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Abstract Aim To explore the feasibility and effectiveness of an alternating shift pattern in two-hour segments in the state of emergency management of public health events. Methods A cross-sectional research design was conducted in our study. The nursing staff working in the admission ward of suspected or confirmed patients with COVID-19 in December 2022 were selected as subjects by the whole-group sampling method. We adopted a shift pattern of alternating shifts every two-hour in the isolation wards. The vital signs parameters were captured by uniformly wearing the multi-signs sensing devices, and the questionnaires collected the symptoms. Results Sixty-seven female participants, with a mean age of 33.09 ± 5.96 years, were included in this study. Measurements of body temperature (T), blood oxygen saturation (SpO2), respiratory rate (RR), and heart rate (HR) while wearing personal protective equipment (PPE) all remained within normal limits. None of the nurses reported sweating, dizziness, blurred vision, palpitations, or dyspnea. Statistical analysis showed significant differences between the critical care group and the non-critical care group in terms of age (P = 0.041), working duration (P = 0.036), and the total number of entries into isolation areas for nursing care (rounds) (P = 0.007). However, there were no statistically significant differences in vital signs based on age, work duration, or body mass index (BMI). The data indicated a notable increase in body temperature compared to other vital sign parameters with increasing work time while wearing PPE. Body temperature approached the upper limit when working close to 2 h long. Conclusions The alternating shift pattern in two-hour segments can effectively maintain the physical well-being of nurses wearing PPE without increasing the burden on nursing staff or the wastage of protective materials. This approach is recommended for addressing similar public health events in the future.

Background: This retrospective analysis aims to investigate the clinical characteristics of students infected with the SARS-CoV-2 Omicron variant in three Beijing schools. Additionally, we explore the dynamic trends of nucleic acid cycle threshold values (Ct values) and serum antibody titers throughout the disease course. Methods: Demographic, clinical, nucleic acid Ct values, and antibody titer data were collected from cases in a COVID-19 cluster in Beijing Ditan Hospital, Capital Medical University, spanning from September 6 to October 1, 2022. Results: A total of 107 students infected with Omicron (BA.5.2 and BA.2.76) were identified across three schools. Primary clinical manifestations included fever and upper respiratory symptoms (85/107, 79.4 %), with the majority being classified as mild cases (96/107, 89.7 %). Notably, middle school students in the second school exhibited a higher peak body temperature compared to college students in the first and third schools (39.5 °C vs. 38.4 °C, adjusted P = 0.005; 39.5 °C vs. 38.6 °C, adjusted P = 0.002). Analysis of dynamic changes in Ct values revealed the lowest median Ct value in nasopharyngeal swabs on the third day of illness, reaching 35 after 9–11 days. Oropharyngeal swab nucleic acid median Ct value reached 35 approximately 3–5 days post-onset. Serum antibody detection showed continuous negativity of IgM antibody titers from days 1–10, while IgG antibody titers were positive on the first day and increased rapidly after one week. Conclusions: The three COVID-19 cluster school outbreaks primarily resulted from Omicron infections, with no severe or fatal cases observed. Clinically, the selection of different types of SARS-CoV-2 nucleic acid swabs for virus detection can be tailored based on the infection's course.

Automated extraction of building rooftop information is of great significance in remote sensing of land resources and other related applications. In this article, a building roof boundary generating optimization model called multiscale boundary regulation generative net (MSBR-GNet), guided by interpretability statistical model in the spatial and spectral domains, is proposed to solve the problem of inaccurate boundary segmentation caused by mixed pixel transition region of remote sensing images. Incorporate the boundary loss function guided by statistical models in the spatial and spectral domains into the generator loss calculation of MSBR-GNet, precisely constrain the regularized generation of building rooftop contours by interpretable mechanism. The experiments show that MSBR-GNet can extract more regular building rooftop contours, and the precision values in the INRIA, WHU, and Massachusetts public datasets reached 0.9275, 0.9228, and 0.8779, respectively, which can ensure the accuracy of building extraction while achieving optimal results in the boundary morphology evaluation index.

Abstract With the ongoing mutation of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS‐CoV‐2) leading to various variants, there is an urgent need for new diagnostic methods for SARS‐CoV‐2 infection. The existing nucleic acid test and antigen test suffer from long assay time and low sensitivity, respectively. Matrix‐assisted laser desorption/ionization time‐of‐flight mass spectrometry (MALDI‐TOF MS)‐based nasal swabs analysis have been demonstrated as a promising technique in SARS‐CoV‐2 infection screening. However, the applicability of the technique in the different variants of SARS‐CoV‐2 is uncertain. Given the prevalence of the Omicron variant since 2022, we developed a MALDI‐TOF‐based diagnosis method with nasal swab samples to detect the infection by this variant. We collected 325 SARS‐CoV‐2‐positive and 221 SARS‐CoV‐2‐negative nasal swab samples, and the molecular mass fingerprints were acquired from the samples by MALDI‐TOF MS. Using a random forest machine learning classification model to analyze the molecular mass fingerprints MALDI‐TOF mass spectra, the accuracy of 97%, false negative rate of 0%, and false positive rate of 7.6% were achieved for the diagnosis of SARS‐CoV‐2 infection. Combining the MALDI‐TOF analysis with top‐down proteomics, we identified four potential protein biomarkers, that is, humanin‐like 4, thymosin beta‐10, thymosin beta‐4 and statherin, in the nasal swab for the diagnosis of coronavirus disease 2019. It was further found that the four protein biomarkers can also differentiate the SARS‐CoV‐2 original strains infection and Omicron strains infection. These results suggest that the MALDI‐TOF MS‐based nasal swab analysis holds effective diagnostic capabilities of SARS‐CoV‐2 infection, and shows promising potential for global application and extension to other infectious diseases.

ABSTRACT Sudapyridine (WX-081) is a structural analog of bedaquiline (BDQ), which shows anti-tuberculosis and non-tuberculous mycobacteria (NTM) activities but, unlike BDQ, did not prolong QT interval in animal model studies. This study evaluated the antibacterial activity of this novel compound against Mycobacterium avium, Mycobacterium abscessus, and Mycobacterium chelonae in vitro and in vivo. The minimum inhibitory concentration (MIC) of WX-081 against three kinds of non-tuberculous mycobacteria (NTM) clinical strains was determined using microplate-based alamarBlue assay (MABA), and the antibacterial activity of WX-081 against NTM in J774A.1 cells and mice was evaluated. MIC ranges of WX-081 against clinical strains of M. avium and M. abscessus were 0.05–0.94 μg/mL, 0.88–7.22 μg/mL (M. abscessus subsp. abscessus), and 0.22–8.67 μg/mL (M. abscessus subsp. massiliense), respectively, which were slightly higher than those of BDQ. For M. avium, M. abscessus, and M. chelonae, WX-081 can reduce the intracellular bacterial load by 0.13–1.18, 0.18–1.50, and 0.17–1.03 log10 colony forming units (CFU)/mL, respectively, in a concentration-dependent manner. WX-081 has bactericidal activity against three NTM species in mice. WX-081 exhibited anti-NTM activity to the same extent as BDQ both in vivo and in vitro. WX-081 is a promising clinical candidate and should be studied further in clinical trials.IMPORTANCEDue to the rapidly increased cases globally, non-tuberculous mycobacteria (NTM) disease has become a significant public health problem. NTM accounted for 11.57% of all mycobacterial isolates in China, with a high detection rate of Mycobacterium abscessus, Mycobacterium avium, and Mycobacterium chelonae during 2000–2019. Treatment of NTM infection is often challenging, as natural resistance to most antibiotics is quite common among different NTM species. Hence, identifying highly active anti-NTM agents is a priority for potent regimen establishment. The pursuit of new drugs to treat multidrug-resistant tuberculosis may also identify some agents with strong activity against NTM. Sudapyridine (WX-081) is a structural analog of bedaquiline (BDQ), which was developed to retain the anti-tuberculosis efficacy but eliminates the severe side effects of BDQ. This study initially evaluated the antimicrobial activity of this novel compound against M. avium, M. abscessus, and M. chelonae in vitro, in macrophages and mice, respectively.