Empirical Evolution of the WTO Security Exceptions Clause and China's Discourse

Influenced in recent years by multiple factors in recent years, such as antiglobalization, the return of the state and the major public health crisis caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, the international community has entered a nontraditional security era. In the name of protecting nontraditional security, many countries have actively and frequently adopted abnormal regulatory measures and have attempted to seek exemptions from obligations through article XXI of the GATT or article 73 of the TRIPS (Security Exceptions). A series of economic and trade mega-agreements, such as the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP), the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement, the EU-Japan Economic Partnership Agreement (USMCA), the Investment Cooperation and Facilitation Treaty between the Federative Republic of Brazil and the Republic of India (Brazil-India BIT), and the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP), that have been concluded since 2018 cover more nontraditional security in their security exceptions clauses or essential security interests clauses, possibly leading to more countries expanding the interpretation and application of the security exceptions clause in future practice. The circular promotion of the security exceptions clause in its evolution and textual development may break the overall balance of existing WTO rules and exacerbate further imbalances. This chapter specifically studies the interpretation and logical evolution of security exceptions clauses in the DS512 and DS567, providing an empirical basis for the justification of disputed measures through the invocation of article XXI of the GATT. It is recommended that under the guidance of an overall national security concept, China should consider its national conditions, taking both its present and its long-term interests into account. Regarding China's security laws, policies and practices, it is recommended that the double-edged sword function of the security exceptions clause should be focused on foreign contrasts. That is, the security exceptions clause should be regarded as a defensive clause in terms of its position and content design and should be invoked under a high level of self-restraint in dispute settlement to avoid excessive strengthening or even alienation of national security during execution and to provide institutional support for a more balanced Chinese discourse in the establishment of a new generation of international economic rules. © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2023.

[Performance of screening of contacts of COVID-19 cases in same flight].

Objective: To understand the performance of 2019-nCoV nucleic acid detection in screening of contacts of COVID-19 cases in same flights and provide evidence for the effective screening of persons at high risk for the infection in domestic flights. Methods: The information of passengers who took same domestic flights with COVID-19 cases in China from April 1, 2020 to April 30, 2022 were retrospectively collected,and χ2 test was used to analyze positive nucleic acid detection rates in the passengers in different times before the onsets of the index cases, in different seat rows and in epidemic periods of different 2019-nCoV variants. Results: During the study period, a total of 433 index cases were identified among 23 548 passengers in 370 flights. Subsequently, 72 positive cases of 2019-nCoV nucleic acid were detected in the passengers, in whom 57 were accompanying persons of the index cases. Further analysis of the another 15 passengers who tested positive for the nucleic acid showed that 86.67% of them had onsets or positive detections within 3 days after the diagnosis of the index cases, and the boarding times were all within 4 days before the onsets of the index cases. The positive detection rate in the passengers who seated in first three rows before and after the index cases was 0.15% (95%CI: 0.08%-0.27%), significantly higher than in the passengers in other rows (0.04%, 95%CI: 0.02%-0.10%, P=0.007),and there was no significant difference in the positive detection rate among the passengers in each of the 3 rows before and after the index cases (P=0.577). No significant differences were found in the positive detection rate in the passengers, except the accompanying persons, among the epidemics caused by different 2019-nCoV variants (P=0.565). During the Omicron epidemic period, all the positive detections in the passengers, except the accompanying persons, were within 3 days before the onset of the index cases. Conclusions: The screening test of 2019-nCoV nucleic acid can be conducted in the passengers took the same flights within 4 days before the onsets of the index cases on board. Passengers who seated within 3 rows from the index cases can considered as the close contacts at high risk for 2019-nCoV, for whom screening should be conducted first and special managements are needed. The passengers in other rows can be classified as general risk persons for screening and management.

NF-Heart: A Near-field Non-contact Continuous User Authentication System via Ballistocardiogram

The increasingly remote workforce resulting from the global coronavirus pandemic has caused unprecedented cybersecurity concerns to organizations. Considerable evidence has shown that one-pass authentication fails to meet security needs when the workforce work from home. The recent advent of continuous authentication (CA) has shown the potential to solve this predicament. In this paper, we propose NF-Heart, a physiological-based CA system utilizing a ballistocardiogram (BCG). The key insight is that the BCG measures the body's micro-movements produced by the recoil force of the body in reaction to the cardiac ejection of blood, and we can infer cardiac biometrics from BCG signals. To measure BCG, we deploy a lightweight accelerometer on an office chair, turning the common chair into a smart continuous identity "scanner". We design multiple stages of signal processing to decompose and transform the distorted BCG signals so that the effects of motion artifacts and dynamic variations are eliminated. User-specific fiducial features are then extracted from the processed BCG signals for authentication. We conduct comprehensive experiments on 105 subjects in terms of verification accuracy, security, robustness, and long-term availability. The results demonstrate that NF-Heart achieves a mean balanced accuracy of 96.45% and a median equal error rate of 3.83% for CA. The proposed signal processing pipeline is effective in addressing various practical disturbances.

This work was supported by the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke of the National Institutes of Health under award number P50NS108676 and Moore Foundation

The increasingly remote workforce resulting from the global coronavirus pandemic has caused unprecedented cybersecurity concerns to organizations. Considerable evidence has shown that one-pass authentication fails to meet security needs when the workforce work from home. The recent advent of continuous authentication (CA) has shown the potential to solve this predicament. In this paper, we propose NF-Heart, a physiological-based CA system utilizing a ballistocardiogram (BCG). The key insight is that the BCG measures the body's micro-movements produced by the recoil force of the body in reaction to the cardiac ejection of blood, and we can infer cardiac biometrics from BCG signals. To measure BCG, we deploy a lightweight accelerometer on an office chair, turning the common chair into a smart continuous identity "scanner". We design multiple stages of signal processing to decompose and transform the distorted BCG signals so that the effects of motion artifacts and dynamic variations are eliminated. User-specific fiducial features are then extracted from the processed BCG signals for authentication. We conduct comprehensive experiments on 105 subjects in terms of verification accuracy, security, robustness, and long-term availability. The results demonstrate that NF-Heart achieves a mean balanced accuracy of 96.45% and a median equal error rate of 3.83% for CA. The proposed signal processing pipeline is effective in addressing various practical disturbances. © 2023 ACM.

The application value of low-dose CT scan in pregnant women with COVID-19.

Objective: To explore the value of low-dose CT in pregnancy with COVID-19. Method(s): A retrospective analysis was performed on the clinical characteristics, laboratory tests, and chest CT findings of 12 pregnant women with COVID-19 diagnosed by nucleic acid testing in the Renmin Hospital of Wuhan University from January 20, 2020 to February 16, 2020. Two radiologists blinded to the reconstruction algorithm independently scored subjective image quality on a 5-point Likert scale. Image quality score >= 3 was acceptable in clinics. The CT radiation doses were recorded, including CT volume dose index (CTDIvol), dose length product (DLP), and effective radiation dose (E). Two radiologists observed the distribution, shape, density, and other characteristics of lung lesions, and they also decided whether hilar, mediastinal lymphadenopathy, and pleural changed. Result(s): A total of 12 pregnant women with COVID-19, 8 had cough, 4 had fever, 2 had chest tightness, and 1 had dyspnea and diarrhea each. The CT image quality score of all patients was 3-4, with an average of 3.46, which fully met the clinical diagnosis requirements. The CTDIvol value was 1.13-4.31 mGy, with an average of 3.02 mGy. The DLP value was 34.48-75.29 mGy*cm, with an average of 55.48 mGy*cm. The Evalue was 0.48-1.05 mSv, with an average of 0.78 mSv. In all cases, chest CT examination showed abnormal manifestations after clinical symptoms, including unilateral lung lesions in 5 cases and bilateral lung lesions in 7 cases, 1 case of ground-glass opacity, 1 case of solidification, 7 cases of ground-glass and consolidation, 1 case of strip opacity, ground-glass, and consolidation and strip cable shadow coexisted in 2 cases. Conclusion(s): The application of low-dose CT scan in pregnant women with COVID-19 is completely feasible. CT mainly manifested as bilateral lung patchy and flaky ground-glass opacity with consolidation. Active and effective treatment can help recover and improve prognosis.Copyright © 2020 by the Chinese Medical Association.

Application value of post-discharge chest low-dose CT for patients with COVID-19.

Objective: To explore the value of chest low-dose CT (LDCT) in post-discharge follow-up assessments of patients with coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). Method(s): The chest CT findings of 58 patients with COVID-19 from March 17 to March 25, 2020 at Remin Hospital of Wuhan University were retrospectively analyzed. Two radiologists independently scored the subjective image quality on a 5-point Likert scale. The signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) and SDair of images and the CT radiation dose parameters were calculated, including the CT volume dose index (CTDIvol), dose length product (DLP), and effective radiation dose (E). Result(s): The subjective image quality scores on CT images obtained before and after discharge by readers 1 and 2, were 4.45+/-0.22, 3.88+/-0.33 (P>0.05) and 4.37+/-0.18, 3.91+/-0.35 (P>0.05), respectively. The SNR and SDair in LDCT after discharge were 4.39+/-0.95 and 7.19+/-2.41, which were significantly lower than those in routine chest CT before discharge (5.14+/-1.06, Z=-5.551, P<0.001;6.48+/-1.57, Z=-3.217, P<0.001). All of the obtained images were sufficient for diagnosis. The CTDIvol, DLP, and E in LDCT were significantly lower than those in routine CT [(2.41+/-0.09), (10.53+/-1.03)mGy, Z=-6.568, P<0.001;(88.03+/-5.33), (338.74+/-34.64)mGy*cm, Z=-6.624, P<0.001;and (1.23+/-0.17), (4.74+/-0.48)mSv, Z=-5.976, P<0.001]. Conclusion(s): Patients with COVID-19 can be followed up with low-dose chest CT after discharge.Copyright © 2020 by the Chinese Medical Association.

Early Clinical Development of Lufotrelvir as a Potential Therapy for COVID-19

Lufotrelvir was designed as a first in class 3CL protease inhibitor to treat COVID-19. Development of lufotrelvir was challenged by its relatively poor stability due to its propensity to epimerize and degrade. Key elements of process development included improvement of the supply routes to the indole and lactam fragments, a Claisen addition to homologate the lactam, and a subsequent phosphorylation reaction to prepare the prodrug as well as identification of a DMSO solvated form of lufotrelvir to enable long-term storage. As a new approach to preparing the indole fragment, a Cu-catalyzed C-O coupling using oxalamide ligands was demonstrated. The control of process-related impurities was essential to accommodate the parenteral formulation. Isolation of an MEK solvate followed by the DMSO solvate ensured that all impurities were controlled appropriately. © 2023 American Chemical Society.

Model Evaluation of Secondary Chemistry due to Disinfection of Indoor Air with Germicidal Ultraviolet Lamps

Air disinfection using germicidal ultraviolet light (GUV) has received increasing attention during the COVID-19 pandemic. GUV uses UVC lamps to inactivate microorganisms, but it also initiates photochemistry in air. However, GUV's indoor-air-quality impact has not been investigated in detail. Here, we model the chemistry initiated by GUV at 254 ("GUV254”) or 222 nm ("GUV222”) in a typical indoor setting for different ventilation levels. Our analysis shows that GUV254, usually installed in the upper room, can significantly photolyze O3, generating OH radicals that oxidize indoor volatile organic compounds (VOCs) into more oxidized VOCs. Secondary organic aerosol (SOA) is also formed as a VOC-oxidation product. GUV254-induced SOA formation is of the order of 0.1-1 μg/m3 for the cases studied here. GUV222 (described by some as harmless to humans and thus applicable for the whole room) with the same effective virus-removal rate makes a smaller indoor-air-quality impact at mid-to-high ventilation rates. This is mainly because of the lower UV irradiance needed and also less efficient OH-generating O3 photolysis than GUV254. GUV222 has a higher impact than GUV254 under poor ventilation due to a small but significant photochemical production of O3 at 222 nm, which does not occur with GUV254. © 2022 American Chemical Society.

Mechanical compression management of the right middle cerebral artery inferior trunk using a stent during coil embolization of middle cerebral artery aneurysms: A case report and literature review

Endovascular coil embolization is a minimally invasive, rapid, and effective method for the treatment of intracranial aneurysms. However, complications associated with coil embolization, such as intraoperative aneurysm rupture or arterial occlusion, should be promptly managed during the procedure to avoid catastrophic consequences. This study presents a case of mechanical compression management of the right middle cerebral artery (MCA) inferior trunk during coil embolization for bilateral MCA aneurysms. The inferior trunk of the right MCA was abruptly occluded due to mechanical compression during coil embolization of the right MCA bifurcation aneurysm. A Solitaire AB stent (4 x 20 mm, Covidien/Medtronic, Dublin, Ireland) was implanted in the inferior trunk of the right MCA after tirofiban was injected via a microcatheter, and the right inferior trunk was recanalized. The patient also underwent coil embolization of the left MCA bifurcation aneurysm, without any complications. It is crucial to recognize compressive occlusion of adjacent aneurysm branches to avoid severe complications during intracranial aneurysm embolization. Stent placement is a rescue treatment option for recanalization of an occluded artery. Copyright © 2022 Shanghai Journal of Interventional Radiology Press

Motorch: an on-device trajectory data management system during a pandemic

In this paper, we would like to demonstrate a personal trajectory management system called Motorch, which allows users to manage their trajectories and enables risk analytics based on a lightweight similarity measure called LCTS. At the back end, a web crawler collects the desensitized COVID-19 cases information from data sources (news, social media, etc.) and pushes them to Elasticsearch for storage after data cleaning. At the front end, Motorch implements a set of operations including data collection, data preprocessing, indexing, storage, and visualization in a mobile application. Motorch aims to help individuals manipulate their data and evaluate personal risk without uploading data to a server. © 2022 Owner/Author.

Analyzing Medical Semantic Association with Complex Network

[Objective] This paper aims to study medical semantic association with the help of complex network. [Methods] First, we constructed a medical semantic association network using the medical semantic concepts as nodes and semantic associations as edges. Then, we analyzed the network characteristics and semantic community. Finally, we created vectors for the semantic concepts and conducted semantic clustering analysis with the neural network. [Results] We retrieved relevant literature on“coronavirus”from MEDLINE of PubMed and built a semantic association network with 43 nodes and 877 edges. Then, we visualized the network characteristics, semantic community and semantic clusters. [Limitations] The experimental data size needs to be expanded. [Conclusions] The proposed network effectively describes the semantic association among medical concepts and benefits medical knowledge discovery services. © 2022, Chinese Academy of Sciences. All rights reserved.

[Thoughts and suggestions on co-administration of seasonal influenza vaccine and COVID-19 vaccine].

In the context of the global pandemic of COVID-19, the epidemic intensity, epidemic characteristics and infection risk of influenza have presented new features. COVID-19 and influenza have simultaneously emerged in many regions of the world. COVID-19 and influenza are similar in terms of transmission mode, clinical symptoms and other aspects. There are also similarities in the mechanism of influenza virus and novel coronavirus on cells. At the same time, it is feasible and significant to do a good job in the prevention and control of COVID-19 and influenza. This paper discusses the relevant strategies and measures for the joint prevention and control of influenza and novel coronavirus from the aspects of influenza vaccination to prevent co-infection, simultaneous vaccination of influenza vaccine and novel coronavirus vaccine, etc., and puts forward corresponding thoughts and suggestions, in order to provide scientific support for the formulation of strategies on seasonal influenza vaccine and novel coronavirus vaccination.

Analysis on data of 12320 health hotline and public opinion monitoring during epidemic period of COVID-19 in Guangzhou

Objective To analyze the data collected by 12320 health hotline and network public opinion since the outbreak of Corona Virus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) in Guangzhou, and to provide development strategies for health administration departments. Methods The telephone work orders of 12320 health hotline public consulting in Guangzhou, quantity of confirmed cases of COVID-19 daily disclosed by Guangzhou Municipal Health Commission and data of network public opinion (Search Indexes out of Baidu Indexes) from January 21 to May 31,2020 were collected and analyzed. Results A total of 60 421 times public call consultations of 12320 health hotline in Guangzhou from January 21 to May 31, 2020 were counted, there were 40 607 consultations related to COVID-19,accounting for 67. 2% of total consultations. Top three of consultations of COVID-19 were 17 271 times (42. 5%) for the policy category, 12 328 times ( 30. 4%) for supervision category, and 5 489 times (13. 5%) for cognition category. The quantity of COVID-19 related consultations and data of network public opinion showed a synchronous rising trend with the increase of confirmed cases in Guangzhou. When confirmed cases of COVID-19 imported from overseas were found, whereas the data of network public opinion did not increase, the consultations of 12320 health hotline reached a peak, which still maintained a high level of fluctuations after the national epidemic prevention and control entered the normalization stage. Public consultation hot topics drew varied at different periods of epidemic of COVID-19. Conclusion The 12320 health hotline in Guangzhou objectively and truly reflect the demands of the public for COVID-19 related information, and plays an important role in public opinion monitoring and risk communication. © 2022, Editorial Department of Medical Pest Control. All rights reserved.

Graph-BAS(3)Net: Boundary-Aware Semi-Supervised Segmentation Network with Bilateral Graph Convolution

Semi-supervised learning (SSL) algorithms have attracted much attentions in medical image segmentation by leveraging unlabeled data, which challenge in acquiring massive pixel-wise annotated samples. However, most of the existing SSLs neglected the geometric shape constraint in object, leading to unsatisfactory boundary and non-smooth of object. In this paper, we propose a novel boundary-aware semi-supervised medical image segmentation network, named Graph-BAS(3)Net, which incorporates the boundary information and learns duality constraints between semantics and geometrics in the graph domain. Specifically, the proposed method consists of two components: a multi-task learning framework BAS(3)Net and a graph-based cross-task module BGCM. The BAS(3)Net improves the existing GAN-based SSL by adding a boundary detection task, which encodes richer features of object shape and surface. Moreover, the BGCM further explores the co-occurrence relations between the semantics segmentation and boundary detection task, so that the network learns stronger semantic and geometric correspondences from both labeled and unlabeled data. Experimental results on the LiTS dataset and COVID-19 dataset confirm that our proposed Graph-BAS(3) Net outperforms the state-of-the-art methods in semi-supervised segmentation task.

Impacts of the psychological stress response on aggression in adolescents during the COVID-19 epidemic in China

The sudden outbreak of COVID-19 has exerted a tremendous impact on the psyche of people around the world, especially adolescents. In order to provide a valuable theoretical basis for effective measures to prevent psychological problems in adolescents during public health emergencies in the future, this study examined the mediating effect of coping style (CS, including positive coping style (PCS) and negative coping style (NCS)) and the moderating effect of emotional management ability (EMA) on the relationship between the psychological stress response (PSR) and aggression (AGG) in adolescents during the COVID-19 epidemic in China. The Buss-Warren Aggression Questionnaire, Simplified Coping Style Questionnaire, and Emotion Management Questionnaire were employed to investigate the mental health of Chinese adolescents from April 10-20 (Time point 1, T1) and May 20-30 (Time point 2, T2), 2020. A total of 1,931 adolescents (aged 10-25 years, M = 19.18 years, 51.4% male) were examined at T1 and 334 adolescents (aged 11-25 years, M = 19.97 years, 48.7% male) were reinvestigated at T2. Overall, 17.6% of the participants at T1 and 16.8% at T2 reported obvious PSR activation. NCS partly mediated the relationship between the PSR and AGG, and the indirect effect was moderated by EMA reported at T2. There were regional differences in the moderated mediation model in low-risk areas at T1. The moderated effects of EMA at T1 and T2 were opposite. Specifically, high EMA resulted in a stronger relationship between NCS and AGG at T1, whereas high EMA resulted in a weaker relationship between NCS and AGG at T2. Psychological reactions resulting from sudden public health events may trigger AGG in younger individuals. However, EMA may have a buffering effect on the onset of AGG. This research expands our understanding of the development of AGG in adolescents during the pandemic.

Application of Bayesian Network Reasoning Algorithm in Emotion Classification

In the early stage of covid-19 disease transmission, it is easy to lead to public panic and dissatisfaction without timely information feedback. In order to solve this problem, this paper constructs an emotion classification and prediction algorithm based on Bayesian network reasoning by analyzing the variable elimination algorithm, connection tree reasoning algorithm and Gibbs sampling algorithm in Bayesian network reasoning algorithm. The algorithm can quickly identify the emotions of Internet users from the communication with low computational resources, and provide reference for the relevant departments to formulate the correct public opinion guidance strategy. © 2021 IEEE.

A novel sentiment classification based on 'word-phrase' attention mechanism

With the rapid development of the COVID-19 epidemic, people are prone to panic due to delayed and incomplete information received. In order to quickly identify the sentiments of massive Internet users, it provides a good reference for government agencies to formulate healthy public opinion guidance strategies. This paper proposes a novel sentiment classification based on 'word-phrase' attention mechanism (SC-WPAtt). On the basis of TCN, we propose a shallow feature extraction model based on the word attention mechanism, and a deep extraction model based on the phrase attention mechanism. These models can effectively mine the auxiliary information contained in words, phrases (i.e. combined words) and overall comments, as well as their different contributions, so as to achieve more accurate emotion classification. Experiments show that the performance of the SC-WPAtt method proposed in this paper is better than that of the HN-Att method. © 2021 IEEE.

[Time distribution of positive nucleic acid detection in imported cases infected with SARS-CoV-2 in China].

Objective: To analyze the time distribution of the first positive nucleic acid detection in imported cases infected with SARS-CoV-2 reported nationwide in China and provide references for further improvement of the prevention and control of COVID-19 in international travelers. Methods: The data of imported cases infected with SARS-CoV-2 reported by provinces from 24 July 2020 and 23 July 2021 were collected for the analysis on the time distribution of the first positive nucleic acid detection after entering China. Results: A total of 7 199 imported cases infected with SARS-CoV-2 were reported in 28 provinces during 24 July 2020 to 23 July 2021. The median interval (Q1, Q3) from the entry to the first positive nucleic acid detection of SARS-CoV-2 was 1 (0, 5) day. The imported cases who had the first positive nucleic acid detections within 14 days and 14 days later after the entry accounted for 95.15% (6 850/7 199) and 4.85% (349/7 199) respectively. Among these cases, 3.65% (263/7 199), 0.88% (63/7 199) and 0.32% (23/7 199) had the first positive nucleic acid detections within 15-21 days, 22-28 days and 28 days later after the entry respectively. The proportion of asymptomatic infections were 47.24% (3 236/6 850) and 63.61% (222/349) among the cases who had the first positive nucleic acid detections within 14 days and 14 days later after the entry respectively. A total of 39.54% (138/349) of cases infected with SARS-CoV-2 with the first positive nucleic acid detections 14 days later after the entry had inter-provincial travel after the discharge of entry point isolation. Conclusions: About 5% of the imported cases infected with SARS-CoV-2 were first positive 14 days later after the entry. In order to effectively reduce the risk of domestic COVID-19 secondary outbreaks caused by imported cases, it is suggested to add a nucleic acid test on 8th -13th day after the entry.