City-level population projection for China under different pathways from 2010 to 2100.

Cities play a fundamental role in policy decision-making processes, necessitating the availability of city-level population projections to better understand future population dynamics and facilitate research across various domains, including urban planning, shrinking cities, GHG emission projections, GDP projections, disaster risk mitigation, and public health risk assessment. However, the current absence of city-level population projections for China is a significant gap in knowledge. Moreover, aggregating grid-level projections to the city level introduces substantial errors of approximately 30%, leading to discrepancies with actual population trends. The unique circumstances of China, characterized by comprehensive poverty reduction, compulsory education policies, and carbon neutrality goals, render scenarios like SSP4(Shared Socioeconomic Pathways) and SSP5 less applicable. To address the aforementioned limitations, this study made three key enhancements, which significantly refines and augments our previous investigation. Firstly, we refined the model, incorporating granular demographic data at the city level. Secondly, we redesigned the migration module to consider both regional and city-level population attractiveness. Lastly, we explored diverse fertility and migration scenarios.

Do changes in land use, water bodies, and grazing pastures have a detrimental influence on environmental quality? Opportunities and threats to long-term growth.

Land use activities mainly for economic and agricultural purposes have converted one third to one half of our planet's land surface into urban expansion and agricultural practice, which has had significant impacts on natural ecosystems, food production, and environmental quality, attracting the attention of researchers and policymakers. Consequently, land use is emerging as a fundamental issue in global environmental change and sustainable development. This study represents an addition to the prevailing literature by investigating the asymmetric impacts of land-use and land-cover changes on environmental quality in Pakistan using time series data from 1961 to 2016. Carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions were deemed a dependent variable (a proxy for environmental quality), whereas built-up land, cropland, water bodies, and grazing land were considered independent. A nonlinear ARDL bound testing technique (NARDL) was used to investigate dynamic cointegration among the study variables. Moreover, this study used the BDS test and structural break unit root test to confirm nonlinearity and stationarity of the data set. The results confirm that the variables exhibit asymmetrical co-integration. There is a symmetric unidirectional causation, running from built-up land and grazing land towards CO2 emissions with coefficients of 10.570 and 17.045, respectively. Furthermore, asymmetric causality shows that any positive shocks to built-up land (6.134) and water bodies (20.335) significantly cause CO2 emissions. Similarly, a negative shock to grazing land (16.470) also causes CO2 emissions. By contrast, a neutral effect was found between cropland and CO2 emissions.

Initial Clinical Characteristics of 146 Patients with COVID-19 Reported in Guizhou Province, China: A Survival Analysis.

INTRODUCTION: Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) has caused an outbreak around the world. Early detection of severe illness is crucial for patients' survival. We analysed initial clinical characteristics of 146 patients with COVID-19 reported in Guizhou province, China to explore risk factors for transforming mild illness to severe. METHODOLOGY: Data of 146 laboratory-confirmed cases were collected and evaluated by the survival analysis of univariate and multivariate Cox proportional hazards model. RESULTS: On initial presentation, patients had fever (51.05%), dry cough (45.45%), headache (16.08%), shortness of breath (7.75%) and gastrointestinal symptoms (13.99%). Among 146 laboratory-confirmed cases, 30 patients (20.55%) had severe illness and needed Intensive Care Unit care for supportive treatment. The remaining patients (116, 79.45%) were non-severe cases. Nineteen (19/146, 13.01%) of 30 patients in the Intensive Care Unit had comorbidities, including hypertension (12, 40.00%), diabetes (5, 16.67%), cardiovascular disease (5, 16.67%) and pulmonary disease (4, 13.33%). For survival analysis, patients who had fever (HR = 3.30, 95% CI = 1.31, 8.29) and comorbidities (HR = 9.76, 95% CI = 4.28, 22.23) at baseline were more likely to be admitted into the Intensive Care Unit. Few variables were not related to the survival time of discharge from baseline to discharge and from Intensive Care Unit care to discharge. CONCLUSIONS: Severe patients with COVID-19 should be paid more attention. On initial symptoms, many patients did not have fever, but those with fever were more likely to be admitted to the Intensive Care Unit. Comorbidities were likewise a risk factor of severe COVID-19.

Temporal evolution of the hydromechanical properties of soil-root systems in a forest fire in China.

Plant roots generally enhance soil strength and stabilize slopes through hydro-mechanical effects, especially in forested areas prone to shallow slope failure. Forest fires can severely weaken the hydro-mechanical contribution of roots to slopes, however, the hydro-mechanical characteristics of soil-root systems (SRS) affected by wildfire remain poorly understood. To obtain insight into the post-fire hydro-mechanical characteristics of SRS, a subalpine conifer forested area in Sichuan Province, China that suffered a wildfire on March 30, 2019 was continuously monitored over two consecutive years. Samples from zones with different degrees of burn severity were collected and tests both for roots and SRS were performed. The results revealed a substantial decline in root number, which decreased by 46%-58% two years after the wildfire in the medium- and high-severity areas. The tensile strength tests indicated a reduction of root tensile strength by 36%-47% for roots with diameters less than 2 mm. The shear strength of the SRS determined from saturated direct shear tests strongly and had degraded by 55%-82% two years after the wildfire because of root death and reduced root reinforcement. The results of hydraulic conductivity tests over the same time period indicated an abrupt reduction of SRS hydraulic conductivity within several months after the fire owing to ash clogging and the formation of a hydrophobic layer. After more time had elapsed, however, hydraulic conductivity had increased unexpectedly by a factor of 2.2-3.2 greater than that of unburned soil. We attribute this observation to the formation of macropore flow pathways from decayed roots, which was observed by scanning electron microscopy. The findings presented here provide important insight into the temporal changes of the hydro-mechanical characteristics of SRS in burned areas and their associated mechanisms and could be a useful reference to better evaluate post-wildfire stability of subalpine conifer forest in similar environmental conditions.

Epidemiological Survey of First Human Brucellosis Outbreak Caused by the Sika Deer (Cervus nippon) - Guizhou Province, China, 2019.

What is already known on this topic? Brucellosis is a zoonotic infectious disease caused by Brucella spp. The main source of infection in human brucellosis is sick animals, mainly including sheep, goat, and cattle, but sika deer (Cervus nippon) can also cause human brucellosis. The first human brucellosis case in Guizhou Province was reported in 2009, and no brucellosis outbreak was reported caused by sika deer ever before. What is added by this report? This is the first reported outbreak of human brucellosis caused by sika deer in Guizhou Province. Inappropriate regulation of animal movement may be the main driver of introducing and spreading brucellosis in southern areas. The ability to diagnose brucellosis in both humans and animals was weak in the county where the outbreak took place. What are the implications for public health practice? It was suggested to prioritize occupational protection and health education for sika deer breeders. The inspection of the movement of animals and the reimbursement policy need to be improved.

Epidemiologic Characteristics of COVID-19 in Guizhou Province, China.

INTRODUCTION: At the end of 2019, the COVID-19 broke out, and spread to Guizhou province in January of 2020. METHODOLOGY: To acquire the epidemiologic characteristics of COVID-19 in Guizhou province, we collected data from 169 laboratory-confirmed COVID-19 related cases. We described the demographic characteristics of the cases and estimated the incubation period, serial interval and the effective reproduction number. We also presented two representative case studies in Guizhou province: Case Study 1 was an example of the asymptomatic carrier; while Case Study 2 was an example of a large and complex infection chain that involved four different regions, spanning three provinces and eight families. RESULTS: Two peaks in the incidence distribution associated with COVID-19 in Guizhou province were related to the 6.04 days (95% CI: 5.00 - 7.10) of incubation period and 6.14±2.21 days of serial interval. We also discussed the effectiveness of the control measures based on the instantaneous effective reproduction number that was a constantly declining curve. CONCLUSIONS: As of February 2, 2020, the estimated effective reproduction number was below 1, and no new cases were reported since February 26. These showed that Guizhou Province had achieved significant progress in preventing the spread of the epidemic. The medical isolation of close contacts was consequential. Meanwhile, the asymptomatic carriers and the super-spreaders must be isolated in time, who would cause a widespread infection.

The causal nexus between energy consumption, carbon emissions and economic growth: New evidence from China, India and G7 countries using convergent cross mapping.

Understanding the causality between energy consumption, carbon emissions and economic growth is helpful for policymakers to formulate energy, environmental and economic policies. For the first time, based on nonlinear dynamics, this paper employs multispatial convergent cross mapping (CCM) to revisit the energy-carbon-economy causation for China, India and the G7 countries using both aggregate data and per capita data. The findings indicate that there are significant differences between developing countries and developed countries. A bidirectional nexus between energy consumption, carbon emissions and economic growth is found in China and India, but various causal relationships are identified in the G7 countries, including bidirectional, unidirectional and neutral nexus. The results confirm that the decoupling phenomenon is common in most G7 countries. By leveraging a variety of samples and a new approach, this study provides new evidence for policy authorities to formulate country-specific policies to obtain better environmental quality while achieving sustainable economic growth.

Simultaneous virus identification and characterization of severe unexplained pneumonia cases using a metagenomics sequencing technique.

Many viruses can cause respiratory diseases in humans. Although great advances have been achieved in methods of diagnosis, it remains challenging to identify pathogens in unexplained pneumonia (UP) cases. In this study, we applied next-generation sequencing (NGS) technology and a metagenomic approach to detect and characterize respiratory viruses in UP cases from Guizhou Province, China. A total of 33 oropharyngeal swabs were obtained from hospitalized UP patients and subjected to NGS. An unbiased metagenomic analysis pipeline identified 13 virus species in 16 samples. Human rhinovirus C was the virus most frequently detected and was identified in seven samples. Human measles virus, adenovirus B 55 and coxsackievirus A10 were also identified. Metagenomic sequencing also provided virus genomic sequences, which enabled genotype characterization and phylogenetic analysis. For cases of multiple infection, metagenomic sequencing afforded information regarding the quantity of each virus in the sample, which could be used to evaluate each viruses' role in the disease. Our study highlights the potential of metagenomic sequencing for pathogen identification in UP cases.

[Changes and significance of endogenous tissue plasminogen activators in cerebral hypoxia-ischemia in neonatal rats].

OBJECTIVE: The mechanism of neonatal hypoxic-ischemic brain damage (HIBD) remains unclear and effective treatment approach is limited for this disorder. Many studies have shown that tissue-type plasminogen activator (tPA) plays an important role in nervous system. This study investigated the effect of tPA in HIBD in neonatal rats. METHODS: Seven-day-old Wistar rat pups were used for the Rice-Vannucci model of neonatal hypoxia-ischemia (HI). Brain samples were collected 1, 4, and 24 hrs after HI. FITC-Dextran was injected into the left ventricle of pups after HI to observe reperfusion defects of the neonatal brain. RT-PCR and tPA zymogram were used to detect the expression and activity of tPA. Double immunostaining, terminal deoxynucleotidyl transferase mediated dUTP nick end labeling (TUNEL) and DAPI staining were used to detect the expression of integrin GPIIb and fibrin and neuronal apoptosis. RESULTS: FITC-Dextran perfusion analysis indicated there was obvious infarct area in the neonatal brain and the expression of integrin GPIIb and fibrin increased significantly 1 hr after HI compared with the contralateral side. The infarct area decreased and the expression of integrin GPIIb and fibrin were reduced 4 hrs after HI. The expression and activity of tPA increased significantly in neonatal rats after HI, and peaked at 4 hrs after HI. The number of apoptotic neural cells increased progressively with the prolonged reperfusion time following HI. CONCLUSIONS: The increase of tPA in the acute phase after HIBD may be helpful to clot dissolving, but it induces neuronal apoptosis and aggravates brain injury.