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This study applies the hermeneutical phenomenological approach, guided by Critical Race Theory, to explicate a nuanced understanding of the way Chinese international students' racial identity shapes the challenges that they faced during the pandemic and their experience of academic institutions' support during this time. The current study highlights the pervasive anti-Asian racism that directly and indirectly contributed to Chinese international students' negative experiences studying in Canada during the pandemic. The findings also highlight the lack of support from academic institutions, despite the rising anti-Asian racism faced by this group of students. Furthermore, this study calls attention to the consideration of race in developing support programs for racialized international students. Recommendations for universities to better support international students (Chinese or otherwise) are developed.

Under the goal of "achieving carbon peak by 2030 and carbon neutrality by 2060", how to select the type of fresh air system has become a key area of energy conservation. The method of outdoor design PM2.5 concentration is one of the important factors affecting the selection of fresh air filtration system. This paper first analyzed the PM2.5 concentration values of 31 cities in China from 2017 to 2020 based on mathematical induction, and next gave the recommended coefficient K under six urban economic regions methods in combination with the actual situation. Finally, the selection of air filters in five typical cities was taken as an example, the differences in recommended coefficient K and selection of outdoor design PM2.5 concentration under different recommended methods were compared and analyzed. The results showed that the recommended coefficient K under the six economic regions could meet the required K value needs of the region. The recommended coefficient K by the six economic regions methods based on per capita GDP is the best. Under that conditions, the recommended coefficient K of the five typical cities under strict and normal conditions differs from the average K values of the six methods by 0.06 and 0.04. This paper will provide a new method for the correct selection of outdoor design PM2.5 concentration in fresh air systems to achieve the dual carbon energy-saving goal. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

More attention has been paid to environmental regulation of greenhouse gas emissions in the energy industry under the transformation of industrial structure. This paper takes microdata of Chinese energy enterprises from 1998 to 2012 as a sample to build a duty-sharing model, analyzes the effect of environmental regulations on the industrial chain, and explains the "double growth" phenomenon that occurred in China, which is nothing short of miraculous in terms of the environment and economy. In the industrial chain, the environmental obligations and responsibilities will be shared between upstream and downstream enterprises due to trade linkages. This paper finds that environmental responsibilities will move forward through the industrial chain when environmental regulations are strengthened. Downstream companies will loosen "relative" control constraints, thereby expanding output but increasing demand for upstream products. Different from the existing research, we claim that, since environmental regulation has a differential effect on the industrial chain, it will promote the growth of output in the entire chain, in contrast to the theory of "cost compliance", which claims that environmental regulation will inevitably lead to the output. Based on this research, this paper puts forward some suggestions and insights on how the government implements environmental regulations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: The goal was to report a rare case of lymphadenitis caused by Corynebacterium tuberculostearicum, and the laboratory's coping approach in the isolation and identification of this rare pathogen to improve the understanding of the disease. Methods: Lymph node biopsy was performed in a patient with suspected tuberculous lymphadenitis, and the biopsy tissue was isolated and cultured. Results: The culture was Gram positive Corynebacterium, which was identified as Corynebacterium tuberculostearicum by microbial mass spectrometry and 16S rRNA gene sequencing. Antimicrobial susceptibility test showed that the drug was sensitive to daptomycin, doxycycline, gentamicin, linezolid, vancomycin, and meropenem, but resistant to ciprofloxacin, clindamycin, erythromycin, rifampicin, compound sulfamethoxazole, ceftriaxone, and cefepime. Conclusions: This is a case of Corynebacterium tuberculostearicum infection. Case reports of Corynebacterium tuberculostearicum infection are relatively rare in China. Through case study, we can provide help for laboratory isolation, identification, clinical diagnosis, and treatment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduction: A growing number of Taiwanese teachers are choosing to teach at universities in mainland China, but their jobs are not always stable. Therefore, this study aims to investigate the factors influencing young teachers from Taiwan to teach in universities in China. Methods: Twenty-seven young teachers from Taiwan with master's or doctoral degrees who were willing to apply to work at universities in China and who were already teaching in China were invited to conduct in-depth interviews to collect research data. The interview data were coded and analyzed according to the Push-Pull-Mooring (PPM) Model. Results and discussion: The results showed that the understanding of mainland Chinese universities among young Taiwanese teachers is not entirely consistent. Taiwanese teachers who previously studied in mainland China have a more comprehensive understanding of mainland Chinese universities, and some teachers have gained a superficial understanding through academic exchanges between the two sides and information shared by friends. However, still, 7% of the teachers have no understanding at all. Most young Taiwanese teachers indicate that they do not understand the talent recruitment policies of mainland Chinese universities. The push factors that influence young teachers from Taiwan to teach at mainland universities are: Oversupply of teachers in Taiwan, poor environment for higher education in Taiwan, poor articulation of the cross-strait academic system, and four aspects of teacher retirement and re-employment in Taiwan. The pull factors are: Beneficial policies, salary, living environment, educational advantages and cultural dissemination in 5 areas. Mooring factors are divided into 3 aspects: personal factors, environmental factors and social factors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Central nervous system infection (CNSI) treatment in hospital neurosurgery emphasizes the importance of optimizing antimicrobial therapy. Timely and appropriate empiric antibiotic treatment is critical for managing patients with bacterial meningitis. Objectives: To evaluate the activities of clinical pharmacists in the anti-infective treatment of patients with CNSI in neurosurgery. Method: A single-center retrospective cohort study was carried out from January 2021 to March 2023 at a tertiary teaching hospital in China. The study sample included a group that received pharmacy services and a group that did not. In the pharmacy services group, the anti-infective treatment plan was led and developed by pharmacists. Pharmaceutical care, including medication therapy and all CNSI treatment regimens, was administered in daily unit rounds by pharmacists. Baseline demographics, treatment outcomes, and rational use of antibiotics were compared between the two groups, and the impact of a antimicrobial stewardship (AMS) program was evaluated. Results: Of the 306 patients assessed according to the inclusion and exclusion criteria, 151 patients were included, and 155 patients were excluded due to abnormal data and missing information on antibiotic costs or antimicrobial use. Eventually, 73 were included in the pharmacy services group and 78 in the group without pharmacist participation. The antibiotic use density (AUD) of the pharmacy services group decreased from 167.68 to 127.63 compared to the group without pharmacist participation. After the pharmacist services, the AUD for linezolid decreased from 9.15% to 5.23% and that for miscellaneous agents decreased from 17.91% to 6.72%. The pharmacy services group had better improvement (p < 0.05) and a significantly higher score for the rational use of antibiotics (p < 0.05) than the group without pharmacist participation. Conclusion: The clinical pharmacist services evaluation results demonstrated an essential role of clinical pharmacist-led AMS programs in the effective and appropriate use of anti-infective treatments in neurosurgery with patients with CNSI. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the revision on the genus Impatiens L. in China, we found that there were synonyms amongst some species. Impatiens procumbens Franch. morphologically resembled I. reptans Hook.f., I. crassiloba Hook.f., I. ganpiuana Hook.f., I. atherosepala Hook.f. and I. rhombifolia Y.Q.Lu & Y.L.Chen. After a thorough morphological study, based on original literature, type specimens and field surveys, it was found that the above six species of Impatiens had no substantial differences in morphological characters and there was continuity in geographical distribution. Therefore, we determined that I. reptans, I. crassiloba, I. ganpiuana, I. atherosepala and I. rhombifolia are the synonyms of I. procumbens. At the same time, we present the color photographs, supplementary descriptions of morphology, and geographical distribution. The lectotype of I. procumbens and I. reptans are also designated here. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduction: Although geriatric assessment (GA) has been used for a long time in the field of geriatrics and internal medicine, there are few studies on its application in the field of breast surgery. Therefore, the utility of specific GA domains for the assessment of older patients with breast cancer remains unclear. The aim of the present study was to evaluate the association between specificGA domains and the survival rate of older patients with breast cancer. Methods: We used the database of Peking Union Medical College Hospital to identify older patients who were newly diagnosed with breast cancer between 2012 and 2018 and retrospectively analysed the data of 541 patients aged =65 years. Patients with metastatic cancer and those with missing vital status data were excluded. The primary outcomes were overall survival (OS) and breast cancer-specific survival. The GA domains used in this study included functional status, comorbidities, and psychological state. Multivariate regression analysis was used to estimate hazard ratios for these three domains. Results: After a median follow-up of 72 months, we observed a significant relationship between functional impairment and mortality (adjusted HR: 3.06, 95% confidence interval [CI]: 1.83-5.10, P<0.001). Similarly, patients with severe comorbidities (adjusted HR: 2.35; 95% CI: 1.16-4.75, P=0.017) and an impaired psychological state (adjusted HR: 2.82, 95% CI: 1.45-5.50, P=0.002) showed worse OS rates. Accordingly, addition of the three GA domains to the basic model, which included age, tumour stage, lymph node stage, and intrinsic molecular subtype as baseline variables, yielded higher C-statistics for mortality analysis (from 0.713 to 0.740). Conclusion: To our knowledge, this is the first study to include specific GA domains in a prognostic model for older patients with breast cancer in China. Three domains, namely functional status, comorbidities, and psychological state, should be considered for survival analyses in this particular population. The full model including these three GA domains may be more accurate in predicting the survival of older patients with breast cancer. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With the technological turn of applied research in translation, increasing attention has been paid to the teaching of translation technology. This article addresses two important questions in this regard: how to independently develop Master of Translation and Interpreting (MTI) translation teaching resources with ethnic minority characteristics and how to use information technology to carry out Tibet-related computer-assisted translation (CAT) teaching. This article discusses the background, structure, and functions of the International Publicity Translation Corpus (IPT Corpus) for Tibetan Areas of China through empirical research, combining theory with practice, and validates the translation teaching mode through case study to better train translators and interpreters working on content related to Tibetan culture. Through teaching practice since 2017, the MTI translation workshop based on the IPT Corpus has proven to be an effective teaching mode that is worthy of further improvement and extension. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present protocol describes an observational cohort study that was designed to propose a therapeutic scheme and formulate an individualized treatment strategy for frail elderly patients diagnosed with multiple diseases in a Chinese, multicenter setting. Over a 3-year period, we will recruit 30,000 patients from 10 hospitals and collect baseline data including patient demographic information, comorbidity characteristic, FRAIL scale, age-adjusted Charlson comorbidity index (aCCI), relevant blood tests, the results of imaging examination, prescription of drugs, length of hospital stay, number of overall re-hospitalizations and death. Elderly patients (≥ 65 years old) with multimorbidity and receiving hospital care are eligible for this study. Data collection is being performed at baseline and 3, 6, 9 and 12 months after discharge. Our primary analysis was all-cause death, readmission rate and clinical events (including emergency visits, stroke, heart failure, myocardial infarction, tumor, acute chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, etc). The study is approved by the National Key R & D Program of China (2020YFC2004 800). Data will be disseminated in manuscripts submitted to medical journals and in abstracts submitted to international geriatric conferences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Plants of the Iris genus have been widely cultivated because of their medicinal, ornamental, and economic values. It commonly suffers from Alternaria leaf spot or blight disease leading to considerable losses for their commercial values. During an investigation of 14 provinces or municipalities of China from 2014 to 2022, a total of 122 Alternaria strains in section Alternaria were obtained from diseased leaves of Iris spp.. Among them, 12 representative strains were selected and identified based on morphological characterization and multilocus phylogenetic analysis, which encompassed the internal transcribed spacer of rDNA region (ITS), glyceraldehyde-3-phosphate dehydrogenase (GAPDH), translation elongation factor 1 alpha (TEF1), RNA polymerase second largest subunit (RPB2), Alternaria major allergen gene (Alt a 1), an anonymous gene region (OPA10-2), and endopolygalacturonase gene (EndoPG). The strains comprised two known species of A. alternata and A. iridicola, and two new species of A. setosae and A. tectorum, which were described and illustrated here. Their pathogenicity evaluated on Iris setosa indicated that all the strains could induce typical Alternaria leaf spot or blight symptoms. The results showed that the virulence was variable among those four species, from which A. tectorum sp. nov. was the most virulent one, followed by A. setosae sp. nov., A. iridicola and A. alternata. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Volatilization of ammonia (NH3) from fertilizer application and livestock wastes is an overwhelmingly important pathway of nitrogen losses in agricultural ecosystems and constitutes the largest source of atmospheric NH3. The volatilization of NH3 highly depends on environmental and meteorological conditions, however, this phenomenon is poorly described in current 15 emission inventory and atmospheric models. Here, we develop a dynamic NH3 emission model capable of calculating NH3 emission rate interactively with time- and spatial-varying meteorological and soil conditions. The NH3 flux parameterization relies on several meteorological factors and anthropogenic activity including fertilizer application, livestock waste, traffic, residential and industrial sectors. The model is then embedded into a regional WRF-Chem model and is evaluated against field measurements of NH3 concentrations and emission flux, and satellite retrievals of column loading. The evaluation shows a 20 substantial improvement in the model performance of NH3 flux and ambient concentration in China. The model well represents the spatial and temporal variations of ambient NH3 concentration, indicating the highest emission in the North China Plain (NCP) and Sichuan Basin, especially during summertime. Compared with normal simulations using fixed emission inventory input, this model features superior capability in simulating NH3 emission flux and concentration during drastic weather changes like frontal activities and precipitation. Such advances in emission quantification also improve the model performance of 25 secondary inorganic aerosol on synoptic scales. While more laboratory and field measurements are still needed for better parameterization of NH3 volatilization, the seamless coupling of soil emission with meteorology provides a better understanding of NH3 emission evolution and its contribution to atmospheric chemistry. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Research on the evolution of cultural policy is the key in the field of public policy study, and it is also an important means to solve the problems that have emerged in cultural heritage management. The National Cultural Park is an innovative cultural heritage protection system proposed by Chinese leaders within the context of national rejuvenation and building a culturally-strong country campaign. From the perspective of system evolution theory, this paper systematically sorts out the ideas behind international heritage management and the evolutionary process of the Cultural Relics Protection Unit system, in an effort to explore the origin, innovation and vision of the National Cultural Park System. A review of the international heritage documents revealed that the principle of heritage protection has developed from "authenticity" to "integrity", and the focus of the protection object has also changed from "monism" to "diversity", which provided a theoretical background for the burgeoning National Cultural Park. The Cultural Relics Protection Unit system has been promoted as the most crucial cultural heritage management system in China. Therefore, this study sheds light on the evolution and limitations of the system that lays a practical foundation for the National Cultural Park System. There have been three stages in the history of China's National Cultural Relics Protection Unit, namely, the creation of the system (1956–1965), the survival crisis of the system (1966–1977), and the rebirth and development of the system (1978 to the present), in which the main driving concepts of China′s cultural heritage management have been sequentially elucidated as simple protectionism, tolerant conservatism and comprehensive developmentalism, respectively. Since the establishment of China's Cultural Relics Protection Unit system, tremendous progress has been made not only in the enlightenment of the public's mindset and but also in the development of system and culture. However, the changes in the institutional environment gradually exposed its limitations regarding cultural relic management and value expression. The National Cultural Park System is the fruit created by the internal contradictions of the cultural heritage system itself and the evolution of heritage theory. Its biggest innovation lies in the two core connotations of "integrated protection" and "integrated development". In the future, as the National Cultural Park management system matures, a Chinese cultural heritage management system will take shape in which the National Cultural Parks become dominant and various cultural resources are utilized. Finally, the National Cultural Park will become a symbol of Chinese culture and will be internalized into the common belief system of the Chinese nation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Artificial impervious surface area (ISA) documents human footprints. Accurate, timely, and detailed ISA datasets are therefore essential for global climate change and urban planning. However, due to the lack of sufficient training samples and operational mapping methods, global ISA mapping at 10-m resolution is still lacking. To this end, we proposed a global ISA mapping method leveraging multi-source geospatial data. Based on the existing satellite-derived ISA maps and the crowdsourcing OpenStreetMap (OSM), 58 million training samples were extracted via a series of temporal, spatial, spectral, and geometric rules. Combined with over 2.7 million Sentinel optical and radar images on the Google Earth Engine, we produced the 10 m global ISA dataset (GISA-10m). Based on the test samples that are independent to the training set, GISA- 10m embraced an overall accuracy greater than 86%. In addition, the GISA-10m was comprehensively compared with the existing global ISA datasets, and the superiority of GISA-10m was demonstrated. It was found that China and the United States embraced the largest ISA and road area. The global rural ISA was 2.2 times that of urban while rural road area was 1.5 times larger than that of urban region. The global road area accounted for 14.2% of the global ISA, 57.9% of which was located in the top ten countries. Generally, the produced GISA-10m dataset and the proposed sampling and mapping method are able to achieve rapid and efficient global mapping, and have potential for detecting other land covers. It was also indicated that global ISA mapping can be improved by incorporating refined OSM data. GISA-10m can be used as a fundamental parameter for Earth system science, and provide valuable support for of urban planning and water cycle study. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Impatiens bijieensis X.X. Bai & L.Y. Ren, sp. nov. from northwest Guizhou Province, China, is described and illustrated. This new species is distributed discontinuously in Jiulongshan, Dafang County and Dajiucaiping, Hezhang County, both of which are in the Wumeng Mountain area, a karst plateau landform. The new species is morphologically similar to I. pterosepala Hook.f., I. lasiophyton Hook.f. and I. leptocaulon Hook.f. in height and flower shape and it especially resembles I. lasiophyton in pilosity. However, it differs in its deep purplish-red flower, 2-lobed lower sepal apex and cylindrical capsule. A detailed description, colour photographs and a provisional IUCN Red List assessment are provided along with discussions of its geographical distribution, ecology and morphological relationships with other similar species. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As one of the basic elements of the ecosystem and natural environment, the soil is closely related to human life. However, the problem of soil environment pollution is becoming more and more serious, which needs to be solved urgently. It will provide a reference for solving the problem of soil environment pollution if a suitable method can be found to evaluate the degree of soil environment pollution. The degree of soil environment pollution belongs to the fuzzy concept. It is a fuzzy pattern recognition problem to evaluate the degree of soil environment pollution according to the soil environment level standard value. The fuzzy pattern recognition method of soil environment pollution assessment makes full use of the fuzzy characteristics existing in soil environment assessment, considers the common influence of the weight of evaluation factors and the index value, and also considers the correlation between indexes and the similarity of index characteristics of different sampling points, therefore, the interference of some man-made certain factors is concealed. The model was applied to the soil sampling point in Wudi County of Shandong Province in the Yellow River basin of China. The results showed that the evaluation of soil environment pollution by this method accorded with the actual situation and can provide a basis for ensuring the stability of soil ecological environment, improving the quality of cultivated land, and improving regional ecological conditions. At the same time, in view of the current problem of soil environment pollution, the paper calls on human beings to pay attention to environmental protection and be responsible for their own safety and also proposes four aspects of treatment schemes and measures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The global surface air temperature (Ta) has increased significantly in the past several decades. However, it remains disputable how much effect rapid urbanization has had on warming trends in mainland China. In this study, a gridded Ta dataset was created using satellite data. Then, a series of satellite-based methods to evaluate the contribution of urbanization to warming were developed. Subsequently, the contribution of urbanization to warming during 2001-2018 was estimated. The national average Ta was found to have increased significantly (0.23°C/decade) in mainland China. At the national scale, the contribution of urbanization to warming was negligible (less than 1%) since built-up areas account for only approximately 2.66% of the area of China. At the regional scale, the contribution of urbanization was also small in most areas and was even negative in some areas. At the local scale, the contributions of urbanization to warming were 53.18%, 54.30% and 47.25% for the mean, maximum and minimum Ta, respectively, averaged for 31 major cities. This study demonstrated that the contribution of urbanization to warming was significant at the local scale, while the contribution of urbanization to large-scale warming was limited. The contribution of urbanization was underestimated at the local scale but overestimated at the national and regional scales by many previous studies due to the sparse and uneven distribution of meteorological stations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Image text is an important text data in the medical field at it can assist clinicians in making a diagnosis. However, due to the diversity of languages, most descriptions in the image text are unstructured data. The same medical phenomenon may also be described in various ways, such that it remains challenging to conduct text structure analysis. The aim of this research is to develop a feasible approach that can automatically convert nasopharyngeal cancer reports into structured text and build a knowledge network.Methods: In this work, we compare commonly used named entity recognition (NER) models, choose the optimal model as our triplet extraction model, and present a Chinese structuring algorithm. Finally, we visualize the results of the algorithm in the form of a knowledge network of nasopharyngeal cancer.Results: In NER, both accuracy and recall of the BERT-CRF model reached 99%. The structured extraction rate is 84.74%, and the accuracy is 89.39%. The architecture based on recurrent neural network does not rely on medical dictionaries or word segmentation tools and can realize triplet recognition.Conclusions: The BERT-CRF model has high performance in NER, and the triplet can reflect the content of the image report. This work can provide technical support for the construction of a nasopharyngeal cancer database. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Land cover (LC) determines the energy exchange, water and carbon cycle between Earth's spheres. Accurate LC information is a fundamental parameter for the environment and climate studies. Considering that the LC in China has been altered dramatically with the economic development in the past few decades, sequential and fine-scale LC monitoring is in urgent need. However, currently, fine-resolution annual LC dataset produced by the observational images is generally unavailable for China due to the lack of sufficient training samples and computational capabilities. To deal with this issue, we produced the first Landsat-derived annual China Land Cover Dataset (CLCD) on the Google Earth Engine (GEE) platform, which contains 30 m annual LC and its dynamics of China from 1990 to 2019. We first collected the training samples by combining stable samples extracted from China's Land-Use/Cover Datasets (CLUD), and visually-interpreted samples from satellite time-series data, Google Earth and Google Map. Using 335,709 Landsat images on the GEE, several temporal metrics were constructed and fed to the random forest classifier to obtain classification results. We then proposed a post-processing method incorporating spatial-temporal filtering and logical reasoning to further improve the spatial-temporal consistency of CLCD. Finally, the overall accuracy of CLCD reached 79.31% based on 5,463 visually-interpreted samples. A further assessment based on 5,131 third-party test samples showed that the overall accuracy of CLCD outperforms that of MCD12Q1, ESACCI_LC, FROM_GLC, and GlobaLand30. Besides, we intercompared the CLCD with several Lands at derived thematic products, which exhibited good consistencies with the Global Forest Change, the Global Surface Water, and three impervious surface products. Based on the CLCD, the trends and patterns of China's LC changes during 1985 and 2019 were revealed, such as expansion of impervious surface (+148.71%) and water (+18.39%), decrease of cropland (- 4.85%) and grassland (-3.29%), increase of forest (+4.34%). In general, CLCD reflected the rapid urbanization and a series of ecological projects (e.g., Gain for Green) in China and revealed the anthropogenic implications on LC under the condition of climate change, signifying its potential application in the global change research. The CLCD dataset introduced in this article is freely available at http://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.4417810 (Yang and Huang, 2021). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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China has been experiencing fine particle (i.e., aerodynamic diameters ≤ 2.5 μm; PM2.5) pollution and acid rain in recent decades, which exert adverse impacts on human health and the ecosystem. Recently, ammonia (i.e., NH3) emission reduction has been proposed as a strategic option to mitigate haze pollution. However, atmospheric NH3 is also closely bound to nitrogen deposition and acid rain, and comprehensive impacts of NH3 emission control are still poorly understood in China. In this study, by integrating a chemical transport model with a high-resolution NH3 emission inventory, we find that NH3 emission abatement can mitigate PM2.5 pollution and nitrogen deposition but would worsen acid rain in China. Quantitatively, a 50% reduction in NH3 emissions achievable by improving agricultural management, along with a targeted emission reduction (15%) for sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxides, can alleviate PM2.5 pollution by 11-17% primarily by suppressing ammonium nitrate formation. Meanwhile, nitrogen deposition is estimated to decrease by 34%, with the area exceeding the critical load shrinking from 17% to 9% of China's terrestrial land. Nevertheless, this NH3 reduction would significantly aggravate precipitation acidification, with a decrease of as much as 1.0 unit in rainfall pH and a corresponding substantial increase in areas with heavy acid rain. An economic evaluation demonstrates that the worsened acid rain would partly offset the total economic benefit from improved air quality and less nitrogen deposition. After considering the costs of abatement options, we propose a region-specific strategy for multipollutant controls that will benefit human and ecosystem health. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Employing coupling coordination degree model (CCDM), this research attempts to reveal the interaction relationships between built-up land expansion (BLE) and demographic-social-economic (DSE) urbanization in Shanghai-Hangzhou Bay (SHB) Metropolitan Region. It first compared the development trends of four elements, including built-up land expansion level, demographic urbanization, social urbanization, and economic urbanization from 1994 to 2015 through descriptive statistics. Then CCDM was used to identify the spiral escalation trend relationships between built-up land expansion and demographic/social/economic urbanization, respectively. The findings revealed that the degree of coupling coordination between BLE and DSE urbanization had the trend to ascend in SHB, and Shanghai has a more superior balanced development tendency than other cities. It concludes that CCDM can be implemented as an effective approach to evaluate the coupling relationship, and the related agencies in SHB can strengthen the coordination to provide suggestions and make decisions for the coordinated development of urban agglomeration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We monitored the spatio-temporal distribution of urban population-weighted ozone for 2014-2017 to investigate ground-level pollution in China. During the study period, the national average was 88.68±10.4 µg/m³ for O3-8h, and 5.27% of the days that exceed the 160 µg/m³ standard. Pollution hotspots in the Tibetan Plateau are mainly attributed to natural factors, while those in the North China Plain (ncp), Yangtze River Delta (YRD), and Pearl River Delta (PRD) are more closely related to anthropogenic activities. The results indicate that the ozone pollution and its correlations with the landscape are influenced by the ozone regime and climatic factors. In the Yangtze Plain and to its south, pollution in the ozone episodes is related to both population size and heterogeneity. For the Yangtze Plain and its southern urban areas in transitional ozone regimes, sprawl, contiguity, compactness, and the size of the urban area also facilitate the accumulation of pollution. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

China's lakes have experienced dramatic changes in recent decades, but quantitative information on such changes remains unclear. Here we present a national-scale investigation of lake changes in China during 1985 to 2015 and further explore the associated driving factors. We found an apparent increase in the total area of the lakes (increased by 4616.7 ± 296.3 km2). The increasing trend in lake area has been particularly pronounced in the Tibetan Plateau Lake-zone (TPL) and Xinjiang primarily due to increased precipitation and glacier/snow melting under global warming, although significant downward trends (P <0.05) in lake area occurred in eastern and northeastern China and Inner Mongolia, dominantly driven by anthropogenic activities. There are significant negative relationships between relative lake area and irrigated area, built-up land, and number of water projects in the East and the Northeast China Plain (P <0.05). This study provides a crucial basis for continuous investigation and protection of China's lakes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The urbanization effects on land surface phenology (LSP) have been investigated by many studies, but few studies have focused on the temporal variations of urbanization effects on LSP. In this study, we used the Moderate-resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) Enhanced Vegetation Index (EVI), MODIS Land Surface Temperature (LST) data and China's Land Use/Cover Datasets (CLUDs) to investigate the temporal variations of urban heat island intensity (UHII) and urbanization effects on LSP in Northeast China during 2001-2015. LST and phenology differences between urban and rural areas represented the urban heat island intensity and urbanization effects on LSP, respectively. A Mann-Kendall nonparametric test and Sen's slope were used to evaluate the trends of urbanization effects on LSP and urban heat island intensity. The results indicated that the average LSP during 2001-2015 was characterized by high spatial heterogeneity. The start of the growing season (SOS) in old urban areas had become earlier and earlier compared to rural areas, and the differences in SOS between urbanized areas and rural areas changed greatly during 2001-2015 (-0.79 days/year, p < 0.01). Meanwhile, the length of the growing season (LOS) in urban and adjacent areas had become increasingly longer than rural areas, especially in urbanized areas (0.92 days/year, p < 0.01), but the differences in the end of the growing season (EOS) between urban and adjacent areas did not change significantly. Next, the UHII increased in spring and autumn during the whole study period. Moreover, the correlation analysis indicated that the increasing urban heat island intensity in spring contributed greatly to the increases of urbanization effects on SOS, but the increasing urban heat island intensity in autumn did not lead to the increases of urbanization effects on EOS in Northeast China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Hepatitis B virus (HBV) infection is a serious public health problem in China and worldwide. Mother-to-child transmission is one of HBV's main transmission routes in highly endemic regions. Genome-wide association studies (GWAS) identify single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) at HLA loci as associated with HBV infection. However, the mechanisms of HBV perinatal transmission and breakthrough in children have not yet been clearly defined. Objectives: We aimed to explore the association between SNPs at HLA loci and HBV infection and breakthrough in children. Methods: A total of 274 HBV-infected children and 353 controls were selected among children aged between 6 months and 12 years in China. Seven SNPs at HLA-DP and HLA-DQ loci were genotyped to analyze their association with HBV infection in children. Results: Alleles G in both HLA-DPA1 rs3077 and HLA-DPB1 rs9277535 were found to be significantly associated with HBV infection in children with odds ratios (OR) of 1.309 (95% CI 1.046 to 1.639) and 1.411 (95% CI 1.125 to 1.771), respectively. In addition, overdominant analysis found that the rs2281388 (HLA- DPB1) GA genotype and the rs9366816 (HLA-DPB2) TC genotype were related to HBV infection (rs2281388, OR = 1.422, 95% CI: 1.032-1.961; rs9366816, OR = 1.444, 95% CI: 1.045-1.994). Furthermore, this study highlighted that rs9277535 was also significantly associated with HBV breakthrough infection in children whose mothers were positive for hepatitis B surface antigen (HBsAg). Conclusions: Our study confirmed that genetic variants in HLA-DPA1 and HLA-DPB1 loci have significant associations with HBV infection, especially with HBV breakthrough in children. This study provides insight into HBV infection in children and is valuable for the targeted management of, and control strategies for, this disease. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Biomass burning is a main source for primary carbonaceous particles in the atmosphere and acts as a crucial factor that alters Earth's energy budget and balance. It is also an important factor influencing air quality, regional climate and sustainability in the domain of Pan-Eurasian Experiment (PEEX). During the exceptionally intense agricultural fire season in mid-June 2012, accompanied by rapidly deteriorating air quality, a series of meteorological anomalies was observed, including a large decline in near-surface air temperature, spatial shifts and changes in precipitation in Jiangsu province of East China. To explore the underlying processes that link air pollution to weather modification, we conducted a numerical study with parallel simulations using the fully coupled meteorology-chemistry model WRFChem with a high-resolution emission inventory for agricultural fires. Evaluation of the modeling results with available ground-based measurements and satellite retrievals showed that this model was able to reproduce the magnitude and spatial variations of fire-induced air pollution. During the biomass-burning event in mid-June 2012, intensive emission of absorbing aerosols trapped a considerable part of solar radiation in the atmosphere and reduced incident radiation reaching the surface on a regional scale, followed by lowered surface sensible and latent heat fluxes. The perturbed energy balance and re-allocation gave rise to substantial adjustments in vertical temperature stratification, namely surface cooling and upper-air heating. Furthermore, an intimate link between temperature profile and small-scale processes like turbulent mixing and entrainment led to distinct changes in precipitation. On the one hand, by stabilizing the atmosphere below and reducing the surface flux, black carbonladen plumes tended to dissipate daytime cloud and suppress the convective precipitation over Nanjing. On the other hand, heating aloft increased upper-level convective activity and then favored convergence carrying in moist air, thereby enhancing the nocturnal precipitation in the downwind areas of the biomass-burning plumes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Supervised classification is the commonly used method for extracting ground information from images. However, for supervised classification, the selection and labelling of training samples is an expensive and time-consuming task. Recently, automatic information indexes have achieved satisfactory results for indicating different land-cover classes, which makes it possible to develop an automatic method for labelling the training samples instead of manual interpretation. In this paper, we propose a method for the automatic selection and labelling of training samples for high-resolution image classification. In this way, the initial candidate training samples can be provided by the information indexes and open-source geographical information system (GIS) data, referring to the representative land-cover classes: buildings, roads, soil, water, shadow, and vegetation. Several operations are then applied to refine the initial samples, including removing overlaps, removing borders, and semantic constraints. The proposed sampling method is evaluated on a series of high-resolution remote sensing images over urban areas, and is compared to classification with manually labeled training samples. It is found that the proposed method is able to provide and label a large number of reliable samples, and can achieve satisfactory results for different classifiers. In addition, our experiments show that active learning can further enhance the classification performance, as active learning is used to choose the most informative samples from the automatically labeled samples. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: The aim of the present study was to describe the characteristics of dental fear of Chinese adult patients with periodontal disease and provide information for clinical assessment. Methods: A total of 1203 dental patients completed questionnaires that included Corach's Dental Anxiety Scales (DAS), Dental Fear Survey (DFS) and the short-form Dental Anxiety Inventory (S-DAI). Among all the patients, 366 cases were self-reported periodontal disease. The general characteristics were described, such as socio-demographics, dental attendances and oral health behaviors. The statistical analysis was performed by t-test, Mann--Whitney U test and linear regression respectively to evaluate correlations between dental fear and general characteristics according to the three scales. Results: The prevalence of dental fear was 74% among 1203 patients, 23.4% of total with high dental fear, while 27.3% in the patients with periodontal disease. The average score of DAS and DFS for patients with periodontal disease was significantly higher than those without periodontal disease. The regression analysis indicated that gender, age, periodontal status, dental attendances and oral health behaviors were correlated with dental fear. Among 366 patients with periodontal disease, gender, dental attendances and oral health behaviors had correlation with dental fear. The analysis of DFS scale exhibited that 'drilling with handpiece' and 'injecting the anesthetic' were the most important factors to contribute to dental fear. Conclusions: There was high prevalence of dental fear in Chinese adult patients, particularly in patients with periodontal disease, and high level of dental fear may lead to poor periodontal status. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

BACKGROUND: Many surgical methods are available for repairing thoracolumbar fractures including short-segment internal fixation with posterior pedicle screws and anterior decompression and reduction. However, most methods are associated with significant surgical trauma and long postoperative recovery. The purpose of this study was to describe anterior single level interbody fusion and fixation for the repair of thoracolumbar fractures which may reduce surgical trauma and help speed recovery. METHODS: A group of 21 patients who underwent single level anterior interbody fusion and fixation from June 2006 to June 2011 were compared with a group of 21 patients who underwent double level anterior interbody fusion and fixation during the same period. The groups were compared with regard to operation time, intraoperative blood loss, fracture healing time, ratio of pre- to postoperative endplate height between adjacent vertebrae, Cobb angle in the sagittal plane, recovery of neural function, and internal fusion failure. RESULTS: The 2 groups were similar with the exception of fracture location (P = 0.017). The patients who underwent the single level procedure had a shorter operation time (P <0.001), less blood loss (P <0.001), and shorter follow-up (P <0.001). Both groups had significant improvement in Cobb angle at 1 week and 1 year after surgery, but there was no significant difference between the groups. Both groups also exhibited improvement in neurological function, and the difference in improvement between the groups was not significant. CONCLUSIONS: Single level intervertebral fusion and internal fixation for thoracolumbar fractures provides as satisfactory an outcome as the traditional approach, double level anterior interbody fusion and fixation, and reduces the degree of surgical trauma. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Artemisinin (qinghaosu), extracted from the Chinese herb Artemisia annua L. in 1972, and its three major derivatives-artemether, artesunate and dihydroartemisinin-were firstly identified as antimalarials and found active against all species of the malaria parasite. Since the early 1980s, artemisinin and its derivatives have been found efficacious against Schistosoma spp., notably larval parasites, and artemisinin derivatives have played a critical role in the prevention and treatment of human schistosomiasis in China. Currently, China is moving towards the progress of schistosomiasis elimination. However, the potential development of praziquantel resistance may pose a great threat to the progress of elimination of schistosomiasis japonica in China. Fortunately, these three major artemisinin derivatives also exhibit actions against adult parasites, and reduced sensitivity to artemether, artesunate and dihydroartemisinin has been detected in praziquantel-resistant S. japonicum. In this review, we describe the application of artemisinin derivatives in the prevention and treatment of schistosomiasis japonica in China, so as to provide tools for the global agenda of schistosomiasis elimination. In addition to antimalarial and antischistosomal actions, they also show activities against other parasites and multiple cancers. Artemisinin derivatives, as old drugs identified firstly as antimalarials, continue to create new stories. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduction Major efforts have been made to improve the health care system in Hunan province, China. The aims of this study were to assess whether and to what extent these efforts have impacted on gender and regional disparities of Tuberculosis (TB) incidence in recent years, especially for less developed areas. Methods We obtained data from the 2005-2009 China Information System for Disease Control and Prevention (CISDCP)to conduct this study in Hunan province. Counties within the province were divided into four regions according to quartiles based on the 2007 per capita GDP. Index of Disparity (ID) and Relative Index of Inequality (RII) were used to measure the disparities of TB incidence in relation to gender and region. Bootstrap technique was used to increase the precision. Results The average annual incidence of TB was 111.75 per 100,000 in males and 43.44 per 100 000 in females in Hunan. The gender disparity was stable, with ID from 42.34 in 2005 to 43.92 in 2009. For regional disparity, ID, RII (mean) and RII (ratio) decreased significantly from 2005 to 2009 in males (P < 0.05) but remained stable among the female population. Conclusions As interventions such as introduction of the New Rural Cooperative Scheme put in place to reduce health disparities in China, regional disparity in relation to incidence of TB decreased significantly, but the gender disparity remains in the Hunan province. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Chinese auspicious element is a kind of art which is used to express yearning of a happy life. It is one of the great treasures of China, with not only emotional value of the people but also an aesthetic value. Chinese auspicious element derives from the aspiration of luck, enthusiasm of life and conciseness of eliminating malicious. It is of great cultural connotation and widely used in interior design, graphic design, fashion design and such. There are many research papers on application methodology of auspicious elements; however, there are very limited research papers on three-dimension product, let alone application in tableware. This paper focuses on illustration of Chinese representative auspicious element "auspicious fish" in tableware design. The research of its application of auspicious element's styling characteristics is of important significance in auspicious element spread and tableware design. This dissertation aims to provide referential design methodology and experience for later researches on related topic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We announce here the first complete chloroplast genome sequence of Lagerstroemia balansae, a plant species with extremely small populations rated the level of EN (Endangered) in China. This complete chloroplast genome is 152316 bp in size. In total, 130 genes were identified, including 85 protein-coding genes, 37 tRNA genes, 8 rRNA genes. The result of phylogenetic analysis strongly supported that L. balansae was closely related to L. tomentosa. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: The policy environment in China is rapidly changing. Strategic planning may enable hospitals to respond more effectively to changes in their external environment, little evidence exists on the extent to which public hospitals in China adopt different strategies and the relationship between strategic decision-making and hospital performance. Purposes: The purposes of our study were to determine the extent to which different hospitals adopt different strategies, whether strategies are associated with organizational culture and whether hospital strategies are associated with hospital performance. Methodology: Presidents (or vice presidents), employees, and patients from 87 public hospitals were surveyed during 2009. Measures of strategic group were developed using cluster analysis based on the three dimensions of product position, competitive posture, and market position. Culture was measured using a tool developed by the investigators. Performance was measured based on profitability, patient satisfaction, and employee satisfaction with overall hospital development in the recent 5 years. The association of strategic group and organizational culture with hospital performance was analyzed using multivariate models. Findings: Chinese public general hospitals were classified into five strategic groups that had significant differences in product positioning, competitive posture, and market position. Hospitals of similar types based on regulation adopted different strategies. Organizational culture was not strongly associated with hospital strategic group. Although strategic group was associated with hospital profitability and patient satisfaction in the models with or without control for hospital location, these effects did not persist after controlling for organizational culture, hospital level, and hospital location. Practice Implications: It is important for public hospitals in China to make effective strategic planning and align their organizational culture with the strategies for better execution and therefore better performance. Moreover, the method of hospital strategic grouping in the study provides a new way to analyze management issues within a strategic group and between strategic groups. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: With the successful implementation of integrated measures for schistosomiasis japonica control, Jiangsu province has reached low-endemicity status. However, infected Oncomelania hupensis snails could still be found in certain locations along the Yangtze river until 2009, and there is concern that they might spread again, resulting in the possible re-emergence of infections among people and domestic animals alike. In order to establish a robust surveillance system that is able to detect the spread of infected snails at an early stage, sensitive and reliable methods to identify risk factors for the establishment of infected snails need to be developed. Methods: A total of 107 villages reporting the persistent presence of infected snails were selected. Relevant data on the distribution of infected snails, and human and livestock infection status information for the years 2003 to 2008 were collected. Spatio-temporal pattern analysis including spatial autocorrelation, directional distribution and spatial error models were carried out to explore spatial correlations between infected snails and selected explanatory factors. Results: The area where infected snails were found, as well as their density, decreased significantly between 2003 and 2008. Changes in human and livestock prevalences were less pronounced. Three statistically significant spatial autocorrelations for infected snails were identified. (i) The Moran's I of infected snails increased from 2004 to 2007, with the snail density increasing and the area with infected snails decreasing. (ii) The standard deviations of ellipses around infected snails were decreasing and the central points of the ellipses moved from West to East. (iii) The spatial error models indicated no significant correlation between the density of infected snails and selected risk factors. Conclusions: We conclude that the contribution of local infection sources including humans and livestock to the distribution of infected snails might be relatively small and that snail control may limit infected snails to increasingly small areas ecologically most suitable for transmission. We provide a method to identify these areas and risk factors for persistent infected snail presence through spatio-temporal analysis, and a suggested framework, which could assist in designing evidence based control strategies for schistosomiasis japonica elimination. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study was performed to observe the influence of sham and different verum acupuncture manipulations on skin temperature of the stimulated acupoint in healthy volunteers. Thirty-seven healthy volunteers with a mean age of 25.4 ± 2.2 years were enrolled in the study. All volunteers had experienced acupuncture before. They received sham acupuncture and two different kinds of verum acupuncture stimulation (lifting-thrusting and twisting-rotating) on Zusanli (ST36). The skin temperature of ST36 was measured before acupuncture, after needle insertion, after needle manipulation, immediately after removal of the needle, and as further control 5 minutes after removal of the needle using a FLIR i7 infrared thermal camera. During the measurement, the needling sensations of volunteers were enquired and recorded. During the sham acupuncture stimulation, the skin temperature of ST36 decreased in the first 5 minutes, when the point was exposed, and then increased gradually. During verum acupuncture stimulations, the skin temperature increased continually and then decreased in the last phase. The increase in temperature caused by lifting-thrusting stimulation was significantly higher than that of twisting-rotating manipulation, which may be related to the stimulation intensity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The existence of gas-phase ammonia (NH3) in the atmosphere and its interaction with other trace chemical species could have a substantial impact on tropospheric chemistry and global climate change. China is a large agricultural country with an enormous animal population, tremendous nitrogen fertilizer consumption and, consequently, a large emission of NH3. Despite the importance of NH3 in the global nitrogen (N) cycle, considerable inaccuracies and uncertainty exist regarding its emission in China. In this study, a comprehensive NH3 emission inventory was compiled for China on a 1 km x 1 km grid, which is suitable for input to atmospheric models. We attempted to estimate NH3 emissions accurately by taking into consideration as many native experiment results as possible and parameterizing the emission factors (EFs) by the ambient temperature, soil acidity and other factors. The total NH3 emission in China was approximately 9.8 Tg in 2006. The emission sources considered included livestock excreta (5.3 Tg), fertilizer application (3.2 Tg), agricultural soil (0.2 Tg), nitrogen-fixing plants (0.05 Tg), crop residue compost (0.3 Tg), biomass burning (0.1 Tg), urine from rural populations (0.2 Tg), chemical industry (0.2 Tg), waste disposal (0.1 Tg) and traffic (0.1 Tg). The regions with the highest emission rates are located in Central and Southwest China. Seasonally, the peak ammonia emissions occur in spring and summer. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

HLA-A2 protects from EBV+ classical Hodgkin lymphoma (cHL) in Western Europe, but it is unknown whether this protective effect also exists in the Chinese population. We investigated the association of HLA-A2 and specific common and well documented HLA-A2 subtypes with EBV stratified cHL patients (n = 161) from the northern part of China. Quantitative-PCR and sequence-based subtyping was performed to identify HLA-A2 positive samples and their subtypes. 67 (42%) of the cHL patients were EBV+. There were no significant differences in percentages of HLA-A2 positivity between cHL and controls (65% vs 66%) and between EBV+ and EBV2 cHL patients (70% vs 61%). The frequency distribution of HLA-A2 subtypes was significantly different between EBV stratified cHL subgroups and controls. This difference was most striking for the HLAA* 02:07 type with a frequency of 38% in EBV+ cHL, 8% in EBV2 cHL and 20% in controls. Significant differences were also observed for the HLA-A*02:07, HLA-A2 (non-02:07) and the A2-negative typings between EBV+ cHL vs controls (p = 0.028), EBV2 cHL vs controls (p = 0.045) and EBV+ vs EBV2 cHL cases (p = 2×10-5 ). In conclusion, HLA-A*02:07 is a predisposing allele for EBV+ cHL and a protective allele for EBV2 cHL in the northern Chinese population. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Biomass burning covers open fires (forest and grassland fires, crop residue burning in fields, etc.) and biofuel combustion (crop residues and wood, etc., used as fuel). As a large agricultural country, China may produce large quantities of mercury emissions from biomass burning. A new mercury emission inventory in China is needed because previous studies reflected outdated biomass burning with coarse resolution. Moreover, these studies often adopted the emission factors (mass of emitted species per mass of biomass burned) measured in North America. In this study, the mercury emissions from biomass burning in China (excluding small islands in the South China Sea) were estimated, using recently measured mercury concentrations in various biomes in China as emission factors. Emissions from crop residues and fuelwood were estimated based on annual reports distributed by provincial government. Emissions from forest and grassland fires were calculated by combining moderate resolution imaging spectroradiometer (MODIS) burned area product with combustion efficiency (ratio of fuel consumption to total available fuels) considering fuel moisture. The average annual emission from biomass burning was 27 (range from 15.1 to 39.9) Mg/year. This inventory has high spatial resolution (1 km) and covers a long period (2000-2007), making it useful for air quality modeling. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study proposes a novel morphological building index (MBI) for automatic building extraction from high-resolution remotely sensed imagery. The basic idea of MBI is to build a relationship between the implicit characteristics of buildings (e.g., brightness, size, and contrast) and the properties of morphological operators (e.g., reconstruction, granulometry, and directionality). Buildings are extracted by performing a threshold on the MBI feature image. Subsequently, the shape features, such as area and length-width ratio, are used to refine the binary building map. In order to validate the proposed algorithm, a comparative study was performed between MBI, a recently developed texture-derived built-up presence index (PanTex), and the widely used object-based approach. Experiments were conducted on a multispectral GeoEye-1 image, covering a study area of 5.5 km by 5.3 km in Hongshan district of Wuhan, central China. In experiments, MBI achieved satisfactory results and outperformed other algorithms in terms of both accuracies and visual inspection. The effects of parameters of MBI were also analyzed in detail, including directions, sizes and the binaryzation threshold. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An abundance of candidate genes have been reported as susceptibility factors for the risk of nasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPC). Vitamin D receptor (VDR) plays an important role in cellular differentiation and the control of proliferation in a variety of cell types. To our knowledge, however, no study has reported the relationship between the VDR and NPC. The purpose of this study is to explore the potential correlation between singlenucleotide polymorphisms of the VDR gene (VDR) Fok I and Bsm I and NPC. A total of 171 patients with NPC and 176 age- and sex-matched controls were involved in this study. Genotypes were determined by using polymerase chain reaction-restriction fragment length polymorphism and DNA sequencing. There were no significant differences in the genotype and allele frequencies of VDR Fok I and Bsm I polymorphisms between the group of patients with NPC and the control group in a Chinese Han population (for VDR Fok I: adjusted OR 1.03, 95% CI: 0.76-1.41; for VDR Bsm I: adjusted OR 0.80, 95% CI: 0.48-1.33). Further studies will be needed to explore the complicated gene-gene interaction and geneenvironmental interactions in the susceptibility to NPC, especially in ethnically disparate populations in cohort study samples. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: The incidence of classical Hodgkin lymphoma (cHL) and its association with Epstein-Barr virus (EBV) varies significantly with age, sex, ethnicity and geographic location. This is the first report on epidemiological features of cHL patients from Northern regions of China. These features are compared to data from a previously published Dutch cHL population. Methodology/Principal Findings: 157 cHL patients diagnosed between 1997 and 2008 in the North of China were included after histopathological re-evaluation. The Dutch population-based cohort consisted of 515 cHL patients diagnosed between 1987 and 2000. EBV status was determined by in situ hybridization of EBV- encoded small RNAs. In the Chinese population, tumor cells of 39% of the cHL patients were EBV+ and this was significantly associated with male sex, mixed cellularity subtype and young age (<20 y). The median age of the Chinese patients was 9 years younger than that of the Dutch patients (28 y vs. 37 y). In addition, the age distribution between the two populations was strikingly different in both the EBV+ subgroups (p<0.001) and the EBV- subgroups (p = 0.01). The mixed cellularity subtype was almost 3x more frequent amongst the Chinese (p<0.001). Conclusion/Significance: CHL patients from Northern regions of China show a distinctive age distribution pattern with a striking incidence peak of EBV+ mixed cellularity cases among children and adolescents and another high incidence peak of EBV- nodular sclerosis cases in young adults. In comparison to Dutch cHL patients there are pronounced differences in age distribution, subtype and EBV status, presumably caused by complex gene-environmental interactions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: To explore the relationship between posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and preflood behavioral characteristics among children aged 7-15 years in Hunan, China. Subjects and Methods: In 2000, a retrospective study was carried out among children who had been exposed to the 1998 floods in Hunan. A multistage sampling method was used to select subjects from the flood-affected areas. A structured questionnaire administered to the children selected was used to diagnose PTSD based on the DSM-IV criteria. A parent questionnaire was used to measure preflood behavioral characteristics related to health, behavioral, and habit problems. The association between PTSD and preflood behavioral characteristics was assessed using χ2-tests and multivariate logistic regression. Results: A total of 7,038 children from 13,450 households, aged 7-15 years, were investigated. The overall prevalence of PTSD was 2.05%. Generally, the PTSD-positive rate increased with increasing scores for behavioral characteristics. Conclusion: Preflood behavioral characteristics are an important factor influencing the prevalence of PTSD among children exposed to floods. It is therefore necessary to give special attention to children with behavioral problems in order to reduce the psychological impact of floods. Copyright © 2011 S. Karger AG, Basel [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: To assess the differences in tuberculosis (TB) treatment success between Hunan and Eastern Ghana. Subjects and Methods: The study was a retrospective comparative study using 2005-2006 surveillance data from the Hunan province of China and the Eastern region of Ghana. Data analyzed were from the provincial/regional capital and a randomly selected city of lower economic status. χ2 test and Fisher's exact test were used to do general and stratified comparison of treatment success rates within/between the two areas. Multivariate logistic regression was used to analyze the independent effect of explanatory variables on treatment success. Results: Generally, the treatment success rate was significantly higher in Hunan (93.1 vs. 60.7%, p = 0.000). Stratified analyses showed a similar pattern for almost all the group-specific rates. Key predictors of TB treatment success in Hunan were gender, age group, and type of city of residence whilst in Eastern Ghana treatment success was associated with only age group. Odds ratios for treatment success in Hunan were significantly lower for males (OR = 0.78; 95% CI = 0.63, 0.97), and higher for patients resident in the provincial capital (OR = 1.35; 95% CI = 1.12, 1.62). In both countries treatment success rates decreased with increasing age. Conclusion: TB treatment success in Hunan was comparatively better than that in Eastern Ghana. Gender, age group, and type of city of residence were the key predictors of treatment success in Hunan whilst in Eastern Ghana age group was the key predictor. Copyright © 2010 S. Karger AG, Basel [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: To explore the relationship between posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) in flood victim parents and children in Hunan, China. Methods: Using the method of multistage cluster random sampling, we conducted a retrospective investigation on 3,698 families in Hunan, China who suffered from flooding in 1998. Investigators held face-to-face interviews with the parents and children of the families. The diagnosis of PTSD was made according to the criteria of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, fourth edition. The comparison of rate of PTSD positive in the groups of children with different characteristics was done by chi-square test. In the evaluation of the impact of parent PTSD on PTSD in their children, we used a multivariable logistic regression model to re-estimate the adjusted Odds Ratio and its confidence interval. We did this after the possible confounding variables were adjusted for. Additionally, the Odds Ratio and its confidence interval were estimated under the condition of a single variable. Results: A total of 4,327 children and the parents of 3,292 families were included for analysis; 203 (4.7%) of 4,327 children and 740 (11.2%) of 6,584 parents were diagnosed with PTSD. We found that the PTSD positive rate is significantly higher in the children with disaster-related experience. The rate of beating their children in PTSD positive fathers (54.9%) was higher than that of PTSD negative fathers (51.2%). No correlation was found between mothers’ PTSD and beating their children. The risk of developing PTSD is higher for children living in the families with PTSD parents. Conclusion: The rate of PTSD in 7–14-year-old children is 4.7% in areas in Hunan, China, who suffered from flooding in 1998. The possibility for children to develop PTSD is increased in families with PTSD parents. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: In Caucasian populations, the tumor cells of Epstein Barr virus (EBV)-positive classical Hodgkin Lymphomas (cHL) patients more frequently express HLA class I and HLA class II molecules compared to EBV-negative cHL patients. HLA expression (in relation to EBV) in Asian cHL patients has not been previously investigated. Methodology/Principal Findings: We randomly selected 145 cHL patients with formalin-fixed, paraffin embedded tissue blocks available from 5 hospitals from the Northern part of China. Hematoxylin & Eosin-stained slides were used to reclassify the histological subtypes according to the WHO classification. EBV status was determined by visualization of EBERs in tumor cells using in situ hybridization. Membranous expression of HLA molecules was detected by immunohistochemistry using antibodies HC-10 (class I heavy chain) and anti-β2-microglobulin for HLA class I, and CR3/43 for HLA class II. EBV+ tumor cells were observed in 40% (58/145) of the cHL patients. As expected, the percentage of EBV+ cases was much higher in the mixed cellularity subtype (71%) than in the nodular sclerosis subtype (16%) (p,0.001). Expression of HLA class I was observed in 79% of the EBV+ cHL cases and in 30% of the EBV- cases (p<0.001). For HLA class II, 52% of EBV+ cHL cases were positive, compared to 43% in EBV- cases (p = 0.28). Conclusions: The results in the Northern China population were similar to those in the Caucasian population for HLA class I, but not for HLA class II. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]