Spatiotemporal evolution of urban theft crimes and mechanism in the context of regular COVID-19 pandemic prevention and control: A case study of Haining, Zhejiang

Existing studies show that the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic has a significant impact on crime occurrences. However, it remains to be empirically examined whether the regular pandemic prevention and control measures in China can significantly affect the spatial patterns of crimes. To fill this gap, this study chosed the central urban area of Haining City in Zhejiang Province, which had taken the regular pandemic prevention and control measures, as the research area. Using standard deviation ellipse and kernel density estimation methods, this study examined the spatiotemporal patterns of theft crimes between February 2018 and July 2021 in the study area. The results show that: 1) While there were no significant changes in the hourly patterns of theft crimes within a day, the monthly number of thefts in the study area decreased by an average of 53% after the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic and fluctuated between 100 to 200 thefts per month. The regular COVID-19 pandemic prevention and control measures had a long-term and stable inhibitory effect on the number of theft crimes in Haining City. 2) The intensity and amount of hotspots for theft crimes in the study area decreased significantly during February 2020 and July 2021 when compared with the pre-pandemic period, and the spatial distribution patterns of theft crimes were relatively stable. 3) For the 12 crime hotspots identified for the pre-pandemic period, the monthly number of crimes decreased between 52% and 78% on average after the outbreak while trajectories of their quarterly temporal changes differed significantly. The average crime drop for the 12 hotspot areas were 63%, which was higher than that for the whole study area. 4) Seven crime-control measures were identified among the regular pandemic prevention and control measures based on the routine activity theory and the crime triangle theory. Functional type of place, geographic location, and pre-pandemic local governance ability all played an important role in affecting the actual crime-control effects of the seven regular COVID-19 pandemic prevention and control measures. The results of this study are important for understanding the spatial evolution of crimes under the influence of major public health emergencies and for formulating scientific strategies for crime prevention and control. © 2023, Editorial office of PROGRESS IN GEOGRAPHY. All rights reserved.

Research on the 6XS6 of the SARS-CoV-2 Spike Protein

The 6XS6 is the structure of the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein. The physiological role of the spike protein is relative to the respiratory syndrome coronavirus and has a stronger infect on the human body than the ancestor virus. The purification of the 6XS6 is in the homo sapiens cell by the affinity chromatography, PBS supplemented and Size Exclusion chromatography. At last, using the Cryo-Electron Microscopy to see the structure. This paper is using the D614G mutation to illustrate the structure of the 6XS6. The N-terminal domain and C-terminal domain of the 6XS6 protein are ALA27 and VAL1137. Furthermore, the mutation doesn't have the hydrogen bond because the Asp614 is substituted by the Gly614, and the molecule that interacts with the Ala 647 may occur. While the 6XS6 structure has lots of non-covalent and disulfide bonds. Comparing the structure of the 6XS6 and 6VXX, both are glycoproteins, have three monomers, have two subunits, and have the same category of expression and classification. The different conformations of the two structures can affect the binding ability with the ACE2. This paper can help the researchers to further understand the structure and function of the 6XS6 which can be used in future experiments. © 2023 SPIE.

Management and standardization of hemodialysis centers in lockdown areas under the epidemic of coronavirus disease 2019.

Maintenance hemodialysis patients need to return to hospital 3 times a week for routine hemodialysis treatment. In the case of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) and regional lockdown, a set of management systems and standardizations has been established in our hemodialysis center, including forward movement of the critical nodes of treatment, specialists pooling program for hemodialysis technology, and dynamic bubble personnel management, to implement dynamic prevention and control strategies, precise management of inpatient wards and closed-loop management of outbreaks. While improving the management of our own hemodialysis center, it is recommended to strengthen multi-center collaboration to build a municipal grid management system for hemodialysis and explore different dialysis strategies for end-stage renal disease to meet the treatment needs and safety management of maintenance hemodialysis patients in lockdown areas under the epidemic.Copyright © 2022, Second Military Medical University Press. All rights reserved.

Research on the 6XS6 of the SARS-CoV-2 Spike Protein

The 6XS6 is the structure of the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein. The physiological role of the spike protein is relative to the respiratory syndrome coronavirus and has a stronger infect on the human body than the ancestor virus. The purification of the 6XS6 is in the homo sapiens cell by the affinity chromatography, PBS supplemented and Size Exclusion chromatography. At last, using the Cryo-Electron Microscopy to see the structure. This paper is using the D614G mutation to illustrate the structure of the 6XS6. The N-terminal domain and C-terminal domain of the 6XS6 protein are ALA27 and VAL1137. Furthermore, the mutation doesn't have the hydrogen bond because the Asp614 is substituted by the Gly614, and the molecule that interacts with the Ala 647 may occur. While the 6XS6 structure has lots of non-covalent and disulfide bonds. Comparing the structure of the 6XS6 and 6VXX, both are glycoproteins, have three monomers, have two subunits, and have the same category of expression and classification. The different conformations of the two structures can affect the binding ability with the ACE2. This paper can help the researchers to further understand the structure and function of the 6XS6 which can be used in future experiments. © 2023 SPIE.

Management and standardization of hemodialysis centers in lockdown areas under the epidemic of coronavirus disease 2019

Maintenance hemodialysis patients need to return to hospital 3 times a week for routine hemodialysis treatment. In the case of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) and regional lockdown, a set of management systems and standardizations has been established in our hemodialysis center, including forward movement of the critical nodes of treatment, specialists pooling program for hemodialysis technology, and dynamic bubble personnel management, to implement dynamic prevention and control strategies, precise management of inpatient wards and closed-loop management of outbreaks. While improving the management of our own hemodialysis center, it is recommended to strengthen multi-center collaboration to build a municipal grid management system for hemodialysis and explore different dialysis strategies for end-stage renal disease to meet the treatment needs and safety management of maintenance hemodialysis patients in lockdown areas under the epidemic.Copyright © 2022, Second Military Medical University Press. All rights reserved.

On the Accessibility of Financial Services and Income Inequality: An International Perspective

Income inequality has long been an important issue in development economics. Ap-plying international data from 119 countries between 2004 and 2018, this study discusses the relationship between the accessibility of financial services and income inequality. Using the den-sity of the bank branch network to represent the accessibility of financial services, we discover that income inequality is negatively related to the accessibility of financial services, especially in less developed countries and regions. In this nexus, the poverty ratio serves as an intermediary variable. The significance of the nexus is weaker in countries where fintech is more popularized, indicating the substitution effect between fintech and traditional banking services. Nevertheless, the substitution effect is limited, and bank branches will keep playing an important role in deliv-ering financial services. For countries with inadequate banking services, bank branches should be increased to encourage residents to participate in the financial system, while it is no longer necessary to add a large number of branches in countries where fintech has been popularized. Faced with the trend of financial digitalization and the economic shock caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, banks should launch more online services and increase intelligent machines in the branches. By doing so, financial services are more resilient to social changes, so as to alleviate the inequality of income distribution in the long term.

Epidemiological Features of Healthcare-associated Acinetobacter baumannii Infections in Taiwan During 2008 - 2019

Background: Acinetobacter baumannii can reside in humans without causing infection or symptoms but can opportunistically cause community and nosocomial infections. Few studies from Taiwan have used national-level data to investigate antibiotic resistance rates of A. baumannii infections in the intensive care units (ICUs) of medical centers. Aim(s): This study determined the number of infection sites of A. baumannii and the resistance rates of carbapenem-resistant A. baumannii (CRAB) infections in ICUs in Taiwan, and identified trends over time, variations of infection site, and factors associated with resistance. Method(s): This study used the database provided by Taiwan's Centers for Disease Control. Yearly, Taiwan Nosocomial Infections Surveillance System Surveys from 2008 to 2019 were analyzed, including data on the site of infection and resistance rates of A. baumannii and patient and hospital characteristics. Result(s): On average, 21 hospitals as medical center/year participated in the survey, and 6803 A. baumannii isolates were identified. All isolates were health care-related infections. The most frequent sites of infection were the urinary tract (50.6%), respiratory tract (19.6%), bloodstream (18.2%), surgical wounds (4.3%), and others (7.4%). Infection rates were the highest in the urinary tract in 2019 (63.6%;P < 0.001). On average, the rate of carbapenem resistance was 66.6% (95% confidence interval: 63.1-70.1) among ICU patients at medical centers. Considerable regional differences were observed, with the highest rates of resistance in the central regions. Higher resistance rates were observed between 2019 and 2020 COVID-19 pandemic (74.2%). Conclusion(s): This is the first report on the prevalence of health care-related A. baumannii infection in Taiwan in 2008-2019. Several invasive diseases, such as urinary tract infections, are associated with higher rates of carbapenem resistance. The resistance rate of CRAB in Taiwan is exceptionally high. The current big-data-derived findings may inform future surveillance and research efforts in Taiwan.Copyright © 2023 Wolters Kluwer Medknow Publications. All rights reserved.

West Nile Meningoencephalitis in a Patient with Leiomyosarcoma Presenting with Neutropenic Fever

Case Report: West Nile Virus (WNV) was first isolated from the West Nile district of Northern Uganda in 1937, but was first detected in the United States well over half a century later in 1999. The arthropod-borne virus has since persisted, with 2,401 cases reported to the CDC on average annually. The infection typically causes a nonspecific acute systemic febrile illness with occasional gastrointestinal and skin manifestations;however, in less than 1% of infected patients, it can cause severe and potentially fatal neuroinvasive disease, presenting as meningitis, encephalitis or acute flaccid paralysis. Immunosuppression is one of the risk factors associated with the development of neuroinvasive disease, and chemotherapy thus places patients at risk. Uterine leiomyosarcoma is a rare gynecological malignancy. Palliative chemotherapy is common in late stage disease, but may predispose patients to conditions that present as neutropenic fever, leading to a diagnostic conundrum. This is the first case report where patient with neutropenic fever was found to have West Nile neuroinvasive disease, so it is important to include West Nile disease in the differential diagnosis. Case Description: This is a case of a 45-year-old female with history of diabetes, hypothyroidism and recently diagnosed uterine leiomyosarcoma status post tumor debulking with metastasis on palliative chemotherapy with gemcitabine that presented to the Emergency Room for a fever of 103.8 degrees Fahrenheit. Given the history of advanced leiomyosarcoma, the patient was admitted for neutropenic fever with an absolute neutrophil count of 1000. During the hospitalization, the patient became acutely altered and confused. CT head without contrast and lumbar puncture were performed. Due to clinical suspicion of meningitis, she was started on broad spectrum antibiotics. Lumbar puncture revealed leukocytosis of 168 with lymphocytic predominance and elevated protein level in the cerebrospinal fluid, therefore acyclovir was started due to high suspicion of viral meningoencephalitis. An EEG showed severe diffuse encephalopathy as the patient was persistently altered. A broad workup of infectious etiology was considered including HIV, syphilis, hepatitis A, B, C, COVID-19, adenovirus, pertussis, influenza, WNV, HHV6, coccidiomycosis, aspergillus, and tuberculosis. Patient was ultimately found to have elevated IgM and IgG titers for West Nile Virus. Discussion(s): It is important to consider a broad spectrum of diagnosis in patients with metastatic carcinoma presenting with new-onset fever and acute encephalopathy. This includes working up for other causes of altered mental status including cardiac, neurologic, psychiatric, endocrine, metabolic, electrolyte, drug, and infectious etiology. While uncommon in the healthy population, WNV encephalitis should be on the radar for any patient who is immunocompromised or on immunosuppressive therapy, especially those who present with a neutropenic fever.

Increased risk of diabetic ketoacidosis in an Urban, United States, safety-net emergency department in the COVID-19 era

Aims: The incidence of diabetic ketoacidosis (DKA) increased during the COVID-19 pandemic but estimates from low-resource settings are limited. We examined the odds of DKA among emergency department (ED) visits in the Los Angeles County Department of Health Services (DHS) (1) during the COVID-19 pandemic compared to the pre-COVID era, ( 2) without active COVID infections, and (3) stratified by effect modifiers to identify impacted sub-groups. Methods: We estimated the odds of DKA from 400,187 ED visits pre-COVID era (March 2019-Feb 2020) and 320,920 ED visits during the COVID era (March 2020-Feb 2021). Our base model estimated the odds of DKA based on the COVID era. Additional specifications stratified by effect modifiers, controlled for confounders, and limited to visits without confirmed COVID-19 disease. Results: After adjusting for triage acuity and interaction terms for upper respiratory infections and payor, the odds of DKA during the COVID era were 27% higher compared to the pre-COVID era (95%CI 14-41%, p < 0.001). In stratified analyses, visits with private payors had a 112% increased odds and visits with Medicaid had a 20% increased odds of DKA during the COVID era (95%CI 7-36%, p = 0.003). Conclusions: We identified increased odds of DKA during the COVID pandemic, robust to a variety of specifications. We found differential effects by the payor;with increased odds during COVID for privately-insured patients.

Prospective RFID Sensors for the IoT Healthcare System

The outbreak of COVID-19 has attracted people's attention to our healthcare system, stimulating the advancement of next-generation health monitoring technologies. IoT attracts extensive attention in this advancement for its advantage in ubiquitous communication and sensing. RFID plays a key role in IoT to tackle the challenges in passive communication and identification and is now emerging as a sensing technology which has the ability to reduce the cost and complexity of data collection. It is advantageous to introduce RFID sensor technologies in health-related sensing and monitoring, as there are many sensors used in health monitoring systems with the potential to be integrated with RFID for smart sensing and monitoring. But due to the unique characteristics of the human body, there are challenges in developing effective RFID sensors for human health monitoring in terms of communication and sensing. For example, in a typical IoT health monitoring application, the main challenges are as follows: (1) energy issues, the efficiency of RF front-end energy harvesting and power conversion is measured;(2) communication issues, the basic technology of RFID sensors shows great heterogeneity in terms of antennas, integrated circuit functions, sensing elements, and data protocols;and (3) performance stability and sensitivity issues, the RFID sensors are mainly attached to the object to be measured to carry out identification and parameter sensing. However, in practical applications, these can also be affected by certain environmental factors. This paper presents the recent advancement in RFID sensor technologies and the challenges for the IoT healthcare system. The current sensors used in health monitoring are also reviewed with regard to integrating possibility with RFID and IoT. The future research direction is pointed out for the emergence of the next-generation healthcare and monitoring system.

Pyroptosis in the lung and spleen of patients died from COVID-19

The purpose of this study was to investigate the expression of pyroptosis-related factors (NLRP3, IL-18, NF-kappa B, HMGB-1, and GSDMD) in patients who died of COVID-19. The expression levels of NLRP3, IL-18, NF-kappa B, HMGB-1, and GSDMD in lung and spleen tissues of the COVID-19 group and the control group were detected by tissue immunofluorescence. The control group includes lung tissues and spleen tissues of two patients who died unexpectedly without SARS-CoV-2 infection, and the COVID-19 group includes the lung and spleen tissues of three patients who died of SARS-CoV-2 virus infection. The positive rates of NF-kappa B, NLRP3, IL-18, and GSDMD in the lung tissues from the control group and COVID-19 group were 9.8% vs 73.4% (p = 0.000), 5.5% vs 63.6% (p = 0.000), 24.4% vs 76.2% (p = 0.000), and 17.5% and 46.8% (p = 0.000) respectively. The positive rates of NF-kappa B, NLRP3, IL-18, HMGB-1, and GSDMD in the spleen tissues from the control group and COVID-19 group were 20.6% vs 71.2% (p = 0.000), 18.9% vs 72.0% (p = 0.000), 15.2% vs 64.8% (p = 0.000), 27.6% vs 69.2% (p = 0.000), and 23% and 48.8% (p = 0.000), respectively. The positive rates of SARS-CoV-2 spike protein in the CD68 positive cells of the lung and spleen in the control group and COVID-19 group were 2.5% vs 56.8% (p = 0.000);3.0% vs 64.9% (p = 0.000) respectively. The rates of NF-kappa B positive nuclei in the control group and COVID-19 group were 13.4% vs 51.4% (p = 0.000) in the lung and 38.2% vs 59.3% (p = 0.000) in the spleen. The rates of HMGB-1 positive cytoplasm in the control and the COVID-19 group were 19.7% vs 50.3% (p = 0.000) in the lung and 12.3% vs 45.2% (p = 0.000) in the spleen. The targets of SARS-CoV-2 are the lung and spleen, where increased macrophages could be involved in the up-regulation of pyroptosis-related inflammatory factors such as NF-kappa B, HMGB-1, NLRP3, IL-18, and GSDMD.

Research on the Academic Early Warning Model of Distance Education based on Student Behavior Data in the Context of COVID-19 Early Warning Model of Distance Education

The COVID-19 epidemic has caused great impact on the entire society, and the spread of novel coronavirus has brought a lot of inconvenience to the education industry. To ensure the sustainability of education, distance education plays a significant role. During the process of distance education, it is necessary to examine the learning situation of students. This study proposes an academic early warning model based on long- and short-term memory (LSTM), which firstly extracts and classifies students' behavior data, and then uses the optimized LSTM to establish an academic early warning model. The precision rate of the optimized LSTM algorithm is 0.929, the recall rate is 0.917 and the F value is 0.923, showing a higher degree of convergence than the basic LSTM algorithm. In the actual case analysis, the accuracy rate of the academic early warning system is 92.5%. The LSTM neural network shows high performance after parameter optimization, and the academic early warning model based on LSTM also has high accuracy in the actual case analysis, which proves the feasibility of the established academic early warning model.

Disparities in public transit accessibility and usage by people with mobility disabilities: An evaluation using high-resolution transit data

Many people with mobility disabilities (PwMD) rely on public transit to access crucial resources and maintain social interactions. However, they face higher barriers to accessing and using public transit, leading to disparities between people with and without mobility disabilities. In this paper, we use high-resolution public transit real-time vehicle data, passenger count data, and paratransit usage data from 2018 to 2021 to estimate and compare transit accessibility and usage of people with and without mobility disabilities. We find large disparities in powered and manual wheelchair users' accessibility relative to people without disabilities. The city center has the highest accessibility and ridership, as well as the highest disparities in accessibility. Our scenario analysis illustrates the impacts of sidewalks on accessibility disparities among the different groups. We also find that PwMD using fixed-route service are more sensitive to weather conditions and tend to ride transit in the middle of the day rather than during peak hours. Further, the spatial pattern of bus stop usage by PwMD is different than people without disabilities, suggesting their destination choices can be driven by access concerns. During the COVID-19 pandemic, accessibility disparities increased in 2020, and PwMD disproportionately avoided public transit during 2020 but used it disproportionately more during 2021 compared to riders without disabilities. This paper is the first to examine PwMD's transit experience with large high-resolution datasets and holistic analysis incorporating both accessibility and usage. The results fill in these imperative scientific gaps and provide valuable insights for future transit planning. © 2023 Elsevier Ltd

Impact of COVID-19 and green finance on transportation energy carbon emissions in China: From the perspective of an automobile energy consumption structure

Background: In China, the transportation sector is the main energy consumer and the main source of carbon emissions. Reducing carbon emissions in the transportation sector is an important goal for China, especially during the current period of economic development. Due to the impact of pandemic shocks, the rapid development of green finance is conducive to supporting the transportation sector in achieving a carbon peak. Thus, we examined whether the development of green finance is still effective under the impact of a pandemic and the actual effect of green finance on the reduction of carbon emissions. Methods: In this study, we searched the internet for consumption structure data of vehicles and green finance indices of 30 Chinese provinces and cities from 2016 to 2021. A regression discontinuity model was constructed to test the effect of pandemic shock and green finance development on the reduction of transportation energy carbon emissions. Results: The results show that the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic has helped people change their preference toward more energy-efficient vehicles and reduce carbon emissions in the transportation sector. Green finance can effectively contribute to the reduction of transportation energy carbon emissions;however, the overall mitigation effect is limited. Conclusion: The empirical evidence is not only helpful in assessing the long-term impact of the COVID-19 pandemic but also conducive to the appropriate establishment of policy tools for supporting green finance development, which is further conducive to reducing carbon emissions in the transportation sector. Copyright © 2023 Liu, Cheng, Guan, Liu, Zhang, Li and Yang.

What Should Abeeha do? an Activity for Phishing Awareness

The increase in Social Engineering (SE) attacks during COVID-19 pandemic has made it imperative to educate people about SE techniques and methods. For the last many years, we have worked on games, which disseminate awareness among the participants about Social Engineering concepts. The aim of this study is to share our newly designed card-based game, which is simple to understand, and can be conducted in classroom environment. © 2022 IEEE.

The Effect of Firms' Information Exposure on Safeguarding Employee Health: Evidence from COVID-19

We show that information exposure through international business networks enables firms to take proactive measures that benefit employees and potentially the local community. Specifically, in the early days of COVID-19, firms that have business networks with China and Italy are more likely to be aware of the severity of the disease, and proactively implement work-from-home ("WFH”) policies that can protect their employees. Using Safegraph foot traffic data, we find a higher stay-at-home ratio before local governments impose lockdowns in zip codes where firms have a larger information exposure. These areas are also associated with a lower spread of COVID-19. Our main findings are more pronounced when local governments face constraints in quickly responding to COVID-19 and when firms have a higher WFH capability or have more investors with socially responsible preferences. Collectively, we present evidence on the role of private corporations in mitigating the negative effects of a public health crisis before government intervention. © 2023 The Chookaszian Accounting Research Center at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business.

Towards Explainable AI on Chest X-Ray Diagnosis Using Image Segmentation and CAM Visualization

Computer vision in medical diagnosis has achieved a high level of success in diagnosing diseases with high accuracy. However, conventional classifiers that produce an image-to-label result provide insufficient information for medical professionals to judge and raise concerns over the trust and reliability of a model with results that cannot be explained. Class activation maps are a method of providing insight into a convolutional neural network's feature maps that lead to its classification but in the case of lung diseases, the region of concern is only the lungs. Therefore, the proposed model combines image segmentation models and classifiers to crop out only the lung region of a chest X-ray's class activation map to provide a visualization that improves the explainability and trust of an AI's diagnosis by focusing on a model's weights within the region of concern. The proposed U-Net model achieves 97.72% accuracy and a dice coefficient of 0.9691 on testing data from the COVID-QU-Ex Dataset which includes both diseased and healthy lungs. © 2023, The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG.

Sickness absenteeism among primary and middle school students in Nanjing during 2019-2021

Objective To understand the sickness absenteeism among primary and middle school students in Nanjing during 2019-2021 so as to provide evidence for infectious diseases prevention and control in school settings.Methods Data on sickness absenteeism among primary and middle school students in Nanjing during 2019-2021 were collected through the Health Surveillance System of Students in Jiangsu. Descriptive analysis was conducted to compare the sickness absenteeism symptoms and pathogeny as well as time distribution among different terms and academic years.Results The overall sickness absenteeism during 2019-2021 were 0.25% 0.39% and 0.73% χ2 = 392 611.44 P<0.01. The rate of sickness absenteeism in primary school was higher than that of middle schools across 2019 to 2021 χ2 = 47 783.45 20 935.07 13 459.63 P<0.01. The most common symptoms of sickness absenteeism were fever and cough. The leading cause of sickness absenteeism was influenza followed by gastrointestinal diseases. In addition unintentional injuries were currently the fourth leading cause. The peaks of absenteeism occurred during November to December and March to April in the 2019 and 2021. Due to the COVID-19 epidemic the second peak in the 2020 academic year occurred in June.Conclusion The sickness absenteeism among primary and middle school students in Nanjing showed an increasing trend and more attention should be paid to primary school students. Prevention efforts should focus on respiratory and gastrointestinal diseases in schools especially in winter and spring. It is of great significance to strengthen sickness absenteeism surveillance for future epidemic prevention and control in schools under normal conditions. © 2022 Authors. All rights reserved.