L. I. Liu

This study used a flame atomic absorption spectrometer (FAAS) and atomic fluorescence spec-trophotometer (AFS) to detect the concentrations of chromium (Cr), cadmium (Cd), lead (Pb), hy-drargyrum (Hg) and arsenic (As) in soils and three genotypes of vegetables in greenhouse, as well as analyzed the physical and chemical properties of soils, including soil pH, soil organic matter (OM), basic nutrients, electrical conductivity (EC) and cation exchange capacity (CEC) in Guan- zhong areas, Shaanxi province, China. The results showed that comparing to subsoil, the sampled topsoil is enriched in Cr, Cd, Pb, As and Hg. Cd (0.83 - 3.17 mg·kg-1) and Hg (0.40 - 1.44 mg·kg-1) are exceeding the limited value stated in “the 2006 Greenhouse Vegetable Producing Environmental Quality Evaluation Standards” of 0.40 mg·kg-1 and 0.35 mg·kg-1 respectively. However, Nanzhuang greenhouse soil is within the limits. The heavy metal pollution index (HPI) of soil in Sanyuan (8.10) is the highest and in Dongzhang (4.23) is the lowest. The contents of Pb (0.201 - 0.376 mg·kg-1) were exceeding the limited value (0.20 mg·kg-1) in vegetables species, and Cd (0.0363 - 0.0572 mg·kg-1) in some place were also exceeding the limited value (0.05 mg·kg-1). Greenhouse soils were becoming acidified year after year; the ratios of N, P and K in soil were seriously imbalanced. According to the impacting factors, OM, pH, available P, EC and CEC have obviously effected the accumulation of Cr and Hg. However, there was not enough evidence for the effects of available nitrogen and available potassium.

Fishburn and Vickson showed that, when applied to random alternatives with an equal mean, 3rd-degree and decreasing absolute risk aversion stochastic dominances represent equivalent rules. The present paper generalizes this result to higher degrees. Specifically, higher-degree stochastic dominance rules and common preference by all decision makers with decreasing higher-order absolute risk aversion are shown to coincide under appropriate constraints on the respective moments of the random variables to be compared.

Competition for land is increasing as demand for multiple land uses and ecosystem services rises. Land regulation of the principles of landscape ecology is necessary to develop more sustainable approaches to land use planning. The research evaluated the present land patterns and determined best practices for its regulation of Dongwang Township in Quyang County, located in the Taihang Mountain area of Hebei Province, China. The research used the landscape ecology theory to construct an index system for landscape pattern analysis based on the GIS and Fragstats 3.3 software. In this study, we examined the specific reasons that landscape ecology is superior to traditional methods in land consolidation planning and design, which is conducive to the comprehensive development of land ecological benefits. Landscape ecological planning can effectively reduce landscape fragmentation and improve intensive management. The result found that the descending order of the Shannon index was current landscape, landscape ecological planning, and traditional planning. Landscape ecological planning could protect the natural diversity than traditional planning. Landscape ecological planning enables the creation of long corridors, with higher densities and connectivity and lower average corridor widths than traditional planning. Besides, it can improve ecological service function values in the study area to varying degrees, thus discouraging residents from limiting themselves to grain production. This research has great potential to improve the visibility of ecosystem services in local land use planning and, thus, to improve the ecological functioning of future landscapes.

We investigate the dynamics of a nonautonomous stochastic SIS epidemic model with nonlinear incidence rate and double epidemic hypothesis. By constructing suitable stochastic Lyapunov functions and using Has’minskii theory, we prove that there exists at least one nontrivial positive periodic solution of the system. Moreover, the sufficient conditions for extinction of the disease are obtained by using the theory of nonautonomous stochastic differential equations. Finally, numerical simulations are utilized to illustrate our theoretical analysis.

Lifelong premature ejaculation (LPE) is a common male sexual dysfunction. Lack of active control for rapid ejaculation brought great distress to sexual harmony, and even fertility. Previous neurophysiology studies revealed an ejaculation-related control mechanism in the brain. However, it remains unclear whether this inhibitory network is altered in LPE patients. The present study investigated the central inhibitory network function of LPE patients by using stop signal task-related functional magnetic resonance imaging and resting-state functional connectivity analysis. The results showed no difference in task-related behavioral performance or neural activation during response inhibition between LPE patients and controls. However, LPE patients showed a significantly different correlation pattern between the stop signal reaction time (SSRT) and left inferior frontal gyrus activation during successful inhibition, in which a typical negative correlation between SSRT and the activation was completely disappeared in patients. In addition, using the left inferior frontal gyrus as a seed, patients showed weaker functional connectivity between the seed and two areas (left dental nucleus and right frontal pole) compared with controls. These data suggest that LPE patients have an abnormal brain control network, which may contribute to the reduced central control of rapid ejaculation. This study provides new insights into the neural mechanism of LPE involving the central inhibitory network, which may offer an underlying intervention target for future treatment.

In the process of rapid urbanization, urban heat island effect has been showing more and more significant impacts on human well-being. Therefore, a more detailed understanding of the impact of three-dimensional building morphology on UHI effect across a continuum of spatial scales will be necessary to guide and improve the human settlement.This study selected 31 provincial capital cities of mainland China to analyze the impacts of the 3D building morphology, including the number, area, height, volume, and the surface area of the buildings, on the land surface temperature. By exploring how the influence of 3D building morphology on LST changes with the increase of spatial scale, this study finally recognized which 3D building morphology index is the most significant index affecting LST in different cities, and which spatial scale these 3D building morphology indexes have the most significant impact on LST. The results showed that the building area is the most important 3D building morphology parameter affecting the LST, while the building height has the slightest influence on the LST. These effects are more significant in the spatial scale of 150 m–540 m, and the spatial scale increases with the increase of building areas in developed cities. These results highlight the necessity of considering fine-grained management in the governance and alleviating of the urban thermal environment through urban planning and urban renewal strategies.

Major events such as the COVID-19 pandemic, Olympic Games, and G20 Summit bring about supplier disruption risks and challenges to supply chain management. To help deal with these risks, a virtual dual-sourcing production-inventory system can be deployed. In this paper, we study such a system which consists of a raw material supplier, a manufacturer, and a virtual dual-sourcing contingency supplier. The manufacturer needs to determine the production, procurement, and inventory plan of raw materials. When its supplier is interrupted, the manufacturer may need to adjust the production and inventory plan and work with the contingency supplier. We develop a system dynamics method to simulate the operations in this production-inventory system to identify the approximately optimal order-up-to-level inventory policies. We find that the virtual dual production-inventory strategy can be the optimal contingency policy to deal with supplier dynamic disruption risks. Furthermore, for disruption risk with low frequency and long duration, the manufacturer should increase the safety inventory level before the disruption. Otherwise, it should increase the safety inventory level in every cycle.

Research investigating listeners’ neural sensitivity to speech sounds has largely focused on segmental features. We examined Australian English listeners’ perception and learning of a supra-segmental feature, pitch direction in a non-native tonal contrast, using a passive oddball paradigm and electroencephalography. The stimuli were two contours generated from naturally produced high-level and high-falling tones in Mandarin Chinese, differing only in pitch direction ( Liu and Kager, 2014 ). While both contours had similar pitch onsets, the pitch offset of the falling contour was lower than that of the level one. The contrast was presented in two orientations (standard and deviant reversed) and tested in two blocks with the order of block presentation counterbalanced. Mismatch negativity (MMN) responses showed that listeners discriminated the non-native tonal contrast only in the second block, reflecting indications of learning through exposure during the first block. In addition, listeners showed a later MMN peak for their second block of test relative to listeners who did the same block first, suggesting linguistic (as opposed to acoustic) processing or a misapplication of perceptual strategies from the first to the second block. The results also showed a perceptual asymmetry for change in pitch direction: listeners who encountered a falling tone deviant in the first block had larger frontal MMN amplitudes than listeners who encountered a level tone deviant in the first block. The implications of our findings for second language speech and the developmental trajectory for tone perception are discussed.

Understanding the regional food security situation is of great importance to maintaining China’s food security. To provide targeted information to help regional policymakers monitor food security status, based on the differentiated foci during the phased development of food security, this paper was conceived from the perspective of the need for early warnings and proposes a framework for regional integrated food security that incorporates food quantity security, food quality security, and sustainable food security. In this framework, an indicator system is proposed, and the calculation of these indicators, as well as their warning thresholds and warning ranges, is discussed. To test this approach, a case study was conducted in one of China’s major grain-producing areas, the Dongting Lake area. The results showed that the overall integrated food security situation in this area was generally in the low-alarm range between 1986 and 2011; the primary causes of this status were food quality security, generally in the low- or medium-alarm range, and sustainable food security, which in 14 of the 26 years was in the low-alarm range. The government should establish a more robust system for monitoring the quality of agricultural products, controlling waste discharge, and guaranteeing poor individuals access to sufficient, safe, and nutritious food to meet their dietary needs. Policies on pesticide and fertilizer application should shift from actively encouraging more use to controlling excess application.

Deeply rooted in the Vedic tradition, animal sacrifice is a controversial issue associated with a larger discourse of violence and non-violence in South Asia. Most existent studies on Vedic killing focus on the polemics of ritual violence in six schools of Indian philosophy. However, insufficient attention has been paid to killing in Dharmaśāstric literature, the killing that is an indispensable element of a Vedic householder’s life. To fill in the gap, this paper analyzes the animal sacrifice in the Manubhāṣya of Medhātithi, perhaps the most influential exegesis of the Mānavadharmaśāstra. As an important but understudied Dharmaśāstric exegesis, the Manubhāṣya provides insights on how dharmaśāstrins as protagonists of Vedic tradition understand ritual killing while dialoguing with other traditions in the complex religious landscape of the ninth century Kashmir. By investigating Medhātithi’s commentary on Mānavadharmaśāstra 5.22–56, this paper interrogates how Medhatithi interprets sacrificial killing, and how his interpretation assists to buttress the authority of the Vedic tradition represented by the root text. I argue that Medhātithi’s exegesis of killing serves as apologetics that re-establishes the Vedic sacrificial tradition, which is challenged by popular non-Vedic practices. This study intends to contribute to a better understanding of animal sacrifice situated at the intersection of Vedic, Purānic and Tantric strands, and the way in which Dharmaśāstric exegesis as apologetics engages in the negotiation of violence.

Adopting an instrumental approach for stakeholder management, we focus on two primary stakeholder groups to investigate the relationship between employee treatment and loan contracts with banks. We find strong evidence that fair employee treatment reduces loan price and limits the use of financial covenants. In addition, we document that relationship bank lenders price both the levels and changes in the quality of employee treatment, whereas first-time bank lenders only care about the levels of fair employee treatment. Taking a contingency perspective, we find that industry competition and firm asset intangibility moderate the relationship between good human resource management and bank loan costs. The cost reduction effect of fair employee treatment is stronger for firms operating in a more competitive industry and having higher levels of intangible assets.