Challenges in food waste recycling in high-rise buildings and public design for sustainability: A case in Hong Kong.

In recent decades, various studies on policy, management, behaviour, norms and economic incentives related to food waste issues have been conducted. Many of the studies are from a quantitative perspective which has given a wider but general coverage of study and analysis on the matters. However, the impacts of context, such as living environments and social culture, on recycling activities from a qualitative as well as in-depth perspective have seldom been discussed, especially in densely populated communities. Taking Hong Kong as an example, some food waste recycling (FWR) initiatives have been launched in housing estates. However, most projects have been suspended due to many practical problems. Only a few cases are still on-going. Physical setting quality has been identified as a significant factor affecting sustainable behaviour. Inefficient and low-quality public designs that do not consider living environments and specific lifestyles may fail to encourage community participation. This study aims to provide a more in-depth investigation into people's attitudes and actual behaviour towards and to shed light on public design for sustainability. Using the FWR programme in Amoy Gardens as a case, this study uses qualitative research methods to explore FWR experiences and improve its weaknesses. The findings show three potential challenges to FWR in densely populated high-rise buildings: (1) limited space, (2) hygiene issues and (3) implementation and management. This study also provides implications for public design to improve sustainability in communities and encourage public participation in FWR in high-density residential areas.

[Inspirations of Rome â £ on clinical evaluation of traditional Chinese medicine for functional gastrointestinal disease].

The Rome Foundation released the Rome Ⅳ for functional gastrointestinal diseases (FGIDs) in 2016, which fully presented the latest advances and views on the disease origin, definition, diagnosis, classification, pathology, mechanism, clinical features, influential factors, interventions, clinical evaluation, clinical research design and so on, showing high positive effects on global researches. Traditional Chinese medicines (TCM) have cognitive advantages and well-recognized and-demonstrated efficacy in the prevention and treatment for FGIDs. However, the monotonous presentation ways and weak interpretation on clinical evaluation have also hindered the inherent advantages explanation, characteristics quantization, evidence and communication accumulation. This study first analyzed the background and key points on clinical evaluation of Rome Ⅳ and corresponding inspirations, believed that its concept and viewpoints were assimilated with systematic medicine, and emphasized the important influence of subjective factors such as mental psychology and social culture on the disease and its importance in clinical evaluation. Its views on several aspects such as the theoretical model, internal and external causes, and transfer process were highly consistent with TCM. Therefore, TCM researchers should devote more dedication and courage on the innovation and collaboration with global researches to advance related studies. Then, based on 59 TCM clinical researches for FGIDs funded by national projects upon searching in CNKI with strict search strategy, the clinical evaluation methods and indexes and their correlations were summarized and analyzed, and it was found that more attention was paid to the disease symptoms and impact, symptom/syndrome score, patient report outcome, et al. However, many limitations were also founded, such as disordered relationships among different indexes, ambiguous explanation of research results, and extremely few domestic evaluation instruments in Chinese culture. Therefore, it is suggested that future research should regress and highlight the subjective features of patients and diseases, standardize the elemental structure and management mode of clinical evaluation, enhance the values and status of reported outcomes. It is highly recommended that the domestic disease-specific instruments developed in Chinese culture should be adopted as primary outcome for clinical evaluation, assisted with symptoms/signs assessment tools and doctors reporting outcome scale, et al. The common used TCM syndrome scores in current researches are not recommended as the primary outcome. However, there are some limitations in the above suggestions. We hope that more relevant researches will explore and establish a unified outcome assessment system for FGIDs and improve the quality of TCM clinical research.

The influence of community park characteristics on satisfaction in Guangzhou: Moderating and mediating effects analysis.

Community parks in old urban areas have problems such as outdated facilities and low quality, which inhibit the development of healthy aging. However, limited research has examined the correlation between such park characteristics and park satisfaction among elderly individuals. Additionally, the mechanisms underlying this association remain unclear. In this investigation, a moderated mediation framework grounded in self-determination theory was formulated to probe the interplay between these variables, with a specific focus on the mediating influence of social self-efficacy among the elderly and the moderating effect of use intention. A questionnaire survey (N = 319) was conducted in Shamian Park, Guangzhou, employing structural equation modeling for data analysis. Findings indicate that, even after controlling for demographic factors, park characteristics not only exert a direct influence on satisfaction but also exhibit an indirect impact through the mediation of social self-efficacy, with both pathways being moderated by use intention. This study has implications for how to improve the design of community parks in old urban areas in developing countries to better meet the basic needs of the elderly and promote healthy aging.

Evaluation of models for household recycling behaviour in high-rise buildings: A Chinese case study in urban Guangzhou.

Recycling strategies and waste management for the source separation of recyclables are still in their infancy in China and many other developing countries. Unlike formal recycling systems with strictly regulated management in high-income countries, waste management and recycling activities in low-income and middle-income countries are predominantly informal. Formal recycling systems often have very small amounts of recyclables in comparison to informal recycling systems. Considering the Chinese case of urban Guangzhou, where formal and informal recycling systems coexist, this study investigated household recycling behaviour and explored the sociodemographic and contextual factors that affect this behaviour. Based on data collected through questionnaire surveys and interviews, a model of the use of public recycling facilities (UPRF) and a model of the use of informal recycling sectors (UIRS) were evaluated using correlations and multiple regression analyses. The findings indicated that the use of public recycling facilities can be significantly predicted by the launch of a source separation scheme, the physical setting and satisfaction with public recycling facilities. The sociodemographic variables did not significantly predict the use of public recycling facilities but did significantly predict the use of informal recycling sectors. This study's findings have implications for researchers and policymakers and shed light on public designs for sustainability.

Cross-link between ferroptosis and nasopharyngeal carcinoma: New approach to radiotherapy sensitization.

Ferroptosis is a recently discovered special type of regulated cell death that is strongly associated with both homeostasis maintenance and cancer development. Previous studies have indicated that a number of small-molecular agents inducing ferroptosis have great potential in the treatment of different types of cancer, including breast, pancreatic, prostate and head and neck cancer. However, the role of ferroptosis in nasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPC) has remained to be fully determined. To the best of our knowledge, no review of the currently available studies on this subject has been published to date. The metabolism and expression of specific genes that regulate ferroptosis may represent a promising radiosensitization target in cancer treatment. The aim of the present review was to describe the cross-link between ferroptosis and NPC and to discuss the potential value of regulators and the possible mechanism underlying the role of ferroptosis in the radiosensitization of NPC, in the hope that linking the mechanism of ferroptosis with the development of NPC will accelerate the development of novel ferroptosis-based targets and radiotherapy strategies in NPC.

Delayed diagnosis of prosopagnosia following a hemorrhagic stroke in an elderly man: A case report.

BACKGROUND: Acquired prosopagnosia is a rare condition characterized by the loss of familiarity with previously known faces and the inability to recognize new ones. It usually occurs after the onset of brain lesions such as in a stroke. The initial identification of prosopagnosia generally relies on a patient's self-report, which can be challenging if it lacks an associated chief complaint. There were few cases of prosopagnosia presenting purely as eye symptoms in the previous literature confirmed by functional magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). CASE SUMMARY: We present a case of delayed diagnosis of prosopagnosia after a right hemisphere stroke in an elderly man whose chief complaint was persistent and progressive "blurred vision" without facial recognition impairment. Ophthalmic tests revealed a homonymous left upper quadrantanopia, with normal visual acuity. He was found by accident to barely recognize familiar faces. The patient showed severe deficit in face recognition and perception tests, and mild memory loss in neuropsychological assessments. Further functional MRI revealed the visual recognition deficits were face-specific. After behavioral intervention, the patient started to rely on other cues to compensate for poor facial recognition. His prosopagnosia showed no obvious improvement eight months after the stroke, which had negative impact on his social network. CONCLUSION: Our case demonstrates that the presentation of prosopagnosia can be atypical, and visual difficulties might be a clinical manifestation solely of prosopagnosia, which emphasizes the importance of routinely considering face recognition impairment among elderly patients with brain lesions.

Numerical study of initial perturbation effects on Richtmyer-Meshkov instability in nonuniform flows.

The effects of an initial perturbation on Richtmyer-Meshkov instability are numerically studied by simulating the process of incident shock (Ma=1.27) impacting different groups of initial multimode cosine interfaces formed by different amplitudes in initially nonuniform flows whose density is a Gaussian function. The numerical results indicate that the evolution of the interface with a large initial amplitude in a low-density nonuniform area grows fastest, while that with a small initial amplitude in a high-density nonuniform area grows slowly. Further analysis of vorticity and circulation illustrates these phenomena. The interface with a large initial amplitude in a low-density zone possesses a larger density gradient, which results in a larger amount of vorticity and circulation, leading to the fast-changing evolution of the interface. Distinctive evolution mechanisms of Richtmyer-Meshkov instability between the nonuniform flows and the uniform flows are analyzed in detail.

[Effects of zinc- and iron deficiency on physiological indices, mineral contents, and leaf ultrastructure of Poncirus trifoliata].

By using hydroponics, this paper studied the physiological responses of trifoliate orange (Poncirus trifoliata) seedlings to the deficiency of zinc (0 micromol x L(-1) Zn2+) and/or iron (0 micromol x L(-1) Fe-EDTA). The deficiency of both Zn and Fe decreased the plant biomass and root viability, and increased the leaf-and root SOD activity significantly. Zinc deficiency increased the leaf-and root POD significantly, while Fe deficiency had an adverse effect. The root CAT activity increased significantly under Zn deficiency, but had less difference with the control under Fe deficiency. Fe- and Zn deficiency induced a significant decrease of root potassium (K), magnesium (Mg), and phosphorus (P) contents and of shoot K content, respectively, but resulted in a significant increase in the root- and shoot Zn and Cu contents and in the root Fe and Mn contents and shoot Mn content, respectively. Ultrastructural observation of leaf structure and chloroplast showed that under Fe deficiency, the organelle was damaged seriously, which was revealed by the vacuolization of chloroplast and mitochondria, vague chloroplast membrane and thylakoid lamella, drastic increase of platoglobuli number, and absence of starch grain in the chloroplast. Under Zn deficiency, the thylakoid lamella of chloroplast was loosely distributed with less lamella, but the platoglobuli number was increased.