•Assess the causal relation among oil price, geopolitical risk, and green bond index.•Use Granger-causality in quantile from December 2013 to January 2019 in the U.S.•Find unidirectional causality ...from geopolitical risk to oil price at the extreme tails.•Support bi-directional lower-tail causality from oil price to green bond index.•Present causality from geopolitical risk to green bond index in the lower quantiles.
This research explores the causal relation among oil price, geopolitical risks, and green bond index in the United States from December 2013 to January 2019. Unlike the conventional linear model specification used in earlier works, we evaluate causal relations based on Granger-causality in quantile analysis. Our empirical results reveal unidirectional Granger-causality from geopolitical risk to oil price at the extreme quantiles. We also observe a significant bi-directional causality from oil price to green bond index for the lower quantiles. Findings also reveal causality from geopolitical risk to green bond index in the lower quantiles of the distribution. Therefore, knowledge of these causal relationships can help policy makers to evaluate and implement effective policies to prevent sudden and substantial oil price shocks and geopolitical risk.
The SARS-CoV-2-infected disease (COVID-19) outbreak is a major threat to human beings. Previous studies mainly focused on Wuhan and typical symptoms. We analysed 74 confirmed COVID-19 cases with GI ...symptoms in the Zhejiang province to determine epidemiological, clinical and virological characteristics.
COVID-19 hospital patients were admitted in the Zhejiang province from 17 January 2020 to 8 February 2020. Epidemiological, demographic, clinical, laboratory, management and outcome data of patients with GI symptoms were analysed using multivariate analysis for risk of severe/critical type. Bioinformatics were used to analyse features of SARS-CoV-2 from Zhejiang province.
Among enrolled 651 patients, 74 (11.4%) presented with at least one GI symptom (nausea, vomiting or diarrhoea), average age of 46.14 years, 4-day incubation period and 10.8% had pre-existing liver disease. Of patients with COVID-19 with GI symptoms, 17 (22.97%) and 23 (31.08%) had severe/critical types and family clustering, respectively, significantly higher than those without GI symptoms, 47 (8.14%) and 118 (20.45%). Of patients with COVID-19 with GI symptoms, 29 (39.19%), 23 (31.08%), 8 (10.81%) and 16 (21.62%) had significantly higher rates of fever >38.5°C, fatigue, shortness of breath and headache, respectively. Low-dose glucocorticoids and antibiotics were administered to 14.86% and 41.89% of patients, respectively. Sputum production and increased lactate dehydrogenase/glucose levels were risk factors for severe/critical type. Bioinformatics showed sequence mutation of SARS-CoV-2 with m
A methylation and changed binding capacity with ACE2.
We report COVID-19 cases with GI symptoms with novel features outside Wuhan. Attention to patients with COVID-19 with non-classic symptoms should increase to protect health providers.
•A review of the applications and developments of UTHPs for electronic cooling is reported.•The UTHPs are particularly suitable for the heat dissipation of ultra-slim portable electronic devices.•The ...sintered mesh/fibres are the most commonly used wick structures for UTHPs in actual production.•The flattened thickness exerts significant influence on the thermal performance of UTHPs.
The development of miniaturization and high-density packaging of electronic components demands heat dissipation components that are compact and exhibit high performance. An ultra-thin micro heat pipe (UTHP), as a novel heat pipe with a flat shape that is highly suitable for application with high power and limited heat dissipation space, has been extensively investigated and widely used in mobile electronics. Understanding the influence of the manufacturing processes, capillary wick structures and flattened thickness on the thermal performance of UTHPs has been the aim of numerous studies. This paper presents a comprehensive review of the recent developments and applications of UTHPs for thermal management of electronics. The different types and applications of UTHPs are introduced, and the packaging technologies of UTHPs are summarized and compared. Furthermore, the fabrication methodology and heat transfer characteristics of various wick structures used for UTHPs are reviewed and analysed in detail. Finally, the challenges affecting the development and application of UTHPs are outlined, and recommendations for future research are presented.
Solar-driven overall water splitting is highly desirable for hydrogen generation with sustainable energy sources, which need efficient, earth-abundant, robust, and bifunctional electrocatalysts for ...both oxygen evolution reaction (OER) and hydrogen evolution reaction (HER). Herein, we propose a heterogeneous bimetallic phosphide/sulfide nanocomposite electrocatalyst of NiFeSP on nickel foam (NiFeSP/NF), which shows superior electrocatalytic activity of low overpotentials of 91 mV at −10 mA cm–2 for HER and of 240 mV at 50 mA cm–2 for OER in 1 M KOH solution. In addition, the NiFeSP/NF presents excellent overall water splitting performance with a cell voltage as low as 1.58 V at a current density of 10 mA cm–2. Combining with a photovoltaic device of a Si solar cell or integrating into photoelectrochemical (PEC) systems, the bifunctional NiFeSP/NF electrocatalyst implements unassisted solar-driven water splitting with a solar-to-hydrogen conversion efficiency of ∼9.2% and significantly enhanced PEC performance, respectively.
Graphene oxide was encapsulated into environmentally benign sodium alginate to prepare composite hydrogel beads, and then used as adsorbents to remove ciprofloxacin. Display omitted
Graphene oxide ...(GO) was encapsulated into environmentally benign sodium alginate (SA) to prepare a GO-SA composite hydrogel and an aerogel, which were then used as adsorbents to remove ciprofloxacin from aqueous solutions. The characteristics of these materials were investigated using scanning electron microscopy (SEM), Brunauer-Emmett-Teller (BET) analysis, Fourier transform infrared (FT-IR) spectroscopy, thermogravimetric analysis (TGA) and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS). The characterizations demonstrated that the incorporation of GO improved the pore uniformity of the gels and decreased the pore sizes. Kinetic studies showed that the adsorption capacity of SA composite gels increased approximately seven to nine times after the incorporation of GO, matching with pseudo-second-order models. Non-linear fitting parameters of adsorption isotherm studies indicated that a Langmuir model could precisely represent the adsorption behavior. GO-SA aerogels exhibited high tolerance to changes in pH and ionic strength; changes in these parameters minimally influenced the adsorption capacity of the GO-SA aerogels for ciprofloxacin. This work is especially relevant for environmental applications. These graphene-based composites are environmentally benign adsorbents and can remove organic contaminants from aqueous solutions.
It is unknown whether the human immune system frequently mounts a T cell response against mutations expressed by common epithelial cancers. Using a next-generation sequencing approach combined with ...high-throughput immunologic screening, we demonstrated that tumor-infiltrating lymphocytes (TILs) from 9 out of 10 patients with metastatic gastrointestinal cancers contained CD4⁺ and/or CD8⁺ T cells that recognized one to three neo-epitopes derived from somatic mutations expressed by the patient's own tumor. There were no immunogenic epitopes shared between these patients. However, we identified in one patient a human leukocyte antigen–C*08:02–restricted T cell receptor from CD8⁺ TILs that targeted the KRASG12D hotspot driver mutation found in many human cancers. Thus, a high frequency of patients with common gastrointestinal cancers harbor immunogenic mutations that can potentially be exploited for the development of highly personalized immunotherapies.
Abstract Background Pathogenesis and diagnostic biomarkers for diseases can be discovered by metabolomic profiling of human fluids. If the various types of coronary artery disease (CAD) can be ...accurately characterized by metabolomics, effective treatment may be targeted without using unnecessary therapies and resources. Objectives The authors studied disturbed metabolic pathways to assess the diagnostic value of metabolomics-based biomarkers in different types of CAD. Methods A cohort of 2,324 patients from 4 independent centers was studied. Patients underwent coronary angiography for suspected CAD. Groups were divided as follows: normal coronary artery (NCA), nonobstructive coronary atherosclerosis (NOCA), stable angina (SA), unstable angina (UA), and acute myocardial infarction (AMI). Plasma metabolomic profiles were determined by liquid chromatography–quadrupole time-of-flight mass spectrometry and were analyzed by multivariate statistics. Results We made 12 cross-comparisons to and within CAD to characterize metabolic disturbances. We focused on comparisons of NOCA versus NCA, SA versus NOCA, UA versus SA, and AMI versus UA. Other comparisons were made, including SA versus NCA, UA versus NCA, AMI versus NCA, UA versus NOCA, AMI versus NOCA, AMI versus SA, significant CAD (SA/UA/AMI) versus nonsignificant CAD (NCA/NOCA), and acute coronary syndrome (UA/AMI) versus SA. A total of 89 differential metabolites were identified. The altered metabolic pathways included reduced phospholipid catabolism, increased amino acid metabolism, increased short-chain acylcarnitines, decrease in tricarboxylic acid cycle, and less biosynthesis of primary bile acid. For differential diagnosis, 12 panels of specific metabolomics-based biomarkers provided areas under the curve of 0.938 to 0.996 in the discovery phase (n = 1,086), predictive values of 89.2% to 96.0% in the test phase (n = 933), and 85.3% to 96.4% in the 3-center external sets (n = 305). Conclusions Plasma metabolomics are powerful for characterizing metabolic disturbances. Differences in small-molecule metabolites may reflect underlying CAD and serve as biomarkers for CAD progression.
•The prevalence of anxiety symptom and depressive symptom during the COVID-19 pandemic were relatively high.•The prevalence of anxiety symptom and depressive symptom varies among different countries’ ...college students.•The pooled prevalence of depressive symptom in females was higher compared with males.
The global pandemic of COVID-19 has brought huge changes to people's lifestyles, college students have also been affected seriously. Evidence about these significant changes indicated that college students were more prone to feel anxious and depressed. To derive a precise assessment of the prevalence of anxiety symptom and depressive symptom among college students worldwide, we conducted this meta-analysis.
Based on the guidance of PRISMA, literature was searched in Pubmed, Web of Science, Embase, and PsycArticles (last search November 6, 2020). These articles after the screening were analyzed by a random-effects model to estimate the pooled prevalence of anxiety symptom and depressive symptom. Also, subgroup analysis, sensitivity analysis, and publication bias were performed in this meta-analysis.
The results showed that the pooled anxiety symptom prevalence was 31% (95% CI: 23-39%), pooled depressive symptom prevalence was 34% (95% CI: 27-41%). Subgroup analysis showed that the prevalence of anxiety symptom and depressive symptom among different countries’ college students were different, and the pooled depressive symptom prevalence of females was higher compared with males.
The prevalence of anxiety symptom and depressive symptom in worldwide college students could be better assessed by a standard and reliable questionnaire.
The results suggest that the prevalence of anxiety symptom and depressive symptom during the COVID-19 pandemic is relatively high. Except for interventions that should be taken to control the pandemic urgently, mental health services are also needed to decrease the risk of anxiety and depression among college students.
Recently, a new density-peak-based clustering method, called clustering with local density peaks-based minimum spanning tree (LDP-MST), was proposed, which has several attractive merits, e.g., being ...able to detect arbitrarily shaped clusters and not very sensitive to noise and parameters. Nevertheless, we also found the limitation of LDP-MST in efficiency. Specifically, LDP-MST has <inline-formula><tex-math notation="LaTeX">O(N\log N+M^{2})</tex-math> <mml:math><mml:mrow><mml:mi>O</mml:mi><mml:mo>(</mml:mo><mml:mi>N</mml:mi><mml:mo form="prefix">log</mml:mo><mml:mi>N</mml:mi><mml:mo>+</mml:mo><mml:msup><mml:mi>M</mml:mi><mml:mn>2</mml:mn></mml:msup><mml:mo>)</mml:mo></mml:mrow></mml:math><inline-graphic xlink:href="qiu-ieq1-3150403.gif"/> </inline-formula> time, where <inline-formula><tex-math notation="LaTeX">N</tex-math> <mml:math><mml:mi>N</mml:mi></mml:math><inline-graphic xlink:href="qiu-ieq2-3150403.gif"/> </inline-formula> denotes the dataset size and <inline-formula><tex-math notation="LaTeX">M</tex-math> <mml:math><mml:mi>M</mml:mi></mml:math><inline-graphic xlink:href="qiu-ieq3-3150403.gif"/> </inline-formula> is an intermediate variable denoting the number of local density peaks. As our experimental results reveal, when processing large-size datasets, the value of <inline-formula><tex-math notation="LaTeX">M</tex-math> <mml:math><mml:mi>M</mml:mi></mml:math><inline-graphic xlink:href="qiu-ieq4-3150403.gif"/> </inline-formula> could be very large and consequently those steps of LDP-MST involving <inline-formula><tex-math notation="LaTeX">O(M^{2})</tex-math> <mml:math><mml:mrow><mml:mi>O</mml:mi><mml:mo>(</mml:mo><mml:msup><mml:mi>M</mml:mi><mml:mn>2</mml:mn></mml:msup><mml:mo>)</mml:mo></mml:mrow></mml:math><inline-graphic xlink:href="qiu-ieq5-3150403.gif"/> </inline-formula> time term would be time-consuming. And in the worst case, the value of <inline-formula><tex-math notation="LaTeX">M</tex-math> <mml:math><mml:mi>M</mml:mi></mml:math><inline-graphic xlink:href="qiu-ieq6-3150403.gif"/> </inline-formula> could be very close to that of <inline-formula><tex-math notation="LaTeX">N</tex-math> <mml:math><mml:mi>N</mml:mi></mml:math><inline-graphic xlink:href="qiu-ieq7-3150403.gif"/> </inline-formula>, which means that the time complexity of LDP-MST could be <inline-formula><tex-math notation="LaTeX">O(N^{2})</tex-math> <mml:math><mml:mrow><mml:mi>O</mml:mi><mml:mo>(</mml:mo><mml:msup><mml:mi>N</mml:mi><mml:mn>2</mml:mn></mml:msup><mml:mo>)</mml:mo></mml:mrow></mml:math><inline-graphic xlink:href="qiu-ieq8-3150403.gif"/> </inline-formula> in the worst case of <inline-formula><tex-math notation="LaTeX">M</tex-math> <mml:math><mml:mi>M</mml:mi></mml:math><inline-graphic xlink:href="qiu-ieq9-3150403.gif"/> </inline-formula>. In this study, we use more efficient algorithms to implement those steps of LDP-MST that involve the <inline-formula><tex-math notation="LaTeX">O(M^{2})</tex-math> <mml:math><mml:mrow><mml:mi>O</mml:mi><mml:mo>(</mml:mo><mml:msup><mml:mi>M</mml:mi><mml:mn>2</mml:mn></mml:msup><mml:mo>)</mml:mo></mml:mrow></mml:math><inline-graphic xlink:href="qiu-ieq10-3150403.gif"/> </inline-formula> time term such that the proposed method, Fast LDP-MST, has <inline-formula><tex-math notation="LaTeX">O(N\log N)</tex-math> <mml:math><mml:mrow><mml:mi>O</mml:mi><mml:mo>(</mml:mo><mml:mi>N</mml:mi><mml:mo form="prefix">log</mml:mo><mml:mi>N</mml:mi><mml:mo>)</mml:mo></mml:mrow></mml:math><inline-graphic xlink:href="qiu-ieq11-3150403.gif"/> </inline-formula> time complexity even if <inline-formula><tex-math notation="LaTeX">M\approx N</tex-math> <mml:math><mml:mrow><mml:mi>M</mml:mi><mml:mo>≈</mml:mo><mml:mi>N</mml:mi></mml:mrow></mml:math><inline-graphic xlink:href="qiu-ieq12-3150403.gif"/> </inline-formula>. Our experiments demonstrate that Fast LDP-MST is overall more efficient than LDP-MST on large-size datasets, without sacrificing the merits of LDP-MST in effectiveness, robustness, and user-friendliness.
Piezo‐electrocatalysis as an emerging mechano‐to‐chemistry energy conversion technique opens multiple innovative opportunities and draws great interest over the past decade. However, the two ...potential mechanisms in piezo‐electrocatalysis, i.e., screening charge effect and energy band theory, generally coexist in the most piezoelectrics, making the essential mechanism remain controversial. Here, for the first time, the two mechanisms in piezo‐electrocatalytic CO2 reduction reaction (PECRR) is distinguished through a narrow‐bandgap piezo‐electrocatalyst strategy using MoS2 nanoflakes as demo. With conduction band of −0.12 eV, the MoS2 nanoflakes are unsatisfied for CO2‐to‐CO redox potential of −0.53 eV, yet they achieve an ultrahigh CO yield of ≈543.1 µmol g−1 h−1 in PECRR. Potential band position shifts under vibration are still unsatisfied with CO2‐to‐CO potential verified by theoretical investigation and piezo‐photocatalytic experiment, further indicating that the mechanism of piezo‐electrocatalysis is independent of band position. Besides, MoS2 nanoflakes exhibit unexpected intense “breathing” effect under vibration and enable the naked‐eye‐visible inhalation of CO2 gas, independently achieving the complete carbon cycle chain from CO2 capture to conversion. The CO2 inhalation and conversion processes in PECRR are revealed by a self‐designed in situ reaction cell. This work brings new insights into the essential mechanism and surface reaction evolution of piezo‐electrocatalysis.
Piezo‐electrocatalysis as an emerging mechano‐to‐chemistry energy conversion technique opens multiple innovative opportunities, drawing great interest but also suffering from the controversial mechanisms. A narrow‐bandgap piezo‐electrocatalyst strategy is proposed by choosing CO2 reduction as a probe reaction to distinguish the two potential mechanisms, i.e., screening charge effect and energy band theory, and reveal that piezo‐electrocatalysis is independent of band positions.
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