The impact of e-commerce on environmental sustainability targets in selected European countries

E-commerce plays a crucial role in the digital economy. E-commerce can reduce costs and boost economic growth. Therefore, the global rate of E-commerce is increasing very fast, which has implications for the digital economy. This study analyses the impact of e-commerce on environmental sustainability. The empirical analysis employed OLS, 2SLS, GMM, and panel quantile regression methods using panel data of 10 European economies spanning over 2002–2019. Carbon emissions and GHG emissions measure environmental sustainability. The results from OLS, 2SLS and GMM show that e-commerce negatively impacts carbon emissions. The panel quantile regression results also show that e-commerce negatively impacts carbon emissions at the middle and higher quantiles. This study recommends that environmental sustainability programs pay attention to policies encouraging e-commerce

THE BIOLOGY OF PHENACOCCUS AZALEAE KUWANA, A PEST OF BUNGE PRICKLY ASH (ZANTHOXYLUM BUNGEANUM MAXIM) FOREST IN NORTHERN CHINA

THE BIOLOGY OF PHENACOCCUS AZALEAE KUWANA, A PEST OF BUNGE PRICKLY ASH (ZANTHOXYLUM BUNGEANUM MAXIM) FOREST IN NORTHERN CHINA. Phenacoccus azaleae Kuwana (Hemiptera: Coccoidea: Pseudococcidae) is a major new pest of bunge prickly ash forest in northern China, where it causes high tree mortality when present for two consecutive years. This paper reports on the biology of this pest in northern China, where it has been studied since 1995. The life cycle can be divided into eight phases, two of which cause severe injury to the host plant, through the feeding of: (a) the 3rd-instar nymphs and adult females between late March and mid-May, and (b) the young nymphs which are present on the leaves between late June and October. The adult sex ratio was 6-7TM:1¢. The various development stages are described. Of the natural enemies, ladybirds (Coccinellidae) and lacewings (Neuroptera) were the major predators, but they were not abundant in the newly- infested areas. In addition, a few parasitic Hymenoptera were recorded but appeared to be ineffective. Key words: Aphis gossypii, Papilio xuthus, Podagri comeiashirahatai, Calloides magnificus, Agrilus zanthoxylumi, plum, elm, Azalea, Japan, Korea, voltinism, development, population dynamics, damage, Lasius fuliginosus, L. niger, sex ratio, growth rate, Harmonia axyridis, Coccinella septempunctata, Chrysopa

S3IM: Stochastic Structural SIMilarity and Its Unreasonable Effectiveness for Neural Fields

Recently, Neural Radiance Field (NeRF) has shown great success in rendering novel-view images of a given scene by learning an implicit representation with only posed RGB images. NeRF and relevant neural field methods (e.g., neural surface representation) typically optimize a point-wise loss and make point-wise predictions, where one data point corresponds to one pixel. Unfortunately, this line of research failed to use the collective supervision of distant pixels, although it is known that pixels in an image or scene can provide rich structural information. To the best of our knowledge, we are the first to design a nonlocal multiplex training paradigm for NeRF and relevant neural field methods via a novel Stochastic Structural SIMilarity (S3IM) loss that processes multiple data points as a whole set instead of process multiple inputs independently. Our extensive experiments demonstrate the unreasonable effectiveness of S3IM in improving NeRF and neural surface representation for nearly free. The improvements of quality metrics can be particularly significant for those relatively difficult tasks: e.g., the test MSE loss unexpectedly drops by more than 90% for TensoRF and DVGO over eight novel view synthesis tasks; a 198% F-score gain and a 64% Chamfer $L_{1}$ distance reduction for NeuS over eight surface reconstruction tasks. Moreover, S3IM is consistently robust even with sparse inputs, corrupted images, and dynamic scenes.Comment: ICCV 2023 main conference. Code: https://github.com/Madaoer/S3IM. 14 pages, 5 figures, 17 table

The status quo of short videos as a source of health information regarding bowel preparation before colonoscopy

BackgroundFor high-quality colonoscopies, adequate bowel preparation is a prerequisite, closely associated with the diagnostic accuracy and therapeutic safety of colonoscopy. Although popular-science short videos can help people quickly access health information, the overall quality of such short videos as a source of health information regarding bowel preparation before colonoscopy is unclear. Therefore, we intend to conduct a cross-sectional study to investigate the quality of bowel preparation information before colonoscopy through short videos taken on TikTok and Bilibili.MethodsThe Chinese phrases “colonoscopy” and “bowel preparation” were used as keywords to search for and screen the top 100 videos in the comprehensive rankings on TikTok and Bilibili. The Global Quality Score (GQS) and the modified DISCERN score were used to assess the quality of the information provided in these short videos.ResultsA total of 186 short videos were included in this study; 56.5% of them were posted by health professionals, whereas 43.5% of them were posted by nonhealth professionals. The overall quality of these videos was unsatisfactory, with a median DISCERN score of 3 (2–4) and a median GQS of 3 (3–4). The radar maps showed that videos posted by gastroenterologists had higher completeness scores regarding outcomes, management, and risk factors, while nongastroenterologists had higher completeness scores concerning adverse effects, symptoms, and definitions of bowel preparation. Additionally, the median DISCERN score and GQS of the videos posted by gastroenterologists were 3 (3–4) and 3 (3–4), respectively, whereas the quality of the videos posted by patients was the worst, with a median DISCERN score of 2 (1–2) and a median GQS of 2 (1.25–3).ConclusionIn conclusion, the overall quality of health information-related videos on bowel preparation before colonoscopy posted on specified short video platforms was not satisfactory. Gastroenterologists provide more information on the outcomes, management, and risk factors for bowel preparation before colonoscopy, while nongastroenterologists focus on adverse effects, symptoms, and definitions of bowel preparation

Automated turnkey microcomb for low-noise microwave synthesis

Microresonator-based optical frequency comb (microcomb) has the potential to revolutionize the accuracy of frequency synthesizer in radar and communication applications. However, fundamental limit exists for low noise microcomb generation, especially in low size, weight, power and cost (SWaP-C) package. Here we resolve this limit, by the demonstration of an automated turnkey microcomb, operating close to its low quantum-limited phase noise, within a compact setup size of 85 mm * 90 mm * 25 mm. High quality factor fiber Fabry-Perot resonator (FFPR), with Q up to 4.0 * 10^9, is the key for both low quantum noise and pump noise limit, in the diode-pump case in a self-injection locking scheme. Low phase noise of -80 and -105 dBc/Hz at 100 Hz, -106 and -125 dBc/Hz at 1 kHz, -133 and -148 dBc/Hz at 10 kHz is achieved at 10.1 GHz and 1.7 GHz repetition frequencies, respectively. With the simultaneous automated turnkey, low-noise and direct-diode-pump capability, our microcomb is ready to be used as a low-noise frequency synthesizer with low SWaP-C and thus field deployability

Gene therapy with tumor-specific promoter mediated suicide gene plus IL-12 gene enhanced tumor inhibition and prolonged host survival in a murine model of Lewis lung carcinoma

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Gene therapy is a promising therapeutic approach for cancer. Targeted expression of desired therapeutic proteins within the tumor is the best approach to reduce toxicity and improve survival. This study is to establish a more effective and less toxic gene therapy of cancer.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>Combined gene therapy strategy with recombinant adenovirus expressing horseradish peroxidase (HRP) mediated by human telomerase reverse transcriptase (hTERT) promoter (AdhTERTHRP) and murine interleukin-12 (mIL-12) under the control of Cytomegalovirus (CMV) promoter (AdCMVmIL-12) was developed and evaluated against Lewis lung carcinoma (LLC) both <it>in vivo </it>and <it>in vitro</it>. The mechanism of action and systemic toxicities were also investigated.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>The combination of AdhTERTHRP/indole-3-acetic acid (IAA) treatment and AdCMVmIL-12 resulted in significant tumor growth inhibition and survival improvement compared with AdhTERTHRP/IAA alone (tumor volume, 427.4 ± 48.7 mm³<it>vs </it>581.9 ± 46.9 mm³, <it>p </it>= 0.005 on day 15; median overall survival (OS), 51 d <it>vs </it>33 d) or AdCMVmIL-12 alone (tumor volume, 362.2 ± 33.8 mm³<it>vs </it>494.4 ± 70.2 mm³, <it>p </it>= 0.046 on day 12; median OS, 51 d <it>vs </it>36 d). The combination treatment stimulated more CD4⁺and CD8⁺T lymphocyte infiltration in tumors, compared with either AdCMVmIL-12 alone (1.3-fold increase for CD4⁺T cells and 1.2-fold increase for CD8⁺T cells, <it>P </it>< 0.01) or AdhTERTHRP alone (2.1-fold increase for CD4⁺T cells and 2.2-fold increase for CD8⁺T cells, <it>P </it>< 0.01). The apoptotic cells in combination group were significantly increased in comparison with AdCMVmIL-12 alone group (2.8-fold increase, <it>P </it>< 0.01) or AdhTERTHRP alone group (1.6-fold increase, <it>P </it>< 0.01). No significant systematic toxicities were observed.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>Combination gene therapy with AdhTERTHRP/IAA and AdCMVmIL-12 could significantly inhibit tumor growth and improve host survival in LLC model, without significant systemic adverse effects.</p

Enhanced Delivery of Rituximab Into Brain and Lymph Nodes Using Timed-Release Nanocapsules in Non-Human Primates.

Tumor metastasis into the central nervous system (CNS) and lymph nodes (LNs) is a major obstacle for effective therapies. Therapeutic monoclonal antibodies (mAb) have revolutionized tumor treatment; however, their efficacy for treating metastatic tumors-particularly, CNS and LN metastases-is poor due to inefficient penetration into the CNS and LNs following intravenous injection. We recently reported an effective delivery of mAb to the CNS by encapsulating the anti-CD20 mAb rituximab (RTX) within a thin shell of polymer that contains the analogs of choline and acetylcholine receptors. This encapsulated RTX, denoted as n-RTX, eliminated lymphoma cells systemically in a xenografted humanized mouse model using an immunodeficient mouse as a recipient of human hematopoietic stem/progenitor cells and fetal thymus more effectively than native RTX; importantly, n-RTX showed notable anti-tumor effect on CNS metastases which is unable to show by native RTX. As an important step toward future clinical translation of this technology, we further analyzed the properties of n-RTX in immunocompetent animals, rats, and non-human primates (NHPs). Our results show that a single intravenous injection of n-RTX resulted in 10-fold greater levels in the CNS and 2-3-fold greater levels in the LNs of RTX, respectively, than the injection of native RTX in both rats and NHPs. In addition, we demonstrate the enhanced delivery and efficient B-cell depletion in lymphoid organs of NHPs with n-RTX. Moreover, detailed hematological analysis and liver enzyme activity tests indicate n-RTX treatment is safe in NHPs. As this nanocapsule platform can be universally applied to other therapeutic mAbs, it holds great promise for extending mAb therapy to poorly accessible body compartments

The interaction between different types of activated RAW 264.7 cells and macrophage inflammatory protein-1 alpha

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Two major ways of macrophage (MΦ) activation can occur in radiation-induced pulmonary injury (RPI): classical and alternative MΦ activation, which play important roles in the pathogenesis of RPI. MΦ can produce chemokine MΦ inflammatory protein-1α (MIP-1α), while MIP-1α can recruit MΦ. The difference in the chemotactic ability of MIP-1α toward distinct activated MΦ is unclear. We speculated that there has been important interaction of MIP-1α with different activated MΦ, which might contribute to the pathogenesis of RPI.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>Classically and alternatively activated MΦ were produced by stimulating murine MΦ cell line RAW 264.7 cells with three different stimuli (LPS, IL-4 and IL-13); Then we used recombinant MIP-1α to attract two types of activated MΦ. In addition, we measured the ability of two types of activated MΦ to produce MIP-1α at the protein or mRNA level.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Chemotactic ability of recombinant MIP-1α toward IL-13-treated MΦ was the strongest, was moderate for IL-4-treated MΦ, and was weakest for LPS-stimulated MΦ (p < 0.01). The ability of LPS-stimulated MΦ to secrete MIP-1α was significantly stronger than that of IL-4-treated or IL-13-treated MΦ (p < 0.01). The ability of LPS-stimulated MΦ to express MIP-1α mRNA also was stronger than that of IL-4- or IL-13-stimulated MΦ (p < 0.01).</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>The chemotactic ability of MIP-1α toward alternatively activated MΦ (M2) was significantly greater than that for classically activated MΦ (M1). Meanwhile, both at the mRNA and protein level, the capacity of M1 to produce MIP-1α is better than that of M2. Thus, chemokine MIP-1α may play an important role in modulating the transition from radiation pneumonitis to pulmonary fibrosis <it>in vivo</it>, through the different chemotactic affinity for M1 and M2.</p

Miniature narrow-linewidth 1 {\mu}m Laser

Self-injection locking scheme has the potential to narrow the linewidth of lasers in a compact setup. Here, we report a narrow linewidth laser source near 1 {\mu}m by self-injection locking scheme using a Fabry-Perot (FP) hollow resonator with a high-quality factor (Q>10^8). The measured fundamental linewidth of the laser is 41 Hz, and a coarse tuning range over 5.5 nm is achieved by changing the driving current of the laser source. Meanwhile, a fine-tuning range of 373 MHz is achieved without mode hops by changing the voltage applied to the PZT on the resonator. More importantly, benefiting from the low thermal refractive noise and low thermal expansion of the FP hollow resonator, the beat-note linewidth and the frequency Allan deviation are measured to be 510.3 Hz in and 10^-11 (1s averaging time), respectively, by using a fully stabilized frequency comb as reference. Such a high-performance laser is fully integrated with a palm-sized package (52.3 mL) for field-deployable applications