School physical education (PE) as an important social context can promote adolescents’ physical health and contributes to their mental health. Guided by the self-determination health behavior model, the study aimed to examine a structural mediation model to investigate the relationships among perceived need support from PE teachers, psychological need satisfaction, and adolescents’ health-related outcomes. Participants were 300 adolescents (M_age = 14.48; 50.3% girls) recruited from five middle schools in Shanghai, China. They completed previously validated questionnaires assessing their perceived need support from PE teachers, psychological need satisfaction, leisure time physical activity (LTPA), and health-related quality of life (HRQOL). The hypothesized model demonstrated a good fit (χ²/df = 3.4, p < 0.01; Root Mean Square Error of Approximation (RMSEA) = 0.09; Standardized Root Mean Square Residual (SRMR) = 0.06; Bentler–Bonett Nonnormed Fit Index (NFI)= 0.92; Comparative Fit Index (CFI) = 0.94; 90% Confidence Interval (CI) [0.07, 0.11]). The findings indicated that three basic psychological needs can be satisfied by perceived need support from PE teachers, and psychological need satisfaction was positively associated with health-related outcomes such as LTPA and HRQOL. In addition, psychological need satisfaction mediated the relationship between perceived need support from PE teachers and health-related outcomes such as LTPA and HRQOL in the present study. The findings supported the theoretical tenets of the self-determination health behavior model and its generalizability among Chinese adolescent students.

Climate change and food security issues have increased the demand for effective and sustainable technologies in the food and agriculture sectors. Plasma-activated water (PAW), a novel cleaning and disinfecting agent enriched with reactive oxygen species and reactive nitrogen species, has attracted widespread attention due to its potential application in maintaining microbiological safety and other quality parameters of food products. Compared to traditional disinfection methods, PAW is rapid and effective for various products, unrestricted by the volume or shape of the treated sample, and is green and sustainable. This article reviews research progress on latest preparation methods, physicochemical properties, antimicrobial activities, potential antimicrobial mechanisms of PAW, and their applications in the food industry. In addition, current methods for preparing PAW suffer from low efficiency, poor antimicrobial stability, and a lack of technology validation and safety evaluation. To solve these challenges, the synergies between PAW and other technologies, the impact on food quality, and current methods for assessing the safety of PAW are highlighted. Technology readiness, energy consumption, international regulations, toxic intermediate products during PAW production, scalability, and important directions for future research on the commercialization of PAW are also presented. It provides the necessary theoretical basis for regulating the generation of high-throughput PAW and demonstrates the feasibility of PAW as a novel food cleaning and sanitizing agent. In summary, this review provides essential insights into PAW's safety, application potential, and sustainability for the food industry.

Participating in regular physical activity contributes to significant improvements of quality of life (QOL) in adults. Understanding psychosocial factors that influence physical activity and QOL in working adults may have important implications for future interventions aimed at improving their health. The major purpose of this study was to investigate the psychosocial predictors of physical activity and QOL among Shanghai working adults. Participants were 238 working adults (M age = 51.6 ± 5.6) living in Shanghai communities, China. They completed previously validated questionnaires assessing their perceptions of stress, social support from friends, self-efficacy, physical activity, and QOL. Pearson correlations were computed to assess the associations among physical activity, QOL, and psychosocial variables. Path analysis was used to test the predictive strengths of psychosocial factors on physical activity and QOL among Shanghai working adults. The results indicated that stress had directly negative relationships on self-efficacy and QOL. Social support had directly positive relationships on self-efficacy, physical activity, and QOL. Physical activity had directly positive relationship on QOL. Self-efficacy and physical activity mediated the influences of stress and social support on QOL. Stress and social support from friends were two important sources of self-efficacy, all of which facilitated more physical activity participation. Lower stress, higher social support, and more physical activity may directly increase QOL among Shanghai working adults. The mediating roles of self-efficacy and physical activity should be taken into account in managing stress and social support in order to promote QOL among Shanghai working adults.

Working women are at a high risk of suffering from occupational stress and burnout, which can result in reducing Quality of Life (QoL). Guided by the QoL construct and Luban et al.’s conceptual framework, this study aimed to (a) investigate the roles of individual factors (i.e., age) and psychosocial factors (i.e., occupational stress, burnout) on QoL among working women, and (b) examine the age differences among study variables (young versus middle-aged groups). Participants were 375 working women (M_age = 42.06) recruited in Shanghai, China. They completed previously validated questionnaires assessing their occupational stress, burnout (emotional exhaustion, cynicism, and reduced professional efficacy), and QoL (physical health, psychological health, social relationship, and living environment). Confirmatory factor analysis, Pearson product-moment correlation, hierarchical regressions, and factorial multivariate analyses of variance (MANOVA) were used to examine the relationships and differences between occupational stress, burnout, and QoL among working women. Correlation and regression analyses indicated that occupational stress and burnout were significantly associated with QoL among these participants. Two one-factor MANOVAs demonstrated that young-aged working women had higher occupational stress and burnout, but lower levels of QoL than middle-aged women. These results suggest that adopting specific coping strategies to reduce or prevent occupational stress and burnout are needed to improve QoL among working women.

Exercise is important to counteract negative physical and emotional effects of breast cancer treatments. Dragon boating, a traditional sports event in China, has become a popular rehabilitation methods of breast cancer. This study examines effects of a dragon boating intervention on physical functioning and psychological health in breast cancer survivors. Breast cancer survivors (N = 40) were randomly assigned to an intervention (n = 20) or control group (n = 20). The intervention group participated in a dragon boating intervention twice a week over a period of 14 weeks, with each lasted for 75 minutes and at a rate of stroke < 60t/min. The control group received no intervention. Patients from both groups were measured at during 1 and 14 weeks on levels of physical functioning (30s arm curls for upper limb strength, shoulder range of motion for upper limb flexibility, 30s sit to stand for lower limb strength, sit and reach for lower limb flexibility, 4m leg lifting for aerobic endurance, and arm circumference for body circumference) and psychological health including self-efficacy (measured by German General-Self-Efficacy Scale), stress (by Perceived Stress Questionnaire; PSQ20), and fear and depression (by Hospital Depression Scale). Comparing pre- to post- intervention data, significant improvements were found for the upper limb strength test (+7.15%; p = 0.023), upper limb flexibility (+ 11.6%; p = 0.008) and aerobic endurance (+9.25; p = 0.009) in the dragon boating group. No changes in patient-reported outcomes, lower limb function and body circumference were observed following the 14 weeks study period in both groups (p > 0.05). Data analyses also showed a significant difference between both groups regarding the subscale "joy" (p = .018). Several significant results within the intervention group were seen in self-efficacy (p = .014), fear (p = .009) and the overall score for fear and depression (p = .043). Both groups improved significantly within "worries" (pintervention = .006, pcontrol = .019) and the PSQ20 overall score (both ps = .005). The control group also significantly improved in the subscale for "demands" (p = .019). Our study showed that dragon boating intervention yielded significant improvements in upper limb strength, flexibility, aerobic endurance, and mental health level but not lower limb physical fitness, body circumference, or quality of life. The dragon boating alone may not be considered as being comprehensively effective enough to help breast cancer survivors regarding relevant physical and psychological issues, but it might be an