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Examine mother-son, mother-daughter, father-son, and father-daughter resemblance in weight status, and potential modifying effects of socio-demographic and childcare characteristics.
Design:
Cross-sectional study.
Setting:
School.
Participants:
1,973 school-age children and their parents from five mega-cities across China in 2017.
Results:
Pearson correlation coefficients (r) for body mass index (BMI) of father-son, father-daughter, mother-son, and mother-daughter pairs were 0·16, 0·24, 0·26, and 0·24, respectively, while their weighted kappa coefficients (k) were 0·09, 0·14, 0·04, and 0·15, respectively. Children aged 6–9 years (r ranged from 0·30 to 0·35) had larger BMI correlation with their parents than their counterparts aged 10–14 years or 15–17 years (r ranged from 0·15 to 0·24). Children residing at home (r ranged from 0·17 to 0·27) had greater BMI correlations with their parents than children residing at school/other places. BMI correlation coefficients were significant if children were mainly cared for by their mothers (r ranged from 0·17 to 0·29) but non-significant if they were mainly cared for by others. Only children who ate the same meal as their parents “most times” (r ranged from 0·17 to 0·27) or had dinner with their parents “at most times” (r ranged from 0·21 to 0·27) had significant BMI correlation with their parents. Similarly, children who had dinner with their parents “most times” but not “sometimes,” had significant BMI correlation coefficients.
Conclusions:
Parent-child resemblance in weight status was modest, and varied by child age, gender, primary caregiver, whether having similar food or dinner with parents in China.
To determine if specific dietary patterns are associated with breast cancer risk in Chinese women.
Design:
Latent class analysis (LCA) was performed to identify generic dietary patterns based on daily food-frequency data.
Setting:
The Chinese Wuxi Exposure and Breast Cancer Study (2013-2014).
Participants:
A population-based case-control study (695 cases, 804 controls).
Results:
Four dietary patterns were identified, Prudent, Chinese traditional, Western, and Picky, the proportion in the controls and cases were 0.30/0.32/0.16/0.23 and 0.29/0.26/0.11/0.33, respectively. Women in Picky class were characterized by higher extreme probabilities of non-consumption on specific foods, the highest probabilities of consumption of pickled foods, and the lowest probabilities of consumption of cereals, soy foods, and nuts. Compared with Prudent class, Picky class was associated with a higher risk (OR=1.42, 95%CI=1.06, 1.90), while the relevant association was only in post- (OR=1.44, 95%CI=1.01, 2.05) but not premenopausal women. The Western class characterized by high-protein, -fat, and -sugar foods, the Chinese traditional class characterized by typical consumption of soy foods and white meat over red meat, both of them showed no difference in BC risk compared with Prudent class did.
Conclusions:
LCA capture the heterogeneity of individuals embedded in the population, could be a useful approach in the study of dietary pattern and disease. Our results indicated that the Picky class might have a positive association with the risk of breast cancer.
Kinetic energy and enstrophy transfer in compressible Rayleigh–Taylor (RT) turbulence were investigated by means of direct numerical simulation. It is revealed that compressibility plays an important role in the kinetic energy and enstrophy transfer based on analyses of transport and large-scale equations. For the generation and transfer of kinetic energy, some findings have been obtained as follows. The pressure-dilatation work dominates the generation of kinetic energy in the early stage of flow evolution. The baropycnal work and deformation work handle the kinetic energy transfer from large to small scales on average for RT turbulence. The baropycnal work is mainly responsible for the kinetic energy transfer on large scales, and the deformation work for the kinetic energy transfer on small scales. The baropycnal work is also disclosed to be related to the compressibility from the finding that the expansion motion enhances the positive baropycnal work and the compression motion strengthens the negative baropycnal work. For the generation and transfer of enstrophy, the horizontal enstrophy is generated by the baroclinic effect and the vertical enstrophy by vortex stretching and tilting. Then the enstrophy is strengthened by the vortex stretching and tilting during the evolution of RT turbulence and the vorticity tends to be isotropic in the turbulent mixing region. The large-scale enstrophy equation in compressible flow has also been derived to deal with the enstrophy transfer. It is identified that the enstrophy is transferred from large to small scales on average and tends to stabilize for RT turbulence.
Rice (Oryza sativa L.) is the primary staple crop in Taiwan, and it can be grown twice a year. The prevalent subspecies grown in Taiwan is Japonica, and a transplanting system is used for rice production. Although the transplanting system is known for efficient weed control at the seedling stage, weedy red rice (WRR, O. sativa f. spontanea) infestation is progressively being reported. Fieldwork and previous studies have suggested that WRR infestation in Taiwan is probably related to growers’ operating practices and their perception of WRR. However, no data are available for a detailed investigation. The present study aimed to collect data on rice growers’ backgrounds, farming practices, and perceptions of WRR to quantify and characterize the patterns of farming operations for rice growers in Taiwan and to investigate factors contributing to WRR infestation. We collected 408 questionnaires completed by rice growers from 17 counties covering all rice production regions in Taiwan. The growers’ median age was 51 to 60 yr, and 75% of respondents had paddies from 0.25 to 2.75 ha in size, which corresponded with nationwide data for farmers’ backgrounds. In general, growers applied similar farming practices for both cropping seasons. Most respondents did not notice WRR infestation or consider it to be a problem: only 9.8% noticed a moderate to severe infestation of WRR in their fields. The major perceived causes of WRR infestation was seed impurity (55.1%) or cultivar degeneration (18.6%). Correlation analysis and farming patterns estimated with a nonnegative matrix factorization algorithm showed that WRR contamination rate was due to the use of dry or wet tillage. The present study provides the first quantitative and qualitative evidence of rice production practices and growers’ perceptions of WRR infestation in Taiwan.
We present an experimental study on controlling the number of vortices and the torque in a Taylor–Couette flow of water for Reynolds numbers from 660 to 1320. Different flow states are achieved in the annulus of width
$d$
between the inner rotating and outer stationary cylinders through manipulating the initial height of the water annulus. We show that the torque exerted on the inner cylinder of the Taylor–Couette system can be reduced by up to 20 % by controlling the flow at a state where fewer than the nominal number of vortices develop between the cylinders. This flow state is achieved by starting the system with an initial water annulus height
$h_0$
(which nominally corresponds to
$h_0/d$
vortices), then gradually adding water into the annulus while the inner cylinder keeps rotating. During this filling process the flow topology is so persistent that the number of vortices does not increase; instead, the vortices are greatly stretched in the axial (vertical) direction. We show that this state with stretched vortices is sustainable until the vortices are stretched to around 2.05 times their nominal size. Our experiments reveal that by manipulating the initial height of the liquid annulus we are able to generate different flow states and demonstrate how the different flow states manifest themselves in global momentum transport.
A higher dietary intake or serum concentration of betaine has been associated with greater lean body mass in middle-aged and older adults. However, it remains unknown whether betaine intake is associated with age-related loss of skeletal muscle mass (SMM). We assessed the association between dietary betaine intake and relative changes in SMM after 3 years in middle-aged adults. A total of 1242 participants aged 41–60 years from the Guangzhou Nutrition and Health Study 2011–2013 and 2014–2017 with body composition measurements by dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry were included. A face-to-face questionnaire was used to collect general baseline information. After adjustment for potential confounders, multiple linear regression found that energy-adjusted dietary betaine intake was significantly and positively associated with relative changes (i.e. percentage loss or increase) in SMM of legs, limbs and appendicular skeletal mass index (ASMI) over 3 years of follow-up (β 0·322 (se 0·157), 0·309 (se 0·142) and 0·303 (se 0·145), respectively; P < 0·05). The ANCOVA models revealed that participants in the highest betaine tertile had significantly less loss in SMM of limbs and ASMI and more increase in SMM of legs over 3 years of follow-up, compared with those in the bottom betaine tertile (all Ptrend < 0·05). In conclusion, our findings suggest that elevated higher dietary betaine intake may be associated with less loss of SMM of legs, limbs and ASMI in middle-aged adults.
The subgrid effects on the dynamics of the filtered velocity gradient tensor (VGT) in compressible turbulence are studied by means of statistical analysis of the invariants of the filtered VGT in compressible mixing layers. The evolution of the filtered VGT is determined by the interaction among the invariants, the pressure effects, the viscous effects and the subgrid effects. Based on the probability fluxes in the plane of the second (
$Q$
) and the third (
$R$
) invariants of the filtered VGT, it is found that the flux for the subgrid effect term changes most with the dilatation compared to the other terms. Further, a Schur decomposition of the filtered VGT into its normal part and non-normal part, which represent the local effect and the non-local effect of the flow dynamics, respectively, is used to deal with their effects of the velocity gradient. It is revealed that the compressibility is mainly related to the normal effect while the behaviour of the subgrid-scale (SGS) energy dissipation is mainly associated with the non-normal effect. A backscattering region of the SGS energy dissipation in the
$Q$
–
$R$
plane is identified in the locally expanded regions, which is determined by the non-normal effect. Further, an SGS model with the non-local effect is proposed to give a better prediction of the SGS energy dissipation.
The aim of this study was to analyze the profile of chest injuries, oxygen therapy for respiratory failure, and the outcomes of victims after the Jiangsu tornado, which occurred on June 23, 2016 in Yancheng City, Jiangsu Province, China.
Methods:
The clinical records of 144 patients referred to Yancheng City No.1 People’s Hospital from June 23 through June 25 were retrospectively investigated. Of those patients, 68 (47.2%) sustained major chest injuries. The demographic details, trauma history, details of injuries and Abbreviated Injury Scores (AIS), therapy for respiratory failure, surgical procedures, length of intensive care unit (ICU) and hospital stay, and mortality were analyzed.
Results:
Of the 68 patients, 41 (60.3%) were female and 27 (39.7%) were male. The average age of the injured patients was 57.1 years. Forty-six patients (67.6%) suffered from polytrauma. The mean thoracic AIS of the victims was calculated as 2.85 (SD = 0.76). Rib fracture was the most common chest injury, noted in 56 patients (82.4%). Pulmonary contusion was the next most frequent injury, occurring in 12 patients (17.7%). Ten patients with severe chest trauma were admitted to ICU. The median ICU stay was 11.7 (SD = 8.5) days. Five patients required intubation and ventilation, one patient was treated with noninvasive positive pressure ventilation (NPPV), and four patients were treated with high-flow nasal cannula (HFNC). Three patients died during hospitalization. The hospital mortality was 4.41%.
Conclusions:
Chest trauma was a common type of injury after tornado. The most frequent thoracic injuries were rib fractures and pulmonary contusion. Severe chest trauma is usually associated with a high incidence of respiratory support requirements and a long length of stay in the ICU. Early initiation of appropriate oxygen therapy was vital to restoring normal respiratory function and saving lives. Going forward, HFNC might be an effective and well-tolerated therapeutic addition to the management of acute respiratory failure in chest trauma.
The effect of trailing-edge shape on the self-propulsive performance of three-dimensional flexible plates is studied numerically. In our study, the trailing edges of the plates are symmetric chevron shapes, and the trailing-edge angle
$\unicode[STIX]{x1D719}$
varies from
$30^{\circ }$
(concave plate) to
$150^{\circ }$
(convex plate). Under different bending stiffnesses
$K$
, three regimes of the propulsive performance in terms of propulsive velocity
$U$
and efficiency
$\unicode[STIX]{x1D702}$
as a function of
$\unicode[STIX]{x1D719}$
are identified. When
$K$
is small, moderate and large, the square, convex and concave plate achieves the best performance, respectively. Analyses of vortical structures and velocity fields show that usually the jet behind the plate with the best performance is longest. Besides, the inclination angle of the jet may be small. The different propulsive performances at small and moderate
$K$
are mainly attributed to the phase lag of the trailing edge. The force acting on the plate is analysed and it is found that the thrust force is mainly contributed by the normal force. If
$U$
,
$\unicode[STIX]{x1D702}$
and
$K$
are rescaled by the normal force and the area moment of the plate, the curves for different
$\unicode[STIX]{x1D719}$
almost collapse into a single curve when the bending stiffness coefficient is small or moderate. The scaling confirms that the normal force should be the characteristic fluid force at small or moderate
$K$
and the
$\unicode[STIX]{x1D719}$
effect is governed by the area moment. The findings may shed some light on the propulsive performance of aquatic animals.
We report direct numerical simulation results that clearly elucidate the mechanism that leads to curvature dependence of drag enhancement (DE) in viscoelastic turbulent Taylor–Couette flow. Change in the angular momentum transport and its inherent link to transitions in vortical flow structures have been explored to depict the influence of the curvature of the flow geometry on DE. Specifically, it has been demonstrated that a transition in vortical structures with increasing radius ratio leads to weakening and elimination of the small-scale Görtler vortices and development and better organization (occupying the entire gap) of large-scale Taylor vortices as also evinced by the patterns of angular momentum current. The commensurate change in DE and its underlying mechanism are examined by contributions of convective flux and polymeric stress to the angular momentum current. The present finding paves the way for capturing highly localized elastic turbulence structures in direct numerical simulation by increasing geometry curvature in traditional turbulent curvilinear flows.
The condition of caregivers is important to the quality of care received by people with Parkinson’s disease (PD), especially at the late disease stages. This study addresses the distress placed on caregivers by participants’ neuropsychiatric symptoms at different stages of PD in Taiwan
Methods:
This prospective study enrolled 108 people with PD. All participants were examined with the Unified Parkinson’s Disease Rating Scale (UPDRS), Neuropsychiatric Inventory (NPI), Mini-Mental State Examination (MMSE), Cognitive Abilities Screening Instrument (CASI), and Clinical Dementia Rating (CDR) scale. Caregiver distress was measured using the Neuropsychiatric Inventory Caregiver Distress Scale (NPI-D). Statistical analysis was used to explore the PD-related factors that contribute to caregiver distress.
Results:
The mean follow-up interval in the 108 PD participants were 24.0 ± 10.2 months with no participant lost to follow-up due to death. NPI-distress (the sum of NPI caregiver distress scale across the 12 domains of the NPI) was positively correlated with NPI-sum (the total score across the 12 domains of the NPI) (r = 0.787, p < 0.001), CDR (r = 0.403, p < 0.001), UPRDS (r = 0.276, p = 0.004), and disease duration (r = 0.246, p = 0.002), but negatively correlated with CASI (r = −0.237, p = 0.043) and MMSE (r = −0.281, p < 0.001). Multiple linear regression analysis showed that only NPI-sum and disease duration were independently correlated with NPI-distress.
Conclusion:
The disease duration and NPI-sum are independent predictors of caregiver distress in Taiwanese populations with PD. Early detection and reduction of neuropsychiatric symptoms in people with PD can help decrease caregiver distress.
Liquid films can be entrained when the dewetting velocity attains a threshold, and this dynamical wetting transition has been well studied in the situation of plane substrates. We investigate the forced dewetting in a capillary tube using diffuse-interface simulations and lubrication analysis, focusing on the onset of wetting transition and subsequent interface evolution. Results show that the meniscus remains stable when the displacing rate is below a threshold, beyond which film entrainment occurs and eventually leads to the formation of Taylor bubbles separated by liquid slugs, as has also been observed in the recent experiments of Zhao et al. (Phys. Rev. Lett., vol. 120, 2018, 084501). We derive an analytical solution of the critical capillary number, and demonstrate that the wetting transition is accompanied by a vanishing apparent contact angle and an abrupt drop of the contact-line velocity. Both the bubble and slug lengths are found to depend on the capillary number and the wettability of the wall. A theoretical formula for the bubble length is also proposed and compares favourably with numerical and experimental results.
AgBr-modified Bi2WO6 nanosheets were successfully synthesized using a CTAB-assisted hydrothermal method followed by a facile deposition–precipitation procedure. The as-prepared photocatalysts were characterized using X-ray diffraction (XRD), X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), transmission electron microscopy (TEM), UV-vis diffuse reflectance spectroscopy (DRS), Brunauer–Emmett–Teller (BET), and photoluminescence emission spectroscopy (PL). AgBr nanoparticles were found evenly distributed on the surface of the Bi2WO6 nanosheets. The AgBr/Bi2WO6 nanocomposite demonstrated enhanced pollutant decolorization efficiency in eliminating Rhodamine B (RhB), methyl orange (MO), and phenol aqueous solutions under simulated solar light irradiation. It has been noticed that the adsorption performance of both Bi2WO6 nanosheets and AgBr-modified Bi2WO6 nanosheets played a more important role in the decolorization of pollutants, such as RhB and MO, than their photocatalytic ability. The high adsorption efficiency of the photocatalysts was mainly attributed to the increased surface area and the exposed reactive facets of the materials.
While hydrodynamic interactions for aggregates of swimmers have received significant attention in the low Reynolds number realm (
$Re\ll 1$
), there has been far less work at higher Reynolds numbers, in which fluid and body inertia are involved. Here we study the collective behaviour of multiple self-propelled plates in tandem configurations, which are driven by harmonic flapping motions of identical frequency and amplitude. Both fast modes with compact configurations and slow modes with sparse configurations were observed. The Lighthill conjecture that orderly configurations may emerge passively from hydrodynamic interactions was verified on a larger scale with up to eight plates. The whole group may consist of subgroups and individuals with regular separations. Hydrodynamic forces experienced by the plates near their multiple equilibrium locations are all springlike restoring forces, which stabilize the orderly formation and maintain group cohesion. For the cruising speed of the whole group, the leading subgroup or individual plays the role of ‘leading goose’.
Energetic benefit and enhanced performance are considered among the most fascinating achievements of collective behaviours, e.g. fish schools and flying formations. The collective locomotion of two self-propelled flapping plates initially in a side-by-side arrangement is investigated numerically. Both in-phase and antiphase oscillations for the two plates are considered. It is found that the plates will spontaneously form some stable configurations as a result of the flow-mediated interaction, specifically, the staggered-following (SF) mode and the alternate-leading (AL) mode for the in-phase scenario and the moving abreast (MA) mode and the AL mode for the antiphase scenario. In the SF mode, the rear plate follows the front one with a staggered configuration. In the AL mode, the plates chase each other side-by-side alternately. In terms of propulsive speed and efficiency, the performance of the plates in the SF mode with small lateral spacing
$H$
is found to be better than those in the tandem following case (
$H=0$
) and the side-by-side case (i.e. the AL mode). To achieve higher propulsive efficiency, no matter in-phase or antiphase oscillations, the two plates with moderate bending stiffness, e.g.
$K\approx O(1)$
, are preferred and they should be close enough in the lateral direction. For the side-by-side configuration, the performance of each plate in the antiphase and in-phase scenarios is enhanced and weakened in comparison with that of the isolated plate, respectively. Besides the pressure and vorticity contours, the normal force and thrust acting on the plates are also analysed. It is revealed that the thrust is mainly contributed by the normal force at moderate bending stiffness. The normal force and thrust are critical to the propulsive speed and efficiency. For two self-propelled plates, in view of hydrodynamics, to achieve higher performance the in-phase SF mode and antiphase flappings in the side-by-side configuration are preferred.
To investigate the effects of heat stress on broiler metabolism, we assigned 144 broilers to normal control (NC), heat stress (HS) or pair-fed (PF) groups and then monitored the effects using growth performance, carcass characteristics, biochemical assays and GC-MS-based metabolomics. The up-regulation of cloacal temperature confirmed that our experiment was successful in inducing chronic heat stress. The average daily gain and average daily feed intake of the HS group were significantly lower than those of the NC group, by 28·76 and 18·42 %, respectively (P<0·001), whereas the feed:gain ratio was significantly higher, by 14·49 % (P=0·003), and heat stress also increased leg proportion (P=0·027) and intramuscular fat proportion (P<0·001) and decreased breast proportion (P=0·009). When comparing the HS and NC groups and HS and PF groups, our metabolomics approach identified seventy-eight and thirty-four metabolites, respectively, with significantly different levels (variable importance in the projection values >1 and P<0·05). The greater feed:gain ratio of the HS group was significantly positively correlated with the leg, abdominal fat, subcutaneous fat and intramuscular fat proportions and levels of some free amino acids (proline, l-cysteine, methionine and threonine) but was negatively correlated with breast proportion and levels of some NEFA (stearic acid, arachidonic acid, palmitic acid and oleic acid). These findings indicated that the heat-stressed broilers were in negative energy balance and unable to effectively mobilise fat, thereby resulting in protein decomposition, which subsequently affected growth performance and carcass characteristics.
We numerically investigate the mechanism leading to the entrapment of spheres at the gas–liquid interface after impact. Upon impact onto a liquid pool, a hydrophobic sphere is seen to follow one of the three regimes identified in the experiment (Lee & Kim, Langmuir, vol. 24, 2008, pp. 142–145): sinking, bouncing or being entrapped at the interface. It is important to understand the role of wettability in this process of flow–structure interaction with dynamic wetting, and in particular, to what extent the wettability can determine whether the sphere is entrapped at the interface. For this purpose, a diffuse-interface immersed boundary method is adopted in the numerical simulations. We expand the parameter space considered previously, provide the phase diagrams and identify the key phenomena in the impact dynamics. Then, we propose the scaling models to interpret the critical conditions for the occurrence of sphere entrapment, accounting for the wettability of the sphere. The models are shown to provide a good correlation among the impact inertia of the drop, the surface tension, the wettability and the density ratio of the sphere to the liquid.
The interaction of tandem inverted flexible flags in a uniform flow is investigated. For the inverted flags, their ends are fixed with their heads freely flapping. A direct numerical simulation is performed for which the Reynolds number is of order 200. Large flapping amplitude as well as large drag force is preferred because more energy may be harvested if more bending energy is generated. For the simple case of two tandem inverted flags, the drag force and flapping amplitude of the rear flag are found to be smaller than those of an isolated inverted flag due to the destructive merging mode of vortices. However, it is still unknown whether more bending energy can be generated when coupled inverted flags are arranged properly. To explore the possibility, inverted flags are proposed to be arranged as two rows, which indicate two lines of inverted flags perpendicular to the direction of the incoming flow, and flags in the front and rear rows are in-line or staggered. First the results for infinite flags with periodic boundary condition are presented. In both the in-line and the staggered arrangements, due to the interactions between the front–rear flags, the flapping amplitude or the maximum bending deformation and bending energy of a flag in the rear row can be enhanced, which may be significantly higher than those of an isolated case. Meanwhile, the bending energy of a flag in the front row is close to that of an isolated case. Second, results for finite inverted flag groups show that antiphase synchronization is preferred. When the group number is large enough, the bending energies of the front and rear flags in the inner groups are close to those in the infinite case. This finding may be helpful for the designing of an efficient energy harvesting device using inverted flags.
In this paper, we investigate the ratchet mechanism of drops climbing a vibrated oblique plate based on three-dimensional direct numerical simulations, which for the first time reproduce the existing experiment (Brunet et al., Phys. Rev. Lett., vol. 99, 2007, 144501). With the help of numerical simulations, we identify an interesting and important wetting behaviour of the climbing drop; that is, the breaking of symmetry due to the inclination of the plate with respect to the acceleration leads to a hysteresis of the wetted area in one period of harmonic vibration. In particular, the average wetted area in the downhill stage is larger than that in the uphill stage, which is found to be responsible for the uphill net motion of the drop. A new hydrodynamic model is proposed to interpret the ratchet mechanism, taking account of the effects of the acceleration and contact angle hysteresis. The predictions of the theoretical analysis are in good agreement with the numerical results.
In this paper, drop impact onto a sphere is numerically investigated at moderate Reynolds and Weber numbers. It is naturally expected that the aspect ratio of the sphere to the drop,
$\unicode[STIX]{x1D706}_{r}$
, would make a big difference to drop spreading and retraction on the sphere, compared with drop impact onto a flat substrate. To quantitatively assess the effect of
$\unicode[STIX]{x1D706}_{r}$
, a diffuse-interface immersed-boundary method is adopted after being validated against experiments. With the help of numerical simulations, we identify the key regimes in the spreading and retraction, analyse the results by scaling laws, and quantitatively evaluate the effect of
$\unicode[STIX]{x1D706}_{r}$
on the impact dynamics. We find that the thickness of the liquid film spreading on the sphere can be well approximated by
$h_{L,\infty }(1+3/4\unicode[STIX]{x1D706}_{r}^{-3/2})$
, where
$h_{L,\infty }$
represents the film thickness of drop impact on a flat substrate. At the early stage of spreading, the temporal variation of the wetted area is independent of
$\unicode[STIX]{x1D706}_{r}$
when the time is rescaled by the thickness of the liquid film. Drops are observed to retract on the sphere at a roughly constant speed, and the predictions of theoretical analysis are in good agreement with numerical results.