Setting a baseline for global urban virome surveillance in sewage

The rapid development of megacities, and their growing connectedness across the world is becoming a distinct driver for emerging disease outbreaks. Early detection of unusual disease emergence and spread should therefore include such cities as part of risk-based surveillance. A catch-all metagenomic sequencing approach of urban sewage could potentially provide an unbiased insight into the dynamics of viral pathogens circulating in a community irrespective of access to care, a potential which already has been proven for the surveillance of poliovirus. Here, we present a detailed characterization of sewage viromes from a snapshot of 81 high density urban areas across the globe, including in-depth assessment of potential biases, as a proof of concept for catch-all viral pathogen surveillance. We show the ability to detect a wide range of viruses and geographical and seasonal differences for specific viral groups. Our findings offer a cross-sectional baseline for further research in viral surveillance from urban sewage samples and place previous studies in a global perspective

Search for long-lived neutral particles in pp collisions at s√=13 TeV that decay into displaced hadronic jets in the ATLAS calorimeter

This paper describes a search for pairs of neutral, long-lived particles decaying in the ATLAS calorimeter. Long-lived particles occur in many extensions to the Standard Model and may elude searches for new promptly decaying particles. The analysis considers neutral, long-lived scalars with masses between 5 and 400 GeV, produced from decays of heavy bosons with masses between 125 and 1000 GeV, where the long-lived scalars decay into Standard Model fermions. The analysis uses either 10.8 fb−1 or 33.0 fb−1 of data (depending on the trigger) recorded in 2016 at the LHC with the ATLAS detector in proton–proton collisions at a centre-of-mass energy of 13 TeV. No significant excess is observed, and limits are reported on the production cross section times branching ratio as a function of the proper decay length of the long-lived particles

Search for exclusive Higgs and Z boson decays to ϕγ and ργ with the ATLAS detector

A search for the exclusive decays of the Higgs and Z bosons to a φ or ρ meson and a photon is performed with a pp collision data sample corresponding to an integrated luminosity of up to 35.6 fb−1 collected at √s = 13 TeV with the ATLAS detector at the CERN Large Hadron Collider. These decays have been suggested as a probe of the Higgs boson couplings to light quarks. No significant excess of events is observed above the background, as expected from the Standard Model. Upper limits at 95% confidence level were obtained on the branching fractions of the Higgs boson decays to φγ and ργ of 4.8 × 10−4 and 8.8 × 10−4, respectively. The corresponding 95% confidence level upper limits for the Z boson decays are 0.9 × 10−6 and 25 × 10−6 for φγ and ργ, respectively

A novel approach to the pacemaker infection with non-thermal atmospheric pressure plasma

Although the pacemaker (PM) is a key cardiac implantable electrical device for life-threatening arrhythmias treatment, the related infection is a challenge. Thus, the aim of this study is to validate cold plasma as a potential technology for the disinfection of infected pacemakers. Fifty donated PMs were cleaned and sterilized before use and then infected with Staphylococcus aureus (S. aureus). Then, each experimental group was treated with cold plasma treatment for 1 min, 3 min, 5 min and 7 min, while the control group was immersed with sterilized water. Effectiveness of disinfection was evaluated by using CFU counting method and confocal laser scanning microscopy (CLSM). The physicochemical properties of water treated with cold plasma at different time were evaluated, including water temperature change and oxidation reduction potential (ORP). The major reactive species generated by the cold plasma equipment during cold plasma were analyzed with optical emission spectroscopy (OES). No live bacteria were detected with CFU counting method after 7 min of cold plasma treatment, which matches with the CLSM results. The ORP value of water and H2O2 concentration changed significantly after treating with cold plasma. Furthermore, reactive oxygen species (ROS) and reactive nitrogen species (RNS), especially NO, O (777 nm) and O (844 nm) were probably key inactivation agents in cold plasma treatment. These results indicate that cold plasma could be an effective technology for the disinfection of implantable devices.Peking University Biomed-X FoundationSCI(E)ARTICLE132901-291022

Utilize structural equation modeling (SEM) to explore the influence of corporate environmental ethics: the mediation effect of green human capital

[[abstract]]This study utilizes structural equation modeling (SEM) to explore the positive effects of corporate environmental ethics on green relationship learning and green innovation performance in the Taiwanese manufacturing industry. In addition, this study explores the concept of green human capital and discusses its mediation effect on the positive relationships between corporate environmental ethics and the two consequents: green relationship learning and green innovation performance. The empirical results show that corporate environmental ethics positively affects green relationship learning and green innovation performance. Furthermore, this study verifies green human capital mediates the positive relationships between corporate environmental ethics and the two consequents: green relationship learning and green innovation performance. Finally, this study divides the Taiwanese manufacturing companies into several different groups, and provides some suggestions to them.[[journaltype]]國外[[incitationindex]]SSCI[[booktype]]紙本[[booktype]]電子版[[countrycodes]]NL

Bio-politics and the promotion of traditional herbal medicine in Vietnam

It is often suggested that, in the past 50 years, Vietnam has experienced a traditional medicine ‘revival’ that can be traced back to late President Ho Chi Minh's 1955 appeal ‘to study means of uniting the effects of oriental remedies with those of Europe’. In this article, I demonstrate how traditional herbal medicine came to be recruited as an important component of national efforts to promote the public health of urban and rural populations in Vietnam. Importantly, this has entailed a rejection of a colonial biopolitics that sought to marginalize ‘quackery’ in favour of a postcolonial bio-politics that aims to promote the ‘appropriate’ use of traditional herbal medicines. While the Vietnamese case bears many parallels to other countries in this respect, notably China, Vietnam's ancient history of medicine, postcolonial isolation and extensive health delivery network have resulted in a unique strategy that encourages rural populations to become self-sufficient in the herbal treatment of their most common illnesses