Lysine residues of interferon regulatory factor 7 affect the replication and transcription activatormediated lytic replication of Kaposi’s sarcomaassociated herpesvirus/human herpesvirus 8

Kaposi’s sarcoma-associated herpesvirus (KSHV) infection goes through latent and lytic phases, which are controlled by the viral replication and transcription activator (RTA). Upon KSHV infection, the host responds by suppressing RTA-activated lytic gene expression through interferon regulatory factor 7 (IRF-7), a key regulator of host innate immune response. Lysine residues are potential sites for post-translational modification of IRF-7, and were suggested to be critical for its activity. In this study, we analysed the 15 lysine residues for their effects on IRF-7 function by site-directed mutagenesis. We found that some mutations affect the ability of IRF-7 to activate interferon (IFN)-a1 and IFN-b promoters, to suppress RTA-mediated lytic gene expression and to repress KSHV reactivation and lytic replication. However, other mutations affect only a subset of these four functions. These findings demonstrate that the lysine residues of IRF-7 play important roles in mediating IFN synthesis and modulating viral lytic replication

Skeena: Efficient and Consistent Cross-Engine Transactions

Database systems are becoming increasingly multi-engine. In particular, a main-memory database engine may coexist with a traditional storage-centric engine in a system to support various applications. It is desirable to allow applications to access data in both engines using cross-engine transactions. But existing systems are either only designed for single-engine accesses, or impose many restrictions by limiting cross-engine transactions to certain isolation levels and table operations. The result is inadequate cross-engine support in terms of correctness, performance and programmability. This paper describes Skeena, a holistic approach to cross-engine transactions. We propose a lightweight snapshot tracking structure and an atomic commit protocol to efficiently ensure correctness and support various isolation levels. Evaluation results show that Skeena maintains high performance for single-engine transactions and enables cross-engine transactions which can improve throughput by up to 30x by judiciously placing tables in different engines.Comment: To appear at SIGMOD 202

Will Good Service Quality Promote Real Estate Value? Evidence from Beijing, China

In the field of land use and urban management, real estate value-added issues have attracted much attention. Previous studies mainly focused on the premium of basic public services (such as infrastructure) in real estate value. As an important part of urban management, the contribution of property service is often underestimated. Few empirical studies mentioned the potential contribution of property service quality. Based on this, this paper aims to confirm and quantitatively evaluate the premium of good service quality in real estate value utilizing 155,845 samples of housing resale transactions in Beijing from 2012 to 2019. Furthermore, we also explore the dynamics and heterogeneity of the above premium. Our results show the following: Firstly, good service quality does show premium in real estate value, and the higher the service quality, the greater the premium in housing price. Secondly, this premium keeps increasing during our study period. With urbanization and rising incomes of residents, property service is increasingly important. Thirdly, the contribution of service quality to real estate value is greater when serviced houses have a higher price or larger area, are relatively newer, or further away from the city center. The findings of this current research not only deepen our understanding of service quality’s premium in real estate value, but also provide implications for urban management

Dynamic and Heterogeneous Demand for Urban Green Space by Urban Residents: Evidence from the Cities in China

With the increasing number of people starting to attach importance to urban green space (UGS), estimating urban residents’ demand for UGS has become critical. Previous studies have estimated residents’ demands for UGS in different cities using the Rosen–Roback model. However, there has been little analysis of the renters’ requirements for UGS or the dynamic and heterogeneous demands for UGS by residents in cities with varying characteristics. In this study, the prefecture-level cities in China were selected as the object of study for their wide representation of various city characteristics, and the Rosen–Roback model was used to address the abovementioned issues. Residents’ demand for UGS in 285 prefecture-level cities was assessed from 2010 to 2017. The results confirm our hypothesis that when UGS increases by 1%, house prices will increase by about 3% and rents will increase by about 7%, and the demand continues to grow. We also analyzed the heterogeneous demands for UGS by urban residents in different types of cities from three aspects: population density, economic level, and the effects of the National Forest City policy. Finally, we provided suggestions based on empirical results for planning and managing UGS

Economic Growth Targets and Carbon Emissions: Evidence from China

Carbon emissions have become a new threat to sustainable development in China, and local government actions can play an important role in energy conservation and emission reduction. This paper explores the theoretical mechanisms and transmission paths of economic growth targets affecting carbon emissions from the perspective of economic growth targets and conducts an empirical analysis based on 30 provincial panel data in China from 2003 to 2019. The results show that: economic growth targets are positively correlated with carbon emissions under a series of endogeneity and robustness; there are regional heterogeneity, target heterogeneity and structural heterogeneity in the impact of economic growth targets on carbon emissions; after economic growth targets are set, government actions can influence carbon emissions by affecting resource mismatch and industrial restructuring; It is further found that there is a “U” shaped relationship between economic pressure and carbon emissions. Based on the above findings, this paper further proposes that a high-quality performance assessment mechanism should be developed to bring into play the active role of local governments in achieving carbon reduction goals, and thus contribute to high-quality economic development

How Does Urban Green Space Impact Residents’ Mental Health: A Literature Review of Mediators

In recent years, the interest in the relationship between urban green space and residents’ mental health has gradually risen. A number of researchers have investigated the causal relationship and possible mediators between the two, although few have summarized these mediators. For this reason, we searched for relevant studies and filtered them by criteria and quality score, and analyzed the mediators and paths of the impact of urban green space on residents’ mental health. The mediators can be divided into environmental factors, outdoor activity, and social cohesion. From the perspective of heterogeneity, both individual characteristics (e.g., age and gender) and group characteristics (e.g., level of urban development and urban density) of residents are considered to be the cause of various mediating effects. Types of urban green space tend to affect residents’ mental health through different paths. Furthermore, this review discusses the details of each part under the influence paths. Finally, the policy implications for urban green space planning from three mediator levels are put forward based on an analysis of the situation in different countries