Description: Sustainability, Vol. 10, Pages 3349: Optimizing Daily Service Scheduling for Medical Diagnostic Equipment Considering Patient Satisfaction and Hospital Revenue Sustainability doi: 10.3390/su10093349 Authors: Gang Du Xinyue Li Hui Hu Xiaoling Ouyang Under the background of the unbalanced supply and demand of medical diagnostic equipment and rising health care costs, this study aims to optimize the service scheduling for medical diagnostic equipment so as to improve patient satisfaction by ensuring the equipment utilization rate and hospital revenue. The finite horizon Markov Decision Process (MDP) was adopted to solve this problem. On the basis of field research, we divided patients into four categories: emergency patients, inpatients, appointed outpatients, and the randomly arrived outpatients according to the severity of illness and appointment situations. In the construction of the MDP model, we considered the possibility of cancellation (no-show patients) in scheduling optimization. Combined with the benefits and costs related to patient satisfaction, based on the value iteration algorithm, we took patient satisfaction and hospital revenue as the objective functions. Results indicated that, compared with the current scheduling strategy, the integrated strategy proposed in this study has a better performance, which could maintain the sustainable usage rate of large medical resources and patient satisfaction.

Description: Sustainability, Vol. 10, Pages 2771: Environmental Risk Management Strategies and the Moderating Role of Corporate Social Responsibility in Project Financing Decisions Sustainability doi: 10.3390/su10082771 Authors: Muddassar Sarfraz Wang Qun Li Hui Muhammad Abdullah The purpose of this study is to examine the moderating role of corporate social responsibility (CSR) in project financing decisions. CSR has gained growing prominence in today’s business era. This study investigates four environmental strategies and the credit risk assessment, stakeholder assessment and corporate social responsibility assessment impact on project financing decision. It explores three main issues related to environmental responsibility (planet), economic responsibility (profit) and social responsibility (people). The study is explanatory and quantitative, and both domestic and foreign banks participated in the data collection process. The sample size for the study is 491 participants. Data was collected through a simple random sampling technique and was analyzed by applying simple linear regression, confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) and structural equation modeling analysis (SEM) through the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS). The study shows that the Pakistani banking sector is implementing environmental management policies. Foreign banks are more motivated towards corporate social responsibility practices. Cultural differences can influence a manager’s attitude towards implementation of environmental risk-management policies. The result shows that corporate social responsibility has a moderating role in project financing decisions and environmental risk management, stakeholder and credit risk assessment. All hypotheses has significant values.

Description: IJERPH, Vol. 15, Pages 997: Insufficient Sleep Duration and Overweight/Obesity among Adolescents in a Chinese Population International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health doi: 10.3390/ijerph15050997 Authors: Qing-Hai Gong Si-Xuan Li Hui Li Jun Cui Guo-Zhang Xu Objectives: The objective of this study was to investigate the relationship between sleep duration and overweight/obesity among Chinese adolescents. Methods: A school-based cross-sectional study was conducted among Chinese adolescents in 2016. In total, 2795 school-aged Chinese children aged 12 to 13 years participated in this study. Participants were asked to complete self-administered surveys during a 45-min class period in their classroom. Details of the questionnaire about health-related behaviors included sleep habits, physical activity, screen time, cigarette use, and alcohol use. Height, weight, waist circumference and hip circumference were directly measured. Results: The mean sleep duration was 8.7 h/day. In total, 43.0% of the participants had a sleep duration of less than 9 h/day. Sleep duration was significantly inversely related to BMI, waist circumference, hip circumference and WHtR in multiple linear regression analyses in both genders. Logistic regression models showed that insufficient sleep (<9 h/day) was associated with high odds of overweight/obesity among both young boys and girls. Conclusions: Insufficient sleep duration was associated with overweight/obesity in Chinese adolescents, and short sleep duration was probably associated with central adiposity, especially among boys.

Description: Remote Sensing, Vol. 10, Pages 535: The Evaluation of SMAP Enhanced Soil Moisture Products Using High-Resolution Model Simulations and In-Situ Observations on the Tibetan Plateau Remote Sensing doi: 10.3390/rs10040535 Authors: Chengwei Li Hui Lu Kun Yang Menglei Han Jonathon Wright Yingying Chen Le Yu Shiming Xu Xiaomeng Huang Wei Gong The Soil Moisture Active Passive (SMAP) mission was designed to provide a global mapping of soil moisture (SM) measured by L-band passive and active microwave sensors. In this study, we evaluate the newly released SMAP enhanced SM products over the Tibetan Plateau by performing comparisons among SMAP standard products, in-situ observations and Community Land Model (CLM) simulations driven by high-resolution meteorological forcing. At local scales, the enhanced SMAP products, the standard products and CLM simulations all generally compare well with the in-situ observations. The SMAP products show stronger correlations (0.64–0.88) but slightly larger unbiased root mean square errors (ubRMSE, ~0.06) relative to the CLM simulations (0.58–0.79 and 0.037–0.047, for correlation and ubRMSE, respectively). At the regional scale, both SMAP products show similar spatial distributions of SM on the TP (Tibetan Plateau), although, as expected, the enhanced product provides more fine details. The SMAP enhanced product is in good agreement with model simulations with respect to temporal and spatial variations in SM over most of the TP. Regions with low correlation between SMAP enhanced products and model simulations are mainly located in the northwestern TP and regions of complex topography, where meteorological stations are sparse and non-existent or elevation is highly variable. In such remote regions, CLM simulations may be problematic due to inaccurate land cover maps and/or uncertainties in meteorological forcing. The independent, high-resolution observations provided by SMAP could help to constrain the model simulation and, ultimately, improve the skill of models in these problematic regions.

Description: Three-dimensional biofilm electrode reactors (3D-BERs) were constructed to degrade the azo dye Reactive Brilliant Red (RBR) X-3B. The 3D-BERs with different influent concentrations and external voltages were individually studied to investigate their influence on the removal of X-3B. Experimental results showed that 3D-BERs have good X-3B removal efficiency; even when the influent concentration was 800 mg/L, removal efficiency of 73.4% was still achieved. In addition, the X-3B removal efficiency stabilized shortly after the influent concentration increased. In 3D-BERs, the average X-3B removal efficiency increased from 52.8% to 85.4% when the external voltage rose from 0 to 2 V. We further identified the intermediate products via UV-Vis and gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS) analyses, and discussed the potential mechanism of degradation. After the conjugate structure of X-3B was destroyed, all of the substances generated mainly consisted of lower-molecular-weight organics.

Description: Most bamboo forests grow in humid climates in low-latitude tropical or subtropical monsoon areas, and they are generally located in hilly areas. Bamboo trunks are very straight and smooth, which means that bamboo forests have low structural diversity. These features are beneficial to synthetic aperture radar (SAR) microwave penetration and they provide special information in SAR imagery. However, some factors (e.g., foreshortening) can compromise the interpretation of SAR imagery. The fusion of SAR and optical imagery is considered an effective method with which to obtain information on ground objects. However, most relevant research has been based on two types of remote sensing image. This paper proposes a new fusion scheme, which combines three types of image simultaneously, based on two fusion methods: bidimensional empirical mode decomposition (BEMD) and the Gram-Schmidt transform. The fusion of panchromatic and multispectral images based on the Gram-Schmidt transform can enhance spatial resolution while retaining multispectral information. BEMD is an adaptive decomposition method that has been applied widely in the analysis of nonlinear signals and to the nonstable signal of SAR. The fusion of SAR imagery with fused panchromatic and multispectral imagery using BEMD is based on the frequency information of the images. It was established that the proposed fusion scheme is an effective remote sensing image interpretation method, and that the value of entropy and the spatial frequency of the fused images were improved in comparison with other techniques such as the discrete wavelet, à-trous, and non-subsampled contourlet transform methods. Compared with the original image, information entropy of the fusion image based on BEMD improves about 0.13–0.38. Compared with the other three methods it improves about 0.06–0.12. The average gradient of BEMD is 4%–6% greater than for other methods. BEMD maintains spatial frequency 3.2–4.0 higher than other methods. The experimental results showed the proposed fusion scheme could improve the accuracy of bamboo forest classification. Accuracy increased by 12.1%, and inaccuracy was reduced by 11.0%.

Description: Trypsin is important during the regulation of pancreatic exocrine function. The detection of trypsin activity is currently limited because of the need for the substrate to be labeled with a fluorescent tag. A label-free fluorescent method has been developed to monitor trypsin activity. The designed peptide probe consists of six arginine molecules and a cysteine terminus and can be conjugated to DNA-stabilized silver nanoclusters (DNA-AgNCs) by Ag-S bonding to enhance fluorescence. The peptide probe can also be adsorbed to the surface of graphene oxide (GO), thus resulting in the fluorescence quenching of DNA-AgNCs-peptide conjugate because of Förster resonance energy transfer. Once trypsin had degraded the peptide probe into amino acid residues, the DNA-AgNCs were released from the surface of GO, and the enhanced fluorescence of DNA-AgNCs was restored. Trypsin can be determined with a linear range of 0.0–50.0 ng/mL with a concentration as low as 1 ng/mL. This label-free method is simple and sensitive and has been successfully used for the determination of trypsin in serum. The method can also be modified to detect other proteases.

Description: IKs channels open in response to depolarization of the membrane voltage during the cardiac action potential, passing potassium ions outward to repolarize ventricular myocytes and end each beat. Here, we show that the voltage required to activate IKs channels depends on their covalent modification by small ubiquitin-like modifier (SUMO) proteins....

Description: The precipitation of carbonate minerals induced by halophilic bacteria has aroused wide concern. The study aimed to investigate the characterization and process of biomineralization in high salt systems by halophilic Chromohalobacter israelensis LD532 (GenBank: KX766026) bacteria, isolated from the Yinjiashan Saltern in China. Carbonate minerals were induced in magnesium sulfate and magnesium chloride medium, respectively. The mineral phase, morphology, and elemental composition of minerals were analyzed using X-ray p owder diffraction, scanning electron microscopy, and energy dispersive X-ray detection. Cells and ultrathin slices were studied using high resolution transmission electron microscopy, selected area electron diffraction, and energy dispersive X-ray detection. The carbonic anhydrase and ammonia released from LD532 bacteria increased pH of the medium and promoted the carbonate precipitation. Magnesium calcite and aragonite were induced by LD532 bacteria in magnesium chloride medium at an Mg/Ca molar ratio of 2, while Magnesium calcite and monohydrocalcite were precipitated in magnesium sulfate medium at the same Mg/Ca ratio, only monohydrocalcite were formed in both control groups. The morphologies and compositions of minerals in MgSO4 and MgCl2 solutions displayed significant differences, indicating different Mg2+ could affect physiological and biochemical activities of LD532 bacteria and thus affect the mineral deposition. Further study showed the nucleation sites were located on extracellular polymeric substances and intracellular vesicles of LD532 bacteria. This study is beneficial to the mechanism of carbonate biomineralization in natural salt environments.

Description: Atmosphere, Vol. 8, Pages 141: Evaluation of the Common Land Model (CoLM) from the Perspective of Water and Energy Budget Simulation: Towards Inclusion in CMIP6 Atmosphere doi: 10.3390/atmos8080141 Authors: Chengwei Li Hui Lu Kun Yang Jonathon S. Wright Le Yu Yingying Chen Xiaomeng Huang Shiming Xu Land surface models (LSMs) are important tools for simulating energy, water and momentum transfer across the land–atmosphere interface. Many LSMs have been developed over the past 50 years, including the Common Land Model (CoLM), a LSM that has primarily been developed and maintained by Chinese researchers. CoLM has been adopted by several Chinese Earth System Models (GCMs) that will participate in the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 6 (CMIP6). In this study, we evaluate the performance of CoLM with respect to simulating the water and energy budgets. We compare simulations using the latest version of CoLM (CoLM2014), the previous version of CoLM (CoLM2005) that was used in the Beijing Normal University Earth System Model (BNU-GCM) for CMIP5, and the Community Land Model version 4.5 (CLM4.5) against global diagnostic data and observations. Our results demonstrate that CLM4.5 outperforms CoLM2005 and CoLM2014 in simulating runoff (R), although all three models overestimate runoff in northern Europe and underestimate runoff in North America and East Asia. Simulations of runoff and snow depth (SNDP) are substantially improved in CoLM2014 relative to CoLM2005, particularly in the Northern Hemisphere. The simulated global energy budget is also substantially improved in CoLM2014 relative to CoLM2005. Simulations of sensible heat (SH) based on CoLM2014 compare favorably to those based on CLM4.5, while root-mean-square errors (RMSEs) in net surface radiation indicate that CoLM2014 (RMSE = 16.02 W m−2) outperforms both CoLM2005 (17.41 W m−2) and CLM4.5 (23.73 W m−2). Comparisons at regional scales show that all three models perform poorly in the Amazon region but perform relatively well over the central United States, Siberia and the Tibetan Plateau. Overall, CoLM2014 is improved relative to CoLM2005, and is comparable to CLM4.5 with respect to many aspects of the energy and water budgets. Our evaluation confirms CoLM2014 is suitable for inclusion in Chinese GCMs, which will increase the diversity of LSMs considered during CMIP6.