Search

Nipah virus (NiV) is known to be a highly pathogenic zoonotic virus, which is included in the World Health Organization Research & Development Blueprint list of priority diseases with up to 70% mortality rate. Due to its high pathogenicity and outbreak potency, a therapeutic countermeasure against NiV is urgently needed. As NiV needs to be handled within a Biological Safety Level (BSL) 4 facility, we had developed a safe drug screening platform utilizing a baculovirus expression vector system (BEVS) based on a NiV-induced syncytium formation that could be handled within a BSL-1 facility. To reconstruct the NiV-induced syncytium formation in BEVS, two baculoviruses were generated to express recombinant proteins that are responsible for inducing the syncytium formation, including one baculovirus exhibiting co-expressed NiV fusion protein (NiV-F) and NiV attachment glycoprotein (NiV-G) and another exhibiting human EphrinB2 protein. Interestingly, syncytium formation was observed in infected insect cells when the medium was modified to have a lower pH level and supplemented with cholesterol. Fusion inhibitory properties of several compounds, such as phytochemicals and a polysulfonated naphthylamine compound, were evaluated using this platform. Among these compounds, suramin showed the highest fusion inhibitory activity against NiV-induced syncytium in the baculovirus expression system. Moreover, our in silico results provide a molecular-level glimpse of suramin's interaction with NiV-G's central hole and EphrinB2's G-H loop, which could be the possible reason for its fusion inhibitory activity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examines, from a comparative standpoint, the contribution of domestic tourism and international tourism to hotel sales revenue (HSR) and its three key revenue sources: room sales revenue (RSR), food and beverage sales revenue (FBR), and other sales income (OSR), using data from 2003 to 2020. The results indicate that domestic tourism has a greater impact on HSR than international tourism. In addition, we discovered that domestic tourism contributes more to OSR than RSR and FBR, but international tourism contributes more to FBR than OSR and RSR. Notably, panel threshold regression test results indicate that the effects of domestic tourist arrivals (DTA) on hotel sales (HSR, RSR and FBR) show different degrees of sensitivity to economic fluctuations. Domestic tourism's impact on hotel sales (HSR, RSR, FBR and OSR) is less sensitive to economic fluctuations than the impact of international tourism. The RSR's response to tourism is the least sensitive to economic cycles, whereas the FBR is the most sensitive. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It is impossible to overstate the importance of culture and literature in tourism. Most studies have relied on qualitative evidence to the exclusion of precise secondary data to show a direct link between literature and tourism. Using a novel and unique index of Tang poems ranks as a proxy for cultural status and heritage accumulation to quantify the effects of Tang poetry on the expansion of domestic and international tourism, this research adds significantly to the body of knowledge on literary tourism. Based on ordinary least squares and bias-corrected propensity score matching regression analysis, the top 100 Tang poetry rankings are favorably associated with domestic tourist growth but not with international tourism expansion. These findings are crucial for the development of literary tourism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]