Exploration of tolerance of unfairness under COVID-19 mortality salience and its effect on epidemic development

COVID-19 has brought awareness of the daily threat of death to everyone in the world and provided a natural context for raising widespread awareness of the salience of mortality. Previous researchers have found that mortality salience has rendered proposers more likely to make a fair offer in the dictator and ultimatum game, but there has been no study focusing on the psychological changes in the responders. Study 1 was an exploratory study of the effect of mortality salience on the threshold for acceptance of unfair offers, comparing the effect of unnatural deaths, such as those caused by COVID-19, and that of natural deaths, such as those caused by aging. The results showed that COVID-19 mortality salience could lower the acceptance threshold in responders, thus increasing their tolerance of unfairness, while the mortality salience from aging would not. In Study 2, we established an evolutionary game model to simulate the influences of tolerance of unfairness in allocation of resources on epidemic spread using agent-based modeling. The study compared two societies with different levels of the fear of death, and the results showed that the society with a relatively high death fear would produce more inequality in distribution by increasing the tolerance of unfairness. This ultimately leads to worse pandemic conditions and slower control of the spread in the first stage of the pandemic. © The Author(s) 2023.

Temporal Trend in Mortality from Covid-19 Associated with Cardiovascular Disease

Background Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) mortality remains high in those with cardiovascular disease (CVD). The temporal trend in higher COVID-19 mortality due to CVD has public health implications. We assessed the association between CVD and COVID-19 mortality throughout the COVID-19 pandemic. Methods We retrospectively studied all patients who received care for COVID-19 at Rush University System for Health during the pandemic (divided into 7 waves based on predominant virus variants and vaccine rollouts). CVD was defined as congestive heart failure (CHF), myocardial infarction (MI), cerebrovascular or peripheral vascular disease (ascertained by ICD codes). Using multivariable logistic regression, we assessed independent associations of COVID-19 mortality with age, sex, race, and 17 comorbidities in the Charlson comorbidity index, overall and stratified by pandemic waves. Results Of 43876 patients (mean age 40, 56% female, 14% with CVD), 1032 (2%) died from COVID-19 between March 2020 and August 2022. Adjusted for covariables, mortality was 3.2 times as likely in those with CVD as those without (OR=3.2, 95%CI 2.7-3.9;p<0.001). There was a trend toward increasing mortality associated with co-existing CVD as pandemic progressed to later waves (where Delta and Omicron were predominant), particularly in those with CHF or MI (Figure). Conclusion We found that COVID-19 mortality associated with co-existing CVD (particularly CHF and MI) increased temporally throughout the pandemic. [Formula presented]Copyright © 2023 American College of Cardiology Foundation

Difficulties of Vulnerable Groups in Accessing the Public Information Service During COVID-19 Pandemic in China

The outbreak of COVID-19 pandemic seriously threatens people's lives and health all over the world. Public information service is an important way for the public to understand the pandemic development and pandemic prevention and control measures. However, more people become vulnerable rather than the typical vulnerable groups due to the pandemic encounter difficulties in accessing public information services. To better help vulnerable people during the emergencies, based on related vulnerable groups theory, this chapter identifies two types of vulnerable groups in China. It collects information from news, journal papers, conference papers and other relevant perspectives to examine the difficulties that vulnerable people have encountered. Moreover, this chapter puts forward some suggestions from the aspect of policies and regulations, technologies and information systems, service content, and operating mechanism of public information services to better meet the information needs of vulnerable people. © 2023, The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG.

[Related factors of negative conversion time of nucleic acid in children with COVID-19].

Objective: To explore the related factors of negative conversion time (NCT) of nucleic acid in children with COVID-19. Methods: A retrospective cohort study was conducted. A total of 225 children who were diagnosed with COVID-19 and admitted to Changxing Branch of Xinhua Hospital Affiliated to Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Medicine from April 3rd to May 31st 2022 were enrolled in the study. The infection age, gender, viral load, basic disease, clinical symptoms and information of accompanying caregivers were retrospectively analyzed. According to age, the children were divided into<3 years of age group and 3-<18 years of age group. According to the viral nucleic acid test results, the children were divided into positive accompanying caregiver group and negative accompanying caregiver group. Comparisons between groups were performed using Mann-Whitney U test or Chi-square test. Multivariate Logistic regression analysis was used to analyze the related factors of NCT of nucleic acid in children with COVID-19. Results: Among the 225 patients (120 boys and 105 girls) of age 2.8 (1.3, 6.2) years, 119 children <3 years and 106 children 3-<18 years of age, 19 cases were diagnosed with moderate COVID-19, and the other 206 cases were diagnosed with mild COVID-19. There were 141 patients in the positive accompanying caregiver group and 84 patients in the negative accompanying caregiver group.Patients 3-<18 years of age had a shorter NCT (5 (3, 7) vs.7 (4, 9) d, Z=-4.17, P<0.001) compared with patients <3 years of age. Patients in the negative accompanying caregiver group had a shorter NCT (5 (3, 7) vs.6 (4, 9) d,Z=-2.89,P=0.004) compared with patients in the positive accompanying caregiver group. Multivariate Logistic regression analysis showed that anorexia was associated with NCT of nucleic acid (OR=3.74,95%CI 1.69-8.31, P=0.001). Conclusion: Accompanying caregiver with positive nucleic acid test may prolong NCT of nucleic acid, and decreased appetite may be associated with prolonged NCT of nucleic acid in children with COVID-19.

Exploring alexithymia profiles and their associations with childhood adversity and COVID-19 burnout among Chinese college students: A person-centered approach

Alexithymia is associated with adverse developmental outcomes. However, this concept has been criticized for being heavily influenced by Western norms of emotional expression and for potentially pathologizing people from different cultural backgrounds. Furthermore, the widely employed variable-centered study approaches hinder research understanding of real-world alexithymia profiles. Using a person-centered approach, the current study investigated the alexithymia profiles among Chinese college students and tested the profiles' relations with childhood adversity and COVID-19 burnout. Four latent alexithymia profiles were identified. The High I profile (particular difficulty identifying feelings) emerged as a risk profile for childhood adversity and COVID-19 burnout. Our findings illustrate the heterogeneity of the alexithymia construct and represent a significant step toward expanding cross-cultural understanding of alexithymia profiles and their associations with related psychological constructs. When dealing with childhood adversity and COVID-19 burnout, health care programs should consider a specific alexithymia profile defined by difficulty identifying feelings. © 2022 Elsevier Inc.

The reliability and integrity of overall survival data based on follow-up records only and potential solutions to the challenges

Overall survival (OS) is considered the standard clinical endpoint to support effectiveness claims in new drug applications globally, particularly for lethal conditions such as cancer. However, the source and reliability of OS in the setting of clinical trials have seldom been doubted and discussed. This study first raised the common issue that data integrity and reliability are doubtful when we collect OS information or other time-to-event endpoints based solely on simple follow-up records by investigators without supporting material, especially since the 2019 COVID-19 pandemic. Then, two rounds of discussions with 30 Chinese experts were held and 12 potential source scenarios of three methods for obtaining the time of death of participants, including death certificate, death record and follow-up record, were sorted out and analysed. With a comprehensive assessment of the 12 scenarios by legitimacy, data reliability, data acquisition efficiency, difficulty of data acquisition, and coverage of participants, both short-term and long-term recommended sources, overall strategies and detailed measures for improving the integrity and reliability of death date are presented. In the short term, we suggest integrated sources such as public security systems made available to drug inspection centres appropriately as soon as possible to strengthen supervision. Death certificates provided by participants' family members and detailed standard follow-up records are recommended to investigators as the two channels of mutual compensation, and the acquisition of supporting materials is encouraged as long as it is not prohibited legally. Moreover, we expect that the sharing of electronic medical records and the legal disclosure of death records in established health registries can be realized with the joint efforts of the whole industry in the long-term. The above proposed solutions are mainly based on the context of China and can also provide reference for other countries in the world. © 2022 The Authors

Gen Y consumer perceptions of web-based sustainability communications - the case of luxury fashion

Past research has outlined a paradox between sustainability and luxury fashion products, which has changed more recently in that studies highlight the importance of sustainable luxury. Accelerated by COVID-19 sustainability information shown on luxury brands' websites has increased, where they provide analogous information to engage their consumers, yet the impact of which remains unknown. This study utilises sustainability communication as a theoretical underpinning to address this gap. This study is based on a qualitative inquiry into how Gen Y consumers perceive and engage with the information broadcasted on luxury companies' websites. Twenty-five semi-structured interviews were conducted and carefully analysed, thereby highlighting three levels of consumer engagement in communication. Findings thus, contribute to the debates surrounding sustainability communication by looking at information conveyed on companies' websites from consumers' perspective. The results provide novel insights into sustainability communication theory, outlining three unique layers that have different outcomes in terms of awareness and action. The findings also provide some suggections for luxury fashion companies to effectively manage their sustainability communication on their companies' websites.

Designing Spellcasters from Clinician Perspectives: A Customizable Gesture-Based Immersive Virtual Reality Game for Stroke Rehabilitation

Developing games is time-consuming and costly. Overly clinical therapy games run the risk of being boring, which defeats the purpose of using games to motivate healing in the first place [10, 23]. In this work, we adapt and repurpose an existing immersive virtual reality (iVR) game, Spellcasters, originally designed purely for entertainment for use as a stroke rehabilitation game-which is particularly relevant in the wake of COVID-19, where telehealth solutions are increasingly needed [4]. In preparation for participatory design sessions with stroke survivors, we collaborate with 14 medical professionals to ensure Spellcasters is safe and therapeutically valid for clinical adoption. We present our novel VR sandbox implementation that allows medical professionals to customize appropriate gestures and interactions for each patient's unique needs. Additionally, we share a co-designed companion app prototype based on clinicians' preferred data reporting mechanisms for telehealth. We discuss insights about adapting and repurposing entertainment games as serious games for health, features that clinicians value, and the potential broader impacts of applications like Spellcasters for stroke management.

Impact of COVID-19 pandemic on university students' use of campus green space and recommendations for post-epidemic green space management

The impact of COVID-19 on university students’ utilization of campus’ green spaces and its need in the post-epidemic era was studied in this research. Data were collected from Chinese and Japanese university students using an online questionnaire. The findings show that COVID-19 induced campus lockdown affected students’ motivation to go to school, reduced the time spent on campus, and reduced school frequency. The lockdown encouraged students to explore the green spaces despite their inability to enter the campus. Arguably, COVID-19 has significantly influenced usage pattern of campus’ green spaces. In the post-pandemic era, students generally prefer integrated campus green spaces with wider areas. According to the one-way ANOVA, larger green spaces that can accommodate a lot of people are considered controversial by students coming from various countries and grades. This is because these may attract crowds, increasing the risk of infection. These findings have practical implications for administrators and designers of campus green spaces. Furthermore, the findings of this study could be used to improve campus green spaces in the post-pandemic era, resulting in a more appropriate campus environment for students.

A Structural Examination and Exploration of Chinese University Students' Satisfaction with MOOCs

Due to the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, Chinese universities are suspending offline teaching in favor of online education, with MOOCs as one of the main forms of education, and more and more students are attending MOOCs. Satisfaction surveys can reasonably explore the effectiveness of MOOCs, promoting their high-quality development and improving education reform in Chinese colleges and universities. In this paper, we have designed a questionnaire on the satisfaction of Chinese university students with MOOCs during the COVID-19 pandemic and found that three factors, specifically the quality of MOOCs, the teaching method, and the student's self-adjustment ability of learning, have a positive and significant impact on students' satisfaction with MOOCs. © 2022 ACM.

A Fuzzy Inference-Based Decision Support System for Disease Diagnosis

Disease diagnosis is an exciting task due to many associated factors. Inaccuracy in the measurement of a patient's symptoms and the medical expert's expertise has some limitations capacity to articulate cause affects the diagnosis process when several connected variables contribute to uncertainty in the diagnosis process. In this case, a decision support system that can assist clinicians in developing a more accurate diagnosis has a lot of potentials. This work aims to deploy a fuzzy inference-based decision support system to diagnose various diseases. Our suggested method distinguishes new cases based on illness symptoms. Distinguishing symptomatic disorders becomes a time-consuming task in most cases. It is critical to design a system that can accurately track symptoms to identify diseases using a fuzzy inference system (FIS). Different coefficients were used to predict and compute the severity of the predicted diseases for each sign of disease. This study aims to differentiate and diagnose COVID-19, typhoid, malaria and pneumonia. The FIS approach was utilized in this study to determine the condition correlating with input symptoms. The FIS method demonstrates that afflictive illness can be diagnosed based on the symptoms. Our decision support system's findings showed that FIS might be used to identify a variety of ailments. Doctors, patients, medical practitioners and other healthcare professionals could benefit from our suggested decision support system for better diagnosis and treatment.

The impact of individualism on the efficiency of epidemic control and the underlying computational and psychological mechanisms

Ecology can shape the formation of a particular culture through individual natural adaptive behavior. In different cultures, culturally contextualized behavior can also modify the environment. In the present ecological environment, the spread of COVID-19 represents a global public health crisis. However, some nations appear to be more effective at limiting the spread of the virus and decreasing mortality rates. The purpose of this study was to explore cross-cultural differences in the response to the COVID-19 pandemic, thereby substantiating the influence of culture on the ecological natural environment. We hypothesized that an independent society-oriented culture was not conducive to a successful pandemic response. Study 1 explored the correlation between individualism and the total number of deaths, deaths per million, and morality rates in 73 countries. In Study 2, we further modeled the cumulative confirmed cases of COVID-19 over time in 31 provinces in China, using a logistical model to obtain indicators of efficiency of epidemic control, and we explored the relationship between independent self-construal and the speed of pandemic control. In Study 3, we simulated the pandemic process through agent-based modeling (ABM), which verified the influence of individualism and determined how government norms regulated the controlling speed of the pandemic. Based on ABM in Study 3, in Study 4, we used a hierarchical linear model to further explore how culture influenced escape behavior, which violated government regulations in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic with, and then we tested the mediating role of fear of death. In Study 1, individualism scores were positively correlated with cumulative COVID-19 deaths, cumulative deaths per million, and mortality. In Study 2, independent self-construal was negatively correlated with the controlling speed in the early stage of the pandemic in China. However, there was no significant relationship between interdependent self-construal and COVID-19 pandemic control speed. Study 3 simulated the process of the pandemic through an agent-based model and found that individualism was positively correlated with the number of confirmed cases and deaths and was negatively correlated with the speed of the early controlling stage, which was regulated by government norms. In Study 4, we found that individualism can increase the degree of escape behavior when individuals are facing the COVID-19 pandemic. This process was mediated by fear of death. This paper revealed the influence of culture on the ecological environment from the perspective of pathogen prevalence, thereby verifying the nature-behavior-culture coevolution model. It also provides important predictors for countries to respond to the global public health crisis. In a more complex dynamic interaction network combining nature, culture, behavior, brain and genes, culture interacts with other factors and may help to explain ecological changes in history, as well as the course of human history, social development and human behaviors.

Sustainable development, ESG performance and company market value: Mediating effect of financial performance

At present, more and more attention is paid to the sustainable development of enterprises. In particular, in the context of frequent financial crises and COVID-19 pandemic, how the performance of listed companies' environmental, social, and governance (ESG) affects the company's market value has attracted widespread attention. Different from existing studies, this paper takes financial performance as a mediating variable and constructs linear regression model and mediating effect model based on analyzing the relationship between ESG performance, financial performance, and company market value and their influencing mechanism. The ESG rating data of Chinese listed companies newly developed by SynTao Green Finance from 2014 to 2019 were selected for empirical test. The results show that the improvement of ESG performance of listed companies can improve the market value of the company, and the financial performance of the company presents an obvious mediating effect. At the same time, operational capacity is an important mediating way for ESG performance to affect the company's market value. Further research shows that ESG performance of state-owned listed companies exerts a stronger mediating effect on corporate operating capacity. Finally, this paper provides relevant suggestions for regulators, listed companies, and investors.

Perspective on SDSB Human Visual Knowledge and Intelligence for Happiness Campus

Suffering globally by COVID-19 since 2020 constrained learner and worker outdoors, of which campus and public area naturally met environmental protection issue. In such cases, a newly AI moveable application, naming Self-Driving Sweeper Bot (SDSB), is invented by intelligently coordinating between self-driving system and sweeper mechanism. In this paper, the perspective on SDSB in terms of human visual knowledge and intelligence between pedestrian security and sweeping efficiency in campus is reported. To reach such a goal, our investigation is shown that human visual knowledge and intelligence, played a critical role requiring routinely collecting and learning visual dataset, accompanied with optimizing procedure by exploring the object recognition methods e.g., CNN, R-CNN, Fast-RCNN and Yolo, for detecting campus objects (including, pedestrians, vehicles, common rubbishes, i.e. fallen leaves, waste papers, plastic bottles etc.), and image segmentation techniques e.g., U-net for constraining sweeping road. In the preliminarily experiments, observation is shown that the factors for object detection and road segmentation in terms of weather, sunshine direction and shadowing/non-shadowing by trees and facilities are highly influencing on SDSB visual intelligence. © 2021 IEEE.