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The transmission rate is an important indicator for characterizing a virus and estimating the risk of its outbreak in a certain area, but it is hard to measure. COVID-19, for instance, has greatly affected the world for more than 3 years since early 2020, but scholars have not yet found an effective method to obtain its timely transmission rate due to the fact that the value of COVID-19 transmission rate is not constant but dynamic, always changing over time and places. Therefore, in order to estimate the timely dynamic transmission rate of COVID-19, we performed the following: first, we utilized a rolling time series to construct a time-varying transmission rate model and, based on the model, managed to obtain the dynamic value of COVID-19 transmission rate in mainland China; second, to verify the result, we used the obtained COVID-19 transmission rate as the explanatory variable to conduct empirical research on the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on China's stock markets. Eventually, the result revealed that the COVID-19 transmission rate had a significant negative impact on China's stock markets, which, to some extent, confirms the validity of the used measurement method in this paper. Notably, the model constructed in this paper, combined with local conditions, can not only be used to estimate the COVID-19 transmission rate in mainland China but also in other affected countries or regions and would be applicable to calculate the transmission rate of other pathogens, not limited to COVID-19, which coincidently fills the gaps in the research. Furthermore, the research based on this model might play a part in regulating anti-pandemic governmental policies and could also help investors and stakeholders to make decisions in a pandemic setting. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Significant and composite indices for infectious disease can have implications for developing interventions and public health. This paper presents an investment for developing access to further analysis of the incidence of individual and multiple diseases. This research mainly comprises two steps: first, an automatic and reproducible procedure based on functional data analysis techniques was proposed for analyzing the dynamic properties of each disease; second, orthogonal transformation was adopted for the development of composite indices. Between 2000 and 2019, nineteen class B notifiable diseases in China were collected for this study from the National Bureau of Statistics of China. The study facilitates the probing of underlying information about the dynamics from discrete incidence rates of each disease through the procedure, and it is also possible to obtain similarities and differences about diseases in detail by combining the derivative features. There has been great success in intervening in the majority of notifiable diseases in China, like bacterial or amebic dysentery and epidemic cerebrospinal meningitis, while more efforts are required for some diseases, like AIDS and virus hepatitis. The composite indices were able to reflect a more complex concept by combining individual incidences into a single value, providing a simultaneous reflection for multiple objects, and facilitating disease comparisons accordingly. For the notifiable diseases included in this study, there was superior management of gastro-intestinal infectious diseases and respiratory infectious diseases from the perspective of composite indices. This study developed a methodology for exploring the prevalent properties of infectious diseases. The development of effective and reliable analytical methods provides special insight into infectious diseases' common dynamics and properties and has implications for the effective intervention of infectious diseases. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, the complex network of the urban functions in Shenzhen of China under the lockdown of the corona virus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is studied. The location quotient is used to obtain the dominant urban functions of the districts in Shenzhen before and under the lockdown of COVID-19. By using the conditional probability, the interdependencies between the urban functions are proposed to obtain the complex networks of urban functions and their clusters. The relationships between the urban functions, and the overall and cluster characteristics of the urban functions before and under the lockdown of COVID-19 are analyzed based on the complex networks. The mean degree and mean weighted degree of the primary categories of the urban functions are obtained to discuss the classification characteristics of the urban functions before and under the lockdown of COVID-19. Then, the differences and changes of the urban functions before and under the lockdown of COVID-19 are compared, and the corresponding policy implications under the lockdown of COVID-19 are presented. The results show that under the lockdown of COVID-19, the correlation of the urban functions is stronger than that before the lockdown; the common urban functions are more useful and essential, and finance, fine food and medical treatment are important; public service and government departments have the most positive relationship with other urban functions, and finance service has the highest spatial agglomeration distribution trend; and the cluster characteristics of urban functions are more related to people's livelihood, and the urban functions show incomplete and cannot be operated for long term. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Socio-economic development is undergoing changes in China, such as the recently proposed carbon peak and carbon neutral targets, new infrastructure development strategy and the Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic. Meanwhile, the new-round marketization reform of the electricity industry has been ongoing in China since 2015. Therefore, it is urgent to evaluate the risk of electric power grid investment in China under new socio-economic development situation, which can help the investors manage risk and reduce risk loss. In this paper, a hybrid novel multi-criteria decision making (MCDM) method combining the latest group MCDM method, namely, Bayesian best–worst method (BBWM) and improved matter-element extension model (IMEEM) is proposed for risk evaluation of electric power grid investment in China under new socio-economic development situation. The BBWM is used for the weights' determination of electric power grid investment risk criteria, and the IMEEM is employed to rank risk grade of electric power grid investment. The risk evaluation index system of electric power grid investment is built, including economic, social, environmental, technical and marketable risks. The risk of electric power grid investment under new socio-economic development situation in Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region of China is empirically evaluated by using the proposed MCDM method, and the results indicate that it belongs to "Medium" grade, but closer to "High" grade. The main contributions of this paper include: (1) it proposes a hybrid novel MCDM method combining the BBWM and IMEEM for risk evaluation of electric power grid investment; and (2) it provides a new view for risk evaluation of electric power grid investment including economic, social, environmental, technical and marketable risks. The proposed hybrid novel MCDM method for the risk evaluation of electric power grid investment is effective and practical. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]