Disease X Testing: The results of an international external quality assessment exercise

The United Nations Secretary-General Mechanism (UNSGM) for investigation of the alleged use of chemical and biological weapons is the only established international mechanism of this type under the UN. The UNGSM may launch an international investigation, relying on a roster of expert consultants, qualified experts, and analytical laboratories nominated by the member states. Under the framework of the UNSGM, we organized an external quality assurance exercise for nominated laboratories, named the Disease X Test, to improve the ability to discover and identify new pathogens that may cause possible epidemics and to determine their animal origin. The "what-if" scenario was to identify the etiological agent responsible for an outbreak that has tested negative for many known pathogens, including viruses and bacteria. Three microbes were added to the samples, Dabie bandavirus, Mammarenavirus, and Gemella spp., of which the last two have not been taxonomically named or published. The animal samples were from Rattus norvegicus, Marmota himalayana, New Zealand white rabbit, and the tick Haemaphysalis longicornis. Of the 11 international laboratories that participated in this activity, six accurately identified pathogen X as a new Mammarenavirus, and five correctly identified the animal origin as R. norvegicus. These results showed that many laboratories under the UNSGM have the capacity and ability to identify a new virus during a possible international investigation of a suspected biological event. The technical details are discussed in this report.Copyright © 2022

Winter-autumn air pollution control plan in North China modified the PM2.5 compositions and sources in Central China

The additional impact of emission-reduction measures in North China (NC) during autumn and winter on the air quality of downwind regions is an interesting but less addressed topic. The mass concentrations of routine air pollutants, the chemical compositions, and sources of fine particles (PM2.5) for January 2018, 2019, and 2020 at a megacity of Central China were identified, and meteorology-isolated by a machine-learning technique. Their variations were classified according to air mass direction. An unexpectedly sharp increase in emission-related PM2.5 by 22.7% (18.0 mug m-3) and 25.7% (19.4 mug m-3) for air masses from local and NC in 2019 was observed compared to those of 2018. Organic materials exhibited the highest increase in PM2.5 compositions by 6.90 mug m-3 and 6.23 mug m-3 for the air masses from local and NC. PM2.5 source contributions related to emission showed an upsurge from 1.39 mug m-3 (biomass burning) to 24.9 mug m-3 (secondary inorganic aerosol) in 2019 except for industrial processes, while all reduced in 2020. From 2018 to 2020, the emission-related contribution of coal combustion to PM2.5 increased from 10.0% to 19.0% for air masses from the local area. To support the priority natural gas quotas in northern China, additional coal in cities of southern China was consumed, raising related emissions from transportation activities and road dust in urban regions, as well as additional biofuel consumption in suburban or rural regions. All these activities could explain the increased primary PM2.5 and related precursor NO2. This study gave substantial evidence of air pollution control measures impacting the downwind regions and promote the necessity of air pollution joint control across the administration.Copyright © 2023 Elsevier Ltd

Fake news in a time of plague: Exploring individuals' online information management in the COVID-19 era

Online health information is critical during pandemics. Previous research has focused on examining antecedents or consequences of particular information behaviors (e.g., seeking, sharing), but the process by which one information behavior influences or transforms into other information behaviors remains poorly understood. Guided by theories of information behavior and the literature on online misinformation, this study proposes an interaction model of online information behaviors that theorizes relationships among online information scanning, misinformation exposure, misinformation elaboration, information sharing, and information avoidance. Conducting a two-wave representative panel survey in Hong Kong during the COVID-19 pandemic (N = 1501), we found that online information scanning at Wave 1 had a direct, positive impact on misinformation exposure and information sharing at Wave 2, while it did not have an impact on information avoidance at Wave 2. Additionally, misinformation exposure was positively related to both information sharing and information avoidance at Wave 2. Importantly, we underlined that evaluations of crisis-related misinformation are aided by misinformation elaboration, which plays a moderating role in catalyzing appropriate information behaviors. Results of this study could help scholars and practitioners propose evidence-based interventions for enhancing the public's ability to manage crisis information on the Internet in times of heightened uncertainty. © 2023 Elsevier Ltd

Enhanced Learning and Forgetting Behavior for Contextual Knowledge Tracing

Knowledge tracing (KT) is based on modeling students' behavior sequences to obtain students' knowledge state and predict students' future performance. The KT task aims to model students' knowledge state in real-time according to their historical learning behavior, so as to predict their future learning performance. Online education has become more critical in recent years due to the impact of COVID-19, and KT has also attracted much attention due to its importance in the education field. However, previous KT models generally have the following three problems. Firstly, students' learning and forgetting behaviors affect their knowledge state, and past KT models have yet to exploit this fully. Secondly, the input of traditional KT models is mainly limited to students' exercise sequence and answers. In the learning process, students' answering performance can reflect their knowledge level. Finally, the context of students' learning sequence also affects their judgment of the knowledge state. In this paper, we combined educational psychology theories to propose enhanced learning and forgetting behavior for contextual knowledge tracing (LFEKT). LFEKT enriches the features of exercises by introducing difficulty information and considers the influence of students' answering behavior on the knowledge state. In order to model students' learning and forgetting behavior, LFEKT integrates multiple influencing factors to build a knowledge acquisition module and a knowledge retention module. Furthermore, LFEKT introduces a long short-term memory (LSTM) network to capture the contextual relations of learned sequences. From the experimental results, it can be seen that LFEKT had better prediction performance than existing models on four public datasets, which indicates that LFEKT can better trace students' knowledge state and has better prediction performance. © 2023 by the authors.

Emergency surgical strategies for patients with acute abdomen during the COVID-19 outbreak.

Objective: To investigate the emergency surgical strategies for patients with acute abdomen during the Corona Virus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) outbreak. Method(s): The retrospective and descriptive study was conducted. The clinical data of 20 patients with acute abdomen who were admitted to the Union Hospital Affiliated to Tongji Medical College of Huazhong University of Science and Technology between January 18, 2020 and February 10, 2020 were collected. There were 13 males and 7 females, aged from 25 to 82 years, with an average age of 57 years. All the patients with emergency surgeries received pulmonary computed tomography (CT) examination before surgery, and completed nucleic acid detection in throat swab if necessary. Patients excluded from COVID-19 underwent regular anesthesia, suspected and confirmed cases were selected a proper anesthesia based on their medical condition and surgical procedure. Patients excluded from COVID-19 underwent emergency surgeries following the regular procedure, suspected and confirmed cases underwent emergency surgeries following the three-grade protection. Observation indicators: (1) surgical situations;(2) postoperative situations. Measurement data with normal distribution were represented as average (range). Count data were described as absolute numbers. Result(s): (1) Surgical situations: of the 20 patients with acute abdomen, 16 patients were excluded from COVID-19, and 4 were not excluded. All the 20 patients underwent emergency abdominal surgeries successfully, of whom 2 received surgeries under epidural anesthesia (including 1 with open appendectomy, 1 with open repair of duodenal bulbar perforation), 18 received surgeries under general anesthesia (including 9 with laparoscopic repair of duodenal bulbar perforation, 3 with open partial enterectomy, 3 with laparoscopic appendectomy, 1 with laparoscopic left hemicolectomy, 1 with laparoscopic right hemicolectomy, 1 with cholecystostomy). The operation time of patients was 32-194 minutes, with an average time of 85 minutes. The volume of intraoperative blood loss was 50-400 mL, with an average volume of 68 mL. (2) Postoperative situations: 16 patients excluded from COVID-19 preopratively were treated in the private general ward postoperatively. One of the 16 patients had fever at the postoperative 5th day and was highly suspected of COVID-19 after an emergency follow-up of pulmonary CT showing multiple ground-glass changes in the lungs. The patient was promptly transferred to the isolation ward for treatment, and results of nucleic acid detection in throat swab showed double positive. Medical history described by the patient showed that the patient and family members were residents of Wuhan who were not isolated at home during the epidemic. There was no way to confirm whether they had a history of exposure to patients with COVID-19. Medical staffs involved in this case did not show COVID-19 related symptoms during 14 days of medical observation. The other 15 patients recovered well postoperatively. The 4 patients who were not excluded from COVID-19 preoperatively based on medical history and results of pulmonary CT examination were directly transferred to the isolation ward for treatment postoperatively. They were excluded from COVID-19 for two consecutive negative results of nucleic acid detection in the throat swab and recovered well. Two of the 20 patients with acute abdomen had postoperative complications. One had surgical incision infection and recovered after secondary closure following opening incision, sterilizing and dressing, the other one had intestinal leakage and was improved after conservative treatment by abdominal drainage. There was no death in the 20 patients with acute abdomen. Conclusion(s): Patients with acute abdomen need to be screened through emergency forward. Patients excluded from COVID-19 undergo emergency surgeries following the regular procedure, and patients not excluded from COVID-19 undergo emergency surgeries following the three-grade protection. The temperature, blood routine test and other l boratory examinations are performed to monitor patients after operation, and the pulmonary CT and throat nucleic acid tests should be conducted if necessary. Patients excluded from COVID-19 preopratively are treated in the private general ward postoperatively, and they should be promptly transferred to the isolation ward for treatment after being confirmed. Patients who are not excluded from COVID-19 preoperatively based on medical history should be directly transferred to the isolation ward for treatment postoperatively.Copyright © 2020 by the Chinese Medical Association.

Emergency surgical strategies for patients with acute abdomen during the COVID-19 outbreak.

Objective: To investigate the emergency surgical strategies for patients with acute abdomen during the Corona Virus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) outbreak. Method(s): The retrospective and descriptive study was conducted. The clinical data of 20 patients with acute abdomen who were admitted to the Union Hospital Affiliated to Tongji Medical College of Huazhong University of Science and Technology between January 18, 2020 and February 10, 2020 were collected. There were 13 males and 7 females, aged from 25 to 82 years, with an average age of 57 years. All the patients with emergency surgeries received pulmonary computed tomography (CT) examination before surgery, and completed nucleic acid detection in throat swab if necessary. Patients excluded from COVID-19 underwent regular anesthesia, suspected and confirmed cases were selected a proper anesthesia based on their medical condition and surgical procedure. Patients excluded from COVID-19 underwent emergency surgeries following the regular procedure, suspected and confirmed cases underwent emergency surgeries following the three-grade protection. Observation indicators: (1) surgical situations;(2) postoperative situations. Measurement data with normal distribution were represented as average (range). Count data were described as absolute numbers. Result(s): (1) Surgical situations: of the 20 patients with acute abdomen, 16 patients were excluded from COVID-19, and 4 were not excluded. All the 20 patients underwent emergency abdominal surgeries successfully, of whom 2 received surgeries under epidural anesthesia (including 1 with open appendectomy, 1 with open repair of duodenal bulbar perforation), 18 received surgeries under general anesthesia (including 9 with laparoscopic repair of duodenal bulbar perforation, 3 with open partial enterectomy, 3 with laparoscopic appendectomy, 1 with laparoscopic left hemicolectomy, 1 with laparoscopic right hemicolectomy, 1 with cholecystostomy). The operation time of patients was 32-194 minutes, with an average time of 85 minutes. The volume of intraoperative blood loss was 50-400 mL, with an average volume of 68 mL. (2) Postoperative situations: 16 patients excluded from COVID-19 preopratively were treated in the private general ward postoperatively. One of the 16 patients had fever at the postoperative 5th day and was highly suspected of COVID-19 after an emergency follow-up of pulmonary CT showing multiple ground-glass changes in the lungs. The patient was promptly transferred to the isolation ward for treatment, and results of nucleic acid detection in throat swab showed double positive. Medical history described by the patient showed that the patient and family members were residents of Wuhan who were not isolated at home during the epidemic. There was no way to confirm whether they had a history of exposure to patients with COVID-19. Medical staffs involved in this case did not show COVID-19 related symptoms during 14 days of medical observation. The other 15 patients recovered well postoperatively. The 4 patients who were not excluded from COVID-19 preoperatively based on medical history and results of pulmonary CT examination were directly transferred to the isolation ward for treatment postoperatively. They were excluded from COVID-19 for two consecutive negative results of nucleic acid detection in the throat swab and recovered well. Two of the 20 patients with acute abdomen had postoperative complications. One had surgical incision infection and recovered after secondary closure following opening incision, sterilizing and dressing, the other one had intestinal leakage and was improved after conservative treatment by abdominal drainage. There was no death in the 20 patients with acute abdomen. Conclusion(s): Patients with acute abdomen need to be screened through emergency forward. Patients excluded from COVID-19 undergo emergency surgeries following the regular procedure, and patients not excluded from COVID-19 undergo emergency surgeries following the three-grade protection. The temperature, blood routine test and other l boratory examinations are performed to monitor patients after operation, and the pulmonary CT and throat nucleic acid tests should be conducted if necessary. Patients excluded from COVID-19 preopratively are treated in the private general ward postoperatively, and they should be promptly transferred to the isolation ward for treatment after being confirmed. Patients who are not excluded from COVID-19 preoperatively based on medical history should be directly transferred to the isolation ward for treatment postoperatively.Copyright © 2020 by the Chinese Medical Association.

Feature Adaptation Predictive Coding for Quantized Block Compressive Sensing of COVID-19 X-Ray Images

With the development of remote X-ray detection for Corona Virus Disease 2019 (COVID-19), the quantized block compressive sensing technology plays an important role when remotely acquiring the chest X-ray images of COVID-19 infected people and significantly promoting the portable telemedicine imaging applications. In order to improve the encoding performance of quantized block compressive sensing, a feature adaptation predictive coding (FAPC) method is proposed for the remote transmission of COVID-19 X-ray images. The proposed FAPC method can adaptively calculate the block-wise prediction coefficients according to the main features of COVID-19 X-ray images, and thus provide the optimal prediction candidate from the feature-guided candidate set. The proposed method can implement the high-efficiency encoding of X-ray images, and then swiftly transmit the telemedicine-oriented chest images. The experimental results show that compared with the state-of-the-art predictive coding methods, both rate-distortion and complexity performance of our FAPC method have enough competitive advantages. © 2023, The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd.

Typical es of COVID-19 Pneumonia in Adult

Medical History and Clinical Manifestation © Henan Science and Technology Press 2020.

A grid management system for COVID-19 antigen detection based on image recognition

Objective: To develop a SARS-CoV-2 antigen detection management system for Chinese residents under community grid management, which is supported by "health information technology" and "neural network image recognition", so as to give full play to the advantages of "grid management". This system is applied to the normalized prevention and control of COVID-19 epidemic. Method(s): The model of image recognition algorithm was built based on deep learning and convolution neural network (CNN) artificial intelligence algorithm. The improved Canny edge detection algorithm was used to monitor and locate the image edge, and then the image segmentation and judgment value calculation were completed according to projection method. The system construction was completed combing with the grid number design. Result(s): The proposed method had been tested and showed the accuracy of the algorithm. With a certain robustness, the algorithm error was proved to be small. Based on the image recognition algorithm model, the development of SARS-CoV-2 antigen detection management system covering user login, paper-strip test image upload, paper-strip test management, grid management, grid warning and regional traffic management was completed. Conclusion(s): Antigen detection is an important supplementary means of COVID-19 epidemic prevention and control in the new stage. The SARS-CoV-2 antigen detection management system for Chinese residents under community grid managemen based on image recognition enables mobile communication devices to recognize the image of SARS-CoV-2 antigen detection results, which is helpful to form a grid management mode for the epidemic and improve the management framework of epidemic monitoring, detection, early warning and prevention and control.Copyright © 2023 The Authors

A New Artificial Intelligence-Based Hierarchical K-Means Clustering Technique to Detect Addictive Twitter Activity

To stop the COVID-19 epidemic from spreading among their populations, several countries have implemented lockdowns. Students are being forced to stay at home during these lockdowns, which is causing them to use mobile phones, social media, and other digital technologies more frequently than ever. Their poor utilization of these digital tools may be detrimental to their emotional and mental health. In this study, we implement an Artificial Intelligence (AI) approach named Hierarchy-based K-Means Clustering (HKMC) algorithm to group individuals with comparable Twitter consumption habits to detect addictive Twitter activity during the epidemic. The effectiveness of the suggested HKMC is evaluated in terms of accuracy, precision, recall, and f1-score in respect to the association between students' mental health and mobile phone dependency. Additionally, this study offers a comparative examination of both the suggested and existing procedures. © 2022 The authors.

Research Progress and Implication of Wastewater Surveillance of SARS-CoV-2

Since the outbreak of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) has been found in wastewater frequently worldwide. Based on the wastewater-based epidemiology (WBE), wastewater surveillance of SARS-CoV-2 can complement population surveillance for COVID-19. Quantification of viral load and genome sequencing of SARS-CoV-2 can help early warning of COVID-19 outbreaks, early identification of asymptomatic cases, assessment of infection scale, prediction of pandemic trend status, and identification of virus sources to provide scientific basis for polices for the prevention and control. Accordingly, here, the sources of SARS-CoV-2 in wastewater at home and abroad and the major factors affecting the survival of virus were reviewed. Common methods to concentrate, detect and quantify SARS-CoV-2 were reviewed, with an overview of global surveillance projects, progresses, and remaining scientific issues. Some shortcomings of the current procedures, including the lack of sufficient information on distribution characteristics and infectivity of SARS-CoV-2 in wastewater and limited development and application of prediction models were also discussed. WBE can provide insight into the scientific prevention and control of COVID-19 in the face of current or future pandemics in China, and enhance China′s ability to deal with the surveillance and early warning, epidemic scale assessment, and accurate policy-making for the infectious and non-infectious diseases. © 2022 Editorial Board, Research of Environmental Sciences. All rights reserved.

‘The pandemic helped me!' Queer international students' identity negotiation with family on social media in immobile times

This article examines queer international students' negotiation of sexuality and family ties maintenance during the Covid-19 pandemic. In considering the transitions in queer identity making, I highlight the complexity of coming out to parents. The performative dimension of social media allows queer international students to curate selective presentations and connect with their families digitally in immobile times. However, the technological affordance of social media is porous and productive, triggering the possibility of leakage and accidental outings but enabling negotiation afterwards. Drawing on two rounds of in-depth and social media scroll-back interviews with 20 Chinese queer female international students in Australia in 2021, this article identifies the social roles of social media in managing ties between queer international students and their overseas parents (shielding, leakage, and routing). It also complicates the extant implications of pandemic immobility in a specific context of queer transitions.

Systems immunology profiling of treatment-naive children with multisystem inflammatory syndrome

Background. Multisystem inflammatory syndrome in children (MIS-C) is a severe post-infectious complication occurring weeks after SARS-CoV-2 infection. The exact mechanisms leading to immune dysregulation and organ damage remain incompletely understood. Progress in understanding the immunopathology underlying MIS-C has been halted by limited availability of pre-treatment patient samples and confounding effects of immunomodulatory treatment on previously studied specimens. Methods. In this study, we have restricted enrollment to treatment-naive patients with MIS-C and used a systems biology approach combining CyTOF, single cell transcriptomics, serum cytokine profiling and T cell receptor sequencing to dissect how immune responses in children with MIS-C differ from children with mild SARS-CoV2 infection, adults with severe COVID-19 and healthy individuals. We also integrated single cell transcriptomics datasets from post-treatment MIS-C samples to study how immune responses change along disease course. Results. We identified increased activation markers and antigen presentation across multiple immune cell types in MIS-C patients from both CyTOF and single cell transcriptomics data. Importantly, in PBMCs of MIS-C patients, we identified a distinct subset of proinflammatory monocytes, with increased expression of interferon gamma response genes combined with a signature of enhanced complement expression, antigen processing and presentation, which was not observed in post-treatment MIS-C samples. Interestingly, this monocyte population bears resemblance to a subset of monocytes that emerges after the BNT162b2 mRNA vaccine booster. In addition, in PBMCs of MIS-C patients, we identify increased proportion of proliferating T/NK cells, suggesting distinct T cell expansions in MIS-C. T and NK cells in MIS-C samples also showed increased cell cytotoxicity markers. Conclusion. Taken together, treatment-naive MIS-C samples display distinct monocyte clusters, activated antigen presentation and complement expression, and increased T and NK cell cytotoxicity, which may account for the clinical presentation of MIS-C.

Examining the Interplay between Social Media Usage, Happiness, and Academic Performance with Data Science

There are numerous separate studies between social media usage and happiness, or social media and academic performance. However, the triangular relationship hasn't been thoroughly scrutinized. We set out our study wondering about the deep logic behind this interplay and its lessons on helping people make better decisions. We used correlation, linear regression, cosine similarity, random forest prediction, and aided visualization to analyze the data set collected. A strong association was found but the exact model of the trigonal relationship remained a mystery. COVID impacts people's happiness and GPA were also studied. © 2022 IEEE.

Dynamic spillovers and asymmetric connectedness between fossil energy and green financial markets: Evidence from China

With the purpose of risk management for fossil energy investors, this paper examines the dynamic spillover effect and asymmetric connectedness between fossil energy, green financial and major traditional financial markets in China. By employing the spillover index model of Diebold and Yilmaz, a weak correlation between green financial and fossil energy markets is verified, and the market connectedness remains relatively calm despite the COVID-19 pandemic outbreak. Specifically, green bonds receives fewer shocks from crude oil than coal, green stocks receive fewer shocks from coal than crude oil. In addition, rather than the safe-haven characteristics presented by gold, this paper further proves that green bonds also have the potential to act as safe-haven assets, due to the fact that the connectedness between green bonds and energy markets is at low levels. Finally, the magnitude of return spillovers between markets would vary significantly during different periods. The results obtained in this paper have practical implications for both investors and policymakers. Copyright © 2022 Deng, Guan, Zheng, Xing and Liu.

Meta Analysis of the Efficacy and Safety of Rennin-angiotensin-aldosterone System Iinhibitors in Patients with COVID-19 Associated with Hypertension

Background The spreading epidemic of novel coronavirus (corona virus disease 2019, COVID-19) pneumonia poses a serious challenge to global life health and disease control, with significantly higher mortality rates among individuals infected with COVID-19 comorbid underlying disease. Inhibitors of the rennin-angiotensin-aldosterone system (RAASi), an important class of anti-hypertensive drugs, have been found to increase the morbidity and mortality of COVID-19. This study aimed to clarify the efficacy and safety of RAASi treatment in COVID-19 patients with hypertension. Objective To systematically evaluate the efficacy and safety of RAASi therapy in COVID-19 patients with hypertension. Methods PubMed, Embase, Cochrane Library and China National Knowledge Infrastructure (CNKI) were searched from inception to January 2022. A publicly available case-control studies of COVID-19 patients with hypertension treated with RAASi versus non RAASi therapy were included, and outcome measures were overall mortality, incidence of critical illness, incidence of acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS), incidence of myocardial injury, and incidence of renal injury, with meta-analysis performed using Revman 5.3. Results Seventeen studies with a total of 5 689 patients were included, of whom 2 168 received RAASi therapy and 3 521 did not. Meta analysis showed that overall mortality was lower in COVID-19 comorbid hypertensive patients treated with RAASi compared with non RAASi treated patients 〔OR=0.54, 95%CI (0.41, 0.72), P<0.000 1〕;Between RAASi treated and non RAASi treated COVID-19 patients associated with hypertension, the incidence of critical illness 〔OR=0. 92, 95%CI (0.79, 1.08), P=0.30〕, the incidence of ARDS 〔OR=0.81, 95%CI (0.57, 1.13, P=0.22〕, the incidence of myocardial injury 〔OR=1.03, 95%CI (0.83, 1.27), P=0.82〕, and the incidence of kidney injury 〔OR=1.13, 95%CI (0.78, 1.66), P=0.52〕, differences were not statistically significant. Conclusion Treatment with RAASi in COVID-19 patients with hypertension reduced the overall mortality rate, and did not increase the incidence of critical illness, ARDS, myocardial injury, and renal injury in COVID-19 patients with hypertension. RAASi therapy is effective and safe in treating patients with COVID-19 combined with hypertension. © 2022 Chinese General Practice. All rights reserved.