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Small and medium-sized businesses (SMEs) are frequently exposed to a variety of difficulties during global epidemic crises like coronavirus (COVID-19), which may even threaten their lives. The purpose of this study explores the influencing factors of Taiwan's companies between small and medium-sized enterprises and micro-enterprises on the choice of the cross-border e-commerce platform. The findings are defined as taking into account small and medium-sized businesses and microenterprises when choosing cross-border e-commerce through a literature review and an examination of secondary data among the 10 participating businesses through interviews in various regions and business sectors in Taiwan. In this case we used study-based research, which included five small, medium-sized, and micro-enterprises, as well as five cross-border e-commerce projects and the company's management senior officers. According to the study's emphasis on the economic, social, technological, and legal aspects of various firms, these factors lead to a variety of decisions regarding the best cross-border e-commerce platform. The case study approach was utilized in this investigation to confirm the consideration of micro-and small-sized businesses that took part in cross-border e-commerce project counseling. This study summarizes five types of enterprises with different capabilities: product enhancement, marketing enhancement, cross-border potential, knowledge-based enhancement, and cross-border start-up. According to the results, it was found that different enterprise capabilities will affect the choice of cross-border e-commerce platforms. These five capabilities also have different types of consideration factors;among them, SMEs pay attention to marketing, pricing, market analysis, culture, customer service, payment, logistics, certification, taxation, etc. In addition to theoretical implications, this research also gives small and medium enterprises and micro-enterprises practice when choosing cross-border e-commerce platform, as well as suggestions for future research. © 2023 by the authors.
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In accordance with global economic prosperity, the frequencies of food delivery and takeout orders have been increasing. The pandemic life, specifically arising from COVID-19, rapidly expanded the food delivery service. Thus, the massive generation of disposable plastic food containers has become significant environmental problems. Establishing a sustainable disposal platform for plastic packaging waste (PPW) of food delivery containers has intrigued particular interest. To comprise this grand challenge, a reliable thermal disposable platform has been suggested in this study. From the pyrolysis process, a heterogeneous plastic mixture of PPW was converted into syngas and value-added hydrocarbons (HCs). PPW collected from five different restaurants consisted of polypropylene (36.9 wt%), polyethylene (10.5 wt%), polyethylene terephthalate (18.1 wt%), polystyrene (13.5 wt%), polyvinyl chloride (4.2 wt%), and other composites (16.8 wt%). Due to these compositional complexities, pyrolysis of PPW led to formations of a variety of benzene derivatives and aliphatic HCs. Adapting multi-stage pyrolysis, the different chemicals were converted into industrial chemicals (benzene, toluene, styrene, etc.). To selectively convert HCs into syngas (H2 and CO), catalytic pyrolysis was adapted using supported Ni catalyst (5 wt% Ni/SiO2). Over Ni catalyst, H2 was produced as a main product due to C[sbnd]H bond scission of HCs. When CO2 was used as a co-reactant, HCs were further transformed to H2 and CO through the chemical reactions of CO2 with gas phase HCs. CO2-assisted catalytic pyrolysis also retarded catalyst deactivation inhibiting coke deposition on Ni catalyst. © 2022 Elsevier B.V.
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Objective: To investigate if remote Pilates exercises for older patients with low back pain(LBP) in the post-COVID-19 era may be successfully performed using a pressure biofeedback unit (PBU)-based information visualization training feedback technology. Design: A total of 40 older patients with LBP were randomly allocated to a control group ($\mathrm{n}=20$) receiving clinical Pilates training instruction via video link or an experimental group ($\mathrm{n}=20$)) with tele-Pilates exercise based on information visualization training feedback. The program had two 60-minute sessions per week for the whole eight-week duration. Pain was assessed by a visual analogue scale(VAS), the Oswestry Disability Index(ODI) was used to evaluate physical function, the modified Schober test was used to measure lumbar range of flexion and extension, and core strength was assessed by the PBU. Results: Between-group analysis showed significant variations in the degree of disability in the intervention group compared to the control group ($\mathrm{p} < 0.001$), lumbar flexibility ($\mathrm{p}=0.02$) and core muscle activation capacity ($\mathrm{p} < 0.001$). And level of pain was significantly decreased in both two groups. Conclusions: In elderly patients with LBP, an 8-week remote Pilates exercise based on information visualization training feedback is beneficial in reducing disability, pain, and enhancing flexibility and core muscle strength. © 2022 IEEE.
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Background. The zoonotic emergence of SARS-CoV-2 quickly developed into a global pandemic. Multiple vaccine platforms have been advanced to clinical trials and emergency use authorization. The recent emergence of SARS-CoV-2 virus variants with Spike receptor-binding domain (RBD) and N-terminal domain (NTD) mutations, highlights the need for next-generation vaccines that can elicit immune responses that are resilient against Spike mutations. Methods. Using a structure-based vaccine design approach, we developed multiple optimized SARS-CoV-2 nanoparticle immunogens that recapitulate the structural and antigenic profile of the SARS-CoV-2 prefusion spike. We assessed these immunogens in murine immunogenicity studies and in a K18-hACE2 transgenic mouse model with a SARS-CoV-2 challenge. Immune sera from vaccinated mice were assessed for SARS-CoV-2 binding, and neutralization against SARS-CoV-2, variants of concern, and the heterologous SARS-CoV-1 virus. Results. In combination with a liposomal-saponin based adjuvant (ALFQ), these immunogens induced robust binding, ACE2-inhibition, and authentic virus and pseudovirus neutralization. A Spike-Ferritin nanoparticle (SpFN) vaccine elicited neutralizing ID50 titers >10,000 after a single immunization, while RBD-Ferritin (RFN) nanoparticle immunogens elicited ID50 titer values >10,000 values after two immunizations. Purified antibody from SpFN- or RFN-immunized mice was transfused into K18-ACE2 transgenic mice and challenged with a high-dose SARS-CoV-2 virus stock. In order to understand the breadth of vaccine-elicited antibody responses, we analyzed SpFN- and RBD-FN-immunized animal sera against a set of heterologous SARSCoV-2 RBD variants and SARS-CoV RBD. High binding titers with ACE2-blocking activity were observed against SARS-CoV-2 variants and the heterologous SARSCoV-1 RBD. Furthermore, both SpFN- and RFN-immunized animal sera showed SARS-CoV-1 neutralizing ID50 titers of >2000. Conclusion. These observations highlight the importance of SARS-CoV-2 neutralizing antibody levels in providing protection against emerging SARS-like coronaviruses and provide a robust platform for pandemic preparedness. Structure-based design enables development of a SARS-CoV-2 nanoparticle immunogen.
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[Figure: see text].
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Knowledge bases (KBs) and text often contain complementary knowledge: KBs store structured knowledge that can support longrange reasoning, while text stores more comprehensive and timely knowledge in an unstructured way. Separately embedding the individual knowledge sources into vector spaces has demonstrated tremendous successes in encoding the respective knowledge, but how to jointly embed and reason with both knowledge sources to fully leverage the complementary information is still largely an open problem. We conduct a large-scale, systematic investigation of aligning KB and text embeddings for joint reasoning. We set up a novel evaluation framework with two evaluation tasks, few-shot link prediction and analogical reasoning, and evaluate an array of KB-text embedding alignment methods. We also demonstrate how such alignment can infuse textual information into KB embeddings for more accurate link prediction on emerging entities and events, using COVID-19 as a case study.(1)
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Objective: This study was designed to analyze the characteristics of the novel coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) epidemic in seven clusters in the city of Chenzhou, China, to act as a reference for the prevention and control of the COVID-19 epidemic. Methods: The data of confirmed COVID-19 cases reported between January 23 and February 24, 2020, were obtained from the Chenzhou infectious disease surveillance system. In line with the diagnostic criteria of the Novel Coronavirus Pneumonia Diagnosis and Treatment Plan (Sixth Edition, Trial Implementation), 33 patients in seven clusters were selected as the research subjects, and epidemiological data were collected for descriptive analysis. Results: Between January 23 and February 24, 2020, 46 patients with COVID-19 were diagnosed in the city of Chenzhou, comprising 24 male patients and 22 female patients. The age of these patients ranged from seven months to 72 years old. The average age was 35.88 ± 17.98 and included 13 individual patients and 33 patients in seven clusters. Six clusters were exposed to the virus in Wuhan (the Wuhan group), and the other cluster was exposed to it in Shenzhen (the Shenzhen group). In the Wuhan group, the disease was spread in clusters of one family. The incubation period was 1-9 days, and the average length of hospital stay was 13.25 ± 2.67 days. Only close contacts were infected. In the Shenzhen group, three different families were infected in the same cluster. The incubation period was 11-14 days, the time of positive-to-negative conversion in the nucleic acid test was longer, and the average hospitalization time was 17.33 ± 5.87 days. Contacts who were not in close contact were infected. Conclusion: Patients are infectious in the incubation period, and asymptomatic patients are also infectious. The infectivity of the Shenzhen group was stronger than that of the Wuhan group. In the Shenzhen group, the time of positive-to-negative conversion of COVID-19 nucleic acid was longer, and the length of hospital stay was longer.
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IntroductionAs SARS-CoV-2 disproportionately affects adults, the COVID-19 pandemic vaccine response will rely on adult immunisation infrastructures.AimTo assess adult immunisation programmes in World Health Organization (WHO) Member States. Methods We evaluated country reports from 2018 on adult immunisation programmes sent to WHO and UNICEF. We described existing programmes and used multivariable regression to identify independent factors associated with having them. Results Of 194 WHO Member States, 120 (62%) reported having at least one adult immunisation programme. The Americas and Europe had the highest proportions of adult immunisation programmes, most commonly for hepatitis B and influenza vaccines (> 47% and > 91% of countries, respectively), while Africa and South-East Asia had the lowest proportions, with < 11% of countries reporting adult immunisation programmes for hepatitis B or influenza vaccines, and none for pneumococcal vaccines. In bivariate analyses, high or upper-middle country income, introduction of new or underused vaccines, having achieved paediatric immunisation coverage goals and meeting National Immunisation Technical Advisory Groups basic functional indicators were significantly associated (p < 0.001) with having an adult immunisation programme. In multivariable analyses, the most strongly associated factor was country income, with high- or upper-middle-income countries significantly more likely to report having an adult immunisation programme (adjusted odds ratio: 19.3;95% confidence interval: 6.5-57.7). DiscussionWorldwide, 38% of countries lack adult immunisation programmes. COVID-19 vaccine deployment will require national systems for vaccine storage and handling, delivery and waste management to target adult risk groups. There is a need to strengthen immunisation systems to reach adults with COVID-19 vaccines.