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Three highly pathogenic avian influenza (H5N8) viruses were detected in the migratory bird Podiceps nigricollis in Northwest China in June 2021. Phylogenetic analysis indicated that these H5N8 isolates belonged to clade 2.3.4.4b, which were highly homologous to strains isolated in China and South Korea. In this study, H5N8 virus infection in Podiceps nigricollis was detected using Oxford Nanopore Technologies sequencing technology and caused pathological changes in multiple organs.

Growing evidence has shown that anti-COVID-19 nonpharmaceutical interventions (NPIs) can support prevention and control of various infectious diseases, including intestinal diseases. However, most studies focused on the short-term mitigating impact and neglected the dynamic impact over time. This study is aimed to investigate the dynamic impact of anti-COVID-19 NPIs on hand, foot, and mouth disease (HFMD) over time in Xi'an City, northwestern China. Based on the surveillance data of HFMD, meteorological and web search data, Bayesian Structural Time Series model and interrupted time series analysis were performed to quantitatively measure the impact of NPIs in sequent phases with different intensities and to predict the counterfactual number of HFMD cases. From 2013 to 2021, a total number of 172,898 HFMD cases were reported in Xi'an. In 2020, there appeared a significant decrease in HFMD incidence (-94.52%, 95% CI: -97.54% to -81.95%) in the first half of the year and the peak period shifted from June to October by a small margin of 6.74% compared to the previous years of 2013 to 2019. In 2021, the seasonality of HFMD incidence gradually returned to the bimodal temporal variation pattern with a significant average decline of 61.09%. In particular, the impact of NPIs on HFMD was more evident among young children (0-3 years), and the HFMD incidence reported in industrial areas had an unexpected increase of 51.71% in 2020 autumn and winter. Results suggested that both direct and indirect NPIs should be implemented as effective public health measures to reduce infectious disease and improve surveillance strategies, and HFMD incidence in Xi'an experienced a significant rebound to the previous seasonality after a prominent decline influenced by the anti-COVID-19 NPIs.

Objective: This long-term retrospective study explored the cause of increasing urinary calculi in Wuwei, China, from 1995 to 2016.Methods: Joinpoint v10.0, SPSS v22.0, and Excel 2019 were adopted to extract and analyze the medical records of patients with urolithiasis from 12 hospitals in Wuwei city. ArcGIS v10.8 was employed to establish a geographical distribution map and spatial and spatiotemporal analyses were applied to detect epidemic clusters using SaTScan v9.6.Results: Among the 5 497 patients with urolithiasis (mean age 43.07 ± 15.95 years), the majority were male (3 843, 69.9%), resulting in a sex ratio of 2.32:1. The incidence of urolithiasis in males and females showed an overall upward trend, with an annual percentage change (APC) of 15.1% (95% confidence interval (CI): 12.3%–18.1%) and 9.4% (95% CI: 16.4%–22.5%), respectively. From 1995 to 2016, the temporal and spatial distribution of urolithiasis showed an increasing trend in overall incidence and area, and we identified four clusters that allowed for the development and dynamic monitoring of urolithiasis in Wuwei. With the implementation of the new Rural Cooperative Medical Care System (NRCMS), improved insurance reimbursement and coverage for urolithiasis should help reduce the disease burden.Conclusions: In this study, the incidence of urolithiasis showed an upward trend between 1995 and 2016. Regular disease screening and early diagnosis for high-risk populations should be strengthened, which will help improve the prevention and treatment of urolithiasis. This study should provide a reference for local governments to initiate policies for the prevention and treatment of urolithiasis.

Rubella occurs worldwide, causing approximately 100,000 cases annually of congenital rubella syndrome, leading to severe birth defects. Better targeting of public health interventions is needed to achieve rubella elimination goals. To that end, we measured the epidemiological characteristics and seasonal dynamic patterns of rubella and determined its association with meteorological factors in Shaanxi Province, China. Data on rubella cases in Shaanxi Province from 2005 to 2018 were obtained from the Chinese National Notifiable Disease Reporting System. The Morlet wavelet analysis was used to estimate temporal periodicity of rubella incidence. Mixed generalized additive models were used to measure associations between meteorological variables (temperature and relative humidity) and rubella incidence. A total of 17,185 rubella cases were reported in Shaanxi during the study period, for an annual incidence of 3.27 cases per 100,000 population. Interannual oscillations in rubella incidence of 0.8–1.4 years, 3.8–4.8 years, and 0.5 years were detected. Both temperature and relative humidity exhibited nonlinear associations with the incidence of rubella. The accumulative relative risk of transmission for the overall pooled estimates was maximized at a temperature of 0.23°C and relative humidity of 41.6%. This study found that seasonality and meteorological factors have impact on the transmission of rubella; public health interventions to eliminate rubella must consider periodic and seasonal fluctuations as well as meteorological factors.

Hand, foot, and mouth disease (HFMD) is a common infectious disease in the Asia-Pacific region that primarily affects children younger than 5 years. Previous studies have confirmed that the seasonal transmission of this disease is strongly related to meteorological factors, but the results are not consistent. In addition, the associations between weather conditions and HFMD in northwestern China have not been investigated. Therefore, we aimed to examine this issue in Xi’an, the largest city of northwestern China that has been suffering from serious HFMD epidemics. In the current study, data for HFMD and six meteorological factors were collected from 2009 to 2018. Using cross-correlation analysis, the Granger causality test, and the distributed lag nonlinear model, we estimated the quantitative relationships and exposure-lag–response effects between weekly meteorological factors and HFMD incidence among children. We found that the seasonal distribution of HFMD in Xi’an has two peaks each year and is significantly impacted by the weekly temperature, precipitation, and evaporation over an 8-week period. Higher values of temperature and evaporation had positive associations with disease transmission, whereas the association between precipitation and HFMD showed an inverted-U shape. The maximum relative risks (RRs) of HFMD for the weekly mean temperature (approximately 31.1°C), weekly cumulative evaporation (57.9 mm), and weekly cumulative precipitation (30.0 mm) were 1.56 (95% CI: 1.35–1.81), 1.40 (95% CI: 1.05–1.88), and 1.16 (95% CI: 1.11–1.70), respectively. The identified risk determinants and lag effects could provide important information for early interventions to reduce the local disease burden.

Background The unprecedented outbreak of corona virus disease 2019 (COVID-19) infection in Wuhan City has caused global concern; the outflow of the population from Wuhan was believed to be a main reason for the rapid and large-scale spread of the disease, so the government implemented a city-closure measure to prevent its transmission considering the large amount of travel before the Chinese New Year. Methods Based on the daily reported new cases and the population-movement data between 1 and 31 January, we examined the effects of population outflow from Wuhan on the geographical expansion of the infection in other provinces and cities of China, as well as the impacts of the city closure in Wuhan using different closing-date scenarios. Results We observed a significantly positive association between population movement and the number of the COVID-19 cases. The spatial distribution of cases per unit of outflow population indicated that the infection in some areas with a large outflow of population might have been underestimated, such as Henan and Hunan provinces. Further analysis revealed that if the city-closure policy had been implemented 2 days earlier, 1420 (95% confidence interval, 1059–1833) cases could have been prevented, and if 2 days later, 1462 (1090–1886) more cases would have been possible. Conclusions Our findings suggest that population movement might be one important trigger for the transmission of COVID-19 infection in China, and the policy of city closure is effective in controlling the epidemic.

Simple Summary Epithelial–mesenchymal transition (EMT) facilitates cell migration, invasion, and, consequently, metastasis, which ultimately contributes to breast-cancer-related fatalities. In this study, we define the DNA accessibility dynamics that permit EMT and its reversal, MET. We demonstrate the progressive repression of E-cadherin, beginning with the loss of the membrane-bound fraction, and followed by the loss of CDH1 reporter expression. We identify that EMT is characterized by a global increase in accessible chromatin—nearly doubling the number of accessible regions. Furthermore, we find that regions exhibiting chromatin alterations are enriched in binding motifs for CTCF. Additionally, our data suggest that CTCF repression slows the loss of epithelial gene expression while accelerating the gain of mesenchymal gene expression, facilitating a state of partial EMT. Abstract Epithelial–mesenchymal transition (EMT) and its reversal, mesenchymal–epithelial transition (MET) drive tissue reorganization critical for early development. In carcinomas, processing through EMT, MET, or partial states promotes migration, invasion, dormancy, and metastatic colonization. As a reversible process, EMT is inherently regulated at epigenetic and epigenomic levels. To understand the epigenomic nature of reversible EMT and its partial states, we characterized chromatin accessibility dynamics, transcriptomic output, protein expression, and cellular phenotypes during stepwise reversible EMT. We find that the chromatin insulating protein machinery, including CTCF, is suppressed and re-expressed, coincident with broad alterations in chromatin accessibility, during EMT/MET, and is lower in triple-negative breast cancer cell lines with EMT features. Through an analysis of chromatin accessibility using ATAC-seq, we identify that early phases of EMT are characterized by enrichment for AP-1 family member binding motifs, but also by a diminished enrichment for CTCF binding motifs. Through a loss-of-function analysis, we demonstrate that the suppression of CTCF alters cellular plasticity, strengthening the epithelial phenotype via the upregulation of epithelial markers E-cadherin/CDH1 and downregulation of N-cadherin/CDH2. Conversely, the upregulation of CTCF leads to the upregulation of EMT gene expression and an increase in mesenchymal traits. These findings are indicative of a role of CTCF in regulating epithelial–mesenchymal plasticity and gene expression.

ObjectiveTo determine the characteristics and spatiotemporal distribution of major gastrointestinal (GI) neoplasms in inpatients from 1995 to 2016 in Wuwei city, northwestern China.MethodData from all paper and electronic medical records entered between 1995 and 2016 at 12 major public hospitals in Wuwei city were retrospectively collected. Patients with GI neoplasms were identified and classified according to the International Classification of Diseases (ICD)-10. Trends in the incidence of major GI neoplasms were expressed as an annual percentage change (APC), and the Z test was used to assess the time fluctuation trends. Age-standardized incidence rates (ASIRs) were also calculated and the corresponding APC was estimated by the Joinpoint software for long-term trend analysis. Thematic maps of annual incidence at the township level were produced.ResultsAmong the 19,137 new inpatients identified with GI neoplasms in Wuwei, gastric cancer was the leading cause of morbidity, followed by cancers of the esophagus, colorectum, gastric cardia, liver, and pancreas with ASIRs of 21.8, 11.0, 5.8, 5.7, 4.4, and 1.7 per 100,000 person-years, respectively. Overall, there was a steady increase in the ASIR for all GI neoplasms, and male cases were 2.1 times more frequent than female cases. The ASIR significantly increased by 12.2% per year from 1995 to 2009 for all GI neoplasms, and the increase rates ranged 9.4%-16.7% per year for the individual GI neoplasm. Despite an increase by 1.4% per year from 2009 to 2016, the ASIR decreased for esophageal and gastric cardia cancers by 4.6% and 17.3% per year, respectively. The annual incidence of all GI neoplasms showed significantly differential geographic distributions among different townships of the city during the study period.

Triple-negative breast cancers affect thousands of women in the United States and disproportionately drive mortality from breast cancer. MicroRNAs are small, non-coding RNAs that negatively regulate gene expression post-transcriptionally by inhibiting target mRNA translation or by promoting mRNA degradation. We have identified that miRNA-203, silenced by epithelial–mesenchymal transition (EMT), is a tumor suppressor and can promote differentiation of breast cancer stem cells. In this study, we tested the ability of liposomal delivery of miR-203 to reverse aspects of breast cancer pathogenesis using breast cancer and EMT cell lines. We show that translationally relevant methods for increasing miR-203 abundance within a target tissue affects cellular properties associated with cancer progression. While stable miR-203 expression suppresses LASP1 and survivin, nanoliposomal delivery suppresses BMI1, indicating that suppression of distinct mRNA target profiles can lead to loss of cancer cell migration.

Epithelial-mesenchymal transition (EMT) and its reversal, mesenchymal-epithelial transition (MET) drive tissue reorganization critical for early development. In carcinomas, processing through EMT, MET or partial states promotes migration, invasion, dormancy, and metastatic colonization. As a reversible process, EMT is inherently regulated at epigenetic and epigenomic levels. To understand the epigenomic nature of reversible EMT and its partial states, we characterized chromatin accessibility dynamics, transcriptomic output, protein expression, and cellular phenotypes during stepwise reversible EMT. We found that the chromatin insulating protein machinery, including CTCF, is suppressed and re-expressed, coincident with broad alterations in chromatin accessibility, during EMT/MET and is lower in triple-negative breast cancer cell lines with EMT features. Through analysis of chromatin accessibility using ATAC-seq, we identify that early phases of EMT are characterized by enrichment for AP-1 family member binding motifs but also by diminished enrichment for CTCF binding motifs. Through loss-of-function analysis we demonstrate that suppression of CTCF alters cellular plasticity, facilitating entrance into a partial EMT state. These findings are indicative of a role of CTCF and chromatin reorganization for epithelial-mesenchymal plasticity.

The epithelial–mesenchymal transition (EMT) imparts properties of cancer stem-like cells, including resistance to frequently used chemotherapies, necessitating the identification of molecules that induce cell death specifically in stem-like cells with EMT properties. Herein, we demonstrate that breast cancer cells enriched for EMT features are more sensitive to cytotoxicity induced by ophiobolin A (OpA), a sesterterpenoid natural product. Using a model of experimentally induced EMT in human mammary epithelial (HMLE) cells, we show that EMT is both necessary and sufficient for OpA sensitivity. Moreover prolonged, sub-cytotoxic exposure to OpA is sufficient to suppress EMT-imparted CSC features including sphere formation and resistance to doxorubicin. In vivo growth of CSC-rich mammary cell tumors, is suppressed by OpA treatment. These data identify a driver of EMT-driven cytotoxicity with significant potential for use either in combination with standard chemotherapy or for tumors enriched for EMT features.

With the rapid development of electric vehicle industry in China, the contradiction between the increasing users' demand for real-time charging and the unbalanced planning and design of charging piles is increasingly apparent. DC charging pile on the market is developed rapidly, but its structure is with multi-gun to one-pile. It is difficult to meet the demand of different kinds of electric vehicle battery charging, different battery capacity and the user expected charging time. To solve the problems, a flexible power distribution method of DC charging pile is proposed in this paper. When multiple EV in different types and states are charged at the same time, and the actual charging demands of each user and the charging battery are considered, the power module can be dynamically switched to realize the flexible power distribution, the idea of flexible power distribution is described. Then the algorithm steps of power distribution were presented. Finally, the Matlab/Simulink was used for example analysis to simulate the power distribution process when different initial SOC batteries were charged simultaneously.

BACKGROUND At the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, a cluster outbreak caused by an imported case from Hubei Province was reported in Xi'an City, Shaanxi Province, China. Ten patients from 2 families and 1 hospital were involved in the transmission. MATERIAL AND METHODS We conducted an epidemiological investigation to identify the cluster transmission of COVID-19. The demographic, epidemiological, clinical, laboratory, and cluster characteristics were described and analyzed. RESULTS From January 27 to February 13, 2020, a total of 10 individuals were confirmed to be infected with SARS-CoV-2 by the nucleic acid testing of nasopharyngeal swabs from 2 families and 1 hospital. Among the confirmed cases, 7 had atypical clinical symptoms and 3 were asymptomatic. The median times from onset to diagnosis and to discharge were 3.5 days (range, 1-5 days) and 19.5 days (range, 16-38 days), respectively. There were 4 patients whose exposure dates were 1, 3, 3, and 2 days earlier than the onset dates of their previous-generation cases, respectively. Four prevention and control measures were effectively used to interrupt the disease transmission. CONCLUSIONS SARS-CoV-2 can be easily transmitted within families and in hospitals, and asymptomatic patients could act as a source of disease transmission. The results of this outbreak at the early epidemic stage support the recommendation that individuals with confirmed COVID-19 and all their close contacts should be subjected to medical quarantined observation and nucleic acid screening as early as possible, even if they do not have any symptoms. Meanwhile, people in high-risk areas should improve their protective measures.

Under the control of V2G frequency modulation signal, the output power range of the charger will be widened, the current ripple ratio will increase and the current response speed will slow down under light load, resulting in zero crossing distortion, and the steady-state error of the traditional controller will also increase. Therefore, the intelligent control model of V2G bi-directional charger considering price constraints is proposed. This paper studies the control coordination between AC-DC converter and DC-DC converter in traditional charging mode and V2G mode, and the scheme of controlling charger to feedback active power and reactive power to power grid. Finally, by improving the structure of LCL filter, the resonant frequency oscillation peak is suppressed, and the drive circuit with buffer is designed to solve some EMC problems encountered in the process of experiment, such as the interference of charger switch drive circuit and dead time oscillation.

Wireless power transfer (WPT) plays a crucial role in battery charging of electric vehicles (EVs). In order to compensate for leakage inductance and magnetizing inductance, the resonant compensation topology is usually added to the magnetically coupled resonant wireless power transfer system (MCR-WPTS). The S-S compensation topology is studied and analyzed. A detailed mathematical model and a simulation model are established. The expressions of output current, voltage and transmission power are derived. The relationship between the input, output current, output voltage, transmission power and load and mutual inductance of S-S compensation topology is shown by simulation. The simulation shows consistent results with the analysis. In addition, this paper analyzes the sensitivity of the capacitance parameters in the Matlab/Simulink simulation model, and obtains the changing trend of the transmission power of the system with the capacitance parameters, which provides support for the further research on the selection of capacitance parameters.

BackgroundEpithelial-mesenchymal transition (EMT) facilitates cellular movements critical for proper development; however, in a carcinoma, EMT promotes metastatic dissemination. Stable intermediate states (partial-EMT) are increasingly implicated in metastatic dissemination while reversal of EMT, termed mesenchymal-epithelial transition (MET), is increasingly implicated in metastatic colonization. To understand the partial and reversible nature of EMT, we characterized chromatin accessibility dynamics, transcriptome changes, protein expression patterns, as well as E-cadherin expression, localization, and gene-level dynamics in mammary epithelial cells undergoing stepwise reversible EMT.ResultsWhile shorter EMT induction induced internalization of E-cadherin protein, surface expression was recovered upon MET without loss of transcript or bulk protein. Conversely, a longer EMT induced stable repression of E-cadherin indicated by loss of chromatin accessibility and induced global expansion of accessible sites across the genome, facilitated by increased engagement of multiple transcription factor families, including AP-1 and SMAD. We observe enrichment for binding sites for the insulator proteins CTCF and BORIS was significantly diminished in both stemness-enriched partial-EMT and partial-MET states and determined that CTCF repression imparts alterations in some histone covalent modifications concomitant with those observed during TGFβ-induced EMT.ConclusionsThese findings are indicative of a major role for chromatin looping and reorganization in plasticity, stemness, and partial EMT phenotypes.

The epithelial-mesenchymal transition (EMT) imparts properties of cancer stem-like cells, including resistance to frequently used chemotherapy, necessitating the identification of molecules that induce cell death specifically in stem-like cells with EMT properties. Herein, we demonstrate that breast cancer cells enriched for EMT features are more sensitive to cytotoxicity induced by ophiobolin A (OpA), a sesterterpenoid natural product. Using a model of experimentally induced EMT in human mammary epithelial (HMLE) cells, we show that EMT is both necessary and sufficient for OpA sensitivity. Moreover, prolonged, sub-cytotoxic exposure to OpA is sufficient to reduce migration, sphere formation, and resistance to doxorubicin. OpA is well-tolerated in mice and treatment with OpA alone reduces tumor burden. These data identify a driver of EMT-driven cytotoxicity with significant potential for use either in combination with standard chemotherapy or for tumors enriched for EMT features.

Background Human brucellosis imposes a heavy burden on the health and economy of endemic regions. Since 2011, China has reported at least 35,000 human brucellosis cases annually, with more than 90% of these cases reported in the northern. Given the alarmingly high incidence and variation in the geographical distribution of human brucellosis cases, there is an urgent need to decipher the causes of such variation in geographical distribution. Method We conducted a retrospective epidemiological study in Shaanxi Province from January 1, 2005 to December 31, 2018 to investigate the association between meteorological factors and transmission of human brucellosis according to differences in geographical distribution and seasonal fluctuation in northwestern China for the first time. Results Human brucellosis cases were mainly distributed in the Shaanbei upland plateau before 2008 and then slowly extended towards the southern region with significant seasonal fluctuation. The results of quasi-Poisson generalized additive mixed model (GAMM) indicated that air temperature, sunshine duration, rainfall, relative humidity, and evaporation with maximum lag time within 7 months played crucial roles in the transmission of human brucellosis with seasonal fluctuation. Compared with the Shaanbei upland plateau, Guanzhong basin had more obvious fluctuations in the occurrence of human brucellosis due to changes in meteorological factors. Additionally, the established GAMM model showed high accuracy in predicting the occurrence of human brucellosis based on the meteorological factors. Conclusion These findings may be used to predict the seasonal fluctuations of human brucellosis and to develop reliable and cost-effective prevention strategies in Shaanxi Province and other areas with similar environmental conditions.