Value Concern of Ecological Rationality and Exploration of the Chinese Path to Modernization

The COVID-19 pandemic has raged around the world over the recent years, raising the global community's awareness of the interconnection of human civilizations and urging the reconsideration of the human-nature relationship. The escalating worldwide ecological crises are putting human survival and development at risk. The phenomenon has aroused the awareness of "ecological rationality,” consciousness of "economic value” and appeal for "ecological justice” in the universal sense. The endeavor of promoting ecological civilization has been included as part of the five-sphere integrated plan for building socialism with Chinese characteristics since the 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China (CPC). General Secretary Xi Jinping's thought on ecological civilization has fully manifested the value and goal of comprehensively promoting ecological civilization and adhering to the Chinese path to modernization. The Chinese path to modernization, which has reflected on and outclassed the Western-style logic for modernization, shows a unique horizon and independent wisdom. Focusing on addressing the uncertainties facing human survival in the New Era and aiming at embracing the future, the Chinese path to modernization has shifted the mindset from economic rationality to ecological rationality, abandoned anthropocentrism, and firmly upheld and fulfilled the code of conduct for rational "economic man.” The endeavor of building an eco-friendly society and an ecological community has showcased the favorable institutional practice in Chinese modernization and China's wisdom, demonstrated rational planning, prudential design and effective implementation for the prospect of mankind and highlighted a progressive trend in human civilization. © 2022 Brill Academic Publishers. All rights reserved.

Monintoring Student Depression by Mobile Devices with Autoencoder Networks

The timely assessment of mental health is difficult since we lack the objective measurements of symptoms, especially for the Covid-19 pandemic quarantined students. Fortunately, smart phones can capture the real-world data such as the GPS traces and the phone active time et.al that link the behavioral patterns to the mental health. However, recent studies are based on a very small size of participants and only collect fewer phone features, which means that the effective predicting models which require various features are hardly adopted. In this paper, we develop an android application to record multidimensional data of users as well as a PHQ-9 and a SAS questionary, and we distribute it to 176 college students to collect larger scale data when in quarantine period. To address the unprecise problem of handcrafted feature extraction, we design an autoencoder machine learning model to monitor the student mental health. Extensive experiments indicate that the performance of the proposed method improves its F-1 score for PHQ-9 and SAS by 5% and 6% to the state of the current studies, respectively. © 2023 IEEE.

Impact of COVID-19 on the quantity of visitation to leisure tourism facilities in China: cases of Beijing, Shanghai, and Qingdao

Based on mobile positioning big data, this study analyzes the quantity of visitation changes of leisure tourism facilities under the impact of COVID-19, which is a direct way to evaluate the impact of COVID-19 on the leisure tourism industry. The quantity of visitation to the four types of leisure facilities (scenic spots, shopping services, sports services, science and cultural education services) in the three Chinese cities (Beijing, Shanghai, and Qingdao) decreased by 63.06% and 44.74% respectively on the Tomb Sweeping Day and the Labor Day in 2020 compared with 2019. The biggest decreasing was in science and cultural education services, followed by scenic spots and sports services, and finally shopping services. The curve of hourly visitations to leisure facilities in 2020 shows a smooth feature, indicating that the public has reduced the risk of pandemic through peak shifting leisure. The analysis of influencing factors shows that the influence of the floor area on visitation is different in different phases. From Tomb Sweeping Day to Labour Day in 2020, the influence of area on leisure behaviour changes from negative to positive. This paper provides a technical framework for assessing the impact of crisis event, and expands the protection motivation theory. © 2023 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.

Making home as school: Construction of alternative education space at home among Chinese undergraduates in the context of COVID-19 pandemic

In the context of COVID-19 pandemic, schools from China and even in the world have carried out online teaching. Currently, online teaching has turned"future”into"reality” and created phenomenon of"taking home as school”. The existing geographical literature has paid little attention to the practices of home schooling and construction of learning space at home in the special context of the pandemic. Borrowing the concept of alternative education space from geography of education, and employing questionnaire survey and semi-structured depth interview as research methods, this paper aims to examine college students' practices and processes of place-making of home schooling during the pandemic. The tension and strategies of spatial negotiation during home schooling are unfolded. Furthermore, this paper explores students' perception of home and school after experiencing home schooling. The findings include: (1) Home schooling during the pandemic is a complex process of integration between educational space and home space, which produces rich social implication that enriches the spatial meaning of educating and learning at home. (2) Construction of space of home schooling involves reconciliation between study and livelihood-making, as well as study and ordinary family activities. Among them the area and quality of learning space are closely related to economic and social conditions of family and community. Once learning practice is embedded in family daily life and space, the boundary between learning space and family space becomes blurred, which brings disturbance to home learning. (3) Students have the initiative and autonomy to construct learning space at home, and flexibly use space, time and identity strategies to interpret the spatio-temporal relationship between home space and learning space and to coordinate the identity expression of "family” and "student”. Through learning practices, home space is endowed with new educational meanings. The findings of this study enrich the current research on home space in the context of COVID-19 pandemic, echo geographers' raising concern on the construction of multiple educational space, and has great significance for understanding the relationship between education, learning practice and everyday space, as well as reflecting and supporting the needs of home schooling of different groups. © 2022, Science Press. All rights reserved.

Pricing extreme mortality risk in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic

In pricing extreme mortality risk, it is commonly assumed that interest rate and mortality rate are independent. However, the COVID-19 pandemic calls this assumption into question. In this paper, we employ a bivariate affine jump-diffusion model to describe the joint dynamics of interest rate and excess mortality, allowing for both correlated diffusions and joint jumps. Utilizing the latest U.S. mortality and interest rate data, we find a significant negative correlation between interest rate and excess mortality, and a much higher jump intensity when the pandemic experience is considered. Moreover, we construct a risk-neutral pricing measure that accounts for both diffusion and jump risk premia, and we solve for the market prices of risk based on mortality bond prices. Our results show that the pandemic experience can drastically change investors' perception of the mortality risk market in the post-pandemic era. © 2022 Elsevier B.V.

From Discovery to Cure, A Great Journey of the Hepatitis C Virus Study

Hepatitis C virus (HCV) causes chronic infection in over 75% of the HCV-infected individuals, resulting in liver cancer in substantial patients. Since its discovery in 1989, HCV experiences a journey from discovery to cure, largely due to the virology studies and success of direct antiviral agent (DAA) development. We reviewed the HCV research journey, from the discovery of this virus to the development of DAAs for cure. Learning the methodology used in HCV studies and the knowledge of developing DAAs against HCV may inspire the studies of other difficult-to-culture viruses, such as hepatitis E virus and norovirus, as well as the development of DAAs for other single-stranded positive-sense RNA viruses, including the pandemic-causing SARS-CoV-2 virus, which shares the common replication strategy of forming a membrane-bound viral replicase. © 2021 The Chinese Medical Association, Published by Wolters Kluwer Health, Inc.

Traditional Chinese Medicine and COVID-19: Experiences, Lessons, and Suggestions

Coronavirus disease-2019 (COVID-19) has now entered its third year as a worldwide pandemic. Unlike the Unites States, over 90% of patients have used traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) in China combined with conventional western medicine. The present minireview/commentary summarizes the experiences of TCM in the treatment of COVID-19 combined with conventional western medicine, lessons from the United States and some additional insights. COVID-19 falls into the category of "dampness−toxin plague” and is divided into five stages: mild stage, moderate stage, severe stage, critical stage, and recovery stage. Clinical trials conducted in China have suggested that TCM treatment plays a significant role in alleviating clinical symptoms, decreasing the time of hospitalization, reducing the overall fatality rate, and providing other beneficial outcomes when combined with conventional western medicine. To date, TCM is not widely used in the American hospital system. Only one TCM clinical trial to treat mild to moderate COVID-19 has been registered with ClinicalTrials.gov. A suggestion of dialogues among associated parties is proposed. TCM has been used as part of an integrative medicine treatment paradigm combined with conventional western medicine for COVID-19 in China. As registered clinical trials combining conventional western medicine with TCM continue to be produced and show positive benefits, the possibilities for TCM integration into treatment protocols for COVID-19 will become more of a possibility in the United States. Copyright © 2022 Shanghai University of Traditional Chinese Medicine.

Linking Consumer's Needs with Product Performance on E-shopping Platforms with Fashion Big Data (FBD) API Plugins

Since 2020, the precedence of COVID-19 and its variants has made a significant impact on the global fashion industry and instigated a fundamental change in consumer purchasing behaviour. A series of lockdowns, travel restrictions, social distancing has forced consumers to rely on and adapt to online shopping methods, causing major branding retail companies to innovate new online based consumer interaction systems. Moreover, work from home has significantly cut down sales in formal wear, while outing restrictions and social distancing has further cut down demand for fast and luxury fashion. Consumer needs and preferences in turn have reoriented towards home comfort and athleisure wear, as well as essential wearables. However, the current online shopping platforms do not provide a way for consumers to specify their own needs and preferences which leads to dissatisfaction for consumers, uncertainty in consumer purchases resulting in high inventory risk for branding retailers, as well as suppliers. This paper introduces how consumer's needs and preferences can be linked with product performance on e-shopping platforms with the novel consumer interactive system "Fashion Big Data (FBD) API plugins". It will describe how the FBD API plugins can enable consumers to set their own needs and preferences;compare consumers' needs and preferences with certified product performance;and provide respective smart personalized product recommendations. The paper will demonstrate real business case examples with hand feel, skin feel and thermal wear comfort FBD API plugins from the EU Horizon 2020, Fashion Big Data Model (FBD B_MODEL) project. This will be followed by FBD B_MODEL business case partner and consumer feedback. © Textile Bioengineering and Informatics Symposium Proceedings 2022 - 15th Textile Bioengineering and Informatics Symposium, TBIS 2022.

A Dual Arrhythmia Classification Algorithm Based on Deep Learning and Attention Mechanism Incorporating Morphological-temporal Information

In the context of increasing medical resource constraints and the global pandemic of COVID-19, the acquisition and automatic diagnosis of electrocardiogram (ECG) signal at home is becoming more and more important. In this paper, we propose a dual arrhythmia classification algorithm for edge-cloud collaboration. We first design a lightweight single-lead ECG signal binary classification model incorporating RR intervals that can be deployed at the edge, which achieves lightweight ECG feature extraction by using depthwise separable convolution and positional attention, and fuses RR interval features to the fully connected layer to achieve normal or abnormal classification of ECG heartbeats. For heartbeats classified as abnormal using the above model, we design a dual-branch arrhythmia multi-classification model with channel and spatial dual attention that integrates simple convolutional neural network (CNN) modules that can be deployed in a cloud artificial intelligence (AI) server to perform accurate classification of abnormal ECG heartbeats, where the input of one branch is a heartbeat signal and the input of the other branch is an ECG segment containing adjacent R-peaks. The experimental results based on the MIT-BIH arrhythmia database demonstrate that our binary classification model achieves an average accuracy of 99.80% and the multi-classification model achieves an average accuracy of 99.71%, and our method ensures a high enough accuracy while performing dual analysis to make the analysis results more reliable. © 2022 IEEE.

A Two-Way Atomic Exchange Protocol for Peer-to-Peer Data Trading

Various types of data are generated every day, and the amount of generated data is growing exponentially. People are interested in extracting the value of data. Some valuable data among them can be viewed as digital products to be traded. For example, with the outbreak of COVID-19, patients’ personal health records, electronic medical records and travel history become important and valuable information for epidemic prevention. On the other hand, the license keys for high-priced software such as EDA (Electronic Design Automation) tools also have value and can be considered as tradable products. However, the trust between two parties in the trading process becomes an issue. Consumers do not pay until providers give the data while providers are not willing to do since they distrust that consumers will pay after receiving the data. In this paper, we propose a Blockchain-based protocol for data trading with zero-knowledge proofs. To protect the data and maintain their value, Zero-knowledge succinct non-interactive argument of knowledge (zk-SNARK) is included that the provider can convince the consumer of the correctness and security of the data without revealing the details before receiving the payment. Predefined agreements between both parties in smart contracts are executed automatically. When the data is valid, the provider receives the payment, and in the meantime, the consumer has the ability to obtain the purchase data. Otherwise, the payment is refunded to the consumer immediately if the provider cheats. This approach employs the method of two-way exchange, as known as Delivery versus Payment (DvP) in physical commodity trading and ensures the rights and benefits for both parties. The whole process is decentralized for the purpose of constructing fair data trading without any trusted third party and ensuring system availability. © 2022, The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG.

[Epidemiological characteristics of imported malaria in Zhengzhou City from 2016 to 2020].

OBJECTIVE: To analyze the epidemiological characteristics of reported imported malaria cases in Zhengzhou City from 2016 to 2020, so as to provide insights into the management of imported malaria in the city. METHODS: All data pertaining to cases with definitive diagnosis of malaria in Zhengzhou City from 2016 to 2020 were captured from the National Notifiable Disease Report System and the Information Management System for Parasitic Disease Control in China, including individual demographic data, and malaria onset, initial diagnosis and definitive diagnosis data. All data were descriptively analyzed. The duration from malaria onset to initial diagnosis, from initial diagnosis to definitive diagnosis and from onset to definitive diagnosis was compared among cases. In addition, the diagnoses of imported malaria cases in which definitive diagnosis was made were compared with the reexaminations by Zhengzhou Municipal Malaria Diagnosis Reference Laboratory. RESULTS: A total of 302 cases with definitive diagnosis of malaria were reported in Zhengzhou City from 2016 to 2020, and all were imported cases, with Plasmodium falciparum malaria as the predominant type (230 cases, 76.2%). There were 293 malaria cases imported from Africa (293 cases, 97.0%), which mainly included Nigeria (48 cases, 15.9%), Angola (40 cases, 13.2%), and the Democratic Republic of the Congo (29 cases, 9.6%). There was no obvious seasonality found in the date of malaria onset and time of reporting malaria. The ratio of male to female malaria cases was 49.3:1, and there were 103 cases (34.1%) with the current residency address in Zhengzhou City, 193 cases (63.9%) with the current residency address in other cities of Henan Province and 6 cases (2.0%) in other provinces of China. There were 271 cases (89.7%) seeking initial diagnosis in medical institutions, and the diagnostic accuracy of malaria was 56.6% (171/302) at initial diagnosis institutions. A total of 122 cases (40.4%) sought medical care on the day of malaria onset, and 252 cases (86.4%) within 3 days; however, only 22 cases (7.3%) were definitively diagnosed on the day of onset, and 162 cases (53.6%) diagnosed within 3 days. There were no significant differences between malaria cases seeking initial diagnosis at medical institutions and disease control and prevention institutions in terms of the duration from malaria onset to initial diagnosis (Z = -1.663, P > 0.05), from initial diagnosis to definitive diagnosis (Z = -0.413, P > 0.05) or from malaria onset to definitive diagnosis (Z = -0.838, P > 0.05). The median duration (interquartile range) from initial diagnosis to definitive diagnosis of malaria was 3.00 (2.00), 3.00 (6.00), 2.00 (4.00) d and 1.00 (1.00) d among cases seeking medical care at township-level and lower, county-, city- and province-level medical institutions, and the median duration from initial diagnosis to definitive diagnosis of malaria was significantly longer among cases seeking medical care at township-level and lower medical institutions than at city (Z = -3.286, P < 0.008 33) and province-level medical institutions (Z = -9.119, P < 0.008 33), while the median duration from initial diagnosis to definitive diagnosis [1.00 (3.00) d vs. 2.00 (4.00) d; Z = -4.099, P < 0.016] and from malaria onset to definitive diagnosis [3.00 (4.00) d vs. 4.00 (5.00) d; Z = -2.868, P < 0.016] among malaria cases with the current residency address in Zhengzhou City was both shorter than in other cities of Henan Province. The diagnostic accuracy was 89.1% (269/302) among malaria cases in which definitive diagnosis was made, and the accuracy of malaria reexaminations was 94.0% (284/302) in Zhengzhou Municipal Malaria Diagnosis Reference Laboratory. CONCLUSIONS: P. falciparum malaria was predominant among reported imported malaria cases in Zhengzhou City from 2016 to 2020, and these imported malaria cases were predominantly diagnosed at medical institutions; however, the diagnostic capability of malaria is poor in township-level and lower medical institutions. Strengthening the collaboration between medical institutions and disease control and prevention institutions and improving the diagnostic capability building at medical institutions are recommended to consolidate malaria elimination achivements.

Effectiveness of Interventions for Controlling COVID-19 Transmission between Construction Workers and Their Close Contacts

The insufficiency of continued nonpharmaceutical interventions (NPIs) and ongoing vaccination programs continues to pose challenges in recovering from the COVID-19 pandemic. Before herd immunity, controlling at-risk and vulnerable groups in combination with vaccination plans is strongly recommended. The construction industry is especially vulnerable to the negative impacts of COVID-19 as illustrated by frequent relevant clusters globally and given the manual labor performed by construction workers in close physical proximity, which increases the likelihood of exposure. To gain insights into the transmission dynamics of COVID-19 to inform the establishment of effective and targeted NPIs in the construction industry, a dual-community model was developed that includes the susceptible-exposed-infectious/asymptomatic-hospitalized-recovered-pathogen (SEI/AHR-P) model for construction workers and the susceptible-exposed-infectious/asymptomatic-hospitalized-recovered (SEI/AHR) model for their close contacts. The results of our sensitivity analysis corroborate previous findings that close contacts are significant participants in the spread of the infection. However, the contributions of indirect transmission pathways at a construction site were found to be weak, suggesting the need for further study given conflicting results in other research. Based on the parameters identified as significant in the sensitivity analyses, 28 NPI scenarios were devised to analyze the total attack rate (TAR) and duration of an outbreak (DO). The scenario in which exposed individuals are controlled in terms of close contacts performs best, reducing the TAR with 25% absolute efficiency (AE) and decreasing the DO in the whole population by 1.8 days. In addition to NPIs, both construction workers and their close contacts are suggested to get vaccinated. Vaccination of all construction workers would lead to a lower TAR compared to vaccination of only 15% of both construction workers and their close contacts. Vaccination of all construction workers along with at least 67% of their close contacts can extinguish an ongoing wave. © 2022 American Society of Civil Engineers.

Global food security assessment during 1961–2019

Quantified components of the global food system are used to assess long-term global food security under a series of socio-economic, epidemic normalization and climate change scenarios. Here, we evaluate the global food security including the global farming system as well as the global food trade, reserve and loss systems from 1961 to 2019, and analyze their temporal and spatial characteristics by using the global food vulnerability (GFV) model. The spatio–temporal patterns of the vulnerability of the global food system were consistent with the GFSI. As food production and consumption vary greatly in different countries which have continued for a long time, food exports from many developed agricultural countries have compensated for food shortages in most countries (about 120 net grain-importing countries). As a result, many countries have relied heavily on food imports to maintain their domestic food supplies, ultimately causing the global food trade stability to have an increasing impact on the food security of most countries. The impact of global food trade on global food security increased from 9% to 17% during 1961–2019, which has increased the vulnerability of the global food system. The food damage in the United States, Russia, China, and India has varied significantly, and global cereal stocks have fluctuated even more since 2000. From 1961 to 2019, the food system security of some Nordic countries significantly improved, while the food system security of most African countries significantly deteriorated. Most countries with high food insecurity are located in Africa and South Asia. In order to cope with extreme events, these countries need to strengthen and improve their own food production and storage systems, which will help the World Food and Agriculture Organization to formulate relevant food policies and maintain sustainable development. © 2021 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland.

A Graphical Pressure Sensor Array with Multilayered Structure Based on Graphene and Paper Substrate

Paper-based flexible pressure sensors have received extensive attention owing to their recoverability and accessibility. This study, proposes a graphical pressure sensor array with a multilayered structure. A simple writing method is adopted to realize the adsorption of sensitive materials on the fiber structure of cellulose paper. Pressure sensors with 1, 3, 5, and 7 stacked layers are fabricated and compared. The results show that the seven-layer sensor achieves a high sensitivity (44 kPa–1) and fast time response (less than 150 ms). The highly sensitive stacked paper-based sensor array realizes the pressure detection in objects and special-shaped surfaces. A pressure sensor based on a commercial corrugated box is also fabricated for comparison. The corrugated carton array is used to switch the reminder devices for convenience and accessibility. Because many scenarios require a safe distance to be maintained, particularly under the influence of COVID-19, the writable paper-based sensor array is used to realize graphical distance perception and provide warnings. © 2021 Wiley-VCH GmbH

Designing, Disseminating and Evaluating a New Online High School Curriculum about COVID-19

As COVID-19 accelerated through spring of 2020 the question became how will schools cope with protracted closure? Devising strategies to engage and educate students through full-time, online learning became a priority. At Tufts CSE we specialize in creating high school biomedical science curricula that foster engagement with science and build scientific and health literacy, however our popular 'Great Diseases' curricula is wholly classroom-based. In response our scientist/teacher co-design team created a new, fully online curriculum: 'The Great Pandemic of 2020'. The materials are targeted to 10th -12th grades and use student-centered and self-paced approaches to learning. It retains our signature format with multiple pedagogical approaches, and extensive scientific reading and math while focusing on both the underlying science and public health measures needed to mitigate COVID-19. Here we describe how we created the curriculum and the challenges we encountered: Which emerging information is reliable? Which topics do we select and how do we keep them current? What constitutes an engaging, effective and seamless online learning experience? How can teachers monitor and assess student work? How can we instill confidence to use the curriculum when teachers may lack the basic information underlying it? How can we evaluate and disseminate it effectively? We also discuss lessons learned in the context of teaching about 21st century biomedical science, and the growing acknowledgement by teachers and students that it is encroaching constantly on daily life.

Global impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on stroke care and intravenous thrombolysis

Objective: The objectives of this study were to measure the global impact of the pandemic on the volumes for intravenous thrombolysis (IVT), IVT transfers, and stroke hospitalizations over 4 months at the height of the pandemic (March 1 to June 30, 2020) compared with two control 4-month periods. Background: The COVID-19 pandemic led to widespread repercussions on the delivery of health care worldwide. Design/Methods: We conducted a cross-sectional, observational, retrospective study across 6 continents, 70 countries, and 457 stroke centers. Diagnoses were identified by ICD-10 codes and/or classifications in stroke center databases. Results: There were 91,373 stroke admissions in the 4 months immediately before compared to 80,894 admissions during the pandemic months, representing an 11.5% (95%CI,-11.7 to-11.3, p<0.0001) decline. There were 13,334 IVT therapies in the 4 months preceding compared to 11,570 procedures during the pandemic, representing a 13.2% (95%CI,-13.8 to-12.7, p<0.0001) drop. Interfacility IVT transfers decreased from 1,337 to 1,178, or an 11.9% decrease (95%CI,-13.7 to-10.3, p=0.001). There were greater declines in primary compared to comprehensive stroke centers (CSC) for stroke hospitalizations (-17.3% vs-10.3%, p<0.0001) and IVT (-15.5% vs-12.6%, p=0.0001). Recovery of stroke hospitalization volume (9.5%, 95%CI 9.2-9.8, p<0.0001) was noted over the two later (May, June) versus the two earlier (March, April) months of the pandemic, with greater recovery in hospitals with lower COVID-19 hospitalization volume, high volume stroke center, and CSC. There was a 1.48% stroke rate across 119,967 COVID-19 hospitalizations. SARS-CoV-2 infection was noted in 3.3% (1,722/52,026) of all stroke admissions. Conclusions: The COVID-19 pandemic was associated with a global decline in the volume of stroke hospitalizations, IVT, and interfacility IVT transfers. Primary stroke centers and centers with higher COVID19 inpatient volumes experienced steeper declines. Recovery of stroke hospitalization was noted in the later pandemic months, with greater recovery in hospitals with lower COVID-19 hospitalizations, high volume stroke centers, and CSCs.

Novel Multiplexed Amplicon-Based Sequencing to Quantify SARS-CoV-2 RNA from Wastewater

The application of wastewater-based epidemiology (WBE) to support the global response to the COVID-19 pandemic has shown encouraging outcomes. The accurate, sensitive, and high-throughput detection of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) in municipal wastewater is critical for WBE. Here, we present a novel approach based on multiplexed amplicon-based sequencing, namely the ATOPlex platform, for detecting SARS-CoV-2. The ATOPlex platform is capable of quantifying SARS-CoV-2 RNA at concentrations that are at least 1 order of magnitude lower than the detection limit of reverse transcription quantitative polymerase chain reaction (RT-qPCR). Robust and accurate phylogenetic placement can be done at viral concentrations 4 times lower than the detection limit of RT-qPCR. We further found that the solid fraction in wastewater harbors a considerable amount of viral RNA, highlighting the need to extract viral RNA from the solid and liquid fractions of wastewater. This study delivers a highly sensitive, phylogenetically informative, and high-throughput analytical workflow that facilitates the application of WBE. ©

Impacts of Affordable Care Act and the Importance of ACA over COVID-19 Pandemic

The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA) includes several key provisions. This paper assessed and discussed the impacts of these key provisions on health insurance coverage, federal and state spending, and other important social impacts on racial disparities, fiscal federalism as well as the accessibility and affordability of health insurance care. To analyze and exploit the health insurance coverage and spending, the Difference-in-Differences (DID) Regression Model and the Event-Study Regression Model were used. It can be seen that Medicaid coverage was indeed highly increased with appropriately 3% and uninsured rate was significantly decreased in ACA's Medicaid expansion States. While a slight increase of Federal spending on Medicaid expansion with appropriately 8%, state Medicaid expanded spending kept still and no significant adverse impacts on other state spending areas. Furthermore, this paper discussed and provided the importance of implementing ACA during COVID-19 pandemic from the perspective of Macroeconomic, labor market, health insurance system, and social racial disparities. Consequently, ACA should keep fully implementing and enacting to mitigate and offset the loss of COVID-19 pandemic. © 2021 ACM.