Role of professionalism in response to the COVID-19 pandemic: Does a public health or medical background help?

In response to the outbreak of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), there have been substantial variations in policy response and performance for disease control and prevention within and across nations. It remains unclear to what extent these variations may be explained by bureaucrats' professionalism, as measured by their educational background or work experience in public health or medicine. To investigate the effects of officials' professionalism on their response to and performance in fighting the COVID-19 pandemic, we collect information from the résumés of government and Party officials in 294 Chinese cities, and integrate this information with other data sources, including weather conditions, city characteristics, COVID-19-related policy measures, and health outcomes.

The use of a library of industrial materials to determine the nature of substrate-dependent performance of primary adherent human cells.

We developed a library of industrial materials, which can be applied to any adherent cell type for determining cell-material interactions. Bulk and surface chemistry as well as other material properties were characterized. The library covered broad ranges of various material properties.