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Purpose: We aim at “heavy traffic direction” and “light traffic direction” in two-way waterway traffic and attempt to promote the transit capacity of two-way waterway system. Design/methodology/approach: We propose overtaking rules, head-on rules and a cellular automaton model for variable two-way waterway on AIS-based on the basis of NaSch (Nagel-Schreckenberg) model. Findings: By numerical simulation to the two situations which allow changing lane and prohibit changing lane, we obtain fundamental functions between traffic flux (speed) and density and find that changing lane can promote traffic flux and average speed of two-way waterway system under the premise of no impact to the traffic order, and when waterway ship traffic is dense, flux of waterway system has a visible promotion, and when traffic is sparse, average speed of waterway system adds significantly. Originality/value: The paper presents a method to analyze and promote transit capacity of two-way waterway.

Corticosteroid therapy is now recommended as a treatment in patients with severe COVID-19. But one key question is how to objectively identify severely ill patients who may benefit from such therapy. Here, we assigned 12,862 COVID-19 cases from 21 hospitals in Hubei Province equally to a training and a validation cohort. We found that a neutrophil-to-lymphocyte ratio (NLR) > 6.11 at admission discriminated a higher risk for mortality. Importantly, however, corticosteroid treatment in such individuals was associated with a lower risk of 60-day all-cause mortality. Conversely, in individuals with an NLR ≤ 6.11 or with type 2 diabetes, corticosteroid treatment was not associated with reduced mortality, but rather increased risks of hyperglycemia and infections. These results show that in the studied cohort corticosteroid treatment is associated with beneficial outcomes in a subset of COVID-19 patients who are non-diabetic and with severe symptoms as defined by NLR.

Statins are lipid-lowering therapeutics with favorable anti-inflammatory profiles and have been proposed as an adjunct therapy for COVID-19. However, statins may increase the risk of SARS-CoV-2 viral entry by inducing ACE2 expression. Here, we performed a retrospective study on 13,981 patients with COVID-19 in Hubei Province, China, among which 1,219 received statins. Based on a mixed-effect Cox model after propensity score-matching, we found that the risk for 28-day all-cause mortality was 5.2% and 9.4% in the matched statin and non-statin groups, respectively, with an adjusted hazard ratio of 0.58. The statin use-associated lower risk of mortality was also observed in the Cox time-varying model and marginal structural model analysis. These results give support for the completion of ongoing prospective studies and randomized controlled trials involving statin treatment for COVID-19, which are needed to further validate the utility of this class of drugs to combat the mortality of this pandemic.

Background: To estimate glucose disposal rate (eGDR) as a newly validated surrogate marker of insulin resistance. Few studies have explored the association between changes in eGDR levels and stroke incidence. This study aims to explore the effect of the level of eGDR control on stroke and events. Methods: Data were obtained from the China Longitudinal Study on Health and Retirement (CHARLS). The eGDR control level was classified using K‐means cluster analysis. Logistic regression analysis was used to explore the association between different eGDR control levels and incident stroke. Restrictive cubic spline regression was used to test the potential nonlinear association between cumulative eGDR and stroke incidence. Results: Of the 4790 participants, 304 (6.3%) had a stroke within 3 years. The odds ratio (OR) was 2.34 (95% confidence interval [CI], 1.42–3.86) for the poorly controlled class 4 and 2.56 (95% CI, 1.53–4.30) for the worst controlled class 5 compared with class 1 with the best controlled eGDR. The OR for well‐controlled class 2 was 1.28 (95% CI, 0.79–2.05), and the OR for moderately controlled class 3 was 1.95 (95% CI, 1.14–3.32). In restrictive cubic spline regression analysis, eGDR changes are linearly correlated with stroke occurrence. Weighted quartile and regression analysis identified waist circumference and hypertension as key variables of eGDR for predicting incident stroke. Conclusions: Poorly controlled eGDR level is associated with an increased risk of stroke in middle‐aged and elderly people. Monitoring changes in eGDR may help identify individuals at high risk of stroke early. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Se is an indispensable trace element for the human body, and telomere length is considered a marker of biological ageing. Previous studies have shown that dietary Se intake is associated with telomere length. However, the relationship between Se intake and telomere length in patients with diabetes has not been well studied. Therefore, this study aimed to investigate the relationship between dietary Se intake and telomere length in patients with diabetes. We extracted 878 participants with diabetes from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey database for 1990–2002. Dietary Se intake was assessed using the 24 h dietary recall method, and telomere length was measured using quantitative PCR. Generalised linear models were constructed to assess the relationship between dietary Se intake and telomere length. After controlling for the confounders, 1 μg increase in dietary Se intake in female patients with diabetes, and telomere length increased by 1·84 base pairs (β = 1·84 (95 % CI: 0·15, 3·53)), there was a line relationship between dietary Se intake and telomere length in female patients with diabetes and telomere length increased with increasing dietary Se intake within the range of 0–250 μg. The study demonstrates that dietary Se intake is significantly associated with telomere length only in the female population with diabetes in the USA. However, further prospective studies are required to confirm this finding. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]