Parallel Emergency Management of Incidents by Integrating OODA and PREA Loops: The C2 Mechanism and Modes

Given the differences of command and control (C2) activities between the field command center and the emergency operations center (EOC), this article combined the edge C2 theory with the parallel C2 theory, and proposed a parallel incident C2 mode based on the observe–orient–decide–act (OODA) loop and planning–readiness–execution–assessment (PREA) loop. The aim is to build up a PREA loop-based parallel incident C2 mode and its related operating mechanism of edge empowerment and energy release in parallel incident C2 mode. The parallel incident C2 mode based on the PREA loop and OODA loop supports the co-existence and connection of the two roles of the incident C2 agent at the emergency scene. The two roles are the executive role of emergency response and operation and the command and organization role of the edge emergency system. This article initiates a deep integration of two different C2 process mechanisms in the emergency response and operation process, taking into account the local emergency scene and the global emergency system. Taken together, a key issue has been well addressed regarding the contradiction that the traditional emergency response cannot be reconciled in terms of rapidity and thoroughness. Author

Single-chirality of single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWCNTs) through chromatography and its potential biological applications

The separation of highly pure single-chirality single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWCNTs) is challenging and also in demand due to their intrinsic physical, optical, and electronic properties. The use of single-chirality and their performance characteristics makes them a selective candidate for multifunctional applications and opens a new front in nanotube development. It has previously been reported that SWCNTs can be separated in various ways by employing direct control and post-synthesis approaches. Herein, we review the separation of single-chiralities of SWCNTs on account of simplicity and time/cost effectiveness by using gel chromatography. The most recent progress in the controlled synthesis of SWCNTs is comprehensively reviewed in terms of selective-diameter, single-chirality, and specific geometric shape. The method to achieve the single-chirality of SWCNTs is also highlighted. Besides addressing COVID-19 characteristics, epidemiology, and pathology, we also review the most recent developments in nano-biosensors for the rapid and early detection of COVID-19. Furthermore, the photothermal/bioimaging response of single-chirality is reviewed in order to enhance the cytotoxicity of drugs against cancer cells over simple carbon nanotubes (CNTs). The single-chirality allows for precise imaging (due to efficient absorption and emission) of tumors/blood vessels up to ~10-fold higher by injecting a low dose. We hope this review stimulates further study on single-chirality controlled SWCNTs for practical applications. Copyright © 2023 The Royal Society of Chemistry.

Rapid on-site PEDV detection using homogeneous fluorescence resonance energy transfer-based ELISA

The porcine epidemic diarrhea virus (PEDV) is a major pathogen of swine enteric diseases. Various etiology and serological methods have been employed for PEDV detection, but most of their applications are limited to lab-oratories. To extend PEDV detection to on-site applications, we design a homogeneous fluorescence resonance energy transfer (FRET)-based enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA). Both donor and acceptor fluores-cence microspheres modified PEDV antibodies can be linked only to the occurrence of PEDV antigen, thus generating FRET signals, which can be collected by our designed portable FRET immunoassay station (FRETIS). Verified by standard samples, FRET immunoassay reached high sensitivity with a detection limit as TCID50 (median tissue culture infective dose) of 10/mL, which is 10 times more sensitive than colloidal gold test strips;and verified by clinical samples, it was also proved with high accuracy, good selectivity, and repeatability. More importantly, FRET immunoassay could detect PEDV in a 96-well plate in 35 min with only one step of incubation without any further washing steps using field-portable devices and field-operable procedures, well supporting on -site applications. Considering these advantages, this reported FRET immunoassay provides a promising way for multi-sample on-site PEDV detection and can be potentially used in the swine industry.

Automatic Diagnosis of COVID-19 Medical Images based on Graph Attention Network

In view of the COVID-19 pandemic and its highly infectious characteristic, traditional artificial diagnosis based on medical imaging, though capable of detecting pulmonary lesion in human body, is found of lower efficiency. Therefore, it is particularly urgent that we design a set of accurate and automatic pneumonia diagnosis methods with aid of artificial intelligence technology, so that pneumonia in patients can be diagnosed and treated early. This study first introduces DenseNet to the Convolutional Neural Network (CNN) structure to improve sharing of characteristic information of lung image in convolutional layers and thus obtain more accurate image features. Secondly, characteristics of pneumonia disease are discriminated rapidly using the Graphic Attention Network (GAT). The authors adopt the X-ray dataset in Radiological Society of North America (RSNA) Pneumonia Detection Challenge released by Kaggle to train and verify the network. According to experimental results, the accuracy of COVID-19 diagnosis and F-Score both reach 98%. The method provides CT doctors with an end-to-end deep learning technology for pneumonia diagnosis. © 2021 IEEE.

Epidemic characteristics of 69 COVID-19 cases in Lu’an city

Objective To explore the epidemic characteristics of COVID-19 in Lu’an city, so as to provide scientific basis for the prevention and control of COVID-19 in this area. Methods All the confirmed cases of COVID-19 were selected from the Infectious Disease Reporting System from the onset of disease to 24:00 on February 18th, 2020 in Lu’an City. The general demographic, onset and medical information, and epidemiological characteristics of confirmed cases were collected to describe the feature of patients. The spatial and temporal distribution of disease transmission was analyzed by SaTScan 9.6.0.0 software, and Excel 2010 software was used to draw the epidemic curves of all cases. Results A total of 69 confirmed cases were reported in Lu’an City by February 18th, 2020. There were more male cases (44) than female (25), and cases mainly aged 36-45 years old (37.68%). The proportion of workers was the highest (24.64%). The first symptom of conformed cases was fever (50, 72.46%), cough (25, 36.23%) and fatigue (12, 17.40%). The epidemic was more serious in Jinzhai County (23), Huoshan County (17) and Huoqiu County (13). The number of cases in Lu’an showed that the first epidemic peak occurred between January 25th and January 28th, and the largest number of cases occurred on January 27th, then showed a downward trend. A total of 45 aggregate cases were found. Conclusion The COVID-19 epidemic in Lu’an City is generally preventable and controllable. It will be alert to the risk of family clustering, spread of asymptomatic infections and imported cases. Future work should focus on the investigation of close contacts. © 2021, Publication Centre of Anhui Medical University. All rights reserved.

An Improved Agent-based Model Using Discrete Event Simulation for Nonpharmaceutical Interventions

The traditional agent-based model requires high computing power of the central processing unit. Thus, an improved agent-based model combined with the discrete event simulation method is proposed. The result of the equation-based Susceptible-Exposed-Infective-Asymptomatic-Recovered (SEIAR) model with the same parameter combination, which has been demonstrated to be effective, is used to verify the validity of this improved agent-based model. Additionally, an analysis based on simulation results of the Contact Tracing Measure (CTM), Location-Based Checking-Testing Measure (LCTM), Lockdown Measure (LM), Mobile Cabin Isolation and Hospital Measure (MCHM) is presented. The simulation results show that implementing long-term lockdown measures has the best effect on epidemic control. Moreover, according to the simulation results, we inferred that using only nonpharmaceutical epidemic prevention measures may result in a second outbreak of COVID-19 owing to the risk of asymptomatic transmission. Author

The Effectiveness of the Authorities' Activities at the Local Level in the COVID-19 Pandemic (the Experience of Russia and China)

The qualitative changes caused by the COVID-19 pandemic at all levels of the organization of the world community (individual, group, national, global) have actually formed a new social reality. Moreover, this process was of a force majeure nature;it took place in the conditions of a sharp increase in the uncertainty feeling, changes in the lifestyle of almost every person and every particular family, the unpreparedness of world medicine for an adequate response to the global epidemiological challenge, as well as the inevitability of large-scale problems in the economy and politics. The current conditions have become a challenge for the existing systems of public administration. The governments of different countries had to act quickly and decisively in order, on the one hand, to keep the development of the epidemiological situation under control, and on the other hand, to prevent a sharp deterioration of social stability against the background of objectively emerging epidemiological, social and psychological challenges. While the world medicine was urgently accelerating the development of a vaccine against coronavirus infection, the scientific and political community discussed the general strategy for implementing quarantine restrictions. However, against this background, the local community level remained virtually behind the scenes, which, nevertheless, was and still remains the most practical in terms of interaction of population with the authorities. It is at the local level (meaning the regional level, as well as the level of local self-government) that the authorities are more close to the society problems, have the opportunity to interact face-to-face with its representatives, and the population, in turn, can actually participate in activities to improve living conditions (including solving problems caused by the pandemic). The article presents the experience of Russia and China in organizing interaction and evaluating the activities of local authorities by the population. Both countries have shown high efficiency in overcoming the crisis in 2020-2021, so their experience is of considerable interest, primarily in practical terms. The authors of the study have concluded about the importance of public assessment regarding the effectiveness of the activities of local authorities, as well as the prospects for actively involving citizens in solving problems arising against the background of force majeure.

Demand and development trend of china's elderly care service in the post-epidemic period

China has stepped into an aging society. The emergence of 2019- nCoV has increased the risk of the elderly with low immunity and has posed new challenges to China's medical health and elderly care service. Based on the introduction of the epidemic's impact on China's main elderly care modes, this article investigates the demand for elderly care service in Wuhan during the epidemic through questionnaires and proposes the development trend of elderly care service in China during the post-epidemic period, including improving the emergency management system of the elderly care industry, improving the quality of elderly care service, promoting the combination of medical care and health care, and promoting the family based of intelligent pension products. © 2021 Association for Computing Machinery. All rights reserved.