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After the outbreak of COVID-19, it is of great significance to find an appropriate dynamic model of COVID-19 epidemic in order to master its transmission law, predict its development trend, and provide corresponding prevention and control basis. In this paper, the SEIRV chamber model is adopted, and the dynamics model of infectious disease is established by combining the fractional derivative of Conformable. The fractional derivative differential equation of Conformable is discretized by numerical method and its numerical solution is obtained. In addition, numerical simulation was carried out on the confirmed data of Wuhan city from January 23, 2020 to February 11, 2020. At the same time, consider that the Wuhan municipal government revised the epidemic data on February 12, 2020, adding nearly 14,000 people. The order α value of SEIRV model is modified, and then the revised data is simulated. The simulation results are in good agreement with the published data. The results show that compared with the traditional integer order model, the fractional order model can simulate the modified data. This reflects the advantages of fractional infectious disease dynamics model, and can provide certain reference value for the prediction of COVID-19 model. © 2022 Editorial Borad of Complex Systems and Complexity Science. All rights reserved.
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As one of the major powers at the center of the global landscape, it is natural that China attaches great importance to its national image worldwide. COVID-19, which was first reported in Wuhan, has put China at the center of attention and controversies. The unprecedented pandemic and the strains of the relations with the United States, accentuated under the Trump Administration, have started to show consequences on China's relations with the rest of the world, especially with Western countries. In the context of an increasingly severe US–China strategic competition and the pandemic, China tries to strengthen its economic relations with Europe to cope with the constraints of the United States. In this chapter, we focus on an examination of how COVID-19, bilateral economic ties, and Americans' views shape China's image in EU countries. © 2023, The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG.
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The year 2019 ended with the official report of an unknown pneumonia outbreak in Wuhan, Hubei Province, China. Subsequently, this novel pneumonia was named COVID-19, which mainly attacks the respiratory system, causing severe damage. Although vaccination has relieved the stress of combating pandemics around the world after one year, there are still unknowns and challenges that come with hope. In this regard, stem cell therapy has been proposed as an effective approach to treating COVID-19. Mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) can potentially be used as a hopeful tool in the cell-based therapy due to their ability to regenerate and regulate immune response. Although research and clinical results have shown encouraging achievement in patients who were treated with MSCs, drawbacks and challenges still exist in the face of new opportunities. This review aims to introduce the challenges of the COVID-19 vaccine and the possible clinical use of MSC-based therapy. Through analysis of COVID-19 and MSC-based therapy, the author aims to find the possibilities and feasibility of using MSCs to treat acute respiratory diseases, such as COVID. As a result, the author finds that MSC treatment is very practical, and it shows significant potential to treat COVID-19. © 2023 SPIE.
ABSTRACT
The year 2019 ended with the official report of an unknown pneumonia outbreak in Wuhan, Hubei Province, China. Subsequently, this novel pneumonia was named COVID-19, which mainly attacks the respiratory system, causing severe damage. Although vaccination has relieved the stress of combating pandemics around the world after one year, there are still unknowns and challenges that come with hope. In this regard, stem cell therapy has been proposed as an effective approach to treating COVID-19. Mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) can potentially be used as a hopeful tool in the cell-based therapy due to their ability to regenerate and regulate immune response. Although research and clinical results have shown encouraging achievement in patients who were treated with MSCs, drawbacks and challenges still exist in the face of new opportunities. This review aims to introduce the challenges of the COVID-19 vaccine and the possible clinical use of MSC-based therapy. Through analysis of COVID-19 and MSC-based therapy, the author aims to find the possibilities and feasibility of using MSCs to treat acute respiratory diseases, such as COVID. As a result, the author finds that MSC treatment is very practical, and it shows significant potential to treat COVID-19. © 2023 SPIE.
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Under the dual pressure of "slow-burn" challenges and acute shocks, increasing economic resilience is gaining attention around the world to ensure the security and stability of economic activities. With the goal of achieving sustainable development, the China is exploring an innovative, coordinated, green, open, shared and secure development path for the regional economy. Using panel data for 241 cities at the prefecture level and above in China from 2010 to 2019, this research considers urban agglomeration planning as a quasi-natural experiment of regional integration and use a difference-in-differences method to explore the effect of regional integration on economic resilience. The results show the following. 1) Regional integration does improve economic resilience after various robustness tests. 2) The policy effect of regional integration on economic resilience varies by time, region, and urban structure. 3) Urban size structure and industrial structure are important ways in which regional integration affects economic resilience. Our findings enrich the theoretical study of the relationship between regional integration and economic resilience and provide a new path to improve regional economic resilience and achieve sustainable development.
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The pandemics such as COVID-19 are worldwide health risks and result in catastrophic impacts on the global economy. To prevent the spread of pandemics, it is critical to trace the contacts between people to identify the infection chain. Nevertheless, the privacy concern is a great challenge to contact tracing. Moreover, existing contact tracing apps cannot obtain the macro-level infection risk information, e.g., the hotspots where the infection occurs, which, however, is critical to optimize healthcare planning to better control and prevent the outbreak of pandemics. In this paper, we develop a novel privacy-preserved pandemic tracing system, PRISC, to compute the infection risk through cellular-enabled IoT devices. In the PRISC system, there are three parties: a mobile network operator, a social network provider, and the health department. The physical contact records between users are obtained by the mobile network operator from the users’cellular-enabled IoT devices. The social contacts are obtained by the social network provider, while the health department has the records of pandemic patients. The three parties work together to compute a heatmap of pandemic infection risk in a region, while fully protecting the data privacy of each other. The heatmap provides both macro and micro level infection risk information to help control pandemics. The experiment results indicate that PRISC can compute an infection risk score within a couple of seconds and a few mega-bytes (MBs) communication cost, for datasets with 100,000 users. IEEE
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This study investigates how physical and psychological distance from one's surroundings may influence one's perception of connectedness with the servicescape and, ultimately, perception of value. It also examines the effect of consumers' techno-psychological differences and interaction modes on this distance–closeness relationship. The researchers develop and test a conceptual framework of how personal cognitive traits and technological intervention may alter consumers' perceived connectedness to the servicescape and influence their perceived value in different service settings. Via a quasi-experiment design in three service scenarios, this research shows a synthetical effect of contactless technology in the distancing setting that may work more effectively on high self-efficiency customers to change their perceived closeness to the servicescape and further change their evaluation of the service. The findings reveal the practical implications of social distancing for different types of consumers in service encounters during or after the COVID-19 pandemic. © The Author(s) 2023.
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Purpose: During the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, ubiquitous social media has become a primary channel for information dissemination, social interactions and recreational activities. However, it remains unclear how social media usage influences nonpharmaceutical preventive behavior of individuals in response to the pandemic. This paper aims to explore the impacts of social media on COVID-19 preventive behaviors based on the theoretical lens of empowerment. Design/methodology/approach: In this paper, survey data has been collected from 739 social media users in China to conduct structural equation modeling (SEM) analysis. Findings: The results indicate that social media empowers individuals in terms of knowledge seeking, knowledge sharing, socializing and entertainment to promote preventive behaviors at the individual level by increasing each person's perception of collective efficacy and social cohesion. Meanwhile, social cohesion negatively impacts the relationship between collective efficacy and individual preventive behavior. Originality/value: This study provides insights regarding the role of social media in crisis response and examines the role of collective beliefs in the influencing mechanism of social media. The results presented herein can be used to guide government agencies seeking to control the COVID-19 pandemic. © 2023, Emerald Publishing Limited.
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Objective This multicenter clinical evaluation analyzed the clinical performance of five fast nucleic acid detection systems for 2019-nCoV. Methods Clinical performance of the five fast nucleic acid detection reagents approved in China was evaluated in the present study. Fifty-seven throat swabs samples from COVID-19 patients and fifteen throat swabs samples from healthy people were collected from the First Affiliated Hospital of Zhejiang University school of Medicine, Tongji Hospital of Tongji Medical College of HUST, and National Institute of Viral Disease Control and Prevention of CDC to evaluate the positive coincidence rate, negative coincidence rate, total coincidence rate, the detection time and retest rate as well as the relation between positive intensity and positive coincidence rate of the five fast nucleic acid detection systems in November 2020. Results The positive coincidence rates of the five kits were 92.59% (50/54), 83.64% (46/55), 98.25% (56/57), 94.44% (51/54) and 98.18% (54/55);and the negative coincidence rates were 93.33% (14/15), 93.33% (14/15), 86.67% (13/15), 100% (14/14) and 93.33% (14/15);and the total coincidence rates were 92.75% (64/69), 85.71% (60/70), 95.83% (69/72), 94.20% (65/69) and 97.14% (68/70), respectively. The positive coincidence rate of the five kits reached 100% for the strong-positive (90/90) and medium-positive samples (84/84), but only 82.18% (83/101) for weak-positive samples (cycle threshold value>33), and the retest rate of two kits were 15.28% (11/72) and 12.50% (9/72), which were both higher than 10%. Total time from sample extraction to amplification was between 32.33-65.33 minutes for these five kits. Conclusion The five fast nucleic acid detection reagents have good performance and can be used as a supplement to routine nucleic acid detection reagents.Copyright © 2022 Chinese Journal of Laboratory Medicine. All rights reserved.
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We construct time-varying tail risk networks to investigate systemic risk spillovers in the Belt and Road (B&R) stock markets during 2008–2021. Network metrics clearly reflect aggregate risk level and individual risk accumulation for the B&R stock markets under extreme events (e.g., 2008 financial crisis and COVID-19 pandemic). Tail-event driven network quantile regression analysis shows that network impacts of the B&R stock markets under different risk levels are asymmetric and regional heterogeneity. Panel analysis on determinants of systemic risk spillovers shows that cross-border investment and international trade are significant contagion channels while economic freedom is potential driver. © 2023 Elsevier B.V.
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PURPOSE: Studies have found that erectile dysfunction (ED) may be a short-term or long-term complication in coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) patients, but no relevant studies have completed a pooled analysis of this claim. The purpose of the review was to comprehensively search the relevant literature, summarize the prevalence of ED in COVID-19 patients, assess risk factors for its development, and explore the effect of the COVID-19 infection on erectile function. METHODS: Medline, Embase, and the Cochrane Library was performed from database inception until April 14, 2022. Heterogeneity was analyzed by χ2 tests and I2 was used as a quantitative test of heterogeneity. Subgroup analyses, meta-regression, and sensitivity analyses were used to analyze sources of heterogeneity. RESULTS: Our review included 8 studies, 4 of which functioned as a control group. There were 250,606 COVID-19 patients (mean age: 31-47.1 years, sample size: 23-246,990). The control group consisted of 10,844,200 individuals (mean age: 32.76-42.4 years, sample size 75-10,836,663). The prevalence of ED was 33% (95% CI 18-47%, I2 = 99.48%) in COVID-19 patients. The prevalence of ED based on the international coding of diseases (ICD-10) was 9% (95% CI 2-19%), which was significantly lower than the prevalence of ED diagnosed based on the International Index of Erectile Function (IIEF-5) (46%, 95% CI 22-71%, I2 = 96.72%). The pooling prevalence of ED was 50% (95% CI 34-67%, I2 = 81.54%) for articles published in 2021, significantly higher than that for articles published in 2022 (17%, 95% CI 7-30%, I2 = 99.55%). The relative risk of developing ED was 2.64 times in COVID-19 patients higher than in non-COVID-19 patients (RR: 2.64, 95% CI 1.01-6.88). The GRADE-pro score showed that the mean incidence of ED events in COVID-19 patients was 1,333/50,606 (2.6%) compared with 52,937/844,200 (0.4%) in controls; the absolute impact of COVID-19 on ED was 656/100,000 (ranging from 4/100,000 to 2352/100,000). Anxiety (OR: 1.13, 95% CI 1.03-1.26, I2 = 0.0%) in COVID-19 patients was a risk factor for ED. CONCLUSION: COVID-19 patients have a high risk and prevalence of ED, mainly driven by anxiety. Attention should be paid to patient's erectile functioning when treating COVID-19.
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Objective To analyze the medication rules of related epidemic disease prescription in Treatise on Febrile Diseases based on data mining, and the mechanism of "Chaihu (Bupleuri Radix)-Huangqin (Scutellariae Radix)” as the core drugs in the treatment of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) by network pharmacology, in order to explore the contemporary value of classical prescriptions in the treatment of epidemic diseases. Methods The prescriptions for treating epidemic diseases in Treatise on Febrile Diseases were screened, and the medication rules such as drug frequency, flavor and meridian tropism as well as correlation, apriori algorithm were analyzed by using software such as R language. The mechanism of the core drugs in the medication pattern in the treatment of COVID-19 was explored by the network pharmacology. A "disease-drug-ingredient-target” network was constructed on the selected components and targets with Cytoscape. The key targets were introduced into String database for network analysis of protein-protein interaction (PPI), and gene ontology (GO) functional analysis and Kyoto encyclopedia of genes and genomes (KEGG) pathway analysis were conducted in R language. Results A total of 61 prescriptions for treating epidemic diseases in Treatise on Febrile Diseases were included, including 52 traditional Chinese medicines (TCMs). In the top 20 high-frequency drugs, warm drugs, spicy drugs and qitonifying drugs were mainly used, mostly in the spleen and lung meridian. Chaihu (Bupleuri Radix) and Huangqin (Scutellariae Radix) herb pair had the strongest correlation. A total of five clusters were excavated: supplemented formula of Xiaochaihu Decoction (小柴胡汤), Sini Decoction (四逆汤), supplemented formule of Maxing Shigan Decoction (麻杏石甘汤), Fuling Baizhu Decoction (茯苓白术汤) and Dachengqi Decoction (大承气汤). A total of 45 active ingredients, 189 action targets of Bupleuri Radix-Scutellariae Radix herb pair, and 543 targets of COVID-19 were obtained from TCMSP and Genecards, and 64 intersection targets were generated. The results of the network analysis showed that the main components of core drugs pair against COVID-19 may be quercetin, wogonin, kaempferol baicalein, acacetin etc., and the core targets may be VEGFA, TNF, IL-6, TP53, AKT1, CASP3, CXCL8, PTGS2, etc. A total of 1871 related entries and 164 pathways were obtained by GO and KEGG enrichment analysis, respectively. Conclusion In Treatise on Febrile Diseases, the treatment of epidemic diseases mainly chose pungent, warm, spleen-invigorating and qi-tonifying herbs, such as Xiaochaihu Decoction, Sini Decoction and Dachengqi Decoction, etc. It was found that Bupleuri Radix-Scutellariae Radix core herb pair prevent and treat COVID-19 through multi-target targets such as PTGS2, IL-6 and TNF. The ancient prescriptions for treating epidemic disease in Treatise on Febrile Diseases may have significant reference value for the prevention and treatment of new epidemic diseases today. © 2023 Editorial Office of Chinese Traditional and Herbal Drugs. All rights reserved.
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Objective This multicenter clinical evaluation analyzed the clinical performance of five fast nucleic acid detection systems for 2019-nCoV. Methods Clinical performance of the five fast nucleic acid detection reagents approved in China was evaluated in the present study. Fifty-seven throat swabs samples from COVID-19 patients and fifteen throat swabs samples from healthy people were collected from the First Affiliated Hospital of Zhejiang University school of Medicine, Tongji Hospital of Tongji Medical College of HUST, and National Institute of Viral Disease Control and Prevention of CDC to evaluate the positive coincidence rate, negative coincidence rate, total coincidence rate, the detection time and retest rate as well as the relation between positive intensity and positive coincidence rate of the five fast nucleic acid detection systems in November 2020. Results The positive coincidence rates of the five kits were 92.59% (50/54), 83.64% (46/55), 98.25% (56/57), 94.44% (51/54) and 98.18% (54/55);and the negative coincidence rates were 93.33% (14/15), 93.33% (14/15), 86.67% (13/15), 100% (14/14) and 93.33% (14/15);and the total coincidence rates were 92.75% (64/69), 85.71% (60/70), 95.83% (69/72), 94.20% (65/69) and 97.14% (68/70), respectively. The positive coincidence rate of the five kits reached 100% for the strong-positive (90/90) and medium-positive samples (84/84), but only 82.18% (83/101) for weak-positive samples (cycle threshold value>33), and the retest rate of two kits were 15.28% (11/72) and 12.50% (9/72), which were both higher than 10%. Total time from sample extraction to amplification was between 32.33-65.33 minutes for these five kits. Conclusion The five fast nucleic acid detection reagents have good performance and can be used as a supplement to routine nucleic acid detection reagents.
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The airport terminal with high numbers of occupied passengers has potentially become high risk region for aerosol transmission of COVID-19. In this paper, the Eulerian-Lagrangian approach and realizable k-ε turbulence model is used to numerically simulate the airflow organization and aerosol transmission when passengers move slowly in a line. During the aerosol transmission period, evaporation is also enrolled as it is a key factor influencing particle size distribution at the beginning of aerosol transmission from the human. In addition, the process of passenger moving in the airport terminal is realized by employing dynamic mesh algorithms. The results of the study show that people who are behind the infected person during the queuing movement have a higher risk of infection than those who are in front. In addition, the disturbance of people walking has an important influence on the distribution of aerosols. © The Authors, published by EDP Sciences. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License 4.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)
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Hospital ward is one of non-negligible potential places to occur cross-infection among patients and health workers. Air-borne transmission was regarded as the main infection route of the SARS-CoV-2. Preventing the air-borne transmission should be a significant measure, which could effectively mitigate the risk of the virus infection. Based on those consideration, in this study, the influence of different types of air distribution on ventilation effectiveness was modeled through Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) simulations. Several typical negative pressure wards same as the ward in Wuhan Thunder God Mountain hospital and conformed to the Chinese National Health Commission (NHC) guidelines were modelled. We simulated the influence of different locations of air supply inlets, analysed the influence of the buffer door and compared the contaminant concentration on different entry route for health workers. The results show that the air distribution required by NHC guidelines could retain a directional airflow from the bed-zone to the toilet, which also has a better accessibility of supply air, and health workers are safer to avoid standing closed to the air exhaust outlet in the downstream area of pollutants during ward rounds. © The Authors, published by EDP Sciences. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License 4.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)
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With the gradual normalization of the COVID-19, unmanned delivery has gradually become an important contactless distribution method around China. In this paper, we study the routing problem of unmanned vehicles considering path flexibility and the number of traffic lights in the road network to reduce the complexity of road conditions faced by unmanned vehicles as much as possible. We use Monte Carlo Tree Search algorithm to improve the Genetic Algorithm to solve this problem, first use Monte Carlo Tree Search Algorithm to compute the time-saving path between two nodes among multiple feasible paths and then transfer the paths results to Genetic Algorithm to obtain the final sequence of the unmanned vehicles fleet. And the hybrid algorithm was tested on the actual road network data around four hospitals in Beijing. The results showed that compared with normal vehicle routing problem, considering path flexibility can save the delivery time, the more complex the road network composition, the better results could be obtained by the algorithm.
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Objective To analyze the medication rules of related epidemic disease prescription in Treatise on Febrile Diseases based on data mining, and the mechanism of "Chaihu (Bupleuri Radix)-Huangqin (Scutellariae Radix)" as the core drugs in the treatment of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) by network pharmacology, in order to explore the contemporary value of classical prescriptions in the treatment of epidemic diseases. Methods The prescriptions for treating epidemic diseases in Treatise on Febrile Diseases were screened, and the medication rules such as drug frequency, flavor and meridian tropism as well as correlation, apriori algorithm were analyzed by using software such as R language. The mechanism of the core drugs in the medication pattern in the treatment of COVID-19 was explored by the network pharmacology. A "disease-drug-ingredient-target" network was constructed on the selected components and targets with Cytoscape. The key targets were introduced into String database for network analysis of protein-protein interaction (PPI), and gene ontology (GO) functional analysis and Kyoto encyclopedia of genes and genomes (KEGG) pathway analysis were conducted in R language. Results A total of 61 prescriptions for treating epidemic diseases in Treatise on Febrile Diseases were included, including 52 traditional Chinese medicines (TCMs). In the top 20 high-frequency drugs, warm drugs, spicy drugs and qitonifying drugs were mainly used, mostly in the spleen and lung meridian. Chaihu (Bupleuri Radix) and Huangqin (Scutellariae Radix) herb pair had the strongest correlation. A total of five clusters were excavated: supplemented formula of Xiaochaihu Decoction (), Sini Decoction (), supplemented formule of Maxing Shigan Decoction (), Fuling Baizhu Decoction () and Dachengqi Decoction (). A total of 45 active ingredients, 189 action targets of Bupleuri Radix-Scutellariae Radix herb pair, and 543 targets of COVID-19 were obtained from TCMSP and Genecards, and 64 intersection targets were generated. The results of the network analysis showed that the main components of core drugs pair against COVID-19 may be quercetin, wogonin, kaempferol baicalein, acacetin etc., and the core targets may be VEGFA, TNF, IL-6, TP53, AKT1, CASP3, CXCL8, PTGS2, etc. A total of 1871 related entries and 164 pathways were obtained by GO and KEGG enrichment analysis, respectively. Conclusion In Treatise on Febrile Diseases, the treatment of epidemic diseases mainly chose pungent, warm, spleen-invigorating and qi-tonifying herbs, such as Xiaochaihu Decoction, Sini Decoction and Dachengqi Decoction, etc. It was found that Bupleuri Radix-Scutellariae Radix core herb pair prevent and treat COVID-19 through multi-target targets such as PTGS2, IL-6 and TNF. The ancient prescriptions for treating epidemic disease in Treatise on Febrile Diseases may have significant reference value for the prevention and treatment of new epidemic diseases today. Copyright © 2023 Editorial Office of Chinese Traditional and Herbal Drugs. All rights reserved.