Prevalence of Depression and Anxiety Symptoms of High School Students in Shandong Province During the COVID-19 Epidemic

© Copyright © 2020 Zhang, Zhai, Yang, Zhang, Zhou, Yang, Duan and Zhou. Background: The coronavirus disease 2019 (covid-19) has brought physical risks as well as psychological challenges to the whole world. High school students are a special group suffering from both the academic pressure and the threat of the epidemic. The present study aims to conduct an online survey to investigate the psychological status of high school students in Shandong Province. Methods: Using a web-based cross-sectional survey, data was collected from 1,018 voluntary high school students assessed with demographic information, the Patient Health Questionnaire-9 (PHQ-9), the Generalized Anxiety Disorder-7 (GAD-7) and a self-designed online-study effect survey. Correlation analysis was performed to explore the relationships between depression symptoms, anxiety symptoms, and study effect. Result: The prevalence of depressive symptoms, anxiety symptoms, and a combination of depressive and anxiety symptoms was 52.4, 31.4, and 26.8%, respectively, among high school students in Shandong Province during the COVID-19 epidemic. And from moderate to severe severity level, the rates of depressive symptoms and anxious symptoms were 17.6 and 4.6%. Female students exhibited a higher rate and severity of mental symptoms than male, and grade one senior high school students got a higher rate and severity of mental symptoms than the other two grades. Nearly half of the students were not satisfied with their online-study effect. The PHQ-9 score had a strong positive correlation with the GAD-7 score. Both the PHQ-9 score the GAD-7 score had a negative correlation with the study-effect survey score. Conclusion: Quite a number of high school students suffered from depression and anxiety symptoms during the COVID-19 epidemic. Sufficient attentions should be paid, and necessary supports should be provided, to protect the mental health of this special group

Neural Mixed Platoon Controller Design

Vehicle platooning can be formulated as an optimal control problem and many solving paradigms, such as Pontryagin's maximum principle-based and dynamical programming methods, have been recently developed. However, these methods usually rely on solving a group of necessary conditions or Hamilton-Jacobi-Bellman (HJB) partial differential equations, which is hard to calculate. Besides, due to the heterogeneous dynamics of different vehicles in a mixed and complex platoon which comprises of not only connected autonomous vehicles (CAVs), but also human-driven vehicles (HDVs), it is also challenging to coordinate the behaviors of different vehicles in an unified control framework. Here we provide a Neural Mixed Platoon Control (NMPC) framework, a novel control design for mixed vehicle platooning based on a neural ordinary differential equation (NODE). We first formulate an optimal control model that incorporates the heterogeneous dynamics of a leading CAV and several following HDVs. We use a neural network to parameterize a state-feedback controller and join the neural controller and the mixed platooning dynamics into the NODE solver to create a closed-loop and learnable controlled system. The resulting system can learn optimal control inputs driving the mixed platoon to evolve from a given beginning condition to the target state within a finite duration in an unsupervised manner. Finally, simulation results validate our suggested method's usefulness in terms of space headway and velocity tracking

Diagnostic Significance of Serum IgG Galactosylation in CA19-9-Negative Pancreatic Carcinoma Patients

Background: Although Carbohydrate antigen 19-9 (CA19-9) is considered clinically useful and informative for pancreatic carcinoma (PC), false positive results, and false negative results have restricted its clinical use. Especially missed or delayed diagnosis of PC patients with negative CA19-9 value limited the utility. To improve prognosis of PC patients, the discovery of reliable biomarkers to assist CA19-9 is desired. Serum IgG galactosylation based on our previous report was altered in PC patients comparing to healthy controls. The objective of this study was to explore the diagnostic significance of IgG galactosylation in assisting CA19-9 for PC in a comprehensive way.Methods: Serum IgG galactosylation profiles were analyzed by MALDI-MS in cohort 1 (n = 252) and cohort 2 in which all CA19-9 levels were negative (n = 133). In each cohort, not only healthy controls and PC patients but also benign pancreatic disease (BPD) patients were enrolled. Peaks were acquired by the software of MALDI-MS sample acquisition, followed by being processed and analyzed by the software of Progenesis MALDI. IgG Gal-ratio, which was calculated from the relative intensity of peaks G0, G1, and G2 according to the formula (G0/(G1+G2×2)), was employed as an index for indicating the distribution of IgG galactosylation.Results: The Gal-ratio was elevated in PC comparing with that in non-cancer group (healthy controls and BPD). The area under the receiver operating characteristic curve (AUC) of IgG Gal-ratio was higher than that of CA19-9 (0.912 vs. 0.814). The performance was further improved when Gal-ratio and CA19-9 were combined (AUC: 0.928). Meanwhile, Gal-ratio also had great diagnostic value with a sensitivity of 92.31% (AUC: 0.883) in detection of PC at early stage. Notably, IgG Gal-ratio has great sensitivity (90.63%) and specificity (76.81%) in CA19-9-negative PC patients.Conclusions: IgG Gal-ratio had a great performance in detection of PC and could be used to assist CA19-9 in improving diagnosis performance through early stage detection, differentiation from BPD, and PC diagnosis with CA19-9-negative level

The nutrition-based comprehensive intervention study on childhood obesity in China (NISCOC): a randomised cluster controlled trial

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Childhood obesity and its related metabolic and psychological abnormalities are becoming serious health problems in China. Effective, feasible and practical interventions should be developed in order to prevent the childhood obesity and its related early onset of clinical cardiovascular diseases. The objective of this paper is to describe the design of a multi-centred random controlled school-based clinical intervention for childhood obesity in China. The secondary objective is to compare the cost-effectiveness of the comprehensive intervention strategy with two other interventions, one only focuses on nutrition education, the other only focuses on physical activity.</p> <p>Methods/Design</p> <p>The study is designed as a multi-centred randomised controlled trial, which included 6 centres located in Beijing, Shanghai, Chongqing, Shandong province, Heilongjiang province and Guangdong province. Both nutrition education (special developed carton style nutrition education handbook) and physical activity intervention (Happy 10 program) will be applied in all intervention schools of 5 cities except Beijing. In Beijing, nutrition education intervention will be applied in 3 schools and physical activity intervention among another 3 schools. A total of 9750 primary students (grade 1 to grade 5, aged 7-13 years) will participate in baseline and intervention measurements, including weight, height, waist circumference, body composition (bioelectrical impendence device), physical fitness, 3 days dietary record, physical activity questionnaire, blood pressure, plasma glucose and plasma lipid profiles. Data concerning investments will be collected in our study, including costs in staff training, intervention materials, teachers and school input and supervising related expenditure.</p> <p>Discussion</p> <p>Present study is the first and biggest multi-center comprehensive childhood obesity intervention study in China. Should the study produce comprehensive results, the intervention strategies would justify a national school-based program to prevent childhood obesity in China.</p> <p>Trial Registration</p> <p>Chinese clinical trial registry (Primary registry in the WHO registry network) Identifier: ChiCTR-TRC-00000402</p

New Landscapes and Horizons in Hepatocellular Carcinoma Therapy

Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC), is the sixth most frequent form of cancer and leads to the fourth highest number of deaths each year. HCC results from a combination of environmental factors and aging as there are driver mutations at oncogenes which occur during aging. Most of HCCs are diagnosed at advanced stage preventing curative therapies. Treatment in advanced stage is a challenging and pressing problem, and novel and well-tolerated therapies are urgently needed. We will discuss further advances beyond sorafenib that target additional signaling pathways and immune checkpoint proteins. The scenario of possible systemic therapies for patients with advanced HCC has changed dramatically in recent years. Personalized genomics and various other omics approaches may identify actionable biochemical targets, which are activated in individual patients, which may enhance therapeutic outcomes. Further studies are needed to identify predictive biomarkers and aberrantly activated signaling pathways capable of guiding the clinician in choosing the most appropriate therapy for the individual patient

Predicting Surface Residual Stress for Multi-Axis Milling of Ti-6Al-4V Titanium Alloy in Combined Simulation and Experiments

As one essential indicator of surface integrity, residual stress has an important influence on the fatigue performance of aero engines&rsquo; thin-walled parts. Larger compressive or smaller tensile residual stress is more prone to causing fatigue cracks. To optimize the state of residual stress, the relationship between the surface residual stress and the machining conditions is studied in this work. A radial basis function (RBF) neural network model based on simulated and experimental data is developed to predict the surface residual stress for multi-axis milling of Ti-6Al-4V titanium alloy. Firstly, a 3D numerical model is established and verified through a cutting experiment. These results are found to be in good agreement with average absolute errors of 11.6% and 15.2% in the &sigma;x and &sigma;y directions, respectively. Then, the RBF neural network is introduced to relate the machining parameters with the surface residual stress using simulated and experimental samples. A good correlation is observed between the experimental and the predicted results. The verification shows that the average prediction error rate is 14.4% in the &sigma;x direction and 17.2% in the &sigma;y direction. The effects of the inclination angle, cutting speed, and feed rate on the surface residual stress are investigated. The results show that the influence of machining parameters on surface residual stress is nonlinear. The proposed model provides guidance for the control of residual stress in the precision machining of complex thin-walled structures

Analysis of the Disease Burden Trends and Death Projections for Esophageal Cancer Attributable to Tobacco in China from 1990 to 2019

Background The disease burden of esophageal cancer is high in China, more and more studies have shown that tobacco has a greater adverse effect on the development of esophageal cancer. Objective To understand trends in esophageal cancer deaths and burden of disease attributable to tobacco in China from 1990 to 2019, and provide data to inform the development of public health policies and interventions. Methods Global burden of disease 2019 (GBD 2019) data were used to extract the age-specific and sex-specific data on esophageal cancer deaths attributable to tobacco in China from 1990 to 2019. Mortality, disability adjusted life years (DALYs) , years of life lost (YLLs) , and disability adjusted life years (YLDs) were used to assess the disease burden of esophageal cancer attributable to tobacco in China. Joinpoint regression software and age-period-cohort modeling methods were applied to analyze the trends of disease burden and mortality with age, period and cohort. the Bayesian-period-cohort analysis (BAPC) was applied to predict the mortality rate of esophageal cancer attributable to tobacco in China from 2020 to 2030. Results From 1990 to 2019, the number of deaths caused by esophageal cancer attributable to tobacco among Chinese residents rose from 76 400 to 123 900, with an increase of 62.17%, and the standardized mortality rate declined from 9.30/100 000 to 6.20/100 000, with a decrease of 33.33%; the DALYs rose from 1 972 500 person-years to 2 822 600 person-years, with an increase of 43.10%, and the DALYs rate decreased from 220.50/100 000 to 134.47/100 000, with a decrease of 39.02%. In terms of gender, the disease burden of esophageal cancer attributable to tobacco was mainly caused by males, with 117 700 deaths and a standardized mortality rate of 12.82/100 000 in 2019 due to tobacco-attributable esophageal cancer in males, compared to 0.62 million deaths number and a standardized mortality rate of 0.63/100 000 in females. In 2019, the number of esophageal cancer deaths attributable to tobacco among Chinese residents peaked in the age group of &gt;69-74 years, while DALYs peaked in the age group of &gt;64-69 years, at 23 000 and 510 300 cases, respectively. The mortality rate continued to increase with age, especially after 50 years of age. The results of Joinpoint regression analysis showed that the average annual percent change (AAPC) of esophageal cancer mortality attributable to tobacco was -1.4%〔95%CI (-1.6%, -1.2%) 〕 in China from 1990 to 2019, with -3.3%〔95%CI (-3.6%, -2.9%) 〕 for females, and -1.3%〔95%CI (-1.4%, -1.1%) 〕 for males; the AAPC for DALYs rate was -1.7%〔95%CI (-1.9%, -1.5%) 〕, with -3.7%〔95%CI (-4.0%, -3.4%) 〕 for females and -1.5%〔95%CI (-1.7%, -1.3%) 〕 for males. Analysis of the age-period-cohort model of mortality from esophageal cancer attributable to tobacco showed a negative net offset of -1.690%〔95%CI (-2.024%, -1.354%) 〕. It is expected that the number of deaths and mortality rate from tobacco-attributable esophageal cancer among Chinese residents will be relatively stable with a small decrease from 2020 to 2030, with mortality rates declining from 12.64/100 000 in 2020 to 12.63/100 000 in 2030 for males, and from 0.6/100 000 in 2020 to 0.46/100 000 for females. Conclusion Mortality rate and DALYs rate due to tobacco-attributable esophageal cancer among Chinese residents increased and then declined from 1990 to 2019. The burden of disease due to tobacco-attributable esophageal cancer is mainly caused by males in term of gender, by middle-aged and elderly people by age, which should be given sufficient attention. It is expected that the number of deaths and mortality rates from tobacco-attributable esophageal cancer will be stable and slightly decreasing from 2020 to 2030