Suchergebnisse

Within China's renewable energy industry, the importance of the solar photovoltaic industry has been increasingly recognized. Many Chinese provinces have adopted various measures to develop the solar photovoltaic industry. This study used the diamond model and the analytic hierarchy process to clarify the relative importance of the determinants of the development of the solar photovoltaic industry. A total of 22 determinants in six categories (i.e., factor condition; demand condition; firm strategy, structure, and rivalry; related and support industries; government; and chance) were analyzed. The results show that besides factor condition, demand condition and firm strategy, structure, and rivalry have also had a strong influence on the development of China's photovoltaic industry. The findings also indicate that some traditional factors, such as labor costs and acquiring land, are very important to the development of the solar photovoltaic industry. The relative importance of the determinants clarified through this study provides a standard for the actions of policymakers and decision makers.

Piezoelectric materials, especially Pb-based piezoelectric materials, are widely used in the key components of sensors, actuators, and transducers. Due to the rising concern of the toxicity of Pb, global legislation has been adopted to restrict the use of Pb. Given that the available Pb-free piezoelectric materials cannot replace the Pb-based ones for various reasons, we designed and fabricated a low-Pb piezoelectric solid-solution ceramic system, (1–x)Ba(Zr0.18Ti0.82)O3–x(Ba0.78Pb0.22)TiO3 (denoted as BZ0.18T–xBP0.22T herein). The crystal structure, ferroelectric, dielectric, and piezoelectric properties of the BZ0.18T–xBP0.22T system were systematically studied. With the increase in BP0.22T content, the structure of the samples changed from a rhombohedral phase to a tetragonal phase; the intermediate composition x = 0.5 was located at the morphotropic phase boundary of the system and corresponded to the state with the coexistence of the rhombohedral and tetragonal phases. Moreover, x = 0.5 exhibited the optimum comprehensive properties among all the samples, with a piezoelectric coefficient d33 of 240 pC/N, a maximum dielectric temperature Tm of 121.1°C, and a maximum polarization Pm of 15 μC/cm2. Our work verifies the validity of the route to design low-Pb high-piezoelectric materials and may stimulate the interests for exploring new low-Pb high-performance ferroelectric and piezoelectric materials.

This book features state-of-the-art studies on the responsible innovation management. It illustrates the innovative methods from socio-economic and sustainable development dimensions and specifically mentions digitalisations dark side, technology application challenges and enterprises management issues. The selected works contain enormous new case studies exploring ways to improve the development of related industries from responsible innovation perspectives. It covers about the multidisciplinary areas, and hence, it fosters close collaboration between researchers in diverse fields such as social science, economics and engineering. Researchers, corporate executives and engineers in these areas can benefit from the book.

We examined the impact of feedback seeking, including feedback inquiry and monitoring, on career adaptability via the mediator of supervisor feedback environment and the moderator of person–organization fit (P–O fit). Participants were 415 full-time employees in China, who
completed the research measures in 3 waves each spaced 3 months apart. The results revealed that supervisor feedback environment mediated the relationship between feedback seeking and career adaptability, and that the effect of feedback inquiry and feedback monitoring on the supervisor feedback
environment was moderated by P–O fit. The positive effect of feedback inquiry and feedback monitoring on career adaptability was significant only when P–O fit was poor (vs. good). Supervisors should encourage employees to seek feedback and organizations could also design training
sessions to improve employee career adaptability, promote employee performance, and facilitate career development.

The study tested the efficiency and reproducibility of a method for optimal separation of low and high abundant proteins in blood plasma. Firstly, three methods for the separation and concentration of eluted (E: low abundance), or bound (B: high abundance) proteins were investigated: TCA protein precipitation, the ReadyPrep™ 2-D cleanup Kit and Vivaspin Turbo 4, 5 kDa ultrafiltration units. Secondly, the efficiency and reproducibility of a Seppro column or a ProteoExtract Albumin/IgG column were assessed by quantification of E and B proteins. Thirdly, the efficiency of two elution buffers, containing either 25% or 10% glycerol for elution of the bound protein, was assessed by measuring the remaining eluted volume and the final protein concentration. Compared to the samples treated with TCA protein precipitation and the ReadyPrep™ 2-D cleanup Kit, the E and B proteins concentrated by the Vivaspin4, 5 kDa ultrafiltration unit were separated well in both 1-D and 2-D gels. The depletion efficiency of abundant protein in the Seppro column was reduced after 15 cycles of sample processing and regeneration and the average ratio of E/(B + E) × 100% was 37 ± 11(%) with a poor sample reproducibility as shown by a high coefficient of variation (CV = 30%). However, when the ProteoExtract Albumin/IgG column was used, the ratio of E/(B + E) × 100% was 43 ± 3.1% (n = 6) and its CV was 7.1%, showing good reproducibility. Furthermore, the elution buffer containing 10% (w/v) glycerol increased the rate of B protein elution from the ProteoExtract Albumin/IgG column, and an appropriate protein concentration (3.5 µg/µl) for a 2-D gel assay could also be obtained when it was concentrated with Vivaspin Turbo 4, 5 kDa ultrafiltration unit. In conclusion, the ProteoExtract Albumin/IgG column shows good reproducibility of preparation of low and high abundance blood plasma proteins when using the elution buffer containing 10% (w/v) glycerol. The optimized method of preparation of low/high abundance plasma proteins was when plasma was eluted through a ProteoExtract Albumin/IgG removal column, the column was further washed with elution buffer containing 10% glycerol. The first and second elution containing the low and high abundance plasma proteins, respectively, were further concentrated using Vivaspin® Turbo 4, 5 kDa ultrafiltration units for 1 or 2-D gel electrophoresis. ; Shaobo Zhou received research funding from the University of Bedfordshire. John H. Beattie and Shaobo Zhou were funded by the Department of Health, research project (024/0043, previously N050017). John H. Beattie was also funded by the Scottish Government Rural and Environment Science and Analytical Services Division and a Horizon 2020 RISE grant MILEAGE (Project 734931).

AbstractThe Global Justice Index is a multiyear research project based at Fudan Institute for Advanced Study in Social Sciences that assesses the contributions made by each country to achieving greater global justice. We have published results from 2010 to 2019 in Global Justice Index Report, Global Justice Index Report 2020, Global Justice Index Report 2021, and we are now presenting our fourth-year results for 2020 in Global Justice Index Report 2022, which is an updated version of previous years' reports. This year, we take into account changes to global justice influenced by the COVID-19 pandemic. The report consists of four sections: introduction, findings, main results, and conclusion. In the introduction, we discuss the development of the conceptual framework and evaluative principles to justify our selection of the dimensions and indicators for measurement. Next, in the findings section, we report the data, indicators, and our results for each country for each of the 10 issues we identify, and provide regional comparisons for Asia, Europe, North America, Latin America, Africa, and Oceania. In the following section, we present the main results for the global justice indices, and report the ranking of each country's contribution to achieving greater global justice. In the final section, we discuss the applications and limitations of the index and potential further research trajectories.

Background: Since the novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) has been a worldwide pandemic, the early surveillance and public health emergency disposal are considered crucial to curb this emerging infectious disease. However, studies of COVID-19 on this topic in China are relatively few. Methods: A case-comparison study was conducted using a set of six key time nodes to form a reference framework for evaluating early surveillance and public health emergency disposal between H7N9 avian influenza (2013) in Shanghai and COVID-19 in Wuhan, China. Findings: A report to the local Center for Disease Control and Prevention, China, for the first hospitalized patient was sent after 6 and 20 days for H7N9 avian influenza and COVID-19, respectively. In contrast, the pathogen was identified faster in the case of COVID-19 than in the case of H7N9 avian influenza (12 vs. 31 days). The government response to COVID-19 was 10 days later than that to avian influenza. The entire process of early surveillance and public health emergency disposal lasted 5 days longer in COVID-19 than in H7N9 avian influenza (46 vs. 41 days). Conclusions: The identification of the unknown pathogen improved in China between the outbreaks of avian influenza and COVID-19. The longer emergency disposal period in the case of COVID-19 could be attributed to the government's slower response to the epidemic. Improving public health emergency management could lessen the adverse social effects of emerging infectious diseases and public health crisis in the future.

AbstractThe Global Justice Index is a multiyear research project based at Fudan Institute for Advanced Study in Social Sciences that assesses the contributions made by each country to achieving greater global justice. We have published results for yeas from 2010 to 2020 in Global Justice Index Report from 2019 to 2022, and are now presenting our fifth year of results, covering data from 2021 in Global Justice Index Report 2023, which is an updated version of previous years' reports. But, we have been improving our index year by year to with changes that have taken place globally. We have also refined our imputation methodology to better address the challenge of missing data. The report consists of four sections: introduction, findings, main results, and conclusion. In the introduction, we discuss the development of the conceptual framework and evaluative principles to justify our selection of the dimensions and indicators for measurement. Next, in the findings section, we report the data, indicators, and our results for each country for each of the 10 issues we identify, and provide regional comparisons for Asia, Europe, North America, Latin America, Africa, and Oceania. In the following section, we present the main results for the global justice indices, and report the ranking of each country's contribution to achieving greater global justice. In the final section, we discuss the applications and limitations of the index and potential further research trajectories.

Background: Recently, the novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) has already spread rapidly as a global pandemic, just like the H1N1 swine influenza in 2009. Evidences have indicated that the efficiency of emergency response was considered crucial to curb the spread of the emerging infectious disease. However, studies of COVID-19 on this topic are relatively few. Methods: A qualitative comparative study was conducted to compare the timeline of emergency responses to H1N1 (2009) and COVID-19, by using a set of six key time nodes selected from international literature. Besides, we also explored the spread speed and peak time of COVID-19 and H1N1 swine influenza by comparing the confirmed cases in the same time interval. Results: The government's entire emergency responses to the epidemic, H1N1 swine influenza (2009) completed in 28 days, and COVID-19 (2019) completed in 46 days. Emergency responses speed for H1N1 was 18 days faster. As for the epidemic spread speed, the peak time of H1N1 came about 4 weeks later than that of COVID-19, and the H1N1 curve in America was flatter than COVID-19 in China within the first four months after the disease emerged. Conclusions: The speed of the emergency responses to H1N1 was faster than COVID-19, which might be an important influential factor for slowing down the arrival of the peak time at the beginning of the epidemic. Although COVID-19 in China is coming to an end, the government should improve the public health emergency system, in order to control the spread of the epidemic and lessen the adverse social effects in possible future outbreaks.

Species translocation leads to disease emergence in native species of considerable economic importance. Generalist parasites are more likely to be transported, become established and infect new hosts, thus their risk needs to be evaluated. Freshwater systems are particularly at risk from parasite introductions due to the frequency of fish movements, lack of international legislative controls for non-listed pathogens and inherent difficulties with monitoring disease introductions in wild fish populations. Here we used one of the world's most invasive freshwater fish, the topmouth gudgeon, Pseudorasbora parva, to demonstrate the risk posed by an emergent generalist parasite, Sphaerothecum destruens. Pseudorasbora parva has spread to 32 countries from its native range in China through the aquaculture trade and has introduced S. destruens to at least five of these. We systematically investigated the spread of S. destruens through Great Britain and its establishment in native fish communities through a combination of phylogenetic studies of the host and parasite and a novel environmental DNA detection assay. Molecular approaches confirmed that S. destruens is present in 50% of the P. parva communities tested and was also detected in resident native fish communities but in the absence of notable histopathological changes. We identified specific P. parva haplotypes associated with S. destruens and evaluated the risk of disease emergence from this cryptic fish parasite. We provide a framework that can be applied to any aquatic pathogen to enhance detection and help mitigate future disease risks in wild fish populations.