Community Reconstruction after the 2008 Sichuan Earthquake: A Reflection on Participatory Development Theories

The participation of China’s civil society in the 2008 Sichuan Earthquake reconstruction featured a number of NGOs and social work organizations. Additionally, participatory development theories were broadly accepted and applied in their community efforts. However, our three-year field work effort in an earthquake-stricken village finds that those theories, based as they are on the presumption of alienated traditional communities, are being confronted with great challenges. Applying the extended case method, we claim that, quite contrary to a single and closed self-recovery, community reconstruction is deeply embedded in and reshaped by a series of much broader social processes: state-dominated post-disaster reconstruction, urban-rural integration development, and social management measures. We further recognize three major forces constructing those social processes: neo-authoritarian local governments, victims with rising citizenship awareness, and community-based NGOs. Redefining the power structure in community reconstruction, we argue that, instead of the traditional bottom-up empowerment approach, in open communities pluralistic governance, through the collaboration of governments, residents, and NGOs, can work more effectively to empower communities and reach sustainable development

Cs⁺ incorporation into CH₃NH₃PbI₃ perovskite:substitution limit and stability enhancement

In this study we systematically explored the mixed cation perovskite Csx(CH3NH3)1-xPbI3. We exchanged the A-site cation by dipping MAPbI3 films into a CsI solution, thereby incrementally replacing the MA+ in a time-resolved dipping process and analysed the resulting thin-films with UV-Vis, XRD, EDAX, SEM and optical depth-analysis in a high-throughput fashion. Additional in situ UV-Vis and time-resolved XRD measurements allowed us to look at the kinetics of the formation process. The results showed a discontinuity during the conversion. Firstly, small amounts of Cs+ are incorporated into the structure. After a few minutes, the Cs content approaches a limit and grains of δ-CsPbI3 occur, indicating a substitution limit. We compared this cation exchange to a one-step crystallisation approach and found the same effect of phase segregation, which shows that the substitution limit is an intrinsic feature rather than a kinetic effect. Optical and structural properties changed continuously for small Cs incorporations. Larger amounts of Cs result in phase segregation. We estimate the substitution limit of CsxMA1-xPbI3 to start at a Cs ratio x = 0.13, based on combined measurements of EDAX, UV-Vis and XRD. The photovoltaic performance of the mixed cation perovskite shows a large increase in device stability from days to weeks. The initial efficiency of mixed CsxMA1-xPbI3 devices decreases slightly, which is compensated by stability after a few days.</p

Microbial Properties Depending on Fertilization Regime in Agricultural Soils with Different Texture and Climate Conditions: A Meta-Analysis

Over-fertilization has a significant impact on soil microbial properties and its ecological environment. However, the effects of long-term fertilization on microbial properties on a large scale are still vague. This meta-analysis collected 6211 data points from 109 long-term experimental sites in China to evaluate the effects of fertilizer type and fertilization duration, as well as soil and climate conditions, on the effect sizes on various microbial properties and indices. The organic fertilizers combined with straw (NPKS) and manure (NPKM) had the highest effect sizes, while the chemical fertilizers N (sole N fertilizer) and NPK (NPK fertilizer) had the lowest. When compared with the control, NPKM treatment had the highest effect size, while N treatment had the lowest effect size on MBN (111% vs. 19%), PLFA (110% vs. −7%), fungi (88% vs. 43%), Actinomycetes (97% vs. 44%), urease (77% vs. 25%), catalase (15% vs. −11%), and phosphatase (58% vs. 4%). NPKM treatment had the highest while NPK treatment had the lowest effect size on bacteria (123% vs. 33%). NPKS treatment had the highest while N treatment had the lowest effect sizes on MBC (77% vs. 8%) and invertase (59% vs. 0.2%). NPKS treatment had the highest while NPK treatment had the lowest effect size on the Shannon index (5% vs. 1%). The effect sizes of NPKM treatment were the highest predominantly in arid regions because of the naturally low organic carbon in soils of these regions. The effect sizes on various microbial properties were also highly dependent on soil texture. In coarse-textured soils the effect sizes on MBC and MBN peaked sooner compared with those of clayey or silty soils, although various enzymes were most active in silty soils during the first 10 years of fertilization. Effect sizes on microbial properties were generally higher under NPKM and NPKS treatments than under NPK or N treatments, with considerable effects due to climate conditions. The optimal field fertilizer regime could be determined based on the effects of fertilizer type on soil microorganisms under various climate conditions and soil textures. This will contribute to the microbial biodiversity and soil health of agricultural land. Such controls should be used for adaptation of fertilization strategies to global changes

A Mild Dyssynchronous Contraction Pattern Detected by SPECT Myocardial Perfusion Imaging Predicts Super-Response to Cardiac Resynchronization Therapy

Background: Using single photon emission computed tomography myocardial perfusion imaging (SPECT MPI) with phase analysis (PA), we aimed to identify the predictive value of a new contraction pattern in cardiac resynchronization therapy (CRT) response. Methods: Left ventricular mechanical dyssynchrony (LVMD) was evaluated using SPECT MPI with PA in non-ischemic dilated cardiomyopathy (DCM) patients with left bundle branch block (LBBB) indicated for CRT. CRT super-response was defined as LV ejection fraction (EF) ≥50% or an absolute increase of LVEF \u3e15%. The LV contraction was categorized as the mild dyssynchronous pattern when the phase standard deviation (PSD) ≤ 40.3° and phase histogram bandwidth (PBW) ≤ 111.9°, otherwise it was defined as severe dyssynchronous pattern which was further characterized as U-shaped, heterogeneous or homogenous pattern. Results: The final cohort comprised 74 patients, including 32 (43.2%) in mild dyssynchronous group, 17 (23%) in U-shaped group, 19 (25.7%) in heterogeneous group, and 6 (8.1%) in homogenous group. The mild dyssynchronous group had lower PSD and PBW than U-shaped, heterogeneous, and homogenous groups ( \u3c 0.0001). Compared to patients with the heterogeneous pattern, the odds ratios (ORs) with 95% confidence intervals (CIs) for CRT super-response were 10.182(2.43-42.663), 12.8(2.545-64.372), and 2.667(0.327-21.773) for patients with mild dyssynchronous, U-shaped, and homogenous pattern, respectively. After multivariable adjustment, mild dyssynchronous group remained associated with increased CRT super-response (adjusted OR 5.709, 95% CI 1.152-28.293). Kaplan-Meier curves showed that mild dyssynchronous group demonstrated a better long-term prognosis. Conclusions: The mild dyssynchronous pattern in patients with DCM is associated with an increased CRT super-response and better long-term prognosis

EDMAE: An Efficient Decoupled Masked Autoencoder for Standard View Identification in Pediatric Echocardiography

This paper introduces the Efficient Decoupled Masked Autoencoder (EDMAE), a novel self-supervised method for recognizing standard views in pediatric echocardiography. EDMAE introduces a new proxy task based on the encoder-decoder structure. The EDMAE encoder is composed of a teacher and a student encoder. The teacher encoder extracts the potential representation of the masked image blocks, while the student encoder extracts the potential representation of the visible image blocks. The loss is calculated between the feature maps output by the two encoders to ensure consistency in the latent representations they extract. EDMAE uses pure convolution operations instead of the ViT structure in the MAE encoder. This improves training efficiency and convergence speed. EDMAE is pre-trained on a large-scale private dataset of pediatric echocardiography using self-supervised learning, and then fine-tuned for standard view recognition. The proposed method achieves high classification accuracy in 27 standard views of pediatric echocardiography. To further verify the effectiveness of the proposed method, the authors perform another downstream task of cardiac ultrasound segmentation on the public dataset CAMUS. The experimental results demonstrate that the proposed method outperforms some popular supervised and recent self-supervised methods, and is more competitive on different downstream tasks.Comment: 15 pages, 5 figures, 8 tables, Published in Biomedical Signal Processing and Contro

Anomalous Dome-like Superconductivity in RE2(Cu1-xNix)5As3O2(RE=La, Pr, Nd)

Significant manifestation of interplay of superconductivity and charge density wave, spin density wave or magnetism is dome-like variation in superconducting critical temperature (Tc) for cuprate, iron-based and heavy Fermion superconductors. Overall behavior is that the ordered temperature is gradually suppressed and the Tc is enhanced under external control parameters. Many phenomena like pesudogap, quantum critical point and strange metal emerge in the different doping range. Exploring dome-shaped Tc in new superconductors is of importance to detect emergent effects. Here, we report that the observation of superconductivity in new layered Cu-based compound RE2Cu5As3O2 (RE=La, Pr, Nd), in which the Tc exhibits dome-like variation with maximum Tc of 2.5 K, 1.2 K and 1.0 K as substituting Cu by large amount of Ni ions. The transitions of T* in former two compounds can be suppressed by either Ni doping or rare earth replacement. Simultaneously, the structural parameters like As-As bond length and c/a ratio exhibit unusual variations as Ni-doping level goes through the optimal value. The robustness of superconductivity, up to 60% of Ni doping, reveals the unexpected impurity effect on inducing and enhancing superconductivity in this novel layered materialsComment: 16 pages, 5 figures. Comments are welcom

Cs⁺ incorporation into CH₃NH₃PbI₃ perovskite:substitution limit and stability enhancement

In this study we systematically explored the mixed cation perovskite Csx(CH3NH3)1−xPbI3.</p

Constraining the Scatter in the Mass-Richness Relation of maxBCG Clusters With Weak Lensing and X-ray Data

We measure the logarithmic scatter in mass at fixed richness for clusters in the maxBCG cluster catalog, an optically selected cluster sample drawn from SDSS imaging data. Our measurement is achieved by demanding consistency between available weak lensing and X-ray measurements of the maxBCG clusters, and the X-ray luminosity--mass relation inferred from the 400d X-ray cluster survey, a flux limited X-ray cluster survey. We find \sigma_{\ln M|N_{200}}=0.45^{+0.20}_{-0.18} (95% CL) at N_{200} ~ 40, where N_{200} is the number of red sequence galaxies in a cluster. As a byproduct of our analysis, we also obtain a constraint on the correlation coefficient between \ln Lx and \ln M at fixed richness, which is best expressed as a lower limit, r_{L,M|N} >= 0.85 (95% CL). This is the first observational constraint placed on a correlation coefficient involving two different cluster mass tracers. We use our results to produce a state of the art estimate of the halo mass function at z=0.23 -- the median redshift of the maxBCG cluster sample -- and find that it is consistent with the WMAP5 cosmology. Both the mass function data and its covariance matrix are presented.Comment: 14 pages, 6 figures, submitted to Ap

Cosmological Constraints from the SDSS maxBCG Cluster Catalog

We use the abundance and weak lensing mass measurements of the SDSS maxBCG cluster catalog to simultaneously constrain cosmology and the richness--mass relation of the clusters. Assuming a flat \LambdaCDM cosmology, we find \sigma_8(\Omega_m/0.25)^{0.41} = 0.832\pm 0.033 after marginalization over all systematics. In common with previous studies, our error budget is dominated by systematic uncertainties, the primary two being the absolute mass scale of the weak lensing masses of the maxBCG clusters, and uncertainty in the scatter of the richness--mass relation. Our constraints are fully consistent with the WMAP five-year data, and in a joint analysis we find \sigma_8=0.807\pm 0.020 and \Omega_m=0.265\pm 0.016, an improvement of nearly a factor of two relative to WMAP5 alone. Our results are also in excellent agreement with and comparable in precision to the latest cosmological constraints from X-ray cluster abundances. The remarkable consistency among these results demonstrates that cluster abundance constraints are not only tight but also robust, and highlight the power of optically-selected cluster samples to produce precision constraints on cosmological parameters.Comment: comments welcom