bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Politics of the Philippines: From Rizal to Duterte
Authors: Heydarian Richard Javad
Published: April 2021

The heartland of former Spanish East Indies and once America’s sole colony in Asia, the Philippines is a land of mind-bending paradoxes, where swift changes have gone hand in hand with obstinate continuities. The Southeast Asian nation witnessed the birth of Asia’s first modern nationalist movement, initially led by the progressive sections of the Creole class and the so-called ilustrado mestizos, but reaching its apogee in the final years of the 19th century under the command of (Tagalog-dominated) provincial gentry and a broad coalition of petty bourgeois nationalists. In contrast, advanced state-formation came relatively late to the island nation, which has a limited history of large-scale polities in the precolonial era compared to neighboring Indonesia (Majapahit Empire) or Cambodia (Khmer Empire). A century since the advent of ‘first Filipinos,’ the country’s nation-building project remains glaringly unfinished, hobbled by persistent ethnolinguistic divides and Islamist and Communist movements that are among the world’s longest-running such insurgencies. For almost five centuries, Catholicism stood as the dominant religion in the country, but recent decades have seen homegrown evangelical groups become major forces in the country’s political landscape with the advent of denominational ‘bloc voting.’ A major entrepot during the trans-pacific Galleon Trade, the country became a regional economic powerhouse from the late 18th century up until the mid-20th century. Building on bouts of liberal reforms during Spanish colonialism and Commonwealth institutions under American tutelage, the Philippines also boasts among the oldest democratic institutions in the postcolonial world. The past half century, however, witnessed the country’s decline to the “Sick man of Asia” following decades of political instability and absence of sustained economic development. Amidst massive inequality and rampant corruption, the country has repeatedly relapsed into various permutations of authoritarian rule, from the Ferdinand Marcos dictatorship to the resurgent populism of Rodrigo Duterte in recent years. In international politics, the Philippines has undergone a similarly turbulent trajectory, repeatedly caught in between rival empires, from Spanish–American Wars in the late-19th century to its strategic flirtation with a rising China despite its formal military alliance with America. What has remained largely constant is the composition of the country’s ruling elite, thanks to its remarkable geopolitical adaptability. The upshot is a weak state enfeebled by powerful interest groups and checked by a vibrant civil society. Accordingly, the study of Philippine politics should cover its troubled nation-state-formation, cacique-dominated political economy and attendant authoritarian temptations, as well as the unique brand of populist and liberal topes in its political discourse.
Pediatric Environmental Health
Authors: Etzel Ruth
Published: April 2021

Pediatric environmental health is the academic discipline that studies how environmental exposures in early life — biological, chemical, nutritional, physical, and social—influence health and development in childhood and across the lifespan. This discipline emerged in the mid-1980s after the discovery that secondhand smoke exposure was linked to increased rates of lower respiratory illness in children. Before that, most people did not realize that smoking cigarettes harmed anyone but the smoker. When the harmful effects of secondhand exposure to tobacco smoke were uncovered, researchers began asking questions about other pollutants—could it be that other biological, chemical, physical, and social agents to which children are routinely exposed also harm their health? Children have environmental exposures that are different from and often larger than those of adults. Children also have enormous susceptibilities in early development—unique “windows of vulnerability”—to toxic exposures that have no counterpart in adult life. It is well understood that timing of exposure is critically important in early human development. The tissues and organs of embryos, fetuses, infants, and children are rapidly growing and developing. Adolescence also is a period of rapid growth. These complex and delicate developmental processes are uniquely sensitive to disruption by environmental influences. Exposures sustained during windows of early vulnerability, even to extremely low levels of toxic materials, can cause lasting damage.
Research–Practice Partnerships in Education Within The United States
Authors: Arce-Trigatti Paula , Farrell Caitlin C.
Published: April 2021

Research–practice partnerships (RPPs) in education are long-term collaborations aimed at educational improvement and transformation through engagement with research, intentionally organized to connect diverse forms of expertise and to ensure that all partners have a say in the joint work. They have the potential to create conditions for research to inform practice more effectively than a one-way model that emphasizes translation of research into practice. After a description of systematic review methods and brief background on RPPs, this article is organzed into five focal RPP outcome areas: building trust and cultivating relationships, conducting rigorous and relevant research, supporting local improvement efforts, producing knowledge for the field more broadly, and building capacity for involved participants and organizations.
Sustainability in Higher Education
Authors: Barth Matthias
Published: April 2021

Since sustainable development has emerged as a normative guiding idea at the global level, it has been perceived as a “moving target” that requires deliberation and social learning processes. Consequently, the notion of learning for sustainability figures prominently in both academia and policy, and learning and education are increasingly considered important features in this regard. Education for sustainable development was first introduced in 1992 at the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development and has since developed into a well-established educational field. Additional momentum has been gained through the UN Decade of Education for Sustainable Development (2005–2014). This is even more so with the ongoing follow-up program “ESD for 2030” in which a direct link to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) has been made. While the implementation of this vision is supported in all educational sectors, it is higher education that has a key role to play in the overall process of striving for sustainable development. Universities generate and transfer relevant knowledge, as well as enable future change agents to contribute to a sustainable future. In addition, they act in their own organizational practice as a role model and contribute through societal outreach and service. This bibliography contains a selection of papers and volumes on themes discussed in the area of sustainability in higher education. It covers the Historical Context, various areas of universities activities and different disciplinary and regional approaches. Emphasis is given on educational activities and thus the research and practice of teaching and learning on the micro- level (courses) and the macro-level (programs).
Popular Culture and Modern War
Authors: Abra Allison
Published: April 2021

This bibliography includes histories that explore the manifold meanings and purposes that popular culture has possessed in wartime. Popular culture provides entertainment and escapism for soldiers and civilians, while also allowing them to imagine and give expression to their wartime identities, and social and political worlds. Militaries embrace song or sport to entertain, but also to train and condition their troops. On the home front, it is often on the movie screen or the dance floor, or at the concert hall or the baseball game, where critical issues about class, race, gender, sexuality, ethnicity and nation are reflected, experienced, and debated. Popular culture also serves as a potent means of official and unofficial propaganda, and can offer a means of resistance against authoritarianism or occupation, or a pathway toward recovery from war. The bibliography adopts a broad definition of “popular culture,” which eliminates socially and historically constructed distinctions between “high” and “low” cultures, to consider the wide range of leisure forms and performing arts that entertained and shaped the experience of individuals and societies in wartime. The focus is primarily on popular cultural forms that possess an interactive or technologically-driven relationship between producer and consumer, or performer and audience, and so the bibliography does not deal with literature or the visual arts, which each have their own disciplinary specialists and immense scholarly literatures. The bibliography is also only concerned with popular culture produced during the war or wars in question, rather than as part of the retrospective articulation of individual or collective memory. Temporally, it is focused on the era of total war and beyond, including World War I, World War II, the Cold War and decolonization, and the post-9/11 wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Significantly, at almost precisely the same moment in the early 20th century, warfare and popular culture both evolved and modernized in critical ways. The First World War erupted just as the Jazz Age took hold; new technologies for cultural dissemination emerged, and the transnational commercial leisure industries surrounding music, film, dance, theater, sport and a range of other cultural forms expanded exponentially. Works in this bibliography are concerned with what followed, and the intertwined modernities of both war and popular culture.
Fritz Lang
Authors: Moore Philip
Published: April 2021

A visual artist who studied architecture, Viennese-born Fritz Lang (b. 1890–d. 1976) began his career as a scenarist for UFA before moving into directing scripts cowritten with his eventual wife, Thea von Harbou. During this period, Lang made several masterpieces of Weimar cinema, including Dr. Mabuse the Gambler (1922), The Nibelungen (1924), Metropolis (1927), and his first sound film, M (1931). The second major period of Lang’s career was during the golden age of Hollywood. Lang had a tendency to self-mythologize and told many versions of a story in which Joseph Goebbels invited him to be the head filmmaker for the Nazi regime. Lang claimed he fled Germany the same night. While this narrative is largely disproven, Lang (whose mother was Jewish) did leave Germany in 1933, a departure that severed both his marriage and professional relationship with Harbou. Lang journeyed to Hollywood, where he would spend the next twenty years working studio to studio, directing twenty-two films with intermittent critical and commercial success. His first film there, Fury (1936), dealt with themes of law and justice, which carried through to his final film in Hollywood, Beyond a Reasonable Doubt (1956). Perhaps his greatest contributions in Hollywood are his films noir, such as The Woman in the Window (1944), Scarlet Street (1945), and The Big Heat (1953). Lang’s Hollywood period has been the subject of major critical debate. In the 1950s and after, French critics (both in Cahiers du Cinéma and elsewhere) argued for his status as an unappreciated auteur working in the Hollywood system, whereas other critics had argued that the quality of Lang’s output dramatically dropped after he left Germany. The New Wave filmmakers’ love of Lang perhaps reached its apogee in his being cast as a character called Fritz Lang in Jean-Luc Godard’s Contempt (1963). These critical reappraisals resulted in attempts to link Lang’s Weimar and Hollywood periods. He would return to Germany in the late 1950s to direct his final three films, all of which were related to his earlier Weimar-era work. Although Lang is now regarded by many as an auteur in the same vein as Alfred Hitchcock, until more recently he received considerably less (in quality) scholarly analysis than the British director. Lang continued granting interviews and sharing his own thoughts on his work and career until his death in 1976.
Frederick Douglass
Authors: Fought Leigh
Published: April 2021

Frederick Douglass (b. 1818–d. 1895), one of the most eminent African Americans of the 19th century, defies categorization. Possessing a ranging intellect, he first rose to prominence as the self-emancipated slave who forcefully indicted the institution as an orator, writer, and newspaper editor. Not content simply to bear witness about his first twenty years under slavery, he exposed national hypocrisy on race where it appeared in religion, science, segregation, voter disfranchisement, and freedom of association. Through the rhetoric of his autobiographies, editorials, and lectures, he advanced to the forefront of the multifaceted antislavery movement as it became a driving force behind national politics in the 1850s. The 1860s and 1870s saw him demanding emancipation, goading President Abraham Lincoln on the subject, but also fighting for black citizenship and universal suffrage. In the latter half of his life, he worked through the political system that he once opposed in order to secure equal protections and opportunities for African Americans, usually to frustrating ends. He continued to absorb and explore the boundaries of race, condemning cant, protesting injustice, and using his fame to amplify disfranchised voices. After his death, his widow, Helen, preserved his papers and home, now the Frederick Douglass Papers in the Library of Congress and the Frederick Douglass National Historic Park, which have allowed his legacy to rise above those of his contemporaries. Douglass’s interests concentrated on questions of identity, justice, race, and national belonging that were both universal and specific to the 19th-century United States. Study of his work and life straddles multiple disciplines. Initially, he was remembered for his oratory while his autobiographies served as historical texts describing slavery and outlining his life. Toward the end of the 20th century, the expanding availability of documents at the Library of Congress and the University of Rochester, the publication of Philip Foner’s The Life and Writings of Frederick Douglass, John Blassingame’s Frederick Douglass Papers Project, and new methods of historical and literary study opened new avenues into his world. Scholars working in one field borrow from others, but distinctions still exist in which historians use multiple types of documents to understand Douglass in his time, literary scholars analyze his texts, and political scientists examine his work among American political traditions. All reveal many facets of a man of infinite curiosity and continuing relevance.
Employee Stress and Well-Being
Authors: Nakahara Wheeler , Jex Steve , Horan Kristin
Published: April 2021

This article provides a general overview of overarching topics in the literature on stress and well-being. Broadly stated, the study of employee stress and well-being is concerned with the impact of work on the mental and physical health of employees. Topics covered in this overview include stress theories, commonly studied job stressors, strains associated with those stressors, moderators, and mediators of the stressor-strain relationship, as well as interventions to address job-related stress in the workplace. In addition to general overviews of these topics (and subtopics), brief annotations of research articles for each topic are included.
Five Classics
Authors: Nylan Michael , Constantino Nicholas
Published: April 2021

Although the term “Five Classics” (The Odes; Documents; the three Rites classics, counted as one; the Annals, and the Changes) was probably coined in Western Han, for much of Chinese history the Five Classics corpus has been the common cultural coin of the realm, familiar to all educated people, regardless of their religious creeds or ethical persuasions. Although parts of the Five Classics have claimed Confucius, as author, editor, or teacher, others may not have derived from self-identified “followers of Confucius,” of which there were very few in Antiquity. Given the importance of the Five Classics as repositories of ethical and political teachings, numerous debates over the “correct” graphs and meanings assigned to passages in the Five Classics have continued unabated from Western Han times down to today, in China, among the Chinese diaspora, and abroad, perhaps the most famous being the Qing-era “New Text/Old Text” debates. Only recently have Euro-American scholars, in company with some of their East Asian counterparts, begun to acknowledge at least two “general shifts in the textual landscape,” the first of which took place during Song, spurred, perhaps, by the Song ancient prose movement, and the second around the turn of the 20th century, when leading scholars and political reformers began to debate the role of the Five Classics in the education of the wenren文人 (men and women of letters) and the general populace, a debate that is still raging in some quarters, given the Chinese Communist Party’s belated flirtation with Confucian ethics. A few modern scholars, in addition, would emphasize the conceptual ruptures that also accompanied the changeovers from seal script to clerical script, and from regular script to simplified. What has proved equally disruptive in recent years is the insistence by some Chinese authorities that unprovenanced materials bought on the market in Hong Kong or Japan be accorded the same “weight” as scientifically excavated manuscripts or texts transmitted via the received literary tradition. Past experience suggests that patient accumulation and sifting of the evidence is preferable to overly hasty judgements about the reliability of such manuscripts.
Uyghurs
Authors: O'Brien David
Published: April 2021

The Uyghur (alternatively spelled Uighur) are the largest and titular ethnic group living in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, a vast area in northwestern China of over 1.6 million sq. km. According to the 2010 census Uyghurs make up 45.21 percent of the population of Xinjiang, numbering 8,345,622 people. The Han, the largest ethnic group in China, make up 40.58 percent in the region with 7,489,919. A Turkic-speaking largely Muslim ethnic group, the Uyghurs traditionally inhabited a series of oases around the Taklamakan desert. Their complex origin is evidenced by a rich cultural history that can be traced back to various groups that emerged across the steppes of Mongolia and Central Asia. Uyghur communities are also found in Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, and Kazakhstan, with significant diaspora groups in Australia, the United States, Germany, and Turkey. In the first half of the 20th century, Uyghurs briefly declared two short-lived East Turkestan Republics in 1933 and again in 1944, but the region was brought under the complete control of the Chinese state after the Communist Party (CCP) came to power in 1949. Within China they are considered one of the fifty-five officially recognized ethnic minority groups, who, along with the Han who constitute 92 percent of the population, make up the Chinese nation or Zhonghua Minzu中华民族. However, for many Uyghurs the name “Xinjiang,” which literally translates as “New Territory,” indicates that their homeland is a colony of China, and they prefer the term “East Turkestan.” Nevertheless, many scholars use Xinjiang as a natural term even when they are critical of the position of the Communist Party. In this article both terms are used. In the early years of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) Uyghurs numbered about 80 percent of the population of Xinjiang, but large-scale government-sponsored migration has seen the number of Han in the region rise to almost the same as that of the Uyghur. This has led to an increase in ethnic tensions often caused by competition for scarce resources and a perception that the ruling Communist Party favors the Han. In 2009, a major outbreak of violence in the capital Ürümchi saw hundreds die and many more imprisoned. The years 2013 and 2014 were also crucial turning points with deadly attacks on passengers in train stations in Kunming and Yunnan, bombings in Ürümchi, and a suicide attack in Tiananmen Square in Beijing, all blamed on Uyghur terrorists. Since then the Chinese government has introduced a harsh regime of security clampdowns and mass surveillance, which has significantly increased from 2017 and which, by some accounts, has seen over one million Uyghurs and other Muslim ethnic minorities imprisoned without trial in “reeducation” camps. The Chinese government insist these camps form part of an education and vocational training program designed to improve the lives of Uyghurs and root out “wrong thinking.” Many Uyghurs believe it is part of a long-term project of assimilation of Uyghur identity and culture.
Evolution of Animal Mating Systems
Authors: Ahnesjö Ingrid , Bussière Luc
Published: April 2021

Animal mating systems are fascinating and diverse, and their evolution is central to evolutionary biology. A mating system describes patterns and processes of how females and males mate and reproduce successfully, and how this relates to their reproductive ecologies, including demographic and environmental factors. One of the more stimulating challenges in biology is to provide a comprehensive explanation for the evolution of mating adaptations among animals. In the course of sexual reproduction, animals engage in a dizzying array of traits, behaviors, and strategies. Such diversity simultaneously requires and eludes categorization: it is required for a general understanding, but at once confounds any rigorous classification because an almost inexhaustible supply of animal examples disrupt otherwise neatly ordered systems (see Classifications of Animal Mating Systems). Historically, mating with a single partner was thought to be a common mating system among animals. However, increasing observations of multiple mating by both sexes, supported by genomic evidence of mixed parentage within families, has since revealed that strict genetic monogamy is rare. In this bibliography, the selected literature highlights a compelling diversity and flexibility among animal mating systems, and sexual selection emerges both as a contributing cause and consequence of this variation. Sexual selection plays a central role in animal mating system evolution, and key references provide insights into its operation before and after mating, and describe how it leads to the expression of secondary sexual traits and sexual conflicts. Efforts to explain diversity in animal mating systems have often focused on how acquiring mates or matings relates to variance in reproductive success. This variation and diversity can be approached at the level of an individual, among individuals in a population, or between species. However, a preoccupation with the mean or average pattern often leads to generalizations that obscure important diversity crucial to evolutionary understanding. To avoid unnecessary categorization, the presentation here focus`es on variation in mating patterns and contrasts multiple mating with mating with a single partner. Furthermore, it considers the wider effects of animal mating systems, and includes associations with patterns of parental care. The aim with this bibliography is to provide key citations demonstrating that animal mating systems evolve from diverse, interactive, complex and dynamic processes resulting in a variety of adaptive mating strategies in females and males. A grateful acknowledgment is given to C. Kvarnemo and D. Gwynne for insightful comments.
Transforming a Brazilian Aeronaut into a French Hero: Celebrity, Spectacle, and Technological Cosmopolitanism in the Turn-of-the-Century Atlantic
Authors: De Oliveira Patrick Luiz Sullivan
Published: April 2021

This article explains how the Brazilian Alberto Santos-Dumont, who at the turn of the twentieth century became the first global celebrity aeronaut, operated as a symbol of ‘technological cosmopolitanism’ — a world view that ostensibly promoted a vision of global unity through technology-enabled exchanges while simultaneously reproducing a core-periphery imagined geography that threatened to erase marginalized populations. Technological cosmopolitanism fitted snugly within the rubric of the Third Republic’s aspiring universalism, which assumed that France offered a model to be emulated around the world, but it was not hegemonic. If for the French appropriating Santos-Dumont meant safeguarding France’s leadership in aeronautics and assuaging their claims of universality, for Brazilians the elision was marked by ambiguity. Brazil’s First Republic hungered for heroes, and authorities saw Santos-Dumont as a symbol of modernity that showed that its place in world history was more than peripheral, even though that very vision was shaped by a Paris-centric world view. But marginalized Afro-Brazilians also found ways to appropriate a white ‘Frenchified’ Brazilian and reimagine their place in a cosmopolitan order. Technological cosmopolitanism evoked a world united by transportation, communication and exchange, but imagining who got to construct and partake in that community was a process continuously marked by erasures and reinsertions.
Neofunctionalization of a polyploidization-activated cotton long intergenic non-coding RNA DAN1 during drought stress regulation
Authors: Tao Xiaoyuan , Li Menglin , Zhao Ting , Feng Shouli , Zhang Hailin , Wang Luyao , Han Jin , Gao Mengtao , Lu Kening , Chen Quanjia , Zhou Baoliang , Guan Xueying
Published: April 2021

The genomic shock of whole-genome duplication (WGD) and hybridization introduces great variation into transcriptomes, for both coding and noncoding genes. An altered transcriptome provides a molecular basis for improving adaptation during the evolution of new species. The allotetraploid cotton, together with the putative diploid ancestor species compose a fine model for study the rapid gene neofunctionalization over the genome shock. Here we report on Drought-Associated Non-coding gene 1 (DAN1), a long intergenic noncoding RNA (lincRNA) that arose from the cotton progenitor A-diploid genome after hybridization and WGD events during cotton evolution. DAN1 in allotetraploid upland cotton (Gossypium hirsutum) is a drought-responsive lincRNA predominantly expressed in the nucleoplasm. Chromatin isolation by RNA purification profiling and electrophoretic mobility shift assay analysis demonstrated that GhDAN1 RNA can bind with DNA fragments containing AAAG motifs, similar to DNA binding with one zinc finger transcription factor binding sequences. The suppression of GhDAN1 mainly regulates genes with AAAG motifs in auxin-response pathways, which are associated with drought stress regulation. As a result, GhDAN1-silenced plants exhibit improved tolerance to drought stress. This phenotype resembles the drought-tolerant phenotype of the A-diploid cotton ancestor species, which has an undetectable expression of DAN1. The role of DAN1 in cotton evolution and drought tolerance regulation suggests that the genomic shock of interspecific hybridization and WGD stimulated neofunctionalization of non-coding genes during the natural evolutionary process.
Retrospective cohort study of Ivermectin as a SARS-CoV-2 pre-exposure prophylaxis method in Healthcare Workers
Authors: Morgenstern José , Redondo José N , Olavarría Álvaro , Rondon Isis , Roca Santiago , De León Albida , Canela Juan Manuel , Tavares Johnny , Minaya Miguelina , López Óscar , Castillo Ana , María Plácido Ana , Peña Cruz Rafael , Merette Yudelka , Toribio Marlenin , Francisco Juan Asmir
Published: April 2021

This observational and retrospective cohort study, carried out in two medical centers, Centro Medico Bournigal (CMBO) in Puerto Plata and Centro Medico Punta Cana (CMPC) in Punta Cana, Dominican Republic, sought to determine whether Ivermectin, at a weekly oral (PO) dose of 0.2 mg/kg, is an effective pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) method preventing the spread of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome-Corona Virus-2 (SARS-CoV-2), in the healthcare workers. The study began on June 29, 2020 and ended on July 26, 2020, where 713 active healthcare personnel were included for the analysis, from which 326 healthcare personnel adhered to a weekly prophylactic program with Ivermectin for Coronavirus Disease-19 (COVID-19), designed by Grupo Rescue task force, that runs both medical centers, and 387 healthcare personnel who did not adhere to the program and were assigned as control group. A SPSS Propensity Score Matching procedure was applied in a 1:1 ratio to homogeneously evaluate the groups that were made up of 271 participants each.

In 28 days of follow-up, a significant protection of Ivermectin as a PrEP method preventing the infection from SARS-CoV-2 was observed 1.8% compared to those who did not take it 6.6%, (p-value = 0.006) with a risk reduction of a positive Chain Reaction of Real-Time Polymerase Transcription (RT-PCR) COVID-19 test by 74% (HR 0.26, 95% CI [0.10,0.71]). These results support the use of weekly Ivermectin as a compassionate preventive method in the healthcare personnel.

This study protocol is available at Clinicaltrials.gov Identifier: NCT04832945
Standardized and optimized preservation, extraction and quantification techniques for detection of fecal SARS-CoV-2 RNA
Authors: Natarajan Aravind , Han Alvin , Zlitni Soumaya , Brooks Erin F. , Vance Summer E. , Wolfe Marlene , Singh Upinder , Jagannathan Prasanna , Pinsky Benjamin A. , Boehm Alexandria , Bhatt Ami S.
Published: April 2021

COVID-19 patients shed SARS-CoV-2 viral RNA in their stool, sometimes well after they have cleared their respiratory infection. This feature of the disease may be significant for patient health, epidemiology, and diagnosis. However, to date, methods to preserve stool samples from COVID patients, and to extract and quantify viral RNA concentration have yet to be optimized. We sought to meet this urgent need by developing and benchmarking a standardized protocol for the fecal detection of SARS-CoV-2 RNA. We test three preservative conditions for their ability to yield detectable SARS-CoV-2 RNA: OMNIgene-GUT, Zymo DNA/RNA shield kit, and the most common condition, storage without any preservative. We test these in combination with three extraction kits: the QIAamp Viral RNA Mini Kit, Zymo Quick-RNA Viral Kit, and MagMAX Viral/Pathogen Kit. Finally, we also test the utility of two detection methods, ddPCR and RT-qPCR, for the robust quantification of SARS-CoV-2 viral RNA from stool. We identify that the Zymo DNA/RNA shield collection kit and the QiaAMP viral RNA mini kit yield more detectable RNA than the others, using both ddPCR and RT-qPCR assays. We also demonstrate key features of experimental design including the incorporation of appropriate controls and data analysis, and apply these techniques to effectively extract viral RNA from fecal samples acquired from COVID-19 outpatients enrolled in a clinical trial. Finally, we recommend a comprehensive methodology for future preservation, extraction and detection of RNA from SARS-CoV-2 and other coronaviruses in stool.
Controlling long-term SARS-CoV-2 infections is important for slowing viral evolution
Authors: Van Egeren Debra , Novokhodko Alexander , Stoddard Madison , Tran Uyen , Joseph-McCarthy Diane , Chakravarty Arijit
Published: April 2021

The rapid emergence and expansion of novel SARS-CoV-2 variants is an unpleasant surprise that threatens our ability to achieve herd immunity for COVID-19. These fitter SARS-CoV-2 variants often harbor multiple point mutations, conferring one or more traits that provide an evolutionary advantage, such as increased transmissibility, immune evasion and longer infection duration. In a number of cases, variant emergence has been linked to long-term infections in individuals who were either immunocompromised or treated with convalescent plasma. In this paper, we explore the mechanism by which fitter variants of SARS-CoV-2 arise during long-term infections using a mathematical model of viral evolution and identify means by which this evolution can be slowed. While viral load and infection duration play a strong role in favoring the emergence of such variants, the overall probability of emergence and subsequent transmission from any given infection is low, suggesting that viral variant emergence and establishment is a product of random chance. To the extent that luck plays a role in favoring the emergence of novel viral variants with an evolutionary advantage, targeting these low-probability random events might allow us to tip the balance of fortune away from these advantageous variants and prevent them from being established in the population.
Immunoglobulin G glycome composition in transition from pre-menopause to menopause
Authors: Kifer Domagoj , Deriš Helena , Cindrić Ana , Petrović Tea , Cvetko Ana , Trbojević-Akmačić Irena , Newson Louise , Spector Tim , Menni Cristina , Lauc Gordan
Published: April 2021

Background

Glycosylation of immunoglobulin G (IgG) is an important regulator of the immune system and its changes are believed to be a significant contributor to inflammaging. Gonadal hormones affect IgG glycome composition, suggesting that alterations in IgG glycosylation might be one of the molecular mechanisms behind increased disease risk in perimenopause.

Methods

IgG was isolated from 5,354 plasma samples collected from 1,940 females and 113 males at multiple time points. IgG glycans were released, labelled with a fluorescent dye and analysed by ultra-high-performance liquid chromatography. Mixed modelling was used to determine average levels of individual IgG glycans in pre-menopausal women, menopausal women, and men.

Findings

Large and statistically significant differences in IgG glycome composition were observed, mainly reflecting decreased galactosylation and sialylation of glycans in menopausal women. During perimenopause women had a significant higher rate of increase in agalactosylated structures (0.051/yr; 95%CI = 0.043 - 0.059, p<0.001), and decrease in digalactosylated (−0.043/yr; 95%CI = -0.050 – -0.037, p<0.001), and monosialylated glycans (- 0.029/yr; 95%CI = -0.034 – -0.024, p<0.001), compared to premenopausal women.

Interpretation

Proinflammatory IgG glycome and the resulting decrease in the ability of IgG to suppress low-grade chronic inflammation may be an important molecular mechanism mediating the increased health risk in perimenopause. IgG glycome changes considerably during perimenopause and may aid the diagnosis of perimenopause.

Funding

Croatian National Centre of Excellence in Personalised Healthcare, ESI Funds grant for the Centre of Competences in Molecular Diagnostics, the Wellcome Trust and the Medical Research Council (MRC)/British Heart Foundation (BHF).
The Community Opinions on Vaccine Issues and Decisions (COVID) Survey: Using a rapid Knowledge, Attitude and Practice (KAP) survey in supporting a community engagement approach to address COVID-19 vaccine uptake initiatives
Authors: Rahman Najeeb
Published: April 2021

Background

In the UK, it is acknowledged that ethnic minority communities have lower vaccination uptake rates compared with their White ethnic counterparts. It is additionally recognised that the UK Muslim community represents diverse ethnicities, which is reflected through their places of worship, namely mosques. Given the current pandemic and the rollout of the COVID-19 Vaccination campaign, mosques, in their capacity as community organisations, have been involved in health promotion initiatives such as webinars. The objective of this project was to support and improve COVID-19 Vaccine related health promotion activities being delivered by mosques in the UK city of Leeds by using a rapidly administered KAP survey.

Methods

A short survey was developed, reviewed for appropriateness by relevant mosque leaders, and distributed electronically to 2 mosque congregations. Analysis involved cumulative average scores for key domains with adjustment for key demographics, as well as a review of engagement preferences. Findings were fed back during an engagement webinar hosted by one of the mosques.

Results

There were a total of 151 participants, majority were male (95), between the ages of 31-50 (88) and of Asian ethnicity (102). Average Knowledge, Attitude and Practice scores for participants from Leeds Grand Mosque were 67,69 and 74% respectively, with participants from Leeds Makkah Mosque scoring 65, 62 and 67% respectively. Female participants as well as those aged less than 30 years scored poorer across all domains compared with the group average. The most important sources of information in relation to the vaccine were considered to be General Practitioners (GP) and National Health Service (NHS) or Government Websites.

Conclusions

A KAP survey is a useful tool to develop insights on community perspectives to the COVID-19 Vaccine, and can be rapidly deployed through community organisations such as mosques. Survey findings can then be used to improve the nature of health promotion, community engagement and service delivery in relation to mosques and their congregations. Adapting the survey for other groups and communities, as well as scaling up the partnership-based approaches to survey administration would support the development of multi-component strategies to address vaccine concerns and uptake.
Medication Management of Anxiety and Depression by Primary Care Pediatrics Providers: A Retrospective Electronic Health Record Study
Authors: Lester Talia R. , Bannett Yair , Gardner Rebecca M. , Feldman Heidi M. , Huffman Lynne C. ,   Stanford University School of Medicine
Published: April 2021

Objectives

To describe medication management of children diagnosed with anxiety and depression by primary care providers.

Study Design/Methods

We performed a retrospective cross-sectional analysis of electronic health record (EHR) structured data. All visits for pediatric patients seen at least twice during a four-year period within a network of primary care clinics in Northern California were included. Descriptive statistics summarized patient variables and most commonly prescribed medications. For each subcohort (anxiety, depression, and both (anxiety+depression)), logistic regression models examined the variables associated with medication prescription.

Results

Of all patients (N=93,025), 2.8% (n=2635) had a diagnosis of anxiety only, 1.5% (n=1433) depression only, and 0.79% (n=737) both anxiety and depression (anxiety+depression); 18% of children with anxiety and/or depression had comorbid ADHD. A total of 14.0% with anxiety (n=370), 20.3% with depression (n=291), and 47.5% with anxiety+depression (n=350) received a psychoactive non-stimulant medication. For anxiety only and depression only, sertraline, citalopram, and fluoxetine were most commonly prescribed. For anxiety+depression, citalopram, sertraline, and escitalopram were most commonly prescribed. The top prescribed medications also included benzodiazepines. Logistic regression models showed that older age and having developmental or mental health comorbidities were independently associated with increased likelihood of medication prescription for children with anxiety, depression, and anxiety+depression. Insurance type and sex were not associated with medication prescription.

Conclusions

PCPs prescribe medications more frequently for patients with anxiety+depression than for patients with either diagnosis alone. Medication choices generally align with current recommendations. Future research should focus on the use of benzodiazepines due to safety concerns in children.
Estimating SARS-CoV-2 variant strain infectiousness in Japan as of March 28, 2021
Authors: Kurita Junko , Sugawara Tamie , Ohkusa Yasushi
Published: April 2021

Background

A variant strain of SARS-CoV-2, VOC202012/01, emerged in the UK in September, 2020. Its infectiousness was estimated as higher than that of the original strain.

Object

We estimated the infectiousness of the variant strain of SARS-CoV-2 in comparison to that of the original strain under conditions prevailing in Japan.

Methods

We estimated infectiousness through a simple susceptible–infected–recovered (SIR) model by strain. The study period was March 1–28, 2020. The information used for the study was available as of April 3, 2020.

Results

The estimated reproduction number of the SARS-CoV-2 variant strain was 1.799; its 95% CI was [1.642, 1.938]. The onset date of the first case in Japan was estimated as December 4 ([November 16, December 14]), 2020. However, infectiousness of the original strain was estimated as 1.123 ([1.093, 1.166]).

Discussion and Conclusion

We demonstrated that infectiousness increased by 0.684 or 60%, increasing from the original to the variant. That finding might be comparable to that of a study conducted in the UK. However, the difference must be monitored continuously and carefully.
Can Social Media Data Be Utilized to Enhance Early Warning: Retrospective Analysis of the U.S. Covid-19 Pandemic
Authors: Li Lingyao , Gao Lei , Zhou Jiayan , Ma Zihui , Choy David F. , Hall Molly A.
Published: April 2021

The U.S. needs early warning systems to help it contain the spread of infectious diseases. Conventional early warning systems use lab-test results or dynamic records to signal early warning signs. New early warning systems can supplement these data with indicators of public awareness like news articles and search queries. This study aims to explore the potential of utilizing social media data to enhance early warning of the COVID-19 outbreak. To demonstrate the feasibility, this study conducts a retrospective analysis and investigates more than 14 million related Twitter postings in the date range from January 20 to March 10, 2020. With the aid of natural language processing tools and machine learning classifiers, this study classifies each of these tweets into either a signal or a non-signal. In this study, a “signal” tweet implies that the user recognized the COVID-19 outbreak risk in the U.S. This study then proposes a parameter “signal ratio” to signal warning signs of the COVID-19 pandemic over periods. Results reveal that social media data and the signal ratio can detect the hazards ahead of the COVID-19 outbreak. This claim has been validated with a leading time of 16 days through the comparison to other referenced methods based on Google trends or media news.
An explicit formula for minimizing the infected peak in an SIR epidemic model when using a fixed number of complete lockdowns
Authors: Sontag Eduardo D.
Published: April 2021

Careful timing of NPIs (non-pharmaceutical interventions) such as social distancing may avoid high “second waves” of infections of COVID-19. This paper asks what should be the timing of a set of k complete-lockdowns of prespecified lengths (such as two weeks) so as to minimize the peak of the infective compartment. Perhaps surprisingly, it is possible to give an explicit and easily computable rule for when each lockdown should commence. Simulations are used to show that the rule remains fairly accurate even if lockdowns are not perfect.
The Actual Conditions of Person-to-Object Contact and a Proposal for Prevention Measures During the COVID-19 Pandemic
Authors: Hayashi Teruaki , Hase Daisuke , Suenaga Hikaru , Ohsawa Yukio
Published: April 2021

The novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) is currently spreading worldwide, resulting in widespread infections. Although infection control measures for maintaining physical distance between people and decreasing opportunities for close contact are effective, the global infection rate continues to increase. Conversely, data concerning potentially effective countermeasures related to person-to-object contact are sparse. This study focused on human contact behavior with objects and discussed control measures against infection at various locations where contact between people and objects occurs based on the relationship between human behavior and the objects in question. In this study, 1,260 subjects residing in Tokyo and the Kanagawa prefecture, Japan, were surveyed regarding their activities on days when they went outside (between December 3 [Thursday] and December 7 [Monday], 2020) and the objects they touched during this period. The survey results revealed that, depending on the location, the types and numbers of objects that were touched differed, and the respective mean values of contact objects differed significantly. Previous studies have particularly noted the remnants of viruses on doorknobs and toilets; however, the general dynamics of these contact numbers indicated that the percentage of people coming into contact with these objects is small. Although it is impossible to disinfect all objects and spaces, our findings will provide insights into human behavior and contact with objects. These findings are expected to contribute to the prioritization of disinfection during periods of widespread infection.
Clinical validation of point-of-care SARS-COV-2 BD Veritor antigen test by a single throat swab for rapid COVID-19 status on hospital patients predominantly without overt COVID symptoms
Authors: Bonde Jesper , Ejegod Ditte , Pedersen Helle , Smith Birgitte , Cortes Dina , Leding Cæcilie , Thomsen Thorbjørn , Benfield Thomas , Schnieder Uffe Vest , Tingleff Jens , Arbyn Marc , Lisby Gorm , Andersen Ove
Published: April 2021

BACKGROUND

Fast identification of severe acute respiratory syndrome Coronavirus-2 (SARS-CoV-2) infected individuals is a strategically vital task to ensure correct management and quarantine. Rapid antigen test could be a supplement to the standard-of-care Nucleic Acid Amplification Test (NAAT). The aim of this study was to determine the accuracy of the BD Veritor SARS-CoV-2 antigen test as a screening instrument in a hospital setting.

METHODS

A cohort of prospective samples were collected from hospital staff and patients at the Emergency, Infectious Diseases and Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine departments at Hvidovre Hospital. All samples were collected using oropharyngeal swabs, and BD Veritor Antigen test results were paired with routine NAAT test results. Sensitivity, specificity, positive and negative predictive values of the antigen test were calculated using NAAT as reference.

RESULTS

Overall, 809 samples from 674 individuals were included (average age 45 years, range 0-98 years). Among all samples, 8% were SARS-CoV-2 positive by NAAT testing and 5.3% by BD Veritor. The sensitivity of the antigen test was 63.1% and specificity 99.7%. The positive predictive value was 95.3%. False-positive rate was 4%. The cycle threshold value was significantly higher among individuals with false negative antigen tests compared to true positives.

CONCLUSION

The sensitivity, specificity and positive predictive values show that the BD Veritor antigen test from oropharyngeal collected specimens performs well. Antigen testing may be a supplement, but not substitute, to NAAT testing as the primary diagnostic modality in hospital settings where fast turnaround test results may assist in decisions regarding isolation and quarantine.