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Improving the sustainable development of new ventures and helping them survive and develop in the entrepreneurial environment are important research issues. Business model innovation is considered as a potential way for new ventures to enhance their sustainable development capability and performance. Although previous studies have pointed out that there is a positive linear relationship between business model innovation and sustainable development, little research has found the nonlinear relationship between them, as well as the moderating effects of competitive strategy innovation and strategy flexibility. In this study, an empirical model was established to test our hypotheses and answer our research questions. Analysis of data collected from 326 questionnaires shows that an inverted-U relationship exists between business model innovation and sustainable development such that new ventures with low or high business model innovation have worse sustainable development than new ventures with appropriate business model innovation. Moreover, this paper finds that competitive strategy innovation and strategic flexibility positively moderate the inverted-U relationship between business model innovation and sustainable development of new ventures. From a theoretical perspective, this study offers a model with which to understand the impacts of business model innovation, and contributes significantly to the research on new ven- tures. From a practical perspective, this paper provides new insights into the management of new ventures and recommends several practical strategies for managers and practitioners. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, the unique characteristics of West Africa was addressed. The game relationship between the owner and the port operator, and the relationship among the hub ports as well as the geography risk in West Africa were all considered. Accordingly, based on the principle of equilibrium, a mixed-integer model was established. The model could collaboratively optimize the hub port investment program (including the selection of investment targets, the amount of investment ports, and the investment quota) as well as the inland safe path setting scheme. The objective of this model was to minimize the regional integrated transportation costs. A genetic Frank-Wolf hybrid algorithm was proposed based on genetic algorithm to solve this model. The results show that the selection of investment targets in hub ports, the amount of investment ports, and the investment quota concerning security risks can be optimized by the proposed model, which can also simultaneously improve the corresponding inland safe path network. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Hepatitis B virus (HBV), a common blood transmission pathogen worldwide, can lead to viral hepatitis, cirrhosis, liver cancer, and other liver diseases. In particular, occult hepatitis B virus infection (OBI) may be caused by an immune response leading to suppressed virus replication. Gut microbiota can change the immunity status of the human body and, therefore, affect the replication of HBV. Thus, to identify whether there are differences in gut microbiota between HBV carriers and OBI carriers, we collected fecal samples from 18 HBV carriers, 24 OBI blood donors, and also 20 healthy blood donors as negative control. After 16S sequencing, we found that the abundance of Faecalibacterium was significantly reduced in samples from OBI blood donors compared with those from healthy blood donors. Compared with samples from HBV carriers, the samples from OBI blood donors had a significantly increased abundance of Subdoligranulum , which might stimulate immune activation, thus inhibiting HBV replication and contributing to the formation of occult infection. Our findings revealed the potential role of gut microbiota in the formation of OBI and further provided a novel strategy for the treatment of HBV infection.IMPORTANCEOccult hepatitis B virus infection (OBI) is a special form of hepatitis B virus infection with hepatitis B surface antigen (HBsAg) positive and hepatitis B virus (HBV) DNA negative. Gut microbiota may contribute to the immune response leading to suppressed virus replication and, thus, participates in the development of OBI. The study on gut microbiota of OBI blood donors provides novel data considerably advancing our understanding of the immune mechanism for the determination of occult hepatitis B virus infection, which is helpful for improving the strategy of the treatment of HBV infection., Competing Interests: The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Introduction: The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has created lots of difficulties for individuals to seek medical help offline. Telehealth is considered as a potential approach to solve this issue. During the COVID-19 pandemic, although the use of telehealth has increased in the short term, it still remains unknown whether the use of telehealth can maintain a high level of development in the long term. The purpose of this article is to investigate the impact of COVID-19 pandemic on telehealth use across time and regional medical resources. Materials and Methods: Our research used the Internet search index from Baidu Index Platform in 31 provinces of China as the proxy of telehealth use. A total of 2,119,486 times of searching behaviors from January 2018 to December 2021 are included in our dataset. Changing plots, the method of analysis of variance and empirical models are applied to reveal the relationship between COVID-19 pandemic and telehealth use. Results: Baidu Index counts increased ( p < 0.01) at the beginning of COVID-19 pandemic (2020) but started to decline ( p < 0.01) during the period of regular epidemic prevention and control (2021). Moreover, the counts of Baidu Index in regions with rich medical resources are higher than those in other regions in 2020. Comparing Baidu Index counts in 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic has higher positive effects on telehealth use during the period of 2021 in regions with average and poor medical resources. Conclusions: COVID-19 pandemic has a positive effect on telehealth use in 2020 but has a negative effect in 2021. During the epidemic, telehealth use differs in regions with rich, average, and poor medical resources. Our findings indicate that the use of telehealth should be promoted with different measures in regions with different medical resources, thereby contributing its healthy development in the long term.

Introduction: In the past decades, the average weight of residents has increased significantly. Weight management has become an important issue in our society. With the developments of mobile technology and applications, mobile health applications (m-health apps) provide a convenient platform for users to engage in weight loss tasks and control their body weight. However, due to the lack of proper motivators, engaging in weight loss tasks on m-health apps is stressful for the users. The aim of this study is to understand why users engage in weight loss tasks, and to be specific, we establish an empirical model to examine the effects of social motivators (social support) and personal motivators (body condition) and their interactive relationship on the level of user engagement using self-determination theory. Materials and Methods: We developed a JAVA software program and automatically downloaded 1,138 users' information from an m-health app. Following, we used these data to calculate variables of our research model, including body mass index (BMI), informational support, emotional support, and the level of engagement in weight loss tasks. Additionally, we used the Ordinary Least Squares to estimate our research model. We also checked the robustness of the results by dividing the data into different groups. Results: The empirical results of our research model indicate that informational and emotional supports are positively associated with the engagement levels of users in weight loss tasks. Additionally, we have found out that body condition (using BMI as a proxy) has a U-shaped relationship effect on users' engagement. Furthermore, our research proves that body condition and informational support have a substitutive relationship in affecting user engagement. Conclusions : These findings can contribute to the literature concerning online weight loss and to provide suggestions for users and practitioners of m-health apps, catering different incentive mechanisms to users with different body condition to help them control their body weight.