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Fog, rain, snow, and icing are considered to be the high-impact weather events often lead to the highway blockings, which in turn causes serious economic and human losses. At present, there is no clear calculation method for the severity of highway blocking which is related to highway load degree and economic losses. Therefore, the goal of this work is to develop a method to be used to assess the high impact weather effects on the highway blocking. Based on the K-means cluster analysis and the CRITIC (Criteria Importance through Intercriteria Correlation) weight assignment method, we analyze the highway blocking events occurred in Chinese provinces in 2020. Through cluster analysis, a new method of severity levels of highway blocking is developed to distinguish the severity into five levels. The severity levels of highway blocking due to high-impact weather are evaluated for all weather types. As a part of calculating the degree of highway blocking, a new method is proposed for China, and the highway load in each province is evaluated. The economic losses resulting from highway-blocking events caused by dense fog are specifically assessed. Results suggested that the highway losses caused by dense fog was the main contributor for highway blocking conditions and occur at about 43 %. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Classical scrapie is a transmissible spongiform encephalopathy that attacks the central nervous system of sheep and goats. Since its discovery in the 18th century, the disease has caused enormous economic losses and public health impacts in continental Europe. In the late 20th century, classical scrapie began to spread to places, such as Asia and the Americas, becoming a disease of global concern. In this study, based on prion occurrence records and high-resolution environmental layers, a risk assessment of classical scrapie in China was performed using a maximum entropy model. The model achieved an area under the curve value of 0.906 (95% confidence interval, 0.0883-0.0929). Sheep distribution density, road density, goat distribution density, minimum temperature of the coldest month, port density, and precipitation of the driest quarter were identified as important factors affecting the occurrence of classical scrapie. The risk map showed that potential high-risk areas in China were mainly located in Northeast China, North China, and Northwest China. This study can provide a valuable reference for the prevention of classical scrapie in China. According to the environmental variables and risk areas of classical scrapie, implementing monitoring and early warning measures in these areas is recommended to reduce the possibility of classical scrapie occurrence and transmission. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A special and unusual purple (magenta) haze episode was observed in Nanjing, China, at 17:00 on 22 December 2015. Many local and national news outlets reported this event. Based on an analysis of the pollution features and meteorological factors, including boundary layer characteristics, we concluded that this haze event was similar in most respects to other local haze episodes. We discuss the reasons and the possibilities about this rare color haze at the end of the paper. One way to attain a combination of blue and red light is to have the green wavelengths selectively absorbed, and this seems unlikely for typical atmospheric constituents. Another way involves pollution gases or particles together with small liquid-water drops, which need further confirmation. A third possibility is that the combination of transmitted red light from the sun and scattered blue light from above could produce a purple/magenta color in the sky. In general, further studies are required to assess the physical, chemical, and optical features of this purple haze in order to explain and predict this phenomenon in the future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Soil amendment is one of the most effective methods to improve saline-alkali soil. In this study, laboratory experiments were conducted to verify the effect of 13 kinds of amendments and their combinations (Citric acid (NM), Phosphogypsum (LS), Aluminum sulfate+citric acid (AL+NM), Aluminum sulfate+phosphogypsum (AL+LS), Aluminum sulfate+citric acid+phosphogypsum (HH), Zeolite (Z), Acidified zeolite (ZH), Aluminum sulfate (AL), Aluminum sulfate+zeolite (AL+Z), Aluminum sulfate+acidified zeolite (AL+ZH), Poly Aluminum chloride (ALCL), Polyaluminium chloride+zeolite (ALCL+Z), Polyaluminium chloride+acidified zeolite (ALCL+ZH)) on soil pH, metal cations content, exchangeable Na+, exchangeable sodium percentage (ESP) in the lab. And then the five most effective amendments (Z, ZH, AL, AL+Z, and AL+ZH) were chosen applying both in dry field (maize field) and paddy field to evaluate their improvement on soda saline-alkali soil and crop yield in the northeast Songnen Plain, China. The lab results showed that AL, AL+Z and AL+ZH treatments could significantly reduce the pH in soil solution and increase the content of metal cations. Z and ZH treatments could adsorb metal cations in soil. Both in dry and paddy fields, all five treatments could increase the soil saturated hydraulic conductivity (Ks), increased from 9.63 to 60.02 mm/d and 0.18 to 33.25 mm/d, respectively, of which the AL treatment was the best; all five treatments could reduce the content of exchangeable Na+ in soil, and decrease by 38.62%-61.33% and 25.24%-71.53%, respectively, of which the AL+ZH treatment was the best; all treatments could reduce soil exchangeable sodium percentage, and decrease by 0.14-0.22 and 0.14-0.41, respectively, of which the AL+ZH treatment was the best; AL, AL+Z and AL+ZH treatments could improve soil organic matter content; all treatments could effectively improve the yield of crops, and increase 23.98%-60.75% and 52.51%-260.21%, respectively, of which the AL treatment was the best in dry field and the AL+ZH treatment was the best in paddy field. The effect of AL treatment was the best in dry field and AL+ZH treatment was the best in paddy field of soda saline-alkali soil. This study could provide instructive information for the chemical improvement and agricultural utilization of soda saline-alkali soils in the world. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Yunnan pine and Simao pine caterpillar moths, Dendrolimus houi Lajonquière and Dendrolimus kikuchii Matsumura (Lepidoptera: Lasiocampidae), are two closely related and sympatric pests of coniferous forests in southwestern China, and olfactory communication systems of these two insects have received considerable attention because of their economic importance. However, there is little information on the molecular aspect of odor detection about these insects. Furthermore, although lepidopteran species have been widely used in studies of insect olfaction, few work made comparison between sister moths on the olfactory recognition mechanisms. In this study, next-generation sequencing of the antennal transcriptome of these two moths were performed to identify the major olfactory genes. After comparing the antennal transcriptome of these two moths, we found that they exhibit highly similar transcripts-associated GO terms. Chemosensory gene families were further analyzed in both species. We identified 23 putative odorant binding proteins (OBP), 17 chemosensory proteins (CSP), two sensory neuron membrane proteins (SNMP), 33 odorant receptors (OR), and 10 ionotropic receptors (IR) in D. houi ; and 27 putative OBPs, 17 CSPs, two SNMPs, 33 ORs, and nine IRs in D. kikuchii . All these transcripts were full-length or almost full-length. The predicted protein sequences were compared with orthologs in other species of Lepidoptera and model insects, including Bombyx mori , Manduca sexta , Heliothis virescens , Danaus plexippus , Sesamia inferens , Cydia pomonella , and Drosophila melanogaster . The sequence homologies of the orthologous genes in D. houi and D. kikuchii are very high. Furthermore, the olfactory genes were classed according to their expression level, and the highly expressed genes are our target for further function investigation. Interestingly, many highly expressed genes are ortholog gene of D. houi and D. kikuchii . We also found that the Classic OBPs were further separated into three groups according to their motifs, which will help future functional researches. Surprisingly, no pheromone receptor was identified in the two Dendrolimus species, which may indicate a special pheromone identification mechanism in Dendrolimus . Our work allows for further functional studies of pheromones and host volatile recognition genes, and give novel candidate targets for pest management. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Peste des petits ruminants (PPR) is a severe infectious viral disease of domestic and wild small ruminants, and it threatens food security and livelihood of farmers across the world. In China, 292 PPR cases have been reported since it was first reported in 2007. Aiming to display the spatiotemporal patterns of PPR outbreaks and to understand its relationship with meteorological factors, we conducted a direction test, directional distribution analysis, and logistic regression analysis. The results showed that the spread of disease had a significant directional spread (P < 0.05). Daily average temperature (DAT) [OR 0.063 (95% CI 0.047–0.076)], daily average relative humidity (DARH) [OR 0.871 (95% CI 0.804–0.944)], and daily hours of sunshine (DHS) [OR 0.411 (95% CI 0.389–0.582)] were inversely associated with the risk of PPR outbreak, while a positive association was observed for daily average air pressure (DAAP) [OR 1.211 (95% CI 1.036–1.417). Our findings indicate that meteorological factors may be important variables for affecting PPR transmission, and should be taken into account in the future monitoring programs for PPR. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Foot-and-mouth disease (FMD) is a highly contagious viral disease of cloven-hoofed animals. As a transboundary animal disease, the prevention and control of FMD are important. This study was based on spatial multi-criteria decision analysis (MCDA) to assess FMD risk areas in mainland China. Ten risk factors were identified for constructing risk maps by scoring, and the analytic hierarchy process (AHP) was used to calculate the criteria weights of all factors. Different risk factors had different units and attributes, and fuzzy membership was used to standardize the risk factors. The weighted linear combination (WLC) and one-at-a-time (OAT) were used to obtain risk and uncertainty maps as well as to perform sensitivity analysis., Results: Four major risk areas were identified in mainland China, including western (parts of Xinjiang and Tibet), southern (parts of Yunnan, Guizhou, Guangxi, Sichuan and Guangdong), northern (parts of Gansu, Ningxia and Inner Mongolia), and eastern (parts of Hebei, Henan, Anhui, Jiangsu and Shandong). Spring is the main season for FMD outbreaks. Risk areas were associated with the distance to previous outbreak points, grazing areas and cattle density. Receiver operating characteristic (ROC) analysis indicated that the risk map had good predictive power (AUC=0.8634)., Conclusions: These results can be used to delineate FMD risk areas in mainland China, and veterinary services can adopt the targeted preventive measures and control strategies., (© 2021. The Author(s).)

Objective: In this study, we aim to investigate the clinical features and Mutations of sodium channel alpha-subunit (SCN4A) genes in Chinese patients with normokalemic periodic paralysis (normoKPP)., Methods: Six unrelated Chinese families with normoKPP were analyzed in clinical features. Genomic DNA was extracted from peripheral blood leukocytes and amplified with PCR. We screened all 24 exons of SCN4A gene with denaturing high performance liquid chromatography (DHPLC) technology, and then sequence analysis was performed in those who showed heteroduplex as compared with unaffected controls., Results: The laboratory tests were within normal ranges. Electromyograms and electrocardiograms were normal. One muscle biopsy was performed with the patient in family 4 after a brief attack of normoKPP. Examination of light microscopy showed no changes, but electronic microscopy showed occasionally degenerating myofibers. The mutations of SCN4A genes were as follows: (1) Met1592Val occurred in family 1. (2) Val-781-Ile occurred with the patient and her father in family 4. (3) Both the patients had a novel mutation g2101a predicting the amino acid exchange Arg675Gln in family 5, which may be a disease-causing mutation., Conclusions: In addition to Val-781-Ile and Met1592Val, the mutation g2101a (Arg675Gln) may be the novel mutation of SCN4A genes in Chinese patients with normoKPP.