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Background The impacts of air pollution on circulatory and respiratory systems have been extensively studied. However, the associations between air pollution exposure and the risk of noncommunicable diseases of other organ systems, including diseases of the digestive, musculoskeletal, and genitourinary systems, remain unclear or inconclusive. We aimed to systematically assess the associations between short-term exposure to main air pollutants (fine particulate matter [PM 2.5 ] and ozone) and cause-specific risk of hospital admission in China over a wide spectrum of human diseases. Methods and findings Daily data on hospital admissions for primary diagnosis of 14 major and 188 minor disease categories in 252 Chinese cities (107 cities in North China and 145 cities in South China) from January 1, 2013, to December 31, 2017, were obtained from the Hospital Quality Monitoring System of China (covering 387 hospitals in North China and 614 hospitals in South China). We applied a 2-stage analytic approach to assess the associations between air pollution and daily hospital admissions. City-specific associations were estimated with quasi-Poisson regression models and then pooled by random-effects meta-analyses. Each disease category was analyzed separately, and the P values were adjusted for multiple comparisons. A total of 117,338,867 hospital admissions were recorded in the study period. Overall, 51.7% of the hospitalized cases were male, and 71.3% were aged <65 years. Robust positive associations were found between short-term PM 2.5 exposure and hospital

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We recruited 1296 mothers in their first trimester from the Affiliated Obstetrics and Gynecology Hospital of Nanjing Medical University between May 2014 and September 2015 to investigate the associations of maternal, perinatal and postnatal factors with the eruption timing of the first primary tooth (ETFPT) in a Chinese population. We collected maternal demographic information and clinical data during the perinatal and postnatal period, and oral examinations of the infants were performed by a doctor at 6, 9 and 12 months of age. Multiple regression analysis was used to identify significant explanatory variables for ETFPT. The mean age at eruption of the first primary tooth for all the infants was 6.82 ± 1.90 months. After adjustment for confounders, higher maternal childbearing age (β = 0.57; 95%CI = 0.13–1.02), female sex (β = 0.26; 95%CI = 0.07–0.52), and low birth weight (β = 0.98; 95%CI = 0.20–1.76) were significantly associated with delayed eruption of the first primary tooth, while macrosomia (β = −0.79; 95%CI = −1.30–−0.28) was significantly associated with earlier eruption of the first primary tooth. Maternal childbearing age, infant sex and infant birth weight were significant determinants of ETFPT.

The prevalence of myopia among primary school children in Beijing increased with age, and was significantly higher in girls ≥10 years old. Myopia was significantly associated with parental myopia, reading posture, distance between the eyes and the book being read, font size used in extracurricular reading material, time spent studying at home, and the duration of continuous study time.

This paper investigates whether private information from lending activities improves the forecast accuracy of bank‐affiliated analysts. Using a matched sample design, matching by affiliated bank or borrower, we demonstrate that the forecast accuracy of bank‐affiliated analysts increases after the followed firm borrows from the affiliated bank. We also find that the increase in forecast accuracy is more pronounced for borrowers with greater information asymmetry and bad news, and for deals with financial covenants. Last, we find that the informational advantage of bank‐affiliated analysts exists only when the affiliated banks serve as lead arrangers, not merely as participating lenders. Overall, our evidence suggests that information flows from commercial banking to equity research divisions within financial conglomerates.

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Given the difficulty in developing waterflooding in tight oil reservoirs, using waterflooding huff-n-puff is an effective method to improve oil recovery. Online nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) can detect the change in internal oil and water during the core displacement process, and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) in real time. To improve the tight oil reservoir development effectiveness, cores with different permeability were selected for a waterflooding huff-n-puff experiment. Combined with online NMR equipment, the fluid saturation, recovery rate, and residual oil distribution were studied. The experiments showed that, for tight oil cores, more than 80% of the pores were sub-micro-and micro-nanopores. More than 77.8% of crude oil existed in the sub-micro-and micropores, and movable fluids mainly existed in the micropores with a radius larger than 1 µm. The NMR data and the MRI images both demonstrated that the recovery ratio of waterflooding after waterflooding huff-n-puff was higher than that of conventional waterflooding, and, therefore, residual oil was lower. Choosing two cycles' of waterflooding, huff-n-puff was more suitable for tight oil reservoir development. The production of crude oil increased by 22.2% in the field pilot test, which preliminarily proved that waterflooding huff-n-puff was suitable for tight oil reservoirs.