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Alpine meadows on the Qinghai‐Tibet Plateau (QTP) store a huge amount of plant and soil carbon (C). The degradation of the alpine meadow has led to a significant loss of soil organic C (SOC), which endangers its weak C sink. The change in heterotrophic respiration was hypothesized as one of the primary biological processes for the SOC loss alongside the degradation of alpine meadow. However, little is known about how land degradation impacts Rh due to changes in plant communities and consequent labile organic C inputs. Rh, vegetation productivity, plant community composition, plant lignin concentration, leaf C/N, SOC, and soil labile C (SLC) were measured for alpine meadow grasslands with five degradation levels in 2 years. Our results showed that the SOC of the surface layer (0–10 cm) gradually decreased with land degradation. The plant lignin concentration and C/N ratio gradually increased with land degradation due to the proportion of sedges decreased while that of forbs increased, which consequently led to the soil C quality (SLC) increased before the moderate degradation level (MD) while significantly reduced in severe and very severe degradation levels (SD and VSD). The structural equation modeling result (SEM) revealed that the degradation‐induced change in soil C quality (SLC) due to an alteration in plant community composition relates to the Rh change with grassland degradation, and the Rh (C output) and aboveground biomass (AGB: C input) further mediated the loss of SOC alongside alpine meadow degradation. On average, Rh increased by 49% and 59% from the Intact to slight degradation level (SLD) and MD and reduced by 56% and 69% from MD to SD and VSD. The temperature sensitivity of Rh (Q10) was higher in the SLD (Q10 = 2.84) and MD (Q10 = 2.62) comparing with the Intact (Q10 = 2.58) respectively, but it was lower in SD (Q10 = 2.19) and VSD (Q10 = 1.65). AGB and belowground net primary productivity (BNPP) had no significant change until the MD, while reduced by 60%–90% in SD and VSD. Our results suggest that Rh and its Q10 change moderated by soil C quality alteration due to the plant community shifting could be one mechanism for the soil C loss before MD, but could not be the main pathway for the SOC loss at SD and VSD.

In recent decades, corporate social responsibility is a hot issue. Many studies show that corporate social responsibility is conducive to corporate image and brand value. The implementation of corporate social responsibility and brand value both are required investment in a certain additional operating costs, and the return on investment is not easy to assess. Therefore, how to make the correct corporate social responsibility and brand strategies should be a great concern to enterprises. This study takes the samples of listed companies in A-shares on the Shenzhen stock exchange from 2012 to 2018, and then measure their corporate social responsibility evaluation by the model developed by Wang et al., (2012) and their brand value by Hirose model. This study set each individual components of corporate social responsibility and brand value as a separate dependent variable , then implement quantile regression to analyze the different companies with different levels of profitability should take the different corporate social responsibility and brand strategies.

Background The analysis of risk factors for predicting related complications has not been reported to date. Objective This study aims to investigate the risk factors of related complications of percutaneous transluminal septal myocardial ablation (PTSMA) for hypertrophic obstructive cardiomyopathy (HOCM) retrospectively. Method Clinical data, and one-year follow-up results of patients with HOCM, who underwent PTSMA between January 2000 and July 2013 in the Department of Cardiology, Liaoning Province People’s Hospital, Liaoning Province, China, were retrospectively analyzed to determine risk factors for operative complications with multiple logistic regression analysis. All p values are two-sided, with values of p < 0.05 being considered statistically significant. Results Among 319 patients with HOCM, PTSMA was performed in 224 patients (120 males and 104 females, mean age was 48.20 ± 14.34 years old). The incidence of PTSMA procedure-related complications was 36.23% (66/224), which included three cardiac deaths, two cardiac shocks, one ST-segment elevated myocardial infarction, two ventricular fibrillations, 20 third-degree atrioventricular (AV) blocks (four patients were implanted with a permanent pacemaker (PPM)), 32 complete right bundle branch blocks, two complete left bundle branch blocks, and four puncture-related complications. After multivariate logistic regression analysis, it was found that age, gender, coronary artery diseases, diabetes, heart rate, cardiac function on admission, the number of septal ablations, and the volume of alcohol were not independent risk factors correlated to the whole complications, except for hypertension (OR: 4.856; 95% CI: 1.732-13.609). Early experience appears to be associated with the occurrence of complications. Conclusion Hypertension was an independent risk factor for PTSMA procedure-related complications. It might be much safer and more efficient if PTSMA procedures are restricted to experienced centers, according to the analysis results for the learning curve.

Nowadays, Mg based metals attract much attention because of their biodegradability and bioactivity. However, over fast degradation rate still restrict their widely medical application. Therefore, surface protection treatment is necessary to control the degradation rate. In this study, a ceramic coating was successfully fabricated on pure magnesium by Micro-arc oxidation (MAO) method. The surface quality was dramatically influenced by deposition parameters such as voltage and frequency. The composition of the sample was characterized by X-ray diffraction (XRD) and the surface morphology was characterized by scanning electron microscope (SEM) equipped with energy dispersive spectroscopy (EDS). The degradation behavior of MAO coated Mg was investigated. It is expected that pure Mg with MAO coating can be used for the orthopedic application especially as bone screw.

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