Dynamic lead–lag relationship between Chinese carbon emission trading and stock markets under exogenous shocks

Using the non-parametric thermal optimal path method, we investigate the dynamic lead–lag relationship between carbon emission trading and stock markets in China, and further consider the impact of different types of exogenous shocks on the lead–lag relationship. The empirical results show that the stock market leads the carbon market on most trading days, and the relationship reverses when the mean values of carbon market return are significantly smaller than zero. In addition, the lead–lag relationships when the carbon market leads the high energy-consuming stock market sectors are more obvious. We also find that there exist significant heterogeneous effects of different types of exogenous shocks on the lead–lag relationship between the two markets, including government policy, the Sino-US trade war and the Covid-19 outbreak. These findings have the potential to help regulators understand the interrelationship between components of the financial market, and be of great value for investors to optimize portfolio allocation by incorporating carbon assets into the portfolio.

Gaseous and Particulate Pollution in the Wu-Chang-Shi Urban ,Agglomeration on the Northern Slope of Tianshan Mountains from 2017 to 2021

Rapid social development has led to serious air pollution problems in cities, and air pollutants, including gaseous pollutants and particulate matter, have an important impact on climate, the environment, and human health. This study analyzed the characteristics, potential sources, and causes of air pollution in the Wu-Chang-Shi urban cluster. The results showed that NO2, CO, SO2, PM10, and PM2.5 had a tendency to decrease, while O3 showed an increasing trend. The concentrations of SO2, NO2, CO, PM2.5, and PM10 showed the highest values in winter and the lowest values in summer, with similar seasonal variations. However, the concentration of O3 was highest in the summer and lowest in the winter. Compared with the pollutant concentrations in other Chinese cities, PM2.5, PM10, and NO2 are more polluted in the Wu-Chang-Shi urban. Meteorological factors have a greater impact on pollutant concentrations, with higher concentrations of major pollutants observed when wind speeds are low and specific wind directions are observed, and higher secondary pollutant O3 concentrations observed when wind speeds are low and specific wind directions are observed. The backward trajectory and concentration weighting analysis show that the particulate pollutants in the Wu-Chang-Shi urban in winter mainly come from Central Asia and surrounding cities. O3 showed an increasing trend before and after the novel coronavirus outbreak, which may be related to changes in NOX, volatile organic compounds, and solar radiation intensity, and the concentrations of SO2, NO2, CO, PM10, and PM2.5 showed an overall decreasing trend after the outbreak and was smaller than before the outbreak, which is related to the reduction of industrial and anthropogenic source emissions during the outbreak.

Environmental and genetic drivers of population differences in SARS-CoV-2 immune responses (preprint)

Humans display vast clinical variability upon SARS-CoV-2 infection, partly due to genetic and immunological factors. However, the magnitude of population differences in immune responses to SARS-CoV-2 and the mechanisms underlying such variation remain unknown. Here we report single-cell RNA-sequencing data for peripheral blood mononuclear cells from 222 healthy donors of various ancestries stimulated with SARS-CoV-2 or influenza A virus. We show that SARS-CoV-2 induces a weaker, but more heterogeneous interferon-stimulated gene activity than influenza A virus, and a unique pro-inflammatory signature in myeloid cells. We observe marked population differences in transcriptional responses to viral exposure that reflect environmentally induced cellular heterogeneity, as illustrated by higher rates of cytomegalovirus infection, affecting lymphoid cells, in African-descent individuals. Expression quantitative trait loci and mediation analyses reveal a broad effect of cell proportions on population differences in immune responses, with genetic variants having a narrower but stronger effect on specific loci. Additionally, natural selection has increased immune response differentiation across populations, particularly for variants associated with SARS-CoV-2 responses in East Asians. We document the cellular and molecular mechanisms through which Neanderthal introgression has altered immune functions, such as its impact on the myeloid response in Europeans. Finally, colocalization analyses reveal an overlap between the genetic architecture of immune responses to SARS-CoV-2 and COVID-19 severity. Collectively, these findings suggest that adaptive evolution targeting immunity has also contributed to current disparities in COVID-19 risk.

Effectiveness of inactivated and Ad5-nCoV COVID-19 vaccines against SARS-CoV-2 Omicron BA. 2 variant infection, severe illness, and death (preprint)

ABSTRACT Background Limited data are available on effectiveness of inactivated and Ad5-nCoV COVID-19 vaccines in real-world use - especially against Omicron variants in SARS-CoV-2 infection-naïve population. During an outbreak in Shanghai’s SARS-CoV-2 infection-naïve population, we evaluated vaccine effectiveness (VE) against Omicron infection, severe or critical COVID-19, and COVID-19-related death. Methods A matched case-control study was conducted among people aged ≥3 years between 2 December 2021 through 13 May 2022. Cases were SARS-CoV-2 infected individuals, individuals with severe/critical COVID-19, or COVID-19-related deaths. Controls were selected from consecutively test negative individuals at the same time as cases were diagnosed and were exact-matched on year-of-age, gender, birthplace, illness onset date, and residency district in ratios of 1:1 with infected individuals and 4:1 with severe/critical COVID-19 and COVID-19-related deaths. Results Our study included 612597 documented SARS-CoV-2 infections, among which 1485 progressed to severe or critical illness and 568 died. Inactivated vaccine was 16.3% (95% CI: 15.4%-17.2%) effective against infection, 88.6% (95% CI: 85.8%-90.9%) effective against severe/critical COVIID-19 and 91.7% (95% CI: 86.9%-94.7%) against COVID-19 death. Ad5-vectored vaccine was 13.2% (95% CI: 10.9%-15.5%) effective against infection and 77.9% (95% CI: 15.6%-94.2%) effective against severe/critical COVIID-19. Booster vaccination with inactivated vaccines enhanced protection against severe COVID-19 (92.7%, 95% CI: 90.1%-94.6%) and COVID-19 death (95.9%, 95% CI: 91.4%-98.1%). Inactivated VE against infection began to wane 12 weeks after the last dose but two- and three-dose sustained high protection levels (>80%) against severe/critical illness and death. Conclusions Our real-world study found high and durable two- and three-dose inactivated VE against Omicron-associated severe/critical illness and death across all age groups, but lower effectiveness against Omicron infection. High direct protection from severe/fatal Omicron COVID-19 provided by inactivated vaccines, and a consequent potential reduction in health-care utilization, reinforces the critical importance of full-series vaccination and timely booster dose administration for all eligible individuals.

Protein Kinase C-Mediated Hyperphosphorylation and Lateralization of Connexin 43 Are Involved in Autoimmune Myocarditis-Induced Prolongation of QRS Complex

Myocarditis is a serious and potentially life-threatening disease, which leads to cardiac dysfunction and sudden cardiac death. An increasing number of evidence suggests that myocarditis is also a malignant complication of coronavirus pneumonia, associated with heart failure and sudden cardiac death. Prolonged QRS complexes that are related to malignant arrhythmias caused by myocarditis significantly increase the risk of sudden cardiac death in patients. However, the molecular mechanisms are not fully known at present. In this study, we identify protein kinase C (PKC) as a new regulator of the QRS complex. In isolated hearts of normal rats, the PKC agonist, phorbol-12-myristate-13-acetate (PMA), induced prolongation of the QRS complex. Mechanistically, hyperphosphorylation and lateralization of connexin 43 (Cx43) by PKC induced depolymerization and internalization of Cx43 gap junction channels and prolongation of the QRS duration. Conversely, administration of the PKC inhibitor, Ro-32-0432, in experimental autoimmune myocarditis (EAM) rats after the most severe inflammation period still significantly rescued the stability of the Cx43 gap junction and alleviated prolongation of the QRS complex. Ro-32-0432 reduced phosphorylation and blocked translocation of Cx43 in EAM rat heart but did not regulate the mRNA expression level of ventricular ion channels and the other regulatory proteins, which indicates that the inhibition of PKC might have no protective effect on ion channels that generate ventricular action potential in EAM rats. These results suggest that the pharmacological inhibition of PKC ameliorates the prolongation of the QRS complex via suppression of Cx43 hyperphosphorylation, lateralization, and depolymerization of Cx43 gap junction channels in EAM rats, which provides a potential therapeutic strategy for myocarditis-induced arrhythmias.

Clinical effect of millimeter wave applied to acupoints on treatment of COVID-19

OBJECTIVE: To retrospectively observe the clinical effect of integrated Chinese and Western medicine combined with millimeter wave therapy on treatment of non-critical COVID-19 patients. METHODS: A total of 47 patients with COVID-19 who were treated in the People's Hospital of Hong'an County from Feb 2, 2020 to Feb 19, 2020 were enrolled in the study, the patients were given integrated Chinese and Western medicine therapies such as oxygen therapy, antiviral treatment, supportive treatment and Chinese patent medicine, and the millimeter wave therapy was applied to the acupoints twice a day. The respiratory function indexes such as oxygenation index and oxyhemoglobin saturation, chest CT, number of times of cough in a day and blood test indexes were collected after the millimeter wave treatment system was used for 1 day (T1), 3 days (T2), 10 days (T3) and 14 days (T4). RESULTS: The oxygenation index and blood oxygen saturation of the 47 patients were significantly higher at T2, T3 and T4 than at T1 after the integrated Chinese and Western medicine combined with millimeter wave therapy (P<0.05). There was significant difference in the percentage of the patients with grade 3 chest CT among all the time points except for T2 and T1 (P<0.05). There were significant differences in the number of times of cough and body temperature between the time points and T1 (P<0.05). The lactic dehydrogenase(LDH) level was slowly reduced, and there was significant difference between T4 and T1 (P<0.05). There were no significant differences in the white blood cell, lymphocyte, hemoglobin, potassium, sodium and chlorine at the admission. 4 patients were tested positive at T4, and the negative conversion ratio was 91.5%. CONCLUSION: The integrated Chinese and Western medicine combined with millimeter wave therapy can achieve remarkable effect on improvement of clinical symptoms of the COVID-19 patients such as oxygenation index and promote the nucleic acid to turn negative, and it has certain clinical application value.

DenseCapsNet: Detection of COVID-19 X-ray Images Using a Capsule Network (preprint)

Objective: A deep learning framework for detecting COVID-19 is developed, and a small amount of chest X-ray data is used to accurately screen COVID-19.Methods: In this paper, we propose a deep learning framework that integrates convolution neural network and capsule network. DenseNet and CapsNet fusion are used to give full play to their respective advantages, reduce the dependence of convolution neural network on a large amount of data, and can quickly and accurately distinguish COVID-19 from Non-COVID-19 through chest X-ray imaging.Results: A total of 1472 chest X-ray COVID-19 and non-COVID-19 images are used, this method can achieve an accuracy of 99.32% and a precision of 100%, with 98.55% sensitivity and 100% specificity.Conclusion: These results show that the deep fusion neural network DenseCapsNet has good performance in novel coronavirus pneumonia X-ray detection. We also prove through experiments that the detection performance of DenseCapsNet is not affected fundamentally by a lack of data augmentation and pre-training.

Public Awareness and Mask Usage during the COVID-19 Epidemic: A Survey by China CDC New Media.

An online survey conducted March 18-19, 2020 on the official China CDC WeChat account platform was used to evaluate the effect of public education about masks usage during the new coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) epidemic. Chinese nationals older than 18 were eligible for the survey. The survey collected 5,761 questionnaires from the 31 provinces, municipalities, and autonomous regions of mainland China. 99.7% and 97.2% of the respondents answered correctly that respiratory droplets and direct contact were the main transmission routes. 73.3% of the respondents considered COVID-19 to be 'serious' or 'very serious'. When going to the hospital, 96.9% (2,885/2,976 had gone to a hospital) used a mask during the COVID-19 epidemic, while 41.1% (2,367/5,761) did not use a mask before the epidemic. Among the respondents that used public transportation and went shopping, 99.6% and 99.4%, respectively, wore masks. Among respondents who returned to work, 75.5% wore a mask at the workplace, while 86.3% of those who have not returned to work will choose to use masks when they return to the workplace. The Chinese public is highly likely to use a mask during COVID-19 epidemic, and the mask usage changed greatly since the COVID-19 outbreak. Therefore, public education has played an important role during the COVID-19 epidemic.

Neutrophil-to-Lymphocyte Ratio on Admission Predicts In-hospital Mortality in Patients with COVID-19 (preprint)

Background: A novel coronavirus caused an outbreak of acute infectious pneumonia are spreading over the globe. However, studies predicting prognosis are limited. We predicted outcomes of patients with coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) using the neutrophil-to-lymphocyte ratio (NLR) on admission.Methods: We retrospectively analyzed the characteristics of COVID-19 patients diagnosed from February 6 to March 1. The outcomes, including the occurrence of in-hospital mortality, acute kidney injury (AKI), and endotracheal intubation (ETI), were recorded. The relationships of neutrophils, lymphocytes, C-reactive protein, lactate dehydrogenase, and NLR with outcomes were assessed using multivariate regression model. P-values for trends across quartiles of NLR was examined.Results: A total of 182 patients were included. 37 (20.3%) patients died during the hospitalization, 41 (22.5%) developed AKI, and 36 (19.8%) received ETI. The NLR had a superior predictive performance than others. Using an NLR cutoff of 11.4, the area under the curves (AUC) were 0.766 for in-hospital mortality, 0.755 for AKI, and 0.733 for ETI. In multivariate analysis, NLR >11.4 was further identified as an independent prognostic factor. Following stratification with quartiles of NLR, a positive trend between the increasing quartiles of NLR and the three outcomes were observed (p-values for trends across quartiles were 0.043, <0.001, and 0.041, respectively). The multivariate adjusted odds ratio (OR) in the highest quartile vs. the lowest quartile were 5.738 for mortality, 25.307 for AKI, and 5.136 for ETI.Conclusions: Increasing NLR obtained on admission is a powerful predictor for inpatient mortality, AKI, and ETI in COVID-19 patients.

High Acceptance of HIV Self-testing Among PrEP Recipients before COVID-19 Era: A Cross-sectional Analysis from PrEP Demonstration Project of MSM in China (preprint)

Background: Many Pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) users have difficulty attending the quarterly facility-based HIV testing, which leads to the potential risk of drug resistance in the context of breakthrough infection with low drug compliance. We explored the acceptance of HIV self-testing (HIVST) service among PrEP recipients. Methods: MSM were recruited for the PrEP demonstration in four major cities in China from December 2018 to September 2019, provided with regimens of both daily and on-demand PrEP. Facility-based HIV testing was provided quarterly at clinic visits. Previous HIV testing history and acceptance of free HIVST kits to use between each quarterly clinic visit was collected. Correlates of levels of acceptance were analysed using multivariable ordinal logistic regression. Results: We recruited 1,222 MSM. among which 48.5% preferred daily PrEP and 51.5% preferred on-demand PrEP. There was 26.8% (321/1222) had never been to any facility-based HIV testing previously, and the self-reported major reason was that they had already routinely used HIVST. A quarter of the participants (74.5%, 910/1222) had used HIVST previously. There were 1184 MSM (96.9%) accepted to use HIVST between each quarterly clinic visits during PrEP usage, composing 947 ( 77.5%) very willing to, 237（19.4%）willing to, 29 (2.4%) unwilling to, and 9 (0.7%) very unwilling to. Participants preferred daily PrEP (vs. on-demand PrEP, aOR=1.8, 95% CI:1.3-2.4) and had less than 2 times of facility-based HIV testing in the past year (vs. ³2, aOR=1.4,95% CI:1.1-1.9) were more likely to have higher level of acceptance of HIVST.Conclusions: MSM had high acceptance of HIVST, especially among those preferred daily PrEP and with less facility-based HIV testing in the previous year. Offering HIVST services PrEP recipients is feasible and necessary. Above result is of great significance for promoting HIVST among PrEP users during COVID-19, improving awareness of their HIV infection status and ensuring compliance with medication. Future study should exam the impact of HIVST on HIV testing frequency among PrEP users.Trial registration: ChiCTR1800020374 on 27th Dec 2018. http://www.chictr.org.cn/searchproj.aspx

Characteristics of lymphocyte subsets and their predicting values for the severity of COVID-19 patients (preprint)

Severe COVID-19 patients showed worse clinical outcomes compared to mild and moderate patients. However, effective indicators are still lacking to predict the severity of the disease. In the present study, we retrospectively analyzed the clinical and laboratory data of 16 COVID-19 patients and found that the absolute counts of three T-cells (CD3+, CD4+, and CD8+) were significantly lower in the moderate and severe patients than those in mild patients and were significantly lower in severe patients than in moderate patients on admission. With the recovery of the COVID-19, serum levels of inflammatory biomarkers (CRP, PCT, and IL6) of moderate and severe patients gradually decreased. In contrast, the counts of lymphocytes and their subsets including CD3+, CD4+, and CD8+ T cells gradually increased in severe patients, and eventually showed comparable levels with moderate patients. ROC analysis showed that the counts of CD3+, CD4+, and CD8+ T-cells with AUC > 0.9 have potential values for predicting the severity of COVID-19 patients. In conclusion, the reduction of CD3+, CD4+, and CD8+ T-cells is related to the severity of COVID-19 and dynamic detection of these T-lymphocyte subsets may help predict the outcome of the patients.