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A novel localized surface plasmon resonance (LSPR) system based on the coupling of gold nanomushrooms (AuNMs) and gold nanoparticles (AuNPs) is developed to enable a significant plasmonic resonant shift. The AuNP size, surface chemistry, and concentration are characterized to maximize the LSPR effect. A 31 nm redshift is achieved when the AuNMs are saturated by the AuNPs. This giant redshift also increases the full width of the spectrum and is explained by the 3D finite-difference time-domain (FDTD) calculation. In addition, this LSPR substrate is packaged in a microfluidic cell and integrated with a CRISPR-Cas13a RNA detection assay for the detection of the SARS-CoV-2 RNA targets. Once activated by the target, the AuNPs are cleaved from linker probes and randomly deposited on the AuNM substrate, demonstrating a large redshift. The novel LSPR chip using AuNP as an indicator is simple, specific, isothermal, and label-free;and thus, provides a new opportunity to achieve the next generation multiplexing and sensitive molecular diagnostic system. © 2022 The Authors. Advanced Materials Interfaces published by Wiley-VCH GmbH.
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This poster presents preliminary findings from a study in progress, which indicate that a specially-designed mobile app can serve as a viable delivery system for a mindfulness-based stress reduction (MBSR) intervention for historically underserved and minority communities experiencing mental health effects of worry and stress during the COVID-19 pandemic. Our early data suggest that the app is well-received and usable for the target population and serves as an effective delivery platform for MBSR interventions for underserved and minority communities. © 2022 ACM.
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The outbreak of COVID-19 since the end of 2019 has led many people to work for home, reducing economic activity in many countries except online shopping, which is thriving during the pandemic. However, shopping is not take-and-go activity,as it needs references to help make the decision. Buying goods online is not as convenient as buying at physical stores where the customers can check the actual state of goods, obtain recommendations from the clerks or compare it with other similar goods. All these physical activities are persuasions. However, the main references for buying online are online third-party comments and brand image. People noticed the comments online, whether positive or negative about the product. Consumers write comments on the Internet according to their different impressions on the brands. Therefore, how the brand image and online comments affect persuasion is worthy of study. This pilot study thus takes the purchase of mobile phones as an example to explore the factors of people's evaluation of comments and brand image. The analytical results of exploratory factor analysis show that the questionnaire design is suitable. The formal study can take these research results as a reference. © 2021 ACM.
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Misinformation presented in different modalities about the COVID-19 pandemic has been prevalent. One approach to reducing the negative effects of misinformation is through corrective information. However, it is possible that people develop counter-attitude towards the corrective information and reaffirm their belief in misinformation, called the boomerang effect. Fewer studies examined how different modes of corrective information about COVID-19 may address the boomerang effect. With a 3-by-3 between-subject experiment design (n = 210), we first presented one of the three modalities of misinformation (text, image, video) to the participants, followed by one of the three modalities of corrective information (text, image, video) to examine the effect of the corrective information. The results showed that there was no boomerang effect after correction in all modalities, indicating that all corrective information successfully reduced participants' perceived credibility and potential action for misinformation. In the post-hoc analysis, the correction in the video mode worked best on text misinformation. Our results also suggested that image misinformation worked least effectively in terms of conveying misinformation. © 2022 Owner/Author.
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Background. Vaccination strategies that provide enhanced immunity against severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) variants are needed. We evaluated the safety and immunogenicity of a bivalent omicron containing vaccine, mRNA-1273.214 (50 mug), administered as a second booster dose in adult participants. Methods. In this ongoing phase 2/3 trial, 50 mug of the bivalent vaccine mRNA-1273.214 (25 mug each ancestral Wuhan-Hu-1 and omicron BA.1 spike mRNAs) or 50 mug of the authorized mRNA-1273 were administered as second boosters in adults who previously received a 2 dose (100 mug) primary series and a first booster (50 mug) dose of mRNA-1273 (>= 3 months prior). Primary objectives were safety and reactogenicity and immunogenicity 28 days post-booster dose. Results. In participants with no prior SARS-CoV-2 infection who received booster doses of mRNA-1273.214 (n=334) or mRNA-1273 (n=260), neutralizing antibody (nAb) geometric mean titers (GMTs [95% confidence interval (CI)]) against omicron BA.1 were 2372.4 (2070.6-2718.2) and 1473.5 (1270.8-1708.4), respectively. The model-based GMT ratio (GMR [97.5% CI]) of mRNA-1273.214 compared to mRNA-1273 was 1.75 (1.49-2.04), meeting the pre-specified superiority criterion against omicron BA.1. The pre-specified criterion for non-inferiority against the ancestral SARS-CoV-2 strain was also met. Additionally, mRNA-1273.214 elicited higher GMTs (727.4 [632.8-836.1]) than mRNA-1273 (492.1 [431.1-561.9]) against omicron subvariants BA.4/BA.5 [GMR (95% CI) 1.69 [1.51-1.90])]. Binding antibody responses against alpha, beta, gamma, delta, and omicron were numerically higher in the mRNA-1273.214 group compared to mRNA-1273. mRNA-1273.214 GMTs were consistently higher across age (18-< 65 and >= 65 years) and pre-booster SARS-CoV-2 infection subgroups (Figure). Safety and reactogenicity were similar for both vaccine groups. Conclusion. The bivalent omicron containing mRNA-1273.214 elicited superior nAb responses against omicron 28 days post-immunization compared to mRNA-1273 regardless of age and prior SARS-CoV-2 infection;no new safety concerns were identified. (Figure Presented).
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This article seeks to analyse how the aviation market is influenced by political policies. It begins by introducing the background of aviation regulation and the negotiations that have taken place between Taiwan and China over the past decades. It reviews what happened during the past decades, in particular the Cross-Strait Air Transport Agreement reached between Taiwan and China in January 2005. It also highlights the restricting factors of Cross-Strait aviation development and define the problems related to air freedoms. It goes on to measure the dependency degree that Taoyuan Airport relied on Chinese Airports in recent years. Finally, the impact on cross-strait aviation market due to Chinese political policies and the influence on air routes as a consequence of China military drills have been analysed. It concludes that the increased routes of direct flights have attracted Taiwanese passengers to transfer via Chinese airports to the US and Europe. However, the limitation of Chinese passengers to travel to Taiwan since 2019 and the spread of COVID-19 from 2020, destinations of Cross-Strait direct flights have reduced from sixty-one to four. The military drills in August 2022 also severely deteriorated the relation of the two sides. It seems that the development of the Cross-strait aviation market has gone back to the drawing board after fifteen years of success due to the current circumstances. From the case of Taiwan and China, the aviation market is indeed significantly influenced by the political policies. © 2022 Elsevier B.V.. All rights reserved.
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During the COVID-19 pandemic, online learning became a major alternative to college science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) courses in postsecondary education. Faculty members, although subject matter experts, often lack pedagogical knowledge and training on how to effectively teach new generations of students online, or incorporate appropriate technologies. Faculty teaching online courses needed a new guiding framework to balance domain goals and emerging technologies. We present grounded design for STEM courses to align domain goals and instructional methods and technologies while reflecting instructors' pedagogical beliefs and addressing cultural and pragmatic issues. It is critical to provide students with aligned STEM learning experience and engagement via defensible theories and research-evidenced pedagogy in online and blended courses while technological, cultural, and pragmatic considerations are also addressed. We suggest grounded design as the conceptual and design framework for designing online and blended courses and discuss the assumptions, approaches, and examples. We provide practical guidelines to apply grounded design to online and blended learning environments and suggest future research. This article can assist both novice and seasoned STEM faculty to connect theory and research to teaching practices and optimise their online and blended courses. Implications for practice • University STEM instructors can use grounded design framework for online, blended, and technology-enhanced teaching. • Instructors should begin the course design by aligning the domain goals with optimal psychological and pedagogical foundations. • When choosing technology to support online learning, instructors should align it with learning goals and needs of students, and consider cultural and pragmatic foundations. © Articles published in the Australasian Journal of Educational Technology (AJET) are available under Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial No Derivatives Licence (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0). Authors retain copyright in their work and grant AJET right of first publication under CC BY-NC-ND 4.0.
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The assessment of mental status is an important task in psychiatry. But the impact of the COVID-19 epidemic has reduced the number of face-to-face assessments with physicians, and thus making it difficult. In recent years, some studies have used EEG (electroencephalogram) to help assess depression or mental state. Users can thus further assess mental state through simple EEG measurement. Since the EEG measurement will obtain multiple frequency bands related to mental or emotion state, if only one frequency band is used to evaluate a specific emotion or mental state, it may be insufficient. Some studies have proposed an ensemble method of multiple frequency bands for emotion recognition. In this study, we will use ensemble multi-bands EEG frequency to do and assist mental state or depression assessment. Through the method of ensemble learning, we integrate the frequency bands which is mainly related to mental state to assist the evaluation of mental state. From the experimental results, we can find that this method has a good effect. © 2022 IEEE.
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This paper studies how the Covid-19 pandemic changed the operational risk profiles of the financial industry. We find that the textual risk disclosures in financial reports contain abundant information on operational risk. A text mining method is introduced to analyze changes in operational risk in an innovative way based on a massive textual data set of financial institutions’ textual risk disclosures, which aggregates senior managers’ risk perceptions of the whole financial industry. Based on 4624 financial reports released by 1330 financial institutions from 2017 to 2020, this empirical study finds that operational risk remained the most prominent major risk type after the outbreak of Covid-19, and that disclosures of operational risk increased by 5.19% compared with the samples from before the outbreak. The drivers of operational risk also changed, with significant increases in disclosure of litigation risk, transaction modes and product and service problems as a proportion of total disclosures. In addition, two emerging operational risk drivers identified during the pandemic are data safeguarding and goodwill impairment. Our findings could help financial institutions and regulators to identify and manage the critical drivers of operational risk during a future pandemic. © 2022 Infopro Digital Risk (IP) Limited.
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The Covid-19 pandemic hit the world hard. Ensnared by a large-scale emergency unprecedented in recent history, mobilization, the classic issue of emergency management, is under stress and test. Yet Taiwan stands out in its rather limited cases of infections despite its frequent contact with mainland China and high population density. Could its mobilization have made the difference? This article traces the steps and strategies that Taiwan took to implement a coordinated mobilization. Three strategies were highlighted: awareness mobilization by declaring emergency early on, resource mobilization by preemptively controlling, boldly incentivizing and surgically distributing resources, and agility mobilization via big data and technology to optimize the response system. © 2021 Center for Public Administration Research, Sun Yat-sen University.
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Conventional public transportation is an important part of public transportation, and it has always been the focus of urban transportation research to excavate the characteristics of public transportation and analyze residents' travel patterns. In 2020, the new crown epidemic broke out. The outbreak and continuation of the epidemic have caused shocks and challenges to conventional public transportation, and the characteristics of conventional public transportation have developed significantly. Taking Guangzhou as an example, this paper conducts bus IC card mining based on multi-source data fusion, and conducts research on the characteristics of changes in Guangzhou's regular bus travel rules under the influence of the new crown epidemic. Research shows that under the continuous influence of the epidemic, the scale of bus trips has dropped significantly, the attraction of conventional buses to commuter passengers has been weakened, special groups are important users of public transport, and the ride code has become the most important payment method. © 2022 SPIE.
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Introduction/Background Sarcoidosis is a T cell mediated systemic disease of unknown etiology that results in granulomatous inflammation and multiorgan dysfunction. Individuals with sarcoidosis have been shown to be at increased risk for infection arguing the importance of vaccination as a primary prevention strategy. However, current knowledge as to how individuals with sarcoidosis respond to vaccination is limited. Furthermore, proteomic and transcriptomic profiling post vaccination will offer integrated insight into the immune mechanisms that drive sarcoidosis disease. Objective(s) The objective of this study is to determine the quantitative antibody response to COVID-19 vaccination to correlate to the unique proteomic and transcriptomic profiles underlying the immune response. Methods With local institutional review board approval, a prospective case control study was conducted to compare the proteomic and transcriptomic profiles of subjects with and without sarcoidosis before and after vaccination with the BNT162b2 mRNA vaccine. Recruited subjects included individuals -18 years who received two doses of the vaccine at the University of Illinois (UIC). Sixteen subjects with biopsy proven sarcoidosis were recruited, six of whom were not on any treatment while 10 were on immunosuppressive therapy, while 23 age-gender matched healthy controls were recruited. Blood was sampled prior to each vaccine dose as well as one and seven days after vaccination. Anti-spike protein IgG titers and serum cytokine profiles were quantified with ELISA while bulk RNA sequencing was performed on peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMCs). Results Sarcoidosis subjects had significantly less antibody production after two doses of the BNT162b2 mRNA vaccine than controls (p-val 0.0040). A multivariate regression analysis indicated that a sarcoidosis diagnosis (p-val 0.026) was significantly and independently predictive with lower follow up antibody titers, which was more pronounced if subjects were on immunosuppressive therapy (p-val 0.00013). Differential gene expression will compare temporal individual variation after vaccination and identify group differences to identify transcriptomic pathways associated with the diminished antibody response. Weighted gene co-expression analysis will identify likely expressed genes to determine distinct profiles that may be predictive of sarcoidosis disease. Conclusion Subjects with sarcoidosis mount a decreased antibody response to the BNT162b2 mRNA COVID-19 vaccine supporting a dysregulated immune response inherent to sarcoidosis pathogenesis. Correlated transcriptomic and proteomic profiling offers a unique opportunity to comprehensively study the genes and pathways underlying the immune response to vaccination in sarcoidosis.
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Background: Cystic fibrosis (CF)-related diabetes (CFRD) is associated with decline in lung function and nutritional status. Cystic Fibrosis Foundation (CFF) guidelines recommend annual CFRD screening in patients starting at age 10. A review of our adult program data showed a decline in screening during 2020. We identified barriers, in addition to the COVID pandemic, that contributed to a decline in adherence. In July 2020, our clinic moved to a new location and began offering morning visits. After a quality improvement review, we began offering annual oral glucose tolerance testing (OGTT) within a routine clinic visit along with annual routine labs. Our objective was to use this multidisciplinary approach to increase OGTT screening to 50% within the first year of moving to our new location. Method(s): The CFF Patient Registry was used to compile a list of our nondiabetic patients overdue for annual OGTT. The list was reviewed during our multidisciplinary preclinic conference to identify patients who needed testing. Each patient was re-educated during clinic, and barriers to testing identified through patient interview and questionnaires. Common barriers to testing adherencewere length of testing time, time missed from work, COVID concerns, and needle phobia. The nurse and nurse coordinators made follow-up appointments, incorporating OGTT into next clinic appointment to increase adherence. Patients received phone call reminders for these appointments and the fasting criteria for testing. Result(s): CFF Registry Report data showed a decline in OGTT screening from 26% in 2019 to 21% in 2020.We identified 76 eligible patients who needed OGTT in 2021. Patient interviews were conducted during clinic visits and barriers identified. We offered routine clinic appointments in conjunction with lab appointments to increase screening adherence. We were able to capture seven patients in the first 6 months and 14 in the second 6 months, increasing our OGTT screening rate to 28%. Conclusion(s): Using a multimodal approach in a multidisciplinary team,we increased our OGTT annual screening rate by 7 percentage points. The ability to incorporate recommended screening into routine clinic visits supported adherence and patient satisfaction. Limitations to OGTT screening include continued COVID concerns and transportation to clinic.We plan to continue this quality improvement approach to increase adherence to 50% within this next year by continued consolidation of lab work and OGTT with visits and assisting patients with scheduling lab appointments and transportation to the clinic Copyright © 2022, European Cystic Fibrosis Society. All rights reserved
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Metformin is one of the commonly used hypoglycemic drugs in clinical practice. In addition to hypoglycemia, there are a variety of medical biological values that have been constantly discovered and attracted much attention. In recent years, studies have shown that metformin through activation of AMPK inhibition of sterols regulating element binding protein 1 (SREBP-1) reduce lipid synthesis, in the treatment of liver steatosis, improve insulin sensitivity, prevention Metformin is one of the commonly used hypoglycemic drugs in clinical practice. In addition to hypoglycemia, there are a variety of medical biological values that have been constantly discovered and attracted much attention. In recent years, studies have shown that metformin through activation of AMPK inhibition of sterols regulating element binding protein 1 (SREBP-1) reduce lipid synthesis, in the treatment of liver steatosis, improve insulin sensitivity, prevention of atherosclerosis and cardiovascular dysfunction, tumor, polycystic ovary syndrome and adjuvant therapy of COVID-19 aspects play a role. Therefore, this article reviews the possible mechanism and clinical application of metformin in regulating glucose and lipid metabolism by inhibiting SREBP-1 through activating AMPK. Copyright © 2022 Chinese Journal of Clinical Pharmacology and Therapeutics. All rights reserved.
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Respiratory sound classification is an important tool for remote screening of respiratory-related diseases such as pneumonia, asthma, and COVID-19. To facilitate the interpretability of classification results, especially ones based on deep learning, many explanation methods have been proposed using prototypes. However, existing explanation techniques often assume that the data is non-biased and the prediction results can be explained by a set of prototypical examples. In this work, we develop a unified example-based explanation method for selecting both representative data (prototypes) and outliers (criticisms). In particular, we propose a novel application of adversarial attacks to generate an explanation spectrum of data instances via an iterative fast gradient sign method. Such unified explanation can avoid over-generalisation and bias by allowing human experts to assess the model mistakes case by case. We performed a wide range of quantitative and qualitative evaluations to show that our approach generates effective and understandable explanation and is robust with many deep learning models. Copyright © 2022 ISCA.
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Currently, a number of wearable electronic devices available on the market can monitor potential hazards. However, previous research and development of these devices are too focused upon assorted functions rather than the actual performance of tracking danger, making this crucial function for humans waiting for improvement. Herein, we proposed integrating techniques of sensor data analysis and anomalous sound recognition and designing a safety and health system for wearable devices named Danger Tracker. The physiological data collected by the sensor will be sent to a server and eventually stored in a database. Data transmitted every three minutes will be sent immediately in case of an emergency health condition, after which alerts will be sent to users and their respective emergency contacts. Taking into consideration emergencies or threats to life are often accompanied by abnormal sounds, the microphone in a wearable device will, when trusted, collect audio information from the environment, including calls, moans, and threats that contain preset words. The device combines blood pressure and heart rate data in order to determine what the user encounters and will immediately notify the preset contact. Through the timely handling of emergencies, the system is able to ensure the safety of various groups of individuals. If the recipient of the health information is modified to a medical institution, timely feedback of abnormal conditions will significantly reduce the pressure of medical care and improve the overall efficiency of the hospitals during the current COVID-19 pandemic. © VDE VERLAG GMBH · Berlin · Offenbach.
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BACKGROUND: Women with COVID-19 experienced numerous concerns and doubts about the safety of breastfeeding their babies, and lack of support may have impacted breastfeeding practices. This study aims to compare breastfeeding beliefs, practices, and contact with healthcare professionals regarding the level of postnatal feeding support provided during the COVID-19 pandemic in Brazil, South Korea, Taiwan, Thailand, and the United Kingdom. METHODS: A multi-country cross-sectional study was conducted with postnatal women in five countries. Women up to six months postpartum were invited to complete an online survey concerning the transmission of preventative measures, beliefs toward breastfeeding, infant feeding practices in the last 24 hours and experiences of postnatal infant feeding support between July to November 2021. Bivariate and multivariate analyses were performed to identify the association. RESULTS: Of the 3,253 eligible responses received, 39.5% of children were aged between one and two months, but in Taiwan (36%) and South Korea (42.8%) they were between three and four months. The mean of the belief score was significantly different among countries (p < 0.0001). Women in Brazil and the UK had a higher rate of breastfeeding at the breast (90.7% and 85.4%, respectively) compared to the three Asian countries (p < 0.0001) while feeding with expressed breastmilk in Thailand (59.9%), Taiwan (52.6%), and South Korea (50.4%) was higher than the others (p < 0.0001). Brazil and UK mothers (mean = 16.0 and 14.5 respectively) had a higher mean score for belief toward breastfeeding during the COVID-19 than the others. These results are inversely associated with breastfeeding but positively related to formula feeding practice. Postnatal feeding support during the COVID-19 pandemic was mainly provided by healthcare professionals (67.1%) and peers / family through face-to-face personal contact (51.6%) in all countries. CONCLUSION: Some differences were found in breastfeeding beliefs during the COVID-19 pandemic in Asian countries. A positive breastfeeding belief was associated with the practice of breastfeeding at the breast. Women from all countries received postpartum infant feeding support from health professionals and peers / family through personal contacts. Governments need to emphasize and disseminate the importance of breastfeeding safety, especially in Asian countries.