Relationship between socioeconomic status and hypertension incidence among adults in southwest China: a population-based cohort study.

PURPOSE: To investigate the correlation between socioeconomic status (SES) and the incidence of hypertension among adults aged 18 or above in southwest China. METHODS: A multistage proportional stratified cluster sampling method was employed to recruited 9280 adult residents from 12 counties in southwest China, with all participants in the cohort tracked from 2016 to 2020. The questionnaire survey gathered information on demographics, lifestyle habits, and household income. The physical exam recorded height, weight, and blood pressure. Biochemical tests measured cholesterol levels. The chi-square test was employed to assess the statistical differences among categorical variables, while the Cox proportional hazards regression model was applied to evaluate the association between socioeconomic status (SES) and the incidence of hypertension. RESULTS: The finally effective sample size for the cohort study was 3546 participants, after excluding 5734 people who met the exclusion criteria. Adults in the highest household income group had a significantly lower risk of hypertension compared to those in the lowest income group (HR = 0.636, 95% CI: 0.478-0.845). Besides, when compared to individuals in the illiterate population, the risk of hypertension among adults with elementary school, junior high school, senior high school and associate degree educational level decreased respectively by 34.4% (HR = 0.656, 95%CI: 0.533-0.807), 44.9% (HR = 0.551, 95%CI: 0.436-0.697), 44.9% (HR = 0.551, 95%CI: 0.405-0.750), 46.1% (HR = 0.539, 95%CI: 0. 340-0.854). After conducting a thorough analysis of socioeconomic status, compared with individuals with a score of 6 or less, the risk of hypertension in participants with scores of 8, 10, 11, 12, and greater than 12 decreased respectively by 23.9% (HR = 0.761, 95%CI: 0.598-0.969), 29.7% (HR = 0.703, 95%CI: 0.538-0.919), 34.0% (HR = 0.660, 95%CI: 0.492-0.885), 34.3% (HR = 0.657, 95%CI: 0.447-0.967), 43.9% (HR = 0.561, 95%CI: 0.409-0.769). CONCLUSION: The findings indicate a negative correlation between socioeconomic status and hypertension incidence among adults in southwest China, suggesting that individuals with higher socioeconomic status are less likely to develop hypertension.

Facile and Cost-Effective Fabrication of Highly Sensitive, Fast-Response Flexible Humidity Sensors Enabled by Laser-Induced Graphene.

The need to simplify fabrication processes and reduce costs for high-performance humidity sensors is increasingly vital, especially in fields such as healthcare and agriculture. This study introduces a simple and cost-effective approach using laser-induced graphene (LIG) on a polyimide film to create highly sensitive and fast-response flexible humidity sensors. The LIG acts as the electrode, while the porous polyimide between the interdigital LIG electrodes serves as the humidity sensing material, showing changes in electrical conductivity based on the humidity levels. The LIG humidity sensor, an ionic-conduction type, exhibits remarkable sensitivity, with a 28,231-fold increase in current as relative humidity changes from 26.1 to 90.2%. It also boasts of ultrashort response/recovery times (less than 0.5/7 s), providing significant advantages in detecting rapid and subtle humidity variations compared to a commercially available MEMS humidity sensor. We successfully demonstrated the LIG humidity sensor's capabilities in ultrafast breathing monitoring (≈174 times per minute), moisture detection of grains, and detection of sudden water pipe leakage. Due to its straightforward and cost-effective fabrication process, the LIG humidity sensor holds immense practical value for affordable, widespread use across various applications.

Biochar Coating Is a Sustainable and Economical Approach to Promote Seed Coating Technology, Seed Germination, Plant Performance, and Soil Health.

Seed germination and stand establishment are the first steps of crop growth and development. However, low seed vigor, improper seedbed preparation, unfavorable climate, and the occurrence of pests and diseases reduces the germination rate and seedling quality, resulting in insufficient crop populations and undesirable plant growth. Seed coating is an effective method that is being developed and applied in modern agriculture. It has many functions, such as improving seed vigor, promoting seedling growth, and reducing the occurrence of pests and diseases. Yet, during seed coating procedures, several factors, such as difficulty in biodegradation of coating materials and hindrance in the application of chemical ingredients to seeds, force us to explore reliable and efficient coating formulations. Biochar, as a novel material, may be expected to enhance seed germination and seedling establishment, simultaneously ensuring agricultural sustainability, environment, and food safety. Recently, biochar-based seed coating has gained much interest due to biochar possessing high porosity and water holding capacity, as well as wealthy nutrients, and has been proven to be a beneficial agent in seed coating formulations. This review presents an extensive overview on the history, methods, and coating agents of seed coating. Additionally, biochar, as a promising seed coating agent, is also synthesized on its physico-chemical properties. Combining seed coating with biochar, we discussed in detail the agricultural applications of biochar-based seed coating, such as the promotion of seed germination and stand establishment, the improvement of plant growth and nutrition, suitable carriers for microbial inoculants, and increase in herbicide selectivity. Therefore, this paper could be a good source of information on the current advance and future perspectives of biochar-based seed coating for modern agriculture.

Dermatomal somatosensory evoked potentials and cortical somatosensory evoked potentials assessment in congenital scoliosis.

BACKGROUND: The aim of this study was to assess the value of dermatomal somatosensory evoked potentials (DSEPs) and cortical somatosensory evoked potentials (SSEPs) in monitoring spinal cord function for patients with congenital scoliosis (CS). METHODS: This retrospective study reviewed the medical records of patients (n = 102) who underwent DSEP (T2-S1 dermatome), of whom 60 were normal subjects and 62 with congenital scoliosis. The study analyzed the latencies and peaks of N1-L, N1-R, P1-L and P1-R recorded by DSEPs of patients' thoracolumbar dermatomes. To observe the incidence of abnormal DSEPs and SSEPs in CS patients and to analyze the difference in sensitivity and reliability between the two in the examination of scoliosis patients. SPSS 22.0 statistical software package was used to analyze the data, and χ2 test and correlation analysis were used to indicate that the difference was statistically significant, p < 0.05. RESULTS: Sixty two patients with CS were evaluated with total spine magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). Only 23 patients (37.09%) showed spinal cord malformations in the MRI findings. The DSEP recordings showed a relatively high sensitivity (97.8%) compared to the abnormality rate of SSEPs recordings, and the rates of waveform, latency and amplitude abnormalities were much higher in DSEPs recordings (36.6, 36.3, 24.8%) than in SSEPs recordings (3.2, 22.5, 14.5%). The abnormality rate of DSEP records with and without neurological symptoms was higher than the abnormality rate of SSEP records (100% vs 20, 96.2% vs 44.2%, p<0.05). And in 62 patients with CS, the rate of positive MRI (37.1%) was lower than that recorded by DSEP (79.6% / 57.9%). p < 0.05. CONCLUSION: DSEPs are more sensitive to microscopic posterior column dysfunction in patients with CS that cannot be detected by either radiology or routine clinical examination. Preoperative DSEPs assessment is recommended as a baseline examination for intraoperative monitoring and comparison with the postoperative situation. DSEPs recording complements the information obtained from routine clinical and radiological evaluation.

Rapid, simultaneous detection of mycotoxins with smartphone recognition-based immune microspheres.

How to achieve simultaneous and rapid detection of various mycotoxins in food has important practical significance in the field of food processing and safety. In this paper, a smartphone immunoassay system based on hydrogel microspheres has been constructed to quickly detect two mycotoxins at the same time. The rapid detection system was reflected in the following three processes: (1) rapid separation of free matter after direct competition reaction based on hydrogel solid-phase carrier particles; (2) rapid detection process based on efficient catalytic function of enzymes; (3) fast capture and analysis of images based on smartphone software. Ochratoxin A (OTA) and zearalenone (ZEN) are secondary toxic metabolites of fungi that can contaminate a wide range of foods and feeds. OTA and ZEN were used as detection model molecules to verify the feasibility of the intelligent rapid detection system. The entire detection process was within 30 min, and the results were analyzed in only 10 s. Detection limits of mycotoxins OTA and ZEN are 0.7711 ng L-1 and 1.0391 ng L-1. The recoveries of both mycotoxins ranged from 76.72 to 122.05%. This study provides a universal rapid detection method for on-site application of large-scale food security testing. Schematic diagram of the construction of the smartphone detection system: The system is divided into three parts: detection, image capture and analysis, and result.

The Promotional Effect of Health Education on the Medical Service Utilization of Migrants: Evidence From China.

There were 376 million migrants in China by 2020, who made significant contributions to urban development. However, they used limited medical services and had lower self-reported health status than inflow city residents. Based on this, this study uses the cross-sectional data of the 2017 China Migrants Dynamic Survey (CMDS) to construct a multiple linear regression model to empirically study the role of health education in improving medical services utilization for migrants. It finds that compared to migrants without health education, the probability of the medical service utilization for migrants with health education has increased significantly, and counseling is more effective than other methods for health education. This promotion effect of health education has been established after a series of robustness tests. Furthermore, this study finds that the closer the migrants are to medical service resources, the greater the effect of health education on medical services utilization for migrants. The heterogeneity test shows that the effect of health education on medical services utilization for migrants is greater among the non-elderly and those with lower education levels. From the perspective of health education, the findings in this study provide empirical evidence to support the government in formulating policies to improve the utilization of medical services for migrants and reduce health inequality.

Mass flow and energy balance plus economic analysis of a full-scale biogas plant in the rice-wine-pig system.

This paper presents mass flow and energy balance as well as an economic analysis for a biogas plant in a rice-wine-pig system at a practical rather than laboratory scale. Results showed feeding amount was 65.30 t d(-1) (total solid matter (TSM) 1.3%) for the normal temperature continuous stirred tank reactor (CSTR), and 16.20 t d(-1) (TSM 8.4%) for the mesophilic CSTR. The digestion produced 80.50 t d(-1) of mass, with 76.41 t d(-1) flowing into rice fields and 4.49 t d(-1) into composting. Energy consumption of this plant fluctuated with seasons, and surplus energy was 823, 221 kWh/year. Thus, biogas plant was critical for material recycling and energy transformation of this agro-ecosystem. The economic analysis showed that the payback time of the plant was 10.9 years. It also revealed application of biogas as a conventional energy replacement would be attractive for a crop-wine-livestock ecosystem with anaerobic digestion of manure.

Multi-sensory landscape assessment: the contribution of acoustic perception to landscape evaluation.

In this paper, the contribution of visual and acoustic preference to multi-sensory landscape evaluation was quantitatively compared. The real landscapes were treated as dual-sensory ambiance and separated into visual landscape and soundscape. Both were evaluated by 63 respondents in laboratory conditions. The analysis of the relationship between respondent's visual and acoustic preference as well as their respective contribution to landscape preference showed that (1) some common attributes are universally identified in assessing visual, aural and audio-visual preference, such as naturalness or degree of human disturbance; (2) with acoustic and visual preferences as variables, a multi-variate linear regression model can satisfactorily predict landscape preference (R(2 )= 0.740), while the coefficients of determination for a unitary linear regression model were 0.345 and 0.720 for visual and acoustic preference as predicting factors, respectively; (3) acoustic preference played a much more important role in landscape evaluation than visual preference in this study (the former is about 4.5 times of the latter), which strongly suggests a rethinking of the role of soundscape in environment perception research and landscape planning practice.

Stigmatization of people with drug dependence in China: a community-based study in Hunan province.

BACKGROUND: Drug abuse remains a serious problem in China, and has become a major threat to public health and social security. Since the issuance and enforcement of the new Anti-Drug law in 2008, the community has become the primary site for drug rehabilitation. However, the attitudes of members in community toward the people with drug use disorders are unclear. METHODS: A random sample of household respondents was studied in two communities in Hunan province in China. A total of 848 individuals participated (response rate 83.7%). Respondents initially were asked a set of questions about their knowledge about dug dependence, and then were randomly assigned to 1 of 4 vignette conditions. Three vignettes described different type of drug dependence meeting diagnostic criteria, and the fourth depicted a "normal person." RESULTS: Poor knowledge of drug dependence was common. Negative attitudes towards drug dependent people were widespread. Most respondents believed that drug dependence was caused by the person's own weak will (82.0%) and own hedonistic lifestyle (81.3%), and should be punished as illegal behavior (80.4%). The vast majority labeled the person with drug dependence as an addict, rated them as having undesirable characteristics, and expressed a strong desire for social distance. There were few socio-demographic predictors of both poor knowledge and negative attitudes. CONCLUSIONS: A community-based rehabilitation program in China should take into account the widespread stigmatization of people with drug dependence.

A study on the efficacy and safety assessment of propionyl-L-carnitine tablets in treatment of intermittent claudication.

OBJECTIVE: This study investigated the efficacy, safety and tolerability of propionyl-L-carnitine (PLC) in patients with intermittent claudication in the Chinese population. METHODS: In this randomized, multicentre, phase III, double-blind, parallel-group study, 239 patients were randomized to receive PLC 2g / day orally or placebo for 4 months (120 vs.119). The primary efficacy endpoint was the improvement of peak walking time (PWT) after treatment over baseline, and the secondary endpoints were the improvement of claudication onset time (CT) and ankle/brachial index (ABI). RESULTS: In the Per Protocol Set (PPS), PWT of the intervention group increased 1.6±1.6 minutes after treatment (p<0.05). With PLC treatment, CT was significantly decreased in the treatment group. ABI was increased in both treatment and control groups. However, no statistical significance was found. In the Safety Analysis Set (SS), there were 110 adverse events during the course of the study (67 in PLC group vs. 43 in control group). There were two serious adverse events in the PLC group and four in the placebo group. All of the SAEs were assessed as unrelated to the study drug which indicated that PLC was well-tolerated in PAD patients. CONCLUSION: The study showed PLC significantly prolonged the maximum walking time and walking distance of Chinese patients with peripheral arterial disease with well-tolerated performance.

Landscape effects on soundscape experience in city parks.

The main objective of this study was to analyse the effects of various landscape factors on soundscape perception in city parks. This was based on the experience, which was supposed to reflect soundscape perception, of 580 users of five city parks in Xiamen, China. Visual and functional landscape characteristics were analysed in relation to experienced occurrence of and preference for individual sounds, as well as overall soundscape preference. The results suggest that landscape factors have more significant effects on experienced occurrence of individual sounds than preference for individual sounds. However, landscape effects on overall soundscape preference depend more on preferences for individual sounds. The effects of visual landscape on the perception of individual sounds could be more important in natural sounds than in artificial sounds, and more in experienced occurrence of than preference for individual sounds; for functional landscape the effects are reversed. In general, visual landscape effects on the perception of individual sounds are more significant than functional landscape effects, especially on experienced occurrence of individual sounds. Taking all factors into account, only the two landscape factors are highly correlated with the overall soundscape preference, with coefficient values of 0.325 and 0.204, respectively. Overall, the results reveal the close relationship between landscape and soundscape experience in real contexts, and that visual and functional aspects should be considered in terms of creating a better soundscape during park design and management processes. The analysis of users' social, demographical and behavioural factors such as age, visit frequency and length of stay, in relation to the soundscape experience, has also shown significant effects.

Generalization performance of Fisher linear discriminant based on Markov sampling.

Fisher linear discriminant (FLD) is a well-known method for dimensionality reduction and classification that projects high-dimensional data onto a low-dimensional space where the data achieves maximum class separability. The previous works describing the generalization ability of FLD have usually been based on the assumption of independent and identically distributed (i.i.d.) samples. In this paper, we go far beyond this classical framework by studying the generalization ability of FLD based on Markov sampling. We first establish the bounds on the generalization performance of FLD based on uniformly ergodic Markov chain (u.e.M.c.) samples, and prove that FLD based on u.e.M.c. samples is consistent. By following the enlightening idea from Markov chain Monto Carlo methods, we also introduce a Markov sampling algorithm for FLD to generate u.e.M.c. samples from a given data of finite size. Through simulation studies and numerical studies on benchmark repository using FLD, we find that FLD based on u.e.M.c. samples generated by Markov sampling can provide smaller misclassification rates compared to i.i.d. samples.

Novel facile detection of persistent organic pollutants using highly sensitive gas sensor.

Persistent organic pollutants (POPs) are greatly noxious chemicals in environment, and they can cumulate in organisms and transfer between different species. Therefore, it is significant to detect POPs for both environmental evaluation and further treatment. However, developing facile approach for the detection of POPs still remains a challenge so far. In this paper, we report an innovative method for facile detection of POPs using gas sensor for the first time. Porous SnO(2) nanostructures with a special tri-walled structure prepared via hydrothermal route and annealing process, were employed as gas-sensing materials. Through gas measurements, it was revealed that the as-fabricated gas sensor exhibited highly sensitive performance towards target POPs, including methoxychlor, mirex, p,p'-DDT, and aldrin. Moreover, we found that target POPs were distinguishable by extracting characteristics in kinetic curves of gas adsorption-desorption. As the presented detecting approach is facile without the requirements of complex operations, expensive and bulky instruments, it is expected that it would be developed as a promising method for the detection of POPs, and thereby showing its significance for environmental monitoring.