A Study on the Influence of Task-driven Instruction on Learning Outcomes in Online Learning under COVID-19

Interest in online learning is increasing due to its advantages and pedagogical potential. However, few studies have investigated the effects of task-driven instruction on learning outcomes. This study examines the effectiveness of the application of task-driven instruction as a means of verifying that the use of task-driven instruction in online learning is effective by comparing changes in students' grades, intrinsic motivation, perceived social presence, and perceived cognitive load before and after the application of the method. Eighty high school students (33 males) were recruited for this experiment. Prior to the experiment, the purpose and steps of the study were explained frankly and candidly, problems and risks that might arise from participation in the study were pointed out, the benefits that would result from participation in the study were explained, and the possibility of voluntarily withdrawing from the study at any time was clearly communicated and approved by the study subjects or guardians. They were divided into experimental group I and control group II, with 40 students in each group. The results of the study showed that after the implementation of the instruction, the experimental group I performed significantly better than the control group II. In addition, the experimental group II outperformed the control group II in terms of perceived intrinsic motivation, social presence, and cognitive load. © 2023 ACM.

The impact of covid-19 on education: a three-phase study on students' attitudes toward transformative modes of instruction

The global coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has resulted in countless changes to daily life. This has included the move to emergency remote learning for PreK-12 and post-secondary education around the world. The impact of COVID-19 resulted in extensive periods of emergency synchronous teaching and learning, with the distinctive rise of e-learning, whereby teaching is undertaken remotely and on digital platforms. Many institutions adjusted their traditional instructional format to synchronous online instruction in early Spring, 2020 semester. To better understand the impact of transformative modes of instructions on the learning process and to investigate factors that may affect the effectiveness of synchronous online instruction and serve as input to instructional process improvements in the future, surveys were conducted in three phases: phase I: during the second and third week after all F2F courses were transformed to synchronous online instruction in March, 2020;phase II: during the last week of the Spring semester 2020;and phase III: in the middle of Spring, 2021 semester. The surveys set out to measure students' perceived satisfaction and effectiveness of synchronous learning experiences and to capture the underlying factors that contribute to the perceived satisfaction levels as they gained more experiences with the synchronous online learning process. The results show students overwhelmingly prefer being in a physical classroom when they first transformed to synchronous instruction mode in Spring, 2020. However, after one year's practice with the synchronous online instruction, almost all dimensions observed in this study have been changed significantly, including satisfaction with the synchronous online instruction, perceived grade, interaction, comprehension of learning contents, engagement and perceived learning outcomes. © 2022 International Association for Computer Information Systems

Ferroptosis Is a Potential Therapeutic Target for Pulmonary Infectious Diseases

Ferroptosis is a new type of iron-dependent cell death caused by lipid peroxide (LPO) accumulation and involved in disease of pulmonary infection. The dysregulation of iron metabolism, the accumulation of LPO, and the inactivation and consumption of glutathione peroxidase 4 (GPX4) are the crucial cause of ferroptosis. Pulmonary infectious diseases caused by Pseudomonas aeruginosa (PA), Mycobacterium tuberculosis (MTB), and severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus type 2 (SARS-CoV-2) are associated with ferroptosis. Ferroptosis may be a potential therapeutic target for pulmonary infectious diseases. However, the mechanisms by which these infections are involved in ferroptosis and whether pulmonary infectious diseases caused by Staphylococcus aureus, Klebsiella pneumoniae, and Leishmania spp are related to ferroptosis are unclear. Accordingly, more researches are needed.Copyright © 2023 Yurong Zhang et al.

Analysis of fatal cardiac adverse events caused by chloroquine: a study based on the related data from the WHO global database of individual case safety reports. TT -:Who.

Objective: To analyze the clinical characteristics of fatal cardiac adverse events associated with chloroquine, which was recommended for the antiviral treatment of novel coronavirus pneumonia, and provide reference for clinical safe drug use. Method(s): The fatal cardiac adverse events associated with chloroquine were searched from the World Health Organization global database of individual case safety reports (VigiBase). The clinical characteristics of the individual cases with well-documented reports (VigiGrade completeness score >=0.80 or with detailed original reports) were analyzed. The adverse events were coded using the systematic organ classification (SOC) and preferred term (PT) of Medical Dictionary for Regulatory Activities (MedDRA) version 22.1 of International Conference on Harmonization (ICH). Result(s): Up to 23 February 2020, a total of 45 reports of fatal heart injuries related to chloroquine were reported in VigiBase, which were from 16 countries. Of them, 30 reports were fully informative. Among the 30 reports,20 cases developed fatal cardiac adverse events after a single large dose of chloroquine. Of them, 17 cases' fatal cardiac adverse events were caused by overdose of chloroquine (15 cases were suicide or suspected suicide, and 2 children took chloroquine by mistake);3 cases' fatal cardiac adverse events were caused in clinical treatment;18 cases showed arrhythmia and cardiac arrest;6 cases showed prolonged QRS wave or QT interval;6 cases were with hypokalemia, including 4 severe ones. Among the 30 reports, 10 cases developed fatal cardiac adverse events after multiple administration of chloroquine, of which 4 cases were treated with chloroquine for 23 days to 2 months and died of heart failure, cardiac arrest or myocardial infarction;6 cases were treated with chloroquine for 20 months to 29 years and all of them had cardiomyopathy, which were confirmed by endomyocardial biopsy to be caused by chloroquine in 3 cases. Conclusion(s): Cardiac toxicity was the primary cause of fatal adverse events caused by chloroquine;the main manifestation of single large dose of chloroquine was arrhythmia and the manifestation of multiple administration was cardiomyopathy.Copyright © 2020 by the Chinese Medical Association.

Assessment of relationship between aging and contaminant-carryover for different filter layer of surgical mask under urban environmental stressors

Abundant disposable surgical masks (SMs) remain in the environment and continue to age under urban environmental stressors. This study aimed to investigate the aging characteristics of SMs and the effect of different aged layers of SMs on phenanthrene (PHE), tylosin (TYL), and sulfamethazine (SMT) under two different urban environmental stressors (UV and ozone). The results show that UV exposure causes more severe aging of the SM layers than ozone. The middle layer, made of melt-brown fabric, has displayed the highest degree of aging due to its smaller diameter and mechanical strength. The two-dimensional correlation spectroscopy (2D-COS) analysis reveals the different aging sequences of functional groups and three layers in aged SMs under the two urban environmental stressors. Whether the SMs are aged or not, the adsorptions of three organic pollutants on SMs are positively correlated with the octanol-water partition coefficient. Furthermore, except for the dominant hydrophobic interaction, aged SMs can promote the adsorption of three organic pollutants by accessory interactions (hydrogen bonding and partition), depending on their structures. These findings highlight the environmental effects of new microplastic (MP) sources and coexisting pollutants under the influence of COVID-19, which is helpful in accurately evaluating the biological toxicity of SMs. © 2022 Elsevier B.V.

Impact of decreased aerosols during the COVID-19 pandemic on winter wheat gross primary productivity and water use efficiency

Rapid and comprehensive lockdowns to contain the coronavirus 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic reduced anthropogenic emissions and, thereby, decreased the aerosol optical depth (AOD) in Xiangyang, Hubei Province. However, their complicated interactions make quantifying the contribution of decreased aerosols to crop growth challenging. Here, we explored the indirect effects of decreased aerosol concentrations on the gross primary productivity (GPP) and water use efficiency (WUE) of winter wheat by quantifying the contributions of key environmental factors. Our results showed high temporal and spatial associations between aerosols (represented by AOD), GPP, and WUE before, during, and after the COVID-19 pandemic. AOD decreased by 23.8% +/- 10.1%, whereas GPP and WUE increased by 16.5% +/- 5.8% and 17.0% +/- 15.3%, respectively. The GeoDetector model revealed that photosynthetically active radiation (PAR) had a major impact on GPP and WUE, followed by precipitation, surface soil moisture, subsurface soil moisture, and surface temperature. Moreover, causality analysis showed a causal relationship between AOD and the dominant factors (PAR and precipitation) during the lockdown, thereby indicating a positive effect of decreased aerosols on GPP and WUE changes of winter wheat. Our findings assist in understanding the mechanisms causing GPP and WUE changes, given the environmental factors that changed significantly during the pandemic. (c) 2022 Society of Photo-Optical Instrumentation Engineers (SPIE)

Risk Factors of In-hospital Death in COVID-19 Patients：a Meta-analysis

Background The worldwide COVID-19 pandemic has turned into a global catastrophic public health crisis，and the conclusion about the risk factors of hospital death in COVID-19 patients is not uniform. Objective To explore risk factors of in-hospital death in patients with COVID-19 by a meta-analysis. Methods Case-control studies about risk factors of in-hospital death in COVID-19 patients were searched from databases of the Cochrane Library，ScienceDirect，PubMed，Medline，Wanfang Data，CNKI and CQVIP from inception to October 1，2021. Literature screening，data extraction and methodological quality assessment were conducted. Meta-analysis was performed using Stata 15.1. Meta-regression was used to explore the potential sources of heterogeneity. Results Eighty studies were included which involving 405 157 cases〔349 923 were survivors（86.37%），and 55 234 deaths（13.63%）〕，that were rated as being of high quality by the Newcastle-Ottawa Scale. Meta-analysis showed that being male〔OR=1.49，95%CI（1.41，1.57），P<0.001），older age〔WMD=10.44，95%CI（9.79，11.09），P<0.001〕，dyspnoea〔OR=2.09，95%CI（1.80，2.43），P<0.001〕，fatigue〔OR=1.49，95%CI（1.31，1.69），P<0.001〕，obesity〔OR=1.46，95%CI（1.43，1.50），P<0.001〕，smoking〔OR=1.18，95%CI （1.14，1.23），P<0.001〕，stroke〔OR=2.26，95%CI（1.41，3.62），P<0.001〕，kidney disease〔OR=3.62，95%CI （3.26，4.03），P<0.001〕，cardiovascular disease〔OR=2.34，95%CI（2.21，2.47），P<0.001〕，hypertension〔OR=2.23，95%CI（2.10，2.37），P<0.001〕，diabetes〔OR=1.84，95%CI（1.74，1.94），P<0.001〕，cancer〔OR=1.86，95%CI （1.69，2.05），P<0.001〕，pulmonary disease〔OR=2.38，95%CI（2.19，2.58），P<0.001〕，liver disease〔OR=1.65，95%CI（1.36，2.01），P<0.001〕，elevated levels of white blood cell count〔WMD=2.03，95%CI（1.74，2.32），P<0.001〕，neutrophil count〔WMD=1.77，95%CI（1.49，2.05），P<0.001〕，total bilirubin〔WMD=3.19，95%CI（1.96，4.42），P<0.001〕，aspartate transaminase〔WMD=13.02，95%CI（11.70，14.34），P<0.001〕，alanine transaminase 〔WMD=2.76，95%CI（1.68，3.85），P<0.001〕，lactate dehydrogenase〔WMD=166.91，95%CI（150.17，183.64），P<0.001〕，blood urea nitrogen〔WMD=3.11，95%CI（2.61，3.60），P<0.001〕，serum creatinine〔WMD=22.06，95%CI （19.41，24.72），P<0.001〕，C-reactive protein〔WMD=76.45，95%CI （71.33，81.56），P<0.001〕，interleukin-6 〔WMD=28.21，95%CI（14.98，41.44），P<0.001〕，and erythrocyte sedimentation rate〔WMD=8.48，95%CI（5.79，11.17），P<0.001〕were associated with increased risk of in-hospital death for patients with COVID-19，while myalgia〔OR=0.73，95%CI（0.62，0.85），P<0.001〕，cough〔OR=0.87，95%CI（0.78，0.97），P=0.013〕，vomiting〔OR=0.73，95%CI （0.54，0.98），P=0.030〕，diarrhoea〔OR=0.79，95%CI（0.69，0.92），P=0.001〕，headache〔OR=0.55，95%CI（0.45，0.68），P<0.001〕，asthma〔OR=0.73，95%CI（0.69，0.78），P<0.001〕，low body mass index〔WMD=-0.58，95%CI （-1.10，-0.06），P=0.029〕，decreased lymphocyte count〔WMD=-0.36，95%CI（-0.39，-0.32），P<0.001〕，decreased platelet count 〔WMD=-38.26，95%CI（-44.37，-32.15），P<0.001〕，increased D-dimer〔WMD=0.79，95%CI（0.63，0.95），P<0.001〕，longer prothrombin time〔WMD=0.78，95%CI（0.61，0.94），P<0.001〕，lower albumin〔WMD =-1.88，95%CI（-2.35，-1.40），P<0.001〕，increased procalcitonin〔WMD=0.27，95%CI（0.24，0.31），P<0.001〕，and increased cardiac troponin〔WMD=0.04，95%CI（0.03，0.04），P<0.001〕were associated with decreased risk of in-hospital death due to COVID-19. According to the meta-regression result，the heterogeneity in gender，renal disease，cardiovascular diseases，asthma，white blood cell count，neutrophil count，platelet count，hemoglobin，and urea nitrogen differed siangificnatly by country（P<0.05）. Conclusion The risk of in-hospital death due to COVID-19 may be increased by 25 factors（including being male，older age，dyspnoea，fatigue，obesity，smoking，stroke，kidney disease，cardiovascular disease，hypertension，diabetes，cancer，pulmonary disease，liver disease，elevated levels of white blood cells，neutrophil count，total bilirubin，aspartate transaminase，alanine transaminase，lactate dehydrogenase，blood urea nitrogen，serum creatinine，C-reactive protein，interleukin-6，and erythrocyte sedimentation rate），and may be decreased by 13 factors（including myalgia，cough，vomiting，diarrhoea，headache，asthma，low body mass index，decreased lymphocyte count and platelet count，increased D-dimer，longer prothrombin time，lower albumin，increased procalcitonin and cardiac troponin）. The conclusion drawn from this study needs to be further confirmed by high-quality，multicenter，large-sample，real-world studies. © 2023 Chinese General Practice. All rights reserved.

Risk Factors of In-hospital Death in COVID-19 Patients：a Meta-analysis

Background The worldwide COVID-19 pandemic has turned into a global catastrophic public health crisis，and the conclusion about the risk factors of hospital death in COVID-19 patients is not uniform. Objective To explore risk factors of in-hospital death in patients with COVID-19 by a meta-analysis. Methods Case-control studies about risk factors of in-hospital death in COVID-19 patients were searched from databases of the Cochrane Library，ScienceDirect，PubMed，Medline，Wanfang Data，CNKI and CQVIP from inception to October 1，2021. Literature screening，data extraction and methodological quality assessment were conducted. Meta-analysis was performed using Stata 15.1. Meta-regression was used to explore the potential sources of heterogeneity. Results Eighty studies were included which involving 405 157 cases〔349 923 were survivors（86.37%），and 55 234 deaths（13.63%）〕，that were rated as being of high quality by the Newcastle-Ottawa Scale. Meta-analysis showed that being male〔OR=1.49，95%CI（1.41，1.57），P<0.001），older age〔WMD=10.44，95%CI（9.79，11.09），P<0.001〕，dyspnoea〔OR=2.09，95%CI（1.80，2.43），P<0.001〕，fatigue〔OR=1.49，95%CI（1.31，1.69），P<0.001〕，obesity〔OR=1.46，95%CI（1.43，1.50），P<0.001〕，smoking〔OR=1.18，95%CI （1.14，1.23），P<0.001〕，stroke〔OR=2.26，95%CI（1.41，3.62），P<0.001〕，kidney disease〔OR=3.62，95%CI （3.26，4.03），P<0.001〕，cardiovascular disease〔OR=2.34，95%CI（2.21，2.47），P<0.001〕，hypertension〔OR=2.23，95%CI（2.10，2.37），P<0.001〕，diabetes〔OR=1.84，95%CI（1.74，1.94），P<0.001〕，cancer〔OR=1.86，95%CI （1.69，2.05），P<0.001〕，pulmonary disease〔OR=2.38，95%CI（2.19，2.58），P<0.001〕，liver disease〔OR=1.65，95%CI（1.36，2.01），P<0.001〕，elevated levels of white blood cell count〔WMD=2.03，95%CI（1.74，2.32），P<0.001〕，neutrophil count〔WMD=1.77，95%CI（1.49，2.05），P<0.001〕，total bilirubin〔WMD=3.19，95%CI（1.96，4.42），P<0.001〕，aspartate transaminase〔WMD=13.02，95%CI（11.70，14.34），P<0.001〕，alanine transaminase 〔WMD=2.76，95%CI（1.68，3.85），P<0.001〕，lactate dehydrogenase〔WMD=166.91，95%CI（150.17，183.64），P<0.001〕，blood urea nitrogen〔WMD=3.11，95%CI（2.61，3.60），P<0.001〕，serum creatinine〔WMD=22.06，95%CI （19.41，24.72），P<0.001〕，C-reactive protein〔WMD=76.45，95%CI （71.33，81.56），P<0.001〕，interleukin-6 〔WMD=28.21，95%CI（14.98，41.44），P<0.001〕，and erythrocyte sedimentation rate〔WMD=8.48，95%CI（5.79，11.17），P<0.001〕were associated with increased risk of in-hospital death for patients with COVID-19，while myalgia〔OR=0.73，95%CI（0.62，0.85），P<0.001〕，cough〔OR=0.87，95%CI（0.78，0.97），P=0.013〕，vomiting〔OR=0.73，95%CI （0.54，0.98），P=0.030〕，diarrhoea〔OR=0.79，95%CI（0.69，0.92），P=0.001〕，headache〔OR=0.55，95%CI（0.45，0.68），P<0.001〕，asthma〔OR=0.73，95%CI（0.69，0.78），P<0.001〕，low body mass index〔WMD=-0.58，95%CI （-1.10，-0.06），P=0.029〕，decreased lymphocyte count〔WMD=-0.36，95%CI（-0.39，-0.32），P<0.001〕，decreased platelet count 〔WMD=-38.26，95%CI（-44.37，-32.15），P<0.001〕，increased D-dimer〔WMD=0.79，95%CI（0.63，0.95），P<0.001〕，longer prothrombin time〔WMD=0.78，95%CI（0.61，0.94），P<0.001〕，lower albumin〔WMD =-1.88，95%CI（-2.35，-1.40），P<0.001〕，increased procalcitonin〔WMD=0.27，95%CI（0.24，0.31），P<0.001〕，and increased cardiac troponin〔WMD=0.04，95%CI（0.03，0.04），P<0.001〕were associated with decreased risk of in-hospital death due to COVID-19. According to the meta-regression result，the heterogeneity in gender，renal disease，cardiovascular diseases，asthma，white blood cell count，neutrophil count，platelet count，hemoglobin，and urea nitrogen differed siangificnatly by country（P<0.05）. Conclusion The risk of in-hospital death due to COVID-19 may be increased by 25 factors（including being male，older age，dyspnoea，fatigue，obesity，smoking，stroke，kidney disease，cardiovascular disease，hypertension，diabetes，cancer，pulmonary disease，liver disease，elevated levels of white blood cells，neutrophil count，total bilirubin，aspartate transaminase，alanine transaminase，lactate dehydrogenase，blood urea nitrogen，serum creatinine，C-reactive protein，interleukin-6，and erythrocyte sedimentation rate），and may be decreased by 13 factors（including myalgia，cough，vomiting，diarrhoea，headache，asthma，low body mass index，decreased lymphocyte count and platelet count，increased D-dimer，longer prothrombin time，lower albumin，increased procalcitonin and cardiac troponin）. The conclusion drawn from this study needs to be further confirmed by high-quality，multicenter，large-sample，real-world studies. © 2023 Chinese General Practice. All rights reserved.

Impact of quarantine policies on port network performance and robustness during pandemics: a simulation-based analysis

To contain the spread of the virus at ports, many countries have implemented quarantine policies for vessels from abroad during COVID-19. In response, vessels chose to skip the port to save time or undergo a 14-day quarantine to ensure critical supplies, both of which significantly affected the performance of the port network. However, due to the combined effect of many factors, data analysis techniques can hardly identify the impact of quarantine policies on the outcomes. Therefore, to enable both networkwide performance assessment and detailed evaluation for individual vessels and ports under such an unprecedented policy, a microscopic simulation model for the global port network (GPN) is desired. The proposed simulation method is based on real-world vessel movement data from Automatic Identification Systems (AIS) combined with a port database. It is found that the effect of the quarantine policy on a particular port consists of two parts, i.e. the direct impact caused by vessels' port skipping and the indirect impact caused by network interaction, which is further determined by the location of, and the policy implemented by the port. Furthermore, the ability of the global port network to maintain its performance under different levels of pandemic situations and different rates for vessels to skip the ports requiring quarantine is investigated. Interestingly, in most cases, a moderate port skipping rate (mostly between 20% and 50%) could help improve network performance. The results and presented simulation method can assist policymakers in coping with COVID-19 and potential global catastrophes.

CoviD-19: Pathogenic mechanism, detection, and treatment

COVID-19, which broke out in 2019 in China, is caused by SARS-CoV-2. According to the latest WHO real-time statistics, as of 1:19 p.m. BST on April 22, there were 142557268 cumulative new confirmed cases of coronavirus pneumonia and 3033798 cumulative deaths worldwide. Therefore, it is significant to understand the structure and the pathogenic mechanism of SARS-CoV-2, which is helpful to understand the diagnosis and treatment of sars-cov-2. We primarily investigate related sources on Pubmed and related scholar websites. We found some antiviral drugs such as lopinavir, chloroquine, and its derivative hydroxychloroquine, remdesivir, and arbidol have great potential in the treatment of COVID-19. However, some of them have a serious adverse reaction, reminding us to use them with caution. © The Authors, published by EDP Sciences.

Recent advances in the study of a novel Omicron variant of SARS-CoV-2

Due to the continued emergence of multiple variants of SARS-CoV-2, the ongoing pandemic has resulted in severe mortality over the past two years. After the Alpha, Beta, Gamma and Delta variants, the most recent new variant of concern (VOC) strain to emerge is Omicron (B.1.1.529), which evolved as a result of the accumulation of a large number of mutations. The Omicron variant, which has a much higher transmission rate than the Delta variant, soon replaced the Delta variant and others, is now the dominant variant worldwide. The emergence of Omicron poses new challenges for the prevention and control of COVID-19 and has raised a number of concerns worldwide. Recently, cases of Omicron infection have been reported in several parts of China, and therefore this paper provides a comprehensive analysis and summary of the epidemiology and immune escape mechanisms of the Omicron variant. We also suggest some therapeutic strategies against the Omicron variant, including rapid diagnosis, genome analysis of emerging variants, ramping up of vaccination drives and receiving booster doses, updating the available vaccines, designing of multivalent vaccines able to generate hybrid immunity, up-gradation of medical facilities and strict implementation of adequate prevention and control measures need to be given high priority to handle the on-going COVID-19 pandemic successfully. © 2022 by the Author(s).

College Professors Turning Chaos Into Collegial Collaboration

This chapter discusses some challenges two faculty members faced after an abrupt shift to online learning during the pandemic of COVID-19. It also identifies opportunities that arose through their collegial collaboration to help students make a smooth transition to the remote learning setting. The two professors reflected on experiential strategies over varied topics including course design, student engagement and empowerment, and socioemotional support needed by both students and instructors in the process of collaboration and mutual mentoring. These discussions are documented over nine months in the form of conversations as the pandemic is stretching over two semesters. It illustrates the importance of collegial collaboration for promoting professional growth and personal wellbeing of both students and professors during times of crisis and chaos.

Does the traffic volume of a port determine connectivity? Revisiting port connectivity measures with high-frequency satellite data

Seaports play an important role in the global shipping network. Shipping participants often attach great importance to the measurement of container port connectivity, as it reflects countries' access to world markets. As a result, various port connectivity index systems have been proposed by members of the shipping industry and scholars. In recent years, technological developments especially the advancement of high coverage and real-time Automatic Identification System (AIS) data, have provided a chance to improve the scope and frequency of the existing index systems. An improved system is expected to reflect the dynamic changes in a port's connectivity which may be induced by either local disruptions or shocks in the wider economy. This study builds a monthly container port connectivity index system by applying big data mining techniques, graph theory, and principal component analysis (PCA) to AIS data, taking both port factors and shipping network factors into consideration. AIS records from 2020 are used to calculate the connectivity score of 25 major container ports. We also compare our system with the connectivity index commonly used in the shipping industry, the Liner Shipping Connectivity Index (LSCI). Our results show that the measurement of connectivity can be improved over indices that depend primarily on indicators of traffic volume. Ports like Antwerp and Tanjung Pelepas rank high in the proposed system due to their sound performance on their accessibility and strategic position in the local region instead of their traffic volume. The monthly index system is also proven to reflect timely changes in the shipping industry through its accurate portrayal of changes in port connectivity during the COVID-19 outbreak. © 2022 Elsevier Ltd

Author Correction: Advancing COVID-19 diagnosis with privacy-preserving collaboration in artificial intelligence (Nature Machine Intelligence, (2021), 3, 12, (1081-1089), 10.1038/s42256-021-00421-z)

In the version of this article initially published, the first name of Chuansheng Zheng was misspelled as Chuangsheng. The error has been corrected in the HTML and PDF versions of the article. © The Author(s) 2022.

Research Progress of Monoclonal Antibody Technology and Analysis of Marketed Drugs

Since the establishment of hybridoma in the 1980s, the antibody technology has achieved great development.Antibody is an immunoglobulin secreted by B lymphocytes, which produces many biological activity, such as blocking, neutralization, activation, kill target cells and regulate immune system via Fc receptor.The development of antibody technology has undergone a long history of mouse monoclonal antibodies, chimeric antibodies, humanized antibodies, and full human monoclonal antibodies.In the transition from mouse antibody to human antibody, a variety of biotechnology breakthroughs have been achieved, such as antibody library technology, humanized mouse technology and B cell cloning technology.Today, antibody drugs have a pivotal position throughout the drug market.Ten years come (2 011.01~2 021.11), 78 monoclonal antibody drugs have been approved for marketing by FDA, are widely distributed in the field of tumor disrases, immune diseases, anti-pathogen infections, nerves, etc.This article reviews monoclonal antibody technologies and antibody drug listing, and provides ideas for the preparation of new antibodies and the choice of drug target.

Clinical characteristics of liver and kidney injuries and correlation with severity and mortality in patients with COVID-19

Objective To describe the clinical characteristics of liver and kidney injuries and investigate its effect on the severity and mortality in the COVID-19 patients.Methods A total of 3 548 patients diagnosed with COVID-19 hut without liver and kidney diseases admitted in the Huoshenshan Hospital, Jinyintan Hospital and Taikang Tongji Hospital from February 4, 2020 to April 16, 2020 were recruited in this study.Their clinical data were extracted from medical database, including general information, clinical features, laboratory results and outcomes such as death were collected and analyzed.SPSS statistics 23.0 was used to perform the statistical description and analysis.Results Among the 3 548 patients with COYID-19, 875 (24.7%) cases were severe illness and above and 91 (2.6%) died during hospitalization.The proportions of the patients with higher alanine amiotransferase ( ALT) , aspartate aminotransferase ( AST) and creatinine (Cr) were 14.6% (513/3 548) , 3.4% ( 1 19/3 548) and 2.8% ( 101/3 548), respectively.Compared with the patients with normal ALT, AST and Cr, the patients with elevated ALT did not have a significantly increased risk of severe illness or death ( /-∗>().05) , and the risk of severe illness and death was significantly increased in those with elevated AST and Cr ( P<0.05).The risk of severe disease was 2.32 times (95%CI: 1.73-3.10) and 1 1.40 times ( 95% CI: 2.36-54.98 ) for those with single or both liver and kidney injuries, and the risk of death was 5.21 times (95% CI: 3.10-8.75 ) and 13.53 times (95% CI: 2.76-66.32) for those with normal liver and kidney function, respectively.Logistic regression analysis indicated that after independent factors related to severe illness and death screened out as correction factors, the risk of severe illness and death was 1.612 times (95% CI: 1.17-2.22) and 2.907 times (95% CI: 1.61-5.24) of patients with liver or kidney injuries when compared with those with normal function, respectively.Conclusion The COYID-19 patients with liver and renal injuries have a significantly increased tendency to become severity and mortality, and should undergo early intervention. © 2021 Editorial Office of Journal of Third Military Medical University. All rights reserved.

Human chest CT image enhancement based on basic information preservation and detail enhancement

Objective: Human chest computed tomography (CT) image analysis is a key measure for diagnosing human lung diseases. However, the current scanned chest CT images might not meet the requirement of diagnosing lung diseases accurately. Medical image enhancement is an effective technique to improve the image quality and has been used in many clinical applications, such as knee joint disease detection, breast lesion segmentation and corona virus disease 2019(COVID-19) detection. Developing new enhancement algorithms is essential to improve the quality of chest CT images. A simple yet effective chest CT image enhancement algorithm is presented based on basic information preservation and detail enhancement. Method: A good chest CT image enhancement algorithm should well improve the clarity of edges or speckles in the image, while preserving much original structural information. Our human chest CT image enhancement algorithm is developed as follows. First, this algorithm exploits the advanced guided filter to decompose the CT image into multiple layers, including a base layer and multiple different scales of detail layers. Next, an entropy-based weight strategy is adopted to fuse the detail layers, which could well strengthen the informative details and suppress the texture-less layers. Afterwards, the fused detail layer is further strengthened based on an enhancement coefficient. In the end, the enhanced detail layer and the original base layer are integrated to generate the targeted chest CT image. The proposed algorithm could well enhance the details of the chest CT image, as well as transfer much original basic structural information to the enhanced image. Moreover, with the help of our algorithm, the surgeons can inspect more clear medical images without impacting their perception of the pathology information. In order to verify the effectiveness of our proposed algorithm, we have constructed a chest CT image dataset, which is composed of 20 sets/3 209 chest CT images, and then evaluated our algorithm and five state-of-the-art image enhancement algorithms on this large-scale dataset. In addition, the experiments are performed in both qualitative and quantitative ways. Result: Two qualitative comparison cases demonstrate that our algorithm has mainly strengthened the useful details, while effectively suppressing the background information. As for the five comparison algorithms, histogram equalization(HE) and contrast limited adaptive histogram equalization(CLAHE) usually change the whole image intensities with large variation and degrade the image quality as compared to the original image. Alternative toggle operator(AO) could enhance the chest CT image with much better visual quality than HE and CLAHE, but it has excessively enhanced both image details and background noises. Low-light image enhancement(LIME) and robust retinex model(RRM) usually increase the intensities of the whole image and result in images of inappropriate contrast. The quantitative average standard deviation(STD), structural similarity metric(SSIM), peak signal to noise ratio(PSNR) values of our algorithm are significantly greater than those of the other five comparison algorithms (i.e., increased by 4.95, 0.16, 4.47, respectively) on our constructed chest CT image dataset. To be specific, greater average STD value of our algorithm indicates it has enhanced images with more clear details compared to the other five comparison algorithms. Larger average SSIM and PSNR values of our algorithm validate that it has preserved more basic structural information from the original image than the other five comparison algorithms. Meanwhile, the proposed algorithm only costs about 0.10 seconds to enhance a single CT image, which indicates the proposed algorithm has great potential to be efficiently applied in the real clinical scenarios. Overall, our algorithm achieves the best results amongst all the six image enhancement algorithms in terms of both visual quality and quantitative metrics. Conclusion: In this study, we have developed a simple yet effective hum n chest CT image enhancement algorithm, which can effectively enhance the textural details of chest CT images while preserving a large amount of original basic structural information. With the help of our enhanced human chest CT images, the surgeons could diagnose lung diseases more accurately. Moreover, the proposed algorithm owns good generalization ability, and is capable of well enhancing CT images scanned from other sites and even other modalities of images. © 2022, Editorial Office of Journal of Image and Graphics. All right reserved.

Preservice Teachers’ Evolving View of the Impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic on Online Learning

The purpose of this study is to investigate preservice teachers’ evolving views towards online learning, technological efficacy, and their outlook regarding the strengths and constraints of online learning after a forced transition to online learning during the pandemic of COVID-19. 104 students from two semesters participated in the study. They took Teacher Education as a major or minor. Group 1 was from the Fall semester of 2020. Group 2 was from the following semester of Spring 2021. Group 2 had one more semester of online learning experiences. A mixed-methods design was used to analyze both quantitative and qualitative data from an online survey. Results show preservice teachers’ technological self-efficacy and interest increased over time and their attitudes towards online learning became significantly positive. This study provides a concrete understanding of preservice teachers’ evolving view towards online education, which could have a critical impact on the adoption of online learning in future K-12 settings © 2022, International Journal of Emerging Technologies in Learning. All Rights Reserved.

Research on Benefit Distribution of E-commerce Rice Sales Supply Chain Based on Cooperative Game

E-commerce is perceived a powerful engine for sustainable economic development in the post COVID-19 pandemic. For the agricultural food industry, e-commerce platforms have become a new sales channel for agricultural products. Yet little is known about the rice supply chain on e-commerce platforms. Thus, this study: 1) Synthesizes the behaviors that rice supply chain stakeholders will take to maximize benefits. 2) Based on the impacts of cooperation cost, default risk, response speed and logistics services in the rice supply chain cooperation, an analysis framework is proposed to clarify how to make these decisions. 3) Offers specific examples to illustrate the decision-making process of using Shapley value distribution method to distribute the benefits of the rice supply chain fairly. The results show that: When the benefits of cooperation are greater cooperation will occur. Alliance. The improved distribution plan based on traditional Shapley value distribution will contributes to a stable and cooperative supply chain alliance. © 2021 IEEE.