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The issue of the continuing decline of rural areas caused by urbanization has become a global concern. Encouraging college graduates to return to their hometowns to start businesses is an important initiative for countries to achieve sustainable rural development. Drawing from the Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB), this study introduces two additional variables: place attachment and entrepreneurial self-efficacy. Through a series of three model refinements, a comprehensive theoretical framework has been formulated to elucidate Chinese college graduates' hometown-based entrepreneurial intention and behavior. The samples for this study were 1151 college graduates selected from diverse universities across China. This study aims to explore the influence of college graduates' hometown-based entrepreneurial intention using Structural Equation Modelling. This analytical approach illuminates how variables such as college graduates' place attachment, entrepreneurial self-efficacy, subjective norm for hometown-based entrepreneurship, and attitude towards hometown-based entrepreneurship affected their hometown-based entrepreneurial intention. The research findings reveal the following insights: (1) The overall levels of college graduates' place attachment and hometown-based entrepreneurial intention were relatively low. (2) College graduates' place attachment, entrepreneurial self-efficacy, subjective norm for hometown-based entrepreneurship, and attitude towards hometown-based entrepreneurship, had a positive impact on their hometown-based entrepreneurial intention. (3) College graduates' place attachment and subjective norm for hometown-based entrepreneurship had a significant impact on their hometown-based entrepreneurial intention through the mediating variable of entrepreneurial self-efficacy. This study then makes policy recommendations from theoretical and managerial aspects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The convergence of China's digital economy and green finance holds great significance for fostering a sustainable and high-quality developmental path. However, existing studies have not explored the coupling coordination development between these two crucial subsystems. To bridge this gap, this paper employs a modified coupling coordination degree (CCD) model to assess and affirm the coupling coordination degree between the digital economy and green finance across 30 provinces in China from 2015–2021. Based on degree results, provinces are classified into three clusters by using K-means and hierarchical clustering algorithm. Our findings unveil that the current level of coupling coordination development in China is at a primary coordination stage. Although regional disparities significantly exist, the overall level of coordination remains steadily increasing, with the eastern region outperforming the western region. Additionally, we determine that the COVID-19 pandemic's disruption on the coupling coordination development of these systems has been limited. This research sheds light on the evolution of coupling systems and offers practical recommendations for strengthening the coordinated development of the digital economy and green finance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Infectious diseases are a major threat to public health, causing serious medical consumption and casualties. Accurate prediction of infectious diseases incidence is of great significance for public health organizations to prevent the spread of diseases. However, only using historical incidence data for prediction can not get good results. This study analyzes the influence of meteorological factors on the incidence of hepatitis E, which are used to improve the accuracy of incidence prediction. Methods: We extracted the monthly meteorological data, incidence and cases number of hepatitis E from January 2005 to December 2017 in Shandong province, China. We employ GRA method to analyze the correlation between the incidence and meteorological factors. With these meteorological factors, we achieve a variety of methods for incidence of hepatitis E by LSTM and attention-based LSTM. We selected data from July 2015 to December 2017 to validate the models, and the rest was taken as training set. Three metrics were applied to compare the performance of models, including root mean square error(RMSE), mean absolute percentage error(MAPE) and mean absolute error(MAE). Results: Duration of sunshine and rainfall-related factors(total rainfall, maximum daily rainfall) are more relevant to the incidence of hepatitis E than other factors. Without meteorological factors, we obtained 20.74%, 19.50% for incidence in term of MAPE, by LSTM and A-LSTM, respectively. With meteorological factors, we obtained 14.74%, 12.91%, 13.21%, 16.83% for incidence, in term of MAPE, by LSTM-All, MA-LSTM-All, TA-LSTM-All, BiA-LSTM-All, respectively. The prediction accuracy increased by 7.83%. Without meteorological factors, we achieved 20.41%, 19.39% for cases in term of MAPE, by LSTM and A-LSTM, respectively. With meteorological factors, we achieved 14.20%, 12.49%, 12.72%, 15.73% for cases, in term of MAPE, by LSTM-All, MA-LSTM-All, TA-LSTM-All, BiA-LSTM-All, respectively. The prediction accuracy increased by 7.92%. More detailed results are shown in results section of this paper. Conclusions: The experiments show that attention-based LSTM is superior to other comparative models. Multivariate attention and temporal attention can greatly improve the prediction performance of the models. Among them, when all meteorological factors are used, multivariate attention performance is better. This study can provide reference for the prediction of other infectious diseases. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Vertical integration is conducive to the realization of complementary interests and sustainable development of pig industry. The outbreak of African swine fever (ASF) in 2018 has disrupted many activities along pig industry chain in China. The production capacity of breeding pigs has dropped rapidly, and the supply of pig is tight. The vertical integration of pig industry chain is the main driving force to ensure food supply. Based on the data of 12 listed pig companies from 2012 to 2019, we examine the ways and reasons for vertical integration of pig companies when external shocks increase by taking ASF as an example, breakpoint regression and Tobit model are used to analyze differences and determinants of the forward and backward integration of pig industry chain under ASF. The empirical results showed that the forward integration of the feed processing link and slaughter circulation link is higher than the backward integration. ASF had different effects on the vertical integration degree of each link. ASF promoted forward integration. The main factors have different influences on the vertical integration of pig industry in China. Forward integration increased mainly depending on previous asset specificity, legal system environment, market demand, and transaction frequency. The findings of the study imply that pig industry chain is taking the forward integration to cope with the ASF shock. The combination of feed link and breeding link reduces feed cost and ensures pig supply. Pig companies tend to reduce transaction costs by strengthening the control of downstream supply. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: To assess whether dietary knowledge of Chinese children and adolescents and their mothers was associated with childhood and adolescent overweight and obesity. Methods: This cross-sectional study obtained data from the China Health and Nutrition Survey (CHNS) between 2004 and 2015. Dietary knowledge of children and adolescents and their mothers was assessed by asking questions and statements on diets, and clustered by K-means clustering. Body mass index (BMI) and waist circumference (WC) were used to evaluate overweight and obesity among children and adolescents. The association of dietary knowledge with childhood and adolescent overweight and obesity was evaluated by multivariate regression analysis, with odds ratios (ORs) and 95% confidence intervals (CIs) calculated. Results: A total of 2,338 children and adolescents were included. Children and adolescents with low dietary knowledge were demonstrated to have significantly higher risks of BMI-defined overweight or obesity (OR = 1.66, 95%CI = 1.21–2.28, P = 0.002), and WC-defined obesity (OR = 1.52, 95%CI = 1.12–2.06, P = 0.007) than those with high dietary knowledge. Compared with high dietary knowledge in mothers, low dietary knowledge was associated with significantly elevated risks of BMI-defined overweight or obesity (OR = 1.48, 95%CI = 1.08–2.02, P = 0.014), and WC-defined obesity (OR = 1.59, 95%CI = 1.18–2.16, P = 0.003). Furthermore, significantly increased odds of BMI-defined overweight or obesity and WC-defined non-obesity in children and adolescents were related to low dietary knowledge versus high dietary knowledge of children and adolescents (OR = 1.72, 95%CI = 1.08–2.74, P = 0.023), while there was no association of BMI-defined non-overweight and non-obesity and WC-defined obesity with dietary knowledge among children and adolescents (OR = 1.35, 95%CI = 0.89–2.04, P = 0.161). Additionally, no association was found between dietary knowledge of mothers and BMI-defined overweight or obesity and WC-defined non-obesity among children and adolescents (OR = 1.39, 95%CI = 0.89–2.17, P = 0.155), while low dietary knowledge of mothers was associated with increased odds of BMI-defined non-overweight and non-obesity and WC-defined obesity in children and adolescents (OR = 1.58, 95%CI = 1.03–2.43, P = 0.036). Conclusion: Dietary knowledge of children and adolescents and their mothers was associated with childhood and adolescent overweight and obesity. Dietary knowledge of children and adolescents negatively related to the risk of BMI-defined overweight or obesity, and dietary knowledge of mothers to odds of WC-defined obesity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The risk-based active surveillance for Newcastle disease virus (NDV) was carried out in China from 2011 to 2020. A total of 110,018 swabs were collected from 28 provinces. 2,389 class I NDVs were isolated and identified by RT-PCR and sequencing. The average annual positivity rate of class I NDVs from 2011 to 2020 was 2.17%. In the last 10 years, the positivity rate was highest in 2011 (4.76%), and has since decreased. Most viruses were isolated from chickens, while others were collected from ducks, geese and pigeons, as well as from the environment. The positivity rates for class I NDVs in poultry ranged from 0.55% to 2.40%. The viruses were isolated from 373 sampling sites in 24 provinces, mainly in East, Central, South and Southwest China. The positivity rates of NDVs in wholesale markets (51.58%) and retail markets (42.83%) were much higher than those in poultry farms (7.14%) and slaughterhouses (3.85%). Phylogenetic analyses showed that most isolates belonged to sub-genotype 1.1.2, while only 22 viruses belonged to sub-genotype 1.2, indicating the viruses in sub-genotype 1.1.2 were the predominant strains in China. The F and HN genes of six strains in the two sub-genotypes were sequenced and analyzed. The cleavage sites of F protein in the six viruses were 112ERQER/L117, 112ERQGR/L117 or 112GRQERL117, which were typical of low virulence NDV. Several mutations were identified in the functional domains of F and HN proteins, including fusion peptide, heptad repeat region, transmembrane domains and neutralizing epitopes. This study revealed the distribution, genetic and phylogenetic characteristics of class I NDVs in China, and could help us to better understand the epidemiological context of class I NDVs in China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Prunus sibirica is an economically important tree species that occurs in arid and semi-arid regions of northern China. For this species, creation of a core collection is critical for future ecological and evolutionary studies, efficient economic utilization, and development and management of the broader collection of its germplasm resources. In this study, we sampled 158 accessions of P. sibirica from Russia and China using 30 pair of simple sequence repeat molecular markers and 30 different schemes to identify candidate core collections. The 30 schemes were based on combinations of two different sampling strategies, three genetic distances, and five different sample sizes of the complete germplasm resource. We determined the optimal core collection from among the 30 results based on maximization of genetic diversity among groups according to Number of observed alleles (Na), Number of effective alleles (Ne), Shannon's information index (I), Polymorphic information content (PIC), Nei gene diversity (H) and compared to the initial collection of 158 accessions. We found that the optimal core collection resulted from preferred sampling at 25% with Nei & Li genetic distance these ratios of Na, Ne, I, PIC and H to the complete 158 germplasm resources were 73.0%, 113%, 102%, 100% and 103%, respectively, indicating that the core collection comprised a robust representation of genetic diversity in P. sibirica. The proposed core collection will be valuable for future molecular breeding of this species and management of its germplasm resources. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the past, China, like other developing countries in the world, pursued the goal of rapid economic development at the expense of ecology and ignored the issue of environmental protection. But in recent decades, as environmental problems have become increasingly prominent, developing countries have begun to explore ways to coordinate economy and ecological environment. As the largest developing country, China has been actively exploring ecological governance plans, putting forward the concept of green development, setting the goal of building a "beautiful China" and placing the construction of ecological civilization in the ontological status of social systems and national goals. In order to accelerate the green development process of enterprises in developing countries, based on the actual situation in China, this paper constructs a tripartite evolutionary game model of environmental accounting information disclosure with enterprises, investors and media as the research objects, and analyzes the internal mechanism of environmental accounting information disclosure. The model finds that the equilibrium of the three parties is affected by multiple factors. Therefore, this study further uses system dynamics to explore the dynamic process of evolutionary games and the strategic choices among multiple agents, and explore the mechanism of three types of agents to promote environmental accounting information disclosure. The simulation results reveal that government incentives have a greater impact on guiding enterprises and the media to evolve in the direction of legal disclosure and participation in exposure strategies. In addition, the continuous reduction of the cumbersome degree of disclosure procedures and the difficulty of improving environmental performance can fundamentally promote companies to actively choose legal disclosure strategies, which will help improve the quality of environmental accounting information disclosure, boost investor confidence, and enhance government supervision. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although R&D internationalization plays an important role in enterprises' globalization, few studies explore the mechanism of R&D internationalization and emerging market companies' innovation, or the relationship between R&D internationalization, domestic technology alliances and absorptive capacity. How does the R&D internationalization of emerging market enterprises affect the innovation of those enterprises? Under fierce market competition, do absorption capacity and domestic technology alliances have a significant impact on enterprise innovation? From the perspective of the knowledge-based view, this paper studies 185 enterprises undergoing R&D internationalization in China from 2012 to 2017, using high-dimensional Poisson fixed effects model, we use instrumental (HDFE IV) estimation to explain the impact of R&D internationalization on the innovation of the parent company and the mechanism behind it. The study finds that R&D internationalization positively promotes the parent company's innovation, and domestic technology alliances and absorptive capacity play a partial mediator role in R&D internationalization. In the face of fierce market competition, domestic technical alliances play a significant role in promoting enterprise innovation, while absorptive capacity plays a negative role in promoting enterprise innovation with the moderating effect of market competition. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Changes in precipitation patterns greatly impact regional drought/flood risk management and utilization of water resources. The main purpose of this paper was to investigate spatio-temporal variability of precipitation concentration in the transitional zone between Qinling Mountains (QDM), Guanzhong Plain (GZP) and the Loess Plateau (LPNS) in China, using monthly-scale precipitation concentration index (PCI) and daily-scale concentration index (CI) from daily rainfall records. The Mann-Kendall method was employed to illustrate the change in trend of PCI and CI, the Kriging interpolation method was adopted to measure spatial distribution, and the Wavelet transforms were used to explore their spatio-temporal correlation with the Arctic Oscillation (AO) & Western Pacific Subtropical High (WPSH) for revealing the potential attribution of precipitation concentration variation. Also, the regional implication of CI was investigated in the zone to provide local knowledge of the index application. Results showed that annual precipitation demonstrated a north-south increasing layered spatial distribution in the zone, representing a generally decreasing trend. The CI change generally exhibited a more significant decreasing trend than did PCI in LPNS and GZP due to AO slowly increasing over time, with a spatially weak layered or radial north-south decay, and an insignificant increasing trend in QDM impacted by the enhancing WPSH, with an obvious layered or radial spatial distribution. The spatiotemporal pattern of PCI variation represented similar characteristics in attribution with CI, but an inverse spatial distribution due to the phase difference (positive and negative effects) of AO and WPSH influencing seasonal precipitation. Regional analysis of CI showed that the CI value with over 0.62 indicated that approximately 80% of precipitation was contributed by 25% of the rainiest days in this zone. Fortunately, the area with this high CI has been getting smaller, implying a positive trend toward regional flash flood and debris flow control. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Accurate and reliable predictions of infectious disease can be valuable to public health organizations that plan interventions to decrease or prevent disease transmission. A great variety of models have been developed for this task. However, for different data series, the performance of these models varies. Hepatitis E, as an acute liver disease, has been a major public health problem. Which model is more appropriate for predicting the incidence of hepatitis E? In this paper, three different methods are used and the performance of the three methods is compared. Methods: Autoregressive integrated moving average(ARIMA), support vector machine(SVM) and long short-term memory(LSTM) recurrent neural network were adopted and compared. ARIMA was implemented by python with the help of statsmodels. SVM was accomplished by matlab with libSVM library. LSTM was designed by ourselves with Keras, a deep learning library. To tackle the problem of overfitting caused by limited training samples, we adopted dropout and regularization strategies in our LSTM model. Experimental data were obtained from the monthly incidence and cases number of hepatitis E from January 2005 to December 2017 in Shandong province, China. We selected data from July 2015 to December 2017 to validate the models, and the rest was taken as training set. Three metrics were applied to compare the performance of models, including root mean square error(RMSE), mean absolute percentage error(MAPE) and mean absolute error(MAE). Results: By analyzing data, we took ARIMA(1, 1, 1), ARIMA(3, 1, 2) as monthly incidence prediction model and cases number prediction model, respectively. Cross-validation and grid search were used to optimize parameters of SVM. Penalty coefficient C and kernel function parameter g were set 8, 0.125 for incidence prediction, and 22, 0.01 for cases number prediction. LSTM has 4 nodes. Dropout and L2 regularization parameters were set 0.15, 0.001, respectively. By the metrics of RMSE, we obtained 0.022, 0.0204, 0.01 for incidence prediction, using ARIMA, SVM and LSTM. And we obtained 22.25, 20.0368, 11.75 for cases number prediction, using three models. For MAPE metrics, the results were 23.5%, 21.7%, 15.08%, and 23.6%, 21.44%, 13.6%, for incidence prediction and cases number prediction, respectively. For MAE metrics, the results were 0.018, 0.0167, 0.011 and 18.003, 16.5815, 9.984, for incidence prediction and cases number prediction, respectively. Conclusions: Comparing ARIMA, SVM and LSTM, we found that nonlinear models(SVM, LSTM) outperform linear models(ARIMA). LSTM obtained the best performance in all three metrics of RSME, MAPE, MAE. Hence, LSTM is the most suitable for predicting hepatitis E monthly incidence and cases number. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Human adenovirus (HAdV-7) is a highly contagious pathogen that causes severe respiratory illnesses. However, the epidemic patterns and genetic variability of HAdV-7 circulating in mainland China have not been well elucidated. In this study, we used Chinese HAdV sentinel surveillance data obtained from 2012–2015 to investigate the clinical features of 122 HAdV-7-positive cases and performed amplification and sequence determination of three capsid genes (penton base, hexon, and fiber) from 69 isolated viruses covering from seven provinces of China. Additionally, we compared with data from representative sequences of 21 strains covering seven more provinces in China and 32 international HAdV-7 strains obtained from GenBank database to determine the phylogenetic, sequence variations, and molecular evolution of HAdV-7. The results indicated that HAdV-7 infection occurred throughout the year, and a high proportion of severe cases (27 cases, 22.1%) exhibited infantile pneumonia. Moreover, phylogenetic analysis showed that all HAdV-7 strains could be divided into two major evolutionary branches, including subtype 1 and subtype 2, and subtype 3 was also formed according to analysis of the penton base gene. Subtypes 1 and 2 co-circulated in China before 2008, and HAdV-7 strains currently circulating in China belonged to subtype 2, which was also the predominant strain circulating worldwide in recent years. Further sequence variation analysis indicated that three genes of HAdV-7 were relatively stable across time and geographic space, particularly for viruses within subtypes, which shared almost the same variation sites. Owing to continuous outbreaks caused by HAdV-7, resulting in increased illness severity and fatality rates in China, the establishment of a national HAdV surveillance system is urgently needed for the development of effective preventive and infection-control interventions for adenovirus respiratory infections in China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Self-management is the cornerstone of diabetes care, however, despite the numerous recommendations available for self-management, type-2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) patients' performance is suboptimal in China. This study aimed to explore the association between self-efficacy and self-management behaviors among Chinese T2DM patients, which might provide evidence to inform effective self-management interventions for these patients. Methods: A cross-sectional survey was conducted using a multi-stage stratified randomized sampling in Shandong Province, China. The Diabetes Empowerment Scale-Short Form (DES-SF) was used to measure patients' self-efficacy to manage diabetes. Latent class analysis (LCA) was used to explore the observed classes of self-management behaviors (dietary control, physical exercise, regular medication and self-monitoring of blood glucose). A two-class solution for self-management behaviors was tested to be the fittest based on LCA; we labelled active and inactive self-management groups. Univariate and multivariate logistic regression analysis were used to examine the associations between self-efficacy and self-management behaviors. Results: A total of 2166 T2DM patients were included in the analysis. The mean DES-SF score was 31.9 (standard deviation: 5.2). The estimated proportions of T2DM in the active and inactive groups were 54.8% and 45.2%, respectively. The multivariate logistic regression showed that higher DES-SF score was significantly associated with higher possibility of active self-management behaviors (odds ratio = 1.06; 95% confidence interval: 1.04–1.08). Conclusions: Self-efficacy in managing diabetes is associated with self-management behaviors among Chinese T2DM patients. To improve self-management behaviors, multiple strategies should be conducted to improve patients' self-efficacy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Hypochondriac symptoms are commonly reported in health science students. With their incomplete medical knowledge, they may compare their own bodily symptoms with disease symptoms during the process of learning, which can lead to mental distress and the need for repeated medical reassurance. Objective: To estimate the prevalence of hypochondriac symptoms in Chinese health science students. Methods: A systematic literature search was conducted on PubMed, Web of Science, Embase, China National Knowledge Infrastructure, China Biology Medicine disc, and Wanfang Data on July 1, 2018. Additionally, the references of the retrieved papers were searched. Cross-sectional studies published in either English or Chinese that reported the prevalence of hypochondriac symptoms in health science students were included. The selection process was executed based on the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analysis, and study quality was assessed with the checklist recommended by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality for cross-sectional studies. A random-effects model according to the DerSimonian-Laird method was used to calculate the pooled prevalence. Results: Seven cross-sectional studies involving 6,217 Chinese health science students were included. The pooled prevalence of hypochondriac symptoms among health science students was 28.0% (95% CI = 19.0%–38.0%). The symptoms were a little more common in females (30.0%, 95% CI = 19.0%–42.0%) than in males (29.0%, 95% CI = 16.0%–42.0%), but the difference was not significant. No significant differences were found between participants grouped by study year. Only three studies explored the coping styles of students with hypochondriasis, and these revealed a high tendency toward help-seeking behaviors. Conclusion: Our systematic review and meta-analysis showed a high prevalence of hypochondriac symptoms among health science students, indicating that it is a noteworthy phenomenon. We suggest that counseling and other support services are necessary for health science students. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

One class I Newcastle disease virus (NDV), designated as duck/Guangxi/1261/2015 (GX1261), was isolated from asymptomatic ducks in live bird markets (LBM) from southern China during the national active surveillance for NDVs in 2015. The complete genome length of GX1261 isolate was 15,198 nucleotides with the gene order of 3’-NP-P-M-F-HN-L-5’. The motif at the cleavage site of F protein was 112ERQER/L117, which was typical of low virulence NDV. Several mutations were identified in the functional domains of F and HN proteins, including fusion peptide, heptad repeat region, transmembrane domains and neutralizing epitopes. Phylogenetic analysis based on the complete F gene revealed that the isolate was clustered into sub-genotype 1c in class I, and showed a high level of similarity with the strains isolated from waterfowl in the United States of America. This is the first report of this kind of virus in the mainland of China. These results demonstrated that GX1261-like viruses might exist in asymptomatic waterfowl, and remain undetected or unidentified. Thus, more investigation needs to be done in order to identify the source of the virus. This study revealed the genetic and phylogenetic characteristics of GX1261 isolate and could help us to better understand the epidemiological context of class I NDV in China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Hypercholesterolemia is common in older adults and less treated, but little is known about correlates of untreated hypercholesterolemia. Using a standard interview method we examined a random sample of 7,572 participants aged ≥60 years in a community-based household survey across 7 provinces of China during 2007–2012, and documented 328 cases of hypercholesterolemia from self-reported doctor diagnosis. Compared to participants with normal cholesterol, older adults with hypercholesterolemia had higher socioeconomic position and larger body mass index. In patients with hypercholesterolemia, 209 were not treated using lipid-lowering medications (63.7%, 95% confidence interval (CI) 58.5%–68.9%). Untreated hypercholesterolemia was significantly associated with female sex (adjusted odds ratio 2.13, 95%CI 1.17–3.89), current smoking (3.48, 1.44–8.44), heavy alcohol drinking (3.13,1.11–8.84), chronic bronchitis (2.37,1.14–4.90) and high level of meat consumptions (2.85,1.22–6.65). Although having coronary heart disease exposed participants for treatment, half of participants with coronary heart disease did not receive lipid-lowering medications. Among hypercholesterolemia participants with stroke, hypertension or diabetes, more than half of them did not receive lipid-lowering medications. The high proportion of untreated hypercholesterolemia in older, high-risk Chinese adults needs to be mitigated through multi-faceted primary and secondary prevention strategies to increase population opportunities of treating hypercholesterolemia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To investigate the distribution of Human papillomavirus (HPV)-31 A, B and C variants as well as the common amino acid polymorphisms in Chinese women, all 14 HPV-31 positive cervical exfoliated cell specimens identified from a descriptive study including ∼2700 women from Northern China were analyzed. HPV-31 positive specimens were identified by Mass Spectrometry and the fragments of partial Long Control Region, E6 and E7 were amplified and directly sequenced or cloned into vector and then sequenced to confirm the variant information. HPV-31 prevalence in Northern Chinese female population was 0.52%. Six different sequences represented all 14 isolates, and these isolates were subsequently classified into variant lineage A (9), B (0) and C (5) by phylogenetic analysis. Five common amino acid polymorphism sites (2 in E6 and 3 in E7) and a novel non-synonymous mutation were detected in the current study. Our investigation suggested that HPV-31 was much less detected in Chinese women population than that in western countries. A and C variants were commonly detected while B variants were rarely detected in this population. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: To study the possibility of Chinese visible human (CVH) head datasets as brain atlas for locating the subthalamic nucleus (STN) before deep brain stimulation (DBS) surgery. Methods: Optimal head axial and coronal 3.0T, T2-weighted magnetic resonance images (MRI) of 30 patients were obtained. Cross-sectional head images of four CVH head datasets were chosen to establish an average CVH model. All MRI sequences were registered to the CVH model via fiducials in X-, Y-, and Z-direction, respectively, within the same stereotactic space. The correlations between red nucleus (RN) and fiducials, the accuracy of MRI-to-CVH registration, and the coordinate value differences of RN gravity center between MRI and CVH were tested. Results: The mean gravity center coordinate values and ranges of STN in CVH were measured; The X coordinate value of RN positively correlates with the most anterior point of putamen(PU-A), the lateral edges of putamens (PU-L), and width of the third ventricle, negatively correlated with the patients’ age; The minimal mean errors were when no fiducials were used when locating RN between the MRI and the CVH average model; There were no significant differences of RN in X- and Y-direction between MRI sequences and CVH. Conclusion: CVH head datasets can be used as brain atlas for Chinese STN localization. Moreover, average coordinate values of the gravity center and the ranges of STN in CVH can be considered as references for locating STN. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Previous reports have shown inconsistent results on clinical outcomes between women and men after stroke, and little is known about gender differences on outcomes in Chinese post-stroke patients. The aim of this study was to explore whether there were gender differences on clinical characteristics and outcomes in Chinese patients after ischemic stroke by using the data from the China National Stroke Registry (CNSR). Methods and Findings: Out of 12,415 consecutively recruited patients with acute ischemic stroke in the CNSR from 2007 to 2008, 11,560 (93.1%) patients were followed up for 12 months. Their clinical characteristics and outcomes on death, recurrence, and dependency were recorded. The multivariate logistic regression was performed to determine whether there were gender differences in these outcomes. Women were older than men at baseline (67.9 vs. 64.0 years, P<0.001). Women had a higher mortality, recurrence rate, and dependency rate at 3, 6, and 12 months than men, but after adjusting for age, history of diabetes, pre-stroke dependency, stroke severity, in-hospital complications, and other confounders, there were no statistically significant differences in gender on mortality and recurrence rate at 3, 6, and 12 months; and dependency rate at 3, and 6 months. However, the dependency rate at 12 months remained significantly higher in women (odds ratio, 1.24; 95% confidence interval, 1.06 to 1.45). Conclusions: There are many differences in clinical characteristics between women and men after ischemic stroke in China. Compared with men, women are more dependent at 12 months after stroke. This difference still exists after controlling the potential confounders. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Explaining species richness patterns is a central issue in biogeography and macroecology. Several hypotheses have been proposed to explain the mechanisms driving biodiversity patterns, but the causes of species richness gradients remain unclear. In this study, we aimed to explain the impacts of energy, environmental stability, and habitat heterogeneity factors on variation of vertebrate species richness (VSR), based on the VSR pattern in China, so as to test the energy hypothesis, the environmental stability hypothesis, and the habitat heterogeneity hypothesis. Methodology/Principal Findings: A dataset was compiled containing the distributions of 2,665 vertebrate species and eleven ecogeographic predictive variables in China. We grouped these variables into categories of energy, environmental stability, and habitat heterogeneity and transformed the data into 100x100 km quadrat systems. To test the three hypotheses, AIC-based model selection was carried out between VSR and the variables in each group and correlation analyses were conducted. There was a decreasing VSR gradient from the southeast to the northwest of China. Our results showed that energy explained 67.6% of the VSR variation, with the annual mean temperature as the main factor, which was followed by annual precipitation and NDVI. Environmental stability factors explained 69.1% of the VSR variation and both temperature annual range and precipitation seasonality had important contributions. By contrast, habitat heterogeneity variables explained only 26.3% of the VSR variation. Significantly positive correlations were detected among VSR, annual mean temperature, annual precipitation, and NDVI, whereas the relationship of VSR and temperature annual range was strongly negative. In addition, other variables showed moderate or ambiguous relations to VSR. Conclusions/Significance: The energy hypothesis and the environmental stability hypothesis were supported, whereas little support was found for the habitat heterogeneity hypothesis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this study was to investigate the prevalence of swine hepatitis E virus (HEV) in pigs fed different feedstuffs (kitchen residue or mixed feeds) and genetic identification of HEV isolated in Hebei province, China. Serum and fecal samples were collected from adult swine. Anti-HEV antibody was evaluated by double sandwich antigen enzyme immunoassay. HEV RNA was extracted from fecal samples and amplified by nested RT-PCR. The reaction products were sequenced, and the sequence analyzed. Virus-like particles were distinguishable by negative staining in the electron microscope. Histopathological observation and immunohistochemical localization were used in the animal models. Overall, the anti-HEV positive percentage of serum samples from pigs fed on kitchen residue was 87.10% (27/31), and 53.06% (130/245) from pigs fed on complete feed. The HEV RNA positivity rate of fecal samples from pigs fed on kitchen residue was 61.54% (8/13), but zero for pigs fed on complete feed. Sequence analysis of these eight samples and comparison with the published sequence showed that there were eight groups that belonged to genotype 4 d and the nucleotide identity was 95.6-99.3%. swHE11 is most closely related to strain CCC220, and the other seven HEV isolates were most closely related to strains swGX40, SwCH189 and V0008ORF3, which are isolates from human and pigs. Histopathological observation showed that there was liver damage in the experimental group, and immunohistochemistry indicated that the HEV antigens were strongly positive at 7 days after infection. The results demonstrated that the prevalence of HEV in pigs fed on kitchen residue was higher than in those fed on complete feed (P<0.05). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Eleven novel human papillomavirus (HPV) types were isolated and characterized from healthy individuals in China. HPV163 belongs to the γ-1 species, HPV 164 and HPV 168 fit in the γ-8 species, HPV 165 and KC5 belongs to the γ-12 species, HPV 168 is closely allied with the γ-4 species, HPV 169 is closely related to the γ-11 species, and HPV 170 is related to the γ-12 species. In addition, HPV 161, HPV 162, and HPV 166 may form a new HPV species of the γ-PV genus. The prevalence of these HPV types in the normal population is low. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Trichinellosis is one of the most important food-borne parasitic zoonoses throughout the world. Because infected pigs are the major source of human infections, and China is becoming the largest international producer of pork, the development of a transmission-blocking vaccine to prevent swine from being infected is urgently needed for trichinellosis control in China. Our previous studies have demonstrated that specific Trichinella spiralis paramyosin (Ts-Pmy) and Ts-87 antigen could provide protective immunity against T. spiralis infection in immunized mice. Certain protective epitopes of Ts-Pmy and Ts-87 antigen have been identified. To identify more Ts-Pmy protective epitopes, a new monoclonal antibody, termed 8F12, was produced against the N-terminus of Ts-Pmy. This antibody elicited significant protective immunity in mice against T. spiralis infection by passive transfer and was subsequently used to screen a random phage display peptide library to identify recognized epitopes. Seven distinct positive phage clones were identified and their displayed peptides were sequenced. Synthesized epitope peptides conjugated to keyhole limpet hemocyanin were used to immunize mice, four of which exhibited larval reduction (from 18.7% to 26.3%, respectively) in vaccinated mice in comparison to the KLH control. To increase more effective protection, the epitope 8F7 that was found to induce the highest protection in this study was combined with two other previously identified epitopes (YX1 from Ts-Pmy and M7 from Ts-87) to formulate a multi-epitope vaccine. Mice immunized with this multi-epitope vaccine experienced a 35.0% reduction in muscle larvae burden after being challenged with T. spiralis larvae. This protection is significantly higher than that induced by individual-epitope peptides and is associated with high levels of subclasses IgG and IgG1. These results showed that a multi-epitope vaccine induced better protective immunity than an individual epitope and provided a feasible approach for developing a safer and more effective vaccine against trichinellosis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]