Abstract Background: Strong evidence is lacking to support effectiveness of currently implemented tuberculosis infection prevention control (TB-IPC) measures for preventing nosocomial tuberculosis (TB) transmission. This 13-year analysis is the longest follow-up investigation to date to identify risk factors underlying nosocomial TB transmission. Methods: We monitored all staff of Beijing Chest Hospital each year from 2006 to 2018. Age, gender, duration, department, education, income, respirator, ultraviolet, and ventilation were chosen as variables. Univariate cox regression, correlation analysis, and multivariate cox regression were analyzed sequentially.Results: Using multivariable cox regression analysis, variables of income, ultraviolet germicidal irradiation (UVGI), natural ventilation and mechanical ventilation conferred significant protective effects, with odds ratios (ORs) of 0.499, 0.058, 0.003, and 0.015, respectively (P<0.05). Medical N95 respirator conferred an excellent protective effect, with an associated TB infection rate of 0%. Notably, inadequately maintained mechanical ventilation systems were less protective than natural ventilation systems.Conclusions: UVGI, adequate ventilation, and medical N95 respirator use may be protective factors against nosocomial TB transmission. Adequate ventilator system training, monitoring, and regular maintenance are critical for achieving effective TB-IPC.Corresponding author equally to this paper: Naihui Chu: Tuberculosis Department, Beijing Chest Hospital affiliated to Capital Medical University, No 9, Beiguan street, Tongzhou District, Beijing 101149, P.R.China. Email: chunaihui1994@sina.com
Climate change and global warming significantly influence farmers’ activity and lead to lower production yield. To increase production without deteriorating the environment, it is vital to substitute chemical fertilizer with organic fertilizer. The utilization of organic fertilizer not only improves the soil quality but also protects the environment and helps mitigate global warming repercussions. So, there is a need to promote organic fertilizer utilization. The Internet, as an essential information medium, presently has a profound influence on farmers’ production behavior. However, the relationship between Internet use and the application of organic fertilizer is explicitly sparse, especially in China. Using the survey data of 797 vegetable growers, the current study explores the impact of Internet use on farmers’ organic fertilizer application behavior. The present study employs the propensity score matching (PSM) method to meet the study objective. According to the findings, it is unveiled that the Internet significantly promotes behavior towards applying organic fertilizer by approximately 10%. Further, the heterogeneity results show that the degree of impact varies due to differences in the level of education, vegetable farming income, and the number of vegetable laborers in the family. Moreover, social networks are also used to explore the nexus between the Internet and organic fertilizer application. The findings reveal that social networks favorably play the mediating role. The overall results propose that policymakers should establish the Internet infrastructure and an official online platform to help farmers consolidate and extend the scale of their social networks and exchange information more conveniently to improve their ability to apply environment-friendly production technology.
This work investigates the rheology, structure, and mechanical properties of novel composite gel systems formed by rice starch (RS) as a cooling-set gel and curdlan (CD) as a thermo-irreversible heating-set gel. Pure CD had higher gel strength than pure RS, but could be destroyed more quickly due to its porous gel structure with large voids and disrupted ‘cell walls’. A higher CD content in the composite gel could increase the inter-chain hydrogen bonding between RS and CD, leading to increased moduli, solid-like behavior, gel structure density, mechanical properties, and reduced frequency-dependence, especially at high temperature (> 65 °C). It is worth noting that, thermal treatment can destroy the structural integrity of the RS gel, resulting in lower strength and softer texture. This textural degradation can be significantly improved by incorporation with CD. The knowledge gained from this work could guide the production of starch-based gel products with desired properties.
This systematic literature review examined 61 empirical studies published from 2010 to 2022 on translanguaging. The review explored the trends and scientific strengths of the studies, the reported pedagogical components, and the affordances and challenges of translanguaging. 70.49% of the studies took place in elementary schools and in 65.57% in the U.S. contexts. The majority of the studies employed ethnographic methods (27.87%) to collect data. Only 37 of the reviewed papers endorsed translanguaging's agenda of promoting equity and social justice. Our evaluation of the reviewed studies was generally favourable with strengths identified in researchers' articulation of research context and theoretical frameworks, connections to existent literature, and methods of data collection. However, data analysis in certain studies did not contain adequate information regarding how themes, concepts, and categories were derived from data, and data were not presented in a way that enables readers to judge the range of evidence being used. Adopting thematic analysis, the systematic literature review identified 11 major pedagogical components of pedagogical translanguaging and the affordances and challenges of both pedagogical and spontaneous translanguaging. The paper ends with recommendations for future research and pedagogical innovations that aim to buttress bilingual and multilingual students' fluid meaning-making practices.
This paper describes the results of a study examining the difference between reading attitudes of children in regions with different levels of economic development. The Elementary Reading Attitude Survey of McKenna and Kear was translated into Chinese by the researcher to measure the reading attitudes of students in Shanghai and Ya'an and 208 results were analyzed with independent t-test. It was found that there were significant differences between overall reading attitude and academic reading attitude between children in regions with different levels of economic development, but no significant difference was found in the children's recreational reading attitude.
Faradic-capacitive deionization (FDI) has emerged promising research branch of capacitive deionization (CDI) to address the crisis in freshwater supply due to its high desalination capacity and unique ion storage mechanism over traditional CDI. However, the ion-storage mechanism of FDI imposes notable limitations on its desalination kinetics, while issues such as volumetric expansion (as well as the damage caused to the composite material's structure) contribute to poor cycling stability. Herein, we developed a rational material design of Fe nanocluster-impregnated CNFAs (Fe NCs@CNFAs) and further used it as chloride-capturing electrode for FDI. This unique nanostructure not only provides fast surface-driven pseudo capacitance but also establishes a flexible scaffold that effectively protects the Fe NCs from severe morphology changes. As a result, our Fe NCs@CNFAs-based FDI exhibited both ultrahigh desalination capacity (120.38 mg g-1) and fast desalination rate (0.416 mg g-1 s-1), with robust cycling stability (showing only a 15.25% decrease in desalination capacity after 100 cycles). This study underscores the significance of the problem-driven approach by leveraging soft scaffold-protected ultrasmall nanocluster to induce fast and durable desalination performance.
Facing the pressure of environmental protection and the accompanying economic development problems, this paper adopted the synthetic control method to study the ecological and economic effects of CCER trading. Calculation models of carbon sequestration and the index system were constructed to measure the effects. Considering the actual practices, the pilot province of CCER trading, Hubei province, was selected as the treated group. It was shown that the implementation of CCER trading saw an apparent increase in carbon sink and income in the rural area of the pilot province, that is, positive ecological and economic effects. The policy design of Hubei province is applicable and replicable nationwide, which will contribute to environmental protection and economic development.
Accurate estimations of forest evapotranspiration (ET) and its components, transpiration (T) and evaporation (E), are important for deep understanding and predicting the responses of forest water cycles to climate change. In this study, the improved Shuttleworth-Wallace model (SWH) was applied to estimate ET, T, and E during 2003-2014 in a subtropical planation, and the modeled results were verified using in situ measurements by the eddy covariance technique, sap flow, and micro-lysimeter method. The study aimed to clarify whether it is feasible and reliable to use the SWH model to estimate and partition ET in forests. In addition, depending on the long-term data, the specific performances in modeling ET under different climatic backgrounds were investigated, and the underlying mechanisms were explored. The results verified that the SWH performed relatively well in the subtropical forest, and the modeled ET, T and E could track the seasonal variations, although overestimations were found in the peak seasons. However, the model was relatively weaker in estimating the interannual variabilities. It performed well in modeling ET in normal years but showed larger model residuals in years with obvious climatic anomalies. In the severe summer-drought (2003) and cold-spring (2005) years, the model greatly overestimated ET. It also overestimated ET in summer since 2010, which may be ascribed to the less dependency of ET on VPD induced by the more humid microclimate in forest accompanied with forest development. For the ET partitioning results, the modeled and measured E and T values were all in reasonable ranges. The possible reasons for underestimations (overestimations) of E and T by measurements (SWH model) were discussed. In this study, the data obtained using different methods and from different scales matched each other and could be cross validated, and the discussion on discrepancies would be beneficial for understanding the advantages and flaws of different methods and could be the basis for optimizing the measurement and model methods. In sum, this study verified that it is feasible to use the SWH model in forests and provided a basis for further improving and optimizing the modeled results under different climate backgrounds.
'/%3e%3cuse xlink:href='%23a' transform='rotate(23.036 .093 25.536)'/%3e%3cuse xlink:href='%23a' transform='rotate(45.87 1.273 16.18)'/%3e%3cuse xlink:href='%23a' transform='rotate(69.945 .996 12.078)'/%3e%3cuse xlink:href='%23a' transform='rotate(20.66 -19.689 31.932)'/%3e%3c/svg%3e)
'/%3e%3cuse xlink:href='%23a' transform='translate(288.889 -214.211)'/%3e%3cuse xlink:href='%23a' transform='translate(108 342.749)'/%3e%3cuse xlink:href='%23a' transform='translate(469.189 342.749)'/%3e%3c/svg%3e)