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The COVID-19 pandemic dramatically altered life at higher education institutions in the US. International students were particularly affected because they lack the community and support structures upon which other stakeholder groups could rely. International student experiences of the pandemic may have been further exacerbated by uncertain immigration policies, their perceptions of more successful containment of the virus abroad, and xenophobia in the public discourse. This phenomenological study documents the experiences of international students in US higher education during the pandemic to determine how they adapted, how they were shaped, and how their attitudes toward study abroad in the US may have changed. It seeks to introduce the voices of these students to the scholarly literature. The findings reveal a sense of chaos, an aversion to online instruction, a lack of non-academic support form institutions, and a tarnished, but still attractive image of the US as a destination for study abroad.

K-doped porous g-C3N4 nanosheet (PNCN-K) photocatalysts were successfully prepared using urea, dicyandiamide and potassium bromide as reactants. The effects of K-doping on the microstructure and photocatalytic performance of PNCN were investigated. The results show that K dopants are introduced into the interlayer of g-C3N4. The PNCN-K photocatalyst with a suitable K-doping amount exhibits a lower bandgap and improved transfer and separation efficiencies of photogenerated electron–hole pairs. The photodegradation performance of RhB by the PNCN-K photocatalyst is greatly enhanced, which is 2.7 times higher than that of the undoped PNCN photocatalyst. Based on the radical capture experiments, it is confirmed that ·O2− is the main active species in the photodegradation of RhB by the PNCN-K photocatalyst. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Afforestation is a major anthropogenic forcing to the global and regional climate. However, the biophysical impacts of large‐scale afforestation on local temperature in temperate regions remain unclear, due to the closely matched but compensating radiative and non‐radiative effects. The Grain for Green Program (GFGP) is a large‐scale afforestation program implemented over the Loess Plateau (LP) in China. The GFGP thus provides an ideal platform to explore the temperature effect of afforestation. This study investigated such a temperature effect through long‐term, high‐resolution simulations incorporating satellite observations in a coupled land‐atmosphere model. With an optimal combination of physical schemes proposed by this study, we greatly improved the accuracy of regional climate modeling. The results reveal that the afforestation caused a significant decline (−0.50% yr−1) in albedo. An increment in net shortwave radiation mainly led to an increment in net radiation (7.95 W m−2). The afforestation also led to an increment in sensible heat flux (3.78 W m−2). Consequently, the afforestation caused a warming effect (0.36°C) in 2‐meter air temperature at the inter‐annual scale. At the intra‐annual scale, there was a cooling effect in July and August, while other months demonstrated a warming effect. The radiative effect dominated local temperature change induced by the afforestation over the LP. Therefore, the large‐scale afforestation contributed to the local warming trend. Our findings highlight the temperature effect of afforestation, and imply that more attention should be paid to future revegetation to carefully assess its potential influence on regional climate. Key Points: Incorporating satellite observation improved accuracy of regional climate modelingAfforestation caused an annual warming effect over the Loess Plateau and a cooling effect only in July and August at intra‐annual scaleRadiative effect dominated local temperature change induced by afforestation [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduction: Atopic dermatitis (AD) is a common clinical recurrent atopic disease in dermatology, most seen in children and adolescents. In recent years, AD has been found to be closely associated with microbial communities., Methods: To explore the synergistic effects between colonizing bacteria from different sites and AD, we comparatively analyzed the skin, oral, and gut microbiota of children with AD (50 individuals) and healthy children (50 individuals) by 16S rRNA gene sequencing. Twenty samples were also randomly selected from both groups for metabolic and macrogenomic sequencing., Results: The results of our sequencing study showed reduced microbiota diversity in the oral, skin, and gut of children with AD ( P < 0.05). Metabolomics analysis showed that serotonergic synapse, arachidonic acid metabolism, and steroid biosynthesis were downregulated at all three loci in the oral, skin, and gut of children with AD ( P < 0.05). Macrogenomic sequencing analysis showed that KEGG functional pathways of the three site flora were involved in oxidative phosphorylation, ubiquitin-mediated proteolysis, mRNA surveillance pathway, ribosome biogenesis in eukaryotes, proteasome, basal transcription factors, peroxisome, MAPK signaling pathway, mitophagy, fatty acid elongation, and so on ( P < 0.05)., Discussion: The combined microbial, metabolic, and macrogenetic analyses identified key bacteria, metabolites, and pathogenic pathways that may be associated with AD development. We provides a more comprehensive and in-depth understanding of the role of the microbiota at different sites in AD patients, pointing to new directions for future diagnosis, treatment and prognosis., Competing Interests: The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest., (Copyright © 2024 Zhang, Huang, Zheng, Liu, Bai, Chen, Pang, Xiao, Yang and Guo.)