Major influencing factors identification and probabilistic health risk assessment of soil potentially toxic elements pollution in coal and metal mines across China: A systematic review.

Deposition of potentially toxic elements (PTEs) in soils due to different types of mining activities has been an increasingly important concern worldwide. Quantitative differences of soil PTEs contamination and related health risk among typical mines remain unclear. Herein, data from 110 coal mines and 168 metal mines across China were analyzed based on 265 published literatures to evaluate pollution characteristics, spatial distribution, and probabilistic health risks of soil PTEs. The results showed that PTE levels in soil from both mine types significantly exceeded background values. The geoaccumulation index (Igeo) revealed metal-mine soil pollution levels exceeded those of coal mines, with average Igeo values for Cd, Hg, As, Pb, Cu, and Zn being 3.02-15.60 times higher. Spearman correlation and redundancy analysis identified natural and anthropogenic factors affecting soil PTE contamination in both mine types. Mining activities posed a significant carcinogenic risk, with metal-mine soils showing a total carcinogenic risk an order of magnitude higher than in coal-mine soils. This study provides policymakers a quantitative foundation for developing differentiated strategies for sustainable remediation and risk-based management of PTEs in typical mining soils.

Prevalence and influencing factors of PTSD symptoms among healthcare workers: A multicenter cross-sectional study during the surge period of the COVID-19 pandemic since December 2022 in the Chinese mainland.

BACKGROUND: China has experienced a surge period of COVID-19 pandemic since December 2022. Healthcare workers (HCWs) were exposed to huge workload under high risk of being infected, and significant levels of trauma, which might cause Post-traumatic Stress Disorders (PTSD) symptoms in HCWs. OBJECTIVES: To identify the prevalence of PTSD symptoms among HCWs in the Chinese mainland during the surge period of the COVID-19 pandemic; to explore their psycho-social factors of PTSD symptoms. METHODS: A multicenter cross-sectional study was conducted among HCWs in Chinese mainland from January 5 to February 9, 2023, covering seven geographical regions. 6552 participants were recruited by convenience sampling. Data were collected on demographic characteristics, work-related factors, and psychological factors by online questionnaires. Univariate analysis and binary logistic regression were used to determine the influencing factors of PTSD symptoms. RESULTS: The prevalence of PTSD symptoms among HCWs was 37.49 %. A higher level of mindfulness, resilience, and perceived social support were protective factors. Female gender, nurses, higher educational attainment, married status, more working years, higher perceived risk of contracting COVID-19 due to work, and higher perceived work intensity were risk factors. CONCLUSION: High prevalence of PTSD symptoms among HCWs necessitates psychological interventions. Tailored interventions, designed by professional psychiatrists, should be tailored to address the stressors. A comprehensive approach, incorporating mindfulness, resilience-building, and perceived social support enhancement, is vital to bolster the mental well-being of HCWs exposed to traumatic events, thus mitigating the impact of PTSD effectively. Additionally, it is essential to provide support to HCWs with other potential risk factors.

Enhanced landfill process based on leachate recirculation and micro-aeration: A comprehensive technical, environmental, and economic assessment.

The landfill is still the primary waste treatment method in developing countries. Due to the long stability time and long-term occupation of a large amount of land, the landfill poses a significant threat to the ecological environment and affects the process of urbanization. This study conducted a landfill simulation reactor (LSR) experiment to achieve rapid landfill stabilization through micro-aeration and leachate recirculation. More than 60 % of the degradable organic carbon in the enhanced process (LSR-IV contains 24 % of the retained carbon) can be relatively quickly converted to a gaseous state, which is nearly half higher than the degradation efficiency of the traditional process (LSR-I contains 59.3 % of the retained carbon). A comprehensive environmental assessment is developed for the enhanced process, and better environmental benefits are obtained from the whole landfill process. Compared with conventional treatment process, the enhanced process is applied to the actual landfill to analyze the economic cost. In terms of the total cost, the enhanced process cost (60.1 CNY) is about 44 % lower than the conventional landfill process cost (107.6 CNY). The enhanced process saves nearly half of the time cost and reduces the cost of land acquisition. This study can provide a reference for governmental and municipal administrations to carry out the technological transformation of traditional landfills from the aspects of technology, economy and environment.

Exponential synchronization of neural networks with time-varying delays and stochastic impulses.

This paper concentrates on the exponential synchronization problem of the delayed neural networks (DNNs) with stochastic impulses. First, the impulsive Halanay differential inequality is further extended to the case that the impulsive strengths are random variables. Then, based on the generalized inequalities, synchronization criteria are respectively proposed for DNNs with two kinds of stochastic impulses, i.e., impulses with independent property/Markovian property. It should be pointed out that only some basic statistical characteristics are needed to verify the proposed criteria. Numerical examples are provided to show the validation of the obtained theoretical results at the end of this paper.

Does Innovation Efficiency Suppress the Ecological Footprint? Empirical Evidence from 280 Chinese Cities.

Innovation is an important motivating force for regional sustainable development. This study measures the innovation efficiency of 280 cities in China from 2014-2018 using the super-efficiency slack-based measure and it also analyzes its impact on the ecological footprint using the generalized spatial two-stage least squares (GS2SLS) method and uses the threshold regression model to explore the threshold effect of innovation efficiency on the ecological footprint at different economic development levels. We find the corresponding transmission mechanism by using a mediating effect model. The major findings are as follows. First, we find an inverse U-shaped relationship between innovation efficiency and the ecological footprint for cities across China as well as in the eastern and central regions. That is, innovation efficiency promotes then suppresses the ecological footprint. Conversely, in western and northeastern China, improvements in innovation efficiency still raise the ecological footprint. Second, for the entire country, as economic development increases from below one threshold value (4.4928) to above another (4.8245), the elasticity coefficient of innovation efficiency to the ecological footprint changes from -0.0067 to -0.0313. This indicates that the ability of innovation efficiency improvements to reduce the ecological footprint is gradually enhanced with increased economic development. Finally, the industrial structure, the energy structure, and energy efficiency mediate the impacts of innovation efficiency on the ecological footprint.

Genome-wide screening for highly discriminative SNPs for personal identification and their assessment in world populations.

The applications of DNA profiling aim to identify perpetrators, missing family members and disaster victims in forensic investigations. Single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) based forensic applications are emerging rapidly with a potential to replace short tandem repeats (STRs) based panels which are now being used widely, and there is a need for a well-designed SNP panel to meet such challenge for this transition. Here we present a panel of 175 SNP markers (referred to as Fudan ID Panel or FID), selected from ∼3.6 million SNPs, for the application of personal identification. We optimized and validated FID panel using 729 Chinese individuals using a next generation sequencing (NGS) technology. We showed that the SNPs in the panel possess very high heterozygosity as well as low within- and among-continent differentiations, enabling FID panel exhibit discrimination power in both regional and worldwide populations, with the average match probabilities ranging from 4.77×10-71 to 1.06×10-64 across 54 world populations. With the advent of biomedical research, the SNPs connecting physical anthropological, physiological, behavioral and phenotypic traits will be eventually added to the forensic panels that will revolutionize criminal investigation.

Discontinuous Lyapunov approach to state estimation and filtering of jumped systems with sampled-data.

This paper is concerned with the sampled-data state estimation and H(∞) filtering for a class of Markovian jump systems with the discontinuous Lyapunov approach. The system measurements are sampled and then transmitted to the estimator and filter in order to estimate the state of the jumped system under consideration. The corresponding error dynamics is represented by a system with two types of delays: one is from the system itself, and the other from the sampling period. As the delay due to sampling is discontinuous, a corresponding discontinuous Lyapunov functional is constructed, and sufficient conditions are established so as to guarantee both the asymptotic mean-square stability and the H(∞) performance for the filtering error systems. The explicit expressions of the desired estimator and filter are further provided. Finally, two simulation examples are given to illustrate the design procedures and performances of the proposed method.

An UV-vis spectroelectrochemical approach for rapid detection of phenazines and exploration of their redox characteristics.

Phenazines are widely distributed in the environment and play an important role in various biological processes to facilitate microbial metabolism and electron transfer. In this work, an efficient and reliable spectroelectrochemical method is developed to quantitatively detect 1-hydroxyphenazine (1-OHPZ), a representative phenazine, and explore its redox characteristics. This approach is based on the sensitive absorption change of 1-OHPZ in response to its changes under redox state in rapid electrochemical reduction. The redox reaction of 1-OHPZ in aqueous solution is a proton-coupled electron transfer process, with a reversible one-step 2e(-)/2H(+) transfer reaction. This spectroelectrochemical approach exhibits good linear response covering two magnitudes to 1-OHPZ with a detection limit of 0.48µM, and is successfully applied to detect 1-OHPZ from a mixture of phenazines produced by Pseudomonas aeruginosa cultures. This method might also be applicable in exploring the abundance and redox processes of a wide range of other redox-active molecules in natural and engineered environments.