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The human society is entering the era of big data and data is becoming one of the key production elements. It is thus critical to develop the China's data-driving digital agriculture system, which would greatly promote the construction of digital China, stimulate the agriculture high-quality development and improve the agricultural competitiveness at the global market. To achieve this goal, strong integration of information is needed from multi-sources, multi-sensors, and multi-scales. This research, from the perspective of agricultural information science, describes the new framework of satellite, aerial, and ground integrated (SAGI) digital agriculture system for comprehensive agricultural monitoring, modeling, and management. The SAGI system differs from traditional digital agriculture systems and includes 5 important functionalities which are resource survey, production controlling, disaster monitoring, market early-warning and decision supporting. To make the system running in operation, it is necessary to first build an observation system, which integrates the satellite, aerial, and ground in-situ observation systems to capture more sophisticated, accurate and reliable data at different scales. The system is extremely needed for China, a large country with a great geographic difference, diverse agricultural cultivation and multiple agricultural traditions. This observing system helps to form the agricultural big data for subsequent data analysis and data mining. Secondly, using the big data collected, 4 key digitalization and monitoring tasks targeting at resource property right, production process, natural disaster and market status should be implemented so as to transform the data to knowledge. In this process, some diagnosis algorithms and models are developed to understand the growth and health of crops and animals, as well as their interaction with the agro-environment. With the above support, a management system covering the full range of agricultural production, processing, selling, management and services should be established to provide the rapid and reliable information support to decision-making as well to the local farming management, thereby guaranteeing agricultural sustainability and national food security. Thirdly, some key fields for future science and technology innovation to support the applications of the SAGI system should to be enhanced such as the standardization designing, innovation in technologies and instruments, system integration and platform development. Finally, considering the complicated and integrative characteristics of this SAG system, this research also proposed some recommendations such as holistic planning, science-technology innovation, resource sharing, multi-stakeholders participation, and expansion of application fields, so as to drive this idea to the reality.

Options for treatment of chronic spontaneous urticaria beyond antihistamines are limited. This multicenter, randomized, sham-controlled trial from 3 teaching hospitals in China compared acupuncture, sham acupuncture, and waitlist control for treatment of chronic spontaneous urticaria. Visual Abstract. Efficacy of Acupuncture for Chronic Spontaneous Urticaria: Options for treatment of chronic spontaneous urticaria beyond antihistamines are limited. This multicenter, randomized, sham-controlled trial from 3 teaching hospitals in China compared acupuncture, sham acupuncture, and waitlist control for treatment of chronic spontaneous urticaria. Background: The effectiveness of acupuncture for patients with chronic spontaneous urticaria (CSU), reported in a few small-scale studies, is not convincing. Objective: To investigate whether acupuncture leads to better effects on CSU than sham acupuncture or waitlist control. Design: A multicenter, randomized, sham-controlled trial. (Chinese Clinical Trial Registry: ChiCTR1900022994) Setting: Three teaching hospitals in China from 27 May 2019 to 30 July 2022. Participants: 330 participants diagnosed with CSU. Intervention: Participants were randomly assigned in a 1:1:1 ratio to receive acupuncture, sham acupuncture, or waitlist control over an 8-week study period (4 weeks for treatment and another 4 weeks for follow-up). Measurements: The primary outcome was the mean change from baseline in the Weekly Urticaria Activity Score (UAS7) at week 4. Secondary outcomes included itch severity scores, self-rated improvement, and Dermatology Life Quality Index scores. Results: The mean change in UAS7 (range, 0 to 42) for acupuncture from baseline (mean score, 23.5 [95% CI, 21.8 to 25.2]) to week 4 (mean score, 15.3 [CI, 13.6 to 16.9]) was −8.2 (CI, −9.9 to −6.6). The mean changes in UAS7 for sham acupuncture and waitlist control from baseline (mean scores, 21.9 [CI, 20.2 to 23.6] and 22.1 [CI, 20.4 to 23.8], respectively) to week 4 (mean scores, 17.8 [CI, 16.1 to 19.5] and 20.0 [CI, 18.3 to 21.6], respectively) were −4.1 (CI, −5.8 to −2.4) and −2.2 (CI, −3.8 to −0.5), respectively. The mean differences between acupuncture and sham acupuncture and waitlist control were −4.1 (CI, −6.5 to −1.8) and −6.1 (CI, −8.4 to −3.7), respectively, which did not meet the threshold for minimal clinically important difference. Fifteen participants (13.6%) in the acupuncture group and none in the other groups reported adverse events. Adverse events were mild or transient. Limitation: Lack of complete blinding, self-reported outcomes, limited generalizability because antihistamine use was disallowed, and short follow-up period. Conclusion: Compared with sham acupuncture and waitlist control, acupuncture produced a greater improvement in UAS7, although the difference from control was not clinically significant. Increased adverse events were mild or transient. Primary Funding Source: The National Key R&D Program of China and the Science and Technology Department of Sichuan Province. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article, published in the Annals of Internal Medicine, discusses the efficacy of acupuncture in treating chronic spontaneous urticaria (CSU). The authors conducted a randomized controlled trial and used a fixed treatment protocol to ensure reproducibility and standardization. They acknowledge that tailoring the treatment plan to individual patients could potentially improve outcomes. The article also mentions the challenges faced in collecting serum IgE levels for analysis and the limitations in analyzing the responses of the waitlist group. The authors plan to share the results of a secondary analysis in a future publication. [Extracted from the article]