Traditional drug screening methods typically focus on a single protein target and exhibit limited efficiency due to the multifactorial nature of most diseases, which result from disturbances within complex networks of protein–protein interactions rather than single gene abnormalities. Addressing this limitation requires a comprehensive drug screening strategy. Network medicine is rooted in systems biology and provides a comprehensive framework for understanding disease mechanisms, prevention, and therapeutic innovations. This approach not only explores the associations between various diseases but also quantifies the relationships between disease genes and drug targets within interactome networks, thus facilitating the prediction of drug–disease relationships and enabling the screening of therapeutic drugs for specific complex diseases. An increasing body of research supports the efficiency and utility of network-based strategies in drug screening. This review highlights the transformative potential of network medicine in virtual therapeutic screening for complex diseases, offering novel insights and a robust foundation for future drug discovery endeavors.

The architecture of real dandelion seeds is diverse. Previous studies have primarily focused on the flow patterns and drag coefficients of dandelion seeds with a pappus angle no greater than 180°, but have paid less attention to the cases of the pappus angle larger than 180°. This work therefore numerically investigated the flow patterns and drag coefficients of dandelion seeds with the pappus angle larger than 180° when the speed of incident flow is 0.2 m/s, using double-layered models consisting of two oppositely oriented filament layers. The simulated results were then compared to those obtained from single-layered models consisting of identical number of but leeward-oriented filaments (the pappus angle lower than 180°). It reveals that, either single-layered or double-layered models, the length (L) and width (W) of separated vortex rings increase, drag coefficients (CD) increase, but the shape index (L/W) and the relative location of separated vortex rings (zu) decrease, as the number of filaments increases. At a given filament number, L, W, and zu in double-layered models are smaller than those in single-layered models, but L/W and CD in double-layered models are larger than those in single-layered models, attributed to the windward-oriented filaments. In double-layered models, thanks to small difference in the drag force but significant difference in the projected area, CD is significantly higher when both windward-oriented and leeward-oriented filaments are installed at identical locations on the central disk's perimeter compared to cases where windward-oriented and leeward-oriented filaments are installed at different locations.

Significant advances have been made in understanding the interaction between airflow and dandelion seed pappus models consisting of a central disk and tens of filaments. Previous theoretical analyses and numerical simulations assumed a radially constant filament diameter. However, experimental measurements revealed that the filament diameter could vary radially. The effect of radial variations in filament diameter on the interaction between airflow and dandelion seeds has not yet been explored. This piece of work, therefore, numerically investigated the flow patterns around five flattened pappus models with linearly radial changes in filament diameter and the aerodynamic forces acting on these models, across particle Reynolds numbers from 38 to 603. The vortex size, pressure coefficient and streamwise speed in the wake zones in the xoz plane (The z-axis coincides with the symmetry axis of the pappus structure.), the pressure coefficient, radial speed and streamwise speed in the xoy plane, the drag coefficient of the entire pappus model, and the aerodynamic force acting on a single filament were quantitatively analyzed and compared across the five models. It reveals that the radial change in filament diameter indeed results in the variations in these physical quantities among the five models. The variations can be significantly influenced by the particle Reynolds number, although these physical quantities exhibit different degrees of sensitivity. Our findings here will enhance the modeling of dandelion seed dispersal by wind and aid in optimizing the design of micro aircraft inspired by the architecture of real dandelion seed pappus structures.

The pappus of dandelion (Taraxacum mongolicum) seeds is structurally diverse and complex. Some seeds possess multi-layered, asymmetrically distributed pappus filaments, yet the aerodynamics of such configurations remain unexplored. Here, we numerically investigated how streamwise asymmetry in filament distribution influences aerodynamic performance at a particle Reynolds number (Rep) of about 200, using simplified models with double-layered filaments in which each layer contains half of the total filaments. We designed four groups of simulation cases: in each group, one filament layer angle was fixed (0° or 30°) and the other was varied from 0° to 40°. Across groups, increasing the adjustable filament layer angle reduces both the model's drag and the size of the separated vortex ring (SVR) in the wake. The maximum relative reduction, defined as (maximum–minimum)/maximum, reaches up to 19% for drag and 31% for the SVR size. The fixed filament-layer angle strongly influences the maximum reduction in the SVR size but only weakly influences the maximum reduction in drag. Moreover, as the filament-layer angle increases from 0° to 30°, the SVR height-to-width ratio shifts from a nonmonotonic to a monotonic dependence on the adjustable layer angle. With the fixed filament-layer set to 30°, the maximum relative reduction in the height-to-width ratio is approximately 16% when windward-oriented, compared with about 3% when leeward-oriented. Increasing the angle of the leeward-oriented fixed filament layer raises the fraction of viscous drag in the total drag on the pappus model. These results improve our understanding of the diversity and evolutionary dynamics of dandelion populations.

A proportion of 0.69% of the Earth’s land surface had been urbanized. Urbanization had led to changes in the physical properties and biological characteristics of the Earth’s surface, which changed the regional and global climate subsequently. The impact of urbanization on temperature, wind speed, and relative humidity in an extreme heat process in Guangdong Province, China, had been investigated in this paper. The CMA‐TRAMS (the Tropical Regional Atmosphere Model System of South China of the China Meteorological Administration) model was used with different land cover data. The results indicated that the change of land cover had relatively more effects on characteristics (temperature, wind speed, and humidity) in daytime, represented by results at 14:00, compared to that at 02:00. The combination of increased temperature, decreased wind speed and humidity as a result of urbanization could increase the heat storage in daytime. Urbanization could cause significant impact on temperature, which in turn affected the wind speed and the relative humidity. The findings provided valuable insights into studying high‐temperature events in the region and offered predictions regarding the future influence of urbanization on climate.