Accuracy of Expired BinaxNOW Rapid Antigen Tests -
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+The widespread existence of expired antigen testing kits in households and potential coronavirus outbreaks necessitate evaluating the reliability of these expired kits. Our study examined BinaxNOW COVID-19 rapid antigen tests 27 months post-manufacture and 5 months past their FDA extended expiration dates, using SARS-CoV-2 variant XBB.1.5 viral stock. We conducted testing at two concentrations: the Limit of Detection (LoD) and 10 times the LoD. 100 expired and unexpired kits were tested at each concentration for a total of 400 antigen tests. At the LoD (2.32x10^2 TCID50/mL), both expired and unexpired tests displayed 100% sensitivity (95% CI 96.38% to 100%), with no statistical difference (95% CI -3.92% to 3.92%). Similarly, at 10 times the LoD, unexpired tests retained 100% sensitivity (95% CI 96.38% to 100%), while expired tests exhibited 99% sensitivity (95% CI 94.61% to 99.99%), demonstrating a statistically insignificant 1% difference (95% CI -2.49% to 4.49%, p=0.56). Expired rapid antigen tests had fainter lines than the unexpired tests at each viral concentration. The expired rapid antigens tests at LoD were only just visible. These findings carry significant implications for waste management, cost efficiency, and supply chain resilience in pandemic readiness efforts. They also provide critical insights for formulating clinical guidelines for interpreting results from expired kits. In light of expert warnings of a potential outbreak of a severity rivaling the Omicron variant, our study underscores the importance of maximizing the utility of expired antigen testing kits in managing future health emergencies.
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Bard explains the main content and further development’s potential of “Social identity loss and reverse culture shock: Experiences of international students in China during the COVID-19 pandemic” -
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+I have read the article “Social identity loss and reverse culture shock: Experiences of international students in China during the COVID-19 pandemic” by Rameez Raja, Jianfu Ma, Miwei Zhang,corresponding, Xi Yuan Li, Nayef Shabbab Almutairi, and Aeshah Hamdan Almutairi, explained its content through Mindsponge Theory, and indicated how Bayesian Mindsponge Framework (BMF) analytics can be used to develop the study further.
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The Federal Reserve’s Response to the Global Financial Crisis and Its Long-Term Impact: An Interrupted Time-Series Natural Experimental Analysis -
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+This paper examines the monetary policies the Federal Reserve implemented in response to the Global Financial Crisis. More specifically, it analyzes the Federal Reserve’s quantitative easing (QE) programs, liquidity facilities, and forward guidance operations conducted from 2007 to 2018. The essay’s detailed examination of these policies culminates in an interrupted time-series (ITS) analysis of the long-term causal effects of the QE programs on U.S. inflation and real GDP. The results of this formal design-based natural experimental approach show that the QE operations positively affected U.S. real GDP but did not significantly impact U.S. inflation. Specifically, it is found that, for the 2011Q2-2018Q4 post-QE period, real GDP per capita in the U.S. increased by an average of 231 dollars per quarter relative to how it would have changed had the QE programs not been conducted. Moreover, the results show that, in 2018Q4, ten years after the beginning of the QE programs, real GDP per capita in the U.S. was 14% higher relative to what it would have been during that quarter had there not been the QE programs. These findings contradict Williamson’s (2017) informal natural experimental evidence and confirm the conclusions of VARs and new Keynesian DSGE models that the Federal Reserve’s QE policies positively affected U.S. real GDP. The results suggest that the current U.S. and worldwide high inflation rates are likely not because of the QE programs implemented in response to the financial crisis that accompanied the COVID-19 pandemic. They are likely due to the unprecedentedly large fiscal stimulus packages used, the peculiar nature of the financial downturn itself, the negative supply shocks from the war in Ukraine, or a combination of these factors. To the best of my knowledge, this paper is the first study to measure the macroeconomic effects of QE using a design-based natural experimental approach.
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Changes in Transmission and Symptoms of SARS-CoV-2 in United States Households, April 2020-September 2022 -
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+Background: The natural history of SARS-CoV-2 infection and transmission dynamics may have changed as SARS-CoV-2 has evolved and population immunity has shifted. Methods: Household contacts, enrolled from two multi-site case-ascertained household transmission studies (April 2020-April 2021 and September 2021-September 2022), were followed for 10-14 days after enrollment with daily collection of nasal swabs and/or saliva for SARS-CoV-2 testing and symptom diaries. SARS-CoV-2 virus lineage was determined by whole genome sequencing, with multiple imputation where sequences could not be recovered. Adjusted infection risks were estimated using modified Poisson regression. Findings: 858 primary cases with 1473 household contacts were examined. Among unvaccinated household contacts, the infection risk adjusted for presence of prior infection and age was 58% (95% confidence interval [CI]: 49-68%) in households currently exposed to pre-Delta lineages and 90% (95% CI: 74-100%) among those exposed to Omicron BA.5 (detected May - September 2022). The fraction of infected household contacts reporting any symptom was similarly high between pre-Delta (86%, 95% CI: 81-91%) and Omicron lineages (77%, 70-85%). Among Omicron BA.5-infected contacts, 48% (41-56%) reported fever, 63% (56-71%) cough, 22% (17-28%) shortness of breath, and 20% (15-27%) loss of/change in taste/smell. Interpretation: The risk of infection among household contacts exposed to SARS-CoV-2 is high and increasing with more recent SARS-CoV-2 lineages. This high infection risk highlights the importance of vaccination to prevent severe disease. Funding: Funded by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Food and Drug Administration.
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State Variation in Neighborhood COVID-19 Burden: Findings from the COVID Neighborhood Project -
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+A lack of fine, spatially-resolute case data for the U.S. has prevented the examination of how COVID-19 burden has been distributed across neighborhoods, a known geographic unit of both risk and resilience, and is hampering efforts to identify and mitigate the long-term fallout from COVID-19 in vulnerable communities. Using spatially-referenced data from 21 states at the ZIP code or census tract level, we documented how the distribution of COVID-19 at the neighborhood-level varies significantly within and between states. The median case count per neighborhood (IQR) in Oregon was 3,608 (2,487) per 100,000 population, indicating a more homogenous distribution of COVID-19 burden, whereas in Vermont the median case count per neighborhood (IQR) was 8,142 (11,031) per 100,000. We also found that the association between features of the neighborhood social environment and burden varied in magnitude and direction by state. Our findings underscore the importance of local contexts when addressing the long-term social and economic fallout communities will face from COVID-19.
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Assessing the effect of zoo closure on the soundscape using multiple measures -
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+The zoo soundscape has a number of important implications for animal welfare, management, and conservation. However, despite its importance, the zoo soundscape is yet to be examined in depth using multiple measures. Consistent human presence can influence the zoo soundscape. However, it is difficult to determine the specific impact of human presence, as visitors are usually present during the day when animals are active. The COVID-19 lockdown in 2020 provided a unique opportunity to study zoo soundscapes in the absence of visitors. We compared the sound environment during the 2020 closure period to a comparable open period in 2019 across three zoo aviaries, examining broad band frequency measures of sound pressure levels, sound pressure levels in defined frequency bands, and acoustic indices (Acoustic Complexity Index and Normalized Difference Soundscape Index) to describe the zoo soundscape. Acoustic indices have not, to our knowledge, previously been used in the zoo setting, although they may provide a useful metric to assess sound disturbance. Therefore, we also used this natural experiment to explore how successful these measures may be in assessing disturbances in captive environments. We found a significant effect of human presence on the sound environment; aviaries were generally quieter with less low frequency noise and with a greater proportion of biotic sound during the 2020 zoo closure period. We argue that NDSI could be a useful index for determining anthropogenic disturbance in zoos, although further information on how it is influenced by additional factors, such as human speech, would be beneficial. The use of multiple measures to assess the sound environment in zoos can provide additional information beyond 'loudness', such as frequencies where sound energy is concentrated and characteristics of the soundscape, which could be used to better target management and mitigation.
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A scoping review of behavioural science approaches and frameworks for health protection and emergency response -
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+Aim: Rapid intervention development, implementation and evaluation is required for emergency public health contexts, such as the recent COVID-19 pandemic. A novel Agile Co-production and Evaluation (ACE) framework has been developed to assist this endeavour in future public health emergencies. This scoping review aimed to map available behavioural science resources that can be used to develop and evaluate public health guidance, messaging, and interventions in emergency contexts onto components of ACE: rapid development and implementation, co-production with patients or the public including seldom heard voices from diverse communities, and inclusion of evaluation. Methods: A scoping review methodology was used. Searches were run on MEDLINE, EMBASE, PsychInfo, and Google, with search terms covering emergency response and behavioural science. Papers published since 2014 and which discussed a framework or guidance for using behavioural science in response to a public health emergency, were included. A narrative synthesis was conducted. Results: Seventeen records were included in the synthesis. The records covered a range of emergency contexts, the most frequent of which were COVID-19 (n=7) and non-specific emergencies (n=4). One record evaluated existing tools, six proposed new tools, and ten described existing tools. Commonly used tools included the Behavioural Change Wheel, Capability, Opportunity, and Motivation Behaviour model (COM-B model) and social identity theory. Three records discuss co-production with the target audience and consideration of diverse populations. Four records incorporate rapid testing, evaluation, or validation methods. Six records state that their tool is designed to be implemented rapidly. No records cover all components of ACE. Conclusion: We recommend that future research explores how to create guidance involving rapid implementation, co-production with patients or the public including seldom-heard voices from diverse communities, and evaluation. Keywords: behavioural insights, emergency response, health protection.
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A systematic narrative review of coroners’ prevention of future deaths reports (PFDs): a potential metric for patient safety in hospitals -
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+Patient harm due to unsafe healthcare is widespread, potentially devastating, and often preventable. Hoping to eliminate avoidable harms, the World Health Organization (WHO) published the Global Patient Safety Action Plan in July 2021. The UK9s National Health Service relies on several measures, including “never events”, “serious incidents”, patient safety events, and coroners9 prevention of future death reports (PFDs) to monitor healthcare quality and safety. We conducted a systematic narrative review of PubMed and medRxiv on 19 February 2023 to explore the strengths and limitations of coroners9 PFDs and whether they could be a safety metric to help meet the WHO9s Global Patient Safety Action Plan. We identified 17 studies that investigated a range of PFDs, including preventable deaths involving medicines and an assessment during the COVID-19 pandemic. We found that PFDs offered important information that could support hospitals to improve patient safety and prevent deaths. However, inconsistent reporting, low response rates to PFDs, and difficulty in accessing, analysing, and monitoring PFDs limited their use and adoption as a patient safety metric for hospitals. To fulfil the potential of PFDs, a national system is required that develops guidelines, sanctions failed responses, and embeds technology to encourage the prevention of future deaths.
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Assessing changes in incubation period, serial interval, and generation time of SARS-CoV-2 variants of concern: a systematic review and meta-analysis -
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+Background: After the first COVID-19 wave caused by the ancestral lineage, the pandemic has been fueled from the continuous emergence of new SARS-CoV-2 variants. Understanding key time-to-event periods for each emerging variant of concern is critical as it can provide insights into the future trajectory of the virus and help inform outbreak preparedness and response planning. Here, we aim to examine how the incubation period, serial interval, and generation time have changed from the ancestral SARS-CoV-2 lineage to different variants of concern. Methods: We conducted a systematic review and meta-analysis that synthesized the estimates of incubation period, serial interval, and generation time (both realized and intrinsic) for the ancestral lineage, Alpha, Beta, and Omicron variants of SARS-CoV-2. Results: Our study included 274 records obtained from 147 household studies, contact tracing studies or studies where epidemiological links were known. With each emerging variant, we found a progressive shortening of each of the analyzed key time-to-event periods. Specifically, we found that Omicron had the shortest pooled estimates for the incubation period (3.63 days, 95%CI: 3.25-4.02 days), serial interval (3.19 days, 95%CI: 2.95-3.43 days), and realized generation time (2.96 days, 95%CI: 2.54-3.38 days) whereas the ancestral lineage had the highest pooled estimates for each of them. We also observed shorter pooled estimates for the serial interval compared to the incubation period across the virus lineages. We found considerable heterogeneities (I2 > 80%) when pooling the estimates across different virus lineages, indicating potential unmeasured confounding from population factors (e.g., social behavior, deployed interventions). Conclusion: Our study supports the importance of conducting contact tracing and epidemiological investigations to monitor changes in SARS-CoV-2 transmission patterns. Our findings highlight a progressive shortening of the incubation period, serial interval, and generation time, which can lead to epidemics that spread faster, with larger peak incidence, and harder to control. We also consistently found a shorter serial interval than incubation period, suggesting that a key feature of SARS-CoV-2 is the potential for pre-symptomatic transmission. These observations are instrumental to plan for future COVID-19 waves. Keywords: COVID-19, variants of concern, incubation period, serial interval, realized generation time, intrinsic generation time, systematic review, meta-analysis
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Enhanced Airway Epithelial Response to SARS-CoV-2 Infection in Children is Critically Tuned by the Cross-Talk Between Immune and Epithelial Cells -
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+To cope with novel virus infections to which no prior adaptive immunity exists, the body strongly relies on the innate immune system. In such cases, including infections with SARS-CoV-2, children tend to fair better than adults. In the context of COVID-19, it became evident that a rapid interferon response at the site of primary infection is key for successful control of the virus and prevention of severe disease. The airway epithelium of children was shown to exhibit a primed state already at homeostasis and to respond particularly well to SARS-CoV-2 infection. However, the underlying mechanism for this priming remained elusive. Here we show that interactions between airway mucosal immune cells and epithelial cells are stronger in children, and via cytokine-mediated signaling lead to IRF-1-dependent upregulation of the viral sensors RIG-I and MDA5. Based on a cellular in vitro model we show that stimulated human peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMC) can induce a robust interferon-beta response towards SARS-CoV-2 in a lung epithelial cell line otherwise unresponsive to this virus. This is mediated by type I interferon, interferon-gamma and TNF, and requires induction of both, RIG-I and MDA5. In single cell-analysis of nasal swab samples the same cytokines are found to be elevated in mucosal immune cells of children, correlating with elevated epithelial expression of viral sensors. In vitro analysis of PBMC derived from healthy adolescents and adults confirm that immune cells of younger individuals show increased cytokine production and potential to prime epithelial cells. In co-culture with SARS-CoV-2-infected A549 cells, PBMC from adolescents significantly enhance the antiviral response. Taken together, our study suggests that higher numbers and a more vigorous activity of innate immune cells in the airway mucosa of children tune the set-point of the epithelial antiviral system. This likely is a major contributor to the robust immune response to SARS-CoV-2 in children. Our findings shed light on the molecular underpinnings of the stunning resilience of children towards severe COVID-19, and may propose a novel concept for immunoprophylactic treatments.
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Uncovering strain- and age-dependent differences in innate immune response to SARS-CoV-2 infection in nasal epithelia using 10X single-cell sequencing -
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+Assessing the impact of SARS-CoV-2 variants on the host is crucial with continuous emergence of new variants. We employed single-cell sequencing to investigate host transcriptomic response to ancestral and Alpha-strain SARS-CoV-2 infections within air-liquid-interface human nasal epithelial cells from adults and adolescents. Strong innate immune responses were observed across lowly-infected and bystander cell-types, and heightened in Alpha-infection. Contrastingly, the innate immune response of highly-infected cells was comparable to mock-control cells. Alpha highly-infected cells showed increased expression of protein refolding genes compared with ancestral-strain-infected adolescent cells. Oxidative phosphorylation- and translation-related genes were down-regulated in bystander cells versus infected and mock-control cells, suggesting that the down-regulation is protective and up-regulation supports viral activity. Infected adult cells revealed up-regulation of these pathways compared with infected adolescents, implying enhanced pro-viral states in infected adults. Overall, this highlights the complexity of cell-type-, age- and viral-strain-dependent host epithelial responses to SARS-CoV-2 and the value of air-liquid-interface cultures.
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Structure and function of the SIT1 proline transporter in complex with the COVID-19 receptor ACE2 -
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+Proline is widely known as the only proteogenic amino acid with a secondary amine. In addition to its crucial role in protein structure, the secondary amino acid modulates neurotransmission and regulates the kinetics of signaling proteins. To understand the structural basis of proline import, we solved the structure of the proline transporter SIT1 in complex with the COVID-19 viral receptor ACE2 by cryo-electron microscopy. The structure of pipecolate-bound SIT1 reveals the specific sequence requirements for proline transport in the SLC6 family and how this protein excludes amino acids with extended side chains. By comparing apo and substrate-bound SIT1 states, we also identify the structural changes which link substrate release and opening of the cytoplasmic gate, and provide an explanation for how a missense mutation in the transporter causes iminoglycinuria.
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Marginated aberrant red blood cells induce pathologic vascular stress fluctuations in a computational model of hematologic disorders -
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+Red blood cell (RBC) disorders affect billions worldwide. While alterations in the physical properties of aberrant RBCs and associated hemodynamic changes are readily observed, in conditions such as sickle cell disease and iron deficiency, RBC disorders can also be associated with vascular dysfunction. The mechanisms of vasculopathy in those diseases remain unclear and scant research has explored whether biophysical alterations of RBCs can directly affect vascular function. Here we hypothesize that the purely physical interactions between aberrant RBCs and endothelial cells, due to the margination of stiff aberrant RBCs, play a key role in this phenomenon for a range of disorders. This hypothesis is tested by direct simulations of a cellular scale computational model of blood flow in sickle cell disease, iron deficiency anemia, COVID-19, and spherocytosis. We characterize cell distributions for normal and aberrant RBC mixtures in straight and curved tubes, the latter to address issues of geometric complexity that arise in the microcirculation. In all cases aberrant RBCs strongly localize near the vessel walls (margination) due to contrasts in cell size, shape, and deformability from the normal cells. In the curved channel, the distribution of marginated cells is very heterogeneous, indicating a key role for vascular geometry. Finally, we characterize the shear stresses on the vessel walls; consistent with our hypothesis, the marginated aberrant cells generate large transient stress fluctuations due to the high velocity gradients induced by their near-wall motions. The anomalous stress fluctuations experienced by endothelial cells may be responsible for the observed vascular inflammation.
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CParty: Conditional partition function for density-2RNA pseudoknots -
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+RNA molecules fold into biologically important functional structures. Efficient dynamic programming RNA (secondary) structure prediction algorithms restrict the the search space to evade NP-hardness of general pseudoknot prediction. While such prediction algorithms can be extended to provide a stochastic view on RNA ensembles, they are either limited to pseudoknot-free structures or extremely complex. To overcome this dilemma, we follow the hierarchical folding hypothesis, i.e. the bio-physically well-motivated assumption that non-crossing structures fold relatively fast prior to the formation of pseudoknot interactions. Thus, we efficiently compute the conditional partition function (CPF) given a non-crossing structure G for a subset of pseudoknotted stuctures i.e. density-2 structures G {cup} G' for non-crossing disjoint G'. Notably, this enables sampling from the hierarchical distribution P (G'|G). As our main contribution, we devise the algorithm CParty, which transfers the dynamic programming scheme of HFold to a partition function variant by for the first time de-ambiguating its decomposition of density-2 structures. Compared to the only other available pseudoknot partition function algorithm, which covers simple pseudoknots, our method covers a much larger structure class; at the same time, it is significantly more efficient (reducing the time as well as the space complexity by a quadratic factor). Summarizing, we provide a highly efficient (cubic time) algorithm for the stochastic analysis of pseudoknotted RNAs, which enables novel applications. For example, we discuss how the CPF for a pseudoknotted therapeutic target in SARS-CoV-2 provides insights into RNA structure formation kinetic paths.
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Composite interventions on outcomes of severely and critically ill patients with COVID-19 in Shanghai, China -
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+Abstract Background: The sixty-day effects of initial composite interventions for the treatment of severely and critically ill patients with COVID-19 are not fully assessed. Methods: Using a bayesian piecewise exponential model, we analyzed the 60-day mortality, health-related quality of life (HRQoL) and disability in 1082 severely and critically patients with COVID-19 between December 8, 2022 and February 9, 2023 in Shanghai, China. The final 60-day follow-up was completed on April 10, 2023. Results: Among 1082 patients (mean age, 78.0 years), 421 [38.9%] women), 139 patients (12.9%) died within 60 days. Azvudine had a 99.8% probability of improving 2-month survival (adjusted HR, 0.44 [95% credible interval, 0.24-0.79]) and Paxlovid had a 91.9% probability of improving 2-month survival (adjusted HR, 0.71 [95% credible interval, 0.44-1.14]) compared with the control. IL-6 receptor antagonist, Baricitinib, and a-thymosin each had a high probability of benefit (99.5%, 99.4%, and 97.5%, respectively) compared to their controls, while the probability of trail-defined statistical futility (HR >0.83) was high for therapeutic anticoagulation (99.8%; HR, 1.64 [95% CrI, 1.06-2.50]), and glucocorticoid (91.4%; HR, 1.20 [95% CrI, 0.71-2.16]). Paxlovid, Azvudine and therapeutic anticoagulation showed significant reduction in disability (p<0.05) Conclusions: Among severely and critically ill patients with COVID-19 who received 1 or more therapeutic interventions, treatment with Azvudine had a high probability of improved 60-day mortality compared with the control, indicating its potential in resource-limited scenario. Treatment with IL-6 receptor antagonist, Baricitinib, and a-thymosin also had high probabilities of benefit of improving 2-month survival, among which a-thymosin could improve HRQoL. Treatment with Paxlovid, Azvudine and therapeutic anticoagulation could significantly reduce disability at day 60. Keyword: COVID-19; Azvudine; Paxlovid; Interleukin-6 receptor antagonist; Baricitinib, α-thymosin, Intravenous immunoglobulin
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The Standard of Care Combined With Glucocorticoid in Elderly People With Mild or Moderate COVID-19 - Condition: COVID-19 Intervention: Drug: Glucocorticoid Sponsor: Huashan Hospital Not yet recruiting
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Investigation of the Effect on Cognitive Skills of COVID-19 Survivors - Condition: COVID-19 Intervention: Other: green walking and intelligence gam Sponsors: Bayburt University; Karadeniz Technical University Completed
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Conducting Clinical Trials of the Medicine “Rutan Tablets 0.1g” No. 10 in the Complex Therapy of COVID-19 - Condition: Patients With COVID-19 Interventions: Drug: The drug “Rutan 0.1”.; Other: Basic treatment Sponsor: Research Institute of Virology, Ministry of Health of the Republic of Uzbekistan Completed
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Arginine Replacement Therapy in COVID-19 - Condition: COVID-19 Intervention: Drug: Arginine Hydrochloride Sponsor: Emory University Not yet recruiting
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Effectiveness of a Second COVID-19 Vaccine Booster in Chinese Adults - Condition: COVID-19 Interventions: Biological: Intramuscularly administered Ad5-nCoV vaccine; Biological: Aerosolized Ad5-nCoV; Biological: DelNS1-2019-nCoV-RBD-OPT1; Biological: SYS6006 Sponsor: Jiangsu Province Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Not yet recruiting
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Studying the Efficiency of the Natural Preparation Rutan in Children in the Treatment of COVID-19, ARVI - Condition: COVID-19 Respiratory Infection Interventions: Drug: Rutan 25 mg; Other: Control group Sponsor: Research Institute of Virology, Ministry of Health of the Republic of Uzbekistan Completed
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A Pilot Study Evaluating the Efficacy of the Vielight Neuro RX Gamma in the Treatment of Post COVID-19 Cognitive Impairment - Condition: Post COVID-19 Cognitive Impairment Interventions: Device: Vielight Neuro RX Gamma active device; Device: Vielight Neuro RX Gamma sham device Sponsor: Vielight Inc. Not yet recruiting
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PAxlovid loNg cOvid-19 pRevention triAl With recruitMent In the Community in Norway - Conditions: Post COVID-19 Condition, Unspecified; SARS-CoV2 Infection; COVID-19 Interventions: Drug: Nirmatrelvir/ritonavir; Drug: Placebo Sponsors: Haukeland University Hospital; University of Bergen Not yet recruiting
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Use of a Hypochlorous Acid Spray Solution in the Treatment of COVID-19 Patients : COVICONTROL Study . - Condition: SARS CoV 2 Infection Interventions: Other: Spray with Hypochlorous Acid Group; Other: Spray with Placebo Group Sponsor: University of Monastir Recruiting
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Role of Vit-D Supplementation on BioNTech, Pfizer Vaccine Side Effect and Immunoglobulin G Response - Condition: COVID-19 Respiratory Infection Intervention: Combination Product: Vitamin-D Sponsor: Sulaimany Polytechnic university Completed
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Telerehabilitation Program and Detraining in Patients With Post-COVID-19 Sequelae - Condition: COVID-19 Acute Respiratory Distress Syndrome Intervention: Other: Telerehabilitation program Sponsor: Campus docent Sant Joan de Déu-Universitat de Barcelona Completed
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COVID-19 Vaccine Uptake Amongst Underserved Populations in East London - Conditions: COVID-19; Influenza; Vaccination Refusal Intervention: Device: Patient Engagement tool Sponsors: Queen Mary University of London; Social Action for Health Not yet recruiting
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REVERSE-Long COVID-19 With Baricitinib Pilot Study - Condition: Post-Acute COVID-19 Syndrome Intervention: Drug: Baricitinib 4 MG Sponsors: Vanderbilt University Medical Center; Emory University; University of California, San Francisco; University of Minnesota; Vanderbilt University; Yale University Not yet recruiting
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Post Covid-19 Dysautonomia Rehabilitation Randomized Controlled Trial - Conditions: Post-Acute COVID-19 Syndrome; Dysautonomia Interventions: Procedure: Rehabilitation; Procedure: Standard of Care Sponsors: Evangelismos Hospital; National and Kapodistrian University of Athens; LONG COVID GREECE; 414 Military Hospital of Special Diseases Recruiting
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Exercise for Health in Patients With Post-acute Sequelae of COVID-19 - Condition: Long COVID Intervention: Other: Rehabilitation program Sponsors: Campus docent Sant Joan de Déu-Universitat de Barcelona; Hospital de Mataró; University of Barcelona Active, not recruiting
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From PubMed
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Optimization, and biological evaluation of 3-O-β-chacotriosyl betulinic acid amide derivatives as novel small-molecule Omicron - SARS-CoV-2 Omicron viruses possess a high antigenic shift, and the approved anti-SARS-CoV-2 drugs are extremely limited, which makes the development of new antiviral drugs for the clinical treatment and prevention of SARS-CoV-2 outbreaks imperative. We have previously discovered a new series of markedly potent small-molecule inhibitors of SARS-CoV-2 virus entry, exampled by the hit compound 2. Here, we report a further study of bioisosteric replacement of the eater linker at the C-17 position of…
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Synthetic and natural guanidine derivatives as antitumor and antimicrobial agents: A review - Guanidines are fascinating small nitrogen-rich organic compounds, which have been frequently associated with a wide range of biological activities. This is mainly due to their interesting chemical features. For these reasons, for the past decades, researchers have been synthesizing and evaluating guanidine derivatives. In fact, there are currently on the market several guanidine-bearing drugs. Given the broad panoply of pharmacological activities displayed by guanidine compounds, in this review,…
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Dose-response and type-dependent effects of antiviral drugs in anaerobic digestion of waste-activated sludge for biogas production - In the context of the COVID-19 pandemic, antiviral drugs (AVDs) were heavily excreted into wastewater and subsequently enriched in sewage sludge due to their widespread use. The potential ecological risks of AVDs have attracted increasing attention, but information on the effects of AVDs on sludge anaerobic digestion (AD) is limited. In this study, two typical AVDs (lamivudine and ritonavir) were selected to investigate the responses of AD to AVDs by biochemical methane potential tests. The…
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Potential role of tirzepatide towards Covid-19 infection in diabetic patients: a perspective approach - In Covid-19, variations in fasting blood glucose are considered a distinct risk element for a bad prognosis and outcome in Covid-19 patients. Tirazepatide (TZT), a dual glucagon-like peptide-1 (GLP-1)and glucose-dependent insulinotropic polypeptide (GIP) receptor agonist may be effective in managing Covid-19-induced hyperglycemia in diabetic and non-diabetic patients. The beneficial effect of TZT in T2DM and obesity is related to direct activation of GIP and GLP-1 receptors with subsequent…
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Heat waves accelerate the spread of infectious diseases - COVID-19 pandemic appeared summer surge in 2022 worldwide and this contradicts its seasonal fluctuations. Even as high temperature and intense ultraviolet radiation can inhibit viral activity, the number of new cases worldwide has increased to >78% in only 1 month since the summer of 2022 under unchanged virus mutation influence and control policies. Using the attribution analysis based on the theoretical infectious diseases model simulation, we found the mechanism of the severe COVID-19…
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Dextran sulfate from Leuconostoc mesenteroides B512F exerts potent antiviral activity against SARS-CoV-2 in vitro and in vivo - The emergent human coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 and its resistance to current drugs makes the need for new potent treatments for COVID-19 patients strongly necessary. Dextran sulfate (DS) polysaccharides have long demonstrated antiviral activity against different enveloped viruses in vitro. However, their poor bioavailability has led to their abandonment as antiviral candidates. Here, we report for the first time the broad-spectrum antiviral activity of a DS-based extrapolymeric substance produced by…
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The novel hyaluronic acid granular hydrogel attenuates osteoarthritis progression by inhibiting the TLR-2/NF-κB signaling pathway through suppressing cellular senescence - In patients with mild osteoarthritis (OA), two to four monthly injections are required for 6 months due to the degradation of hyaluronic acid (HA) by peroxidative cleavage and hyaluronidase. However, frequent injections may lead to local infection and also cause inconvenience to patients during the COVID-19 pandemic. Herein, we developed a novel HA granular hydrogel (n-HA) with improved degradation resistance. The chemical structure, injectable capability, morphology, rheological properties,…
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Biochemical and HDX Mass Spectral Characterization of the SARS-CoV-2 Nsp1 Protein - A major challenge in defining the pathophysiology of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) infection is to better understand virally encoded multifunctional proteins and their interactions with host factors. Among the many proteins encoded by the positive-sense, single-stranded RNA genome, nonstructural protein 1 (Nsp1) stands out due to its impact on several stages of the viral replication cycle. Nsp1 is the major virulence factor that inhibits mRNA translation. Nsp1 also…
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Organoid modeling of lung-resident immune responses to SARS-CoV-2 infection - Tissue-resident immunity underlies essential host defenses against pathogens, but analysis in humans has lacked in vitro model systems where epithelial infection and accompanying resident immune cell responses can be observed en bloc. Indeed, human primary epithelial organoid cultures typically omit immune cells, and human tissue resident-memory lymphocytes are conventionally assayed without an epithelial infection component, for instance from peripheral blood, or after extraction from organs….
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Optimization of urban emergency support material distribution under major public health emergencies based on improved sparrow search algorithm - The outbreak of major public health emergencies such as the coronavirus epidemic has put forward new requirements for urban emergency management procedures. Accuracy and effective distribution model of emergency support materials, as an effective tool to inhibit the deterioration of the public health sector, have gradually become a research hotspot. The distribution of urban emergency support devices, under the secondary supply chain structure of “material transfer center-demand point,” which…
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Passive swab versus grab sampling for detection of SARS-CoV-2 markers in wastewater - Early detection of the COVID-19 virus, SARS-CoV-2, is key to mitigating the spread of new outbreaks. Data from individual testing is increasingly difficult to obtain as people conduct non-reported home tests, defer tests due to logistics or attitudes, or ignore testing altogether. Wastewater based epidemiology is an alternative method for surveilling a community while maintaining individual anonymity; however, a problem is that SARS-CoV-2 markers in wastewater varies throughout the day….
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Oxalic acid blocked the binding of spike protein from SARS-CoV-2 Delta (B.1.617.2) and Omicron (B.1.1.529) variants to human angiotensin-converting enzymes 2 - An epidemic of Corona Virus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) is spreading worldwide. Moreover, the emergence of SARS-CoV-2 variants of concern, such as Delta and Omicron, has seriously challenged the application of current therapeutics including vaccination and drugs. Relying on interaction of spike protein with receptor angiotensin-converting enzymes 2 (ACE2), SARS-CoV-2 successfully invades to the host cells, which indicates a…
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Antifungal Activity and Potential Action Mechanism of Allicin against Trichosporon asahii - Trichosporon asahii is an emerging opportunistic pathogen that causes potentially fatal disseminated trichosporonosis. The global prevalence of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) poses an increasing fungal infection burden caused by T. asahii. Allicin is the main biologically active component with broad-spectrum antimicrobial activity in garlic. In this study, we performed an in-depth analysis of the antifungal characteristics of allicin against T. asahii based on physiological, cytological,…
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SARS-CoV-2 Nucleocapsid Protein Is a Potential Therapeutic Target for Anticoronavirus Drug Discovery - SARS-CoV-2, the etiologic agent of the COVID-19 pandemic, is a highly contagious positive-sense RNA virus. Its explosive community spread and the emergence of new mutant strains have created palpable anxiety even in vaccinated people. The lack of effective anticoronavirus therapeutics continues to be a major global health concern, especially due to the high evolution rate of SARS-CoV-2. The nucleocapsid protein (N protein) of SARS-CoV-2 is highly conserved and involved in diverse processes of…
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Six-month immune responses to mRNA-1273 Vaccine in cART-treated late presenter people living with HIV according to previous SARS-CoV-2 Infection - CONCLUSIONS: Altogether, these findings support the need for additional vaccine doses in PLWH with a history of advanced immune depression and poor immune recovery on effective cART.
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From Patent Search
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+ 21 May, 2023
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+Daily-Dose
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“Debt-Limit Terror” Is No Way to Run a Superpower - On the latest round of the Republicans’ dangerous game. - link
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Why Erdoğan Prevailed in a Battle of Competing Turkish Nationalisms - As the country heads to a Presidential runoff, will the aftermath of a devastating earthquake hold more sway than old narratives of grievance? - link
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The Debt-Ceiling Fight’s Collateral Damage - Last week, dozens of members of ADAPT, the disability-rights group, forced their way into Kevin McCarthy’s office to protest his proposed cuts to the social safety net. - link
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The Far-Seeing Faith of Tim Keller - The pastor created a new blueprint for Christian thought, showing how traditional doctrine could address the crisis of modern life. - link
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Title 42 Is Gone, But What Are Asylum Seekers Supposed to Do Now? - It’s hard to imagine an area of federal policymaking more vexed than immigration, generally, and asylum, specifically. - link
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From Vox
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The case for shame -
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+Malte Mueller/Getty Images
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+Maybe the world doesn’t need to know every thought you’ve ever had.
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+“The basic experience connected to shame,” wrote English philosopher Bernard Williams, “is that of being seen, inappropriately, by the wrong people, in the wrong condition.” Scrolling on my phone, I find myself thinking it is a good thing that Williams died in 2003 because an hour on any social media platform might have otherwise killed him. To be seen inappropriately (say, simulating sexual intercourse) by the wrong people (for example, the other tourists around you and also the entire internet) in the wrong condition (on a bridge in Venice), has become the goal for increasing numbers of people.
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+Somewhere over the course of the past 10 years, we decided everything should be normalized; that to be cringe was to be free; that you should not only wholly accept but also share every thought or experience you ever have, no matter how embarrassing or repulsive. Why not take to Twitter to loudly and proudly announce that you have never made a woman orgasm or that you don’t wash your ass in the shower, with absolutely no prompting? The dominant culture of the internet has endeavored to convince us that all our emotions are valid, with increasing numbers of people further affirmed in their wrongness by therapy-speak they apply selectively to make themselves look and feel better. Shame, for its part, has come to be regarded as an inherently toxic, destructive emotion: a stand-in for self-loathing and unaddressed childhood trauma.
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+To be clear, it’s good that some things have been normalized: not wearing a bra, homosexuality, oat milk. But the flipside of living in a world where you are repeatedly told you shouldn’t be ashamed of anything is one in which a literal British prince — heretofore the most stiff-upper-lipped, shame-filled demographic in all of history — has been convinced that he needed to publish a memoir detailing, among many other things that I have learned against my will, the circumstances in which he lost his virginity in toe-curling detail. When did it become so undesirable to have secrets?
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+Shamelessness and attention-seeking behavior are two sides of the same coin, and as fame in and of itself has become the endgame for an increasing number of people, we have turned shame into a dirty word, accusing those that have it of being scared to be their “true” selves. The currency of our time is attention, and a need for public affirmation and a sense of shame do not generally go hand in hand.
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+Having no shame has become synonymous with fearlessness, a way of signaling that you are true to your desires and don’t care about what others think of you or your actions. But … what if you did? What if I told you that a sense of shame can be good, actually; that it can signal self-respect and dignity rather than self-loathing. Shame can help you remember that regardless of what that Spotify playlist wants you to believe, you’re not the main character of the world — you’re one in 8 billion and you should at least try to live in a way that honors others too. In a world with a stronger sense of shame, wearing a small piece of fabric on your face in order to possibly save the lives of others would never have become a contentious issue.
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+“We have to be careful with distinguishing between healthy and unhealthy forms of shame,” says Taya Cohen, an associate professor of organizational behavior and business ethics at Carnegie Mellon University, when I present her with my theory. “A lot of the work that has painted shame in a negative light has conflated feeling bad about ourselves and [social] withdrawal, but in some cultures, those aren’t as closely linked. You could feel bad about yourself or anticipate that you would, but that doesn’t necessarily mean you’re going to hide. That’s more of an individualistic [culture] thing.
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+“The problem with shame is it can be motivating because people want to avoid it, but once a person feels it, it can be problematic if they don’t think they can change,” she adds. “The prevailing thought is that shame is feeling bad about yourself as a whole person, whereas guilt is focused more narrowly on feeling bad about a more specific behavior.”
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+In cultural anthropology, different cultures have traditionally been categorized based on whether they are primarily ruled by guilt or shame, terminology popularized by Ruth Benedict in her 1946 book The Chrysanthemum and the Sword, in which she describes America as a “guilt culture” and Japan as a “shame culture.” Guilt has come to be seen as the Western (and therefore rational) emotion, tied to law, punishment, and a moral code held up by one’s conscience. In Eastern “shame cultures,” where the emphasis is on concepts such as pride and honor, punishment is doled out in the form of social ostracization and a loss of face. And while it’s obviously unhealthy to live consumed by fear of what others think of you, it’s becoming increasingly clear that the hyper-individual, atomized culture in which we are told not to care what anyone thinks of us or our actions is not working out so well either.
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+The exaltation of guilt over shame has led us to a place where accountability never seems to go beyond a Notes app apology. White guilt, guilt around calorie consumption, guilt about our carbon footprint, middle-class guilt, fake Catholic guilt suffered by reactionary e-girls looking for meaning in their empty lives — it’s an emotion that is for all intents and purposes nothing more than a big “oops.” Simply confessing to feeling guilt seems to be enough to alleviate it.
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+An inherent sense of shame, on the other hand, prevents you from doing the things that can later cause you guilt or embarrassment: overstaying your welcome at someone’s house, boasting about not tipping your UberEats driver, volunteering to your 1.7 million followers that you willingly live with a mouse problem in a deranged stand against wealth.
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+In their paper “Emotion: A Multidimensional Approach to the Relationship Between Individualism-Collectivism and Guilt and Shame”(2019), Cohen and a team of five other researchers studied over 1,000 people from five countries (the United States, India, China, Iran, and Spain) and found that “individuals culturally socialized to be more interpersonally oriented (i.e., horizontal collectivism) are more motivated to engage in reparative action following transgressions, whereas those culturally socialized to be more attuned to power, status, and competition (i.e., vertical individualism) are more likely to withdraw from threatening interpersonal situations.”
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+In other words, in the United States where the culture is individualistic, it is possible to withdraw and hide from other people because you’re not so embedded in the collective. This is in contrast to more communal cultures where you have to face up to what you’ve done if you want to be included in the community, something that is in itself a higher priority.
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+A healthy sense of shame can act as a bridge between the personal and the collective in a culture that pushes us to valorize the ego over the other. Perhaps the proliferation of shamelessness is linked to the erosion of community — in a world where we are increasingly alienated from people around us who would traditionally have acted as arbiters of taste and acceptability, it is no wonder people are squeezing pineapples between their thighs and then drinking the juice for online attention. The social bonds of the collective have been replaced with the approval of an unseen audience.
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+“In the past, if you wanted to fit in within your local community, you had to act in a way most people thought was appropriate. On the internet, a person can behave in ways that the vast majority of people find completely unacceptable, but they’re getting positive feedback in the form of people sharing it,” says Cohen. “It does suggest that maybe we’re tacitly accepting it, and tacitly accepting the person who has done it — because they’re not feeling ashamed, they haven’t been ostracized. In fact, the opposite has happened.”
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+Thanks to the internet, more people have also gained access to a framework of words that used to be the preserve of the few who sought professional counseling or were freakishly into self-help books. Those few have become many, and while it’s great that therapy has been normalized, its language has taken on a life of its own and trickled down so far into the mainstream that during last year’s Love Island, outraged viewers started incorrectly calling out a female contestant for “gaslighting” (she was merely doing what she had to do). Its lexicon is increasingly used to justify antisocial behavior, with almost anything able to be excused under the umbrella of “self-care.”
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+The platforms themselves, the algorithms they employ and contemporary standards they create, favor those who are willing to push the boundaries of social taste and self-promotion, whether that is making a TikTok of yourself aggressively humping the side of a pool with your fellow content creators or reposting every mention of your latest piece of work to your Instagram story like a child who has received a gold star at school and wants their mum to stick it on the fridge. We are incentivized, in the eternal quest for attention, to share everything, no matter how boring or ill-advised.
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+In the interests of being nice, I will stop short of arguing for social ostracization, although I do personally think that most people who feature on this account should be locked inside one big house (call it a hype prison) and forbidden from interacting with the rest of us until they have thought about their actions and made earnest front-facing camera apologies. In a world increasingly defined by soaring levels of loneliness and disconnection, a healthy sense of shame can be a powerful moral force that rebinds the social and communal fabric through a belief in a common good and a desire to avoid harming others. It allows us to remember our humanity. Instead of doing everything we can to run from and bulldoze over feelings of shame, perhaps it’s time to learn to sit with our mistakes and the discomfort they can make us feel, instead of living in hope of unearned absolution.
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+Niloufar Haidari is a freelance culture writer from London who tries to spend as little time there as possible.
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Why immigration policy is so inhumane -
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+Migrants with CBP One app interviews are allowed to enter the United States at the Chaparral pedestrian border on May 16, 2023 in Tijuana, Mexico. | Carlos A. Moreno/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images
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+The expiration of Title 42 has put migration front and center in US politics. Can a humane policy also be a winning political one?
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+US immigration law belongs fairlyhighupthere on any list of injustices in the world. Many people mostly reject the idea that someone’s legal rights should depend on who their parents are or what color their skin is, but accept that it is effectively illegal to hire anyone who doesn’t have the right paperwork, which is incredibly difficult to get if you didn’t happen to be born in the right country.
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+Most economists think the country would be much richer and better off if it were significantly easier for people to get permission to live and work here, but instead it’s nearly impossible. And millions — arguably billions — of people who want to live and work here live in poverty elsewhere instead because we have made it illegal for Americans to choose to hire them.
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+This has affected many people I know personally. These are incredible people who want to work on important problems, and who have employers eager to hire them, but who happen to have been born in the wrong place and so will never have the opportunities I was born with.
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+I’m mad, sad, and frustrated about immigration policy. And one question I think about a lot is how journalists and citizens can productively demand better. In the last week, Title 42 — a temporary coronavirus-related order put in place during the Trump administration — was repealed in favor of a new, Biden administration policy, which will allow asylum seekers to apply online but turn them away by the tens of thousands at the border. It remains to be seen how it will work in practice, but it has a bit of an air of a political compromise that satisfies no one (is applying online really an option for the people in the greatest danger?) and will likely still leave us with a perpetual humanitarian crisis at the border.
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+When political strategy gets in the way of helping people
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+Talk to people within the Biden administration about this dilemma, and often they’ll agree — but argue they’re caught between a rock and a hard place, especially when it comes to enforcement of immigration law at the US-Mexico border. The rules seem tremendously unfair and in no one’s interests, and enforcing them might require lots of deeply inhumane policies. I don’t get the sense that anyone in the administration is happy about the horrifying recent spike in deaths crossing the border or leaving people to die for being born in the wrong place.
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+But expanding admissions of asylum seekers is politically unpopular, and people in the Biden administration suspect that if they take too many steps to welcome asylum seekers, they’ll lose the next election. In the cold realpolitik logic here for some, it’s worth perpetuating an unjust system to keep approval ratings from slipping in order to stay in power, so that it’s later possible to change the laws that are the whole problem.
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+How should we think about logic like that? I don’t like it. I tend to be very skeptical that anyone who says they just need to hold onto power first, then make things better, will actually make things better. It’s too easy for that kind of self-serving logic to become all-consuming; there’s always another election to win.
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+To be fair, there are important respects in which the Biden administration’s immigration law is less capricious and stupid than that of his predecessor: more refugee resettlement, more permanent visas, and so on. Some of that progress is because Trump made a lot of things worse in reversible ways, and because the pandemic temporarily made everything much worse, rather than Biden making a lot of things better. It would be bad for just immigration policy if its proponents gave up on doing politically popular things, picked a bunch of unwinnable fights, provoked a backlash, and lost.
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+So obviously the logic of “this is unjust but we have to pick our battles” is legitimate logic at least sometimes. It’s just a question of when it’s reasonable and deserves a pass, and when it becomes an excuse.
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+Going beyond
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+Immigration is where this question has recently been most salient because of Title 42’s recent expiration and because people who work on making US immigration policy better have been struggling with what good policy from here would actually look like. But I think this quandary goes far beyond immigration.
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+Any policy role involves some balance of trying to accumulate power and trying to spend it — hopefully on making the world a better place. No matter how important a problem is, you’re going to spend some of your time trying to get the power to do something about it, and then some of your time trying to do something about it. It’s a setup ripe for deception — or self-deception — about how much you need to sacrifice for your own political position.
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+Maybe the frustrating and inadequate new asylum rules are the best compromise between political and humanitarian concerns; maybe they’re not. And maybe the justified sense among voters that our politicians are making unprincipled, confusing, bureaucratic compromises is part of how we got into this boat in the first place.
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+Politics is about doing what’s possible, not what’s best, and what’s possible is always going to fall far short of what’s best. At the same time, if all of us are too willing to give unethical systems and the politicians perpetuating them a pass on the pragmatic grounds that their opponents are even worse, I think that makes those unethical decisions easier to keep making — even where they aren’t necessary and we can do better.
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+A version of this story was initially published in the Future Perfect newsletter. Sign up here to subscribe!
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How Republican states are eroding local democracy -
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+Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee | Rogelio V. Solis for AP
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+Republican leaders in Tennessee, Mississippi, and Texas are targeting Democratic communities and institutions
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+Texas, Tennessee, and Mississippi — all led by Republican governors and legislatures — are pursuing efforts to diminish local control over policing, elections, and the courts in liberal and racially diverse areas.
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+All of the proposed legislation targets issues that are particularly sensitive for marginalized areas, like elections and criminal justice. In Mississippi and Texas in particular, the legislation is targeted specifically at localities where people of color are the majority. Efforts in all three states indicate an alarming trend, in which Republican leadership is attempting new strategies to further erode democracy, particularly in majority-minority areas and Democratic strongholds.
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+Some of these efforts, like the state government’s push to control policing and the court system in Jackson, Mississippi’s majority-Black and underserved capitol, have been in the works for months. Tennessee will eliminate community boards that oversee local police forces as of July 1.
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+In Texas, a bill which has already passed the state Senate would remove Harris County’s elections administrator and hand those duties over to the tax assessor-collector and the county clerk, the Texas Tribune reported earlier this month. Another would allow the secretary of state to call a new election in the case that ballots aren’t available, according to the Washington Post. Yet another bill would allow the secretary of state to appoint a marshal to investigate voting complaints.
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+“I think it would make a mockery of our democracy,” Harris County Commissioner Rodney Ellis, a Democrat, told the Post. “It would be a throwback to the forties and fifties.”
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+Republican Senator Paul Bettencourt said his initial bill was written to include counties with populations larger than 1 million, but that a study by his office found that Harris County was the only such municipality that repeatedly had election issues, according to the Tribune. Harris County did not create an elections department and appoint an elections administrator to run its elections till 2020, and voters did experience problems in that year’s election, including malfunctioning voting machines, a shortage of paper ballots, and long waits at polling stations.
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+In all of these cases, rather than invest in public services necessary for the functioning of communities and local democracy, Republican leadership’s apparentanswer is to underfund institutions or, as the past several months have shown eliminate or curtail local control.
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+Texas, Mississippi, and Tennessee: Three makes a trend
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+Mississippi’s Republican governor and Republican-dominated state legislature have been attempting to expand the presence of the capitol police force, as well as establish an alternative to the Hinds County Circuit Court, where elected judges would be replaced with state-appointed ones — at least for part of the city.
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+Jackson is a majority-Black city with a progressive, Black mayor. Chokwe Antar Lumumbacame into office in 2017 with 93 percent of the vote. Lumumba referred to himself as a “revolutionary,” much like his father, Jackson’s former mayor Chokwe Lumumba Sr. The younger Lumumba had a vision for Jackson, whose Black population has long suffered from the architecture of white supremacy in the South; after decades of racist vigilante violence, Jim Crow legislation, and backlash against the civil rights movement, Lumumba hoped to build a prosperous Jackson that would strive “not only to correct the ills as we see them, but to be a model for the nation of what progressive leadership and collective genius can accomplish,” as he told the Guardian in a post-election interview.
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+The state of Mississippi has been working against that vision in recent months, by introducing a slate of bills that wrest control of Jackson’s water system, police force, court system, and sales tax allocations from the local elected government to the Republican, white leadership in the state, all of which seems to benefit Jackson’s white population far more than its Black residents, who make up about 80 percent of the population.
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+Jackson certainly has problems — the water system is so degraded that residents cannot drink tap water or brush their teeth with it unless it’s boiled first. Garbage collection is another recent critical issue, as are high rates of crime and poverty.
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+Rep. Trey Lamar, a Republican from northwest Mississippi who sponsored the bill to take over Jackson’s police force and court system, denied that the legislation was racially motivated during an interview with the New York Times; his measure, he said, was instead focused on helping the city solve its problems with crime and court backlogs.
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+But it’s hard to ignore the message that, “This is a thing of, ‘Black folks can’t govern. Black leaders can’t govern,’” as Danyelle Holmes, an organizer with the Mississippi Poor People’s Campaign, told NPR in March.
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+In Tennessee, Republican Gov. Bill Lee signed a bill on Thursday which will eliminate civilian oversight boards for local police forces. They don’t exist in every city in Tennessee, but there is a Civilian Law Enforcement Review Board in Memphis, the city where Tyre Nichols was beaten to death by police officers in January. In Memphis, the CLERB “has the power to receive, investigate, hear cases, make findings, and recommend action on complaints regarding excessive and deadly force,” according to the Memphis city government website.
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+“Any community that’s dealing with a significant incident of police abuse — obviously the situation with Tyre Nichols was a particularly egregious and high-profile situation — but I think probably one of the most common problems that we hear of is that there’s not enough transparency, there’s not enough community access to what the city’s doing about the problem,” Lauren Bonds, executive director of the National Police Accountability Project, told Vox. Community and civilian oversight boards like the kinds Tennessee will eliminate help communities access information about their police force and provide a mechanism for accountability when the police force is accused of wrongdoing.
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+Tennessee’s new legislation will replace the community oversight boards with police advisory and review committees on July 1. These committees will have no power to investigate police forces, and only members appointed by the mayor will be allowed to bring complaints to the police force’s internal affairs unit. There will be no mechanism for independent investigations of police misconduct, as the Associated Press reported Thursday.
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+Republicans have come up with more creative ways to try and eliminate Democratic control
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+Republican efforts to limit Democratic power and representation are nothing new. Gerrymandering, for example, has been a scourge on the electoral system, with Republicans and Democrats both redrawing maps to try and rig electoral districts in their favor.
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+State legislatures, too, have worked to limit the influence of Democrats in power, most notably in the case of North Carolina’s Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper. As Vox reported in April:
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+House Bill 17, which [former Gov. Pat] McCrory signed into law in December 2016, hamstrung Cooper’s ability to appoint staff, required cabinet appointments to be approved by the legislature, and limited Cooper’s control over the education system. Senate Bill 4 turned the state’s Supreme Court elections into a partisan process, requiring candidates to disclose their party affiliation on a ballot. The bill also changed requirements for appeals, routing all cases through the Republican-controlled appeals court, and limited Cooper’s control over the state and county boards of elections; McCrory, a Republican, signed both bills into law.
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+The legislative efforts in states like Texas, Tennessee, and Mississippi are specific and subtle, and are ostensibly proposed to correct real problems. But they also fit into a larger framework of Republicans attempting to wrest solidify control in whatever way they can in states where they hold legislative and executive power.
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From The Hindu: Sports
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Murray pulls out of French Open: reports - The 36-year-old said he wanted another chance to play at the clay court Grand Slam while he is still fit and healthy.
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Indian boys and girls teams triumph in Asian under-12 tennis -
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Prajwal Dev and Nitin Kumar Sinha lose doubles final -
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Andy Flower showers praise on Rinku Singh - Rinku Singh looks really hungry for success and humble at the same time, but confident in what he can do, says LSG coach
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IPL 2023: MI vs SRH | Mumbai Indians restrict SRH to 200/5 - Mumbai Indians is currently at the sixth position in the points table of IPL 2023 with seven wins, six losses, with a total of 14 points.
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From The Hindu: National News
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Mallikarjun Kharge calls for crucial meeting on May 24 as Congress preps for next round of Assembly polls - After a stunning victory in Karnataka, the focus of Congress leadership has shifted to the next round of Assembly elections
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HC refuses relief to woman submitting forged documents for employment - “If a person submits forged and fabricated documents, then such a person is certainly unfit to be employed,” the high court said.
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Hurriyat, JKPC pay tributes to assassinated leaders Molvi Farooq, Lone on their death anniversaries - Mr. Farooq was killed on May 21, 1990 and J&K police say they have arrested or killed all the accused in the assassination case; Mr. Lone was killed on May 21, 2002 and the JKPC says no one has been arrested for the crime
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Hot air balloon show inaugurated in the Nilgiris -
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Delhi ordinance is a murder of mandate and insult to judiciary, says Akhilesh - BJP knows that it will be defeated in all the seats of Delhi in the Lok Sabha elections, that’s why it is already taking revenge from the public, alleges former U.P. CM
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From BBC: Europe
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Bakhmut: Zelensky says city is destroyed as Russia claims victory - “It’s a pity, it’s a tragedy, but for today Bakhmut is only in our hearts,” Ukraine’s president says.
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Ukraine war: ICC ‘undeterred’ by arrest warrant for chief prosecutor - Russia placed ICC boss Karim Khan on a wanted list, after he issued an arrest warrant for Vladimir Putin.
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Greek elections: Rail tragedy hangs over vote dominated by dynasties - Ahead of Sunday’s election, Greece’s worst rail crash is held up as proof of a broken government.
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France attack: Kalashnikov assault on car kills three in Marseille - The killings near a nightclub come amid a spike in drug violence in France’s second-largest city.
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Murder plot trial puts Latvia bank system in focus - Bank owner Mihails Ulmans denies accusations of involvement in the murder of an insolvency lawyer.
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From Ars Technica
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Ready the Ig Nobel: Researchers incorporate used diapers into concrete - Used disposable diapers can be added to concrete without killing its strength. - link
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When it comes to advanced math, ChatGPT is no star student - AI’s ability to handle math depends on what exactly you ask it to do. - link
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Above the fold: The people behind the Gocycle G4 thought of everything - A fantastic design means fewer compromises from a bike you can fold up and carry. - link
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Google at I/O 2023: We’ve been doing AI since before it was cool - Google’s “Code Red” was on full display at I/O, but it felt like AI for AI’s sake. - link
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France is fighting to save your iPhone from an early death - French prosecutors have launched an investigation into the scourge of planned obsolescence. - link
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From Jokes Subreddit
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God created childbirth to give women the chance to experience what it’s like… -
The military is cutting staff and decide to get rid of three generals. One from the Army, the Airforce, and the Marines. -
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+All of them are old, grizzled men who had seen their fair share of war, so the Pentagon comes up with a unique bonus system for their service. They can choose two points of their bodies and for every inch between them they would get 10k.
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+First up was the Army general. He chose to measure between the tips of his middle fingers with his arms spread wide.
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+Second was the Air Force, who chose the top of his head to the soles of his feet.
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+Then came the Marine General. “I want you to measure from the tip of my dick to my balls.”
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+The men running the measuring laughed and then asked him, seriously, where he wanted to measure.
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+“I am being serious. Now start measuring.”
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+The men tried to dissuade him but he was adamant. Finally, resigned, one of the men takes the measuring tape and goes to take the measurement. When the general removed his pants the man jumped up in shock.
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