Jahangirnagar University

Mamun M.A., Griffiths M.D.

Rume T., Islam S.M.

Abstract The global outbreak of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is affecting every part of human lives, including the physical world. The measures taken to control the spread of the virus and the slowdown of economic activities have significant effects on the environment. Therefore, this study intends to explore the positive and negative environmental impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic, by reviewing the available scientific literatures. This study indicates that, the pandemic situation significantly improves air quality in different cities across the world, reduces GHGs emission, lessens water pollution and noise, and reduces the pressure on the tourist destinations, which may assist with the restoration of the ecological system. In addition, there are also some negative consequences of COVID-19, such as increase of medical waste, haphazard use and disposal of disinfectants, mask, and gloves; and burden of untreated wastes continuously endangering the environment. It seems that, economic activities will return soon after the pandemic, and the situation might change. Hence, this study also outlines possible ways to achieve long-term environmental benefits. It is expected that the proper implementation of the proposed strategies might be helpful for the global environmental sustainability.

Emran T.B., Shahriar A., Mahmud A.R., Rahman T., Abir M.H., Siddiquee M.F., Ahmed H., Rahman N., Nainu F., Wahyudin E., Mitra S., Dhama K., Habiballah M.M., Haque S., Islam A., et. al.

Cancer is one of the leading causes of death worldwide. Several treatments are available for cancer treatment, but many treatment methods are ineffective against multidrug-resistant cancer. Multidrug resistance (MDR) represents a major obstacle to effective therapeutic interventions against cancer. This review describes the known MDR mechanisms in cancer cells and discusses ongoing laboratory approaches and novel therapeutic strategies that aim to inhibit, circumvent, or reverse MDR development in various cancer types. In this review, we discuss both intrinsic and acquired drug resistance, in addition to highlighting hypoxia- and autophagy-mediated drug resistance mechanisms. Several factors, including individual genetic differences, such as mutations, altered epigenetics, enhanced drug efflux, cell death inhibition, and various other molecular and cellular mechanisms, are responsible for the development of resistance against anticancer agents. Drug resistance can also depend on cellular autophagic and hypoxic status. The expression of drug-resistant genes and the regulatory mechanisms that determine drug resistance are also discussed. Methods to circumvent MDR, including immunoprevention, the use of microparticles and nanomedicine might result in better strategies for fighting cancer.

Khan A.H., Sultana M.S., Hossain S., Hasan M.T., Ahmed H.U., Sikder M.T.

• To the best of our knowledge, this is the first study focused on COVID-19 associated mental health among the home-quarantined Bangladeshi university and college students. • University students had greater psychological impact due to COVID-19 than college students. • Perceived COVID-19 symptoms were significantly associated with higher scores in DASS stress subscale (B = 3.71, 95% CI: 1.01 to 6.40), DASS anxiety subscale (B = 3.95, 95% CI: 1.95 to 5.96), DASS depression subscale (B = 3.82, 95% CI: 0.97 to 6.67) and IES scores (B = 7.52, 95% CI: 3.58 to 11.45). • Physical exercise was significantly associated in lowering scores of DASS depression subscale (B = -2.10, 95% CI: -4.02 to -0.17) • Financial uncertainty, fear of COVID-19 infection, inadequate valid information on COVID-19, and excessive exposure to COVID-19 news on social & mass media had significant negative impact on students’ mental health. COVID-19 is imposing threat both on physical and mental health since its outbreak. Bangladesh adopted lockdown strategy with potential consequences on day to day life, mental and physical health and this study aims to explore the impact of COVID-19 on mental health and wellbeing among Bangladeshi students. A cross-sectional study was conducted between 9th and 23rd April 2020 among 505 college and university students. Data was collected by using online questionnaire including DASS 21 and IES. Descriptive analysis and bivariate linear regression were performed to examine the association of variables. 28.5 % of the respondents had stress, 33.3% anxiety, 46.92% depression from mild to extremely severe, according to DASS 21 and 69.31% had event-specific distress from mild to severe in terms of severity according to IES. Perceiving physical symptoms as COVID-19 was significantly associated with DASS stress subscale (B = 3.71, 95% CI: 1.01 to 6.40), DASS anxiety subscale (B = 3.95, 95% CI: 1.95 to 5.96), DASS depression subscale (B = 3.82, 95% CI: 0.97 to 6.67) and IES scale (B = 7.52, 95% CI: 3.58 to 11.45). Additionally, fear of infection, financial uncertainty, inadequate food supply, absence of physical exercise and limited or no recreational activity had significant association with stress, anxiety, depression and post-traumatic symptoms. This COVID-19 outbreak imposes psychological consequences on people to a great extent which requires attention from the concerned authorities to cope with this situation mentally. The perception about the outbreak can also play a big role in psychological impact.

Dsouza D.D., Quadros S., Hyderabadwala Z.J., Mamun M.A.

Many Indian COVID-19 suicide cases are turning the press-media attention and flooding in the social media platforms although, no particular studies assessed the COVID-19 suicide causative factors to a large extent. Therefore, the present study presents 69 COVID-19 suicide cases (aged 19 to 65 years; 63 cases were males). The suicide causalities are included as follows – fear of COVID-19 infection (n=21), followed by financial crisis (n=19), loneliness, social boycott and pressure to be quarantine, COVID-19 positive, COVID-19 work-related stress, unable to come back home due to lockdown, unavailability of alcohol etc. Considering the extreme psychological impacts related to COVID-19, there emerges a need for countrywide extensive tele-mental health care services.

Mahmud M., Kaiser M.S., McGinnity T.M., Hussain A.

Recent technological advancements in data acquisition tools allowed life scientists to acquire multimodal data from different biological application domains. Categorized in three broad types (i.e. images, signals, and sequences), these data are huge in amount and complex in nature. Mining such enormous amount of data for pattern recognition is a big challenge and requires sophisticated data-intensive machine learning techniques. Artificial neural network-based learning systems are well known for their pattern recognition capabilities, and lately their deep architectures—known as deep learning (DL)—have been successfully applied to solve many complex pattern recognition problems. To investigate how DL—especially its different architectures—has contributed and been utilized in the mining of biological data pertaining to those three types, a meta-analysis has been performed and the resulting resources have been critically analysed. Focusing on the use of DL to analyse patterns in data from diverse biological domains, this work investigates different DL architectures’ applications to these data. This is followed by an exploration of available open access data sources pertaining to the three data types along with popular open-source DL tools applicable to these data. Also, comparative investigations of these tools from qualitative, quantitative, and benchmarking perspectives are provided. Finally, some open research challenges in using DL to mine biological data are outlined and a number of possible future perspectives are put forward.

Ferdous M.Z., Islam M.S., Sikder M.T., Mosaddek A.S., Zegarra-Valdivia J.A., Gozal D.

In Bangladesh, an array of measures have been adopted to control the rapid spread of the COVID-19 epidemic. Such general population control measures could significantly influence perception, knowledge, attitudes, and practices (KAP) towards COVID-19. Here, we assessed KAP towards COVID-19 immediately after the lock-down measures were implemented and during the rapid rise period of the outbreak. Online-based cross-sectional study conducted from March 29 to April 19, 2020, involving Bangladeshi residents aged 12–64 years, recruited via social media. After consenting, participants completed an online survey assessing socio-demographic variables, perception, and KAP towards COVID-19. Of the 2017 survey participants, 59.8% were male, the majority were students (71.2%), aged 21–30 years (57.9%), having a bachelor's degree (61.0%), having family income >30,000 BDT (50.0%), and living in urban areas (69.8). The survey revealed that 48.3% of participants had more accurate knowledge, 62.3% had more positive attitudes, and 55.1% had more frequent practices regarding COVID-19 prevention. Majority (96.7%) of the participants agreed ‘COVID-19 is a dangerous disease’, almost all (98.7%) participants wore a face mask in crowded places, 98.8% agreed to report a suspected case to health authorities, and 93.8% implemented washing hands with soap and water. In multiple logistic regression analyses, COVID-19 more accurate knowledge was associated with age and residence. Sociodemographic factors such as being older, higher education, employment, monthly family income >30,000 BDT, and having more frequent prevention practices were the more positive attitude factors. More frequent prevention practice factors were associated with female sex, older age, higher education, family income > 30,000 BDT, urban area residence, and having more positive attitudes. To improve KAP of general populations is crucial during the rapid rise period of a pandemic outbreak such as COVID-19. Therefore, development of effective health education programs that incorporate considerations of KAP-modifying factors is needed.

Chowdhury M.F., Khandaker S., Sarker F., Islam A., Rahman M.T., Awual M.R.

The release of colored wastewater from industries into surface water bodies creates undesirable consequences to the marine ecosystem and human beings owing to its pernicious effect. Indigo dyes being aromatic compounds with complex structure are one of the most important as well as the largest classes of synthetic dyes commercially employed in the textile denim dyeing process. However, being toxic and hazardous to handle, indigo dye poses a risk of permanently damaging of eyes when it comes into direct contact and can also cause perilous trouble to the respiratory tract of human beings. The manufacturing unit handling with indigo dyes incurs huge costs for this contaminated water treatment due to strict regulatory restrictions. This review is primarily focused on the recent studies dealing with the treatment of indigo dye-containing wastewater. There are various treatment methods for the removal of indigo dye including chemical degradation, bacterial decomposition, adsorption on various adsorbents, electrochemical decolorization, as well as the use of employing nanocomposite and activated low-cost charcoal materials. A brief insight into indigo dye removal mechanism and comparison among various methods of wastewater treatment along with their advantages and disadvantages are discussed alongside suggestions for further actions that might be taken into consideration for the improvement of the treatment process from both economic and technological viewpoints. • Description of dye, derivatives, uses and its applications with environmental aspect • Different technologies for dye containing wastewater treatment method were illustrated. • Evaluation of the degradation mechanism of toxic dyes by various methods • A recommendation for dyes removal technologies as a future trend was presented.

Mamun M.A., Ullah I.

• Suicide increment during and afterwards a pandemic is highly common. • This study reports COVID-19 suicide cases in Pakistan for the first time. • Most of the suicides occur due to lockdown-related economic recession. • Fear of infection is the second suicide contributing factor. • Lockdown-related unemployment aggravates the life-threatening situation.

Islam M.R., Hoque M.N., Rahman M.S., Alam A.S., Akther M., Puspo J.A., Akter S., Sultana M., Crandall K.A., Hossain M.A.

Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus-2 (SARS-CoV-2), a novel evolutionary divergent RNA virus, is responsible for the present devastating COVID-19 pandemic. To explore the genomic signatures, we comprehensively analyzed 2,492 complete and/or near-complete genome sequences of SARS-CoV-2 strains reported from across the globe to the GISAID database up to 30 March 2020. Genome-wide annotations revealed 1,516 nucleotide-level variations at different positions throughout the entire genome of SARS-CoV-2. Moreover, nucleotide (nt) deletion analysis found twelve deletion sites throughout the genome other than previously reported deletions at coding sequence of the ORF8 (open reading frame), spike, and ORF7a proteins, specifically in polyprotein ORF1ab (n = 9), ORF10 (n = 1), and 3´-UTR (n = 2). Evidence from the systematic gene-level mutational and protein profile analyses revealed a large number of amino acid (aa) substitutions (n = 744), demonstrating the viral proteins heterogeneous. Notably, residues of receptor-binding domain (RBD) showing crucial interactions with angiotensin-converting enzyme 2 (ACE2) and cross-reacting neutralizing antibody were found to be conserved among the analyzed virus strains, except for replacement of lysine with arginine at 378th position of the cryptic epitope of a Shanghai isolate, hCoV-19/Shanghai/SH0007/2020 (EPI_ISL_416320). Furthermore, our results of the preliminary epidemiological data on SARS-CoV-2 infections revealed that frequency of aa mutations were relatively higher in the SARS-CoV-2 genome sequences of Europe (43.07%) followed by Asia (38.09%), and North America (29.64%) while case fatality rates remained higher in the European temperate countries, such as Italy, Spain, Netherlands, France, England and Belgium. Thus, the present method of genome annotation employed at this early pandemic stage could be a promising tool for monitoring and tracking the continuously evolving pandemic situation, the associated genetic variants, and their implications for the development of effective control and prophylaxis strategies.