Ranking and Clustering of the Economic Status of Rural Residents in 31 Provinces and Regions in China

In order to rank and cluster the economic status of rural residents in 31 provinces, cities and autonomous regions, the MATLAB software is used and the component analysis and the cluster analysis are conducted on the data reflecting the economic status of each area. The results show that the provinces or cities with high comprehensive , scores are Shanghai Municipality, Beijing Municipality, Zhejiang Province, Jiangsu Province, Tianjin Municipality, Guangdong Province, Fujian Province, Shandong Province and Liaoning Province according to priority; the provinces or autonomous regions with low comprehensive scores are Gansu Province, Guizhou Province , Tibet, Uygur autonomous region and Yunnan Province. The economic status of rural residents in the 31 provinces and autonomous regions are partly parallel with the comprehensive economic development. The improvement of the economic status of rural residents is helpful for the overall economic elevation. Therefore, the government should coordinate the economic development of urban and rural areas, industry and agricultural, developed region and undeveloped region, and coastal areas and central and western areas to maximize the social welfare of the whole nation.

Identification of Socio-Demographic, Behavioral Patterns and Their Relationship with HIV Status among Female Sex Workers

The prevalence of HIV in high risk population is influenced significantly the behavioral and sociodemographic characteristics. However, considering the complexity of behavior among female sex workers, the relationship between a particular behavioral pattern and the HIV status of this “at risk” population assumes significance. Data generated in a community-based cross-sectional study earlier carried out to assess the prevalence estimates, at district level, of HIV status in eight districts of State of Andhra Pradesh, India was used to carry out factor analysis to explore the role of demographic and behavioral pattern and their relationship with the HIV status among female sex workers. Data on 3083 female sex workers in the study revealed that there existed nine patterns among demographic and behavioral characteristics, which explained 62% of the total variation through factor analysis. Further, cluster analysis was performed to identify the groups of individuals having similar characteristics. Two of those clusters had sizeable numbers having similar characteristics. FSWs belonging to cluster 2 had significantly high risk factors compared with Cluster 1. The overall prevalence of HIV was 11.4% (10.6% in cluster 1 and 15.9% in cluster 2) among high risk population. There exists a strong relationship between behavioral patterns and HIV positive.

SesIndexCreatoR:An R Package for Socioeconomic Indices Computation and Visualization

In order to study social inequalities, indices can be used to summarize the multiple dimensions of the socioeconomic status. As a part of the Equit’Area Project, a public health program focused on social and environmental health inequalities;a statistical procedure to create (neighborhood) socioeconomic indices was developed. This procedure uses successive principal components analyses to select variables and create the index. In order to simplify the application of the procedure for non-specialists, the R package SesIndexCreatoR was created. It allows the creation of the index with all the possible options of the procedure, the classification of the resulting index in categories using several classical methods, the visualization of the results, and the generation of automatic reports.

Source identification, contamination status and health risk assessment of heavy metals from road dusts in Dhaka, Bangladesh

In this study, concentrations of Cr, Mn, Ni, Cu, Zn, Cd and Pb were determined in road dusts collected from different locations in Dhaka to assess source, contamination status and health risk. Energy-dispersive X-ray fluorescence spectroscopy and energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy were used to determine Cr, Mn, Ni, Cu, Zn, Cd and Pb and their mean concentrations were 162.27 ± 29.46, 721.18 ± 180.14, 35.65 ± 12.55, 104.56 ± 128.33, 515.32 ± 321.90,BDL, and 342.82 ± 591.20 mg/kg, respectively. Among the heavy metals, highest concentrations of Cu, Zn and Pb were found at urban sites-7(municipal waste dumping) and 8(medical waste incineration). Highest concentration of Cr followed by Cu and Zn was found at site-5(Tejgaon, urban). Principal component analysis revealed that anthropogenic activities are the potential sources for Cr, Ni, Cu, Zn and Pb while earth crust for Mn. Pollution index and pollution load index results suggested that all the sites were contaminated and/or degraded by Cr, Cu, Zn and Pb except sites-9(urban), 10(sub-urban), 11(rural) while sites-7 and 8(urban) were extremely degraded. For noncarcinogenic health risk, hazard quotient values for dermal were higher compared to that of inhalation/ingestion. Though hazard index values were less than 1 at all the sites, these were at least one order of magnitude higher for children group than that of adult group, thus the children group may face more noncarcinogenic health risk at sites -7 and 8. Values of incremental lifetime cancer risk were from 10to 10showed no carcinogenic health risk by road dusts contaminated with the heavy metals.

An Improved Model for Evaluating Ecosystem Service Values Using Land Use/Cover and Vegetation Parameters

It is crucial to maintain the balance of economic development and ecosystem protection. The value of ecosystem services is an indicator to help people understand the importance of ecosystem protection. Traditional models estimate ecosystem service values only according to land use/cover data while ignoring vegetation status differences in the same land use/cover. This study uses the normalized difference vegetation index(NDVI), the leaf area index(LAI),and net primary productivity(NPP) as vegetation status data to describe the differences in the same land use/cover type. The principal component analysis(PCA) approach is used to reduce the correlations among the three types of vegetation status data. Then, the calculated vegetation status index after PCA is input into the estimation model. The case study in China shows that the improved model has two major advantages. First, it can clearly distinguish the differences in ecosystem service values even for the same land use/cover type. Second, it can clearly describe the transitional zones between different land use/cover types through continuous changes in ecosystem service values. This improved model can provide a more detailed description of the distribution characteristics of ecosystem service values in China and help policymakers balance economic development and ecosystem protection.

TRANSFORMATIONAL CHANGE

October 1 marked the 70th anniversary of the founding of the People's Republic of China. During the past seven decades, tremendous changes have taken place in China's society, economy, standard of living and international status. To put its achievements into perspective, Beijing Reviewbreaks down the numbers behind China's development across a wide sphere of sectors.