No abstract

With less than 6% of total global water resources but one fifth of the global population, China is facing serious challenges for its water resources management, particularly in rural areas due to the long-standing urban-rural dualistic structure and the economic-centralized developmental policies. This paper addresses the key water crises in rural China including potable water supply, wastewater treatment and disposal, water for agricultural purposes, and environmental concerns, and then analyzes the administrative system on water resources from the perspective of characteristics of the current administrative system and regulations; finally, synthetic approaches to solve water problems in rural China are proposed with regard to institutional reform, regulation revision, economic instruments, technology innovation and capacity-building. These recommendations provide valuable insights to water managers in rural China so that they can identify the most appropriate pathways for optimizing their water resources, reducing the total wastewater discharge and improving their water-related ecosystem.

Median urinary secretory IgA (sIgA) (ELISA technique in unprocessed urine) was 1.36 mg/liter (range, 0.29 to 2.31) in healthy female controls at various times of the menstrual cycle. It was significantly lower in women with urinary tract infection (UTI) without antibody-coated bacteria. Such decrease was found both in women with acute UTI episodes (median, 0.16; range, 0.06 to 1.71) and in asymptomatic nonbacteriuric women with a history of UTI (median, 0.52; range, 0.05 to 2.13). In the latter women, sIgA in nasal secretions tended to be low, but salivary sIgA was unchanged. Urinary sIgA was elevated significantly in individuals with nephrostomy and antibody-coated bacteria (14.4 mg/liter, range, 3.6 to 20). The study showed that locally synthesized sIgA immunoglobulins were low in the urine of individuals with recurrent UTI independent of the presence or absence of bacteriuria at the time of the study. UTI per se did not interfere with sIgA secretion as shown by high sIgA in patients with upper UTI. Low urinary sIgA may represent one factor predisposing to recurrent UTI.

Abstract:Abstract: Since adoption of the policy of reform and opening-up in 1978, China has achieved spectacular success in economic growth, which mainly driven by abundant consumption of natural resources but resulted in serious environmental problems. Based on Emergy approach and Rescaled Range analysis, this paper aims to examine the decoupling condition in economic growth nexus environmental pressureboth at specific and aggregate level and track the changing trend and the corresponding socio-economic cost in decoupling process. The results show that: the decoupling performance of waste emission (includes waste water, SO 2 and solid waste) is better than energy consumption at a specific level which implies that the policies focused on end-of-pipe treatment has been succeeded in meeting the targets of emission reduction.But at aggregate level, the situation is opposite which suggest that China need more efforts in life-cycle management; The weak decoupling condition of resource use and waste water discharge may continue in the future, so as the strong decoupling condition of SO 2 and solid waste, but for the aggregate environmental pressure induced by waste emission, the decoupling performance may be getting worse in the future; The investment cost of decoupling increased, whilst the job-cost of decoupling decreased; The decoupling performance can be influenced by environmental policies substantially, such as the polices of circular economy, rigorous emission reduction and waste recycling which have brought about the strong decoupling SO 2 emission and solid waste discharge from economic growth, whereas the less rigorous policies on resource exploitation and waste water discharge didn't achieve the same result. Therefore, China needsto intensify the unity among various environmental policies. Highlights The decoupling performance of waste emission is better than energy consumption at a specific level, but at aggregate level, the situation is opposite. The weak decoupling condition of resource use and waste water discharge may continue in the future, so as the strong decoupling condition of SO 2 and solid waste, but for the decoupling performance of the aggregate environmental pressure induced by waste emission may be getting worse in the future. The decoupling performance can be influenced by environmental policies substantially  The investment cost of decoupling increased, whilst the job-cost of decoupling decreased

This paper analyzed the characteristic of the tourism destination ecosystem from perspective of entropy in Dunhuang City. Given these circumstances, an evaluation index system that considers the potential of sustainable development was formed based on dissipative structure and entropy change for the tourism destination ecosystem. The sustainable development potential evaluation model for tourism destination ecosystem was built up based on information entropy. Then, we analyzed each indicator impact for the sustainable development potential and proposed some measures for the tourism destination ecosystem. The conclusions include: (a) the requirements of Dunhuang tourism destination ecosystem on the natural ecosystem continuously grew between 2000 and 2012; (b) The sustainable development potential of the Dunhuang tourism destination ecosystem was on an oscillation upward trend during the study period, which is dependent on government attention, and pollution problems were improved.