Model-Driven Impact Quantification of Energy Resource Redundancy and Server Rejuvenation on the Dependability of Medical Sensor Networks in Smart Hospitals.

The spread of the Coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic across countries all over the world urges governments to revolutionize the traditional medical hospitals/centers to provide sustainable and trustworthy medical services to patients under the pressure of the huge overload on the computing systems of wireless sensor networks (WSNs) for medical monitoring as well as treatment services of medical professionals. Uncertain malfunctions in any part of the medical computing infrastructure, from its power system in a remote area to the local computing systems at a smart hospital, can cause critical failures in medical monitoring services, which could lead to a fatal loss of human life in the worst case. Therefore, early design in the medical computing infrastructure's power and computing systems needs to carefully consider the dependability characteristics, including the reliability and availability of the WSNs in smart hospitals under an uncertain outage of any part of the energy resources or failures of computing servers, especially due to software aging. In that regard, we propose reliability and availability models adopting stochastic Petri net (SPN) to quantify the impact of energy resources and server rejuvenation on the dependability of medical sensor networks. Three different availability models (A, B, and C) are developed in accordance with various operational configurations of a smart hospital's computing infrastructure to assimilate the impact of energy resource redundancy and server rejuvenation techniques for high availability. Moreover, a comprehensive sensitivity analysis is performed to investigate the components that impose the greatest impact on the system availability. The analysis results indicate different impacts of the considered configurations on the WSN's operational availability in smart hospitals, particularly 99.40%, 99.53%, and 99.64% for the configurations A, B, and C, respectively. This result highlights the difference of 21 h of downtime per year when comparing the worst with the best case. This study can help leverage the early design of smart hospitals considering its wireless medical sensor networks' dependability in quality of service to cope with overloading medical services in world-wide virus pandemics.

Photocatalytic Rejuvenation Enabled Self-Sanitizing, Reusable, and Biodegradable Masks against COVID-19.

Personal protective equipment (PPE) has been highly recommended by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for self-protection during the disastrous SARS-CoV-2 (COVID-19) pandemic. Nevertheless, massive utilization of PPE encounters significant challenges in recycling and sterilizing the used masks. To tackle the associated plastic pollution of used masks, in this work, we designed a reusable, biodegradable, and antibacterial mask. The mask was fabricated by the electrospinning of polyvinyl alcohol (PVA), poly(ethylene oxide) (PEO), and cellulose nanofiber (CNF), followed by esterification and the deposition of a nitrogen-doped TiO₂ (N-TiO₂) and TiO₂ mixture. The fabricated mask containing photocatalytic N-TiO₂/TiO₂ reached 100% bacteria disinfection under either 0.1 sun simulation (200-2500 nm, 106 W m^-2) or natural sunlight for only 10 min. Thus, the used mask can be rejuvenated through light irradiation and reused, which represents one of the handiest technologies for handling used masks. Furthermore, intermolecular interactions between PVA, PEO, and CNF enhanced the electrospinnability and mechanical performance of the resultant mask, which possesses a 10-fold elastic modulus and 2-fold tensile strength higher than a commercial single-use mask. The porous structures of electrospun nanofibers along with strong electrostatic attraction enabled breathability (83.4 L min^-1 of air flow rate) and superior particle filterability (98.7%). The prepared mask also had excellent cycling performance, wearability, and stable filtration efficiency even after 120 min wearing. Therefore, this mask could be a great alternative to current masks to address the urgent need for a sustainable, reusable, environmentally friendly, and efficient PPE under the ongoing COVID-19 contagion.

Delayed migration of soft tissue fillers in the periocular area masquerading as eyelid and orbital pathology.

Soft tissue fillers used for facial rejuvenation can cause complications. We present two cases of late migration of injected fillers mimicking other pathology in the periocular area. Case 1 is a 52-year-old woman referred with chronic bilateral upper lid swelling, mimicking blepharochalasis syndrome, 51/2 years after undergoing injection of hyaluronic acid filler in both brows. Extensive blood investigations were normal. Bilateral, sequential upper lid biopsy revealed migrated hyaluronic acid filler, which was successfully treated with hyaluronidase. Case 2 is a 62-year-old woman who presented with a right lower lid mass 8 years after undergoing injection of polyalkylimide gel into both cheeks. CT scanning confirmed an intermediate density soft tissue mass overlying the inferior orbital rim. Histology from surgical excision reported chronic granulomatous inflammation due to migrated polyalkylimide gel. An awareness of late migration of fillers causing eyelid swelling and masses in the periocular area will prevent unnecessary investigations and facilitate prompt management.

The geroscience agenda: Toxic stress, hormetic stress, and the rate of aging.

Geroscience offers a counterpoint to the challenged pursuit of curing diseases of aging, by focusing on slowing the biological aging process for extended healthspan earlier in life. Remarkable progress has led this field toward animal trials and the next challenge lies with translation to humans. There is an emerging number of small human trials that can take advantage of new models integrating behavioral and social factors. Understanding dynamic aging mechanisms, given the powerful social determinants of aging (Crimmins, 2020) and human variability and environmental contexts (Moffitt, 2020), will be critical. Behavioral and social factors are intrinsic to aging. Toxic stressors broadly defined can lead to stress-acceleration of aging, either directly impacting aging processes or by shaping poor behavioral health, and underlie the socioeconomic disparities of aging. In contrast, hormetic stressors, acute intermittent stressors of moderate intensity, can produce stress resilience, the ability for quick recovery and possibly rejuvenation of cells and tissues. Although health research usually examines static biomarkers, aging is reflected in dynamic ability to recover from challenges pointing to new interventions and targets for examining mechanisms. A fuller model incorporating stress resilience provides innovative biobehavioral interventions, both for bolstering response to challenges, such as COVID-19, and for improving healthspan.

Influence of the pandemic dissemination of COVID-19 on facial rejuvenation: A survey of Twitter.

BACKGROUND: With the pandemic dissemination of COVID-19, attitude and sentiment surrounding facial rejuvenation have evolved rapidly. AIMS: The purpose of this study was to understanding the impact of pandemic on the attitude of people toward facial skin rejuvenation. METHODS: Twitter data related to facial rejuvenation were collected from January 1, 2020, to April 30, 2020. Sentiment analysis, frequency analysis, and word cloud were performed to analyze the data. Statistical analysis included two-tailed t tests and chi-square tests. RESULTS: In the post-declaration, the number of tweets about facial rejuvenation increased significantly, and the search volume in Google Trends decreased. Negative public emotions increased, but positive emotions still dominate. The words frequency of "discounts" and "purchase" decreased. The dominant words in word cloud were "Botox," "facelift," "hyaluronic," and "skin." CONCLUSION: The public has a positive attitude toward facial rejuvenation during the pandemic. In particular, minimally invasive procedures dominate the mainstream, such as "Botox," "Hyaluronic acid," and "PRP." The practitioners could understand the change of the public interest in facial rejuvenation in time and decide what to focus on.

Safety guidelines for nonsurgical facial procedures during COVID-19 outbreak.

BACKGROUND: The novel coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic is expected to last for an extended time, making strict safety precautions for office procedures unavoidable. The lockdown is going to be lifted in many areas, and strict guidelines detailing the infection control measures for aesthetic clinics are going to be of particular importance. METHODS: A virtual meeting was conducted with the members (n = 12) of the European Academy of Facial Plastic Surgery Focus Group to outline the safety protocol for the nonsurgical facial aesthetic procedures for aesthetic practices in order to protect the clinic staff and the patients from SARS-CoV-2 infection. The data analysis was undertaken by thematic and iterative approach. RESULTS: Consensus guidelines for nonsurgical facial aesthetic procedures based on current knowledge are provided for three levels: precautions before visiting the clinic, precautions during the clinic visit, and precautions after the clinic visit. CONCLUSIONS: Sound infection control measures are mandatory for nonsurgical aesthetic practices all around the world. These may vary from country to country, but this logical approach can be customized according to the respective country laws and guidelines.