Relationship between coronavirus disease 2019 and Parkinson’s disease

New literature shows that COVID-19 has negative effects on patients with Parkinson’s disease (PD). COVID-19 is known to produce neurological manifestations and infects the central nervous system. Similarly, the virus also causes neuromuscular complications and involves the peripheral nervous system. Studies show PD patients with a severe COVID-19 infection have a higher mortality rate, worsening in symptoms, and require an increase in drug dosage. These studies suggest that COVID-19 may lead to a more rapid onset of PD, or may increase the risk of developing PD. Furthermore, researchers observed that Motor and nonmotor symptoms significantly worsened in PD patients with COVID compared to PD patients.

Using Random Experiments to Measure the Impact of Computers, the Internet, and Other Forms of Technology on Educational Outcomes

This chapter examines empirical approaches to studying the question of whether computers, the Internet, and other computer-related technologies improve educational outcomes. Most studies in the literature examine the question using multivariate regression analysis controlling for detailed school, teacher, student, family, and/or parental characteristics. Because of concerns regarding selection bias a relatively new literature uses randomized field experiments to examine the educational impacts of computer-related technology. Additionally, studies use quasi-experimental approaches such as natural experiments and regression discontinuity designs to estimate educational impacts. This chapter reviews the literature using these approaches and discusses each of the methodologies along with their strengths and weaknesses. Understanding the impacts of technology on education is important, because it sheds light on whether technology is an important input in the educational production process and whether disparities in access to technology translate into educational inequality.

Revised recommendations from the CSO-HNS taskforce on performance of tracheotomy during the COVID-19 pandemic – what a difference a year makes

Background During the early part of the COVID-19 pandemic, the Canadian Society of Otolaryngology - Head & Neck Surgery (CSO-HNS) task force published recommendations on performance of tracheotomy. Since then, our understanding of the virus has evolved with ongoing intensive research efforts. New literature has helped us better understand various aspects including patient outcomes and health care worker (HCW) risks associated with tracheotomy during the COVID-19 pandemic. Accordingly, the task force has re-evaluated and revised some of the previous recommendations. Main body Based on recent evidence, a negative reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) COVID-19 swab status is no longer the main deciding factor in the timing of tracheotomy. Instead, tracheotomy may be considered as soon as COVID-19 swab positive patients are greater than 20 days beyond initial symptoms and 2 weeks of mechanical ventilation. Furthermore, both open and percutaneous surgical techniques may be considered with both techniques showing similar safety and outcome profiles. Additional recommendations with discussion of current evidence are presented. Conclusion These revised recommendations apply new evidence in optimizing patient and health care system outcomes as well as minimizing risks of COVID-19 transmission during aerosol-generating tracheotomy procedures. As previously noted, additional evidence may lead to further evolution of these and other similar recommendations. Graphical abstract

Testing for saturation in qualitative evidence syntheses: An update of HIV adherence in Africa

Background A systematic review of randomised trials may be conclusive signalling no further research is needed; or identify gaps requiring further research that may then be included in review updates. In qualitative evidence synthesis (QES), the rationale, triggers, and methods for updating are less clear cut. We updated a QES on adherence to anti-retroviral treatment to examine if thematic saturation renders additional research redundant. Methods We adopted the original review search strategy and eligibility criteria to identify studies in the subsequent three years. We assessed studies for conceptual detail, categorised as ‘rich’ or ‘sparse’, coding the rich studies. We sought new codes, and appraised whether findings confirmed, extended, enriched, or refuted existing themes. Finally, we examined if the analysis impacted on the original conceptual model. Results After screening 3895 articles, 301 studies met the inclusion criteria. Rich findings from Africa were available in 82 studies; 146 studies were sparse, contained no additional information on specific populations, and did not contribute to the analysis. New studies enriched our understanding on the relationship between external and internal factors influencing adherence, confirming, extending and enriching the existing themes. Despite careful evaluation of the new literature, we did not identify any new themes, and found no studies that refuted our theory. Conclusions Updating an existing QES using the original question confirmed and sometimes enriched evidence within themes but made little or no substantive difference to the theory and overall findings of the original review. We propose this illustrates thematic saturation. We propose a thoughtful approach before embarking on a QES update, and our work underlines the importance of QES priority areas where further primary research may help, and areas where further studies may be redundant.

Immunobiology of the Classical Lancefield Group A Streptococcal Carbohydrate Antigen

Group A Streptococcus (GAS) is a preeminent human bacterial pathogen causing hundreds of millions of infections each year worldwide. In the clinical setting, the bacterium is easily identified by a rapid antigen test against the group A carbohydrate (GAC), a polysaccharide that comprises 30-50% of the GAS cell wall by weight. Originally described by Rebecca Lancefield in the 1930s, GAC consists of a polyrhamnose backbone and a N-acetylglucosamine (GlcNAc) side chain. This side chain, the species-defining immunodominant antigen, is potentially implicated in auto-reactive immune responses against human heart or brain tissue in post-streptococcal rheumatic fever or rheumatic heart disease. The recent discovery of the genetic locus encoding GAC biosynthesis and new insights into its chemical structure have provided novel insights into the assembly of the polysaccharide, its contribution to immune evasion and virulence, and ideas for safely harnessing its natural immunogenicity in vaccine design. This review serves to summarize the emerging new literature on GAC, the eponymous cell well antigen that provides structural integrity to GAS and directly interfaces with host innate and adaptive immune responses.

Bin Ali Authoritarianism and International Factors in Tunisia (1987-2008)

Despite being shaken by the Arab Spring, authoritarian structures still exist in the regions of the Middle East and North Africa (MENA). Th is situation highlights the importance of studying the continuity of authoritarian structures more comprehensively. In addition to approaches that reduce authoritarianism to intra-state factors, literature has developed over the last decade emphasizing the importance of international factors. This literature in particular emphasizes the politics, economics, and diplomacy established by the West and that ties are effective in the continuity of authoritarianism in non-Western countries. This study attempts to explain Ben Ali’s period and the continuity of authoritarianism in Tunisia in the context of this developing new literature. Although Tunisia underwent a relatively positive transformation process after the Arab Spring, Ben Ali’s authoritarian rule was supported by the West as a model of an economic miracle and democratic stability; this administration managed to survive for 23 years. The study’s main argument can be expressed as follows: While the economic liberalization process imposed on Tunis by Western actors caused an increase in socio-economic inequalities, the instrumentalization of democracy by the West again served to suppress civil and political freedoms. Instead of focusing on the obstacles and opportunities in front of the transition to democracy in the post-Arab Spring period, examining theinternational factors influencing the continuity of authoritarianism in the Ben Ali period will shed light on how authoritarian structures still survive in MENA.

Heute sprechen. Literatur, Politik und andere Sprachen im Lied (Herder, Alunāns, Barons)

Speaking Today. Literature, Politics and Other Languages in Songs (Herder, Alunāns, Barons). This article claims that the politico-cultural relevance of literary texts in their respective present consists, among other aspects, of their handling of linguistic diversity. As examples, it presents three 18th and 19th century publications from the German and/or Latvian speaking territories which put (folk) songs into the centre of their rather different politicocultural endeavours. Herder’s collection of folk songs from 1778/79 is read as an attempt at a poetic new beginning that makes use of linguistic diversity qua translation in order to inspire originality in the ‘mother tongue’. The folk songs here serve to synchronise and dynamise linguistic means in the name of a new literature. The Dseesmiņas (‘little songs’), a collection of translations of European poetry into Latvian published by Alunāns in 1856, combines precisely this claim to renewal with an attempt at an anti-colonial synchronisation and modernisation of the Latvian language. Eventually, the six-volume collection of Latwju Dainas (Latvian folk songs), published by Barons around 1900, takes up Herder’s efforts to preserve folk songs. Barons synchronises a dialectally, materially and historically diverse corpus of songs in the name of anti-colonial emancipation. In terms of cultural policy, his project aims to give presence to pre-modern folk life under the conditions of modernity.

Text mining of gene–phenotype associations reveals new phenotypic profiles of autism-associated genes

Autism is a spectrum disorder with wide variation in type and severity of symptoms. Understanding gene–phenotype associations is vital to unravel the disease mechanisms and advance its diagnosis and treatment. To date, several databases have stored a large portion of gene–phenotype associations which are mainly obtained from genetic experiments. However, a large proportion of gene–phenotype associations are still buried in the autism-related literature and there are limited resources to investigate autism-associated gene–phenotype associations. Given the abundance of the autism-related literature, we were thus motivated to develop Autism_genepheno, a text mining pipeline to identify sentence-level mentions of autism-associated genes and phenotypes in literature through natural language processing methods. We have generated a comprehensive database of gene–phenotype associations in the last five years’ autism-related literature that can be easily updated as new literature becomes available. We have evaluated our pipeline through several different approaches, and we are able to rank and select top autism-associated genes through their unique and wide spectrum of phenotypic profiles, which could provide a unique resource for the diagnosis and treatment of autism. The data resources and the Autism_genpheno pipeline are available at: https://github.com/maiziezhoulab/Autism_genepheno.

The Limbu Script and the Production of Religious Books in Nepal

With the rise of ethnic politics in Nepal, the Limbu (or: Yakthumba) have made increasing use of the Limbu script, also known as Srijanga or Kiranti. Whereas in the past this script was suppressed by the state and known only to a minority, since the return of democracy to Nepal in the 1990s a new literature using this script has come into being. Here, religious books play a prominent role. This essay deals with the emerging importance of the script as a marker of ethnicity since its first general propagation by Iman Singh Chemjong and Phalgunanda Lingden in the early twentieth century. It focuses on the early production of printed books, in particular books published by followers of the Satyahangma movement, which promotes reforms of Kiranti religion and society.

Ottoman Tanzimat and the Decadence of Empire

This article considers late nineteenth-century Ottoman literature, concentrating specifically on the tension between the poetics of the avant-garde “New Literature” (1896–1901) and the poetics of conservative modernizers, spearheaded by the prominent Tanzimat author Ahmet Midhat. In calling for experimentation with traditional Ottoman poetic forms and a new mode of composition using an uncompromisingly elaborate style, the avant-gardists sought to capture the fin-de-siècle spirit in the Ottoman Empire, overwhelmed by the sense of decline and urgency for modernization. What unites the different decadent practices of the time is the objective to challenge the communicative language of systematic modernization by pursuing aesthetic autonomy. The conservative modernizers, politically committed to social and cultural reforms, attacked these authors for being decadent and excessively influenced by French literature, initiating what later came to be known as the “decadence controversy,” which became part of the larger historical question of modernization and westernization.