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Hepatitis delta virus (HDV) is an obligate satellite of hepatitis B virus (HBV). HIV/HDV co‐infection is associated with a high rate of hepatic decompensation events and death. We aimed to characterize the epidemiology of HDV infection in HIV/HBV co‐infected individuals. We systematically searched PubMed, Embase, Cochrane Library, Web of Science, CINAHL and Scopus for studies published from 1 Jan 2002 to 7 May 2018 measuring prevalence of HDV among the HIV population. Pooled seroprevalence was calculated with the DerSimonian–Laird random‐effects model. Our search returned 4624 records, 38 of which met the inclusion and exclusion criteria. These studies included data for 63 cohorts from 18 countries and regions. The overall HDV seroprevalence of HIV‐infected individuals was 1.03% (95% CI 0.43–1.85) in 2002–2018 globally. Moreover, the estimated pooled HDV seroprevalence among the general population was 1.07% (95% CI 0.65–1.59) in 2002–2018, which was not significantly different from the HDV seroprevalence of individuals living with HIV (p = 0.951). The overall HDV seroprevalence of the HBsAg positive population was 12.15% (95% CI 10.22–14.20), p = 0.434 when compared with the corresponding data of HIV/HBV co‐infected individuals. This meta‐analysis suggested that there was no difference between the HDV seroprevalence in HIV‐infected individuals and the general population. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

ABSTRACT In this work, we improve the traditional adaptive mesh refinement (AMR) by combining it with the finite analytical method (FAM) to solve the multiphase flow in heterogeneous porous media numerically. The FAM can provide rather accurate internodal transmissibility, and it is employed to improve the accuracy of coarsening and refining processes in AMR. The high performance of the proposed AMR‐FAM is indicated through numerical tests for solving the two‐phase flow in 2D heterogeneous media. The numerical simulation results indicate that the proposed AMR‐FAM is more accurate than the traditional AMR‐FAM. Compared with the simulation in the original fine grids, the proposed AMR‐FAM can provide nearly the same results. Moreover, the computational cost in the AMR grids is only approximately one‐third of the cost in the original fine grids according to our numerical tests. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aims of the present work were to isolate and characterize fungal endophytic communities associated with healthy wheat (Triticum aestivum L.) plants, collected from the North China. Segregated endophytes were screened for their PGP traits, abiotic stresses (heavy metals, salinity, drought, and temperature), and antibiotic sensitivity. A total of 16 endophytic fungi were isolated using the culture-dependent approach from different tissue parts of wheat plants. Based upon their internal transcribed spacer (ITS) rDNA gene sequencing, 15 out of 16 isolates were selected for further analysis. In the contemporary investigation, a number of the tested endophytes exhibited fairly good 1-aminocyclopropane-1-carboxylic acid deaminase (ACCD) (0.03±0.011 to 1.43±0.01 µmol α-KB mg−1 protein hr−1), indole acetic acid (IAA) (1.125±0.04 to36.12±0.004µgml−1), and phosphate solubilizing index (PSI) (2.08±0.03to5.16±0.36) activities. More than 30% isolates gave positive result for siderophore and ammonia tests, whereas all exhibited catalase activity but only 2 (582PDA1 and 582PDA11) produced hydrogen cyanide. Trichoderma strains showed salt, heavy metals, and drought tolerance at high levels and also exhibited resistance to all the tested antibiotics. Strain 582PDA4 was found to be the most temperature (55°C) tolerant isolate. The findings of this study indicated that the microbial endophytes isolated from wheat plants possessing a crucial function to improve plant growth could be utilized as biofertilizers or bioagents to establish a sustainable crop production system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The finite analytic numerical method for 3D quasi-Laplace equation with conductivity in full tensor form is constructed in this article. For cubic grid system, the gradient of the potential variable will diverge when tending to the common edge joining the four grids with different conductivities. However, the potential gradient along the tangential direction is of limited value. As a consequence, the 3D quasi-Laplace equations will behave as a quasi-2D one. An approximate analytical solution of the 3D quasi-Laplace equation can be found around the common edge, which is expressed as a combination of a power-law function and a linear function. With the help of this approximate analytical solution, a 3D finite analytical numerical scheme is then constructed. Numerical examples show that the proposed numerical scheme can provide rather accurate solutions only with [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

ABSTRACT In the context of numerical simulators for multiphase flow in porous media, there exists a long‐standing issue known as the grid orientation effect (GOE), wherein different numerical solutions can be obtained when considering grids with different orientations under certain unfavorable conditions. The GOE is relevant to the instability near displacement fronts. If numerical oscillations accompanied by sharp fronts are not adequately suppressed, the GOE occurs. To reduce or even eliminate the GOE, we propose augmenting adaptive artificial viscosity in the process of solving the saturation equation. It has been demonstrated that appropriate artificial viscosity can effectively reduce or even eliminate the GOE. The proposed numerical method can be easily applied in practical engineering problems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]