Short video social media use and subjective wellbeing among young adults in rural China: The mediating roles of upward social comparison and online social capital

This paper aims to describe how videos affect human behavior, especially teenagers and other major human beings. Given the large number of young adults who use short video social media (e.g., TikTok, Douyin, and Kuaishou) in rural China, understanding how the use of such platforms affects their subjective wellbeing is crucial. This study examines the mediating roles of online social capital and upward social comparison in the relationships between short video social media use (intensity, active vs. passive use) and subjective wellbeing using data gathered from a web-based survey of 412 young adults living in rural China. Structural equation modeling demonstrated that active short video use is associated with a greater level of online social capital, which in turn is related positively to subjective wellbeing. Passive short video use is negatively associated with online social capital. Active short video use is also associated with a greater level of upward social comparison, whereas passive short video use is negatively associated with upward social comparison. Nevertheless, the relationship between upward social comparison and subjective wellbeing is not statistically significant. Use intensity was associated with neither online social capital nor upward social comparison. The findings extend the understanding of the psychologically powerful nature of short video social media platforms and their effects on subjective wellbeing among Chinese rural young adults

Exploring a low carbon development in rural China : the role of households

As the largest emitter of greenhouse gasses in the world, China is facing great pressure to reduce these emissions in order to mitigate global climate change. Developing a low carbon economy has been initiated in many countries, including China, as a means to tackle this issue. China’s actions in tackling climate changehave mainly focused so far on setting targets in its national energy strategy, and on implementing measures in the industrial sector and in urban transportation and buildings. The contribution of rural energy use to climate change has largely been neglected. In recent decades, China’s rural economy has undergone rapid development, accompanied by a substantial and profound change of rural lifestyles and a gradual transition of residential energy use patterns. This resulted in a trend towards the use of a greater variety of energy sources among rural residents.Thisrural energy transition is in particular characterized by a steady rise ofcommercial energyconsumptionand of energy intensity per capita, resulting in an increase in carbon emissions. As a result, mitigating rural CO2 emissions and promoting a rural low carbon transition arecrucial forChina’sclimate change agenda. Households are considered key actors in the rural energy transition, since reduction of CO2 emissions is bound up with changing domestic routines of energy consumption. The central objective of this research is to define the existing contribution of rural energy consumption to climate change and to explore the possibilities for low carbon transitions of rural households in China by examining the composition, formation and (potential) transformation of household energy consumption practices. Western ecological modernization theory is used as the theoretical basis of this study. The social practice model, developed within this theory, offers an integrative model to analyze transitions towards sustainable consumption at the level of everyday life. As such, social practices of household energy use are taken as focal points. Both individual attitudes towards energy use and the structural energy-related provision systems are taken into consideration in analyzing the transformation of household energy use practices. Official data on rural energy use faces some major shortcomings that hinder a comprehensive evaluation of rural CO2 emissions. Thus, to understand the contribution of rural domestic energy use to national greenhouse gas emissions in China, a general evaluation on its climate impacts is conducted in chapter two, based on multiple data sources and calculating methods. It is found that the contribution of rural (residential) carbon emissions to national total emissions might be easily neglected, since only emissions from commercial energy use are taken into account in official statistics, not those from traditional biomass use. This results in an underestimation on rural carbon emissions and mitigation potentials. The estimated CO2 emissions of rural commercial energy consumption accounts for around 4% of national total emissions, but the commercial energy use is only 1/5-1/4 of rural residential energy consumption. Large emissions and mitigation potentials from traditional biomass use are usually neglected. An energy transition is taking place in rural areas, with the dominant use of conventional biomass gradually being (partly) substituted by commercial energy utilization. Despite this transition, the increase of total rural domestic energy consumption and their carbon emissions may continue for a long time when the rural economy continues its rapid development. Promoting a transformation in the energy structure and of the behaviour of rural energy users is therefore crucial to slow down and reverse this process. Developing renewable energy is taken as a key strategy to optimize the energy structure and stimulate a low carbon transition. Public acceptance of such sustainable energy technologies is crucial for their successful introduction and penetration. The third chapter applies a socio-psychological framework to analyze rural householders’ understandings of a low carbon future by examining their attitudes towards the development of renewable energy in rural China. A case study was conducted in Shandong province. The results show that most rural householders have vague understandings of the ‘low carbon’ concept, but they are generally supportive torenewable energy development. In particular, a positive behavioural intention to pay for ‘higher cost’ of renewable energy production is observed among a large part of the respondents. This willingness to pay increases with household income and individual knowledge. It may be expected that continued development of the rural economy and society will result in improvements in rural education and income levels, which will come along with a growing environmental awareness among rural residents and further a change of their behavioural practices towards a low carbon transition. Energy use practices of rural households show a wide variety in China. These diverse energy use practices contribute differently to greenhouse gas emissions. A case study in north China (Shandong) was carried out to probe into their different contribution and examine the factors that influence or determine energy use behavioural practices of rural households (chapter four). The results show that space heating in north China is the largest emissions source among domestic energy use practices, which accounts for around 60% of household carbon emissions. The variety of rural energy use practices also leads to many possibilities of transition. The most obvious change may be brought along by a modernization of household lifestyles. Economic factors are one of the major drivers of such a transition. High-income groups are found to consume more energy for transportation and water heating, while low-income groups consume more energy for basic living practices such as space heating and cooking. It should be noted that a transition to modern-lifestyles tends to result in higher carbon emissions due to a larger energy consumption demand. However, a low carbon transition is also taking place to some extent within each energy use practice. For instance, natural gas is increasingly used for cooking instead of coal and traditional biomass; and renewable energy such as solar energy and biogas are replacing the use of fossil fuels for water heating and cooking. A low carbon development emphasizes both modernization and de-carbonization of domestic energy use practices, and cannot be separated from changes in the system of energy provision. Rural housing provision is crucial for future domestic energy use in rural China. The provision of rural housing is increasingly diversifying over the past decade, with variations in type of houses as well as actor arrangements that determine the lay-out of houses, the kind of energy sources used and thus future household energy use. Several case studies of concentrated rural housing provision are conducted in Shandong and Inner Mongolia, China to understand the factors influencing possible low carbon housing (chapter five). The major objective is to look into how decisions are being made regarding low carbon (behavioural and technological) alternatives for future rural domestic energy consumption practices. The empirical results show that providers of houses are the major decision makers with regard to the kind of materials, technologies and energy networks applied in rural housing development. Concentrated rural housing can improve both the energy efficiency of houses and the living conditions of households compared to traditional stand-alone modes of housing, which implies a relatively low carbon housing provision. Local governments, private property developers and local (energy) authorities in principle have the power to select and apply low carbon alternatives. Other energy (related) provision systems are also engaged in a transition of modernizing and de-carbonizing, including improved commercial energy supply, increased renewable electricity generation and decentralized energy provision. However, the transition can to a great extent be attributed to technological improvements within these systems. The transition to a low carbon economy would greatly benefit from strengthening other important aspects, such as improved energy-related markets, decentralized management of energy provision projects, diversified strategies aiming at different agents or actors involved, and increased participation of rural householders to alter the situation of ‘captive consumers’ of energy. In sum, this thesis finds that with rural development and modernizing rural lifestyles in China rural residential energy use is leading to increasing greenhouse gas emissions. Energy use practices of rural households in China have to be both modernized and decarbonized in order to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. A low carbon development demands, on the one hand, improvement of environmental awareness and attitudes, which is starting to play a more important role in the energy use decision making of rural householders; on the other hand, it demands that energy-related provision systems in rural China continue to be diversified, modernized and de-carbonized, and thereby make low carbon alternatives available for rural householders.</p

Diagnostic value of cardiac troponin I and N-terminal pro-B-Type Natriuretic Peptide in cardiac syncope

Objective The study aims to evaluate the diagnostic accuracy of Cardiac Troponin I(cTnI) and N-terminal pro-B-Type Natriuretic Peptide (NT-proBNP) for identifying patients with cardiac syncope. Methods This is a prospective, single-center cohort study of patients presenting with syncope hospitalized from June 21,2018 to May 30, 2019. The Evaluation of Guidelines in Syncope Study (EGSYS), a syncope-specific diagnostic score, was used for diagnostic comparator. Results A total of 118 patients were enrolled (mean age: 69.1 ​± ​12.3 years, 40% female). Compared to patients with reflex, orthostatic, or unexplained syncope, patients adjudicated to have cardiac syncope showed significantly higher cTnI and NT-proBNP plasma concentrations (p ​< ​0.001 for each comparison). The area under the curve (AUC) of cTnI and NT-proBNP were moderate-to-good [0.77–0.78; 95% confidence interval (CI) 0.66–0.86], and was similar to that of EGSYS (0.71, 95%CI 0.60–0.80). Incorporation of cTnI and/or NT-proBNP into the existing EGSYS score significantly improved the diagnostic accuracy (EGSYS ​+ ​cTnI: AUC 0.83; 95%CI 0.74–0.90; EGSYS ​+ ​NT-proBNP: AUC 0.81; 95%CI 0.71–0.89; EGSYS ​+ ​cTnI ​+ ​NT-proBNP: AUC 0.83; 95%CI 0.73–0.90). Conclusions The cTnI and NT-proBNP levels were significantly higher in patients adjudicated to have cardiac syncope and the addition of both biomarkers to the EGSYS score significantly improved the diagnostic value for cardiac syncope

New Exact Penalty Functions for Nonlinear Constrained Optimization Problems

For two kinds of nonlinear constrained optimization problems, we propose two simple penalty functions, respectively, by augmenting the dimension of the primal problem with a variable that controls the weight of the penalty terms. Both of the penalty functions enjoy improved smoothness. Under mild conditions, it can be proved that our penalty functions are both exact in the sense that local minimizers of the associated penalty problem are precisely the local minimizers of the original constrained problem

Association between High-Sensitivity C-Reactive Protein and N-Terminal Pro-B-Type Natriuretic Peptide in Patients with Hepatitis C Virus Infection

Background. Prior study showed HCV-infected patients have increased serum N-Terminal Pro-B-Type Natriuretic Peptide (NT-proBNP) and a possible left ventricular diastolic dysfunction. The objectives of the present paper were to investigate the characteristics of hs-CRP and its correlation with clinical profiles including NT-proBNP and echocardiographic variables in HCV-infected patients. Methods and Results. A total of 106 HCV-infected patients and 106 control healthy individuals were enrolled. The level of serum hs-CRP (median 1.023 mg/L, range 0.03∼5.379 mg/L) was significantly lower in all 106 patients than that in controls (median 3.147 mg/L, range 0.08~7.36 mg/L, P = 0.012). Although hs-CRP did not correlate significantly with NT-proBNP when all patients and controls were included (r = 0.169, P = 0.121), simple regression analysis demonstrated a statistically significant linear correlation between hs-CRP and NT-proBNP in HCV-infected patients group (r = 0.392, P = 0.017). Independent correlates of hs-CRP levels (R2 = 0.13) were older age (β′ = 0.031, P = 0.025) and NT proBNP (β′ = 0.024, P = 0.017). Conclusions. Although the level of serum hs-CRP decreased significantly, there was a significant association between hs-CRP and NT-proBNP in HCV-infected patients

A theoretical framework of immune cell phenotypic classification and discovery

Immune cells are highly heterogeneous and show diverse phenotypes, but the underlying mechanism remains to be elucidated. In this study, we proposed a theoretical framework for immune cell phenotypic classification based on gene plasticity, which herein refers to expressional change or variability in response to conditions. The system contains two core points. One is that the functional subsets of immune cells can be further divided into subdivisions based on their highly plastic genes, and the other is that loss of phenotype accompanies gain of phenotype during phenotypic conversion. The first point suggests phenotypic stratification or layerability according to gene plasticity, while the second point reveals expressional compatibility and mutual exclusion during the change in gene plasticity states. Abundant transcriptome data analysis in this study from both microarray and RNA sequencing in human CD4 and CD8 single-positive T cells, B cells, natural killer cells and monocytes supports the logical rationality and generality, as well as expansibility, across immune cells. A collection of thousands of known immunophenotypes reported in the literature further supports that highly plastic genes play an important role in maintaining immune cell phenotypes and reveals that the current classification model is compatible with the traditionally defined functional subsets. The system provides a new perspective to understand the characteristics of dynamic, diversified immune cell phenotypes and intrinsic regulation in the immune system. Moreover, the current substantial results based on plasticitomics analysis of bulk and single-cell sequencing data provide a useful resource for big-data–driven experimental studies and knowledge discoveries

Direct Construction of Lightweight Rotational-XOR MDS Diffusion Layers

As a core component of Substitution-Permutation Networks, diffusion layer is mainly introduced by matrices from maximum distance separable (MDS) codes. Surprisingly, up to now, most constructions of MDS matrices require to perform an equivalent or even exhaustive search. Especially, not many MDS proposals are known that obtain an excellent hardware efficiency and simultaneously guarantee a remarkable software implementation. In this paper, we study the cyclic structure of rotational-XOR diffusion layer, one of the commonly used linear layers over ${(\mathbb{F}_{\rm{2}}^b)^n}$, which consists of only rotation and XOR operations. First, we provide novel properties on this class of matrices, and prove the a lower bound on the number of rotations for $n \ge 4$ and show the tightness of the bound for $n=4$. Next, by precisely characterizing the relation among sub-matrices for each possible form, we can eliminate all the other non-optimal cases. Finally, we present a direct construction of such MDS matrices, which allows to generate $4 \times 4$ perfect instances for arbitrary $b \ge 4$. Every example contains the fewest possible rotations, so under this construction strategy, our proposal costs the minimum gate equivalents (resp. cyclic shift instructions) in the hardware (resp. software) implementation. To the best of our knowledge, it is the first time that rotational-XOR MDS diffusion layers have been constructed without any auxiliary search

A High‐resolution Atmospheric Dust Record for 1810–2004 A.D. Derived from an Ice Core in Eastern Tien Shan, Central Asia

Centennial‐scale, high‐resolution records of atmospheric dust conditions are rare in the arid and semiarid regions of central Asia, limiting our understanding of the regional climate and environmental changes and their potential driving forces. In this paper, we present an annually resolved atmospheric dust record covering the period of 1810–2004 A.D., reconstructed from an ice core retrieved at 4512 m above sea level from the Miaoergou Glacier in the eastern Tien Shan. The time series of dust flux for the past 195 years shows three periods of relatively low values (i.e., 1810–1829 A.D., 1863–1940 A.D., and 1979–2004 A.D.) and two periods of relatively high values (i.e., 1830–1862 A.D. and 1941–1978 A.D.). Spatial correlation analysis suggests possible regional factors controlling the dust flux, including antecedent summer precipitation, spring soil moisture, and near‐surface wind speed. In addition, the Miaoergou dust flux is closely associated with the winter index of the North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO) over the past two centuries, with high (low) dust periods coinciding with the negative (positive) phases of the NAO. The persistent relationship suggests that the NAO may have been a key driver on dust flux change over the arid regions between the Tien Shan and Kunlun Mountains