Evolutionary game analysis of crowding risk control strategies during the COVID-19 Pandemic

To discuss the decision-making scheme of crowding risk management during the COVID-19 pandemic, this paper constructs an evolutionary game model based on the changes of pedestrian and government strategies, and simulates the strategy selection under different states. The results show that under the condition of pedestrian rationality, when the difference between the benefits and costs of the government's active response strategy is less than the benefits of inaction, the government will choose the strategy of inaction. If the benefit of rational action is less than the additional benefit of irrational action, pedestrians will choose irrational action. By establishing the replication dynamic equations of governments and pedestrians, the stability strategy of the system is analyzed. It is found that the values of R1, R2, R3, R4, R5, C1, C2, C3, C4, C5, C6, C7 will affect the strategy choices of the players, and how to measure the benefits and costs under different circumstances becomes the key to the problem. These findings provide a theoretical basis for the risk control decision of human crowding during the COVID-19 epidemic. © 2023 SPIE.

Annual advances of acupuncture research in 2022

This article reviews the major advances in acupuncture research in 2022, including clinical reports, basic research, and reviews. In terms of the type of literature, most of them are systematic reviews and clinical trials, while high-quality basic studies can also be found. The innovative inventions and researches in this field are of increasing quality and in a wide range of fields, acupuncture is attracting more and more attention in the international arena. In particular, some acupuncture combined sensors such as H2 -EC/SD co-therapy, precise positioning, and vivo monitoring of neurotransmitter has been used for oncological diseases and neuropathic pain. Acupuncture has been shown to be beneficial in the treatment of pain, stroke, psychiatric disorders, cancer, COVID-19 and others. Most of the studies show that acupuncture can play a positive role in various diseases and provide evidence for clinical applications and mechanism research.Copyright © 2023 By Author(s). Published by TMR Publishing Group Limited.

A novel computational approach for rapid screening of antibody therapeutics for efficacy against SARS-CoV-2 variants of concern including Omicron variant

Multiple severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARSCoV- 2) variants continue to evolve carrying flexible amino acid substitutions in the spike protein's receptor binding domain (RBD). These substitutions modify the binding of the SARS-CoV-2 to human angiotensin-converting enzyme 2 (hACE2) receptor and have been implicated in altered host fitness, transmissibility and efficacy against antibody therapeutics and vaccines. Reliably predicting the binding strength of SARS-CoV-2 variants RBD to hACE2 receptor and neutralizing antibodies (NAbs) can help assessing their fitness, and rapid deployment of effective antibody therapeutics, respectively. Here, we introduced a two-step computational framework with threefold validation that first identified dissociation constant as a reliable predictor of binding affinity in hetero-dimeric and -trimeric protein complexes. The second step implements dissociation constant as descriptor of the binding strengths of SARS-CoV-2 variants RBD to hACE2 and NAbs. Then, we examined several variants of concern (VOCs) such as Alpha, Beta, Gamma, Delta, and Omicron and demonstrated that these VOCs RBD bind to the hACE2 with enhanced affinity. Furthermore, the binding affinity of Omicron variant's RBD was reduced with majority of the RBD-directed NAbs, which is highly consistent with the experimental neutralization data. By studying the atomic contacts between RBD and NAbs, we revealed the molecular footprints of four NAbs (GH-12, P2B-1A1, Asarnow-3D11, and C118)-that may likely neutralize the recently emerged omicron variant-facilitating enhanced binding affinity. Finally, our findings suggest a computational pathway that could aid researchers identify a range of current NAbs that may be effective against emerging SARS-CoV-2 variants.

Pyroptosis in the lung and spleen of patients died from COVID-19

The purpose of this study was to investigate the expression of pyroptosis-related factors (NLRP3, IL-18, NF-kappa B, HMGB-1, and GSDMD) in patients who died of COVID-19. The expression levels of NLRP3, IL-18, NF-kappa B, HMGB-1, and GSDMD in lung and spleen tissues of the COVID-19 group and the control group were detected by tissue immunofluorescence. The control group includes lung tissues and spleen tissues of two patients who died unexpectedly without SARS-CoV-2 infection, and the COVID-19 group includes the lung and spleen tissues of three patients who died of SARS-CoV-2 virus infection. The positive rates of NF-kappa B, NLRP3, IL-18, and GSDMD in the lung tissues from the control group and COVID-19 group were 9.8% vs 73.4% (p = 0.000), 5.5% vs 63.6% (p = 0.000), 24.4% vs 76.2% (p = 0.000), and 17.5% and 46.8% (p = 0.000) respectively. The positive rates of NF-kappa B, NLRP3, IL-18, HMGB-1, and GSDMD in the spleen tissues from the control group and COVID-19 group were 20.6% vs 71.2% (p = 0.000), 18.9% vs 72.0% (p = 0.000), 15.2% vs 64.8% (p = 0.000), 27.6% vs 69.2% (p = 0.000), and 23% and 48.8% (p = 0.000), respectively. The positive rates of SARS-CoV-2 spike protein in the CD68 positive cells of the lung and spleen in the control group and COVID-19 group were 2.5% vs 56.8% (p = 0.000);3.0% vs 64.9% (p = 0.000) respectively. The rates of NF-kappa B positive nuclei in the control group and COVID-19 group were 13.4% vs 51.4% (p = 0.000) in the lung and 38.2% vs 59.3% (p = 0.000) in the spleen. The rates of HMGB-1 positive cytoplasm in the control and the COVID-19 group were 19.7% vs 50.3% (p = 0.000) in the lung and 12.3% vs 45.2% (p = 0.000) in the spleen. The targets of SARS-CoV-2 are the lung and spleen, where increased macrophages could be involved in the up-regulation of pyroptosis-related inflammatory factors such as NF-kappa B, HMGB-1, NLRP3, IL-18, and GSDMD.

Clinical features of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus-2 Omicron variant infection in mother-infant dyads during lactation

Objective To summarize the clinical features, viral load changes, and outcomes of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus-2 (SARS-CoV-2) Omicron variant infection in mother-infant dyads during lactation period. Methods A total of 24 pairs of lactating mothers and infants under one year old who were infected with SARS-CoV-2 and hospitalized in Lingang Branch of Shanghai Sixth People's Hospital from April 8 to May 30, 2022, were selected as the lactation group in this retrospective study. Another 24 non-lactating mothers, with children of one to three years old, who matched with those mothers in the lactation group in clinical classification and admission date were selected as the control group. Vaccination status, clinical symptoms, daily cycle threshold (Ct) of open reading frame 1ab (ORF1ab) gene and nucleocapsid protein (N) gene, and the duration of positive nucleic acid test were compared between the groups and were analyzed using two independent samples t test, one-way analysis of variance, LSD test, and Chi-square test. Results Among the 24 infants in the lactation group with an age of (6.5±2.1) months, 23 cases were mild type, one was common, and none had been vaccinated against SARS-CoV-2. The maternal age of the lactation and the control group did not differ statistically [(28.7±6.4) vs (28.2±5.2) years, t=0.30, P=0.768]. Mothers with mild type accounted for 88% (21/24) and those with common for 12% (3/24) in both groups of mothers. Three mothers received one dose of vaccine and two received two in the lactation group, while three received one dose and three received two in the control group [21%(5/24) vs 25%(6/24), χ2=0.12, P=0.731]. The most common symptoms of lactating infants were fever (100%, 24/24), followed by diarrhea (58%, 14/24), cough (50%, 12/24), and wheeze (29%, 7/24), those of the lactating mothers were fever (75%, 18/24), cough (75%, 18/24), and sore throat (63%, 15/24), while those of non-lactating mothers were cough (88%, 21/ 24), sore throat (71%, 17/24), and fever (58%, 14/24). The duration of positive nucleic acid test was the shortest in the lactating infants [(9.2±2.1) d (5-14 d)], followed by mothers in the control group [(11.2± 2.4) d (6-16 d)] and mothers in the lactation group [(14.0±4.2) d (8-26 d)] (LSD test, all P<0.05). Each day from day 2 to 9 after diagnosis, Ct values of nucleic acid of infants in the lactation group were all higher than those of mothers in both the lactation and control groups (LSD test, all P<0.05). On day 10, Ct value of nucleic acid infants was higher than that in mothers in the lactation group (ORF1ab gene: 37.91±4.34 vs 32.79±5.47;N gene: 37.95±4.58 vs 32.66±5.77), which was lower than those in mothers in the control group (ORF1ab gene: 32.79±5.47 vs 35.90±4.17;N gene: 32.66±5.77 vs 36.08±4.16) (LSD test, all P< 0.05). On day 11, the nucleic acid Ct values of mothers in the lactation group were all lower than those in the control group (ORF1ab gene: 35.03±3.74 vs 37.84±3.26, t=－2.78, P=0.008;N gene: 35.30±3.75 vs 38.11±2.90, t=－2.90, P=0.006). On day 12, Ct value of ORF1ab gene and N gene in mothers in the lactation group were similar to those in mothers in the control group (both P>0.05). Conclusions The SARS-CoV-2 vaccination rate of mothers and infants were low during lactation. Lactating infants infected with SARS-CoV-2 Omicron variant have low virus load and may have a quick recovery, while for the lactating mothers, the virus load is high and the recovery is slow. © 2022 Chinese Medical Journals Publishing House Co.Ltd. All rights reserved.

Progress of the Panama Meeting of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora

Background: The 19th meeting of the Conference of the Parties (CoP 19) to the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) took place in Panama from the 14th to the 25th of November 2022. The meeting was attended by 2,500 delegates representing more than 160 Parties and observers to the Convention. The COVID-19 pandemic impacted all CITES Parties and significantly disrupted the implementation of CITES. The CoP shared the actions and the experiences of the Parties, the Secretariat, the Committee members and observers in the face of the COVID-19 pandemic. Progress: Delegates reviewed 52 proposed amendments to the Appendices and discussed 91 agenda items. There was the highest proportion of proposals for new Appendix II species but the lowest number of revising annotation proposals the CoP 19 has considered in nearly 25 years. The CoP updated the regulation of international trade in over 600 species of animals and plants. In the adopted proposals, international trade in 50 species of freshwater turtles, 158 species of glass frogs, 100 species of sharks and rays, 150 species of trees and dozens of species of roseroots will be regulated as the newly revised lists are enforced. The CoP adopted the financing and the cost of the programme of work for the triennium 2023‒2025, with an overall budget being 6.1% higher compared to the triennium 2020‒2022. The Conference further refined compliance and enforcement requirements for elephants, big cats, totoaba and other wildlife species threatened with extinction. With the implementations of engagement of indigenous peoples and local communities, livelihoods-related issues have been relatively slow and hampered. Parties vigorously debated proposed amendments to the Rules of Procedure and criteria for the amendments of CITES Appendices, but no substantive amendments were adopted. A pilot version of the World Wildlife Trade Report and the Assessment Report on the Sustainable Use of Wild Species: Policy-Maker Summary were discussed and heard. CITES has added several new topics in the CoP to address new challenges, such as the role of CITES in reducing the risk of future zoonotic diseases associated with the international wildlife trade. The CoP 19 recommends interdisciplinary research to analyze the role of CITES in the conservation and sustainable use of forests. The Parties resolved to work on building gender equality into the international trade in wildlife, recognizing that women are often guardians of wildlife and biodiversity but, just as often, are not recognized or benefit from this trade. Prospects: Regardless of the challenges posed by the COVID-19 pandemic, China's CITES authorities made thorough preparations for the CoP, conducting research two years in advance and drafting a proposal a report which was submitted to the CoP 19, organized pre-session and in-session consultations with scientific authorities, collected information from all parties, and actively led the discussions in working groups, presenting a positive view of China in prioritizing ecological civilization and fulfilling its responsibilities as a major country. CITES will celebrate its 50th anniversary in 2023. The record 365 decisions in CoP 19 demonstrate that CITES Parties continue to take action to address the unprecedented pressures on species due to overexploitation and illegal trade. © 2023, Chinese Academy of Sciences. All rights reserved.

Progress of the Panama Meeting of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora

Background: The 19th meeting of the Conference of the Parties (CoP 19) to the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) took place in Panama from the 14th to the 25th of November 2022. The meeting was attended by 2,500 delegates representing more than 160 Parties and observers to the Convention. The COVID-19 pandemic impacted all CITES Parties and significantly disrupted the implementation of CITES. The CoP shared the actions and the experiences of the Parties, the Secretariat, the Committee members and observers in the face of the COVID-19 pandemic. Progress: Delegates reviewed 52 proposed amendments to the Appendices and discussed 91 agenda items. There was the highest proportion of proposals for new Appendix II species but the lowest number of revising annotation proposals the CoP 19 has considered in nearly 25 years. The CoP updated the regulation of international trade in over 600 species of animals and plants. In the adopted proposals, international trade in 50 species of freshwater turtles, 158 species of glass frogs, 100 species of sharks and rays, 150 species of trees and dozens of species of roseroots will be regulated as the newly revised lists are enforced. The CoP adopted the financing and the cost of the programme of work for the triennium 2023‒2025, with an overall budget being 6.1% higher compared to the triennium 2020‒2022. The Conference further refined compliance and enforcement requirements for elephants, big cats, totoaba and other wildlife species threatened with extinction. With the implementations of engagement of indigenous peoples and local communities, livelihoods-related issues have been relatively slow and hampered. Parties vigorously debated proposed amendments to the Rules of Procedure and criteria for the amendments of CITES Appendices, but no substantive amendments were adopted. A pilot version of the World Wildlife Trade Report and the Assessment Report on the Sustainable Use of Wild Species: Policy-Maker Summary were discussed and heard. CITES has added several new topics in the CoP to address new challenges, such as the role of CITES in reducing the risk of future zoonotic diseases associated with the international wildlife trade. The CoP 19 recommends interdisciplinary research to analyze the role of CITES in the conservation and sustainable use of forests. The Parties resolved to work on building gender equality into the international trade in wildlife, recognizing that women are often guardians of wildlife and biodiversity but, just as often, are not recognized or benefit from this trade. Prospects: Regardless of the challenges posed by the COVID-19 pandemic, China's CITES authorities made thorough preparations for the CoP, conducting research two years in advance and drafting a proposal a report which was submitted to the CoP 19, organized pre-session and in-session consultations with scientific authorities, collected information from all parties, and actively led the discussions in working groups, presenting a positive view of China in prioritizing ecological civilization and fulfilling its responsibilities as a major country. CITES will celebrate its 50th anniversary in 2023. The record 365 decisions in CoP 19 demonstrate that CITES Parties continue to take action to address the unprecedented pressures on species due to overexploitation and illegal trade. © 2023, Chinese Academy of Sciences. All rights reserved.

Node Research on the Involvement of China's Carbon Tax Policy in the Context of COVID-19

The outbreak of COVID-19 provides a rare opportunity for the implementation of the carbon tax. To determine which stage is the most appropriate for introducing the policy, a simulation model based on China's panel data is established to analyze the impact of the carbon tax on government revenue and residents' income from five scenarios. A new GM-SD modeling method is proposed to ensure the accuracy of the model. The results show that the impact of the carbon tax on the government and the public is significantly different at different stages, and even the implementation of the carbon tax in the early stage of COVID-19 will reduce the government's tax revenue. The score analysis of government tax revenue, residents' surplus disposable income, residents' emotional value, and government administrative power finds that the middle period of COVID-19 is the best time to implement the policy. In addition, a more detailed analysis of five aspects, including total population, energy consumption, and national income, shows that the best time to implement the carbon tax policy is when the damage degree of COVID-19 is moderate. The analysis results can provide a reference and basis for China to introduce the carbon tax in the event of similar events as COVID-19, and have reference significance for other countries that have not implemented a carbon tax. © 2023, The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd.

[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 the Effect of Social Media and Spatial Characteristics During the COVID-19 Pandemic in China

The declaration of COVID-19 as a pandemic has largely amplified the spread of related information on social platforms, such as Twitter, Facebook and WeChat. In this work, we investigate how the disease and information co-evolve in the population. We focus on COVID-19 and its information during the period when the disease was widely spread in China, i.e., from January 25th to March 24th, 2020. The co-evolution between disease and information is explored via the spatial analysis of the two spreading processes. We visualize the geo-location of both disease and information at the province level and find that disease is more geo-localized compared to information. High correlation between disease and information data is observed, and also people care about the spread of disease only when it comes to their neighborhood. Regard to the content of the information, we obtain that positive messages are more negatively correlated with the disease compared to negative and neutral messages. Additionally, two machine learning algorithms, i.e., linear regression and random forest, are introduced to further predict the number of infected using characteristics, such as disease spatial related and information-related features. We obtain that both the disease spatial related characteristics of nearby cities and information-related characteristics can help to improve the prediction accuracy. The methodology proposed in this paper may shed light on new clues of emerging infections prediction. © 2013 IEEE.

Dynamical characteristics of Amphan and its impact on COVID-19 cases in Bangladesh

In May 2020, a category-5 tropical cyclone (TC) Amphan formed in the Bay of Bengal and struck the coasts of India and Bangladesh. In this study, the relevant dynamic characteristics and aftermaths of Amphan are documented. Through detailed investigation of the reanalysis and observation data, spatiotemporal varying characteristics of the atmospheric and oceanic parameters during the Amphan propagation process were analyzed. Due to a wide range of high sea surface temperature anomaly, Amphan developed rapidly and ultimately led to the local heavy precipitation and strong winds in the coastal areas during its passage. It is also noted that the recorded wave height, wave period, and current speed all amplified when Amphan passed by and the characteristics of wave and current directions are also consistent with the temporal variation of the corresponding wind field. Meanwhile, Amphan occurred in accompany with the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. In Khulna Division of Bangladesh, the number of newly confirmed COVID-19 cases increased rapidly after Amphan landing, which however was almost nil before the event, indicating there might exist a possible correlation between Amphan and the intensive outbreak of the local COVID-19, and particular attentions should be paid to deal with the multi-type, coexisting disasters if different or even conflicting measures are required. © 2023, The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer-Verlag GmbH Austria, part of Springer Nature.

A regionalism shift? Chinese undergraduate students' choice of study in Asia Under COVID-19

This paper draws attention to the current and possible effects of COVID-19 on the mobility trajectories of mainland Chinese students studying in Asia. By drawing on 35 biographical interviews, this paper focuses on their decision to study in Asian countries and regions. Particularly, it calls for more attention to Asia in global student mobilities and discusses whether COVID-19 has changed the position of Asia in the global landscape of student mobility. Results show that even if COVID-19 provides an opportunity for Asian universities to embrace more international students, Asia still lacks the capability to attract great numbers of them. Finally, the study argues that college students' choice of mobility destinations is shaped by their perception of the central–periphery structure of higher education, which is hard to be shaken by the pandemic.

XR-MSF-Unet: Automatic Segmentation Model for COVID-19 Lung CT Images

The COVID-19 epidemic has threatened the human being. The automatic and accurate segmentation for the infected area of the COVID-19 CT images can help doctors to make correct diagnosis and treatment in time. However, it is very challenging to achieve perfect segmentation due to the diffuse infections of the COVID-19 to the patient lungs and irregular shapes of the infected areas and very similar infected areas to other lung tissues. To tackle these challenges, the XR-MSF-Unet model is proposed in this paper for segmenting the COVID-19 lung CT images of patients. The XR (X ResNet) convolution module is proposed in this model to replace the two-layer convolution operations of U-Net, so as to extract more informative features for achieving good segmentation results by multiple branches of XR. The plug and play attention mechanism module MSF (multi-scale features fusion module) is proposed in XR-MSF-Unet to fuse multi-scale features from different scales of reception fields, global, local and spatial features of CT images, so as to strengthen the detail segmentation effect of the model. Extensive experiments on the public COVID-19 CT images demonstrate that the proposed XR module can strengthen the capability of the XR-MSF-Unet model to extract effective features, and the MSF module plus XR module can effectively improve the segmentation capability of the XR-MSF-Unet model for the infected areas of the COVID-19 lung CT images. The proposed XR-MSF-Unet model obtains good segmentation results. Its segmentation performance is superior to that of the original U-Net model by 3.21, 5.96, 1.22 and 4.83 percentage points in terms of Dice, IOU, F1-Score and Sensitivity, and it defeats other same type of models, realizing automatic segmentation to the COVID-19 lung CT images. © 2022, Journal of Computer Engineering and Applications Beijing Co., Ltd.;Science Press. All rights reserved.

Pollution Characteristics and Risk Assessment of PPCPs in Typical Drinking Water Sources in the Middle Reaches of the Yangtze River During the COVID-19 Pandemic

During the CIVID-19 pandemic, water samples were collected from 26 sampling points in 18 typical drinking water sources in Wuhan, located in the middle reaches of the Yangtze River. Ultra-high performance liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry (UPLC-MS/MS) methods were used to measure the concentrations of 31 pharmaceuticals and personal care products (PPCPs) in the water samples. The pollution characteristics of PPCPs were analyzed and their ecological and health risks were assessed. The results showed that a total of 23 PPCPs were detected in the 26 sampling points. Among them, five types of PPCPs were detected with a detection rate of 100%, with total concentrations ranging from 102.44 ng•L -1 to 745.78 ng•L -1, and the average concentration was 206.87 ng•L -1. The highest concentrations were in salicylic acid (SA) and doxycycline (DIC), ranging from 28.24 to 534.24 ng•L -1 and 28.72 to 416.6 ng•L -1, respectively. According to the spatial distribution of PPCPs, the concentration of antibiotics in the Hanjiang River was higher than that in the Yangtze River, whereas the concentration of other types of PPCPs in the Yangtze River was higher than that in the Hanjiang River. The ecological risk assessment results showed that the toxic risk in algae was higher than those in invertebrates and fish. The risks of salicylic acid (SA), doxycycline (DIC), lincomycin (LIN), and chlortetracycline (CTE) to algae were at a high level, and the ecological risk of PPCPs in the Hanjiang River was generally higher than that in the Yangtze River. The health risk assessment results showed that the risk to adults and children by drinking water ranged from 1.14 × 10 -4 to 0.136 and from 1.04 × 10 -4 to 0.821, respectively. The health risk to children was higher than that to adults, although their levels were low. Compared with the concentrations of PPCPs in drinking water sources of Wuhan in recent years, under the CIVID-19 pandemic, the pollution status of PPCPs in the Yangtze River was at a medium level, whereas it was at a high level in the Hanjiang River. © 2022 Science Press. All rights reserved.

Group risk perception and self-efficacy with individual prevention/control behaviors among college students during the COVID-19 pandemic

Objective To explore the relationship between group risk perception, self-efficacy and attitudes among college students, and its associations with individual prevention and control behaviors regarding COVID-19 pandemic. Methods From October to November 2021, data were collected among 4 092 undergraduate students from eight colleges and universities in Anhui Province, using a multi-stage stratified cluster sampling method. A t-teat and analysis of variance were performed for comparison between groups, while multiple linear regression was employed to investigate group risk perception, self-efficacy and attitudes among college students in terms of individual COVID-19 prevention and control measures. Results The total scores of group emotional risk perception (ARP), cognitive risk perception (CRP), distance perception (DIP) and self-efficacy were (19.72±4.01) (14.56± 3.64)(18.04±5.33) and (27.27±6.74), respectively. The total score of attitudes and beliefs was (26.15±4.54), while individual prevention and control behavior was (25.67±4.45). Emotional risk perception (B = 0.16), cognitive risk perception (B = 0.08), attitudes (B = 0.23) and self-efficacy (B = 0.13) were positively correlated with individual prevention and control behaviors of college students(P<0.05). However, distance risk perception had no significant effect (P>0.05). Conclusion Risk perception, self-efficacy and attitude of college students are correlated with individual COVID-19 prevention and control behaviors. Therefore, colleges and universities should strengthen general self-efficacy and attitude, and improve risk awareness towards COVID-19 among college students, and promote the effective prevention and control of campus epidemic. © 2021 Chinese Medical Journals Publishing House Co.Ltd. All rights reserved.

Exploring the effect of social media and spatial characteristics during the COVID-19 pandemic in China

The declaration of COVID-19 as a pandemic has largely amplified the spread of related information on social platforms, such as Twitter, Facebook and WeChat. In this work, we investigate how the disease and information co-evolve in the population. We focus on COVID-19 and its information during the period when the disease was widely spread in China, i.e., from January 25th to March 24th, 2020. The co-evolution between disease and information is explored via the spatial analysis of the two spreading processes. We visualize the geo-location of both disease and information at the province level and find that disease is more geo-localized compared to information. High correlation between disease and information data is observed, and also people care about the spread of disease only when it comes to their neighborhood. Regard to the content of the information, we obtain that positive messages are more negatively correlated with the disease compared to negative and neutral messages. Additionally, two machine learning algorithms, i.e., linear regression and random forest, are introduced to further predict the number of infected using characteristics, such as disease spatial related and information-related features. We obtain that both the disease spatial related characteristics of nearby cities and information-related characteristics can help to improve the prediction accuracy. The methodology proposed in this paper may shed light on new clues of emerging infections prediction. Author

Effects of Gamification on Learning Outcomes, Satisfaction, Engagement, and Motivation in Virtual Learning Environments Between 2020 and 2022

The most popular media of content delivery in online learning and education in the post-pandemic time has been learning management systems (LMS) or virtual learning environments (VLEs). Since few studies comprehensively presented the impact of gamification in the VLEs/LMS (GVLEs/GLMS) on learning outcomes, satisfaction, engagement, and motivation, this review aims to identify the effects of gamification in the contexts of VLEs/LMS. The authors adopted a systematic review method based on the preferred reporting items for systematic review and meta-analysis protocols (PRISMA-P). The results showed that the GLMS had positive influences on learning motivation, engagement, and satisfaction while it did not necessarily improve learning outcomes due to various factors. Implications and suggestions were given to researchers, developers, educators, and institutions based on the findings.

[Clinical characteristics of 16 neonates infected with SARS-CoV-2 during Omicron variant outbreak].

Objective: To analyze the clinical characteristics of the neonates infected with SARS-CoV-2 during the Omicron outbreak in Shanghai 2022. Methods: In this retrospective case series study, all the 16 neonates with SARS-CoV-2 Omicron infection who were admitted to the neonatal unit in Shanghai Public Health Clinical Center from March 1st to May 31st, 2022 were enrolled. Their epidemiological history, clinical manifestations, nucleic acid cycle threshold (Ct) value and outcomes were analyzed. Based on maternal vaccination, they were divided into vaccinated group and unvaccinated group. Rank sum test and Chi-square test were used for the comparison between the groups. Results: Among the 16 neonates, 10 were male, and 6 were female. All the infants were full-term. The infection was confirmed at the age of 12.5 (8.0, 20.5) days. All the neonates had a history of exposure to infected family members, and thus horizontal transmission was the primary mode. Four infants were asymptomatic, 12 were symptomatic, and there were no severe or critical cases. The most common clinical manifestation was fever (11 cases), with the highest temperature of 38.1 (37.9, 38.3) ℃ and a course of 1-5 days. Other clinical manifestations included nasal obstruction (3 cases), runny nose (2 cases), cough (2 cases), poor feeding (2 cases), vomiting (1 case), and mild tachypnea (1 case). The complete blood counts of all neonates were within the normal range, and the C-reactive protein increased slightly in 1 infant. Chest imaging was performed in 2 infants, showing mild focal exudative changes. Nucleic acid turned negative (Ct value ≥35) within 7-15 days after diagnosis. All neonates fully recovered after supportive treatment, and the length of hospitalization was 13 (10, 14) days. In the telephone follow-up 2 weeks after discharge for all 16 cases, no infant showed reoccurrence of clinical manifestations or nucleic acid reactivation. Maternal vaccination was not significantly correlated with symptomatic infection or the persistence of positive nucleic acid result in neonates (all P>0.05). Conclusions: Horizontal transmission is the primary mode for neonatal SARS-CoV-2 Omicron infection. Neonatal infections are usually mild or asymptomatic, with good short-term outcomes. And their clinical manifestations and laboratory examinations are nonspecific.