The change in blood glucose levels in tuberculosis patients before and during anti-tuberculosis treatment in China.

OBJECTIVE: We aimed to observe (i) changes in fasting blood glucose (FBG) in tuberculosis (TB) patients before and during anti-TB treatment, (ii) whether FBG levels were stable or unstable and (iii) baseline characteristics associated with an unstable FBG. METHOD: TB patients consecutively attended six clinics or hospitals. FBG measurements were made at months 0, 2 and 6. Data analysis was performed using the chi-square test and multivariate logistic regression. RESULTS: Of 232 patients without diabetes mellitus (DM) whose initial FBG < 6.1 mmol/L, over 90% maintained FBG < 6.1 mmol/L during treatment and no patient developed DM. Of 17 patients without DM and initial FBG between 6.1 and 6.9 mmol/L, over half had FBG < 6.1 mmol/L during treatment and no patient had DM at the end of treatment. Eight DM patients with already known DM had their FBG controlled at < 7.0 mmol/L during treatment. There were 13 DM patients newly diagnosed with FBG ≥ 7.0 mmol/L, and 69% continued to have FBG ≥ 7.0 mmol/L. After adjustment for confounding, the odds for an unstable FBG were higher for HIV-positive status, already having DM, smoking and coming to hospitals rather than clinics. CONCLUSION: TB patients who do not have DM based on FBG measurements do not develop DM during anti-TB treatment. Those newly diagnosed with DM on screening in general maintain their DM status with high FBG and need to be better managed

Land Financialization, Uncoordinated Development of Population Urbanization and Land Urbanization, and Economic Growth: Evidence from China

In recent years, it has become common practice for Chinese local governments to inject land assets into financing platform companies and use them as mortgage or credit guarantees to obtain bank loans and issue urban investment bonds, which is known as &ldquo;land financialization&rdquo;. This study investigates the impact and mechanism of land financialization on the uncoordinated development of population urbanization and land urbanization in China. Theoretical analysis and empirical analysis results based on the data of prefecture-level cities in China from 2006 to 2015 demonstrate that land financialization by local governments is a significant cause of the uncoordinated development of population urbanization and land urbanization, and the pressure of urban economic development will strengthen this negative impact. Extended analysis further reveals that in areas where population urbanization and land urbanization are uncoordinated, land financialization, while promoting urban spatial expansion, will lower land use efficiency and have an inverted U-shaped influence on economic growth due to a weak agglomeration effect. The above conclusion shows that urbanization driven by debt-based investment is unsustainable. Efforts should be made to establish a financialization system that propels sound urbanization and to build a stable input linkage between land financialization and the supply of urban public service

A high spatial resolution dataset for methylmercury exposure in Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area

Abstract Dietary methylmercury (MeHg) exposure increases the risk of many human diseases. The Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area (GBA) is the world’s most populous bay area and people there might suffer a high risk of dietary MeHg exposure. However, there lacks a time-series high spatial resolution dataset for dietary MeHg exposure in the GBA. This study constructs a high spatial resolution (1 km × 1 km) dataset for dietary MeHg exposure in the GBA during 2009–2019. It first constructs the dietary MeHg exposure inventory for each county/district of the GBA, based on MeHg concentrations of foods (i.e., rice and fish in this study) and per capita rice and fish intake. Subsequently, this study spatializes the dietary MeHg exposure inventory at 1 km × 1 km scale, using gridded data for food consumption expenditure as the proxy. This dataset can describe the spatially explicit hotspots, distribution patterns, and variation trend of dietary MeHg exposure in the GBA. This dataset can support spatially explicit evaluation of MeHg-related health risks in the GBA

Blessing or curse? The impacts of non-agricultural part-time work of the large farmer households on agricultural labor productivity

This study analyzes the mechanism of coexistence of non-agricultural part-time work of farmer households and large-scale cultivation of cultivated land, and the effect of non-agricultural part-time work of the large farmer households on the agricultural labor productivity. Results indicate that non-agricultural part-time work of large farmer households promotes the agricultural labor productivity, particularly for those with higher non-agricultural incomes, younger age, higher education level and shorter distance between working places in urban sectors and rural residence. At the mean value of the samples, non-agricultural part-time work of the large farmer households will improve agricultural labor productivity by 27.1%. These results remain consistent after we experiment several robustness checks and the instrumental variable method. Further, it is worth stressing that non-agricultural part-time work inhibits the agricultural production for farmer households with labors less than three, while it exhibits positive effects for those with labors more than three. Finally, analysis of mechanism suggests that non-agricultural part-time work of large farmer households enhances the productivity via entering the agricultural association, increasing farm mechanization degree, and promoting the centralized production and farm management on the transferred farmland. It’s suggestive to maintain total area of the transferred farmland to avoid the reverse effects and then the optimal total cultivated area within the range of (100, 200) Mu. Policy implications of our work are discussed. First published online 11 November 202

Development and validation of a novel nomogram of 1-year mortality in the elderly with hip fracture: a study of the MIMIC-III database

Objective Hip fracture is a prevalent condition with a significant death rate among the elderly. We sought to develop a nomogram-based survival prediction model for older patients with hip fracture.Design A retrospective case–control study.Setting The data from Medical Information Mart for Intensive Care III (MIMIC-III V.1.4).Participants The clinical features of elderly patients with hip fracture, including basic information, comorbidities, severity score, laboratory tests and therapy, were filtered out based on the MIMIC-III V.1.4.Methods and main outcome measures All patients included in the study were from critical care and randomly divided into training and validation sets (7:3). On the basis of retrieved data, the least absolute shrinkage and selection operator (LASSO) regression and multiple logistic regression analysis were used to identify independent predictive variables of 1-year mortality, and then constructed a risk prediction nomogram. The predictive values of the nomogram model were evaluated by the concordance indexes (C-indexes), receiver operating characteristic curve, decision curve analysis (DCA) and calibration curve.Results A total of 341 elderly patients with hip fracture were included in this study; 121 cases died within 1 year. After LASSO regression and multiple logistic regression analysis, a novel nomogram contained the predictive variables of age, weight, the proportion of lymphocyte count, liver disease, malignant tumour and congestive heart failure. The constructed model proved satisfactory discrimination with C-indexes of 0.738 (95% CI 0.674 to 0.802) in the training set and 0.713 (95% CI 0.608 to 0.819) in the validation set. The calibration curve shows a good degree of fitting between the predicted and observed probabilities and the DCA confirms the model’s clinical practicability.Conclusions The novel prediction model provides personalised predictions for 1-year mortality in elderly patients with hip fractures. Compared with other hip fracture models, our nomogram is particularly suitable for predicting long-term mortality in critical patients

PAPER IEICE/IEEE JointS pecial Issue on AssuranceS ystems and Networks

vide users wit maximum flexibilit y,at t cost oflimitpF5H/ on scalabilit y. The scalabilit y problem isanalytpF5#4 stnaly in [2]. The result showstp5 even tp most scalable routbl prot col int roduces at ot5 overhead of O(N 1.5 ), where N is tp number of host . The experimentr st50 also showst hat t he increase of tp number ofhost ist he dominant cause for performance received March 23, 2003. Manuscript revised May 19, 2003. + The autFk7 are wit t he Cent er for EducatFm and Research in Informatg Assurance andSecurit y,Departm: tofComputm Sciences, Purdue Universit y, West Lafayet9 IN 47907, U.S.A. a) E-mail: [email protected] # This research is supp by CERIAS securit y cent -m NSF grant s IIS-0209059 and ANI-0219110, and CISCO URP. degradatt [3]. In a wireless LAN, st#55:5pF sit# (i.e., base ste tepH provide high-speednet work connectF#R for mobilehost / For instDR0p IEEE 802.11a supp ort up t 54MbitD communicat5D capacit y [4]. The fixed infrast4 /pF#H makes it easyt o manage

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Some Soybean Cultivars Have Ability to Induce Germination of Sunflower Broomrape

<div><p>Sunflower broomrape is a noxious parasitic weed which has caused severe damage to crop ecosystems. Trap crops can release a mixture of allelochemicals to induce the germination of sunflower broomrape. We studied the allelopathic effects of soybean on sunflower broomrape. Fourteen common soybean cultivars were grown in pots. Samples were collected from soybean plants and rhizosphere soil at five growth stages (V1, V3, V5, R2, and R4). The allelopathic effects of soybean reached highest at the V3 stage. Methanolic extracts of soybean roots induced higher broomrape germination than methanolic extracts of stems or leaves. The germination rates induced by root extracts (10-fold dilution) were positively correlated with germination rates induced by stem (10-fold dilution) and leaf extracts (10-fold dilution). The broomrape germination rates induced by root extracts were also positively correlated with soybean nodule diameter and dry weight. The results indicated that soybeans could induce sunflower broomrape germination. We conclude that soybean has the potential to be used as a trap crop for sunflower broomrape.</p> </div

Correlation analysis.

<p>Correlation between the germination rates of sunflower broomrape seeds treated with 10-fold dilutions of methanolic root extracts and those treated with (A) 10-fold dilutions of methanolic stem extracts or (B) 10-fold dilutions of methanolic soybean leaf extracts.</p

Induction of sunflower broomrape germination by methanolic extracts of soybean roots in pot experiment.

<p>Three concentrations of methanolic extracts were assessed, namely, undiluted, 10-fold dilution and 100-fold dilution. The roots were collected from pot-grown plants at the (A) V1, (B) V3, (C) V5, (D) R2, and (E) R4 stages. Error bars represent the standard error of the mean. Different small letters above the error bars indicate significant differences at the 0.05 level (ANOVA and Duncan’s multiple range test). If any letter marked in one treatment is the same as the other one (in same color column), it indicates no significant differences between them. Abbreviations: K36, Kenjiandou 36; S99, Suinong 99; B18, Beidou 18; S10, Suinong 10; F3, Fengdou 3; H28, Heinong 28; D339, Dongdou 339; Z13, Zhonghuang 13; H55, Hefeng 55; K35, Kenjiandou 35; H44, Heinong 44; N555, Nongda 555; K16, Kenfeng 16; R95, Ribenchun 95.</p