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On 1 January 2016, China further relaxed its family planning policy and adopted the universal two-child policy, which allows any Chinese couple to have two children to address the country’s increasingly severe ageing problems and low fertility. With this shift comes a direct and profound impact on society, especially women; this paper evaluates the effect of the universal two-child policy on the gender wage gap and its mechanism. Several major conclusions emerge from this analysis. The policy significantly expands the urban gender wage gap by 12.86% in the low-policy-fertility-rate (PFR) provinces versus high-PFR provinces. Evidently, it increases the gap among younger or lower-educated people. Moreover, the severity of gender discrimination in the labour market after the implementation of the universal two-child policy is rising, and deserves further attention.
Knowledge of clay mineralogy is essential for understanding the source areas and weathering environments of fluvial sediments, particularly in large reservoirs facing serious problems with sediment deposition, such as the Three Gorges Reservoir (TGR) in east-central China. The purpose of the present study was to identify the sediment provenances and weathering regimes contributing to the sediment load in the TGR by determining the clay-mineral and geochemical compositions of surface sediments during various seasons. X-ray diffractometry and scanning electron microscopy (SEM) were used to identify the clay minerals. The results showed that illite was the dominant mineral, followed in order by kaolinite, chlorite, and montmorillonite. From a mineralogical perspective, distal sources were the main contributors to the TGR sediments, and regional sources (surrounding tributaries) also contributed much during the three seasons, while proximal sources (hillslope soils) supplied sediment in the flood season but not in the other two seasons. The geochemical and hydrological data generally supported the mineralogical results. In the flood season, the chemical indices of the TGR sediments were >0.4, showing that the sediments contained Al-rich illite minerals and experienced intense hydrolysis. In the other two seasons the TGR sediments were enriched in Fe- and Mg-rich illite minerals, resulting from strong physical weathering. Furthermore, precipitation, rather than air temperature or latitude, was the factor that controlled weathering intensity. These findings provide deep insights into the sediment cycle and chemical weathering in this large reservoir basin.
Our previous studies have suggested that spastin, which aggregates on spindle microtubules in oocytes, may promote the assembly of mouse oocyte spindles by cutting microtubules. This action may be related to CRMP5, as knocking down CRMP5 results in reduced spindle microtubule density and maturation defects in oocytes. In this study, we found that, after knocking down CRMP5 in oocytes, spastin distribution shifted from the spindle to the spindle poles and errors in microtubule–kinetochore attachment appeared in oocyte spindles. However, CRMP5 did not interact with the other two microtubule-severing proteins, katanin-like-1 (KATNAL1) and fidgetin-like-1 (FIGNL1), which aggregate at the spindle poles. We speculate that, in oocytes, due to the reduction of spastin distribution on chromosomes after knocking down CRMP5, microtubule–kinetochore errors cannot be corrected through severing, resulting in meiotic division abnormalities and maturation defects in oocytes. This finding provides new insights into the regulatory mechanisms of spastin in oocytes and important opportunities for the study of meiotic division mechanisms.
The flow-induced snap-through dynamics of a buckled flexible filament was explored using the penalty immersed boundary method. The effects of the filament length, bending rigidity and Reynolds number on the mode transition were systematically examined. Three different modes were observed when the aforementioned parameters were varied: an equilibrium mode, a streamwise oscillation mode and a snap-through oscillation mode. Two mode transitions occurred when the bending rigidity was lowered and the length and Reynolds number were increased: a direct transition from the equilibrium mode to the snap-through oscillation mode and the successive appearance of the three modes. An increase in transverse fluid force induced the snap-through oscillation mode. A vortex-induced vibration and a self-excited vibration occurred in the streamwise oscillation mode and the snap-through oscillation mode, respectively. A wake pattern of 2S appeared in the streamwise oscillation mode, and a pattern of 2S + 2P appeared in the snap-through oscillation mode. A hysteresis was observed near the critical Reynolds number. The hysteresis loop increased in magnitude with increasing bending rigidity. The greater energy harvesting was achieved by the larger deflection and the higher strain energy. We found that most of the strain energy was concentrated in the last half of the filament.
Placental trophoblastic cells play important roles in placental development and fetal health. However, the mechanism of trophoblastic cell fusion is still not entirely clear. The level of Tspan5 in the embryo culture medium was detected using enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA). Fusion of BeWo cells was observed by immunofluorescence. Cell fusion-related factors and EMT-related factors were identified by qRT-PCR and western blotting. Notch protein repressor DAPT was used to verify the role of Tspan5 in BeWo cells. The expression of Tspan5 was significantly increased in embryo culture medium. The fusion of BeWo cells was observed after treatment with forskolin (FSK). Cell fusion-related factors (i.e. β-hCG and syncytin 1/2) and Tspan5 were significantly increased after FSK treatment. In addition, FSK treatment promoted EMT-related protein expression in BeWo cells. Knockdown of Tspan5 inhibited cell fusion and EMT-related protein levels. Notch-1 and Jagged-1 protein levels were significantly upregulated, and the EMT process was activated by overexpression of Tspan5 in FSK-treated BeWo cells. Interestingly, blocking the Notch pathway by the repressor DAPT had the opposite results. These results indicated that Tspan5 could promote the EMT process by activating the Notch pathway, thereby causing cell fusion. These findings contribute to a better understanding of trophoblast cell syncytialization and embryonic development. Tspan5 may be used as a therapeutic target for normal placental development.
To alleviate the imbalance in demographics, the Chinese government initiated the universal two-child policy nationwide in 2016, which has comprehensively impacted society, especially females. Our study investigates whether this policy has negatively affected workforce employment and income among women in urban areas. Based on the DID (difference-in-differences) method and the Heckman Two-Step Estimation, reliable empirical evidence shows that the universal two-child policy has significantly reduced women’s employment by 4.06% and decreased their labour income by 10.43%. Surprisingly, this policy has decreased the employment among women under 25 years old by 23.99% and has reduced the income of higher educated females by 29.59%. Furthermore, we find that the influence of the universal two-child policy on female employment has gradually increased from 2016 to 2018, and its impact on income has presented an evident time lag.
Hormone-sensitive lipase (HSL) is one of the rate-determining enzymes in the hydrolysis of TAG, playing a crucial role in lipid metabolism. However, the role of HSL-mediated lipolysis in systemic nutrient homoeostasis has not been intensively understood. Therefore, we used CRISPR/Cas9 technique and Hsl inhibitor (HSL-IN-1) to establish hsla-deficient (hsla-/-) and Hsl-inhibited zebrafish models, respectively. As a result, the hsla-/- zebrafish showed retarded growth and reduced oxygen consumption rate, accompanied with higher mRNA expression of the genes related to inflammation and apoptosis in liver and muscle. Furthermore, hsla-/- and HSL-IN-1-treated zebrafish both exhibited severe fat deposition, whereas their expressions of the genes related to lipolysis and fatty acid oxidation were markedly reduced. The TLC results also showed that the dysfunction of Hsl changed the whole-body lipid profile, including increasing the content of TG and decreasing the proportion of phospholipids. In addition, the systemic metabolic pattern was remodelled in hsla-/- and HSL-IN-1-treated zebrafish. The dysfunction of Hsl lowered the glycogen content in liver and muscle and enhanced the utilisation of glucose plus the expressions of glucose transporter and glycolysis genes. Besides, the whole-body protein content had significantly decreased in the hsla-/- and HSL-IN-1-treated zebrafish, accompanied with the lower activation of the mTOR pathway and enhanced protein and amino acid catabolism. Taken together, Hsl plays an essential role in energy homoeostasis, and its dysfunction would cause the disturbance of lipid catabolism but enhanced breakdown of glycogen and protein for energy compensation.
The hydrodynamic mechanism of drag reduction by a flexible hairy coating was explored using the penalty immersed boundary method. A two-dimensional flexible hairy coating is constituted by multiple flexible filaments. A simulation of a cylinder without a hairy coating at a Reynolds number of 100 was also performed for comparison. The results of the simulations show good agreement with the experimental data by Niu & Hu (Phys. Fluids, vol. 23, 2011, 101701), where maximum drag reduction of 22% was attained at a particular length, bending rigidity, coating density and coating angle of the hairy coating. The hydrodynamic mechanism of drag reduction was characterized in terms of the wake pattern, shape deformation and kinetic energy of the hairy coating. The effect of a non-uniform bending rigidity of the hairy coating on drag reduction was explored. A stable streamline shape of the hairy coating was found to delay the vortex formation and stabilize the recirculation zone, resulting in decreased form drag. Active flapping of the hairy coating with enhanced vortex shedding is adverse to drag reduction. A hairy coating with a stiff base and flexible trailing edge is beneficial to maintaining a stable shape.
Although it is hard to give a unified and standardized definition to pro bono, this practice has become increasingly institutionalized worldwide. Driven by transitional legal practice, the global market for legal services, and international rule of law campaigns, pro bono work has taken place not only in developed countries (e.g., the United States, Ireland, Canada, and Austria) but also in developing countries and so-called emerging economies, such as China, India, and Brazil. The International Bar Association (IBA) has done a great deal of work to facilitate pro bono practice throughout the world. An unprecedented international pro bono initiative by the DLA Piper law firm has yielded pro bono lawyers who donated over two hundred thousand hours in 2017. Law schools also participate in this social movement. Law students who take international public interest courses in the United States apply their knowledge in a global setting. Graduates of American law schools have even begun to practice public interest law in other counties. Therefore, pro bono has become a globalized social movement accompanying legal globalization.
People with serious mental illness are at great risk of suicide, but little is known about the suicide rates among this population. We aimed to quantify the suicide rates among people with serious mental illness (bipolar disorder, major depression, or schizophrenia).
Methods
PubMed and Web of Science were searched to identify studies published from 1 January 1975 to 10 December 2020. We assessed English-language studies for the suicide rates among people with serious mental illness. Random-effects meta-analysis was used. Changes in follow-up time and the suicide rates were presented by a locally weighted scatter-plot smoothing (LOESS) curve. Suicide rate ratio was estimated for assessments of difference in suicide rate by sex.
Results
Of 5014 identified studies, 41 were included in this analysis. The pooled suicide rate was 312.8 per 100 000 person-years (95% CI 230.3–406.8). Europe was reported to have the highest pooled suicide rate of 335.2 per 100 000 person-years (95% CI 261.5–417.6). Major depression had the highest suicide rate of 534.3 per 100 000 person-years (95% CI 30.4–1448.7). There is a downward trend in suicide rate estimates over follow-up time. Excess risk of suicide in males was found [1.90 (95% CI 1.60–2.25)]. The most common suicide method was poisoning [21.9 per 100 000 person-years (95% CI 3.7–50.4)].
Conclusions
The suicide rates among people with serious mental illness were high, highlighting the requirements for increasing psychological assessment and monitoring. Further study should focus on region and age differences in suicide among this population.
Potential secondary influences on titanium distribution should be evaluated when using ash beds as volcanic source indicators and for correlation purposes. In this study, well-correlated altered ash beds in Permian–Triassic boundary (PTB) successions of various facies in South China were investigated to better understand their use in source discrimination and stratigraphic correlation. The ash beds deposited in lacustrine and paludal facies contain significantly more Ti relative to deposits in marine facies. Neoformed anatase grains nanometres to micrometres in size are associated closely with clay minerals, whereas detrital anatase was observed in the remnants of altered ash beds of terrestrial facies. Extraction of the clay fraction of altered ash beds may exclude significantly detrital accessory minerals such as anatase and rutile added during sediment reworking, and the concentrations of immobile elements in the clay fraction may therefore be used to interpret more effectively their source igneous rocks.
Few studies have suggested that long-term adherence to low-carbohydrate diets (LCD) may affect maternal glucose metabolism in Western countries. We aimed to investigate the association between LCD during pregnancy and glucose metabolism in a Chinese population. A total of 1018 women in mid-pregnancy were recruited in 2017–2018. Participants underwent a 75 g oral glucose tolerance test (OGTT). Daily dietary intakes over the past month were accessed using a validated FFQ. The overall, animal and vegetable LCD scores which represent adherence to different low-carbohydrate dietary patterns were calculated. Mixed linear regression and generalised linear mixed regression were conducted to evaluate the associations between LCD scores and maternal glucose metabolism. Of the 1018 subjects, 194 (19·1 %) were diagnosed with gestational diabetes mellitus (GDM). The overall LCD score (β: 0·024, se 0·008, PFDR = 0·02) and animal LCD score (β: 0·023, se 0·008, PFDR = 0·02) were positively associated with OGTT 1-h glucose. No significant associations were found between the three different LCD scores with fasting plasma glucose, OGTT 2-h glucose, or insulin resistance, respectively. Compared with the lowest quartile, the crude OR of GDM for the highest quartile were 1·84 (95 % CI 1·14, 2·95) for overall LCD score (Pfor trend = 0·02) and 1·56 (95 % CI 1·00, 2·45) for animal LCD score (Pfor trend = 0·02). However, these associations became non-significant after adjustment for covariates. In conclusion, a low-carbohydrate dietary pattern with high animal protein and fat is associated with higher postprandial 1-h glucose levels in Chinese pregnant women.
A suite of Jurassic–Cretaceous migmatites was newly identified in the Liaodong Peninsula of the eastern North China Craton (NCC). Anatexis is commonly associated with crustal thickening. However, the newly identified migmatites were formed during strong lithospheric thinning accompanied by voluminous magmatism and intense deformation. Field investigations show that the migmatites are spatially associated with low-angle detachment faults. Numerous leucosomes occur either as isolated lenses or thin layers (dykes), parallel to or cross-cutting the foliation. Peritectic minerals such as titanite and sillimanite are distributed mainly along the boundaries of reactant minerals or are accumulated along the foliation. Most zircons show distinct core–rim structures, and the rims have low Th/U ratios (0.01–0.24). Zircon U–Pb dating results indicate that the protoliths of the migmatites were either the Late Triassic (224–221 Ma) diorites or metasedimentary rocks deposited sometime after c. 1857 Ma. The zircon overgrowth rims record crystallization ages of 173–161 Ma and 125 Ma, which represent the formation time of leucosomes. These ages are consistent with those reported magmatic events in the Liaodong Peninsula and surrounding areas. The leucosomes indicate a strong anatectic event during the Jurassic–Cretaceous period. Partial melting occurred through the breakdown of muscovite and biotite with the presence of water-rich fluid under a thermal anomaly regime. The possible mechanism that caused the 173–161 Ma and 125 Ma anatectic events was intimately related to the regional crustal extension during the lithospheric thinning of the NCC. Meanwhile, the newly generated melts further weakened the rigidity of the crust and enhanced the extension.
Disabilities in physical activity and functional independence affect the early rehabilitation of stroke survivors. Moreover, a good instrument for assessing activity disability allows accurate assessment of physical disability and assists in prognosis determination.
Objective:
To compare three assessment tools for physical activity in acute-phase stroke survivors.
Methods:
We conducted this prospective observational study at an affiliated hospital of a Medical University in Shanghai, China, from June 2018 to November 2019. We administered three instruments to all patients during post-stroke days 5–7, including the Modified Barthel Index (MBI), Instrumental Activities of Daily Living (IADL), and modified Rankin scale (mRs). We analyzed correlations among the aforementioned scales and the National Institutes of Health Stroke Scale (NIHSS) using Spearman’s rank-order correlations test. Univariate analyses were performed using the Mann–Whitney U test. We used a binary logistic regression model to assess the association between the NIHSS (30 days) and patient-related variables. Finally, we used receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curves to assess the predictive value of the multivariate regression models.
Results:
There was a high correlation among the three instruments; furthermore, the MBI had a higher correlation with the NIHSS (days 5–7). The NIHSS (day 30) was correlated with thrombolysis. ROC analysis revealed that the mRs-measured disability level had the highest predictive value of short-term stroke severity (30 days).
Conclusion:
The MBI was the best scale for measuring disability in physical activity, whereas the mRs showed better accuracy in short-term prediction of stroke severity.
Bastian, Jetten, and Ferris (2014) reported that shared pain enhances people’s bonding and cooperative behavior, but that shared no-pain has no such effect. They concluded that shared pain is a type of social glue that can improve people’s cooperation. However, in real life, both painful and painless experiences are often nonshared. Logically, the most direct way to determine whether sharing is the important element or not is to compare shared conditions with nonshared conditions. We conducted two experiments to investigate the relative effects of pain and sharing on enhancing people’s bonding and cooperative behavior by adding conditions of unshared pain and unshared no-pain. In experiment 1, we replicated Bastian, Jetten, and Ferris’s (2014) findings, and found that the effect of pain on bonding was mediated by empathy. In experiment 2, we used a 2 (pain/no-pain) × 2 (shared/unshared) design and found that while shared pain still induced more cooperative behavior than shared no-pain, unshared pain did not induce more cooperative behavior than unshared no-pain. Moreover, we found that empathy significantly mediated the relationship between pain and bonding when participants shared the experience. These results suggest that sharing is a necessary component for pain to act as social glue.
Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) observations contain various errors, the separation and measurement of which is a popular research topic. Multipath effect on code measurements is investigated through the multipath combination, but carrier multipath error is small, and it is difficult to distinguish from other errors, such as hardware delay, carrier noise and satellite inherent biases. However, as the number of frequency points increases during the rapid development of GNSSs, it is possible to analyse the abovementioned errors in detail. Triple-frequency combination can be used to eliminate the first order ionospheric error, and a quad-frequency combination has one degree of freedom, which may be used to minimise carrier error effects. For this reason, an optimum method has been developed for multi-frequency GNSS code-multipath combination measurements, which has been verified by exploiting BeiDou System (BDS), three frequency data from an International GNSS Service (IGS) station and a city canyon as well as actual sampled quad-frequency data. By comparative analysis, we found that the fluctuations of an optimum triple-frequency combination are smaller than that of the non-optimum combination, which decreases the influence of inherent errors and biases on carrier phase. At the same time, second-order ionospheric error can be effectively eliminated as well. This provides a new code-multipath combination measurement optimisation methodology for future multi-frequency BDS and other GNSSs.
Nanotechnology has been considered as a promising strategy for diagnosis and treatment of various diseases. However, the stability and circulation times of the conventional nano-carriers, such as liposomes and micelles, are still unsatisfied. Perfluorocarbons (PFCs) are biologic inert synthetic materials, which are highly hydrophobic and have a tendency to self-aggregation. Additionally, PFCs themselves can act as 19F magnetic resonance imaging agents and oxygen carriers. Thus, the construction of the fluorinated carriers will not only improve the stability of the carriers, but also endow them with additional functions. Here we review the recent advances of PFC-based nanosystems for diagnosis and treatment of diseases.
The Chinese government has recently expanded the scope of urban social insurance programmes. However, social protection for the labour force of the urban informal sector, which reaches about half the number of urban workers, lags significantly behind. This under-coverage may be due to institutional constraints, particularly the household registration system hukou, and self-selection behaviour related to the limited benefits of social insurance. Drawing on a recent nationwide individual-level survey and city-level statistics, this study examines these two explanations for the under-enrolment on the social insurance programme. First, results suggest that hukou and the intergovernmental fiscal system are major institutional constraints. Second, self-selection behaviour in programme enrolment is verified. Employers in the informal sector are likely to opt out of social insurance. More importantly, employers in the informal sector, with rural or non-local hukou, are likely to opt out of social insurance, which suggests that self-selection behaviour is constrained by institutions. Such findings have important implications for broad theoretical and policy debates on universal social protection.