Stress Experience of COVID-19 Patients as Reported by Psychological Supporters in South Korea: A Qualitative Study.

Background: COVID-19 patients experience various stressors during the quarantine period and after release from quarantine. However, stressors experienced during each period remain unclear. Methods: A total of 15 mental health experts from the integrated psychological support group for COVID-19participated in this study. Psychological support was provided for the total 932 confirmed COVID-19 patients and their families. Qualitative data were collected using Focus Group Interview (FGI). The participants were divided into two groups and semi-structured questions were used to allow participants to speak their minds. Results: During the quarantine period, difficulties of being diagnosed with COVID-19, concerns about recovery from COVID-19, stress related to quarantine, issues related to the treatment environment, and limited information about COVID-19 and communication were frequently reported. After release from quarantine, the reported main stressors include reinfection or reactivation, concerns about complications, and financial difficulties. Confusion as vectors and victims, stigma and discrimination, and conflicts within a family were observed during both periods. Conclusions: COVID-19 patients suffered various stressors during the quarantine period and after release from quarantine. Moreover, returning to their daily life required timely psychosocial support, intervention, and treatment for COVID-19 infection.

Systematic calibration of a cell signaling network model.

BACKGROUND: Mathematical modeling is being applied to increasingly complex biological systems and datasets; however, the process of analyzing and calibrating against experimental data is often challenging and a rate limiting step in model development. To address this problem, we developed a systematic methodology for calibrating quantitative models of dynamic biological processes and illustrate its utility by validating a model of TRAIL (Tumor necrosis factor Related Apoptosis-Inducing Ligand)-induced cell death. RESULTS: We propose a serial framework integrating analysis and calibration modules and we compare various methods for global sensitivity analysis and global parameter estimation. First, adequacy of the network structure is checked by global sensitivity analysis to changes in concentrations of molecular species, validating that the model can reproduce qualitative features of the system behavior derived from experiments or literature surveys. Second, rate parameters are ranked by importance using gradient-based and variance-based sensitivity indices, and we systematically determine the optimal number of parameters to include in model calibration. Third, deterministic, stochastic and hybrid algorithms for global optimization are applied to estimate the values of the most important parameters by fitting to time series data. We compare the performance of these three optimization algorithms. CONCLUSIONS: Our proposed framework covers the entire process from validating a proto-model to establishing a realistic model for in silico experiments and thereby provides a generalized workflow for the construction of predictive models of complex network systems.

Peroxidase chemically attached on polymeric micelle and its reaction with phenolic compounds.

Horseradish peroxidase was chemically modified with comb-shaped polymaleic anhydride-alt-1-tetradecene (PMA-TD) in microemulsion systems to produce surface-active peroxidase that has capability to form micellar structures in aqueous solutions and can be concentrated at liquid/liquid interfaces without unfolding of the enzyme. For chemical modification oil-in-water (O/W) and water-in-oil (W/O) microemulsion systems composed of n-butyl acetate and a buffer solution were prepared because n-butyl acetate turned out to be less detrimental to the activity of peroxidase at high degree of modification compared to other organic solvents. The modification degree of amine groups on the surface of peroxidase by maleic anhydride groups on PMA-TD was reached at equilibrium after 1h reaction at 0°C, and 42% of amine groups were modified with 7-fold amount of PMA-TD to peroxidase (wt/wt). The activity of the PMA-TD-modified peroxidase measured with 2,4-dichlorophenol at pH 7.0 was increased by approximately 2-fold compared to native peroxidase. There was no significant shift in optimum pH after modification, and optimum pH measured with 2,4-dichlorophenol was observed at pH 7.0. For all six phenolic compounds tested, there was a significant increase in the reaction efficiency with the PMA-TD-modified peroxidase. The remarkable enhancement of the reaction efficiency by the modification was presumably because of micellar structures of PMA-TD that could concentrate hydrophobic phenolic oligomers into the core of the micelles. Overall, horseradish peroxidase chemically attached to the surface of PMA-TD micelles was found to be significantly effective for the oxidative polymerization of phenolic compounds.

[Nurse's perception of technological development, caring attributes and professional self-concept in YanBian].

PURPOSE: The purpose of this study was to describe technological development, caring attributes and professional self-concept as perceived by nurses in YanBian. METHOD: Data were collected using an instrument containing 137 Likert items was administered to 477 RN's working in general hospitals in YanBian. The instrument contained sections which examined technological influences questionnaire(TIQ), caring attributes questionnaire(CAQ), and professional self-concept nursing inventory(PSCNI). RESULT: Descriptive and inferential statistics revealed by marital status and position. Married, working special ward nurses reported a higher TIQ score than that of unmarried and working general ward and OPD. PSCNI and CAQ score of head or supervisor nurses were higher than that of staff nurses. Subjects revealed very low score of CAQ, while PSCNI score was higher than that of other Asian countries such as Korea, Beijing China, HongKong China and Japan as proved in former study. CONCLUSION: Useful information for educators and nurse administrators is provided from this results. Further study needs to be done to discuss in the light of cultural and environmental differences between YanBian(Korean-Chinese) and Korean nurses.

Identification of a novel sulfonamide non-nucleoside reverse transcriptase inhibitor by a phenotypic HIV-1 full replication assay.

Classical target-based, high-throughput screening has been useful for the identification of inhibitors for known molecular mechanisms involved in the HIV life cycle. In this study, the development of a cell-based assay that uses a phenotypic drug discovery approach based on automated high-content screening is described. Using this screening approach, the antiviral activity of 26,500 small molecules from a relevant chemical scaffold library was evaluated. Among the selected hits, one sulfonamide compound showed strong anti-HIV activity against wild-type and clinically relevant multidrug resistant HIV strains. The biochemical inhibition, point resistance mutations and the activity of structural analogs allowed us to understand the mode of action and propose a binding model for this compound with HIV-1 reverse transcriptase.

Microfluidic cell disruption system employing a magnetically actuated diaphragm.

A microfluidic cell lysis chip equipped with a micromixer and SPE unit was developed and used for quantitative analysis of intracellular proteins. This miniaturized sample preparation system can be employed for any purpose where cell disruption is needed to obtain intracellular constituents for the subsequent analysis. This system comprises a magnetically actuated micromixer to disrupt cells, a hydrophobic valve to manipulate the cell lysate, and a packed porous polymerized monolith chamber for SPE and filtering debris from the cell lysate. Using recombinant Escherichia coli expressing intracellular enhanced green fluorescent protein (EGFP) and lipase as model bacteria, we optimized the cell disruption condition with respect to the lysis buffer composition, mixing time, and the frequency of the diaphragm in the micromixer, which was magnetically actuated by an external magnetic stirrer in the micromixer chamber. The lysed sample prepared under the optimal condition was purified by the packed SPE in the microfluidic chip. At a frequency of 1.96 Hz, the final cell lysis efficiency and relative fluorescence intensity of EGFP after the cell disruption process were greater than 90 and 94%, respectively. Thus, this microfluidic cell disruption chip can be used for the efficient lysis of cells for further analysis of intracellular contents in many applications.