Exploring the psychological impact of the 2022 SARS-CoV-2 Omicron variant outbreak in China

To the editor:The impact of the coronavirus disease 2019(COVID-19)pandemic in 2020 on mental health was substantialin Chinai2and various other countries.34 Beyond the direct consequences of COVID-19,the pandemic created an environment in which many determinants of mental health were affected.Issues associated with the pandemic,such as loss of livelihood,limited access to medical services,reduced social interactions,and economic downturn,could potentially have adverse effects on the population's mental well-being.5 In November 2021,the World Health Organization(WHO)designated the new variant of the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2(SARS-CoV-2),variant B.1.1.529,as a variant of concern and named it Omicron;its rapid mutation and spread raised a new global health concern.

Deep Neural Network Architecture Search via Decomposition-Based Multi-Objective Stochastic Fractal Search

Deep neural networks often outperform classical machine learning algorithms in solving real-world problems.However,designing better networks usually requires domain expertise and consumes significant time and com-puting resources.Moreover,when the task changes,the original network architecture becomes outdated and requires redesigning.Thus,Neural Architecture Search(NAS)has gained attention as an effective approach to automatically generate optimal network architectures.Most NAS methods mainly focus on achieving high performance while ignoring architectural complexity.A myriad of research has revealed that network performance and structural complexity are often positively correlated.Nevertheless,complex network structures will bring enormous computing resources.To cope with this,we formulate the neural architecture search task as a multi-objective optimization problem,where an optimal architecture is learned by minimizing the classification error rate and the number of network parameters simultaneously.And then a decomposition-based multi-objective stochastic fractal search method is proposed to solve it.In view of the discrete property of the NAS problem,we discretize the stochastic fractal search step size so that the network architecture can be optimized more effectively.Additionally,two distinct update methods are employed in step size update stage to enhance the global and local search abilities adaptively.Furthermore,an information exchange mechanism between architectures is raised to accelerate the convergence process and improve the efficiency of the algorithm.Experimental studies show that the proposed algorithm has competitive performance comparable to many existing manual and automatic deep neural network generation approaches,which achieved a parameter-less and high-precision architecture with low-cost on each of the six benchmark datasets.

Effect of backing films on the transdermal delivery of cyclobenzaprine patch

The aim of this study was to investigate the effect of backing films on transdermal delivery of cyclobenzaprine patch. Different backing films were chosen to prepare the cyclobenzaprine transdermal patch. The cumulative amount of cyclobenzaprine released from different patches was evaluated in vitro. To investigate the interaction between cyclobenzaprine and backing films, the partitioning experiments and attenuated total reflectance Fourier transform infrared(ATR-FTIR) spectroscopy were performed. The cumulative amount of cyclobenzaprine released from the patch with Cotran? 9700 as backing film was less than that of other patches with different backing films. Furthermore, the cumulative amount of cyclobenzaprine released from the patch with Cotran? 9700 as backing film decreased significantly after 7 d storage at room condition. The partitioning experiments indicated a strong adsorption of cyclobenzaprine onto the Cotran? 9700, which could explain the decrease of cumulative amount of cyclobenzaprine released from the patch with Cotran? 9700 as backing film. According to the ATR-FTIR results, there was no interaction between Cotran? 9700 and cyclobenzaprine. The effect of backing films on the release behavior of cyclobenzaprine transdermal patch was attributed to the adsorption of cyclobenzaprine onto the Cotran? 9700.

Novel chemical permeation enhancers for transdermal drug delivery

Transdermal drug delivery has been accepted as a potential non-invasive route of drug administration,with advantages of prolonged therapeutic action,decreased side effect,easy use and better patient compliance.However,development of transdermal products is primarily hindered by the low permeability of the skin.To overcome this barrier effect,numerous new chemicals have been synthesized as potential permeation enhancers for transdermal drug delivery.In this review,we presented an overview of the investigations in this field,and further implications on selection or design of suitable permeation enhancers for transdermal drug delivery were also discussed.

Genomic surveillance of emerging SARS-CoV-2 Omicron variations in Tianjin Municipality, China 2022

The coronavirus disease 2019(COvID-19)pandemic caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2(SARS-CoV-2)has severely impacted public health.In 2022,the Omicron variant of SARS-CoV-2 rapidly became the dominant circulating variant in the local COVID-19 outbreaks in Tianjin Municipality,China.To gain a deeper understanding of the genetic variations of the Omicron variant in Tianjin,specimens from indi-viduals who tested positive for SARS-CoV-2 between December 2021 and November 2022 were used for virus whole genome sequencing and phylogenetic analysis.A total of 1,674 high-quality Omicron sequences were obtained,consisting of 1,339 sequences from local cases belonging to 20 Phylogenetic Assignment of Named Global Outbreak(PANGO)lineages and 335 sequences from imported cases belonging to 70 lineages.Tianjin experienced five waves of local outbreaks,accompanied by multiple substitutions among subvariants,ranging from the initial BA.1.1 lineage to the subsequent BA.2,BF.7,and BA.5.2 lineages.The evolutionary rate of local strains,estimated to be 28.999 substitutions per year,and the evolutionary rate of imported strains,estimated to be 24.946 substitutions per year,were lower than that of the strains circulating globally.The addi-tional substitutions and deletions of local strains have been used to identify and disrupt the virus transmission chains.The subvariants such as BA.5.2.48,BA.5.2.49,BF.7.14,and XBB.1 circulating in the fifth epidemic wave presented criterial immune escape mutations including S:R346T,S:L452R and S:F486V.It is essential to implement genomic surveillance strategies to investigate further the development of genomic mutation char-acteristics in the SARS-CoV-2 variant.This ongoing monitoring will contribute to a better understanding of the virus's genetic changes and aid in effective control measures.