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In this article, I examine the moral review councils (MRCs) established in China's rural areas since the early 1980s. I show that MRCs create a liminal plebeian public sphere in the context of a civilising offensive that deals with the uncivil behaviours of individuals and disputes between neighbours. In this plebeian public sphere, the MRC incorporates techniques of the Maoist mass meeting, the democratic election, traditional mediation and a pedagogy of exemplars, all of which are depoliticised into purely technical instruments. Their institutional legitimacy comes from organised virtues based on councillors' male seniority and the democratic method of their selection. MRCs, as an instrument of a civilising offensive, are a kind of paternalistic technology, which involves a complex strategy of a hybridity of acts, relationships, thoughts, desires and temptations of village residents in the context of the reform era. The people targeted in this civilising offensive often experience two levels of stigmatisation and their participation determines the effectiveness of the operation of MRCs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article, we advocate the adoption of 'more temporal and processual characters' to understand contemporary community governance in China. We show that communities in China are seen both as producing moral problems and as being the solutions to these problems. Furthermore, we argue that the establishment of the moral clinic provides an alternative to neoliberal ways of self-governance. In the article, we present moral clinics as a new form of community self-governance whose aim is to achieve a complex balance between various conflicts in the context of China's unprecedented urbanisation in the name of governing for and through community harmony. Through examining the establishment of moral clinics, we expose how the relationship between the moral 'hospitalisation' of society and the socialisation of individuals can be understood in new ways. We argue that the institutionalisation of this 'moral work' is a strategy based on old techniques of Chinese traditional medicine that are being enhanced by modern organisational settings. In addition, we examine the micropolitics of the moral clinic through exposing the power relations behind its structural design, and especially its links with the state. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the daily practices of caring for COVID-19 patients in Wuhan, China, in early 2020 and the challenges that nurses faced. The paper shows that the affective contagion, especially among patients, introduced unexpected challenges for nurses in caring for COVID-19-infected patients. Nurses had to contend with the challenges of treating both physical and psychological problems in patients simultaneously. As a result, it was necessary for nurses to adapt to the different rhythm of COVID-19 wards to address these challenges and do so through taking on a range of general and specific nursing tasks and playing a diverse range of roles on the wards, from garbage collector to "psychological counselor." Thus, the paper brings attention to the experiences and demands of providing nursing care in an emergency pandemic context, in particular the necessity of responding to both the physical and the psychological needs of patients. These insights could better prepare health services in China and elsewhere in the world for responding effectively to potential future pandemics. • The affective contagion introduced unexpected challenges for nurses in COVID-19 wards. • Nurses adapt to the different working rhythm in COVID-19 wards than in "normal" wards. • A hierarchy of necessity emerged in the context of caring for COVID-19 patients. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Northern China faces water scarcity, restricting water usage in place across Inner Mongolia's western region. The integrated irrigation and fertilization model for sugar beet is undergoing rapid development and application in production. However, there is a concerning trend in production where the frequency of irrigation and fertilization is being increased blindly, resulting in the wastage of valuable water and fertilizer resources. Limiting water and fertilizer usage is an effective approach to improve sugar beet production efficiency. Sugar beets are a significant sugar crop in China. A split-plot design was employed to examine the impact of reducing water and fertilizer use on sucrose metabolism in sugar beet root. Our study was performed at the Ulanqab Institute of Agricultural and Forestry Sciences in Inner Mongolia from 2022 to 2023. Three levels of fertilization and irrigation were utilized. We investigated the interactions between irrigation and fertilization on sucrose accumulation in sugar beet root. We examined key enzyme activities involved in sucrose metabolism alongside their gene expression levels. The findings suggested that reducing irrigation by 15%, fertilization by 10%, or both irrigation by 15% and fertilization by 10%, increased sucrose concentrations of sugar beets compared to the control group administered conventional water and fertilizer. Over the two-year period, the average sucrose concentration increased by 0.45, 0.57, and 0.65 degrees, respectively, under each treatment. Subsequent research verified that appropriately reducing water and fertilizer can regulate the expression of enzyme genes, thus influencing enzyme activity. Moreover, due to the higher efficiency of enzyme synthesis compared to decomposition, it contributed to an increase in net enzyme activity. These findings suggest that an appropriate reduction of water and fertilizer can improve sucrose synthesis rates and increase the sucrose concentration in sugar beets, providing a theoretical basis for environmentally friendly generation and enhanced efficiency in sugar beet growth. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

For undisturbed loess with water sensitivity and dynamic vulnerability, which is often in a state of damage accumulation due to the influence of natural factors (the fluctuation of groundwater level, rainfall infiltration/evaporation, and seismic load), the impact of relevant engineering problems is significant, and the disaster-causing process is complex. Cyclic simple tests were used to illustrate the behaviour of the dynamic shear modulus of loess exposed to various factors of dry-wet(D-W) cycles and stress conditions (D-W cycles times N , lower limit water content w 1 , and consolidation stress σ v). Using scanning electron microscopy (SEM), we assessed the inherent damage mechanism under D-W cycles. The findings show that the D-W cycles considerably affect the dynamic shear modulus of undisturbed loess, with the strongest effect occurring during the first D-W cycles. Based on the Hardin hyperbolic model, the stress exponent n is a specific parameter of w 1. In addition, the relationship between N and G 0 / P a /(σ v / P a) n is a power function, and G 0 / P a /(σ v / P a) n drops as w 1 and N increase. The fitting parameters a of the dynamic shear modulus ratio normalization model are not sensitive to σ v / P a , D-W cycles times N , and lower limit water content w 1. Based on the dynamic shear modulus, a damage degree prediction method considering N , w 1 , and σ v is established. The results can provide a theoretical reference for earthquake disaster prediction in collapsible loess areas. [Display omitted] • Dry-wet cycles test, cyclic simple shear test, and SEM test were carried out. • The behavior of dynamic shear modulus under the coupled action of dry-wet cycles and dynamic load was investigated. • Method were proposed and verified to predict dynamic shear modulus under dry-wet cycles. • This study can provide reference for earthquake disaster prediction in loess area. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]