Choi Vittrup (saladmallet1)

There is an urgent need to answer questions related to COVID-19's clinical course and associations with underlying conditions and health outcomes. Multi-center data are necessary to generate reliable answers, but centralizing data in a single repository is not always possible. Using a privacy-protecting strategy, we launched a public Questions & Answers web portal (https//covid19questions.org) with analyses of comorbidities, medications and laboratory tests using data from 202 hospitals (59,074 COVID-19 patients) in the USA and Germany. We find, for example, that 8.6% of hospitalizations in which the patient was not admitted to the ICU resulted in the patient returning to the hospital within seven days from discharge and that, when adjusted for age, mortality for hospitalized patients was not significantly different by gender or ethnicity. We set out to compare in a prospective cohort study the mid-term clinical and echocardiographic outcomes of mini-mitral repair for simple (posterior prolapse) vs complex regurgitation (anterior/bileaflet prolapse). A total of 245 consecutive patients underwent mini-mitral repair for severe degenerative mitral regurgitation through a right, endoscopic approach (n= 145 simple, n= 100 complex). The most common repair technique was annuloplasty+ artificial chordae (84%, n= 121 for simple vs 88%, n= 88 for complex, = 0.3). Patients were prospectively followed for a maximal duration of 9 years. Patients' characteristics were well balanced between groups. The 30-day/in-hospital mortality was similar (0%, n= 0 simple vs 1%, n= 1 complex, = 0.2). Both groups had similar rates of early postoperative complications myocardial infarction (1.4%, n= 2 vs 0%, n= 0, = 0.2), neurologic complications (1.4%, n= 2 vs 0%, n= 0, = 0.2), reoperation for bleeding (0.7%, n= 1 vs 3%, n= 3, = 0.2), intensive care unit length of stay (1 interquartile range, 1-1 days vs 1 interquartile range, 1-1 days, = 0.7). Late survival (88% for simple vs 92% for complex, = 0.4) was similar between groups. Cumulative incidence of late reoperation at 6 years is 0% for both groups (subdistribution hazard ratio= 1, = 1). There was no difference in recurrent mitral regurgitation greater than 2+ at each year after surgery up to 6 years postoperatively. Mitral repair using an endoscopic, minimally invasive approach yields excellent mid-term outcomes regardless of disease complexity. Mitral repair using an endoscopic, minimally invasive approach yields excellent mid-term outcomes regardless of disease complexity.Soil salinity is a global problem that has adverse effects on both agriculture and aquaculture production. The main objectives of this study were to observe the distribution pattern of soil salinity in the accreted and non-accreted land of the Noakhali district and to determine the intensity of salinity at different depths (1-2 cm, 15-20 cm, and 45-60 cm). Soil samples from 60 sampling sites were analyzed to measure electrical conductivity (EC). The two-way factorial ANOVA model revealed a significant effect of depth (p less then 0.001) and sampling locations (p less then 0.001) on soil salinity. After decomposition of this model, one-way ANOVA showed that 45-60 cm of depth contains significantly higher soil salinity (p less then 0.01) ranging from 0.28 to 4.70 dS/m compared to 1-2 cm (ranging from 0.14 to 2.39 dS/m) and 15-20 cm (ranging from 0.18 to 2.37 dS/m) depth. In the case of accreted lands, surface (1-2 cm) and mid-layer (15-20 cm) soils were found slight to severely saline, while soil at a depth of 45-60 cm was found high to extremely saline. In all cases, salinity increases from the north to southwards and surface to downwards. Our results showed that the accreted land of the Noakhali district contains higher soil salinity compared to the non-accreted land, an