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Background On 31 December 2019, the World Health Organization recognised clusters of pneumonia‐like cases due to a novel coronavirus disease (COVID‐19). COVID‐19 became a pandemic 71 days later. Aim To report the clinical and epidemiological features, laboratory data and outcomes of the first group of 11 returned travellers with COVID‐19 in Australia. Methods This is a retrospective, multi‐centre case series. All patients with confirmed COVID‐19 infection were admitted to tertiary referral hospitals in New South Wales, Queensland, Victoria and South Australia. Results The median age of our patient cohort was 42 years (IQR, 24–53 years) with six men and five women. Eight patients (72.7%) had returned from Wuhan, one from Shenzhen, one from Japan, and one from Europe. Possible human‐to‐human transmission from close family contacts in gatherings overseas occurred in two cases. Symptoms on admission were fever, cough and sore throat (n = 9, 81.8%). Co‐morbidities included hypertension (n = 3, 27.3%) and hypercholesterolaemia (n = 2, 18.2%). No patients developed severe acute respiratory distress nor required intensive care unit admission or mechanical ventilation. After a median hospital stay of 14.5 days (IQR, 6.75–21), all patients were discharged. Conclusions This is a historical record of the first COVID‐19 cases in Australia during the early biocontainment phase of the national response. These findings were invaluable for establishing early inpatient and outpatient COVID‐19 models of care and informing the management of COVID‐19 overtime as the outbreak evolved. Future research should extend this Australian case series to examine global epidemiological variation of this novel infection. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.

Aim The aim of this paper is to clarify the inconsistent findings in the association between antidepressant use and the risk of epithelial ovarian cancer (EOC). Methods This study is a meta-analysis of observational studies retrieved from the PubMed, EMBASE, and Web of Science databases prior to August 15, 2017. Two researchers independently screened studies and extracted study characteristics and risk estimates. The odds ratios (OR) and 95% confidence intervals (CI) of EOC risk were summarized using an inverse variance weighted random-effects model. Heterogeneity between studies was assessed with the I2 statistic. Results Eight case–control studies involving 7878 EOC cases and 73 913 controls were identified. Compared with non-use, use of antidepressants was not significantly associated with EOC risk (summarized OR = 1.10, 95% CI: 0.91–1.32, I2 = 74.4%). Similar null results were also observed in the use of selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (OR = 1.04, 95% CI = 0.80–1.35), tricyclic antidepressants (OR = 1.01, 95% CI = 0.79–1.30), and other antidepressant drugs (OR = 0.91, 95% CI = 0.74–1.12). Subgroup analyses of study characteristics, stratified by the type of control subjects, geographic location, exposure assessment, number of cases, and adjustment for potential confounders, showed that the ORs were broadly consistent across strata. The OR per 1 year-increment of duration was 0.99 (95% CI = 0.94–1.05, I2 = 40.0%, P = 0.154). Additionally, the OR for the greatest intensity of antidepressant use compared with never use was 0.82 (95% CI = 0.70–0.98, I2 = 0%, P = 0.489). Furthermore, no evidence of publication bias was detected through Funnel plots as well as Egger's and Begg's tests. Conclusions There is no association between antidepressant use and EOC risk. Further prospective studies are warranted to confirm these findings.

Well-defined hyperbranched polystyrenes have been successfully prepared by polymerization of AB2 macromonomer, polystyrene containing an azide group at its one end and two terminal propargyl groups at the other end via click reaction. For preparation of AB2 macromonomers, an ATRP initiator, bispropargyl 2-bromosuccinate (BPBS) with two propargyl groups and one bromine group was synthesized by the successive bromination and esterification reaction of L-aspartic acid. The resulting BPBS initiated the ATRP of St, and subsequently, the terminal bromine groups of (CH≡C)2-PS-Brs were substituted by N3 via the reaction with sodium azide resulting the AB2 macromonomer, (CH≡C)2-PS-N3 with various molecular weights. All intermediates and the resultant polymers were characterized by GPC, 1H NMR, FTIR, and MALLS methods. The polymerization kinetics study showed fast increase of DP at the initial stage of polymerization and then slow increase of their DP. The final “HyperMacs” have high-molecular weight up to Mw,MALLS = 340,000 g/mol, their molecular weight distributions were moderately narrow (Mw/Mn = 1.47–1.65). The ratios of [η]H/[η]L of the HyperMacs formed in the polymerization system increased with evolution of polymerization. © 2009 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Polym Sci Part A: Polym Chem 48: 454–462, 2010

A novel method based on moving window (MW) strategy has been proposed to simultaneously choose the optimal pH region and latent variables (LVs) number for partial least squares (PLS) regression in potentiometric titration multivariate calibration. In this method, the leave-one-out cross-validation with varying LVs number is run on different selected MW and, consequently, that revealing optimal results is selected. The method is applied to the simultaneous determination of H+, NH3OH+ and NH in Raschig synthesis mixtures, which is of industrial importance. A comparison in the modeling power of PLS is made between non-processed data set and data set processed by the MW method. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Nine ducks congenitally infected with the duck hepatitis B virus (DHBV) were treated either orally (four ducks for 10 weeks) or intraperitoneally (five ducks for 12 weeks) with the Indian traditional herbal remedy Phyllanthus amarus. Compared to placebo-treated control ducks, these treatments did not result in a reduction of circulating viral DNA in the serum or in the level of viral DNA replication in the liver. In two of the five intraperitoneal-treated ducks, a reduction in the levels of duck hepatitis B surface antigenaemia (DHBsAg) was observed. The data strongly suggest that Phyllanthus amarus has no significant inhibitory effect on DHBV DNA replication and only a minor effect on DHBsAg production.