College Students’ Choice Behavior of Electric Two-Wheeled Vehicle

Many countries have made great efforts to boost the use of electric vehicles in recent years; for example, advanced countries including Norway and the Netherlands in Europe and the United States have enhanced people’s willingness to use electric vehicles by means of appropriate subsidies and suppression of private vehicles. In Asia, Taiwan has been promoting the policy of replacing traditional fuel two-wheeled vehicles (FTWVs) with electric two-wheeled vehicles (ETWVs) and strengthening the policy by means of replacing a large number of old FTWVs and subsidizing the purchase of ETWVs. This study took college students as the subjects, as they were the first potential group to buy ETWVs, and their concept of environmental sustainability can be shaped for cultivating vehicle use habits. This study applies a questionnaire to probe into the ETWV usage preferences of college students and explores the significant factors affecting college students’ purchase of ETWVs. This study uses a mixed logit (MXL) model for estimation. The results of model estimation show that those who are younger, have higher income, have good experience in using ETWVs, and are in user-friendly external traffic environments, are more inclined to choose ETWVs. In the future, government units can formulate policies to promote ETWVs according to the characteristics of different relevant factors.

From Discipline to Quality of Care: How Neurologists Can Learn from Decisions of Disciplinary Tribunals

<b><i>Background:</i></b> One of the primary aims of medical disciplinary law is to improve the quality of care. However, the decisions of disciplinary tribunals are not sufficiently analysed to identify the learning elements. <b><i>Aim:</i></b> This study aimed to investigate the frequency and nature of complaints for the specialty neurology which were upheld by the disciplinary tribunals and to learn from disciplinary law through an analysis of which factors contributed to complaints being upheld. <b><i>Design:</i></b> This is a retrospective, observational study. <b><i>Methods:</i></b> All upheld complaints in the field of neurology were collected for the period of January 1, 2010, to January 1, 2020. A qualitative analysis of the decisions was conducted using the usual characteristics set out by disciplinary tribunals in their annual reports. The relevant factors which potentially played a role in the complaint being upheld were identified for more detailed analysis. <b><i>Results:</i></b> In the 10-year period, a complaint was submitted to the disciplinary tribunals against 299 neurologists. Forty-four complaints were upheld (15%). The most common sanction was a warning (70%). A large majority of cases were directly related to patient care, such as decisions about the patient’s diagnosis and the treatment. Recordkeeping (50%), interpretation and discussion of imaging (30%), and involvement of several consultants of one or more specialties (34%) frequently played a role in the successful complaints. <b><i>Conclusion:</i></b> Medical disciplinary cases in the field of neurology are usually about diagnosis- and treatment-related aspects. Recordkeeping, interpretation of neuroimaging, and involvement of several consultants frequently play a role in a complaint being upheld. It is important that specialties evaluate disciplinary decisions on a structural and continuous basis.

Judgment and Prevention of Urinary Tract Injury in Gynecological Surgery Based on Data Mining

In this paper, a data mining-enabled model is developed to analyze the case-related data of 39 patients with urinary tract injury who underwent laparoscopic surgery in a certain hospital from 2012 to 2017. Statistics on the history and characteristics of the case data summarized and analyzed the causes of urinary tract injury and the urinary system. The relationship between the occurrence of injury and the type of surgery and the treatment and preventive measures taken for urinary tract injury during and after surgery are summarized. The statistical method with SPSS16.0 statistical software was used to analyze the data of this study, and the X2 test was used to compare the rates. The differences of P ≤ 0.05 and P ≤ 0.01 were statistically significant. Laparoscopic surgery in gynecology is a minimally invasive technique, but it is still accompanied by the possibility of complications. During the experimental setup and implementation, we have observed that among 8742 cases of laparoscopic surgery complicated by urinary tract injury, there were 39 cases with a rate of 0.45%. In the past five years, the incidence of urinary tract injury in gynecological surgery in our country has increased year by year, and the number of cases of urinary tract injury has also increased year by year. Through analysis, it is found that the cause of the injury is related to the level of surgery, pelvic adhesion, and energy equipment. Based on the above problems, according to the clinical data of patients with urinary tract injury complicated by gynecological surgery in the hospital, the relevant factors of gynecological surgery complicated by urinary tract injury are analyzed to improve the awareness of urinary tract protection and prevention of injury during the operation and preventive measures are actively taken to avoid medical treatment.

Infectious outcomes of fibrin sheath disruption in tunneled dialysis catheters

Background and objectives: Fibrin sheath (FS) formation around tunneled central venous catheters (CVC) increases the risk of catheter-related bloodstream infections due to bacterial adherence to a biofilm. We sought to investigate whether FS disruption (FSD) at the time of CVC removal or exchange affects infectious outcomes in patients with CVC-related infections. Design, setting, participants, and measurements: Retrospective cohort study of 307 adult maintenance hemodialysis patients aged 18 years or older at a single center academic-based hemodialysis program (UHN, Toronto) who developed CVC-related infections requiring CVC removal or exchange between January 2000 and January 2019. Exposure was FSD at the time of CVC removal or exchange. Outcomes were infectious metastatic complications, recurrent infection with the same organism within 1 year, or death due to infection. We created a Markov Multi-State Model (MMSM) to assess patients’ trajectories through time as they transitioned between states. A time-to-event analysis was performed, adjusted for clinically relevant factors. Results: There was no significant relationship between FSD status at the time of CVC removal, the development of infectious complications in the multivariable model (adjusted HR = 0.71, 95% CI 0.09−5.80, p = 0.76), or mortality from infection (HR = 0.84, 95% CI 0.34−2.11, p = 0.73). Conclusions: FSD at the time of CVC removal was not associated with increased risk of infectious complications or death due to infection. Further prospective study is needed to determine whether FSD contributes to reducing CVC infectious related complications.

Implementation Challenges of 3D Printing in Prosthodontics: A Ranking-Type Delphi

The reduction in cost and increasing benefits of 3D printing technologies suggest the potential for printing dental prosthetics. However, although 3D printing technologies seem to be promising, their implementation in practice is complicated. To identify and rank the greatest implementation challenges of 3D printing in dental practices, the present study surveys dentists, dental technicians, and 3D printing companies using a ranking-type Delphi study. Our findings imply that a lack of knowledge is the most crucial obstacle to the implementation of 3D printing technologies. The high training effort of staff and the favoring of conventional methods, such as milling, are ranked as the second and third most relevant factors. Investment costs ranked in seventh place, whereas the lack of manufacturing facilities and the obstacle of print duration ranked below average. An inclusive implementation of additive manufacturing could be achieved primarily through the education of dentists and other staff in dental practices. In this manner, production may be managed internally, and the implementation speed may be increased.

Guillain-Barré syndrome associated with COVID- 19 vaccination: a case report

Several reports and studies are being conducted to this day based on the safety profile of COVID-19 vaccines. COVID-19 vaccination inducing GBS is a rare adverse effect and is likely to be causal. Though, there are reports concerning the relation between coronavirus infections and GBS, the pathogenic mechanism and relevant factors behind COVID-19 vaccines inducing GBS are still not being corroborated so far. Guillain-Barre syndrome is the principal cause of acute flaccid paralysis with a prevalence rate of 2 in 100, 000 people per year. We illustrate a 55 years old female patient who presented with acute onset paraesthesia and progressive weakness of bilateral lower limbs and gait imbalance of 5 days duration to the Hospital during the first week of September. Her symptoms occurred within 2 weeks of the first dose of the ChAdOx1-n-CoV-19 (Covishield) vaccine proving a major possibility of vaccine-induced neurological adverse effect as she didn't have any likely significant history of illness or allergies in the past rather than type 2 diabetes mellitus. This report aims to highlight the incidence and to ruminate upon this matter while evaluating any GBS cases in the current eras of the COVID-19 pandemic and vaccination.

Political Attacks in 280 Characters or Less: A New Tool for the Automated Classification of Campaign Negativity on Social Media

Negativity in election campaign matters. To what extent can the content of social media posts provide a reliable indicator of candidates' campaign negativity? We introduce and critically assess an automated classification procedure that we trained to annotate more than 16,000 tweets of candidates competing in the 2018 Senate Midterms. The algorithm is able to identify the presence of political attacks (both in general, and specifically for character and policy attacks) and incivility. Due to the novel nature of the instrument, the article discusses the external and convergent validity of these measures. Results suggest that automated classifications are able to provide reliable measurements of campaign negativity. Triangulations with independent data show that our automatic classification is strongly associated with the experts’ perceptions of the candidates’ campaign. Furthermore, variations in our measures of negativity can be explained by theoretically relevant factors at the candidate and context levels (e.g., incumbency status and candidate gender); theoretically meaningful trends are also found when replicating the analysis using tweets for the 2020 Senate election, coded using the automated classifier developed for 2018. The implications of such results for the automated coding of campaign negativity in social media are discussed.

Costly Signals?

Developed states increasingly turned to democracy assistance strategies as the Cold War came to an end. A number of recent studies conclude that such aid positively affected democratization in recipients. But, like foreign aid, democracy assistance allocations are subject to change, sometimes dramatically. In foreign aid, sudden, sizable reductions – or aid shocks (e.g., Nielsen et al. 2011) – can have severe consequences, precipitating conflict in the recipient state. How do democracy aid shocks affect recipient states? This analysis examines the effects of sudden withdrawals of democracy aid – or democracy aid shocks – by the U.S. on recipient regime behavior, specifically, their treatment of citizens and civil society groups. We argue that democracy aid shocks trigger repressive action by recipients resulting in harmful human rights practices by the regime. Examining U.S. democracy aid to the developing world from 1982-2013, we find that, after controlling for other relevant factors likely to affect the human rights practices of a regime, democracy aid shocks are associated with subsequent repression of human rights in the recipient state. Our analysis thus sheds light on an external factor affecting human rights practices within states, as well as an important element of the consequences of democracy aid decisions. We conclude by assessing the implications for democracy promotion strategies and human rights behavior.