Characteristics of Direct Distributors’ Consumption Behavior and How do they Influence on the Finance

Direct distributor s’ consumption behavior is important to direct distributors and direct selling enterprises, and it is different from general consumer behavior. But the research on it was relatively little. With questionnaire investigation, descriptive statistics and correlation analysis, this paper researched direct distributor’s consumer behavior characteristics, and how do they influence on the direct distributors’ financial situation. Characteristics of direct distributors’ consumption behavior included: most of direct distributors were loyal consumers; a great majority of the direct distributors consumed products which themselves sold; a great majority of the direct distributors consumed more than 50 percent of products which company sold; repurchase rate is high; the majority of direct distributors liked products; most of direct distributors were satisfied with the products quality; direct distributors’ consumption was with multiple operational motivations. The consumption characteristics influence on the direct distributor’s finance. Monthly consumption expenditure was notable, positively correlation with age, years of work, consumption/performance rate, repurchase rate, and experience products. Monthly income was notable, positively correlation with consumption/company products rate, and repurchase rate. Monthly income was notable, negative correlation with consumption/performance rate. The conclusions can provide references for direct sellers, selling enterprises and researchers

Daylight-driven rechargeable antibacterial and antiviral nanofibrous membranes for bioprotective applications.

Emerging infectious diseases (EIDs) are a significant burden on global economies and public health. Most present personal protective equipment used to prevent EID transmission and infections is typically devoid of antimicrobial activity. We report on green bioprotective nanofibrous membranes (RNMs) with rechargeable antibacterial and antiviral activities that can effectively produce biocidal reactive oxygen species (ROS) solely driven by the daylight. The premise of the design is that the photoactive RNMs can store the biocidal activity under light irradiation and readily release ROS under dim light or dark conditions, making the biocidal function "always online." The resulting RNMs exhibit integrated properties of fast ROS production, ease of activity storing, long-term durability, robust breathability, interception of fine particles (>99%), and high bactericidal (>99.9999%) and virucidal (>99.999%) efficacy, which enabled to serve as a scalable biocidal layer for protective equipment by providing contact killing against pathogens either in aerosol or in liquid forms. The successful synthesis of these fascinating materials may provide new insights into the development of protection materials in a sustainable, self-recharging, and structurally adaptive form

Self-organizing Brain Emotional Learning Controller Network for Intelligent Control System of Mobile Robots

The trajectory tracking ability of mobile robots suffers from uncertain disturbances. This paper proposes an adaptive control system consisting of a new type of self-organizing neural network controller for mobile robot control. The newly designed neural network contains the key mechanisms of a typical brain emotional learning controller network and a self-organizing radial basis function network. In this system, the input values are delivered to a sensory channel and an emotional channel; and the two channels interact with each other to generate the final outputs of the proposed network. The proposed network possesses the ability of online generation and elimination of fuzzy rules to achieve an optimal neural structure. The parameters of the proposed network are on-line tunable by the brain emotional learning rules and gradient descent method; in addition, the stability analysis theory is used to guarantee the convergence of the proposed controller. In the experimentation, a simulated mobile robot was applied to verify the feasibility and effectiveness of the proposed control system. The comparative study using the cutting-edge neural network-based control systems confirms the proposed network is capable of producing better control performances with high computational efficiency

The contribution and interactive relationship of tourism industry development and technological innovation to the informatization level: Based on the context of low-carbon development

Research background: Informatization is a new economic form arising from a new round of technological and industrial changes. Information technology has been used to promote the integrated development of the tourism industry and propel technological innovation, which will help accelerate the achievement of the strategic goals of carbon emission peaking and carbon neutrality. China’s informatization level has improved to a certain extent due to the concentration of capital and technological innovation brought about by the government-led model, and also owing to the consumer dynamics released by the industry-side reform.Research contents and methods: This study constructs a panel vector auto-regression model to investigate the impact of tourism industry development and technological innovation on informatization based on Chinese provincial statistics from 2010 to 2019. This study adopts the entropy method, Monte Carlo simulation, variance decomposition, and pulse response to investigate the impact, characteristics, and trends of their interactions.Results: First, tourism industry development, technological innovation, and informatization all experience inertia development and have self-reinforcing mechanisms during the research period. Second, tourism industry development and technological innovation have a significantly positive impact on the enhancement of informatization, and their influence presents a trend, from upward to downward. Third, tourism industry development has a positive impact on technological innovation, and the response trend presents a curve approximately inverted U-shape. Fourth, from the results of variance decomposition, the contribution of technological innovation to the improvement of informatization level increases rapidly and reaches 18.5% and then levels off. The contribution rate of tourism industry development to the improvement of informatization level gradually rises and reaches 5.1%, finally tending to be stable.Contribution: This study reveals that tourism industry development and technological innovation will exert different pulling effects on informatization at different development stages in China and their advantages and provides theoretical contributions to tourism industry development and technological innovation on the advancement of informatization level. The research results provide a reference basis for the government and related industrial sectors in how to effectively facilitate the development of informatization in the context of the low-carbon economy

Vehicle emission and atmospheric pollution in China: problems, progress, and prospects

China has been the largest vehicle market in the world since 2009. The stalemate between the rapid development of the vehicle industry and delayed vehicle emission control has become increasingly prominent. Vehicle emission has become a significant source of air pollution in China’s cities. Understanding the current barriers in the vehicle industry is necessary for the development of effective and sustainable measures and policy to manage vehicle-induced air pollution. This review provides insight into the circumstances and causes of vehicle-induced air pollution and outlines recent progress in policy-makers’ long-term strategies and regulations. The development of an integrated mechanism of social participation, technical revolution, and regulatory innovation in vehicles, fuel, and roads is suggested to break the stalemate between air pollution and the automobile boom in China; the implications of this review extend to other countries facing the similar atmospheric pollution problems

Causal relationship between atrial fibrillation and cognitive impairment: a Mendelian randomization study

Objective·To investigate the causal relationship between atrial fibrillation (AF) and cognitive impairment.Methods·A two-sample Mendelian randomization (TSMR) analysis was used to assess the potential causality of AF on cognitive dysfunction. Single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) strongly associated with AF were extracted as instrumental variables by using a dataset of a large-scale genome-wide association study (GWAS) on AF. The associations of SNPs with Alzheimer′s disease dementia, Parkinson′s disease dementia, vascular dementia, Lewy body dementia, frontotemporal dementia, undefined dementia, and overall cognitive function assessment were extracted separately from publicly available GWAS data on cognitive dysfunction. The inverse variance-weighted (IVW) method was used for the main analysis, and sensitivity analyses were conducted by using Cochran′s Q test, MR-Egger regression, and leave-one-out method. To verify the robustness of the results, replicate analyses and meta-analyses were performed by using different GWAS data.Results·In the initial analysis, 101 SNPs were extracted as instrumental variables from a meta-analysis of a genome-wide association study involving up to 1 030 836 individuals. The IVW analysis showed no evidence for causal associations between AF and dementia [dementia (OR=1.032; 95%CI 0.973‒1.094; P=0.290), Parkinson′s disease dementia (OR=1.004; 95%CI 0.780‒1.291; P=0.977), vascular dementia (OR=1.123; 95%CI 0.969‒1.301; P=0.125), or unspecified dementia (OR=1.013; 95%CI 0.910‒1.129; P=0.807)]. In the replication analysis, 27 SNPs were extracted as instrumental variables from the FinnGen AF GWAS data, and the IVW analysis were consistent with the initial analysis [cognitive function (OR=0.999; 95%CI 0.982‒1.016; P=0.874), Alzheimer′s disease dementia (OR=0.977; 95%CI 0.943‒1.012; P=0.193), Lewy body dementia (OR=1.014; 95%CI 0.898‒1.145; P=0.826), or frontotemporal dementia (OR=0.996; 95%CI 0.745‒1.333; P=0.980)]. Both Mendelian randomization analyses and meta-analyses showed no evidence of an association between genetically predicted AF and different types of dementia or overall cognitive function assessment. MR-Egger regression suggested no horizontal pleiotropy and leave-one-out analysis showed stable results after individually removing each SNP.Conclusion·No evidence of a causal relationship between AF and cognitive impairment was found. The associations observed in observational studies can be partially attributed to confounding factors such as shared biology or co-morbidities

Leishmania donovani visceral leishmaniasis diagnosed by metagenomics next-generation sequencing in an infant with acute lymphoblastic leukemia: a case report

BackgroundVisceral leishmaniasis (VL) is a neglected vector-borne tropical disease caused by Leishmania donovani (L. donovani) and Leishmania infantum (L. infantum). Due to the very small dimensions of the protozoa impounded within blood cells and reticuloendothelial structure, diagnosing VL remains challenging.Case presentationHerein, we reported a case of VL in a 17-month-old boy with acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL). The patient was admitted to West China Second University Hospital, Sichuan University, due to repeated fever after chemotherapy. After admission, chemotherapy-related bone marrow suppression and infection were suspected based on clinical symptoms and laboratory test results. However, there was no growth in the conventional peripheral blood culture, and the patient was unresponsive to routine antibiotics. Metagenomics next-generation sequencing (mNGS) of peripheral blood identified 196123 L. donovani reads, followed by Leishmania spp amastigotes using cytomorphology examination of the bone marrow specimen. The patient was given pentavalent antimonials as parasite-resistant therapy for 10 days. After the initial treatment, 356 L. donovani reads were still found in peripheral blood by mNGS. Subsequently, the anti-leishmanial drug amphotericin B was administrated as rescue therapy, and the patient was discharged after a clinical cure.ConclusionOur results indicated that leishmaniasis still exists in China. Unbiased mNGS provided a clinically actionable diagnosis of a specific infectious disease from an uncommon pathogen that eluded conventional testing

Long-Term Risk and Prediction of Progression in Primary Angle Closure Suspect

IMPORTANCE: Identifying primary angle closure suspect (PACS) eyes at risk of angle closure is crucial for its management. However, the risk of progression and its prediction are still understudied in long-term longitudinal studies about PACS. OBJECTIVE: To explore baseline predictors and develop prediction models for the 14-year risk of progression from PACS to primary angle closure (PAC). DESIGN, SETTING, AND PARTICIPANTS: This cohort study involved participants from the Zhongshan Angle Closure Prevention trial who had untreated eyes with PACS. Baseline examinations included tonometry, ultrasound A-scan biometry, and anterior segment optical coherence tomography (AS-OCT) under both light and dark conditions. Primary angle closure was defined as peripheral anterior synechiae in 1 or more clock hours, intraocular pressure (IOP) greater than 24 mm Hg, or acute angle closure. Based on baseline covariates, logistic regression models were built to predict the risk of progression from PACS to PAC during 14 years of follow-up. RESULTS: The analysis included 377 eyes from 377 patients (mean [SD] patient age at baseline, 58.28 [4.71] years; 317 females [84%]). By the 14-year follow-up visit, 93 eyes (25%) had progressed from PACS to PAC. In multivariable models, higher IOP (odds ratio [OR], 1.14 [95% CI, 1.04-1.25] per 1-mm Hg increase), shallower central anterior chamber depth (ACD; OR, 0.81 [95% CI, 0.67-0.97] per 0.1-mm increase), and shallower limbal ACD (OR, 0.96 [95% CI, 0.93-0.99] per 0.01 increase in peripheral corneal thickness) at baseline were associated with an increased 14-year risk of progression from PACS to PAC. As for AS-OCT measurements, smaller light-room trabecular-iris space area (TISA) at 500 μm from the scleral spur (OR, 0.86 [95% CI, 0.77-0.96] per 0.01-mm2 increase), smaller light-room angle recess area (ARA) at 750 μm from the scleral spur (OR, 0.93 [95% CI, 0.88-0.98] per 0.01-mm2 increase), and smaller dark-room TISA at 500 μm (OR, 0.89 [95% CI, 0.80-0.98] per 0.01-mm2 increase) at baseline were identified as predictors for the 14-year risk of progression. The prediction models based on IOP and central and limbal ACDs showed moderate performance (area under the receiver operating characteristic curve, 0.69; 95% CI, 0.63-0.75) in predicting progression from PACS to PAC, and inclusion of AS-OCT metrics did not improve the model's performance. CONCLUSIONS AND RELEVANCE: This cohort study suggests that higher IOP, shallower central and limbal ACDs, and smaller TISA at 500 μm and light-room ARA at 750 μm may serve as baseline predictors for progression to PAC in PACS eyes. Evaluating these factors can aid in customizing PACS management