Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) has spread the world resulting in detrimental effects on human health, lives, societies, and economies. The state authorities mostly take non-pharmacological actions against the outbreak since there are no confirmed vaccines or treatments yet. In this paper, we developed Suspicious-Infected-Death with Non-Pharmacological policies (SpID-N) model to analyze the properties of the COVID-19 casualties and also estimate the future behavior of the outbreak. We can state the key contributions of the paper with three folds. Firstly, we propose the SpID-N model covering the higher-order internal dynamics which cause the peaks in the casualties. Secondly, we parametrize the non-pharmacological policies such as the curfews on people with chronic disease, people age over 65, people age under 20, restrictions on the weekends and holidays, and closure of the schools and universities. Thirdly, we explicitly incorporate the internal and coupled dynamics of the model with these multi-dimensional non-pharmacological policies. The corresponding higher-order and strongly coupled model has utterly unknown parameters and we construct a batch type Least Square (LS) based optimization algorithm to learn these unknown parameters from the available data. The parametric model and the predicted future casualties are analyzed extensively.

Coronavirus disease (COVID-19) outbreak has affected billions of people, where millions of them have been infected and thousands of them have lost their lives. In addition, to constraint the spread of the virus, economies have been shut down, curfews and restrictions have interrupted the social lives. Currently, the key question in minds is the future impacts of the virus on the people. It is a fact that the parametric modelling and analyses of the pandemic viruses are able to provide crucial information about the character and also future behaviour of the viruses. This paper initially reviews and analyses the Susceptible-Infected-Recovered (SIR) model, which is extensively considered for the estimation of the COVID-19 casualties. Then, this paper introduces a novel comprehensive higher-order, multi-dimensional, strongly coupled, and parametric Suspicious-Infected-Death (SpID) model. The mathematical analysis results performed by using the casualties in Turkey show that the COVID-19 dynamics are inside the slightly oscillatory, stable (bounded) region, although some of the dynamics are close to the instability region (unbounded). However, analysis with the data just after lifting the restrictions reveals that the dynamics of the COVID-19 are moderately unstable, which would blow up if no actions are taken. The developed model estimates that the number of the infected and death individuals will converge zero around 300 days whereas the number of the suspicious individuals will require about a thousand days to be minimized under the current conditions. Even though the developed model is used to estimate the casualties in Turkey, it can be easily trained with the data from the other countries and used for the estimation of the corresponding COVID-19 casualties.

In this study, we examined the efficacy and safety of a once-daily dosage schema of colchicine compared with a twice-daily dosage schema in pediatric patients with familial Mediterranean fever (FMF). In this 24-week, multicenter, randomized controlled noninferiority trial, pediatric patients newly diagnosed with FMF carrying a homozygous or compound heterozygous mutation and not receiving any treatment were included. Patients were randomly assigned using a block randomization method to receive treatment with a once- or twice-daily dosage. Clinical and laboratory characteristics and medication side effects were recorded and compared between groups. The study was carried out in compliance with Good Clinical Practice and the Consolidated Standards for Reporting of Trials (CONSORT) statement. A total of 92 patients were selected, and 79 patients completed the study. There were 42 patients in the once-daily dosage group and 37 in the twice-daily dosage group. The results indicated that the once-daily dosage was not inferior to the twice-daily dosage regarding decrease in attack frequency and duration as well as improvement in clinical findings and Mor severity scores. Alterations in laboratory findings indicating inflammation, such as erythrocyte sedimentation rate, C-reactive protein, and serum amyloid A, were similar in both groups. The rates of drug side effects were similar between the once- and twice-daily dosage groups, implying comparable safety of colchicine, with the exception of diarrhea, which was slightly higher in the once-daily dosage group. Using colchicine with either a once- or twice-daily dosage provides similar clinical and laboratory improvements. Considering both efficacy and safety, colchicine can be prescribed with a once-daily dosage. ClinicalTrials.gov identifier NCT02602028 . Registered 5 November 2015.

In addition to its nutritional benefits, human milk also has bioactive elements. Limited immunological functions of newborns are supported and altered by the immunological elements of mother milk. Chemokines are of importance among these immune factors. Interleukin-8 (IL-8) has been demonstrated in mother's milk, and its receptors, CXC chemokine receptors (CXCR)-1 and CXCR-2, were detected on cells, responsible for immunological reactions and mammary glandular cells. The soluble forms of these receptors are yet to be described in human milk. In this study, it was aimed to assess the IL-8 levels and the concentrations of its receptors in colostrum and mature mother's milk in regard to preterm and term delivery. The results of this study indicated a decline in IL-8 levels with the lactation stage, but no difference was observed between term and preterm mother's milk. Regarding the CXCR-1 and CXCR-2, the concentrations of these receptors were similar in both colostrum and mature milk. Furthermore, there was not any significant difference between term and preterm mother's milk. In conclusion, this is the first study to investigate the concentrations of CXCR-1 and CXCR-2 with the levels of IL-8 in colostrum and mature human milk of term and preterm newborns. The alterations in IL-8 levels were similar in some of the studies reported. CXCR-1 and CXCR-2 levels did not demonstrate any significant difference. Further studies are required to investigate the soluble forms of these receptors and their relation to IL-8 with larger cohort.