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  • McCormick posted an update 9 months ago

    electronic health records for outcomes related to COVID-19 such as hospitalisation or death, and other test results.

    High-performing POCTs for community use could be transformational. Real-time results could lead to personal and public health impacts such as reducing onward household transmission of SARS-CoV2 infection, improving surveillance of health and social care staff, contributing to accurate prevalence estimates, and understanding of SARS-CoV2 transmission dynamics in the population. In contrast, poorly performing POCTs could have negative effects, so it is necessary to undertake community-based diagnostic accuracy evaluations before rolling these out.

    ISRCTN, ISRCTN14226970.

    ISRCTN, ISRCTN14226970.

    Current tasks measuring social cognition are usually ‘pen and paper’ tasks, have ceiling effects and include complicated test instructions that may be difficult to understand for those with cognitive impairment. We therefore aimed to develop a set of simple, instructionless, quantitative, tasks of emotion recognition using the methodology of eye tracking, with the subsequent aim of assessing their utility in individuals with behavioural variant frontotemporal dementia (bvFTD).

    Using the Eyelink 1000 Plus eye tracker, 18 bvFTD and 22 controls completed tasks of simple and complex emotion recognition that involved viewing four images (one target face (simple) or pair of eyes (complex) and the others non-target) followed by a target emotion word and lastly the original four images alongside the emotion word. A dwell time change score was then calculated as the main outcome measure by subtracting the percentage dwell time for the target image before the emotion word appeared away from the percentage dwell timor assessing social cognition in individuals with bvFTD, being well-tolerated and able to overcome some of the problems associated with standard psychometric tasks.

    Trichoderma reesei is a filamentous fungus that is important as an industrial producer of cellulases and hemicellulases due to its high secretion of these enzymes and outstanding performance in industrial fermenters. However, the reduction of enzyme production caused by carbon catabolite repression (CCR) has long been a problem. Disruption of a typical transcriptional regulator, Cre1, does not sufficiently suppress this reduction in the presence of glucose.

    We found that deletion of an α-tubulin (tubB) in T. reesei enhanced both the amount and rate of secretory protein production. Also, the tubulin-disrupted (ΔtubB) strain had high enzyme production and the same enzyme profile even if the strain was cultured in a glucose-containing medium. From transcriptome analysis, the ΔtubB strain exhibited upregulation of both cellulase and hemicellulase genes including some that were not originally induced by cellulose. Moreover, cellobiose transporter genes and the other sugar transporter genes were highly upregulated, and simultaneous uptake of glucose and cellobiose was also observed in the ΔtubB strain. These results suggested that the ΔtubB strain was released from CCR.

    Trichoderma reesei α-tubulin is involved in the transcription of cellulase and hemicellulase genes, as well as in CCR. This is the first report of overcoming CCR by disrupting α-tubulin gene in T. reesei. The disruption of α-tubulin is a promising approach for creating next-generation enzyme-producing strains of T. find more reesei.

    Trichoderma reesei α-tubulin is involved in the transcription of cellulase and hemicellulase genes, as well as in CCR. This is the first report of overcoming CCR by disrupting α-tubulin gene in T. reesei. The disruption of α-tubulin is a promising approach for creating next-generation enzyme-producing strains of T. reesei.

    Self-stigma is highly prevalent in serious mental illness (SMI) and is associated with poorer clinical and functional outcomes. Narrative enhancement and cognitive therapy (NECT) is a group-based intervention combining psychoeducation, cognitive restructuring and story-telling exercises to reduce self-stigma and its impact on recovery-related outcomes. Despite evidence of its effectiveness on self-stigma in schizophrenia-related disorders, it is unclear whether NECT can impact social functioning.

    This is a 12-centre stepped-wedge cluster randomized controlled trial of NECT effectiveness on social functioning in SMI, compared to treatment as usual. One hundred and twenty participants diagnosed with schizophrenia, bipolar disorder or borderline personality disorder will be recruited across the 12 sites. The 12 centres participating to the study will be randomized into two groups one group (group 1) receiving the intervention at the beginning of the study (T0) and one group (group 2) being a control group for the first 6 months and receiving the intervention after (T1). Outcomes will be compared in both groups at T0 and T1, and 6-month and 12-month outcomes for groups 1 and 2 will be measured without a control group at T2 (to evaluate the stability of the effects over time). Evaluations will be conducted by assessors blind to treatment allocation. The primary outcome is personal and social performance compared across randomization groups. Secondary outcomes include self-stigma, self-esteem, wellbeing, quality of life, illness severity, depressive symptoms and personal recovery.

    NECT is a promising intervention for reducing self-stigma and improving recovery-related outcomes in SMI. If shown to be effective in this trial, it is likely that NECT will be implemented in psychiatric rehabilitation services with subsequent implications for routine clinical practice.

    ClinicalTrials.gov NCT03972735 .Trial registration date 31 May 2019.

    ClinicalTrials.gov NCT03972735 . Trial registration date 31 May 2019.

    Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus-2 (SARS-CoV-2), an emerging virus, has caused a global pandemic. Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), caused by SARS-CoV-2, has led to high hospitalization rates worldwide. Little is known about the occurrence of in-hospital cardiac arrest (IHCA) and high mortality rates have been proposed. The aim of this study was to investigate the incidence, characteristics and outcome of IHCA during the pandemic in comparison to an earlier period.

    This was a retrospective analysis of data prospectively recorded during 3-month-periods 2019 and 2020 at the University Medical Centre Hamburg-Eppendorf (Germany). All consecutive adult patients with IHCA were included. Clinical parameters, neurological outcomes and organ failure/support were assessed.

    During the study period hospital admissions declined from 18,262 (2019) to 13,994 (2020) (- 23%). The IHCA incidence increased from 4.6 (2019 84 IHCA cases) to 6.6 (2020 93 IHCA cases)/1000 hospital admissions. Median stay before IHCA was 4 (1-9) days.

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