Sharing energy poverty: The nexus between social interaction-oriented gift expenditure and energy poverty in rural China

This study examines how social interaction-oriented gift expenditure affects the energy poverty of rural households in China, accounting for energy inaccessibility, unaffordability, and multidimensional energy poverty. A conditional mixed process model was used to estimate the 2016 and 2018 China Family Panel Studies survey data and address the endogeneity of gift expenditure. The results suggest that social interaction-oriented gift expenditure could crowd out rural residents' energy expenditures and drive them to energy poverty. Specifically, every 100 Chinese yuan per capita increase in gift expenditure increases the probability of energy inaccessibility by 2.1 % and energy unaffordability by 1.5 %–1.6 %. This increase also increases the likelihood of rural households being trapped in multidimensional energy poverty by 1.9 %. Furthermore, household deposits mediate the positive associations between gift expenditure and rural energy poverty. Our findings suggest that regulating rural residents' behaviors of giving monetary gifts could help alleviate rural energy poverty

Market participation and subjective well-being of maize farmers

This study explores how maize farmers’ market participation influences their subjective well-being, utilizing the 2020 China Rural Revitalization Survey data collected by the Chinese Academy of Social Science. Three variables, including market participation (a binary variable), sales ratio (a continuous variable), and sales frequency (a categorical variable), are utilized to measure maize farmers’ market participation patterns comprehensively By estimating a conditional mixed process model, this study finds that maize farmers’ market participation significantly improves their subjective well-being captured by happiness, life satisfaction, and confidence about the future by 0.672, 0.925, and 1.125 points, respectively. Maize income mediates the positive association between farmers’ market participation and their subjective well-being. The disaggregated analyses reveal that farmers at the household income tertiles 2 and 3 obtain a higher level of happiness, life satisfaction, and confidence about the future. Meanwhile, market participation significantly improves life satisfaction and confidence about the future of farmers experiencing natural disasters, while it increases the happiness of farmers who do not have such experiences. Farmers’ market participation significantly improves their objective well-being regarding pork consumption and milk consumption by 68 g/capita/day and 56 g/capita/day, respectively. Further analysis confirms that market participation intensity, reflected by sales ratio and frequency, significantly increases farmers’ subjective well-being. These findings highlight that the government should devote more efforts to inciting maize farmers to participate in market transactions to increase farmers’ incomes and subjective well-being

Can mechanized pesticide application help reduce pesticide use and increase crop yield? Evidence from rice farmers in Jiangsu province, China

This study is devoted to analyzing the effects of outsourcing machinery-intensive farming activities vis-à-vis using mechanized equipment in-house on pesticide use, utilizing cross-sectional data collected from rice farmers in Jiangsu province, China. The control function approach is utilized to address the endogeneity of the decision to outsource pesticide application or complete the task in-house. Our results suggest that outsourcing pesticide application decreases pesticide expenditure but in-house application using mechanized equipment increases it. Specifically, outsourcing pesticide application reduces pesticide expenditure by about 81 yuan per mu or around 0.18 yuan per kilogram of rice produced. In comparison, the in-house application using mechanized equipment increases pesticide expenditure by 118 yuan per mu or by 0.14 yuan per kilogram of rice output. We also find that both outsourcing and in-house pesticide applications increase rice yield

Can citrus farmers earn more from selling online?

Online sales are essential for linking smallholder farmers to a wide range of markets. In essence, online sales not only influence the income received from selling a specific product but also generate spillover effects on total farm income and household income because they promote the sales of other agricultural products and generate regional off-farm work opportunities (e.g. product sorting, packaging, and delivery). Taking citrus as an example, this study explores the income effects of online sales with a focus on net returns from citrus production, net farm income, and household income. We used an endogenous treatment regression model to address the self-selection bias issues of online sales and estimated data collected from 926 citrus-producing households in Jiangxi Province, China. The results show that online citrus sales boost income growth in rural China. Specifically, online sales significantly increased net returns from citrus production, net farm income, and household income by 5,000 Yuan/capita, 8,580 Yuan/capita, and 17,830 Yuan/capita, respectively. The income-enhancing effects of online sales are greater for female household heads than they are for their male counterparts. Our findings emphasise the importance of promoting online sales to improve rural household welfare

Mechanization in land preparation and irrigation water productivity: Insights from rice production

This study investigates how and to what extent mechanization in land preparation (MLP) can help improve irrigation water productivity (IWP) (measured as rice yield per unit volume of irrigation water). We employed an endogenous treatment regression model to estimate the 2021 China Land Economic Survey (CLES) data collected from Jiangsu province, China. The results reveal that MLP adoption increases IWP significantly; a higher IWP is determined by whether or not farmers adopt MLP rather than through which channel they access their farm machines; the effects of MLP adoption on IWP are monotonically increasing across the selected quantiles

Relationship between internet use and negative affect

While positive emotions like happiness and life satisfaction have received great attention, how to eliminate negative affect is largely neglected. This study contributes to the literature by examining the relationship between Internet use and people’s negative affect. Unlike previous studies that consider only one indicator, we capture negative affect from different dimensions by considering loneliness, sadness, and life hardship. We employ an endogenous ordered probit model to address the selection bias of Internet use and analyze the 20,107 individual-level samples sourced from the 2020 China Family Panel Studies survey. The results show that Internet use significantly reduces people’s loneliness, sadness, and life hardship. We also find that studying online and watching short videos would increase people’s loneliness feeling and shopping online deepens people’s life hardship. In contrast, using WeChat significantly reduces sadness and life hardship. Our findings confirm that guiding people to use the Internet appropriately is necessary to reduce negative affect and improve the quality of their life

The effect of parenting styles on Chinese undergraduate nursing students’ academic procrastination: the mediating role of causal attribution and self-efficacy

BackgroundAcademic procrastination is common among college students, but there is a lack of research on the influencing mechanism of academic procrastination among nursing students. The purpose of this study was to explore the influence of parental rearing patterns on academic procrastination of nursing students, and the mediating role of causal attribution and self-efficacy.MethodsUsing Parental Bonding Instrument, Aitken Procrastination Inventory, Multidimensional Multi-Attribution Causality Scale and General Self-Efficiency Scale, the data of 683 nursing undergraduates from two universities in China were collected. Moreover, path analysis for structural equation modeling via AMOS 26.0 to evaluate mediation path model.ResultsPositive parenting style was negatively associated with academic procrastination (r = –0.350) and negative parenting style was positively associated with academic procrastination (r = 0.402). Positive parenting style directly or indirectly predicted academic procrastination through the mediating effect of internal attributional style (β = –0.10, 95% CI: –0.18 to –0.04) and self-efficacy (β = –0.07, 95% CI: –0.11 to –0.03), and this mediating effect accounted for 41.46% of the total effect. Positive parenting style directly or indirectly predicted academic delay through the mediating effect of external attributional style (β = 0.12, 95% CI: 0.07 to 0.17) and self-efficacy (β = 0.05, 95% CI: 0.03 to 0.08), and this mediating effect accounted for 42.5% of the total effect. In addition, causal attribution and self-efficacy of nursing students play a chain intermediary role between parenting style and academic procrastination.ConclusionParents should give students more care and autonomy and reduce control. In addition, educators should give students attribution training, which is helpful to improve students’ self-efficacy and reduce academic procrastination

The Technology of Mould Steel for Online Pre-hardening

AbstractThis article describes a production method of mould steel pre-hardening, and focus on the advantage of this method, The technical core of method is the variable frequency and variable amplitude pulse uniform high-precision temperature control, which achieved by using strong-medium-weak water cooling, gas-water cooling and gas mist cooling composite cooling control technology. Optimizing the cooling rate path is a good method of optimizing quenched organization and structure

The role of taurine in male reproduction: Physiology, pathology and toxicology

Taurine, a sulfur-containing amino acid, has a wide range of biological effects, such as bile salt formation, osmotic regulation, oxidative stress inhibition, immunomodulation and neuromodulation. Taurine has been proved to be synthesized and abundant in male reproductive organs. Recently, accumulating data showed that taurine has a potential protective effect on reproductive function of male animals. In physiology, taurine can promote the endocrine function of the hypothalamus-pituitary-testis (HPT) axis, testicular tissue development, spermatogenesis and maturation, delay the aging of testicular structure and function, maintain the homeostasis of the testicular environment, and enhance sexual ability. In pathology, taurine supplement may be beneficial to alleviate pathological damage of male reproductive system, including oxidative damage of sperm preservation in vitro, testicular reperfusion injury and diabetes -induced reproductive complications. In addition, taurine acts as a protective agent against toxic damage to the male reproductive system by exogenous substances (e.g., therapeutic drugs, environmental pollutants, radiation). Related mechanisms include reduced oxidative stress, increased antioxidant capacity, inhibited inflammation and apoptosis, restored the secretory activity of the HPT axis, reduced chromosomal variation, enhanced sperm mitochondrial energy metabolism, cell membrane stabilization effect, etc. Therefore, this article reviewed the protective effect of taurine on male reproductive function and its detailed mechanism, in order to provide reference for further research and clinical application

Up-regulation of bone marrow stromal protein 2 (BST2) in breast cancer with bone metastasis

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Bone metastases are frequent complications of breast cancer. Recent literature implicates multiple chemokines in the formation of bone metastases in breast cancer. However, the molecular mechanism of metastatic bone disease in breast cancer remains unknown. We have recently made the novel observation of the BST2 protein expression in human breast cancer cell lines. The purpose of our present study is to investigate the expression and the role of BST2 in bone metastatic breast cancer.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>cDNA microarray analysis was used to compare the BST2 gene expression between a metastatic to bone human breast cancer cell line (MDA-231BO) and a primary human breast cancer cell line (MDA-231). The BST2 expression in one bone metastatic breast cancer and seven non-bone metastatic breast cancer cell lines were also determined using real-time RT-PCR and Western blot assays. We then employed tissue array to further study the BST2 expression in human breast cancer using array slides containing 20 independent breast cancer tumors that formed metastatic bone lesions, 30 non-metastasis-forming breast cancer tumors, and 8 normal breast tissues. In order to test the feasibility of utilizing BST2 as a serum marker for the presence of bone metastasis in breast cancer, we had measured the BST2 expression levels in human serums by using ELISA on 43 breast cancer patients with bone metastasis, 43 breast cancer patients without bone metastasis, and 14 normal healthy controls. The relationship between cell migration and proliferation and BST2 expression was also studied in a human breast recombinant model system using migration and FACS analysis.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>The microarray demonstrated over expression of the BST2 gene in the bone metastatic breast cancer cell line (MDA-231BO) compared to the primary human breast cancer cell line (MDA-231). The expression of the BST2 gene was significantly increased in the bone metastatic breast cancer cell lines and tumor tissues compared to non-bone metastatic breast cancer cell lines and tumor tissues by real time RT-PCR, Western blot and TMA. Furthermore, serum levels of BST2 measured by ELISA were also significantly higher among patients with breast cancer metastatic to bone compared to breast cancer patients without metastatic to bone (P < .0001). Most importantly, the breast cancer cell line that transfected with BST2 demonstrated increased BST2 expressions, which was associated with increased cancer cell migration and cell proliferation.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>These results provide novel data indicating the BST2 protein expression is associated with the formation of bone metastases in human breast cancer. We believe that BST2 may be a potential biomarker in breast cancer with bone metastasis.</p