By 27 February 2020, the outbreak of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID‐19) caused 82 623 confirmed cases and 2858 deaths globally, more than severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) (8273 cases, 775 ...deaths) and Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS) (1139 cases, 431 deaths) caused in 2003 and 2013, respectively. COVID‐19 has spread to 46 countries internationally. Total fatality rate of COVID‐19 is estimated at 3.46% by far based on published data from the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention (China CDC). Average incubation period of COVID‐19 is around 6.4 days, ranges from 0 to 24 days. The basic reproductive number (R0) of COVID‐19 ranges from 2 to 3.5 at the early phase regardless of different prediction models, which is higher than SARS and MERS. A study from China CDC showed majority of patients (80.9%) were considered asymptomatic or mild pneumonia but released large amounts of viruses at the early phase of infection, which posed enormous challenges for containing the spread of COVID‐19. Nosocomial transmission was another severe problem. A total of 3019 health workers were infected by 12 February 2020, which accounted for 3.83% of total number of infections, and extremely burdened the health system, especially in Wuhan. Limited epidemiological and clinical data suggest that the disease spectrum of COVID‐19 may differ from SARS or MERS. We summarize latest literatures on genetic, epidemiological, and clinical features of COVID‐19 in comparison to SARS and MERS and emphasize special measures on diagnosis and potential interventions. This review will improve our understanding of the unique features of COVID‐19 and enhance our control measures in the future.
With the global climate change poses a major threat to human society, more and more countries begin to “carbon neutral” as a national strategy. As a major country in the global carbon emissions, ...China and the United States focus on the development of the clean industry - photovoltaic industry to increase investment, in order to deal with global climate problems. At the same time, China and the United States for the photovoltaic industry game also presents a two-way interaction situation, on the one hand, the two countries for the “carbon neutral” energy strategy affects the two countries’ trade borders, on the other hand, the two countries’ trade strategy also affects the global “carbon neutral” process. This article will be based on the current stage of the two sides of the energy use, the development of photovoltaic industry strength comparison and other aspects of the photovoltaic energy game between China and the United States to discuss.
•An indicator system and workflow for assessing the suitability of rooftop greening.•Machine learning can help accurately identify the roof in the area.•Building age and rooftop height are two core ...constraints on rooftop greening.•Semi-intensive roof greening is superior to extensive one in runoff regulation.•The green roof layout away from outfall: less runoff; close to outfall: stronger peak flow reduction.
The reduction in internal ecological spaces within urban environments and the expansion of impervious surfaces have been identified as factors significantly increasing the susceptibility of cities to flood disasters. Rooftop greening, an essential component of urban stormwater management strategies, offers a versatile solution for augmenting permeable surfaces and delivering ecological services while seamlessly integrating with existing urban infrastructure. This approach has been proven effective in enhancing urban resilience against rainfall-induced flooding events. Hence, the precise identification of suitable building rooftops for green infrastructure within urbanized regions, combined with the simulation of runoff regulation effects brought about by these rooftop greening interventions, holds substantial practical significance. This study innovatively constructs a technical method for measuring the runoff control performance of urban-scale green roofs from identification, evaluation to simulation. Taking the Macao Special Administrative Region as an example, a green roof suitability evaluation index system that is consistent with urban characteristics has been constructed, integrating machine learning, comprehensive evaluation, SWMM simulation methods to evaluate the suitability of roof greening in urban areas and simulate the impact of multi-senarios green roof construction types on runoff regulation. Finally, a comprehensive strategy for rooftop greening construction in Macau is proposed, with the aim of amplifying the runoff regulation capabilities of such initiatives. The main findings of the research include the following: (1) The research area exhibits a notably high aggregate potential for rooftop greening, with suitable rooftop areas comprising approximately 34% of the total rooftop expanse. Notably, construction vintage and roof elevation are identified as the most substantive constraints on rooftop greening. (2) Discernible differences in rooftop greening construction scale exert a significant influence on runoff regulation capacity, with the magnitude of greening positively correlated with its runoff regulation efficacy. Distinct greening typologies elicit varying impacts on runoff regulation, with semi-intensive rooftop greening surpassing extensive approaches in runoff regulation performance. Disparate distribution patterns of rooftop greening engender dissimilar runoff regulation effects, with rooftop greening layouts situated distant from drainage outlets facilitating runoff mitigation, while those in close proximity to drainage outlets enhance peak flow reduction effects.
Kruppel-associated box zinc-finger proteins (KRAB-ZFPs) make up the largest family of transcription factors in humans. These proteins emerged in the last common ancestor of coelacanth and tetrapods, ...and have expanded and diversified in the mammalian lineage. Although their mechanism of transcriptional repression has been well studied for over a decade, the DNA-binding activities and the biological functions of these proteins have been largely unexplored. Recent large-scale ChIP-seq studies and loss-of-function experiments have revealed that KRAB-ZFPs play a major role in the recognition and transcriptional silencing of transposable elements (TEs), consistent with an ‘arms race model’ of KRAB-ZFP evolution against invading TEs. However, this model is insufficient to explain the evolution of many KRAB-ZFPs that appear to domesticate TEs for novel host functions. We highlight some of the mammalian regulatory innovations driven by specific KRAB-ZFPs, including genomic imprinting, meiotic recombination hotspot choice, and placental growth.
KRAB-ZFPs make up the largest class of DNA-binding transcription factors in mammals.
The KRAB-domain is a potent transcriptional repression domain that functions via recruitment of the TRIM28 corepressor which recruits heterochromatin-inducing machinery.
KRAB-ZFPs are rapidly evolving in mammals, primarily at the level of expansion of KRAB-ZFP gene clusters, likely in response to invading waves of TEs.
The majority of KRAB-ZFPs (∼2/3 in humans) interact with TEs via specific DNA-binding motifs.
Loss-of-function studies of KRAB-ZFP corepressors and individual KRAB-ZFPs demonstrate that KRAB-ZFPs transcriptionally repress target TEs and prevent latent enhancer/promoter activity within TEs from affecting nearby genes.
The continuous cycle of KRAB-ZFP evolution against TEs provides a driving force for new adaptations in mammals.
The variability and interaction of the East Asian summer monsoon (EASM) and mid-latitude Westerlies have dominated Eurasian hydroclimates over orbital timescales and currently influence over a ...billion lives in Asia. Despite this, the mechanisms influencing EASM-Westerlies variability are still a matter of considerable debate. This study presents three loess-paleosol sequences in the NE Tibetan Plateau (NETP) dated at high-resolution by 50 K-feldspar pIRIR and 37 quartz OSL ages to produce the most detailed chronology for any loess record within the plateau. Combined with this chronology are sedimentology, magnetic susceptibility and grain size analyses with TraCE-21ka climatic modelling to constrain atmospheric controls on climatic changes over the NETP during the past 130 kyr. Our results indicate that deposition initiated by ∼130 ka with especially rapid rates during glacial periods, with maximum rates (140–180 g/cm2/ka) in early MIS 2. Over interglacial-glacial cycles, NETP climatic changes are consistent with warm-moist interglacial and cold-dry glacial conditions recorded in the monsoonal Chinese Loess Plateau and Westerlies-dominated Central Asia but anti-phase to Central Asia during interglacial and the Holocene substages. These results highlight how variation in EASM intensity strongly controls NETP moisture changes but that Holocene and last interglacial changes recorded in the NETP consistently lag 30°N summer insolation by 2–6 kyr. This study suggests high-latitude forcing effectively modulates EASM intensity and that factors such as ice volume, greenhouse gases, and freshwater input to northern Atlantic and Southern oceans critically influence NETP paleoclimatic conditions.
•K-feldspar pIRIR dating can be used to date loess to at least 130 ka in the Tibetan Plateau.•A moist interglacial-dry glacial climate pattern occurred across Eurasia.•EASM dominated paleoclimatic changes during past 130 ka in the NE Tibetan Plateau.•EASM precipitation is consistently lagged 2–6 ka to July 30°N insolation.•High-latitude forcing induced lags in EASM precipitation to insolation.
Photocatalysis holds great promise as an efficient and sustainable oxidation technology for application in wastewater treatment. Rapid progress developing novel materials has propelled photocatalysis ...to the forefront of sustainable wastewater treatments. This review presents the latest progress on applications of photocatalytic wastewater treatment. Our focus is on strategies for improving performance. Challenges and outlooks in this promising field are also discussed. We hope this review will help researchers design low-cost and high-efficiency photocatalysts for water treatment.
In the present work the adsorption of doxorubicin (DOX) on the surface of single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWCNTs) as well as its encapsulation in SWCNTs, and their dependence on the protonation of ...the NH
2
group of DOX, solvent, and the diameter of armchair (
n
,
n
) SWCNTs were systematically investigated using theoretical methods such as PM6-DH2 and M06-2X in the scheme of OMIOM. It was found that the two loadings, adsorption on the sidewall of CNTs and encapsulation in CNTs, have distinct solvent, protonation and diameter dependences. The encapsulation is much stronger than the adsorption of DOX on the sidewall of CNTs, and the former also has significantly higher solvent and protonation effects than the latter. The adsorption primarily occurs through π-π stacking and just becomes slightly stronger as the diameter of the CNTs increases, while besides the π-π stacking the additional C-H/N-H/O-H π and C&z.dbd;O π also contribute to the encapsulation of DOX in CNTs. It seems that (8, 8) CNT with a diameter of ∼ 11 Å is energetically an onset for the encapsulation, since the encapsulation turns from endothermic to exothermic when the diameter is larger than approximately 11 Å, and the optimal diameter for the encapsulation is 14 Å corresponding to (10, 10) CNT. Thus for the thick CNT the encapsulation may also play an important role in the loading and releasing for the CNT-based drug delivery system of the DOX.
The encapsulation of DOX plays an important role in the design of a CNT-based drug delivery system.
In the era of information, the green services of content-centric IoT are expected to offer users the better satisfaction of Quality of Experience (QoE) than that in a conventional IoT. Nevertheless, ...the network traffic and new demands from IoT users increase along with the promising of the content-centric computing system. Therefore, the satisfaction of QoE will become the major challenge in the content-centric computing system for IoT users. In this article, to enhance the satisfaction of QoE, we propose QoE models to evaluate the qualities of the IoT concerning both network and users. The value of QoE does not only refer to the network cost, but also the Mean Opinion Score (MOS) of users. Therefore, our models could capture the influence factors from network cost and services for IoT users based on IoT conditions. Specially, we mainly focus on the issues of cache allocation and transmission rate. Under this content-centric IoT, aiming to allocate the cache capacity among content-centric computing nodes and handle the transmission rates under a constrained total network cost and MOS for the whole IoT, we devote our efforts to the following two aspects. First, we formulate the QoE as a green resource allocation problem under the different transmission rate to acquire the best QoE. Then, in the basis of the node centrality, we will propose a suboptimal dynamic approach, which is suitable for IoT with content delivery frequently. Furthermore, we present a green resource allocation algorithm based on Deep Reinforcement Learning (DRL) to improve accuracy of QoE adaptively. Simulation results reveal that our proposals could achieve high QoE performance for content-centric IoT.
The aim of this paper is to explore the impact of subsidy policies on the development of the recycling and remanufacturing industry in China using system dynamics methodology and by simulating ...Chinese auto parts industry. Firstly, we introduced four subsidy policies – initial subsidy, recycling subsidy, R&D subsidy and production subsidy – and established system dynamics models to characterize the remanufacturing dynamics system considering government subsidies. Then we analyzed the impact of four subsidy policies and mixed-subsidy policies individually and comparatively based on Chinese auto engine remanufacturing on recycling and remanufacturing activities. The results showed that varied subsidies have different incentive objectives and characteristics. The initial subsidy plays an active role in improving remanufacturing activities and is suitable to be used at the initial stage of industry development. When the remanufacturing industry develops to a certain extent, the production subsidy or R&D subsidy can reasonably control the quantity of remanufacturers and maintain remanufacturing industry scale and stability. The recycling subsidy plays a significant role in overcoming the bottleneck problem of “lack of cores”. The mixed-subsidy policies have the better positive effects on remanufacturing promotion than single subsidy policies, but involve higher costs.
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•Evaluate the impact of subsidy policies on remanufacturing promotion.•System dynamics (SD) method are mainly applied.•The effectiveness of single subsidy policies and their combinations are evaluated.•Varied subsidies have different incentive objectives and characteristics.
Viral vectors play a pivotal role in the field of gene therapy, with several related drugs having already gained clinical approval from the EMA and FDA. However, numerous viral gene therapy vectors ...are currently undergoing pre-clinical research or participating in clinical trials. Despite advancements, the innate response remains a significant barrier impeding the clinical development of viral gene therapy. The innate immune response to viral gene therapy vectors and transgenes is still an important reason hindering its clinical development. Extensive studies have demonstrated that different DNA and RNA sensors can detect adenoviruses, adeno-associated viruses, and lentiviruses, thereby activating various innate immune pathways such as Toll-like receptor (TLR), cyclic GMP-AMP synthase–stimulator of interferon genes (cGAS-STING), and retinoic acid-inducible gene I–mitochondrial antiviral signaling protein (RLR-MAVS). This review focuses on elucidating the mechanisms underlying the innate immune response induced by three widely utilized viral vectors: adenovirus, adeno-associated virus, and lentivirus, as well as the strategies employed to circumvent innate immunity.
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