The age again in the eye of the COVID-19 storm: evidence-based decision making

Coronavirus SARS-CoV-2; COVID-19; 2019-nCoV; Immunosenescència; ConfinamentCoronavirus SARS-CoV-2; COVID-19; 2019-nCoV; Inmunosenescencia; ConfinamientoCoronavirus SARS-CoV-2; COVID-19; 2019-nCoV; Immunosenescence; LockdownBackground One hundred fifty million contagions, more than 3 million deaths and little more than 1 year of COVID-19 have changed our lives and our health management systems forever. Ageing is known to be one of the significant determinants for COVID-19 severity. Two main reasons underlie this: immunosenescence and age correlation with main COVID-19 comorbidities such as hypertension or dyslipidaemia. This study has two aims. The first is to obtain cut-off points for laboratory parameters that can help us in clinical decision-making. The second one is to analyse the effect of pandemic lockdown on epidemiological, clinical, and laboratory parameters concerning the severity of the COVID-19. For these purposes, 257 of SARSCoV2 inpatients during pandemic confinement were included in this study. Moreover, 584 case records from a previously analysed series, were compared with the present study data. Results Concerning the characteristics of lockdown series, mild cases accounted for 14.4, 54.1% were moderate and 31.5%, severe. There were 32.5% of home contagions, 26.3% community transmissions, 22.5% nursing home contagions, and 8.8% corresponding to frontline worker contagions regarding epidemiological features. Age > 60 and male sex are hereby confirmed as severity determinants. Equally, higher severity was significantly associated with higher IL6, CRP, ferritin, LDH, and leukocyte counts, and a lower percentage of lymphocyte, CD4 and CD8 count. Comparing this cohort with a previous 584-cases series, mild cases were less than those analysed in the first moment of the pandemic and dyslipidaemia became more frequent than before. IL-6, CRP and LDH values above 69 pg/mL, 97 mg/L and 328 U/L respectively, as well as a CD4 T-cell count below 535 cells/μL, were the best cut-offs predicting severity since these parameters offered reliable areas under the curve. Conclusion Age and sex together with selected laboratory parameters on admission can help us predict COVID-19 severity and, therefore, make clinical and resource management decisions. Demographic features associated with lockdown might affect the homogeneity of the data and the robustness of the results.This work has been carried out without funding

The age again in the eye of the COVID-19 storm: evidence-based decision making

Background: One hundred fifty million contagions, more than 3 million deaths and little more than 1 year of COVID-19 have changed our lives and our health management systems forever. Ageing is known to be one of the significant determinants for COVID-19 severity. Two main reasons underlie this: immunosenescence and age correlation with main COVID-19 comorbidities such as hypertension or dyslipidaemia. This study has two aims. The first is to obtain cut-off points for laboratory parameters that can help us in clinical decision-making. The second one is to analyse the effect of pandemic lockdown on epidemiological, clinical, and laboratory parameters concerning the severity of the COVID-19. For these purposes, 257 of SARSCoV2 inpatients during pandemic confinement were included in this study. Moreover, 584 case records from a previously analysed series, were compared with the present study data. Results: Concerning the characteristics of lockdown series, mild cases accounted for 14.4, 54.1% were moderate and 31.5%, severe. There were 32.5% of home contagions, 26.3% community transmissions, 22.5% nursing home contagions, and 8.8% corresponding to frontline worker contagions regarding epidemiological features. Age > 60 and male sex are hereby confirmed as severity determinants. Equally, higher severity was significantly associated with higher IL6, CRP, ferritin, LDH, and leukocyte counts, and a lower percentage of lymphocyte, CD4 and CD8 count. Comparing this cohort with a previous 584-cases series, mild cases were less than those analysed in the first moment of the pandemic and dyslipidaemia became more frequent than before. IL-6, CRP and LDH values above 69 pg/mL, 97 mg/L and 328 U/L respectively, as well as a CD4 T-cell count below 535 cells/?L, were the best cut-offs predicting severity since these parameters offered reliable areas under the curve. Conclusion: Age and sex together with selected laboratory parameters on admission can help us predict COVID-19 severity and, therefore, make clinical and resource management decisions. Demographic features associated with lockdown might affect the homogeneity of the data and the robustness of the results

COVID-19 : Age, Interleukin-6, C-reactive protein, and lymphocytes as key clues from a multicentre retrospective study

Background: The SARS-CoV-2 infection has widely spread to become the greatest public health challenge to date, the COVID-19 pandemic. Different fatality rates among countries are probably due to non-standardized records being carried out by local health authorities. The Spanish case-fatality rate is 11.22%, far higher than those reported in Asia or by other European countries. A multicentre retrospective study of demographic, clinical, laboratory and immunological features of 584 Spanish COVID-19 hospitalized patients and their outcomes was performed. The use of renin-angiotensin system blockers was also analysed as a risk factor. Results: In this study, 27.4% of cases presented a mild course, 42.1% a moderate one and for 30.5% of cases, the course was severe. Ages ranged from 18 to 98 (average 63). Almost 60 % (59.8%) of patients were male. Interleukin 6 was higher as severity increased. On the other hand, CD8 lymphocyte count was significantly lower as severity grew and subpopulations CD4, CD8, CD19, and NK showed concordant lowering trends. Severity-related natural killer percent descents were evidenced just within aged cases. A significant severity-related decrease of CD4 lymphocytes was found in males. The use of angiotensin-converting enzyme inhibitors was associated with a better prognosis. The angiotensin II receptor blocker use was associated with a more severe course. Conclusions: Age and age-related comorbidities, such as dyslipidaemia, hypertension or diabetes, determined more frequent severe forms of the disease in this study than in previous literature cohorts. Our cases are older than those so far reported and the clinical course of the disease is found to be impaired by age. Immunosenescence might be therefore a suitable explanation for the hampering of immune system effectors. The adaptive immunity would become exhausted and a strong but ineffective and almost deleterious innate response would account for COVID-19 severity. Angiotensin-converting enzyme inhibitors used by hypertensive patients have a protective effect in regards to COVID-19 severity in our series. Conversely, patients on angiotensin II receptor blockers showed a severer disease

Evaluation of the Antimicrobial Activity of Cationic Peptides Loaded in Surface-Modified Nanoliposomes against Foodborne Bacteria

Bacteria are a common group of foodborne pathogens presenting public health issues with a large economic burden for the food industry. Our work focused on a solution to this problem by evaluating antibiotic activity against two bacteria (Listeria monocytogenes and Escherichia coli) of relevance in the field of foodstuffs. We used two approaches: (i) structural modification of the antimicrobial peptides and (ii) nano-vehiculisation of the modified peptides into polymer-coated liposomes. To achieve this, two antimicrobial peptides, herein named ‘peptide +2′ and ‘peptide +5′ were synthesised using the solid phase method. The physicochemical characterisation of the peptides was carried out using measurements of surface tension and dynamic light scattering. Additionally, nanoliposomes were elaborated by the ethanol injection method and coated with a cationic polymer (Eudragit E-100) through the layer-by-layer process. Liposome characterisation, in terms of size, polydispersity and zeta potential, was undertaken using dynamic light scattering. The results show that the degree of hydrophilic modification in the peptide leads to different characteristics of amphipathicity and subsequently to different physicochemical behaviour. On the other hand, antibacterial activity against both bacteria was slightly altered after modifying peptide sequence. Nonetheless, after the encapsulation of the peptides into polymer-coated nano-liposomes, the antibacterial activity increased approximately 2000-fold against that of L. monocytogenes

Eficiencia del intercambio gaseoso en un sistema agroforestal de Cacao – Olmo español en el noroeste de Antioquia, Colombia

The cultivation of cocoa (Theobroma cacao L.) under agroforestry systems, generates beneficial environmental conditions for cocoa crop physiology. An experiment was conducted to evaluate the effect of shade trees (Spanish elm trees - Cordia alliodora (Ruiz & Pavon) Oken) planted along with cocoa (clone CCN51) under an agroforestry system on cocoa’s gas exchange parameters regarding the reduction of the light intensity over the cocoa-leaf canopy. The experiment was developed in the Centro de Investigación el Nus - Agrosavia, located in the municipality of San Roque, Antioquia. The experimental design used was a randomized complete block design for the cocoa planting distances from the first row of Spanish elm trees interfacing with the cocoa plantation (4 m, 7 m, 10 m, 13 m). The statistical analysis was performed by estimating the area under the curve (AUC) of each variable, using the trapezoid equation of the statistical environment SAS® 9.4, an analysis of variances was performed to determine if there were statistical differences between treatments, and Tukey’s test at 5% probability was used to estimated statistical differences between means. There were significant differences in the treatments regarding the net photosynthetic rate (A), stomatal conductance (gs), and transpiration rate (E). The highest values of gas exchange parameters were found in the plants located 13 m from elm trees, while the lowest values were presented at 4 m. Plants at 7 m and 10 m always showed intermediate values for all gas exchange parameters. In the same sense, plants at 13 m had a higher radiation use efficiency (RUE) compared to plants at 4 m. The arboreal component modified the environmental conditions on cocoa trees regarding its distribution, generating a differential response to the physiological behavior of cocoa plants.El cultivo de cacao (Theobroma cacao L.) bajo sistemas agroforestales, genera condiciones ambientales beneficiosas para la fisiología de este cultivo. Se llevó a cabo un experimento para evaluar el efecto de los árboles de sombrío (árboles de olmo españoles - Cordia alliodora) plantados en asocio con cacao (clon CCN51) bajo un sistema agroforestal, para analizar los efectos de la intensidad de la luz que llega al dosel de la hoja de cacao sobre los parámetros de intercambio gaseoso. El experimento se desarrolló en el Centro de Investigación el Nus - Agrosavia, ubicado en el municipio de San Roque (Antioquia). El diseño experimental utilizado fue de bloques completos al azar para las distancias de plantación de cacao de la primera fila de olmos españoles en la intersección con la plantación de cacao (4 m, 7 m, 10 m, 13 m). El análisis estadístico se realizó estimando el área bajo curva de cada variable (AUC), utilizando la ecuación trapezoidal por medio del entorno estadístico SAS® 9,4, para determinar diferencias significativas entre tratamientos se realizó un análisis de varianza, y se usó la prueba de Tukey al 5% de probabilidad para estimar diferencias entre medias. Hubo diferencias en los tratamientos con respecto a la tasa neta de fotosintética (A), la conductividad estomática (gs) y la transpiración (E). Los valores más altos de los parámetros de intercambio de gaseoso se encontraron en las plantas ubicadas a 13 m de los Olmos, mientras que los valores más bajos se presentaron en la posición de 4 m. Las plantas en posición 7 m y 10 m siempre presentaron valores intermedios para todos los parámetros de intercambio gaseoso. En el mismo sentido, las plantas en la posición de 13 m presentaron un mayor uso eficiente de la radiación (RUE) en comparación con las plantas en la posición de 4 m. El componente arbóreo modificó las condiciones ambientales sobre los árboles de cacao en relación con su distribución, generando una respuesta diferencial del comportamiento fisiológico de las plantas de caca

International Journal of Electrical Power and Energy Systems

10544

The age again in the eye of the COVID-19 storm: evidence-based decision making.

One hundred fifty million contagions, more than 3 million deaths and little more than 1 year of COVID-19 have changed our lives and our health management systems forever. Ageing is known to be one of the significant determinants for COVID-19 severity. Two main reasons underlie this: immunosenescence and age correlation with main COVID-19 comorbidities such as hypertension or dyslipidaemia. This study has two aims. The first is to obtain cut-off points for laboratory parameters that can help us in clinical decision-making. The second one is to analyse the effect of pandemic lockdown on epidemiological, clinical, and laboratory parameters concerning the severity of the COVID-19. For these purposes, 257 of SARSCoV2 inpatients during pandemic confinement were included in this study. Moreover, 584 case records from a previously analysed series, were compared with the present study data. Concerning the characteristics of lockdown series, mild cases accounted for 14.4, 54.1% were moderate and 31.5%, severe. There were 32.5% of home contagions, 26.3% community transmissions, 22.5% nursing home contagions, and 8.8% corresponding to frontline worker contagions regarding epidemiological features. Age > 60 and male sex are hereby confirmed as severity determinants. Equally, higher severity was significantly associated with higher IL6, CRP, ferritin, LDH, and leukocyte counts, and a lower percentage of lymphocyte, CD4 and CD8 count. Comparing this cohort with a previous 584-cases series, mild cases were less than those analysed in the first moment of the pandemic and dyslipidaemia became more frequent than before. IL-6, CRP and LDH values above 69 pg/mL, 97 mg/L and 328 U/L respectively, as well as a CD4 T-cell count below 535 cells/μL, were the best cut-offs predicting severity since these parameters offered reliable areas under the curve. Age and sex together with selected laboratory parameters on admission can help us predict COVID-19 severity and, therefore, make clinical and resource management decisions. Demographic features associated with lockdown might affect the homogeneity of the data and the robustness of the results

Financiamiento de la educación superior en América Latina Funding higher education in Latin America

El trabajo parte de un panorama general de la situación de la educación superior en América Latina, tanto de su crecimiento cuantitativo como de las políticas públicas más relevantes. En la segunda parte es analizada una de esas políticas, la de financiamiento de las universidades públicas. Para ese trabajo fueran utilizados los datos basados en los estudios de lesalc/UNESCO. Por fin, el texto discute un plan de acción para el establecimiento de una agenda de financiamiento en la educación superior.<br>This work is based on an overview of the situation of higher education in Latin America, both of its quantitative growth and its more relevant public policies. The second part examines one of those policies: that of funding public universities. The work used data based on studies by IESALC/UNESCO. Finally, an action plan is discussed for the establishment of an agenda to fund higher education