OBJECTIVES: Although it is widely believed that China is facing a major shortage of pediatricians, the real situation of the current national status of pediatric human resources and their working conditions has not been evaluated to date. METHODS: We administered a survey to 54 214 hospitals from all 31 provinces in mainland China from 2015 to 2016. Hospital directors of all secondary and tertiary hospitals with pediatric services and a random sample (10%) of primary hospitals provided information on number of pediatricians and their educational levels, specialties, workloads, dropout rates, and other hospital characteristics. A data set of medical resources and socioeconomic information regarding each region (1997–2016) was constructed from the Chinese National Statistics Bureau. The Gini coefficient was used to describe the geographical distributions of pediatricians and hospitals. RESULTS: There were 135 524 pediatricians in China or ∼4 pediatricians per 10 000 children. Pediatricians’ average educational level was low, with ∼32% having only 3 years of junior college training after high school. The distribution of pediatricians was extremely skewed (Gini coefficient 0.61), and the imbalance of highly educated pediatricians was even more skewed (Gini coefficient 0.68). The dropout rate of pediatricians was 12.6%. Despite an increase in the Chinese government’s financial investment in health over the last decade, physicians have been burdened with a greater workload. CONCLUSIONS: Uneven development of the pediatric care system, inadequately trained pediatricians, low job satisfaction, and unmet demand for pediatric care are the major challenges facing China’s pediatric health care system.

No abstract

No abstract

No abstract

This letter presents a compact quad-band bandpass filter for DCS/WLAN/WiMAX/5G Wi-Fi applications. It utilizes two resonators. One is a multi-stub-loaded resonator operating at the first, second and fourth passband frequencies. The other one is a short-end stub-loaded resonator used to yield the third passband. Among the four passbands, the highest one is designed to cover a wide bandwidth (5.15-5.85 GHz) for 5G Wi-Fi applications. The design procedures are discussed in detail and the simulated and measured results are presented.Index Terms-Bandpass filter (BPF), compact size, 5G Wi-Fiband, quad-band.

This paper presents a novel frequency-agile filtering power divider with constant absolute bandwidth and high selectivity. The proposed design utilizes four coupled resonators to obtain the two functions of power division and filtering. Synthesis of the filtering power divider is carried out and the design guidelines are given. Varactors are then loaded to the resonators to enable frequency tuning. By using capacitors as well as magnetic and electric coupling to obtain required external quality factors and coupling coefficients, a constant absolute bandwidth is maintained when tuning the frequency. To demonstrate the validity of the proposed design, a circuit was fabricated. Experimental results show that the operating frequency can be changed from 0.62 to 0.85 GHz with the 3-dB absolute bandwidth of 60 2.5 MHz. Moreover, transmission zeros are generated near the passband, resulting in high selectivity for each tuning state. Comparisons between the measured and simulated results are presented and good agreement is observed.Index Terms-Bandpass response, constant absolute bandwidth, high selectivity, integration, tunable power divider.

Acanthamoeba keratitis (AK) is a painful, vision-threatening infection caused by pathogenic strains of the protozoan, Acanthamoeba. Toll-like receptors (TLRs), which are important components of innate immunity, have an important role in the detection of foreign pathogens and the signaling cascades in host cells. However, no report on the interaction between Acanthamoeba and TLR has been found. In this study we analyzed the role of the TLR and its signaling pathway in human telomerase-immortalized corneal epithelial cells (HUCLs) and stromal fibroblasts (THSFs) challenged by Acanthamoeba. We show that the expressions of TLR4, myeloid differentiation protein 88 (MyD88), nuclear factor (NF)-jB, phospho-IjB, phospho-extracellular signal-regulated kinases 1/2 (p-Erk1/2) and the inflammatory cytokines interleukin (IL)-8, tumor necrosis factor (TNF)-a and interferon (IFN)-b were significantly increased in Acanthamoeba-treated cells. Pretreatment with anti-TLR antibodies or the specific inhibitors pyrrolidine dithiocarbamate (PDTC) (for the NF-jB pathway) and U0126 (for the ERK pathway) was conducted. It was found that anti-TLR4 antibody attenuated the production of cytokines induced by Acanthamoeba infection. PDTC inhibited the production of IL-8 and TNF-a whereas U0126 inhibited the synthesis of IFN-b. Thus, TLR4 is a receptor for Acanthamoeba and exerts an effect through TLR4-MyD88-NF-jB and TLR4-ERK1/2 pathways to induce the secretion of cytokines in human corneal cell lines challenged by Acanthamoeba.

No abstract