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Severe fever with thrombocytopenia syndrome (SFTS) is an emerging infectious disease caused by the SFTS virus (SFTSV). Predicting the incidence of this disease in advance is crucial for policymakers to develop prevention and control strategies. In this study, we utilized historical incidence data of SFTS (2013–2020) in Shandong Province, China to establish three univariate prediction models based on two time-series forecasting algorithms Autoregressive Integrated Moving Average (ARIMA) and Prophet, as well as a special type of recurrent neural network Long Short-Term Memory (LSTM) algorithm. We then evaluated and compared the performance of these models. All three models demonstrated good predictive capabilities for SFTS cases, with the predicted results closely aligning with the actual cases. Among the models, the LSTM model exhibited the best fitting and prediction performance. It achieved the lowest values for mean absolute error (MAE), mean square error (MSE), and root mean square error (RMSE). The number of SFTS cases in the subsequent 5 years in this area were also generated using this model. The LSTM model, being simple and practical, provides valuable information and data for assessing the potential risk of SFTS in advance. This information is crucial for the development of early warning systems and the formulation of effective prevention and control measures for SFTS.

The catalytic removal of carbon monoxide and methane produced from human activities is an important method for eliminating these pollutants, and can solve their associated environmental problems [...]

Tick-borne Apicomplexan parasites pose a significant threat to both public health and animal husbandry. Identifying potential pathogenic parasites and gathering their epidemiological data are essential for prospectively preventing and controlling infections. In the present study, genomic DNA of ticks collected from two goat flocks (Goatflock1 and Goatflock2) and one dog group (Doggroup) were extracted and the 18S rRNA gene of Babesia/Theileria/Colpodella spp. was amplified by PCR and sequenced. Phylogenetic analysis was conducted based on the obtained sequences. The differences in pathogen positive rates between ticks of different groups were statistically analyzed using the Chi-square or continuity-adjusted Chi-square test. As a result, two pathogenic Theileria (T.) luwenshuni genotypes, one novel pathogenic Colpodella sp. HLJ genotype, and two potential novel Colpodella spp. (referred to as Colpodella sp. struthionis and Colpodella sp. yiyuansis in this study) were identified in the Haemaphysalis (H.) longicornis ticks. Ticks of Goatflock2 had a significantly higher positive rate of Colpodella spp. than those from Goatflock1 (χ2=92.10; P = 8.2 × 10−22) and Doggroup (χ2=42.34; P = 7.7 × 10−11), and a significantly higher positive rate of T. luwenshuni than Doggroup (χ2=5.38; P = 0.02). However, the positive rates of T. luwenshuni between Goatflock1 and Goatflock2 were not significantly different (χ2=2.02; P = 0.16), and so as the positive rates of both pathogens between Goatflock1 and Doggroup groups (P > 0.05). For either Colpodella spp. or T. luwenshuni, no significant difference was found in prevalence between male and female ticks. These findings underscore the potential importance of Colpodella spp. in domestic animal-attached ticks, as our study revealed two novel Colpodella spp. and identified Colpodella spp. in H. longicornis for the first time. The study also sheds light on goats' potential roles in the transmission of Colpodella spp. to ticks and provides crucial epidemiological data of pathogenic Theileria and Colpodella. These data may help physicians, veterinarians, and public health officers prepare suitable detection and treatment methods and develop prevention and control strategies.

Abstract Bentonite is a key material for engineering barriers to prevent groundwater and nuclide migration in the multi-barrier system of high-level radioactive waste (HLW) geological disposal. However, its barrier property will be degraded under the action of iron corrosion products of steel disposal containers. In this paper, the effects of iron corrosion products on the degradation of bentonite structure and properties were investigated in the simulated environments for HLW geological disposal. The results showed that Fe2+/Fe3+ dissolved from iron powder could enter montmorillonite (Mt) interlayer and substituted part of Na+, which caused the decrease of the volume and interlayer spacing of Mt, and the structural integrity of Mt was destroyed. Macroscopically, the water absorption and swelling property of bentonite were significantly decreased. The degradation mechanism of Mt structure was mainly that Fe2+/Fe3+ generated by iron corrosion entered the interlayer domain of Mt to compensate for the interlayer charge deficit.

BackgroundThe immune background of the overall population before and after the outbreak of SARS-CoV-2 in China remains unexplored. And the level of neutralizing antibodies is a reliable indicator of individual immunity.ObjectivesThis study aimed to assess the immune levels of different population groups during a viral outbreak and identify the factors influencing these levels.MethodsWe measured the levels of neutralizing antibodies in 12,137 participants using the COVID19 Neutralizing Antibody Detection kit. The dynamics of neutralizing antibodies were analyzed using a generalized additive model, while a generalized linear model and multi-factor analysis of variance were employed to investigate the influencing factors. Additionally, statistical methods were used to compare neutralizing antibody levels among subgroups of the real-world population.ResultsParticipants who received booster doses exhibited significantly higher levels of neutralizing antibodies compared to those who received only one or two doses (p

ObjectiveThe aim of this study was to assess the detection ability of 68Ga-DOTATATE in pulmonary versus extrapulmonary tumors with ectopic adrenocorticotropic hormone secretion (EAS).MethodsImages of 68Ga-DOTATATE PET/CT from 74 patients with suspected EAS were retrospectively reviewed. EAS tumors were confirmed in 39 patients through surgical resection or biopsy. Image findings were compared with the histopathological results.ResultsEAS tumors were pathologically confirmed via surgery or biopsy in 39 patients. Among those 39 patients, 25 were with pulmonary neuroendocrine tumors (NETs), and the remaining 14 were with extrapulmonary NETs. 68Ga-DOTATATE PET/CT correctly identified the tumor in 26 patients, rendering an overall detection rate of 66.7%. On a site-based analysis, 68Ga-DOTATATE PET/CT correctly identified the EAS tumor in 13 of 25 patients with pulmonary NETs, yielding a detection rate of 52%; for the 14 patients with extrapulmonary NETs, 68Ga-DOTATATE PET/CT correctly identified the EAS tumor in 13, yielding a detection rate of 92.9%. The detection rate of 68Ga-DOTATATE was significantly higher in extrapulmonary NETs than in pulmonary NETs (92.9%% vs. 52%, P = 0.013). For the 13 patients with positive pulmonary NETs, the tumor SUVmax ranged from 1.1 to 7.4 with an average SUVmax of 3.1 ± 2.1. For the 13 patients with positive extrapulmonary NETs, the tumor SUVmax ranged from 2.7 to 21.8 with an average SUVmax of 9.9 ± 6.3. The tumor SUVmax was significantly higher in extrapulmonary tumors than pulmonary tumors (P = 0.015). The tumor size was smaller in pulmonary tumors than in extrapulmonary tumors, while the difference was not significant (P = 0.516).Conclusion68Ga-DOTATATE showed site-specific difference in detecting tumors with EAS secretion. Specifically, 68Ga-DOTATATE performed better in the extrapulmonary EAS tumors than in pulmonary ones with both higher detection rate and uptake. Combination of anatomic imaging techniques are necessary for the correct diagnosis of pulmonary EAS tumors.

Many cities around the world face the flooding management problems as extreme rainfall events have become more frequent. It’s of great practical significance to design an effective urban drainage system (UDS) to improve the stormwater runoff quality. An integrated decision-making analysis framework based on many-objective brain storm optimization is proposed to make the optimal design of UDS. Firstly, a generic mathematical model is presented considering five objectives simultaneously. Secondly, an effective many-objective brain storm optimization based on local region dominance is designed as the solver of the model and a set of Pareto-optimal solutions are obtained. Thirdly, two kinds of multi-attribute decision analysis methods are introduced to rank the Pareto-optimal solutions. Fourthly, the comparison experiments of a case study with three multi-objective swarm intelligence algorithms show the promising performance of the integrated decision-making framework and the corresponding optimization algorithm.

IntroductionScrub typhus, caused by Orientia tsutsugamushi, is a neglected tropical disease. The southern part of China is considered an important epidemic and conserved area of scrub typhus. Although a surveillance system has been established, the surveillance of scrub typhus is typically delayed or incomplete and cannot predict trends in morbidity. Internet search data intuitively expose the public's attention to certain diseases when used in the public health area, thus reflecting the prevalence of the diseases.MethodsIn this study, based on the Internet search big data and historical scrub typhus incidence data in Yunnan Province of China, the autoregressive integrated moving average (ARIMA) model and ARIMA with external variables (ARIMAX) model were constructed and compared to predict the scrub typhus incidence.ResultsThe results showed that the ARIMAX model produced a better outcome than the ARIMA model evaluated by various indexes and comparisons with the actual data.ConclusionsThe study demonstrates that Internet search big data can enhance the traditional surveillance system in monitoring and predicting the prevalence of scrub typhus and provides a potential tool for monitoring epidemic trends of scrub typhus and early warning of its outbreaks.

ABSTRACT The increasing awareness of emerging tickborne pathogens (TBPs) has inspired much research. In the present study, the coinfections of TBPs both in ticks and their wild hedgehog hosts in Jiangsu province, Eastern China were determined by metagenome next-generation sequencing and nested PCR. As a result, Rickettsia japonica (81.1%), novel Rickettsia sp. SFGR-1 (5.1%), Anaplasma bovis (12%), A. platys (6.3%), novel Ehrlichia spp. Ehr-1 (16%) and Ehr-2 (0.6%), E. ewingii-like strain (0.6%), Coxiella burnetii (10.9%), and a novel Coxiella-like endosymbiont (CLE) strain (61.1%) were detected in Haemaphysalis flava ticks. A. bovis (43.8%), Ehrlichia sp. Ehr-1 (83.3%), and C. burnetii (80%) were detected in Erinaceus amurensis hedgehogs. Coinfection rates with various TBPs were 71.5% and 83.3% in ticks and hedgehogs, respectively, both with double-pathogen/endosymbiont coinfection rates over 50%. We found the following. (i) Er. amurensis hedgehogs seem to contribute to the natural cycles of R. japonica, A. bovis, Ehrlichia sp., and C. burnetii and may be reservoirs of them except for R. japonica, and A. bovis is proved to infect hedgehogs for the first time. (ii) H. flava is proved to harbor various TBPs as a reservoir host, including CLE identified for the first time, which could inhibit coinfection of C. burnetii while promoting that of Rickettsia spp. in H. flava. (iii) Four novel TBP species were identified. This study provides useful epidemiological information crucial for assessing the potential infection risks to humans, thus benefiting the development of strategies to prevent and control tick-borne diseases. IMPORTANCE In the present study, we found the following. (i) Er. amurensis hedgehogs seem to contribute to the natural cycles of R. japonica, A. bovis, Ehrlichia sp., and C. burnetii and may be reservoirs of them except for R. japonica, and A. bovis is proved to infect hedgehogs for the first time. (ii) H. flava is proved to harbor various tickborne pathogens (TBPs) as a reservoir host, including Coxiella-like endosymbiont (CLE) identified for the first time, which could inhibit coinfection of C. burnetii while promoting that of Rickettsia spp. in H. flava. (iii) Four novel TBP species were identified. This study provides useful epidemiological information on TBPs harbored and transmitted by ticks and their hosts, for assessing the potential infection risks to humans, thus benefiting the developing strategies for tick-borne diseases prevention and control.

In this study, we aimed to synthesize and characterize a nickel(II) complex-modified graphene oxide (Ni-GO) nanocomposite with enhanced photocatalytic and antimicrobial properties. The nanocomposite was prepared through a modified Hummer’s method, followed by an adsorption technique using the precursor complex [Ni(bipy)3]Cl2·5H2O, which was preferentially adsorbed onto the graphene oxide (GO) surface. The surface interaction between the nickel complex ions and GO was characterized using various analytical techniques, including FTIR, XRD, SEM-EDX, DRS, and XPS analyses. Photoluminescence analysis demonstrated the fluorescence property of the prepared composite. The DRS spectra indicated that the adsorption of composite particles extended to the visible region, making it excitable by visible light. The photocatalytic activity of the Ni-GO nanocomposite was tested by studying the degradation of an organic model pollutant, Rhodamine B dye, under real sunlight irradiation. The introduction of the Ni(II) complex onto the GO surface matrix intensified the photocatalytic property, making it more efficient under direct sunlight exposure. Comparisons with pristine graphite and GO revealed that Ni-GO exhibited enhanced photocatalytic potential. Additionally, we have evaluated the antimicrobial property of the Ni(II) complex-modified GO against Klebsiella pneumoniae. The results demonstrated that both the Ni(II) precursor complex and Ni-GO nanocomposite possessed an excellent antimicrobial efficacy, suggesting their potential use in antimicrobial applications. The synthesis and characterization of the Ni(II) complex-modified GO nanocomposite presented in this study showed promising results for both ameliorative photocatalytic and antimicrobial activities. These findings indicated the potential utility of Ni-GO as an efficient photocatalyst and antimicrobial agent, surpassing the performance of pristine graphite and GO. This research opens up new avenues for the development of advanced nanocomposites with diverse applications in environmental remediation and biomedical fields.

Cubic perovskite oxides usually suffer from delamination and Sr2+ segregation for catalyzing oxygen evolution reaction (OER) at the anodes of solid oxide electrolysis cells (SOECs). It is crucial to develop alternative and efficient anode materials for SOECs. Herein, a series of novel Y0.95-xSrxCo0.3Fe0.7O3-δ (YSCF-x) orthorhombic perovskite oxides in the Pnma (62) space group are synthesized as anode materials of SOECs. Physicochemical characterizations and density functional theory calculations reveal that the partial substitution of Y3+ by Sr2+ increases the oxygen vacancy concentration and mobility as well as improves the electrical conductivity, which contributes to the excellent OER activity of YSCF-x. At 800 °C, the current density of SOEC with YSCF-0.05-Ce0.8Sm0.2O2-δ anode can reach 1.32 A cm−2 at 1.6 V, about twice that of SOEC with Y0.95Co0.3Fe0.7O3-δ-Ce0.8Sm0.2O2-δ anode. This work paves a new avenue for the design of advanced anode materials of SOECs.

Bone and tissue degeneration are the most common skeletal disorders that seriously affect people’s quality of life. N6-methyladenosine (m6A) is one of the most common RNA modifications in eukaryotic cells, affecting the alternative splicing, translation, stability and degradation of mRNA. Interestingly, increasing number of evidences have indicated that m6A modification could modulate the expression of autophagy-related (ATG) genes and promote autophagy in the cells. Autophagy is an important process regulating intracellular turnover and is evolutionarily conserved in eukaryotes. Abnormal autophagy results in a variety of diseases, including cardiomyopathy, degenerative disorders, and inflammation. Thus, the interaction between m6A modification and autophagy plays a prominent role in the onset and progression of bone and tissue degeneration. In this review, we summarize the current knowledge related to the effect of m6A modification on autophagy, and introduce the role of the crosstalk between m6A modification and autophagy in bone and tissue degeneration. An in-depth knowledge of the above crosstalk may help to improve our understanding of their effects on bone and tissue degeneration and provide novel insights for the future therapeutics.

BackgroundSpotted fever group Rickettsia (SFGR), containing various pathogenic Rickettsia spp., poses remarkable negative influences to public health by causing various severe or mild diseases. Information regarding prevalence of SFGR in ticks in Jiangsu province, Eastern China, is still limited and needs urgent investigations.MethodsHedgehog- and bovine-attached ticks were collected from Jiangsu province, Eastern China. DNA of individual ticks was extracted for nested polymerase chain reaction amplifications targeting gltA, 16S ribosomal RNA (rrs), ompA, ompB, and sca4 genes following with sequencing. SFGR-specific IgG antibodies in sera of local donators were evaluated using ELISA.ResultsOverall, 144 (83.2%) of the 173 ticks from hedgehogs and 2 (1.2%) of the 168 ticks from bovine were positive for one of the three identified Rickettsia spp., with significant difference between the two groups (P = 3.6e-52). Candidatus Rickettsia principis (9; 5.2%) and R. heilongjiangensis (135; 78.0%) were detected in Haemaphysalis flava rather than in H. longicornis ticks from hedgehogs. R. heilongjiangensis (1; 0.6%) and Candidatus R. jingxinensis (or Candidatus R. longicornii) (1; 0.6%) were identified in H. longicornis and Rhipicephalus microplus ticks from bovine, respectively. Phylogenetic analysis indicated Candidatus R. jingxinensis belonged to R. japonica subgroup, whereas Candidatus R. principis belonged to a novel subgroup. Higher serological prevalence of spotted fever and SFGR-specific IgG antibody level in humans were observed around the investigated area than in urban areas, without significant difference.ConclusionCandidatus R. principis and Candidatus R. jingxinensis were identified in Jiangsu province, Eastern China, and fully genetically characterized for the first time. The higher prevalence of SFGR in hedgehog-attached ticks as well as the higher SFGR-specific IgG antibody level and seropositive rate in humans around the investigated area suggested that more attention should be paid to SFGR. This pathogen is usually transmitted or harbored by wild animals and ticks. This study provides important epidemiological data for both physicians and public health officers in developing early prevention and control strategies against potential Rickettsia infections and in the preparation of suitable testing and treatment needs for rickettsiosis in the endemic areas.

Understanding crust–atmosphere interactions on Venus is fundamentally important to interpretations of Venus’ surface spectroscopic data. Olivine, in basaltic crust, is oxidized under a heated CO2 atmosphere. However, the oxidation rates, product assemblages and spectral characteristics of olivine samples with different Fa# values remain largely unclear. Herein, we investigated the oxidation of olivine with different Fa# values (Fa09, Fa29 and Fa71) under CO2 atmosphere at 470 °C and 900 °C and characterized the oxidation products (both microscopically and macroscopically), conversion rates and VNIR spectra. The results showed that the oxidation of olivine produced magnesioferrite, magnetite, laihunite, hematite and maghemite at 470 °C and hematite, magnetite, magnesioferrite and amorphous SiO2 at 900 °C. Both high temperature and high Fa# values accelerated the oxidation rates. The production of oxide coatings on olivine grains (74 μm in size) was estimated to be completed within tens to hundreds of years at 470 °C in natural settings, with even shorter periods under higher temperatures. Thus, CO2 oxidation would quickly eliminate olivine spectral characteristics, and spectral parameters at 850 and 1020 nm, as well as other relevant spectral windows (considering shifts induced by the elevated temperature), could be used to trace olivine oxidation processes. This work presented a case study connecting microscopic features to spectral characteristics for Venus’ surface–atmosphere interactions. Further studies considering more realistic Venus’ surface–atmosphere conditions will be essential to better interpret the measured spectroscopic data and determine the origins of the high emissivity detected on elevated terrain on Venus.

Abstract Background Osteoarthritis (OA) is one of the most common rheumatic diseases of which clinical symptoms includes swelling, synovitis and inflammatory pain, affect patients’ daily life. It was reported that non-coding RNAs play vital roles in OA. However, the regulation mechanism of ncRNA in OA pathogenesis has not been fully elucidated. Methods The expression of SNHG7, miR-34a-5p and SYVN1 was detected using qRT-PCR in tissues, serum and cells. The protein expression of SYVN1, PCNA, cleavage-caspase 3, beclin1 and LC3 were measured using western blot. The RNA immunoprecipitation (RIP), RNA pulldown, and luciferase reporter assays were used to verify the relationship between SNHG7, miR-34a-5p and SYVN1. The MTT and flow cytometry assay was performed to detected cell proliferation and cell apoptosis respectively. Results In this study, SNHG7 and SYVN1 expression were down-regulated, but miR-34a-5p was up-regulated in OA tissues and IL-1β treated cells compared with normal tissues and chondrocyte. Functional investigation revealed that up-regulated SNHG7 or down-regulated miR-34a-5p could promote cell proliferation and inhibit cell apoptosis and autophagy in OA cells. More than that, RIP, pulldown and luciferase reporter assay was applied to determine that miR-34a-5p was a target miRNA of SNHG7 and SYVN1 was a target mRNA of miR-34-5p. Rescue experiments showed that overexpression of miR-34a reversed high expression of SNHG7-mediated suppression of apoptosis and autophagy as well as promotion of proliferation, while its knockdown inhibited cell apoptosis and autophagy and promoted cell proliferation which could be impaired by silencing SYVN1. In addition, SNHG7 regulated SYVN1 through sponging miR-34a-5p. Conclusion SNHG7 sponged miR-34a-5p to affect cell proliferation, apoptosis and autophagy through targeting SYVN1 which provides a novel sight into the pathogenesis of OA.

Sintering-resistant Au nanoparticles are highly desirable due to their low Tammann temperature. Here, the authors report an ultrastable titania-supported Au nanocatalyst through an encapsulation strategy under oxidative atmosphere.

Objective: The aim of this study was to identify important transcription factors (TFs) in preeclampsia. Methods: Fisher’s test was applied to identify differentially expressed pathways. Functional principal component analysis (FPCA) was applied to identify differential expressed genes (DEGs). Topological characterizations of TFs were analyzed to identify key TFs. Results: From the DEG group, 37 genes were identified as TFs, and a total of 10 significant TFs with adjusted p

Abstract Fast reachability detection is one of the key problems in graph applications. Most of the existing works focus on creating an index and answering reachability based on that index. For these approaches, the index construction time and index size can become a concern for large graphs. More recently query-preserving graph compression has been proposed, and searching reachability over the compressed graph has been shown to be able to significantly improve query performance as well as reducing the index size. In this paper, we introduce a multilevel compression scheme for DAGs, which builds on existing compression schemes, but can further reduce the graph size for many real-world graphs. We propose an algorithm to answer reachability queries using the compressed graph. Extensive experiments with four existing state-of-the-art reachability algorithms and 12 real-world datasets demonstrate that our approach outperforms the existing methods. Experiments with synthetic datasets ensure the scalability of this approach. We also provide a discussion on possible compression for k-reachability.

Abstract With the popularity of knowledge graphs growing rapidly, large amounts of RDF graphs have been released, which raises the need for addressing the challenge of distributed subgraph matching queries. In this paper, we propose an efficient distributed method to answer subgraph matching queries on big RDF graphs using MapReduce. In our method, query graphs are decomposed into a set of stars that utilize the semantic and structural information embedded RDF graphs as heuristics. Two optimization techniques are proposed to further improve the efficiency of our algorithms. One algorithm, called RDF property filtering, filters out invalid input data to reduce intermediate results; the other is to improve the query performance by postponing the Cartesian product operations. The extensive experiments on both synthetic and real-world datasets show that our method outperforms the close competitors S2X and SHARD by an order of magnitude on average.

With the advent of molecular technology, several isothermal techniques for rapid detection of zoonotic pathogens have been developed. Among them, recombinase polymerase amplification (RPA) is becoming an important technology for rapid, sensitive, and economical detection of zoonotic pathogens. RPA technology has the advantage of being able to be implemented in field settings, because the method requires minimal sample preparation and is performed at a constant low temperature (37–42°C). RPA is rapidly becoming a promising tool for the rapid detection, prevention, and control of zoonotic diseases. This article discusses the principles of RPA technology and its derivatives, including RPA coupled with lateral flow testing (RPA-LF), real-time fluorescence RPA, electrochemical RPA, and flocculation RPA, and their applications in the detection of zoonotic pathogens.

K nearest neighbor (kNN) search is an important problem in location-based services (LBS) and has been well studied on static road networks. However, in real world, road networks are often time-dependent; i.e., the time for traveling through a road always changes over time. Most existing methods for kNN query build various indexes maintaining the shortest distances for some pairs of vertices on static road networks. Unfortunately, these methods cannot be used for the time-dependent road networks because the shortest distances always change over time. To address the problem of kNN query on time-dependent road networks, we propose a novel voronoi-based index in this paper. Furthermore, we propose a novel balanced tree, named V-tree, which is a secondary level index on voronoi-based index to make our querying algorithm more efficient. Moreover, we propose an algorithm for preprocessing time-dependent road networks such that the waiting time is not necessary to be considered. We confirm the efficiency of our method through experiments on real-life datasets.

Background: To investigate the effects of childbirth age on maternal and infant outcomes in pregnant women. Methods: The clinical data of 4552 singleton parturient women and their newborns treated in the Second People’s Hospital of Liaocheng, China from June 2015 to June 2017 were retrospectively analyzed. They were divided into group A (