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Background: Community healthcare in mainland China is still at an early stage. The qualities of life (QOLs) of patients with psychotic disorders undergoing rehabilitation in hospitals or in the community, as well as those of their caregivers, may differ from each other. Objectives: The study was performed to evaluate the QOL of patients with psychotic disorders and assess the differences in the QOLs between patients receiving care in diverse settings (hospital vs. the community). Methods: This study was a descriptive study, in which all cases were collected from two psychiatric hospitals and five communities. Patients (n = 43) and caregivers (n = 40) in the psychiatric hospitals were grouped according to the length of illness and areas of residence and these criteria were also used to group patients (n = 55) and caregivers (n = 59) in the community. All participants were assessed using the WHOQOL-BREF (Chinese version). ANOVA was adopted to compare the QOL scores among the four groups (cases and caregivers in two settings), while confounding factors, such as age and marital status, were adjusted. Results: Among the four groups of participants, namely, hospitalised and community patients and their corresponding caregivers, community samples had a significantly lower QOL score. The QOL score for the social relationships domain of the hospitalised patients’ caregivers was significantly higher than that of the caregivers of community patients (P = 0.019). Conclusion: Community patients and their caregivers tend to have lower QOL scores than their hospitalised counterparts. The support of family members is urgently needed to provide better care for patients. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Coupling the vehicle-to-grid (V2G) with integrated energy systems (IES) offers an emerging solution for decarbonisation of both energy and transport sectors. To evaluate the feasibility of coupling V2G with IES as a flexible storage, we propose an optimisation-based system planning framework embedding V2G into IES. Within this framework, stochastic features of electric vehicles (EV) fleets are simulated. The impacts of V2G on IES design are captured by assessing both economic and environmental benefits via multi-objective optimisations utilising an improved NSGA-II algorithm. Six case studies considering three cities with different climate conditions and two functional areas of residential and commercial are performed. The results manifest that Beijing-commercial case could achieve the largest mutual benefits. The EV fleets' charging behaviour follows the time-of-use energy tariff in transition seasons while not during winter. Sensitivity analysis indicates the electricity and gas prices have significant impact on the system design. The benefits induced by growing EV penetration would gradually decrease and stabilise when the EV number reach 300, the growth of economic and environmental benefits stabilized at 1.3% and 1.8%, respectively. Overall, this study quantifies the benefits of enabling V2G in IES, and generates valuable insights for IES planners, V2G service providers, and relevant policymakers. [Display omitted] • Co-optimisation of EV vehicle-to-grid (V2G) with integrated energy systems (IES). • Simulate stochastic features of EVs' charging patterns and initial battery states. • Capture V2G-IES design's trade-off by an efficient DM-NSGA-II algorithm. • Analyse parametric sensitivity of electricity price, gas price, and EV penetration. • V2G-IES achieves the largest mutual benefits in a Beijing-commercial demonstration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

[Display omitted] • 30 m3 anaerobic/aerobic/anoxic pilot-scale SBR system was first set up with sewage. • Total nitrogen and phosphate in effluent were 10.9 and 0.1 mg/L at 15.7℃. • The relative abundance of Competibacter and Tetrasphaera rose to 1.25% and 1.52%. • The contribution rate by endogenous denitrification was more than 43.3%. • Sludge reduction (17.1 %) and short aerobic time (6.0 h) helped to save energy. Removing nitrogen and phosphorus from low ratio of chemical oxygen demand to total nitrogen and temperature municipal wastewater stays a challenge. In this study, a pilot-scale anaerobic/aerobic/anoxic sequencing batch reactor (A/O/A-SBR) system first treated 15 m3/d actual municipal wastewater at 8.1–26.4 °C for 224 days. At the temperature of 15.7 °C, total nitrogen in influent and effluent were 45.5 and 10.9 mg/L, and phosphorus in influent and effluent were 3.9 and 0.1 mg/L. 16 s RNA sequencing results showed the relative abundance of Competibacter and Tetrasphaera raised to 1.25 % and 1.52 %. The strategy of excessive, no and normal sludge discharge enriched and balanced the functional bacteria, achieving an endogenous denitrification ratio more than 43.3 %. Sludge reduction and short aerobic time were beneficial to energy saving contrast with a Beijing municipal wastewater treatment. This study has significant implications for the practical application of the AOA-SBR process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]