scholarly journals The Impact of Transcriptomics on the Fight against Tuberculosis: Focus on Biomarkers, BCG Vaccination, and Immunotherapy

2011 ◽  
Vol 2011 ◽  
pp. 1-6 ◽  
Author(s):  
Carlos Rodrigo Zárate-Bladés ◽  
Celio Lopes Silva ◽  
Geraldo A. Passos

In 1882 Robert Koch identifiedMycobacterium tuberculosisas the causative agent of tuberculosis (TB), a disease as ancient as humanity. Although there has been more than 125 years of scientific effort aimed at understanding the disease, serious problems in TB persist that contribute to the estimated 1/3 of the world population infected with this pathogen. Nonetheless, during the first decade of the 21st century, there were new advances in the fight against TB. The development of high-throughput technologies is one of the major contributors to this advance, because it allows for a global vision of the biological phenomenon. This paper analyzes how transcriptomics are supporting the translation of basic research into therapies by resolving three key issues in the fight against TB: (a) the discovery of biomarkers, (b) the explanation of the variability of protection conferred by BCG vaccination, and (c) the development of new immunotherapeutic strategies to treat TB.

Author(s):  
Giovanni Gabutti ◽  
Erica d’Anchera ◽  
Francesco De Motoli ◽  
Marta Savio ◽  
Armando Stefanati

Starting from December 2019, SARS-CoV-2 has forcefully entered our lives and profoundly changed all the habits of the world population. The COVID-19 pandemic has violently impacted the European continent, first involving only some European countries, Italy in particular, and then spreading to all member states, albeit in different ways and times. The ways SARS-CoV-2 spreads are still partly unknown; to quantify and adequately respond to the pandemic, various parameters and reporting systems have been introduced at national and European levels to promptly recognize the most alarming epidemiological situations and therefore limit the impact of the virus on the health of the population. The relevant key points to implement adequate measures to face the epidemic include identifying the population groups most involved in terms of morbidity and mortality, identifying the events mostly related to the spreading of the virus and recognizing the various viral mutations. The main objective of this work is to summarize the epidemiological situation of the COVID-19 pandemic in Europe and Italy almost a year after the first reported case in our continent. The secondary objectives include the definition of the epidemiological parameters used to monitor the epidemic, the explanation of superspreading events and the description of how the epidemic has impacted on health and social structures, with a particular focus on Italy.


2021 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Naeem Abas ◽  
Esmat Kalair ◽  
Saad Dilshad ◽  
Nasrullah Khan

PurposeThe authors present the impact of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic on community lifelines. The state machinery has several departments to secure essential lifelines during disasters and epidemics. Many countries have formed national disaster management authorities to deal with manmade and natural disasters. Typical lifelines include food, water, safety and security, continuity of services, medicines and healthcare equipment, gas, oil and electricity supplies, telecommunication services, transportation means and education system. Supply chain systems are often affected by disasters, which should have alternative sources and routes. Doctors, nurses and medics are front-line soldiers against diseases during pandemics.Design/methodology/approachThe COVID-19 pandemic has revealed how much we all are connected yet unprepared for natural disasters. Political leaders prioritize infrastructures, education but overlook the health sector. During the recent pandemic, developed countries faced more mortalities, fatalities and casualties than developing countries. This work surveys the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on health, energy, environment, industry, education and food supply lines.FindingsThe COVID-19 pandemic caused 7% reductions in greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions during global lockdowns. In addition, COVID-19 has affected social fabric, behaviors, cultures and official routines. Around 2.84 bn doses have been administrated, with approximately 806 m people (10.3% of the world population) are fully vaccinated around the world to date. Most developed vaccines are being evaluated for new variants like alpha, beta, gamma, epsilons and delta first detected in the UK, South Africa, Brazil, USA and India. The COVID-19 pandemic has affected all sectors in society, yet this paper critically reviews the impact of COVID-19 on health and energy lifelines.Practical implicationsThis paper critically reviews the health and energy lifelines during pandemic COVID-19 and explains how these essential services were interrupted.Originality/valueThis paper critically reviews the health and energy lifelines during pandemic COVID-19 and explains how these essential services were interrupted.


2021 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. e30510212535
Author(s):  
Gabriel Kiaro Leite Nunes ◽  
Karinne Alice Santos de Araújo ◽  
Thais Ranielle Souza de Oliveira ◽  
Marcelina da Conceição Botelho Teixeira ◽  
Ieler Ferreira Ribeiro ◽  
...  

The COVID-19 pandemic brought about major changes in the lifestyle of the world population. Due to the lack of vaccines or a definitive treatment for disease, governments around the world have adopted social isolation and quarantine as methods to control the spread of the virus. Objective: Thus, the objective of this study was to discuss how social isolation and quarantine periods affected people's mental health and quality of life during the COVID-19 pandemic. Methods: An integrative literature review was carried out during the COVID-19 pandemic between March and September 2020, establishing the following guiding question: How did social isolation and quarantine affect the mental health and quality of life of the population in the COVID-19 pandemic? Results: The final sample consisted of nineteen (19) articles, two (2) addressed depression during the pandemic period, three (3) presented the pandemic and the relationship with sociodemographic aspects, five (5) analyzed mental health in the pandemic, four (4) reported the impact of COVID-19 on the population's style and quality of life and the last five (5) demonstrated the quality of human relationships and emotional aspects in the face of the pandemic. Conclusion: It was demonstrated that isolation and the quarantine period had a negative impact on the population's quality of life and long-term mental health.


RMD Open ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. e001063 ◽  
Author(s):  
Berend Stoel

After decades of basic research with many setbacks, artificial intelligence (AI) has recently obtained significant breakthroughs, enabling computer programs to outperform human interpretation of medical images in very specific areas. After this shock wave that probably exceeds the impact of the first AI victory of defeating the world chess champion in 1997, some reflection may be appropriate on the consequences for clinical imaging in rheumatology. In this narrative review, a short explanation is given about the various AI techniques, including ‘deep learning’, and how these have been applied to rheumatological imaging, focussing on rheumatoid arthritis and systemic sclerosis as examples. By discussing the principle limitations of AI and deep learning, this review aims to give insight into possible future perspectives of AI applications in rheumatology.


This century took on the formidable task of educating its majorities; a task that the unprecedented levels of world population rendered all the more formidable and yet all the more essential. As the world faces this deeply felt need and faces up to this still far from completed task, it recognizes at the same time the extraordinary developments that have taken place in the arts, and the technology, of broadcast communications. The title of this meeting draws attention to one quite remarkable step forward in technology: the geostationary satellite; a satellite in an orbit of just that radius (40000 km) which makes its period the length of the day so that it can remain always over one point of the rotating Earth. Modern technologies have expanded the answer to the age-old question ‘who is my neighbour?’ and the geostationary satellite has extended the natural concept of neighbourhood as bounded by the horizon of line-of-sight vision and increased by more than two orders of magnitude the distance of effective line-of-sight communication. For many years now able people all over the world have been considering the impact that this technological development, and all the other developments in the technologies and the arts of broadcast communication, can have on the world’s need to educate its majorities. The problems are different in different parts of the world, and different countries will come to different conclusions on the educational pros and cons and the technological pros and cons of different approaches to the solutions of the problems.


Author(s):  
Lesya Sheludko

Actuality of the research topic. A number of global trends affects food supply and consumption, as well as food security in the world. The main one is the growth of the world population primarily in emerging countries and urbanization of the population. Accordingly, the topic of food security in the context of urbanization becomes highly relevant. Problem statement. It should be noted, that urbanization changes the quantity and structure of food products, increases the demand for quality products, impacts on food security and economic security of the country in general. Review of recent research and publications. Urbanization is a very complex subject; so many well-known foreign and domestic scientists from different fields of science have studied various aspects of urbanization. At the same time, the vast majority of publications are mostly theoretical and cover the demographic and geographical aspects of urban processes, while the issues of economic analysis and the impact of urbanization on food security remain inadequately studied. Task statement, research methods. The article aims to study the process of urbanization in the world and in Ukraine, as well as to identify the impact of urban processes on the economic development of countries and food security in order to develop recommendations on prospects and opportunities for Ukraine. Presentation of the main material (results of work). The paper describes the main processes of urbanization, which take place in different countries and in the world as a whole, as well as in Ukraine. The influence of urbanization processes on the economic development of the countries is determined, namely, that the countries with high level of urbanization have high economic development and accordingly the high Gross National Product per capita. It has been discovered, that urbanization also affects the food security of countries, as the number of urban population increases, the structure of consumer products changes, and the demand for food increases as well. Summary. Urbanization represents both a challenge and an opportunity for the development of agriculture, as well as food security. Urbanization provides opportunities for Ukraine in the face of growing demand for food, to improve its export potential.


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kiran Yadav

Objective: Evaluate the trend of dietary convergence in the world. How specifically do Indian and Chinese diets have changed and middle-class consumption and evaluate their dietary trend? Methodology: The paper analyses the diet patter of India and China from 1990 to 2019. The paper is particularly keen to analyse the impact of income, urbanization and proportion of the young population on diet pattern. The data of food balance for these two countries is taken from FAOSTAT. To measure the income effect, the GNP per capita data is taken from World Bank. The population and urbanization data is taken from UN world population prospects 2019 and UN world urbanization prospects 2018. The linear regression model is used to analyse the impact of socio-economic factors. Results: The analysis has found that rise in income is positively associated with the macronutrients diet for Indians particularly for carbohydrates consumption whereas for Chinese the reverse is true. The study found that urbanization of the population is highly positively associated with the consumption of carbohydrates diet for Chinese whereas, for India, urbanization is negatively associated with fat consumption. The change in young age population negatively impacts the fat consumption for China while positively impact the consumption of carbohydrates for Indians.Conclusion: The gap between dietary pattern is found to be reduced globally. Consumption of many food groups shows convergence for a different region. The consumption of macronutrients between India and China from 1990 to 2019 shows the converging trend in the early 1990s but after that, it shows divergence. In both countries, socio-economic factors push more toward carbohydrates diets.


2020 ◽  
Vol 24 (2) ◽  
pp. 353-366
Author(s):  
Milagros Del Valle Morales Rangel

Applied mathematics is part of undergraduate and postgraduate university education. From this perspective, this essay aims to study the psychological effects, economic and, educational effects upon the population caused by a crisis scenario as COVID-19. The mathematical theories developed in this essay are Chaos Theory, Markov Chains, and Nash Theory. COVID-19 has spread throughout the world, affecting populations, and countries, without distinction of race, economic, political, or socio-cultural position. The impact that COVID-19 has caused on the world population could be measured, in the medium and long term, through changes in psychological behavior, social, health, economic and educational habits. This impact will leave deep traces and moral dilemmas that will permit prioritize which areas address and the political effort directed to each one.


Author(s):  
Jianfeng Guo ◽  
Chao Deng ◽  
Fu Gu

In order to prevent the spread of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), 52.4% of the world population had received at least one dose of a vaccine at17 November 2021, but little is known about the non-pharmaceutical aspect of vaccination. Here we empirically examine the impact of vaccination on human behaviors and COVID-19 transmission via structural equation modeling. The results suggest that, from a non-pharmaceutical perspective, the effectiveness of COVID-19 vaccines is related to human behaviors, in this case, mobility; vaccination slows the spread of COVID-19 in the regions where vaccination is negatively related to mobility, but such an effect is not observed in the regions where vaccination and mobility have positive correlations. This article highlights the significance of mobility in realizing the effectiveness of COVID-19 vaccines; even with large-scale vaccination, non-pharmaceutical interventions, such as social distancing, are still required to contain the transmission of COVID-19.


2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (23) ◽  
pp. 13311
Author(s):  
Olga Vl. Bitkina ◽  
Jaehyun Park

The world has been experiencing an unprecedented global pandemic since December 2019. Lockdowns, restrictions in daily life, and social distancing characterize the new environment in which the world population finds itself, with minor variations depending on the country of residence. Television, social media, and other sources of information tend to influence and provide information about COVID-19 with varying tones. This study investigated the impact of alerts, news, and information about COVID-19 from social and mass media on the emotional state of the people a year and a half after the start of the pandemic. A questionnaire was developed and distributed to 63 participants to assess the relationships between factors such as social media experience, perceived hope, worry, anxiety/depression, attentiveness, trust, health care, health risk, health safety, irritability, mental balance, and emotional state/distress. With the resulting information, a four-factor model was developed to demonstrate the relationships between social media experience, perceived hope, worry, and emotional state/distress. Additionally, a short interview was conducted among the participants in order to collect their opinions and qualitatively analyze them. The developed model demonstrates satisfactory performance characteristics and allows assessment of the delayed influence of incoming information on the people during this unprecedented pandemic.


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