Key market identification, mechanism transmission, and extreme shock during the risk spillover process: an empirical study of the G20 FOREX markets.

The role of the G20 in global governance has been increasingly prominent in the context of the extensive spread of coronavirus disease 2019 and the aggravation of financial risk contagion. Detecting the risk spillovers among the G20 FOREX markets is crucial to maintain financial stability. Therefore, this paper first adopts a multi-scale approach to measure the risk spillovers among the G20 FOREX markets from 2000 to 2022. Furthermore, the key markets, the transmission mechanism, and the dynamic evolution are researched based on the network analysis. We derive the following findings: (1) The magnitude and volatility of the total risk spillover index of the G20 countries are highly associated with extreme global events. (2) The magnitude and volatility of risk spillovers among the G20 countries are asymmetric in the different extreme global events. (3) The key markets in the risk spillover process are identified, and the USA always occupies a core position in the G20 FOREX risk spillover networks. (4) In the core clique, the risk spillover effect is obviously high. In the clique hierarchy, as the risk spillover effect is transmitted downward, the risk spillovers present the decrease trends. (5) The density, transmission, reciprocity, and clustering degrees in the G20 risk spillover network during the COVID-19 period are much higher than that in other periods.

A Web Knowledge-Driven Multimodal Retrieval Method in Computational Social Systems: Unsupervised and Robust Graph Convolutional Hashing

Multimodal retrieval has received widespread consideration since it can commendably provide massive related data support for the development of computational social systems (CSSs). However, the existing works still face the following challenges: 1) rely on the tedious manual marking process when extended to CSS, which not only introduces subjective errors but also consumes abundant time and labor costs;2) only using strongly aligned data for training, lacks concern for the adjacency information, which makes the poor robustness and semantic heterogeneity gap difficult to be effectively fit;and 3) mapping features into real-valued forms, which leads to the characteristics of high storage and low retrieval efficiency. To address these issues in turn, we have designed a multimodal retrieval framework based on web-knowledge-driven, called unsupervised and robust graph convolutional hashing (URGCH). The specific implementations are as follows: first, a "secondary semantic self-fusion" approach is proposed, which mainly extracts semantic-rich features through pretrained neural networks, constructs the joint semantic matrix through semantic fusion, and eliminates the process of manual marking;second, a "adaptive computing" approach is designed to construct enhanced semantic graph features through the knowledge-infused of neighborhoods and uses graph convolutional networks for knowledge fusion coding, which enables URGCH to sufficiently fit the semantic modality gap while obtaining satisfactory robustness features;Third, combined with hash learning, the multimodality data are mapped into the form of binary code, which reduces storage requirements and improves retrieval efficiency. Eventually, we perform plentiful experiments on the web dataset. The results evidence that URGCH exceeds other baselines about 1%-3.7% in mean average precisions (MAPs), displays superior performance in all the aspects, and can meaningfully provide multimodal data retrieval services to CSS.

Seroprevalence of Pertussis in Adults at Childbearing Age Pre- and Post- COVID-19 in Beijing, China.

The number of reported pertussis cases has significantly decreased during the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic under the influence of strict public health measures in many countries including China. This study evaluated the prevalence of serum anti-pertussis toxin (anti-PT) IgG antibodies in adults at childbearing age pre- and post- COVID-19 in Beijing, China. Altogether, 2021 serum samples collected from individuals aged 20 to 39 years who attended an annual health examination at the Sixth Medical Center of PLA General Hospital, Beijing, in 2018~2020 were measured by ELISA. The median concentration of anti-PT IgG antibodies among participants in 2020 (2.96 IU/mL) was significantly lower than that in 2018 (3.27 IU/mL) (p = 0.011) and in 2019 (3.24 IU/mL) (p = 0.014). The percentage of participants with anti-PT IgG antibodies higher than 40 IU/mL (indicating a pertussis infection within the past few years) was 1.79% (9/503) in 2018, 2.04% (15/735) in 2019 and 1.66% (13/783) in 2020, respectively. The corresponding numbers of the non-detectable (<5 IU/mL) rate of anti-PT IgG antibodies were 66.60%, 65.99% and 70.24%. Our results showed that there was a significant difference between true and reported incidence rates even during the COVID-19 pandemic. The proportion of adults at childbearing age without pertussis-specific antibodies is high, suggesting that booster vaccinations in adults should be considered in this country.

Occurrence and risk assessment of typical PPCPs and biodegradation pathway of ribavirin in wastewater treatment plants.

A large number of pharmaceuticals and personal care products (PPCPs) persist in wastewater, and the consumption of PPCPs for COVID-19 control and prevention has sharply increased during the pandemic. This study investigated the occurrence, removal efficiency, and risk assessment of six typical PPCPs commonly used in China in two wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs). Ribavirin (RBV) is an effective pharmaceutical for severely ill patients with COVID-19, and the possible biodegradation pathway of RBV by activated sludge was discovered. The experimental results showed that PPCPs were detected in two WWTPs with a detection rate of 100% and concentrations ranging between 612 and 2323 ng L-1. The detection frequency and concentrations of RBV were substantially higher, with a maximum concentration of 314 ng L-1. Relatively high pollution loads were found for the following PPCPs from influent: ibuprofen > ranitidine hydrochloride > RBV > ampicillin sodium > clozapine > sulfamethoxazole. The removal efficiency of PPCPs was closely related to adsorption and biodegradation in activated sludge, and the moving bed biofilm reactor (MBBR) had a higher removal capacity than the anoxic-anaerobic-anoxic-oxic (AAAO) process. The removal efficiencies of sulfamethoxazole, ampicillin sodium, ibuprofen, and clozapine ranged from 92.21% to 97.86% in MBBR process and were relatively low, from 61.82% to 97.62% in AAAO process, and the removal of RBV and ranitidine hydrochloride were lower than 42.96% in both MBBR and AAAO processes. The discrepancy in removal efficiency is caused by temperature, hydrophilicity, and hydrophobicity of the compound, and acidity and alkalinity. The transformation products of RBV in activated sludge were detected and identified, and the biodegradation process of RBV could be speculated as follows: first breaks into TCONH2 and an oxygen-containing five-membered heterocyclic ring under the nucleosidase reaction, and then TCONH2 is finally formed into TCOOH through amide hydrolysis. Aquatic ecological risks based on risk quotient (RQ) assessment showed that PPCPs had high and medium risks in the influent, and the RQ values were all reduced after MBBR and AAAO treatment. Ranitidine hydrochloride and clozapine still showed high and medium risks in the effluent, respectively, and thus presented potential risks to the aquatic ecosystem.

Impact of Contextual Factors on the Attendance and Role in the Evidence-Based Chronic Disease Prevention Programs Among Primary Care Practitioners in Shanghai, China.

BACKGROUND: The implementation of evidence-based approaches by general practitioners (GPs) is new in the primary care setting, and few quantitative studies have evaluated the impact of contextual factors on the attendance of these approaches. METHODS: In total, 892 GPs from 75 community healthcare centers (CHCs) in Shanghai completed our survey. We used logistic regression to analyze factors affecting the number of evidence-based chronic disease programs attended by GPs and whether they had held the lead position in such a program. RESULTS: A total of 346 (38.8%) of the practitioners had never participated in any evidence-based chronic disease prevention (EBCDP) program. The EBCDP interventions in which the GPs had participated were predominantly related to hypertension, diabetes, and cardiovascular disease. However, the proportion of GPs in the lead role was relatively low, between 0.8% (programs involving prevention and control of asthma) and 5.0% (diabetes). Organizational factors and areas were significantly associated with evidence-based practices (EBPs) of the GP, while monthly income and department were the most significantly related to GPs who have the lead role in a program. The results indicated that GPs who had taken the lead position had higher scores for policy and economic impeding factors. GPs who were men, had a higher income, and worked in prevention and healthcare departments and urban areas were more likely to take the lead position. CONCLUSION: Evidence-based programs for chronic diseases should be extended to different types of diseases. Personal, organizational, political, and economic factors and the factors of female sex, lower income, department type, and suburban area environment should be considered to facilitate the translation of evidence to practice.

Telestroke for the Treatment of Ischemic Stroke in Western China During the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Multicenter Observational Study.

BACKGROUND: Intravenous thrombolysis is still underutilized in patients with acute ischemic stroke (AIS) in China. A promising strategy for addressing this issue, especially in situations, such as the global pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), is the telestroke mode, which remains to be widely implemented in China. The present study aimed to assess the effects of telemedicine for patients with stroke in Western China, as well as the impact of the pandemic on telestroke services in 1 year after the COVID-19 outbreak. METHODS: In this 2-year multicenter observational study, we retrospectively collected data from 10 hospitals within the Sichuan Telestroke and Telethrombolysis Network. Demographic and clinical characteristics of patients with IS and those relevant to thrombolysis were compared between the pre-telestroke and post-telestroke phases, and between the periods before and after declaration of the COVID-19 pandemic. RESULTS: A total of 11,449 admissions with a primary diagnosis of IS were recorded during the study period. Prior to telestroke implementation, 6.7% of patients (n = 367) received intravenous thrombolysis, and the proportion increased to 7.4% (n = 443; p = 0.084) in the post-telestroke phase. The thrombolysis rate was 7.4% during the COVID-19 pandemic and in the latter half of the year when the viral spread was better controlled in China. The mean door-to-needle time (DNT) was significantly shorter after implementation of the telestroke network (63.76 ± 13.50 vs. 52.66 ± 25.49 min; p < 0.001). CONCLUSIONS: Telemedicine is effective in improving the thrombolysis administration among patients with IS in Western China. Implementation of the telestroke network should be promoted, especially when access to care is affected by public health emergencies, such as the COVID-19 pandemic.

COVID-19 and Interculturality: First lessons for Teacher educators

This exploratory article represents an attempt to examine and problematize the links between the COVID-19 crisis and interculturality for education. Aiming at teacher educators, we review problems with the notion of interculturality in light of the crisis. We argue that these problems were not created by the crisis, but that the crisis unveiled them. In the first part of the article we suggest that these issues should be approached by looking into interculturality (and companion terms such as “democracy” and “equality”) as an ideology that deserves deconstructing, unthinking, reconstructing and rethinking. We also describe the problems triggered by this ideology: the need to shift from “dead imagination” (culture, difference, etc.) to unearthing the “groundwater” of the economy and globalization in the way interculturality functions. We then propose a set of three principles that could be used by teacher educators to train future teachers to deal with interculturality afresh: “Beyond comparison”, “The mirror: turning inward”, and “Questioning the unquestionables”.

Epidemiological characteristics and clinical manifestations of pediatric patients with COVID-19 in China: A multicenter retrospective study.

Importance: The Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) global pandemic poses a considerable challenge for pediatricians. Objective: This study aimed to identify the epidemiological characteristics and clinical features of pediatric patients with COVID-19 in China. Methods: This multicenter retrospective study included pediatric patients from 46 hospitals in China, covering 12 provinces and two municipalities. Epidemiological, demographic, clinical, laboratory, treatment, and outcome data were analyzed. Results: In total, 211 pediatric patients with COVID-19 were included in this study. The median age was 7.0 years (range: 22 days to 18 years). Approximately 16.3% of the patients exhibited asymptomatic infections, 23.0% had upper respiratory tract infections, and 60.7% had pneumonia, including two with severe pneumonia and one with critical illness. Approximately 78.7% of the pediatric patients occurred in familial clusters. The most three common symptoms or signs at onset in children with COVID-19 were fever (54.5%), cough (49.3%), and pharyngeal congestion (20.8%). Only 17.6% of the patients presented with decreased lymphocyte count, whereas 13.6% had increased lymphocyte count. Among the patients with pneumonia who exhibited abnormal chest computed tomography findings, 18.2% (23/127) of the patients had no other symptoms. Generally, the chest radiographs showed abnormalities that affected both lungs (49.6%); ground-glass opacity (47.2%) was the most common manifestation. The cure and improvement rates were 86.7% (183/211) and 13.3% (28/211), respectively. Only one patient with an underlying condition received invasive mechanical ventilation; none of the patients died. Interpretation: Similar to adults, children of all age groups are susceptible to COVID-19. Fortunately, most pediatric patients have mild symptoms or remain asymptomatic, despite the high incidence of pneumonia. Decreased proportions of white blood cells and lymphocytes are less frequent in children than in adults.

Assessment and modeling of maize evapotranspiration and yield with plastic and biodegradable film mulch

• In wet year, the ET under no film mulching was lower than film mulching, but was higher in dry year. • A slight T difference under BFM and PFM occurred in the late crop growth stages. • Max E difference at B station and J station happen in early and late growth stages, respectively. • Water use efficiency and irrigation use efficiency under PFM and BFM were improved. Biodegradable film mulching (BFM) in various crops is a good alternative to plastic film mulching (PFM). However, the difference in field water consumption between BFM and PFM has not been fully investigated. A four-year experiment with an improved evapotranspiration (ET) model (BSW) was performed to systematically evaluate and compare the effects of BFM, PFM, and no film mulching (NFM) on ET dynamics. The experiments were done in the Hetao Irrigation District of China at the Baleng experimental station (B station) with sandy soil in 2016-2017 and the Jiuzhuang experimental station (J station) with sandy loam soil in 2018-2019. The results of multi-year verification illustrated that the model accuracy was well-supported during 2016-2019 with mean absolute error (MAE) of 9.0%-16.9% and 13.1%-19.1% for ET and evaporation (E), respectively. The average cumulative ET (CET) under FM (i.e., BFM and PFM) was 443.5 mm each year and decreased by 13.4% compared to NFM. However, there was an obvious difference in CET during the different hydrological years, especially in the early crop growth stages. In the wet years (2016 and 2018), the average CET under FM increased by 6.2%-7.0% compared to NFM but decreased by 7.1%-11.8% in the dry years (2017 and 2019). The transpiration (T) difference between FM and NFM primarily appeared in the early crop growth stages, and T / ET under FM was significantly higher than with NFM by 46.9%-50.2%. An obvious E difference between BFM and PFM was observed in the later crop growing stages due to a greater area of the disintegrated biodegradable film. Additionally, crop yield under PFM and BFM increased by 35.4% and 28.3% compared with NFM, respectively, and water use efficiency (WUE) increased by 47.1% and 35.8%, respectively. Thus, biodegradable film is recommended to replace plastic film to effectively promote the development of sustainable agriculture. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR] Copyright of Agricultural & Forest Meteorology is the property of Elsevier B.V. and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Comparison of Clinical Characteristics Among COVID-19 and Non-COVID-19 Pediatric Pneumonias: A Multicenter Cross-Sectional Study.

Background: The pandemic of Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) brings new challenges for pediatricians, especially in the differentiation with non-COVID-19 pneumonia in the peak season of pneumonia. We aimed to compare the clinical characteristics of pediatric patients with COVID-19 and other respiratory pathogens infected pneumonias. Methods: We conducted a multi-center, cross-sectional study of pediatric inpatients in China. Based on pathogenic test results, pediatric patients were divided into three groups, including COVID-19 pneumonia group, Non-COVID-19 viral (NCV) pneumonia group and Non-viral (NV) pneumonia group. Their clinical characteristics were compared by Kruskal-Wallis H test or chi-square test. Results: A total of 636 pediatric pneumonia inpatients, among which 87 in COVID-19 group, 194 in NCV group, and 355 in NV group, were included in analysis. Compared with NCV and NV patients, COVID-19 patients were older (median age 6.33, IQR 2.00-12.00 years), and relatively fewer COVID-19 patients presented fever (63.2%), cough (60.9%), shortness of breath (1.1%), and abnormal pulmonary auscultation (18.4%). The results were verified by the comparison of COVID-19, respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) and influenza A (IFA) pneumonia patients. Approximately 42.5%, 44.8%, and 12.6% of the COVID-19 patients presented simply ground-glass opacity (GGO), simply consolidation, and the both changes on computed tomography (CT) scans, respectively; the proportions were similar as those in NCV and NV group (p>0.05). Only 47.1% of COVID-19 patients had both lungs pneumonia, which was significantly lower than that proportion of nearly 80% in the other two groups. COVID-19 patients presented lower proportions of increased white blood cell count (16.5%) and abnormal procalcitonin (PCT) (10.7%), and a higher proportion of decreased lymphocyte count (44.0%) compared with the other two groups. Conclusion: Majority clinical characteristics of pediatric COVID-19 pneumonia patients were milder than non-COVID-19 patients. However, lymphocytopenia remained a prominent feature of COVID-19 pediatric pneumonia.

Mitigating the impact of coronavirus disease 2019 on emergency stroke care: an original study and meta-analysis.

The coronavirus disease 2019 is still continuing and may affect stroke emergency care. We aim to investigate the impact of pandemic on stroke treatment in tertiary stroke centers in western China, and to quantitatively evaluate the worldwide influence with a meta-analysis. The original part was conducted in three tertiary stroke centers in Sichuan province. We compared emergency visits and efficiency of stroke treatment pre-, early, peak and late pandemic. Single-center analysis was further conducted in the largest local hospital and one hospital located close to the epicenter respectively. Relevant studies were searched in PubMed, Ovid Embase and Cochrane Library for English publications from December 2019 to July 2020 for systematic review. Fixed-and random-effect meta-analysis was performed to calculate the overall rates. Totally current original study showed fewer time of hospital admission and significantly higher rates of mechanical thrombectomy during the early and peak epidemic periods, compared with pre-epidemic time. The largest local hospital had significantly higher mechanical thrombectomy rates during the whole crisis and less daily admission during early and peak epidemic periods. The hospital located close to the epicenter presented higher proportions of intravenous thrombolysis since outbreak, and more favorable outcomes after reperfusion therapies than later (all P values <0.05). In meta-analysis, studies reported differences in reperfusion therapies and stroke severity but pooled results were non-significant. Overall, comprehensive measures should be implemented to keep hospital's capacity to deliver high-quality stroke emergency care during the global pandemic. Some key messages were provided for medical practice in the crisis.

The status and high risk factors of severe psychological distress in migraine patients during nCOV-2019 outbreak in Southwest China: a cross-sectional study.

BACKGROUND: Psychological distress is highly prevalent among migraineurs during public health emergencies. The coronavirus disease 2019 (nCOV-2019) has created mass panic in China due to its highly contagious by contact and aerosols and lack of effective treatment. However, the emotion status of migraineurs stayed unclear during the nCOV-2019 outbreak. OBJECTIVE: To understand psychological distress of migraineurs by comparing with common population and identify potential high-risk factors of severe psychological distress among migraine patients. METHOD: We enrolled the migraineurs treated at the department of Neurology of West China Hospital and healthy controls with age- and sex-matched to migraineurs. Data on clinicodemographics and psychological distress in the month of February 2020 (during in the nCOV-2019 outbreak in China) were collected. We used the Kessler 6-item (K-6) scale to assess psychological distress. Potential risk factors of severe psychological distress were identified using univariate and multivariate logistic regression. RESULTS: The 144 migraineurs and 150 controls were included in the study. Migraineurs showed significantly higher K-6 scores than controls (P < 0.001). Migraine attack frequency in previous 30 days and time spent paying attention to outbreak showed significant in multivariate logistic regression with respective odds ratios of 2.225 (95%CI 1.361-3.628, P = 0.001) and 1.589 (95% 1.117-2.26, P = 0.01). CONCLUSION: During public health outbreaks, healthcare professionals should focus not only on controlling and reducing migraine attack but also on mental health of migraineurs, especially those with high frequency migraine attack.

Containing Epidemic Spreading on Networks with Neighbor Resource Supporting

Previous studies revealed that the susceptibility, contacting preference, and recovery probability markedly alter the epidemic outbreak size and threshold. The recovery probability of an infected node is closely related to its obtained resources. How to allocate limited resources to infected neighbors is extremely important for containing the epidemic spreading on complex networks. In this paper, we proposed an epidemic spreading model on complex networks, in which we assume that the node has heterogeneous susceptibility and contacting preference, and susceptible nodes are willing to share their resources to neighbors. Through a developed heterogeneous mean-field theory and a large number of numerical simulations, we find that the recovered nodes provide resources uniformly to their infected neighbor nodes, and the epidemic spreading can be suppressed optimally on homogeneous and heterogeneous networks. Besides, altering the susceptibility and contacting preference does not qualitatively change the results. The susceptibility of the node decreases, which makes the outbreak threshold of epidemic spreading increase, and the outbreak size decreases. Our theory agrees well with the numerical simulations.