Subjective well-being in China's changing society.

There is now recognition that a population's overall level of well-being is defined not just by income and wealth. Where we live and who we interact with are likely to be equally important in our overall levels of satisfaction with our lives. This thinking has stimulated studies of subjective well-being, or happiness, at both national and local scales. These studies suggest that where you live does matter, although it is health and family status that have the most direct effects on well-being. In this study, we use a detailed dataset on well-being from the China Household Finance Survey to reexamine well-being across China, where profound socioeconomic changes are taking place. The study controls for self-reported health and examines subjective well-being across extensive and varied Chinese urban and rural environments. We find that the earlier pessimism about China's well-being, which emphasized declining happiness, may be misplaced. We make two contributions: first, we show a rising level of subjective well-being, and second, we show that there is a narrowing gap in well-being across different social indicators. Methodologically, we bring in the perspectives of both social capital and geographic context.

The lockdown, mobility, and spatial health disparities in COVID-19 pandemic: A case study of New York City.

The world has adopted unprecedented lockdown as the key method to mitigate COVID-19; yet its effect on pandemic outcomes and health disparities remains largely unknown. Adopting a multilevel conceptual framework, this research investigates how city-level lockdown policy and public transit system shape mobility and thus intra-city health disparities, using New York City as a case study. With a spatial method and multiple sources of data, this research demonstrates the uneven impact of the lockdown policy and public transit system in shaping local pandemic outcomes. Census tracts with people spending more time at home have lower infection and death rates, while those with a higher density of transit stations have higher infection and death rates. Residential profile matters and census tracts with a higher concentration of disadvantaged population, such as Blacks, Hispanics, poor and elderly people, and people with no health insurance, have higher infection and death rates. Spatial analyses identify clusters where the lockdown policy was not effective and census tracts that share similar pandemic characteristics. Through the lens of mobility, this research advances knowledge of health disparities by focusing on institutional causes for health disparities and the role of the government through intervention policy and public transit system.

Migration, Family Arrangement, and Children's Health in China.

With unprecedented migration taking place in China, millions of children are profoundly affected. Using a sample of 916 children (aged 5-18) of migrants and the life course perspective, this article examines the impact of parental migration on children's health. Results show that migration has a complex impact on children's health. Although migrating to cities itself does not benefit children, poor housing conditions in cities have a negative impact on their health. The timing of parental migration is important, as preschoolers migrating with parents and teenagers left behind by parents have significantly worse health than others. Migration also has a gendered effect, as teenage boys benefit from migrating to cities but suffer from being left behind when compared to teenage girls.

Generation of thioethers via direct C-H functionalization with sodium benzenesulfinate as a sulfur source.

A novel ammonium iodide-induced sulfenylation method of flavones, indole and arylimidazo[1,2-a]pyridines using stable and odorless sodium benzenesulfinates as sulfur sources was developed, generating regioselective derivatives in good yields. This method has enriched current thioether-producing methods and provided a good example of using ammonium iodide as a reaction inducer instead of iodine to make thioethers under environmentally friendly and odorless conditions.

The privilege of working from home and health disparities during the covid-19 pandemic in major American cities.

Working from home (WFH) has been adopted as a key mitigation strategy in the COVID-19 pandemic; yet few research has studied its impact on pandemic outcomes. Using multiple sources of data including cellphone data and online survey during the pandemic, this study investigates the effect of WFH on intra-city health disparities during the COVID-19 pandemic in American cities. Pandemic data for zip code tabulation areas and cellphone mobility data for census block groups in New York City (NYC), Chicago, and Philadelphia are converted to census tract level, which are then merged with 2019 census data. WFH is measured with the proportion of workers who potentially can telework based on employment composition in census tracts and percentages of jobs in each industry that actually WFH during the pandemic. Results show that while infection and death rates are higher in NYC, intra-city disparities in pandemic outcomes are more pronounced in Philadelphia. Poisson regressions show a negative association between WFH and COVID-19 infection and death rates in NYC and Chicago, which is weakened by increased time spent at home during the pandemic and in minority neighborhoods (in NYC). In Philadelphia, WFH is barely relevant for infection rates but has a marginally positive association with death rates, which is also moderated by the time spent at home. This study demonstrates the relative effectiveness of WFH in mitigating pandemic outcomes and underscores the intersectionality between WFH and race/ethnicity and resident behaviors. It provides important policy implications for future pandemic mitigation.

COVID-19 pandemic and minority health disparities in New York City: A spatial and temporal perspective.

New York City (NYC) was the epicenter of COVID-19 pandemic for a long time, and the government introduced a city-wide lockdown policy to mitigate the spread of virus. Minority communities, however, suffered disproportionally high percentage of infection and mortality rates, a disturbing phenomenon that deserves scrutiny. Adopting a spatial and temporal perspective, this study aims to investigate health disparities in this pandemic by focusing on mobility in the city. Considering both public transit and the lockdown policy essential factors that impact infection and mortality, this study introduced a measure indicating mobility-restricted transit as the spatial factor. Additional factors include ethnic minorities based on their nativity and three categories of social vulnerability: socioeconomic status, household composition, and housing type. This study selects eight phases, each of which consists of 2 weeks to derive infection and mortality rates to investigate the impacts of those factors. As infection and mortality data are published based on ZIP code, this study further estimates the infection and mortality rates at a finer level of census tract through spatial apportionment. Results reveal the significant impact of mobility-restricted transit on both infection and mortality and show certain clusters of neighborhoods being highly impacted. In addition, this study identifies neighborhoods where native-born and foreign-born of each ethnic minority (Blacks, Hispanics, and Asians) have high risk of infection and mortality. Through a spatial and temporal perspectives, this study identifies the complexity of patterns in minority health disparities in COVID-19 pandemic, which can inform policy makers for localized support to vulnerable neighborhoods to alleviate minority health disparities.

Dynamic Stability of Nanobeams Based on the Reddy's Beam Theory.

The dynamic stability of nanobeams has been investigated by the Euler-Bernoulli and Timoshenko beam theories in the literature, but the higher-order Reddy beam theory has not been applied in the dynamic stability evaluation of nanobeams. In this work, the governing equations of the motion and dynamic stability of a nanobeam embedded in elastic medium are derived based on the nonlocal theory and the Reddy's beam theory. The parametric studies indicate that the principal instability region (PIR) moves to a lower frequency zone when length, sectional height, nonlocal parameter, Young's modulus and mass density of the Reddy nanobeam increase. The PIR shifts to a higher frequency zone only under increasing shear modulus. Increase in length makes the width of the PIR shrink obviously, while increase in height and Young's modulus makes the width of the PIR enlarge. The sectional width and foundation modulus have few effects on PIR.

Investigation into the Dynamic Stability of Nanobeams by Using the Levinson Beam Model.

Dynamic stability is an important mechanical behavior of nanobeams, which has been studied extensively using the Euler-Bernoulli and Timoshenko beam theories, while the Levinson-beam-theory-based dynamic instability analysis of nanobeams has not been investigated yet. Shear deformation is not or is not suitably considered in the Euler-Bernoulli and Timoshenko theories, so it is very important to introduce the Levinson beam theory in the dynamic stability analysis of nanobeams, which correctly models the combined action of bending and shear in nanobeams with smaller length/height ratios. In this work, the equation of the transverse vibration of a Levinson beam embedded in an elastic foundation is firstly formulated based on the displacement field of Levinson beam theory, and the nonlocal theory is further applied to the Levinson nanobeam. Then, the governing equation of the dynamic stability of the Levinson nanobeam is derived using Bolotin's method to achieve a generalized eigenvalue problem corresponding to the boundaries of regions of dynamic instability. The principal instability region (PIR) is the most important among all regions, so the boundary of the PIR is focused on in this work to investigate the dynamic stability of the Levinson nanobeam. When the width, length/height ratio, density, Young's modulus, Poisson's ratio, size scale parameter, and medium stiffness increase by about 1.5 times, the width of the PIR changes by about 19%, -57%, -20%, 65%, 0, -9%, and -11%, respectively. If a smaller critical excitation frequency and narrower width of the PIR correspond to the better performance of dynamic stability, the study shows that the dynamic stability of the Levinson nanobeam embedded in an elastic medium improves under a larger length and density and a smaller width, height, and Young's modulus, since these factors are related to the natural frequency of the nanobeam which controls the width of the PIR. Additionally, the local model would overestimate the dynamic stability behavior of the Levinson nanobeam.

Historical redlining and park use during the COVID-19 pandemic: Evidence from big mobility data.

BACKGROUND: Despite the health benefits of urban green space, disparities in its access and use have long existed. Emerging evidence suggests an adverse impact of redlining, a discriminatory practice decades ago, on multiple health outcomes. However, whether and to what degree redlining contributes to these disparities remains unknown particularly during a pandemic. With newly available mobility data tracking the locations of large numbers of mobile devices, this study links historical redlining with changes in green space use during the COVID-19 pandemic. OBJECTIVE: This study examines how changes in park visits during the lockdown period (3/23/2020-8/2/2020) are associated with redlining across census tracts in three large U.S. cities. METHODS: HOLC neighborhood redlining grade data were merged with SafeGraph mobility data at census tract level for New York City, Chicago, and Philadelphia. Ordinary Least Square regressions were conducted to assess the association between dominant redlining grade and relative change in park visits in census tracts by comparing the lockdown period to the reference period. Spatial error and lag models were also used to account for potential spatial autocorrelation. RESULTS: Park visits during the lockdown period in 2020 decreased by at least one-third in the three cities. The influence of redlining varied across neighborhoods and cities. In New York City, neighborhoods with more redlined areas experienced the largest drop, sharper decreases concentrated in neighborhoods previously graded as "best" or "still desirable" in Philadelphia, but the effect was barely present in Chicago. In addition, changes in park visits are positively correlated between neighborhoods in New York City and Chicago, but it's not observed in Philadelphia. IMPACT STATEMENT: Using emerging big mobility data, our study revealed large drops in park visits, a better measure than commonly-used access measures in capturing green space exposure, during the lockdown period. We found that historical redlining has a lasting impact on current green space use. More decreases in park visits were observed in the redlined areas in New York City, but patterns vary by neighborhood and city due to local-specific neighborhood dynamics. And changes in park visits were spatially, positively correlated across places.

Genomic insights into the phylogeny and biomass-degrading enzymes of rumen ciliates.

Understanding the biodiversity and genetics of gut microbiomes has important implications for host physiology and industrial enzymes, whereas most studies have been focused on bacteria and archaea, and to a lesser extent on fungi and viruses. One group, still underexplored and elusive, is ciliated protozoa, despite its importance in shaping microbiota populations. Integrating single-cell sequencing and an assembly-and-identification pipeline, we acquired 52 high-quality ciliate genomes of 22 rumen morphospecies from 11 abundant morphogenera. With these genomes, we resolved the taxonomic and phylogenetic framework that revised the 22 morphospecies into 19 species spanning 13 genera and reassigned the genus Dasytricha from Isotrichidae to a new family Dasytrichidae. Comparative genomic analyses revealed that extensive horizontal gene transfers and gene family expansion provided rumen ciliate species with a broad array of carbohydrate-active enzymes (CAZymes) to degrade all major kinds of plant and microbial carbohydrates. In particular, the genomes of Diplodiniinae and Ophryoscolecinae species encode as many CAZymes as gut fungi, and ~80% of their degradative CAZymes act on plant cell-wall. The activities of horizontally transferred cellulase and xylanase of ciliates were experimentally verified and were 2-9 folds higher than those of the inferred corresponding bacterial donors. Additionally, the new ciliate dataset greatly facilitated rumen metagenomic analyses by allowing ~12% of the metagenomic sequencing reads to be classified as ciliate sequences.

Family Arrangements and Children's Education Among Migrants: A Case Study of China.

As China is experiencing an urban revolution with massive rural-to-urban migration, millions of children are profoundly affected by their parents' migration and their decision on family arrangement. With the discriminatory Hukou system and harsh living conditions in cities, the dilemma migrant parents face is whether they should bring children to cities or leave them behind. This decision determines the household, school and community environment children live in, which in turn shapes their wellbeing. With a unique strategy of comparing "left behind children" to "migrant children" and a gendered perspective, this paper examines how different family arrangements among migrants and consequent housing conditions and gender dynamics affect children's educational wellbeing. Our findings demonstrate the complex impact of family arrangement on children, which is conditioned on wage income and the gender of absent parent and the child. We find that children from less favorable socioeconomic backgrounds benefit more from moving to cities. Children living with both parents and those living with mother and grandparents tend to do better. While the effect of housing conditions is marginal, family arrangement has a gendered effect on children. Related policy recommendations are provided.