Hot Spot Tracker: Detecting and Visualizing the Types of Spatiotemporal Hot Spots of COVID-19 in the United States

The high transmission rate of COVID-19 and the number of populations whose commute or recreational activities span across multiple counties/cities on a daily basis warrant serious attention to outbreaks in nearby areas beyond the administrative boundaries of counties/cities. We respond to these challenges by developing models using space-time cluster analysis to identify the hot spots and creating a dashboard that provides interactive visualizations of the results. The models use a Getis-Ord Gi statistic to identify clusters based on county-level daily confirmed cases, and Mann-Kendall tests combined with an adapted rule-based process to classify the type of the clusters. The space-time cluster analysis clearly displays the developing trends in the disease transmission patterns. The dashboard supports state- and county-level queries and expandable information. The dashboard displays the statistically tested spatiotemporal trends of COVID-19 breakout in concise and straightforward graphics. © 2023 Taylor and Francis Group, LLC.

Reliability and Lifetime of a Novel 222-nm KrCl Excilamp

Recent studies in the epidermis have shown that Far-UVC (200-230nm) is a promising candidate against Novel Coronavirus (SARS-Cov-2) with little DNA damage. Due to the consideration that conventional Far-UVC KrCl excilamps may emit 200-230 nm radiation (typically 222-nm peak wavelength) but with some harmful UV radiation beyond 230 to 280 nm, a novel design of Far-UVC KrCl excilamps with the filter and reflector is introduced to reduce the harmful UV radiation from 10.9% to 2.5% at the cost of 30%similar to 40% reduction in the total irradiance. In our study, the radiant characteristics and service life of the novel Far-UVC KrCl excilamps of 40 similar to 75 Watt (electrical power) with 222-nm peak wavelength were investigated. The service life was assessed under aging at the ambient temperatures (T-a) of 25 degrees C and 85 degrees C for 500 hours, respectively. The results showed that both the ambient temperature and the root mean square of current (I-rms) into the excilamps have a substantial effect on the lifetime of the KrCl excilamps. Furthermore, although no significant change of the off-nominal emission ratio existed during the lifetime test, it was observed that the high ambient temperature has a negative effect on the filtering of the harmful radiation.

Research on blended teaching reform based on computational thinking

The outbreak of COVID-19 has impacted traditional teaching methods in schools, and blended teaching in the post-pandemic has gradually become a hot topic of research in higher education. Computational thinking, as one of the core literacies to be acquired in the 21st century, can help students realize the importance of computers as well as enable them to solve specific problems more effectively when facing real-life situations. The article takes the C language programming course as an example, analyzes the problems faced in teaching in the post-pandemic, introduces the concept of computational thinking and integrates it into all aspects of blended teaching design, pays attention to students' individual differences, and proposes a blended teaching model based on computational thinking and puts it into practice. The results show that this teaching model can improve students' learning performance, exercise students' computational thinking skills, and promote blended teaching reform and students' personalized development. © 2022 IEEE.

Reliability and Lifetime of a Novel 222-nm KrCl Excilamp

Recent studies in the epidermis have shown that Far-UVC (200-230nm) is a promising candidate against Novel Coronavirus (SARS-Cov-2) with little DNA damage. Due to the consideration that conventional Far-UVC KrCl excilamps may emit 200-230 nm radiation (typically 222-nm peak wavelength) but with some harmful UV radiation beyond 230 to 280 nm, a novel design of Far-UVC KrCl excilamps with the filter and reflector is introduced to reduce the harmful UV radiation from 10.9% to 2.5% at the cost of 30%~40% reduction in the total irradiance. In our study, the radiant characteristics and service life of the novel Far-UVC KrCl excilamps of 40~75 Watt (electrical power) with 222-nm peak wavelength were investigated. The service life was assessed under aging at the ambient temperatures (Ta) of 25 and 85 for 500 hours, respectively. The results showed that both the ambient temperature and the root mean square of current (Irms) into the excilamps have a substantial effect on the lifetime of the KrCl excilamps. Furthermore, although no significant change of the off-nominal emission ratio existed during the lifetime test, it was observed that the high ambient temperature has a negative effect on the filtering of the harmful radiation. © 2023 IEEE.

Racial Disparities in the Quality of Life and Vaccination of Breast Cancer Survivors during COVID-19: A Longitudinal Study

Background: Older adults with pre-existing health conditions such as cancer are at higher risks of COVID-related morbidity and mortality. Moreover, the pandemic has triggered new sources of anxiety and stress impairing their quality of life (QoL), such as fear of infection, financial challenges, and social isolation. The goal of this study is to evaluate the changes in QoL of breast cancer patients and survivors during the pandemic and assess whether racial/ethnic minority patients were disproportionately affected. As the COVID-19 vaccines become available, another goal of the study is to examine the vaccination rate and symptoms after vaccination among patients of different racial/ethnic groups. Method(s): Two waves of surveys were sent out to the breast cancer patients registered in the Chicago Multiethnic Epidemiologic Breast Cancer Cohort (ChiMEC) via RedCap in the summers of 2020 and 2021 with response rates of > 48%. To measure anxiety and stress, we calculated an overall score (ranging from 0-44) using 11 questions on a 5-point Likert scale, with lower score representing better QoL. The questions were adopted from existing item banks, and the items showed good internal consistency (Cronbach's alpha = 0.84). The second survey also contained questions on vaccination status, concerns, and symptoms after vaccination. Result(s): In the first wave of survey in 2020, no significant racial differences were found in the anxiety/stress scores among the 1300 breast cancer patients. In the second wave of survey in 2021, 1348 patients responded, with 66% of them also respondents of the previous survey. Compared to 2020, the average anxiety/stress score in 2021 decreased from 13.2 to 12.2 for White patients, while increased from 12.8 to 13.6 for Black patients. Mixed effects models showed that the scores worsened significantly for Black patients while improved significantly for White patients. Compared to Whites, Black patients were significantly less confident to find medical help and keep up with work/home responsibilities, while significantly more likely to feel isolated and overwhelmed, and more frequently worried about being sick and going to hospitals. The racial differences in the anxiety/stress scores became insignificant after adjusting for annual household income in multivariate linear mixed effect models. In terms of Covid-19 vaccination, 92.2% of the respondents got vaccinated, with no significant racial/ethnic difference. However, there were more Black patients who had not decided yet or did not respond to this question (Table). The major concerns for patients were the long-term and short-term side effects of the vaccines. In terms of symptoms after vaccination, the most reported symptoms were pain at injection site (62.0%), tiredness (50.2%) and muscle or body aches (30.8%). Conclusion(s): Through a longitudinal study, we found that although the anxiety/stress scores of our patients remained moderate, White patients were having improved QoL while Black patients were doing worse. A third wave of survey is planned in the summer of 2022 to further examine this trend. In our study, the vaccination rates were very high among all racial/ethnic groups and the symptoms after vaccination were similar to the ones demonstrated in the general population. We hope that this information can proactively address some patients' concerns about getting vaccinated.

Simulation and theoretical study of AlGaN-based deep-ultraviolet light-emitting diodes with a stepped electron barrier layer

Owing to the COVID-19 outbreak, sterilization of deep-ultraviolet light-emitting diodes (DUV LEDs) has attracted increasing attention. Effectively improving the radiative recombination efficiency and mitigating the efficiency degradation, mainly caused by electron leakage and nonradiative recombination, have also emerged as two of the main issues to be addressed. In this study, a DUV LED epitaxial structure with a novel electron-blocking layer (EBL) is proposed. The DUV LED with a luminescence wavelength of similar to 297 nm was formed by the stepwise variation of the Al component. Through the simulation and analysis of its performance parameters, we found that, compared to the conventional EBL structure, this new EBL structure not only reduces the electron leakage to the p-region effectively but also increases the hole injection into the active region, resulting in an increase in carrier concentration in the active region, a two-to-three-fold increase in the radiative recombination rate, and a 58% increase in the internal quantum efficiency, thus alleviating the efficiency droop and achieving a more efficient operation at high current densities. (C) 2022 Author(s).

The Impact of Virtual Reality Toward Telemedicine: A Qualitative Study

Telemedicine is quickly becoming an essential asset in the healthcare industry today. After COVID, the combination of virtual reality (VR) technology and telemedicine is quickly becoming a safe and effective solution for patients. Despite the advantages of employing VR in medical education and treatment, various problems and limits lead to the technology’s ineffectiveness or misuse. As a result, addressing potential problems associated with VR could be beneficial in the strategic decision-making process for implementing and developing this technology in the healthcare industry. This research used case study method to identify current issues of VR technology adoption at a large US hospital system. The findings of this qualitative study explore potential concerns and limitations of current VR technology. Suggestions and insights are highlighted to benefit researchers and practitioners. © 2022, Springer Nature Switzerland AG.

Impact of Social Deprivation on Hospitalization and Intensive Care Unit Admission among COVID-19 Patients: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis

Background: The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has disproportionately affected socially disadvantaged groups;however, the association between socioeconomic status and healthcare utilization among COVID-19 patients remains unclear. Therefore, a systematic review and meta-analysis was conducted to assess the association between socioeconomic status and hospitalization and intensive care unit admission among COVID-19 patients.Methods: PubMed, Embase, and the Cochrane Register of Controlled Trials were searched for relevant litera-ture (updated to Jun 2022). Studies that investigated the association of social deprivation with hospitalization and intensive care unit admission in COVID-19 patients were included. The primary outcomes included risk of hospitalization and intensive care unit admission, measured by odds ratio.Results: Eleven studies covering 2,423,095 patients were included in the meta-analysis. Socially disadvantaged patients had higher odds of hospitalization in comparison to socially advantaged patients (odds ratio 1.25, 95% confidence interval: 1.14 to 1.38;P<0.01). The odds of intensive care unit admission among more deprived patients was not significantly different from that of less deprived patients (odds ratio 1.03, 95% confidence interval: 0.78 to 1.35;P=0.85). These findings were proven robust through subgroup and sensitivity analyses.Conclusion: Socially disadvantaged populations have higher odds of hospitalization if they become infected with COVID-19. More effective medical support and interventions for these vulnerable populations are re-quired to reduce inequity in healthcare utilization and alleviate the burden on healthcare systems.

COVID-19 localization and recognition on chest radiographs based on Yolov5 and EfficientNet

Chest radiographs clearly present the characteristics of lung lesions in patients with new coronary pneumonia, thus they can be leveraged to build a new coronary pneumonia detection model to provide doctors with favorable auxiliary diagnosis results. This paper proposes a COVID-19 localization and identification approach based on yolov5 and EfficientNet. Due to inherent reasons such as computational complexity and network structure, the features of a single model are usually limited in representation, and EfficientNet provides yolov5 with competitive feature expression through BiFPN and other advantages, and the ensemble of EfficientNet and yolov5 recognition results will significantly improve the performance of a single model. In order to evaluate the robustness of the approach proposed in this paper, we trained our network on COVID-19 Detection datasets from Kaggle platform. Evaluations and comparisons demonstrate that the ensemble approach achieves better performance on various scenes. © 2022 IEEE.

How Hybrid Learning Can Enhance the Student Experience and Teaching Outcomes in the Wake of COVID-19: A Case Study of a Business School in the United Kingdom

COVID-19 is reshaping the delivery of higher education on a global scale. With universities closing their campuses, online and remote learning has become a necessity. This article reports on the research findings on various initiatives taken by a business school in the United Kingdom to support hybrid learning. The initiatives were underpinned largely by a Community of Inquiry (CoI) framework to enhance student learning experiences and outcomes. Using a case study design, data was gathered from a variety of sources, including a university-wide survey, accounts of lecturers’ experiences, and the case school’s social media and other online sources. The significance of this study is that it explores specifically how to create a collaborative community of inquiry in a hybrid learning environment and articulates the major challenges of using the CoI framework to achieve positive learning experiences and outcomes in these challenging times. The findings suggest that communication, empowerment, and technology are the key enablers that drive and support the implementation of CoI’s three core elements: cognitive, social, and teaching presence. The findings also demonstrate that engagement, well-being, and technology issues are the biggest challenges for hybrid learning and CoI in the wake of COVID-19. These challenges go far beyond academic and pedagogical boundaries, and thus, warrant future investigation. © 2022, The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG.

Why Immigrant Entrepreneurs are More Prone to Exit than Non-immigrant Entrepreneurs?

Due to various cultural and social barriers, immigrant entrepreneurs are considered more vulnerable to external shocks than their non-immigrant counterparts. The COVID-19 pandemic has exacerbated the plight and pushed immigrant entrepreneurs into a more precarious situation. This study focuses on immigrant entrepreneurs as a unit of analysis and seeks to explain why and how immigrant entrepreneurs exit their businesses, how they perform differently from non-immigrant entrepreneurs, and what role culture might play in the entrepreneurial exit process. Drawing on a social psychology perspective, the Theory of Planned Behaviour, the concepts of self-construals and extant research, the study develops a research framework to facilitate the understanding of immigrant entrepreneurial exit. The study argues that immigrant entrepreneurs’ exit intention and behaviour are primarily determined by their exit attitude, subjective norms, and perceived behavioural control, whereas independent and interdependent self-construals that reflect one’s cultural orientations play an important moderation role between the three hypothetical determinants and exit intention. COVID-19 impact also plays an important role in influencing exit intentions. The study advances research on this largely underexplored area of immigrant entrepreneurial exit through mapping a research agenda for future research. The study also holds broader implications for public policy development, as discussed in the paper. © 2022, The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG.

The Consumer Deviation Index: A Method for Identifying Changing Behaviors and Market Opportunities

The increasing availability of behavioral data about consumers offers great promise for understanding their shifting preferences over time. This poses an important challenge for business practitioners - particularly entrepreneurs and investors - who wish to be the first to identify and satisfy consumers' unmet needs. Here, we introduce the Consumer Deviation Index (CDI) as a means of generating forecasts from historical time series data in order to isolate emerging behaviors that fall outside the realm of expectation. These deviations serve as leading indicators of market opportunities to fulfill pockets of "latent demand"before they fully manifest across a consumer population. We illustrate the application of this methodology to behavior change during the height of COVID-19 stay-at-home restrictions, and to the initial reopening of the U.S. economy post-pandemic. We discuss implications for optimizing product development and innovation to better serve consumers' ever-changing needs. © 2022 ACM.

Room-temperature-storable chemiluminescence freeze-drying mixes for detection of SARS-CoV-2 neutralizing antibody

As the vaccine was successfully developed, the spread of the epidemic (COVID-19) was effectively controlled. But there are still thousands of people affected COVID-19 after being vaccinated. Neutralizing activity has become a critical method for quantifying neutralizing antibody against SARS-CoV-2. However, limited to the strict conditions of cold chain transportation, the neutralizing activity test has not been widely promoted. In this study, a room-temperature-storable chemiluminescence freeze-drying mixes for SARS-CoV-2 neutralizing antibody detection was developed to decrease the cost of lyophilization step for promoting its application in third world countries. Several freeze concentrated solutions were used to protect the antigen bioactivity. The mixes can be stored at room temperature over 12 months and still exhibited great accuracy and precision. Thus, the proposed room-temperature-storable chemiluminescence freeze-drying mixes offers a cheap and stable storage method for SARS-CoV-2 neutralizing antibody detection and shows a great potential for promoting the neutralizing activity test.

Impact of COVID-19 on the livelihood capital of farmers in epidemic areas and its prevention: A case study of Hubei, Anhui, and Chongqing

COVID-19 epidemic has brought major risks to the livelihood development of farmers, and livelihood capital is the key to resist the impact of the epidemic and prevent the crisis of returning to poverty. The data for this study were collected in 2020, with Hubei Province, Anhui Province, and Chongqing Municipality as the research areas. This study analyzed the role of livelihood capital of 465 households in the epidemic areas to resist the risk of the epidemic. Based on the Sustainable Livelihood Analysis (SLA) framework, this study evaluated the livelihood capital of rural households after the epidemic from the multi-dimensional perspective of structure-stock. The study adopted the endogenous switching regression model, based on different risk levels and capital dimensions, to identify the core factors that hinder the restoration of rural households' livelihoods. It is expected to help formulate follow-up livelihood assistance policies for farmers, improve the emergency response system for rural emergencies, and provide a decision-making reference for the introduction of measures to prevent return to poverty due to the epidemic. The study found that: 1) The total livelihood capital of farmers in the key epidemic areas is not high. The epidemic may induce economic vulnerability, and the development of grassroots public healthcare is also very important. 2) Livelihood capital has a significant effect of resisting the risk of the epidemic. Human capital has a stronger effect, and an excessively high proportion of physical capital will weaken the ability to respond to the epidemic. 3) The distribution of rural households' livelihood capital structure and stock is uneven. Household labor, health input, wealth accumulation, living environment, social experience, and so on are the core elements. 4) The recovery of livelihoods after the epidemic mainly depends on the accumulation of human capital and financial capital. The key to helping farmers in the epidemic areas lies in emergency response and basic social security. Differentiated and normalized epidemic prevention and control measures should be formulated according to the livelihood characteristics of farmers in different regions. © 2021, Editorial office of PROGRESS IN GEOGRAPHY. All rights reserved.

Improve students’ learning experience in general chemistry laboratory courses

The current shift from a traditional classroom laboratory to a partial remote virtual lab is mainly due to COVID-19 pandemic. This pedagogical change is forcing academic institutions to rethink and redesign their lab courses. VR is promising technology to support this change. This study reviews current literature of the VR systems applied in higher education, clarifies some technical terms related to VR technology, and identifies the strengths and weaknesses of this technology. After a semi-interview with faculty members and students in the Chemistry department at a US university, we propose a new hybrid lab design with VR technology based on the literature review and interview results. © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021.

Strategies, methods and problems of online education in China during the epidemic

The 2019 new coronavirus disease (covid-19) epidemic has caused about 270 million school students in China to he unable to carry out normal education activities. On January 29, 2020, the Ministry of education of China formulated the online education response strategy of "Undisrupted Learning". During the epidemic period, China's online education has to face a very complex dilemma. On the one hand, there are common challenges encountered by other countries, such as whether the online education network guarantee for large-scale data access and transmission is reliable;the informatization of online education for teachers Ability to meet the requirements of online education. On the other hand, it also involves the unique problems of China, such as how to coordinate the local learning resources with the national education resources. This paper will analyze the online education strategy of" Undisrupted Learning" in 22 provinces, 5 autonomous regions and 4 municipalities directly under the central government except Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, Macao Special Administrative Region and Taiwan Province from the four aspects of media platform, learning tools, educational resources and learning methods of online education.

Research on blended learning mode based on network

In the face of the impact of covid-19 pandemic, how to conduct efficient teaching and learning based on the Internet is an important research topic. This paper proposes a blended learning model based on MOOC platform, live broadcast platform, experimental platform, WeChat and other tools. This blended learning process includes webcast teaching, online learning, online teaching, online practice, and self-study after class. This paper explains the process of the mixed teaching model, focusing on the learning process of pre-class, in-class, and after-class. This paper gives the learning effect of the blended teaching model. This model reflects the networked teaching and personalized teaching. The student's learning enthusiasm is improved and the grades are improved. This paper provides a good example of network-based hybrid learning and teaching mode. © 2020 ACM.

Evaluation of pulmonary ventilation in COVID-19 patients using oxygen-enhanced three-dimensional ultrashort echo time MRI: a preliminary study.

AIM: To evaluate the lung function of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) patients using oxygen-enhanced (OE) ultrashort echo time (UTE) MRI. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Forty-nine patients with COVID-19 were included in the study. The OE-MRI was based on a respiratory-gated three-dimensional (3D) radial UTE sequence. For each patient, the percent signal enhancement (PSE) map was calculated using the expression PSE = (S100% - S21%)/S21%, where S21% and S100% are signals acquired during room air and 100% oxygen inhalation, respectively. Agreement of lesion detectability between UTE-MRI and computed tomography (CT) was performed using the kappa test. The Mann-Whitney U-test was used to evaluate the difference in the mean PSE between mild-type COVID-19 and common-type COVID-19. Spearman's test was used to assess the relationship between lesion mean PSE and lesion size. Furthermore, the Mann-Whitney U-test was used to evaluate the difference in region of interest (ROI) mean PSE between normal pulmonary parenchyma and lesions. The Kruskal-Wallis test was applied to test the difference in the mean PSE between different lesion types. RESULTS: CT and UTE-MRI reached good agreement in lesion detectability. Ventilation measures in mild-type patients (5.3 ± 5.5%) were significantly different from those in common-type patients (3 ± 3.9%). Besides, there was no significant correlation between lesion mean PSE and lesion size. The mean PSE of COVID-19 lesions (3.2 ± 4.9%) was significantly lower than that of the pulmonary parenchyma (5.4 ± 3.9%). No significant difference was found among different lesion types. CONCLUSION: OE-UTE-MRI could serve as a promising method for the assessment of lung function or treatment management of COVID-19 patients.

Clinical features of children with SARS-CoV-2 infection: An analysis of 13 cases from Changsha, China

Objective: To study the clinical features of children with severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) infection. Methods: A retrospective analysis was performed for the clinical data of 13 children with SARS-CoV-2 infection who hospitalized in a Changsha hospital. Results: All 13 children had the disease onset due to family aggregation. Of the 13 children, 2 had no symptoms, and the other 11 children had the clinical manifestations of fever, cough, pharyngeal discomfort, abdominal pain, diarrhea, convulsions, or vomiting. As for clinical typing, 7 had mild type, 5 had common type, and 1 had severe type. The median duration of fever was 2 days in 6 children. All 13 children had normal levels of peripheral blood lymphocyte counts, immunoglobulins, CD4, CD8, and interleukin-6. The median time to clearance of SARS-CoV-2 was 13 days in the nasopharyngeal swabs of the 13 children. Three children presented false negatives for RT-PCR of SARS-CoV-2. SARS-CoV-2 RNA remained detectable in stools for 12 days after the nasopharyngeal swab test yielded a negative result. Abnormal CT findings were observed in 6 children. All 13 children were cured and discharged and they were normal at 2 weeks after discharge. Conclusions: Intra-family contact is the main transmission route of SARS-CoV-2 infection in children, and there is also a possibility of fecal-oral transmission. Mild and common types are the major clinical types in children with SARS-CoV-2 infection, and cytokine storm is not observed. Children with SARS-CoV-2 infection tend to have a good short-term prognosis, and follow-up is needed to observe their long-term prognosis. Multiple nucleic acid tests should be performed for patients with SARS-CoV-2 infection and their close contacts by multiple site sampling.