The role of urban carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions has attracted city authorities' attention. Several entities face challenges when developing inventory method for local communities, due to limited ...data. This study proposes a top-down method to estimate CO2 emissions at an urban scale, using nighttime light imagery and statistical energy data. We find that nighttime light imagery is appropriate in CO2 estimations at an urban scale. The proposed method is particularly significant for the developing countries, of which CO2 emissions increase rapidly but lack in energy data at an urban scale. It also contains some limitations due to the inherent shortcomings of the data sources and methodological errors. It has very limited value when applying in urban areas with rare population. A case study is implemented in urban China. The results show that the share of urban emissions increases over the period of 1995–2010. Meanwhile, per capita CO2 emissions in China continuously grow, the values of which are much higher than the national averages. In a spatiotemporal perspective, per capita CO2 emissions in eastern coastal China are lower than that in inland China. These results have significant implications for local authorities to guide their policies in carbon reduction and climate change.
•We develop a top-down method to estimate the CO2 emissions at an urban scale.•The proposed method is particularly significant for the developing counties.•This method has limited value in urban areas with rare population.•Both the share of urban CO2 emissions and per capita emissions in China have increased.
Procrastination behavior is prevalent among nursing students in China. However, little research has examined how mindfulness is associated with procrastination behavior, via achievement motivation ...among nursing students. The aims of this study were to investigate the relationship between procrastination behavior, mindfulness and achievement motivation, and explore the mediating effect of achievement motivation on mindfulness and procrastination behavior of nursing students. A correlational cross-sectional study was performed using an online questionnaire. The study was conducted from January to March 2022 among 632 students from 1 university. A general information questionnaire, Achievement Motivation Scale, Five Facet Mindfulness Questionnaire and General Procrastination Scale (GPS) were used for investigation. Calculations were performed using SPSS Statistics, version 25. Descriptive statistics, correlation, and process plug-in mediation effect analyses were used to analyze the data. A total of 640 questionnaires were issued and 632 valid questionnaires were finally recovered, with an effective recovery rate of 98.75%. The GPS score of 632 nursing undergraduates was (55.80 ± 6.57), achievement motivation scale score was (-2.49 ± 8.73), Five Facet Mindfulness Questionnaire score was (118.21 ± 18.39). Achievement motivation and psychological capital were all negatively correlated with procrastination behavior (r = -0.291, -0.483; P < .01). Achievement motivation played a partial mediating role between mindfulness and procrastination behavior, and the mediating effect accounted for 59.82% of the total effect. The procrastination behavior of nursing undergraduates is at the middle level. Mindfulness can influence procrastination behavior through achievement motivation. Measures are needed to decrease the procrastination behavior by developing mindfulness programs to increase their achievement motivation.
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to evaluate the efficacy and safety of colonic stenting as a bridge to surgery versus emergency surgery for acute left-sided malignant colonic obstruction.
...Methods
Randomized clinical trials (RCT) that compared the efficacy or safety of preoperative colonic stents versus emergency surgery for acute left-sided malignant colonic obstruction were searched in medical databases, including PubMed, OVID, EMBASE, and the Cochrane Library. Statistical heterogeneity between trials was evaluated by Revman 5.1 and was considered to exist at
I
2
> 50 %.
Results
Seven RCTs were identified. There was a total of 382 patients, 195 who received a colonic stent and 187 who received emergency surgery. Compared with the emergency surgery group, the colonic stent group achieved significantly more favorable rates of permanent stoma, primary anastomosis, wound infection, and overall complications. There was no significant difference between the two groups in anastomotic leakage, mortality, or intra-abdominal infection. Inspection of funnel plots for all outcome measures did not reveal evidence of publication bias.
Conclusions
Self-expanding metal stents serve as a safe and effective bridge to subsequent surgery in patients with obstructing left-sided colon cancer. They can significantly improve one-stage surgery rates, and decrease the rates of permanent stoma and wound infection.
Due to its super thermal stability, inorganic CsPbI2Br perovskite has attracted more and more attention in the field of photovoltaic application. However, its device performance, as reported to date, ...is greatly challenged in preparing CsPbI2Br films with both sufficient absorbance and high quality. Herein, crystallization engineering is applied in producing solution-processed CsPbI2Br film to guarantee sufficient light harvesting and effective carrier extraction. Further study proves that the precursor solution temperature would largely affect the crystallization progress: (1) the nucleation step is highly related to the solubility of precursor in a specific solvent or solvents at elevated temperatures; (2) the crystal growth rate is highly related to the solvent evaporation rate. To obtain thick film with larger crystalline grain size, the precursor solution temperature should be carefully adjusted for both suppressing the formation of too many nuclei and increasing the crystallization rate at the same time. Finally, the optimized CsPbI2Br would be obtained when the precursor solution is maintained at 100 °C, the corresponding device shows a stabilized efficiency as high as 14.81%. As far as we know, this is the highest PCE for the CsPbBrI2 perovskite based solar cells.
Herein, the correlation between crystallization and external factors (solubility and solvent evaporation rate) is conducted for solution-processed CsPbI2Br film. With moderate precursor solution temperature, homogenous, pinhole-free, large crystalline grain size and thick CsPbI2Br film was obtained, which effectively increased the light absorption, and decreased recombination loss. As a result, the optimized champion device achieved long-term stabilized PCE of 14.81%. Display omitted
•Nucleation step and crystallization rate are highly related to the solubility and solvent evaporation rate, respectively.•By carefully adjusted the crystallization process, thick CsPbI2Br film with larger crystalline grain size is obtained.•The device shows a stabilized PCE of 14.81%, which is the highest PCE for the CsPbBrI2 solar cells to data.
Patient-centered nursing holistic care is of utmost important to the nursing profession, and humanistic care cultivation has become a global nursing education concern. This study aimed to examine the ...relationship among emotional intelligence, empathy and humanistic care ability in nursing students, and to determine whether positive emotional intelligence could mediate the relationship between empathy and humanistic care ability. This study used a cross-sectional, descriptive design. A total of 323 nursing students was enrolled from one medical university in Heilongjiang Province, China. The emotional intelligence questionnaires, empathy scale and humanistic care ability scale were used to quantify participants' responses. There was no significant difference in gender, residence, single-child family and leader experience of nursing students' humanistic care ability. However, the significant differences were found in grade (t = 4.55, P < .01) and major interests (t = 7.06, P < .01). Obviously, there was positive correlation between positive emotional intelligence and empathy (R = 0.37, P < .01), and positive correlation between humanistic care ability and emotional intelligence (R = 0.62, P < .01), and empathy (R = 0.57, P < .01). Furthermore, emotional intelligence (β = 0.21, P < .01) had a significant mediating effect on the relationship between humanistic care ability and empathy. Nurse educators should improve the empathy of nursing students by developing and implementing emotional intelligence programs, in order to improve their humanistic care ability.
Single crystalline perovskites exhibit high optical absorption, long carrier lifetime, large carrier mobility, low trap-state-density and high defect tolerance. Unfortunately, all single crystalline ...perovskites attained so far are limited to bulk single crystals and small area wafers. As such, it is impossible to design highly demanded flexible single-crystalline electronics and wearable devices including displays, touch sensing devices, transistors, etc. Herein we report a method of induced peripheral crystallization to prepare large area flexible single-crystalline membrane (SCM) of phenylethylamine lead iodide (C
H
C
H
NH
)
PbI
with area exceeding 2500 mm
and thinness as little as 0.6 μm. The ultrathin flexible SCM exhibits ultralow defect density, superior uniformity and long-term stability. Using the superior ultrathin membrane, a series of flexible photosensors were designed and fabricated to exhibit very high external quantum efficiency of 26530%, responsivity of 98.17 A W
and detectivity as much as 1.62 × 10
cm Hz
W
(Jones).
Study Objective
The optimal pharmacodynamic parameter for the prediction of efficacy of vancomycin is the area under the concentration–time curve (AUC), and current published data indicate that ...dosing based on vancomycin trough concentrations is an inaccurate substitute. In this study, our objective was to compare the achievement of therapeutic target attainment after switching from a trough‐based to an AUC‐based dosing strategy as a part of our institution's vancomycin‐per‐pharmacy protocol.
Design
Prospective observational quality assurance study.
Setting
Academic medical center.
Patients
A total of 296 hospitalized adults who received vancomycin and monitoring under our institution's vancomycin‐per‐pharmacy protocol were included in the analysis. The preimplementation retrospective comparison group consisted of 179 patients in whom vancomycin was initiated using a trough‐based dosing strategy between November 22, 2017, and January 22, 2018. The postimplementation group included 117 patients in whom vancomycin was initiated using an AUC‐based dosing strategy using two‐point sampling between June 19, 2018, and July 19, 2018, after hospital‐wide implementation of this protocol on June 19, 2018.
Measurements and Main Results
AUC values were calculated from two vancomycin concentrations (peak and trough). The primary outcome was achievement of therapeutic AUC values (400–800 mg·hr/L) in the postimplementation group or therapeutic trough level values (10–20 mg/L) in the preimplementation group. Only 98 (55%) of 179 initial trough values were therapeutic in the preimplementation group (trough‐only dosing method) versus 86 (73.5%) of 117 initial AUC values in the postimplementation group (AUC‐based dosing method) (p=0.0014). A lower proportion of supratherapeutic AUC values was observed in the postimplementation group compared with supratherapeutic trough concentrations in the preimplementation group (1.7% vs 18%, p<0.0001). Overall, 62% of patients with initially therapeutic AUC values had subsequent trough value increases of 25% or greater, occurring at a median of 6 days of vancomycin therapy. Nephrotoxicity occurred in 11% of patients in the preimplementation versus 9.4% in the postimplementation group (p=0.70).
Conclusion
Compared with a trough concentration–based dosing strategy, AUC‐based dosing using two‐point sampling improved therapeutic target attainment. Implementation is feasible at any hospital that performs vancomycin peak concentration testing and is a workable alternative to using Bayesian software for estimating AUC. This approach should also be directly compared with AUC‐based dosing using Bayesian software.
Global wind power expansion raises concerns about its potential impact on plant biomass production (PBP). Using a high-dimensional fixed effects model, this study reveals significant PBP reduction ...due to wind farm construction based on 2404 wind farms, 108,361 wind turbines, and 7,904,352 PBP observations during 2000-2022 in China. Within a 1-10 km buffer, the normalized differential vegetation and enhanced vegetation indices decrease from 0.0097 to 0.0045 and 0.0075 to 0.0028, respectively. Similarly, absorbed photosynthetically active radiation and gross primary productivity decline from 0.0094 to 0.0034% and 0.0003-0.0002 g*C/m
within a 1-7 km buffer. Adverse effects last over three years, magnified in summer and autumn, and are more pronounced at lower altitudes and in plains. Forest carbon sinks decrease by 12,034 tons within a 0-20 km radius, causing an average economic loss of $1.81 million per wind farm. Our findings underscore the balanced mitigation strategies for renewable energy transition when transiting from fossil fuels.
The green synthesis of silver nanoparticles (AgNPs) using a water extract of Ginger (Zingiber officinale) root by microwave irradiation and its antibacterial activities have been reported. However, ...AgNPs prepared from different parts of ginger root water or ethanol extract by ultrasound synthesis and their antioxidant activity and whether the biogenic could be used to catalyze the reduction of hazardous dye are unknown. This study concentrated on the facile green synthesis of AgNPs prepared from different parts (unpeeled ginger, peeled ginger, and ginger peel) of ginger root water or ethanol extract by the ultrasound-assisted method. We studied their antioxidant activity and catalytic degradation of hazardous dye Direct Orange 26 (DO26) and Direct Blue 15 (DB15). The surface plasmon resonance (SPR) peak of AgNPs was at 428-443 nm. The biogenic AgNPs were approximately 2 nm in size with a regular spherical shape identified from TEM analysis. The ethanol extracts of dried unpeeled ginger and peeled ginger, fresh peeled ginger and ginger peel. The Z. officinale AgNPs synthesized by dried unpeeled ginger ethanol extract showed the best antioxidant activity. Their scavenging activities were significantly better than BHT (p <0.05). The different parts of ginger extracts showed no catalytic degradation activities of DB15 and DO26. Still, the synthesized Z. officinale AgNPs exhibited good catalytic degradation activities, while their ability to catalytic degradation to DB15 was better than DO26. In the additive ratio of 3 mL DB15, 0.1 mL NaBH4 and 0.1 mL AgNPs, the degradation rates of DB15 (or DO26) at 15 min, 30 min and 60 min were only 1.8% (0.9%), 2.8% (1.4%) and 3.5% (1.6%) in the absence of AgNPs. When adding Z. officinale AgNPs prepared from dried ginger peel ethanol extract or fresh ginger peel water extract, the degradation rates of DB15 sharply increased to 97% and 93% after 30 min, respectively. In conclusion, ginger extract has good antioxidant properties. Z. officinale AgNPs biosynthesis from ginger extract exhibit excellent catalytic degradation activities, especially for the ginger peel extract. They have application value in the treatment of textile effluents and provide a new idea and method for the comprehensive development and utilization of ginger resources.
The fungi present during pile-fermentation of Sichuan dark tea play a pivotal role in the development of its aroma and physical characteristics. Samples of tea leaves were collected on days 0 (YC-raw ...material), 8 (W1-first turn), 16 (W2-second turn), 24 (W3-third turn), and 32 (W4-out of pile) during pile-fermentation. High-throughput sequencing revealed seven phyla, 22 classes, 41 orders, 85 families, 128 genera, and 184 species of fungi. During fermentation, the fungal diversity index declined from the W1 to W3 stages and then increased exponentially at the W4 stage. A bar plot and heatmap revealed that
,
,
,
,
,
, and
were abundant during piling, of which
was the most abundant. Cluster analysis revealed that the W4 stage of fermentation is critical for fungal growth, diversity, and the community structure in Sichuan dark tea. This study revealed the role of fungi during pile-fermentation in the development of the essence and physical characteristics of Sichuan dark tea. This study comes under one of the Sustainable Development Goals of United Nations Organization (UNO) to "Establish Good Health and Well-Being."
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