Government management capacities and the containment of COVID-19: A repeated cross-sectional study across Chinese cities

Objectives Better understanding of the dynamics of the COVID-19 (2019 novel coronavirus disease) pandemic to curb its spread is now a global imperative. While travel restrictions and control measures have been shown to limit the spread of the disease, the effectiveness of the enforcement of those measures should depend on the strength of the government. Whether, and how, the government plays a role in fighting the disease, however, has not been investigated. Here, we show that government management capacities are critical to the containment of the disease.Setting We conducted a statistical analysis based on cross-city comparisons within China. China has undergone almost the entire cycle of the anticoronavirus campaign, which allows us to trace the full dynamics of the outbreak, with homogeneity in standards for statistics recording.Primary and secondary outcome measures Outcome measures include city-specific COVID-19 case incidence and recoveries in China.Results The containment of COVID-19 depends on the effectiveness of the enforcement of control measures, which in turn depends on the local government’s management capacities. Specifically, government efficiency, capacity for law enforcement, and the transparency of laws and policies significantly reduce COVID-19 prevalence and increase the likelihood of recoveries. The organisation size of the government, which is not closely related to its capacity for management, has a limited role

Characterization of polysaccharide from Lonicera japonica Thunb leaves and its application in nano-emulsion

The polysaccharides in honeysuckle leaves (PHL) were separated and characterized for the first time. The nano-emulsion stabilized by PHL and whey protein isolate (WPI) were also fabricated based on the ultrasonic method. The results indicated that PHL was mainly composed of glucose (47.40 mol%), galactose (19.21 mol%) and arabinose (20.21 mol%) with the weight-average molecular weight of 137.97 ± 4.31 kDa. The emulsifier concentration, WPI-to-PHL ratio, ultrasound power and ultrasound time had significant influence on the droplet size of PHL-WPI nano-emulsion. The optimal preparation conditions were determined as following: emulsifier concentration, 1.7%; WPI/PHL ratio, 3:1; ultrasonic power, 700 W; ultrasonic time, 7 min. Under the above conditions, the median diameter of the obtained nano-emulsion was 317.70 ± 5.26 nm, close to the predicted value of 320.20 nm. The protective effect of PHL-WPI emulsion on β-carotene against UV irradiation was superior to that of WPI emulsion. Our results can provide reference for the development of honeysuckle leaves

TSPAN8 promotes cancer cell stemness via activation of sonic Hedgehog signaling

Cancer stem cells (CSCs) represent a major source of treatment resistance and tumor progression. However, regulation of CSCs stemness is not entirely understood. Here, we report that TSPAN8 expression is upregulated in breast CSCs, promotes the expression of the stemness gene NANOG, OCT4, and ALDHA1, and correlates with therapeutic resistance. Mechanistically, TSPAN8 interacts with PTCH1 and inhibits the degradation of the SHH/PTCH1 complex through recruitment of deubiquitinating enzyme ATXN3. This results in the translocation of SMO to cilia, downstream gene expression, resistance of CSCs to chemotherapeutic agents, and enhances tumor formation in mice. Accordingly, expression levels of TSPAN8, PTCH1, SHH, and ATXN3 are positively correlated in human breast cancer specimens, and high TSPAN8 and ATXN3 expression levels correlate with poor prognosis. These findings reveal a molecular basis of TSPAN8-enhanced Sonic Hedgehog signaling and highlight a role for TSPAN8 in promoting cancer stemness

Four-decade dynamics of the water color in 61 large lakes on the Yangtze Plain and the impacts of reclaimed aquaculture zones

The lakes on the Yangtze Plain, a critical source of freshwater and fisheries for hundreds of millions of people in China, have lost a considerable portion of their surface area due to reclamation since the 1950s. Landsat satellites can provide long-term collections of high-resolution images and thus offer great potential for hindcasting the lake reclamations of aquaculture zones and their long-term impacts on the lacustrine water color. Using Landsat observations from 1984 to 2018 and a Forel-Ule index (FUI) model, we studied the water color dynamics of 61 lakes on the Yangtze Plain. Three distinct change patterns were found among the 61 examined lakes, and 25 of the 61 lakes showed statistically significant changes in the annual hue angle values (P < 0.05). We further collected environmental parameter datasets (runoff, normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI), and wind speed) and a lacustrine reclamation dataset, and measured the concentrations of chlorophyll-a (Chl-a) and dissolved organic carbon (DOC) from two field trips. We investigated their correlations with water color change from different facets. The results showed that the long-term water color in 33 of the 61 lakes exhibited significant correlations with environmental factors. The reclaimed aquaculture zones in this region have caused differences in the water color between the reclaimed area and that in adjacent natural waters. The Chl-a and DOC levels derived from field surveys further confirmed that reclaimed aquaculture zones increased light-absorbing materials in the water and may deteriorate water quality. This study is an important step forward in understanding the water quality changes in lake ecosystems affected by human impacts and natural variability

Young Women in Cities

Young women outnumber young men in cities in many countries during periods of economic growth and urbanization. This gender imbalance among young urbanites is more pronounced in larger cities. We use the gradual rollout of special economic zones across China as a quasi-experiment to establish the causes of this gender imbalance. Our analysis suggests that a key contributor is gender-differential incentives to migrate due to rural women's higher likelihood of marrying and marrying up in cities when urbanization creates more economic opportunities and an abundance of high-income marriage-age men

Tailoring intrinsic chiroptical responses via twisted bilayer α-MoO3 separated by a VO2 film

Flexible control of intrinsic chiroptical responses within compact nanostructures is crucial for flat optics, topological photonics, and chiroptics. However, previous approaches require complicated patterns with both in-plane and out-of-plane mirror symmetry breaking to achieve intrinsic chirality, and their chiroptical responses cannot be dynamically controlled as well. Herein, we demonstrated that near-perfect intrinsic circular dichroism (CD) can be achieved within a lithography-free structure consisting of the twisted bilayer α-MoO3 separated by a vanadium dioxide (VO2) film. By twisting the bilayer α-MoO3, dual-band intrinsic chiroptical responses can be realized due to the excitations of the hyperbolic phonon polaritons modes in the mid-infrared. It is the spin-selected average electric-field enhancement instead of the chiral absorption that is responsible for the intrinsic CD of the device. In addition, the chiroptical responses are insensitive to the variation of the thickness of the structure as well as the incident angle, and high contrast CD can be dynamically tuned by varying the volume fraction of VO2

An image-based coal network model for simulating hydro-mechanical gas flow in coal: An application to carbon dioxide geo-sequestration

CO2 geo-sequestration is a practical approach to achieve net-zero carbon target. However, one of the main challenges for successful CO2 geo-sequestration is the reduced coal permeability and injectivity that are caused by coal swelling. Coal has complex and heterogenous internal pore and fracture structure. The processes of gases adsorbing, desorbing, and transporting within multiscale heterogeneous coal structures are more complicated compared with conventional rocks. This paper aims to gain insights about the gas transport behaviours in coal by developing a coupled model to simulate gas flow multiphysics as well as dynamic coal deformation. This work develops an image-based 3D fracture network model, called Fracture Box Model (FBNM). In this model, each fracture is described by arrays of box elements such that the regional change of fracture opening widths can be preserved. Compared with other fracture models (e.g. discrete fracture network), FBNM can simulate complicated multiphysical gas transport more efficiently, but also be able to simulate corresponding coal matrix deformation. By comparing permeability results between direct simulation method with FBNM, it is found that FBNM can effectively estimate the permeability of original fracture networks, but requiring significantly less computational cost. To study the implications of gas types, effective stress, gas adsorption, and thermal expansion on coal permeability, gas injection pressures, gas types, coal seam temperatures are varied and investigated in the simulations. In addition to the advantage of computational efficiency, FBNM is more preferable for complicated flow transport simulations where direct simulation methods are still challenging. This work provides a promising framework which could be further developed for multiphase and multicomponent flow simulations for CO2 geo-sequestration projects