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To tackle the spread of COVID-19 since its outbreak in January 2020, the police have been given additional powers in Taiwan. Studies have consistently revealed that police legitimacy, the belief that the police are trustworthy and allowed to exercise their authority to maintain order, is the main factor determining whether people are willing to cooperate with the police and comply with laws. This paper explores police legitimacy in Taiwan in terms of whether it exists and whether the Taiwanese police have built or damaged their legitimacy during the unprecedented challenges presented by the COVID-19 pandemic. Using the relevant literature, historical events, public opinion survey results, and official crime data, we find that police legitimacy existed before and has continued to exist during the pandemic in Taiwan.
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The movement restrictions of coronavirus had a significant impact on consumer behavior. The rise of cross-border e-commerce has also increased the risks in logistics activities. This work identified the critical threat of cross-border logistics. Additionally, artificial intelligence over Internet of Things (AIoT) technology was found to reduce logistics risk in this work beneficially. © 2022 IEEE.
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Since December 2019, the emergence of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) has had a major impact worldwide. This emerging virus does not only affect the respiratory system but also affects the nervous system. Cerebrovascular events have been reported as complications of COVID-19. In this review article, we summarized the epidemiology, stroke subtype, characteristics, laboratory findings, pathophysiology, risk factors and treatment of stroke in COVID-19 patients by reviewing case reports and cohort studies. On the other hand, sporadic adverse events such as systemic thromboembolism and stroke have been reported after COVID-19 vaccination. Herein, we reviewed the literature to elucidate the association between COVID-19 vaccines and stroke with the aim of assisting clinical decisions and giving people greater confidence in receiving vaccines. Copyright (c) 2022, Taiwan Society of Geriatric Emergency & Critical Care Medicine.
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Objective: To describe the spectrum of acute neurological disorders among hospitalized patients who recently received COVID-19 mRNA vaccination. Background: The unprecedented pace of COVID-19 vaccine development, use of novel mRNA technology and large-scale vaccination programs have engendered concerns of adverse events following immunization. Design/Methods: We performed a multi-centre prospective observational study in 7 public acute hospitals. Hospitalized patients who were referred for neurological complaints and had COVID-19 mRNA vaccines, BNT162b2 and mRNA-1273, in the last 6 weeks were classified into central nervous system(CNS) syndromes, cerebrovascular disorders, peripheral nervous system(PNS) disorders, autonomic nervous system(ANS) disorders and immunization stressrelated responses(ISRR). To contextualize our findings, data from National Immunization Registry was probed for the total number and demographic of individuals vaccinated in the corresponding period. Results: From 30 December 2020 to 20 April 2021, 1,398,074 persons (median age 59 years, 54.5% males) received COVID-19 mRNA vaccine (86.7% BNT162b2, 13.3% mRNA-1273);915,344 (65.5%) completed 2 doses. Four hundred and fifty-seven (0.03%) patients were referred for neurological complaints [median age 67 years, 61.5% males;95.8% received BNT162b2 and 4.2% mRNA-1273];classified into 73 (16.0%) CNS syndromes, 286 (62.6%) cerebrovascular disorders, 59 (12.9%) PNS disorders, 0 ANS disorders and 39 (8.5%) ISRRs. Twenty-seven had cranial mononeuropathy, 11 of whom had Bell's palsy. Of 33 patients with seizures, only 4 were unprovoked and occurred within 2 weeks of vaccination. All strokes occurred among individuals with pre-existing cardiovascular risk factors. We recorded 2 cases of cerebral venous thrombosis;none associated with thrombocytopenia. Five had mild flares of immune-mediated diseases. Conclusions: Our observational study does not establish causality of the described disorders to vaccines and is limited by lack of baseline incidence data of several conditions. Nevertheless, we did not observe any obvious signal of serious neurological morbidity associated with mRNA vaccination. The benefits of COVID-19 vaccination outweigh concerns over neurological adverse events.
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A descriptive time series study of casualties from motorcycle accidents in Taiwan between 2016 and 2020. The data on casualties were obtained from the road safety information system provided by the Ministry of Transportation and Communications. Between 2016 and 2020 the casualties increased from 2,571 to 3,191 (an increase of 241% in casualty rates during the period studied). High casualty rates in 2020 were observed in Taiwan. There was a significant increase in motorcycle accident casualty rates for the country as a whole during the studied period. © 2022 IEEE.
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INTRODUCTION: Despite reports suggesting an association between COVID-19 mRNA vaccination and pericarditis and myocarditis, detailed nationwide population-based data are sparsely available. We describe the incidence of pericarditis and myocarditis by age categories and sex after COVID-19 mRNA vaccination from a nationwide mass vaccination programme in Singapore. METHODS: The incidence of adjudicated cases of pericarditis and myocarditis following COVID-19 mRNA vaccination that were reported to the vaccine safety committee between January to July 2021 was compared with the background incidence of myocarditis in Singapore. RESULTS: As of end July 2021, a total of 34 cases were reported (9 pericarditis only, 14 myocarditis only, and 11 concomitant pericarditis and myocarditis) with 7,183,889 doses of COVID-19 mRNA vaccine administered. Of the 9 cases of pericarditis only, all were male except one. The highest incidence of pericarditis was in males aged 12-19 years with an incidence of 1.11 cases per 100,000 doses. Of the 25 cases of myocarditis, 80% (20 cases) were male and the median age was 23 years (range 12-55 years) with 16 cases after the second dose. A higher-than-expected number of cases were seen in males aged 12-19 and 20-29 years, with incidence rates of 3.72 and 0.98 case per 100,000 doses, respectively. CONCLUSION: Data from the national registry in Singapore indicate an increased incidence of pericarditis and myocarditis in younger men after COVID-19 mRNA vaccination.
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A financial plan is crucial due to inflation, retirement, insurance, etc., and many people choose stock trading as one part of their overall investment portfolio. Recently, the COVID-19 pandemic has affected the economy and has had a significant impact on the stock market. The task of optimizing the portfolio to have a stable return and lower its overall risk becomes an important and emerging topic in today’s stock market. Therefore, this paper proposes a novel weighted portfolio optimization model based on the trend ratio and emotion index to comprehensively consider the volatility of the portfolio and more accurately evaluate the performance of portfolios than the classical indicator, the Sharpe ratio. Then, global-best guided quantum-inspired tabu search with a self-adaptive strategy and quantum-NOT gate (ANGQTS) which has better search ability than traditional optimization algorithm, is proposed to construct portfolios with stable upside trends efficiently and automatically. In order to dynamically suit such changeable stock markets, the proposed model adopts the sliding window mechanism. The proposed method is applied to the U.S. stock market. Compared with traditional methods and Dow Jones Industrial Average index, the proposed model shows more promising experimental results. Moreover, the proposed method derives better performance in both the downward crisis at the first outbreak of COVID-19 and the soaring trend in the stock market. IEEE
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Previously, the M1058L and S1060A amino acid mutations in the spike protein of feline coronavirus (FCoV) have been shown to distinguish feline infectious peritonitis virus (FIPV) from feline enteric coronavirus (FECV) in >95% of serotype I FCoV (FCoVI)-infected cases, serving as potential FIP diagnostic markers. However, the finding is recently challenged by the demonstration that these markers are merely indicative of systemic spread of FCoV from the intestine, rather than a mutated FIPV with the potential to cause FIP. The aim of this study is to design a modified spike mutation-detection nested RT-PCR to distinguish FIPV from FECV in formalin-fixed and paraffin-embedded (FFPE) tissues from cats confirmed with FIP and controls. While none in the control group was tested positive by the nRT-PCR, FCoVI RNA was detected in 20 of 23 FIP cases. Of the positive samples, 19/20 (95%) FIP cats bore one of the two mutations in the spike gene. The sensitivity and specificity of this test reached 87% (95% CI: 65-97) and 100% (95% CI: 82-100), respectively. The high positive predictive values of 100% (95% CI: 80-100) and the negative predictive values of 88% (95% CI: 68-97) were determined. By using the conventional nested RT-PCR method in FFPE tissue, we revealed the spike gene-mutated FCoVs could be detected in FFPE tissues from FIP-confirmed cats, but could not be amplified from cats without FIP. Our result supports that detection of the two critical mutations correlates the presence of serotype I FIPV in FIP cats.