Short-Term Rental Regulation and House Sharing Behavior: Evidence From Airbnb.com

The controversial short-term rental (STR) industry and the relevant STR regulation have been in the spotlight in recent years. Despite all the pros and cons of regulating the STR industry, yet it is unclear what the real effects of the STR regulation are. This study seeks to shed light on the questions regarding how the city STR regulation and should be conceived as well as what the outcomes of the regulation implementation are. We employ a comprehensive data set assembled from multiple resources to analyze the effects of the STR regulation from different geographic levels. Indeed, STR regulation turns out to be effective in improving the STR business. Registration requirement would encourage people from affluent neighborhoods to list their properties online. And internal requirements of the listed properties are critical in preventing listings from those non-affluent neighborhoods. At the clause level, the clauses vary in their effects in different types of neighborhoods. The clause specifically requiring listing to achieve certain standards would be more efficient in crowding out the listings with low quality from the STR market. STR regulation would be able to raise the quality of the listings online and standardize the listing process. Consequently, STR regulation would reduce the information-based uncertainties exist in the online STR mediatory platforms. Overall, the results suggest that STR regulation helps release the “lemon problems” in the STR market by encouraging listings with good quality while crowd out the “bad apples” from the platforms by adjusting the STR business in different types of neighborhoods

SabR enhances nikkomycin production via regulating the transcriptional level of sanG, a pathway-specific regulatory gene in Streptomyces ansochromogenes

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p><it>sabR </it>is a pleiotropic regulatory gene which has been shown to positively regulate the nikkomycin biosynthesis and negatively affect the sporulation of <it>Streptomyces ansochromogenes</it>. In this study, we investigate the mechanism of SabR on modulating nikkomycin production in <it>Streptomyces ansochromogenes</it>.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>The transcription start point of <it>sabR </it>was determined by high-resolution S1 nuclease mapping and localized at the nucleotide T at position 37 bp upstream of the potential <it>sabR </it>translation start codon (GTG). Disruption of <it>sabR </it>enhanced its own transcription, but retarded the nikkomycin production. Over-expression of <it>sabR </it>enhanced nikkomycin biosynthesis in <it>Streptomyces ansochromogenes</it>. EMSA analysis showed that SabR bound to the upstream region of <it>sanG</it>, but it did not bind to the upstream region of its encoding gene (<it>sabR</it>), <it>sanF </it>and the intergenic region between <it>sanN </it>and <it>sanO</it>. DNase 1 footprinting assays showed that the SabR-binding site upstream of <it>sanG </it>was 5'-CTTTAAGTCACCTGGCTCATTCGCGTTCGCCCAGCT-3' which was designated as SARE. Deletion of SARE resulted in the delay of nikkomycin production that was similar to that of <it>sabR </it>disruption mutant.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>These results indicated that SabR modulated nikkomycin biosynthesis as an enhancer via interaction with the promoter region of <it>sanG</it>, and expanded our understanding about regulatory cascade in nikkomycin biosynthesis.</p

Investigation into the nature behind the interesting half levitation behavior of claimed superconductor LK-99

A recent article published by Lee et.al. claimed to have successfully achieved superconductivity at room temperature (RT) has become a topical issue. Besides the research paper, Lee and his team provided a demonstration video of LK-99 half levitating (HL) on a magnet. Such interesting HL appearance has drawn tremendous sensation both in academia and the network. However, the true identity of LK-99 still remains unclear, i.e., whether the HL behavior can necessarily indicate the diamagnetism behavior of the sample. Here, we fabricated our own LK-99 samples following the procedures reported by Lee et al. We found quite a few sample pieces showing the typical HL that is similar to those reported. Meanwhile, oxidation during the sample preparation was found to deleterious to acquiring HL in the sample, while furnace cooling or water quenching in the last step revealed little effect. However, our careful observations indicated that those HL pieces are more likely simple ferromagnetic. Then we conducted a comprehensive study on the behavior patterns of typical diamagnetism and ferromagnetic substances interacting with a Nd2Fe14B magnet, and provided instructions to distinguish the characteristics between ferromagnetic and diamagnetic to prevent misunderstanding of LK-99 like levitation behavior

Multiple Sclerosis and Neuromyelitis Optica Spectrum Disorder: Onset Following Acute COVID-19 Infection, a Case Series

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES: Acute COVID-19 infection has been associated with neurological involvement. We report a case series of newly diagnosed patients with multiple sclerosis (MS) and neuromyelitis optica spectrum disorder (NMOSD) developed in a short period of time after acute COVID-19 infection. METHODS: New MS patients developing initial symptoms shortly after an acute COVID-19 infection were diagnosed based on the 2017 McDonald Criteria [Garcia-Ramos et al. in Cells, 2021]. The patients diagnosed with NMOSD met the 2015 International Panel criteria for the diagnosis of NMOSD (IPDN) [Thompson et al. in Lancet Neurol 17:162-173, 2018]. RESULTS FROM THE MS PATIENT GROUP: Ten patients were included who had developed initial MS symptoms after COVID-19 infection. Gender distribution was equal (50% male). The mean age was 28 (range 17-39) years. Average time to neurological presentation was between 2 and 6 weeks following acute COVID-19 infection. Partial transverse myelitis was the initial presentation in 40% of the cases, and 60% of patients had spinal cord lesions present at the moment of diagnosis. All patients showed enhancing lesions on brain magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). The presence of cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) oligoclonal bands was found in all six tested cases. The majority of patients (80%) were unvaccinated for COVID-19. The two vaccinated patients had received two doses of the monovalent COVID-19 messenger ribonucleic acid (mRNA) (Pfizer Biotech) vaccine and no booster, a year prior to contracting COVID-19. RESULTS FROM THE NMOSD GROUP: Two patients with NMOSD were included. Positive aquoporin-4 protein antibody (AQP-4 Ab) was detected in serum in both cases [one Enzyme Linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) and one cell based]. Both patients had mild COVID-19 infection prior to presentation, initial neurologic symptoms presented between 3 and 6 weeks after COVID-19 infection. Neither patients were vaccinated. Both responded partially to steroids, one developed a relapse 40 days after diagnosis. CONCLUSION: COVID-19 infection has been linked to several neurological and immune-driven conditions. This study suggests that in susceptible individuals, acute COVID-19 infection may act as a trigger for developing MS and NMOSD

Biocontrol of Pear Postharvest Decay by Kombucha

Kombucha is sweetened, slightly alcoholic, and lightly effervescent tea drink. Its acidity inhibits the growth of harmful bacteria. Here, we studied effect of kombucha on post-harvest preservation of pear. The Hosui pears were soaked with the kombucha for 15 minutes, and in distilled water as the control, respectively. Superoxide dismutase (SOD), peroxidase (POD), malondialdehyde (MDA), hydrogen peroxide (H2O2), proline content, electric conductivity, weight loss rate and good fruit rate in pear were measured during storage at room temperature. The results showed that the kombucha could effectively prolong the storage time of pear fruit. The fruit quality of the treated group was 1.5 times higher than that of the control pear fruit when stored at room temperature for 18 days. The weight loss rate, MDA content and electric conductivity of the treatment group were lower than those of the control group during the whole storage period, indicating that kombucha can inhibit the transformation of polysaccharides such as starch and pectin, and delay the degradation of nutrients in the fruit, resulting in a decrease in weight loss rate, inhibition of membrane lipid peroxidation, reducing MDA content, electric conductivity, maintaining cell membrane stability, delaying pear fruit senescence. Kombucha can inhibit the content of H2O2 and proline, increase the activity of POD and SOD increase the storage stability of fruits. The purpose of this study was to elucidate the physiological mechanism of post-harvest preservation of pear by kombucha. The use of kombucha can prolong the supply period of pear, increase economic benefits and expand the market of pear

Aligning Large Language Models to a Domain-specific Graph Database

Graph Databases (Graph DB) are widely applied in various fields, including finance, social networks, and medicine. However, translating Natural Language (NL) into the Graph Query Language (GQL), commonly known as NL2GQL, proves to be challenging due to its inherent complexity and specialized nature. Some approaches have sought to utilize Large Language Models (LLMs) to address analogous tasks like text2SQL. Nevertheless, when it comes to NL2GQL taskson a particular domain, the absence of domain-specific NL-GQL data pairs makes it difficult to establish alignment between LLMs and the graph DB. To address this challenge, we propose a well-defined pipeline. Specifically, we utilize ChatGPT to create NL-GQL data pairs based on the given graph DB with self-instruct. Then, we use the created data to fine-tune LLMs, thereby achieving alignment between LLMs and the graph DB. Additionally, during inference, we propose a method that extracts relevant schema to the queried NL as the input context to guide LLMs for generating accurate GQLs.We evaluate our method on two constructed datasets deriving from graph DBs in finance domain and medicine domain, namely FinGQL and MediGQL. Experimental results demonstrate that our method significantly outperforms a set of baseline methods, with improvements of 5.90 and 6.36 absolute points on EM, and 6.00 and 7.09 absolute points on EX, respectively.Comment: 13 pages,2 figure

Prognosticating post-bariatric surgery outcomes and management of postoperative recurrent weight gain and diabetes recurrence

Bariatric surgery stands as the most potent treatment for achieving substantial weight reduction and alleviating the complications associated with obesity. However, it is not the treatment of choice for patients with obesity combined with type 2 diabetes mellitus, and the benefit of bariatric surgery varies widely among individuals. There is a noticeable inconsistency in the outcomes following these procedures. The ability to predict how an individual will respond to bariatric surgery is a valuable asset in clinical practice. And the importance of postoperative interventions should not be underestimated. Proactive measures targeting both pre- and post-operative eating habits and lifestyle adjustments are of greater significance than the investigation into pre-operative factors alone. The judicious application of medication, endoscopic intervention and conversional surgeries after bariatric surgery can yield superior outcomes in managing recurrent weight regain and the recurrence of diabetes, albeit with consideration for the associated complication rates