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Objective: This study aims to explore Chinese university students' multicultural personalities and examine how they predict the psychological adjustment of students in Shanghai. In addition, the validation of Multicultural Personality Questionnaire Short Form (MPQ-SF) scale developed to assess the multicultural personality traits of individuals is also aimed in Chinese context. Data were collected after the psychological stresses from restrictions imposed by COVID-19 in China that influenced life adjustments for nearly three years. Method: A total of 1,099 university students participated in this multi-stage study. First, the Chinese version of MPQ-SF (MPQ-SF-C) was developed and validated. The impact of MPQ-SF-C dimensions was then tested through path analysis to establish the effects of Chinese university students' multicultural personality traits on their psychological adjustment using the Schwartz Outcome Scale (SOS-10). Results: The MPQ-SF-C yielded a five-factor solution which accounted for 60.14% of the common variance. The findings indicated that cultural empathy (b = 0.23, p < 0.05), certainty seeking (b = 0.13, p < 0.05), open-mindedness (b = 0.48, p < 0.05), and emotional stability (b = 0.24, p < 0.05) had significant influences on adjustment. Only flexibility was found to have a statistically insignificant impact on adjustment at this time in this context. MPQ-SF-C and SOS-10 scales represented very good psychometric properties in terms of their reliability and validity. Conclusion: The MPQ-SF-C shows good psychometric properties and appropriateness for evaluating multicultural personalities in Chinese contexts. The multicultural personality characteristics of university students using this scale well predicted their psychological adjustment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Rice is an important diet source for the majority of the world's population, and meeting the growing need for rice requires significant improvements at the production level. Hybrid rice production has been a significant breakthrough in this regard, and the floral traits play a major role in the development of hybrid rice. In grass species, rice has structural units called florets and spikelets and contains different floret organs such as lemma, palea, style length, anther, and stigma exsertion. These floral organs are crucial in enhancing rice production and uplifting rice cultivation at a broader level. Recent advances in breeding techniques also provide knowledge about different floral organs and how they can be improved by using biotechnological techniques for better production of rice. The rice flower holds immense significance and is the primary focal point for researchers working on rice molecular biology. Furthermore, the unique genetics of rice play a significant role in maintaining its floral structure. However, to improve rice varieties further, we need to identify the genomic regions through mapping of QTLs (quantitative trait loci) or by using GWAS (genome-wide association studies) and their validation should be performed by developing user-friendly molecular markers, such as Kompetitive allele-specific PCR (KASP). This review outlines the role of different floral traits and the benefits of using modern biotechnological approaches to improve hybrid rice production. It focuses on how floral traits are interrelated and their possible contribution to hybrid rice production to satisfy future rice demand. We discuss the significance of different floral traits, techniques, and breeding approaches in hybrid rice production. We provide a historical perspective of hybrid rice production and its current status and outline the challenges and opportunities in this field. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The acquisition of agricultural land is a crucial aspect of survival for numerous rural communities, serving as a fundamental tool for combating poverty and food insecurity and promoting equitable sustainable economic progress. The expropriation of land offers a promising prospect for remedying past inequities and promoting both economic progress and food sufficiency. Limited research has examined the association between land expropriation and food security, livelihood shocks, and the well-being of rural households worldwide. Therefore, this research explores the implications of land expropriation on food security, livelihood shocks, and well-being of land lost rural communities. The data were collected from 384 farmers selected through stratified sampling techniques using face-to-face surveys in rural China. The data were analyzed using descriptive and logit regression models. The descriptive findings showed that land expropriation has detrimental effects on the livelihood, food security, and well-being of the farmers. Furthermore, these impacts are more harmful among land-expropriated households with a lower educational level, a large family size, and women farmers in less developed rural communities. The econometric results evinced that gender, age, education level, marital status, family size, and negative changes in income all significantly affect the impact of land expropriation on the food security of farmers. Similarly, the findings revealed that farmers with lower education levels were more likely to be affected by land loss as compared to farmers with medium and high education levels. Farmers with complete land loss were 1.70 times more likely to suffer livelihood shocks than those with partial land loss. The results also evinced that the well-being of all farmers was not affected equally, and some farmers' well-being was affected more than others due to various socioeconomic backgrounds. Therefore, this study suggests the implementation of public policies that provide support to farmers who have been marginalized due to land acquisition. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the public health sector and the field of medicine, the popularity of data mining and its usage in knowledge discovery and databases (KDD) are rising. The growing popularity of data mining has discovered innovative healthcare links to support decision making. For this reason, there is a great possibility to better diagnose patient's diseases and maintain the quality of healthcare services in hospitals. So, there is an urgent need to make disease diagnosis possible by discovering the hidden patterns from the patients' history information in developing countries. This work is a step towards how to use the extracted knowledge to enhance the quality of healthcare facilities. In this paper, we have proposed a web-centered hospital information management system (HIMS) that identifies frequent patterns from the data with eye disorder patients using the association rule-based Apriori data mining technique. The proposed framework has the capability to overcome all the key issues and problems in the current hospital information management system regarding data analysis and reporting services. For this purpose, data were collected from more than 1000 university students (China citizens) both online and manually (printed questionnaire). After applying the Apriori algorithm on the collected data, we revealed that almost 140 individuals out of 1035 had myopia (near-sighted disorder), at current age of 22 years, and that there were no male patients found with myopia. We concluded that their clinical relevance and utility can generate favorable results from prospective clinical studies by mapping out the habits or lifestyles that potentially lead to fatal diseases. In the future, we plan to extend this work to fully automate HIMS to help practitioners to diagnose the reasons of various diseases by extracting patient lifestyle patterns. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Gynostemma pentaphyllum belongs to the family Cucurbitaceae which is native to China where it is also termed an immortal herb. It is an emerging herb gaining fame for its rich phytochemistry. It is loaded with superior phytochemicals with immense therapeutic potential. The key phytochemicals include saponins and sterols. Saponins are a wide class of bioactive found in Gynostemma pentaphyllum and 100 different saponins have been reported to date by different researchers in this herb. Several sterols have been demonstrated in this plant including ergostanol, sitosterol and stigmasterol. All these bioactive substances possess superior therapeutic and pharmacological properties that have been investigated in different studies as presented in this comprehensive review. Taxonomic classification, botanical description, and geographical distribution are briefly covered in the first section of this review. In contrast, the phytochemistry, therapeutic properties, and pharmacological features of Gynostemma pentaphyllum are thoroughly explained in the second section. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There are dire concerns of clean and green energy development with a sustainable economic growth in China. The present study aims to gauge the short term and long term relationship among the real economic output, labor, capital, energy and trade considering global financial crunch of 2008. There are two different models estimated in the production framework with fossil fuels and clean fuels in the economy of China. Specifically, there is indication of a long run association with convergence dynamics among real economic output, labor, capital, fossil fuel and trade before 2008 but not vice versa. The coefficient of fossil fuel with a greater magnitude is indicative of its huge role for higher real output growth, ceteris paribus. Likely, the findings turn out to be significant for real output, labor, capital, clean fuels and trade while long run elasticities corroborate that labor, capital, clean fuels and trade have a positive and significant impact on economic output. The sign and magnitude of the estimate of clean fuels is much higher than before crisis period indicating a paradigm shift in energy mix therein economic output growth. It is recommended that clean fuels should be promoted as their role is non trivial for economic-environmental sustainability in China. • Dynamics among real output, fossil and clean fuels with trade are assessed considering global financial crunch of 2008 • The greater magnitude of fossil fuels is indicative of its pivotal importance in economic output and trade • The magnitude of the clean fuels is threefold than before crisis period indicating a paradigm shift in China's energy mix • Clean fuels is non trivial for economic growth and trade • Clean energy efficiency, financial investments, and green governance required to foster economic-environmental sustainability [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]