阿里巴巴和京东：战略、商业模式与财务报表

中国电商行业经过十几年的发展，培育出阿里巴巴和京东两大巨头：一个是最大的平台电商，一个是最大的自营电商。2014年，阿里巴巴和京东相继上市，2015年上半年又相继披露了上市后的首份财报。这两份财报很快就吸引了张伟这位刚从EMBA毕业的投资助理的注意，他开始思索，作为中国电商行业的领头羊，阿里巴巴和京东在战略和商业模式方面到底有什么区别，这些区别会影响它们的财务报表吗？这两家公司有什么投资亮点呢

Alibaba vs. JD.com: Strategies, Business Models, and Financial Statements

This case analyzes the strategies, business models, and financial statements of Alibaba and JD.com (JD). We discuss how different strategies and business models result in different financial characteristics and examine the close relationships between strategy, business models, and financial statements. The discussion will also involve profit models, asset allocation, investment strategy, financing strategy, etc., to help students gain a deeper understanding of the development pattern and investment value of enterprises with differing strategies and business models. We have also developed another case Alibaba vs. JD.com: financial statements and investment value analysis, which analyzes the profitability and growth potential of Alibaba and JD after their IPOs and their impact on the market value of the two companies. This series case guides students in making investment decisions from the perspectives of financial statement analysis. The lecturer can use these two cases as a series, or just one of them. After more than ten years of development, two giants were born in China’s e-commerce industry: Alibaba, the world's largest e-commerce platform, and JD, China's largest business-to-consumer (B2C) e-commerce retailer. In 2014, Alibaba and JD were listed successively, and in the first half of 2015, both companies published their first financial statements following their listing. These two financial statements soon attracted the attention of Zhang Wei, a sell-side investment manager who had just graduated from his EMBA program. To prepare for questions from his clients, he began to think about the differences between the strategies and business models of Alibaba and JD. How would these differences affect their financial statements? What are the investment highlights of the two companies

SARS-CoV-2 Nucleocapsid Protein Interacts with RIG-I and Represses RIG-Mediated IFN-β Production

SARS-CoV-2 is highly pathogenic in humans and poses a great threat to public health worldwide. Clinical data shows a disturbed type I interferon (IFN) response during the virus infection. In this study, we discovered that the nucleocapsid (N) protein of SARS-CoV-2 plays an important role in the inhibition of interferon beta (IFN-β) production. N protein repressed IFN-β production induced by poly(I:C) or upon Sendai virus (SeV) infection. We noted that N protein also suppressed IFN-β production, induced by several signaling molecules downstream of the retinoic acid-inducible gene I (RIG-I) pathway, which is the crucial pattern recognition receptor (PRR) responsible for identifying RNA viruses. Moreover, our data demonstrated that N protein interacted with the RIG-I protein through the DExD/H domain, which has ATPase activity and plays an important role in the binding of immunostimulatory RNAs. These results suggested that SARS-CoV-2 N protein suppresses the IFN-β response through targeting the initial step, potentially the cellular PRR–RNA-recognition step in the innate immune pathway. Therefore, we propose that the SARS-CoV-2 N protein represses IFN-β production by interfering with RIG-I

Adolescent tuberculosis associated with tuberculosis exposure in classrooms and dorm rooms in Guangxi, China

Objective: Quantify tuberculosis (TB) risk attributable to dorm room exposure in addition to classroom exposure. Methods: Adolescent school contact investigations were conducted for every reported index TB case, and similar contact investigations were conducted in selected community-control classes from November 2016 to October 2017 in Guangxi, China. Results: A total of 6263 contacts of 112 index TB cases and 6130 classmates of 112 controls were investigated. There were 14, 12, and 2 new active TB cases detected among classmates/non-roommates of index cases, classmates/roommates of index cases, and control classmates, respectively. Compared with control contacts, the adjusted relative risk (95% confidence interval (CI)) and population attributable fraction (PAF) for being a classmate/non-roommate of the index case increased the risk of active TB diagnosis to 8.44 (95% CI: 1.31–54.48) and 44.1%. The adjusted RR and PAF for being a classmate/roommate of the index case was 29.37 (95% CI: 3.80, 227.11) and 41.4%. Being classmates/roommates significantly increased the risk of TB compared to a classmate/non-roommate of the index case (RR = 3.48, 95% CI: 1.64, 7.40). Conclusion: The additional risk of TB due to exposure in the dorm room should be taken into account in planning of TB prevention and control in boarding schools. Keywords: Tuberculosis, adolescent, contact investigation, schoo

Tuberculosis Transmission in Households and Classrooms of Adolescent Cases Compared to the Community in China

The aim of this paper is to evaluate the link between the history of exposure to tuberculosis (TB) in the household and diagnosed TB cases at school, and to compare the detection rate of active TB among household contacts and classroom contacts of adolescent TB cases with the rates among contacts of healthy controls. From November 2016 to December 2017, a prospective matched case-control study was conducted using passively identified index adolescent student cases from the TB surveillance system and healthy controls (matched by county, school type, sex, age and ethnicity). Contacts in households and classrooms of index cases and of controls were investigated. Matched tabulation of 117 case-control pairs revealed exposure to TB in the household as a strong risk factor (odds ratio (OR) = 21.0, 95% confidence interval (CI): 3.4, 868.6). Forty-five (case detection rate 0.69%) and two (case detection rate 0.03%) new active TB cases were detected among 6512 and 6480 classroom contacts of the index cases and controls, respectively. Having an index case in the classroom significantly increased the risk of classmates contracting active TB (OR = 22.5, 95% CI: 5.9, 191.4). Our findings suggested that previous exposure to TB in the household could lead a child to catch TB at school, then spread TB to classmates

Infectivity of Mycobacterium tuberculosis Genotypes and Outcome of Contact Investigation in Classroom in Guangxi, China

Objective. To evaluate the infectivity of Mycobacterium tuberculosis (M.tb) genotypes of index cases in the classroom of adolescent schools in Guangxi, China. Methods. Adolescent school tuberculosis (TB) contact investigations were conducted for all reported index TB cases from November 2016 to December 2017 in Guangxi, China. Genotypes of index cases and contact cases were identified by 15-loci mycobacterial interspersed repetitive units–variable number tandem repeat and spoligotyping. Outcome variable was 5 levels’ order of tuberculin skin test (TST) results to new active TB [0-5 mm, 6-9 mm, 10-14 mm, ≥ 15 mm (without TB), and ≥15 mm (with TB)]. Multivariate ordered logistic regression analysis was performed to evaluate the independent effect of genotypes of index case on contact screening outcome. Results. Beijing genotype occurred more commonly in female index patients. One genotypic cluster of two index cases and one cluster of two contact cases were detected. The association between infectivity of Beijing genotype of index cases and outcome of contact investigation was statistically significant in univariate analysis but no so after adjustment for characteristics of contacts and sex of index cases (P value=0.057). Female index cases increased the chance for TB infection/being active TB among contacts (ordinal odds ratio = 1.39, 95% confidence interval: 1.21, 1.60). Contacts who studied in the middle school, who with non-Han ethnicity and who without BCG scar had increased risk for TB infection/being active TB. Conclusion. There was not enough evidence from our data to support that Beijing strains were more infective than non-Beijing strains in TB transmission in school setting

STING promotes NLRP3 localization in ER and facilitates NLRP3 deubiquitination to activate the inflammasome upon HSV-1 infection.

One of the fundamental reactions of the innate immune responses to pathogen infection is the release of pro-inflammatory cytokines, including IL-1β, processed by the NLRP3 inflammasome. The stimulator of interferon genes (STING) has the essential roles in innate immune response against pathogen infections. Here we reveal a distinct mechanism by which STING regulates the NLRP3 inflammasome activation, IL-1β secretion, and inflammatory responses in human cell lines, mice primary cells, and mice. Interestingly, upon HSV-1 infection and cytosolic DNA stimulation, STING binds to NLRP3 and promotes the inflammasome activation through two approaches. First, STING recruits NLRP3 and facilitates NLRP3 localization in the endoplasmic reticulum, thereby facilitating the inflammasome formation. Second, STING interacts with NLRP3 and attenuates K48- and K63-linked polyubiquitination of NLRP3, thereby promoting the inflammasome activation. Collectively, we demonstrate that the cGAS-STING-NLRP3 signaling is essential for host defense against HSV-1 infection

VisDrone-MOT2021: The vision meets drone multiple object tracking challenge results

Vision Meets Drone: Multiple Object Tracking (VisDrone-MOT2021) challenge - the forth annual activity organized by the VisDrone team - focuses on benchmarking UAV MOT algorithms in realistic challenging environments. It is held in conjunction with ICCV 2021. VisDrone-MOT2021 contains 96 video sequences in total, including 56 sequences (~24K frames) for training, 7 sequences (~3K frames) for validation and 33 sequences (~13K frames) for testing. Bounding-box annotations for novel object categories are provided every frame and temporally consistent instance IDs are also given. Additionally, occlusion ratio and truncation ratio are provided as extra useful annotations. The results of eight state-of-the-art MOT algorithms are reported and discussed. We hope that our VisDrone-MOT2021 challenge will facilitate future research and applications in the field of UAV vision. The website of our challenge can be found at http://www.aiskyeye.com/

VisDrone-MOT2021: The Vision Meets Drone Multiple Object Tracking Challenge Results

Vision Meets Drone: Multiple Object Tracking (VisDrone-MOT2021) challenge - the forth annual activity organized by the VisDrone team - focuses on benchmarking UAV MOT algorithms in realistic challenging environments. It is held in conjunction with ICCV 2021. VisDrone-MOT2021 contains 96 video sequences in total, including 56 sequences (~24K frames) for training, 7 sequences (~3K frames) for validation and 33 sequences (~13K frames) for testing. Bounding-box annotations for novel object categories are provided every frame and temporally consistent instance IDs are also given. Additionally, occlusion ratio and truncation ratio are provided as extra useful annotations. The results of eight state-of-the-art MOT algorithms are reported and discussed. We hope that our VisDrone-MOT2021 challenge will facilitate future research and applications in the field of UAV vision. The website of our challenge can be found at http://www.aiskyeye.com/