ABSTRACT
The rapid spread of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) infection has led to an unprecedented public health, economic, and social crisis worldwide. Since no therapeutic treatment is yet available to effectively clear the virus and terminate transmission, supportive therapy is the primary clinical approach for coronavirus disease (COVID-19). The role of corticosteroids as one of the main means of anti-inflammatory adjuvants in the treatment of COVID-19 is controversial. Here, we retrospectively evaluated the therapeutic effects of corticosteroids by comparing clinical data of patients treated with or without a corticosteroids therapy at different severity levels. Kaplan-Meier curves shows that therapy with methylprednisolone and cortico-steroids increases the risk of death in patients with critical COVID-19 pneumonia. For patients in the critical group, the risk of death was slightly higher in males receiving corticosteroids therapy, while hypertension and trauma history reduced the hazard ratio. © 2022, The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd.
ABSTRACT
Page 5452. In the "2.1. Preparation of CCM-CDs" section in the Experimental Section, "Curcumin (CCM;0.30 g) and citric acid (0.60 g) were ground uniformly, sealed, and hydrothermally treated in a 25 mL Teflon-lined autoclave at 180 C for 1 h." was incorrectly written. It should be "Curcumin (CCM;0.30 g) and citric acid (0.60 g) were ground uniformly, sealed, and hydrothermally treated in a 25 mL Teflon-lined autoclave at 180 C for 1.5 h.". This change does not affect the conclusion of this paper. Page 5455. In the caption of Figure 6c, "Virus titers calculated in the presence and absence of EDA-CDs or CCMCDs. The pictures were taken at 12 hpi." was incorrectly written. It should be "Virus titers calculated in the presence and absence of EDA-CDs or CCM-CDs. The pictures were taken at 9 hpi.". In addition, the fluorescence images of the DAPI and Merge in the EDA-CDs (125 g/mL) group (Figure 6a) were chosen by mistake when the artwork was submitted. These changes do not affect the conclusion of this paper. The revised Figure 6a, which now shows the correct images from the original data source, is as follows: (Figure Present). © 2022 American Chemical Society. All rights reserved.
ABSTRACT
In the background of the global COVID-19 pandemic, the popularization of intelligent online teaching platforms dominated by advanced teaching technologies is accelerated. The ‘Pedagogy-Space-Technology’ (PST) framework learning space provides students high-quality teaching resources. The overall learning efficiency of students is dissatisfying because students lack intrinsic motivation to learn. Based on existing “intelligent teaching platforms of the PST framework” and combining with the principle of improving internal drive force of students through external guiding strategies, an experiment was designed in this study. The course Technical Analysis of the Financial Markets launched as an open online optional course for Chinese six undergraduate universities in 2021 and was chosen as the research example. Experimental data in 16 weeks were collected to analyze the effects of the PST framework learning space on overall intrinsic learning ability, staged academic performances, and online learning behaviors and improvement degree of intrinsic independent learning ability of students. The students’ independent learning ability is generally improved, but their attitude improvement is not obvious. The academic performances of students are generally improved, especially for students with low intrinsic independent learning ability. The online learning behaviors of students with low intrinsic independent learning ability are not dissatisfying, but their independent learning ability is improved significantly. In this study, the relationship between the PST framework learning space and learning efficiency of students was disclosed from the perspective of the internal-driving and externalguiding teaching model. The obtained conclusion provides a way for university teachers to provide students with emotional support, design multiple teaching technological activity combined strategies, offer external guidance with timely and high-efficiency feedbacks, and improve learning efficiency. © 2022. International Journal of Emerging Technologies in Learning. All Rights Reserved.
ABSTRACT
Public health emergencies can seriously affect public health and people's lives, and risk assessment and prediction provide a scientific basis for effective prevention and control of public health emergencies. This work proposes a new method for risk dynamic assessment and prediction of public health emergencies based on a revised SEIR model. This work combines transmission rules of public health emergencies with demographic, medical, and economic conditions and establishes rational and comprehensive indices of risk assessment by coupling hazard evaluation and vulnerability estimation. An integrated model of entropy-AHP is employed to implement risk dynamic assessments of public health emergencies. Moreover, this work establishes a modified SEIR model and combines infectious disease transmission dynamics and risk assessment to predict evolutional trends and dynamic risks. The COVID-19 epidemic at the end of December 2019 was an important public health emergency characterized by rapid spread, widespread infection, and great difficulty in prevention and control. The COVID-19 epidemic in 10 European countries is employed as a case study for risk assessment and dynamic prediction. Based on the epidemic data from the beginning to April 16, 2020, the epidemic evolutionary trends and dynamic risks are predicted in these countries from April 17, 2020 to May 10, 2020. According to the prediction results, the epidemic situation in 10 European countries will be severe by May 10, 2020. The goodness of fit R2 is larger than 0.92, and the prediction results are basically consistent with the real epidemic situation. Work resumption will be unfavorable for epidemic prevention and control in this case. The method proposed in this work may offer continuous epidemic risk assessments and predictions for countries and regions with serious outbreaks, support effective decisions for disease prevention and control, and also provide emergency risk evaluations and predictions in new epidemic outbreak periods and for other public security emergencies in the future. 2021, Science Press. All right reserved.