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Recently, the burden of cardiovascular disease (CVD) has attracted global attention. Meanwhile, CVD has become the leading cause of death in China. Some epidemiological studies have indicated that ambient air pollution may contribute to increased mortality from CVD diseases. Many studies have found a strong association between air pollutants and the risk of CVD deaths in some big cities, but few have focused on the effects of six pollutants in rural areas. Our study aimed to investigate the effects of six air pollutants (CO, NO

Anion-rich FePSe3 were successfully prepared, displaying considerable conductivity. Used as SIBs anodes without conductive agents, it showed excellent electrochemical properties at RT/LT, resulted from in situ formation of Cu–(DEGDME)n coordination.

Hollow carbon spheres with 18.94 at% nitrogen doping and hierarchical pores deliver a high specific capacity, excellent capacity performance and long cycling stability in Li–S batteries.

Sleep quality leads to many healthy problems, which has caused global concern. Most studies have focused on the sleep quality in some large cities, ignoring the elderly in rural areas who may have more serious sleep problems. Therefore, this study aimed to understand the sleep status of the elderly in rural areas of Anhui Province and the influence of environmental factors on it. The data of carbon dioxide (CO2) concentrations for this study were obtained from the Dalhousie University atmospheric composition analysis group. The data of normalized differential vegetation index (NDVI) in 2014 was produced and processed by remote sensing inversion on the basis of medium resolution satellite images. The 2686 individuals were selected from rural areas of Anhui Province by multi-stage stratified cluster sampling. The Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index (PSQI) was used to assess sleep quality. The independent, interactive, and mediating effects of CO2 and green space on sleep quality were evaluated by generalized linear model, interaction model, and mediating effect model, respectively. In this study, we found that the prevalence of sleep disturbance in the elderly was 58.40%. In the univariate model, we found that the risk of sleep disturbance increased by 1.6% for each 1 μg/m3 increase in concentrations of CO2, while decreased by 1.5% for every 0.1 increase in NDVI. In the interaction model, the negative correlation between green space and sleep quality decreased with concentrations of CO2 increased. In addition, green space was a mediating factor between CO2 and sleep quality in the mediating effect model.

Owing to its fascinating properties (such as high theoretical specific capacity and considerable conductivity), nickel sulfide (NiS) was investigated comprehensively as an anode material in sodium-ion batteries. However, they still suffered from volume expansion and sluggish kinetics, resulting in serious cycle capabilities. Herein, through controlling the kind of molten salts (Na

Herein, a chemical-vapor deposition-like strategy was developed for the synthesis of versatile core–shell transition metal sulfide (TMS)@carbon nanowires with chemically-bonded heterostructures and significantly improved electrochemical performance. The morphological evolution observations revealed the simultaneous growth of TMS nanowires and their bonding with an ultrathin carbon layer. The resulting core–shell heterostructured nanowires possessed notable advantages, including fast ion/electron diffusion rates, improved conductivity, and chemical/mechanical stability, thereby leading to remarkable reversible capacity, rate capability, and cycling stability for Na-ion storage applications. The in situ transmission electron microscopy and in situ X-ray diffraction studies for FeS@C demonstrated the crystalline phase evolution between hexagonal and tetragonal FeS species during the electrochemical charging/discharging process, clearly indicating the excellent Na-ion storage performance of FeS@C nanowires. This work provides a new methodology for achieving 1D core–shell nanoarchitectures, while elucidating the electrochemical reaction mechanism underlying Na-ion storage in TMS materials., A chemical-vapor deposition-like strategy was developed for the synthesis of versatile core–shell transition metal sulfide (TMS)@carbon heterostructured nanowires for electrochemical sodium ion storage.

The depth buffer algorithm, as a method at pixel level of computer graphics, can assist in realizing object collision detection and interference calculation in virtual space. It calculates the depth value of the object in a 3D scene to help construct the view model, while the traditional depth buffer algorithm cannot work without pixel-by-pixel operation and has the disadvantages of slow speed, low computational efficiency, and large space occupation. In this paper, the parallel depth buffer algorithm based on a ternary optical computer (TOC) is proposed by taking advantage of giant data-bit parallel computing, the reconfigurable processor of TOC. The parallel calculation scheme is designed using image segmentation to realize pixel drawing and interference detection. We analyze the resources and time consumption, and verify its correctness through experiment. The algorithm has better time performance and computing efficiency. It gives full play to the advantages of TOC for computing-intensive tasks.

Air pollution and its negative effects on health of people have been a global concern. Many studies had found a strong association between air pollutants and risk of death, but few had focused on the effects of six pollutants and rural areas. Our study aimed to investigate the effects of six air pollutants (CO, NO2, O3, PM2.5, PM10, and SO2) on non-accidental and respiratory deaths in rural areas of Anhui Province by adjusting for confounding factors, and to further clarify which populations were susceptible to death associated with air pollution. In the first phase of the analysis, the generalized additive models were combined with the distributed lag non-linear models to evaluate the individual effects of air pollution on death in each area. In the second stage, random-effects models were used to aggregate the associations between air pollutants and mortality risk in nine areas. Overall, six pollutants had the strongest effects on the risk of death on the lag 07 days. The associations between PM2.5 and NO2 and daily non-accidental deaths were strongest, with maximum RR (lag 07): 1.63 (1.37-1.88) and 1.67 (1.37-1.96). The maximum pooled effects of association between six air pollutants and RD were PM2.5, with RR (lag 07): 1.89 (1.45-2.34). PM2.5 and PM10 had significant differences between the elderly and the non-elderly with respectively, RRR: 1.22 (1.04-1.41) and 1.26 (1.11-1.42). In general, we found that six air pollutants were the important risk factors for deaths (deaths from respiratory disease and non-accidental) in rural areas of Anhui Province. PM10 and PM2.5 had a considerable impact on the elderly.

Hydrogen Evolution Reaction (HER) catalysts typically display poor physical stability which limits their performance and commercial use. Herein we have designed and fabricated a highly robust and cost-efficient catalyst which displays excellent activity and ultrahigh stability under a variety of conditions. This is accomplished by growing porous nanosheets of a N,P co-doped carbon shell (∼4 nm) wrapped in Cu3P on current-collector copper foam (Cu3P@NPC-CF). The prepared self-supported Cu3P@NPC-CF catalyst delivers pH-universal HER electrocatalytic activity with excellent overpotentials of 81.94, 192.52 and 135.45 mV at 10 mA cm−2 in 0.5 M H2SO4, 1 M PBS and 1 M KOH, respectively. Moreover, Cu3P@NPC-CF possesses ultrahigh stability with current retentions of 81.32%, 96.06% and 95.61% after 90 h of chronoamperometry (CA) tests in acidic, neutral and alkaline solutions, respectively. The self-supported Cu3P@NPC-CF electrocatalyst exhibits excellent HER activity and ultrahigh stability in all pH solutions yet was synthesized via a facile approach. This Cu3P@NPC-CF catalyst provides a new reference for the development of HER electrocatalysts.

Can inner cell mass (ICM) and trophectoderm morphological grading, especially ICM and trophectoderm graded C, affect perinatal outcomes?A retrospective review of medical records of 8946 singletons delivered from vitrified-warmed single blastocyst transfer cycles between January 2009 and December 2020.Inner cell mass graded C had a higher adjusted birth weight than ICM graded A (0.61 ± 1.06 versus 0.48 ± 1.06; P = 0.025). Large for gestational age (LGA) increased with decreasing ICM morphological grading (18.96%, 21.88% and 23.38%; grade B versus grade A, P = 0.013; grade C versus grade A, P = 0.036) (P0.025 was considered statistically significant for multiple pairwise comparisons). Linear regression analysis suggested that ICM morphological grading was significantly associated with adjusted birth weight, with grade C increasing adjusted birth weight compared with grade A (β 0.13, 95% CI 0.00 to 0.25, P = 0.043) (P0.05 was considered statistically significant for linear regression). Logistic regression analysis suggested that ICM morphological grading was significantly associated with LGA, with grade C increasing LGA compared with grade A (adjusted OR 1.37, 95% CI 1.03 to 1.81). Moreover, blastocysts with ICM graded C had a higher chance of being a male infant compared with ICM graded A (adjusted OR 1.32, 95% CI 1.04 to 1.68).Inner cell mass morphological grading was significantly associated with adjusted birth weight and LGA. Poor ICM graded C increased birth weight and LGA.

This study was conducted to evaluate whether conventional farming can be replaced by a lower chemical pollution farming system, integrated rice-duck farming in a suburban agricultural area in northern Zhejiang, Southeast China. We comprehensively assessed the impacts of integrated rice-duck farming on weeds and herbivorous insects along with their natural enemies during the rice-growing season. We found that the rice-duck system effectively controlled weeds within the paddy fields. Nevertheless, the abundance of herbivores, particularly planthoppers and leafhoppers was increased in the duck-roaming paddy fields compared to the control and conventional fields, indicating the inefficiency of the rice-duck system in the control of rice main herbivore pests. Rice-duck farming significantly reduced the abundance of predators, especially spiders and dragonflies, therefore an ‘enemy-free space’ was created for herbivores which might be responsible for the observed herbivore increase in the rice-duck fields. Despite the inefficiency of rice-duck farming in the control of rice main herbivore pests, the net income of the rice-duck treatment with an organic certification was 7.6 and 1.4 times higher compared to the conventional and control treatments, respectively. In the view of the favourable results obtained in this study, the integrated rice-duck farming system might be suggested as a high economic return organic farming method suitable for modern farmers.

Background The correlation between blastocyst quality and birthweight, neonatal outcomes is still controversial. There is a significantly higher male: female ratio among good quality blastocysts (advanced trophoderm morphology) but in the expansion degree, the significance for sex ratio is unclear. Methods A total of 617 and 6803 live singleton births resulting from the transfer of fresh and frozen-thawed single blastocysts in the Reproductive Medicine Center of Peking University Third Hospital from 2009 to 2020 were included. Live singleton births from fresh and frozen-thawed single blastocyst transfer were stratified by inner cell mass/trophoderm morphology and degree of blastocoel expansion. Multivariate linear regression was used to analyze the correlation between expansion, inner cell mass/trophoderm morphology, and birthweight, Z score, gestational weeks. Logistic regression was used to analyze the relationship between expansion, ICM/TE morphology and sex, neonatal outcomes. Results There was no significant correlation between birthweight, neonatal outcomes and blastocyst quality in fresh and frozen-thawed single blastocyst transfer cycles. However, the proportion of male infants in the hatched blastocyst (stage-6) group (67.9% vs. 54.2%; p < 0.001) [OR: 1.76 95% CI (1.34–2.32)] and hatching blastocyst (stage-5) group (61.7% vs. 54.2%; p = 0.001) [OR: 1.36 95 C.I (1.14ཞ1.62)] was significantly higher than that in the expanded blastocyst (stage-4) group. Conclusions The transfer of poor-quality blastocysts is unlikely to affect birthweight and neonatal health; however, transfer of stage-6 blastocysts can result in extremely skewed sex ratio.

Herein, we introduce a facile approach to synthesize a unique class of Pt-M (M = Ni, Co) catalysts with a nanoflower structure for boosting both oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) and methanol oxidation reaction (MOR). By controlling the surface-active agents, we modified the functional groups surrounding the Pt atoms, tuned the alloying of Pt and the transition metals Ni and Co, and prepared two different kinds of nanodendrites. Their successful synthesis depends on the selection and amount of surfactants (hexadecyltrimethylammonium bromide (CTAB), Polyvinylpyrrolidone (PVP)). Besides, by controlling reaction time, we also explored the forming procedures for Pt-Co globularia nanodendrite (Pt-Co GND) and Pt-Ni petalody nanodendrite (Pt-Ni PND). Our investigation highlights the importance of complex nanoarchitecture, which enables surface and interface modification to achieve excellent catalytic performance in fuel cell electrocatalysis. The characterization of the as-prepared catalysts reveals a high electrochemical surface area and mass activity (2041 m A m g P t - 1 and 950 m A m g P t - 1 for Pt-Co GND and Pt-Ni PND, respectively, for ORR). Furthermore, Pt-Co GND showed a high MOR activity, with a mass activity value recorded at 1615 m A m g P t - 1 which is far superior to that for Pt/C. Moreover, both catalysts retain high activity after accelerated durability tests (ADTs). The electron transfer number was calculated by performing the rotating ring-disk electrode (RRDE) measurements. Due to abundant active sites of Pt, both Pt-Co GND and Pt-Ni PND exhibit a 4e− pathway for ORR with electron transfer number of >3.95.

Herein, we present a simple synthesis strategy addressing two challenges of advantageous carbon anode design: (1) achieving self-assembled, i.e. “templateless”, porous hierarchical structures, with (2) well separated B and N co-doping. Heating tert-butylamine borane with two different forms of cobalt catalysts gives rise to either B and N co-doped carbon nanofiber networks (BN-CNN) or B and N co-doped graphene sheet networks (BN-GSN). Both materials form porous, hierarchical networks with advantageous, well separated, B and N co-doping (i.e. with high B–C, N–C or B–C–N content, and very low B–N content). The networks have large surface areas with abundant Li-ion storage sites, high electrical and ion conductivity, and good structural stability. Accordingly, B and N co-doped carbon nanofiber networks deliver an impressively high reversible capacity of 1017 mA h g−1 at 0.05 A g−1 and have ultrahigh long term cycling stability at the high current densities of 0.5 and 2 A g−1, where after 1000 and 2500 cycles, respectively, they deliver 629 and 480 mA h g−1. In addition, B and N co-doped carbon nanofiber networks have a lower average voltage (

Transition metal phosphides, especially copper phosphide nanocrystals, afford promising anode material candidates for sodium ion batteries. However, despite their high specific capacity, their performance is generally thwarted by rapid capacity fading due to limited cycling stability. To address this issue, we report a three-dimensional nanoarchitecture comprising a heterostructured assembly of Cu3P@C nanosheets synthesized via a simple combined epitaxial phosphidation growth/carbon deposition process. In each individual nanosheet, the thin carbon shell serves as an electron conductor and accommodates volume change of the Cu3P single-crystalline nanosheet. On a macroscopic level, the assembled 3D nanoarchitecture offers fast ion transfer pathways and prevents aggregation of the nanosheets. As a result, the 3D Cu3P@C nanoarchitecture delivers an exceptionally high capacity retention of 286 mA h g−1 after 300 cycles at 0.1 A g−1 and 156 mA h g−1 after 1000 cycles at 1 A g−1. This work, therefore, shows that achieving a synergistic multidimensional structure is possible via a simple one-pot method, and opens avenues to explore other metal phosphides in the same heterostructured format.

Obesity has caused a huge burden of disease. Few studies have explored individuals' environmental exposure level and the impact of multiple environmental exposures on obesity. The aim of this study was to explore individual air pollution exposure evaluation, and the association between and multiple environmental factors and obesity among adult residents in rural areas of China. In this study, 8400 residents of 14 districts and counties in eastern of China were selected by multistage stratified cluster sampling, and a total of 8377 residents were included in the final analysis. We adopted BMI (Body Mass Index) 28 kg/m