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Purpose: This paper aims to address the issue of why students want to drop out from a course and suggests appropriate strategies to enhance student retention. Design/methodology/approach: A sample of 260 hospitality management students were surveyed based on both Tinto's model of student-institution integration and a theory of planned behavior on student departure. The research applies data mining and decision tree using the classification and regression trees (CART) method as an analytic tool to identify a group, discover relationships between groups and predict future events for segmentation. Findings: The results regarding the demographics indicate that the most critical factors of dropout included residency status, financial situation, quality of class and occupation. Research limitations/implications: This is a limited US sample, based on student perceptions only and not lecturer or institution perceptions. Originality/value: The paper provides empirical evidence of student perspective along with institutional and learning environment factors. It includes data from students who are currently enrolled (which previous literature has not covered) by testing student-institution integration and planned behavior on student departure.

Although reclaimed water (RW) has become a promising alternative source for alleviating water shortage in arid and semiarid regions, the ecological risks it poses to the receiving water bodies remain largely unknown. Dissolved organic matter (DOM) is crucial for affecting the quality of RW and strongly influences bacterial communities (BCs) in aquatic ecosystems. In this study, we aimed to unravel the role of DOM signatures on the spatiotemporal composition of microbial communities (MCs) in a seasonally ice-sealed urban river that had been chronically replenished by RW. We found that discharging RW resulted in elevated DOM levels in the receiving river. Notably, an increase of 10% in protein-like substances was revealed. The differences between compositional characteristics of DOM and the abundance of riverine BCs between freezing and non-freezing periods were revealed. In the freezing season, humic-like components, aromaticity, and hydrophobicity of DOM were more significant, and bacterial taxa such as Bacteriodetes and Flavobacterium were increased, while Proteobacteria was decreased. Similarly, co-occurrence network analysis revealed an enhanced interplay between DOM and BCs at the same time. However, Klebsiella pneumoniae markedly decreased during the ice-sealed period. These results suggest that variations in DOM characteristics have remarkable impacts on the dynamics of aquatic BCs, which points to the need for a DOM−oriented RW quality monitoring strategy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Carbapenem-resistant Pseudomonas aeruginosa (CRPA) is a public health concern worldwide, but comprehensive analysis of risk factors for CRPA remains limited in China. We conducted a retrospective observational study of carbapenem resistance in 71,880 P. aeruginosa isolates collected in Zhejiang Province during 2015–2017. We analyzed risk factors for CRPA, including the type of clinical specimen; the year, season, and region in which it was collected; patient information, including age, whether they were an outpatient or inpatient, and whether inpatients were in the intensive care unit or general ward; and the level of hospital submitting isolates. We found CRPA was more prevalent among isolates from patients >60 years of age and in inpatients, especially in intensive care units. In addition, specimen types and seasons in which they were collected were associated with higher rates of CRPA. Our findings can help hospitals reduce the spread of P. aeruginosa and optimize antimicrobial drug use.

The bacterium Pseudomonas aeruginosa is a particularly concerning nosocomial pathogen because of its intrinsic resistance to multiple antimicrobial agents (1,2). In 2016, surveillance of nosocomial infections in China showed P. [...]

Solar steam generation technology (SSGT) using unlimited solar energy is regarded as one of the most promising sustainable technologies to produce clean water. However, most of studies on SSGT simply focus on how to improve salt resistance as well as exclude inorganic and organic pollutants in targeted water, and only very limited studies pay attention to the micro‐organisms in the collected water. Herein, one porous Cu2ZnSnS4‐based photothermal hydrogel (CZTS‐PH) with antibacterial properties as well as good salt resistance was successfully prepared. The CZTS‐PH was measured with the water evaporation rate as high as 3.249 kg m−2 h−1 and photothermal conversion efficiency of 96.3 % under one sun irradiation. Impressively, owing to the amino groups in the skeleton, CZTS‐PH can significantly deteriorate the cell membrane and lead to the death of the Escherichia coli (E. coli) and Staphylococcus aureus (S. aureus), which ensures its long‐term stability photothermal conversion and the safety of clean water. Overall, the admired photothermal conversion efficiency, and the excellent salt resistance and antibacterial performance suggest that CZTS‐PH could be a promising full‐scale device applied in seawater desalination and water purification. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]