All of these faculties may support insight and volitional choice when contemplating courses of action as opposed to rule-based decision-making. Since December 2019, COVID-19 has caused a worldwide pandemic and Singapore has seen escalating cases with community spread. Aggressive contact tracing and identification of suspects has helped to identify local community clusters, surveillance being the key to early intervention. Healthcare workers (HCWs) have contracted COVID-19 infection both at the workplace and community. We aimed to create a prototype staff surveillance system for the detection of acute respiratory infection (ARI) clusters amongst our HCWs and describe its effectiveness. A prototypical surveillance system was built on existing electronic health record infrastructure. Over a 10-week period, we investigated 10 ARI clusters amongst 7 departments. One of the ARI clusters was later determined to be related to COVID-19 infection. We demonstrate the feasibility of syndromic surveillance to detect ARI clusters during the COVID-19 outbreak. The use of syndromic surveillance to detect ARI clusters amongst HCWs in the COVID-19 pandemic may enable early case detection and prevent onward transmission. It could be an important tool in infection prevention within healthcare institutions.The use of syndromic surveillance to detect ARI clusters amongst HCWs in the COVID-19 pandemic may enable early case detection and prevent onward transmission. It could be an important tool in infection prevention within healthcare institutions.Given supply constraints of N95s in the United States during the COVID-19 pandemic, healthcare facilities have turned to extended use protocols and new sources of N95s. Because fit testing every employee for every new mask is not feasible, our Infection Prevention Department developed a method for rapid deployment of new N95s. Due to variations and the inadequate use of personal protective equipment (PPE), this study aimed to evaluate our enhanced PPE protocols for minimizing doffing contamination. Among 3 PPE kits (simple, Level D, and Level C), 30 participants conducted the first simulation in their adapted way and the second following enhanced protocols. After donning, participants performed a 1-minute simulation of direct care on a patient simulator covered with fluorescent powder. For tracking contamination routes between doffing processes, fluorescent powder contamination was examined with ultraviolet lamps in the darkened room. Participants were mostly registered nurses (N = 27, 90%), female (87%), and on average 31.7 years old with 8.5 years of clinical experience. Among 61 total simulations, 32 had at least 1 contamination (52.5%); "Noticeable" level (40%) at the "hands-fingers" and "shirt" body areas were most frequent. For first and second simulations with identical PPE kits, compared to the first with adapted practice, the second with enhanced protocols showed a significant reduction in doffing contamination rates (72.7% vs 22.7%, P = .0009 for both Level C and D; 77.8% vs 27.8%, P = .0027 for Level D). Our enhanced protocols could significantly reduce contaminations. More studies are necessary to provide safer PPE protocol options.Our enhanced protocols could significantly reduce contaminations. More studies are necessary to provide safer PPE protocol options. Realgar has been used in traditional remedies for a long history in China and India. It is clinically used to treat diverse cancers, especially acute promyelocytic leukemia (APL), chronic myelogenous leukemia (CML) in China. However, paradoxic roles of realgar to increase or decrease immunity are reported. It is urgent to address this question, due to immune depression can be strongly benefit to cancer development, but detrimental to patients. This present work is to explore whether realgar promote or suppress immune responses, and shed light on its mode of action. Our results should provide cues for rational strategy to explore realgar for clinical use. Infection model in vivo was established by using Enterococcus faecalis to attack Caenorhabditis elegans, then realgar was used to treat the infected worms to investigate its effects on infectivity and the underlying mechanism. Killing analysis was carried out to test whether realgar can mitigate worm infection. Thermotolerance resistance analysis was uselegans by inducing both immune responses and protective responses. It was regulated by p38 MAPK pathway and DAF-16.Realgar increased defenses against E. faecalis in C. elegans by inducing both immune responses and protective responses. It was regulated by p38 MAPK pathway and DAF-16.The past 30 years have seen the emergence and proliferation of isothermal amplification methods (IAMs) for rapid, sensitive detection and quantification of nucleic acids in a variety of sample types. These methods share dependence on primers and probes with quantitative PCR, but they differ in the specific enzymes and instruments employed, and are frequently conducted in a binary, rather than quantitative format. IAMs typically rely on simpler instruments than PCR analyses due to the maintenance of a single temperature throughout the amplification reaction, which could facilitate deployment of IAMs in a variety of environmental and field settings. This review summarizes the mechanisms of the most common IAM methods and their use in studies of pathogens, harmful algae and fecal indicators in environmental waters, feces, wastewater, reclaimed water, and tissues of aquatic animals. Performance metrics of sensitivity, specificity and limit of detection are highlighted, and the potential for use in monitoring and regulatory contexts is discussed.Morphogenetic processes during brain development and postdevelopmental remodeling of neural architecture depend on the exquisite interplay between the microtubule- and actin-based cytoskeletal systems. Accumulation of evidence indicates cooperative roles of another cytoskeletal system composed of the septin family. mTOR inhibitor Here we overview experimental findings on mammalian septins and their hypothetical roles in the proliferation of neural progenitor cells, neurite development, synapse formation and regulations. The diverse, mostly unexpected phenotypes obtained from gain- and loss-of-function mutants point to unknown molecular network to be elucidated, which may underlie pathogenetic processes of infectious diseases and neuropsychiatric disorders in humans.