Plant Closures In Ontario Over The Last Twenty Years

Manufacturing is an important part of Ontario\u27s economy, and the closure of manufacturing plants has a very large impact on the economy and society. This research project is done by conducting primary research through news articles gathering method to find out the news articles that related to plant closures, production cuts, and layoffs in Ontario. By going though the news from 60 different local news publishers in Ontario, there are about 1156 news articles related to plant closures happened in Ontario over the last twenty years. After that, I undertook a content analysis for each related news article to examine the key points and code them to form frequency tables to make the conclusion

Calculus Bovis Sativus Improves Bile Acid Homeostasis via Farnesoid X Receptor-Mediated Signaling in Rats With Estrogen-Induced Cholestasis

Cholestatic diseases are characterized by toxic bile acid (BA) accumulation, and abnormal BA composition, which subsequently lead to liver injury. Biochemical synthetic Calculus Bovis Sativus (CBS) is derived from natural Calculus Bovis, a traditional Chinese medicine, which has been used to treat hepatic diseases for thousands of years. Although it has been shown that CBS administration to 17α-ethinylestradiol (EE)-induced cholestatic rats improves bile flow and liver injury, the involved underlying mechanism is largely unknown. In this study, we showed that CBS administration to EE-induced cholestatic rats significantly decreased serum and hepatic BA levels and reversed hepatic BA composition. DNA microarray analysis suggested that the critical pathways enriched by CBS treatment were bile secretion and primary BA synthesis. These findings led us to focus on the effects of CBS on regulating BA homeostasis, including BA transport, synthesis and metabolism. CBS enhanced hepatic BA secretion by inducing efflux transporter expression and inhibiting uptake transporter expression. Moreover, CBS reduced BA synthesis by repressing the expression of BA synthetic enzymes, CYP7A1 and CYP8B1, and increased BA metabolism by inducing the expression of metabolic enzymes, CYP3A2, CYP2B10, and SULT2A1. Mechanistic studies indicated that CBS increased protein expression and nuclear translocation of hepatic and intestinal farnesoid X receptor (FXR) to regulate the expression of these transporters and enzymes. We further demonstrated that beneficial effects of CBS administration on EE-induced cholestatic rats were significantly blocked by guggulsterone, a FXR antagonist. Therefore, CBS improved BA homeostasis through FXR-mediated signaling in estrogen-induced cholestatic rats. Together, these findings suggested that CBS might be a novel and potentially effective drug for the treatment of cholestasis

Mental health status and its associated factors among female nurses in the normalization of COVID-19 epidemic prevention and control in China

ObjectiveTo investigate mental health status and its associated factors among female nurses in the normalization of COVID-19 epidemic prevention and control in China.MethodsRandom cluster sampling was applied to recruit 740 female nurses in China. The respondents completed the survey with mobile devices. Demographic questionnaire, Generalized Anxiety Disorder-7, Patient Health Questionnaire-9, Insomnia Severity Index, and The Impact of Event Scale-Revised were used to assess demographic Information, anxiety, depression, insomnia and PTSD symptoms, respectively. The associated factors of mental health status were identified by binary logistic regression analysis.ResultsThe prevalence of anxiety and depression was 7.9 and 17.8%, respectively. Insomnia was an associated factor of anxiety (OR = 6.237, 95%CI = 6.055–23.761, P < 0.001) and depression (OR = 9.651, 95%CI = 5.699–22.370, P < 0.001), while PTSD was an associated factor of anxiety (OR = 11.995, 95%CI = 2.946–13.205, P < 0.001) and depression (OR = 11.291, 95%CI = 6.056–15.380, P < 0.001), Being married was a protective factor of depression (OR = 0.811, 95%CI = 1.309–6.039, P < 0.01).ConclusionFemale nurses showed problems in mental health. Insomnia, PTSD and marital status were associated with mental health. The hospital management should pay more attention to the unmarried groups, and strive to improve the sleep quality of female nurses and reduce their stress caused by traumatic events

Charge Measurement of Cosmic Ray Nuclei with the Plastic Scintillator Detector of DAMPE

One of the main purposes of the DArk Matter Particle Explorer (DAMPE) is to measure the cosmic ray nuclei up to several tens of TeV or beyond, whose origin and propagation remains a hot topic in astrophysics. The Plastic Scintillator Detector (PSD) on top of DAMPE is designed to measure the charges of cosmic ray nuclei from H to Fe and serves as a veto detector for discriminating gamma-rays from charged particles. We propose in this paper a charge reconstruction procedure to optimize the PSD performance in charge measurement. Essentials of our approach, including track finding, alignment of PSD, light attenuation correction, quenching and equalization correction are described detailedly in this paper after a brief description of the structure and operational principle of the PSD. Our results show that the PSD works very well and almost all the elements in cosmic rays from H to Fe are clearly identified in the charge spectrum.Comment: 20 pages, 4 figure

What is the future for nuclear fission technology? A technical opinion from the Guest Editors of VSI NFT series and the Editor of the Journal Nuclear Engineering and Design

The Nuclear Fission Technology (NFT) series of Virtual Special Issues (VSIs) for the Journal Nuclear Engineering and Design (J NED) was proposed in 2023, including the request to potential authors of manuscript to address the following questions: o For how long will (water-cooling based) large size nuclear reactor survive? o Will water-technology based SMRs displace large reactors? o Will non-water-cooling technology SMRs and micro-reactors have an industrial deployment? o Will breeding technology, including thorium exploitation, have due relevance? o Will ‘nuclear infrastructure’ (fuel supply, financial framework, competence by regulators for new designs, waste management, etc.) remain or be sufficiently robust? Several dozen Guest Editors (GEs), i.e., the authors of the present document, managed the activity together with the Editor-in-Chief (EiC) of the journal. More than one thousand scientists contributed 470+ manuscripts, not evenly distributed among the geographical regions of the world and not necessarily addressing directly the bullet-questions, but certainly providing a view of current research being done. Key conclusions are as follows: (a) Large size reactors are necessary for a sustainable and safe exploitation of nuclear fission technology; (b) The burning of 233U (from thorium) and 239Pu (from uranium) is unavoidable, as well as recycling residual uranium currently part of waste; (c) Nuclear infrastructures in countries that currently use, or are entering the use of, fission energy for electricity production need a century planning; (d) The adoption of small reactors for commercial naval propulsion, hydrogen production and desalination is highly recommended

Stability reliability of a cutting slope in Laohuzui Hydropower Station in Tibet of China

The Hoek–Brown empirical formulas are widely used to estimate the mechanical parameters of a rock mass. However, there exists a problem of variability and uncertainty in the mechanical parameters of a rock mass estimated by the Hoek–Brown empirical formulas. To do this, we present a method to implement a reliability analysis of the rock mass stability directly starting with the basic variables of the Hoek–Brown empirical formulas. First, a quantitative assessment of the disturbance factor is recommended to overcome the subjectivity and limitation of estimating the disturbance factor according to the guidelines by Hoek et al. Second, a performance function is built up together with the safety factor of a micro-unit. Third, the Rosenblueth point estimate method is chosen to estimate the mean and standard deviation of the factor of safety. Finally, the stability reliability of a cutting slope in Laohuzui Hydropower Station in Tibet of China is analyzed. The results of the cutting slope show good agreement with the rock mass failure that occurred

Failure Warning at the End of Service-Life of Lead–Acid Batteries for Backup Applications

The prediction of remaining useful life is an important function of battery management systems. Existing research typically focused on factors that determine the quantity of the remaining useful capacity, and are able to determine the remaining useful capacity several years before battery failure to counter hysteresis of variables of lead–acid batteries. These techniques are not suitable at the end of service-life for backup batteries. This paper proposes a linear-superposition–voltage-aging model with three improvements. First, the estimation of the deep-discharge of the proposed voltage model does not require the remaining useful capacity. Second, the internal resistance of the deep-discharge is predicted from the contacting resistance of electrochemical impedance spectroscopy. Third, a morphology correction factor of internal resistance is about to saturate at the end of battery service-life. The model accurately forecasts battery failure at the end of service-life in two groups of accelerated-aging experiments. The proposed method in this paper focuses on the factors that determine quality of remaining useful capacity to counter hysteresis of variables of lead–acid batteries and judge battery failure at the end of service-life