Researching China During the COVID-19 Pandemic

For scholars based in North America who study various topics in China, the global spread of COVID-19 and resulting travel restrictions imposed by governments and research institutions have erected new barriers to field sites and local contacts. New disease-related travel restrictions are overlaid upon constrained political conditions for some research activities and a general climate of mistrust between the governments of the United States and China observed in recent years. How have scholars responded to these conditions? What research tools do scholars have at their disposal to see their research through? How has COVID-19 compelled or inspired scholars to reconsider their methods, their research subjects, and the ethics of interacting with people in new ways? This chapter assembles insights from a diverse group of scholars working in North American institutions who are re-tooling their China-related research during these times of great uncertainty. They discuss new methods to allow for continued engagement and note the limitations and possibilities that the pause in fieldwork presents for generating new knowledge. The overall picture is a frank assessment of a research landscape characterized by unprecedented constraints and new types of risks which may persist well into the future. © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022.

Flexible working during the COVID-19 pandemic: gains and strains in a Chinese state-owned organisation

PurposeThis study aims to identify and analyse the gains and strains associated with flexible working practices (FWPs) introduced and adopted prior to and during the pandemic and consider how these experiences are likely to shape the future of workplace flexibility post-pandemic. Design/methodology/approachA case study research strategy was adopted to explore the FWPs implemented by a state-owned organisation in the Chinese publishing industry. A mixed data collection method was used. Quantitative data was collected from 50 valid questionnaires, which was followed by 7 qualitative interviews to gain rich insights into the availability and effectiveness of various FWPs and associated benefits and drawbacks. FindingsWhile the results confirm positive effects FWPs have on employee engagement and retention and on business continuity and employee well-being during the pandemic, the empirical analysis highlights the performance-driven patterns in use and impacts of some FWPs, which caused concerns and dilemmas. Besides the increasing intense market competition, the changing face of state-owned enterprises and managerial attitudes have been found to have significant effects on the use of FWPs. Originality/valueThis paper has contributed to a better understanding of flexible working in an under-researched setting, reflected in changes before and during the pandemic, offering an insight into the commercialised nature of flexible working in the Chinese context. It has implications for organisations and HR practitioners as they envision future workplace flexibility.

Incidence and influencing factors of favipiravir-associated serum uric acid elevation in patients with coronavirus disease 2019.

Objective To explore the occurrence and influencing factors of serum uric acid elevation in patients with coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) treated with favipiravir. Methods Medical records of patients with COVID-19 who were hospitalized in Beijing Ditan Hospital between June 1, 2020 and June 30, 2021 and treated with the 5- or 10-day regimen of favipiravir were collected and retrospectively analyzed. After favipiravir withdrawal, if the elevation in serum uric acid was >=30% of baseline level, it was defined as serum uric acid elevation. Then patients were divided into serum uric acid elevation group and non-serum uric acid elevation group. The clinical characteristics such as gender, age, body mass index, comorbidities, smoking and drinking behavior, COVID-19 grade, favipiravir regimen, and serum uric acid level and renal function before treatment in patients between the 2 groups were compared. Influencing factors of favipiravir-associated serum uric acid elevation was analyzed using multivariate logistic regression method. Results A total of 179 patients were included in the analysis, including 104 (58.1%) males and 75 (41.9%) females, aged from 19 to 70 years with a median age of 43 years. The level of serum uric acid in 179 patients after favipiravir treatment was significantly higher than before [(451+/-119) mumol/L vs. (332+/-94) mumol/L, P<0.001]. The change rate of serum uric acid from baseline level ranged from -57.1% to 157.8% with the median of 38.6%. The elevation in serum uric acid of >= 30% of baseline level occurred in 108 (60.3%) patients. The incidences of serum uric acid elevation in patients treated with 5-day and 10-day regi- mens of favipiravir were 46.8% (36/77) and 70.6% (72/102), respectively, and the difference between them was significant (P=0.001). Multivariate logistic regression analysis showed that body mass index 24.0 to <28.0 kg/m2 (OR=3.109, 95%CI: 1.209-7.994, P=0.019) and 10-day regimen of favipiravir (OR=3.017, 95%CI: 1.526-5.964, P=0.001) were independent risk factors for favipiravir-associated serum uric acid elevation. Conclusions More than half of COVID-19 patients treated with favipiravir can develop serum uric acid elevation. Overweight and 10-day regimen of favipiravir are independent risk factors for serum uric acid elevation in patients.Copyright © 2022 Adverse Drug Reactions Journal.

Dynamic spillover between traditional energy markets and emerging green markets: Implications for sustainable development

This study employs the time-varying vector parameter autoregression model and Diebold-Yilmaz (2012, 2014) spillover approach to explore the static, net, dynamic and directional spillover effects between China's traditional energy and emerging green markets and the impact of the COVID-19 outbreak on spillover effects. Spillover networks are constructed to observe structural changes in the directional spillover of each target financial market before and after the pandemic's outbreak. Changes in hedging indicators of portfolios composed of two types of markets before and after the outbreak of COVID-19 are compared to provide directional guidance for investors to choose portfolios in the post-pandemic era. We found that the outbreak of the pandemic had a considerable impact on the volatility of various spillover effects of the studied markets. The total spillover level of the system increased rapidly by 18% in the early stages of the pandemic. Green bond was the largest net recipient of volatility spillovers in the whole system, followed by crude oil, while new energy was the largest net contributor of volatility spillovers in the whole system, followed by clean energy. After the outbreak, the hedging effectiveness of portfolios with long positions in traditional energy markets and short positions in emerging green markets improved significantly. In particular, a portfolio with long positions in the crude oil market and short positions in the green bond market is the best risk-hedging portfolio. © 2023 Elsevier Ltd

An Optimization Method Combining RSSI and PDR Data to Estimate Distance between Smart Devices for COVID-19 Contact Tracing

Distance estimation methods arise in many applications, such as indoor positioning and COVID-19 contact tracing. The received signal strength indicator (RSSI) is favored in distance estimation. However, the accuracy is not satisfactory due to the signal fluctuation. Besides, the RSSI-only method has a large-ranging error because it uses fixed parameters of the path loss model. Here, we propose an optimization method combining RSSI and pedestrian dead reckoning (PDR) data to estimate the distance between smart devices. The PDR may provide high accuracy of walking distance and direction. Moreover, the parameters of the path loss model are optimized to dynamically fit the complex electromagnetic environment. The proposed method is evaluated in outdoor and indoor environments and compared with the RSSI-only method. The results show that the mean absolute error is reduced up to 0.51 m and 1.02 m, with an improvement of 10.60% and 64.55% for outdoor and indoor environments, respectively, compared with the RSSI-only method. Consequently, the proposed optimization method has better accuracy of distance estimation than the RSSI-only method, and its feasibility is demonstrated through real-world evaluations.Copyright © 2023 Bo Zhao et al.

Optimal Bond Percolation in Networks by a Fast-Decycling Framework

Keeping a physical distance and creating social bubbles are popular measures that have been implemented to prevent infection and slow transmission of COVID-19. Such measures aim to reduce the risk of infection by decreasing the interactions among social networks. This, theoretically, corresponds to the optimal bond percolation (OBP) problem in networks, which is the problem of finding the minimum set of edges whose removal or deactivation from a network would dismantle it into isolated sub-components at most size C. To solve the OBP problem, we proposed a fast-decycling framework composed of three stages: (1) recursively removes influential edges from the 2-core of the network, (2) breaks large trees, and (3) reinserts the unnecessarily removed edges through an explosive percolation process. The proposed approaches perform better than existing OBP algorithms on real-world networks. Our results shed light on the faster design of a more practical social distancing and social bubble policy. © 2023, The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG.

RNAi Degrades the SARS-CoV-2 Spike Protein RNA for Developing Drugs to Treat COVID-19

COVID-19 is caused by severe acute respiratory SARS-CoV-2. Regardless of the availability of treatment strategies for COVID-19, effective therapy will remain essential. A promising approach to tackle the SARS-CoV-2 could be small interfering (si) RNAs. Here we designed the small hairpin RNA (named as shRNA688) for targeting the prepared 813 bp Est of the S protein genes (Delta). The conserved and mutated regions of the S protein genes from the genomes of the SARS-CoV-2 variants in the public database were analyzed. A 813 bp fragment encoding the most part of the RBD and partial downstream RBD of the S protein was cloned into the upstream red florescent protein gene (RFP) as a fusing gene in the pCMV-S-Protein RBD-Est-RFP plasmid for expressing a potential target for RNAi. The double stranded of the DNA encoding for shRNA688 was constructed in the downstream human H1 promoter of the plasmid in which CMV promoter drives enhanced green fluorescent protein (EGFP) marker gene expression. These two kinds of the constructed plasmids were co-transfected into HEK293T via Lipofectamine 2000. The degradation of the transcripts of the SARS-CoV-2 S protein fusing gene expressed in the transfected HEK293T treated by RNAi was analyzed by RT-qPCR with a specific probe of the targeted SARS-CoV-2 S protein gene transcripts. Our results showed that shRNA688 targeting the conserved region of the S protein genes could effectively reduce the transcripts of the S protein genes. This study provides a cell model and technical support for the research and development of the broad-spectrum small nucleic acid RNAi drugs against SARS-CoV-2 or the RNAi drugs for the other hazard viruses which cause human diseases. Copyright © Weiwei Zhang, Linjia Huang, Jumei Huang, Xin Jiang, Xiaohong Ren, Xiaojie Shi, Ling Ye, Shuhui Bian, Jianhe Sun, Yufeng Gao, Zehua Hu, Lintin Guo, Suyan Chen, Jiahao Xu, Jie Wu, Jiwen Zhang, Daxiang Cui, and Fangping Dai.

SARS-CoV-2 outbreak uplifted collectivistic expression in the Hubei Daily

Following the outbreak of SARS-CoV-2, collectivistic words have been used more frequently on Sina Weibo and the People's Daily. However, the studies on Sina Weibo and the People's Daily can only reflect the overall impact by SARS-CoV-2 in China. To examine the influence of SARS-CoV-2 on collectivism/individualism, we first investigated the Hubei Daily, an authoritative local media in Hubei, the first province to discover SARS-CoV-2, to see the impact of SARS-CoV-2 on collectivism/individualism. We analyzed data from the Hubei Daily, using the same collectivistic/individualistic words identified in prior studies and found that the outbreak of SARS-CoV-2 increased collectivism and decreased individualism significantly. Next, we analyzed the same data using the individualistic/collectivistic word bank created in a different cross-culture study based on Sina Weibo posts. The results showed that, during the SARS-CoV-2, collectivistic words were used more frequently;no significant changes were seen regarding individualist words. Lastly, we created a COVID-19 word bank and conducted a regression analysis to examine the relationship between collectivistic word frequency and COVID-19 word frequency in the after-breakout period of SARS-CoV-2 and found that the severity of SARS-CoV-2 predicted collectivist word frequency change in the Hubei Daily. © 2022 IEEE.

An automatic COVID-19 CT segmentation based on Progressive encoder and decoder U-Net++ with attention mechanism

The coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic has contribute to a harsh effect on the global public health. Computed Tomography (CT) is an effective tool in the screening of COVID-19. It is greater important to rapidly and accurately segment COVID-19 from CT to help diagnostic and monitor patients. In this paper, we propose a Progressive encoder and decoder U-Net++ based segmentation network using attention mechanism. In terms of COVID-19 lesion segmentation problems with highly imbalanced dataset and small regions of interests (ROI), we will use a progressive encoder and decoder combined with dilated convolution to form a deeper network structure, which can extract more and lower level semantic features while ensuring spatial information features. We propose to incorporate an attention mechanism to a progressive encoder and decoder U-Net++ architecture to capture rich contextual relationships for better feature representations. Meanwhile, the focal tversky loss is enhanced to address the small lesion segmentation. In addition, after combining the advantages of multiple modules, the network parameters will increase abruptly. According to the performance of the model in the validation set, we cut the redundant branch of the network model to do the final segmentation test, which can not only reduce the segmentation accuracy, but also reduce the network parameters and calculation cost. The experiment results, evaluated on a small dataset where only 3520 CT images are available, prove the enhanced model can achieve an accurate result on COVID-19 segmentation. The obtained Dice Score, Sensitivity and Specificity are 70.1%, 82.1%, and 92.3%, respectively. © 2022 ACM.

Design and Implementation of a Robot System for High Efficiency Automatic Oropharyngeal Swab Sampling

For normalized prevention and control of novel corona virus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, a robot system is desired to assist in performing large numbers of oropharyngeal (OP) swab sampling. However, reliability and efficiency are still challenges for the practical application of existing robot systems. In this paper, a robot system and related implementation scheme for high efficiency automatic OP swab sampling are developed. A novel robot end-effector with a disposable protective cover is designed, that testee keeps biting on its terminal during sampling. The main steps of the sampling procedure, including sterilizing, recycling, swab mounting and collection, are realized automatically. The effectiveness and efficiency of the proposed robot system are validated through experiment on human subjects. The whole sampling procedure takes about 80 to 90 seconds. © 2022 IEEE.

An Design of Elevator Buttons with Disinfecting Function based on Ultraviolet C Ray

The spread of COVID-19 that derived from SARS-CoV-2 has brought serious disasters to human society. Especially in places such as hospitals and hotels where are densely populated, the close contact of people is more likely cause the spread of the virus. So in this paper, we develop a novel automatic electromechanical device, i.e. elevator button with disinfection function, for such places. The disinfection principle is mainly from that the far ultraviolet c (UVC as abbreviation) ray has good inactivation effect on SARS-Cov-2, and we use STM32 to control a proposed ratchet mechanism to drive the ultraviolet lamp to disinfect the elevator button when there are few people at night while to work normally in the day time. Finally the experiment verifies that the proposed device can work safely and disinfect virus effectively.

Record or Recall? Exploring Self-Reported Dietary Assessment Methods for Office Workers during the COVID-19 Work-from-Home Period

The workplace represents an important venue to influence eating behaviors. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the workplace has rapidly shifted from office to home (WfH). Here, two mobile self-reported dietary assessment methods were compared (4-hour Recall vs. Food Record) to monitor food intake for WfH. A within-subject study involving 30 participants was conducted over a 4-week period. We assessed the workload and acceptance of these two methods using questionnaires and follow-up interviews. Results of questionnaires revealed that most participants presented high acceptance of Food Record related to a more flexible completion time and lower mental burden. Based on interviews, we presented a set of design insights to promote WfH healthy eating, including integrating reminders into daily routines, simplifying the tracking process, and adding gaming elements. Then, we discussed design implications, including integrating digital tools into daily routines and designing simple and playful using processes, to promote healthy eating during the WfH period. © 2022 Owner/Author.

Practice and thinking of smart hospital construction under the background of COVID-19 epidemic prevention and control

Objective: To establish a three-in-one smart hospital characterized with smart service, smart medical care and smart management to improve the hospital's ability to prevent and control and respond to coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). Methods: Combined with the core needs of normalized prevention and control of the epidemic, the overall structure of the smart hospital was established. Emerging technologies were used as the means to strengthen system integration and security as the basis, and the interconnection and electronic medical record project were the starting point to carry out 31 projects of information system construction and integration. Results: Through the construction of smart service, a service mechanism that integrates online and offline services and covers the whole process of diagnosis and treatment has been realized. Through the construction of integrated physician workstations, smart nursing, medical quality control and other platforms with electronic medical records as the core, the clinical diagnosis and treatment capabilities have been improved. Through the improvement and optimization of the information system, the capacity of the hospital's emergency management of the epidemic has been effectively improved. Conclusion: The construction of smart hospitals can provide a solid guarantee for the prevention and control of COVID-19, but it also faces many problems. The construction of smart service needs the strong support of the competent government departments, the integration of smart medical care needs to be further strengthened, and smart management needs to be further strengthened.

FILGOTINIB FOR PERIANAL FISTULIZING CROHN'S DISEASE: THE PHASE 2 DIVERGENCE 2 STUDY

Introduction Treatment of perianal fistulizing Crohn's disease (PFCD) is a major unmet need. Filgotinib (FIL) is a oncedaily, oral, preferential JAK1 inhibitor in development as a CD treatment. The efficacy and safety of FIL for the treatment of PFCD was evaluated in the phase 2, double-blind, randomized, placebo (PBO)-controlled DIVERGENCE2 study (NCT03077412). Methods Patients 18-75years with PFCD (documented diagnosis of CD for >3months and 1-3 external openings [EOs] with drainage [spontaneous or on compression] for ≥4weeks before screening) previously treated with antibiotics, immunomodulators and/or TNFi were randomized (2:2:1) to receive FIL 200mg, 100mg or PBO once daily for <24weeks. Active luminal CD was permitted providing that CDAI score was ≤300 at screening. The primary endpoint was combined fistula response (reduction of ≥1 from baseline in the number of draining EOs determined by investigator assessment and no fluid collections 1cm on centrally read pelvic MRI) at Week24. Combined fistula remission (closure of all draining EOs present at baseline and no fluid collections >1cm) at Week24 was a key secondary endpoint. The study was not powered for statistical comparisons and was prematurely terminated owing to low recruitment rates during the COVID-19 pandemic. Results Baseline characteristics were broadly similar across treatment groups. Overall, 91% (52/57) patients had complex perianal fistulae;TNFi treatment had previously failed in 65% (37/57) patients. A lower proportion of patients randomized to FIL200mg than PBO discontinued the study. The proportion of patients who achieved a combined fistula response at Week24 was numerically higher in the FIL200mg than the PBO group (Figure 1a), with similar results observed for combined fistula remission (Figure 1b). Treatment-emergent severe AEs were highest in the FIL200mg group. AE rates were otherwise similar across groups. Conclusion In this phase 2 study, numerically higher fistula response and remission rates were observed after 24weeks of treatment with FIL200mg vs PBO in patients with active PFCD and a history of multiple medical treatment failures. FIL was well tolerated. Further studies of FIL for PFCD treatment are warranted.

Incidence and influencing factors of favipiravir‑associated serum uric acid elevation in patients with coronavirus disease 2019

Objective To explore the occurrence and influencing factors of serum uric acid elevation in patients with coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID⁃19) treated with favipiravir. Methods Medical records of patients with COVID⁃19 who were hospitalized in Beijing Ditan Hospital between June 1, 2020 and June 30, 2021 and treated with the 5- or 10-day regimen of favipiravir were collected and retrospectively analyzed. After favipiravir withdrawal, if the elevation in serum uric acid was ≥30% of baseline level, it was defined as serum uric acid elevation. Then patients were divided into serum uric acid elevation group and non-serum uric acid elevation group. The clinical characteristics such as gender, age, body mass index, comorbidities, smoking and drinking behavior, COVID⁃19 grade, favipiravir regimen, and serum uric acid level and renal function before treatment in patients between the 2 groups were compared. Influencing factors of favipiravir⁃associated serum uric acid elevation was analyzed using multivariate logistic regression method. Results A total of 179 patients were included in the analysis, including 104 (58.1%) males and 75 (41.9%) females, aged from 19 to 70 years with a median age of 43 years. The level of serum uric acid in 179 patients after favipiravir treatment was significantly higher than before [(451±119) μmol/L vs. (332±94) μmol/L, P<0.001]. The change rate of serum uric acid from baseline level ranged from -57.1% to 157.8% with the median of 38.6%. The elevation in serum uric acid of ≥ 30% of baseline level occurred in 108 (60.3%) patients. The incidences of serum uric acid elevation in patients treated with 5-day and 10-day regi⁃ mens of favipiravir were 46.8% (36/77) and 70.6% (72/102), respectively, and the difference between them was significant (P=0.001). Multivariate logistic regression analysis showed that body mass index 24.0 to <28.0 kg/m2 (OR=3.109, 95%CI: 1.209-7.994, P=0.019) and 10-day regimen of favipiravir (OR=3.017, 95%CI: 1.526-5.964, P=0.001) were independent risk factors for favipiravir⁃associated serum uric acid elevation. Conclusions More than half of COVID⁃19 patients treated with favipiravir can develop serum uric acid elevation. Overweight and 10-day regimen of favipiravir are independent risk factors for serum uric acid elevation in patients. © 2022 Adverse Drug Reactions Journal.

Does Economic Policy Uncertainty Affect Green Bond Markets? Evidence from Wavelet-Based Quantile Analysis

This paper investigates the wavelet-based quantile dependence between Economic Policy Uncertainty (EPU) and green bond markets over 2014–2021. We first determine how the connectivity between EPU and green bonds differs across different investment horizons by decomposing EPU and green bond series into various frequency bands. Next, we provide a quantile-based framework to characterize the reliance between EPU and green bond markets across various market circumstances. Our findings show that the Granger causality from EPU to the green bond market is non-linear and varies across time scales. Our results benefit policymakers with a policy design to mitigate systematic volatility caused by external shocks in the green bond markets. © 2022 Taylor & Francis Group, LLC.

New Progress of Glycosylation in Coronaviruses

The coronaviruses (CoVs), which are a family of positive-strand RNA viruses, infect the mammals and birds. Seven CoVs are responsible for human-to-human transmission, especially the SARS-CoV-2, thereby posing a daunting challenge to global public health security. As the most common modification in viral glycoproteins, glycosylation plays the crucial role in host recognition, immunity avoidance, virus replication, assembly and transmission. In this review, we summarized and discussed the latest studies about glycosylation in coronaviridae members. Focused on the spike protein, nearly one hundred of N/O-glycosyltion sites have been reported. The N-glycans from spike protein are dominated by the high-mannose and complex-type, while the O-glycosylation is rather complicated. Significantly, it is known that the viral glycosylation depend on host cells, thus the glycan pattern of the produced recombinant viral glycoproteins might be different from that of native viral proteins, which represent a crucial determinant for vaccine design. The latest results based on bioinformatics, biochip, mass spectrography and genetic technology facilitate the overall perspective for glycosylation researching in CoVs. By summarizing the distribution of glycosylation sites, the structure of glycans, the biological functions and the research technologies, this review will help promote diagnosis, treatment and vaccine development related to coronaviruses.

Risk assessment of public health emergencies concerned in the mainland of China, January 2022

Objective: To assess the risk of public health emergencies, both the indigenous ones and the imported ones, which might occur in the mainland of China in January 2022.

The U.S. power sector emissions of CO2 and NOx during 2020: Separating the impact of the COVID-19 lockdowns from the weather and decreasing coal in fuel-mix profile

In recent years, the United States power sector emissions of CO2 and NOx have decreased due to declining coal and increasing natural gas and renewables in the fuel-mix. In April 2020, the COVID-19 social restrictions in the United States led to a decline in electricity demand from the commercial and industrial sectors. In this study, we estimate the changes in the emissions of CO2 and NOx from the U.S. power sector due to three factors: 1) weather, 2) the fuel-mix change in the past five years, and 3) the COVID-19 social restrictions. We use a multivariate adaptive regression splines (MARS) model to separate the impacts of outdoor temperature and type-of-day from the COVID-19 on power generation, and the daily operation status of 3013 power units to account for the fuel-mix change. We find that electricity demand changes due to COVID occurred mostly from March to June 2020, with electricity demand generally returning to 2015–2019 levels starting in July 2020. We find the U.S. power sector CO2 emissions, reported by EPA, dropped by 29.8 MTCO2 (−26%) in April 2020, relative to the average April emissions between 2015 and 2019. Of that reduction, we attribute declines of 18.3 ± 4.0 MTCO2 (−18 ± 4%) to the COVID-19 lockdowns, declines of 13.7 ± 4.2 MTCO2 (−12 ± 4%) to a fuel-mix change, and increases of 2.3 ± 1.1 MTCO2 (+2 ± 1%) due to weather variability compared to the five prior years. For the same month, the power sector NOx emissions dropped by 27.6 thousand metric tons (−42%) in April 2020, relative to the past five-year monthly average. Of that reduction, we attribute declines of 10.5 ± 2.4 thousand metric tons (−22 ± 5%) to the COVID-19 lockdowns, declines of 18.5 ± 2.5 thousand metric tons (−28 ± 4%) to a fuel-mix change, and increases of 1.4 ± 0.6 thousand metric tons (+2 ± 1%) due to weather variability. This result highlights the importance of accounting for weather and fuel-mix changes when estimating the impact of COVID-19 on the power sector emissions.