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Ancylostoma ceylanicum is a zoonotic soil-derived nematode that parasitizes the intestines of humans and animals (dogs and cats), leading to malnutrition and iron-deficiency anemia. Helminth parasites secrete calreticulin (CRT), which regulates or blocks the host's immune response. However, no data on A. ceylanicum calreticulin (Ace-CRT) are available. We investigated the biological function of recombinant Ace-CRT (rAce-CRT). rAce-CRT showed reliable antigenicity and stimulated the proliferation of mouse splenocytes and canine peripheral blood mononuclear cells. Quantitative reverse-transcription PCR assays revealed that rAce-CRT primarily promoted the expression of T helper 2 cytokines, particularly IL-13, in canine peripheral blood lymphocytes. rAce-CRT inhibited complement-mediated sheep erythrocyte hemolysis in vitro. Our findings indicate that Ace-CRT plays an immunomodulatory role and may be a promising candidate molecule for a hookworm vaccine. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR] more...

The collaborative creation model generates tremendous application prospects. In order to improve efficiency and reliability of collaborative creation, we propose a blockchain mapping method for the collaborative creation application system. We use blockchain to store tree structural content of collaborative creation. This makes it easy for creations to trace sources and assign rewards to individual contributors in an impartial and trustworthy manner. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR] more...

Echinostoma revolutum is a zoonotic food-borne intestinal trematode that can cause intestinal bleeding, enteritis, and diarrhea in human and birds. To identify a suspected E. revolutum trematode from a red-crowned crane (Grus japonensis) and to reveal the genetic characteristics of its mitochondrial (mt) genome, the internal transcribed spacer (ITS) and complete mt genome sequence of this trematode were amplified. The results identified the trematode as E. revolutum. Its entire mt genome sequence was 15,714 bp in length, including 12 protein-coding genes, 22 transfer RNA genes, 2 ribosomal RNA genes and one non-coding region (NCR), with 61.73% A+T base content and a significant AT preference. The length of the 22 tRNA genes ranged from 59 bp to 70 bp, and their secondary structure showed the typical cloverleaf and D-loop structure. The length of the large subunit of rRNA (rrnL) and the small subunit of rRNA (rrnS) gene was 1,011 bp and 742 bp, respectively. Phylogenetic trees showed that E. revolutum and E. miyagawai clustered together, belonging to Echinostomatidae with Hypoderaeum conoideum. This study may enrich the mitochondrial gene database of Echinostoma trematodes and provide valuable data for studying the molecular identification and phylogeny of some digenean trematodes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR] more...

Melting temperature shift (Tm-shift) is a new detection method that analyze the melting curve on real-time PCR thermocycler using SYBR Green I fluorescent dye. To establish a Tm-shift method for the detection of Ancylostoma ceylanicum and A. tubaeforme in cats, specific primers, with GC tail of unequal length attached to their 5' end, were designed based on 2 SNP loci (ITS101 and ITS296) of the internal transcribed spacer 1 (ITS1) sequences. The standard curve of Tm-shift was established using the standard plasmids of A. ceylanicum (AceP) and A. tubaeforme (AtuP). The Tm-shift method stability, sensitivity, and accuracy were tested with reference to the standard curve, and clinical fecal samples were also examined. The results demonstrated that the 2 sets of primers based on the 2 SNPs could accurately distinguish between A. ceylanicum and A. tubaeforme. The coefficient of variation (CV) of Tm- values of AceP and AtuP was 0.07% and 0.06% in ITS101 and was 0.06% and 0.08% in ITS296, respectively. The minimum detectable DNA concentration was 5.22×10-6 and 5.28×10-6 ng/µl samples of AceP and AtuP, respectively. The accuracy of Tm-shift method reached 100% based on examination of 10 hookworm DNA samples with known species. In the clinical detection of hookworm in 69 stray cat fecal sample, the Tm-shift detection results were consistent with the microscopic examination and successfully differentiated between the 2-hookworm species. In conclusion, the developed method is a rapid, sensitive and accurate technique and can provide a promising tool for clinical detection and epidemiological investigation of cat-derived hookworms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR] more...

The measurement of plant leaf area (LA) has important guiding significance for the diagnosis of plant growth status. Most of the existing methods for measuring LA are contact measurement. This paper proposes a method to directly create a 3D model of the leaf and calculate the surface area of the leaf in the natural state. Firstly, the digital camera is calibrated to obtain the camera parameters. Then, the leaves are photographed from multi-angles in order to obtain the three-dimensional point cloud; the images are processed by Photomodeler. Use MATLAB programming to achieve 3D modeling of the leaf and calculate the surface area using scanner combination Photoshop software methods. The experimental results show that the method proposed has a prominent effect on the measurement of the leaf under natural conditions with an accuracy of 99%. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR] more...

Knowing which types of functionality that human membrane proteins belong to is very helpful for understanding their functions. However, most existing online prediction methods have some disadvantages, including: 1) they obtain very low prediction accuracy, and 2) they can only predict single-functional classes of cytomembrane proteins in humans. To overcome the drawbacks, a new multi-label predictor, namely mMem-Hum, is proposed. In addition to predicting types of single-function membrane proteins, it can also predict multi-functional types. Specifically, discriminative features of membrane proteins are generated by using amino acid sequence information and evolutionary information, and then they are classified by a new multi-label classifier that utilizes label correlations. Experimental results reveal that the performance of mMem-Hum is significantly better than other existing forecasting methods. This indicates that mMem-Hum may become a promising prediction tool for classifying functional classes of cytomembrane proteins in humans. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR] more...

Toxascaris leonina is a common parasitic nematode of wild mammals and has significant impacts on the protection of rare wild animals. To analyze population genetic characteristics of T. leonina from South China tiger, its mitochondrial (mt) genome was sequenced. Its complete circular mt genome was 14,277 bp in length, including 12 proteincoding genes, 22 tRNA genes, 2 rRNA genes, and 2 non-coding regions. The nucleotide composition was biased toward A and T. The most common start codon and stop codon were TTG and TAG, and 4 genes ended with an incomplete stop codon. There were 13 intergenic regions ranging 1 to 10 bp in size. Phylogenetically, T. leonina from a South China tiger was close to canine T. leonina. This study reports for the first time a complete mt genome sequence of T. leonina from the South China tiger, and provides a scientific basis for studying the genetic diversity of nematodes between different hosts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR] more...

Data play an important role in disaster mitigation applications, and the integrated employment of multidisciplinary data promotes the development of disaster science. Therefore it is very useful to identify the multidisciplinary data usage in the research of disaster events. In order to discover the correlation between multidisciplinary data and disaster research, three earthquake events, the Tangshan earthquake, the Wenchuan earthquake, and the Haidi earthquake were selected as typical study cases for this paper. A knowledge model for literature data mining was applied to analyze the correlation between earthquake events and multidisciplinary data types. The results indicate that high-cited papers show different data usage trends when compared with whole-set papers and also that data usage for the three earthquake events varies. According to analysis results, the factors that influence multidisciplinary data usage include the characteristics of spatial and temporal elements as well as differing interests of the data users. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR] more...

The objective of this study was to genetically characterize isolates of Giardia duodenalis and to determine if zoonotic potential of G. duodenalis could be found in stray cats from urban and suburban environments in Guangzhou, China. Among 102 fresh fecal samples of stray cats, 30 samples were collected in Baiyun district (urban) and 72 in Cong-hua district (suburban). G. duodenalis specimens were examined using light microscopy, then the positive specimens were subjected to PCR amplification and subsequent sequencing at 4 loci such as glutamate dehydrogenase (gdh), triose phosphate isomerase (tpi), α-giardin (bg), and small subunit ribosomal RNA (18S rRNA) genes. The phylogenetic trees were constructed using obtained sequences by MEGA5.2 software. Results show that 9.8% (10/102) feline fecal samples were found to be positive by microscopy, 10% (3/30) in Baiyun district and 9.7% (7/72) in Conghua district. Among the 10 positive samples, 9 were single infection (8 isolates, assemblage A; 1 isolate, assemblage F) and 1 sample was mixed infection with assemblages A and C. Based on tpi, gdh, and bg genes, all sequences of assemblage A showed complete homology with AI except for 1 isolate (CHC83). These findings not only confirmed the occurrence of G. duodenalis in stray cats, but also showed that zoonotic assemblage A was found for the first time in stray cats living in urban and suburban environments in China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR] more...

This study aimed to identify the assemblages (or subassemblages) of Giardia duodenalis by using normal or nested PCR based on 4 genetic loci: glutamate dehydrogenase (gdh), triose phosphate isomerase (tpi), ß-giardin (bg), and small subunit ribosomal DNA (18S rRNA) genes. For this work, a total of 216 dogs' fecal samples were collected in Guangdong, China. The phylogenetic trees were constructed with MEGA5.2 by using the neighbor-joining method. Results showed that 9.7% (21/216) samples were found to be positive; moreover, 10 samples were single infection (7 isolates assemblage A, 2 isolates assemblage C, and 1 isolate assemblage D) and 11 samples were mixed infections where assemblage A was predominant, which was potentially zoonotic. These findings showed that most of the dogs in Guangdong were infected or mixed-infected with assemblage A, and multi-locus sequence typing could be the best selection for the genotype analysis of dog-derived Giardia isolates. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR] more...

The article discusses papers within a special issue on progress in energy and environmental sustainability, including a survey on typical organic pollutants and health risks of main water sources in the Yellow River Basin, a study on naphthalene degradation characteristic in soil inoculated with the mixed denitrifying bacteria and an analysis of water quality and biodiversity of surface microlayers in fresh waters. more...

Giardia lamblia is recognized as one of the most prevalent parasites in dogs. The present study aimed to establish a loop-mediated isothermal amplification (LAMP) assay for rapid and specific detection of G. lamblia from dogs. The fecal samples were collected and prepared for microscopic analysis, and then the genomic DNA was extracted directly from purified cysts. The concentration of DNA samples of G. lamblia were diluted by 10-fold serially ranging from 10-5 to 10.5 ng/μl for LAMP and PCR assays. The LAMP assay allows the amplification to be finished within 60 min under isothermal conditions of 63°C by employing 6 oligonucleotide primers designed based on G. lamblia elongation factor 1 alpha (EF1α) gene sequence. Our tests showed that the specific amplification products were obtained only with G. lamblia, while no amplification products were detected with DNA of other related protozoans. Sensitivity evaluation indicated that the LAMP assay was sensitive 10 times more than PCR. It is concluded that LAMP is a rapid, highly sensitive and specific DNA amplification technique for detection of G. lamblia, which has implications for effective control and prevention of giardiasis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR] more...

Novel adsorbents for phosphate removal from aqueous solutions were sampled from incineration slags com-prised of a mixture of coal, sewage sludge, and corn stalk. The maximum phosphate adsorption capacity, the pH of the solution, and the desorbability of phosphate were evaluated in batch experiments for the Pcss slag (50% Pure Coal + 50% sewage sludge), Pcsscs slag (33% Pure Coal + 33% Sewage Sludge 4- 33% Corn Stalk), and Pc slag (Pure Coal). The phosphate adsorption of coal slag was greatly increased by adding sewage sludge and corn stalk to change the XRD patterns and surfaces structures. The phosphate adsorption data were better fit by the Langumir equation than the Freundlich model. According to the Langmuir model, the maximum adsorption capacity of Pcss slag (29,586 mg P/kg) was approximately equal to that of the Pcsscs slag and 2.34 times greater than that of the Pc slag. The desorbability of phosphate from the syn-thesized Pcss slag and Pcsscs slags ranged from 0-1.0%, which was significantly lower than that of PC slag. Moreover, the process of phosphate removal from the Pcss slag and Pcsscs slag was slightly more tolerant than that with Pc slag to pH fluctuations ranging from 4-8. The heavy metal ion concentrations of the leachate from the Pcss slag, Pcsscs slag and Pc slag were negligible. The Pcsscs slag, which was prepared from coal, corn stalk, and sewage sludge, was cost-effective and possessed a high adsorptive capacity for phosphate removal from aqueous solutions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR] more...

Abstract: Scientists in earth observation field often spend a lot of time on data preprocessing according to specific application targets. Using Web Coverage Service (WCS) and research on-demand data service model in spatial information system could help to improve efficiency and interoperability. It aims to integrate a large number of fundamental data pre-processing tasks into data access procedure, and minimize the time cost. This paper studies spatial data system to provide high level spatial data products to meet application request based on WCS standards. The paper introduces service module classification methods to adapter heterogeneous data exchange, and discussed data access service components and workflow control mechanism. It also conducted close examination of comparison study with traditional methods, analysis the performance results of the experiment. [Copyright &y& Elsevier] more...

Abstract: This model is based on the Steven Klepper(1996)’s contribution to the Product Life Cycle(PLC) theory. We construct the specific functions of the original model, further design a mechanism for the competition and simulate to coincide with the past regularities about PLC. The model also aims at revealing effect of the parameters to the industry evolution process. It confirms the original model, and exposes the entry, exit, innovation, competitive behaviors in the industry. This model has a generous structure with discrete periods that can be applied to specific industry. It also can be used to analyze and forecast the competition pattern in the energy industry. [Copyright &y& Elsevier] more...

Sociological textbooks in Japan are charming to Chinese sociology which survived in 1979 after longer-than-twenty-years' interval. Textbooks written by Ken'ichi Tominaga and Hiroyuki Torigoe, which the author read as a student, are systematically written, although the former attempts to grasp patterns common to human societies from the perspective of general theory and the latter seeks particular characteristics of the Japanese society using culturalist approaches. Japanese sociology still displays the sociological traits of a late-starting non-Western society, and its textbooks are basically the products of its dialogue with Western sociology and its localization toward the Japanese intellectual climate. To the author's regret, however, Japanese textbooks rarely refer to Asian societies, although it is strongly expected that unique concepts that are conceived in Japan will be able to explain social phenomena in Asian societies, including China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR] more...