Prevalence of and factors associated with various level of body weight among Inner Mongolia medical students in China

Background: To date no study on the body weight of medical students in Inner Mongolia has been carried out. The aim of the present study was to determine the prevalence of and factors associated with various body weight levels, and the physical health status associated with body weight levels among medical students attending the Inner Mongolia Medical College of China in 2011. Methods: Data on participant characteristics came from basic information contained in the school database. Students’ body weight was categorized using standard height and weight and physical health status using the college student physical health standard. Factors associated with various level of body weight were identified using multinomial logistic regression analysis. Results: The sample comprised 2060 males and 5096 females. The appropriate body weight prevalence among the students was 51.7%. The prevalence of being overweight or obese was 5.8 and 8.5%, respecttively, higher compared to the typical prevalence among college students in China. Both male and female students in the 24-28-years age group had the lowest appropriate weight percentage and the highest obesity percentage among all the age groups. For female medical students, the prevalence of obesity for students studying in Clinical Medicine was higher than for other faculties. Multinomial logistic regression analysis of male students showed that lowest year of education (year 1) was a protective factor in regard to appropriate weight. For both male and female medical students, the obese group had the highest proportion of poor physical health status compared to other categories of body weight and the proportion with excellent physiccal health status constituted < 1% for males and 0% for females. Conclusions: School administrators should encourage medical students to actively participate in body weight training and education to improve attitudes toward inappropriate body weight, to increase protective factors, and reduce the risk factors for inappropriate body weight.

Solutions to a hyperbolic system of conservation laws on two boundaries

This paper studies the interaction of elementary waves including delta-shock waves on two boundaries for a hyperbolic system of conservation laws. The solutions of the initialboundary value problem for the system are constructively obtained. In the problem the initialboundary data are in piecewise constant states.

Study on Bullying and Violence on Campus from a Human Rights Perspective

"Campus Bullying" is essentially a form of violence against children and adolescents, but neglected for a long time because it occurred among these groups. This paper proposes to re-examine the nature of campus bullying and relevant prevention and intervention activities in a human rights framework. The author points out that bullying among children and adolescents, if without intervention, will become a socialization process through which children learn violent and unequal ideology. In conclusion, the paper makes suggestions on the prevention from and intervention in campus bullying from a human rights perspective.

A Markov Random Field Model-Based Approach to Natural Image Matting

This paper proposes a Maxkov Random Field （MRF） model-based approach to natural image matting with complex scenes. After the trimap for matting is given manually, the unknown region is roughly segmented into several joint sub-regions. In each sub-region, we partition the colors of neighboring background or foreground pixels into several clusters in RGB color space and assign matting label to each unknown pixel. All the labels are modelled as an MRF and the matting problem is then formulated as a maximum a posteriori （MAP） estimation problem. Simulated annealing is used to find the optimal MAP estimation. The better results can be obtained under the same user-interactions when images are complex. Results of natural image matting experiments performed on complex images using this approach are shown and compared in this paper.

＂All Happy Families＇： The Sopranos and Television Culture in the Twenty-First Century

Since the 1980s, Cultural Studies have analyzed television in the context of the present. They have asked how soap operas and TV series contribute to the circulation of meanings and pleasures in everyday contexts. John Fiskes coined the concept television culturein his very successful book with the same title Taking The Sopranos as an example, this article shows that quality TV is an outstanding contribution to television culture. The show is more complex, more layered and more intertextual than the shows of the 1980s that Fiske interpreted. The Sopranos is a postmodern cultural phenomenon that appeals to different groups of viewers. It is no longer only about the addicted fans, but also about critical viewers who want to better understand themselves and their lives, and also about connoisseurs and art enthusiasts to whom serial reception becomes a distinctive feature. This article comes to the conclusion that popular culture in the sense of Cultural Studies is still of important political significance in the twenty-first century.

Improving Attitude toward Corporate Strategy with Visual Mapping： Scale Development and Application in Europe and China

Companies operating across borders face greater challenges in ensuring compliance with company strategy in different cultural contexts. Recent research shows the cognitive and emotional benefits of utilizing visual representations of knowledge in organizations. This study aims to test if mapping a corporate strategy visually can improve attitudes toward firm strategy and the intention to comply with it. An experiment is conducted comparing two knowledge maps to a textual version of the same company strategy. In order to measure attitudes toward the strategy, a scale was developed and tested in Europe and China. The study outcome provides a parsimonious and effective tripartite scale of attitude with cognitive, affective and behavioral components. The scale was then applied to a different sample to test the effect of mapping a company strategy visually on attitude toward the strategy, and to test if the effect is persistent in Europe and China. The results of the experiment show that subjects exposed to the visual conditions had significantly more positive affective and cognitive attitudes toward the content.