Air pollution exposure, chemical compositions, and risk of expiratory airflow limitation in youth in Northeast China.

Background: Expiratory airflow limitation (EAL) is closely associated with respiratory health in youth and adulthood. Owing to limited evidence, we aim to estimate the association between air pollutants, both individually and in combination, along with their chemical compositions, and the risk of EAL in youth based on data obtained from Northeast China Biobank.

Methods: Pulmonary function was evaluated using a medical-grade pulmonary function analyzer, with EAL defined as a forced expiratory flow in 1 s/ forced vital capacity ratio of < 0.

Dietary carbohydrate types, genetic predisposition, and risk of adult-onset asthma: A longitudinal cohort study.

We aimed to investigate the longitudinal associations among carbohydrate intake types, genetic predisposition, and risk adult onset asthma (AOA). A dataset of 96,487 participants from UK Biobank was included with 1830 cases of incident AOA during an average follow-up of 9.68 years.

Carbohydrate intake quality and gestational diabetes mellitus, and the modifying effect of air pollution.

Background: Nutritional management is the cornerstone of gestational diabetes mellitus (GDM) prevention. High quality instead of low quantity of carbohydrate intake has been paying attention in controlling glycemia. Air pollution exposure can be interacted with dietary sourced nutrients, which may modify the associations with GDM.

Association between water source and chronic gastrointestinal diseases in Chinese: A cross-sectional and longitudinal study.

Background: Gastrointestinal health is closely associated with the quality of the water supply. However, long-term associations between the water supply type and chronic gastrointestinal disease (CGD) are unclear.

Method: The water supply was categorized as "tap-water" or "non-tap water" use.

Bi-directional associations between depressive symptoms and asthma in middle-aged and elderly adults in China.

Background: There is currently no evidence of an association between depressive symptoms and asthma among older adults in China. We explored the bi-directional associations between depressive symptoms and asthma, and their changes in middle-aged and elderly adults from a national cohort.

Methods: A longitudinal cohort study was conducted with a total of 17,708 individuals from 150 urban communities and 450 rural villages in 28 provinces in China.

Spatial frequency doubling with two-step technique.

The phenomenon of spatial frequency doubling generated by a two-step technique with the collimated beam at normal incidence in the second exposure is presented. Theoretical analysis demonstrates that the phenomenon is induced by the Talbot effect in photoresist and the superposition of two exposures, and the minimum achievable period of the grating with double spatial frequency can be close to one half of the exposure wavelength in vacuum, divided by the refractive index of photoresist λ/2n. The two-step technique has the potential to be a simpler and more practical resolution-improving technique for the Talbot-effect-based approach of spatial frequency doubling.

Psychometric characteristics of the 360° feedback scales in professionalism and interpersonal and communication skills assessment of surgery residents in China.

Aims: The aim of the study was to test the psychometric characteristics of the 360° evaluation instrument for assessing residents' competency in professionalism, interpersonal and communication skills, and develop a feasible, valid, and reliable multisource feedback (MSF) program for surgery residents to address this gap.

Methods: We carried out an MSF assessment of 149 surgery residents at 19 hospitals all over China. MSF assessment includes 6 surveys with 21, 21, 21, 26, 14, and 15 items and these surveys were developed to assess surgery residents by attending doctor, resident self, peer, nurse, patient, and office staff, respectively, using a 5-point agreement scale with an "unable-to-evaluate" category.

Adaptive watermarking scheme using a gray-level computer generated hologram.

We present a new adaptive blind watermarking scheme using a gray-level computer generated hologram in the discrete wavelet transform domain. By utilizing an improved fuzzy clustering technique and human visual system , the watermark can be adaptively embedded according to block classification. To keep imperceptibility and robustness, a novel iterative embedding algorithm is adopted to change the to-be-embedded coefficients.

Fabrication of three-dimensional photonic crystals with two-beam holographic lithography.

A holographic technique used to fabricate three-dimensional photonic crystals with a two-beam interference method is presented. In the optical setup of fabrication one beam is incident on the recording plate in the direction of the plate normal and the other beam with an angle to the normal. Three exposures were taken.