Groundwater Entrepreneurs in China: Selling Water to Meet the Demand for Water

The overall goal of our paper is to better understand the development of groundwater markets in northern China. In particular, we focus on the factors that determine the development of groundwater markets in our attempt to explain their 'breadth' and 'depth.' Based on a survey of 24 randomly sampled villages and 50 randomly sampled tubewells in two provinces (Hebei and Henan Province) in 2001 and a field survey of 68 randomly sampled villages in 4 provinces (Hebei, Henan, Shanxi, and Shaanxi) of northern China in 2004, our results show that groundwater markets in northern China have emerged and are developing rapidly. Our results show that groundwater markets in northern China are informal and localized. The markets have developed in a way in which they appear somewhat similar to markets that are found in South Asia. However, groundwater markets differ from markets in South Asia in other ways -- water sellers discriminate in pricing and they almost always work on a spot-market, cash basis (that is, there are no share or labor sharing arrangements as found in South Asia). Econometric results show that the privatization of tubewells is one of the most important driving factors that encourage the development of groundwater markets. Increasing water and land scarcity are also major determinants that induce the development of groundwater markets

Groundwater Entrepreneurs in China: Selling Water to Meet the Demand for Water

The overall goal of our paper is to better understand the development of groundwater markets in northern China. In particular, we focus on the factors that determine the development of groundwater markets in our attempt to explain their 'breadth' and 'depth.' Based on a survey of 24 randomly sampled villages and 50 randomly sampled tubewells in two provinces (Hebei and Henan Province) in 2001 and a field survey of 68 randomly sampled villages in 4 provinces (Hebei, Henan, Shanxi, and Shaanxi) of northern China in 2004, our results show that groundwater markets in northern China have emerged and are developing rapidly. Our results show that groundwater markets in northern China are informal and localized. The markets have developed in a way in which they appear somewhat similar to markets that are found in South Asia. However, groundwater markets differ from markets in South Asia in other wayswater sellers discriminate in pricing and they almost always work on a spot-market, cash basis (that is, there are no share or labor sharing arrangements as found in South Asia). Econometric results show that the privatization of tubewells is one of the most important driving factors that encourage the development of groundwater markets. Increasing water and land scarcity are also major determinants that induce the development of groundwater markets.Groundwater markets, Emergence, Characteristics, Determinants, northern China, Resource /Energy Economics and Policy, O53, Q15, Q25,

Probabilistic approach for systems of second order quasi-linear parabolic PDEs

AbstractUsing the stochastic representation for second order parabolic equations, we prove the existence of local smooth solutions in Sobolev spaces for a class of second order quasi-linear parabolic partial differential equations (possibly degenerate) with smooth coefficients. As a simple application, the rate of convergence for vanishing viscosity is proved to be O(νt). Moreover, using Bismutʼs formula, we also obtain a global existence result for non-degenerate semi-linear parabolic equations. In particular, multi-dimensional Burgers equations are covered

A lightweight network for photovoltaic cell defect detection in electroluminescence images based on neural architecture search and knowledge distillation

Nowadays, the rapid development of photovoltaic(PV) power stations requires increasingly reliable maintenance and fault diagnosis of PV modules in the field. Due to the effectiveness, convolutional neural network (CNN) has been widely used in the existing automatic defect detection of PV cells. However, the parameters of these CNN-based models are very large, which require stringent hardware resources and it is difficult to be applied in actual industrial projects. To solve these problems, we propose a novel lightweight high-performance model for automatic defect detection of PV cells in electroluminescence(EL) images based on neural architecture search and knowledge distillation. To auto-design an effective lightweight model, we introduce neural architecture search to the field of PV cell defect classification for the first time. Since the defect can be any size, we design a proper search structure of network to better exploit the multi-scale characteristic. To improve the overall performance of the searched lightweight model, we further transfer the knowledge learned by the existing pre-trained large-scale model based on knowledge distillation. Different kinds of knowledge are exploited and transferred, including attention information, feature information, logit information and task-oriented information. Experiments have demonstrated that the proposed model achieves the state-of-the-art performance on the public PV cell dataset of EL images under online data augmentation with accuracy of 91.74% and the parameters of 1.85M. The proposed lightweight high-performance model can be easily deployed to the end devices of the actual industrial projects and retain the accuracy.Comment: 12 pages, 7 figure

Shifting Spotlight for Co-supervision: A Simple yet Efficient Single-branch Network to See Through Camouflage

Efficient and accurate camouflaged object detection (COD) poses a challenge in the field of computer vision. Recent approaches explored the utility of edge information for network co-supervision, achieving notable advancements. However, these approaches introduce an extra branch for complex edge extraction, complicate the model architecture and increases computational demands. Addressing this issue, our work replicates the effect that animal's camouflage can be easily revealed under a shifting spotlight, and leverages it for network co-supervision to form a compact yet efficient single-branch network, the Co-Supervised Spotlight Shifting Network (CS$^3$Net). The spotlight shifting strategy allows CS$^3$Net to learn additional prior within a single-branch framework, obviating the need for resource demanding multi-branch design. To leverage the prior of spotlight shifting co-supervision, we propose Shadow Refinement Module (SRM) and Projection Aware Attention (PAA) for feature refinement and enhancement. To ensure the continuity of multi-scale features aggregation, we utilize the Extended Neighbor Connection Decoder (ENCD) for generating the final predictions. Empirical evaluations on public datasets confirm that our CS$^3$Net offers an optimal balance between efficiency and performance: it accomplishes a 32.13% reduction in Multiply-Accumulate (MACs) operations compared to leading efficient COD models, while also delivering superior performance

Can China continue feeding itself ? the impact of climate change on agriculture

Several studies addressing the supply and demand for food in China suggest that the nation can largely meet its needs in the coming decades. However, these studies do not consider the effects of climate change. This paper examines whether near future expected changes in climate are likely to alter this picture. The authors analyze the effect of temperature and precipitation on net crop revenues using a cross section consisting of both rainfed and irrigated farms. Based on survey data from 8,405 households across 28 provinces, the results of the Ricardian analysis demonstrate that global warming is likely to be harmful to China but the impacts are likely to be very different in each region. The mid latitude region of China may benefit from warming but the southern and northern regions are likely to be damaged by warming. More precipitation is beneficial to Chinese farmers except in the wet southeast. Irrigated and rainfed farmers have similar responses to precipitation but not to temperature. Warmer temperatures may benefit irrigated farms but they are likely to harm rainfed farms. Finally, seasonal effects vary and are offsetting. Although we were able to measure the direct effect of precipitation and temperature, we could not capture the effects of change in water flow which will be very important in China. Can China continue feeding itself if climate changes? Based on the empirical results, the likely gains realized by some farmers will nearly offset the losses that will occur to other farmers in China. If future climate scenarios lead to significant reductions in water, there may be large damages not addressed in this study.Climate Change,Crops&Crop Management Systems,Global Environment Facility,Common Property Resource Development,Rural Development Knowledge&Information Systems

A STUDY ON FOUR ANTIOXIDATION EFFECTS OF LYCIUM BARBARUM POLYSACCHARIDES IN VITRO

The objective of the study was to investigate the in vitro antioxidation activity of lycium barbarum polysaccharides (LBP). Ultraviolet spectrophotometry was adopted to determine the capability of LBP to clear superoxide anions, hydroxyl radicals, DPPH free radicals and ABTS free radicals. The result showed that the law for LBP to clear superoxide anions, hydroxyl radicals and DPPH free radicals was that the clearance rate increased gradually with the increase of the concentration, and when the concentration reached a certain value, the clearance rate leveled off, while the IC50 for clearing ABTS free radicals was 47.158±6.231μg/ml. The study concluded that LBP is a good in vitro antioxidant

First age- and gender-matched case-control study in Australia examining the possible association between toxoplasma gondii Infection and type 2 diabetes mellitus: The Busselton Health Study

An emerging field of research is starting to examine the association of infectious pathogens with type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM). An understudied parasite of interest is Toxoplasma gondii. Globally, very few studies have been conducted to investigate this association. Additionally, very little data exists on the prevalence of T. gondii in the general Australian population. Our group sought to determine the prevalence, association, and risk factors between T. gondii infection and T2DM from a representative Australian human population. Through a cross-sectional, age-A nd gender-matched case-control study, 150 subjects with T2DM together with 150 control subjects from the Busselton Health Study cohort were investigated. Sera samples were tested for the presence of anti-T. gondii IgG and IgM antibodies using enzyme-linked immunosorbent assays. Survey-derived data were also analyzed to evaluate associated risk factors. The IgG seroprevalence was found to be 62% and 66% for the T2DM and control groups, respectively (OR:0.84; p=0.471). IgM antibodies were detected in 5% of the T2DM patients and in 10% of the controls (OR=0.51; p=0.135). There were no significant differences between male and female IgG seroprevalence rates for both groups (OR:0.88, 0.80; p=0.723). The IgG seropositivity rate increased significantly in T2DM patients aged 45-84 years in comparison to those aged 18-44 years (p\u3c 0.05), but this was not observed in the control subjects. No risk factors were associated with T. gondii seropositivity in both groups. The first Australian study of its kind found T. gondii infection in Western Australia to be highly prevalent. The results also showed that there is no serological evidence of an association between T. gondii infection and T2DM in the studied subjects. Australian health authorities should focus on raising awareness of toxoplasma infection and target T. gondii transmission control. Further studies are needed to clarify the role of T. gondii in T2DM. © 2020 Aus Molan et al

More Than Just Statics: Static and Temporal Dynamic Changes in Intrinsic Brain Activity in Unilateral Temporal Lobe Epilepsy

BACKGROUND: Temporal lobe epilepsy (TLE) is the most prevalent refractory focal epilepsy and is more likely accompanied by cognitive impairment. The fully understanding of the neuronal activity underlying TLE is of great significance. OBJECTIVE: This study aimed to comprehensively explore the potential brain activity abnormalities affected by TLE and detect whether the changes were associated with cognition. METHODS: Six static intrinsic brain activity (IBA) indicators [amplitude of low-frequency fluctuation (ALFF), fractional ALFF (fALFF), regional homogeneity (ReHo), degree centrality (DC), global signal correlation (GSCorr), and voxel-mirrored homotopic connectivity (VMHC)] and their corresponding dynamic indicators, such as dynamic ALFF (dALFF), dynamic fALFF (dfALFF), dynamic ReHo (dReHo), dynamic DC (dDC), dynamic VMHC (dVMHC), and dynamic GSCorr (dGSCorr), in 57 patients with unilateral TLE and 42 healthy volunteers were compared. Correlation analyses were also performed between these indicators in areas displaying group differences and cognitive function, epilepsy duration, and severity. RESULTS: Marked overlap was present among the abnormal brain regions detected using various static and dynamic indicators, primarily including increased ALFF/dALFF/fALFF in the bilateral medial temporal lobe and thalamus, decreased ALFF/dALFF/fALFF in the frontal lobe contralateral to the epileptogenic side, decreased fALFF, ReHo, dReHo, DC, dDC, GSCorr, dGSCorr, and VMHC in the temporal neocortex ipsilateral to the epileptogenic foci, decreased dReHo, dDC, dGSCorr, and dVMHC in the occipital lobe, and increased ALFF, fALFF, dfALFF, ReHo, and DC in the supplementary motor area ipsilateral to the epileptogenic foci. Furthermore, most IBA indicators in the abnormal brain region significantly correlated with the duration of epilepsy and several cognitive scale scores ( CONCLUSION: The combined application of static and dynamic IBA indicators could comprehensively reveal more real abnormal neuronal activity and the impairment and compensatory mechanisms of cognitive function in TLE. Moreover, it might help in the lateralization of epileptogenic foci and exploration of the transmission and inhibition pathways of epileptic activity

Fuzzy Combination of TOPSIS and RSR for Comprehensively Assessing the Quality of National Essential Public Health Services

BackgroundThe national essential public health services have been implemented since 2009 as a key initiative of the new round of China's healthcare reform. With the development of this service program, the allotted special funds and service items are increasing. Due to large number of indicators involved and wide coverage, it is imperative to explore a method that can assess the services scientifically, objectively and comprehensively.ObjectiveTo explore an appropriate method for comprehensively assessing the quality of national essential public health services, providing a basis for improving relevant policies and the quality of such services.MethodsBy use of multistage and purposive sampling, 24 community (township) health centers were selected from southern, central and northern Z Province from February to April 2019, and qualities of national essential public health services delivered by them in 2018 were comprehensively assessed using the technique for order of preference by similarity to ideal solution (TOPSIS) , rank-sum ratio (RSR) method, and fuzzy combination of TOPSIS and RSR method, respectively. With reference to the 2018 National Basic Public Health Service Project, 12 evaluation indicators were selected.ResultsAccording to the TOPSIS-based assessment, the top three community (township) health centers ranked by Ci value were A (0.917 4) , C (0.875 9) and G (0.787 9) , and the bottom three were I (0.414 2) , W (0.413 7) and N (0.407 7) . In accordance with the RSR method-based assessment, the top three community (township) health centers ranked by RSR value were A (0.890 6) , G (0.765 6) , and C (0.711 8) , and the bottom three were V (0.381 9) , W (0.362 8) , and K (0.357 6) . According to the fuzzy set theory, the top three community (township) health centers ranked by W1Ci+W2RSR values were A, C and G, and the bottom three were I, K and W in accordance with the "majority rule", which was basically consistent with the evaluation results of TOPSIS and RSR.ConclusionThe assessment results by TOPSIS, RSR, and fuzzy combination of these two and associated factors in this study are consistent with those of other studies. Either use of TOPSIS- or RSR-based quality assessment had limitations, but fuzzy combination of the two overcame these limitations, so the combination approach is worthy of promotion as an appropriate method for assessing the quality of essential public health services