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Background: The plant Artemisia annua has been used in traditional Chinese medicine for many years. Rich in bioactive molecules, the A. annua plant is used to extract the anti-malaria compound artemisinin (< 1%), which results in most of the plant being unutilized. One byproduct of artemisinin extraction is artemisia naphtha (AN), which has yet to be studied extensively. Aims: Study the activity of a novel AN oil extract against microbes, pro-inflammatory cytokines, and dermatological endpoints that are key for eczema and acne pathogenesis to determine if an effective A. annua extract for these skin conditions can be developed. Methods: Gas chromatography-mass spectrometry was performed to determine the composition of AN oil. P. acnes, S. aureus, M. furfur, and C. albicans were cultured to determine minimal inhibitory concentration. in vitro studies utilizing keratinocytes and macrophages were treated with AN oil and gene expression measured by quantitative RT-PCR. A 13-subject clinical trial was performed with 1% AN oil Gel to assess its potential benefits for sensitive and acne prone skin. Results: AN oil upregulates filaggrin gene expression and possesses antimicrobial and anti-inflammatory activity inhibiting LPS, S. aureus and "Th2 induced" pro-inflammatory mediator release (IL-6, IL-8 and TSLP). Clinical assessment of 1% AN Gel shows it reduces acne blemishes and the appearance of redness. Conclusion: Previously an underutilized and unpurified byproduct, AN is now the source to develop the first topical AN oil for cosmetic use with an activity profile that suggests it is effective for those with sensitive and/or acne prone skin.

Retrorectal cystic hamartomas (HCR) (“tailgut cyst” in English-language literature) are congenital cystic tumors derived from vestiges of the hindgut. Its incidence is low, being more frequent in adult women. They are variable in size, uni or multiloculated. They can be lined with several types of epithelia (squamous, transitional, mucinous,...) in a same cyst and can contain mucus. Lesions usually present during adulthood due to pain, discomfort, rectal bleeding, infection, or malignant transformation. The incidence of malignancy is low, being adenocarcinoma and neuroendocrine the most frequent tumors associated to HCR. We present a case of HCR associated with squamous cell carcinoma and discuss aspects of the treatment.

This is the case of a full-term baby girl, born to a mother with a history of parenteral inorganic mercury administration. Thirteen years prior, this mother injected 1mL of inorganic mercury in her right forearm, was subsequently hospitalized, but never received chelation treatment. Her first trimester blood and urine mercury concentration were found to be elevated at 28μg/L (normal <10μg/L) and 162 μg/L (normal <20μg/L) respectively. Her chest x-ray also revealed multiple small punctate metallic densities within the lower lung fields. The remainder of the prenatal course was uneventful. The baby was born at 40 weeks of gestation via uncomplicated caesarian section, and on day of life 3, blood mercury concentrations were found to be 20μg/L (normal <20μg/L). The baby, however, remained asymptomatic throughout her hospital stay and on outpatient follow up. She is now two years old. Mercury poisoning in the pediatric population remains a concern, and knowledge of exposure and health effects continues to be relevant as newer uses and modes of exposure are discovered. This case report illustrates a rare perinatal exposure scenario, and, while the mother and child were essentially asymptomatic, the case serves to raise awareness of the many ways in which fetuses, infants, and children may still be exposed to the harmful effects of mercury. This case underscores the need for careful environmental history taking in pregnancy, after birth, and ideally in the pre-conception period as well.

Advanced technologies, such as electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS), are a valuable tool which can enhance and simplify the industrial process monitoring if used correctly. State-of-the-art approaches for screening the cell growth of for example yeast during the brewing process still heavily rely on offline methods such as methylene blue or florescence dye-based staining, and/or the usage of flow cytometric measurements. These methods, while being accurate, are very time consuming and require heavy manual effort. Furthermore, the time span needed to obtain the counting result can lead to a time-delayed response signal and can impact the quality of the final product. In recent studies, applications of low-frequency EIS in the α-regime were used for the determination of cell counts and the metabolic state in Saccharomyces cerevisiae. This method has proven to be a reliable tool which has also shown high potential in industrial scale applications. The online biomass monitoring, as well as viable cell count, for feasibility study was performed in-house at Stiegl Brewery in Salzburg/Austria founded in 1492.

The global virome: The viruses have a global distribution, phylogenetic diversity and host specificity. They are obligate intracellular parasites with single- or double-stranded DNA or RNA genomes, and afflict bacteria, plants, animals and human population. The viral infection begins when surface proteins bind to receptor proteins on the host cell surface, followed by internalisation, replication and lysis. Further, trans-species interactions of viruses with bacteria, small eukaryotes and host are associated with various zoonotic viral diseases and disease progression. Virome interface and transmission: The cross-species transmission from their natural reservoir, usually mammalian or avian, hosts to infect human-being is a rare probability, but occurs leading to the zoonotic human viral infection. The factors like increased human settlements and encroachments, expanded travel and trade networks, altered wildlife and livestock practices, modernised and mass-farming practices, compromised ecosystems and habitat destruction, and global climate change have impact on the interactions between virome and its hosts and other species and act as drivers of trans-species viral spill-over and human transmission. Zoonotic viral diseases and epidemics: The zoonotic viruses have caused various deadly pandemics in human history. They can be further characterized as either newly emerging or re-emerging infectious diseases, caused by pathogens that historically have infected the same host species, but continue to appear in new locations or in drug-resistant forms, or reappear after apparent control or elimination. The prevalence of zoonoses underlines importance of the animal–human–ecosystem interface in disease transmission. The present COVID-19 infection has certain distinct features which suppress the host immune response and promote the disease potential. Treatment for epidemics like covid-19: It appears that certain nutraceuticals may provide relief in clinical symptoms to patients infected with encapsulated RNA viruses such as influenza and coronavirus. These nutraceuticals appear to reduce the inflammation in the lungs and help to boost type 1 interferon response to these viral infections. The human intestinal microbiota acting in tandem with the host’s defence and immune system, is vital for homeostasis and preservation of health. The integrity and balanced activity of the gut microbes is responsible for the protection from disease states including viral infections. Certain probiotics may help in improving the sensitivity and effectivity of immune system against viral infections. Currently, antiviral therapy is available only for a limited number of zoonotic viral infections. Because viruses are intracellular parasites, antiviral drugs are not able to deactivate or destroy the virus but can reduce the viral load by inhibiting replication and facilitating the host’s innate immune mechanisms to neutralize the virus. Conclusion: Lessons from recent viral epidemics - Considering that certain nutraceuticals have demonstrated antiviral effects in both clinical and animal studies, further studies are required to establish their therapeutic efficacy. The components of nutraceuticals such as luteolin, apigenin, quercetin and chlorogenic acid may be useful for developing a combo-therapy. The use of probiotics to enhance immunity and immune response against viral infections is a novel possibility. The available antiviral therapy is inefficient in deactivating or destroying the infecting viruses, may help in reducing the viral load by inhibiting replication. The novel efficient antiviral agents are being explored.

Background: In light of the COVID-19 pandemic and the health crisis left in its wake, our goal is to develop extensive machine-learning techniques to provide a clear picture of the treatment, and possible mistreatment, of specific patient demographics during hospital triaging.Objective: We aim to reveal whether a patient’s treatment and hospital disposition is related to the following attributes - Emergency Severity Index (ESI), gender, employment status, insurance status, race, or ethnicity which our 100 MB dataset included.Materials and methods: Our work is separated into two parts - the classification task and data analysis. As part of the classification task, we used the k-Nearest-Neighbor classifier, the F1-score, and a random forest. We then analyze the data using SHapley Additive exPlanations (SHAP) values to determine the importance of each attribute.Results: Our findings show that significance varies for each attribute. Notably, we found that patients with private insurance programs receive better treatment compared to patients with federal-run healthcare programs (e.g. Medicaid, Medicare). Furthermore, a patient’s ethnicity has a greater impact on treatment for patients under 40 years of age for any given ESI level. Surprisingly, our findings show language is not a barrier during treatment.Discussion and conclusion: We, therefore, conclude that although hospitals may not be doing so intentionally, there is a systemic bias in hospital triaging for specific patient demographics. For future works, we hope to aggregate additional patient data from hospitals to find whether specific demographics of patients receive better healthcare in different parts of the United States.

Due to extensive COVID-19 prevention measures, millions of tons of chemicals penetrated the natural environment. Alterations of viruses in the environment, the neglected perceiver of environmental fluctuations, remain obscure. Chemicals especially trihalomethane restrained the virus community diversity. Segments of SARS-CoV-2 RNA have been detected near hospitals that suggesting the environment as a missing link in the transmission route. Human viruses lurking in the environment were potentially activated by pandemic prevention chemicals, warning an overlooked burden to human health. This letter warns of the risk of activation of human viruses in the environment following the overuse of COVID-19 prevention devices and emphasizes the long-term monitoring of environmental viruses in the post-pandemic period.

The major use of alternative light sources (ALS) in the evaluation of bloodstains has been primarily focused on detection of whole blood, with relatively little attention to visualization of blood serum. Serum may become separated from blood pools during clotting, and because it is relatively invisible on certain backgrounds, go undetected by a perpetrator attempting to clean up a crime scene. Recently, Ultraviolet 365 (UV 365) was shown to be an effective tool in blood evaluation, useful for detection of even minute quantities of blood serum. Here the effects of environmental conditions on blood serum stain appearance were evaluated, including temperature, pH, protease sensitivity, solubility, and aging. Interestingly, it was found that the UV fluorescence of serum increases upon exposure to heat, which was accompanied by color changes under visible light and decreased solubility in multiple solvents. The efficiency of visualization of serum stains was somewhat variable, depending on the type of material on which it was dried. Finally, the current study documents the effect of heating on formation of fluorescent serum halo rings in dried bloodstains. Taken together, these data demonstrate that blood serum detection may be affected by certain conditions that influence its visualization under both visible and UV light.

Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) had affected both developed and developing countries too. The first case in Nepal was confirmed on 23 January 2020. It was also the first recorded case of COVID-19 in South Asia. Nepal reported its first COVID-19 death on May 16. At the end of October, the number of death stood 937 and 1126 on 9 November. In September and October, deaths doubled, and with winter setting in, fatalities may skyrocket. Among the total CP cases in Nepal nearly 50% are from the Capital Kathmandu. So, Kathmandy is the new epicenter of COVID-19 in Nepal. There are no proper community-based isolation centres and ICU beds are also still limited. Due to increasing trend of COVID-19 cases and death people have fear of psychological stress. A study shows at least one symptom of psychological distress whereas 32% suffered from two or more symptoms of psychological distress such as restlessness, fearfulness, anxiety and worry and sadness. Despite limited resources, the government’s major challenges are early diagnosis, management of confirmed cases, contact tracing, and implementing some public health measures to reduce the infection’s transmissibility.

Introduction: In the spirit of maintaining health and seeking medicine to cure a disease, the question of halal and haram still needs to be answered. This coincides with the words of the Prophet Muhammad SAW “Verily Allah does not make your healing in what He has forbidden you” (HR. Imam Bukhari). The purpose of this quantitative study was to determine the effect of religiosity, perception, knowledge, and attitudes of Muslim doctors on the use of halal drugs in Indonesia.Materials and methods: This quantitative research method with correlational type examines the relationship between religiosity, perceptions, knowledge, attitudes, intentions, and behaviors that are shared online using google form. Data was measured using a Likert scale. A five-point Likert scale was used for statements: Strongly Disagree: 1, Disagree: 2, Uncertain: 3, Agree: 4, and Strongly Agree: 5. The sample size used was 435 Muslim doctors. The data obtained were then processed using the SmartPLS 3.0 application.Results: The results obtained are that there is a relationship between the religiosity of Muslim doctors on perceptions so as to encourage intention so that there is a change in behavior in the use of halal drugs in Indonesia. In addition, there is a relationship between knowledge and attitudes so as to encourage intentions that cause behavioral changes in the use of halal drugs in Indonesia by Muslim doctors. In fact, every practice depends on the intention, therefore it is important to maintain the intention, which in this study is influenced by perceptions and attitudes so that charity will result in commendable behavior that is blessed by Allah SWT. In addition, there is also a need for education about halal drugs that are appropriate to be taught at the medical faculty of Islamic universities in Indonesia.