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Copyright of Geography & Geographic Information Science is the property of Geography & Geo-Information Science Editorial Office and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Acta Scientiarum Naturalium Universitatis Sunyatseni / Zhongshan Daxue Xuebao is the property of Sun-Yat-Sen University and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Railway Signalling & Communication Engineering is the property of Railway Signalling & Communication Engineering and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The post-entry operation sustainability of airline routes directly affects their profitability. This paper investigates factors influencing the operating duration of airline routes based on a survival analysis modeling method. Key factors are selected from five aspects representing characteristics in terms of cost and supply, route and airport, market structure, airline cooperation type, and time heterogeneity. The transatlantic market between Europe and the US is chosen as the empirical study due to its high degree of liberalization. The research period ranges 19 years from 2003 to 2021. First, the single factor analysis is conducted by utilizing the Kaplan-Meier method. Second, a Weibull parameter survival model is constructed to quantitatively analyze the relationship between the chosen factors and the operating duration of airline routes. The results show that：(1) The average operating duration of the EU-US routes is five years, among which routes that were continuously operated for more than 10 years account for 16%；(2) the operating duration of airline routes is significantly influenced by distance, airline’s total capacity, route structure, endpoint airports type, route competition, airline type, and region as well as alliance；(3) both independent and interaction variables representing alliance and code-share characteristics have significant impacts on route operating duration. Routes operated by Star and SkyTeam members have a longer operating duration. For airlines in the same alliance, the route-exit risks between operating carriers and marketing carriers in code-sharing cooperation are significantly different. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Geomatics & Information Science of Wuhan University is the property of Geomatics & Information Science of Wuhan University and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of EurAmerica is the property of EurAmerica and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Malnutrition is common after stroke, usually caused by cognitive disorder, dysphagia, paralysis, sensorimotor disability and visual field defect. Many researches indicate that the initiation of early enteral nutrition in stroke patients would own enormous clinical benefits, including a decrease in the risk of death and infectious diseases, shorter hospital stay and lower health expenditure. However, irregular nutrition management could increase the incidence of hypostatic pneumonia and urinary tract infection. Therefore, both European Society for Parenteral and Enteral Nutrition (ESPEN) and American Society for Parenteral and Enteral Nutrition (ASPEN) recommended that nutrition screening and assessment and nutrition support be initiated as soon as possible, preferably within 24 h of hospital admission, to improve clinical outcomes. Chinese neurologists and patients have accepted this concept and have done many worthful studies in the past few years. This paper summarized the common methods of nutrition assessment and measurement of interstinal barrier function, in order to monitor the nutritional status of stroke patients, and push the establishment and improvement of nutrition support system for stroke patients in China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Interdisciplinary Studies of Literature is the property of Interdisciplinary Studies of Literature Editorial Office and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The world has entered a post-industrial era. In order to maintain the existing pattern of international interests and dominate the technologies and markets of new energy in the future, some developed countries in Europe and the Americas have carefully designed a disastrous and even lethal climate trap for the developing countries including China. This paper elaborates on the building and cracking of the climate trap from the philosophical point of view, especially from the relationship between the natural nature and the artificial nature. It then proposes such concepts as climatic natural nature and climatic artificial nature, and analyzes the characteristics of their reciprocal effects. On this basis, this paper respectively gives detailed analyses of the building and cracking of the profit-making climate trap, the fear-causing climate trap and the guilt-provoking climate trap so as to clarify the confusions in understanding these issues. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As regards the debate on the European Constitution-Building processes, a key question is whether the European Constitution shall enjoy the supreme status in any domestic legal system of the Member States in the EU. The Convention and IGC between 2002 and 2004 seem to have established such a supreme status in the EU by installing Article 1-6 of the Constitution, which is integrally based upon the principle of supremacy established by the European Court of Justice since its famous Costa judgment in 1964. Nonetheless, no work in-tends to survey the relevant jurisprudence of all Member States in the EU with the intention of offering a politico-legal explanation of the development and limits of the principle of supremacy. Therefore, this shall be the objective of this paper, along with a desire to respond to the questions posed at the beginning of this paper. A general survey of the relevant jurisprudence of ECJ will be presented first, followed by an evaluation of reaction from the jurisdictions of all Member States with the exception of those that most recently joined to the EU. The limits of this principle in the European Constitution, which distinguishes it from the constitution of any modern state, shall be analyzed accordingly. In conclusion, this article presents a political-legal explanation of the development and limits of the principle of supremacy in order to determine whether the European Constitution can be deemed a constitution. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The co-occurrence of mental illness and substance abuse is among the most prevalent mental disorders worldwide. It has become more significant in the United States, Europe, and Hong Kong, and it presents complex issues for both mental health and substance abuse practitioners. This paper explores the historical and conceptual issues on dual diagnosis. In addition, different perspectives on dual diagnosis are crucial for developing public policies and programs to address client needs on the road to recovery. The dominant view on dual diagnosis has been the medical perspective. This paper describes three more perspectives: moralistic, psychosocial risk, and phenomenological. This broader view on dual diagnosis will benefit both policy and service development for this population. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

LNG has been steadily increasing its share of the global gas trade. The United States and European countries have studied the interchangeability of natural gas according to specific situations and provided results of the relevant studies. In China, the import of LNG is steadily increasing, but the problems regarding quality and interchangeability were not fully understood and resolved. In this paper, a study on applicability of Weaver indices has been completed. The experiments were conducted for 17 typical gas appliances and 11 natural gas sources with 187 test conditions. Comparing the experimental results with the results predicted by Weaver indices, it suggested that the limits of Lifting JJ need to change to ≥0. 95, Incomplete Combustion JI need to change to ≤0.04 and the limit of AGA index Lifting IL change to ≤1.05. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In consideration of deeply rooted historical and cultural differences among the member states, and in order to sustain diversity of values, the European Court of Human Rights developed the doctrine of the national margin of appreciation. This doctrine states that in some special areas, particularly where there is no consensus among member states, the Court should give way to a member state's discretion in enacting or enforcing its laws. In doing so, it attempts to find a balance between the universality of human rights and cultural relativism. The margin of appreciation doctrine has grown in usage because it is seen to be a flexible tool with which to integrate competing interests within a system that divides power between international and national authorities. It is a natural evolution of the principle of subsidiarity, which means that in order to achieve democracy and efficacy, lower levels of government should rule. In our case, this is because national authorities, which are in direct and continuous contact with their people, and are therefore better able to know, assess and judge issues of national concern than more remote levels of governance. In our case, the European Court of Human Rights plays a role subsidiary to that of member states, standing aside and supervising; stepping in only in need. This paper probes the origin and development of the national margin of appreciation doctrine applied by the European Court of Human Rights, and assesses the costs and benefits of such an application. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper the triangular intuitionistic fuzzy numbers are used to express the change factors of the underlying assets of the option in order to describe the uncertainty of the estimated value of the European option price and the hesitation degree of the investors, the intuitionistic fuzzy binomial tree pricing model is made, and the risk neutral pricing method is used to research the single period European call option pricing problem. The findings of the study are that the European option price expressed by a triangular intuitionistic fuzzy number, which can reflect the certainty degree, negation degree and hesitation degree of the investor on the estimated value of the option price, and then the interval value of European option price is obtained by using the cuts sets operation of the triangular intuitionistic fuzzy numbers. Some numerical examples show that European call option price obtained by the triangular intuitionistic fuzzy number can express more the hesitation degree of the investors than the one obtained by the fuzzy number. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of International Studies / Guoji Wenti Yanjiu is the property of China International Studies Editorial Department and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The article discusses the dual challenge of the free market and social justice in the context of Christian faith in the U.S. and Europe. It cites the social movements that criticized the free market and constitutional democracy during the Enlightenment in the two continents. It looks at the Christian ethics and public engagement along with social justice that regulate capital and labor in the tide of globalization.

At the end of 2022, the World Health Organization reported an increase in group A Streptococcus (GAS) infections, such as scarlet fever, in multiple countries. The outbreak primarily affected children under 10 years old, and the number of deaths was higher than anticipated, causing international concern. This paper reviews the current state of the GAS disease outbreak, its causes, and response measures. The authors aim to draw attention from clinical workers in China and increase their awareness and vigilance regarding this epidemic. Healthcare workers should be aware of the potential epidemiological changes in infectious diseases that may arise after the optimization of control measures for coronavirus disease 2019 to ensure children's health.

Objective: To share related knowledge and experiences with countries along the line, literature regarding current cohort studies was summarized. Distribution, establishment and development of cohort studies among large prospective general population were analyzed in 17 countries of Western Asia and the 16 countries of Central and Eastern Europe. Methods: Literature review was conducted to collect basic information on cohort studies, with descriptive study used to analyze the characteristics of these cohort studies. Results: There were 562 cohort studies with sample size as more than 1 000 stated in Western Asia and Central and Eastern Europe, including 468 (83.27 % ) carried out in the nation itself and 94 (16.73 % ) with international multicentered collaboration. According to the nature of cohort studies, 347 (61.74 % ) were etiologically based. As for the contents involved, 310 (55.16 % ) of them targeted on chronic/non-communicable diseases, 125 (22.24 % ) concentrated on maternal and child health. Among those on chronic/non-communicable diseases, 51 (16.45 % ) were on cancers and 83 (26.77 % ) on cardiovascular disease studies. There appeared 10 large prospective cohort studies targeting on general population, mainly ongoing in Iran and European countries, with a duration of 8-29 years, including 4 of them with sample size as more than 50 000. In terms of the contents, epidemiological investigation, physical examination and biological samples collection took the major parts. Few papers were published in 9 out of the 10 cohort studies at the early stage of those projects but the number of papers increased annually and stabilized to certain extent. Conclusions: The regional distribution of cohort studies carried out in countries from the Western Asia and Central and Eastern European areas appeared unbalanced. Contents of these designs would mainly involve etiological studies, with focus on non-communicable diseases as cancer, cardiovascular disease, diabetes, respiratory diseases, mental and psychological diseases, and maternal and infant health etc .. However, only few large prospective cohort studies would base on general population.

Objective: To explore the progress of microcirculation research in shock and sepsis from 2000 to 2019 based on knowledge visualization analysis., Methods: The literatures related to microcirculation of shock and sepsis published in Web of Science and Wanfang databases were collected from 2000 to 2019. Then, data collected was sorted out and used to make bar charts and curves reflecting the growth trend of the literatures using Excel software. The information about country, institution and author were extracted by CiteSpace 5.0 R1 for generating co-occurring network, to find the main research power and each cooperative relation. This software was also used to analyze the related-keywords and cited reference, so that the map of co-citation reference was drawn subsequently to explore the frontiers and hot spots in this field., Results: There were a total of 2 000 Chinese "papers" or "dissertations", 1 823 English "articles" or "reviews", collected preliminarily. The Chinese literatures were only statistically described for the amounts, institutions and authors, however, all retrieved English literatures were enrolled in the visualization analysis eventually. From 2009 to 2019, the number of English literatures rose steadily; however, the number of Chinese literatures had been sliding since 2011. On terms of quality, the impact factors of most literatures were under 6, lacking high quality ones, and the number remained stable every year. According to the analysis of English literatures, the top three countries that published related papers around the world were Germany (n = 430), the United States (n = 401) and Netherlands (n = 223). In the aspect of research institutions, the University of Amsterdam (Netherlands) ranked first in the Web of Science (n = 113), while the institution in China with the most publications was the Southern Medical University (n = 71). According to the analysis of co-occurring author network, there were three major globe scientific groups in which Can Ince, Daniel De Backer and Jean-Louis Vincent contributed most to this research field. The top three authors who published most Chinese papers were Niu Chunyu (n = 20), Zhao Zigang (n = 18) and Duan Meili (n = 13). By generating the co-occurring keyword mapping, the research hot spots mainly focused on "blood flow", "nitric oxide", "hemorrhagic shock" and "perfusion". However, these burst keywords, including "cardiogenic shock", "acute kidney injury", "fluid resuscitation", "sublingual microcirculation", "mortality", "oxidative stress", and "critically ill patient", represented the frontiers in microcirculation research of shock and sepsis field. Finally, the results of co-citation reference analysis showed that "sublingual microcirculation" and "mottling score" were most active, indicating that the research of microcirculation monitoring technology could be considered as a hot spot and also the frontier in this field, which was consistent with the results of co-occurring keywords network., Conclusions: Knowledge visualization analysis can visually exhibit the hot spot and trend of microcirculation research in shock and sepsis. The power was mainly focused on a few developed countries in Europe, and the trend was more inclined to the related microcirculation monitoring technology.

Brain science is the "ultimate territory" for human beings to understand the nature. In the present paper, the authors introduce the current state of brain science research projects in the USA, European countries, Japan and China. In recent years, with the continuous innovations of technologies in brain imaging, biosensors, human-computer interaction and big data, the brain science has become an important frontier field with interdisciplinarity and a focus of science and technology strategies in various countries. As a scientific and technological resource with original advantages in China, traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) is abundant in knowledge of brain, almost covering all kinds of encephalopathy in modern medicine. At present, TCM is increasingly becoming an effective tool to conquer mental and nervous diseases. With the intersection and penetration of multi-disciplines, an increasing close association between the traditional theory of TCM about prevention and treatment of encephalopathy and modern basic biological research appears, and new ideas, new technologies and new achievements have constantly been coming out, particularly in the field of acupuncture medicine. In the present historical juncture when the development of science and technology in China is changing from the "follower" to the "parallel runner", even the "top runner" in some fields, the progress of brain science research in TCM will make enormous contributions to explore brain disease and exploit cutting-edge technologies of TCM, as well as accelerate the modernization of TCM.

Wolfberry has important unique medical values as well as edible and commerce values. In this paper,we analyze the characteristics and problems of international trade of wolfberry based on the customs data between 2008 and 2017. During periods of these ten years,the wolfberry was mainly exported with a small proportions of imports. The total export volume increased steadily,reached 82 182. 08 tons and 696. 622 million dollars respectively. Wolfberry came from 31 provinces/autonomous regions and exported to 105 countries and regions through 21 ports. Most of the total exports of wolfberry flew to markets of Asia and Europe,the Ningxia autonomous region was the major export province. Large amount of wolfberry exported through Tianjin port. Compared with the export volume,the import is almost negligible,mainly coming from North Korea,almost all through Changchun port,Jilin province to enter the domestic market. There is a situation of"import of domestic goods". To enhance the international competitiveness of wolf berry industry,we must rely on the fundamental research of wolfberry,speed up the standardization process,strengthen the scientific and technological innovation in wolfberry products,improve the added value and profit of wolfberry.

Objective: To understand the research status of occupational asthma and provide information for related research on occupational asthma in the future. Methods: Papers on occupational asthma published from January 1998 to December 2017 had been retrieved in Web of Science core collection database on 9 October 2018. The data retrieval strategies were set as follows: #1 TS=(occupational AND asthma), #2 TS=(occupational AND asthmas), #3 TS=(occupational asthma OR occupational asthmas), #1 OR #2 OR #3. Three thousand two hundred and twelve publications were analyzed by bibliometric and visualizer. Results: Yearly output of articles in this field had been at a stable high level and annual total citations had been increasing. A significant positive correlation was found between the year and annual total citations ( r =0.97, P <0.05). The most productive countries were European countries except the United States and Canada. Our country had few literatures accounting for 1.21 percent of the total and the research on occupational asthma in our country started relatively late which were published mainly from 2013 to 2017. The most studied category and journal were public environmental occupational health and Am J Ind Med respectively. "occupational exposure", "allergy" and "rhinitis" were key words with high frequency. Conclusion: Yearly output of publications of occupational asthma has been at a stable high level. Our country should do more research to provide a scientific basis for further prevention and management of occupational asthma.

Objective: The European Society of Intensive Care Medicine (ESICM) issued the second consensus on the assessment of sublingual microcirculation in critically ill patients. This paper interprets the consensus for clinicians about: what is microcirculation, how to observe microcirculation, and the details of microcirculation images collection and parameters analysis. Besides, this paper illustrates the relationship between microcirculation alternation and shock, it also evaluates the present situation and future development of microcirculation monitoring.

Salvia miltiorrhiza is one of the commonly used bulk medicinal materials, which has significant effect on cardiovascular disease, and are heavy demanded in Asia, Europe, North America, Russia and Africa. Consequently, increasing the yield and quality of S. miltiorrhiza has become a major concern worldwide. With the current wild resources of S. miltiorrhiza gradually decreasing, cultivated products occupy most of the markets. However, the cultivation area is widely distributed and the cultivation techniques is different, which lead to the quality and yield of S. miltiorrhiza in consistent. This paper combined visiting survey with document analysis to carry out the cultivation situation of S. miltiorrhiza in main cultivation areas of Shandong, Henan, Sichuan, Shanxi and Hebei provinces. There exist big differences of the ecological environment, mode of cultivation, fertilization, pest control, harvesting processing among the producing areas. We should carry on the ecological suitability zoning analysis and suitable cultivation of each area study to form a pattern of high quality and high yield for the sustainable development of S. miltiorrhiza cultivation.

The design of "sham acupuncture" is necessary in clinical trials of acupuncture for confirming its effectiveness in the treatment of different disorders. The authors of the present paper made a comprehensive analysis on "sham acupuncture"or "placebo acupuncture" in clinical trials of acupuncture therapy in western countries from 1) the definition and background of sham acupuncture, 2) current state of acupuncture clinical trials with sham acupuncture design in different countries, 3) current situations of acupuncture clinical trials with sham acupuncture design in Germany, and 4) current state of large sample, randomized controlled clinical trials of acupuncture therapy with sham acupuncture design in other western countries. The authors of the present paper also make an analysis on the developing trends of acupuncture clinical trials with sham acupuncture design and put forward some problems existing in current acupuncture researches.

The history of international spread of Chinese acupuncture and moxibustion is divided into three sta ges in this paper, and the spreading characteristics are analyzed. The first stage is approximately from the 6th century to the end of the 15th century, during which acupuncture and moxibustion were spread to neighboring countries by personnel exchanges; the spread towards Korean peninsula, Japan and Vietnam was considered the most successful communication. The second stage lasts from the beginning of 16th century to 1970. At the early time of this stage, the employees of the Dutch East Indian Company introduced acupuncture and moxibustion to European countries through Indonesia and Japan, leading to a short and small fashion; also the United States and Australia were involved. At the late time of this stage, by medical aid teams dispatched by China government, acupuncture and moxibustion were introduced to African countries. The third stage starts from 1971. With the establishment of Sino-US diplomatic relations as an opportunity, acupuncture and moxibustion were being spread rapidly to the world through radio, TV and internet. So far it has been introduced to more than 140 countries and areas. Performing serious studies on the spreading characteristics of three stages will promote the international communication of acupuncture and moxibustion, by which the world will have a better understanding onthe broad and profound traditional cultures of China.

Butterfly is an important bio-indicator for biodiversity monitoring and ecological environment assessment. In Europe, the species composition, population dynamics, and distribution pattern of butterfly have been monitored for decades, and many long-term monitoring schemes with international effects have been implemented. These schemes are aimed to assess the regional and national variation trends of butterfly species abundance, and to analyze the relationships of this species abundance with habitat, climate change, and other environmental factors, providing basic data for researching, protecting, and utilizing butterfly resources and predicting environmental changes, and playing important roles in the division of butterfly' s threatened level, the formulation of related protection measures, and the protection and management of ecological environment. This paper reviewed the history and present status of butterfly monitoring in Europe, with the focus on the well-known long-term monitoring programs, e. g. , the UK Butterfly Monitoring Scheme and the Germany and European Union Butterfly Monitoring Scheme. Some specific proposals for conducting butterflies monitoring in China were suggested.

The international multidisciplinary classification of lung adenocarcinoma sponsored by International Association for the Study of Lung Cancer/American Thoracic Society/European Respiratory Society in 2011, addresses the classification which is appropriate for resection specimens, small biopsies and cytology, respectively for the first time. For resection specimens, new concepts are introduced such as adenocarcinoma in situ (AIS) and minimally invasive adenocarcinoma (MIA); Invasive adenocarcinomas are recommended to be classified by comprehensive histologic pattern. During the clinical practice, pathologists and clinicians have some confusions in understanding and application of to the new guideline to some extent. This paper will interpret this new guideline, discuss and analyze the issues that need to be noticed in clinical application.

In the nationwide epidemiological investigation, SVCV-741 was for the first time isolated in Beijing region, China in 2003, and designated as SVCV Asian strain. In this paper, we compared SVCV-741 (Asian strains isolated in China) with SVCV-10/3 (Europe reference strain) on their physico-chemical, biological and morphological characteristics. The results indicated that there were no distinct differences between two SVCV strains on phycico-chemical and morphological characteristics. The main existing differences were: (1) The stability of SVCV-741 to temperature in cell culture was higher than that of SVCV-10/3, which might have some evolutionary and biological implication of SVCV; (2) No SVC outbreak ever occurred caused by SVCV-741;Furthermore we found that both SVCV-741 and SVCV-10/3 grew faster and produced higher virus titer in CO cells than other cell lines. It indicated that CO cell lines might be useful tool for SVCV research.

Objective: To examine the effects of parenteral supplementation of glutamine dipeptide on the outcomes of surgical patients., Methods: The relevant data 1997 to March or May 2005 were retrieved from SCI, Medline, EMBASE, Chinese Cochrane Centre databases. The bibliographies of the retrieved papers and the personal file were searched as well. All the patients in the retrieved papers received parenteral nutrition, whether alanyl-glutamine dipeptide (Ala-Gln) was added was the only difference between the intervention and control groups. Methodological quality assessment was based on the Cochrane Reviewers' Handbook and Jadad's Score Scale. Statistical software RevMan4.2 was used for meta-analysis. The data were treated by intention-to-treat method., Results: A total of 1074 relevant papers were screened. Thirteen prospective randomized controlled clinical trials (RCTs) from European & Asian studies met the inclusion criteria. Ten RCTs reported 355 cases of infectious complications showed that Ala-Gln administration significantly reduced the prevalence of infectious complications with a pooled relative risk (RR) of 0.42 (95% CI 0.24 - 0.72; P = 0.002). Eight studies with 273 cases reported the postoperative length of stay (LOS) and showed that Ala-Gln significantly reduced the postoperative LOS by 3.25 days (95% CI = -4.87 to -1.62; P = 0.00009). There was no significant effect of Ala-Gln on cost of hospitalization, though there was a trend to reduction (2 studies, pooled n = 52, P = 0.2)., Conclusion: Parenteral Ala-Gln significantly reduces the post-operative infectious morbidity and LOS among surgical patients.