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There is growing criticism of Big Tech platforms across different sectors of society. There is also increasing scepticism towards seemingly wholesale digitalisation of higher education (HE), largely enabled by platform firms, that followed COVID-19 related emergency online teaching. However, critical studies remain rare of the multiple, interconnected ways in which HE is affected by the rise of educational technology (EdTech) platforms and their providers. The goal of this chapter is therefore to provide an extensive thematic review of the emerging body of work that takes a critical perspective, and particularly of work that highlights political economy dimensions of ongoing HE platformisation. From this review, we identify nine key, interrelated themes, that also may signal structural shifts in HE related to rising platforms and providers. We note two meta-themes, platformisation and learnification, and seven sub-themes: datafication, assetisation, modularisation, crowdification and peer-to-peering (under platformisation); and unbundling and skillisation & short-circuiting (under learnification). Finally, we discuss the implications of our review, and propose a critical approach to EdTech provision, considering both negative aspects of ongoing platformisation, and preservation of the public mission of HE in differing contexts.

For some years, we have been interested in what the introduction of self-tracking and telemonitoring does to management of chronic disease and to our ideas of good care. In this chapter, we discuss our own engagement as researchers in this practice. Digitization of health and elderly care is a global endeavor that may help care providers to meet some important needs of health consumers and their relatives. The group of over 80-year-olds in Denmark is expected to grow by 150.000 people over the next ten years, corresponding to 58 % more than today. The number of over 80-year-olds will continue to grow towards 2050, where they will amount to 2½ times more than today. After 2050, more than one in ten inhabitants will expectedly be over 80 years old (Danmarks Statistik, 2018). Due to these demographic changes, incidences of COPD and in particular Diabetes 2 are expected to rise towards 2030 (Jensen, Thygesen, & Davidsen, 2017). This is where telemonitoring makes itself available as part of the solution to this great challenge. One important asset relating to telemonitoring is the virtual accessibility of care providers to health consumers (Susskind, 2020), a need that has greatly accelerated in the context of the COVID19 pandemic. Policymakers have, however, long been aware that telemonitoring services provide opportunities in relation to the care deficit, that is, the demographic and work environment challenges associated with recruiting care providers and providing care. In addition, telemonitoring may provide options related to collaboration among healthcare contexts not yet properly tested and whose fate is therefore still uncertain (Nickelsen & Bal, 2021). Self-tracking and telemonitoring services comprise an app that health consumers can freely download on their phone or tablet. Depending on the disease, they make measurements of blood-glucose level, oxygen saturation and weight.

School closures due to the Covid-19 pandemic have changed education forever and we have witnessed the rise of online learning platforms. The education units of the countries made great efforts to adapt to this new order. The expanding, quick spread of the virus and careful steps have prompted the quest for reasonable choices for continuing education to guarantee students get appropriate education and are not impacted logically or mentally. Different methods were attempted to understand how students were affected by this big change. In addition to the significance of traditional surveys and consulting services, the utilization of social media analysis is used as a supportive approach. This paper analyzes the feedback of students on social media via tweets. Deep sentiment analysis is employed to identify embedded emotions such as negative, neutral, and positive. We also aimed to classify irrelevant tweets as the fourth category. Our experiments showed that the tweets are mostly biased toward negative emotions. © 2022 IEEE.

BackgroundIt is unclear which patients with multiple sclerosis (MS) are most susceptible for omicron breakthrough infections.MethodsWe assessed omicron breakthrough infections in vaccinated patients with MS with and without disease-modifying therapies enrolled in an ongoing large prospective study. We longitudinally studied humoral responses after primary and booster vaccinations and breakthrough infections.ResultsOmicron breakthrough infections were reported in 110/312 (36%) patients with MS, and in 105/110 (96%) infections were mild. Omicron breakthrough infections occurred more frequently in patients treated with anti-CD20 therapies and sphingosine-1 phosphate receptor (S1PR) modulators, patients with impaired humoral responses after primary immunisation (regardless of treatment) and patients without prior SARS-CoV-2 infections. After infection, antibody titres increased in patients on S1PR modulator treatment while anti-CD20 treated patients did not show an increase.ConclusionsSARS-COV-2 omicron breakthrough infections are more prevalent in patients with MS on anti-CD20 therapies and S1PR modulators compared with other patients with MS, which correlated with decreased humoral responses after vaccination. Humoral responses after infection were higher in S1PR modulator-treated patients in comparison to patients on anti-CD20 therapies, suggesting that immunological protection from contracting infection or repeated exposures may differ between these therapies.

BACKGROUND The emergence of paediatric inflammatory multisystem syndrome temporally associated with SARS-CoV-2 (PIMS-TS) led to the widespread use of anti-inflammatory treatments in the absence of evidence from randomised controlled trials (RCTs). We aimed to assess the effectiveness of intravenous methylprednisolone compared with intravenous immunoglobulins. METHODS This is an open-label, multicentre, two-arm RCT done at ten hospitals in Switzerland in children younger than 18 years hospitalised with PIMS-TS (defined as age <18 years; fever and biochemical evidence of inflammation, and single or multiorgan dysfunction; microbiologically proven or putative contact with SARS-CoV-2; and exclusion of any other probable disease). Patients were randomly assigned 1:1 to intravenous methylprednisolone (10 mg/kg per day for 3 days) or intravenous immunoglobulins (2 g/kg as a single dose). The primary outcome was length of hospital stay censored at day 28, death, or discharge. Secondary outcomes included proportion and duration of organ support. Analyses were done by intention-to-treat. The study was registered with Swiss National Clinical Trials Portal (SNCTP000004720) and ClinicalTrials.gov (NCT04826588). FINDINGS Between May 21, 2021, and April 15, 2022, 75 patients with a median age of 9·1 years (IQR 6·2-12·2) were included in the intention-to-treat population (37 in the methylprednisolone group and 38 in the intravenous immunoglobulins group). The median length of hospital stay was 6·0 days (IQR 4·0-8·0) in the methylprednisolone group and 6·0 days (IQR 5·0-8·8) in the intravenous immunoglobulins group (estimated effect size -0·037 of the log10 transformed times, 95% CI -0·13 to 0·065, p=0·42). Fewer patients in the methylprednisolone group (ten [27%] of 37) required respiratory support compared with the intravenous immunoglobulin group (21 [55%] of 38, p=0·025). Need and duration of inotropes, admission to intensive care units, cardiac events after baseline, and major bleeding and thrombotic events were not significantly different between the study groups. INTERPRETATION In this RCT, treatment with methylprednisolone in children with PIMS-TS did not significantly affect the length of hospital stay compared with intravenous immunoglobulins. Intravenous methylprednisolone could be an acceptable first-line treatment in children with PIMS-TS. FUNDING NOMIS Foundation, Vontobel Foundation, and Gaydoul Foundation.

This is the repository containing the code used to obtain the results shown in Bellato M, Cappellato M, Longhin F, Del Vecchio C, Brancaccio G, Cattelan AM, Brun P, Salaris C, Castagliuolo I, Di Camillo B. "Uncover a microbiota signature of upper respiratory tract in patients with SARS-CoV-2+" (2023). We characterized through 16S rDNA-seq the microbiota in the upper airways of 192 subjects with a positive nasopharyngeal swab for SARS-CoV-2 to identify a microbial signature predictive of disease progression. Patients were divided in groups based on the presence of symptoms, the level of pneumonia, and whether or not they needed oxygen therapy or intubation. In the GitLab repository here there are all the scripts used to perform the preprocessing step and the downstream analysis. The GitLab repository (version 1.0) contains also the Docker image microbiomecovid:1.0.0 that can be used to reproduce the results shown in the paper (see the instruction here). Here in Zenodo you can find the microbiomecovid_data.zip file containing two folders that need to be unzipped and put in the microbiomecovid local repository, downloaded from GitLab. In particular, the original_data folder contains: Raw_data: a folder with two FASTQ files for each sample, i.e., forward (R1) and reverse (R2) reads. Metadata.xlsx: the table containing information on the - anonymized - subjects involved in the study. QC Report.pdf: The report provided by the sequencing center. Additionally, in the output folder, the following items can be found: Preprocessing: a folder containing all the output file from step1 to step7, namely: create input data for QIIME2; import data in QIIME2; remove primers; denoising and imputation; taxonomy classification; phylogenetic tree reconstruction; collapse at specific taxonomic level and normalize data. Analysis: a folder containing all the output files form step8 to step10 namely: alpha and beta diversity results; DA_output: a folder containing the differential abundance analysis performed for each taxonomic level and for each covariate; Network_output: a folder containing the sparCC and Cytoscape networks and results. For more info about all the bioinformatic pipeline see the GitLab repository. Remember to set the path as ABSOLUTE_PATH_MICROBIOMECOVID.

This paper elicits and quantifies narratives from open-ended surveys sent daily to U.S. stockholders during the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic. Using textual analysis, we extract thirteen narratives and measure their prevalence over time. A validation analysis confirms the behavioral and economic relevance of the retrieved narratives. Moreover, we find that the narratives contain predictive information for future excess stock and bond returns, and this predictability remains when controlling for contemporaneous information stemming from news and social media. Finally, we find evidence that political identity is reflected in the narrative tone.

Recent studies have shown that people who are immunocompromised may inadvertently play a role in spurring the mutations of the virus that create new variants. This is because some immunocompromised individuals remain at risk of getting COVID-19 despite vaccination, experience more severe disease, are susceptible to being chronically infected and remain contagious for longer if they become infected and considering that immunocompromised individuals represent approximately 2% of the overall population, this aspect should be carefully considered. So far, some autoimmune rheumatic disease (ARD) patients with COVID-19 have been treated with antiviral therapies or anti-SARS-CoV-2 antibody products. However, there is no homogeneous approach to these treatment strategies. This issue was addressed within the European Reference Network (ERN) on Rare and Complex Connective Tissue and Musculoskeletal Diseases (ReCONNET) in a discussion among experts and patient's representatives in the context of the rare and complex connective tissue diseases (rCTDs) covered by the Network. ERN ReCONNET is one of the 24 ERNs launched by the European Commission in 2017 with the aim of tackling low prevalence and rare diseases that require highly specialised treatment and promoting concentration of knowledge and resources through virtual networks involving healthcare providers (HCPs) across the European Union (EU). Considering the urgent need to provide guidance not only to the rCTDs community, but also to the whole ARDs community, a multidisciplinary Task Force, including expert clinicians and European Patient Advocacy Group (ePAG) Advocates, was created in the framework of ERN ReCONNET with the aim of developing overarching principles (OP) and points-to-consider (PtC) on a homogenous approach to treat immunocompromised patients with ARDs (with a particular focus on CTDs) affected by COVID-19 using antiviral therapies and anti-SARS-CoV-2 antibody products. The present work reports the final OP and PtC agreed by the Task Force. © Copyright Clinical and Experimental Rheumatology 2023

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BACKGROUND: The incidence of respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) increased in several countries after the relaxation of COVID-19 restrictions. We aimed to investigate the age-related risk of RSV-associated hospital admissions and need for mechanical ventilation during the RSV resurgence in summer and autumn 2021 compared with the four RSV seasons preceding the COVID-19 pandemic. We also aimed to describe the clinical complications necessitating mechanical ventilation.METHODS: This population-based cohort study included patients aged 0-17 years admitted to hospital with RSV in Denmark during the RSV resurgence in summer and autumn 2021, and the four pre-COVID-19 RSV seasons (2016-17, 2017-18, 2018-19, and 2019-20). We retrieved data on RSV-associated hospital admissions from the Danish National Patient Registry and demographic and clinical details of children who received mechanical ventilation through prospective real-time data collection in 2021-22 and retrospective data collection for the 2016-17 to 2019-20 RSV seasons from all eight paediatric and neonatal intensive care units in Denmark. Risk factors for severe RSV disease were as defined as age younger than 3 months or severe comorbidities. We calculated the risk of RSV-associated hospital admissions per 100 000 population in each RSV season from week 21 to week 20 of the following year. We also calculated the risk rate of receiving mechanical ventilation per 100 000 population and 1000 RSV-associated hospital admissions during each RSV season from week 21 to week 20 of the following year. We calculated risk ratios (RRs) for hospital admission and mechanical ventilation by dividing the risk rate of hospital admission and mechanical ventilation in 2021-22 by annual mean risk rates in the four pre-COVID-19 RSV epidemics (2016-17 to 2019-20). We compared RRs using Fisher's exact test. We compared complications leading to intubation between children with and without risk factors for severe RSV disease. The study is registered at ClinicalTrials.gov, NCT05186597.FINDINGS: Among 310 423 Danish children aged younger than 5 years, the mean number of RSV-associated hospital admissions increased from 1477 (SD 226) in the 2016-17 to 2019-20 RSV seasons to 3000 in the 2021-22 RSV season (RR 2·0 [95% CI 1·9-2·1]). 54 children with RSV received mechanical ventilation in 2021-22 compared with 15-28 annually in the 2016-17 to 2019-20 RSV seasons (2·3 [1·6-3·3]). The highest increase in hospital admissions and need for mechanical ventilation occurred among children aged 24-59 months (4·1 [3·6-4·7] for hospital admission; 4·6 [1·7-12·6] for mechanical ventilation). Among children admitted to hospital, the risk of mechanical ventilation was similar in 2021-22 and the four pre-COVID-19 seasons (risk rate 14·3 per 1000 RSV-associated hospital admissions [95% CI 10·4-19·3] vs 12·9 [10·1-16·1]; RR 1·1 [95% CI 0·8-1·6]). Across all RSV seasons studied, among children younger than 3 months or those with severe comorbidities, respiratory failure due to bronchiolitis led to mechanical ventilation in 69 (79%) of 87 children. Of 46 children with no risk factors for severe RSV, 40 (87%) received mechanical ventilation due to additional complications, including neurological (n=16; 35%), cardiac (n=1; 2%), and pulmonary complications (n=23; 50%; eg, wheeze responsive to bronchodilator therapy, severe bacterial co-infections, and pneumothorax).INTERPRETATION: In Denmark, RSV disease did not seem to be more severe for the individual child during the RSV resurgence in 2021 following relaxation of COVID-19 restrictions. However, hospital admissions were higher among older children, possibly due to a postponed first RSV infection or no recent reinfection. Older children without risk factors for severe RSV disease had atypical complications that led to intubation. If new RSV-preventive interventions for healthy infants delay first RSV infection, a higher number of older children might be admitted to hospital due to atypical clinical phenotypes, rather than classical bronchiolitis.FUNDING: National Ministry of Higher Education and Science and the Innovation Fund Denmark.