Governance mechanisms for chronic disease diagnosis and treatment systems in the post-pandemic era

“Re-visits and drug renewal” is difficult for chronic disease patients during COVID-19 and will continue in the post-pandemic era. To overcome this dilemma, the scenario of chronic disease diagnosis and treatment systems was set, and an evolutionary game model participated by four stakeholder groups including physical medical institutions, medical service platforms, intelligent medical device providers, and chronic disease patients, was established. Ten possible evolutionary stabilization strategies (ESSs) with their mandatory conditions were found based on Lyapunov's first method. Taking cardiovascular and cerebrovascular diseases, the top 1 prevalent chronic disease, as a specific case context, and resorting to the MATLAB simulation, it is confirmed that several dual ESSs and four unique ESS circumstances exist, respectively, and the evolution direction is determined by initial conditions, while the evolution speed is determined by the values of the conditions based on the quantitative relations of benefits, costs, etc. Accordingly, four governance mechanisms were proposed. By their adjustment, the conditions along with their values can be interfered, and then the chronic disease diagnosis and treatment systems can be guided toward the desired direction, that is, toward the direction of countermeasure against the pandemic, government guidance, global trends of medical industry development, social welfare, and lifestyle innovation. The dilemma of “Re-visits and drug renewal” actually reflects the uneven distribution problem of qualified medical resources and the poor impact resistance capability of social medical service systems under mass public emergency. Human lifestyle even the way of working all over the world will get a spiral upgrade after experiencing COVID-19, such as consumption, and meeting, while medical habits react not so rapidly, especially for mid or aged chronic disease patients. We believe that telemedicine empowered by intelligent medical devices can benefit them and will be a global trend, governments and the four key stakeholders should act according to the governance mechanisms suggested here simultaneously toward novel social medical ecosystems for the post-pandemic era

Efficient browsing of web search results on mobile devices based on block importance model

It is expected that more and more people will search the web when they are on the move. Though conventional search engines can be directly visited from mobile devices with web browsing capabilities, the information is not as conveniently accessible from a handheld device as it is from desktops. Existing information discovery mechanisms for searching the web are not well-suited to mobile devices. In this paper, a block importance model is employed to assign importance values to different segments of a web page, in order to extract and present more condensed search results to mobile users. Based on the block importance model, three presentations for displaying the result pages in different levels of detail have been designed to reduce both the number of user interactions and the overall search time. A set of user study experiments have been carried out to compare the three presentations and a commercial service on typical mobile devices. Experimental results show that our approaches can help users to explore web search results more efficiently. 1

Multi-dimensional low-carbon assessments of wind-driven seawater desalination system via hybrid life cycle modeling

Wind-driven desalination is a representative technology of renewable energy that not only alleviates water shortages but also reduces greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions generated by the utilization of fossil fuels. This study examined the GHG emissions from a wind-driven seawater desalination system by using the hybrid input-output life-cycle analysis (IO-LCA) to undertake a comprehensive low-carbon assessment by comparing with traditional thermal seawater desalination systems over the whole life cycle. The findings indicate that the GHG emissions of the wind-driven seawater desalination system are 96.14% lower than those of the traditional system. According to estimations, if reverse osmosis (RO) desalination is driven by wind power technologies at a larger scale, the annual GHG emissions can be reduced by an amount between 7.54E+05 and 3.71E+06 t CO2-eq. Although the construction stage increases the emissions to 55.41% over the whole life cycle, the payback period (Ypp) is about 2.69 years, which means that the level of GHG emissions could be reduced by 25.42% of the level of the traditional systems. Based on the multi-dimensional low-carbon assessment, this study is expected to provide quantitative assessments and policy implications to integrate low-carbon technologies with seawater desalination and promote sustainable development of seawater desalination industries

Multi-dimensional low-carbon assessments of wind-driven seawater desalination system via hybrid life cycle modeling

Wind-driven desalination is a representative technology of renewable energy that not only alleviates water shortages but also reduces greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions generated by the utilization of fossil fuels. This study examined the GHG emissions from a wind-driven seawater desalination system by using the hybrid input-output life-cycle analysis (IO-LCA) to undertake a comprehensive low-carbon assessment by comparing with traditional thermal seawater desalination systems over the whole life cycle. The findings indicate that the GHG emissions of the wind-driven seawater desalination system are 96.14% lower than those of the traditional system. According to estimations, if reverse osmosis (RO) desalination is driven by wind power technologies at a larger scale, the annual GHG emissions can be reduced by an amount between 7.54E+05 and 3.71E+06 t CO2-eq. Although the construction stage increases the emissions to 55.41% over the whole life cycle, the payback period (Ypp) is about 2.69 years, which means that the level of GHG emissions could be reduced by 25.42% of the level of the traditional systems. Based on the multi-dimensional low-carbon assessment, this study is expected to provide quantitative assessments and policy implications to integrate low-carbon technologies with seawater desalination and promote sustainable development of seawater desalination industries

Interfacial Modification of Mesoporous TiO2 Films with PbI2-Ethanolamine-Dimethyl Sulfoxide Solution for CsPbIBr2 Perovskite Solar Cells

As one of the most frequently-used electron-transporting materials, the mesoporous titanium dioxide (m-TiO2) film used in mesoporous structured perovskite solar cells (PSCs) can be employed for the scaffold of the perovskite film and as a pathway for electron transport, and the contact area between the perovskite and m-TiO2 directly determines the comprehensive performance of the PSCs. Because of the substandard interface combining quality between the all-inorganic perovskite CsPbIBr2 and m-TiO2, the development of the mesoporous structured CsPbIBr2 PSCs synthesized by the one-step method is severely limited. Here, we used a solution containing PbI2, monoethanolamine (EA) and dimethyl sulfoxide (DMSO) (PED) as the interfacial modifier to enhance the contact area and modify the m-TiO2/CsPbIBr2 contact characteristics. Comparatively, the performance of the solar device based on the PED-modified m-TiO2 layer has improved considerably, and its power conversion efficiency is up to 6.39%

Distribution of Peripheral Memory T Follicular Helper Cells in Patients with Schistosomiasis Japonica.

BACKGROUND:Schistosomiasis is a helminthic disease that affects more than 200 million people. An effective vaccine would be a major step towards eliminating the disease. Studies suggest that T follicular helper (Tfh) cells provide help to B cells to generate the long-term humoral immunity, which would be a crucial component of successful vaccines. Thus, understanding the biological characteristics of Tfh cells in patients with schistosomiasis, which has never been explored, is essential for vaccine design. METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS:In this study, we investigated the biological characteristics of peripheral memory Tfh cells in schistosomiasis patients by flow cytometry. Our data showed that the frequencies of total and activated peripheral memory Tfh cells in patients were significantly increased during Schistosoma japonicum infection. Moreover, Tfh2 cells, which were reported to be a specific subpopulation to facilitate the generation of protective antibodies, were increased more greatly than other subpopulations of total peripheral memory Tfh cells in patients with schistosomiasis japonica. More importantly, our result showed significant correlations of the percentage of Tfh2 cells with both the frequency of plasma cells and the level of IgG antibody. In addition, our results showed that the percentage of T follicular regulatory (Tfr) cells was also increased in patients with schistosomiasis. CONCLUSIONS/SIGNIFICANCE:Our report is the first characterization of peripheral memory Tfh cells in schistosomasis patients, which not only provides potential targets to improve immune response to vaccination, but also is important for the development of vaccination strategies to control schistosomiasis

Spatiotemporal variability and environmental factors of harmful algal blooms (HABs) over western Lake Erie - Fig 5

<p>The environmental factor of the greatest importance for Chl-a identified by MARS at each pixel over western Lake Erie in four seasons: (a) spring, (b) summer, (c) fall, and (d) winter.</p

Data summary.

<p>Data summary.</p

Selected environmental variables for MARS model in each season based on the VIF analysis.

<p>Selected environmental variables for MARS model in each season based on the VIF analysis.</p