Sustainable development in the building sector requires the integration of energy efficiency and renewable energy utilization in buildings. In recent years, the concept of net zero energy buildings (NZEBs) has become a potential plausible solution to improve efficiency and reduce energy consumption in buildings. To achieve an NZEB goal, building systems and design strategies must be integrated and optimized based on local climatic conditions. This paper provides a comprehensive review of NZEBs and their current development in hot and humid regions. Through investigating 34 NZEB cases around the world, this study summarized NZEB key design strategies, technology choices and energy performance. The study found that passive design and technologies such as daylighting and natural ventilation are often adopted for NZEBs in hot and humid climates, together with other energy efficient and renewable energy technologies. Most NZEB cases demonstrated site annual energy consumption intensity less than 100 kW-hours (kWh) per square meter of floor space, and some buildings even achieved "net-positive energy" (that is, they generate more energy locally than they consume). However, the analysis also shows that not all NZEBs are energy efficient buildings, and buildings with ample renewable energy adoption can still achieve NZEB status even with high energy use intensity. This paper provides in-depth casestudy-driven analysis to evaluate NZEB energy performance and summarize best practices for high performance NZEBs. This review provides critical technical information as well as policy recommendations for net zero energy building development in hot and humid climates.

BackgroundThe Lung Immune Prognostic Index (LIPI) combines the lactate dehydrogenase (LDH) level and the derived neutrophil-to-lymphocyte ratio (dNLR). A lot of studies have shown that LDH and dNLR are associated with the prognosis of advanced non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) in patients treated with programmed cell death protein 1 (PD-1) or programmed death-ligand 1 (PD-L1) inhibitors. However, previous results were inconsistent, and the conclusions remain unclear. This meta-analysis aimed to investigate the predictive value of pretreatment LDH and dNLR for NSCLC progression in patients treated with PD-1/PD-L1 inhibitors.MethodsPubMed, Embase, and the Cochrane Library were searched by two researchers independently for related literature before March 2020. Hazard ratios (HRs) with 95% confidence intervals (CIs) for progression-free survival (PFS) and overall survival (OS) were extracted to assess the predictive value of LDH and dNLR. STATA 15. 0 was used to perform the meta-analysis.ResultsA total of 3,429 patients from 26 studies were included in this meta-analysis. The results revealed that high pretreatment LDH was related to poor OS (HR = 1.19, 95%CI = 1.11–1.24, p < 0.001), but not closely related to poor PFS (HR = 1.02, 95%CI = 1.00–1.04, p = 0.023 < 0.05). The pooled results for dNLR suggested that high pretreatment dNLR was related to poor OS (HR = 1.55, 95%CI = 1.33–1.80, p < 0.001) and PFS (HR = 1.33, 95%CI = 1.16–1.54, p < 0.001).ConclusionBoth pretreatment LDH and dNLR have the potential to serve as peripheral blood biomarkers for patients with advanced NSCLC treated with PD-1/PD-L1 inhibitors. However, more studies on LDH are needed to evaluate its predictive value for PFS in patients with NSCLC.

BackgroundInterstitial lung disease (ILD) is the most serious complication of chemotherapy in lung cancer patients with pre-existing ILD. The effect of anti-angiogenic drugs in lung cancer patients with ILD remains unclear. We examined the effect of anti-angiogenic drugs on reducing the risk of ILD progression in non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) patients receiving chemotherapy.MethodsWe analyzed the risk of ILD progression in 52 patients with advanced NSCLC with ILD who received first-line chemotherapy with (anti-angiogenic group, n = 22) and without (non-anti-angiogenic group, n = 30) anti-angiogenic drugs between August 2014 and January 2021.ResultsThe incidences of chemotherapy-related ILD progression were significantly lower in the anti-angiogenic than in the non-anti-angiogenic groups (0% vs. 20.0%, p = 0.033). However, there were no differences in other events as the competing risk factors of ILD progression between the two groups. The overall-cumulative incidence of ILD progression during the first-line and subsequent chemotherapy was 30.8% (16 of the 52). The median progression-free survival had no significant difference between the anti-angiogenic and the non-anti-angiogenic groups (10.3 vs. 8.1 months, p = 0.386).ConclusionsThe addition of anti-angiogenic drugs to chemotherapy regimens may reduce the risk of chemotherapy-related ILD progression in patients with NSCLC-ILD.