Search

As an effective immunostimulant, Astragalus polysaccharides (APS) have been widely used in fish aquaculture, however, their action mechanisms remain poorly understood. In the present paper, the inflammatory macrophage model of large yellow croaker (Larimichthys crocea) was constructed by using formalin-inactivated Vibrio alginolyticus. Inactivated V. alginolyticus could cause cellular damage of primary head kidney macrophages (PKM) by decreasing cell activity and inducing reactive oxygen species (ROS) production and cell apoptosis. When PKM were pretreated with APS, the depressed cell activity induced by inactivated V. alginolyticus was significantly improved, and ROS overproduction and cell apoptosis were inhibited. Then the protection mechanism of APS was investigated by transcriptome analysis. After treated with inactivated V. alginolyticus, the expression of immune-related genes (TLR5s, TLR13, Clec4e, IKK, IκB, BCL-3, NF-κB2, REL, IL-1β, and IL-6) and pyroptosis-related genes (caspase-1, NLRP3, and NLRC3) in PKM were significantly up-regulated. However, APS pretreatment reversed the up-regulation of most of the above-mentioned genes, where TLR5s, BCL-3, REL, caspase-1, NLRP12, IL-1β, and IL-6 were significantly down-regulated compared with inactivated V. alginolyticus-treated group. These results suggested that APS could protect large yellow croaker PKM against inactivated V. alginolyticus-induced inflammatory injury, and may exert their protection effects by activating NF-κB and pyroptosis signaling pathways. These findings therefore advance our understanding of the immune regulation mechanism of APS in fish, and facilitate the application of APS in prevention and control of fish bacteriosis.

Massive diagnostic testing has been performed for appropriate screening and identification of COVID-19 cases in the ongoing global pandemic. However, the environmental impacts of COVID-19 diagnostics have been least considered. In this paper, the environmental impacts of the COVID-19 nucleic acid diagnostics were assessed by following a full cradle-to-grave life-cycle approach. The corresponding life-cycle anthology was established to provide quantitative analysis. Moreover, three alternative scenarios, i.e., material substitution, improved waste treatment, and electric vehicle (EV)-based transportation, were further proposed to discuss the potential environmental mitigation and conservation strategies. It was estimated that the life cycle of a single COVID-19 nucleic acid diagnostic test in China would lead to the emission of 612.9 g CO

The COVID-19 pandemic brings a surge in household electricity consumption, thereby enabling extensive research interest on residential carbon emissions as one of the hot topics in carbon reduction. However, research on spatial-temporal driving forces for the increase of residential CO

Microplastic deposition in subtropical lakes and the influences of human activities remain to be deeply and fully understood. Owing to the intensification of urban construction and population growth, urban lakes serving as significant freshwater resources for sustainable development of the regional economy are becoming degraded, especially due to microplastic pollution. To understand the deposition characteristics of microplastics in lake sediments from the China's subtropical city, six sediment core samples were collected from Xinghu Lake of Guangdong Province. Here, we analyzed the morphological characteristics of microplastics from the perspective of microstructure, and investigated the temporal and spatial distribution patterns of microplastics on the macroscopic scale. The deposition characteristics of microplastics in the past 64 years and the influence of socio-economic factors on the accumulation of microplastics were further clarified through the isotope composition of cesium-137 and lead-210 in the subtropical urban area with intense human activities. The results showed that the microplastic concentration of sediment cores in Xinghu Lake was 523 ± 140 particles/kg. The average sizes of microplastics in the five sub-lakes (i.e., Bohai, Zhongxin, Li, Qinglian, and Xiannü Lakes) of Xinghu Lake were 668, 642, 727, 708 and 646 μm, respectively. There were 25 polymers in sediment cores of Xinghu Lake. Rayon, polypropylene, polyethylene terephthalate and polypropylene-polyethylene copolymer were the main types, and the microplastics have the aging phenomenon or mechanical abrasion. The average deposition rates of sediment and microplastics were 0.6 cm/a and 106 particles/(kg·a) in Xinghu Lake, respectively. Meanwhile, the urban expansion and economic growth, as indicated by the increase in the urban area, population and gross domestic product, all played an essential role in the accelerated accumulation of microplastics in sediment cores of Xinghu Lake.

Water and land are crucial natural resources for agricultural development. It is necessary to allocate water and land resources effectively in order to achieve the maximum economic profits and the minimum environmental costs. In this research, an inexact two-stage fractional programming model was developed for the allocation of water and land resources, which is integrated interval-parameters (IPP), two-stage stochastic programming (TSP), fractional programming (FP). This model could optimally allocate water and land resources at the same time under the scenario of the maximum economic profit and the minimum environmental cost; it was proved to be beneficial in (1) dealing with the conflicts between economic development and environmental protection and give insights in trade-off among the agricultural system; (2) allocating water and land resources for five crops under multiple flow level simultaneously; and (3) describing the uncertain inputs as interval-parameters to reduce model uncertainties. The developed model was applied to the northeast region of China. The optimal allocation schemes of water and land resources, the maximum economic profits, and the minimum environmental costs were obtained. The results showed that economic profits in the agricultural system in the northeast region of China would not definitely be connected with the allocation of water and land resources, and solid waste pollution would bear the largest environmental cost. The developed model could help decision-makers to get a deeper understanding of the agricultural system and manage water and land resources in an efficient and environment-friendly way.

China's demand for crop products is increasing, leading to a great deal of consumption of local resources and industrial inputs such as agricultural machineries, chemical fertilizers, pesticides and energies. Many environmental problems also occurred, such as water pollution, soil erosion and contamination, and CO2 emissions. Therefore, it is imperative to assess crop production's sustainability and identify the key driving forces of its rapid development so that the proper mitigation policies can be proposed. An emergy analysis method was employed due to its advantage of linking economic development with natural ecosystem service. Emergy sustainability index was chosen as the key indicator to measure crop production performances in 31 Chinese provinces for the period 2006–2015. The results demonstrate that the EYRs in 31 Chinese provinces are entirely keeping around 1 and the maximum and minimum values of ELR are respectively 1.71 in Guizhou and 8.29 in Tibet. Under this circumstance, the mean ESI values in 30 Chinese provinces are all less than 1, except Guizhou. This indicates that most Chinese provinces will have to improve their crop production toward sustainable agricultural development. Then, a logarithmic Mean Divisia Index (LMDI) decomposition method was applied to identify the key driving forces that affect the evolution of ESI. The change of ESI (ΔESI) was decomposed into five factors: Scale and intensity factor (I), which depends on emergy density; Non-renewable resources factor (T), which depends on the density of non-renewable resources emergy; Productivity of labor factor (P), which depends on the productivity of labor; Renewable resources factor (E), which depends on intensity of renewable resources and number of Labor (G), which depends on labor inputs. The decomposition analysis results indicate that labor and renewable resources are the major factors affecting China's sustainable crop production, while other factors also have certain impacts. Such findings can provide valuable policy insights so that more appropriate crop production policies can be prepared by considering the local realities.

In this research, an interval two-stage stochastic fuzzy-interval credibility constraint programming (ISFICP) method was developed for water resources allocation among multiple water users under complexities and uncertainties. The method could reflect the multiple complexities of water resources management, also trade-offs between the system benefits and violation risks. Dongjiang River (DJR) Basin, which supplies water to several core cities in south China such as Guangzhou, Shenzhen, and Hong Kong, was applied as the real demonstrative case. The water resources system of DJR Basin is particularly complex due to it is the primary source water for Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area (GBA). Through considering multiple complexities and uncertainties of the water resources system, such as natural, economic, and social conditions, ISFICP was developed to obtain potential water-allocation schemes. Probabilistic distribution, fuzzy-interval sets (FIS), and discrete intervals were introduced to represent the multiple uncertainties associated with the multiple complexities. The results indicated that the model could provide practical schemes for local decision-makers under multiple scenarios such as flow levels, credibility levels, and recycling rates.

Water, energy, and food resources are indispensable and irreplaceable resources for the survival and development of human society. This study systematically assessed the three resources system in Guangdong, Hong Kong, and Macao based on constructed direct and nexus-oriented, multi-regional input-output, and ecological network analysis models. Various network analysis (e.g., control, utility, hierarchy, and robustness) was adopted to identify the critical factors of inter-regional resources trade from a perspective of supply-demand. The results indicated that Guangdong, Hong Kong, and Macao have complex control linkages in the three resources trade network, and Guangdong is the key to improving the three resources network structure. The three resources network existed highly competition and exploitation in the three regions. Industrial development is unbalanced and competitive for the three resources. The wholeness water-energy-food trade network of the three regions stayed in a positive environment, but the positive effect level was relatively weak. The three resources network robustness in the three regions is at a medium level. Hong Kong and Macao's water-energy-food network systems have a high vulnerability, and the lowest system robustness was food-related energy in Hong Kong. Finally, we provide some measures to help the sustainable development of the water-energy-food resource system in the three regions, such as cross-regional coordinated management, integration industries development, seawater toilets-flushing, sea rice, and renewable energy.

The pursuit of the sustainable agriculture often ignores to consider the ecological benefits. To achieve this goal, it is necessary to evaluate the ecological impacts related to the sustainable development. Therefore, to assess the overall ecological impact of crop production in 31 provinces in China, this study proposes to set up a non-monetary framework and indicators based on Emergy theory. Further analysis focuses on sustainable ecosystem under three different planting scenarios to identify the driving factors. The results demonstrated that the ecosystem disservice of crop production processes is greater than the services. The total emergy inputs, fertilizers used and R%, all of these can affect the ecological benefits. Furthermore, simply changing the cultivation pattern cannot achieve a balance between ecology and economy, there is no doubt that other method needed are needed. These findings provide valuable insights for developing appropriate policies for decision makers.

Sustainable crop production is a significant challenge in China. To achieve this goal, it is necessary to evaluate environmental impacts related to the sustainable development of crop production by integrating scientific and practical indicators. Therefore, this study employed emergy and index decomposition analysis approaches to assess the environmental impacts of non-point source pollution and the overall performance of crop production in China’s 31 provinces. First, the emergy flow of emission impacts and two new indicators, the emergy sustainability index and the emergy-based pollutant-producing coefficient, were proposed to comprehensively measure crop production performance from 2012 to 2015. The results demonstrated that the environmental impacts of non-point source pollution (EIN) were predominantly attributed to total nitrogen and phosphorus contents and mulching film residuals, which substantially increased the total emergy used and reduced the sustainability of crop production in each province. The ratio of EIN plus purchased resources (F) to total emergy used (U) were consistently greater than 80% in all 31 provinces, while the ratio of local resources including the emergy of local renewable (R) and non-renewable resources (N) to the total emergy was relatively small, accounting for less than 20% in all provinces. Then, a logarithmic mean Divisia index decomposition method was applied to identify the key driving forces influencing the evolution of EIN. The decomposition analysis indicated that the economy factor had a major promoting effect on EIN growth in all provinces except Beijing and Shanghai. Intensity and technology factors had a limiting effect on EIN growth. These findings provide valuable insights for developing appropriate crop production policies that consider local conditions.

With a growing demand for crop products in China, a great deal of local resources and industrial inputs are consumed including agricultural machineries, chemical fertilizers, pesticides, and energies, which results in many environmental issues such as resource depletion, water pollution, soil erosion and contamination, and CO2 emissions. Thus, this study evaluated the trend of sustainability of China&rsquo, s crop production from 1997 to 2016 in terms of emergy and further explored the driving forces using decomposition analysis methods. The results showed that the total emergy used (U) increased by 50% from 7.82 &times, 1023 in 1997 to 1.17 &times, 1024 solar emergy Joule (sej) in 2016. Meanwhile, the values of the emergy sustainability index (ESI) were all smaller than one with a declining trend year by year, indicating that China&rsquo, s crop production system is undergoing an unsustainable development pattern. From the results of the ESI decomposition, the renewable resource factor (R/GDP) and land use factor (L/A) are two key factors impeding the sustainable development of the crop production system. Therefore, the increased capacity of renewable resources and enough labor forces engaged in crop production will be the key strategies for its sustainable development.

We conducted a survey of 358 young migrant women working in entertainment venues in China to explore the prevalence of and factors associated with two indicators of sexual and reproductive health: (1) multiple abortions and (2) the dual risk of sexually transmitted infections (STI) and abortion history. One quarter (25.4 percent) of the women in this sample had multiple abortions during their lifetime and, of those with any abortion history, 18.3 percent had had an abortion outside of a regulated health clinic. One-third (33.0 percent) of the sample had had an STI during the past year, and approximately one-fourth (23.7 percent) of those women did not receive STI treatment in a public hospital. Approximately one-fourth (23.5 percent) of the sample reported both a history of abortion and an STI during the past year. Women with a history of multiple abortions had significantly lower income levels, were more likely to have sex with clients and with husbands, and tended more to use alcohol before sex. Women who experienced both abortion and STI risks were more likely to report having had unprotected sex, genitourinary tract infections symptoms, anxiety, illicit drug use, and suicidal ideation. Enhanced efforts are needed to improve reproductive and sexual health for female migrants in urban China, particularly those working in entertainment venues.

Chinese migrants have been a rich source of influential international literature, represented by key works such as Eat a Bowl of Tea by Louis Chu in 1961 and The Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan in 1989. Cultural differences and conflicts, stereotypes and other complex issues regarding the diasporic lives of the Chinese sojourners are revealed vividly in those stories. In the intercultural language teaching of Chinese in USA, Australia and Europe, a central and pressing task is to improve students' intercultural sensitivities and develop the capability to communicate efficiently with China and Chinese people. In light of critical literary studies that treat literature as a kind of ‘cultural artefact’ and recent analysis of Hay and Wang which advocates ‘migratory’ literature as a ‘third place’ for intercultural communication, this paper takes a step further. It does so by expanding the spectrum into Chinese norms, stereotypes and some core values that are significant in intercultural communication with Chinese and...

Backlash widely exists in various systems, such as machine tools, robots, astronomical telescopes, radars, artilleries, missile launchers. It is an important factor which influences the dynamic and static properties of drive systems. Due to its non-differentiable nature, backlash is difficult to compensate. Especially, in the high-precision drive systems, the backlash is a great challenge. So, it is necessary to study the backlash in the mechanical system. This paper analyzes the model of the mechanical system with backlash. Then, a switched control strategy is introduced to handle backslash. Based on this control method, a novel switched control strategy is proposed. Finally, simulation results show that the proposed novel control strategy can improve the control performance compared with the conventional backslash compensation methods.

This chapter reviews the historical development of China’s bilingual education policy for minority ethnic groups exploring whether this relates to Western notions of multicultural education. The chapter discusses the Chinese setting at national and provincial levels and focuses on four historical periods of China’s education policy. The first is the period under the control of the Nationalist Party from 1905 to 1946. The second is the ‘rapid development’ period from 1947 to 1958 – the early years of rule by the China Communist Party. The third is the so-called ‘sluggish’ period from 1959 to 1976, which was characterized by the Cultural Revolution and ideological movements that resulted in the suppression of minority identities as unsettling the stability and cogency of the communist state. The fourth is the ‘rejuvenation’ period from 1977 to the present, which involves nationwide cultural, educational and economic restoration after the disruption of the Cultural Revolution. This latter period has seen curriculum settings that resemble multicultural and multilingual education gradually assuming a critical place in China’s education system. During this period, multi-ethnic identities have been perceived as less disruptive and have even been acknowledged as components of a broader, inclusive Chinese national identity.

This article was stimulated by an opportunity to introduce the authors' intercultural research - to 'narrate' it - for an international conference and respond to the open-ended and highly creative theme of 'speaking cross-culturally'. We have tried to address this topic in the spirit intended, both as a creative application of narrative theory and as a form of narrative in itself - a genre of 'crosscultural speaking' exemplifying many discourses, from traditional storytelling to social semiotics and research writing. Our focus is on the potential of literature for 'intercultural' teaching of Chinese language and culture to senior secondary and tertiary students of diverse backgrounds in Australia. We begin by discussing literature in English about China and proceed to the implications for diagnostic research in intercultural pedagogy.

This paper proposes a robust switching control strategy for a transmission system with unknown backlash. Firstly, the adverse effects of backlash nonlinearity in the transmission system are analyzed. Then the backlash model and different operating modes of the transmission system with backlash are investigated. For each operating mode, an individual controller is designed to make the system robust against the unknown backlash and various frequencies of the input signal. Moreover, a supervisory controller is proposed to estimate the current mode of the transmission system and coordinate the controller switching between different modes. Simulations are done to verify that our switching control strategy can efficiently reduce the oscillation caused by backlash and is quite robust against the variation of the frequency of the input signal.

In order to solve the registration problem of different source image existed on aerial image fusion, algorithms based on Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO) are applied as search strategy in this paper, and Alignment Metric (AM) is used as judgment. This study has realized the different source image registration of infrared and visible light with high speed, high accuracy and high reliability. Basically, with little restriction of gray level properties, a new alignment measure is applied, which can efficiently measure the image registration extent and tolerate noise well. Even more, the intelligent optimization algorithm - Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO) is combined to improve the registration precision and rate of infrared and visible light. Experimental results indicate that, the study attains the registration accuracy of pixel level, and every registration time is cut down over 40 percent compared to traditional method. The match algorithm based on AM, solves the registration problem that greater differences between different source images are existed on gray and characteristic. At the same time, the adoption of combining the intelligent optimization algorithms significantly improves the searching efficiency and convergence speed of the algorithms, and the registration result has higher accuracy and stability, which builds up solid foundation for different source image fusion. The method in this paper has a magnificent effect, and is easy for application and very suitable for engineering use.