Current progress of China＇s free ART program

China＇s Free ART Program was initiated in 2002 as an emergency response to save and improve the lives of AIDS patients living mainly in impoverished rural regions of central China. With little experience in HIV/AIDS treatment and care and resource limitations, China＇s efforts to provide widespread access to free antiretroviral therapy has been a process fraught with difficulty. However, the Free ART Program is progressing from an emergency response to a standardized treatment and care system. The development of national guidelines, training programs, a laboratory support network, a national patient database, programs for special populations such as children and patients living with coinfections, and operational research has improved the scope and quality of the free treatment program. As of June 30, 2005, a total of 19,456 patients in 28 provinces, autonomous regions, and special municipalities had received free ART. Challenges stemming from the nature of China＇s health system and patient population persist, but with strong government support and a diverse set of resources, China has the capacity to overcome these challenges and to provide nationwide access to high quality treatment and care.     

Current progress of China’s free ART program

INTRODUCTION At the end of 2003, there were an estimated 840,000 people in China infected with HIV, among whom 80,000 were in need of antiretroviral therapy (ART) [1]. Since 1999, the annual rate of increase in reported HIV infec- tions has been around 30%, with growing numbers of females becoming infected [1]. The transmission of HIV/ AIDS in China has been through intravenous drug use (43. 2%) in the south, southwest, and western provinces; prior commercial blood and plasma selli…     

The effect estimation and channel testing of the technological progress on China’s regional environmental performance

To study the effects of and approaches to technological progress on China’s regional environmental performance, this study first estimates China’s regional environmental performance and its variation indexes by applying a slack-based model (SBM) and an entropy-based model (EBM). The results indicate that the environmental performance in different regions of China has improved, but the rate of improvement differs greatly. This may be attributed to heterogeneous characteristics and changes in the green technology innovation level in different regions. Considering the overflow effect of environmental pollution among different regions, we study the impact of various technological progress patterns on China’s regional environmental performance using spatial econometrics, and we find that there are significant spatial effects of technology innovation, technology transfer, and imitative innovation on China’s regional environmental performance. Also, different technological progress patterns have different effects. Specifically, independent innovation has failed to effectively improve regional environmental performance, whereas the introduction of technology and imitative innovation have significantly improved this performance. Moreover, after the cross-items of independent innovation and human capital are introduced, the effects of technology introduction and imitative innovation on China’s regional environmental performance through the absorptive capacity of human capital remain significant, whereas the effect of independent innovation on regional environmental performance via the absorptive capacity of human capital becomes more obvious. Based on this and from the perspective of environmental enhancement, we believe that China should strengthen human capital accumulation and give consideration to imitative innovation and technology introduction while emphasizing independent innovation.     

Some progress in the study of plant–soil interactions in China

Plants and soil are the base for sustainably surviving human beings on the globe as the role of materials, energy, resources and environment (Shao & Chu 2008; Shao et al. 2008, 2009, 2010, 2012a,b; Liu & Shao, 2010; Ruan et al. 2010; Xu et al. 2010, 2012; Shao 2012; Huang et al. 2013). This topic has been extensively investigated for 100 years with more achievements in many sectors and practical significance in conducting high-efficient agriculture and eco-environmental construction. The plant–soil interaction is the core issue of this topic, which has been given much attention for the past 30 years (Wu et al. 2007, 2010; Zhang et al. 2011, 2013; Xu et al. 2012, 2013).     

Species-specific ‘fingerprints’ of deer in China

State governments in China have laid down laws for protecting rare and endangered species, but the effective protection depends on accurate species identification. Although DNA fingerprinting has appeared in court as legal evidence for many years, it is unsuitable for species identification as previous multilocus probes produce individual-specific fingerprints. This study outlines the development of a new species-specific probe – the pta₂ probe. Using this oligonucleotide probe, the identification of all deer species in China is made possible by species-specific fingerprints. Material evidence can then be provided to any judicial organization, which will have a profound effect on the criminal activities of poachers, thereby helping to protect wild animals and conserve biodiversity. Interestingly, the pta₂ probe can also reveal the gender of detected deer species.     

Current approaches to the treatment of Parkinson’s Disease

Parkinson’s Disease (PD) is the second most common neurodegenerative disorder. Clinical approaches to manage PD include symptomatic therapies, serving to compensate for the effects of dopaminergic neuronal deficits, as well as more recently a move toward disease modification, with the goal of slowing or stopping disease progression. This perspective surveys the approved therapies for PD treatment as well as provides a view of the ongoing clinical approaches aimed at improving outcomes for PD patients.     

COVID-19: vaccine’s progress

Under the pressure of the COVID-19 pandemic, vaccines were developed and rolled out into mass vaccination campaigns at incredible speed. What normally takes a decade was worked out within a year. Vaccines were produced along many different platforms ranging from inactivated whole virus vaccines over adenovirus-vectored vaccines, recombinant protein vaccines and nanoparticles to mRNA vaccines. Several vaccines went through preclinical testing and completed successful phase 1 to phase 3 clinical trials. The first evaluations of national vaccination campaigns document astonishing high levels of protection against disease. The present article summarizes the published reports leading to these striking achievements with vaccines based on different concepts.     

Is the progress zone model a victim of progress?

The prevailing view has long been that mesenchymal cells at the apex of the vertebrate limb bud proliferate in a progress zone (PZ) under the influence of the apical ectodermal ridge (AER). According to the PZ model, proximodistal cell fates are specified according to the time spent in the PZ. New results, considered along with some earlier findings, fail to support this model.     

Phytotaxonomy in the People’s Republic of China

As three of the members of the delegation of the Botanical Society of America, the authors participated in a 28-day tour of the People’s Republic of China in May and June, 1978. Botanical institutes and universities were visited in nine cities. A list of names and addresses of the collaborators and editors of family treatments for theFlora Reipublicae Popularis Sinicae is supplemented with a bibliography of published floras and significant taxonomic literature issued primarily since the end of the Cultural Revolution. A few observations on herbaria and herbarium practices are included.     

Current status of heavy metal contamination in Asia’s rice lands

Major contribution (over 90 %) to the world’s rice production is coming from Asia, where metal contamination of agricultural lands is often reported. Thus the present paper reviews the sources and current status of heavy metal contamination of paddy lands in the region. Apart from the natural sources, agrochemicals, wastewater irrigation, sewage sludge application, livestock manures, mining and fly ash etc., could be identified as the key sources of metal contamination in Asia. Accumulation of heavy metals and metalloids (Cd, Zn, Cu, Pb, Cr, Ni, Fe, Zn, Co, Hg and As) in different parts of the rice plant (roots, straw, hull and grain) is reported at varying degrees. Rice grain accumulates the least amount of toxic metals compared to hull, straw and roots. Most importantly, a greater number of investigations confirmed that the metal contents in rice grains are within the permissible limits of Codex recommendations of joint Food and Agriculture Organization/World Health Organization Food Standards Programme and/or food regulations imposed by the respective governments. However, due to the fact that rice is a main route of human exposure to heavy metals, appropriate preventive and remedial measures should be enforced in the areas with potential risk of metal contamination.     

Taking the ‘Error’ Out of Ruse‘s Error Theory

Michael Ruses Darwinian metaethics has come under just criticism from Peter Woolcock (1993). But with modification it remains defensible. Ruse (1986) holds that people ordinarily have a false belief that there are objective moral obligations. He argues that the evolutionary story should be taken as an error theory, i.e., as a theory which explains the belief that there are obligations as arising from non-rational causes, rather than from inference or evidential reasons. Woolcock quite rightly objects that this position entails moral nihilism. However, I argue here that people generally have justified true beliefs about which acts promote their most coherent set of moral values, and hence, by definition, about which acts are right. What the evolutionary story explains is the existence of these values, but it is not an error theory for moral beliefs. Ordinary beliefs correspond to real moral properties, though these are not objective or absolute properties independent of anyones subjective states. On its best footing, therefore, a Darwinian metaethics of the type Ruse offers is not an error theory and does not entail moral nihilism.     

Anti-amyloid Therapy of Alzheimer’s Disease: Current State and Prospects

Drug development for the treatment of Alzheimer’s disease (AD) has been for a long time focused on agents that were expected to support endogenous β-amyloid (Aβ) in a monomeric state and destroy soluble Aβ oligomers and insoluble Aβ aggregates. However, this strategy has failed over the last 20 years and was eventually abandoned. In this review, we propose a new approach to the anti-amyloid AD therapy based on the latest achievements in understanding molecular causes of cerebral amyloidosis in AD animal models.     

Current viral-mediated gene transfer research for treatment of Alzheimer’s disease

Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is the most common form of dementia and has affected millions of individuals worldwide. The hallmarks of AD include the amyloid beta plaque deposits, tau neurofibrillary tangles, altered neuronal signaling, alongside decline in memory and cognitive functions. Conventional drug therapies do exist, such as donepezil or aducanumab, but these drugs mostly focus on halting AD progression instead of causing a reversal within the disease. In an effort to ameliorate and ultimately cure AD, researchers have delved into viral-mediated gene therapy to fix this disease from its root molecular causes. To date, adeno-associated virus and lentiviral vectors have remained the most vastly studied among other viral vectors to combat AD. These vectors could be employed alongside various genetic materials based on the types of processes we want to alter to yield a positive effect, such as disruption of amyloidogenic pathway, neuroprotection and lipid metabolism pathways. Recent studies and trials were reviewed in this article, highlighting their clinical significance, differences and limitations between each method. By learning from the different combinations and possibilities of viral-mediated gene transfer, researchers would then get a step closer in ameliorating symptoms and possibly in curing AD.     

Spirits of Uncertainty: Eventologies of Nature on China’s Frontiers

ABSTRACT

Studies of the environmental spirit world have been pursuing two main lines of inquiry: (1) that indigenous claims on ecological thought, including beliefs in chthonic spirits and mountain deities, are the outcome of a global process of abstraction and the commoditisation of nature which acts as technology of governmentality for the production of discursive formations through which neoliberal environmental subjectivities can emerge and (2) that the pitfalls of the nature/culture dualism can be avoided by giving priority to nonhuman subjectivities and positing sociologies of nature as subordinate to ontologies of the self-other divide or action-orienting cosmologies of local ‘nature’. The contributors of this collection engage with the spirit worlds and other invisible agents that constitute the everyday landscape of a number of ethnic groups in western China. While declining to engage with the notion of animism or subscribing to totalising ‘cosmologies’, the authors prefer to extract the eventfulness of haphazard and radically uncertain interactions with spirits or wondrous signs apt to be transformed into marvels and rumours. The ethnographies presented in this collection reveal an eventology of spirit worlds and landscape on China’s borderlands, an inquiry that – unlike history – does not study ‘events’ as such but the relation between what is deemed to be an event, a surprise, or a manifestation of wonder and what is deemed to be the innate, natural, ordinary, everyday life.     

PET bottle reverse logistics—environmental performance of California’s CRV program

Purpose

Disposable beverage bottles made of polyethylene terephthalate (PET) stand in sharp contrast to many other disposable plastic packaging systems in the US for their high level of post-consumer recovery for recycling. This is due in part to container deposit programs in several US states, such as the California Redemption Value (CRV) program. We investigate the impacts of PET bottle recycling in the CRV program to evaluate its effectiveness at reducing environmental burdens.

Methods

We develop a life cycle model using standard process LCA techniques. We use the US LCI database to describe the energy production infrastructure and the production of primary materials. We describe the inventory and logistical requirements for materials recovery on the basis of state-maintained statistics and interviews with operators and industry representatives. We report inventory indicators describing energy, freight, and waste disposal requirements. We report several impact indicators based on CML and TRACI-2.0 techniques. We apply system expansion to compare post-consumer activities to produce secondary polymer against equivalent primary production.

Results and discussion

While bottle collection is distributed across the state, processing is more centralized and occurs primarily near urban centers. The average distance traveled by a bottle from discard to recovery is 145–175 km. Recycling requires 0.45–0.66 MJ of primary energy/L of beverage, versus 3.96 MJ during the pre-consumer phase. Post-consumer environmental impacts are significantly lower than pre-consumer impacts, with the exception of eutrophication. The results are robust to model sensitivity, with allocation of fuel for bottle collection being the most significant parameter. Curbside collection is slightly more energy efficient than consumer drop-off, and is subject to smaller parametric uncertainty. Recycling has the potential for net environmental benefits in five of seven impact categories, the exceptions being smog (marginal benefits) and eutrophication (increased impacts).

Conclusions

California’s decentralized program for collecting and processing PET bottles has produced a system which generates a large stream of post-consumer material with minimal environmental impact. The selection of a reclamation locale is the most significant factor influencing post-consumer impacts. If secondary PET displaces primary material, several environmental burdens can be reduced.

Recommendations and perspectives

Our results suggest that deposit programs on disposable packaging are an effective policy mechanism to increase material recovery and reduce environmental burdens. Deposit programs for other packaging systems should be considered.     

Current Status of Alligator sinensis

1IntroductionAlligatorsinensisisakindofvaluablebutrareanimalwhichisdistributedonlyinChi-na.Chinesealligatorsliveinreservoirsandpondsinthehillsidesbetweenthemiddleandup-perreachesoftheYangtzeRiver.Historically,thedistributionareaoftheChinesealligatorsreached34.5millionhectaresandthenumberreachedthelevelofbeing"tooeasytogetanddisgust"duringtheWesternHanDynasty(206B.C.-24A.D.).Withtheinterruptionofhumanactivities,thedistributionareaofA.sinensisisdecreasingcontinuouslyandthenumberisreducinggr…