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Magnetic materials with non-collinear spin orderings provide an outstanding platform to probe spintronic phenomena owing to their strong spin-orbit coupling (SOC) and unique Berry phase. It is thus important to obtain a non-collinear antiferromagnetic (AFM) phase at room temperature (RT). Significantly, the discovery of novel materials with nearly zero thermal expansion (ZTE) property near RT is required and pursued for avoiding thermal stress and fracture in spintronic devices. Herein, the doping of Sn (Ge) at the Ag site in the triangular lattice Mn3Ag1−xSn(Ge)xN compounds increases effectively the Néel point and makes the interesting non-collinear Γ5g AFM phase exist above RT. The magnetic phase diagrams with Γ5g phase up to 498 K were built by the combined analysis of neutron powder diffraction (NPD), magnetic measurements, electronic transport, and differential scanning calorimetry (DSC). The thermal expansion behaviors of Mn3Ag1−xSn(Ge)xN were modulated, and the nearly ZTE above RT was achieved in Mn3Ag0.5Ge0.5N within Γ5g AFM ordering. Our findings offer an effective way to tailor the non-collinear AFM ordering and correlated thermal expansion behavior for potential use in the emerging field of thermal stress-free magnetic chip materials.

Abstract To determine the dietary structure and its associated factors of tuberculosis (TB) patients in the community. This cross-sectional study analysed the dietary intake of 300 TB patients in two impoverished counties in China. Food intake was collected by using food frequency and two consecutive 24-h dietary review (24hdr) methods. The dietary composition and dietary structure of TB patients were compared with China’s 2022 Dietary Reference Intake (DRIs) and the average reference value of dietary composition (ARC) in China in 2013. Binary logistic regression models were used to explore the factors associated with inadequate intake of animal food, insufficient protein and fat energy supply in patients with TB. The daily intake of various foods in TB patients was measured and the results were as follows: staple foods—median 372.12 g (interquartile range [IQR] 315.87 g); vegetables—median 200.00 g (IQR 205.55 g); fruits—median 20.22 g (IQR 36.82 g); animal foods—median 100.82 g (IQR 180.74 g); dairy products—median 0.00 g (IQR 0.00 g); nuts—median 17.10 g (IQR 29.75 g). The average daily intakes of vegetables, fruits, animal food, dairy products, soy and nuts were lower than those recommended by the DRIs (P

Aluminum radiator plays a significant role in thermal managing system of passive heat dissipation for high power consuming microelectronic devices. Although inspiring strategies have been proposed to design and prepare polymer-based composites with high thermal conductivity in previous reports, it remains urgent to develop practical techniques for economically fabricating thermally conductive composite coatings in large-scale. To construct efficient heat dissipation film, two-dimensional (2D) graphene nanoplatelets (GNPs)/hexagonal boron nitride nanoplatelets (BNNPs) hybrid fillers are dispersed in polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) solution with branch-like porous magnéli-phase Ti4O7 microparticles as heat conducting paths, and fabricated via convenient spray-coating. Thermal conductivity of the cured coating presents two-fold increase to 5.339 W m−1 K−1 as compared to the coating without Ti4O7, and a heat dissipation ratio of 13.96 %. Furthermore, the composite coating demonstrates excellent corrosion resistance under neutral salt solution spray. The as-prepared composite coating is of great potential to be applied as protective coating for aluminum radiators.

Background: Based on real-world medical data, the artificial neural network model was used to predict the risk factors of linezolid-induced thrombocytopenia to provide a reference for better clinical use of this drug and achieve the timely prevention of adverse reactions.Methods: The artificial neural network algorithm was used to construct the prediction model of the risk factors of linezolid-induced thrombocytopenia and further evaluate the effectiveness of the artificial neural network model compared with the traditional Logistic regression model.Results: A total of 1,837 patients receiving linezolid treatment in a hospital in Xi ‘an, Shaanxi Province from 1 January 2011 to 1 January 2021 were recruited. According to the exclusion criteria, 1,273 cases that did not meet the requirements of the study were excluded. A total of 564 valid cases were included in the study, with 89 (15.78%) having thrombocytopenia. The prediction accuracy of the artificial neural network model was 96.32%, and the AUROC was 0.944, which was significantly higher than that of the Logistic regression model, which was 86.14%, and the AUROC was 0.796. In the artificial neural network model, urea, platelet baseline value and serum albumin were among the top three important risk factors.Conclusion: The predictive performance of the artificial neural network model is better than that of the traditional Logistic regression model, and it can well predict the risk factors of linezolid-induced thrombocytopenia.

In recent years, an increasing number of companies have begun implementing digital-HRM. However, much of the existing research primarily discusses digital-HRM from a "thing" perspective or explores its consequences at the organizational level. There has been limited research focusing on individual employees, particularly on how digital-HRM impacts their psychological states and performance. Drawing on job demands-resources theory, this study examines the relationship between digital-HRM and employee innovative performance, as well as cyberloafing. We conducted a time-lagged study involving 487 employees across various industries in China and employed partial least squares path modeling. The results suggest that digital-HRM enhances employee innovative performance by increasing the sense of work gain, while it reduces cyberloafing by decreasing relative deprivation. Perceived ease of technology use was found to positively moderate these relationships. By rigorously investigating the critical psychological mechanisms of the sense of work gain and relative deprivation, and the essential boundary condition of perceived ease of technology use, this study aims to develop a comprehensive conceptual framework that deepens our understanding of how digital-HRM, as an emerging job resource in the digital era, influences employee behavior. Adopting a human-centered approach, the research theoretically extends the study of digital-HRM's impact at the individual level and finds that digital-HRM influences employee performance in a mutually beneficial manner. These findings provide practical insights for organizations to actively implement digital-HRM and maximize its benefits.

Abstract Background Headache disorders are widely prevalent and pose a considerable economic burden on individuals and society. Globally, misdiagnosis and inadequate treatment of primary headache disorders remain significant challenges, impeding the effective management of such conditions. Despite advancements in headache management over the last decade, a need for comprehensive evaluations of the status of primary headache disorders in China regarding diagnosis and preventative treatments persists. Methods In the present study, we analyzed the established queries in the Survey of Fibromyalgia Comorbidity with Headache (SEARCH), focusing on previous diagnoses and preventative treatment regimens for primary headache disorders. This cross-sectional study encompassed adults diagnosed with primary headache disorders who sought treatment at 23 hospitals across China between September 2020 to May 2021. Results The study comprised 2,868 participants who were systematically examined. Migraine and tension-type headaches (TTH) constituted a majority of the primary headache disorders, accounting for 74.1% (2,124/2,868) and 23.3% (668/2,868) of the participants, respectively. Medication overuse headache (MOH) affected 8.1% (231/2,868) of individuals with primary headache disorders. Over half of the individuals with primary headache disorders (56.6%, 1,624/2,868) remained undiagnosed. The previously correct diagnosis rates for migraine, TTH, TACs, and MOH were 27.3% (580/2,124), 8.1% (54/668), 23.2% (13/56), and 3.5% (8/231), respectively. The misdiagnosis of “Nervous headache” was found to be the most prevalent among individuals with migraine (9.9%, 211/2,124), TTH (10.0%, 67/668), trigeminal autonomic cephalalgias (TACs) (17.9%, 10/56), and other primary headache disorders (10.0%, 2/20) respectively. Only a minor proportion of individuals with migraine (16.5%, 77/468) and TTH (4.7%, 2/43) had received preventive medication before participating in the study. Conclusions While there has been progress made in the rate of correct diagnosis of primary headache disorders in China compared to a decade ago, the prevalence of misdiagnosis and inadequate treatment of primary headaches remains a veritable issue. As such, focused efforts are essential to augment the diagnosis and preventive treatment measures related to primary headache disorders in the future.

Introduction: Medication-overuse headache (MOH) is a secondary chronic headache disorder that occurs in individuals with a pre-existing primary headache disorder, particularly migraine disorder. Obesity is often combined with chronic daily headaches and is considered a risk factor for the transformation of episodic headaches into chronic headaches. However, the association between obesity and MOH among individuals with migraine has rarely been studied. The present study explored the association between body mass index (BMI) and MOH in people living with migraine. Methods: This cross-sectional study is a secondary analysis of data from the Survey of Fibromyalgia Comorbidity with Headache study. Migraine and MOH were diagnosed using the criteria of the International Classification of Headache Disorders, 3rd edition. BMI (kg/m2) is calculated by dividing the weight (kg) by the square of the height (m). Multivariable logistic regression analysis was used to evaluate the association between BMI and MOH. Results: A total of 2,251 individuals with migraine were included, of whom 8.7% (195/2,251) had a concomitant MOH. Multivariable logistic regression analysis, adjusted for age, sex, education level, headache duration, pain intensity, headache family history, chronic migraine, depression, anxiety, insomnia, and fibromyalgia, demonstrated there was an association between BMI (odds ratio [OR], 1.05; 95% confidence interval [CI], 1.01–1.11; P = 0.031) and MOH. The results remained when the BMI was transformed into a category. Compared to individuals with Q2 (18.5 kg/m2 ≤ BMI ≤ 23.9 kg/m2), those with Q4 (BMI ≥ 28 kg/m2) had an adjusted OR for MOH of 1.81 (95% CI, 1.04-3.17; P = 0.037). In the subgroup analyses, BMI was associated with MOH among aged more than 50 years (OR, 1.13; 95%, 1.03-1.24), less than high school (OR, 1.08; 95%, 1.01-1.15), without depression (OR, 1.06; 95%, 1.01-1.12), and without anxiety (OR, 1.06; 95%, 1.01-1.12). An association between BMI and MOH was found in a sensitivity analysis that BMI was classified into four categories according to the World Health Organization guidelines. Conclusion: In this cross-sectional study, BMI was associated with MOH in Chinese individuals with migraine.

AbstractChronic kidney disease (CKD) can cause gut microbiota dysbiosis and thus impair intestinal barrier function. Disruption of intestinal homeostasis facilitates the production of enterogenic toxins, which exacerbate CKD-induced uremic toxicity and inflammation. Dietary fiber, by targeting the gut–kidney axis, could be used for CKD treatment. Psyllium seed husk (PSH) extracted from the seeds of Plantago ovata contains highly branched, gel-forming arabinoxylan. Positive effects of PSH on host physiology have been demonstrated but whether it also acts on the microbial ecosystem in CKD patients is unknown. In this study, the effects of dietary PSH on the gut microbiota, intestinal barrier function, systemic inflammation, uremic toxins, and renal injury were investigated in 5/6 nephrectomy (5/6Nx) CKD rats. Blood, feces, and kidney and colon tissues were collected from PSH-treated and control rats and subjected to biochemical and histological analyses, enzyme-linked immunosorbent assays, and 16SrRNA sequencing. PSH supplementation reduced serum creatinine and blood urea nitrogen levels, and attenuated renal tubular interstitial injury, in 5/6Nx rats. 16SrRNA sequencing showed that PSH improved the gut microbiota and intestinal barrier function in addition to down-regulating serum interleukin (IL)-1, IL-6, and indoxyl sulfate levels. Together, these results demonstrate the potential of PSH supplementation for treating CKD, including by improving intestinal microecology, reducing uremic toxin levels and systemic inflammation, and delaying disease progression.

The moisture content of corn seeds is a crucial indicator for evaluating seed quality and is also a fundamental aspect of grain testing. In this experiment, 80 corn samples of various varieties were selected and their moisture content was determined using the direct drying method. The hyperspectral imaging system was employed to capture the spectral images of corn seeds within the wavelength range of 1100–2498 nm. By utilizing seven preprocessing techniques, including moving average, S–G smoothing, baseline, normalization, SNV, MSC, and detrending, we preprocessed the spectral data and then established a PLSR model for comparison. The results show that the model established using the normalization preprocessing method has the best prediction performance. To remove spectral redundancy and simplify the prediction model, we utilized SPA, CASR, and UVE algorithms to extract feature wavelengths. Based on three algorithms (PLSR, PCR, and SVM), we constructed 12 predictive models. Upon evaluating these models, it was determined that the normalization-SPA-PLSR algorithm produced the most accurate prediction. This model boasts high RC2 and RP2 values of 0.9917 and 0.9914, respectively, along with low RMSEP and RMSECV values of 0.0343 and 0.0257, respectively, indicating its exceptional stability and predictive capabilities. This suggests that the model can precisely estimate the moisture content of maize seeds. The results showed that hyperspectral imaging technology provides technical support for rapid and non-destructive prediction of corn seed moisture content and new methods in seed quality evaluation.

Mn-based nitrides with antiperovskite structures have several properties that can be utilized for antiferromagnetic spintronics. Their magnetic properties depend on the structural quality, composition and doping of the cubic antiperovskite structure. Such nitride thin films are usually produced by reactive physical vapor deposition, where the deposition rate of N can only be controlled by the N _2 gas flow. We show that the tuning of the N content can be optimized using low temperature resistivity measurements, which serve as an indicator of the degree of structural disorder. Several Mn _3 GaN _x films were prepared by reactive magnetron sputtering under different N _2 gas flows. Under optimized gas flow conditions, we obtain films that exhibit a metal-like temperature dependence of the resistivity, a vanishing logarithmic increase of the resistivity towards zero, the highest resistivity ratio, and a lattice contraction of 0.4% along the growth direction when heated above the Néel temperature $T_\textrm{N}$ . The retarded formation of an additional magnetic phase appearing at a temperature $T^{\ast} \ll T_\textrm{N}$ gives rise to a large thermal hysteresis of the resistivity and anomalous Hall effect.

Hydrochlorofluorocarbons (HCFCs) are greenhouse gases and ozone-depleting substances, and existing HCFC emission studies lack a comprehensive study of multiple HCFCs in a single consumption sector. China is a large producer and consumer of HCFCs. The HCFC bank in foam sector in 2019 accounted for 91.3% of the national total, and foam sector was also the second largest source of HCFC emissions. Therefore, the estimation of HCFC emissions and banks for the foam sector is quite important. In this study, the multiple HCFC emission inventory for foam sector in eastern China from 2000 to 2019 was first established by using the bottom-up method. The results showed that the HCFC emissions and bank were 14.9 kt and 453.5 kt in 2019. HCFC-141b used in the polyurethane (PU) foam sector had the largest annual emissions, cumulative emissions, and bank due to its high consumption. The total emissions of HCFC-22 and HCFC-142b used in the extruded polystyrene (XPS) foam sector were similar to those of HCFC-141b. The HCFC emissions from the foam sector were mainly distributed among the three provinces of Jiangsu, Zhejiang, and Shandong. The cumulative GWP- and ODP-weighted emissions of HCFCs were 240.6 Mt CO _2 -eq and 14.3 kt CFC-11-eq, respectively. The results showed that in order to response to climate change or ozone depletion, we should prioritize the emission reduction of HCFC-22 and XPS foam sector, or HCFC-141b and PU foam sector.

Context Stroke is an illness with high morbidity, disability and mortality that presents a major clinical challenge. Sanhua decoction (SHD) has been widely used to treat ischaemic stroke in the clinic. However, the potential mechanism of SHD remains unknown. Objective To elucidate the multitarget mechanism of SHD in ischaemic stroke through network pharmacology and bioinformatics analyses. Materials and methods Network pharmacology and experimental validation approach was used to investigate the bioactive ingredients, critical targets and potential mechanisms of SHD against ischaemic stroke. Four herbal names of SHD, ‘ischemic stroke’ or ‘stroke’ was used as a keyword to search the relevant databases. SH-SY5Y cells were treated with various concentrations of SHD (12.5, 25, 50 or 100 μg/mL) for 4 h, exposed to oxygen and glucose deprivation (OGD) for 1 h, then reoxygenation for 24 h. The cell viability was detected by MTT, the lactate dehydrogenase (LDH) was evaluated by ELISA, and protein expression was detected by western blots. Results SHD treatment increased the survival rate from 65.9 ± 4.3 to 85.56 ± 5.7%. The median effective dose (ED50) was 47.1 μg/mL, the LDH decreased from 288.0 ± 12.0 to 122.8 ± 9.1 U/L and the cell apoptosis rate decreased from 33.6 ± 1.8 to 16.3 ± 1.2%. Western blot analysis revealed that SHD increased the levels of p-PI3k, p-Akt and p-CREB1, and decreased the expression of TNF-α and IL-6. Discussion and conclusions This study suggests that SHD protects against cerebral ischaemic injury via regulation of the PI3K/Akt/CREB1 and TNF pathways.

Abstract Background Short-lasting unilateral neuralgiform headache attacks with conjunctival injection and tearing (SUNCT) and short-lasting unilateral neuralgiform headache attacks with cranial autonomic symptoms (SUNA) have not been evaluated sufficiently due to limited data, particularly in China. Methods Patients with SUNCT or SUNA treated in a tertiary headache centre or seven other headache clinics of China between April 2009 and July 2022 were studied; we compared their demographics and clinical phenotypes. Results The 45 patients with SUNCT and 31 patients with SUNA had mean ages at onset of 37.22 ± 14.54 years and 42.45 ± 14.72 years, respectively. The mean ages at diagnosis of SUNCT and SUNA were 41.62 ± 12.70 years and 48.68 ± 13.80 years, respectively (p = 0.024). The correct diagnosis of SUNCT or SUNA was made after an average of 2.5 (0–20.5) years or 3.0 (0–20.7) years, respectively. Both diseases had a female predominance (SUNCT: 1.14:1; SUNA: 2.10:1). The two diseases differed in the most common attack site (temporal area in SUNCT, p = 0.017; parietal area in SUNA, p = 0.002). Qualitative descriptions of the attacks included stabbing pain (44.7%), electric-shock-like pain (36.8%), shooting pain (25.0%), and slashing pain (18.4%). Lacrimation was the most common autonomic symptom in both SUNCT and SUNA patients, while eyelid oedema, ptosis, and miosis were less frequent. Triggers such as cold air and face washing were shared by the two diseases, and they were consistently ipsilateral to the attack site. Conclusions In contrast to Western countries, SUNCT and SUNA in China have a greater female predominance and an earlier onset. The shared core phenotype of SUNCT and SUNA, despite their partial differences, suggests that they are the same clinical entity.

Abstract Background There have been a few studies regarding the pre-attack symptoms (PAS) and pre-episode symptoms (PES) of cluster headache (CH), but none have been conducted in the Chinese population. The purpose of this study was to identify the prevalence and features of PAS and PES in Chinese patients, as well as to investigate their relationships with pertinent factors. Methods The study included patients who visited a tertiary headache center and nine other headache clinics between January 2019 and September 2021. A questionnaire was used to collect general data and information about PAS and PES. Results Among the 327 patients who met the CH criteria (International Classification of Headache Disorders, 3rd edition), 269 (82.3%) patients experienced at least one PAS. The most common PAS were head and facial discomfort (74.4%). Multivariable logistic regression analysis depicted that the number of triggers (OR = 1.798, p = 0.001), and smoking history (OR = 2.067, p = 0.026) were correlated with increased odds of PAS. In total, 68 (20.8%) patients had PES. The most common symptoms were head and facial discomfort (23, 33.8%). Multivariable logistic regression analysis showed that the number of triggers were associated with increased odds of PES (OR = 1.372, p = 0.005). Conclusions PAS are quite common in CH patients, demonstrating that CH attacks are not comprised of a pain phase alone; investigations of PAS and PES could help researchers better understand the pathophysiology of CH.

Abstract Background The aim of the study was to investigate whether MwoA and MwA are different manifestations of a single disease, distinct clinical entities, or located at two poles of a spectrum. Methods In this cross-sectional study, 5438 patients from 10 hospitals in China were included: 4651 were diagnosed with migraine without aura (MwoA) and 787 with migraine with aura (MwA). We used a validated standardized electronic survey to collect multidimensional data on headache characteristics and evaluated the similarities and differences between migraine subtypes. To distinguish migraine subtypes, we employed correlational analysis, factor analysis of mixed data (FAMD), and decision tree analysis. Results Compared to MwA, MwoA had more severe headaches, predominantly affected females, were more easily produced by external factors, and were more likely to have accompanying symptoms and premonitory neck stiffness. Patients with MwA are heterogeneous, according to correlation analysis; FAMD divided the subjects into three clear clusters. The majority of the differences between MwoA and MwA were likewise seen when typical aura with migraine headache (AWM) and typical aura with non-migraine headache (AWNM) were compared. Furthermore, decision trees analysis revealed that the chaotic MwA data reduced the decision tree’s accuracy in distinguishing MwoA from MwA, which was significantly increased by splitting MwA into AWM and AWNM. Conclusions The clinical phenomics of headache phenotype varies gradually from MwoA to AWM and AWNM, and AWM is a mid-state between MwoA and AWNM. We tend to regard migraine as a spectrum disorder, and speculate that different migraine subtypes have different “predominant regions” that generate attacks.

ObjectivesTo investigate the effects of excessive tryptophan intake on the body and the effects of tryptophan metabolism-related aryl hydrocarbon receptor (AhR) pathway in healthy rats and chronic kidney disease rats, to study the adverse effects of excess tryptophan.DesignIn Part I Experiment, the healthy rats were fed with diet containing 0.6, 1.2 and 1.8% tryptophan for 12 weeks. After the intervention, the blood and kidney tissues were collected. Serum creatinine and blood urea nitrogen were detected. Hematoxylin–eosin (H&E) staining was used to observe renal pathological changes. Enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay was used to detect serum kynurenic acid and AhR levels. The kidney levels of AhR, CyP1A1 and CyP1B1 were detected by western-blot. In Part II Experiment, the chronic kidney disease (CKD) model was induced by intra-gastric gavage with adenine for 4 weeks. Then the CKD rats were given tryptophan at a dose of 100 mg/kg or 500 mg/kg for eight weeks. Rat survival curve, renal function, renal tissue pathology and serum AhR were detected. Tryptophan-targeted ultra-high-performance liquid chromatography coupled with multiple reaction monitoring mass spectrometry (UHPLC-MRM-MS) was employed to quantitatively access the tryptophan-targeted metabolites in two parts experiments.ResultsIn part I experiment, high tryptophan diet can increase the level of blood urea nitrogen (BUN) in healthy rats and induce focal renal tubulointerstitial injury. Tryptophan-targeted analyzes showed that high tryptophan diet feeding can significantly increase the concentration of kynurenine and indole metabolites. The serum AhR level and kidney AhR, CyP1A1 and CyP1B1 were also significantly increased in high tryptophan diet rats. In part II experiment, high tryptophan intervention induced a significant increase in mortality, serum creatinine, urea nitrogen levels, and renal pathological damage in CKD rats. The levels of tryptophan-targeted metabolites, kynurenine, xanthurenate, picolinic acid, 5-hydroxyindole-3-acetic acid, indole-3-lactic acid, indoleacetate and indoxyl sulfate, showed an upward trend in the high-dose tryptophan group (Ade + Trp-H) compared with the adenine group. The serum AhR of Ade + Trp-H rats was significantly higher than those of adenine rats.ConclusionModerate tryptophan intake may be beneficial, but excessive tryptophan can lead to accumulation of kynurenine and indole metabolites, activate AhR pathway and induce kidney injury.

Aims: To compared the amniotic fluid and vaginal microbiota of pregnant women, who developed gestational diabetes mellitus to those who did not, and explored if any differences exist in the composition and functional genes of their amniotic fluid and vaginal microbiota. Methods: We compared the amniotic fluid and vaginal microbiota of five GDM patients and five non-GDM pregnant women in the third trimester of pregnancy by using metagenomics, and analyzed the characteristics, functions, and differences between two groups. Results: The analysis of the amniotic fluid showed significant differences in genus and species. In contrast, there was no significant difference in vaginal microbial community structure between two groups. The alpha diversity in the GDM group was higher than the control, but the difference was not statistically significant. There was a statistically significant difference in the species-level beta-diversity measured by Bray–Curtis distance of the amniotic fluid communities between two groups, while no significant differences were observed in the vaginal microbiota. Regarding the functions, we observed that the microbial communities of the amniotic fluid and vaginal secretions were involved in the regulation of a variety of host metabolic pathways, including carbohydrate metabolism, membrane transport, energy, amino acid metabolism, nucleotide metabolism, etc. No significant differences were observed between two groups, but different sites exist. Conclusion: The amniotic fluid of this study was discovered to have a heterogeneous, albeit small in number, community of microorganisms.Our research suggests that gestational diabetes has a very limited impact on the amniotic fluid and vaginal microbiome. The composition and the functions of the microbiota at different sites are different.

The focus of the current research is how to effectively identify aircraft targets in SAR images. There are only 2000 SAR images and 6556 aircraft instances in our dataset. SAR images have complex backgrounds, and the sizes of aircraft targets are multi-scale. How to improve the detection accuracy of aircraft targets is the research topic of this paper, especially for small target detection. We proposed four improved methods based on YOLOv5s. Firstly, this paper proposed the structure of the multi-scale receptive field and channel attention fusion. It is applied at the shallow layer of the backbone of YOLOv5s. It can adjust the weights of the multi-scale receptive field during the training process to enhance the extraction ability of feature information. Secondly, we proposed four decoupled detection heads to replace the original part in YOLOv5s. It can improve the efficiency and accuracy of SAR image interpretation for small targets. Thirdly, in the case of the limited amount of SAR images, this paper proposed multiple data-augmentation methods, which can enhance the diversity and generalization of the network. Finally, this paper proposed the K-means++ to replace the original K-means to improve the network convergence speed and detection accuracy. Experiments demonstrate that the improved YOLOv5s can enhance the accuracy of SAR image interpretation by 9.3%, and the accuracy of small targets is improved more obviously, reaching 13.1%.

BackgroundA change in weight or metabolic status is a dynamic process, yet most studies have focused on metabolically healthy obesity (MHO) and the transition between MHO and metabolically unhealthy obesity (MUO); therefore, they have not fully revealed the nature of all possible transitions among metabolism-weight phenotypes over the years.MethodsThis was a longitudinal study based on a retrospective health check-up cohort. A total of 9,742 apparently healthy individuals aged 20–60 years at study entry were included and underwent at least two health check-ups. Six metabolism-weight phenotypes were cross-defined by body mass index (BMI) categories and metabolic status as follows: metabolically healthy normal weight (MHNW), metabolically healthy overweight (MHOW), MHO, metabolically unhealthy normal weight (MUNW), metabolically unhealthy overweight (MUOW), and MUO. A multistate Markov model was used to analyse all possible transitions among these phenotypes and assess the effects of demographic and blood indicators on the transitions.ResultsThe transition intensity from MUNW to MHNW was the highest (0.64), followed by the transition from MHO to MUO (0.56). The greatest sojourn time appeared in the MHNW state (3.84 years), followed by the MUO state (2.34 years), and the shortest sojourn time appeared in the MHO state (1.16 years). Transition intensities for metabolic improvement gradually decreased with BMI level as follows: 0.64 for MUNW to MHNW, 0.44 for MUOW to MHNW, and 0.27 for MUO to MHO; however, transition intensities for metabolic deterioration, including MHNW to MUNW, MHOW to MUOW, and MHO to MUO, were 0.15, 0.38, and 0.56, respectively. In the middle-aged male group, elevated alanine aminotransferase (ALT), aspartate aminotransferase (AST), and uric acid (UA) increased the risk of deterioration in weight and metabolic status and decreased the possibility of improvement.ConclusionMaintaining a normal and stable BMI is important for metabolic health. More attention should be given to males and elderly people to prevent their progression to an unhealthy metabolic and/or weight status. MHO is the most unstable phenotype and is prone to convert to the MUO state, and individuals with abnormal ALT, AST and UA are at an increased risk of transitioning to an unhealthy weight and/or metabolic status; therefore, we should be alert to abnormal indicators and MHO. Intervention measures should be taken early to maintain healthy weight and metabolic status.

Abstract Background Part of tuberculosis (TB) patients were missed if symptomatic screening was based on the main TB likely symptoms. This study conducted to compare the yield and relative costs of different TB screening algorithms in active case-finding in the whole population in China. Methods The study population was screened based on the TB likely symptoms through a face-to-face interview in selected 27 communities from 10 counties of 10 provinces in China. If the individuals had any of the enhanced TB likely symptoms, both chest X-ray and sputum tests were carried out for them furtherly. We used the McNemar test to analyze the difference in TB detection among four algorithms in active case-finding. Of four algorithms, two were from WHO recommendations including 1a/1c, one from China National Tuberculosis Program, and one from this study with the enhanced TB likely symptoms. Furthermore, a two-way ANOVA analysis was performed to analyze the cost difference in the performance of active case-finding adjusted by different demographic and health characteristics among different algorithms. Results Algorithm with the enhanced TB likely symptoms defined in this study could increase the yield of TB detection in active case-finding, compared with algorithms recommended by WHO (p

Synthetic aperture radar (SAR) is an active ground-surveillance radar system, which can observe targets regardless of time and weather. Passenger aircrafts are important targets for SAR, as it is of great importance for accurately recognizing the type of aircraft. SAR can provide dynamic monitoring of aircraft flights in civil aviation, which is helpful for the efficient management of airports. Due to the unique imaging characteristics of SAR, traditional target-detection algorithms have poor generalization ability, low detection accuracy, and a cumbersome recognition process. Target detection in high-resolution SAR images based on deep-learning methods is currently a major research hotspot. You Only Look Once v5 (YOLOv5) has the problems of missed detection and false alarms. In this study, we propose an improved version of YOLOv5. A multiscale feature adaptive fusion module is proposed to adaptively assign different weights to each scale of the feature layers, which can extract richer semantic and textural information. The SIOU loss function is proposed to replace the original CIOU loss function to speed up the convergence of the algorithm. The improved Ghost structure is proposed to optimize the YOLOv5 network to decrease the parameters of the model and the amount of computation. A coordinate attention (CA) module is incorporated into the backbone section to help extract useful information. The experimental results demonstrate that the improved YOLOv5 performs better in terms of detection without affecting calculation speed. The mean average precision (mAP) value of the improved YOLOv5 increased by 5.8% compared with the original YOLOv5.

Due to the high global warming potential and rapidly increasing atmospheric concentrations of fluorinated greenhouse gases (hereinafter referred to as F-gases), the emission estimation has been widely studied. Additionally, the atmospheric observation supports the emission estimation. However, there are few F-gas studies with respect to chemical plants. In this study, we firstly carried out atmospheric observation studies of F-gases around chemical plants in China. Four typical chemical plants were selected, and the concentration levels, their concentration differences (hereinafter referred to as the up–down difference) and enhanced ratios (hereinafter referred to as the up–down enhanced ratio) of the F-gases at upwind and downwind sites in the four plants were observed. Both the upwind and downwind observation results of each plant showed that the average concentrations of HFCs were the highest (57%–85%), followed by PFCs, while the total average concentrations of SF6 and NF3 only accounted for less than 5%. The F-gases, with both the larger up–down enhanced ratios and the larger up–down differences in each plant, may suggest larger emission strengths during fluorinated production, by-products and usage processes. Additionally, the numbers of F-gas species emitted from Plants A, B and C were all significantly higher than those from Plant D. This may be because the F-gases in Plants A, B and C were emitted not only during fluorinated production and by-product processes, but also during usage processes, with respect to refrigeration and air-conditioning or foam insulation materials. The F-gases emitted by each plant did not cause toxicity to humans at sensitive sites; however, they can cause nonnegligible climate impacts. In the future, it is necessary to select more typical chemical plants to carry out the atmospheric observation of F-gases, with a higher observation frequency and larger sample size, to further estimate F-gas emissions from chemical plants in China.

BackgroundChildhood stunting is still a public health issue in developing countries. However, the traditional risk factors in underdeveloped areas are not suitable for developed areas. Moreover, childhood stunting is influenced by several aspects, including genetic factors, perinatal conditions, maternal conditions, and feeding practices, but researchers have not yet clearly determined which aspect of risk accumulation exerts the strongest effect on stunting. A matched case-control study was performed to assess the effect of different aspects of risk accumulation on childhood stunting.MethodsIn total, 173 non-stunted children aged under 7 years were matched in our study from June 2015 to August 2015. The children's heights and weights were measured, and a self-administered questionnaire was used to collect information from the children and their parents. The risk factors were assigned to the following five aspects: genetic factors, family socioeconomic status, perinatal conditions, maternal conditions, and feeding practices. The risk accumulation (cumulative risk score) in each aspect was defined as the total number of risk factors that occurred in a certain aspect. A conditional logistic regression model was used to assess the effect of risk accumulation in different aspects on stunting, and a decision-tree model was used to predict the children's stunting based on the cumulative risk scores.ResultsRisk accumulation in perinatal conditions, genetic factors, maternal conditions, and feeding practices was significant in the conditional logistic regression model (P < 0.05). Perinatal conditions showed the strongest association with stunting in both the regression analysis and the decision-tree model. The risk of stunting increased by 1.199 times if the cumulative risk score for perinatal conditions increased by one, and the probability of stunting was 75.8% if the cumulative risk score for perinatal conditions was ≥1.ConclusionRisk accumulation in perinatal conditions, genetic factors, maternal conditions, and feeding practices substantially increased the probability of stunting in childhood. Perinatal conditions were the main aspect associated with stunting. Prevention and intervention measures should be adopted to avoid risk accumulation in stunting.

1,1,1,2-tetrafluoroethane (HFC-134a) is a potent greenhouse gas that can be degraded to produce trifluoroacetic acid (TFA), a degradation product that has an impact on aquatic ecology, so its emission has been a continuous concern worldwide. Existing studies mainly estimate the global- or national-scale emissions of HFC-134a, and there are relatively few studies on regional emissions, all of which used the top-down method. By establishing a regional-scale bottom-up emission inventory and comparing it with the regional-scale top-down estimation results, regional emissions can be verified and their emission characteristics and environmental impacts can be analysed. HFC-134 emissions were estimated for the first time in the North China Plain using the emission factor method, and spatiotemporal characteristics and environmental impacts were analysed for the period of 1995 to 2020. The results showed that the cumulative HFC-134a emissions were 88 (73–103) kt (126 Mt CO2-eq), which have led to an increase in global radiative forcing of 1.1 × 10−3 (0.9 × 10−3–1.3 × 10−3) W m−2, an increase in global surface temperature of 8.9 × 10−4 °C, and a cumulative TFA production of 7.5 (6.2–8.9) kt as of 2020. The major sources of HFC-134a emissions are the refrigeration and air conditioning sector, which involves the automotive air conditioning (MAC), industrial and commercial refrigeration, and air conditioning (ICR) sub-sectors. China joined the Kigali Amendment in 2021 to phase down HFCs and proposed the goal of carbon neutrality by 2060. The North China Plain is a region undergoing rapid economic development, with a relatively high proportion of GDP (29%) and car ownership (23%) in 2020. Additionally, HFC-134a emissions accounted for about 20% of the total emissions in China. Therefore, HFC-134a emissions and their environmental impact on the North China Plain should not be ignored.

Swine enteric coronaviruses (SECoVs) including porcine epidemic diarrhea virus (PEDV), transmissible gastroenteritis virus (TGEV), and porcine deltacoronavirus (PDCoV), account for the majority of lethal watery diarrhea in neonatal pigs and pose significant economic and public health burdens in the world. While the three SECoVs primarily infect intestinal epithelia in vivo and cause similar clinical signs, there are evident discrepancies in their cellular tropism and pathogenicity. However, the underlying mechanisms to cause the differences remain unclear. Herein, we employed porcine enteroids that are a physiologically relevant model of the intestine to assess the host epithelial responses following infection with the three SECoVs (PEDV, TGEV, and PDCoV). Although SECoVs replicated similarly in jejunal enteroids, a parallel comparison of transcriptomics datasets uncovered that PEDV and TGEV infection induced similar transcriptional profiles and exhibited a more pronounced response with more differentially expressed genes (DEGs) in jejunal enteroids compared with PDCoV infection. Notably, TGEV and PDCoV induced high levels of type I and III IFNs and IFN-stimulated gene (ISG) responses, while PEDV displayed a delayed peak and elicited a much lesser extent of IFN responses. Furthermore, TGEV and PDCoV instead of PEDV elicited a substantial upregulation of antigen-presentation genes and T cell-recruiting chemokines in enteroids. Mechanistically, we demonstrated that IFNs treatment markedly elevated the expression of NOD-like receptor (NLR) family NLRC5 and major histocompatibility complex class I (MHC-I) molecules. Together, our results indicate unique and common viral strategies for manipulating the global IFN responses and antigen presentation utilized by SECoVs, which help us a better understanding of host-SECoVs interactions.

Abstract Background The objectives of this study were to examine nutrient intakes of tuberculosis (TB) patients and to identify their associated factors. Methods In this cross-sectional study, 300 adult TB patients were surveyed in two impoverished counties in China. Nutrient intakes were evaluated through two consecutive 24-h dietary recalls and compared with the Chinese Dietary Reference Intakes (DRIs) 2013. The potential socio-demographic and behavioral factors were analyzed using multivariate logistic model to identify strong influential factors. Results We found that mean daily energy intake was 1655.0 kcal (SD: 619.3 kcal) and 1360.3 kcal (SD: 552.1 kcal) for male and female patients, respectively. The mean daily energy intake was significantly lower than that has been recommended by DRI (i.e., 2250 and 1800 kcal for males and females, respectively), with 87.4% of the male patients and 59.9% of female patients failed to consume adequate energy. The protein intakes were 44.6 g (SD: 18.2 g) and 35.9 g (SD: 12.3 g) for male and female patients, respectively, which were lower than the recommended values by DRI (i.e., 65 and 55 g for males and females, respectively). Most male (90.8%) and female (58.4%) TB patients had insufficient daily protein intake. Further analyses suggested that mean daily intakes of many micronutrients, were insufficient, while for most of patients, intakes of vitamin E and sodium were sufficient. We identified that unemployment was a risk factor for low energy intake (p

Stable and resilient materials are in great demand for electromagnetic interference (EMI) shielding applications under extreme conditions. Here we present a facile method that could tailor and strengthen the pore structure of carbon nanotube (CNT) foams to obtain highly effective and reliable EMI absorbers that maintain their superior EMI effectiveness under heavy mechanical deformation and extremely high temperature. The hierarchical macro-to-micro pore structure and properties of CNT foam were tailored in a wide range via a secondary chemical vapor deposition (CVD) process. Benefiting from the multi-level reflection in hierarchical pore structures, the optimized CNT foam presents a high shielding efficiency (SE) of 84 dB and a specific SE (SSE/t) of 5.6 × 104 dB·cm2·g-1 in X-band. The tailoring process also provides outstanding stability and mechanical resilience, leading to 83.8% EMI SE maintained after 1000 compressive cycles. Moreover, the foams can keep 76.5% EMI SE after 30 min of 1000°C thermal-destruction process (in argon atmosphere). All these features demonstrate the potential of using the optimized CNT foam as an EMI shielding material under extreme conditions. These findings have essential inspiration for pore engineering in CNT-based EMI shielding materials, giving further guidance for the design of EMI shielding materials used in harsh conditions.

The purpose of this study was to explore the relationship between parenting styles and career decision-making difficulties in college students, and uncovered the mediating roles of core self-evaluation and career calling. A total of 1,127 undergraduates were recruited to complete the questionnaires about parenting styles, core self-evaluation, career calling, and career decision-making difficulties. The results showed that: (1) Positive and negative parenting styles could positively predict career decision-making difficulties in college students. (2) Core self-evaluation and career calling mediated the relationship between parenting styles and career decision-making difficulties. Sequential dual mediators only found in which positive paternal and maternal parenting styles predict career decision-making difficulties through core self-evaluation and career calling. (3) Further analysis revealed gender difference in the relationship between parenting styles and career decision-making difficulties. The relation between paternal positive parenting style and career decision-making difficulties was significant in male students, but absent in female students; the relation between maternal positive parenting and career decision-making difficulties and the relation between paternal negative parenting and career calling were significant in female students, but absent in male students; and the relation between career calling and career decision-making difficulties was greater in male than in female. The current study expanded and deepened those existing understandings about the relationship between parenting styles and adolescents’ career decisions, so as to further reveal its internal mechanism and provide more reasonable suggestions and targeted guidance for career counseling.

Accreditation is now widely used to attest for laboratory competence. Although accreditation was originally used to assess products in testing laboratories and still plays an increasingly important role in international trade, it has been expanded to include laboratories in many social fields, including forensic science, medicine, and animal quarantine reference. The accreditation process provides basic requirements for achieving global recognition for laboratory reports. This paper introduces the concept of accreditation and discusses the origins and development of the accreditation system in Chinese biosafety laboratories. This study also reveals the important role of this system in national biosafety management through an examination of the 14-year development of the Chinese biosafety laboratory accreditation system. Keywords: Accreditation, Management, Biosafety laboratories

Transformers have become popular in building end-to-end automatic speech recognition (ASR) systems. However, transformer ASR systems are usually trained to give output sequences in the left-to-right order, disregarding the right-to-left context. Currently, the existing transformer-based ASR systems that employ two decoders for bidirectional decoding are complex in terms of computation and optimization. The existing ASR transformer with a single decoder for bidirectional decoding requires extra methods (such as a self-mask) to resolve the problem of information leakage in the attention mechanism This paper explores different options for the development of a speech transformer that utilizes a single decoder equipped with bidirectional context embedding (BCE) for bidirectional decoding. The decoding direction, which is set up at the input level, enables the model to attend to different directional contexts without extra decoders and also alleviates any information leakage. The effectiveness of this method was verified with a bidirectional beam search method that generates bidirectional output sequences and determines the best hypothesis according to the output score. We achieved a word error rate (WER) of 7.65%/18.97% on the clean/other LibriSpeech test set, outperforming the left-to-right decoding style in our work by 3.17%/3.47%. The results are also close to, or better than, other state-of-the-art end-to-end models.

Abstract Background Health care workers are at high risk for tuberculosis (TB). China, a high burden TB country, has no policy on medical surveillance for TB among healthcare workers. In this paper, we evaluate whether China’s national TB diagnostic guidelines could be used as a framework to screen healthcare workers for pulmonary TB disease in a clinical setting in China. Methods Between April–August 2010, healthcare workers from 28 facilities in Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, China were eligible for TB screening, comprised of symptom check, chest X-ray and tuberculin skin testing. Healthcare workers were categorized as having presumptive, confirmed, or clinically-diagnosed pulmonary TB, using Chinese national guidelines. Results All healthcare workers (N=4347) were eligible for TB screening, of which 4285 (99%) participated in at least one TB screening test. Of the healthcare workers screened, 2% had cough for ≥ 14 days, 3% had a chest X-ray consistent with TB, and 10% had a tuberculin skin test induration ≥ 20 mm. Of these, 124 healthcare workers were identified with presumptive TB (i.e., cough for ≥ 14 days in the past 4 weeks or x-ray consistent with TB). Twelve healthcare workers met the case definition for clinically-diagnosed pulmonary TB, but none were diagnosed with TB during the study period. Conclusion A substantial proportion of healthcare workers in Inner Mongolia had signs, symptoms, or test results suggestive of TB disease that could have been identified using national TB diagnostic guidelines as a screening framework. However, achieving medical surveillance in China will require a framework that increases the ease, accuracy, and acceptance of TB screening in the medical community. Routine screening with improved diagnostics should be considered to detect tuberculosis disease among healthcare workers and reduce transmission in health care settings in China.

To calculate the yield and cost per diagnosed tuberculosis (TB) case for three World Health Organization screening algorithms and one using the Chinese National TB program (NTP) TB suspect definitions, using data from a TB prevalence survey of people aged 65 years and over in China, 2013.This was an analytic study using data from the above survey. Risk groups were defined and the prevalence of new TB cases in each group calculated. Costs of each screening component were used to give indicative costs per case detected. Yield, number needed to screen (NNS) and cost per case were used to assess the algorithms.The prevalence survey identified 172 new TB cases in 34,250 participants. Prevalence varied greatly in different groups, from 131/100,000 to 4651/ 100,000. Two groups were chosen to compare the algorithms. The medium-risk group (living in a rural area: men, or previous TB case, or close contact or a BMI

Baicalin, a flavonoid compound purified from the dry roots of Scutellaria baicalensis Georgi, has been shown to possess various pharmacological actions. Previous studies have revealed that baicalin inhibits the growth of cancer cells through the induction of apoptosis. Pulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH) is a devastating disease characterized by enhanced pulmonary artery smooth muscle cell (PASMCs) proliferation and suppressed apoptosis. However, the potential mechanism of baicalin in the regulation of PASMC proliferation and the prevention of cardiovascular diseases remains unexplored. To test the effects of baicalin on hypoxia, we used rats treated with or without baicalin (100 mg·kg−1 each rat) at the beginning of the third week after hypoxia. Hemodynamic and pulmonary pathomorphology data showed that right ventricular systolic pressures (RVSP), the weight of the right ventricle/left ventricle plus septum (RV/LV + S) ratio and the medial width of pulmonary arterioles were much higher in chronic hypoxia. However, baicalin treatment repressed the elevation of RVSP, RV/LV + S and attenuated the pulmonary vascular structure remodeling (PVSR) of pulmonary arterioles induced by chronic hypoxia. Additionally, baicalin (10 and 20 μmol·L−1) treatment suppressed the proliferation of PASMCs and attenuated the expression of hypoxia-inducible factor-α (HIF-α) under hypoxia exposure. Meanwhile, baicalin reversed the hypoxia-induced reduction of p27 and increased AKT/protein kinase B phosphorylation p-AKT both in vivo and in vitro. These results suggested that baicalin could effectively attenuate PVSR and hypoxic pulmonary hypertension.

Two label-free biosensor platforms, Resonance Waveguide Grating (RWG) and Surface Plasmon Resonance (SPR), were used to rank a large panel of anti-dengue virus NS1 antibodies. Dengue non-structural 1 (NS1) protein is an established serological marker for the early detection of dengue infection. A variety of commercial dengue NS1 antigen capture immunoassays are available in both ELISA and lateral flow format. However, there is a significant scope to improve both the sensitivity and the specificity of those tests. The interactions of antibody (Ab)-antigen (Ag) were profiled, with weak interactions (KD = 1–0.1 μM) able to be detected under static equilibrium conditions by RWG, but not observed to under more rigorous flow conditions using SPR. There were significant differences in the absolute affinities determined by the two technologies, and there was a poor correlation between antibodies best ranked by RWG and the lower limit of detection (LLOD) found by ELISA. Hence, whilst high-throughput RWG can be useful as preliminary screening for higher affinity antibodies, care should be exercised in the assignation of quantitative values for affinity between different assay formats.

In 2012, an unprecedented large-scale outbreak of disease in pigs in China caused great economic losses to the swine industry. Isolates from pseudorabies virus epidemics in swine herds were characterized. Evidence confirmed that the pathogenic pseudorabies virus was the etiologic agent of this epidemic.

BackgroundChina is a high tuberculosis (TB) burden country. More than half of acute TB cases first seek medical care in village doctors' clinics or community health centers. Despite being responsible for patient referral and management, village doctors are not systematically evaluated for TB infection or disease. We assessed prevalence and incidence of latent TB infection (LTBI) among village doctors in China.Methods and findingsA longitudinal study was conducted in Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region. We administered a questionnaire on demographics and risk factors for TB exposure and disease; Tuberculin skin testing (TST) and QuantiFERON-TB Gold in-tube assay (QFT-GIT) was conducted at baseline and repeated 12 months later. We used a logistic regression model to calculate adjusted odds ratios (ORs) for risk factors for TST and QFT-GIT prevalence and incidence. At the time of follow up, 19.5% of the 880 participating village doctors had a positive TST and 46.0% had a positive QFT-GIT result. Factors associated with TST prevalence included having a BCG scar (OR = 1.45, 95%CI 1.03-2.04) and smoking (OR = 1.69, 95%CI 1.17-2.44). Risk factors associated with QFT-GIT prevalence included being male (OR = 2.17, 95%CI 1.63-2.89), below college education (OR=1.42, 95%CI 1.01-1.97), and working for ≥25 years as a village doctor (OR = 1.64, 95%CI 1.12-2.39). The annual incidence of LTBI was 11.4% by TST and 19.1% by QFT-GIT. QFT-GIT conversion was associated with spending 15 minutes or more per patient on average (OR = 2.62, 95%CI 1.39-4.97) and having BCG scar (OR = 0.53, 95%CI 0.28-1.00).ConclusionsPrevalence and incidence of LTBI among Chinese village doctors is high. TB infection control measures should be strengthened among village doctors and at village healthcare settings.

Phage display technology has been widely used for antibody affinity maturation for decades. The limited library sequence diversity together with excessive redundancy and labour-consuming procedure for candidate identification are two major obstacles to widespread adoption of this technology. We hereby describe a novel library generation and screening approach to address the problems. The approach started with the targeted diversification of multiple complementarity determining regions (CDRs) of a humanized anti-ErbB2 antibody, HuA21, with a small perturbation mutagenesis strategy. A combination of three degenerate codons, NWG, NWC, and NSG, were chosen for amino acid saturation mutagenesis without introducing cysteine and stop residues. In total, 7,749 degenerate oligonucleotides were synthesized on two microchips and released to construct five single-chain antibody fragment (scFv) gene libraries with 4 x 10(6) DNA sequences. Deep sequencing of the unselected and selected phage libraries using the Illumina platform allowed for an in-depth evaluation of the enrichment landscapes in CDR sequences and amino acid substitutions. Potent candidates were identified according to their high frequencies using NGS analysis, by-passing the need for the primary screening of target-binding clones. Furthermore, a subsequent library by recombination of the 10 most abundant variants from four CDRs was constructed and screened, and a mutant with 158-fold increased affinity (Kd = 25.5 pM) was obtained. These results suggest the potential application of the developed methodology for optimizing the binding properties of other antibodies and biomolecules.

OBJECTIVES: China is one of the 22 tuberculosis (TB) high-burden countries in the world. As TB is a major public health problem in China, spatial analysis could be applied to detect geographic distribution of TB clusters for targeted intervention on TB epidemics. METHODS: Spatial analysis was applied for detecting TB clusters on county-based TB notification data in the national notifiable infectious disease case reporting surveillance system from 2005 to 2011. Two indicators of TB epidemic were used including new sputum smear-positive (SS+) notification rate and total TB notification rate. Global Moran's I by ArcGIS was used to assess whether TB clustering and its trend were significant. SaTScan software that used the retrospective space-time analysis and Possion probability model was utilized to identify geographic areas and time period of potential clusters with notification rates on county-level from 2005 to 2011. RESULTS: Two indicators of TB notification had presented significant spatial autocorrelation globally each year (p

Porcine reproductive and respiratory syndrome (PRRS) is a severe viral disease in pigs, causing great economic losses worldwide each year. The causative agent of the disease, PRRS virus (PRRSV), is a member of the family Arteriviridae. Here we report our investigation of the unparalleled large-scale outbreaks of an originally unknown, but so-called "high fever" disease in China in 2006 with the essence of PRRS, which spread to more than 10 provinces (autonomous cities or regions) and affected over 2,000,000 pigs with about 400,000 fatal cases. Different from the typical PRRS, numerous adult sows were also infected by the "high fever" disease. This atypical PRRS pandemic was initially identified as a hog cholera-like disease manifesting neurological symptoms (e.g., shivering), high fever (40-42 degrees C), erythematous blanching rash, etc. Autopsies combined with immunological analyses clearly showed that multiple organs were infected by highly pathogenic PRRSVs with severe pathological changes observed. Whole-genome analysis of the isolated viruses revealed that these PRRSV isolates are grouped into Type II and are highly homologous to HB-1, a Chinese strain of PRRSV (96.5% nucleotide identity). More importantly, we observed a unique molecular hallmark in these viral isolates, namely a discontinuous deletion of 30 amino acids in nonstructural protein 2 (NSP2). Taken together, this is the first comprehensive report documenting the 2006 epidemic of atypical PRRS outbreak in China and identifying the 30 amino-acid deletion in NSP2, a novel determining factor for virulence which may be implicated in the high pathogenicity of PRRSV, and will stimulate further study by using the infectious cDNA clone technique.

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