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To investigate the distribution and changing trend of canine echinococcosis in Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, so as to provide the scientific evidence for prevention and control of canine echinococcosis in high-risk areas of Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region.All data pertaining toA total of 164 139 canine fecal samples were detected in the echinococcosis-endemic foci of Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region from 2012 to 2018, and there were 2 136 fecal samples positive forThe prevalence of

To investigate the epidemiological characteristics of human echinococcosis in Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, so as to provide evidence for the development of the precision control strategy of human echinococcosis in the region.A sampling survey of human echinococcosis was conducted in 28 banners (counties, districts) of Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region from 2012 to 2017, and the epidemiological characteristics were descriptively analyzed.A total of 90 058 residents were examined for echinococcosis in 28 banners (counties, districts) of Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region from 2012 to 2017, and 71 patients were detected with echinococcosis, with a detection rate of 0.08%. No echinococcosis cases were identified in 8 banners (counties), and there were 6 banners (counties) with echinococcosis prevalence of 0.1% to 1%, and 14 with prevalence of 0 to 0.1%. The echinococcosis prevalence was significantly greater in women (0.11%) than in men (0.05%) (Human echinococcosis is widely, but lowly prevalent in Inner Mongolia Region, with a diverse density of infections. Echinococcosis has remarkable characteristics of regional and population clusters in Inner Mongolia Region, and the management of echinococcosis requires to be reinforced in key regions and populations.

To investigate the spatial distribution patterns and changing tendency of reported echinococcosis patients in Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region from 2013 to 2018, so as to provide the evidence for the management of echinococcosis in high-risk areas.All data pertaining to echinococcosis patients in Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region were captured from the National Notifiable Communicable Disease Reporting System from 2013 to 2018 and analyzed using a spatial epidemiological method.The incidence of reported echinococcosis was 0.22 to 0.41 per 100 000 in Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region from 2013 to 2018, and the number of banner reporting echinococcosis patients increased from 24 in 2013 to 39 in 2018. The highly prevalent areas of echinococcosis were mainly concentrated in West Ujimqin Banner (the highest incidence, 19.23 per 100 000), East Ujimqin Banner (the highest incidence, 12.93 per 100 000) and New Barag Right Banner (the highest incidence, 11.66 per 100 000). Three-dimensional trend analysis showed that the areas with high incidence of reported echinococcosis were mainly located in central by eastern parts of Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region. There was a positive spatial autocorrelation in the number of echinococcosis patients, and the cases appeared a clustering distribution (Moran'sThe reported echinococcosis patients show a spatial aggregation in Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, and the hotspot areas are mainly concentrated in Xilingol League and Chifeng City, in which targeted control interventions for Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region are recommended to be intensified.

Discharge measurement is a critical task for gravel-bed channels. Under high-flow conditions, the elevation of the riverbed changes significantly by intensive torrential flow. The stage–discharge relations commonly used for stream discharge estimation may no longer be adequate. The contact-type velocity measuring is also subject to measurement errors and/or instrument failures by the high-flow velocities, driftwood, stumps, and debris. This study developed a new real-time method to estimate river discharge in gravel-bed channels. A systematic measuring technology combining ground-penetrating radar and surface-velocity radar was employed. The rating curves representing the relations of water surface velocity to the channel cross-sectional mean velocity and flow area were established. Stream discharge was then deduced from the resulting mean velocity and flow area. The proposed method was examined in a steep gravel-bed reach of the Cho-Shui River in central Taiwan. The estimated stream discharge during three flood events were compared to the prediction by using the stage–discharge relation and the index-velocity method. The proposed method of this study is capable of computing reasonable values of discharge for an entire flood hydrograph, whereas the other two methods tend to produce large extrapolation errors. Moreover, when the computed discharge is used in 2D flood flow simulation, the proposed method demonstrates better performance than the commonly used stage–discharge and index-velocity methods.

The aim of study was to identify the downstream target genes of CX43 by Human Transcriptome Array. Therefore, a gene microarray was generated which consists of CX43-overexpressed hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) cells transfected with the constructed plasmid and negative controls to identify candidate genes. Integrated bioinformatic analysis was used to clarify biological functions of the identified genes, including Gene Ontology (GO), Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes (KEGG) pathway, protein-protein interaction network, and survival analysis. The candidate genes were further validated by qRT-PCR in liver cancer tissues and CX43-silenced HCC cells. We have found the mRNA and protein levels of CX43 significantly upregulated in HCC cells transfected with CX43 constructed plasmid. We identified 928 differentially expressed genes including 394 upregulated and 534 downregulated genes, enriched in the cancer related functions and pathways by GO and KEGG pathway analysis. The protein-protein interaction network revealed 9 hub genes in this study. Statistical analysis indicated that upregulation of RALA and SRC was associated with poor prognosis in liver cancer. The differential expression of 2 candidate genes were further validated in HCC cells and tissues. In conclusion, protein-coding genes RALA and SRC could be target genes of CX43 and therapeutic targets for hepatocellular carcinoma.

The mid- to lower reaches of Yangzi River Valley is located within the typical East Asia monsoon zone. Rapid urbanization, industrialization, and development of agriculture have led to fast and complicated land use and land cover changes in this region. To investigate land-atmosphere interaction in this region where human activities and monsoon climate are highly interactive with each other, micro-meteorological elements over four different surface types, i.e. urban surface represented by the observational site at Communist Party School in Nanjing (hereafter DX), suburban surface represented by the ground site at Xianling (XL), and grassland and farmland represented by field sites at Lishui County (LS-grass and LS-crop), are analyzed and their differences are revealed. Impacts of different surface parameters applied for different surface types on the radiation budget and surface-atmosphere heat, water, and mass exchanges are investigated. Results indicate that (1) the largest differences in daily average surface air temperature (Ta), surface skin temperature (Ts), and relative humidity (RH), which are found during the dry periods between DX and LS-crop, can be up to 3.21 °C, 7.26 °C, and 22.79 % respectively. During the growing season, the diurnal ranges of the above three elements are the smallest at DX and the largest at LS-grass, XL and LS-crop; (2) differences in radiative fluxes are mainly reflected in upward shortwave radiation (USR) that is related to surface albedo and upward longwave radiation (ULR) that is related to Ts. USR is the smallest and ULR is the largest at DX. During the growing season, the average difference in ULR between the DX site and other sites with vegetation cover can be up to 20 W m−2. The USR variability is the largest at LS-crop, while the diurnal variation of ULR is the same as that of Ts at all the four sites; (3) the differences in daily average sensible heat (H) and latent heat (LE) between DX and LS-crop are larger than 45 and 95 W m−2, respectively. The proportion of latent heat flux in the net radiation (LE/Rn) keeps increasing with the change of season from the spring to summer. XL site demonstrates a distinct forest feature; (4) surface albedo is small while the Bowen ratio is large at DX (an urban site). The urban heat island effect results in higher Ta and Ts at DX site that is 2 °C higher than that at other sites in the nighttime. It is found that surface albedo and roughness length variability both increase at LS-crop during the harvest season and straw burning periods. LE is dominant due to irrigation. Negative H is observed since evaporative cooling leads to low Ts. Daily variability of Ts and Ta is the lowest at LS-crop while RH is the largest. In the summer, the grassland albedo at XL site gradually becomes larger than that at the sites in Lishui. Since the forest-like effects becomes more distinct at XL, LE/Rn increases rapidly. Thereby, although Ts is higher at XL than that at LS-grass , there is no large difference in Ta between the two sites.

Short rigid large-diameter monopiles have been widely used for offshore wind turbines. The rotation of the piles is strictly controlled to render safe operation of the wind turbines. Consequently, the determination of the bearing capacity within an allowable angular rotation of the monopiles is an important issue. In this study, six lateral loading tests (at 1 g) were conducted on a rigid model pile in low liquid limit silt (ML) soil (with two relative densities). The tests reveal a rotational center at a depth of (0.75–0.85)L (L= embedded length of the pile) and work-hardening load–displacement curves (a continual increase in soil pressures even at a very large rotational angle). The test results were used to establish new p–y curves using a coefficient of subgrade reaction nh that is correlated to the local pile displacement. In particular, an analytical expression is developed to estimate the net lateral soil resistance p on a circular pile using peak-on-pile radial stress. The new p–y curves a...

This paper presents the experimental results of the characteristics of hydraulic shock waves in an inclined chute contraction with consideration of the effects of sidewall deflection angle φ, bottom inclination angle θ and approach Froude number Fr0. Seventeen runs of laboratory experiments were conducted in the range of 27.45° ≤φ ≤ 40.17°, 6.22° ≤ θ ≤ 25.38° and 1.04 ≤ Fr0 ≤ 3.51. Based on the experimental data, three empirical dimensionless relations for the shock angle, maximum shockwave height, and corresponding position of maximum shockwave were obtained by regression analyses, respectively. These empirical relations would be useful for hydraulic engineers in designing chute contraction structures.

Based on daily mean air temperature, maximum air temperature and minimum air temperature data from 1961 to 2000, the annual and seasonal evolution as well as the spatial distribution of the warming effect caused by the urbanization in China are investigated. One hundred and ninety one urban meteorological stations were categorized into three classes according to the urban population. A positive correlation between urban population and the rate of urban warming was found. Our results also suggested that the urban-rural difference in term of minimum temperature, with the strongest urban heat island (UHI) effect reaching 0.74 K in winter over large city station pairs, showed good ability to capture the UHI effect. The impact of urbanization on air temperature displayed sharp changes since the innovation and opening of China in 1978. The cities with strong UHI effects were mainly located in regions with rapid industrial and the economic development. Cities in the north of China showed a stronger UHI effect than those in the south. The UHI effects were relatively weaker in coastal cities than in inland ones in spring and summer, with the reverses found for autumn and winter. Furthermore, North China showed greater coastal-inland UHI differences than South China in a given season.

Linxian, China, has one of the highest esophageal-cancer mortality rates in the world. In 1983, esophageal balloon-cytology screening was performed to identify subjects eligible for 2 nutrition-intervention trials in Linxian; 12,877 subjects had cytology slides which were satisfactory for diagnosis. Of the 12,649 subjects with squamous-cell diagnoses, 31% were normal by Chinese cytologic criteria; 38% showed hyperplasia; 21% showed dysplasia 1; 6% showed dysplasia 2; 2% showed near-cancer; and 2% showed cancer. Of the 1,471 subjects with columnar-cell diagnoses, 31% were normal; 44% showed hyperplasia; 16% showed dysplasia 1; 4% showed dysplasia 2; 2% showed near-cancer; and 3% showed cancer. Squamous dysplasia and cancer were more common among females than males, while columnar dysplasia and cancer showed male predominance. The prevalence of dysplasia and cancer of both cell types increased with age. The prevalence of squamous dysplasia was significantly higher than in earlier balloon-cytology screenings in Linxian, probably reflecting changes in cytologic classification.

Environmental and ecological risk assessment always provide useful evidence for characterisation and conservation of the rare and endangered species, e.g. seven-son flower (Heptacodium miconioides Rehd.). Seven-son flower is a deciduous arbor species, but endangered, with a restricted distribution in the subtropical forests of China. Genetic risk assessment of 56 samples of the flower from nine main populations in Zhejiang (China) was carried out by using the RAPD analysis. This was to study the ecological characteristics, spatial distribution and genetic features of the seven-son flower communities and establish a feasible conservation plan. Twenty-one primers screened from 50 yielded 119 RAPD bands with 72 polymorphic products and 60.50% of total bands. The genetic variation was found to be partitioned mainly among rather than within populations. Percentages of genetic diversity among populations were quantified by Shannon index and the Nei's gene diversity coefficient. AMOVA also demonstrated that these relict populations were highly differentiated. The high level of population variation observed is in contrast to that expected for a primarily outcrossed woody perennial plant, and suggests that there may be a degree of inbreeding. The dendrogram constructed from genetic distances through UPGMA method based on Nei's coefficients shows two groups among nine population clusters, which is further supported by a principle components analysis (PCA) of RAPD phenotypic data. The analysis showed that the biologic characteristics and habitat fragmentation were the reasons of the great genetic variation among populations. Some strategies of its genetic diversity conservation were proposed in the fragmented habitats based on its genetic structure and its biological characteristics in this study.

To test the hypothesis that intestinal motility is delayed after hepatectomy, which alters the ecology of the enteric microflora and contributes to the development of bacterial translocation from the gut.Open experimental study.University department of surgery.Adult male Sprague-Dawley rats (n = 6 in each group at each time point).Sham operation, 90% hepatectomy, and portal venous obstruction.Intestinal morphology, immunocytochemistry of the enteric nervous system, enteric bacterial growth in the small intestine and colon, and intestinal transit time.Intestinal transit was already delayed one hour after 90% hepatectomy, and histopathological alterations and overgrowth by Escherichia Coli had developed after two hours. There were significant differences in intestinal transit time between sham operated rats and those subjected to portal venous obstruction on the one hand, and those that underwent 90% hepatectomy on the other. There was no difference in intestinal transit time between rats with portal venous obstruction and the sham operated animals.Delayed intestinal transit after 90% hepatectomy may contribute to enteric bacterial overgrowth and thereby contribute to the development of bacterial translocation from the gut.

Stomach cancer mortality data were compared with dietary and biochemical data from 65 Chinese counties to provide clues to reasons for the marked geographic variation of stomach cancer mortality rates in China. Sex-specific correlation and multivariate regression analyses showed significant positive associations with consumption of salted vegetables and eggs, prevalence of antibodies to Helicobacter pylori, and levels of plasma albumin; and significant negative associations with intake of green vegetables and levels of plasma selenium and beta-carotene. Limitations of ecological data preclude causal inferences, but these findings suggest factors that may contribute to making stomach cancer the leading cause of cancer death in China and other countries.