Introduction: A number of palliative care units have been established in different parts of China in the past two decades. Despite the growth in services, little is known about the attitudes of patients and health professionals towards this care approach. Subjects and Methods: A cross-sectional survey was conducted in Henan to examine the attitudes of terminally ill patients and health professionals towards palliative care. Results: In total, 146 patients with advanced cancer, 66 doctors and 106 nurses completed the questionnaires. The majority of patients accepted death as a natural life process, but there remained nearly half of the patients who believe life preservation was their major care goal and they were unclear about their diagnosis and prognosis. The majority of health professional respondents affirmed the importance of palliative care, but less than half had learnt about it previously or were willing to deliver the relevant care. Discussion: Palliative care seems to be widely accepted in the community as an alternative care option for patients with incurable disease. However, the lack of education in health professionals and public about palliative care, the predominant attitude of fighting against death and the avoidance of open and frank discussion concerning death and dying issues in the culture may hinder the development of palliative care.

The indoor air quality (IAQ) of severely polluted toilets is associated with the transmission of diseases. Computational fluid dynamics (CFD) methods and experimental measurements were used to analyze the diffusion characteristics of pollutants. This study investigated the diffusion characteristics and normalized concentration of ammonia and hydrogen sulfide pollutants under three ventilation systems—mixing ventilation (MV), personalized ventilation (PV), and impinging jet ventilation (IJV)—in a public toilet. The mean age of air (MAA) and air exchange efficiency (AEE) were also analyzed in our study. The results show that the MV scheme has a poor removal effect on pollutants compared with PV and IJV. IJV has advantages in reducing the normalized concentration of pollutants and improving the IAQ. Increasing the number of air changes per hour (ACH) may lead to a longer MAA and reduced air exchange efficiency. Choosing an appropriate number of air changes is very important to improve the IAQ in the toilet.

The poor indoor air quality (IAQ) of severely polluted toilets is associated with increased risk of severe disease. This study aimed to evaluate the overall IAQ according to the contaminant removal efficiency, volume average concentration, and breathing zone control level. The characteristics of contaminant transmission in a non-flushing ecological toilet (NFET) were analyzed using the computational fluid dynamics (CFD) methodology, and the proposed model was further validated based on experimental measurements. Both an orthogonal experimental design and CFD were used to analyze factors such as exhaust fan position (EFP), air change rate per hour (ACH), natural vent location (NVL), and grid height (G-h). The EFP and ACH were demonstrated to be the dominant factors affecting the IAQ, whereas NVL and G-h were found to play key roles. Single-factor analysis based on the significance levels of the ACH, EFP, and NVL was conducted using the CFD methodology to define three exhaust behaviors—namely, “ineffective”, “enhanced”, and “excessive”. These results provide key insights that may be used to improve the IAQ of NFETs.

Animal-keratin-wastes (AKWs), horns (HN), hair (HR), puffed waterfowl feathers (PF), hydrolyzed waterfowl feathers (HF), hydrolyzed fish meal (HM), crab meat (CM), feathers (FR), shrimp chaff (SC), fish scales (FS), and waste leather (WL) were used as modifiers to prepare animal-keratin-wastes biochars (AKWs-BC) derived from Trapa natans husks (TH). AKWs-BC have a well-developed microporous structure with a pore size mainly below 3 nm. Due to the doping of AKWs, the surface chemical properties of AKWs-BC (especially N functional groups) were improved. The utilization of APWs not only realizes the resource utilization of waste, but also can be used to prepare high-performance biochars.

The α2β1 integrin is a receptor for collagens, laminins and other adhesive molecules. Our early observations regarding the expression of the α2β1 integrin in tissues revealed that expression of the integrin is associated with orderly regulated epithelial proliferation. Our subsequent observation that the diminution or loss of α2β1 integrin expression in epithelial tumors correlated with loss of epithelial differentiation during cancer progression was consistent with this postulate and has spawned much work on the role of epithelial α2β1 integrin. However, the α2β1 integrin is expressed not only on tumor epithelial cells, but also on endothelial cells, fibroblasts and hematopoietic cells within the tumor microenvironment, necessitating an examination of the role of the α2β1 integrin in the tumor microenvironment. The role of the integrin in angiogenesis had been previously evaluated using inhibitory antibodies by Senger and colleagues who argued that collagen receptors within the microenvironment of tumors were critical for the development of new vessels. Our laboratory has now used the α2β1 integrin‐deficient mouse to explore the role of the integrin in the tumor microenvironment. Our recent data indicate that the α2β1 integrin plays an important role in regulating not tumor initiation, but tumor progression.