Investigating the role of environmental taxes and regulations for renewable energy consumption: evidence from developed economies

The current study aims to explore the role of environmental taxes and regulations for the renewable energy consumption, focusing on reporting policy suggestions to overcome climate change issues and achieve environmental sustainability. The main objective of this paper is to examine the relation between renewable energy, environmental taxes, environmental technologies, and environmental regulations in 29 OECD countries during 1996–2018. More precisely, we inspect the impact of the environmental regulations and environmental technologies on the renewable energy consumption. The authors employ CIPS and CADF unit root tests, panel Westerlund co-integration test, FMOLS, and Quantile regression methods for the econometric analysis. The econometric analysis suggests that the environmental regulations impede the renewable energy consumption in OECD economies. The study suggests that environmental policy initiatives should focus on implementing environmental strategies to inspire cohesiveness between environmental regulations and the development of environmental technologies in order to promote the renewables industry in the developed countries

Genetic Characterization of the M RNA Segment of Crimean Congo Hemorrhagic Fever Virus Strains, China

We report the genetic characterization of the M RNA segment of Crimean Congo hemorrhagic fever virus (CCHFV). Two CCHFV strains isolated in Xinjiang Province, a region endemic for CCHF in northwestern China, were studied. These strains, designated BA66019 and BA8402, were isolated in 1965 and 1984 from a CCHF patient and Hyalomma ticks, respectively. Viral RNA was extracted from suckling mouse brains infected with these two strains, amplified, and sequenced. The full-length M RNA, consisting of 5.3 kb, was determined for both strains. The coding nucleotide sequences of the two strains differed from each other by 17.5% and from the reference CCHFV strain IbAr10200 by a mean of 22%, suggesting that the genus Nairovirus comprises a group of genetically highly diverse strains

Outpatient minimally invasive spine surgeries during the COVID-19 pandemic – A retrospective analysis of 164 consecutive cases

Objective: To share our surgical experiences of minimally invasive cervical and lumbar procedures for patients who suffered from non-fatal motor vehicle accidents (MVAs) in the ambulatory surgery centers (ASCs) during the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic. Methods: Anterior cervical discectomy and fusion (ACDF), anterior lumbar interbody fusion (ALIF), minimally invasive laminotomy and discectomy (MILD), percutaneous endoscopic laser-assisted discectomy (PELD) and percutaneous kyphoplasty (PK) were performed on carefully selected patients. Results: From January 2020 to December 2021, our group performed 164 cases on 153 patients involving 249 intervertebral disc (IVD) levels. Of these, 116 cases (70.73%) on 114 patients (74.51%) were cervical, 48 cases (29.27%) were lumbar (including 8 PK cases). Eight patients had both cervical and lumbar procedures in a single anesthetic session (SAS) and were discharged on the same day. One hundred and six ACDF cases (92.17%) were at the C4–C5 and C5–C6 levels, which comprised of 146 (76.04%) IVDs. Of the 40 non-PK lumbar cases, 38 (95.0%) were at L4 to S1 lumbar levels. Six of these cases (15.0%) involved 2 lumbar levels. In contrast, 6 out of 8 kyphoplasties (75.0%) involved lower thoracic/higher lumbar vertebral columns (T11 to L2) and 2 were at the lower lumbar L4 level. Conclusions: We successfully and safely performed various cervical and lumbar spine surgeries in the ASCs amid COVID-19 pandemic and all patients achieved the same-day discharge (SDD). In the non-fatal MVAs, mid-lower cervical (C4 to C6) and lower lumbar (L4 to S1) IVDs were the most affected levels

An Investigation on Impact of Online Review Keywords on Consumers’ Product Consideration of Clothing

Consumers need external information to support their product evaluation, especially with regard to experiencing the product during online shopping. Review keywords provide aggregated information of online reviews for consumers. However, whether and how review keywords affect consumers’ product consideration is still unelucidated. Considering clothing as the research target, we built a model to depict the impacts of website-generated quality- and fit-related review keywords on consumers’ consideration of clothing by bridging cue diagnosticity frameworks and product uncertainty theory. The hypotheses were verified by analyzing the objective data collected from e-commerce platforms and experiments. Results indicate that quality-related review keywords have a more salient positive impact on clothing consideration compared with fit-related keywords. Meanwhile, further complementary analysis based on self-generated review keywords suggests that presenting consumers with social-related keywords and consumer buyback keywords can improve clothing consideration significantly. The research contributes to the literature of product consideration and online review keywords, and related findings can help the platforms and e-merchants to better leverage the advantages of online review keywords

Role of economic complexity and energy sector in moving towards sustainability in the exporting economies

The largest contributor to environmental deterioration, the carbon footprint, arises from excessive fossil fuel consumption. Meanwhile, international experts note that despite the positive dynamics in the issue of making commitments to carbon-zero targets, most companies around the globe do not have a clear plan or strategy to achieve environment-based targets. This study addresses sustainable development goals (SDGs) concerning clean energy usage, sustainability, and the environment. Hence, this study investigates the impacts of the economic complexity index (ECI), energy productivity (EPD), renewable energy electricity generation (REEG), and environment-based patents on ecological footprints (ECFP) to attain a carbon-zero environment and SDGs for forty-five exporting countries from 1990 to 2020. An extensive exploration into the connection amongst the explored variables shows that the rises in ECI, EPD, and REEG help subside ECFP in the short-term and long-term estimations. Besides, the results show a bidirectional and unidirectional causality from ECFP to REEG and EPD, respectively. The key practical policies of this work are building modernized tax systems with progressive tax policies, better tax collection, private SDGs financing with incentives regulations, promising project planning on green technologies, and accessibility of grants from global organizations and private sectors to invest in SDGs and a carbon-zero environment target

Evaluating environmental commitments to COP21 and the role of economic complexity, renewable energy, financial development, urbanization, and energy innovation: Empirical evidence from the RCEP countries

Despite extensive research to address the impact of environmental reforms under the Paris Climate Agreement, current literature has failed to provide sufficient insights into Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) countries. To this end, the current study attempts to address the impact of the economic complexity on environmental quality in the presence of renewable energy consumption, financial development, urbanization and energy innovation in RCEP countries from 1990 to 2019. Our empirical estimates confirm a significant association between environmental quality, economic complexity index, renewable energy consumption, financial development, urbanization and energy innovation in the short-run and long run. Based on extensive econometric analysis (CS-ARDL, AMG, PMG, FMOLS, and DOLS), we conclude that economic complexity, renewable energy, and energy innovation effectively mitigate environmental degradation. At the same time, financial development and urbanization have an adverse impact on the environment. These findings have extensive policy implications for policymakers and environmental stakeholders, who are aiming to achieve sustainable energy policy and economic growth to meet the environmental commitments under Paris Climate Agreement.(c) 2021 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved

Immunogenicity of Constrained Monoclonal Antibody A32-Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) Env gp120 Complexes Compared to That of Recombinant HIV Type 1 gp120 Envelope Glycoproteins

One strategy for the generation of broadly reactive neutralizing antibodies (NA) against human immunodeficiency virus type 1 (HIV-1) primary isolates is to use immunogens that have constrained HIV-1 envelope gp120 conformations reflective of triggered envelope on the surface of virions. A major change in gp120 following binding to CD4 is the enhanced exposure of the CCR5 binding site. One inducer of CCR5 binding site epitopes on gp120 is the human anti-gp120 monoclonal antibody, A32. We have made cross-linked A32-rgp120(89.6) and A32-rgp120(BaL) complexes and have compared their immunogenicities to those of uncomplexed recombinant gp120(BaL) (rgp120(BaL)) and rgp120(89.6). A32-rgp120(89.6) and A32-rgp120(BaL) complexes had stable induced CCR5 binding site expression compared to that of uncomplexed rgp120s. However, the A32-rgp120 complexes had similar capacities in guinea pigs for induction of NA against HIV-1 primary isolates versus that of rgp120 alone. A32-rgp120(89.6) induced antibodies that neutralized 6 out of 11 HIV-1 isolates, while rgp120(89.6) alone induced antibodies that neutralized 4 out of 11 HIV-1 isolates. A32-rgp120(BaL) complexes induced antibodies that neutralized 4 out of 14 HIV-1 isolates while, surprisingly, non-cross-linked rgp120(BaL) induced antibodies that neutralized 9 out of 14 (64%) HIV-1 isolates. Thus, stable enhanced expression of the coreceptor binding site on constrained gp120 is not sufficient for inducing broadly neutralizing anti-HIV-1 NA. Moreover, the ability of HIV-1 rgp120(BaL) to induce antibodies that neutralized ∼60% of subtype B HIV-1 isolates warrants consideration of using HIV-1 BaL as a starting point for immunogen design for subtype B HIV-1 experimental immunogens