Physicians’ Online Popularity and Price Premiums for Online Health Consultations: A Combined Signaling Theory and Online Feedback Mechanisms Explanation

Online health consultation communities (OHCCs) provide a digital channel for physicians to signal their professional competence (i.e., credibility) and compassionate care (i.e., benevolence), and for patients to spread word-of-mouth reviews. The valence, volume, and variance of patient reviews may shape the effectiveness of signals transmitted by physicians in OHCCs. We investigate the interactions between the signaling mechanism and the online feedback mechanism through which OHCCs help physicians build online popularity and achieve price premiums for online health consultations. We are using web scraping to collect weekly data for 12 months from a large OHCC in China. Applying mixed effects models on the data collected to date, we find online popularity and price premiums to be two benefits that physicians can derive from OHCCs. Importantly, in the presence of benevolence actions, an absence of consistently favorable online feedback slows down physicians’ online popularity and reduces price premiums for online health consultations

Exploring achievement gamification on online medical quality based on machine learning and empirical analysis

How to improve online medical quality is an important challenge for practitioners of digital health platforms. Gamification creates new opportunities to deal with the problem persistent in online health services. To better understand the role of gamification in online health services context, this study intends to use the research method of machine learning and natural experiment to explore the impact of achievement gamification on online medical quality in online health services, as well as the moderating effects of doctors’ personality and image. Theoretically, this study will expand the application of game strategy in the field of healthcare, and make up for the deficiency of the effects of gamification on online medical quality. Practically, it provides guidance for promoting doctors\u27 online participation behavior, improves the quality of online health services, and suggests ways for optimizing the rational allocation of online health resources

Analysis of Ocean–Lithosphere–Atmosphere–Ionosphere Coupling Related to Two Strong Earthquakes Occurring in June–September 2022 on the Sea Coast of Philippines and Papua New Guinea

Scientific progress in the context of seismic precursors reveals a systematic mechanism, namely lithosphere–atmosphere–ionosphere coupling (LAIC), to elaborate the underlying physical processes related to earthquake preparation phases. In this study, a comprehensive analysis was conducted for two earthquakes that occurred on the sea coast through tidal force fluctuation to investigate ocean–lithosphere–atmosphere–ionosphere coupling (OLAIC), based on oceanic parameters (i.e., sea potential temperature and seawater salinity), air temperature and electron density profiles. The interrupted enhancement and diffusion process of thermal anomalies indicate that the intensity of seismic anomalies in the atmosphere is affected by the extent of land near the epicenter. By observing the evolution of the ocean interior, we found that the deep water was lifted and formed upwelling, which then diffused along the direction of plate boundaries with an “intensification-peak-weakening” trend under the action of the accelerated subduction of tectonic plates. Furthermore, the analysis shows that the seismic anomalies have two propagation paths: (i) along active faults, with the surface temperature rising as the initial performance, then the air pressure gradient being generated, and finally the ionosphere being disturbed; (ii) along plate boundaries, upwelling, which is the initial manifestation, leading to changes in the parameters of the upper ocean. The results presented in this study can contribute to understanding the intrinsic characteristics of OLAIC

Changes of predominant species/biovars and sequence types of Brucellaisolates, Inner Mongolia, China

BACKGROUND: Human brucellosis incidence in China was divided into 3 stages, high incidence (1950-1960s), decline (1970-1980s) and re-emergence (1990-2000s). Human brucellosis has been reported in all the 32 provinces, of which Inner Mongolia has the highest prevalence, accounting for over 40% of the cases in China. To investigate the etiology alteration of human brucellosis in Inner Mongolia, the species, biovars and genotypes of 60 Brucella isolates from this province were analyzed. METHODS: Species and biovars of the Brucella strains isolated from outbreaks were determined based on classical identification procedures. Strains were genotyped by multi locus sequence typing (MLST). Sequences of 9 housekeeping genes were obtained and sequence types were defined. The distribution of species, biovars and sequence types (STs) among the three incidence stages were analyzed and compared. RESULTS: The three stages of high incidence, decline and re-emergence were predominated by B. melitensis biovar 2 and 3, B. abortus biovar 3, and B. melitensis biovar 1, respectively, implying changes in the predominant biovars. Genotyping by MLST revealed a total of 14 STs. Nine STs (from ST28 to ST36), accounting for 64.3% of all the STs, were newly defined and different from those observed in other countries. Different STs were distributed among the three stages. ST8 was the most common ST in 1950-1960s and 1990-2000s, while ST2 was the most common in 1970-1980s. CONCLUSIONS: The prevalence of biovars and sequence types of Brucella strains from Inner Mongolia has changed over time in the three stages. Compared with those from other countries, new sequence types of Brucella strains exist in China

Comparative Proteomics Analyses Reveal the virB of B. melitensis Affects Expression of Intracellular Survival Related Proteins

BACKGROUND: Brucella melitensis is a facultative, intracellular, pathogenic bacterium that replicates within macrophages. The type IV secretion system encoded by the virB operon (virB) is involved in Brucella intracellular survival. However, the underlying molecular mechanisms, especially the target proteins affected by the virB, remain largely unclear. METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS: In order to define the proteins affected by virB, the proteomes of wild-type and the virB mutant were compared under in vitro conditions where virB was highly activated. The differentially expressed proteins were identified by MALDI-TOF-MS. Forty-four down-regulated and eighteen up-regulated proteins which exhibited a 2-fold or greater change were identified. These proteins included those involved in amino acid transport and metabolism, lipid metabolism, energy production, cell membrane biogenesis, translation, post-translational modifications and protein turnover, as well as unknown proteins. Interestingly, several important virulence related proteins involved in intracellular survival, including VjbR, DnaK, HtrA, Omp25, and GntR, were down-regulated in the virB mutant. Transcription analysis of virB and vjbR at different growth phase showed that virB positively affect transcription of vjbR in a growth phase dependent manner. Quantitative RT-PCR showed that transcription of these genes was also affected by virB during macrophage cell infection, consistent with the observed decreased survival of the virB mutant in macrophage. CONCLUSIONS/SIGNIFICANCE: These data indicated that the virB operon may control the intracellular survival of Brucella by affecting the expression of relevant proteins

Multifuntional Zeolitic Porous Chalcogenide

Crystalline porous metal chalcogenides have attracted extensive attentions due to its integration of highly porous structure and semiconducting property. Our research group has made great contributions to the development of chalcogenide molecular clusters with their three-dimensional (3D) structures. While most of the previous efforts are devoted to developing new crystal structures, research on the functionalization of this kind of materials are somewhat ignored. As built from well-defined nanoclusters, the metal chalcogenide materials can build a bridge between the molecular clusters and the resulting three-dimensional structures. By controlling the chemical composition on the nano-sized clusters or tuning the host-guest chemistry in the frameworks, custom-design functionalization can be realized. Among them, zeolitic porous chalcogenide, possessing the zeotype structures, stands out due to its high thermal and chemical stability, high porosity, flexible chemical composition and accessible cation-exchange property. In the first part of this work, trimetallic zeolitic porous chalcogenides with tunable chemical compositions were successfully developed. The valence and ionic diameter of the metal cations, were found as the key factors affecting the self-assembling process. Through tuning the chemical composition with different atomic ratio in the molecular clusters, tunable band gaps can be successfully realized. The studies here build a bridge between the molecular semiconducting clusters and the resulting frameworks, providing a systematic investigation on the structural retention and alternation of zeolitic porous chalcogenides. The as-synthesized frameworks exhibit the selective photocatalytic properties. By integration of high porosity, semiconductivity and cation-exchange property, a promising platform is well demonstrated for the development of selective photocatalytic materials.In the second part, functionalization of zeolitic porous chalcogenide through cation exchange are well demonstrated. Because of their unique integration of the chalcogen-soft surface, high porosity, all-inorganic crystalline framework, and the tunable charge-to-volume ratio of exchangeable cations, a special family of porous chalcogenides for CO2 adsorption in terms of extraordinarily high selectivity, large uptake capacity, and robust structure is developed. Moreover, zeolitic porous chalcogenide can serve as the dual hard template for fabricating the heteroatom doped carbon materials for electrocatalytic reactions with high efficiency