The effect of environmental factors on precocious puberty in children: a case-control study.

BACKGROUND: Recently the prevalence of precocious puberty development is increasing among Chinese children. Proper understanding of the risk factors for precocious puberty in children is pivotal as could help to improve children's health. This study aims to evaluate the effect of environmental factors on precocious puberty in children. METHODS: We matched the cases and controls by age at the ratio of 1:1 (201 cases and 201 controls) for girls and 1:4 (24 cases and 96 controls) for boys. We used conditional logistic regression to explore the effect of environmental factors on precocious puberty, and a random forest model to identify the most important risk factor. RESULTS: In the multivariate regression, cesarean section (OR = 1.99, 95% CI: 1.05, 3.76), child body mass index [BMI] (OR = 1.25, 95% CI: 1.10, 1.43), maternal BMI (OR = 1.13, 95%CI: 1.01, 1.26), and exposure to secondhand smoke several times a month but less than once a week (OR = 4.09, 95%CI: 1.79,9.35), and almost every day (OR = 6.48, 95% CI: 2.14, 19.56) were risk factors for precocious puberty in girls. While maternal height (OR = 0.82, 95% CI: 0.75, 0.88), paternal height (OR = 0.91, 95% CI: 0.85, 0.98), bedtime at night (OR = 0.30, 95% CI: 0.17, 0.51), and night sleep (OR = 0.43, 95% CI: 0.21, 0.86) were protective factors. In boys, only exposure to secondhand smoke several times a month but less than once a week (OR = 7.94, 95% CI: 1.25, 50.33) was a risk factor for precocious puberty. In the random forest model, Child BMI was the most important risk factor for precocious puberty in girls. CONCLUSIONS: Our findings suggest that environmental factors were associated with precocious puberty in children, particularly in girls.

Clinical Characteristics and Abnormal Parameters Evolution in Patients With Novel Coronavirus Infection: A Case Series of 272 Cases in Guangzhou.

OBJECTIVE: The aim of this study was to present the clinical characteristics and dynamic changes in laboratory parameters of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) in Guangzhou, and explore the probable early warning indicators of disease progression. METHOD: We enrolled all the patients diagnosed with COVID-19 in the Guangzhou No. 8 People's Hospital. The patients' demographic and epidemiologic data were collected, including chief complaints, lab results, and imaging examination findings. RESULTS: The characteristics of the patients in Guangzhou are different from those in Wuhan. The patients were younger in age, predominately female, and their condition was not commonly combined with other diseases. A total of 75% of patients suffered fever on admission, followed by cough occurring in 62% patients. Comparing the mild/normal and severe/critical patients, being male, of older age, combined with hypertension, abnormal blood routine test results, raised creatine kinase, glutamic oxaloacetic transaminase, lactate dehydrogenase, C-reactive protein, procalcitonin, D-dimer, fibrinogen, activated partial thromboplastin time, and positive proteinuria were early warning indicators of severe disease. CONCLUSION: The patients outside epidemic areas showed different characteristics from those in Wuhan. The abnormal laboratory parameters were markedly changed 4 weeks after admission, and also were different between the mild and severe patients. More evidence is needed to confirm highly specific and sensitive potential early warning indicators of severe disease.

Evaluating the economic impacts of COVID-19 pandemic on shipping and port industry: A case study of the port of Shanghai.

The stability of shipping and port operations are crucial for international trade and global supply chain. However, the COVID-19 pandemic hit the shipping and port industry enormously in late 2019, and continues till now. It is important to identify the impacts of the pandemic on shipping and port operations and evaluate the potential economic impacts for better setting future development strategies and policies. A System Dynamics (SD) model is proposed to depict the impact transmission within the supply chain considering 5 sub-systems (shipping, port, transportation, manufacturing and social). Potential economic impacts which are represented by the shipping loss and port loss will be assessed. 6 scenarios with different epidemic durations and capacity recovery degrees have been set to investigate the economic impacts. The port of Shanghai, together with the container shipping business is selected as input for case study. Results indicate that in the first few months the port and carriers may suffer economic loss due to shrunken demand caused by COVID-19. But later carriers may enjoy an increase of income compared to non-pandemic scenario owing to strong recovery in most scenarios. Moreover, we found that manufacturing, transportation and port operation capacities would jointly affect the recovery process and economic impacts. The findings can facilitate policy makers in making port management and future industry development decisions.

Estimating the economic loss of a seaport due to the impact of COVID-19.

Sea ports are key nodes of global trade and economy, but are vulnerable to hazards, catastrophes and epidemic outbreaks. Since the emergence of COVID-19 infection at the end of 2019, the operations of seaports, especially container ports have been hit hard. This paper aims to explore the impacts of COVID-19 on container ports' operations, clarify the potential economic losses of ports and propose coping suggestions for recovery. Five scenarios of port recovery have been set and the revenues of the port under epidemic outbreaks are estimated. The economic loss could be modeled as the difference between original revenue a port should obtained without the impact of COVID-19 and the actual revenue considering the impact of COVID-19. The container port of Shanghai is selected as the case study. Results and sensitivity analysis reveal that slower the recovery develops, much more loss will be borne by the port. However, there is also a possibility that the port achieves increased income with a surging boom of shipping demand. The loss of port due, handling service, facility security fee and berthage charge are major losses. Besides, port handling efficiency and fleet structure are also found crucial for reducing economic losses. Reducing containership's handling time and serving larger ships would also help the port reduce economic losses.