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Population mobility patterns are important for understanding a city's rhythms. With the widespread use of mobile phones, population‐based trajectories can be utilized to explore such mobility patterns. However, to protect personal privacy, mobile phone data must be de‐identified by data aggregation within each spatiotemporal unit. In data acquired from mobile phones, population mobility features are still implicit in the spatiotemporally aggregated grid data. In this study, based on image‐processing techniques, a two‐step 3D gradient method is adopted to extract the movement features. The first step is to estimate the initial movement pattern in each spatiotemporal grid, and then to estimate the accumulated movement pattern within a time period around a geographical grid. This method can be applied adaptively to multi‐scale spatiotemporal grid data. Using geospatial visualization methods, estimated motion characteristics such as velocity and flow direction can be made intuitive and integrated with other multiscale geospatial data. Furthermore, the correlation between the population mobility pattern and demographic characteristics, such as gender and age groups, can be analyzed with intuitive visualization. The implication of the visualization results can be used for understanding the human dynamics in a city, which can be beneficial for urban planning, transportation management, and socioeconomic development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 2019, an outbreak of pharyngoconjunctival fever (PCF) occurred at a swimming center in Zhejiang Province, China. A total of 97 (13.55%) of the 716 amateur swimmers had illnesses, with 24 patients (24.74%) hospitalized in the pediatric ward. Human adenovirus serotype 7 (HAdV‐7) was isolated from one concentrated water from the swimming pool, and 20 of 97 positive cases without liver damage. This outbreak led to a nosocomial outbreak in the pediatric ward, in which 1 nurse had a fever and was confirmed to be adenovirus positive. The hexon, fiber, and penton genes from 20 outbreak cases, 1 water sample, and 1 nurse had 100% homology. Furthermore, 2 cases admitted to the pediatric ward, 2 parents, and 1 doctor were confirmed to be human coronaviruses (HCoV‐229E) positive. Finally, all outbreak cases had fully recovered, regardless of a single infection (adenovirus or HCoV‐229E) or coinfection of these two viruses simultaneously. Thus, PCF and acute respiratory disease outbreaks in Zhejiang were caused by the completely homologous type 7 adenovirus and HCoV‐229E, respectively. The swimming pool water contaminated with HAdV‐7 was most likely the source of the PCF outbreak, whereas nosocomial transmission might be the source of HCoV‐229E outbreak. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Long-term exposure to particulate matter (PM) air pollution may increase blood pressure and the risk of hypertension. However, epidemiological evidence is scarce and inconsistent. Objectives: We investigated the associations between long-term exposure to PM with an aerodynamic diameter Methods: We studied 361,560 adults [greater than or equal to]18 y old from a large cohort who participated in a standard medical examination program during 2001 to 2014. Among this group, 125,913 nonhypertensive participants were followed up. A satellite-based spatiotemporal model was used to estimate the 2-y average P[M.sub.2.5] concentrations at each participant's address. Multivariable linear regression was used in the cross-sectional data analysis with the 361,560 participants to investigate the associations between P[M.sub.2.5] and systolic blood pressure (SBP), diastolic blood pressure (DBP), and pulse pressure (PP), and Cox proportional hazard regression was used in the cohort data analysis with the 125,913 participants to investigate the associations between P[M.sub.2.5] and incident hypertension. Results: Each 10-[micro]g/[m.sup.3] increment in the 2-y average P[M.sub.2.5] concentration was associated with increases of 0.45 mmHg [95% confidence interval (CI): 0.40, 0.50], 0.07 mmHg (95% CI: 0.04, 0.11), and 0.38 mmHg (95% CI: 0.33, 0.42) in SBP, DBP, and PP, respectively, after adjusting for a wide range of covariates and possible confounders. Each 10-[micro]g/[m.sup.3] increment in the 2-y average P[M.sub.2.5] concentration was associated with an increase of 3% in the risk of developing hypertension [hazard ratio = 1.03 (95% CI: 1.01, 1.05)]. Stratified and sensitivity analyses yielded similar results. Conclusions: Long-term exposure to P[M.sub.2.5] air pollution is associated with higher blood pressure and an increased risk of hypertension. These findings reinforce the importance of air pollution mitigation strategies to reduce the risk of cardiovascular disease. https://doi.org/10.1289/EHP2466, Introduction Cardiovascular disease (CVD) is a leading cause of death worldwide, contributing to 17.7 million deaths in 2015 (WHO 2017). Many epidemiological studies have shown that long-term exposure to particulate [...]

During 2012–2017, a total of 1,144 highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) H5 outbreaks were reported in Taiwan. We conjectured the current 3‐km radius of the post‐outbreak containment policy could fail to effectively alleviate the current ongoing epidemics of HPAI H5 in Taiwan. The high intensity of localized transmission of HPAI H5 at certain focal hotspots was identified to follow the spatial distribution of poultry‐raising locations through our hotspot analyses on the HPAI H5 outbreak locations from 2015 to 2017. We then applied 3‐, 5‐ and 7‐km circular buffer zones to 15,444 registered poultry‐raising locations to inspect the characteristics of the poultry‐raising neighbourhood. Three spatial regression models using Bayesian inference were established to infer the risks attributable to poultry‐raising characteristics in the corresponding buffer areas. The different buffer radii were treated as a sensitivity analysis of the influential range of neighbouring farms on the HPAI H5 outbreak occurrence, so as to evaluate the effective radius for post‐outbreak containment. Evidence showed that the risks of outbreak occurrence were associated with increasing numbers of poultry‐raising locations in both 3‐km (relative risk [RR] 1.005, 95% confidence interval [CI] 1.002–1.008) and 5‐km buffer areas (RR 1.005, 95% CI 1.004–1.007), whereas in the 7‐km buffer model, no association between densely populated locations and increasing risks of outbreaks was observed (RR 1.000, 95% CI 0.999–1.001). Therefore, an extension to a 7‐km radius for the post‐outbreak containment policy (rather than a 3‐km radius as in the current policy) is recommended to effectively mitigate further spreading of HPAI H5 outbreaks among neighbouring farms. Overall, we demonstrated that the densely populated locations with multiple poultry species raised in proximity as defined with 3‐, 5‐ and 7‐km buffer areas facilitated H5 HPAI outbreak diffusion and shaped the scale of HPAI H5 epidemics in Taiwan. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]