Echinacea as a Potential Force against Coronavirus Infections? A Mini-Review of Randomized Controlled Trials in Adults and Children

Echinacea purpurea was shown to broadly inhibit coronaviruses and SARS-CoV-2 in vitro. This review discusses the available clinical evidence from randomized, blinded and controlled human studies. Two RCTs with results on enveloped viruses, respectively coronavirus infections during prevention treatment were detected. Incidence and/or viral loads were measured by RT-PCR and symptom severity was recorded. Jawad et al. (2012) collected nasopharyngeal swabs from adults (N=755) over 4 months of continuous prevention. Overall, 24 and 47 enveloped virus infections occurred, including 21 and 33 coronavirus detections [229E; HKU1; OC43] with Echinaforce extract [2400mg daily] and placebo, respectively (p=0.0114). Ogal et al. (2021) administered the same extract [1200mg] or control for 4 months to children (4-12 years) (N=203). Echinacea reduced the incidence of enveloped virus infections from 47 to 29 (p=0.0038) whereas 11 and 13 coronavirus detections [229E, OC43, NL63] were counted (p>0.05). Respiratory symptoms during coronavirus infections were significantly lower with area-under-curve AUC=75.8 (+/-50.24) versus 27.1 (+/-21.27) score points (p=0.0036). Importantly, viral loads in nasal secretions were significantly reduced by 98.5%, with Ct-values 31.1 [95% CI 26.3; 35.9] versus 25.0 [95% CI 20.5; 29.5] (p = 0.0479). Results from clinical studies confirm the antiviral activity found for Echinacea in vitro, embracing enveloped respiratory pathogens and therefore coronaviruses as well. Substantiating results from a new completed study seems to extrapolate these effects to the prevention of SARS-CoV-2 infection. As hypothesized, the testified broad antiviral activity of Echinacea extract appears to be inclusive for SARS-CoV-2.

Uncertainty-induced instantaneous speed and acceleration of a levitated particle

Levitating nanoparticles trapped in optical potentials at low pressure open the experimental investigation of nonlinear ballistic phenomena. With engineered non-linear potentials and fast optical detection, the observation of autonomous transient mechanical effects, such as instantaneous speed and acceleration stimulated purely by initial position uncertainty, are now achievable. By using parameters of current low pressure experiments, we simulate and analyse such uncertainty-induced particle ballistics in a cubic optical potential demonstrating their evolution, faster than their standard deviations, justifying the feasibility of the experimental verification. We predict, the maxima of instantaneous speed and acceleration distributions shift alongside the potential force, while the maximum of position distribution moves opposite to it. We report that cryogenic cooling is not necessary in order to observe the transient effects, while a low uncertainty in initial particle speed is required, via cooling or post-selection, to not mask the effects. These results stimulate the discussion for both attractive stochastic thermodynamics, and extension of recently explored quantum regime.

Politics in Muslim Societies: What’s Religion Got to Do with It?

In Western scholarship, depictions of social and political life in the Muslim world oscillate between emphasizing the importance of religion and rejecting its relevance altogether. This chapter explores how—if at all—religion influences social, political, and economic outcomes in the Muslim world. Based on a narrow definition of religion as doctrine—that is, the set of beliefs and practices that delimit a particular faith—the authors agree with much of the scholarly community that religion is not the root cause of various social, political, and economic outcomes in the Muslim world. Their broader conceptualization of religion as both the beliefs and practices that constitute doctrine and the infrastructure that sustains these beliefs and practices enables them to adopt a more nuanced approach. The authors argue that doctrine is critical to understanding religion’s potential force, whereas infrastructure—specifically, social organization (i.e., institutions and actors) and social identity—is the key to understanding why, when, and where religion has agency to enact that force. The goal is not to make universal claims, but to understand the effects of religious institutions, actors, and identities in a given context. This approach can apply more generally to Western and non-Western contexts with distinct dominant religious traditions and help to integrate the study of politics in Muslim societies more fully into mainstream comparative analytical frameworks.

Writers and politics: Gisèle Sapiro’s advances within the Bourdieusian sociology of the literary field

This article undertakes a critical analysis of the work of Gisèle Sapiro, with reference to sociology of literature. From 1999 (Sapiro, 2014a), Sapiro has developed the Bourdieusian research tradition, amplifying especially Bourdieu’s theory of crisis. Focusing on the antagonisms between literary “prophets” and “priests”, she has drawn on a rich sample of 184 writers to elucidate the struggles inherent in World War II between writers from different field positions and literary habitus. Further, her historical analyses of the ethical commitments of nineteenth century writers via a fresh microsociology of literary trials (Sapiro, 2011) has reminded us of the importance of popular poets in articulating the suffering of the subordinate classes. Her most recent book (Sapiro, 2018) has expanded on her earlier themes, whilst identifying the recuperation of certain 1930s’ fascist worldviews within contemporary literature. This article notes that there is a telling divergence between Bourdieu and Sapiro on the issue of interests behind disinterestedness, exemplified in the case of Zola. On this issue, Sapiro’s reading (Sapiro, 2011) is found convincing. Finally, the dialectic of avant-garde consecration and routinisation is questioned as a universal structure. It is suggested that certain avant-garde – the Harlem Renaissance, for example – did not undergo swift consecration or routinisation, although this contention deserves greater research. The paper concludes by showing that Sapiro’s conception of writers’ responsibility owes its origins less to Sartre than to the Durkheimian/ Bourdieusian notion of the expertise of the “specific intellectual”. It welcomes Sapiro’s concern for literature as a potential force for social change.

Plasma Markers of Disrupted Gut Permeability in Severe COVID-19 Patients

A disruption of the crosstalk between the gut and the lung has been implicated as a driver of severity during respiratory-related diseases. Lung injury causes systemic inflammation, which disrupts gut barrier integrity, increasing the permeability to gut microbes and their products. This exacerbates inflammation, resulting in positive feedback. We aimed to test whether severe Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is associated with markers of disrupted gut permeability. We applied a multi-omic systems biology approach to analyze plasma samples from COVID-19 patients with varying disease severity and SARS-CoV-2 negative controls. We investigated the potential links between plasma markers of gut barrier integrity, microbial translocation, systemic inflammation, metabolome, lipidome, and glycome, and COVID-19 severity. We found that severe COVID-19 is associated with high levels of markers of tight junction permeability and translocation of bacterial and fungal products into the blood. These markers of disrupted intestinal barrier integrity and microbial translocation correlate strongly with higher levels of markers of systemic inflammation and immune activation, lower levels of markers of intestinal function, disrupted plasma metabolome and glycome, and higher mortality rate. Our study highlights an underappreciated factor with significant clinical implications, disruption in gut functions, as a potential force that may contribute to COVID-19 severity.

Calculation of the linear coefficient of thermal expansion of multi-element, single-phase metal alloys from the first principles

One of the possible ways to calculate the coefficient of thermal expansion is a method based on determining the dependence of the total energy of the electron-ion system on the parameters of the crystal lattice at different temperatures. There is a relationship between the calculated values of the linear coefficients of thermal expansion and the melting point of the material. For metals and multi-element single-phase alloys, the dependence of the function V = α·Tmax on the parameter T/Tmax (α — the linear coefficients of thermal expansion, Tmax — melting point of the material) is obtained from the first principles, which has the same form for all single-phase multi-element metal alloys and is presented analytically. Using the method of pseudopotential and quasiharmonic approximation, the linear coefficients of thermal expansion of multi-element metal alloys are calculated. The temperature dependence of the coefficient of thermal expansion, after approximating the results of the computational experiment, is presented in analytical form. The results were compared with known tabular data. To confirm the reliability of the model, the calculation was performed for a number of pure metals. The consistency of the calculated and experimental data on the coefficient of thermal expansion of single-phase alloys calculated from the first principles is observed. There is a relationship between the calculated values of the linear coefficients of thermal expansion and the melting point of the material. For metals and multi-element single-phase alloys, the dependence of the function V = α·Tmax on the parameter T/ Tmax (α — the linear coefficients of thermal expansion, Tmax — melting point of the material) is obtained from the first principles, which has the same form for all single-phase multi-element metal alloys and is presented analytically. Keywords: Electron-ion system energy, interatomic interaction potential, force constants, quasiharmonic approximation, coefficient of thermal expansion.