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Abstract Background Scrub typhus is a life-threatening disease caused by Orientia tsutsugamushi, and specific antimicrobial medicine is available. Early and accurate diagnosis is essential for reducing the risk of severe complications and death. In this study, we aimed to evaluate the case diagnosis situation among medical care institutions and geographical regions in China, and the results will benefit both clinical practice and the disease surveillance system. Methods We extracted individual scrub typhus case data 2006–2016 from a national disease surveillance system in China. The diagnosis category and interval time from illness onset to diagnosis were compared among three levels of medical care institutions and provinces. The descriptive analysis method was performed in our study. Results During the 11-year study period, 93 481 scrub typhus cases, including 57 deaths, were recorded in the nationwide surveillance system. The overall proportion of laboratory-confirmed cases was only 4.7%, and this proportion varied greatly among primary medical centres (2.8%), county level hospitals (4.2%), and city level hospitals (6.3%). Notably, the proportion of laboratory-confirmed cases has consistently decreased from 16.3% in 2006 to 2.6% in 2016, and the same decreasing trend was found among all three levels of medical care institutions. The interval from illness onset to case diagnosis (Tdiag) for all cases was 5 days (interquartile range [IQR]: 2–9 days) and decreased from 7 days (IQR: 3–11 days) in 2006 to 5 days (IQR: 2–8 days) in 2016. The risk of death for patients with a Tdiag of > 7 days was 2.2 times higher (OR = 2.21, 95% CI: 1.05–5.21) than that of patients with a Tdiag of

Abstract In this paper, we present Shafer-type inequalities for inverse trigonometric functions and Gauss lemniscate functions.

Association mapping is a useful tool for the detection of genes selected during plant domestication based on their linkage disequilibrium (LD). This study was carried out to estimate genetic diversity, population structure and the extent of LD to develop an association framework in order to identify genetic variations associated with drought and salt tolerance traits. 106 microsatellite marker primer pairs were used in 323 Gossypium hirsutum germplasms which were grown in the drought shed and salt pond for evaluation. Polymorphism (PIC=0.53) was found, and three groups were detected (K=3) with the second likelihood ΔK using STRUCTURE software. LD decay rates were estimated to be 13-15 cM at r2≥0.20. Significant associations between polymorphic markers and drought and salt tolerance traits were observed using the general linear model (GLM) and mixed linear model (MLM) (P≤0.01). The results also demonstrated that association mapping within the population structure as well as stratification existing in cotton germplasm resources could complement and enhance quantitative trait loci (QTLs) information for marker-assisted selection.

BACKGROUND: Typhoid and paratyphoid fever are endemic in Hongta District and their prevalence, at 113 per 100,000 individuals, remains the highest in China. However, the exact sources of the disease and its main epidemiological characteristics have not yet been clearly identified. METHODS AND FINDINGS: Numbers of typhoid and paratyphoid cases per day during the period 2006 to 2010 were obtained from the Chinese Center of Disease Control (CDC). A number of suspected disease determinants (or their proxies), were considered for use in spatiotemporal analysis: these included locations of discharge canals and food markets, as well as socio-economic and environmental factors. Results showed that disease prevalence was spatially clustered with clusters decreasing with increasing distance from markets and discharge canals. More than half of the spatial variance could be explained by a combination of economic conditions and availability of health facilities. Temporal prevalence fluctuations were positively associated with the monthly precipitation series. Polluted hospital and residential wastewater was being discharged into rainwater canals. Salmonella bacteria were found in canal water, on farmland and on vegetables sold in markets. CONCLUSION: DISEASE TRANSMISSION IN HONGTA DISTRICT IS DRIVEN PRINCIPALLY BY TWO SPATIOTEMPORALLY COUPLED CYCLES: one involving seasonal variations and the other the distribution of polluted farmland (where vegetables are grown and sold in markets). Disease transmission was exacerbated by the fact that rainwater canals were being used for disposal of polluted waste from hospitals and residential areas. Social factors and their interactions also played a significant role in disease transmission.

Background: The elimination of malaria requires high-quality surveillance data to enable rapid detection and response to individual cases. Evaluation of the performance of a national malaria surveillance system could identify shortcomings which, if addressed, will improve the surveillance program for malaria elimination. Methods: Case-level data for the period 2005-2014 were extracted from the China National Notifiable Infectious Disease Reporting Information System and Malaria Enhanced Surveillance Information System. The occurrence of cases, accuracy and timeliness of case diagnosis, reporting and investigation, were assessed and compared between the malaria control stage (2005-2010) and elimination stage (2011-2014) in mainland China. Results: A total of 210 730 malaria cases were reported in mainland China in 2005-2014. The average annual incidence declined dramatically from 2.5 per 100 000 people at the control stage to 0.2 per 100 000 at the elimination stage, but the proportion of migrant cases increased from 9.8 % to 41.0 %. Since the initiation of the National Malaria Elimination Programme in 2010, the overall proportion of cases diagnosed by laboratory testing consistently improved, with the highest of 99.0 % in 2014. However, this proportion was significantly lower in non-endemic provinces (79.0 %) than that in endemic provinces (91.4 %) during 2011-2014. The median interval from illness onset to diagnosis was 3 days at the elimination stage, with one day earlier than that at the control stage. Since 2011, more than 99 % cases were reported within 1 day after being diagnosed, while the proportion of cases that were reported within one day after diagnosis was lowest in Tibet (37.5 %). The predominant source of cases reporting shifted from town-level hospitals at the control stage (67.9 % cases) to city-level hospitals and public health institutes at the eliminate stage (69.4 % cases). The proportion of investigation within 3 days after case reporting has improved, from 74.6 % in 2010 to 98.5 % in 2014. Conclusions: The individual case-based malaria surveillance system in China operated well during the malaria elimination stage. This ensured that malaria cases could be diagnosed, reported and timely investigated at local level. However, domestic migrants and overseas populations, as well as cases in the historically malarial non-endemic areas and hard-to-reach area are new challenges in the surveillance for malaria elimination. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The genetic diversity of 61 colored-cotton lines, including 40 brown cottons and 21 green cottons, was analyzed based on agronomic traits and simple sequence repeat (SSR) markers. A total of 344 alleles from 66 polymorphic SSR loci were detected among the colored cottons. The number of alleles per SSR locus ranged from two to 12, with an average of 5.212. The polymorphism information content was 0.355-0.886, with an average of 0.716. Cluster analysis by UPGMA showed that these colored-cotton lines could be divided into four main groups, including nine subgroups. Three out of 10 agronomic traits had remarkable differences among groups, and 18 of 21 green cottons were classified into one group. This showed that the genetic diversity of the SSR markers reflected, to a certain extent, the diversity of agronomic traits and fiber color. The genetic similarity value of different strains recently developed in China was higher than 0.800, indicating that the new lines were very similar. However, some basic genetic colored-cotton germplasm with poor agronomic characters had a far greater genetic relationship compared with lines developed in recent years. In summary, the genetic background of colored cotton with elite properties was narrow. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Four variant lines, HB1, HB2, HB3 and HB4, were derived from progenies of upland cotton (Gossypium hirsutum) cultivar Yumian 17 that had been transformed with genomic DNA from sea island cotton, Gossypium barbadense, using the pollen tube pathway (PTP) method. They showed significant differences from the wild-type recipient in terms of fibre quality, lint percentage, boll weight and other agronomic traits. The four variant lines also differed from the wild-type recipient in the amplification products of two SSR loci, indicating that the DNA of G. barbadense had been introduced into the genome of the recipient and was inherited stably. On the other hand, the agronomic traits of another three lines (HB5, HB6 and HB7) derived from the same transformation experiment were identical to those of the wild-type recipient, indicating that G. barbadense DNA had not integrated into the genome of these lines. A combination of the analyses on agronomic traits and SSR markers indicated that transgenic upland cotton strains produced by the PTP method could become homozygous in only a few generations and the foreign DNA introduced during the transformation experiments could be inherited stably in the transgenic progenies. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]