Twelve-year outcomes of bedside laser photocoagulation for severe retinopathy of prematurity

PurposeThe purpose of this study is to evaluate the 12-year outcomes of bedside laser photocoagulation (LP) for severe retinopathy of prematurity (ROP) under sedation combined with ocular surface anesthesia in neonatal intensive care units (NICU).DesignThe study is a retrospective case series.MethodsInfants treated with bedside LP for severe ROP from April 2009 to September 2021 were included. All LP treatments were performed under sedation and surface anesthesia at the bedside in NICU. Data were recorded for clinical and demographic characteristics, total laser spots, duration of treatment, proportion of total regression of ROP, proportion of recurrence, and adverse events.ResultsA total of 364 infants (715 eyes) were included, with a mean gestational age of 28.6 ± 2.4 weeks (range: 22.6–36.6 weeks) and a mean birth weight of 1,156.0 ± 339.0 g (range: 480–2,200 g). The mean number of laser spots was 832 ± 469, and the mean duration of treatment was 23.5 ± 5.3 min per eye. Of all the eyes, 98.3% responded to LP with complete regression of ROP. ROP recurred in 15 (2.1%) eyes after the initial LP. Additional LP was performed in seven (1.0%) eyes. No patient exhibited mistaken LP of other ocular tissues, and there were no serious ocular adverse effects. None of them needed endotracheal intubation.ConclusionsBedside LP treatment is effective and safe for premature infants with severe ROP under sedation and surface anesthesia in NICU, especially for infants whose general condition is unstable and not suitable for transport

Diffusion Paths and Guiding Policy for Urban Residents’ Carbon Identification Capability: Simulation Analysis from the Perspective of Relation Strength and Personal Carbon Trading

On the consumption side, the key to carbon emission reduction is urban residents’ carbon capability. As it is the main bottleneck hindering carbon capability enhancement, the promotion of carbon identification capability is very important. This study establishes diffusion models of carbon identification capability from the perspectives of relation strength and personal carbon trading through weighted small-world theory, and it takes Chinese urban residents as the research object to make a simulation analysis. The results show that, at the initial stage, using a knowledge priority strategy to determine the sender of capability can bring about a higher capability growth rate for individuals, and the capability diffusion equilibrium of the network is also the highest. However, in the entire diffusion process, the strength priority model is the best to make the network reach the equilibrium quickly. After the introduction of personal carbon trading, the growth rate of the carbon identification capability increases significantly, and the network equilibrium becomes higher synchronously. More egoistic nodes and fewer altruistic nodes in the network are more favorable for the capability diffusion in the network, but they may bring about the risk that the network equilibrium becomes lower. Finally, the study puts forward suggestions to help with the improvement of residents’ carbon identification capability

Measurements and Factors That Influence the Carbon Capability of Urban Residents in China

Due to the rapid growth in residential energy consumption, there is an urgent need to reduce carbon emissions from the consumer side, which requires improvements in the carbon capability of urban residents. In this study, previous investigations of carbon capability were analyzed and classified into four dimensions: carbon knowledge capability, carbon motivation capability, carbon behavior capability, and carbon management capability. According to grounded theory, a quantitative research model was constructed of the carbon capability of urban residents in Jiangsu, which was used to conduct a questionnaire survey. SPSS 19.0 and LatentGOLD were employed to process the questionnaire data and the carbon capability of the residents was evaluated. The results showed that the residents of Jiangsu Province could be divided into six groups based on their different carbon capabilities, where these six major groups accounted for 28.19%, 21.21%, 18.33%, 15.84%, 9.88%, and 6.55% of the total sample. Gender, age, occupation, and educational level had significant effects on the carbon capabilities of residents, whereas the annual household income and household population had no significant effects. According to the characteristics of each cluster based on the four carbon capability dimensions, the six clusters were designated as “balanced steady cluster”, “self-restraint cluster”, “fully backward cluster”, “comprehensive leading cluster”, “slightly cognitive cluster”, and “restrain others cluster”. Quantitative analysis showed that 61.93% of the residents of Jiangsu reached the qualified rate for the carbon capability but the excellent rate was only 15.84%. Relevant policy implications are suggested based on these conclusions

Effect of external periodic regulations on Brownian motor

Effect of external periodic regulations on a symmetric Brownian motor performing between two temperature sources was investigated. By means of numerical calculations, we found that: (i) The regulations can control magnitude and direction of the motor’s current to a large degree. As one of the motor’s compartments is regulated, the motor’s current can be both inversed and maximized, dependent on amplitude and frequency of the periodic driving force. If two periodic driving forces with identical amplitudes and frequencies are employed to regulate respectively two compartments of the Brownian motor, the current’s magnitude and direction will make periodic oscillations with phase difference between them. In addition, the external periodic regulation can also change direction of thermal rectifier of the system as a switch. (ii) Optimal regulating parameters of the external periodic forces can enhance pronouncedly conversion efficiency of energy of the Brownian motor

Determining Multi-Layer Factors That Drive the Carbon Capability of Urban Residents in Response to Climate Change: An Exploratory Qualitative Study in China

The active promotion of carbon abatement to mitigate global climate change and protect the environment and public health has become the international consensus. The carbon capability is a key index for measuring the potential reduction of the carbon emissions by urban residents, and thus encouraging residents to exhibit normal and autonomous low-carbon behavior has become an important issue. In this study, based on grounded theory, data from in-depth interviews were encoded at three levels to identify the multi-layer factors that drive the carbon capability of urban residents, and we constructed a theoretical model for policy intervention. The results showed that individual factors, organizational factors, social factors, and social demographic variables were the main variables that affected the carbon capability, and utility experience perception was the main intermediary variable that affected the carbon capability. There was an obvious gap between utility experience perception and carbon capability. Low carbon selection cost was an internal situational variable that regulated the relationship between these factors, and the policy situation and technical situation were external situational variables. There were two-way effects on the carbon capability and utility experience perception. Thus, we explored these driving factors and the role of the carbon capability model. The results of this study may facilitate targeted policy thinking and the development of an implementation path for government in order to formulate effective guiding policies to enhance the carbon capability of urban residents

Impact of information intervention on travel mode choice of urban residents with different goal frames: A controlled trial in Xuzhou, China

In order to assess the degree to which specific groups will adapt their travel behaviors after certain intervention, this study utilized a cluster analysis to discuss three segments’ distinct goal frames, social-demographic properties, travel modes, and habitat, and then carried out an information intervention controlled trial to discover three segments’ modal split shifts. The results indicate that the information have consistent and distinct impacts on travel mode choice by clusters. This consistency is embodied in the simultaneous and significant increase in travel times by green modes (walking, non-powered bicycle, or bus) and in the small but non-significant effects on reducing car use in the three clusters. The distinctness of the impacts is that information have a more effective influence on subjects with gain goal frames because their travel times by all three green modes greatly improved. Subjects with the hedonic goal frame are the least sensitive to information, with the only significant increase in travel times being by non-powered bicycle. This research also addressed the “attitude-behavior gap”, weather impacts, and goal-oriented prompts. The findings suggest that policy interventions should be designed to improve public transit features, especially the bicycle system, rather than only to constrain car use, and that tailored policies should be targeted to specific groups with different goal frames

Who Has Higher Willingness to Pay for Occupational Safety and Health?—Views from Groups with Different Public Identities and Differences in Attention

Background: Occupational safety and health issues are closely associated with the wellbeing and survival of every worker and family, as well as of society as a whole. It is a type of typical public issue and requires cooperative governance among different governing subjects. Methods: According to the questionnaire investigation on 2179 subjects with different identities, the research explored the willingness to pay (WTP) for occupational safety and health and the degree of attention, with different identities, through the difference analysis and descriptive statistical analysis. The research studied the relationship between public attention and WTP through the methods of cross-analysis, correlation analysis, and regression analysis. Results: (1) The public show a disregard attitude to occupational safety and health. (2) The public expect the government to fund and solve occupational safety and health problems rather than for themselves to pay directly. (3) Over 50% of questionnaire respondents defined occupational safety and health problems as being classified into two categories, namely, “no attention—government payment” or “no attention—refusal of individual payment”, according to the analysis. (4) The level of attention paid to occupational safety and health can significantly predict the individual income WTP, item WTP, subject WTP, and event WTP. Conclusions: This research aimed to outline the implications for the governance of occupational safety and health

Effect of correlation time of the colored noise in negative differential thermal resistance in Frenkel-Kontorova lattices

Negative differential thermal resistance (NDTR) in Frenkel-Kontorova lattices with colored noise is investigated by means of numerical calculations. The results indicate that: (i) as the system has less atoms and is symmetric, the thermal current and heat conductivity becomes bigger with the decrease of correlation time. (ii) As the system with less atoms is asymmetric, the NDTR phenomenon only exists in some specific values of correlation time. (iii) When the lattice has the same on-site potential and different lattice period, NDTR phenomenon can also occur when with colored noise bath. Our results have the implication that the correlation time plays a crucial role in the designs of thermal devices

Reconstructing High-Spatiotemporal-Resolution (30 m and 8-Days) NDVI Time-Series Data for the Qinghai–Tibetan Plateau from 2000–2020

As the largest and highest alpine ecoregion in the world, the Qinghai–Tibetan Plateau (QTP) is extremely sensitive to climate change and has experienced extraordinary warming during the past several decades; this has greatly affected various ecosystem processes in this region such as vegetation production and phenological change. Therefore, numerous studies have investigated changes in vegetation dynamics on the QTP using the satellite-derived normalized-difference vegetation index (NDVI) time-series data provided by the Moderate-Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS). However, the highest spatial resolution of only 250 m for the MODIS NDVI product cannot meet the requirement of vegetation monitoring in heterogeneous topographic areas. In this study, therefore, we generated an 8-day and 30 m resolution NDVI dataset from 2000 to 2020 for the QTP through the fusion of 30 m Landsat and 250 m MODIS NDVI time-series data. This dataset, referred to as QTP-NDVI30, was reconstructed by employing all available Landsat 5/7/8 images (>100,000 scenes) and using our recently developed gap-filling and Savitzky–Golay filtering (GF-SG) method. We improved the original GF-SG approach by incorporating a module to process snow contamination when applied to the QTP. QTP-NDVI30 was carefully evaluated in both quantitative assessments and visual inspections. Compared with reference Landsat images during the growing season in 100 randomly selected subregions across the QTP, the reconstructed 30 m NDVI images have an average mean absolute error (MAE) of 0.022 and a spatial structure similarity (SSIM) above 0.094. We compared QTP-NDVI30 with upscaled cloud-free PlanetScope images in some topographic areas and observed consistent spatial variations in NDVI between them (averaged SSIM = 0.874). We further examined an application of QTP-NDVI30 to detect vegetation green-up dates (GUDs) and found that QTP-NDVI30-derived GUD data show general agreement in spatial patterns with the 250 m MODIS GUD data, but provide richer spatial details (e.g., GUD variations at the subpixel scale). QTP-NDVI30 provides an opportunity to monitor vegetation and investigate land-surface processes in the QTP region at fine spatiotemporal scales

Impact of Information Intervention on the Recycling Behavior of Individuals with Different Value Orientations—An Experimental Study on Express Delivery Packaging Waste

Changing residents’ recycling behavior at the source of waste generation is a fundamental way to solve the environmental and resource problems caused by express delivery packaging waste. Information intervention is a common means to help transform individual environmental protection behavior. In this study, behavioral experiments were used to examine the changes in individual express packaging waste recycling behaviors under the intervention of written and pictorial information. Differences in information processing and behavior decision-making among individuals (N = 660) categorized as self-interested, pro-relation, or pro-social were analyzed. Results showed that (1) recycling behavior is divided into persuasive, purchasing, disposal, and civil behavior. (2) Recycling behavior is differs significantly due to an individual’s education background, state of health, and interpersonal relationships. (3) Both written and pictorial information can positively change an individual’s recycling behavior, and their effectiveness is not significantly different. (4) Pictorial information has a stronger impact on purchasing behavior than written information. (5) Feedback from written information cannot effectively promote the overall recycling behavior of self-interested groups, but it can improve the overall recycling behavior of pro-relationship groups and pro-social groups. (6) Information intervention cannot effectively impact civil behavior, even among pro-social individuals. The research provides an important theoretical reference and practical basis for improving individual recycling behavior at its source