ABSTRACT
During the study of epidemics, one of the most significant and also challenging problems is to forecast the future trends, on which all follow-up actions of individuals and governments heavily rely. However, to pick out a reliable predictable model/method is far from simple, a rational evaluation of various possible choices is eagerly needed, especially under the severe threat of COVID-19 epidemics which is spreading world-wide right now. In this paper, based on the public COVID-19 data of seven provinces/cities in China reported during the spring of 2020, we make a systematical investigation on the forecast ability of eight widely used empirical functions, four statistical inference methods and five dynamical models widely used in the literature. We highlight the significance of a well balance between model complexity and accuracy, over-fitting and under-fitting, as well as model robustness and sensitivity. We further introduce the Akaike information criterion, root mean square errors and robustness index to quantify these three golden means and to evaluate various epidemic models/methods. Through extensive simulations, we find that the inflection point plays a crucial role in the choice of the size of dataset in forecasting. Before the inflection point, no model considered here could make a reliable prediction. We further notice the Logistic function steadily underestimate the final epidemic size, while the Gomertzs function makes an overestimation in all cases. Since the methods of sequential Bayesian and time-dependent reproduction number take the non-constant nature of the effective reproduction number with the progression of epidemics into consideration, we suggest to employ them especially in the late stage of an epidemic. The transition-like behavior of exponential growth method from underestimation to overestimation with respect to the inflection point might be useful for constructing a more reliable forecast. Towards the dynamical models based on ODEs, it is observed that the SEIR-QD and SEIR-PO models generally show a better performance than SIR, SEIR and SEIR-AHQ models on the COVID-19 epidemics, whose success could be attributed to the inclusion of self-protection and quarantine, and a proper trade-off between model complexity and fitting accuracy.
ABSTRACT
The outbreak of novel coronavirus-caused pneumonia (COVID-19) in Wuhan has attracted worldwide attention. Here, we propose a generalized SEIR model to analyze this epidemic. Based on the public data of National Health Commission of China from Jan. 20th to Feb. 9th, 2020, we reliably estimate key epidemic parameters and make predictions on the inflection point and possible ending time for 5 different regions. According to optimistic estimation, the epidemics in Beijing and Shanghai will end soon within two weeks, while for most part of China, including the majority of cities in Hubei province, the success of anti-epidemic will be no later than the middle of March. The situation in Wuhan is still very severe, at least based on public data until Feb. 15th. We expect it will end up at the beginning of April. Moreover, by inverse inference, we find the outbreak of COVID-19 in Mainland, Hubei province and Wuhan all can be dated back to the end of December 2019, and the doubling time is around two days at the early stage.
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OBJECTIVE:To explore the preventive effect and safety of levetiracetam combined with sodium valproate of diaze-pam on recurrent febrile seizures(FS). METHODS:A total of 90 children with recurrent FS were randomly divided into observa-tion group and control group with 45 cases in each group. Control group was treated with sodium valproate or diazepam orally. On the basis of control group,observation group additionally received levetiracetam orally,with initial dose of 15 mg/kg,bid,for 7 d,and then decreasing gradually;decreasing to 10 mg/kg on 8th-12th day,bid;decreasing to 5 mg/kg on 13th-15th day,bid;drug withdrawal on 16th day. The children of 2 groups were followed up for 1 years,and received routine test every 2 months. The times of fever,the rate of recurrent convulsion,the conversion of epilepsia and the incidence of ADR were recorded in 2 groups during follow-up period. The serum levels of NSE and S-100β protein were determined in 2 groups before treatment and 6 months after treatment. The intelligence and behavior ability of 2 groups were scored by Chinese Modified Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children and Children’s Adaptive Behavior Rating Scale. RESULTS:3 children of observation group and 2 of control group were failure in follow-up. During the follow-up period,fever times and the rate of recurrent convulsion in observation group were signifi-cantly lower than in control group,with statistical significance(P0.05). After treatment,serum levels of NSE and S-100β in 2 groups were decreased significantly,and the observation group was significantly lower than the control group,with statistical signif-icance(P<0.05). To the end of follow-up,verbal IQ,performance IQ and total IQ score of observation group were significantly higher than those of control group,and the cognition factor,social factor and behavior ability scores of observation group were sig-nificantly higher than those of control group,with statistical significance (P<0.05). CONCLUSIONS:Levetiracetam combined with sodium valproate or diazepam can prevent the occurrence of recurrent FS,relieve cerebral injury and improve the intelligence and behavior ability of the children,so as to improve the life quality of Children.
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ObjectiveTo investigate the clinical efficacy of points Shenmai(BL62)and Zhaohai(KI6)in treating cervical vertigo. MethodSixty-eight patients meeting the diagnostic criteria were randomly allocated to treatment and controlgroups, 34 cases each. The treatment group received conventional acupuncture at heel vessel points Shenmai and Zhaohai plus cervical Huatuo jiaji points and the control group, conventional acupuncture at cervical Huatuo jiaji points alone. In the two groups, the vertigo symptom score was recorded, and the clinical therapeutic effects and pre-/post-treatment change in the score were observed.ResultThe total efficacy rate was 94.1% in the treatment group and 79.4% in the control group. The therapeutic effect was significantly better in the treatment group than in the control group (P<0.05). The vertigo symptom score decreased significantly in the two groups after the course of treatment compared with before (P<0.01). Vertigo improved significantly more inthe treatment group than in the control group (P<0.05).ConclusionAcupuncture at points Shenmai and Zhaohai is significantly effective by comparison with conventional acupuncture in clinicaltreatment of cervical vertigo.
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Echinops latifolius Tausch is a plant of compositae echinops, whose dried roots are used as traditional Chinese medicine Yuzhou Loulu, and dried inflorescence is used as Mongolian medicine LanCitou. The studies on Chinese medicine Yuzhou Loulu and Mongolian medicine LanCitou in recent years were systemized and compared with each other in the paper, including chemical composi-tion, process research, quality control, pharmacological effects and so on. The results can provide scientific basis for the further studies and utilization of Echinops latifolius Tausch.
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<p><b>OBJECTIVE</b>To investigate the expression of microRNA-128a (miR-128a) and its role in hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC).</p><p><b>METHODS</b>Nineteen pairs of fresh surgical specimens of HCC and adjacent tissues were examined for miR-128a expression using qRT-PCR. A miR-128a mimics or inhibitor was transfected into HCC cells, and the cell viability was analyzed by MTT assay. RND3, one of the potential targets of miR-128a, was predicted by bioinformatics software and demonstrated by dual luciferase reporter assay. The expression of RND3 after transfection was detected using qRT-PCR and Western blotting, and the cell cycle-related proteins were determined with Western blotting.</p><p><b>RESULTS</b>The expression of miR-128a were significantly up-regulated in HCC tissues as compared to the adjacent tissues (P<0.05). In cultured HCC cells, miR-128a promoted the cell proliferation and resulted in down-regulated RND3 mRNA and protein expressions by targeting RND3' 3'UTR (P<0.05) and also in the down-regulation of cyclin B1, cyclin D1 and CDK4 protein expressions.</p><p><b>CONCLUSION</b>miR-128a is up-regulated in HCC and promotes HCC cell proliferation by targeting RND3.</p>
Subject(s)
Humans , Carcinoma, Hepatocellular , Metabolism , Cell Proliferation , Cell Survival , Down-Regulation , Liver Neoplasms , Metabolism , MicroRNAs , Genetics , Metabolism , RNA, Messenger , Transcriptional Activation , Tumor Cells, Cultured , Up-Regulation , rho GTP-Binding Proteins , MetabolismABSTRACT
Background and purpose: Metastatic carcinoma and lymphoma are usually the causes of cervical malignant lymph nodes. This paper was aimed to investigate the different appearances of cervical malignant lymph nodes by 2 dimension and color doppler flow imaging (CDFI) and discuss the role of ultrasenography in diagnosing cervical malignant lymph nodes. Methods: Ninety-nine patients and 40 healthy people were selected as our subjects, among which 54 cases were diagnased as metastatic tumor and 45 cases as lymphoma according to pathology examination. With high frequency transducers, ultrasonography was used to document the shape of cervical lymph nodes, the ratio of long/short axis (L/S), types of echo and hilus of lymph node. CDFI features were also recorded and measured in order to analyze the parameters. Results: Compared with image of normal lymph nodes, the image of cervical malignant lymph nodes showed that the shape tended to be round and the ratio of L/S decreased. In addition, the majority of echo types of malignant lymph nodes was a low level echo and easily became fused. Meanwhile, the image of hilus of lymph node tended to disappear or shift. The lymph node of cases with metastatic tumor was shown to be either calcified or liquefied. The rate of blood flow in the artery was observed to be of high velocity and high resistive index (RI). Between metastatic tumor and lymphoma tumor case, there was significant difference in terms of ultrasonographic and CDFI features. All the above results showed that the features of malignant lymph nodes were significantly different from the normal ones. Conclusion: Ultrasonography could be regarded as one method of evaluating cervical malignant lymph nodes.
