The effect of smartphones on the self-rated health levels of the elderly.

BACKGROUND: Due to the penetration of Internet use and the popularity of "Internet + elderly care" among seniors in recent years, the elderly are gradually integrating into the information society. This study examined the impact of smartphones on the self-rated health levels of the elderly. METHODS: We studied 3042 elderly people over 55 years of age in Jiangxi, China in 2018. The effect of smartphones was measured from three aspects: smartphone usage, smartphone usage ability, and smartphone usage purpose, and the multivariate ordered logistic model was applied. Furthermore, considering the potential endogeneity of the smartphone usage of elderly people, the propensity score matching (PSM) method was used to analyze the net effect of smartphones on the health levels of the elderly. RESULTS: (1) The use of smartphones had a significant positive impact on the self-rated health levels of the elderly, with its significance being at the level of 1%. Smartphone usage ability, and using smartphone to learn or search for health information, had significant positive impacts (at the level of 5%) on the self-rated health levels of the elderly. (2) The k-nearest neighbor matching, kernel matching and radius matching methods were used to calculate the net effect of smartphone usage on the self-rated health levels of the elderly. The results were 13.26, 15.33 and 14.80%, respectively. (3) The age of the participants significantly (at the level of 1%) negatively affected their self-rated health levels. Other characteristics of the elderly, including income, education level, living with children or spouse and children's living conditions, significantly (all at the level of 1%) positively affected their self-rated health levels. CONCLUSIONS: Smartphone usage, smartphone usage ability, and smartphone usage purposes all improved the self-rated health of the elderly. The Internet factor should be focused on in the process of active aging. We should improve the Internet use ability of the elderly through voluntary training or public lectures.

Hybrid nanovesicles derived from grapes and tomatoes with synergistic antioxidative activity.

Edible plants, rich in antioxidant compounds, offer defense against oxidative stress-induced cellular damage. However, the antioxidative benefits of edible plant-derived molecules are limited due to their instability, poor solubility, and low bioavailability. Plant-derived nanovesicles (PDNVs) have emerged as the next-generation nanotherapeutics and delivery platforms; yet, challenges including low purity, significant heterogeneity, insufficient enrichment of bioactive component and compromised therapeutic efficacy limit their application. In this study, a solvent-assisted vesicle hybridization technique was developed to engineer hybrid plant-derived nanovesicles (PDNVs), exemplified by grape and tomato-derived nanovesicles (GT-HNVs), which outperform their natural counterparts. The GT-HNVs demonstrated superior stability, enhanced radical-scavenging capabilities, and greater cellular uptake efficiency. Notably, GT-HNVs significantly reduced reactive oxygen species (ROS) levels and improved antioxidative enzyme activities in L-02 cells. Moreover, they mitigated oxidative stress-induced mitochondrial damage, restoring the membrane potential and morphology. Collectively, these findings underscore the therapeutic potential of hybrid PDNVs and offer an innovative strategy for their future research.

Influence of language use on migrant workers' willingness to Urban settlement-based on the CLDS 2016 survey data.

In the framework of China new urbanization construction, migrant workers are of great significance for urban sustainable development. Based on the data of CLDS2016, we used the multi- -ordered Logistics model to effectively explore the influence of migrant workers ' language use on the urban settlement will. The research results showed that the mastery of the urban dialect and the language used after work had a significant impact on the willingness of the migrant workers in the urban settlement, while the language used at work had no significant impact on the migrant workers' willingness to settle in cities. Therefore, policy implications are proposed on improving the social integration of migrant workers, enhancing the sense of belonging, and removing the obstacles and doubts in the process of urban settlement.

The Impact of Multidimensional Poverty on Rural Households' Health: From a Perspective of Social Capital and Family Care.

Although absolute poverty has been eliminated in rural China, multidimensional poverty has an unstoppable impact on the self-rated health of rural households through multiple dimensions. This study constructed a moderated mediation model with multidimensional poverty as the independent variable to explore the impact on rural households' self-rated health, social capital as a mediating variable, and family care as a moderating variable. We used the survey data of 382 sample out-of-poverty rural households in Jiangxi, China, in 2020. Our results indicated that multidimensional poverty had a detrimental impact on the self-rated health and social capital of rural households, both of which were significant at the 1% level (ß = -0.751, t = -4.775, and ß = -0.197, t = -7.08). A test of the mediating effect of social capital using the mediation model found the mediating effect accounting for 84.95% of the entire effect of multidimensional poverty on rural households' self-rated health. Further, the interaction term between family care and multidimensional poverty and its beneficial effect on social capital as well as the interaction term between family care and social capital and its negative effect on rural household' self-rated health are both statistically significant at the 1% level (ß = 0.558, t = -5.221 and ß = -2.100, t = -3.304). It is revealed that multidimensional poverty affects rural households' self-rated health through social capital and that family care moderates the mediating pathway. Family care exacerbates the negative effect of multidimensional poverty on rural households' self-rated health and weakens the beneficial effect of social capital on rural households' self-rated health. The lower (higher) the level of family care, the more significant the positive (negative) effect of social capital on rural households' health. Therefore, rural households should prioritize building social capital and shifting the responsibility for family care. First, through enhancing housing infrastructure and establishing cultural and educational initiatives, households can improve their viability. Second, increasing engagement in group activities will enhance social networks and boost interpersonal connections. Finally, to lessen the stress on family caregivers, building socialized care services can cover the gap in family care.

Does the Application of ICTs Improve the Efficiency of Agricultural Carbon Reduction? Evidence from Broadband Adoption in Rural China.

Based on the Environmental Kuznets Curve (EKC) hypothesis, this paper examines whether rural broadband adoption affects agricultural carbon reduction efficiency (ACRE), using panel data from 30 Chinese provinces from 2011 to 2019. This paper achieves a measurement of ACRE by taking the carbon sink of agricultural as one of the desired outputs and using a Slacks-Based Measure (SBM) model and the global Malmquist-Luenberger (GML) index. The results show that: (1) Rural broadband adoption has a positive effect on ACRE. The relationship between the income of rural residents and ACRE was an inverted U-shaped, which confirms the EKC hypothesis. (2) Land transfer has a significant promoting effect on the relationship between rural broadband adoption and ACRE. When the land transfer rate is high, the positive effect of broadband adoption is obvious. (3) The positive effect of broadband adoption on ACRE was more obvious when farmers invested more in production equipment, that is to say, it has a significant positive moderating effect. As farmers in many developing countries suffer from increasingly frequent and severe extreme weather events, we believe that the results of this study also have implications for the implementation of agricultural carbon reduction and smart agricultural equipment roll-out in many countries.

Non-additive effects of litter diversity on greenhouse gas emissions from alpine steppe soil in Northern Tibet.

While litter decomposition is a fundamental ecological process, previous studies have mainly focused on the decay of single species. In this study, we conducted a litter-mixing experiment to investigate litter diversity effects on greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from an alpine steppe soil in Northern Tibet. Significant non-additive effects of litter diversity on GHG dynamics can be detected; these non-additive effects were the result of species composition rather than species richness. Synergistic effects were frequent for CO2 and N2O emissions, as they were found to occur in 70.5% and 47.1% of total cases, respectively; antagonistic effects on CH4 uptake predominated in 60.3% of the cases examined. The degree of synergism and antagonism may be significantly impacted by litter chemical traits, such as lignin and N, lignin:N ratio, and total phenols during decomposition (P < 0.05). In addition, the relationship between chemical traits and litter-mixing effects changed over incubation time. Our study provides an opportunity to gain insight into the relationship between litter diversity and soil ecological processes. The results indicate that higher plant diversity may generally enhance CO2 and N2O emissions while inhibiting CH4 uptake; meanwhile, the direction and strength of non-additive effects appear to be related to litter chemical traits.