COVID-19 outbreaks in aged-care facilities in Australia

Background: Aged-care facilities (ACF’s) provide unique challenges when implementing infection control methods for respiratory outbreaks such as COVID-19. Research on this highly vulnerable setting is lacking and there was no national reporting data of COVID-19 cases in ACFs in Australia early in the pandemic. We aimed to estimate the burden of aged-care worker (ACW) infections and outbreaks of COVID-19 in Australian aged-care. Methods: A line list of publicly available aged-care related COVID-19 reported cases from January 25 to June 10, 2020 was created and was enhanced by matching data extracted from media reports of aged-care related COVID-19 relevant outbreaks and reports. Rate ratios (RR) were used to predict risk of infection in ACW and aged-care residents, and were calculated independently, by comparing overall cases to ACW and aged-care residents' cases. Results: A total of 14 ACFs with COVID-19 cases were recorded by June 2020 nationwide, with a high case fatality rate (CFR) of 50% (n = 34) and 100% (n = 3) seen in two ACFs. Analysis on the resident risk found that the COVID-19 risk is 1.27 times higher (unadjusted RR 1.27 95% confidence interval [CI] 1.00 to1.61; P = 0.047) as compared with the risk of infection in the general population. In over 60% of cases identified in ACFs, the source of infection in the index case was unknown. A total of 28 deaths associated within ACFs were reported, accounting for 54.9% of total deaths in New South Wales and 26.9% of total deaths in Australia. Conclusions: This high-risk population requires additional prevention and control measures, such as routine testing of all staff and patients regardless of symptoms. Prompt isolation and quarantine as soon as a case is confirmed within a facility is essential

Estimated Mask Use and Temporal Relationship to COVID-19 Epidemiology of Black Lives Matter Protests in 12 Cities

Background: There is an increased risk of SARS-CoV-2 transmission during mass gatherings and a risk of asymptomatic infection. We aimed to estimate the use of masks during Black Lives Matter (BLM) protests and whether these protests increased the risk of COVID-19. Two reviewers screened 496 protest images for mask use, with high inter-rater reliability. Protest intensity, use of tear gas, government control measures, and testing rates were estimated in 12 cities. A correlation analysis was conducted to assess the potential effect of mask use and other measures, adjusting for testing rates, on COVID-19 epidemiology 4 weeks (two incubation periods) post-protests. Mask use ranged from 69 to 96% across protests. There was no increase in the incidence of COVID-19 post-protest in 11 cities. After adjusting for testing rates, only Miami, which involved use of tear gas and had high protest intensity, showed a clear increase in COVID-19 after one incubation period post-protest. No significant correlation was found between incidence and protest factors. Our study showed that protests in most cities studied did not increase COVID-19 incidence in 2020, and a high level of mask use was seen. The absence of an epidemic surge within two incubation periods of a protest is indicative that the protests did not have a major influence on epidemic activity, except in Miami. With the globally circulating highly transmissible Alpha, Delta, and Omicron variants, layered interventions such as mandated mask use, physical distancing, testing, and vaccination should be applied for mass gatherings in the future

Erratum to “Estimating the burden of COVID-19 on the Australian healthcare workers and health system during the first six months of the pandemic” [International Journal of Nursing Studies, 114 (2021), 103811] (International Journal of Nursing Studies (2021) 114, (S0020748920302972), (10.1016/j.ijnurstu.2020.103811))

The publisher regrets to inform that due to a typesetter error during the correction of the proofs, the following errors were missed: In Table 2: National HCW should be 2.69 with a 95% Cl of 2.48-2.93, as indicated in the text. On page 9, the duplicate word “suggests” was not removed. The Publisher apologises for these errors and any inconvenience caused

Stress in nurses : stress-related affect and its determinants examined over the nursing day

Peer reviewedPostprin

Comparing Diet and Exercise Monitoring Using Smartphone App and Paper Diary: A Two-Phase Intervention Study

Background: There is increasing recognition that personalized approaches may be more effective in helping people establish healthier eating patterns and exercise more, and that this approach may be particularly effective in adolescents. Objective: The objective of this study was to investigate the use of a smartphone app (FoodWiz2) in supporting healthy lifestyle choices in adolescence. Methods: Participants (N=34: 11 male, 23 female) aged 16-19 years in full- or part-time education were recruited from sixth form colleges, schools, and other further education establishments in Norfolk and Suffolk, United Kingdom, between February and May 2015. Participants recorded food intake and exercise using a paper diary for 4-5 weeks and then used the app for the same duration. Initial nutrition education and general support were provided during the paper diary use, but the app included personalized messages sent in response to app activity. At the end of each study phase, participants completed an online questionnaire to describe their experience of using the paper diary and app. Results: Record completion declined throughout the study, possibly affected by examination pressure. Food intake data showed increased fruit consumption and significantly reduced consumption of chocolate snacks (P=.01) and fizzy drinks (P=.002) among participants using the app. Questionnaire responses indicated that the app was generally preferred to the paper diary, in particular, the app was seen as less boring to use (P=.03) and more acceptable in social settings (P<.001). Conclusions: This app-based approach has shown the potential for a more effective approach to improving adolescent diet and exercise levels

Application of ecological momentary assessment in stress-related diseases

Many physical diseases have been reported to be associated with psychosocial factors. In these diseases, assessment relies mainly on subjective symptoms in natural settings. Therefore, it is important to assess symptoms and/or relationships between psychosocial factors and symptoms in natural settings. Symptoms are usually assessed by self-report when patients visit their doctors. However, self-report by recall has an intrinsic problem; "recall bias". Recently, ecological momentary assessment (EMA) has been proposed as a reliable method to assess and record events and subjective symptoms as well as physiological and behavioral variables in natural settings. Although EMA is a useful method to assess stress-related diseases, it has not been fully acknowledged, especially by clinicians. Therefore, the present brief review introduces the application and future direction of EMA for the assessment and intervention for stress-related diseases

Modes of random lasers

In conventional lasers, the optical cavity that confines the photons also determines essential characteristics of the lasing modes such as wavelength, emission pattern, directivity, and polarization. In random lasers, which do not have mirrors or a well-defined cavity, light is confined within the gain medium by means of multiple scattering. The sharp peaks in the emission spectra of semiconductor powders, first observed in 1999, has therefore lead to an intense debate about the nature of the lasing modes in these so-called lasers with resonant feedback. We review numerical and theoretical studies aimed at clarifying the nature of the lasing modes in disordered scattering systems with gain. The past decade has witnessed the emergence of the idea that even the low-Q resonances of such open systems could play a role similar to the cavity modes of a conventional laser and produce sharp lasing peaks. We focus here on the nearthreshold single-mode lasing regime where nonlinear effects associated with gain saturation and mode competition can be neglected.We discuss in particular the link between random laser modes near threshold and the resonances or quasi-bound (QB) states of the passive system without gain. For random lasers in the localized (strong scattering) regime, QB states and threshold lasing modes were found to be nearly identical within the scattering medium. These studies were later extended to the case of more lossy systems such as random systems in the diffusive regime, where it was observed that increasing the openness of such systems eventually resulted in measurable and increasing differences between quasi-bound states and lasing modes. Very recently, a theory able to treat lasers with arbitrarily complex and open cavities such as random lasers established that the threshold lasing modes are in fact distinct from QB states of the passive system and are better described in terms of a new class of states, the so-called constant-flux states. The correspondence between QB states and lasing modes is found to improve in the strong scattering limit, confirming the validity of initial work in the strong scattering limit. © 2010 Optical Society of America

Comparison of Cross-Sectional and Daily Reports in Studying the Relationship Between Depression and Use of Alcohol in Response to Stress in College Students

Alcohol use in response to stress in college students may be affected by the presence of symptoms of depression. However, this is a challenging issue to study due to the various methodologies used as well as the possible effect of depressed mood on the accuracy of self-report. This study focused on methodological issues as possible sources of equivocal findings regarding the relationship between depressed mood and alcohol use in response to stress in a college student population. Findings may differ when these variables are examined cross-sectionally versus longitudinally. Methods : Depressed mood and alcohol coping were assessed both cross-sectionally and repeatedly over time in 125 college students. Participants were assessed at baseline using a diagnostic self-report measure of depression as well as a measure of typical coping style. In addition, daily measures of stress, symptoms of depression, and coping were completed for 45 consecutive days. Results : Different relationships between depressed mood and alcohol coping were found when depressed individuals were analyzed separately from those who were not depressed. Although a significant correlation between daily use of alcohol coping and daily depressed mood was found, there were no differences between depressed and nondepressed participants (as assessed at baseline) on daily alcohol coping. Conclusions : These findings have implications for research design as well as clinical assessment regarding the relationships between mood and use of alcohol for coping; the findings suggest that cross-sectional measures of mood and alcohol use may obscure differences as assessed repeatedly over time. In addition, these findings support the utility of frequent assessment of depressive symptoms when implementing or evaluating programs that target coping skills in college students.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/65757/1/j.1530-0277.2000.tb04552.x.pd

Performance Analysis of Effective Methods for Solving Band Matrix SLAEs after Parabolic Nonlinear PDEs

This paper presents an experimental performance study of implementations of three different types of algorithms for solving band matrix systems of linear algebraic equations (SLAEs) after parabolic nonlinear partial differential equations -- direct, symbolic, and iterative, the former two of which were introduced in Veneva and Ayriyan (arXiv:1710.00428v2). An iterative algorithm is presented -- the strongly implicit procedure (SIP), also known as the Stone method. This method uses the incomplete LU (ILU(0)) decomposition. An application of the Hotelling-Bodewig iterative algorithm is suggested as a replacement of the standard forward-backward substitutions. The upsides and the downsides of the SIP method are discussed. The complexity of all the investigated methods is presented. Performance analysis of the implementations is done using the high-performance computing (HPC) clusters "HybriLIT" and "Avitohol". To that purpose, the experimental setup and the results from the conducted computations on the individual computer systems are presented and discussed.Comment: 10 pages, 2 figure

Helical Chirality: a Link between Local Interactions and Global Topology in DNA

DNA supercoiling plays a major role in many cellular functions. The global DNA conformation is however intimately linked to local DNA-DNA interactions influencing both the physical properties and the biological functions of the supercoiled molecule. Juxtaposition of DNA double helices in ubiquitous crossover arrangements participates in multiple functions such as recombination, gene regulation and DNA packaging. However, little is currently known about how the structure and stability of direct DNA-DNA interactions influence the topological state of DNA. Here, a crystallographic analysis shows that due to the intrinsic helical chirality of DNA, crossovers of opposite handedness exhibit markedly different geometries. While right-handed crossovers are self-fitted by sequence-specific groove-backbone interaction and bridging Mg2+ sites, left-handed crossovers are juxtaposed by groove-groove interaction. Our previous calculations have shown that the different geometries result in differential stabilisation in solution, in the presence of divalent cations. The present study reveals that the various topological states of the cell are associated with different inter-segmental interactions. While the unstable left-handed crossovers are exclusively formed in negatively supercoiled DNA, stable right-handed crossovers constitute the local signature of an unusual topological state in the cell, such as the positively supercoiled or relaxed DNA. These findings not only provide a simple mechanism for locally sensing the DNA topology but also lead to the prediction that, due to their different tertiary intra-molecular interactions, supercoiled molecules of opposite signs must display markedly different physical properties. Sticky inter-segmental interactions in positively supercoiled or relaxed DNA are expected to greatly slow down the slithering dynamics of DNA. We therefore suggest that the intrinsic helical chirality of DNA may have oriented the early evolutionary choices for DNA topology