An Empirical Study on Campus Dwelling Environment Quality in Beijing and Its Influencing Factors

Combining with the current dwelling environmental assessment system, this article reviews the domestic and foreign theoretical documents, and tries to construct an evaluation model based on the influencing factors of campus dwelling environment quality in Beijing, including natural landscape, amenities and cultural environment. The research indicates that the campus dwelling environment quality is linearly related with and can be effectively predicted by these three factors. It also shows that the regression coefficient of cultural environment is the highest among the three; but most interviewees didn’t appraise their campus dwelling environment quality high. Therefore, colleges in Beijing need to improve especially in the following three aspects – gas power system (natural landscape), population density (amenities) and manager quality (cultural environment) – to make the campus dwelling environment clean pleasant and eco-friendly.Key words: Universities in Beijing; Dwelling environment; Natural landscape; Amenities; Cultural environmen

Disparities and risks of sexually transmissible infections among men who have sex with men in China: a meta-analysis and data synthesis.

BACKGROUND: Sexually transmitted infections (STIs), including Hepatitis B and C virus, are emerging public health risks in China, especially among men who have sex with men (MSM). This study aims to assess the magnitude and risks of STIs among Chinese MSM. METHODS: Chinese and English peer-reviewed articles were searched in five electronic databases from January 2000 to February 2013. Pooled prevalence estimates for each STI infection were calculated using meta-analysis. Infection risks of STIs in MSM, HIV-positive MSM and male sex workers (MSW) were obtained. This review followed the PRISMA guidelines and was registered in PROSPERO. RESULTS: Eighty-eight articles (11 in English and 77 in Chinese) investigating 35,203 MSM in 28 provinces were included in this review. The prevalence levels of STIs among MSM were 6.3% (95% CI: 3.5-11.0%) for chlamydia, 1.5% (0.7-2.9%) for genital wart, 1.9% (1.3-2.7%) for gonorrhoea, 8.9% (7.8-10.2%) for hepatitis B (HBV), 1.2% (1.0-1.6%) for hepatitis C (HCV), 66.3% (57.4-74.1%) for human papillomavirus (HPV), 10.6% (6.2-17.6%) for herpes simplex virus (HSV-2) and 4.3% (3.2-5.8%) for Ureaplasma urealyticum. HIV-positive MSM have consistently higher odds of all these infections than the broader MSM population. As a subgroup of MSM, MSW were 2.5 (1.4-4.7), 5.7 (2.7-12.3), and 2.2 (1.4-3.7) times more likely to be infected with chlamydia, gonorrhoea and HCV than the broader MSM population, respectively. CONCLUSION: Prevalence levels of STIs among MSW were significantly higher than the broader MSM population. Co-infection of HIV and STIs were prevalent among Chinese MSM. Integration of HIV and STIs healthcare and surveillance systems is essential in providing effective HIV/STIs preventive measures and treatments. TRIAL REGISTRATION: PROSPERO NO: CRD42013003721

Vascular Effects of Early versus Late Postmenopausal Treatment with Estradiol

BACKGROUND: Data suggest that estrogen-containing hormone therapy is associated with beneficial effects with regard to cardiovascular disease when the therapy is initiated temporally close to menopause but not when it is initiated later. However, the hypothesis that the cardiovascular effects of postmenopausal hormone therapy vary with the timing of therapy initiation (the hormone-timing hypothesis) has not been tested. METHODS: A total of 643 healthy postmenopausal women were stratified according to time since menopause (<6 years [early postmenopause] or ≥10 years [late postmenopause]) and were randomly assigned to receive either oral 17β-estradiol (1 mg per day, plus progesterone [45 mg] vaginal gel administered sequentially [i.e., once daily for 10 days of each 30-day cycle] for women with a uterus) or placebo (plus sequential placebo vaginal gel for women with a uterus). The primary outcome was the rate of change in carotid-artery intima– media thickness (CIMT), which was measured every 6 months. Secondary outcomes included an assessment of coronary atherosclerosis by cardiac computed tomography (CT), which was performed when participants completed the randomly assigned regimen. RESULTS: After a median of 5 years, the effect of estradiol, with or without progesterone, on CIMT progression differed between the early and late postmenopause strata (P = 0.007 for the interaction). Among women who were less than 6 years past menopause at the time of randomization, the mean CIMT increased by 0.0078 mm per year in the placebo group versus 0.0044 mm per year in the estradiol group (P = 0.008). Among women who were 10 or more years past menopause at the time of randomization, the rates of CIMT progression in the placebo and estradiol groups were similar (0.0088 and 0.0100 mm per year, respectively; P = 0.29). CT measures of coronary-artery calcium, total stenosis, and plaque did not differ significantly between the placebo group and the estradiol group in either postmenopause stratum. CONCLUSIONS: Oral estradiol therapy was associated with less progression of subclinical atherosclerosis (measured as CIMT) than was placebo when therapy was initiated within 6 years after menopause but not when it was initiated 10 or more years after menopause. Estradiol had no significant effect on cardiac CT measures of atherosclerosis in either postmenopause stratum. (Funded by the National Institute on Aging, National Institutes of Health; ELITE ClinicalTrials.gov number, NCT00114517.

Apparent Digestibility of Selected Feed Ingredients in Juvenile Turbot (Scophthalmus maxima L.)

In aquaculture, replacing dietary fishmeal with other protein sources is challenging. In order to select substitute sources, it is necessary to determine the apparent digestibility coefficients, many of which have not been well characterized for fish species. We investigated the apparent digestibility of eight protein sources fed to juvenile turbot (Scophthalmus maxima L.). These were Peruvian super red fishmeal (FM), peanut meal (PM), corn gluten meal (CGM), dehulled solvent extracted soybean meal (SBM), wheat gluten (WG), Australian beef meat and bone meal (MBM), spray-dried (pork) hemoglobin meal (SDHM) and American pet-food grade poultry byproduct meal (PBM). The apparent digestibility coefficients of dry matter (DM), crude protein (CP), gross energy (GE), and amino acids were analyzed. Results indicated that turbot utilized high-protein feedstuffs better than high-carbohydrate or high-fiber feedstuffs. This study provides valuable information on ingredient selection and evaluation of feed for turbot

Stability and Antioxidant Activity of Anthocyanins from Flowers of Rhododendron pulchrum Sweet.

The effects of light, temperature, pH, oxidant and reducing agents, metal ions and food additives on the stability of anthocyanins from flowers of Rhododendron pulchrum Sweet., as well as their scavenging capacity for •OH, O2-• and DPPH• free radicals and reducing power were investigated. The results showed that the anthocyanins from flowers of R. pulchrum were relatively stable in the room with natural light, at temperature lower than 45℃, and in the solution with pH ≤ 4. The addition of Na+, K+ Ca2+ metal ions, glucose, sodium benzoate, acetic acid and salt had little effect, but Cu2+, Zn2+, Fe3+, Al3+, starch and sodium glutamate showed adverse effects on the stability of the anthocyanins. The anthocyanins from flowers of R. pulchrum had a good antioxidant effect, and their scavenging capacity for •OH, O2-•, DPPH• was better than that of the same concentration of Vc

Convergence Analysis of the LDG Method for Singularly Perturbed Reaction-Diffusion Problems

We analyse the local discontinuous Galerkin (LDG) method for two-dimensional singularly perturbed reaction–diffusion problems. A class of layer-adapted meshes, including Shishkin- and Bakhvalov-type meshes, is discussed within a general framework. Local projections and their approximation properties on anisotropic meshes are used to derive error estimates for energy and “balanced” norms. Here, the energy norm is naturally derived from the bilinear form of LDG formulation and the “balanced” norm is artificially introduced to capture the boundary layer contribution. We establish a uniform convergence of order k for the LDG method using the balanced norm with the local weighted L2 projection as well as an optimal convergence of order k+1 for the energy norm using the local Gauss–Radau projections. The numerical method, the layer structure as well as the used adaptive meshes are all discussed in a symmetry way. Numerical experiments are presented

Study on an Online Detection Method for Ground Water Quality and Instrument Design

The online measurement of ground water quality, as one important area of water resource protection, can provide real-time measured water quality parameters and send out warning information in a timely manner when the water resource is polluted. Based on ultraviolet (UV) spectrophotometry, a remote online measurement method is proposed and used to measure the ground water quality parameters chemical oxygen demand (COD), total organic carbon (TOC), nitrate nitrogen (NO3&#8722;N), and turbidity (TURB). The principle of UV spectrophotometry and the data processing method are discussed in detail, the correlated mathematical modeling of COD and TOC is given, and a confirmatory experiment is carried out. Turbidity-compensated mathematical modeling is proposed to improve the COD measurement accuracy and a confirmatory experiment is finished with turbidity that ranges from 0 to 100 NTU (Nephelometric Turbidity Unit). The development of a measurement instrument to detect the ground water COD, TOC, NO3&#8722;N, and TURB is accomplished; the test experiments are completed according to the standard specification of China&#8217;s technical requirement for water quality online automatic monitoring of UV, and the absolute measuring errors of COD, TOC, and NO3&#8722;N are smaller than 5.0%, while that of TURB is smaller than 5.4%, which meets the requirements for the online measurement of ground water quality