores and the change in functional independence measure scores (p < 0.05). According to the regression analysis; the change in functional independence measure scores was found to be affected by the diaphragm thickness (p < 0.05). CONCLUSIONS: The diaphragm thickness may be an effective factor on the rehabilitation process.


Worden de rijken rijker en de armen armer?


Preventie van overgewicht bij nul- tot tweejarigen


Schuldenaanpak voor een schuldenvrije generatie


Anna Reynvaanprijzen digitaal uitgereikt


title: Global Dynamics of a Susceptible-Infectious-Recovered Epidemic Model with a Generalized Nonmonotone Incidence Rate

text: A susceptible-infectious-recovered (SIRS) epidemic model with a generalized nonmonotone incidence rate [Formula: see text] ([Formula: see text] such that [Formula: see text] for all [Formula: see text] ) is considered in this paper. It is shown that the basic reproduction number [Formula: see text] does not act as a threshold value for the disease spread anymore, and there exists a sub-threshold value [Formula: see text] such that: (i) if [Formula: see text] , then the disease-free equilibrium is globally asymptotically stable; (ii) if [Formula: see text] , then there is a unique endemic equilibrium which is a nilpotent cusp of codimension at most three; (iii) if [Formula: see text] , then there are two endemic equilibria, one is a weak focus of multiplicity at least three, the other is a saddle; (iv) if [Formula: see text] , then there is again a unique endemic equilibrium which is a weak focus of multiplicity at least three. As parameters vary, the model undergoes saddle-node bifurcation, backward bifurcation, Bogdanov–Takens bifurcation of codimension three, Hopf bifurcation, and degenerate Hopf bifurcation of codimension three. Moreover, it is shown that there exists a critical value [Formula: see text] for the psychological effect [Formula: see text] , a critical value [Formula: see text] for the infection rate k, and two critical values [Formula: see text] for [Formula: see text] that will determine whether the disease dies out or persists in the form of positive periodic coexistent oscillations or coexistent steady states under different initial populations. Numerical simulations are given to demonstrate the existence of one, two or three limit cycles.


title: Fighting for justice

text: The Black Lives Matter movement is primarily about social justice, but it will help tackle environmental injustices too, says Graham Lawton


Metso Corp, Finland


title: Grundfos celebrates 75(th) anniversary

text: Water technology company Grundfos is dedicating its 75(th) anniversary to the shared values of the company's 19 280 colleagues all over the world.


Fluidra SA, Spain


docid: fselhioh

title: Andritz Group, Austria


Ebara Corp, Japan


United Rentals Inc, USA


Outotec Oyj, Finland


Ceco Environmental Corp, USA


Evoqua Water Technologies Corp, USA


title: Circor ships first pumps from new facility in China

text: Circor has opened its expanded 6000 sq m plant in Weihai, Shandong province, China, with the first pump shipment going out in April 2020.


Prioritising mental health after the pandemic


title: Connecting What We Know Consciously with What We Are Aware of Subconsciously: Orientation of and Rationale for the Book

text: In this chapter, I first dwell briefly on important events in the field of career counseling over the past few decades and explain why innovation in the field is needed. I draw on one of my earliest recollections to set the scene for what is to follow in later chapters and elaborate on my own personal Damascene moment—a moment that convinced me forever of the need for as well as the power and value of an integrative QUALITATIVE-quantitative approach to career counseling, particularly at a time when many speculate that work itself is at risk. I conclude by outlining the contents of the book and explaining its aims—to help people connect what they know about themselves consciously with what they are aware of subconsciously (elicited by activities such as asking clients for their most hurtful experiences or for their earliest recollections).


title: Innovating Career Counseling by Promoting Social Justice (Advocacy) and Decent Work for All: Helping People Make Social Contributions and Heal Themselves

text: This chapter covers the emotional effect of changes in the world of work that have taken place globally over the past few decades on people. The discussion then moves to the need for and importance of career counseling as a means to help people interpret and deal with these changes. Also discussed is the idiosyncratic situation and needs of people in disadvantaged areas, as well as the importance of attending to their career counseling needs. A case study showing how career counseling can be postmodernized in a seriously disadvantaged environment is presented before the chapter is concluded.


title: Innovating Counseling for Self- and Career Construction: Theoretical Premises, Antecedents, and Associations

text: In this chapter, I first discuss the need for an innovative approach to career counseling. A few examples of key life transitions are given. Several personality theories that have influenced the development of career counseling theory and practice are considered. Next, humanistic and related perspectives on human performance, development, choice-making, and execution that relate to counseling for self- and career construction and life design are covered. I also discuss different perspectives on the notion of “Active mastering of passive suffering”.


title: How Global Change Necessitates Innovation in Career Counseling: Linking Economic, Industrial, Psychology, and Career Counseling Waves

text: This chapter elaborates on the link between successive waves in career counseling, psychology, the global economy, and successive industrial revolutions. The waves in career counseling are then linked to prominent helping models in each wave, the attributes or traits emphasized during each wave are highlighted, and associated career interventions are explained. The influence of concurrent “business models” on career counseling helping models are examined, and associated personality traits are clarified before the chapter is concluded.


title: Career Counseling as a Science, a Skill, and an Art: Drawing on the Inspiring Career-Life Story of Dolly Parton to Demonstrate How Theory Building in Career Construction Counseling is Premised on Practice

text: This chapter draws on the inspiring life story of the amazing Dolly Parton to demonstrate the remarkable overlap between multiple facets of Mark Savickas’ counseling for self- and career construction theory and how this theory is practically and “naturally” enacted in numerous real-life contexts. First, a brief background to Dolly Parton’s life is presented, and the overlap between her career-life story and the theory of career construction counseling is outlined. A truncated biography of Dolly Parton follows, after which the focus shifts to an elaboration of how she developed herself as a career project ( Cochran, 1992). The outcomes of a “virtual” self- and career construction counseling-based interview conducted with her (based on information gathered from numerous publications and interviews) are used to uncover her key life themes. This interview is subsequently analyzed, and mission and vision statements are proposed for her. Next, the chapter discusses how Dolly Parton enacted her mission and vision and influenced the lives of countless other people positively (and continues to do so). More particularly, she provided and continues to provide a holding environment for millions of people. I explain how self- and career construction principles are realized in Dolly Parton’s career-life story before the chapter is concluded.


title: SME response to major exogenous shocks: The bright and dark sides of business model pivoting

text: Within this short commentary, we explore the notion of pivoting; following major exogenous shocks, firms often contemplate business model pivoting where they change product or service offerings to capitalise on emerging opportunities. We assess the potential bright and dark sides of pivoting for new and existing firms in regard to quality of opportunities, fit with current capabilities and potential costs. The extant literature suggests that two forms of opportunities exist, arbitrage and innovation. We discern that post-shock, new firms may be better positioned to pursue arbitrage opportunities, whereas existing firms should target innovation. Existing firms may have more complications when pursuing arbitrage due to resource embeddedness and stakeholder obligations, and have a greater ability to innovate with an established resource base. Conversely, new firms can capitalise on arbitrage due to lack of embeddedness, as arbitrage requires a significant investment in opportunity selection. In addition, we offer suggestions for future research in regard to the current pandemic and more broadly, exogenous shocks.


title: Comparison of COVID-19 Pandemic Dynamics in Asian Countries with Statistical Modeling

text: In the current scenario, the outbreak of a pandemic disease COVID-19 is of great interest. A broad statistical analysis of this event is still to come, but it is immediately needed to evaluate the disease dynamics in order to arrange the appropriate quarantine activities, to estimate the required number of places in hospitals, the level of individual protection, the rate of isolation of infected persons, and among others. In this article, we provide a convenient method of data comparison that can be helpful for both the governmental and private organizations. Up to date, facts and figures of the total the confirmed cases, daily confirmed cases, total deaths, and daily deaths that have been reported in the Asian countries are provided. Furthermore, a statistical model is suggested to provide a best description of the COVID-19 total death data in the Asian countries.


Mitteilungen des Bundesverbandes Deutscher Pathologen e.V.


title: Update of the treatment of nosocomial pneumonia in the ICU

text: In accordance with the recommendations of, amongst others, the Surviving Sepsis Campaign and the recently published European treatment guidelines for hospital-acquired pneumonia (HAP) and ventilator-associated pneumonia (VAP), in the event of a patient with such infections, empirical antibiotic treatment must be appropriate and administered as early as possible. The aim of this manuscript is to update treatment protocols by reviewing recently published studies on the treatment of nosocomial pneumonia in the critically ill patients that require invasive respiratory support and patients with HAP from hospital wards that require invasive mechanical ventilation. An interdisciplinary group of experts, comprising specialists in anaesthesia and resuscitation and in intensive care medicine, updated the epidemiology and antimicrobial resistance and established clinical management priorities based on patients’ risk factors. Implementation of rapid diagnostic microbiological techniques available and the new antibiotics recently added to the therapeutic arsenal has been reviewed and updated. After analysis of the categories outlined, some recommendations were suggested, and an algorithm to update empirical and targeted treatment in critically ill patients has also been designed. These aspects are key to improve VAP outcomes because of the severity of patients and possible acquisition of multidrug-resistant organisms (MDROs).


title: Biofilm formation on three different endotracheal tubes: a prospective clinical trial

text: BACKGROUND: Biofilm formation on endotracheal tubes (ETTs) is an early and frequent event in mechanically ventilated patients. The biofilm is believed to act as a reservoir for infecting microorganisms and thereby contribute to development and relapses of ventilator-associated pneumonia (VAP). Once a biofilm has formed on an ETT surface, it is difficult to eradicate. This clinical study aimed to compare biofilm formation on three widely used ETTs with different surface properties and to explore factors potentially predictive of biofilm formation. METHODS: We compared the grade of biofilm formation on ETTs made of uncoated polyvinyl chloride (PVC), silicone-coated PVC, and PVC coated with noble metals after > 24 h of mechanical ventilation in critically ill patients. The comparison was based on scanning electron microscopy of ETT surfaces, biofilm grading, surveillance and biofilm cultures, and occurrence of VAP. RESULTS: High-grade (score ≥ 7) biofilm formation on the ETTs was associated with development of VAP (OR 4.17 [95% CI 1.14–15.3], p = 0.031). Compared to uncoated PVC ETTs, the silicone-coated and noble-metal-coated PVC ETTs were independently associated with reduced high-grade biofilm formation (OR 0.18 [95% CI 0.06–0.59], p = 0.005, and OR 0.34 [95% CI 0.13–0.93], p = 0.036, respectively). No significant difference was observed between silicon-coated ETTs and noble-metal-coated ETTs (OR 0.54 [95% CI 0.17–1.65], p = 0.278). In 60% of the oropharyngeal cultures and 58% of the endotracheal cultures collected at intubation, the same microorganism was found in the ETT biofilm at extubation. In patients who developed VAP, the causative microbe remained in the biofilm in 56% of cases, despite appropriate antibiotic therapy. High-grade biofilm formation on ETTs was not predicted by either colonization with common VAP pathogens in surveillance cultures or duration of invasive ventilation. CONCLUSION: High-grade biofilm formation on ETTs was associated with development of VAP. Compared to the uncoated PVC ETTs, the silicone-coated and noble-metal-coated PVC ETTs were independently associated with reduced high-grade biofilm formation. Further research on methods to prevent, monitor, and manage biofilm occurrence is needed. TRIAL REGISTRATION: ClinicalTrials.gov NCT02284438. Retrospectively registered on 21 October 2014.


title: A spatial data model for urban spatial–temporal accessibility analysis

text: Time geography represents the uncertainty of the space–time position of moving objects through two basic structures, the space–time path and space–time prism, which are subject to the speed allowed in the travel environment. Thus, any attempt at a quantitative time-geographic analysis must consider the actual velocity with respect to space. In a trip, individuals tend to pass through structurally varying spaces, such as linear traffic networks and planar walking surfaces, which are not suitable for use in a single GIS spatial data model (i.e., network, raster) that is only applicable to a single spatial structure (i.e., point, line, polygon). In this study, a velocity model is developed for a traffic network and walking surface-constrained travel environment through the divide-and-conquer principle. The construction of this model can be divided into three basic steps: the spatial layering of the dual-constrained travel environment; independent modelling of each layer using different spatial data models; and generation of layer-based time-geographic framework by merging models of each layer. We demonstrate the usefulness of the model for studying the space–time accessibility of a moving object over a study area with varying spatial structures. Finally, an example is given to analyse the effectiveness of the proposed model.


Mitteilungen des Bundesverbandes Deutscher Pathologen


title: MxB impedes the NUP358-mediated HIV-1 pre-integration complex nuclear import and viral replication cooperatively with CPSF6

text: BACKGROUND: The human myxovirus resistance 2 (Mx2/MxB) protein was originally found to regulate cytoplasmic-nuclear transport but was recently reported to restrict HIV-1 replication by binding to HIV-1 capsid (CA), preventing uncoating, the nuclear import of pre-integration complex (PIC) and viral DNA integration. This work explores the mechanisms of MxB-mediated HIV-1 inhibition. RESULTS: We demonstrated that MxB represses NUP358-mediated PIC nuclear import and HIV-1 replication. Moreover, MxB’s effects on PIC nuclear import and HIV-1 replication depend critically on cofactor cleavage and polyadenylation specificity factor subunit 6 (CPSF6). MxB binds nucleoporin NUP358, blocks NUP358-CA interaction, thereby impeding the nuclear import of HIV-1 PIC with CPSF6 binding to PIC. More intriguingly, CPSF6’s role in nuclear import depends on MxB, being a facilitator of HIV-1 nuclear import on its own, but becoming an inhibitor when MxB is present. CONCLUSIONS: Our work establishes that MxB impedes the NUP358-mediated HIV-1 nuclear import and viral replication cooperatively with CPSF6.


title: Submicroscopic malaria infection is not associated with fever in cross-sectional studies in Malawi

text: BACKGROUND: Submicroscopic Plasmodium falciparum infections are widespread in many areas. However, the contribution of these infections to symptomatic malaria is not well understood. This study evaluated whether participants with submicroscopic P. falciparum infections have higher prevalence of fever than uninfected participants in southern Malawi. METHODS: A total of 16,650 children and adults were enrolled in the course of six cross-sectional surveys during the dry season (October–November) and after the rainy season (April–May) between 2012 and 2014 in three districts in southern Malawi. Demographic and socioeconomic data were collected in conjunction with data on clinical histories, use of malaria preventive measures, and anti-malarial medication taken within 2 weeks of the survey. Axillary temperatures were measured, and blood samples were collected for P. falciparum detection by microscopy and PCR. Participants without malaria parasites detected on microscopy but with a positive PCR for P. falciparum were defined as having submicroscopic infection. Fever was defined as having any one of: reported fever in the past 2 weeks, reported fever in the past 48 h, or a temperature of ≥ 37.5 °C measured at the time of interview. RESULTS: Submicroscopic P. falciparum infections and fever were both detected in 9% of the study population. In the final analysis adjusted for clustering within household and enumeration area, having submicroscopic P. falciparum infection was associated with reduced odds of fever in the dry season (odds ratio = 0.52; 95% CI 0.33–0.82); the association in the rainy season did not achieve statistical significance (odds ratio = 1.20; 95% CI 0.91–1.59). The association between submicroscopic infection and fever was consistent across all age groups. When the definition of fever was limited to temperature of ≥ 37.5 °C measured at the time of interview, the association was not statistically significant in either the rainy or dry season. CONCLUSIONS: In this series of cross-sectional studies in southern Malawi, submicroscopic P. falciparum infection was not associated with increased risk of fever. Submicroscopic detection of the malaria parasite is important in efforts to decrease transmission but is not essential for the clinical recognition of malaria disease.


title: The impact of antimicrobial stewardship program implementation at four tertiary private hospitals: results of a five-years pre-post analysis

text: BACKGROUND: Antimicrobial stewardship (AMS) programs have shown to reduce the emergence of antimicrobial resistance (AMR) and health-care-associated infections (HAIs), and save health-care costs associated with an inappropriate antimicrobial use. The primary objective of this study was to compare the consumption and cost of antimicrobial agents using defined daily dose (DDD) and direct cost of antibiotics before and after the AMS program implementation. Secondary objective was to determine the rate of HAIs [Clostridium difficile (C. difficile), ventilator-associated pneumonia (VAP), and central line-associated bloodstream infection (CLABSI) before and after the AMS program implementation. METHODS: This is a pre-post quasi-experimental study. Adult inpatients were enrolled in a prospective fashion under the active AMS arm and compared with historical inpatients who were admitted to the same units before the AMS implementation. Study was conducted at four tertiary private hospitals located in two cities in Saudi Arabia. Adult inpatients were enrolled under the pre- AMS arm and post- AMS arm if they were on any of the ten selected restricted broad-spectrum antibiotics (imipenem/cilastatin, piperacillin/tazobactam, colistin, tigecycline, cefepime, meropenem, ciprofloxacin, moxifloxacin, teicoplanin and linezolid). RESULTS: A total of 409,403 subjects were recruited, 79,369 in the pre- AMS control and 330,034 in the post- AMS arm. Average DDDs consumption of all targeted broad-spectrum antimicrobials from January 2016 to June 2019 post- AMS launch was lower than the DDDs use of these agents pre- AMS (233 vs 320 DDDs per 1000 patient-days, p = 0.689). Antimicrobial expenditures decreased by 28.45% in the first year of the program and remained relatively stable in subsequent years, with overall cumulative cost savings estimated at S.R. 6,286,929 and negligible expenses of S.R. 505,115 (p = 0.648). Rates of healthcare associated infections involving C. difficile, VAP, and CLABSI all decreased significantly after AMS implementation (incidence of HAIs in 2015 compared to 2019: for C. difficile, 94 vs 13, p = 0.024; for VAP, 24 vs 6, p = 0.001; for CLABSI, 17 vs 1, p = 0.000; respectively). CONCLUSION: Implementation of AMS program at HMG healthcare facilities resulted in reduced antimicrobials use and cost, and lowered incidence of healthcare associated infections.


title: Stress ulcer prophylaxis versus placebo—a blinded randomized control trial to evaluate the safety of two strategies in critically ill infants with congenital heart disease (SUPPRESS-CHD)

text: BACKGROUND: Critically ill infants with congenital heart disease (CHD) are often prescribed stress ulcer prophylaxis (SUP) to prevent upper gastrointestinal bleeding, despite the low incidence of stress ulcers and limited data on the safety and efficacy of SUP in infants. Recently, SUP has been associated with an increased incidence of hospital-acquired infections, community-acquired pneumonia, and necrotizing enterocolitis. The objective of this pilot study is to investigate the feasibility of performing a randomized controlled trial to assess the safety and efficacy of withholding SUP in infants with congenital heart disease admitted to the cardiac intensive care unit. METHODS: A single center, prospective, double-blinded, randomized placebo-controlled pilot feasibility trial will be performed in infants with CHD admitted to the cardiac intensive care unit and anticipated to require respiratory support for > 24 h. Patients will be randomized to receive a histamine-2 receptor antagonist (H2RA) or placebo until they are discontinued from respiratory support. Randomization will be performed within 2 strata defined by admission type (medical or surgical) and age (neonate, age < 30 days, or infant, 1 month to 1 year). Allocation will be a 1:1 ratio using permuted blocks to ensure balanced allocations across the two treatment groups within each stratum. The primary outcomes include feasibility of screening, consent, timely allocation of study drug, and protocol adherence. The primary safety outcome is the rate of clinically significant upper gastrointestinal bleeding. The secondary outcomes are the difference in the relative and absolute abundance of the gut microbiota and functional microbial profiles between the two study groups. We plan to enroll 100 patients in this pilot study. DISCUSSION: Routine use of SUP to prevent upper gastrointestinal bleeding in infants is controversial due to a low incidence of bleeding events and concern for adverse effects. The role of SUP in infants with CHD has not been examined, and there is equipoise on the risks and benefits of withholding this therapy. In addition, this therapy has been discontinued in other neonatal populations due to the concern for hospital-acquired infections and necrotizing enterocolitis. Furthermore, exploring changes to the microbiome after exposure to SUP may highlight the mechanisms by which SUP impacts potential microbial dysbiosis of the gut and its association with hospital-acquired infections. Assessment of the feasibility of a trial of withholding SUP in critically ill infants with CHD will facilitate planning of a larger multicenter trial of safety and efficacy of SUP in this vulnerable population. TRIAL REGISTRATION: ClinicalTrials.gov, NCT03667703. Registered 12 September 2018, https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT03667703?term=SUPPRESS+CHD&draw=2&rank=1. All WHO Trial Registration Data Set Criteria are met in this manuscript.


title: Quality management in humanitarian operations and disaster relief management: a review and future research directions

text: Quality management has been widely discussed in the literature, and recent special issues on humanitarian supply chains and relief operations have emphasized the increasing importance of quality management in this key emerging area. In this paper, we provide an extensive literature review in the field of quality management in humanitarian operations and disaster relief management. Our comprehensive review, comprising 61 articles published from 2009 to 2018, leads to the identification of enablers (e.g., transparency, policy framework), challenges (e.g., financial services, identity protection), and theory development approaches, as well as numerous research gaps that must be addressed.


title: Emergency Medicine

text: This chapter focuses on the clinical presentation of common pediatric emergencies, with an emphasis on recognition, initial management steps, and stabilization. Topics discussed include respiratory distress, anaphylaxis, trauma, burn care, status epilepticus, altered mental status, poisoning and toxic exposure, foreign body aspiration or ingestion, diabetic ketoacidosis, concussions, hypertensive crisis, and drowning, as outlined by the 2017 American Board of Pediatrics Content Specifications. Also covered is the initial first hour of emergency care management of sepsis and shock.


title: What do geologists do when the coronavirus bites? Ideas for educators

text: The spread of the 2020 Covid‐19 pandemic has had a major effect on the way that geologists carry out their work—and particularly those engaged in educating the next generation of geologists. There are a number of resources available, and some, focussed on fostering interest in budding geologists, are presented here.


title: Considerations for Large Building Water Quality after Extended Stagnation

text: The unprecedented number of building closures related to the coronavirus disease (COVID‐19) pandemic is concerning because water stagnation will occur in many buildings that do not have water management plans in place. Stagnant water can have chemical and microbiological contaminants that pose potential health risks for occupants. Health officials, building owners, utilities, and other entities are rapidly developing guidance to address this issue, but the scope, applicability, and details included in the guidance vary widely. To provide a primer of large building water system preventative and remedial strategies, peer‐reviewed, government, industry, and nonprofit literature relevant to water stagnation and decontamination practices for plumbing was synthesized. Preventative practices to help avoid the need for recommissioning (e.g., routine flushing) and specific actions, challenges, and limitations associated with recommissioning were identified and characterized. Considerations for worker and occupant safety were also indicated. The intended audience of this work includes organizations developing guidance.


title: When China sneezes, middle east states get the cold

text: The main objective of this study is to extend an economic perspective on the outbreak of COVID‐19 pandemic in the Middle East economies. The COVID‐19 pandemic, which was initially considered as a Chinese‐centric problem, has now affected more than 200 countries worldwide. The impact of the virus on human sufferings is unaccountable. However, economists consider the repercussion of the outbreak as contagious economically as it has been medically. Throughout this paper, we mainly address a few important research questions about the economic aspects of COVID‐19. We further highlight three critical channels through which the economic effect of the outbreak can be assessed. Finally, we explain the case of Middle East states and demonstrate the pathways that explain the economic repercussion of this global pandemic on the region. We conclude the paper by providing a few policy recommendations for the Middle East economies to fight the crisis.


Man with severe COVID pneumonia


title: Germicidal Ultraviolet Light Does Not Damage or Impede Performance of N95 Masks Upon Multiple Uses

text: [Image: see text] The COVID-19 pandemic is increasing the need for personal protective equipment (PPE) worldwide, including the demand for facial masks used by healthcare workers. Disinfecting and reusing these masks may offer benefits in the short term to meet urgent demand. Germicidal ultraviolet light provides a nonchemical, easily deployable technology capable of achieving inactivation of H1N1 virus on masks. Working with N95-rated masks and nonrated surgical masks, we demonstrated that neither 254 nor 265 nm UV-C irradiation at 1 and 10 J/cm(2) had adverse effects on the masks’ ability to remove aerosolized virus-sized particles. Additional testing showed no change in polymer structure, morphology, or surface hydrophobicity for multiple layers in the masks and no change in pressure drop or tensile strength of the mask materials. Results were similar when applying 254 nm low-pressure UV lamps and 265 nm light-emitting diodes. On the basis of the input from healthcare workers and our findings, a treatment system and operational manual were prepared to enable treatment and reuse of N95 facial masks. Knowledge gained during this study can inform techno-economic analyses for treating and reusing masks or lifecycle assessments of options to reduce the enormous waste production of single-use PPE used in the healthcare system, especially during pandemics.


Advanced Manufacturing and Processing in the Time of Covid‐19


docid: spjoeviu

title: In Case You Haven't Heard…

text: People in the United States are more unhappy today than they've been in nearly 50 years. A COVID Response Tracking study, conducted by the National Opinion Research Center at the University of Chicago, finds that just 14% of American adults say they're very happy, down from 31% who said the same in 2018. That year, 23% said they'd often or sometimes felt isolated in recent weeks. Now, 50% say that, ABC News reported June 15. The survey, conducted in late May, draws on nearly a half‐century of research from the General Social Survey, which has collected data on American attitudes and behaviors at least every other year since 1972. Most of the new survey's interviews were completed before the death of George Floyd touched off nationwide protests and a global conversation about race and police brutality, adding to the feelings of stress and loneliness Americans were already facing from the COVID‐19 outbreak — especially for black Americans. Compared with surveys conducted after President John F. Kennedy's assassination in 1963 and after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, Americans are less likely to report some types of emotional and psychological stress reactions following the COVID‐19 outbreak.


title: Viral Filtration Using Carbon‐Based Materials

text: Viral infections alone are a significant cause of morbidity and mortality worldwide and have a detrimental impact on global healthcare and socioeconomic development. The discovery of novel antiviral treatments has gained tremendous attention and support with the rising number of viral outbreaks. In this work, carbonaceous materials, including graphene nanoplatelets and graphene oxide nanosheets, were investigated for antiviral properties. The materials were characterised using scanning electron microscopy and transmission electron microscopy. Analysis showed the materials to be two‐dimensional with lateral dimensions ranging between 1 – 4 µm for graphene oxide, 110 ± 0.11nm for graphene nanoplatelets. Antiviral properties were assessed against a DNA virus model microorganism at concentrations of 0.5, 1.0 and 2.0 wt/v%. Both carbonaceous nanomaterials exhibited potent antiviral properties and gave rise to a viral reduction of 100% across all concentrations tested. Graphene oxide nanosheets were then incorporated into polymeric fibres and their antiviral behaviour was examined after 3 and 24 hours. A viral reduction of (~)39% was observed after 24 hours of exposure. The research presented here showcases, for the first time, the antiviral potential of several carbonaceous nanomaterials, also included in a carrier polymer. These outcomes can be translated and implemented in many fields and devices to prevent viral spread and infection.


title: Coronavirus and international business: An entrepreneurial ecosystem perspective

text: Covid‐19 (Coronavirus) is a health pandemic that has significantly affected the global economy and fundamentally changed society. The impacts of coronavirus are most apparent at the international business level due to the restrictions on travel and mobility of labor. This has necessitated an entrepreneurial outlook for businesses in order to survive in the current market environment. The aim of this article is to discuss the implications of the coronavirus for international business by taking an entrepreneurial ecosystem point of view. This enables a reflection on how the pandemic has impacted various entities of the ecosystem in terms of stakeholder engagement. Suggestions for acting in a more dynamic and innovative manner are provided that highlight the importance of utilizing entrepreneurial ecosystems in times of crises.


title: Support first‐generation college students through struggles triggered by national crisis

text: First‐generation college students already struggling with basic needs felt the impact of the COVID‐19 crisis in more significant ways than their peers.


‘FOR WEEKS NOW IT HAS BEEN EVENING’: A LETTER FROM NORTHERN ITALY


Pangolins and bats living together in underground burrows in Lopé National Park, Gabon


Pandemic and Local Measures: Witnessing Pandemic in Yogyakarta, Indonesia a City with no Lockdown


docid: zcpjxhmv

title: COVID‐19 response requires planning, flexibility

text: In mid‐March, most colleges and universities moved classes online for the rest of the semester, and when students will return to campus remains uncertain for many institutions. Members of The Successful Registrar’s Advisory Board participated in a conference call to discuss how they and their offices are managing the COVID‐19 pandemic and to share tips on what's working at their institutions.


Politics, Policy, and the Pandemic


title: Island Geographies of Separation and Cohesion: The Coronavirus (COVID‐19) Pandemic and the Geopolitics of Kalaallit Nunaat (Greenland)

text: Kalaallit Nunaat (Greenland) is an Arctic highly autonomous subnational island jurisdiction (SNIJ) of Denmark, its former coloniser. The coronavirus (COVID‐19) pandemic of 2020 has influenced both Kalaallit Nunaat’s relations with the outside world and relations between people and places within the territory. The Kalaallit Nunaat government’s response to the pandemic, including both internal and external travel bans and restrictions on movement, has focused on eradicating the disease from the territory. This strategy, however, is challenged both by the SNIJ’s economic reliance on Denmark and by the Danish government’s own strategy of mitigating the disease. This paper explores the ways in which the coronavirus pandemic has altered how the people of Kalaallit Nunaat interact with the people of Denmark and with one another, ultimately shedding light on the relationship between islands, disease, and geopolitics more generally.


title: Number of deaths from untreated addiction may rival those from COVID‐19

text: In a far‐reaching clarion call for attention to addiction in the midst of the COVID‐19 pandemic, Pete Nielsen, CEO of the California Consortium of Addiction Professionals and Programs (CCAPP), urges policymakers to recognize that the isolation required in shelter‐in‐place will fuel even more deaths from alcohol, drugs, and suicide. In The Disease of Addiction Thrives on Isolation, released this month, Nielsen warns that these deaths were already “on track to break records in the number of victims in our state this year,” and goes on to say that those “who survive this year will face a second wave of death due to tobacco related diseases and or relapse to drug of choice unless tobacco is routinely treated in substance use disorder.”


title: Economic implications of coronavirus

text: The world is grappling with unexpected and unknown financial crises by a deadly Coronavirus. Everyday news is coming up with a further spread of Coronavirus with more number of deaths and infections, nearly 190 countries and territories have reported Coronavirus cases. Adverse effects of this lethal virus have been experiencing in developed and developing economies equally. Travel and tourism, hospitality, food and beverage sector, and stock market are severely impacted. The article attempts an in‐depth analysis of how the disease is affecting transport, hospitality, food and beverage, and the stock market.


title: Prokalzitonin auf der Intensivstation: Differenzialdiagnose und Differenzialtherapie

text: Procalcitonin (PCT) is formed in IL6-mediated, IL8-mediated, and TNFα-mediated systemic inflammation conditions, in multiple organs and structures of the body. In patients with sepsis, significantly increased PCT levels are found. The PCT levels are highly correlated with the severity of the illness, and decreased PCT levels under therapy correlates with a better prognosis. In the differential diagnosis, measuring the PCT level helps differentiate between bacterial and viral infections. Noninfectious inflammatory reactions can, however, show moderately increased PCT levels. Cut-off values depend on renal and hepatic function. A therapeutic algorithm using PCT levels could be used for determining duration of a course of antibiotics, which can reduce antibiotic usage. In this paper, the differential diagnostic and differential therapeutic possibilities of PCT levels for critically ill patients are discussed.


title: Prognostic imaging biomarkers for diabetic kidney disease (iBEAt): study protocol

text: BACKGROUND: Diabetic kidney disease (DKD) remains one of the leading causes of premature death in diabetes. DKD is classified on albuminuria and reduced kidney function (estimated glomerular filtration rate (eGFR)) but these have modest value for predicting future renal status. There is an unmet need for biomarkers that can be used in clinical settings which also improve prediction of renal decline on top of routinely available data, particularly in the early stages. The iBEAt study of the BEAt-DKD project aims to determine whether renal imaging biomarkers (magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and ultrasound (US)) provide insight into the pathogenesis and heterogeneity of DKD (primary aim) and whether they have potential as prognostic biomarkers in DKD (secondary aim). METHODS: iBEAt is a prospective multi-centre observational cohort study recruiting 500 patients with type 2 diabetes (T2D) and eGFR ≥30 ml/min/1.73m(2). At baseline, blood and urine will be collected, clinical examinations will be performed, and medical history will be obtained. These assessments will be repeated annually for 3 years. At baseline each participant will also undergo quantitative renal MRI and US with central processing of MRI images. Biological samples will be stored in a central laboratory for biomarker and validation studies, and data in a central data depository. Data analysis will explore the potential associations between imaging biomarkers and renal function, and whether the imaging biomarkers improve the prediction of DKD progression. Ancillary substudies will: (1) validate imaging biomarkers against renal histopathology; (2) validate MRI based renal blood flow measurements against H(2)O(15) positron-emission tomography (PET); (3) validate methods for (semi-)automated processing of renal MRI; (4) examine longitudinal changes in imaging biomarkers; (5) examine whether glycocalyx and microvascular measures are associated with imaging biomarkers and eGFR decline; (6) explore whether the findings in T2D can be extrapolated to type 1 diabetes. DISCUSSION: iBEAt is the largest DKD imaging study to date and will provide valuable insights into the progression and heterogeneity of DKD. The results may contribute to a more personalised approach to DKD management in patients with T2D. TRIAL REGISTRATION: Clinicaltrials.gov (NCT03716401).


title: Establishing seasonal and alert influenza thresholds in Morocco

text: BACKGROUND: Several statistical methods of variable complexity have been developed to establish thresholds for influenza activity that may be used to inform public health guidance. We compared the results of two methods and explored how they worked to characterize the 2018 influenza season performance–2018 season. METHODS: Historical data from the 2005/2006 to 2016/2018 influenza season performance seasons were provided by a network of 412 primary health centers in charge of influenza like illness (ILI) sentinel surveillance. We used the WHO averages and the moving epidemic method (MEM) to evaluate the proportion of ILI visits among all outpatient consultations (ILI%) as a proxy for influenza activity. We also used the MEM method to evaluate three seasons of composite data (ILI% multiplied by percent of ILI with laboratory-confirmed influenza) as recommended by WHO. RESULTS: The WHO method estimated the seasonal ILI% threshold at 0.9%. The annual epidemic period began on average at week 46 and lasted an average of 18 weeks. The MEM model estimated the epidemic threshold (corresponding to the WHO seasonal threshold) at 1.5% of ILI visits among all outpatient consultations. The annual epidemic period began on week 49 and lasted on average 14 weeks. Intensity thresholds were similar using both methods. When using the composite measure, the MEM method showed a clearer estimate of the beginning of the influenza epidemic, which was coincident with a sharp increase in confirmed ILI cases. CONCLUSIONS: We found that the threshold methodology presented in the WHO manual is simple to implement and easy to adopt for use by the Moroccan influenza surveillance system. The MEM method is more statistically sophisticated and may allow a better detection of the start of seasonal epidemics. Incorporation of virologic data into the composite parameter as recommended by WHO has the potential to increase the accuracy of seasonal threshold estimation.


title: Support students, faculty members during pandemic

text: The COVID‐19 crisis has had a profound impact on disability services operations as campuses have closed and instruction has transitioned to a remote format. Mark Coppin, Director of Disability Services at North Dakota State University, discussed the steps the university has taken to maintain accommodations for students with disabilities, while also meeting emerging needs related to the pandemic.


title: COVID‐19 crisis highlights disparities among students

text: In his role as Vice Chancellor for Student Affairs, Salvador B. Mena, Ph.D., couldn't help but notice how the COVID‐19 crisis highlighted the glaring disparities among students enrolled at Rutgers University‐New Brunswick, located in one of the nation's hot spots, in central New Jersey, just under 40 miles from New York City.


title: Offer online mental health services to overcome barriers, meet demand

text: Even prior to campus closures triggered by the COVID‐19 pandemic, the demand for mental health services was growing, with college students often waiting weeks or months for available appointments.


docid: gjqtwmgt

title: When a crisis is embedded in another crisis


title: Intergovernmental Relations in the UK: Time for a Radical Overhaul?

text: Brexit and the coronavirus pandemic have put relationships between the UK government and its devolved counterparts under growing strain. Tensions generated by both of these developments have exposed the inadequacies of the existing, under‐developed system for bringing governments together in the UK. The limitations of the current system include the ad hoc nature of intergovernmental meetings, and their consultative rather than decision‐making character. Drawing upon an analysis of how intergovernmental relationships are structured in five other countries, the authors offer a number of suggestions for the reconfiguration of the UK model. They explore different ways of enabling joint decision making by its governments, and argue against the assumption that England can be represented adequately by the UK administration. Without a serious attempt to address this dysfunctional part of the UK’s territorial constitution, there is every prospect that relations between these different governments will continue to deteriorate.


title: Why Flip the Medical Resident Classroom? A Pilot Study in Singapore

text: This chapter on the flipped classroom in Residency teaching was written before the the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic. Technology in teaching can no longer take a backseat. As software and tools evolve , they provide for greater interactivity and authenticity in remote learning. Although medical education in the acute care setting is now even more challenging, here is an example of effectively flipping the classroom and recommended best practices for teachers and learners.


A Critique of Coronavirus


Intricacy, Symmetry, Diversity


title: Promote an unexpected online experience through richer content

text: Remote learning has been thrust into the spotlight as colleges and universities moved their traditionally face‐to‐face campus programs to online platforms in response to the COVID‐19 pandemic.


title: Heterologous expression of biologically active Mambalgin-1 peptide as a new potential anticancer, using a PVX-based viral vector in Nicotiana benthamiana

text: Mambalgin-1 is a peptide that acts as a potent analgesic through inhibiting acid-sensing ion channels (ASIC) in nerve cells. Research has shown that ASIC channels are involved in the proliferation and growth of cancer cells; therefore, Mambalgin-1 can be a potential anti-cancer by inhibiting these channels. In the present study, the Nicotiana benthamiana codon optimized Mambalgin-1 gene was synthesized and cloned in PVX (potato virus X) viral vector. The two cultures of Agrobacterium containing Mambalgin-1 and P19 silencing suppressor genes were co-agroinfiltrated into N. benthamiana leaves. Five days post infiltration, the production of recombinant Mambalgin-1 was determined by western blotting. For biological activity, MTT (3(4, 5-dimethylthiazole-2-yl)-2, 5-diphenyltetrazolium bromide) was analyzed for the cytotoxicity recombinant Mambalgin-1 from the transformed plants on nervous (SH-SY5Y) and breast (MCF7) cancer cells. The results showed that the plants expressing open reading frame of Mambalgin-1 showed recombinant 7.4 kDa proteins in the entire plant extract. In the MTT test, it was found that Mambalgin-1 had cytotoxic effects on SH-SY5Y cancer cells, yet no effects on MCF7 cancer cells were observed. According to the results, the expression of the biologically active recombinant Mambalgin-1 in the transformed plant leaves was confirmed and Mambalgin-1 can also have anti-cancer (inhibition of ASIC channels) potential along with its already known analgesic effect. ELECTRONIC SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL: The online version of this article (doi:10.1007/s11240-020-01838-x) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.


title: 4-Hydroxy-3-methyl-2(1H)-quinolone, originally discovered from a Brassicaceae plant, produced by a soil bacterium of the genus Burkholderia sp.: determination of a preferred tautomer and antioxidant activity

text: 4-Hydroxy-3-methyl-2(1H)-quinolone (1), a molecule known for a long time and recently discovered from a Brassicaceae plant Isatis tinctoria without providing sufficient evidence to support the structure, was isolated from a fermentation extract of Burkholderia sp. 3Y-MMP isolated from a soil by a Zn(2+) enrichment culture. Detailed spectroscopic analyses by MS and NMR, combined with (13)C chemical shift comparison with literature values of the related compounds and a synthetic preparation of 1, allowed its first full NMR characterization and identification of 2-quinolone but not 2-quinolinol (2) as the preferred tautomer for this heterocyclic system. While the metal-chelating activity was negligible, compound 1 at 10 μM, a concentration lower than that in liquid production cultures, quenched hydroxy radical-induced chemiluminescence emitted by luminol by 86%. Because some Burkholderia species are pathogenic to plants and animals, the above result suggests that 1 is a potential antioxidant to counteract reactive oxygen species-based immune response in the host organisms.


An unusual case of severe acute hyponatremia in patient with COVID-19 infection()


Angiotensin II suppression in SARS-CoV-2 infection: a therapeutic approach()


Coronavirus vaccines


In vitro mass production of reproducible human cells destined for substitution therapy: Challenges for development of functional materials for what we need most in transfusion!


Has there been a more rational use of the ophthalmic emergency services in the face of the COVID-19 pandemic?()


Special issue on Organometallics, 2020


Response to letter of concern by Oladimeji and Pickford of PrimerDesign


Le naufrage des «essais cliniques»! Ou comment les méfaits d’un virus ont pu mettre à mal la rigueur Et compromettre la réponse à l’urgence


docid: ycahhwos

title: CELL CULTURE – FACT AND FICTION


title: “I’m Where It’s At”

text: Having followed Nina and her instructions to the “proper nighter” in a narrative section that opens this chapter, we enter into a discussion of northern soul place and the transformation of venues through the organisation of space, specific sensory experiences, and historicising. Taking two different events, the ways in which venues and cities/towns have become central or removed from the narratives that dominate the scene become apparent. Finally, we find our way to the “proper nighter”, a place within which young men and women find increased freedom to experiment with the practices and musical boundaries of the scene. Emerging out of conversations about place, the issue of class sows the seed for the second half of the chapter.


title: Tracing Data Journeys Through Medical Case Reports: Conceptualizing Case Reports Not as “Anecdotes” but Productive Epistemic Constructs, or Why Zebras Can Be Useful

text: Medical case reports provide an important example of data journeying: they are used to collect data and make them available for re-use to others in the field including clinicians, biomedical researchers, and health policymakers. In this paper, I explore how data journey in case reports, with particular focus on the earliest stages of the process, namely from creation and publication of case reports to the initial re-uses of them and data within them. I investigate key themes relating to case reporting and re-use, including factors which seem to smooth the path along which the data captured by a case report journey via broader citation patterns and detailed qualitative analysis of highly re-used case reports. This analysis reveals some of the key factors associated with the case reports whose data have greater amounts of journeying including publication in a general medical journal; that the data have broader implications and evidential value for topical or even urgent issues for instance in public health; and use in the case report of multiple research methods or concepts from diverse subfields. These findings along with standardization of case reporting are shown to have epistemological implications, particularly for how we understand the journeying of data.


title: Barrier Precautions in the Era of Multidrug Pathogens

text: PURPOSE OF REVIEW: There is a continuing debate regarding contact precaution (CP) usage for endemic multidrug-resistant organisms (MDROs). In this review, we examine current recommendations for CP and highlight differences in CP use between endemic and non-endemic MDROs. RECENT FINDINGS: The discontinuation of CP had no effect on the incidence of methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus and vancomycin-resistant Enterococci. The evidence regarding CP for extended-spectrum beta-lactamase producing Enterobacteriaceae is inconclusive, highlighting the need for more research to determine best infection control strategies. Carbapenem-resistant Enterobacteriaceae maintains a sporadic pattern in the USA, supporting current recommendations to use CP for colonized and infected patients. MDR Acinetobacter baumannii (MDR-AB) is extremely virulent and responsible for outbreaks in healthcare settings, emphasizing the need for CP use with MDR-AB infected patients. Candida auris (C. auris) is often misdiagnosed; it is resistant to UV light and quaternary ammonium low-level disinfection. Because little is known about the transmission of C. auris, significant caution and CP use are necessitated. There is little research on vancomycin-resistant S. aureus (VRSA) control strategies due to its rarity; thus, CP is strongly recommended. SUMMARY: Contact precautions are frequently part of a bundled infection control approach that involves meticulous hand hygiene, patient decolonization, chlorhexidine gluconate bathing, and reducing the use of invasive devices. Healthcare facilities should continue to utilize CP for non-endemic MDROs and the presence of endemic MDROs; however, CP may not add benefit to the current infection prevention bundle approach.


title: Ausblick: Nach der Krise ist nicht vor der Krise

text: Das Kapitel beschäftigt sich mit der Auswirkung des disruptiven Charakters von Krisen. Insbesondere für die Coronakrise wird argumentiert, dass die Welt nach der Krise eine andere sein wird. Trotz aller Herausforderungen, die eine Krise mit sich bringt, zeichnet das Kapitel ein optimistisches Bild der Zukunft. Gleichzeitig wird an Unternehmen appelliert, die Fähigkeit zur Krisenbewältigung bzw. Resilienz grundsätzlich auf- bzw. auszubauen, um mit dieser und den geeigneten Strategien auch in Zukunft erfolgreich(er) aus Krisen hervorgehen zu können.


title: Strategieentwicklung in Krisenzeiten

text: Das Kapitel führt durch die strategische Planung in unsicheren (Krisen-)zeiten. Der hier eingeführte 7-stufige Prozess zur Strategieentwicklung ermöglicht es Unternehmen, systematisch passende strategische Maßnahmen für nachhaltigen Erfolg in Krisensituationen und darüber hinaus zu erarbeiten. Dabei werden dem Leser konkrete Instrumente an die Hand gegeben, deren Einsatz es ermöglicht, eine unternehmensspezifische strategische Roadmap zu entwickeln. Auf diese Weise können erfolgskritische kurz-, mittel- und langfristige Projekte und Maßnahmen erarbeitet, ausgewählt, geplant und in der Zeit während und nach der Krise umgesetzt werden. Dieses proaktive und systematische Vorgehen ermöglicht es Unternehmen, nicht nur erfolgreich durch die Krise zu kommen, sondern birgt sogar das Potenzial, durch die Krise langfristig erfolgreicher zu werden.


Stan cox: the green new deal and beyond: ending the climate emergency while we still can


title: Make E Smart Again (Short Paper)

text: In this work in progress, we demonstrate a new use-case for the ENIGMA system. The ENIGMA system using the XGBoost implementation of gradient boosted decision trees has demonstrated high capability to learn to guide the E theorem prover’s inferences in real-time. Here, we strip E to the bare bones: we replace the KBO term ordering with an identity relation as the minimal possible ordering, disable literal selection, and replace evolved strategies with a simple combination of the clause weight and FIFO (first in first out) clause evaluation functions. We experimentally demonstrate that ENIGMA can learn to guide E as well as the smart, evolved strategies even without these standard automated theorem prover functionalities. To this end, we experiment with XGBoost’s meta-parameters over a dozen loops.


title: Teaching Automated Theorem Proving by Example: PyRes 1.2: (System Description)

text: PyRes is a complete theorem prover for classical first-order logic. It is not designed for high performance, but to clearly demonstrate the core concepts of a saturating theorem prover. The system is written in extensively commented Python, explaining data structures, algorithms, and many of the underlying theoretical concepts. The prover implements binary resolution with factoring and optional negative literal selection. Equality is handled by adding the basic axioms of equality. PyRes uses the given-clause algorithm, optionally controlled by weight- and age evaluations for clause selection. The prover can read TPTP CNF/FOF input files and produces TPTP/TSTP proof objects. Evaluation shows, as expected, mediocre performance compared to modern high-performance systems, with relatively better performance for problems without equality. However, the implementation seems to be sound and complete.


title: ENIGMA Anonymous: Symbol-Independent Inference Guiding Machine (System Description)

text: We describe an implementation of gradient boosting and neural guidance of saturation-style automated theorem provers that does not depend on consistent symbol names across problems. For the gradient-boosting guidance, we manually create abstracted features by considering arity-based encodings of formulas. For the neural guidance, we use symbol-independent graph neural networks (GNNs) and their embedding of the terms and clauses. The two methods are efficiently implemented in the E prover and its ENIGMA learning-guided framework. To provide competitive real-time performance of the GNNs, we have developed a new context-based approach to evaluation of generated clauses in E. Clauses are evaluated jointly in larger batches and with respect to a large number of already selected clauses (context) by the GNN that estimates their collectively most useful subset in several rounds of message passing. This means that approximative inference rounds done by the GNN are efficiently interleaved with precise symbolic inference rounds done inside E. The methods are evaluated on the MPTP large-theory benchmark and shown to achieve comparable real-time performance to state-of-the-art symbol-based methods. The methods also show high complementarity, solving a large number of hard Mizar problems.


title: A Programmer’s Text Editor for a Logical Theory: The SUMOjEdit Editor (System Description)

text: SUMOjEdit is a programmer’s text editor for the SUO-KIF language and SUMO http://www.ontologyportal.org theory. Modern procedural programming is done in a text editor with tool support. Development of ontologies and taxonomies has often been done in graphical editors, leading many developers to employ only logics of very limited expressiveness that can be manipulated visually. Developers in the theorem proving community typically work in text editors but often without the same degree of tool support that most programmers rely on. Beginners working with SUMO make some very predictable errors in syntax, logical formulation, and use of the library of theories. Many of these errors can be flagged during editing, resulting in reduced time to become a productive developer. An editor designed for working with SUMO has the potential to aid beginners and experienced SUMO developers.


title: Prolog Technology Reinforcement Learning Prover: (System Description)

text: We present a reinforcement learning toolkit for experiments with guiding automated theorem proving in the connection calculus. The core of the toolkit is a compact and easy to extend Prolog-based automated theorem prover called plCoP. plCoP builds on the leanCoP Prolog implementation and adds learning-guided Monte-Carlo Tree Search as done in the rlCoP system. Other components include a Python interface to plCoP and machine learners, and an external proof checker that verifies the validity of plCoP proofs. The toolkit is evaluated on two benchmarks and we demonstrate its extendability by two additions: (1) guidance is extended to reduction steps and (2) the standard leanCoP calculus is extended with rewrite steps and their learned guidance. We argue that the Prolog setting is suitable for combining statistical and symbolic learning methods. The complete toolkit is publicly released.


title: A Polymorphic Vampire: (Short Paper)

text: We have modified the Vampire theorem prover to support rank-1 polymorphism. In this paper we discuss the changes required to enable this and compare the performance of polymorphic Vampire against other polymorphic provers. We also compare its performance on monomorphic problems against standard Vampire. Finally, we discuss how polymorphism can be used to support theory reasoning and present results related to this.


title: Practical Proof Search for Coq by Type Inhabitation

text: We present a practical proof search procedure for Coq based on a direct search for type inhabitants in an appropriate normal form. The procedure is more general than any of the automation tactics natively available in Coq. It aims to handle as large a part of the Calculus of Inductive Constructions as practically feasible. For efficiency, our procedure is not complete for the entire Calculus of Inductive Constructions, but we prove completeness for a first-order fragment. Even in pure intuitionistic first-order logic, our procedure performs competitively. We implemented the procedure in a Coq plugin and evaluated it on a collection of Coq libraries, on CompCert, and on the ILTP library of first-order intuitionistic problems. The results are promising and indicate the viablility of our approach to general automated proof search for the Calculus of Inductive Constructions.


title: mu-term: Verify Termination Properties Automatically (System Description)

text: We report on the new version of mu-term, a tool for proving termination properties of variants of rewrite systems, including conditional, context-sensitive, equational, and order-sorted rewrite systems. We follow a unified, logic-based approach to describe rewriting computations. The automatic generation of logical models for suitable first-order theories and formulas provides a common basis to implement the proofs.


title: The Imandra Automated Reasoning System (System Description)

text: We describe Imandra, a modern computational logic theorem prover designed to bridge the gap between decision procedures such as SMT, semi-automatic inductive provers of the Boyer-Moore family like ACL2, and interactive proof assistants for typed higher-order logics. Imandra’s logic is computational, based on a pure subset of OCaml in which all functions are terminating, with restrictions on types and higher-order functions that allow conjectures to be translated into multi-sorted first-order logic with theories, including arithmetic and datatypes. Imandra has novel features supporting large-scale industrial applications, including a seamless integration of bounded and unbounded verification, first-class computable counterexamples, efficiently executable models and a cloud-native architecture supporting live multiuser collaboration. The core reasoning mechanisms of Imandra are (i) a semi-complete procedure for finding models of formulas in the logic mentioned above, centered around the lazy expansion of recursive functions, (ii) an inductive waterfall and simplifier which “lifts” many Boyer-Moore ideas to our typed higher-order setting. These mechanisms are tightly integrated and subject to many forms of user control.