Search

The paper constructs an economic growth model that contains human, physical capital, innovation, and energy factors and estimates the output elasticity of seven provinces and cities in East China in the period of 2004–2018. Having calculated the contribution rate of these different factors to economic growth, the paper finds that factors of production have a different elasticity that impacts the growth of different regions and industries and notes that energy and physical capital are the most significant factors for the growth of primary and secondary industries. This highlights that industrial growth has not freed from the path dependence of extensive input, and the authors cite Shanghai and Jiangsu as typical regions in this regard. The former's growth largely depends on physical capital and energy, and the latter's growth depends on the input of diverse elements including innovation. The latter is better suited to the needs of the "new normal" economic growth. The authors construct a simulation model of economic growth based on system dynamics, and system simulation results show that energy and material capital investment not only have the most significant effect on economic growth in East China but also provide clear evidence of extensive economic growth. The paper then demonstrates that increasing the optimal allocation of input factors and the rational flow between regions is conducive to improving output efficiency and provides the results of the Malmquist index calculation: on the whole, there is no obvious technological progress in East China. Shanghai, Jiangsu, and Zhejiang are, however, provincial-level regions of this part of the country which demonstrate significant technological progress in East China. In conclusion, the paper suggests that this region of China will be unable to maintain its current level of economic growth because of the combined influence of factor input constraints and insufficient technological progress. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: The predominance of onychomycosis has been increasing recently. New medications and treatment modalities are being researched for better saturation of the antifungal agents through the nail plate topically because of the low resilience of some patients for the oral antifungal agents. Treatment of onychomycosis, mainly moderate to severe, can be very challenging, expensive, and time consuming. Objective: The objective of this clinical trial is to compare the efficacy and safety of a manually operated ablative CO2 laser combined with a topical antifungal agent in patients with onychomycosis. Study Design: We conducted an open-label controlled prospective study of 160 eligible patients randomized into control and treatment groups with a 1:1 allocation in the department of dermatology in five different hospitals in Shanghai. It was a 6-month study where both groups were treated with a topical antifungal agent, with the treatment group also receiving ablation by the traditional CO2 laser once a month for the first 3 months. Results: The clinical efficacy and mycological cure rate were significantly higher (p < 0.001) for the treatment group. Three (3.75%) patients from the control group and 18 (25%) patients from the treatment group achieved complete nail clearance along with negative potassium hydroxide and negative culture (primary endpoint) results at 24 weeks. Mycological clearance with at least moderate nail clearance (secondary endpoint) for the treatment group was also significantly higher (p < 0.001) for the laser treatment group. The laser treatment was mildly painful but tolerable by the patients. No drug interactions for both groups were encountered. Conclusions: The ablative CO2 laser is a primitive yet effective modality to be considered for the delivery of topical antifungal agents for the management of mild-to-severe onychomycosis. The laser has good tolerance in patients and is a common equipment found in most dermatology units even those without the latest medical technology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Rice-crayfish-turtle (RCT) farming controls crop yields by altering soil quality and soil microbial diversity. • Soil bacterial and fungal networks were altered by RCT farming. • Long term RCT farming altered soil bacterial community assembly mechanisms. • Soil microbial communities are important predictors of crop yields in RCT farming. Crop and aquatic animal co-culture systems have been used for over 1200 years and can very efficiently utilize nutrients and materials available in agroecology settings. These co-culture systems are sustainable forms of agriculture, and have been extensively practiced worldwide. Microorganisms play critical roles in promoting ecosystem nutrient transformations and material circulations. However, the long-term effects of this farming system on soil health and microbial community stability, in addition to their relationships with rice yields, remain unclear. Here, 7- and 12-year farming experiments with rice-crayfish-turtle (RCT) co-culture systems were conducted and compared against rice monoculture (RM) in a suburb of Shanghai, China. Increased years of RCT farming led to higher contents of soil organic carbon (SOC), total nitrogen (TN), and available nitrogen (Avail_N), but less total phosphorus (TP) when the same soil layers were compared against the RM treatment. Thus, RCT farming generally had positive effects on soil physiochemical properties across all soil layers. qPCR analyses indicated that RCT farming led to a higher abundance ratio of fungi to bacteria (F:B) in soils than in RM soils, suggesting an improvement in metabolic efficiency and sustainability of these agroecosystems. High-throughput sequencing demonstrated that 12-year RCT farming led to much higher soil microbial community diversity. Network analysis of 12-year RCT revealed more abundant microbial network modules and a larger proportion of negative correlations compared against 7-year RCT and RM networks. Overall, the community compositional analyses and network analyses indicated that RCT farming promoted soil health and increased microbial community stability. Stochastic processes dominated the bacterial and fungal community assembly, while random distributions were evident in the soil networks for 12-year RCT communities. Thus, all interactions between amplicon sequence variants (ASVs) were equivalent and these structures promoted network structure stability. Structural equation models (SEM) revealed that RCT farming had positive and indirect effects on rice yields by influencing soil properties or fungal diversity. Altogether, the improvement of soil health by RCT farming revealed the promotion of more suitable environments for soil microbial communities, which could contribute to nutrient cycling and further increase crop production yields. These results provide new insights into the co-associations and shifts in soil fertility quality with microbial community diversity and crop production, thereby helping to inform the ecological sustainability of RCT co-culture systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The objective of this study was to assess the feasibility of using currently available emergency department (ED) records to retrospectively ascertain the prevalence and characteristics of episodes of medically treated deliberate self-harm (DSH). Discussions with ED staff identified 10 ED diagnoses in persons 12 years of age or older that were commonly used for episodes of DSH and another 7 injury-related diagnoses that could, under specific conditions, be acts of DSH. A retrospective analysis of the ED registry of one large general hospital in Shanghai for 2007 to 2010 identified all cases with one of these diagnoses. Diagnosis-specific algorithms based on the characteristics of each case were applied to classify cases as “probable DSH,” “possible DSH” or “probably not DSH.” The 1,495 cases of DSH identified accounted for 0.2% of all ED admissions over the 4 years; only 6 of them (0.4%) had an ED diagnosis of “suicide attempt.” Three ED diagnoses—overdose of medication, fall from height, and pesticide ingestion—accounted for 1,275 (85.3%) of the DSH cases. There were substantial differences in the characteristics of male and female cases of DSH and a 43% drop in the proportion of ED admissions for DSH over the 4 years. In locations where it is not feasible to develop prospective registries of suicide attempts treated in EDs, retrospective analysis of ED records that use algorithms to classify the intentionality of injuries can provide estimates of the prevalence and characteristics of medically treated episodes of DSH. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]