Resilient Practices of Small Businesses to Survive from COVID-19 Pandemic: Perspectives from S-DL and Social Capital

The devastating outbreaks of COVID-19 pandemic has negatively impacted social and economic sustainability of the world, particularly in routine services that require physical interactions, such as dining services. With the retrospective analysis via case study, we identified three cases in dining service from USA, Indonesia, Taiwan, respectively, and investigated their service systems with the Service-Dominant Logic to understand the interactions among actors and how they integrated resources to cope with the pandemic. We identified their resilient practices heavily relied on various types of social capital to quickly respond to demand shifts, reconnect value networks, and leverage ICTs for marketing and sales. These resilient practices could be used for guiding small and medium enterprises to cope with devastating unexpected crises, taking COVID-19 as an example. More cases collected and analyzed from corresponding regions in the follow-up study could further conclude a more general causal relationship in resilience toward the theory for resilience. © 2023 IEEE Computer Society. All rights reserved.

Influence Factors of Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises and Micro-Enterprises in the Cross-Border E-Commerce Platforms

Small and medium-sized businesses (SMEs) are frequently exposed to a variety of difficulties during global epidemic crises like coronavirus (COVID-19), which may even threaten their lives. The purpose of this study explores the influencing factors of Taiwan's companies between small and medium-sized enterprises and micro-enterprises on the choice of the cross-border e-commerce platform. The findings are defined as taking into account small and medium-sized businesses and microenterprises when choosing cross-border e-commerce through a literature review and an examination of secondary data among the 10 participating businesses through interviews in various regions and business sectors in Taiwan. In this case we used study-based research, which included five small, medium-sized, and micro-enterprises, as well as five cross-border e-commerce projects and the company's management senior officers. According to the study's emphasis on the economic, social, technological, and legal aspects of various firms, these factors lead to a variety of decisions regarding the best cross-border e-commerce platform. The case study approach was utilized in this investigation to confirm the consideration of micro-and small-sized businesses that took part in cross-border e-commerce project counseling. This study summarizes five types of enterprises with different capabilities: product enhancement, marketing enhancement, cross-border potential, knowledge-based enhancement, and cross-border start-up. According to the results, it was found that different enterprise capabilities will affect the choice of cross-border e-commerce platforms. These five capabilities also have different types of consideration factors;among them, SMEs pay attention to marketing, pricing, market analysis, culture, customer service, payment, logistics, certification, taxation, etc. In addition to theoretical implications, this research also gives small and medium enterprises and micro-enterprises practice when choosing cross-border e-commerce platform, as well as suggestions for future research. © 2023 by the authors.

Digital News Transformation on Education in the Most Affected Country by COVID-19 Using the Topic Modeling and Sentiment Analysis

This study focuses on examining US newspaper articles regarding education from the two major news channels the New York Times (NYT) (N=29.682) and Washington Post (WST) (N=44.308) in period 1 January, 2020 - 19 March, 2021, and splitting them into three stages. We employed Latent Dirichlet Allocation topic modeling and sentiment analysis to depict the overall picture of the data set. Our method flow chart included start, data preparing, data analysis, and result. We used Python to call Google API to calculate the sentiment analysis score. There is a difference in the frequency of the occurrences of the education theme in NYT and WST in the three stages, where NYT relatively dominates. Keywords related to education that appear on the NYT and WST include school, child, parent, student, child, family, feel, and home. Sentiment analysis scores on all themes in NYT and WST were generally in the neutral categories, while the direction from stage one to stage three tends to be more positive. This study could be useful to assist education policy makers in determining the right decisions in the implementation of quality education after the COVID-19 Pandemic era. © 2022 IEEE.

A two-ward acute care hospital outbreak of SARS-CoV-2 delta variant including a point-source outbreak associated with the use of a mobile vital signs cart and sub-optimal doffing of personal protective equipment.

BACKGROUND: The arrival of the Delta variant of SARS-CoV-2 was associated with increased transmissibility and illness of greater severity. Reports of nosocomial outbreaks of Delta variant COVID-19 in acute care hospitals have been described but control measures varied widely. AIM: Epidemiological investigation of a linked two-ward COVID-19 Delta variant outbreak was conducted to elucidate its source, risk factors, and control measures. METHODS: Investigations included epidemiologic analysis, detailed case review serial SARS-CoV-2 reverse transcriptase-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) testing of patients and healthcare workers (HCWs), viral culture, environmental swabbing, HCW-unaware personal protective equipment (PPE) audits, ventilation assessments, and the use of whole genome sequencing (WGS). FINDINGS: This linked two-ward outbreak resulted in 17 patient and 12 HCW cases, despite an 83% vaccination rate. In this setting, suboptimal adherence and compliance to PPE protocols, suboptimal hand hygiene, multi-bedded rooms, and a contaminated vital signs cart with potential fomite or spread via the hands of HCWs were identified as significant risk factors for nosocomial COVID-19 infection. Sudden onset of symptoms, within 72 h, was observed in 79% of all Ward 2 patients, and 93% of all cases (patients and HCWs) on Ward 2 occurred within one incubation period, consistent with a point-source outbreak. RT-PCR assays showed low cycle threshold (CT) values, indicating high viral load from environmental swabs including the vital signs cart. WGS results with ≤3 SNP differences between specimens were observed. CONCLUSION: Outbreaks on both wards settled rapidly, within 3 weeks, using a `back-to-basics' approach without extraordinary measures or changes to standard PPE requirements. Strict adherence to recommended PPE, hand hygiene, education, co-operation from HCWs, including testing and interviews, and additional measures such as limiting movement of patients and staff temporarily were all deemed to have contributed to prompt resolution of the outbreak.

Design and implementation of one-stop analysis and prediction platform for agricultural big data

With the continuous outbreak of COVID-19, it is becoming more and more difficult for individual farmers to survive only by offline production and sales. However, in this context, a perfect and humanized platform system has not yet been designed and put on the market. This system is committed to building a one-stop analysis and prediction platform for agricultural big data. Platform of the main service object for farmers, the use of the combination of online and offline model to analyze agricultural data, online business mainly for agriculture market dynamics, cost prediction, the profit prediction and disaster prediction, analysis of information related to supply reference for farmers and to cross-strait agricultural cooperation pilot zone of offline business provide the corresponding data of agricultural industry, To promote agricultural informatization and agricultural production, management, management, service for the service of effective integration between fulcrum, aiming at the current situation of agricultural development, agricultural products in rural areas are poor and on the development of the agricultural innovation, using the data from becoming more complete information and the foundation of agriculture information construction, to 'Internet + modern agriculture' as an opportunity to help farmers set up network information service. © 2022 IEEE.

Implementation of Mask Wearing Recognition

Because of the pandemic of COVID-19 since 2020, it seriously affects people's daily life and causes huge economic loss. Recently, the international community has mostly adopted an attitude of coexisting with Covid-19. We cannot ignore the harm the virus can bring to us. In order to effectively protect everyone from the virus, the most basic and effective way is to wear a mask to keep you away from exposure to the virus when going to public areas. Vision intelligence can play an important role in public health issues. In this paper, we utilize the object detection method to implement an actual mask wearing recognition system which can detect if people have a face mask on their face, and send a warning message if not wearing a mask. YOLOv3 is the basic framework for our implementation. After training and fine-tuning processes, the implemented model can perform effectively and correctly. © 2022 IEEE.

Thermoregulation and subjective thermal perception of N95 respirator users: Influence of significant workloads

Working under a significant metabolic rate while wearing an N95 mask increased the heat stress that users of protective clothing experienced. This study investigated in a climatic chamber preset at 25 degrees C and a relative humidity of 65% the changes in thermoregulation and thermal perception of 13 men and 12 women when performing exercises involving different metabolic consumption for 60 min first without wearing an N95 mask for 30 min and then donning a mask. The physiological parameters include the metabolic rate, tympanic temperature, heart rate, skin temperature, skin moisture, and transepidermal water loss (TEWL). Thermal perceptions, including thermal sensation, humidity sensation, thermal comfort, and thermal acceptance were surveyed. The results show that both N95 mask use and exercising contributed to vigorous thermoregulation, particularly in women. The tympanic temperature was between 35.5 degrees C and 36.5 degrees C during the experiment for both sexes. Skin temperature during the exercise with or without donning a mask was not influenced by the change in workload, indicating a balance in heat exchange between the body and ambient air. Skin moisture increased by 58.91% and 49.99% when the users of masks performed exercises involving moderate and very high metabolic rates, respectively, compared to levels when a mask was not worn. The TEWL of women and men when wearing a mask and jogging increased by 16.35% and 14.89%, respectively, compared to when not wearing the mask. These results suggests a potential thermal stress from using N95 masks and working in a warm environment when the users are not acclimatized.

The Mitigating Influence of Perspective Taking on Attitude Polarization: An Analysis of Mediation and Transfer Effect

Citizens in modern society are faced with complex and controversial public issues. For example, Taiwanese referenda in 2018 and 2021 involved 10 and 4 proposals, respectively. These proposals covered a range of controversial topics such as whether to resume the construction of a nuclear power plant and whether to legalize same-sex marriage. Discussions of these multifaceted topics often caused heated debates and resulted in attitude polarization. People often became more opinionated and believed more firmly in their initial stances on the issues. As attitude polarization is a major cause of interpersonal and intergroup conflicts and even social unrest, this research investigated how to mitigate the polarization of attitudes toward social issues. This study drew upon the theory of perspective taking for insights into the mitigation of attitude polarization. Perspective taking refers to one's attempt or ability to consider something from someone else's perspective. Perspective taking has been studied by psychologists as a means of reducing prejudice, fostering cooperation, and lowering reasoning biases that were found to be responsible for attitude polarization. Attitude polarization is, at least partially, a result of biased information processing. For example, people may become more entrenched in their opinions after engaging in biased assimilation, which entails, for instance, evaluating information supporting their opinions as more convincing than that opposing their opinions. Per the dual process theory, the reasoning biases that cause attitude polarization often reflect the influence of Type 1 processing, which usually involves responding to information intuitively and generating outcomes consistent with existing beliefs. Such outcomes can be either reinforced or overridden by Type 2 processing, which involves deliberation and evidence-based consideration. If an intuitive response is reinforced, an individual's attitude is likely to become entrenched, leading to polarization;if overridden, attitude polarization may be inhibited or attenuated. We proposed that perspective taking may serve as an overriding mechanism to mitigate attitude polarization. Perspective taking enables individuals to undertake a form of Type 2 processing called decontextualized reasoning, which features a type of self-distancing that allows individuals to decouple existing beliefs from reasoning processes. Such a reasoning style can arguably be triggered by perspective taking because this requires individuals to examine information by considering their own thinking with increased psychological distance and adopting alternative perspectives. Although research has suggested a link between perspective taking and decontextualized reasoning, how decontextualized reasoning can be measured and whether it indeed serves as a mediator between perspective taking and attitude polarization have yet to be deeply investigated. Integrating studies on perspective taking, information processing, and attitude change, this study proposed three hypotheses and tested them by conducting an experiment involving a writing task focused on social issues. First, we hypothesized that perspective taking would mitigate attitude polarization. We measured attitude polarization by calculating the difference in attitude toward an issue before and after the writing task. Second, we proposed that the mitigation of attitude polarization would be mediated by decontextualized reasoning induced by perspective taking. To investigate this hypothesis, we used a text analysis tool, namely Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count (LIWC). Research on LIWC has shown that the frequency with which people use words in their writing reflects psychological features and cognitive styles. Because decontextualized reasoning features a shift of attention from the self to others, we argued that it can be detected in the difference between the frequency of using third-person plural and first-person singular pronouns. The greater this difference is, the greater the extent to which decontextualized reaso ing is likely to have been adopted by a writer. Finally, we drew upon the secondary transfer effect of intergroup contact theory and proposed that the mitigating effect outlined in the first hypothesis would influence people's attitudes even when not directly instructed to engage in perspective taking. To test this transfer effect, the writing task included two sessions, and perspective taking instructions were only given in one of the sessions. The experimental procedure was as follows. We recruited 95 participants (50 female;mean age = 23.7 years, SD = 3.4) for the writing task experiment. Participants first indicated their attitude toward two issues that are controversial in Taiwan (making Taiwan nuclear-free and abolishing the death penalty) on a 7-point Likert scale with responses ranging from absolutely disagree to absolutely agree and then wrote arguments supporting or opposing the issues in two writing sessions. When writing about one of the issues in the first session, all participants wrote arguments from their own perspective;when writing about the other issue in the second session, half of the participants continued to write from their own perspective (control condition) while the other half wrote from the perspective of someone holding the view opposite of their own (perspective-taking condition). Participants then again indicated their attitude toward both issues using the same 7-point scale. The whole experiment took approximately 30 minutes to complete. Analysis of attitude polarization between the two conditions showed that compared with the control group (M = 0.77, SD = 1.09), for the essays written in the second session, participants in the perspective-taking group (M = −0.02, SD = 1.74) displayed weaker attitude polarization, t(93) = 2.63, p = .010, d = 0.540. Based on LIWC output for the second essay for the decontextualized reasoning indicator (frequency of use of third-person plural pronouns minus that of first-person singular pronouns), compared with the control group (M = −1.04, SD = 1.20), the perspective-taking group (M = −0.08, SD = 0.95) engaged in decontextualized reasoning to a greater extent, t(93) = 4.34, p < .001, d = 0.890. Mediation analysis using the SPSS Process Macro further revealed that this difference mediated the mitigating effect found during analysis, and thus, participants in the perspective-taking group engaged in more decontextualized reasoning and exhibited weaker attitude polarization than those in the control group: indirect effect = −0.28, 95% confidence interval: [−0.54, −0.07];direct effect = −0.50, p = .122. Because all participants wrote from their own perspective in the first session, the difference in attitude polarization resulting from the first essay allowed us to examine the transfer effect. Compared with participants in the control group (M = 0.79, SD = 1.56), those in the perspective-taking group (M = 0.10, SD = 1.37) again displayed weaker attitude polarization, t(93) = 2.27, p = .026, d = 0.465. Taken together, the results revealed that perspective taking mitigated polarization of attitudes toward social issues due to greater engagement in decontextualized reasoning, a form of Type 2 processing that involves self-distancing. This mitigating effect was evident for issues where the perspective-taking manipulation was not applied, thus indicating a transfer effect. These findings can have valuable implications for areas where controversies and conflicts abound. For example, during the COVID-19 pandemic, disputes occurred over issues such as the necessity of vaccines, legitimacy of lockdown measures, and the distribution of supplies. These issues fall into the category of socioscientific issues (SSIs), which have been defined as crucial real-world scientific issues with social significance. Other examples of SSIs include issues pertaining to climate change, genetically modified products, and genetic testing. As were the issues used in our writing tasks, SSIs are often controversial in nature, and information relating to them is often p ocessed through an ideological lens, which can lead to attitude polarization and conflict. Helping students develop the ability to approach SSIs with scientific and fact-based reasoning has become a key objective of science and citizenship education. The manipulation used in our study can be integrated into course materials to help students analyze SSIs from multiple perspectives and avoid becoming entrenched in their opinions. Furthermore, such a practice may even affect perspectives on issues not discussed in class due to the transfer effect of perspective taking. Whether the mitigating effect of perspective taking on attitude polarization can be replicated in the classroom or other real-world settings warrants further exploration. Future research directions and other implications are also discussed. © 2022, National Taiwan Normal University. All rights reserved.

Assessment of Atmospheric PM2.5 and PCDD/Fs Collected by Different High-volume Ambient Air Sampling Systems

To evaluate the difference in hazardous air pollutants in PM2.5 between reference method (National Institute of Environmental Analysis;NIEAA205) and high-volume air sampler (European standard:EN14907 and Japan method), we set up a sampling station on the campus of National Yang-Ming Chiao Tung University, northern Taiwan, during 2014-2015. Both vapor and solid phases of dioxins were collected using high-volume samplers, according to EN14907 and Japan method. The flow rate was set at 500 L min(-1) and 1000 L min(-1), respectively. To compare the difference with the high-volume air sampler, we simultaneously used the reference air sampler based on Taiwan NIEA A205.11C, at the flow rate of 16.7 L min(-1) (BGI PQ200-FRM). The mass concentrations of PM2.5 measured with NIEA A205, EN14907, and Japan method were 20.2 +/- 8.79, 25.4 +/- 10.5 and 28.6 +/- 13.9 mu g m(-3), respectively. The difference of the mass concentration of PM2.5 obtained from two different methods was lower than 3.9%. Moreover, the concentrations of PCDD/F between solid and vapor phases were 56.9-1,090 and 38.6-67.1 fg m(-3) via EN14907 and 51.1-1,150 and 18.4-81.8 fg m(-3) via Japan method, respectively. Obviously, there is no significant difference between these two samplers. Compared to the method of NIEA, high volume air sampling method not only provided equivalently good quality data but offer a higher sample quantity for analyzing the trace level chemical component of hazardous air pollutants and the toxicity in different areas.

An intelligent system for assisting personalized COVID-19 vaccination location selection: Taiwan as an example

In many regions of the world, with the gradual increase in the supply of COVID-19 vaccines, COVID-19 vaccination has changed from centralized government control to personalized selection. When choosing a location for COVID-19 vaccination, in addition to subjective preferences, objective information (such as the expected waiting time at a COVID-19 vaccination location and the crowdedness and reliability of the vaccination location) also need to be considered. However, it is not convenient for an individual to collect and compare such information. To address this issue, this research applies web content mining to extract the conditions of COVID-19 vaccination locations. Then, a novel asymmetric calibrated fuzzy inverse of column sum and fuzzy Vise Kriterijumska Optimizacija I Kompromisno Resenje recommendation mechanism is proposed. Finally, an intelligent system is developed to assist a user in selecting a personalized COVID-19 vaccination location. In a regional experiment conducted in Taichung City, Taiwan, the developed intelligent system was applied to assist 20 users in choosing personalized COVID-19 vaccination locations. The successful recommendation rate was 95%.

KIDNEY TRANSPLANTATION WITH COVID-19 POSITIVE DONORS: A SERIES OF 55 CASES

INTRODUCTION AND OBJECTIVE: Organs from deceaseddonors who tested positive for COVID-19 were thought to be ineligible for transplantation. Despite lack of evidence showing that COVID-19 can be transmitted through urine or blood. We began to transplant kidneys from COVID-positive deceased-donors in February 2021 and this report comprises our early outcomes in this patient cohort. METHODS: From Feb 2021 to Oct 2021, 55 patients underwent kidney transplantation from 34 COVID-19 positive donors. Prior to initiating this clinical practice, formalized selection criteria for organs from COVID-19 positive deceased-donors were adopted by transplant surgeons, transplant nephrologists, and infectious disease physicians. If a deceased-donor suited these pre-determined criteria, individual kidney selection followed our usual programmatic criteria. RESULTS: The mean donor age was 34±13.7 years with a mean kidney donor profile index (KDPI) of 36.9±22.7%. All donors had at least 1 positive COVID-19 test from the nasopharyngeal ribonucleic acid swab test within a median of 4 (0-76) days prior to declaration as a deceased-donor. Extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO) was used in 6 donors. The initial and terminal mean creatinine was 1.1±1.1 mg/dl and 1.0±0.4 mg/dL. This patient cohort includes 36 male recipients and 19 female recipients. Mean age among all recipients was 51.2±13.5 years. Thirty-seven recipients (66.7%) were dialysis dependent. A similar proportion (67.3%) had received both COVID-19 vaccine doses. Delayed graft function occurred in 19.6% of the recipients. No patient tested positive for COVID-19 after surgery. At a mean follow up duration of 3.5 months, all kidney allografts are functioning, with a mean serum creatinine of 1.6±0.7 mg/dl. One patient underwent allograft nephrectomy at 1.5 months post-transplant due to Pseudomonas aeruginosa vascular infection. CONCLUSIONS: Transplantation of kidneys from COVID-19 positive donors is safe. Outcomes are comparable to kidneys from regular donors.

The trajectory of psychological distress and problematic Internet gaming among primary school boys: a longitudinal study across different periods of COVID-19 in China

Background: Children are a vulnerable population in terms of the impact of COVID-19 on their psychological well-being. When restricted to their homes, children are susceptible to problematic Internet gaming (PG). Primary school boys are particularly at risk of PG, which may lead to negative psychological effects, such as distress. Emerging research has identified perceived weight stigma (PWS) as a variable closely associated with both PG and psychological distress, particularly during the COVID-19 pandemic. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the trajectory of psychological distress among this vulnerable population from a longitudinal perspective, evaluating the role of PG and PWS. Methods: Self-report measures were used to assess psychological distress, PG, and PWS among primary school boys (grades 4 to grade 6; N = 283). Data were collected across three waves: before the pandemic, during school closure, and following the lifting of restrictions. Results: The trajectory of psychological distress among primary school boys was concave, indicating their mental health was negatively impacted during home restriction but recovered after the lockdown ended (linear change = 0.98, p < 0.01; quadratic change = -0.19, p < 0.01). PG was a significant covariate in terms of the trajectory of psychological distress (b = 0.02, p < 0.01). Moreover, baseline values for PWS were shown to have a negative direct effect on mental health before the pandemic (b = 0.05, p < 0.01), and moderated the time factor for boys' psychological distress over time (b of PWS × linear change = 0.04, p = 0.006; b of PWS × Quadratic change was negative at -0.01, p = 0.002). Conclusions: Although mental health gradually improved as home restrictions subsided, future studies are required to address changes in mental health upon return to school for students reporting higher levels of weight stigma.

Using GIS to analyze the Spatial distribution of marathon events: A case study based on Taiwan area

The half marathon approximately 21 kilometers started in the 1980s, and the marathon has shown a diversified development since then. The focus of this research is on the marathon in Taiwan before the COVID-19 pandemic. The selected research method is to integrate the attribute data and spatial data on the GIS platform. Preliminary information on the GIS platform shows that all types of events are held in the western part of the eastern part. The full marathon type shows that the northern metropolitan area and the central metropolitan area are the main event venues in the spatial distribution analysis. Subsequent research data shows that the spatial distribution of the city where the semi marathon is that almost all administrative regions have races. The distribution of half-marathon events is relatively balanced and almost every region has such sport events. © 2021 IEEE.

A Ubiquitous Clinic Recommendation System Using the Modified Mixed-Binary Nonlinear Programming-Feedforward Neural Network Approach

Most of the existing ubiquitous clinic recommendation (UCR) systems adopt linear mechanisms to aggregate the attribute-level performances of a clinic to evaluate the overall performance. However, such linear mechanisms may not be able to explain the choices of all patients. To solve this problem, the modified mixed binary nonlinear programming (MMBNLP)-feedforward neural network (FNN) approach is proposed in this study. In the proposed methodology, first, the existing MBNLP model is modified to improve the successful recommendation rate using a linear recommendation mechanism. Subsequently, an FNN is constructed to fit the relationship between the attribute-level performances of a clinic and its overall performance, thereby providing possible ways to further enhance the recommendation performance. The results of a regional experiment showed that the MMBNLP-FNN approach improved the successful recommendation rate by 30%.

Assessment of PM2.5 Chemical Composition and Air Quality Monitoring: Implications of Air Pollutants Emissions from a Night Market in Kaohsiung City, Taiwan

There are around 300 night markets in Taiwan, and they have been drawing an increasing number of tourists in recent years. As a result, public awareness over air quality in the night markets has grown tremendously. In response to this, a specific night market in Kaohsiung City was chosen for this study in order to characterize the existing air quality in and around the night markets. In this present study, we employed an Industrial Source Complex Short-Term (ISCST3) air quality model for the simulation of PM2.5 diffusions. The model as a technique can simulate the pollutants emissions, diffusions, transportation, and pollution sources in specific areas and subsequently evaluate the influence between the source and the receiver. Therefore, we compared pollutants emissions data from several air quality monitoring stations with our sampling data of three different sampling sites in Kaohsiung City. The findings of this study showed that the average concentration of PM2.5 was in the range of 29-61 mu g m(-3) during opening hours of the night market, whereas the average concentration of PM2.5 range was between 22-38 mu g m(-3) before the night market opening hours. The concentration of metallic elements (ME) (Mg, Na, Cr, Mn, Fe, Cu, Al, Ba, Cd, Pb and Ca) was determined with the support of Inductively Coupled Plasma Optical Emission Spectroscopy (ICP-OES). During the night market opening hours, the result disclosed that the ME concentrations in PM2.5 was in an increasing order as follows: Na > Fe > Al > Ca. With respect to the concentration of carbonaceous species, our results showed that the highest total carbon (TC) concentration was found to be 6.52 mu g m(-3) during the downwind sampling interval. The highest elemental carbon (EC) and organic carbon (OC) concentration were found to be 6.53 mu g m(-3) and 2.70 mu g m(-3) of the PM2.5 concentration, respectively. This study's findings have significant consequences for Taiwan policymakers and urban planners, particularly those responsible for coordinating environmental protection and economic development in cities. Therefore, policy actions to abate urban air pollution can be attained on diverse governing echelons, resulting in synergistic effects such as a reduction in climate change impacts.

Satellite-based Emission Inventory Adjustments Improve Simulations of Long-range Transport Events

Long-range pollution transport (LRT) events have a wide impact across East Asia, but are often difficult to track due to imprecise emission inventories and changing domain scales as the plume moves from source to receptor locations. This study adjusts a bottom-up emission inventory based on changes in remotely sensed NO2 column densities for a source region of East Asia, then with CMAQv5.2.1 simulates transport of LRT plumes to Taiwan. Adjustment of an emissions inventory based on satellite measurements during the COVID-19 lockdown in China led to a -59% reduction in emissions over the relevant source area in China compared to base emissions. As a result, PM2.5 mass concentrations were reproduced to match observations (mean fractional bias, MFB of -13.9% and 18.5% at a remote and urban station) as the plume passed through northern Taiwan. Furthermore, the OMI-adjusted emissions simulation brought all of the major PM2.5 components to within -50% of the measured values. Another LRT event from 2018 with more subtle OMI-adjustments to the emissions was also simulated and with improved overall PM2.5 mass concentration at the northern tip of Taiwan (MFB: -91.5%) compared to the base model (MFB: -102.1%), and an acceptable index of agreement (0.78). For the 2018 event, non sea-salt sulfate concentrations were consistently underpredicted (0.2-0.4), while nitrate concentrations were overpredicted by up to factor of 11. Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service (CAMS) reanalysis of the PM(2.)5 concentrations shows high sulfate concentrations in eastern China in the areas associated with 72-h back-trajectories from northern Taiwan during both events, lending support for future model investigations of sulfate source area production and transport to Taiwan. In order to better track these LRT events out of East Asia and optimize OMI-adjustment methodology, it is recommended to explore other satellite-based products to map unaccounted for SO2 sources upstream of Taiwan.