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Background: The partograph has been endorsed by World Health Organization (WHO) since 1994 which presents an algorithm for assessing maternal and foetal conditions and labor progression. Monitoring labour with a partograph can reduce adverse pregnancy outcomes such as prolonged labor, emergency C-sections, birth asphyxia and stillbirths. However, partograph use is still very low, particularly in low and middle income countries (LMICs). In Bangladesh the reported partograph user rate varies from 1.4% to 33.0%. Recently, an electronic version of the partograph, with the provision of online data entry and user aid for emergency clinical support, has been tested successfully in different settings. With this proven evidence, we conducted and operations research to test the feasibility and effectiveness of implementing an e-partograph, for the first time, in 2 public hospitals in Bangladesh Methods: We followed a prospective crossover design. Two secondary level referral hospitals, Jessore and Kushtia District Hospital (DH) were the study sites. All pregnant women who delivered in the study hospitals were the study participants. All nurse-midwives working in the labor ward of study hospitals were trained on appropriate use of both types of partograph along with standard labour management guidelines. Collected quantitative data was analyzed using SPSS 23 statistical software. Discrete variables were expressed as percentages and presented as frequency distribution and cross tabulations. Chi square tests were employed to test the association between exposure and outcome variables. Potential confounding factors were adjusted using multivariate binary logistic regression methods. Ethical approval was obtained from the institutional review board of the International Centre for Diarrheal Disease Research, Bangladesh (icddr,b). Findings: In total 2918 deliveries were conducted at Jessore DH and 2312 at Kushtia DH during one-year study period. Of them, 1012 (506 in each facility) deliveries were monitored using partograph (paper or electronic). The trends of facility based C-section rates was downwards in both the hospitals; 43% to 37% in Jessore and from 36% to 25% in Kushtia Hospital. There was a significant reduction of prolonged labour with e-partograph use. In Kushtia DH, the prolonged labour rate was 42% during phase 1 with the paper version which came down to 29% during phase-2 with the e-partograph use. The similar result was observed in Jessore DH where the prolonged labour rate reduced to 7% with paper partograph from the reported 30% prolonged labour with e-partograph. The e-partograph user rate was higher than the paper partograph during both phases (phase 1: 3.31, CI: 2.04–5.38, p < .001 and in phase 2: 15.20 CI: 6.36–36.33, p < .001) after adjusting for maternal age, parity, gestational age, religion, mother’s education, husband’s education, and fetal sex Conclusion: The partograph user rate has significantly improved with the e- partograph and was associated with an overall reduction in cesarean births. Use of the e-partograph was also associated with reduced rates of prolonged labour. This study has added to the growing body of evidence on the positive impact of e-partograph use. We recommend implementing e-partograph intervention at scale in both public and private hospitals in Bangladesh. Trial registration: ClinicalTrials.gov . [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Paper mulberry (Broussonetia papyrifera (L.) L'Hér. ex Vent) is a dioecious tree native to East Asia and mainland Southeast-Asia, introduced prehistorically to Polynesia as a source of bark fiber by Austronesian-speaking voyagers. In Oceania, trees are coppiced and harvested for production of bark-cloth, so flowering is generally unknown. A survey of botanical records of paper mulberry revealed a distributional disjunction: the tree is apparently absent in Borneo and the Philippines. A subsequent study of chloroplast haplotypes linked paper mulberry of Remote Oceania directly to a population in southern Taiwan, distinct from known populations in mainland Southeast-Asia. Methodology: We describe the optimization and use of a DNA marker designed to identify sex in paper mulberry. We used this marker to determine the sex distribution in selected localities across Asia, Near and Remote Oceania. We also characterized all samples using the ribosomal internal transcribed spacer sequence (ITS) in order to relate results to a previous survey of ITS diversity. Results: In Near and Remote Oceania, contemporary paper mulberry plants are all female with the exception of Hawaii, where plants of both sexes are found. In its natural range in Asia, male and female plants are found, as expected. Male plants in Hawaii display an East Asian ITS genotype, consistent with modern introduction, while females in Remote Oceania share a distinctive variant. Conclusions: Most paper mulberry plants now present in the Pacific appear to be descended from female clones introduced prehistorically. In Hawaii, the presence of male and female plants is thought to reflect a dual origin, one a prehistoric female introduction and the other a modern male introduction by Japanese/Chinese immigrants. If only female clones were dispersed from a source-region in Taiwan, this may explain the absence of botanical records and breeding populations in the Philippines and Borneo, and Remote Oceania. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Paper mulberry, Broussonetia papyrifera (L.) L’Hér. ex Vent. (Moraceae), a dioecious species, was transported by humans from Taiwan to the islands of Remote Oceania. Its introduction and cultivation in Remote Oceania was intentional due to its cultural importance as a fiber source for barkcloth textiles. The aim of this study was to explore the genetic diversity and structure of paper mulberry populations within Remote Oceania in order to infer dispersal patterns that may reflect past human interaction among island groups. We present the integrated analysis of 380 samples (313 contemporary and 67 herbarium specimens) collected in Near and Remote Oceania. Genetic characterization was based on a set of ten microsatellites developed for B. papyrifera and complemented with the analysis of the ribosomal internal transcribed spacer ITS-1 sequence, a sex marker and the chloroplast ndhF–rpl32 intergenic spacer. Microsatellite data identify a total of 64 genotypes, despite this being a clonally propagated crop, and show three major dispersal hubs within Remote Oceania, centered on the islands of Fiji, Tonga, and Pitcairn. Of 64 genotypes identified, 55 correspond to genotypes associated to female-sexed plants that probably descend from plants introduced by the prehistoric Austronesian-speaking voyagers. The ratio of accessions to genotypes between herbarium and contemporary samples, suggests recent loss of genetic diversity. In addition to the chloroplast haplotypes described previously, we detected two new haplotypes within Remote Oceania both originating in Taiwan. This is the first study of a commensal species to show genetic structuring within Remote Oceania. In spite of the genetic bottleneck, the presence of only one sex, a timespan of less than 5000 years, and asexual propagation of this crop in Remote Oceania, we detect genetic diversity and regional structuring. These observations suggest specific migration routes between island groups within Remote Oceania. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

University scientific research ability is an important indicator to express the strength of universities. In this paper, the evaluation of university scientific research ability is investigated based on the output of sci-tech papers. Four university alliances from North America, UK, Australia, and China, are selected as the case study of the university scientific research evaluation. Data coming from Thomson Reuters InCites are collected to support the evaluation. The work has contributed new framework to the issue of university scientific research ability evaluation. At first, we have established a hierarchical structure to show the factors that impact the evaluation of university scientific research ability. Then, a new MCDM method called D-AHP model is used to implement the evaluation and ranking of different university alliances, in which a data-driven approach is proposed to automatically generate the D numbers preference relations. Next, a sensitivity analysis has been given to show the impact of weights of factors and sub-factors on the evaluation result. At last, the results obtained by using different methods are compared and discussed to verify the effectiveness and reasonability of this study, and some suggestions are given to promote China’s scientific research ability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Open access publication rates have been steadily increasing over time. In spite of this growth, academics in low income settings struggle to gain access to the full canon of research literature. While the vast majority of open access repositories and funding organizations with open access policies are based in high income countries, the geographic patterns of open access publication itself are not well characterized. In this study, we developed a computational approach to better understand the topical and geographical landscape of open access publications in the biomedical research literature. Surprisingly, we found a strong negative correlation between country per capita income and the percentage of open access publication. Open access publication rates were particularly high in sub-Saharan Africa, but vastly lower in the Middle East and North Africa, South Asia, and East Asia and the Pacific. These effects persisted when considering papers only bearing authors from within each region and income group. However, papers resulting from international collaborations did have a higher percentage of OA than single-country papers, and inter-regional collaboration increased OA publication for all world regions. There was no clear relationship between the number of open access policies in a region and the percentage of open access publications in that region. To understand the distribution of open access across topics of biomedical research, we examined keywords that were most enriched and depleted in open access papers. Keywords related to genomics, computational biology, animal models, and infectious disease were enriched in open access publications, while keywords related to the environment, nursing, and surgery were depleted in open access publications. This work identifies geographic regions and fields of research that could be priority areas for open access advocacy. The finding that open access publication rates are highest in sub-Saharan Africa and low income countries suggests that factors other than open access policy strongly influence authors’ decisions to make their work openly accessible. The high proportion of OA resulting from international collaborations indicates yet another benefit of collaborative research. Certain applied fields of medical research, notably nursing, surgery, and environmental fields, appear to have a greater proportion of fee-for-access publications, which presumably creates barriers that prevent researchers and practitioners in low income settings from accessing the literature in those fields. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recently, computational Grids have proven to be a good solution for processing large-scale, computation intensive problems. However, the heterogeneity, dynamics of resources and diversity of applications requirements have always been important factors affecting their performance. In response to these challenges, this work first builds a Grid job scheduling architecture that can dynamically monitor Grid computing center resources and make corresponding scheduling decisions. Second, a Grid job model is proposed to describe the application requirements. Third, this paper studies the characteristics of commercial interconnection networks used in Grids and forecast job transmission time. Fourth, this paper proposes an application-aware job scheduling mechanism (AJSM) that includes periodic scheduling flow and a heuristic application-aware deadline constraint job scheduling algorithm. The rigorous performance evaluation results clearly demonstrate that the proposed application-aware job scheduling mechanism can successful schedule more Grid jobs than the existing algorithms. For successful scheduled jobs, our proposed AJSM method is the best algorithm for job average processing time and makespan. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

National contributions to science are influenced by a number of factors, including economic capacity, national scientific priorities, science policy, and institutional settings and cultures. Nations do not have equal opportunities to access the global scientific market, and therefore, often seek out international partners with complementary resources and expertise. This study aims at investigating national collaboration strategies, with a focus on research leadership—measured through corresponding authorship—and its relationship with scientific impact. Results show that countries with higher R&D investments are more scientifically independent, and confirm that international collaboration is positively related to citation impact. However, leadership in international collaboration is inversely related with a countries’ share of international collaboration and there is a very little relationship between citation impact and international leadership. For instance, most countries—and particularly those that have fewer resources—have higher scientific impact when they are not leading. This suggests that, despite increasing global participation in science, most international collaborations are asymmetrical, and that the research system remains structured around a few dominate nations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper aims to demonstrate the impact of coal enterprises’ vertical integration on the performance of innovation corporate social responsibility (ICSR) and to elaborate its specific transmission path through financing structure and market power. This paper takes the data of A-share listed coal company from 2008 to 2017 as samples, uses input-output table method to measure the degree of vertical integration, and explores the relationship between the four factors through multiple linear regression and Bootstrap method. We found that: (1) the vertical integration of coal enterprises has positive incentives for the promotion of ICSR. (2) Financing structure and market power play a chain intermediary role in this process of incentive. (3) In areas with high marketization process, vertical integration has more significant incentive effect on ICSR. The paper extends the research on the relationship between vertical integration and innovation, which provides a reference for the improvement of China’s supply-side reform and corporate social responsibility (CSR) fulfillment policy. It is helpful to promote the sustainable development of the coal industry, stimulate the innovation vitality of enterprises, and improve the fulfillment of CSR. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) universities are important bases for science and technology research and play a critical role in China’s National Innovation System. Based on the Web of Science (WoS), this article analyzes the statistics of paper published by MIIT universities and universities from across China including MIIT universities. The results are as follows: (1) Both the MIIT universities and universities nationwide in China have increased their international academic publications, and MIIT have shown a greater increase for the past decade. (2) In terms of U-I-G interaction, for UG relations, the Tug value of MIIT universities has remained stable, while that of universities in China has become declined. For UI relations, the Tui value of both MIIT universities and universities in China has shown steady growth. For UIG relations, MIIT universities have a greater synergistic effect of Triple Helix relationship than universities in China. (3) For more details in seven MIIT universities, universities elected into “Project 985”, including HIT, BUAA, BIT and NPU, have published more papers, and been more synergistic with government and industry (UIG relations) than other three universities, including NUAA, NUST and HEU. Based on the empirical results, we discuss our findings, and make certain suggestions regarding policy incentives, reasonable administrative system and U-I-G interaction mode, which is significant not only for Chinese universities but also for universities in other developing countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study asks the question on which national “shoulders” the world’s top-level research stands. Traditionally, the number of citations to national papers has been the evaluative measures of national scientific standings. We raise a different question: instead of analyzing the citations to a countries’ articles (the forward view), we examine references to prior publications from specific countries cited in the most elite publications (the backward—citing—view). “Elite publications” are operationalized as the top-1% most-highly cited articles. Using the articles published from 2004 to 2013, we examine the research referenced in these works. Our results confirm the well-known fact that China has emerged to become a major player in science. However, China still belongs to the low contributors when countries are ranked as contributors to the cited references in top-1% articles. Using this perspective, the results do not support a decreasing trend for the USA; in fact, the USA exceeds expectations (compared to its publication share) in terms of references in the top-1% articles. Switzerland, Sweden, and the Netherlands also appear at the top of the list. However, the results for Germany are lower than statistically expected. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we aim to establish a mathematical model to design a maximizing social welfare intervention mechanism of healthcare service goods in China. The intervention mechanism is helpful to facilitate the adoption of the healthcare service goods. We consider a research problem that regulates the supply chain system for healthcare service goods by an intervention mechanism, and two intervention strategies composed of demand-growth strategy and subsidy strategy are used to the combination of intervention mechanism. Then this paper presents a new method based on fuzzy set and bilevel programming to design the intervention mechanism. To demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed model, we conduct a case study for Wudang personalized health package and verify our model by the specific result analysis, the result indicates that our joint intervention mechanism is helpful to achieve the target and increase social welfare. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the era of big science, countries allocate big research and development budgets to large scientific facilities that boost collaboration and research capability. A nuclear fusion device called the “tokamak” is a source of great interest for many countries because it ideally generates sustainable energy expected to solve the energy crisis in the future. Here, to explore the scientific effects of tokamaks, we map a country’s research capability in nuclear fusion research with normalized revealed comparative advantage on five topical clusters—material, plasma, device, diagnostics, and simulation—detected through a dynamic topic model. Our approach captures not only the growth of China, India, and the Republic of Korea but also the decline of Canada, Japan, Sweden, and the Netherlands. Time points of their rise and fall are related to tokamak operation, highlighting the importance of large facilities in big science. The gravity model points out that two countries collaborate less in device, diagnostics, and plasma research if they have comparative advantages in different topics. This relation is a unique feature of nuclear fusion compared to other science fields. Our results can be used and extended when building national policies for big science. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: In most low- and middle-income settings, national aggregate health data is the most consistently available source for policy-making and international comparisons. In the West Bank, the paper-based health information system with manual aggregations is transitioning to an individual-level data eRegistry for maternal and child health at the point-of-care. The aim of this study was to explore beforehand how routine health information systems indicators for antenatal care can change with the introduction of the eRegistry. Methods: Data were collected from clinical antenatal paper records of pregnancy enrollments for 2015 from 17 primary healthcare clinics, selected by probability sampling from five districts in the West Bank. We used the individual-level data from clinical records to generate routinely reported health systems indicators. We weighted the data to produce population-level estimates, and compared these indicators with aggregate routine health information systems reports. Results: Antenatal anemia screening at 36 weeks was 20% according to the clinical records data, compared to 52% in the routine reports. The clinical records data showed considerably higher incidences of key maternal conditions compared to the routine reports, including fundal height discrepancy (20% vs. 0.01%); Rh-negative blood group (6.8% vs. 1.4%); anemia with hemoglobin<9.5 g/dl (6% vs. 0.6%); and malpresentation at term (1.3% vs. 0.03%). Only about a sixth of cases with these conditions were referred according to guidelines to designated referral clinics. Conclusions: Differences between indicators from the clinical records data and routine health information systems reports can be attributed to human error, inconsistent denominators, and complexities of data processes. Key health systems indicators were prone to underestimations since their registration was dependent on referral of pregnant women. With a transition to individual-level data, as in the eRegistry under implementation, the public health authorities will be able to generate reliable health systems indicators reflective of the population’s health status. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper introduces an optimal sizing algorithm for a hybrid renewable energy system using smart grid load management application based on the available generation. This algorithm aims to maximize the system energy production and meet the load demand with minimum cost and highest reliability. This system is formed by photovoltaic array, wind turbines, storage batteries, and diesel generator as a backup source of energy. Demand profile shaping as one of the smart grid applications is introduced in this paper using load shifting-based load priority. Particle swarm optimization is used in this algorithm to determine the optimum size of the system components. The results obtained from this algorithm are compared with those from the iterative optimization technique to assess the adequacy of the proposed algorithm. The study in this paper is performed in some of the remote areas in Saudi Arabia and can be expanded to any similar regions around the world. Numerous valuable results are extracted from this study that could help researchers and decision makers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Setting: Research capacity is weakest in low and middle-income countries (LMICs) where operational research is highly relevant and needed. Structured Operational Research and Training Initiative (SORT IT) courses have been developed to train participants to conduct and publish operational research and influence policy and practice. Twenty courses were completed in Asia, Africa, Europe and the South Pacific between 2009 and 2014. Objectives: In the 20 completed SORT IT courses, to assess where the research was conducted, who was trained, who became facilitators in subsequent courses and course outcomes. Design: A cohort study of completed SORT IT courses Results: There were 236 participants (41% female) including 64 nationalities who conducted research in 59 countries, mostly from Asia and Africa (mean course duration = 9.7 months). Most participants (68%) were from government health programs and non-governmental agencies. A total of 213(90%) participants completed all milestones successfully with 41(19%) becoming subsequent course facilitators, 88% of whom were from LMICs. Of 228 manuscripts submitted to scientific journals, 197(86%) were either published or in press; in 86%, the principal investigator (first author) was a LMIC national. Papers were published in 23 scientific journals (impact factor 0.5–4.4) and covered 21 disease categories (median publication time = 5.7 months). Published papers (186) had 94,794 cumulative article views/downloads. Article views/downloads for immediate open access articles were double those from closed access journals. Conclusion: The SORT IT model has been effective in training personnel to produce relevant operational research in LMICs. It merits continued commitment and support for further scale-up and development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The loss of talented women from senior academic positions has partly resulted from a lower number of published papers and the accompanying reduced visibility of female compared to male scientists. The reasons for these gender-differences in authorship is unclear. One potential reason is a bias in the editorial and review process of scientific journals. We investigated whether patterns of authorship and editorial outcome were biased according to gender and geographic location in the Journal of Evolutionary Biology. Such potential bias may contribute to inequality in the field. We found patterns of gender differences in authorship, but this was unrelated to the editorial decision of whether to publish the manuscript. Female first-authors (the lead role) were six times less likely to be named as the corresponding author than male first-authors, and female first-authors were more likely to be displaced as corresponding authors by female co-authors than were male first-authors. We found an under-representation of female first- and last-authors compared to baseline populations of members of the European Society for Evolutionary Biology (which publishes the Journal of Evolutionary Biology) and of Evolutionary Biology faculty at the world top-10 universities for the Life Sciences. Also, manuscripts from Asia were five times more likely to be rejected on the final decision, independent of gender. Overall our results suggest that the peer review processes we investigated at the Journal of Evolutionary Biology are predominately gender-neutral, but not neutral to geographic location. Editorial gender-bias is thus unlikely to be a contributing factor to differences in authorship in this journal. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper we introduce a novel algorithm, called Exogenous Fitness, to calculate the Fitness of subnational entities and we apply it to the states of Brazil. In the last decade, several indices were introduced to measure the competitiveness of countries by looking at the complexity of their export basket. Tacchella et al (2012) developed a non-monetary metric called Fitness. In this paper, after an overview about Brazil as a whole and the comparison with the other BRIC countries, we introduce a new methodology based on the Fitness algorithm, called Exogenous Fitness. Combining the results with the Gross Domestic Product per capita (GDPp), we look at the dynamics of the Brazilian states in the Fitness-Income plane. Two regimes are distinguishable: one with high predictability and the other with low predictability, showing a deep analogy with the heterogeneous dynamics of the World countries. Furthermore, we compare the ranking of the Brazilian states according to the Exogenous Fitness with the ranking obtained through two other techniques, namely Endogenous Fitness and Economic Complexity Index. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The input-output table is very comprehensive and detailed in describing the national economic systems with abundant economic relationships, which contain supply and demand information among various industrial sectors. The complex network, a theory, and method for measuring the structure of a complex system can depict the structural characteristics of the internal structure of the researched object by measuring the structural indicators of the social and economic systems, revealing the complex relationships between the inner hierarchies and the external economic functions. In this paper, functions of industrial sectors on the global value chain are to be distinguished with bipartite graph theory, and inter-sector competitive relationships are to be extracted through resource allocation process. Furthermore, quantitative analysis indices will be proposed under the perspective of a complex network, which will be used to bring about simulations on the variation tendencies of economies’ status in different situations of commercial intercourses. Finally, a new econophysics analytical framework of international trade is to be established. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There is few significant attempt to integrate environmental regulation, government financial support, and corporate technological innovation in a methodological framework. Employing the data of the industrial enterprises with an annual turnover of over 20 million yuan from 30 Chinese provinces or municipalities between 2008 and 2016, this paper applies the fixed effect regression model to reveal the relationships between environmental regulation, government financial support, and corporate technological innovation simultaneously. Results show that: (1) there exists a U-shaped relation between environmental regulation intensity and technological innovation of enterprises which declines first and then climbs up, and China is still at the stage of inhibition before the “inflection point”. (2) government financial support does not significantly work on technological innovation directly, but environmental regulation drives this effect to be achieved; when the value of lnER is higher than 3.69, government financial support can significantly facilitate corporate technological innovation. (3) the comparison between regional samples reveals that heterogeneity exists in the influence of environmental regulation intensity and government financial support on corporate technological innovation. The threshold value of enabling effects of environmental regulation in eastern region is higher than that of the central and western region. These results remain consistent after we experiment several robustness checks. Theory and policy implications of our work are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Resource allocation decisions for disease categories can be informed by proper estimates of the magnitude and distribution of total spending. In the backdrop of a high burden of Non-Communicable Diseases and Injuries (NCDI) in India, and a paucity of estimates on government spending on NCDI, this paper attempts to analyse public sector expenditure on NCDI spending in India. Methods: Various recent budget documents of the Centre and States/Union Territories have been used to extract expenditure on NCDI. The aggregates thus arrived at have been analysed to estimate aggregate and state level per capita spending. State level spending have been compared against disease burden using DALYs. Patterns of spending on NCDI across states were also analysed together with state level poverty to observe possible patterns. Findings: The total spending on NCDI by the government is low at less than 0.5% of GDP. NCDI spending is little more than one-fourth of total health spending of the country and most spending takes place at the state level (80%). The Ministry of Health and Family Welfare’s share in Central spending on NCDI is around 65%, and currently it spends 20% of its total health spending on NCDI. The gap between spending and DALYs is the most for the economically vulnerable states. Also, the states with high poverty levels also have low per capita expenditure on NCDI Interpretation: India does not depend on donor funding for health. It will have to step up domestic funding to address the increasing disease burden of NCDIs and to reduce the high out-of-pocket expenditure on NCDI. Policies on NCDI need to focus on UHC, service integration and personnel gaps. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Quantitative analysis of the contribution rate of China’s hydraulic science and technology and analysis of the underlying reasons behind changes provide an important foundation upon which the government can formulate water policies. This paper abandons the assumption of a scale economy and separates the changes of benefits brought about by the scale from scientific and technological progress, thus changing the C-D production function from linear to nonlinear. Based on a feedforward neural network, it calculates the coefficient of the output elasticity, the economic contribution rate of China’s hydraulic science and technology and the scale economies for each year using relevant data from 1981 to 2016. The results show that (1) the average contribution rate of capital investment from 1981 to 2016 was 47.3%, and the average contribution rate of labor from 1981 to 2016 was 9.1%. It is not obvious that the significant increase in the labor force has contributed to the growth of China’s water conservancy industry. (2) The average contribution rate of scale economies in 1981–2016 was 26.7%, and the contribution rate of scale economies is negatively correlated with the capital contribution rate. (3) The average contribution rate of China’s hydraulic science and technology was 43.6% from 1981 to 2016, and the average contribution rate of the total factor productivity after removing scale economies from 1981 to 2016 was 16.9%. During the period of the 6th Five-Year Plan(1981~1985), the contribution rate of water conservancy science and technology was relatively high. Since that time, it has remained at 40%. In recent years, as water conservancy reforms in key areas have made positive progress, scientific and technological progress has increased the growth of water conservancy benefits annually. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As of November 1, 2018, China's "One Belt and One Road" Initiative has involved 123 countries and promoted worldwide communication, cooperation and trade exchange. This paper constructs correlation networks of exchange rates among the countries along “The Belt and Road” and analyzes the risk contagion structure. It is found that when “The Belt and Road” initiative is initialized, countries in Eastern Europe occupy important positions in the network and play a vital role in the spreading of exchange rate risks; however, during the process of “The Belt and Road” initiative, the exchange rate risks are decentralized geographically, whereas they are centralized in countries that have in-depth communication and cooperation. The minimum Spanning Tree method is also proposed to investigate the structure of complex networks. It is found that the geographical link between exchange rate fluctuations and correlations among the countries has been strengthened while China has become an important node in the exchange rate network after the launch of “The Belt and Road” initiative. In addition, the influence and promotion of RMB has rapidly benefited from the initiative. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: This paper reflected on the prevalence of hypertension and diabetes in Bangladesh, which is spreading rapidly in low-income countries. The rationale of constructing more health centers for addressing NCDs was assessed in this paper by determining the relationship between prevalence of NCDs, particularly hypertension and diabetes, and distance to health facilities. Methods: From BDHS (Bangladesh Health and Demographic Survey) 2011 data set, 7544 samples were analyzed to demonstrate association between Non-communicable diseases (NCD) and distance from respondents’ home to health facilities like hospitals, community clinics, pharmacies or doctors’ chambers, and community facilities like market, post office or cinema hall. Bivariate analysis was conducted between accessibility to health facilities and prevalence of the diseases. The causal relationship between the spatial effects and the prevalence of the diseases were analyzed by applying Generalized Linear Mixed Model (GLMM) was fitted. Results: Fitting linear mixed effect models, we found that hypertension and diabetes react differently with various spatial effects. Distance from home to hospital had significant effect (P < 0.001) on hypertension showing people living further from the facilities or town centers seemed to be less hypertensive, whereas diabetes showed no such affiliation. Conclusion: Higher prevalence of diabetes (40.9%) over hypertension (26.5%) in people aging 35 or higher, have appeared to have caused the difference, which concluded that each non-communicable disease should be dealt to its own merit for policy making instead considering as a group of diseases. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduction: In connection to food insecurity, adaptation of new techniques or alteration of regular behavior is executed that translates to coping strategies. This paper has used data from food security and nutrition surveillance project (FSNSP), which collects information from a nationally representative sample in Bangladesh on coping behaviors associated with household food insecurity. To complement the current understanding of different coping strategies implemented by the Bangladeshi households, the objective of this paper has been set to examine the demographic and socio-economic characteristics of the food insecure households which define their propensity towards adaptation of different types of coping strategies. Methodology: FSNSP follows a repeated cross-sectional survey design. Information of 23,374 food insecure households available from February 2011 to November 2013 was selected for the analyses. Coping strategies were categorized as financial, food compromised and both. Multinomial logistic regression was employed to draw inference. Results: Majority of the households were significantly more inclined to adopt both multiple financial and food compromisation coping strategies. Post-aman season, educational status of the household head and household women, occupation of the household’s main earner, household income, food insecurity status, asset, size and possession of agricultural land were found to be independently and significantly associated with adaptation of both financial and food compromisation coping strategies relative to only financial coping strategies. The relative risk ratio of adopting food compromisation coping relative to financial coping strategies when compared to mildly food insecure households, was 4.54 times higher for households with moderate food insecurity but 0.3 times lower when the households were severely food insecure. Whereas, households were 8.04 times and 4.98 times more likely to adopt both food compromisation and financial relative to only financial coping strategies if moderately and severely food insecure respectively when compared to being mildly food insecure. Conclusion: Households suffering from moderate and severe food insecurity, are more likely to adopt both financial and food compromisation coping strategies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

ICD-10(International Classification of Diseases 10th revision) is a classification of a disease, symptom, procedure, or injury. Diseases are often described in patients’ medical records with free texts, such as terms, phrases and paraphrases, which differ significantly from those used in ICD-10 classification. This paper presents an improved approach based on the Longest Common Subsequence (LCS) and semantic similarity for automatic Chinese diagnoses, mapping from the disease names given by clinician to the disease names in ICD-10. LCS refers to the longest string that is a subsequence of every member of a given set of strings. The proposed method of improved LCS in this paper can increase the accuracy of processing in Chinese disease mapping. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objectives: This paper presents a geographic information system (GIS)-based proximal area method and gravity method for identifying areas with physician shortages. The innovation of this paper is that it uses the appropriate methods to discover each type of health resource and then integrates all these methods to assess spatial access to health resources using population distribution data. In this way, spatial access to health resources for an entire city can be visualized in one neat package, which can help health policy makers quickly comprehend realistic distributions of health resources at a macro level. Methods: First, classify health resources according to the trade areas of the patients they serve. Second, apply an appropriate method to each different type of health resource to measure spatial access to those resources. Third, integrate all types of access using population distribution data. Results: In case study of Shanghai with the fusion method, areas with physician shortages are located primarily in suburban districts, especially in district junction areas. The result suggests that the government of Shanghai should pay more attention to these areas by investing in new or relocating existing health resources. Conclusion: The fusion method is demonstrated to be more accurate and practicable than using a single method to assess spatial access to health resources. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

China is facing severe pressure on its water resources and water environments. Calculating the industrial water efficiency of each province is an important index for the central government to evaluate local governments. In the traditional water resources evaluation index, the industrial water use efficiency and pollutant discharge are evaluated separately. In this paper, we collected industrial input data, output data and pollutant discharge data with a four-stage data envelopment analysis to calculate China's industrial water use efficiency with and without considering pollutant discharge, and then analyzed the factors influencing the industrial water use efficiency. The results show that the eastern coastal provinces of China have the highest water use efficiency and are less affected by pollutant discharge than other provinces. The industrial water use efficiency of the central and western provinces is lower than that of the other provinces, and the industrial water use efficiency in the central provinces is greatly affected by pollutant discharge. Factor endowment, economic development level, scientific and technological progress, industrial structure, proportion of foreign investment, water consumption per 10000 yuan of value-added by industry, industrial sewage treatment capacity and educational investment have a significant influence on the industrial water use efficiency of China. We suggest that the government strengthen the construction of sewage plants and other related infrastructure in central provinces when conducting the industrial transfer of heavy polluting enterprises. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the relationship between body composition and earnings in a developing country setting. We use body mass index, waist circumference and hip circumference. Exploiting the panel structure of our longitudinal survey, we find that along with BMI, waist circumference is related to higher earnings in Indonesia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objectives: Little is known about the gender and age differences associated with the effects of economic fluctuations on hospitalization for cardiovascular diseases. This paper investigates the impact of economic fluctuations on hospitalization for ischemic heart disease (IHD), stroke, and hypertension by age and gender between January 1996 and December 2012 in Taiwan. Methods: We adopted a multiple-input time series analysis to examine the strength of the immediate and latent effects of the 17-year quarterly unemployment rates (UR), air pollution exposure (APE), gross domestic product (GDP), per capita consumption expenditure in cigarette and alcohol (ECA), and per capita healthcare expenditure (HE) on the adjusted quarterly incidence rate of hospitalization. The data used in this paper were retrieved from the National Health Insurance Research Database and the website of the Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics (DGBAS), Executive Yuan. Results: Our findings indicate that higher UR increased IHD hospitalization in young men and women and middle-aged women but reduced stroke hospitalization in young men. Higher APE increased IHD hospitalization in young men but reduced it for young women, increased stroke hospitalization in old men and middle-aged women but reduced it for young men, and increased hypertension hospitalization in middle-aged men and young women. Higher ECA reduced IHD hospitalization in middle-aged men, increased stoke hospitalization in middle-aged and old men and middle-aged women. Higher HE reduced IHD hospitalization in old men, young and old women, reduced stroke hospitalization in old women, and reduced hypertension hospitalization in young and middle-aged women. Conclusions: Overall, we found that the economic fluctuations caused increased harmful effects in certain population subgroups but also brought some soothing effects to some groups. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent years, with the rapid development of China's air transport industry and the change in market consumption structure, service quality has become one of the important factors affecting airline revenue. How to formulate a reasonable pricing strategy and maintain competitiveness in the fierce market competition has become an urgent problem for airlines. First, the impact factor of service quality level in the traditional pricing model is introduced and a static price competition model for multi-oligopoly airlines based on service quality is established in this paper. And then, a dynamic pricing model based on service quality of the multi-oligopoly airlines is established. The model incorporates the weight factor of service quality impact, which is used to indicate the weight of the service quality level in the process of airline dynamic pricing. The research results show that the service quality level of airlines has an indispensable influence on its development. Airlines should improve service quality as soon as possible to enhance market competitiveness and achieve sustainable development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Based on the calculation of the inclusive financial development level of 22 provinces and 4 municipalities in China from 2004 to 2017, this paper uses the Kernel density estimation method to further analyze the evolution of the inclusive financial index. Based on the above analysis, we make empirical analysis of the impact of China's inclusive financial inclusion development index on farmers' entrepreneurship using static panel and dynamic panel estimation method. The empirical conclusions show that there are certain differences in inclusive financial inclusion development level in various provinces in China. Improving the inclusion development level of inclusive finance can better promote farmers' entrepreneurship. Urbanization level, economic openness and regional economic development level have a significant positive effect on farmers' entrepreneurship, while farmers' income and education level have a significant negative effect on farmers' entrepreneurship. It is possible to promote farmers' entrepreneurship by improving the inclusive development level of inclusive finance, combining urbanization, increasing government investment in productive fixed assets, increasing economic openness and improving regional economic development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The changing population age structure has a significant influence on the economy, society, and numerous other aspects of a country. This paper has innovatively applied the method of compositional data forecasting for the prediction of population age changes of the young (aged 0–14), the middle-aged (aged 15–64), and the elderly (aged older than 65) in China, India, and Vietnam by 2030 based on data from 1960 to 2016. To select the best-suited forecasting model, an array of data transformation approaches and forecasting models have been extensively employed, and a large number of comparisons have been made between the aforementioned methods. The best-suited model for each country is identified considering the root mean squared error and mean absolute percent error values from the compositional data. As noted in this study, first and foremost, it is predicted that by the year 2030, China will witness the disappearance of population dividend and get mired in an aging problem far more severe than that of India or Vietnam. Second, Vietnam’s trend of change in population age structure resembles that of China, but the country will sustain its good health as a whole. Finally, the working population of India demonstrates a strong rising trend, indicating that the age structure of the Indian population still remains relatively “young”. Meanwhile, the continuous rise in the proportion of elderly population and the gradual leveling off growth of the young population have nevertheless become serious problems in the world. The present paper attempts to offer crucial insights into the Asian population size, labor market and urbanization, and, moreover, provides suggestions for a sustainable global demographic development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Doha Development Agenda recognizes the central role that international trade can play in the promotion of economic development. In fact, the increase of exports from developing countries to developed nations' markets has been considered a key element for developing countries to realize the potential benefits of globalization. Over the last decades, developed countries have provided preferential access to their markets to developing countries through nonreciprocal trade agreements. Moreover, developing countries have also participated in reciprocal trade agreements. This paper re-examines comparatively the effect of both kinds of trade agreements on exports from developing countries but also from the developed world. In line with other studies, our results across specifications are unstable. However, the results of our preferred specification give additional support to the argument raised by critics of nonreciprocal preference regimes who consider that developing countries should abandon their reliance on one-way trade preferences in favor of reciprocal agreements. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Authorship is the currency of an academic career for which the number of papers researchers publish demonstrates creativity, productivity, and impact. To discourage coercive authorship practices and inflated publication records, journals require authors to affirm and detail their intellectual contributions but this strategy has been unsuccessful as authorship lists continue to grow. Here, we surveyed close to 6000 of the top cited authors in all science categories with a list of 25 research activities that we adapted from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) authorship guidelines. Responses varied widely from individuals in the same discipline, same level of experience, and same geographic region. Most researchers agreed with the NIH criteria and grant authorship to individuals who draft the manuscript, analyze and interpret data, and propose ideas. However, thousands of the researchers also value supervision and contributing comments to the manuscript, whereas the NIH recommends discounting these activities when attributing authorship. People value the minutiae of research beyond writing and data reduction: researchers in the humanities value it less than those in pure and applied sciences; individuals from Far East Asia and Middle East and Northern Africa value these activities more than anglophones and northern Europeans. While developing national and international collaborations, researchers must recognize differences in peoples values while assigning authorship. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: The prevalence of intimate partner violence (IPV) is high (54%) in Bangladesh. Moreover, female garment workers report higher rates of IPV and are also vulnerable to workplace violence (WPV). Experience of violence puts women at increased risk of developing depressive symptoms, which are related with low self-esteem, lower life satisfaction and lower productivity. To our knowledge, there has been no previous research on depression among female garment workers and its connections to IPV and WPV in Bangladesh. This paper aims to address this gap by studying the relationship of IPV, WPV and depression among female garment workers. Methods: The data for this paper comes from a cross-sectional survey of female garment workers (n = 800) conducted as baseline survey of a quasi-experimental study known as HERrespect. Survey data were collected during September-December, 2016 among randomly selected female garment workers from eight garment factories in and around Dhaka city. Structural equation modelling was conducted to explore the relationship among IPV, WPV and depression. Results: The findings show high rates of any IPV (69%); WPV (73%, experienced or witnessed) and depressive symptomatology (40%) among female garment workers. The analysis of pathways shows that IPV impacts a woman’s experience of WPV and work related stress leading to the development of depression; while WPV had direct and mediated pathways to depression. Experience of controlling by their husband leads to WPV and increased work related stress, and thus leads to depression. It also reveals that a worker’s ability to mobilize resources in emergency, however, increased self-esteem and reduced work related stress. Conclusion: This study shows the pathways through which experience of IPV and WPV lead to development of depressive symptoms among female garment workers. The link between women’s ability to mobilize resources with self-esteem and work related stress indicates the need for socio-economic empowerment of women and may suggest that combined intervention to address IPV and women’s empowerment could be successful in dealing with WPV and mental health. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: To explore intersections of social determinants of maternal healthcare utilization using the Classification and Regression Trees (CART) algorithm which is a machine-learning method used to construct prediction models. Methods: Institutional review board approval for this study was granted from Public Health Service—Ethical Review Board (PHS-ERB) and from the Health Ministry Screening Committee (HMSC) facilitated by Indian Council for Medical Research (ICMR). IRB review and approval for the current analyses was obtained from University of California, San Diego. Cross-sectional data were collected from women with children aged 0–11 months (n = 5,565) from rural households in 25 districts of Uttar Pradesh, India. Participants were surveyed on maternal healthcare utilization including registration of pregnancy (model-1), receipt of antenatal care (ANC) during pregnancy (model-2), and delivery at health facilities (model -3). Social determinants of health including wealth, social group, literacy, religion, and early age at marriage were captured during the survey. The Classification and Regression Tree (CART) algorithm was used to explore intersections of social determinants of healthcare utilization. Results: CART analyses highlight the intersections, particularly of wealth and literacy, in maternal healthcare utilization in Uttar Pradesh. Model-1 documents that women who are poorer, illiterate and Muslim are less likely to have their pregnancies registered (71.4% vs. 86.0% in the overall sample). Model-2 documents that poorer, illiterate women had the lowest ANC coverage (37.7% vs 45% in the overall sample). Model-3, developed for deliveries at health facilities, highlighted that illiterate and poor women have the lowest representation among facility deliveries (59.6% vs. 69% in the overall sample). Conclusion: This paper explores the interactions between determinants of maternal healthcare utilization indicators. The findings in this paper highlights that the interaction of wealth and literacy can play a very strong role in accentuating or diminishing healthcare utilization among women. The study also reveals that religion and women’s age at marriage also interact with wealth and literacy to create substantial disparities in utilization. The study provides insights into the effect of intersections of determinants, and highlights the importance of using a more nuanced understanding of the impact of co-occurring forms of marginalization to effectively tackle inequities in healthcare utilization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we revisit the relationship between housing prices and consumption in China by using a continuous wavelet analysis. This method provides an insight into the dynamic nexus in both time and frequency domains. In general, Empirical results show that there is a positive relationship between the two series in China, although it varies across time and frequencies. First, we find that disposable income is the core factor which affects both consumption and housing prices in China. Second, housing prices have a weak wealth effect on consumption in most time. High housing ownership and proportion of housing asset in the total household asset lead to a wealth effect of housing prices on consumption. Third, in the long term, there is a significant wealth effect of housing prices on consumption, but it weakens after 2008, which implies that excessively high housing prices in recent years have partially constrained residents’ consumption. These findings have important implications for seeking housing market regulation and expanding domestic consumption decisions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper proposes a road network growing model with the consideration of population distribution and central business district (CBD) attraction. In the model, the relative neighborhood graph (RNG) is introduced as the connection mechanism to capture the characteristics of road network topology. The simulation experiment is set up to illustrate the effects of population distribution and CBD attraction on the characteristics of road network. Moreover, several topological attributes of road network is evaluated by using coverage, circuitness, treeness and total length in the experiment. Finally, the suggested model is verified in the simulation of China and Beijing Highway networks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Forensic odontology (FO) is regarded in the literature as one of the most reliable and economical scientific methods for victim identification in mass disasters (MDs). The present paper systematically reviews the role of forensic odontologists in various global MDs. Method: A comprehensive search of the literature databases (PubMed, Medline, SCOPUS, Web of Science and Google Scholar), along with cross-referencing published peer-reviewed articles, was conducted. The search included full texts, abstracts or titles, had no inclusion year limit (searched until September 2017) and was limited to the English language. Keywords included a combination of ‘Forensic odontology’, ‘Dental records’, ‘Victim identification’, ‘Natural mass disaster’, ‘Criminal mass disaster’, ‘Accidental mass disaster’ and ‘Victim disaster’. Results: Of the included disasters (20), 12 (57.14%) were accidental, 5 (23.80%) natural and 3 (19.04%) were criminal. The maximum number of victims was associated with the Japan tsunami (15892), followed by the Thailand tsunami (4280) and the Estonia ferry disaster (852). A total of 23654 victims were reported, of which 20569 (86.96%) were positively identified. Reports from 17 MDs included the use of FO in victim identification [3025 (14.70%) cases]. In addition, 1094 victims (5.31%; from 7 papers) were identified using FO in combination with other methodologies. The highest percentage of victims was identified using FO following the Kentucky air crash (47; 100%), followed by the Newark air crash (38; 76%), the Nepal air crash (10; 71.42%), the France air crash (56; 65.88%), the Australian bushfire (14; 63.63%), and the Estonia ferry disaster (57; 60.63%). Conclusion: FO has played a significant role in victim identification in several MDs around the world. The success of FO-based identification is heavily dependent on the availability of ante-mortem records from general dental practitioners. Hence, adequate knowledge about FO and appropriate dental record keeping among general dental practitioners are critical. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With the booming development of evacuation simulation software, developing an extensive database in indoor scenarios for evacuation models is imperative. In this paper, we conduct a qualitative and quantitative analysis of the collected videotapes and aim to provide a complete and unitary database of pedestrians’ earthquake emergency response behaviors in indoor scenarios, including human-environment interactions. Using the qualitative analysis method, we extract keyword groups and keywords that code the response modes of pedestrians and construct a general decision flowchart using chronological organization. Using the quantitative analysis method, we analyze data on the delay time, evacuation speed, evacuation route and emergency exit choices. Furthermore, we study the effect of classroom layout on emergency evacuation. The database for indoor scenarios provides reliable input parameters and allows the construction of real and effective constraints for use in software and mathematical models. The database can also be used to validate the accuracy of evacuation models. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Accurate reporting and forecasting of PM2.5 concentration are important for improving public health. In this paper, we propose a partial differential equation (PDE) model, specially, a linear diffusive equation, to describe the spatial-temporal characteristics of PM2.5 in order to make short-term prediction. We analyze the temporal and spatial patterns of a real dataset from China’s National Environmental Monitoring and validate the PDE-based model in terms of predicting the PM2.5 concentration of the next day by the former days’ history data. Our experiment results show that the PDE model is able to characterize and predict the process of PM2.5 transport. For example, for 300 continuous days of 2016, the average prediction accuracy of the PDE model over all city-regions is 93% or 83% based on different accuracy definitions. To our knowledge, this is the first attempt to use PDE-based model to study PM2.5 prediction in both temporal and spatial dimensions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Based on the database data of Chinese industrial enterprises from 2000 to 2007 and the LP method, this paper measures the total factor productivity of enterprises and investigates the effect of different mixed ownership forms on enterprises’ efficiency and the effect of heterogeneous ownership balance on the mixed ownership enterprises’ efficiency. The state-owned enterprise and mixed ownership enterprise are identified by the enterprise’s paid-up capital. The results show that, on the whole, for the mixed ownership enterprise, the higher the diversification degree of the shareholders is, the higher the efficiency becomes, and in different types of industries, the mixed forms of shareholders have different effects on the efficiency of enterprises. The heterogeneous ownership balance and the enterprise efficiency show nonlinear U-type relationships. Both the higher and lower heterogeneous ownership balance degrees will promote the enterprise’s efficiency. However, when the ownership balance degree is in the range of [0.2 0.5], the increase in ownership balance will lead to the decline of enterprise efficiency. Therefore, when introducing non-state-owned capital, state-owned enterprises should take full account of their own characteristics by rationally controlling the shareholding ratio of non-state-owned capital and play the positive role of a mixed ownership structure in corporate governance with appropriate ownership balances. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent years, entrepreneurship has been gaining more prominence as a potential tool for solving poverty in developing countries. This paper mainly examines the relationship between farmer entrepreneurship and rural poverty alleviation in China by assessing the contribution of farm entrepreneurs towards overcoming poverty. Data were collected from 309 employees of farmer entrepreneurships in Guangxi Province through survey questionnaires. Structural equation modeling was used to conduct an analysis of the effects of three identified capabilities of farm entrepreneurs—economic, educational and knowledge, and socio-cultural capabilities—on attitude towards farmer entrepreneurship growth and the qualitative growth of farmer entrepreneurship and how these in turn affect rural poverty, using AMOS 21. The findings show that socio-cultural capability has the greatest influence on farmer entrepreneurship growth (β = 0.50, p<0.001). The qualitative growth of farmer entrepreneurship also more significantly impacts rural poverty (β = 0.69, p<0.001) than attitude towards farmer entrepreneurship growth. This study suggests that policy makers in China should involve more rural farmers in the targeted poverty alleviation strategies of the government by equipping rural farmers with entrepreneurial skills. This can serve as a sustainable, bottom-up approach to alleviating rural poverty in remote areas of the country. The study also extends the literature on the farmer entrepreneurship-rural poverty alleviation nexus in China, and this can serve as a lesson for other developing countries in the fight against rural poverty. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With recent aging demographic trends, the needs for enhancing geo-spatial analysis capabilities and monitoring the status of accessibilities of its citizens with healthcare services have increased. The accessibility to healthcare is determined not only by geographic distances to service locations, but also includes travel time, available modes of transportation, and departure time. Having access to the latest and accurate information regarding the healthcare accessibility allows the municipal government to plan for improvements, including expansion of healthcare infrastructure, effective labor distribution, alternative healthcare options for the regions with low accessibilities, and redesigning the public transportation routes and schedules. This paper proposes a new method named, Seoul Enhanced 2-Step Floating Catchment Area (SE2SFCA), which is customized for the city of Seoul, where population density is higher and the average distance between healthcare-service locations tends to be shorter than the typical North American or European cities. The proposed method of SE2SFCA is found to be realistic and effective in determining the weak accessibility regions. It resolves the over-estimation issues of the past, arising from the assignment of high healthcare accessibility for the regions with large hospitals and high density of population and hospitals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Previous epidemiologic studies have reported famine exposure during early life association with overweight or obesity in adulthood, but a consistent perspective has not been established to date. Purpose: To determine, by conducting a systematic review and meta-analysis, whether exposure to famine could increase body mass index (BMI) in adult or not, and assess the association between famine exposure and the risk of overweight or obesity. Methods: Published articles were systematically searched (until August, 2017) from PubMed, ScienceDirect, Cochrane, and China National Knowledge Infrastructure. Initially, comparing differences in BMI between exposed and non-exposed groups that weight mean difference (WMD) were used. Subsequently, the effect of famine exposure on overweight or obesity risk, which pooled relative risks (RRs), odds ratios (ORs) or hazard ratios (HRs) with 95% confidence intervals (CIs) were calculated using a random-effects model. Result: Twenty studies were included in this systematic review and meta-analysis. Compared with non-exposed group, famine exposure group significantly increased the risk of overweight (OR = 1.10, 95% CI: 1.04–1.16) and obesity (OR = 1.15, 95% CI: 1.05–1.24). Sensitivity analyses revealed no significant change in the famine exposure and BMI, the risk of overweight and obesity study when any one study was excluded. Subgroup analyses showed that age, gender, exposure type, study type, continent, famine cause and paper publication date were associated with BMI, the risk of overweight and obesity. Meta-regression analyses suggested that continent, famine cause could partially explain heterogeneity for famine exposure and BMI studies. Conclusion: The systematic review and meta-analysis indicates that famine exposure during early life may increase BMI, the risk of overweight and obesity, especially for female, fetal famine exposure or subject age less than 50. Furthermore, famine exposure group the risk of overweight and obesity in cross-sectional studies, Asian studies, famine cause by natural disaster or paper published from 2015 to the present studies are higher than that of non-exposed group. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Custom bus routes need to be optimized to meet the needs of a customized bus for personalized trips of different passengers. This paper introduced a customized bus routing problem in which trips for each depot are given, and each bus stop has a fixed time window within which trips should be completed. Treating a trip as a virtual stop was the first consideration in solving the school bus routing problem (SBRP). Then, the mixed load custom bus routing model was established with a time window that satisfies its requirement and the result were solved by Cplex software. Finally, a simple network diagram with three depots, four pickup stops, and five delivery stops was structured to verify the correctness of the model, and based on the actual example, the result is that all the buses ran 124.42 kilometers, the sum of kilometers was 10.35 kilometers less than before. The paths and departure times of the different busses that were provided by the model were evaluated to meet the needs of the given conditions, thus providing valuable information for actual work. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]