Educational attainment of offspring and obesity among older adults in China.

The study focuses on the role of adult offspring's educational attainment in obesity among older adults in China and investigates age and birth cohort heterogeneities in the educational effect. Using the longitudinal data from the 1993-2015 China Health and Nutrition Survey (CHNS), we employed three-level mixed-effects models and conducted sex-stratified analyses to examine the effects of co-resident offspring's education on body mass index (BMI), overweight, waist circumference (WC), and abdominal obesity among older people born before 1956. After controlling for confounding factors, the overall results showed inverted U-shaped educational gradients in BMI-based outcomes for males and positive gradients for females. The effect of education on WC exhibited an inverted U-shaped pattern for both sexes, but no significant effect on abdominal obesity was found among the overall population. However, further analyses of interaction effects indicated considerable age and cohort variations in the educational effects on obesity outcomes. Offspring's schooling was positively associated with obesity among earlier birth cohorts; Among more recent birth cohorts, especially among females, the educational effects were reversed, and disparities in obesity outcomes across education categories strengthened with age. These findings imply that offspring's education appears to gradually exert a protective role against obesity among Chinese older adults in successive cohorts.

Superior adsorption capacity of functionalised straw adsorbent for dyes and heavy-metal ions.

Dyes and heavy-metal ions are common pollutants in printing and dyeing wastewater, and are thus attracting considerable attention. Herein, an eco-friendly straw-based adsorbent, WS-CA-AM, was prepared by grafting with acrylamide (AM) and citric acid (CA) groups to remove representative dyes and heavy metals from aqueous solution. The adsorption capacities of WS-CA-AM for methyl orange (MO) and methylene blue (MB) were 3053.48 and 120.84 mg/g, which were 54 and 3 times those of unmodified straw, respectively. Moreover, the adsorption capacities for MB, MO, Cr2O72- and Cu2+ in the mixed system increased by 210%, 133%, 196% and 151%, respectively, compared with those in the single system. The significant increase in adsorption capacity can be attributed to the collaborative effect through electrostatic attraction. The functional groups and adsorbed pollutants all served as adsorption sites for pollutants. These results indicate that WS-CA-AM is a potential applicant for the removal of dyes and heavy-metal ions from mixed aqueous solution.

Cyclodextrin modified filter paper for removal of cationic dyes/Cu ions from aqueous solutions.

A filter paper was functionalized with ß-cyclodextrin and citric acid via esterification reaction for the removal of dyes and Cu ions from aqueous solutions. The adsorption capacity and removal performance of the modified filter paper (MFP) was investigated using static and dynamic adsorption experiments. The static adsorption data fit well the Langmuir and pseudo-second-order models, and the adsorption capacity of Methylene Blue (MB), Brilliant Green (BG), Rhodamine-B (RB) and Cu(II) over the MFP were 124.6 mg/g, 130.4 mg/g, 99.7 mg/g and 39.1 mg/g, respectively, which are much higher than the unmodified filter paper (below 2 mg/g). Even better, the decolorization performance and Cu(II) removal of MFP are remarkable in dynamic adsorption. The effluent can reach the National Standard for dyeing and finishing of textile industry of China after three cycles in a continuous filtration-adsorption system. This method provides a new pathway to achieve high efficiency removal of dyes and metal ions from wastewater.