Methological quality of systematic reviews and meta-analyses on acupuncture for stroke: a review of review

Objective: To assess the methodological quality of systematic reviews and meta-analyses regarding acupuncture intervention for stroke and the primary studies within them. Methods: Two researchers searched PubMed, Cumulative index to Nursing and Allied Health Literature, Embase, ISI Web of Knowledge, Cochrane, Allied and Complementary Medicine, Ovid Medline, Chinese Biomedical Literature Database, China National Knowledge Infrastructure, Wanfang and Traditional Chinese Medical Database to identify systematic reviews and meta-analyses about acupuncture for stroke published from the inception to December 2016. Review characteristics and the criteria for assessing the primary studies within reviews were extracted. The methodological quality of the reviews was assessed using adapted Oxman and Guyatt Scale. The methodological quality of primary studies was also assessed. Results: Thirty-two eligible reviews were identified, 15 in English and 17 in Chinese. The English reviews were scored higher than the Chinese reviews (P=0.025), especially in criteria for avoiding bias and the scope of search. All reviews used the quality criteria to evaluate the methodological quality of primary studies, but some criteria were not comprehensive. The primary studies, in particular the Chinese reviews, had problems with randomization, allocation concealment, blinding, dropouts and withdrawals, intent-to-treat analysis and adverse events. Conclusions: Important methodological flaws were found in Chinese systematic reviews and primary studies. It was necessary to improve the methodological quality and reporting quality of both the systematic reviews published in China and primary studies on acupuncture for stroke

Food Consumption in China: the revolution continues

Recent decades have seen China's domestic consumption in sectors such as food, housing, health care, education and travel greatly increase. This important book assesses China's current food consumption trends and the outlook for its future needs of such a crucial commodity. Key features of this book include: -A systematic examination of the key elements shaping food consumption, with particular attention to factors peculiar to China; -An evaluation of changes in food consumption between rural and urban residents, the rich and poor, and consumers of different regions and identification of the key drivers behind such changes; -A comprehensive coverage of all major food items including food grains, meats and other animal products, fruits and vegetables, alcoholic drinks, and aquacultural products; and -A projection for China's food import needs by 2020. This book will be of great relevance to anyone who is interested in the dynamics of Chinese food consumption, such as commodity traders, leaders of agri-food industries, food trade officials, and food market researchers. It will also prove a valuable reference for undergraduate and postgraduate students majoring in food marketing and trade, general food and agricultural economics, and scholars studying food consumption issues

End-to-end Task-oriented Dialogue: A Survey of Tasks, Methods, and Future Directions

End-to-end task-oriented dialogue (EToD) can directly generate responses in an end-to-end fashion without modular training, which attracts escalating popularity. The advancement of deep neural networks, especially the successful use of large pre-trained models, has further led to significant progress in EToD research in recent years. In this paper, we present a thorough review and provide a unified perspective to summarize existing approaches as well as recent trends to advance the development of EToD research. The contributions of this paper can be summarized: (1) \textbf{\textit{First survey}}: to our knowledge, we take the first step to present a thorough survey of this research field; (2) \textbf{\textit{New taxonomy}}: we first introduce a unified perspective for EToD, including (i) \textit{Modularly EToD} and (ii) \textit{Fully EToD}; (3) \textbf{\textit{New Frontiers}}: we discuss some potential frontier areas as well as the corresponding challenges, hoping to spur breakthrough research in EToD field; (4) \textbf{\textit{Abundant resources}}: we build a public website\footnote{We collect the related papers, baseline projects, and leaderboards for the community at \url{https://etods.net/}.}, where EToD researchers could directly access the recent progress. We hope this work can serve as a thorough reference for the EToD research community.Comment: Accepted at EMNLP202

A study of satisfaction with research capacity development of Master of Public Health and its influencing factors

ObjectiveTo understand the satisfaction and the current status of the training of scientific research ability of Master of Public Health students in universities, analyze the influencing factors and explore their solutions, in order to provide reference for improving the scientific research ability of Master of Public Health students.MethodsA questionnaire was used to survey Master of Public Health students in nine universities. The data were analyzed by descriptive statistics and multifactor logistic regression.ResultsThe overall satisfaction self-rating score for research capacity of Master of Public Health students was (3.29 ± 0.87), with the highest score for mentor exchange (3.78 ± 0.81) and the lowest score for subsidized treatment (1.86 ± 0.96). Satisfaction with the practice unit and school dimensions was significantly lower than the mentor dimension. The length of practice in the practice unit, subsidy treatment, importance of research capacity development, development tendency, and current status of research were influential factors contributing to the difference in satisfaction with research capacity development of Master of Public Health students (P < 0.05).ConclusionThe overall scientific training quality of Master of Public Health students is high, but there are still many aspects that need to be solved. Colleges and universities should join the funding system adapted to the practice process of Master of Public Health students and guarantee the construction of the system of student subsidy treatment. Secondly, they should strengthen the construction of public health supervisory team and improve the frequency and quality of scientific research exchanges between teachers and students. In addition, colleges and universities should improve the existing research incentives and policies, and adopt multiple forms and types of research incentives. Finally, colleges and universities should improve the research training system and the construction of research resources for Master of Public Health

Using the Baidu index to predict trends in the incidence of tuberculosis in Jiangsu Province, China

ObjectiveTo analyze the time series in the correlation between search terms related to tuberculosis (TB) and actual incidence data in China. To screen out the “leading” terms and construct a timely and efficient TB prediction model that can predict the next wave of TB epidemic trend in advance.MethodsMonthly incidence data of tuberculosis in Jiangsu Province, China, were collected from January 2011 to December 2020. A scoping approach was used to identify TB search terms around common TB terms, prevention, symptoms and treatment. Search terms for Jiangsu Province, China, from January 2011 to December 2020 were collected from the Baidu index database.1 Correlation coefficients between search terms and actual incidence were calculated using Python 3.6 software. The multiple linear regression model was constructed using SPSS 26.0 software, which also calculated the goodness of fit and prediction error of the model predictions.ResultsA total of 16 keywords with correlation coefficients greater than 0.6 were screened, of which 11 were the leading terms. The R2 of the prediction model was 0.67 and the MAPE was 10.23%.ConclusionThe TB prediction model based on Baidu Index data was able to predict the next wave of TB epidemic trends and intensity 2 months in advance. This forecasting model is currently only available for Jiangsu Province

Financial transfers from adult children and depressive symptoms among mid-aged and elderly residents in China - evidence from the China health and retirement longitudinal study.

Although the awareness of mental health problems in late life is rising, the association between financial transfers to the older generations from children and mental health at older ages in China has received little attention. This study examines the association between financial transfers from children and depressive symptoms among the mid-aged and elderly residents (from 45 years of age and older) in China. We used the data from the China Health and Retirement Longitudinal Study (CHARLS, 2013) (n = 10,935) This included data on financial transfers from all non-co-resident children to their parents, and the individual scores on depressive symptoms as measured by the 10-item Center for Epidemiologic Studies-Depression Scale (CESD-10). A two-level - individual and community levels - mixed linear model was deployed to explore their association. Financial transfers from children to parents was the major component of inter-generational financial transfers in Chinese families. A higher financial support from non-co-resident children was signivicantly and positively related to fewer depressive symptoms (coef. = - 0.195,P-value< 0.001) among both the mid-aged and elderly parents. Financial transfers from non-co-resident children are associated with depressive symptoms among mid-aged and elderly residents in the China situation. Taxation and other policy measures should encourage and facilitate these type of financial transfers and prevent a decrease of support from children to parents

A nomogram diagnostic cardiovascular disease in patients with erythrodermic psoriasis in Chinese

ObjectivePatients with erythrodermic psoriasis (EP) are associated with an increased risk of cardiovascular disease (CVD), because of the more severe inflammation in the skin areas. This study aimed to develop a diagnostic model for the risk of CVD in EP patients based on the available features and multidimensional clinical data.MethodsA total of 298 EP patients from Beijing Hospital of Traditional Chinese Medicine were retrospectively included in this study from May 5th, 2008, to March 3rd, 2022. Of them, 213 patients were selected as the development set by random sampling, and clinical parameters were analyzed by univariate and backward stepwise regression. Whereas the remaining 85 patients were randomly selected as the validation set. The model performance was later assessed in terms of discrimination, calibration, and clinical usefulness.ResultsIn the development set, the CVD rate was 9%, which was independently correlated with age, glycated albumin (GA&gt;17%), smoking, albumin (ALB&lt;40 g/L), and lipoprotein(a) (Lp(a)&gt;300 mg/L). The area under the ROC curve (AUC) value was 0.83 (95% confidence interval CI, 0.73,0.93). For the validation set of EP patients, the AUC value was 0.85 (95%CI, 0.76,0.94). According to decision curve analysis, our model exhibited favorable clinical applicabilityConclusionEP patients with age, GA&gt;17%, smoking, ALB&lt;40 g/L, and Lp(a)&gt;300 mg/L are associated with a higher risk of CVD. The nomogram model performs well in predicting the probability of CVD in EP patients, which may help improve perioperative strategies and good treatment outcomes