Various Cities In China Research Articles

Application countermeasures of non-incineration technologies for medical waste treatment in China

By the end of 2012, there were 272 modern, high-standard, centralized medical waste disposal facilities operating in various cities in China. Among these facilities nearly 50% are non-incineration treatment facilities, including the technologies of high temperature steam, chemical disinfection and microwave. Each of the non-incineration technologies has its advantages and disadvantages, and any single technology cannot offer a panacea because of the complexity of medical waste disposal. Although non-incineration treatment of medical waste can avoid the release of polychlorinated dibenzo-p-dioxins/dibenzofurans, it is still necessary to decide how to best meet the local waste management needs while minimizing the impact on the environment and public health. There is still a long way to go to establish the sustainable application and management mode of non-incineration technologies. Based on the analysis of typical non-incineration process, pollutant release, and the current tendency for technology application and development at home and abroad, this article recommends the application countermeasures of non-incineration technologies as the best available techniques and best environmental practices in China.

A context-aware personalized travel recommendation system based on geotagged social media data mining

The proliferation of digital cameras and the growing practice of online photo sharing using social media sites such as Flickr have resulted in huge volumes of geotagged photos available on the Web. Based on users' traveling preferences elicited from their travel experiences exposed on social media sites by sharing geotagged photos, we propose a new method for recommending tourist locations that are relevant to users (i.e., personalization) in the given context (i.e., context awareness). We obtain user-specific travel preferences from his/her travel history in one city and use these to recommend tourist locations in another city. Our technique is illustrated on a sample of publicly available Flickr dataset containing photos taken in various cities of China. Results show that our context-aware personalized method is able to predict tourists' preferences in a new or unknown city more precisely and generate better recommendations compared to other state-of-the-art landmark recommendation methods.

Umbilical cord blood mercury levels in China

Mercury (Hg) is a well-known neurotoxicant. Hg exposure at high levels can harm individuals of all ages. Even low level exposure to Hg can damage the brain of fetuses and young children, and affect their central nervous system and cognitive development. The aims of our study were to measure total Hg levels in infant umbilical cord blood and to investigate the risk factors associated with total Hg cord blood levels in various cities in China. Our goal was to provide clues for the prevention of Hg exposure in utero. The results indicated that the average cord blood mercury levels (CBMLs) were (1.81 ± 1.93) μg/L, which were lower than those found in most previous studies. The concentrations also differed according to geographic region. The CBMLs were not only associated with family economic and living conditions, but also with diet in pregnant women, especially the intake of marine fish, shellfish, poultry, formula milk and fruits.

Mo-P4:286 Seasonal variation in the occurrence of stroke in Northern Greece

Stroke is the second leading cause of death in the world. It has multiple risk factors of which some, such as ambient temperature, are less well documented.We aimed to examine the association between diurnal temperature range (DTR) and stroke mortality, and to test the possible effect modification of this association according to gender, age and educational level.Daily data on weather and stroke mortality from 16 provincial capital cities in China for the years 2007–2013 were obtained, with a total of 788,783 deaths from stroke. A quasi-Poisson generalized linear regression combined with a distributed lag non-linear model was used to examine the city-specific DTR effect on stroke mortality. The pooled effects of DTR on stroke mortality were then obtained using a meta-analysis, which was based on restricted maximum likelihood estimation.The DTR impacts were generally limited to a period of eight days, while significant effects during lag 0–8 days were only found in the cities of Beijing, Zhengzhou, Nanjing, Hefei, Chongqing and Changsha. The DTR effects were significantly and negatively associated with latitudes at lag 0–10 days (rs = − 0.640, P = 0.008). An increase of 1 °C in DTR was associated with pooled estimate of 0.66% (95%CI: 0.28–1.05%), 0.12% (− 0.26% to 0.51%) and 0.67% (0.26–1.07%) increases in stroke mortality at lag 0–10 days during the total, hot and cold days, respectively. The impact of DTR was much higher in southern China than in northern China [1.02% (0.62% to 1.43%) versus 0.10% (-0.27% to 0.47%) ]. For the individual characteristics, only females, the elderly aged ≥ 65 years, and those with lower educational attainment were vulnerable to DTR.DTR has considerable effects on risk of mortality from stroke in various cities in China, especially among the elderly, females, those with low educational level, and people living in southern China. The results can inform decisions on developing programs to protect vulnerable subpopulations from adverse impacts of DTR.

Estimation of temperature increase according to urbanization in various cities in China

Estimation of temperature increase according to urbanization in various cities in China

Foreign direct investment and labor productivity: New evidence from China as the host

We use a pooled city-level data set, consisting of 2032 observations from 11 consecutive years, to examine the causal relationship between the intensity of FDI inflow and the increase of technical efficiency in various cities in China. The results confirm the exis-tence of feedback effects between per capita FDI intensity and labor productivity. However, FDI intensity in terms of the geographical size of the city does not Granger-cause the increase in labor productivity. Spillover efficiency to various cities in China is investigated in detail. We split the sample into coastal and inland cities, taking into consideration time lags. The feedback effects of labor productivity on inward FDI also are estimated statistically. Finally, we discuss the policy implications of our research. © 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.