Covid

BACKGROUND: Understanding the immune response kinetics to SARS-CoV-2 infection and COVID-19 vaccination is important in nursing home (NH) residents, a high-risk population. METHODS: An observational longitudinal evaluation of 37 consenting vaccinated NH residents with/without SARS-CoV-2 infection from October 2020 to July 2022 was conducted to characterize the immune response to spike protein due to infection and/or mRNA COVID-19 vaccine. Antibodies (IgG) to SARS-CoV-2 full-length spike, nucleocapsid, and receptor binding domain protein antigens were measured, and surrogate virus neutralization capacity was assessed using Meso Scale Discovery immunoassays...

The COVID-19 pandemic has emerged as a significant event of the current century, introducing substantial transformations in economic and social activities worldwide. The primary objective of this study is to investigate the relationship between daily COVID-19 cases and Pakistan stock market (PSX) return volatility. To assess the relationship between daily COVID-19 cases and the PSX return volatility, we collected secondary data from the World Health Organization (WHO) and the PSX website, specifically focusing on the PSX 100 index, spanning from March 15, 2020, to March 31, 2021...

Maladaptive personality, the motivational systems, and intolerance of uncertainty play important roles in the statistical explanation of depression and anxiety. Here, we notably examined for the first time whether symptoms of depression, anxiety, health anxiety, and fear of COVID-19 share similar associations (e.g., variance explained) with these important dispositional dimensions. For this cross-sectional study, data from 1001 participants recruited in Germany (50% women; mean age = 47.26) were collected. In separate models, we examined the cross-sectional associations of the symptoms of depression, anxiety, health anxiety, and fear of COVID-19 with the Personality Inventory for DSM Short Form Plus scales, the Behavioral Inhibition System / Flight-Fight-Freeze System / Behavioral Activation System scales, and Intolerance of Uncertainty scales...

UNLABELLED: Studies have suggested a relationship between tissue factor pathway inhibitor (TFPI) and coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) severity. However, there is inconsistency in the findings of the studies. To enhance comprehension of this relationship, a meta-analysis was conducted. PubMed, Web of Science, and Scopus databases were searched to identify eligible studies. The mean difference was employed as effect measures and the standardized mean difference (SMD) and the 95% confidence interval (CI) were utilized as a summary statistic...

BACKGROUND: The COVID-19 pandemic brought challenges requiring timely health data sharing to inform accurate decision-making at national levels. In Botswana, we adapted and integrated the Research Electronic Data Capture (REDCap) and the District Health Information System version 2 (DHIS2) platforms to support timely collection and reporting of COVID-19 cases. We focused on establishing an effective COVID-19 data flow at the national public health laboratory, being guided by the needs of health care professionals at the National Health Laboratory (NHL)...

BACKGROUND: Hydroxyurea is an evidence-based disease-modifying therapy for sickle cell disease (SCD) but is underutilized. The Integration of Mobile Health into Sickle Cell Disease Care to Increase Hydroxyurea Utilization (meSH) multicenter study leveraged mHealth to deliver targeted interventions to patients and providers. SCD studies often underenroll; and recruitment strategies in the SCD population are not widely studied. Unanticipated events can negatively impact enrollment, making it important to study strategies that ensure adequate study accrual...

BACKGROUND: Though there has been considerable effort to implement machine learning (ML) methods for health care, clinical implementation has lagged. Incorporating explainable machine learning (XML) methods through the development of a decision support tool using a design thinking approach is expected to lead to greater uptake of such tools. OBJECTIVE: This work aimed to explore how constant engagement of clinician end users can address the lack of adoption of ML tools in clinical contexts due to their lack of transparency and address challenges related to presenting explainability in a decision support interface...

As nursing education adapts to post-COVID learning and an ever-increasing data-connected world, interactive gaming experiences may help students retain information and encourage teamwork and critical thinking skills. This article explores the innovative use of an escape room as a means to interleave essential nursing concepts for first-semester students pursuing an accelerated bachelor's degree in nursing. The unique approach proved to be an effective and engaging way to introduce and reinforce key principles...

PURPOSE: This study aims to understand the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on social determinants of health (SDOH) of marginalized racial/ethnic US population groups, specifically African Americans and Asians, by leveraging natural language processing (NLP) and machine learning (ML) techniques on race-related spatiotemporal social media text data. Specifically, this study establishes the extent to which Latent Dirichlet Allocation (LDA) and Gibbs Sampling Dirichlet Multinomial Mixture (GSDMM)-based topic modeling determines social determinants of health (SDOH) categories, and how adequately custom named-entity recognition (NER) detects key SDOH factors from a race/ethnicity-related Reddit data corpus...

Following the COVID-19 infection, the sternum dislocation and wound dehiscence resulted in an infection complicating the recovery of an immunosuppressed patient after bilateral lung transplantation. Anaerobic culture (96 h) of milky cloudy wound secretion resulted in the growth of pinpoint haemolytic colonies identified as Metamycoplasma hominis (formerly Mycoplasma hominis). The search for the endogenous source of the infection found the bacterium exclusively in the patient's sputum, making a possible link to donor lung M...

Researchers and scientists can use computational-based models to turn linked data into useful information, aiding in disease diagnosis, examination, and viral containment due to recent artificial intelligence and machine learning breakthroughs. In this paper, we extensively study the role of artificial intelligence and machine learning in delivering efficient responses to the COVID-19 pandemic almost four years after its start. In this regard, we examine a large number of critical studies conducted by various academic and research communities from multiple disciplines, as well as practical implementations of artificial intelligence algorithms that suggest potential solutions in investigating different COVID-19 decision-making scenarios...

We assess the effectiveness of paid ads on social media platforms as a research recruitment tool with Latino men who have sex with men (LMSM). We deployed four paid ad campaigns July-September 2022 in English and Spanish on Meta and Grindr featuring happy or risqué images of LMSM, documenting engagement and cost metrics. The four campaigns generated a total of 1,893,738 impressions and 1078 clicks (0.057 click-through rate) with a total cost of $7,989.39. Of the 58 people who accessed the study screener, 31 completed it (53...

Vaccine hesitancy is one of the top 10 threats to global health, which affects the prevalence and fatality of vaccine-preventable diseases over the world. During the COVID-19 pandemic, people living with HIV (PLWH) may have higher risks of infection, more serious complications, and worse prognosis without the protection of the COVID-19 vaccine. A systematic review and meta-analysis aiming to evaluate the prevalence of COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy among PLWH was conducted using PubMed, Embase, and Web of Science databases for studies published between January 1, 2020, and August 31, 2022...

Assertive Community Treatment (ACT) model is the gold standard in community psychiatry serving people with severe mental illness. With its outreach-based design, the pandemic has profoundly affected the operations and functioning of ACT. The Dartmouth ACT Scale (DACTS) provides a standardized comprehensive and quantitative way to evaluate ACT quality. Results could inform nature of impact and identify areas for improvement. Current online survey used DACTS during the pandemic in April-May 2021. Clinical and administrative leadership of the 80 ACT teams in Ontario, Canada cross-sectionally rated ACT quality one-year pre-Covid (2018-2019) and one-year post the start of Covid (2020-2021)...

In studies with time-to-event outcomes, multiple, inter-correlated, and time-varying covariates are commonly observed. It is of great interest to model their joint effects by allowing a flexible functional form and to delineate their relative contributions to survival risk. A class of semiparametric transformation (ST) models offers flexible specifications of the intensity function and can be a general framework to accommodate nonlinear covariate effects. In this paper, we propose a partial-linear single-index (PLSI) transformation model that reduces the dimensionality of multiple covariates into a single index and provides interpretable estimates of the covariate effects...

BACKGROUND: Age, multimorbidity, immunodeficiency and frailty of older people living in nursing homes make them vulnerable to COVID-19 and overall mortality. OBJECTIVE: To estimate overall and COVID-19 mortality parameters and analyse their predictive factors in older people living in nursing homes over a 2-year period. METHOD: Design: A 2-year prospective longitudinal multicentre study was conducted between 2020 and 2022. SETTING: This study involved five nursing homes in Central Catalonia (Spain)...

OBJECTIVE: The prevalence of post-COVID headaches is not low. The eye can be affected by this infection, but it is not clear yet what the relationship is between persistent headaches and the thickness of the retinal nerve fiber layer (RNFL) after COVID-19 infection this study aims to investigate the relationship between these subjects. METHODS: In this retrospective study, in patients who have had a persistent headache, SD-OCT analysis of RNFL was obtained, and RNLF thickness values before and after COVID-19 infection were analyzed...

BACKGROUND: The COVID-19 pandemic prompted the implementation of precautions to contain the disease, including lockdowns and social isolation. Previous studies have investigated suicide rates among children and adolescents during the pandemic and have found varying results. We speculated how the two lockdowns influenced suicidal behaviour in children and adolescents in Denmark. OBJECTIVE: This study aimed to investigate the effect of lockdowns during the COVID-19 pandemic on suicide attempts, as measured by the incidence rate in all self-poisonings with mild analgesics among children and adolescents...

Discourses of global education, citizenship and competence have been characterising the higher education literature in recent years. The COVID-19 pandemic has both heightened the relevance of global citizenship education and presented new challenges as educators and students continue to grapple with the lasting impact and implications. This paper presents the findings of a research study which looked at the perceived learning outcomes of a 'virtual exchange' project which addressed issues relevant to global citizenship, involving students in European and Southern Mediterranean countries in online dialogue programmes...

The increasingly acute consequences of the climate crisis, the COVID-19 pandemic, and the energy crisis have put industrial policy back. The papers in this issue examine how different countries implement industrial policy for sustainable development from a variety of perspectives. A successful transition to sustainable development seems to require not only the mix of carrots and sticks but also a right mix of creation versus destruction, as in the case of the creation of renewable businesses and the destruction of fossil-fuel businesses...