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Background: Although vaccines have been launched, COVID-19 has not been effectively curbed, and the number of infections is increasing. Compared with western medicine, Traditional Chinese Medicine has made some achievements in the treatment of COVID-19, which should be paid attention to and play a greater role. As a classical Chinese medicine prescription for treating pestilence, Lianhuaqingwen (LHQW) has gone to many countries with the Chinese medical team to participate in the local fight against the epidemic, which has been widely recognized. Method(s): We searched MEDLINE, EMBASE, AMED, Chchrane Central Register of Controlled Trials (CENTRAL), PubMed, Web of Science, Chinese National Knowledge Infrastructure (CNKI), VIP Information Database (VIP), Chinese Biomedical Literature Database (CBM), and Wanfang Database from inception up to November 24, 2021, which formed the basis for evidence used to formulate recommendations. Sixteen randomized controlled trials (RCTs) involving 1896 patients were enrolled. LHQW is a traditional Chinese medicine compound preparation, which contains 13 traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) components. Two dosage formulations of LHQW were included: granule and capsule. The most commonly used dosage formulation was granule (15/17, 88.24%), followed by capsule (2/17, 11.76%). Conclusion(s): This systematic review and Meta analysis suggested that, in the treatment of COVID-19, LHQW Capsule (Granule) could not only significantly improve the fever symptoms, shorten the fever time, but also reduce the cough and fatigue symptoms, improve the clinical efficiency, improve the lung CT, significantly reduce the number of patients with mild to severe diseases, and have certain anti-inflammatory effect. And there is no server adverse events which support the safety of LHQW Capsule (Granule) for the treatment of COVID-19. As a classic formula of TCM, LHQW Capsule (Granule) could be used as potential candidates for COVID-19 in this battle.Copyright © 2022
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Objective: To summarize and analyze the epidemiological and clinical characteristics of COVID-19 Omicron variant cases in makeshift hospital, and the influence of age, sex and vaccination status on the disease duration, so as to provide reference for the prevention and control of the COVID-19 epidemic. Methods: The epidemiological and clinical characteristics of COVID-19 cases admitted to makeshift hospital of National Convention and Exhibition Center (Shanghai) from April 9 to May 31, 2022 were retrospectively described and analyzed, and further cohort analysis was conducted to determine the influence of age, sex and vaccination status on the disease duration of COVID-19 cases in the author's branch hospital. Results: Among the 174 466 COVID-19 cases in makeshift hospital, most of them were male, accounting for 59.38%. The infected cases were mainly young and middle-aged people aged 18-59 years old, accounting for 83.50%, followed by 12.30% of the elderly group over 60 years old;the average hospital stay was 7.40 days;the proportion of patients with fever was less than 27.79%;15.37% (26 817/174 466) of the patients complicated with underlying diseases, and the top three were hypertension, diabetes and coronary heart disease. The proportion of people who received COVID-19 vaccine accounted for 79.56% (13 799/17 956), of which the highest proportion of three doses was 44.09%. The disease duration of 17 956 COVID-19 cases in the author's branch of makeshift hospital was 10.18 (7.34, 13.05) days. The disease duration in the elderly group was the longest with 11.34 (8.35, 14.37) days, followed by 11.17 (9.07, 14.33) days in the preschool group, 10.37 (8.14, 13.34) days in the middle-aged group, 10.07 (7.37, 12.37) days in the school-age group, and 9.34 (7.05, 12.16) days in the young group. There was significant difference in the overall distribution of disease duration among the five groups (H=550.479 P < 0.01). The disease duration in each age group basically showed a V-shaped distribution. The disease duration was 10.27 (7.34, 12.57) days in males and 10.10 (7.25, 13.09) days in females, and there was no significant difference (Z=-1.505 P > 0.05). The disease duration of vaccinated patients was 10.24 (7.35, 13.05) days, and that of unvaccinated patients was 9.47 (7.09, 12.47) days. There was significant difference between the two groups (Z=-4.338 P < 0.01). Conclusions: COVID-19 Omicron variant cases have a high proportion of males, mainly young and middle-aged, and the proportion of fever patients is less than 30%. The disease duration is significantly lower than that of the original strain in Wuhan, and shows "V" distribution with each age group. Sex had no effect on the disease duration. COVID-19 vaccination did not have a clinical effect on the disease duration.
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Due to the lack of medical materials in some emergency public events, for example, the outbreak of COVID-19, it is urgent to establish a medical emergency material warehouse. Taking Xi'an, China, as an example, this study aims to select suitable sites of Xi'an medical emergency material warehouse. In this study, the problem of site selection models as a multiobjective optimization problem. The coverage function and comprehensive efficiency function are designed as two conflicting objectives. Then, a multiobjective evolutionary algorithm based on multiple memetic direction is proposed to optimize the two objectives concurrently. The crossover and mutation operators are designed for evolutionary multiobjective site selection. The proposed crossover operator is able to balance the global and local search abilities, and the proposed mutation operator fuses the distribution information of hospital location, service population, and the overall coverage. Experiments on real dataset verify the superiority of the proposed evolutionary multiobjective site selection method.
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The widespread use of broad-spectrum antimicrobials has accelerated their entry into aquatic environment, which in turn can adversely affect aquatic organisms and humans, especially in the COVID-19 outbreak and the post-pandemic era. For early detection and intervention of adverse effects, this study develops a new carbon nanoprobe (CNP) that can reveal the adverse effects of trace amount triclosan (TCS), a commonly used broad-spectrum antimicrobial (BSA), through a direct visualization method. CNP has excellent fluorescent properties and strong positive charges, which can be applied as fluorescent indicator and trapped in mitochondria by electrostatic attraction. The highly sensitive responsiveness of CNP to mitochondrial membrane potential ensures the visualization method can be used for monitoring the adverse effects of TCS. The trace amount TCS monitoring is achieved according to the decrease of fluorescence signal in mitochondria and the change of mitochondrial morphological structure from lines to dots. Moreover, monitoring TCS level in aquatic organisms of zebrafish is further realized. Compared with the morphological toxicity test, this visualizing strategy reveals the adverse effects in organisms under low-dose TCS exposure more sensitively. This developed highly sensitive nanoprobe is cruical for direct BSA monitoring and thus prevents the harm of BSA to aquatic organisms and humans.
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The outbreak of the COVID-19 has increased the demand for point-of-care testing ( POCT), and as the most indispensable tools for human beings at present, smartphones have great application potential in POCT. Smartphone-based POCT has the following unique advantages: ( 1) easy to operate and without the need for professional training;( 2) shorter wait times and quicker test results;( 3) low fabrication cost and convenient to use in limited-resource areas. Therefore, smartphone-based POCT is rapidly emerging as a potential alternative to traditional laboratory testing. Herein, we perform a comprehensive review of recent progress and applications of smartphone-based sensors in POCT for the past three years, which uses the tested objects ( body fluids, volatile organic compounds, vital signs) by POCT as the basis for classification, and combines with the current mainstream sensing strategies, including colorimetric, fluorescent, electrochemical technology, piezoelectric, pyroelectric, ultrasonic and photoelectric sensor, etc. We evaluate the performance and development potential of these sensors, in addition, the emerging technologies used in POCT are introduced, such as nanotechnology, flexible electronic devices, microfluidic technology, biodegradable technology, self- powered technology, multichannel detection and so on. Finally, current problems are summarized and the future development of the smartphone-based POCT is discussed.
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The pandemic of COVID-19 makes consumers rely on e-commerce to an even higher extent. Since consumers utilize online product reviews (OPRs) for decision making, it is vital to study how various OPR features impact consumer behavior. This research proposes a model for understanding effects of OPR features on consumers’ trust based on HSM. For data collection, we carry out lab experiments and use PLS-SEM analysis to test the model. The results indicate that OPR features influence trust via usefulness of OPRs and attitude toward website. We contribute to the OPR literature by applying the HSM model to the context of OPRs. We also examine the interactions between heuristic mode and systematic mode. © 2022, The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd.
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Significance The emerging technologies such as the Internet of Things and wearable technology in recent decades have brought great changes and convenience with better healthcare and manufacturing and higher safety, security, and efficiency for the whole society. As an essential important link in these systems, sensors provide key value proposition and play a pivotal role. Take wearable electronics as examples, the market value of wearable technology has doubled in the past five years. Sensors have provided core functions for many different products during the development of wearable electronics, and they will continue to play a key role in future generation of products. For example, smartwatches and skin patches are built based on the fitness tracking and daily activity data, and are used for medical measurement. Virtual, augmented, and mixed reality devices rely on a set of sensors (e.g. inertial measurement unit, depth induction, force/pressure sensors) to enable users to interact with the content and environment. Moreover, the transition from traditional human-computer interaction to a natural user interface will also depend on further advances in sensors. Other products in different areas, such as autonomous vehicles, air detector, and smart clothing, are similar and depend on a set of core sensors that can interact with the body or the surrounding environment. Some of these sensor systems have been gradually commercialized and expanded to more industrial, agricultural, military, environmental, and safety applications. In particular, the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 has also brought increased attention to sensors owing to their promising applications in tracking early onset and potential virus contacts, and remote patient monitoring of isolated patients. In short, the sensor remains a fundamental component of the entire product line, which has been required to be thinner, lighter, smaller, more flexible, and sensitive in the new application systems. Based on the important role of sensors, many preparation methods such as vapor deposition, lithography, nano-imprint lithography as well as printing have been developed. Each technology has its unique advantages and adapts to different scenarios. At the same time, their disadvantages that cannot be ignored also need to be addressed. For instance, chemical and physical vapor deposition methods, including thermal evaporation, vacuum evaporation, magnetron sputtering, and molecular beam epitaxy, can produce high-quality materials and devices with good performance, but these technologies usually require expensive equipment and specific operating environment. Moreover, it is difficult for these techniques to be compatible with flexible substrates and realize low-cost industrialized mass production. In addition, photolithography and nano-imprint lithography are suitable for precision device fabrication. However, they often face the challenges of low processing efficiency, low output, high cost due to the complex processing process, high design cost of mask, and long processing cycle. In comparison, printing is a very attractive technology for low-cost large scale production. But in most cases, the presence of mask limits the precision and resolution of the prepared micro/nano-sized devices. Therefore, with the increasing demand for flexible, wearable, miniaturized, precise, integrated, and customized sensors, the new processing method with higher precision and more flexibility manners is needed to achieve controllable preparation. To meet the developmental requirements of sensors, various processing techniques mentioned above are utilized to optimize and improve the sensor mainly from the aspects of the electrode, sensing material, and whole device. In recent decade, laser micro-nano fabrication has been gradually developed and popular in the field of manufacturing. The laser micro-nano fabrication changes the material state and property through the laser-material interaction and realizes the well-control of shape and property across scales. With the advantages of large proc ssing speed, high precision, strong controllability, easy integration, and high compatibility with materials, the sensor fabricated by laser has ushered in a new development in structure regulation and performance optimization. However, it still faces challenges and difficulties in mass production and efficiency promotion in practical applications. Progress The laser processing technologies for the fabrication of sensors and sensing systems of different stimulus sources are summarized (Fig. 2). Firstly, three laser processing modes widely used in sensor production including laser induced heating, reaction, and delamination are introduced. The convenience and advantages of laser processing compared with those of the traditional processing technology can be clearly understood in the section of laser processing modes (Fig. 3). Then, based on the existing research results, the sensor systems prepared by laser are classified into ultraviolet, gas, humidity, temperature, strain/stress, biology, and environmental monitoring sensors. It is easily found that the advantages of laser micro-nano fabrication are mainly reflected in the following three aspects. 1) Laser micro-nano fabrication has broadened the preparation approaches of electrodes and sensing materials. It can realize in-situ or non-in-situ preparation of conductive electrodes and sensing materials by laser reduction, sintering, annealing, ablation, pulse deposition, laser induced carbonization, and hydrothermal reaction as well as other specific laser processing technologies, which provide alternative strategies for material preparation. 2) Laser micro-nano fabrication simplifies the assembly process of the whole device. The laser direct writing technology can realize in situ selective process in specific areas or specific materials, leading to great convenience for device construction. Moreover, the whole sensor on flexible substrates can even be prepared by one-step laser fabrication through digital design. 3) Laser micro-nano fabrication contributes to promote sensor performance. Sensing material, as a key part of a single sensor, can be modified and regulated by laser processing, thus providing the possibility of performance optimization. With these optimizations and improvements, the sensors become softer, smaller, and more customized and have higher integration. Finally, we also analyze the problems existing in sensors fabricated by laser micro-nano fabrication, such as insufficient researches on laser-material interaction, limited processing accuracy and efficiency enhancement, and low level of device integration. Conclusions and Prospect Laser micro-nano fabrication has gradually become a common and popular technology for sensing system preparation and integration. To sum up, the sensor fabricated by laser still needs in-depth and detailed exploration to promote the development of commercialization and industrialization of the sensor. © 2021, Chinese Lasers Press. All right reserved.
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Objective: To provide data reference for the clinical diagnosis of COVID-19, promote the innovation and improvement of antibody detection technology of COVID-19, and discuss the application of antibody detection of new coronavirus by evaluating the sensitivity, specificity, compliance rate and limit of antibody detection in 10 SARS-CoV-2 antibody detection kits. Methods: According to the instructions of 10 new coronavirus antibody detection kits, the specific IgM and IgG in 74 serum samples were detect- ed, and the limit of detection of each kit was tested with 10 samples diluted by a 2-fold gradient. Results: The coincidence rate of 10 kits(product A-product J)were 89.2%(66/74), 89.2%(66/74), 86.5%(64/74), 95.9%(71/74), 52.7%(39/74), 75.7%(56/74), 86.5%(64/74), 79.7%(59/74), 50.0%(37/74), 20.3%(15/74), respectively. In the detection limit tests for the kits A-J with the 10 of 2x gradient diluted samples, the performance of kit C was the best, with the limit of detection for IgM 0.16AU/ml and the limit of detection for IgG 1.00 AU/ml. Conclusion: There are significant differences in sensitivity, specificity, compliance and limit of detection of 10 new coronavirus antibody testing reagents, and the product of high sensitivity, specificity, and compliance rates should be selected for clinical applications to ensure the accuracy of test results.
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In Wuhan, China, the first case of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) was reported on December 8, 2019. The patient's symptoms included fever, coughing and breathing difficulties. According to the sixth China version of 2019 coronavirus disease (COVID-19) diagnostic criteria, some patients with COVID-19 may present atypical symptoms and have negative nucleic acid tests (NATs), possibly leading to misdiagnosis and viral transmission. Our patient was a 29-year-old woman who complained of a three-day history of nasal obstruction, and no fever, coughing or breathing difficulties were noted. Physical examination revealed no obvious signs of pneumonia. On January 16, 2020, the patient flew from Wuhan to Germany for a business trip and returned to Shanghai on January 28, a passenger on her flight was tested positive for SARS-CoV-2 later. Although two consecutive NATs performed at an interval of 24 h were negative, considering her direct contact with a SARS-CoV-2-infected individual, a 64-slice computed tomography (CT) scan showed a few scattered ground-glass nodules in the left lung, suggesting possible viral pneumonia. Given the clinical characteristics, epidemiological records, CT findings and a third positive NAT, our patient was diagnosed with COVID-19. The combination of history of epidemiology, clinical symptom, lung CT scan and routine blood test will improve the clinical diagnosis of asymptomatic COVID-19, but the early diagnosis of COVID-19 can be confirmed only by the repeated NATs.
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Objective: To compare and analyze 7 new coronavirus nucleic acid detection kits and 5 nucleic acid extraction methods. Methods: After extracting nucleic acids from 44 positive coronavirus clinical samples, 7 SARS-CoV-2 nucleic acid detection kits were used for RT-PCR amplification experiments to compare the positive rate and Ct value;33 new coronavirus positive clinical samples were selected to compare the acid extraction methods. Five different nucleic acid extraction methods were used to extract the samples, and then RT-PCR amplification experiments were performed to compare the positive rate and Ct value. Results: The brand A nucleic acid extraction kit had the highest positive rate and the lowest rate of missed detection;comparison of nucleic acid extraction methods showed that the manual column extraction method had the highest positive rate, followed by the magnetic bead extraction method, and the one-step extraction method had the highest missed detection rate. Conclusion: The detection capabilities of the SARS-CoV-2 detection kits are uneven, so evaluation work needs to be done before the selection of the kit. The manual column extraction method showed best extraction efficiency but took a long time. Because of the possible combination with the automatic nucleic acid extraction instrument, the magnetic bead extraction method had a high extraction efficacy, which might be suitable for use in the ex- traction of large batches of samples. Although the one-step extraction method was easily operable, the method had a high missed detection rate, so this method was not recommended for clinical use.