New Developments of Chinese Government Publications and Library Collections

Chinese government publications constitute a significantly large portion of print and digital information output in China. This material genre is critical to the operation of the country, to people’s lives, and therefore, is important to research and scholarly work. Overseas scholars rely heavily on libraries to access and use Chinese government publications, however, collecting this type of materials has been a challenge since the scope of Chinese government publications has not been clear, and the collecting channels have been limited. This paper intends to discuss the scope of Chinese government publications, its availability in digital format, the types of publications library normally collects, and opportunities and challenges in collecting them

Ultra-processed foods and human health: an umbrella review and updated meta-analyses of observational evidence.

Ultra-processed food (UPF) intake has increased sharply over the last few decades and has been consistently asserted to be implicated in the development of non-communicable diseases. We aimed to evaluate and update the existing observational evidence for associations between ultra-processed food (UPF) consumption and human health. We searched Medline and Embase from inception to March 2023 to identify and update meta-analyses of observational studies examining the associations between UPF consumption, as defined by the NOVA classification, and a wide spectrum of health outcomes. For each health outcome, we estimated the summary effect size, 95% confidence interval (CI), between-study heterogeneity, evidence of small-study effects, and evidence of excess-significance bias. These metrics were used to evaluate evidence credibility of the identified associations. This umbrella review identified 39 meta-analyses on the associations between UPF consumption and health outcomes. We updated all meta-analyses by including 122 individual articles on 49 unique health outcomes. The majority of the included studies divided UPF consumption into quartiles, with the lowest quartile being the reference group. We identified 25 health outcomes associated with UPF consumption. For observational studies, 2 health outcomes, including renal function decline (OR: 1.25; 95% CI: 1.18, 1.33) and wheezing in children and adolescents (OR: 1.42; 95% CI: 1.34, 1.49), showed convincing evidence (Class I); and five outcomes were reported with highly suggestive evidence (Class II), including diabetes mellitus, overweight, obesity, depression, and common mental disorders. High UPF consumption is associated with an increased risk of a variety of chronic diseases and mental health disorders. At present, not a single study reported an association between UPF intake and a beneficial health outcome. These findings suggest that dietary patterns with low consumption of UPFs may render broad public health benefits

Self-Presentation on the Web: Agencies Serving Abused and Assaulted Women

Objectives. We examined the content and usability of the Web sites of agencies serving women victims of violence. Methods. We entered the names of a systematic 10% sample of 3774 agencies listed in 2 national directories into a search engine. We took (in April 2012) and analyzed screenshots of the 261 resulting home pages and the readability of 193 home and first-level pages. Results. Victims (94%) and donors (68%) were the primary intended audiences. About one half used social media and one third provided cues to action. Almost all (96.4%) of the Web pages were rated “fairly difficult” to “very confusing” to read, and 81.4% required more than a ninth-grade education to understand. Conclusions. The service and marketing functions were met fairly well by the agency home pages, but usability (particularly readability and offer of a mobile version) and efforts to increase user safety could be improved. Internet technologies are an essential platform for public health. They are particularly useful for reaching people with stigmatized health conditions because of the anonymity allowed. The one third of agencies that lack a Web site will not reach the substantial portion of the population that uses the Internet to find health information and other resources

Circadian and light-driven regulation of rod dark adaptation

Continuous visual perception and the dark adaptation of vertebrate photoreceptors after bright light exposure require recycling of their visual chromophore through a series of reactions in the retinal pigmented epithelium (RPE visual cycle). Light-driven chromophore consumption by photoreceptors is greater in daytime vs. nighttime, suggesting that correspondingly higher activity of the visual cycle may be required. However, as rod photoreceptors are saturated in bright light, the continuous turnover of their chromophore by the visual cycle throughout the day would not contribute to vision. Whether the recycling of chromophore that drives rod dark adaptation is regulated by the circadian clock and light exposure is unknown. Here, we demonstrate that mouse rod dark adaptation is slower during the day or after light pre-exposure. This surprising daytime suppression of the RPE visual cycle was accompanied by light-driven reduction in expression of Rpe65, a key enzyme of the RPE visual cycle. Notably, only rods in melatonin-proficient mice were affected by this daily visual cycle modulation. Our results demonstrate that the circadian clock and light exposure regulate the recycling of chromophore in the RPE visual cycle. This daily melatonin-driven modulation of rod dark adaptation could potentially protect the retina from light-induced damage during the day

Tackling unemployment in China: state capacity and governance issues

This paper considers China's state capacity and changing governance as revealed through its policies to tackle unemployment. Despite high levels of growth, economic restructuring has resulted in rising unemployment over the last decade. The Chinese state has been able to manage job losses from state enterprises, demonstrating some state capacity in relation to this sector and some persistent command economy governance mechanisms. However both design and implementation of policies to compensate and assist particular groups among the unemployed have been shaped by weak state capacity in several other areas. First, capacity to gather accurate employment data is limited, meaning local and central governments do not have a good understanding of the extent and nature of unemployment. Second, the sustainability of supposedly mandatory unemployment insurance schemes is threatened by poor capacity to enforce participation. Third, poor central state capacity to ensure local governments implement policies effectively leads to poor unemployment insurance fund capacity, resulting in provision for only a narrow segment of the unemployed and low quality employment services. Although the adoption of unemployment insurance (and its extension to employers and employees in the private sector), the introduction of a Labour Contract Law in 2007, and the delivery of employment services by private businesses indicate a shift towards the use of new governance mechanisms based on entitlement, contract and private sector delivery of public-sector goods, that shift is undermined by poor state capacity in relation to some of these new mechanisms

Tamm-Horsfall Protein Regulates Mononuclear Phagocytes in the Kidney

Tamm-Horsfall protein (THP), also known as uromodulin, is a kidney-specific protein produced by cells of the thick ascending limb of the loop of Henle. Although predominantly secreted apically into the urine, where it becomes highly polymerized, THP is also released basolaterally, toward the interstitium and circulation, to inhibit tubular inflammatory signaling. Whether, through this latter route, THP can also regulate the function of renal interstitial mononuclear phagocytes (MPCs) remains unclear, however. Here, we show that THP is primarily in a monomeric form in human serum. Compared with wild-type mice, THP-/- mice had markedly fewer MPCs in the kidney. A nonpolymerizing, truncated form of THP stimulated the proliferation of human macrophage cells in culture and partially restored the number of kidney MPCs when administered to THP-/- mice. Furthermore, resident renal MPCs had impaired phagocytic activity in the absence of THP. After ischemia-reperfusion injury, THP-/- mice, compared with wild-type mice, exhibited aggravated injury and an impaired transition of renal macrophages toward an M2 healing phenotype. However, treatment of THP-/- mice with truncated THP after ischemia-reperfusion injury mitigated the worsening of AKI. Taken together, our data suggest that interstitial THP positively regulates mononuclear phagocyte number, plasticity, and phagocytic activity. In addition to the effect of THP on the epithelium and granulopoiesis, this new immunomodulatory role could explain the protection conferred by THP during AKI

Leveraging NISO Standards and Best Practices to Improve Discovery and Access of Digital Resources

To tackle issues related to metadata and improve discovery of and access to digital resources, National Information Standards Organization (NISO) has developed a series of standards and recommended best practices. The impact of these standards has been discussed in depth. However, no research has been done in the areas of how those standards and best practices can be used for digital resources in Chinese, and strategies for implementing those standards. This paper aims to identify common issues in discovery of and access to Chinese digital resources; suggest feasible solutions; discuss how to leverage NISO standards and recommended practices; and recommend ways to promote the standards and best practices to stakeholders

Gravity wave characteristics in the mesopause region revealed from OH airglow imager observations over Northern Colorado

Author Posting. © American Geophysical Union, 2014. This article is posted here by permission of American Geophysical Union for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Journal of Geophysical Research: Space Physics 119 (2014): 630-645, doi:10.1002/2013JA018955.Using 5 years of all-sky OH airglow imager data over Yucca Ridge Field Station, CO (40.7°N, 104.9°W), from September 2003 to September 2008, we extract and deduce quasi-monochromatic gravity wave (GW) characteristics in the mesopause region. The intrinsic periods are clustered between approximately 4 and 10 min, and many of them are unstable and evanescent. GW occurrence frequency exhibits a clear semiannual variation with equinoctial minima, which is likely related to the seasonal variation of background wind. The anomalous propagation direction in January 2006, with strong southward before major warming starting in 21 January and weak southward propagation afterward, was most likely affected by stratospheric sudden warming. The momentum fluxes show strongly anticorrelated with the tides, with ~180° out of phase in the zonal component. While in the meridional component, the easterly maximum occurred approximately 2–6 h after maximum easterly tidal wind. However, the anticorrelations are both weakest during the summer. The dissipating and breaking of small-scale and high-frequency GW's components could have a potential impact on the general circulation in the mesopause region.This work was carried out at the University of Science and Technology of China, with support from the National Natural Science Foundation of China grants (41025016, 41127901, 41225017, 41074108, and 41121003), the National Basic Research Program of China grant 2012CB825605, the Chinese Academy of Sciences Key Research Program KZZD-EW-01, and the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities.2014-07-3