In December 2019, cases of pneumonia were detected in Wuhan, China, which were caused by the highly contagious coronavirus. This study is aimed at comparing the confusion regarding the selection of effective diagnostic methods to make a mutual comparison among existing SARS-CoV-2 diagnostic tests and at determining the most effective one. Based on available published evidence and clinical practice, diagnostic tests of coronavirus disease (COVID-19) were evaluated by multi-criteria decision-making (MCDM) methods, namely, fuzzy preference ranking organization method for enrichment evaluation (fuzzy PROMETHEE) and fuzzy technique for order of preference by similarity to ideal solution (fuzzy TOPSIS). Computerized tomography of chest (chest CT), the detection of viral nucleic acid by polymerase chain reaction, cell culture, CoV-19 antigen detection, CoV-19 antibody IgM, CoV-19 antibody IgG, and chest X-ray were evaluated by linguistic fuzzy scale to compare among the diagnostic tests. This scale consists of selected parameters that possessed different weights which were determined by the experts’ opinions of the field. The results of our study with both proposed MCDM methods indicated that the most effective diagnosis method of COVID-19 was chest CT. It is interesting to note that the methods that are consistently used in the diagnosis of viral diseases were ranked in second place for the diagnosis of COVID-19. However, each country should use appropriate diagnostic solutions according to its own resources. Our findings also show which diagnostic systems can be used in combination.
Objectives. The outbreak of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) was first reported in December 2019. Until now, many drugs and methods have been used in the treatment of the disease. However, no effective treatment option has been found and only case-based successes have been achieved so far. This study aims to evaluate COVID-19 treatment options using multicriteria decision-making (MCDM) techniques. Methods. In this study, we evaluated the available COVID-19 treatment options by MCDM techniques, namely, fuzzy PROMETHEE and VIKOR. These techniques are based on the evaluation and comparison of complex and multiple criteria to evaluate the most appropriate alternative. We evaluated current treatment options including favipiravir (FPV), lopinavir/ritonavir, hydroxychloroquine, interleukin-1 blocker, intravenous immunoglobulin (IVIG), and plasma exchange. The criteria used for the analysis include side effects, method of administration of the drug, cost, turnover of plasma, level of fever, age, pregnancy, and kidney function. Results. The results showed that plasma exchange was the most preferred alternative, followed by FPV and IVIG, while hydroxychloroquine was the least favorable one. New alternatives could be considered once they are available, and weights could be assigned based on the opinions of the decision-makers (physicians/clinicians). The treatment methods that we evaluated with MCDM methods will be beneficial for both healthcare users and to rapidly end the global pandemic. The proposed method is applicable for analyzing the alternatives to the selection problem with quantitative and qualitative data. In addition, it allows the decision-maker to define the problem simply under uncertainty. Conclusions. Fuzzy PROMETHEE and VIKOR techniques are applied in aiding decision-makers in choosing the right treatment technique for the management of COVID-19.
Purpose - Vlogging enables individuals to share experiences, knowledge and diaries with the online community. Recently many studies have shown that vloggers’ main characteristics and blog types have a direct influence on users as an effective medium. As vlogs have become an important tool for interactive communication, the purpose of this paper is to understand the relationship between vloggers’characteristics, trust, word of mouth and intention of online shopping. This study implies that the vblog can be a meaningful learning platform and the vlogging can be a significant medium in having/sharing the informal knowledge for online shopping. Design/Methodology/Approach- Based on various theories, the structural equation modelling approach was proposed in this study. A survey with convenience sampling involving 357 vlog users as participants was analyzed in the empirical study to investigate whether the usefulness of vbloggers’ recommendations and trusting beliefs towards vblogger has influence on consumers’ behavioral intentions towards word of mouth and online shopping. Findings-The results showed that vloggers’ characteristics had significant influential effect on vlog users’ attitude towards and intention to shop online. Moreover, the findings indicated that engagement characteristics of vloggers elicited trust more than authoritative knowledged characteristics of vloggers. As a result of the path analysis it is discovered that the intention to shop online is triggered through trust and word of mouth communication. Engagement knowledge has more power on the relationship between word of mouth communication and the intention to purchase. As much as users trust that the content of the vlog is based on true information and not for advertising strategy, the more likely they want to share the information virally. That would have a direct impact to the increasing intention to buy. Originality/Value- The originality of this paper is to study vlogging, which is a new working field in the scholarly literature, and its correlation to users’ intention to buy. This study especially analyzes the vlog characteristics and their increasingly leading factors to users/readers’ attractiveness intention to buy. The value of this study concentrated on the trust issue and its positive relation to amateur vloggers instead of authorative knowledged based ones.
Background: Exercise is believed to play an important role in maintaining functionality in patients with HIV and it is thought that researchers are increasingly interested in this field. We aimed to shed light on the historical development of research on HIV and exercise by utilizing visual mapping method. Methods: Overall, 1051 articles retrieved from Web of Science (WoS) core database were analyzed according to the publication year and language, number of issues, citation, country collaborations, co-citation networks and concept–topic trends by using CiteSpace software. Results: The United States played a key role in country collaborations, and had the highest citation burst. The most cited studies were meta-analysis studies. The studies gathered mainly around the clusters named “physical activity” and “metabolic abnormalities” meanwhile, the recent topics of research were heart failure, metabolism, comorbidity, Ethiopia, muscle, cardiovascular event and drug user. Conclusion: The reason why USA was found to be one of the key actors in the network is supposed to be the financial resources it can allocate for the studies conducted. It appears that the majority of the studies in the field dwell upon the impact of exercise on the physical parameters in HIV patients, whereas there are only a limited number of studies focusing on the impact of exercise on HIV-induced psychological and cognitive problems. Recent studies on neurocognitive impairment, on the other hand, are predictive of possible future popularity of such topics among researchers.
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