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Due to the increasing competition in the market and the limited availability of high-quality employment opportunities, an increasing number of employees struggle to maintain a balance between their physical conditions and performance demands, resulting in a more widespread occurrence of "working while ill". However, little is known about the controlled motivation behind the phenomenon under pressure. Drawing on self-determination theory, this study utilized 281 questionnaire data to examine the positive effect of performance pressure on employee presenteeism, and to explore the moderating role of authoritarian leadership and its joint moderation function effect with independent self-construal. The results indicated that performance pressure had a significant positive effect on employee presenteeism. Authoritarian leadership imposed an enhanced moderating effect between performance pressure and employee presenteeism, while independent self-construal diminished the augmentative moderating role played by authoritarian leadership in the relationship between performance pressure and employee presenteeism. This study reveals the controlled motivation of employee presenteeism under performance pressure, taking into account the cultural background and organizational context of China. Moreover, it also offers novel perspectives for effectively managing this phenomenon. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Vadose Zone Journal is the property of Wiley-Blackwell 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 China Quarterly is the property of Cambridge University Press 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.)

In recent years, Party leaders have expressed concern about "bureaucratic slack," or shirking, by local government officials. This article investigates the reasons for the emergence of bureaucratic slack in China's political system. It verifies two popular hypotheses, namely, reduced material inducements and increased risk. Using a unique national survey of 1,789 local cadres, we confirm both hypotheses. Our survey also reveals differences across groups of local cadres. We find bureaucratic slack among lower-ranked cadres to be caused mainly by the lack of material inducements, while higher-ranked officials are more discouraged by increased risks. We conducted follow-up fieldwork to examine in greater depth why each cohort responded differently to the Xi administration's administrative reforms and anticorruption drives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This three-decade long study was conducted in the Pearl River Delta (PRD), a rapidly urbanizing region in southern China. Extensive soil samples for a diverse land uses were collected in 1989 (113), 2005 (1384), 2009 (521), and 2018 (421) for heavy metals of As, Cr, Cd, Cu, Hg, Ni, Pb and Zn. Multiple pollution indices and Structural Equation Models (SEMs) were used in attribution analysis and comprehensive assessments. Data showed that majority of the sampling sites was contaminated by one or more heavy metals, but pollutant concentrations had not reached levels of concerns for food security or human health. There was an increasing trend in heavy metal contamination over time and the variations of soil contamination were site-, time- and pollutant-dependent. Areas with high concentrations of heavy metals overlapped with highly industrialized and populated areas in western part of the study region. A dozen SEMs path analyses were used to compare the relative influences of key environmental factors on soil contamination across space and time. The high or elevated soil contaminations by As, Cr, Ni, Cu and Zn were primarily affected by soil properties during the study period, except 1989–2005, followed by land use patterns. Parent materials had a significant effect on elevated soil contamination of Cd, Cr, Ni, Pb and overall soil pollution during 1989–2005. We hypothesized that other factors not considered in the present study, such as atmospheric deposition, sewage irrigation, and agrochemical uses, may be also important to explain the variability of soil contamination. This study implied that strategies to improve soil physiochemical properties and optimize landscape structures are viable methods to mitigate soil contamination. Future studies should monitor pollutant sources identified by this study to fully understand the causes of heavy metal contamination in rapidly industrialized regions in southern China. Image 1 • Regional soil samples were collected over a 3-decade period in southern China. • Majority of soil samples were polluted with multiple heavy metals. • Soil contamination elevated over time mostly in populated and industrialized area. • Anthropogenic factors overwhelmed parent materials in affecting soil pollution. • Improving soil properties and landscape pattern have potentials to reduce pollution. Human activities overwhelmed parent materials in affecting soil contamination across space and over time in Pearl River Delta, southern China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Canopy storage capacity significantly affects rainfall interception. • Leaf/stem water storage is the deterministic factor for categorizing model applicability. • MG model is highly sensitive to changes in leaf area index. • MG model well predicts rain interception of deciduous shrubs with leaf-dominated canopy storage. • RG model exhibits better performance for deciduous shrubs with stem-dominated canopy storage. The precise modeling of rainfall interception is important to understand the water balance of forest ecosystems, particularly in water-stressed restoration regions. However, xerophytic deciduous shrubs are currently underrepresented in rainfall interception models due to the significant variations in their canopy structures. Therefore, we estimated the rainfall interceptions of four representative deciduous shrubs (Spiraea pubescens , Potentilla fruticose, Hippophae rhamnoides, and Caragana korshinskii) in the semiarid region of northern China using the revised Gash model (RG model) with static parameters and a modified Gash model (MG model) with variable parameters. The results indicate that the MG model outperformed the RG model in studies of S. pubescens and P. fruticose, with regard to the modeling error (6.6%–7.9%), Nash–Sutcliffe model efficiency (0.68–0.86), and the root-mean-square error (0.17–0.71). However, the RG model was better than the MG model for H. rhamnoides and C. korshinskii, with regard to the modeling error (3.6%–6.3%), Nash–Sutcliffe model efficiency (0.82–0.94), and the root-mean-square error (0.17–0.66). The MG model was highly sensitive to changes in the leaf area index, canopy cover, mean evaporation rate, canopy storage capacity, and leaf storage capacity for S. pubescens and P. fruticose. Nevertheless, the RG model demonstrated high sensitivity to changes in the canopy storage capacity and stem storage capacity for H. rhamnoides and C. korshinskii. These indicated that canopy storage capacity has a significant effect on the rainfall interception capabilities of different shrub species, as indicated by both the RG and MG models. This critical indicator was determined by the water storage of stems for H. rhamnoides and C. korshinskii (ranged contribution of 59.5%–81.6%), whereas the water storage of leaves for S. pubescens and P. fruticose (with contributions of 51.3%–80.7%). Therefore, the optimized RG and MG models are recommended for estimating the rainfall interception of xerophytic shrubs with stem-dominated water storage and leaf-dominated water storage, respectively. This study categorizes the applicability of rainfall interception models in terms of important plant traits to precisely assess the water balance of xerophytic deciduous shrub ecosystems. In future studies, leaf configuration and hydrophobicity are highly recommended to be quantified for further improving rainfall interception models. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• STL decomposition is efficient for analysis of hydrological data and can avoid stochastic disturbance. • Factors related to the Yangtze River have greater impact in the northern area than in the southern area, while factors related to the Poyang Lake itself have greater impact in the central area. • The operation of TGD results in an obvious recession of water level in the Poyang Lake, but it also limits the maximum and minimum water levels in a narrow range. The Poyang Lake is the largest freshwater lake in China located at the midstream of the Yangtze River, and the water level has witnessed a decline both interannually and annually since the operation of the Three Gorges Dam (TGD) located at the upstream of the Yangtze River in 2003. However, the impact of TGD on the spatial and temporal variation of water levels in the Poyang Lake remains to be elucidated. In this study, the long-term observed water levels at different stations in the Poyang Lake and Yangtze River were analyzed by seasonal-trend decomposition based on loess to determine the impact of TGD on the spatial and temporal variation of water levels in the Poyang Lake. The results reveal that TGD has no obvious impact on the interannual variation of water levels, but accounts for a major part of the annual variation of water levels in the impounding season of TGD (autumn). The effect of the Yangtze River is larger in the northern area that is close to the Yangtze River than that in the southern area of the lake; but the effect of the Poyang Lake itself is most obvious in the central area. TGD has both positive and negative consequences on the water level of the Poyang Lake. It can result in an obvious decrease in the water level and prolong the duration of drought, but it can also reduce the variation amplitude of water levels anywhere in the Poyang Lake and control the maximum and minimum water levels. This study may provide insights into the impact of TGD on the Poyang Lake and thus contribute to water resources conservation and ecological restoration of the lake in the future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Several previous cross-sectional studies suggested that body roundness index (BRI) may be associated with cardiovascular disease (CVD). However, the association should be further validated. Our study aimed to assess the association of the BRI trajectories with CVD among middle-aged and older Chinese people in a longitudinal cohort., Methods and Results: A total of 9935 participants from the CHARLS (China Health and Retirement Longitudinal Study) with repeated BRI measurements from 2011 to 2016 were included. The BRI trajectories were identified by group-based trajectory modeling. The primary outcome was incident CVD (stroke or cardiac events), which occurred in 2017 to 2020. Cox proportional hazards regression models were used to examine the association of BRI trajectories with CVD risk. Participants were divided into 3 BRI trajectories, named the low-stable BRI trajectory, moderate-stable BRI trajectory and high-stable BRI trajectory, accounting for 49.81%, 42.35%, and 7.84% of the study population, respectively. Compared with participants in the low-stable BRI trajectory group, those in the moderate-stable and high-stable BRI trajectory groups had an increased risk of CVD, with multivariable adjusted hazard ratios of 1.22 (95% CI, 1.09-1.37) and 1.55 (95% CI, 1.26-1.90), respectively. Furthermore, simultaneously adding the BRI trajectory to the conventional risk model improved CVD risk reclassification (all P <0.05)., Conclusions: A higher BRI trajectory was associated with an increased risk of CVD. The BRI can be included as a predictive factor for CVD incidence.

Well-designed environmental regulatory tools are essential for environmental, economic, and social sustainability. This paper explores the effects of different types of environmental supervision policies on green economic efficiency in China from 2003 to 2021. In the first stage, the environmental supervision policies are divided into four types based on the governmental behavioral patterns and the composite index of environmental supervision policies is constructed based on multiple criteria, and the super-efficiency DEA-SBM model is used to measure green economic efficiency. In the second stage, the Tobit model is used to explore the effects of four different types of environmental supervision policies on green economic efficiency. The results show that: (1) Command policies inhibit green economic efficiency in the short term, while the long-term effect increases green economic efficiency. (2) Collaboration policies increase green economy efficiency from the second to the fifth year of implementation, but the subsequent long-term effects show a dampening effect. (3) Planning policies inhibit green economy efficiency in the short term, while they increase green economy efficiency after two years of implementation. (4) Guidance policies inhibit green economic efficiency in the short term but can enhance green economic efficiency after three years of implementation. The result provides theoretical guidance for the rational formulation and implementation of environmental supervision policies by environmental administrations in the future., Competing Interests: Declaration of competing interest The authors declared that we have no conflicts of interest to this work, and we do not have any commercial or associative interest that represents a conflict of interest in connection with the work submitted., (Copyright © 2024 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.)

Tree species-specific responses to drought are urgently needed for assessing the impacts of current climate change on forest ecosystems. Here, we characterized the resistance, recovery, resilience, and growth recovery periods in response to different drought events based on tree-ring width index data (>30 years) for three tree species widely distributed in northern China, among which larch (Larix principis-rupprechtii Mayr) and Mongolian pine (Pinus sylvestris L. var. mongolica Litv.) are two major species used for afforestation, and birch (Betula platyphylla Suk.) is one of the most common natural tree species. Despite no significant effects of mild drought on tree growth, severe drought events significantly reduced the growth of all species, with contrasting species-specific responses. Larch trees had the lowest resistance and resilience among the three species, and Mongolian pine trees were more resistant but had a longer recovery period than birch trees. The drought responses varied with tree size. Large Mongolian pine and birch trees were more resistant but large larch trees were much more vulnerable than small trees during severe droughts. Smaller birch trees had higher resilience to severe droughts. Our study shows species-specific differences in drought responses and suggests that drought responses are tree-size dependent and drought-intensity associated, which further provides a guidance for selecting optimal cultivated tree species and designing forest managements in this region., Competing Interests: Declaration of competing interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper., (Copyright © 2023 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)

The improvement of corporate ESG performance is of great significance to the high quality and sustainable development of the economy. Governments in various countries have introduced many tax incentives to motivate companies to actively fulfill their ESG responsibilities. However, no research has been conducted in academia to study the relationship between tax incentives and ESG performance. This study aims to fill the gap in this area and investigate whether tax incentives can effectively motivate the improvement of corporate ESG performance. Using a two-way fixed effects model, this paper empirically investigates the relationship between tax incentives and corporate ESG performance and the paths of action, using Shanghai and Shenzhen A-share listed companies from 2011 to 2020 as the research sample, and finds that (1) tax incentives significantly contribute to the enhancement of corporate ESG performance; (2) financing constraints play a partly mediating role in the relationship between tax incentives and corporate ESG performance; (3) a favorable business environment can enhance the promotional effect of tax incentives on corporate ESG performance; (4) the incentive effect of tax incentives on corporate ESG performance is more significant among state-owned enterprises, enterprises in the eastern region, larger enterprises, enterprises with more concentrated equity, and enterprises with better quality of internal control. The research in this paper enriches the research perspective on the factors influencing corporate ESG performance and provides strong empirical evidence to support the implementation and improvement of ESG-related tax incentives, helping the implementation of the concept of sustainable development and high-quality economic development., (© 2023. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature.)

Purpose: Using the Reflux Symptom Index (RSI), this nationwide study aimed to investigate the incidence, diagnostic status, risk factors, and common symptoms of adult laryngopharyngeal reflux disease (LPRD) at otorhinolaryngology-head and neck surgery (OHNS) clinics in China., Methods: This multicenter cross-sectional survey began at the different institutions ranged from July to October 2017, and the duration was 12 months. A total of 90,440 eligible patients were finally enrolled from 72 medical institutions in China. All these patients completed the questionnaire based on RSI. In this study, LPRD was defined as RSI > 13., Results: There were 9182 with LPRD among the 90,440 eligible participants (10.15%). However, only 1294 had a history of LPRD diagnosis among those with LPRD (14.09%). There were regional differences in the frequency of LPRD (P < 0.001). The proportions of patients with LPRD in males (vs. females), middle- and old-aged patients (vs. young), with current smoking history (vs. no smoking), and current drinking history (vs. no drinking) were significantly higher (all P < 0.001). Middle and old age, current smoking, and drinking history were independent predictors of LPRD (all P < 0.001, OR 1.240, 1.261, and 1.481, respectively). "Sensations of something stuck in throat or a lump in throat", "clearing throat", and "excess throat mucus or postnasal drip" were the most frequent clinical symptoms in patients with LPRD., Conclusions: LPRD has a high incidence at the OHNS clinics in China. However, the diagnostic status of this disease is not optimistic. Older age, smoking, and drinking history were risk factors for LPRD.

Genome-wide association studies have reported numerous candidate loci associated with Parkinson's disease (PD). NUCKS1 and INPP5K are two such candidate loci, although they have rarely been reported in Asian populations. To explore these potential genes for PD susceptibility, we investigated the association between PD and two SNPs, rs823114 and rs1109303, located on the NUCKS1 and INPP5K genes, respectively, in the Han population of northern China. We genotyped the two SNPs using the multiplex PCR-RFLP (polymerase chain reaction-restriction fragment length polymorphism) technique. A total of 685 subjects including 322 sporadic PD patients and 363 healthy controls were recruited from the population. After Bonferroni correction, our results suggested that there was a significant association of a minor allele (G) in rs823114 with reduced risk of PD development (P = 0.017, OR = 0.768, 95%CI = 0.618 - 0.955), and the difference in genotypes between the PD patients and healthy controls was significant under the dominant model (GA + GG vs. AA). After stratification by gender, males had a lower risk than females (P = 0.008, OR = 0.666, 95%CI = 0.495 - 0.898). However, the distribution of genotype frequency exhibited no significant differences between the PD and control groups (P > 0.025) in INPP5K rs1109303 (P = 0.048, OR = 0.806, 95%CI = 0.650 - 0.998). We conclude that NUCKS1 rs823114 indicates a decreased risk of susceptibility to PD and shows a male genetic distribution bias in the Han Chinese population.