Farmers' participation into the recovery of waste agricultural plastic film: An application of the Theory of Planned Behavior.

This study aims to address the lack of relevant researches in the field of waste recycling using the Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB). A village-scale social survey was conducted to investigate the degree of farmers' participation in a waste plastic film program, i.e. Old for New in northwest China. The program required farmers to recycle plastic film residues in exchange for new films. Survey results showed that 67.5% of farmers accepted the program, yet only 14.5% of them actually participated. Logistic regression analysis was used to analyze questionnaire data and identify the factors that significantly affected farmers' recycling behavior. Principal component and weight analysis further showed that farmers' participation was mainly influenced by their attitudes (p < 0.01), with a relative weight (RW) of 46.3%. Yet, subjective norms (p < 0.1) and perceived behavior control (p < 0.1) had less effect on the degree of participation, and their RWs were 4.2% and 4.1% only, respectively. Moreover, the RW of plastic film usage characteristics and household characteristics reached up to 13.2% and 6.4%, respectively. Interestingly, environmental awareness (ß = 0.083) and compulsory environmental education (ß = 0.130) as surface factors strongly affected the farmers' adoption and response, with the RW of 25.7%. As such, the extended TPB model was established to analyze the participation behavior of farmers for stronger explanatory power. This study highlighted a promising strategy based on TPB for waste plastic film recycling and similar environmental management practices.

Labor force transfer, vegetation restoration and ecosystem service in the Qilian Mountains.

Forest ecosystem conservation practice frequently sacrifices human livelihood, since there exists a structural conflict between both aspects in the degraded forest ecosystem. To reconcile the conflict has been widely viewed as a core issue, in which the payment of ecosystem service (PES) may play a critical role in solving this issue. In order to better understand the practical effectiveness of PES and explore the solution to reconcile the contradiction between conservation and livelihood, we investigated the decadal changes in the Sloping Land Conversion Program as a PES strategy in the Qilian Mountains, a degraded forest ecosystem of northwest China, and its effects on natural and social systems across the 10-year implementation period (2001-2011). The regional NDVI of study site was promoted from 46.24% to 61.28%, showing that vegetation cover had a massive increase during the whole implementation period. Also, the PES strategy had impelled more labor forces as migrant workers into the non-agricultural industries or urban areas. The migration dynamics in three industries demonstrated that the population of primary industry followed a gradually declining trend, and its percentage in total population was lowered from 33.44% to 19.82%. According to our household survey, local farmers reduced the economic investment in agriculture, and this enabled more labor forces to be released from agricultural industry. Interestingly, the attitudes towards the PES program for local inhabitants were gradually shifted from negative at initial stage to acceptable at middle stage, and finally to positive at late stage, as a consequence of PES application. In such case, the PES-led vegetation restoration strategy has been effectively implemented, which can reconcile the contradiction between conservation and livelihood, and ultimately achieve a win-win consequence. Our study provided a successful practical paradigm of coupled human and natural system (CHANS) in forest ecosystem restoration.

A New Glabrous Gene (csgl3) Identified in Trichome Development in Cucumber (Cucumis sativus L.).

Spines or trichomes on the fruit of cucumbers enhance their commercial value in China. In addition, glabrous mutants exhibit resistance to aphids and therefore their use by growers can reduce pesticide residues. Previous studies have reported two glabrous mutant plants containing the genes, csgl1 and csgl2. In the present study, a new glabrous mutant, NCG157, was identified showing a gene interaction effect with csgl1 and csgl2. This mutant showed the glabrous character on stems, leaves, tendrils, receptacles and ovaries, and there were no spines or tumors on the fruit surface. Inheritance analysis showed that a single recessive gene, named csgl3, determined the glabrous trait. An F2 population derived from the cross of two inbred lines 9930 (a fresh market type from Northern China that exhibits trichomes) and NCG157 (an American processing type with glabrous surfaces) was used for genetic mapping of the csgl3 gene. By combining bulked segregant analysis (BAS) with molecular markers, 18 markers, including two simple sequence repeats (SSR), nine insertion deletions (InDel) and seven derived cleaved amplified polymorphism sequences (dCAPs), were identified to link to the csgl3 gene. All of the linked markers were used as anchor loci to locate the csgl3 gene on cucumber chromosome 6. The csgl3 gene was mapped between the dCAPs markers dCAPs-21 and dCAPs-19, at genetic distances of 0.05 cM and 0.15 cM, respectively. The physical distance of this region was 19.6 kb. Three markers, InDel-19, dCAPs-2 and dCAPs-11, co-segregated with csgl3. There were two candidate genes in the region, Csa6M514860 and Csa6M514870. Quantitative real-time PCR showed that the expression of Csa6M514870 was higher in the tissues of 9930 than that of NCG157, and this was consistent with their phenotypic characters. Csa6M514870 is therefore postulated to be the candidate gene for the development of trichomes in cucumber. This study will facilitate marker-assisted selection (MAS) of the smooth plant trait in cucumber breeding and provide for future cloning of csgl3.

[Influence of albumin as a resuscitation fluid on the prognosis of patients with sepsis: a Meta-analysis].

OBJECTIVE: To compare the effect of albumin as a resuscitation fluid with other fluids in lowering the mortality of patients with sepsis. METHODS: By searching MEDLINE, Embase, Cochrane Central Registration of Controlled Trials databases, the metaRegister of Controlled Trials, the Medical Editors Trial Amnesty Register, and retrieval of the randomized controlled trial (RCT) literature to compare the result of resuscitation using albumin-containing fluid and other fluids. The study population included adult patients who were diagnosed to have sepsis, and the patients with sepsis who were studied as subgroup. The RevMan 5.0 software was used for Meta-analysis, and the main outcome was the mortality of the hospitalized patients. RESULTS: In the 14 RCTs, 1729 patients received the albumin-containing fluid resuscitation or resuscitation with other fluids. It was found that the patients with sepsis were the only research objects in five studies, and in other nine studies patients with sepsis were studied as subgroup. P = 0.98, I (2)=0%, i.e. no heterogenicity, and the fixed effect model was used for combining results. There was no evident difference between the group of patients with sepsis resuscitated by albumin-containing fluids and other fluids [odds ratio (OR) was 0.87, 95% confidence interval (95%CI) 0.71-1.07, P = 0.18]. The pooled OR of resuscitation using high concentration albumin solution (20%) was 1.11, 95%CI 0.71-1.73, P = 0.65, the pooled OR of resuscitation using low concentration albumin solution (4%, 5%) was 0.82, 95%CI 0.65-1.03, P = 0.09. Resuscitation with different concentration of albumin-containing fluids was identical with the whole research results. After rejecting six articles of Boldt and other authors, and also saline versus albumin fluid evaluation (SAFE) study, the sensitivity analysis of the study was performed in order to check whether the data produced decisive significance to the whole research results or not. The whole results did not change after their rejection(Boldt studies were rejected:OR 0.82, 95%CI 0.65-1.02, P = 0.08; SAFE study was rejected: OR 1.05, 95%CI 0.71-1.55, P = 0.82). Therefore the analysis results were satisfactory. CONCLUSION: The Meta-analysis shows that by using albumin-containing fluids for resuscitation can not lower the mortality of sepsis as compared with other fluids.