ALBERT

Description: IJERPH, Vol. 15, Pages 1065: Mental Health Status and Associated Contributing Factors among Gay Men in China International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health doi: 10.3390/ijerph15061065 Authors: Xiaojun Liu Dongdong Jiang Xiangfan Chen Anran Tan Yitan Hou Meikun He Yuanan Lu Zongfu Mao Chinese gay men are preferentially vulnerable to mental health problems because of deep-rooted, traditional social influence that overemphasizes heterosexual marriage, fertility, and filial piety. A cross-sectional survey was conducted from November to December 2017 using the Chinese version of the Symptom Checklist-90-R (SCL-90-R) to assess the status of, and factors associated with the mental health of Chinese gay men. Unadjusted associations between demographic factors and the total score of SCL-90-R were examined using t/F tests or person correlation analysis. The main factors that were most predictive of the aggregate score of SCL-90-R were identified by multiple linear regressions. A total of 367 gay men participated in this survey with an average score of SCL-90-R of 180.78 ± 79.58. The scores of seven dimensions (OCS, INTS, DEPR, ANX, HOS, PHOA, PARI) for Chinese gay men were found to be significantly higher than the national norm (all p < 0.001). Age (B = −1.088, SE = 0.478, p = 0.023), educational level (B = −14.053, SE = 5.270, p = 0.008), and degree of coming out publicly (B = −23.750, SE = 4.690, p < 0.001) were protective factors for participants’ mental health status. A gay man who is the only child in his family was more likely to obtain a higher total score of SCL-90-R in China (B = 59.321, SE = 7.798, p < 0.001). Our study reveals the worrying mental health status of Chinese gay men. Shifts in familial, governmental, and societal normas are suggested to improve the current social acceptance towards sexual minority men, as well as to reduce detrimental health effects.

Description: IJERPH, Vol. 14, Pages 1459: Mental Health of the Prison Medical Workers (PMWs) and Influencing Factors in Jiangxi, China International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health doi: 10.3390/ijerph14121459 Authors: Xiaojun Liu Dongdong Jiang Zhaoxun Hou Meikun He Yuanan Lu Zongfu Mao Prison medical workers (PMWs) are critically important, but they are also vulnerable to psychological problems. Currently, there is no study on examining PMWs’ mental health conditions and possible influencing factors in China. Hence, we conducted this cross-sectional survey, aiming to understand the mental health status of the PMWs and related impact factors in Jiangxi province of China. We employed the Chinese version of the Symptom Checklist-90-R (SCL-90-R) to assess the mental disorders and psychological health conditions of PMWs in Jiangxi. The t tests were used to compare the differences for the average score of SCL-90-R between the Chinese general population and targeted PMWs of this study. Multivariable logistic regression analyses were conducted to identify the main factors associated with overall detection rate of PMWs’ psychological health conditions. The scores of four dimensions (somatization, obsessive-compulsive symptoms, anxiety, and paranoid ideation) were significantly higher than the Chinese national norm, and the total positive rate was 49.09% among the PMWs. Gender, marital status, age, and length of employment are identified to be the most significant predictors to affect PMWs’ mental health. Positive correlations between each of the nine dimensions of the SCL-90-R have been verified. This study demonstrated for the first time that PMWs are facing mental health risk and suffering serious psychological problems with psychopathology symptoms, which has become a growing concern in China. Our current findings suggest a need for more in-depth studies on this subject going forward to validate our conclusions and also to identify more impact factors, since such studies and knowledge of PMWs’ mental health and influencing factors are very limited in China.

Description: In mobile underwater acoustic (UWA) communications, the Doppler effect causes severe signal distortion, which leads to carrier frequency shift and compresses/broadens the signal length. This situation has a more severe impact on communication performance in the case of low signal-to-noise ratio and variable-speed movement. This paper proposes a non-data-aided Doppler estimation method for M-ary spread spectrum UWA communication systems in mobile scenarios. The receiver uses the spread spectrum codes dedicated to transmitting signals with different frequency offsets as local reference signals. Correlation operations are performed symbol by symbol with the received signal. The decoding and Doppler estimation of the present symbol are achieved by searching the correlation maximum in the code domain and frequency domain. The length of the current symbol is corrected for the next symbol synchronization using the estimated Doppler coefficient. To optimize the process of Doppler estimation and symbol synchronization, a heuristic search method is used. By adjusting the Doppler factor search step size, setting the threshold value, and using the Doppler factor estimation of the previous symbol, the search range can be significantly reduced and the computational complexity decreased. The Fisher-Yates shuffle algorithm is used to traverse the search range to ensure reliability of the results. Simulation results show that enlarging the frequency-domain search step size in some degree does not affect the decoding accuracy. On 15 May 2021, a shallow-water mobile UWA spread spectrum communication experiment was conducted in Weihai, China. The horizontal distance between the transmitter and the receiver is 3.7–4.0 km, and the communication rate is 41.96 bits per second. The transmitting ship moves at a speed of 0–3 m/s, and the bit error rate (BER) is lower than 1e−3, which is better than that of the sliding correlation despreading method with average Doppler compensation.