Author Correction: The dual role of anti-viral therapy in the treatment of Coronavirus disease 2019.

Correction to: European Review for Medical and Pharmacological Sciences 2020; 24 (22): 11939-11944-DOI: 10.26355/eurrev_202011_23854-PMID: 33275267, published online 30 November, 2020. The authors state that "Figures 3 and 4 were used twice due to a careless mistake during the preparation of Figures". There are amendments to this paper.  The Publisher apologizes for any inconvenience this may cause. https://www.europeanreview.org/article/23854.

The dual role of anti-viral therapy in the treatment of Coronavirus disease 2019.

OBJECTIVE: Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) has become a worldwide public health emergency; unfortunately, there is currently no treatment for improving outcomes or reducing viral-clearance times in infected patients. The aim of the present study was to evaluate the efficacy of interferon (IFN) with or without lopinavir and ritonavir as antiviral therapeutic option for treating COVID-19 infection. PATIENTS AND METHODS: The present study enrolled 148 patients that received either standard care, treatment with IFN alfa-2b, or IFN alfa-2b combined with lopinavir plus ritonavir. Viral testing was performed using Reverse-Transcription Polymerase Chain Reaction (RT-PCR). RESULTS: There was no significant difference in the viral-clearance time at 28 days after treatment between patients receiving standard care and those receiving anti-viral treatments. However, the average viral-clearance time of patients receiving standard care (14 days) was shorter than that for patients receiving IFN alfa-2b or IFN alfa-2b combined with lopinavir plus ritonavir (15.5 or 17.5 days) (p<0.05). Patients treated with IFN alfa-2b within five days or IFN alfa-2b combined with lopinavir plus ritonavir after three days of symptoms exhibited shorter viral-clearance times than the other groups (p<0.05). Moreover, viral-clearance times were significantly longer in patients receiving standard care or anti-viral treatment 5 days after symptoms appeared than those of patients who received these treatments within five days of symptom onset (p<0.05). CONCLUSIONS: Early symptomatic treatment is most critical for maximizing amelioration of COVID-19 infection. Anti-viral treatment might have complicated effect on viral-clearance.

[Homosexual behavior and related factors among married men who have sex with men in Mianyang city, Sichuan province].

Objective: To understand the homosexual behavior and related factors among married MSM in Mianyang city. Methods: Between January and October in 2017, a snowball sampling method was adopted to carry out cross-sectional survey through questionnaires plus HIV testing among those MSM in Mianyang city. Logistic regression model was used to analyze homosexual behaviors and related factors among married MSM under study. Statistical analysis was used by EpiData 3.1 and SPSS 19.0 software. Results: A total of 234 MSM participated in this survey. The overall rate of homosexual behavior in these married MSM appeared as 94.9% (222/234). Rate of having anal sex behavior was 94.4% (221/234) in the past 6 months, with rate of condom use as 57.9% (128/221). HIV positive rate was 8.1% (18/222). As for the motives for homosexual behavior after marriage, 87.8% (195/222) were driven by feelings of love, 12.2% (27/222) due to 'releasing pressure'. Proportion of male sex partners would include occasional sex partners (62.2%, 138/222), stable male sex partners (26.1%, 58/222) and stable boyfriends (11.7%, 26/222). Factors from logistic regression analysis showed that homosexual behaviors were related to the factors including education level of senior high school or above vs. education level of junior middle school or below (OR=3.65, 95%CI: 1.33-9.98); local residency over one year vs. the ones having local residency less than one year (OR=23.28, 95%CI:1.67-324.89); having 10 or more friends in the MSM community vs. having below 10 friends in MSM community (OR=4.15, 95%CI: 1.28-13.43); without sex pleasure with spouse vs. having sex pleasure with spouse (OR=3.25, 95%CI: 1.22-8.62); having 2 or more anal sex partners in the past 6 months vs. having less than 2 anal sex partners in the past 6 months (OR=0.28,95%CI: 0.09-0.81). Conclusions: The rate of homosexual behavior and HIV positive rate were high among MSM in Mianyang city. Homosexual behaviors after marriage were influenced by multiple factors among MSM. The motives of homosexual behavior after marriage were driven by feelings of love, the related factors were education level of senior high school or above, local residency over one year, having 10 or more friends in the MSM community and without sex pleasure with spouse. As for the motives of these behaviors was caused by releasing pressure, the related factors was having more than 2 anal sex partners.

[Clinical analysis for preset double J tube in percutaneous nephrolithotripsy].

Objective: To evaluate the clinical application and effect of preseting Double-J ureteric stent in percutaneous nephrolithotripsy. Method: 74 cases of renal calculi treated with PCNL in our hospital during June 2014 to February 2017 were retrospectively analyzed. Of 74 cases, 54 was male, 20 was female. All cases were aged 27 to 78, the mean age was (49.5±12.3) years old. The diameter of the stone was 20 to 59 mm, and the mean diameter was of (29.4±4.3) mm.Our Surgical methods was first putingFr6 double J tube in abnormal ureteral in advance in lithotomy position, then indwellingthree-way Foley catheter and clipping drainage port, perfusingirrigation port with 3 000 ml saline from 60-80 cm height.Perfusingsaline through irrigation port in prone position, we produce artificial hydronephrosis, then indwelling channel Fr20 through B ultrasound guided percutaneous nephrostomy, and removing renal calculi using holmium laser lithotripsy. Results: All patients were successfully completed percutaneous nephrostomy and indwell Fr20 channel, mean channel set up time (8.0 ±2.0) min, mean operation time (79±46) min, mean decline of hemoglobin (17.0±4.0) g/L, mean serum creatinine increased(3.1±1.1) µmol/L, one-stage stone-free rates 81.1%, complication rate 8.1% (1 case injured pleura and suffered from pneumothorax, 1 case suffered from massive hemorrhage of renal arteriovenous fistula after operation, 4 cases suffered postoperative fever). Conclusion: Advance in percutaneous nephrolithotripsy indwelling double J tube is a safe and feasible method, which is advantageous to the percutaneous renal puncture and the establishment of channels, and can avoid the blindness of along the line of indwelling double J.

Mobility of acid-treated carbon nanotubes in water-saturated porous media.

The production, use, and disposal of nanomaterials may inevitably lead to their appearance in water. With the development of new industries around nanomaterials, it seems necessary to be concerned about the transport of nanomaterials in the environment. In this paper, the transport of acid-treated carbon nanotubes (CNTs) in porous media was investigated. Before the mobility investigation, the stability of acid-treated CNT dispersions was studied using ultraviolet-visible spectra and it was indicated that, under the chemical conditions employed in this work, there was no apparent aggregation. The mobility investigation showed that transport of acid-treated CNTs increased with treatment time due to increase in particle zeta potential. Carbon nanotubes treated with nitric acid for 2, 6, and 12 h possessed measured zeta potentials of -30.0, -43.0, and -48.5 mV, respectively. Utilizing clean-bed filtration theory, we showed that acid-treated CNTs have the potential to migrate 3.28, 5.67, and 7.69 m in saturated glass beads, respectively. We showed that solution ionic strength and pH have important effects on the mobility of acid-treated CNTs. Increasing the pH from 6.0 to 7.9 resulted in an increase in migration potential from 2.96 to 10.86 m. Increasing the ionic strength from 0.005 to 0.020 M resulted in a decrease in CNT migration potential from 5.67 to 1.42 m.

Application of image texture analysis for online determination of curd moisture and whey solids in a laboratory-scale stirred cheese vat.

A noninvasive technology, which could be employed online to monitor syneresis, would facilitate the production of higher quality and more consistent cheese products. Computer vision techniques such as image texture analysis have been successfully established as rapid, consistent, and nondestructive tools for determining the quality of food products. In this study, the potential of image texture analysis to monitor syneresis of cheese curd in a stirred vat was studied. A fully randomized 2-factor (milk pH and stirring speed), 2-level factorial design was carried out in triplicate. During syneresis, images of the surface of the stirred curd-whey mixture were captured using a computer vision system. The images were subjected to 5 image texture analysis methods by which 109 image texture features were extracted. Significant correlations were observed between a number of image texture features and curd moisture and whey solids. Multiscale analysis techniques of fractal dimension and wavelet transform were demonstrated to be the most useful for predicting syneresis indices. Fractal dimension features predicted curd moisture and whey solids during syneresis with standard errors of prediction of 1.03% (w/w) and 0.58 g/kg, respectively. It was concluded that syneresis indices were most closely related to the image texture features of multiscale representation. The results of this study indicate that image texture analysis has potential for monitoring syneresis.

Visual evoked potentials estimation by adaptive noise cancellation with neural-network-based fuzzy inference system.

Visual Evoked potentials (VEPs) are time-varying signals typically buried in relatively large background noise known as the electroencephalogram (EEG). An adaptive noise cancellation with neural-network-based fuzzy inference system was used and the NNFIS was carefully designed to model the VEP signal. An advantage of the method in this paper is that no reference signal is required. The NNFIS based on Takagi and Sugeno's fuzzy model has the advantage of being linear-in-parameter, which is able to closely fit any function mapping and can track the dynamic behavior of VEP in a real-time fashion. 4 sets of simulated data indicate that the proposed method is appropriate to estimate VEP. A total of 150 trials are processed to demonstrate the superior performance of the proposed method.