[Current situation and effect of non-hazardous treatment of excrement of sanitary latrines in rural schistosomiasis endemic areas of Eryuan County, Yunnan Province].

OBJECTIVE: To understand the condition of the construction and management of sanitary latrines, and assess the effect of disposal of the excrement in rural schistosomiasis endemic areas in Yunnan Province. METHODS: Three villages with schistosomiasis endemic were selected from Eryuan County and 30 households per village were sampled randomly for the field survey. The stool samples were sampled and tested according to the national standard. RESULTS: Totally 90 latrines were surveyed. The popularity rates of sanitary latrines in Yongle, Qiandian and Xinzhuang villages were 83.19%, 83.12% and 81.63% respectively. In the 90 household latrines, only 32.22% located inside the courtyard, and 91.67% of sanitary latrines and 70.00% of non-sanitary latrines had integrated buildings. Maggots or pupae or adult flies were found in 33.33% of sanitary latrines and all of non-sanitary latrines with the average amounts of 1.05 and 3.40 per latrine respectively. The removal rate of fecal coliform, the sedimentation rate of parasitic eggs and the mortality rate of Ascaris eggs were 90.00%, 80.61% and 95.20% on average respectively. The qualified rate of the fecal coliform of the outlet of the sanitary latrines was 41.67%, and the qualified rate of the mortality rate of Ascaris eggs was 78.13%. No living schistosome eggs were found at the outlets of latrines. For the effect of non-hazardous treatment, there was a statistically significant difference between the sanitary latrines and non-sanitary latrines. CONCLUSIONS: The latrine improvement has a good effect on non-hazardous treatment of the excrement in Yunnan Province, but the construction, application and management of sanitary latrines still need to be strengthened.

Folding flexible co-extruded all-polymer multilayer distributed feedback films to control lasing.

We report on improved gain and spectral control in co-extruded all-polymer multilayer distributed feedback (DFB) lasers achieved by folding and deliberate modification of the center "defect" layer. Because DFB laser gain is greater at spectral defects inside the reflection band than at the band edges, manipulation of structural defects can be used to alter spectral defects and thereby tune the output wavelength and improve laser efficiency. By experimentally terracing the layer that becomes the center of the fold, we tuned the lasing wavelength across the reflection stop-band (∼25 nm) in controllable, discrete steps. The increased density of states associated with the defect resulted in a lower lasing threshold and, typically, a 3- to 6-fold increase in lasing efficiency over non-folded samples.

Third harmonic generation in self-focused filaments in liquids.

Intense filaments of third harmonic generation have been observed in a variety of liquids when pumped by 1300 nm wavelength femtosecond light. The onset of third harmonic generation coincides with the threshold for self-focusing as deduced from n(2) measurements performed on the liquids using the z-scan technique. We have found self-phase modulation above the threshold leading to continuum generation at about 3 times threshold. In the third-harmonic regime, the third harmonic output power is independent of the input power. Our observations are consistent with those for similar processes in gases as described by a phase-locking model. The measured conversion efficiency was approximately 10(6).