Vehicle emission and atmospheric pollution in China: problems, progress, and prospects

China has been the largest vehicle market in the world since 2009. The stalemate between the rapid development of the vehicle industry and delayed vehicle emission control has become increasingly prominent. Vehicle emission has become a significant source of air pollution in China’s cities. Understanding the current barriers in the vehicle industry is necessary for the development of effective and sustainable measures and policy to manage vehicle-induced air pollution. This review provides insight into the circumstances and causes of vehicle-induced air pollution and outlines recent progress in policy-makers’ long-term strategies and regulations. The development of an integrated mechanism of social participation, technical revolution, and regulatory innovation in vehicles, fuel, and roads is suggested to break the stalemate between air pollution and the automobile boom in China; the implications of this review extend to other countries facing the similar atmospheric pollution problems

Dynamic analysis of floating wind turbines subjected to deterministic wind gusts

A wind turbine converts kinematic energy to electrical energy, and can be designed from onshore to offshore operation, then from shallow water to deep water. Compared to onshore wind turbines, floating wind turbines face more complicated environment conditions. To guarantee stability of floating wind turbines in various environment conditions, extreme wind and wave loads should be studied. This thesis focuses on the dynamic response in time domain under extreme deterministic wind gusts, in a return period of 50 years, for which simulations are carried out in order to assess the turbine’s performance and build a database: softwares SIMA, FAST and Matlab are used for the task. Based on equations of motion of platform, a simplified dynamic wind turbine model inspired by the DTU 10-MW RWT is built in Matlab to study extreme response subjected to deterministic gusts defined in DNV-OSJ103: Design of Floating Wind Turbine Structures. The simple model includes generator torque and a blade pitch control system converted from the NREL 5-MW turbine source code in FAST, written in Fortran. Extreme loads on the mooring system can be assessed by surge and pitch offsets of the platform in the output. Contrasting results from SIMA and Matlab and analyzing different gust shapes, the extreme (worst) deterministic gust are found

Heintze-Karcher inequality for anisotropic free boundary hypersurfaces in convex domains

In this paper, we prove an optimal Heintze-Karcher-type inequality for anisotropic free boundary hypersurfaces in general convex domains. The equality is achieved for anisotropic free boundary Wulff shapes in a convex cone. As applications, we prove various Alexandrov-type theorems.Comment: 15 pages, 1 figur

Alexandrov's theorem for anisotropic capillary hypersurfaces in the half-space

In this paper, we show that any embedded capillary hypersurface in the half-space with anisotropic constant mean curvature is a truncated Wulff shape. This extends Wente's result \cite{Wente80} to the anisotropic case and He-Li-Ma-Ge's result \cite{HLMG09} to the capillary boundary case. The main ingredients in the proof are a new Heintze-Karcher inequality and a new Minkowski formula, which have their own inetrest.Comment: 16 page

Insurance-based compensation for adverse reactions following immunization in Wuxi City, Jiangsu Province from 2020 to 2022

ObjectiveTo assess the implementation of insurance-based compensation for adverse reactions following immunization in Wuxi City,Jiangsu Province.MethodsData on basic insurance and supplementary insurance for adverse reactions following immunization from 2020 to 2022 in Wuxi City was collected, and a descriptive epidemiological method was used to analyze the data.ResultsA total of 2 272 cases were compensated for adverse reactions following immunization,with a total compensation amount of 5.255 9 million yuan, and an average of 2.3 thousand yuan per case. Basic insurance accounted for 0.62% of the total cases and 10.72% of the total compensation amount, while supplementary insurance accounted for 99.43% of the total cases and 89.28% of the total compensation amount. Compensation amounts for disability and third-degree damage in basic insurance accounted for 63.18% and 88.71%, respectively, while fourth-degree and lower damage in supplementary insurance accounted for 96.52%. The compensation rate for supplementary insurance was higher than that for basic insurance. The highest number of compensated cases was in the 0‒ year age group, and vaccines included in the Expanded Program on Immunization (EPI) accounted for the majority of the cases and compensation amounts, with a percentage of 70.11% and 73.84%, respectively. For basic insurance, the largest number of compensated cases involved the Bacillus Calmette-Guérin (BCG) vaccine. For supplementary insurance, the top three compensated cases for EPI vaccines were the measles-mumps-rubella (MMR) vaccine, the hepatitis B (HepB) vaccine, and the acellular diphtheria-tetanus-pertussis (DTaP) vaccine. For non-EPI vaccines, the top three compensated cases were the 13 valent pneumococcal polysaccharide conjugate (PPCV13) vaccine, the acellular DPT-inactivated poliovirus-haemophilus influenzae type b combined vaccine (DPT-IPV/Hib), and enterovirus 71 (EV71) inactivated vaccine. In basic insurance, thrombocytopenic purpura and BCG local abscess both accounted for 21.43% of the cases, while in supplementary insurance, respiratory system diseases accounted for 77.47% of the cases. The time intervals from reporting to submission of compensation materials (<31 d) and from submission to payment of compensation (≤14 d) were 71.43% and 57.14% for basic insurance, and 90.22% and 86.23% for supplementary insurance, respectively.ConclusionThe commercial supplementary insurance for adverse reactions following immunization in Wuxi City has largely compensated for the limitations of basic insurance in terms of coverage and efficiency. It is recommended to further promote commercial compensation insurance for young children and strengthen the monitoring and regulation of commercial supplementary insurance compensation

Research progress and scientific challenges in the depressurization exploitation mechanism of clayey-silt natural gas hydrates in the northern South China Sea

Natural gas hydrate reservoirs in the northern South China Sea primarily comprise clayey silt, making exploitation more challenging relative to sandy reservoirs in other countries and regions. This paper provides an overview of the latest research developments in the exploitation mechanism covering the past five years, focusing on hydrate phase transition, multiphase flow in the decomposition zone, the seepage regulation of reservoir stimulation zone, and production capacity simulation, all of which are relevant to the previously conducted two rounds of hydrate trial production in offshore areas of China. The results indicate that the phase transition of clayey-silt hydrate remains in a dynamic equilibrium, with the decomposition efficiency mainly controlled by the coupling of heat and flow and high heat consumption during decomposition. The decomposition zone exhibits strong hydrophilicity, easy adsorption, and sudden permeability changes. A temperature drop is present that is concentrated near the wellbore, and once a water lock has formed, the gas-phase flow capacity significantly decreases, leading to potential secondary hydrate formation. To enhance permeability and increase production, it is imperative to implement reservoir and temperature field reconstruction based on initial formation alterations, which will further optimize and improve the transport capacity of the reservoir.Document Type: Current minireviewCited as: Lu, C., Qin, X., Sun, J., Wang, R., Cai, J. Research progress and scientific challenges in the depressurization exploitation mechanism of clayey-silt natural gas hydrates in the northern South China Sea. Advances in Geo-Energy Research, 2023, 10(1): 14-20. https://doi.org/10.46690/ager.2023.10.0

A novel edge-feature attention fusion framework for underwater image enhancement

Underwater images captured by Remotely Operated Vehicles are critical for marine research, ocean engineering, and national defense, but challenges such as blurriness and color distortion necessitate advanced enhancement techniques. To address these issues, this paper presents the CUG-UIEF algorithm, an underwater image enhancement framework leveraging edge feature attention fusion. The method comprises three modules: 1) an Attention-Guided Edge Feature Fusion Module that extracts edge information via edge operators and enhances object detail through multi-scale feature integration with channel-cross attention to resolve edge blurring; 2) a Spatial Information Enhancement Module that employs spatial-cross attention to capture spatial interrelationships and improve semantic representation, mitigating low signal-to-noise ratio; and 3) Multi-Dimensional Perception Optimization integrating perceptual, structural, and anomaly optimizations to address detail blurring and low contrast. Experimental results demonstrate that CUG-UIEF achieves an average peak signal-to-noise ratio of 24.49 dB, an 8.41% improvement over six mainstream algorithms, and a structural similarity index of 0.92, a 1.09% increase. These findings highlight the model’s effectiveness in balancing edge preservation, spatial semantics, and perceptual quality, offering promising applications in marine science and related fields

Perceptions about respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) and attitudes toward the RSV vaccine among the general public in China: A cross-sectional survey

Our study aims to assess the public’s perceptions of respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) and attitudes toward the RSV vaccine and to identify associated factors in China. A nationwide cross-sectional survey conducted using an online platform between August 16 and September 14, 2023. Questions related to socio-demographics, awareness, knowledge, perceptions of susceptibility and severity of RSV, and attitudes toward the RSV vaccine were included in the questionnaire. We used the chi-square test and logistic regression model to explore the associated factors. Overall, 2133 individuals were included in this study. Nearly a quarter of participants (24.3%) indicated that they had never heard of RSV. The proportion of individuals aged over 50 years reporting never having heard of RSV (36.5%) and having a low knowledge level of RSV (55.3%) was significantly higher that of other younger age groups. More than half of individuals (55.7%) exhibited low level of perceptions of susceptibility concerning RSV infection. A total of 68.4% of the participants expressed willingness to receive the RSV vaccine. Younger age was positively associated with a higher willingness to be vaccinated. The most frequent reason for declining the vaccine was “Concern about vaccine’s safety or side effects.” About 60% of individuals considered a price of RSV vaccine below 200 CNY (28 USD) as acceptable. The awareness and perceived susceptibility to RSV infection were limited to the Chinese public. It is necessary to take measures to address the low awareness and knowledge of RSV and acceptability of the RSV vaccine among older adults

Maternal perception of child weight and concern about child overweight mediates the relationship between child weight and feeding practices:Does child’s weight predict maternal feeding practices?

Objective:To examine the mediating effects of maternal perception of child weight (weight perception) and concern about overweight (weight concern) on the paths between child weight and maternal feeding practices.Setting:Pudong District, Shanghai, China.Participants:A convenience sample of 1164 mothers who were primary caregivers of preschool children.Results:Sixty per cent of the mothers perceived their overweight/obese children as normal weight or even underweight. The disagreement between actual child weight and maternal weight perception was statistically significant (Kappa = 0·212, P &lt; 0·001). Structural equation modelling indicated that weight perception fully mediated the relationship between child BMI Z-scores and pressure to eat. Weight concern fully mediated the relationships between child BMI Z-scores and the other three feeding practices. The serial mediating effects of weight perception and concern were statistically significant for the paths between child BMI Z-score and monitoring (β = 0·035, P &lt; 0·001), restriction (β = 0·022, P &lt; 0·001), and food as a reward (β = –0·017, P &lt; 0·05).Conclusion:Child weight may influence maternal feeding practices through weight perception and concern. Thus, interventions are needed to increase the accuracy of weight perception, which may influence several maternal feeding practices and thereby contribute to child health.</p