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Working hours have been discussed for over 150 years from a variety of perspectives such as worker health, corporate productivity, and job market stability. Despite extensive research in working hour reduction, there is limited evidence on the effect of hours worked by industry characteristics. This study examined the relationship between technical efficiency and working hours. For this, 514 Korean companies were divided into labour-intensive and knowledge-intensive industries, and changes in technical efficiency in each industry were investigated after implementing a working hour reduction policy. The efficiency of the labour-intensive industry improved after a reduction of working hours, whereas that of the knowledge-intensive industry decreased. These results imply that working hours should vary by industry. This study empirically illustrates the effect of reducing working hours and suggests practical guidelines for each country and company to increase technical efficiency by industry. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The long-term uncertainty and persistence of isolation caused by the COVID-19 pandemic created prolonged emotional distress individually and collectively. As the pandemic progressed, the dynamic ride of emotional experience was expressed live and shared online, particularly on social media. In this study, we collected posted messages on Twitter for a longitudinal investigation to determine how emotional experiences changed over time during the pandemic. In total, we analyzed 41,868,013 COVID-19-related tweets in English posted from January 21 to July 31, 2020. Using a stage model, the results demonstrated that there were three stages during the pandemic characterized by distinct emotional changes. The first stage features high anxiety and negative emotions compared with the other stages, possibly due to the lack of information about the disease. The second stage shows the dynamic ride of all emotions and an increase in negative emotions (particularly anger) as the COVID-19 pandemic proceeds. In the third stage, most emotions are stabilized, except for depression, despite the protracted pandemic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

AbstractThe global population is experiencing a significant rise in cases of depressive disorders, which have been exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic. However, having limited resources and fear of social stigma have discouraged individuals from seeking professional psychological counseling or visiting hospitals. In response to this issue, psychiatrists have attempted the use of chatbots as a therapeutic aid. Therefore, in this study, users’ choice data about the mental healthcare AI chatbot are collected through conjoint analysis, and the collected data is analyzed using the mixed logit method to derive users’ preferences for the mental healthcare AI chatbot. Findings highlight a consistent preference among users for certain factors in both psychological counseling chatbots and traditional psychological counseling. At first, the findings indicate that users place the highest priority on pricing and the ability to connect with a professional counselor. Furthermore, users prefer chatbots that have a more human-like appearance and characteristics. By incorporating these preferences, chatbot developers can create a more user-centric mental healthcare AI chatbot. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The wet type of age-related macular degeneration (AMD) accompanies the subfoveal choroidal neovascularization (CNV) caused by the abnormal extension or remodeling of blood vessels to the macula and retinal pigment epithelium (RPE). Vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) is known to play a crucial role in the pathogenesis of the disease. In this study, we tried to repurpose an investigational anticancer drug, rivoceranib, which is a selective inhibitor of VEGF receptor-2 (VEGFR2), and evaluate the therapeutic potential of the drug for the treatment of wet-type AMD in a laser-induced CNV mouse model using microsphere-based sustained drug release formulations. The PLGA-based rivoceranib microsphere can carry out a sustained delivery of rivoceranib for 50 days. When administered intravitreally, the sustained microsphere formulation of rivoceranib effectively inhibited the formation of subfoveal neovascular lesions in mice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]