Publications by authors named "Zu Jian"

Article Synopsis
  • A study analyzed liver cancer death rates (specifically hepatocellular carcinoma or HCC) in the U.S. from 2006 to 2022, revealing a concerning upward trend in mortality.* -
  • Out of 188,280 deaths recorded, most victims were male, with overall liver cancer mortality rates projected to rise from 5.03 per 100,000 in 2022 to 6.39 by 2040.* -
  • While deaths from hepatitis-related liver cancer are declining, those associated with alcohol and metabolic diseases are rising, with metabolic dysfunction expected to become a leading cause of HCC-related death in the future.*
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For the Leslie-Gower predator-prey model with Michaelis-Menten type prey harvesting, the known results are on the saddle-node bifurcation and the Hopf bifurcation of codimensions 1, the Bogdanov-Takens bifurcations of codimensions 2 and 3, and on the cyclicity of singular slow-fast cycles. Here, we focus on the global dynamics of the model in the slow-fast setting and obtain much richer dynamical phenomena than the existing ones, such as global stability of an equilibrium; an unstable canard cycle exploding to a homoclinic loop; coexistence of a stable canard cycle and an inner unstable homoclinic loop; and, consequently, coexistence of two canard cycles: a canard explosion via canard cycles without a head, canard cycles with a short head and a beard and a relaxation oscillation with a short beard. This last one should be a new dynamical phenomenon.

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Article Synopsis
  • A significant rise in diabetic ketoacidosis (DKA) and hyperosmolar hyperglycemic state (HHS) mortality was observed during the COVID-19 pandemic, prompting an examination of death trends from 2006 to 2021.
  • Analysis revealed DKA-related deaths increased notably during the pandemic years, with over half of these excess deaths linked to COVID-19, while HHS also saw a sharp rise in excess deaths despite a decline prior to the pandemic.
  • The study highlighted concerning disparities, with higher mortality rates among pediatric patients and females, indicating an urgent need for targeted health strategies to address the risks faced by these populations in future public health emergencies.
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The micro-sintering method was used to determine the sintering basic characteristics of iron ore with Zn contents from 0 to 4%, the influence mechanism of Zn on sintering basic characteristics of iron ore was clarified by means of thermodynamic analysis and first-principles calculations. The results showed that (1) increasing the ZnO and ZnFeO content increased the lowest assimilation temperature (LAT) but decreased the index of liquid phase fluidity (ILF) of iron ore. The addition of ZnS had no obvious effect on LAT but increased the LIF of iron ore.

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Most recent studies on the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic and cutaneous melanoma (CM) focused more on delayed diagnosis or advanced presentation. We aimed to ascertain mortality trends of CM between 2012 and 2022, focusing on the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic. In this serial population-based study, the National Vital Statistics System dataset was queried for mortality data.

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Article Synopsis
  • The COVID-19 pandemic significantly disrupted healthcare in the U.S., impacting death rates among patients with inflammatory bowel disease (IBD).
  • A study analyzed death data from over 99% of the population between 2006 and 2021, revealing that non-COVID-19-related IBD deaths surged by over 13% during the pandemic years.
  • The findings indicated that younger ulcerative colitis patients and non-Hispanic black Crohn's disease patients experienced higher mortality, possibly due to delayed healthcare access and increased deaths occurring at home or in medical facilities.
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Phylogenetic tree inference is a classic fundamental task in evolutionary biology that entails inferring the evolutionary relationship of targets based on multiple sequence alignment (MSA). Maximum likelihood (ML) and Bayesian inference (BI) methods have dominated phylogenetic tree inference for many years, but BI is too slow to handle a large number of sequences. Recently, deep learning (DL) has been successfully applied to quartet phylogenetic tree inference and tentatively extended into more sequences with the quartet puzzling algorithm.

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Background: US progress toward ending the HIV epidemic was disrupted during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Objectives: To determine the impact of the pandemic on HIV-related mortality and potential disparities.

Methods: Using data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the United States (US) Census Bureau, HIV-related mortality data of decedents aged ≥25 years between 2012 and 2021 were analyzed.

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Immunocompromised status and interrupted routine care may render patients with cirrhosis vulnerable to the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic. A nationwide dataset that includes more than 99% of the decedents in the U.S.

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The topic of two-dimensional steady laminar MHD boundary layer flow across a wedge with non-Newtonian hybrid nanoliquid (CuO-TiO/CHO) with viscous dissipation and radiation is taken into consideration. The controlling partial differential equations have been converted to non-linear higher-order ordinary differential equations using the appropriate similarity transformations. It is demonstrated that a number of thermo-physical characteristics govern the transmuted model.

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The COVID-19 pandemic has had a detrimental impact on the healthcare system. Our study armed to assess the extent and the disparity in excess acute myocardial infarction (AMI)-associated mortality during the pandemic, through the recent Omicron outbreak. Using data from the CDC's National Vital Statistics System, we identified 1 522 669 AMI-associated deaths occurring between 4/1/2012 and 3/31/2022.

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Background: Diabetes mellitus (DM) is a critical risk factor for severe SARS-CoV-2 infection, and SARS-CoV-2 infection contributes to worsening glycemic control. The COVID-19 pandemic profoundly disrupted the delivery of care for patients with diabetes. We aimed to determine the trend of DM-related deaths during the pandemic.

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Background & Aims: The pandemic has resulted in an increase of deaths not directly related to COVID-19 infection. We aimed to use a national death dataset to determine the impact of the pandemic on people with liver disease in the USA, focusing on alcohol-associated liver disease (ALD) and non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD).

Methods: Using data from the National Vital Statistic System from the Center for Disease Control and Prevention Wide-Ranging Online Data for Epidemiologic Research (CDC WONDER) platform and ICD-10 codes, we identified deaths associated with liver disease.

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This study explores the coevolutionary dynamics of host-pathogen interaction based on a susceptible-infected population model with density-dependent mortality. We assume that both the host's resistance and the pathogen's virulence will adaptively evolve, but there are inevitable costs in terms of host birth rate and disease-related mortality rate. Particularly, it is assumed that both the host resistance and pathogen virulence can affect the transmission rate.

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This cross-sectional study uses US vital statistics data to evaluate alcohol use disorder–related mortality rates from 2012 to 2021, with a focus on trends during the COVID-19 pandemic.

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Background: Since December 14, 2020, New York City (NYC) has started the first batch of COVID-19 vaccines. However, the shortage of vaccines is currently an inevitable problem. Therefore, optimizing the age-specific COVID-19 vaccination is an important issue that needs to be addressed as a priority.

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Objectives: The COVID-19 pandemic has resulted in an enormous burden on population health and the economy around the world. Although most cities in the United States have reopened their economies from previous lockdowns, it was not clear how the magnitude of different control measures-such as face mask use and social distancing-may affect the timing of reopening the economy for a local region. This study aimed to investigate the relationship between reopening dates and control measures and identify the conditions under which a city can be reopened safely.

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COVID-19 is an infectious disease caused by the SARS-CoV-2 virus that caused an outbreak of typical pneumonia first in Wuhan and then globally. Although researchers focus on the human-to-human transmission of this virus but not much research is done on the dynamics of the virus in the environment and the role humans play by releasing the virus into the environment. In this paper, a novel nonlinear mathematical model of the COVID-19 epidemic is proposed and analyzed under the effects of the environmental virus on the transmission patterns.

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In face of the continuing worldwide COVID-19 epidemic, how to reduce the transmission risk of COVID-19 more effectively is still a major public health challenge that needs to be addressed urgently. This study aimed to develop an age-structured compartment model to evaluate the impact of all diagnosed and all hospitalized on the epidemic trend of COVID-19, and explore innovative and effective releasing strategies for different age groups to prevent the second wave of COVID-19. Based on three types of COVID-19 data in New York City (NYC), we calibrated the model and estimated the unknown parameters using the Markov Chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) method.

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Background: Multiple candidates of COVID-19 vaccines have entered Phase III clinical trials in the United States (US). There is growing optimism that social distancing restrictions and face mask requirements could be eased with widespread vaccine adoption soon.

Methods: We developed a dynamic compartmental model of COVID-19 transmission for the four most severely affected states (New York, Texas, Florida, and California).

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There is growing evidence on the effect of face mask use in controlling the spread of COVID-19. However, few studies have examined the effect of local face mask policies on the pandemic. In this study, we developed a dynamic compartmental model of COVID-19 transmission in New York City (NYC), which was the epicenter of the COVID-19 pandemic in the USA.

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Background: The long-term impact of sexual transmission on the hepatitis B virus (HBV) infection in China remains unclear. This study aims to estimate the independent influence of sexual transmission on HBV infection.

Methods: Based on the natural history of HBV infection and three national serosurvey data of hepatitis B in China, we developed an age- and sex-specific discrete model to describe the transmission dynamics of HBV.

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Coronaviruses are a large family of viruses that cause different symptoms, from mild cold to severe respiratory distress, and they can be seen in different types of animals such as camels, cattle, cats and bats. Novel coronavirus called COVID-19 is a newly emerged virus that appeared in many countries of the world, but the actual source of the virus is not yet known. The outbreak has caused pandemic with 26,622,706 confirmed infections and 874,708 reported deaths worldwide till August 31, 2020, with 17,717,911 recovered cases.

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Background: The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) outbreak has seriously endangered the health and lives of Chinese people. In this study, we predicted the COVID-19 epidemic trend and estimated the efficacy of several intervention strategies in the mainland of China.

Methods: According to the COVID-19 epidemic status, we constructed a compartmental model.

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