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This study seeks to explain the wide acceptance of the stringent zero-COVID policy in two Chinese societies--Mainland China (n = 2,184) and Taiwan (n = 1,128)--from perspectives of cultural values and trust. By employing the efficacy mechanism, this study identifies significant indirect effects of trust in government and key opinion leaders (KOL) on people's policy acceptance in both societies. Namely, people who interpret the pandemic as a collectivist issue and who trust in government will be more accepting of the zero-COVID policy, whereas those who framed the pandemic as an individual issue tend to refuse the policy. Trust in government and KOLs foster these direct relationships, but trust in government functions as a more important mediator in both societies. The different contexts of the two Chinese societies make the difference when shaping these relationships. These findings provide practical considerations for governmental agencies and public institutions that promote the acceptance of the zero-COVID policy during the pandemic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To date, little is known about the past evolutionary trajectories of rare and endangered orchids native to mainland China, Japan, and Korea (the CJK region). In this study, we focus on two endangered orchids, Cypripedium japonicum (present in the three countries) and C. formosanum (endemic to Taiwan), to understand the divergence/speciation models that would have been operating in this group, including genetic diversity, geographic structure, and colonization pathways across the region. Using a combination of five cpDNA regions, we reconstructed phylogenetic trees and investigated the genetic diversity/structure of 20 populations. Ecological niche modeling was used to gain insight into the paleodistribution and dispersal corridors at the Last Glacial Maximum and to survey climatic niche differences. Populations from mainland China + Korea, Japan, and Taiwan formed three distinct monophyletic lineages and were placed into separate genetic clusters, agreeing with geographic barriers and species boundaries. Populations of C. japonicum in mainland China harbored the highest diversity, suggesting the presence of multiple glacial refugia. The Korean populations would have originated from either western/central or eastern China, probably using a dispersal corridor across the East China Sea shelf. The divergence of C. formosanum is proposed under an allopatric speciation model, also highly influenced by a climate niche shift. In the context of previous studies, a deep divergence in cpDNA sequences between Chinese + Korean and Japanese populations of C. japonicum may be taken as an example of the speciation events of the CJK flora since the late Neogene that have led to its current species richness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

ABSTRACT A heavy rainfall event during the Taiwan Area Mesoscale Experiment intensive observing period 13 has been studied using upper-air, surface mesonet, and dual-Doppler radar data. The heavy rainfall ($231 mm day 21 ) occurred over northwestern Taiwan with the maximum rainfall along the northwestern coast and was caused by a long-lived, convective rainband in the prefrontal atmosphere. It occurred in an upper-level divergence region and along the axis of the maximum equivalent potential temperature at the 850-hPa level. As a Mei-Yu front advanced southeastward, the postfrontal cold air in the lowest levels was retarded by the hilly terrain along the southeastern China coast. As a result, a low-level wind-shift line associated with a pressure trough at the 850-hPa level moved over the Taiwan Strait before the arrival of the surface front. The westerly flow behind the trough interacted with a barrier jet along the northwestern coast of Taiwan. The barrier jet is caused by the interaction between the prefrontal southwest monsoon flow and the island obstacle. A low-level convergence zone (;3 km deep) was observed along the wind-shift line between the westerly flow coming off the southeastern China coast and the barrier jet. A long-lived rainband developed within the low-level convergence zone and moved southeastward toward the northwestern Taiwan coast with the wind-shift line. There were several long-lived (.2 h) reflectivity maxima embedded in the rainband. They often had several individual cells with a much shorter lifetime. The reflectivity maxima formed on the southwestern tip of the rainband and along the low-level wind-shift line. They intensified during their movement from the southwest to the northeast along the rainband. The continuous generation of the reflectivity maxima along the wind-shift line and the intensification of them over the low-level convergence zone maintained the long lifetime of the rainband and produced persistent... [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]