Does the setting of local government economic growth targets promote or hinder urban carbon emission performance? Evidence from China.

Growth target management drives China's economic expansion, leading to potential carbon emission externalities. This study examines the impact of economic growth target setting on carbon emission performance in 257 Chinese localities from 2004 to 2020. Using cluster standard error regression, 2SLS instrumental variable regression, and the spatial Durbin model, the results show that moderate growth targets improve urban carbon emission performance. Conversely, aggressive targets do not enhance regional carbon emission performance. Moderate growth targets foster innovation in green technology, while aggressive ones encourage investment in fixed assets and new city growth, impeding performance. Cities in the eastern and western regions, with larger populations and less reliance on natural resources, benefit more from effective economic development targets. The establishment of local targets negatively affects neighboring regions' carbon emissions performance, particularly at a spatial scale of 100 to 200 km. This paper contributes to understanding the environmental consequences of growth target setting and offers insights for balancing economic growth with carbon emission governance in emerging market countries.

Safety and Feasibility of Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation as an Exploratory Assessment of Corticospinal Connectivity in Infants After Perinatal Brain Injury: An Observational Study.

BACKGROUND: Perinatal brain injuries often impact the corticospinal system, leading to motor impairment and cerebral palsy. Although transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) has been widely used to study corticospinal connectivity in adults and older children, similar studies of young infants are limited. OBJECTIVES: The objective was to establish the safety and feasibility of advanced TMS assessments of the corticospinal connectivity of young infants with perinatal brain injury. DESIGN: This was a pilot, cross-sectional study of 3- to 12-month-old (corrected age) infants with perinatal stroke or intracranial hemorrhage. METHODS: Six participants (2 term, 4 preterm) were assessed with stereotactic neuronavigation-guided TMS. Single-pulse TMS was applied to each hemisphere and responses were recorded simultaneously from both upper limbs. During data collection, vital signs and stress responses were measured to assess safety. Developmental motor outcomes were evaluated using the General Movements Assessment and Bayley Scales of Infant and Toddler Development (3rd edition). A clinical diagnosis of cerebral palsy was recorded, if available. RESULTS: No adverse events occurred during TMS testing. All sessions were well tolerated. Contralateral motor evoked responses were detected in 4 of 6 participants. Both contralateral and ipsilateral responses were observed in 2 of 6 participants. LIMITATIONS: TMS responses were not obtained in all participants. This could be related to the location of brain injury or developmental stage of the corticospinal system controlling the wrist flexor muscle group from which responses were recorded. CONCLUSIONS: This study provides a summary of the framework for performing novel TMS assessments in infants with perinatal brain injury. Implementing this approach to measure corticospinal connectivity in hypothesis-driven studies in young infants appears to be justified. Such studies could inform the characterization of corticospinal development and the neural mechanisms driving recovery following early interventions.

Occurrence and risk assessment of fluoroquinolones and tetracyclines in cultured fish from a coastal region of northern China.

Occurrence and levels of 11 fluoroquinolones (FQs) and four tetracyclines (TC) in 14 cultured fish species from a coastal city in the northern China were investigated. Five FQs (ofloxacin, enoxacin, ciprofloxacin, enrofloxacin, and sarafloxacin) and oxytetracycline were detected. Lower detection frequencies of antibiotics were observed in the marine fish. The concentrations of ΣFQs ranged from not detectable (nd) to 130 ng/g wet weight (ww) (median, 7.2 ng/g ww), and the concentration range of ΣTCs was nd to 200 ng/g ww (median, nd ng/g ww). The Chinese snakehead contained the highest concentrations of ΣFQs (130 ng/g ww) and the small yellow croaker accumulated the highest concentrations of ΣTCs (200 ng/g ww), respectively. Although the calculated estimated daily intakes (EDI) suggested that the consumption of these cultured fish from this region was not associated with significant human health risks, this study provides useful information that will be helpful in the appropriate antibiotic use in aquaculture. To our knowledge, this can be the first report on the occurrence and levels of antibiotics in cage-cultured marine fish from the Bohai Rim region, China.

Communication modality sampling for a toddler with Angelman syndrome.

PURPOSE: Vocal, gestural, and graphic communication modes were implemented concurrently with a toddler with Angelman syndrome to identify the most efficiently learned communication mode to emphasize in an initial augmentative communication system. METHOD: Symbols representing preferred objects were introduced in vocal, gestural, and graphic communication modes using an alternating treatment single-subject experimental design. Conventionally accepted prompting strategies were used to teach symbols in each communication mode. Because the learner did not vocally imitate, vocal mode intervention focused on increasing vocal frequency as an initial step. RESULTS: When graphic and gestural mode performances were compared, the learner most accurately produced requests in graphic mode (percentage of nonoverlapping data = 96). Given the lack of success in prompting vocal productions, a comparison between vocal and the other two communication modes was not made. CONCLUSION: A growing body of evidence suggests that concurrent modality sampling is a promising low-inference, data-driven procedure that can be used to inform selection of a communication mode(s) for initial emphasis with young children. Concurrent modality sampling can guide clinical decisions regarding the allocation of treatment resources to promote success in building an initial communicative repertoire.

Predicting the success of vaginal surgery: a quantitative risk assessment model for future investigation.

OBJECTIVE: To introduce a model incorporating expected risks for a vaginal procedure based on objective measurements of a patient's characteristics and propose it as a potential tool to assist in the selection of candidates for vaginal surgery. STUDY DESIGN: A quantitative model consisting of 13 clinical variables identified as risk factors in a prospective vaginal procedure was developed. Medical records of 315 women undergoing a set of routine gynecological surgeries via the vaginal, laparoscopic, and abdominal routes were obtained during January 2010 and November 2011. These surgeries included hysterectomy, myomectomy, bilateral or unilateral salpingo-oophorectomy and adnexal cystectomy. After that, each patient was scored according to the model. Sensitivity and specificity of the model were analyzed in one data set (cohort I) by receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve and independently validated in a second data set (cohort II). RESULTS: 175 patients were included in cohort I while the other 140 patients formed cohort II. The intra- and post-operative complication rates were 0.6% and 0%, respectively. A vaginal procedure was predicted with good accuracy (AUC=0.852). The sensitivity was 86.0% and specificity was 72.0% at an optimal cut-off point of score=3. The predication accuracy of this model was further validated in cohort II and reached as high as 85.7%. Furthermore, the score was significantly associated with the volume of estimated blood loss and the duration of operation time (P<0.05). CONCLUSION: Our quantitative risk assessment model predicts safe vaginal surgery with good accuracy. Predictive tools based on such a model could help surgeons to optimize patient selection and thus contribute to reducing costs while enhancing patients' satisfaction. We invite other researchers to modify and validate the model in other populations.

Consumers' purchase intention of organic food in China.

BACKGROUND: The global market for organic food has developed significantly in the past decade. The organic food industry in China is export oriented, with production growing rapidly, although the domestic market remains relatively small. This paper surveys 432 consumers from three cities in China, consequently establishing a logit model to analyse the main factors affecting consumers' choice for organic food. RESULTS: The result indicates that Chinese consumers' intent to purchase organic food is strongly affected by factors such as income, degree of trust in organic food, degree of acceptance of organic food price, and consumers' concern on self-health. This intent is only slightly affected by factors such as consumers' age, education level and concern about environmental protection. CONCLUSION: Based on the results, the following measures are recommended: reduce the cost of organic food through multiple channels to cut down the market price; establish and perfect the supervision system of organic food; and promote organic food through various channels.

An assessment of qualitative performance of machine learning architectures: modular feedback networks.

A framework for the assessment of qualitative performance of machine learning architectures is proposed. For generality, the analysis is provided for the modular nonlinear pipelined recurrent neural network (PRNN) architecture. This is supported by a sensitivity analysis, which is achieved based upon the prediction performance with respect to changes in the nature of the processed signal and by utilizing the recently introduced delay vector variance (DVV) method for phase space signal characterization. Comprehensive simulations combining the quantitative and qualitative analysis on both linear and nonlinear signals suggest that better quantitative prediction performance may need to be traded in order to preserve the nature of the processed signal, especially where the signal nature is of primary importance (biomedical applications).