Analyzing new nationwide data from the Understanding Society COVID-19 survey (N = 10,336), this research examines intersecting ethnic and native–migrant inequalities in the impact of COVID-19 on ...people’s economic well-being in the UK. The results show that compared with UK-born white British, black, Asian and minority ethnic (BAME) migrants in the UK are more likely to experience job loss during the COVID-19 lockdown, while BAME natives are less likely to enjoy employment protection such as furloughing. Although UK-born white British are more likely to reduce their work hours during the COVID-19 pandemic than BAME migrants, they are less likely to experience income loss and face increased financial hardship during the pandemic than BAME migrants. The findings show that the pandemic exacerbates entrenched socio-economic inequalities along intersecting ethnic and native–migrant lines. They urge governments and policy makers to place racial justice at the center of policy developments in response to the pandemic.
Abstract Dendrimers possess discrete highly compact nanostructures constituted of successive branched layers. Soon after the inception of dendrimers, recognition of their tunable structures and ...biologically favorable properties provoked a great enthusiasm in delving deeply into the utility of dendrimers for biomedical and pharmaceutical applications. One of the most important nanotechnology applications is the development of nanomedicines for targeted cancer therapies. Tremendous success in targeted therapies has been achieved with the use of dendrimer-based nanomedicines. This article provides a concise review on latest advances in the utility of dendrimers in immunotherapies and hormone therapies.
Limited research has been published on land changes and their driving mechanisms in Central Asia, but this area is an important ecologically sensitive area. Supported by Google Earth Engine (GEE), ...this study used Landsat satellite imagery and selected the random forest algorithm to perform land classification and obtain the annual land cover datasets of Central Asia from 2001 to 2017. Based on the temporal datasets, the distributions and dynamic trends of land cover were summarized, and the key factors driving land changes were analyzed. The results show that (1) the obtained land datasets are reliable and highly accurate, with an overall accuracy of 0.90 ± 0.01. (2) Grassland and bareland are the two most prominent land cover types, with area proportions of 45.0% and 32.9% in 2017, respectively. Over the past 17 years, bareland has displayed an overall reduction, decreasing by 2.6% overall. Natural vegetation (grassland, forest, and shrubland), cultivated land, water bodies and wetlands have displayed increasing trends at different rates. (3) The amount of precipitation and degree of drought are the driving factors that affect natural vegetation. The changes in cultivated land are mainly affected by precipitation and anthropogenic drivers. The effects of increasing urban populations and expanding industrial development are the factors driving the expansion of urban regions. The advantages and uncertainties arising from the land mapping and change detection method and the complexity of the driving mechanisms are also discussed.
Noncovalent macrocycle‐confined supramolecular purely organic room‐temperature phosphorescence (RTP) is a current research hotspot. Herein, a high‐efficiency noncovalent polymerization‐activated ...near‐infrared (NIR)‐emissive RTP‐harvesting system in aqueous solution based on the stepwise confinement of cucurbit7uril (CB7) and β‐cyclodextrin‐grafted hyaluronic acid (HACD), is reported. Compared with the dodecyl‐chain‐bridged 6‐bromoisoquinoline derivative (G), the dumbbell‐shaped assembly G⊂CB7 presents an appeared complexation‐induced RTP signal at 540 nm via the first confinement of CB7. Subsequently, benefitting from the stepwise confinement encapsulation of the β‐cyclodextrin cavity, the subsequent noncovalent polymerization of the binary G⊂CB7 assembly enabled by HACD can contribute to the further‐enhanced RTP emission intensity approximately eight times in addition to an increased lifetime from 59.0 µs to 0.581 ms. Moreover, upon doping a small amount of two types of organic dyes, Nile blue or tetrakis(4‐sulfophenyl)porphyrin as an acceptor into the supramolecular confinement assembly G⊂CB7 @ HACD, efficient RTP energy transfer occurs accompanied by a long‐lived NIR‐emitting performance (680 and 710 nm) with a high donor/acceptor ratio. Intriguingly, the prepared RTP‐harvesting system is successfully applied for targeted NIR imaging of living tumor cells by utilizing the targeting ability of hyaluronic acid, which provides a new strategy to create advanced water‐soluble NIR phosphorescent materials.
A highly efficient noncovalent polymerization‐activated phosphorescence‐harvesting system is successfully constructed in aqueous solution based on the stepwise confinement of cucurbit7uril and β‐cyclodextrin‐grafted hyaluronic acid, which shows high phosphorescence energy transfer efficiency accompanied by a long‐lived near‐infrared (NIR) emitting performance, and is ultimately applied for NIR targeted imaging of cancer cells.
Sludge disposal is an integral part of wastewater treatment systems, and its cost usually accounts for more than half of the total operation cost. Sludge disposal technology is facing challenges and ...opportunities simultaneously and can still be improved. Sludge dewatering is an essential process in sludge disposal, and it is important for the effective reduction of the final processing cost. Coagulation/flocculation is a relatively mature, cost-effective, user-friendly sludge dewatering technology. In this work, coagulation/flocculation and their combinations with other pretreatments, including dewatering mechanisms, are reviewed. Various coagulants/flocculants used in sludge dewatering, including inorganic coagulants, organic synthetic and natural polymeric flocculants, and bioflocculants, are introduced in detail because coagulants/flocculants are the key in coagulation/flocculation. The different factors that influence the dewatering performance of these coagulants/flocculants are also presented briefly. Moreover, aiming at the complicated composition of sludge and its treatment difficulty, the prospects and technical developments of coagulation/flocculation in sludge dewatering are discussed.
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•Characteristics of different components in sludge and their detection methods.•External and internal factors of coagulation/flocculation on sludge dewatering.•Comparison and assessment of different coagulants/flocculants in sludge dewatering.•Combination of coagulation/flocculation with other techniques and their mechanisms.•Prospects and technical developments of coagulation/flocculation in sludge dewatering.
Current international guidelines recommend aerobic, resistance, and combined exercises for the management of type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM). In our study, we conducted a network meta-analysis to ...assess the comparative impact of different exercise training modalities on glycemic control, cardiovascular risk factors, and weight loss in patients with T2DM.
We searched five electronic databases to identify randomized controlled trials (RCTs) that compared the differences between different exercise training modalities for patients with T2DM. The risk of bias in the included RCTs was evaluated according to the Cochrane tool. Network meta-analysis was performed to calculate mean difference the ratio of the mean and absolute risk differences. Data were analyzed using R-3.4.0.
A total of 37 studies with 2208 patients with T2DM were included in our study. Both supervised aerobic and supervised resistance exercises showed a significant reduction in HbA1c compared to no exercise (0.30% lower, 0.30% lower, respectively), however, there was a less reduction when compared to combined exercise (0.17% higher, 0.23% higher). Supervised aerobic also presented more significant improvement than no exercise in fasting plasma glucose (9.38 mg/dl lower), total cholesterol (20.24 mg/dl lower), triacylglycerol (19.34 mg/dl lower), and low-density lipoprotein cholesterol (11.88 mg/dl lower). Supervised resistance showed more benefit than no exercise in improving systolic blood pressure (3.90 mmHg lower) and total cholesterol (22.08 mg/dl lower. In addition, supervised aerobic exercise was more powerful in improving HbA1c and weight loss than unsupervised aerobic (HbA1c: 0.60% lower; weight loss: 5.02 kg lower) and unsupervised resistance (HbA1c: 0.53% lower) exercises.
Compared with either supervised aerobic or supervised resistance exercise alone, combined exercise showed more pronounced improvement in HbA1c levels; however, there was a less marked improvement in some cardiovascular risk factors. In terms of weight loss, there were no significant differences among the combined, supervised aerobic, and supervised resistance exercises.
Our study protocol was registered with the International Prospective Register of Systematic Reviews (PROSPERO); registration number: CRD42017067518 .
In this study, an acid-treated palygorskite (PAL-O) with negatively charged layers has been used as an adsorbent for the removal of various types of ionic dyes including cationic crystal violet (CV), ...cationic light yellow (7GL), and methylene blue (MB) and anionic methyl orange (MO) and acid green 25 (AG25) ones from water. PAL-O showed efficient performance in the adsorption of all three cationic dyes because of electrostatic interactions. As regards the two anionic dyes, PAL-O also exhibited good adsorption efficiency for MO but had almost no effect on AG25. For detailed investigation of the adsorption mechanisms, PAL-O has been further treated by soxhlet extraction, using distilled water as solvent, to remove water-soluble matter such as metal ions. The efficiencies of the purified palygorskite (PAL-P) for adsorption of cationic dyes were slightly increased, but that of MO adsorption decreased evidently. This result indicated that the metal ions on the palygorskite played an important bridging effect for adsorption of anionic dyes. However, minimal AG25 uptake may occur because this bridging effect was too weak to be bonded for much stronger electrostatic repulsions between AG25 and palygorskite. In general, the charge properties and molecular structures of dyes play important roles in their adsorption behaviors.
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•Palygorskite (PAL) shows efficient adsorption of cationic dyes for electrostatic interaction.•The metal ions on PAL act as bridges for efficient adsorption of anionic dyes.•Various dyes have different bonded manners with PAL for their distinct structures.•Charge property and molecular structure of dye play important roles in adsorption.
Two series of cellulose-based antiscalants with different chain architectures, i.e., linear carboxymethyl cellulose (CMC) and branch-shaped carboxymethyl cellulose-graft-poly(acrylic acid) ...(CMC-g-PAA), were synthesized. The carboxyl groups were distributed on CMC backbone but mainly on the grafted chains of CMC-g-PAA. The addition of CMC and CMC-g-PAA can both increase the surface energy of CaCO
scale and decrease its crystal nucleation rate, thereby inhibiting CaCO
scale formation. The structural effects of these cellulose-based antiscalants, especially the chain architectures, on the scale inhibition were investigated in detail. High degree of carboxymethyl substitution caused better inhibition effect of linear CMC. However, CMC-g-PAA with an appropriate content of carboxyl groups but high average number of PAA grafted chains can achieve high inhibition performance. Besides, with similar contents of carboxyl groups, CMC-g-PAA showed much better inhibition performance than CMC due to the distinct multi-dimensional spatial structure of graft copolymer in solution, causing the enhanced chelation and dispersion effects. Characterization of CaCO
crystal by scanning electron microscopy and X-ray diffraction confirmed that crystal distortion effect obviously existed in CMC but quite minor in CMC-g-PAA. The differences between the scale-inhibition performance of CMC and CMC-g-PAA should be attributed to the different scale-inhibition mechanisms originated in their distinct chain architectures.
Three different starch-based flocculants with various chain architectures and charge properties have been prepared through etherification, graft copolymerization, or their combination. Two of the ...flocculants (starch-graft-poly(2-methacryloyloxyethyl) trimethyl ammonium chloride and starch-3-chloro-2-hydroxypropyl triethyl ammonium chloride, denoted as STC-g-PDMC and STC-CTA respectively) are cationic, and another one (carboxymethyl starch-graft-poly(2-methacryloyloxyethyl) trimethyl ammonium chloride, denoted as CMS-g-PDMC) is amphoteric. Those three flocculants have shown far different flocculation efficiency and floc properties for the removal of humic acid (HA) from water due to their distinct structural features. The effects of pH, flocculant dose, and initial HA concentration have been studied systematically. Accordingly, STC-g-PDMC and CMS-g-PDMC with strongly cationic branch chains have much better flocculation performance than polyaluminum chloride (PAC) and STC-CTA, the latter of which features linear chain architecture and strongly cationic pieces lying on its chain backbone. It indicates that the architecture of cationic branch chains plays an important role in HA flocculation due to their significantly enhanced bridging effects. Moreover, STC-g-PDMC has higher HA removal efficiency and better floc properties than CMS-g-PDMC, suggesting that charge neutralization effects make notable contributions to HA removal and that the additional anionic pieces on CMS-g-PDMC can weaken its flocculation performance. In addition, STC-g-PDMC used as coagulant aid for PAC has also been tried, which observably reduces the optimal dose of the inorganic coagulant.
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•Three different starch-based flocculants have been prepared.•Those flocculants have various chain architectures and charge properties.•Effects of chain architectures on flocculation of humic acid (HA) have been studied.•Flocculants with cationic branch chains own better HA flocculation performance.•Structure-activity relationship of starch-based flocculants has been built.
The outbreak of COVID-19 in 2019 has had a profound impact on the overseas education industry, resulting in widespread enterprise self-protection measures such as layoffs, institutional ...restructuring, marketing strategy adjustments, downsizing and even bankruptcy. Numerous enterprises have proactively adjusted their marketing strategies through rapid and differentiated management methods to navigate and thrive during the epidemic. This paper primarily investigates the differentiated market strategy of the overseas study industry, analyzes the significance of differentiated management for overseas study enterprises, discusses the perspective of differentiation in formulating market strategies within the overseas study industry, and proposes specific countermeasures with an aim to provide impetus for the development of large, medium-sized, small, and micro-scale overseas study enterprises in this sector.
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