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The COVID-19 pandemic has tremendously affected the whole of human society worldwide. Travel patterns have greatly changed due to the increased risk perception and the governmental interventions regarding COVID-19. This study aimed to identify contributing factors to the changes in public and private transportation mode choice behavior in China after COVID-19 based on an online questionnaire survey. In the survey, travel behaviors in three periods were studied: before the outbreak (before 27 December 2019), the peak (from 20 January to 17 March 2020), and after the peak (from 18 March to the date of the survey). A series of random-parameter bivariate Probit models was developed to quantify the relationship between individual characteristics and the changes in travel mode choice. The key findings indicated that individual sociodemographic characteristics (e.g., gender, age, ownership, occupation, residence) have significant effects on the changes in mode choice behavior. Other key findings included (1) a higher propensity to use a taxi after the peak compared to urban public transportation (i.e., bus and subway); (2) a significant impact of age on the switch from public transit to private car and two-wheelers; (3) more obvious changes in private car and public transportation modes in more developed cities. The findings from this study are expected to be useful for establishing partial and resilient policies and ensuring sustainable mobility and travel equality in the post-pandemic era.

In developing an algal treatment system, selenium (Se) removal efficiency by Chlorella vulgaris was evaluated under various conditions such as Se concentration, algal density, temperature and pH. A maximum removal efficiency plateau of ∼90% was observed between 1000-3000 μg Se/L while the tolerance of Se toxicity was found at 6000 μg Se/L. C. vulgaris of 0.75 g DW/L showed the highest removal efficiency (84%), and volatilization was dominant below 1.37 g DW/L. Se volatilization was two times higher at 25 °C than at 20 °C in the first 24 h. Moreover, the highest removal efficiency (77%) was obtained at pH 8.0, compared to 66.5% at pH 6.5 and 40% at pH 10.0. To prevent ecotoxicity, Se laden algae were further burned to ashes or filtered out by Anodonta woodiana. After burning, biomass Se was reduced by 99%, with organo-Se entirely converted into inorganic Se, lowering Se bioavailability. A. woodiana removed 54% of Se in 24 h, leading to Se bioaccumulation in soft tissues, which may serve as dietary Se supplements for human health. Our results suggest the cleanup of Se-contaminated water from either agricultural runoff or industrial discharge could be achieved using an algal treatment system with minimum potential ecotoxicity.

The lockdown and social distancing policies to reduce COVID-19 spread and perceived safety threats of COVID-19 significantly affected people’s travel behavior. Greece has been suffering from the COVID-19 pandemic, and people’s mobility behavior has been greatly affected. This study aims at: (1) exploring the variations in individuals’ trip frequencies by mode and purpose before and after the COVID-19 outbreak; (2) understanding the effects of individual differences (i.e., sociodemographic details) and perceptions towards COVID-19 (i.e., the perceived threats of COVID-19) on people’s mobility behavior changes after the outbreak; (3) underlining the individuals’ perceptions of the COVID-19 threat on the willingness of public transportation usage. Overall, 403 responses were collected in late 2020. A series of random parameter Probit modeling results reveal multiple individual and perception factors affecting the changes in mobility behavior in Greece. The results from structural equation modeling indicate that perceived COVID-19 threats affect the attitudes and subjective norms towards people’s intentions to use public transportation. The results from this study provide valuable insights for transportation authorities to develop effective strategies to manage traffic during the spread of disease for a possible future epidemic.

Background: HIV-1 protease inhibitor (PIs) is a good choice for AIDS patients. Nevertheless, for PIs, there are several bugs in clinical application, like drug resistance, the large dose, the high costs and so on, among which, the poor pharmacokinetics property is one of the important reasons that leads to the failure of its clinical application. Objective: We aimed to build computational models for studying the relationship between PIs structure and its pharmacological activities. Methods: We collected experimental values of koff/Ki and structures of 50 PIs through a careful literature and database search. Quantitative structure activity/pharmacokinetics relationship (QSAR/QSPR) models were constructed by support vector machine (SVM), partial-least squares regression (PLSR) and back-propagation neural network (BPNN). Results: For QSAR models, SVM, PLSR and BPNN all generated reliable prediction models with the r2 of 0.688, 0.768 and 0.787, respectively, and r2pred of 0.748, 0.696 and 0.640, respectively. For QSPR models, the optimum models of SVM, PLSR and BPNN obtained the r2 of 0.952, 0.869 and 0.960, respectively, and the r2pred of 0.852, 0.628 and 0.814, respectively. Conclusion: Among these three modelling methods, SVM showed superior ability than PLSR and BPNN both in QSAR/QSPR modelling of PIs, thus, we suspected that SVM was more suitable for predicting activities of PIs. In addition, 3D-MoRSE descriptors may have a tight relationship with the Ki values of PIs, and the GETAWAY descriptors have significant influence on both koff and Ki in PLSR equations.

Coal will continue to be the main energy source in China for the immediate future, although the environmental pollution and ecological impacts of each stage in the full life cycle of coal mining, transportation, and combustion generate large quantities of external costs. The Late Permian coals in southwestern (SW) China usually contain high amounts of fluorine (F), arsenic (As), and ash, which together with high-F clays cause abnormally high levels of endemic fluorosis, As poisoning, and lung cancer in areas where coal is mined and burned. In this paper, we estimate the external costs of the life cycle of coal. The results show that the externalities of coal in SW China are estimated at USD 73.5 billion or 284.3 USD/t, which would have accounted for 6.5 % of the provincial GDP in this area in 2018. The external cost of human health accounts for 87.2% of the total external costs, of which endemic skeletal fluorosis diseases and related lung cancers have the most important impact. Our study provides a more precise estimate of externalities compared with its counterparts in other provinces in China. Therefore, several policy recommendations would be proposed to internalize the external cost.

Volatile organic compounds (VOCs) can lead to environmental pollution and threaten human health due to their toxic and carcinogenic nature. The emission of VOCs increases dramatically with the accelerated industrialization and economic growth. Adsorption is identified as one of the most promising recovery technologies owing to its cost-effectiveness, flexible operation, and low energy consumption. In particular, adsorption-based technologies have a high potential to recycle both adsorbents and adsorbates, typically to capture valuable aromatic VOCs from industrial exhaust. Porous materials such as carbon-based materials, zeolite-based materials, and organic polymers and their composites have been extensively developed for VOCs adsorption focusing in adsorption capacity, hydrophobic property, thermal stability and regenerability. Among them, porous carbons as VOCs adsorbents have attracted increasingly attention, because they can be regulated by tuning the pore structure for VOCs accessibility during the adsorption process. Moreover, porous carbons can adsorb target VOCs by controlling the pore structure and surface functional groups. Significantly, the pore size distribution of porous carbons mostly controls the VOCs sorption process. Micropores provide the main adsorption sites, while mesopores enhance the diffusion of VOCs. In this review, the adsorption mechanism of VOCs onto porous carbons was generally concluded. Porous carbons can be designed as a specific structure for adsorption of aromatic VOCs by controlling the pore structure, hydrophobic sites, π-electronic structure, and surface functional groups. Since there are limited review literatures on porous carbons derived from renewable resources for VOCs adsorption, this paper will provide an overview on the synthesis of porous carbons from biomass and other organic wastes for VOCs adsorption or integrated oxidation processes (e.g., photocatalysis, non-thermal plasma catalysis, chemical catalysis) under ambient conditions with the objective of guiding ...

Correction for ‘Photocatalyzed redox-neutral decarboxylative alkylation of heteroaryl methanamines’ by Pengfei Niu et al., Green Chem., 2021, 23, 774–779, DOI: 10.1039/D0GC04094K.

Our previous studies showed that prenatal ethanol exposure (PEE) elevated blood total cholesterol (TCH) level in adult offspring rats. This study was aimed at elucidating the intrauterine programming mechanism of hypercholesterolemia in adult rats induced by PEE. Pregnant Wistar rats were intragastrically administered ethanol (4 mg/kg∙d) from gestational day (GD) 9 to 20. The offspring rats were euthanized at GD20 and postnatal week 24. Results showed that PEE decreased serum TCH and HDL-C levels (female and male) as well as LDL-C level (female only) in fetal rats but increased serum TCH level and the TCH/HDL-C and LDL-C/HDL-C ratios in adult rats. Furthermore, PEE elevated serum corticosterone levels but inhibited hepatic insulin-like growth factor 1 (IGF1) signaling pathway, cholesterol synthesis and output in fetal rats. The conversed changes were observed in adult rats. Moreover, histone acetylation (H3K9ac and H3K14ac) and expression of hepatic reverse cholesterol transport (RCT) related genes, scavenger receptor BI and low-density lipoprotein receptor were decreased before and after birth by PEE. In HepG2 cells, cortisol negatively regulated the IGF1 signaling pathway and cholesterol metabolic genes, but this inhibition of the cholesterol metabolic genes could be reversed by glucocorticoid receptor antagonist RU486, whereas exogenous IGF1 treatment only reversed the downregulation of RCT genes by cortisol. We confirmed a "two programming" mechanism for PEE-induced hypercholesterolemia in adult rats. The "first programming" was a glucocorticoid (GC)-induced persistent reduction of RCT genes by epigenetic modifications, and the "second programming" was the negative regulation of cholesterol synthesis and output by the GC-IGF1 axis.