Global,regional,and national burden of upper respiratory infections,1990–2021:findings from the Global Burden of Disease study 2021

Background:Upper respiratory infections(URIs)are common infectious diseases worldwide.Accurate and timely assessment of the disease burden of URIs is crucial for governments to develop comprehensive prevention and control strategies,and to allocate and utilize healthcare resources more efficiently.Methods:For URIs in Global Burden of Disease(GBD)2021 database,age-standardized incidence rates(ASIR),age-standardized prevalence rates(ASPR),age-standardized mortality rates(ASMR),disability-adjusted life-years(DALYs),and case numbers for incidence,prevalence,deaths,and DALYs across the globe,five socio-demographic index(SDI)regions,21 geographical regions,and 204 countries and territories were provided and analyzed.Trends from 1990 to 2021 were described using the average annual percentage change(AAPC),and future URIs burden was projected with a Bayesian age-period-cohort(BAPC)model.Results:From 1990 to 2021,there was a significant decline in global ASIR(APCC=-289.86,95%confidence interval[CI]:-298.59 to-281.12),ASPR(AAPC=-4.04,95%CI:-4.16 to-3.92),ASMR(AAPC=-0.02,95%CI:-0.02 to-0.03)and age-standardized DALY rate(AAPC=-0.75,95%CI:-0.76 to-0.74).The ASIR,ASPR,ASMR,and age-standardized DALY rate were high in elderly for both males and females,and both genders.Similarly,the number of incident cases,prevalence cases,deaths,and DALY cases for URIs was highest in children under five years.The ASMR and age-standardized DALY rate exhibited a negative correlation with SDI across 204 countries and territories in 2021.The ASIR and ASPR for URIs will show an upward trend from 2022 to 2050,while ASMR and age-standardized DALY rate are expected to decline.Low birth weight for gestation remains the leading contributor to deaths related to URIs.

Pay-based Screening Mechanism: Personnel Selection in the View of Economics Theory

Based on economic theories, the paper studies the personnel selection at the asymmetric job market using signaling and screening model. The authors hold the opinion that an organization can screen the candidates' signaling based on the self-selection principle by providing an appropriate compensation choice. A pay-based screening mechanism is proposed to help the organization drive away the nonqualified applicants and retain the excellent applicants.

欣赏与期待 再回首西门子ASEA捐赠

作为一名工业自动化领域的专业编辑,笔者每天总会将关注的目光投向自动化这个正随着技术革新迅猛发展熠熠生辉的行业.新技术、新产品、新活动、新变革,在笔者眼里,这里风光无限--各种产品与技术在各行各业得到越来越广泛越来越深入的应用,给越来越多的企业用户带来更便捷的监测、控制和管理;各地自动化学会和协会从学术和技术交流实现大跨越,正联合业内专家学者和工程技术人员以一场又一场规模宏大的活动推动着全行业的技术革新和学习热潮;各自动化产品厂商也以层出不穷的新技术和新产品领跑技术创新与应用的潮流,扮演着工业展览会与技术交流会上最抢眼的角色,也牵动着我们欣赏和期待的目光.

OFDM-based Low-voltage Powerline High Rate Communication

Based on the experimental results, a simplified model for low-voltage powerline used as a high frequency communication channel is presented. With this model, the Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing (OFDM) based high rate digital communication over low-voltage powerline is analyzed and simulated. The capability of the signal transmission system in overcoming multi-path interference and selection of the system parameters are discussed. And time-domain simulation is carried out to investigate the transmission capability of the OFDM communication system for different mapping schemes and transmission power levels. Simulation results show that it is possible to realize high rate digital communication over low-voltage powerline using OFDM when the transmitted power is large enough.

Wildlife-borne microorganisms and strategies to prevent and control emerging infectious diseases

China is one of the countries with the richest wildlife population.The large variety of widely distributed species act as natural or susceptible hosts for numerous infectious diseases.It is estimated that there are more than 1.2 million unknown virus species in China,and there might be 10,000–30,000 unknown bacteria in wild mammals on the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau alone.There are no less than 600,000 species of animal-borne parasites and approximately 2 million species of fungi worldwide.With rapid economic growth and globalization,humans and wildlife interact more frequently,which enhances the probability of wildlife-borne pathogens infecting humans.The occurrence of animal-borne infectious diseases will become the“new normal”we have to face in the future.Therefore,research should be carried out on wildlife-borne microorganisms and the prevention and control of emerging infectious diseases to establish an analytical framework and an evaluation technology system for risk assessment and early warning of potential animal-borne emerging infectious diseases.This will not only improve our understanding of wildlife-borne microbial communities but also enable in-depth analysis,discovery,early warning,and even prediction of major animal-borne emerging infectious diseases that might occur in the future.Furthermore,this research will reduce response times,minimize the social and economic impact and losses,enable interventions related to the emergence or spread of the disease as early as possible,and comprehensively improve our management of infectious disease outbreaks.

Liver Stiffness Measurement Can Reflect the Active Liver Necroinflammation in Population with Chronic Liver Disease:A Real-world Evidence Study

Background and Aims: Non-invasive evaluation of liver nec-roinflammation in patients with chronic liver disease is an un-met need in clinical practice.The diagnostic accuracy of transient elastography-based liver stiffness measurement(LSM)for liver fibrosis could be affected by liver necroinflam-mation,the latter of which could intensify stiffness of the liver.Such results have prompted us to explore the diagnosis potential of LSM for liver inflammation.Methods: Three cross-sectional cohorts of liver biopsy-proven chronic liver dis-ease patients were enrolled,including 1417 chronic hepatitis B(CHB)patients from 10 different medical centers,106 non-al-coholic steatohepatitis patients,and 143 patients with auto-immune-related liver diseases.Another longitudinal cohort of 14 entecavir treatment patients was also included.The re-ceiver operating characteristic(ROC)curve was employed to explore the diagnostic value of LSM.Results: In CHB patients,LSM value ascended with the increased severity of liver nec-roinflammation in patients with the same fibrosis stage.Such positive correlation between LSM and liver necroinflammation was also found in non-alcoholic steatohepatitis and autoim-mune-related liver diseases populations.Furthermore,the ROC curve exhibited that LSM could identify moderate and se-vere inflammation in CHB patients(area under the ROC curve as 0.779 and 0.838)and in non-alcoholic steatohepatitis pa-tients(area under the ROC curve as 0.826 and 0.871),respec-tively.Such moderate diagnostic value was also found in autoimmune-related liver diseases patients.In addition,in the longitudinal entecavir treated CHB cohort,a decline of LSM values was observed in parallel with the control of inflam-matory activity in liver.Conclusions: Our study implicates a diagnostic potential of LSM to evaluate the severity of liver necroinflammation in chronic liver disease patients.

Neuroflament light and heterogeneity of disease progression in amyotrophic lateral sclerosis:development and validation of a prediction model to improve interventional trials

Background:Interventional trials in amyotrophic lateral sclerosis(ALS)sufer from the heterogeneity of the disease as it considerably reduces statistical power.We asked if blood neuroflament light chains(NfL)could be used to antici‑pate disease progression and increase trial power.Methods:In 125 patients with ALS from three independent prospective studies-one observational study and two interventional trials-we developed and externally validated a multivariate linear model for predicting disease pro‑gression,measured by the monthly decrease of the ALS Functional Rating Scale Revised(ALSFRS-R)score.We trained the prediction model in the observational study and tested the predictive value of the following parameters assessed at diagnosis:NfL levels,sex,age,site of onset,body mass index,disease duration,ALSFRS-R score,and monthly ALSFRS-R score decrease since disease onset.We then applied the resulting model in the other two study cohorts to assess the actual utility for interventional trials.We analyzed the impact on trial power in mixed-efects models and compared the performance of the NfL model with two currently used predictive approaches,which anticipate disease progression using the ALSFRS-R decrease during a three-month observational period(lead-in)or since disease onset(ΔFRS).Results:Among the parameters provided,the NfL levels(P<0.001)and the interaction with site of onset(P<0.01)contributed signifcantly to the prediction,forming a robust NfL prediction model(R=0.67).Model application in the trial cohorts confrmed its applicability and revealed superiority over lead-in andΔFRS-based approaches.The NfL model improved statistical power by 61%and 22%(95%confdence intervals:54%-66%,7%-29%).Conclusion:The use of the NfL-based prediction model to compensate for clinical heterogeneity in ALS could signif‑cantly increase the trial power.NCT00868166,registered March23,2009;NCT02306590,registered December 2,2014.

Analyses and computations of asymmetric Z-scan for large phase shift from diffraction theory

Based on Presnel-Kirchhoff diffraction theory, we set up a diffraction model of nonlinear optical media to Gaussian beam, which can interpret the Z-scan phenomenon from a new way. This theory is not only well consistent with the conventional Z-scan theory in the case of small nonlinear phase shift, but also can fit for the lager nonlinear phase shift. Numeric computations indicate the shape of the Z-scan curve is greatly affected by the value of the nonlinear phase shift. The symmetric dispersion-like Z-scan curve is only valid for small nonlinear phase shift (|Δφ0| < π), but with increasing the nonlinear phase shift, the valley of the transmittance is severely suppressed and the peak is greatly enhanced. Further calculations show some new interesting results.

Proteomics research of SARS-CoV-2 and COVID-19 disease

Currently,coronavirus disease 2019(COVID-19)is still spreading in a global scale,exerting a massive health and socioeconomic crisis.Deep insights into the molecular functions of the viral proteins and the pathogenesis of this infectious disease are urgently needed.In this review,we comprehensively describe the proteome of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2(SARS-CoV-2)and summarize their protein interaction map with host cells.In the protein interaction network between the virus and the host,a total of 787 host prey proteins that appeared in at least two studies or were verified by co-immunoprecipitation experiments.Together with 29 viral proteins,a network of 1762 proximal interactions were observed.We also review the proteomics results of COVID-19 patients and proved that SARS-CoV-2 hijacked the host’s translation system,post-translation modification system,and energy supply system via viral proteins,resulting in various immune disorders,multiple cardiomyopathies,and cholesterol metabolism diseases.

Prevalence and risk factors of active pulmonary tuberculosis among elderly people in China:a population based cross-sectional study

Background:The problem of population aging is a critical public health concern in modern China,and more tuberculosis(TB)control efforts are needed to reach elderly people at high priority.In this study,we aim to determine the prevalence and identify the risk factors of TB among elderly people in China.Methods:A multistage cluster-sampled cross-sectional survey was conducted in 2013,and 27 clusters were selected from 10 counties of 10 provinces in China.All consenting participants greater than or equal to 65 years of age were screened for pulmonary TB with a chest X-ray(CXR)and a symptom questionnaire.Three sputum specimens for bacteriological examination by microscopy and culture were collected from those whose screening was positive.Prevalence was calculated,a multiple logistic regression model was performed to confirm the risk factors,and population attributable fraction(PAF)of each risk factor was calculated to indicate the public health significance.Results:Of 38888 eligible people from 27 clusters,34269 participants finished both questionnaire and physical examination.There were 193 active pulmonary TB cases,62 of which were bacteriologically confirmed.The estimated prevalence of active pulmonary TB and bacteriologically confirmed TB in those 65 years of age and older was 563.19 per 100000(95%CI:483.73-642.65)and 180.92 per 100000(95%CI:135.89-225.96),respectively.Male sex,older age,living in rural areas,underweight,diabetes,close contact of pulmonary TB(PTB)and previous TB history are all risk factors for TB.The risk of TB increased with increasing age and decreasing body mass index(BMI)after adjusting for other factors,and there is a positive dose-response relationship.Conclusions:In China,active case finding(ACF)could be implemented among elderly people aged 65 and above with underweight,diabetes,close contact history and previous TB history as a priority,which will get significant yields and be cost-effective.

Association of DNA methylation/demethylation with the functional outcome of stroke in a hyperinflammatory state

Inflammation is closely related to stroke prognosis, and high inflammation status leads to poor functional outcome in stroke. DNA methylation is involved in the pathogenesis and prognosis of stroke. However, the effect of DNA methylation on stroke at high levels of inflammation is unclear. In this study, we constructed a hyperinflammatory cerebral ischemia mouse model and investigated the effect of hypomethylation and hypermethylation on the functional outcome. We constructed a mouse model of transient middle cerebral artery occlusion and treated the mice with lipopolysaccharide to induce a hyperinflammatory state. To investigate the effect of DNA methylation on stroke, we used small molecule inhibitors to restrain the function of key DNA methylation and demethylation enzymes. 2,3,5-Triphenyltetrazolium chloride staining, neurological function scores, neurobehavioral tests, enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay, quantitative reverse transcription PCR and western blot assay were used to evaluate the effects after stroke in mice. We assessed changes in the global methylation status by measuring DNA 5-mc and DNA 5-hmc levels in peripheral blood after the use of the inhibitor. In the group treated with the DNA methylation inhibitor, brain tissue 2,3,5-triphenyltetrazolium chloride staining showed an increase in infarct volume, which was accompanied by a decrease in neurological scores and worsening of neurobehavioral performance. The levels of inflammatory factors interleukin 6 and interleukin-1 beta in ischemic brain tissue and plasma were elevated, indicating increased inflammation. Related inflammatory pathway exploration showed significant overactivation of nuclear factor kappa B. These results suggested that inhibiting DNA methylation led to poor functional outcome in mice with high inflammation following stroke. Further, the effects were reversed by inhibition of DNA demethylation. Our findings suggest that DNA methylation regulates the inflammatory response in stroke and has an important role in the functional outcome of hyperinflammatory stroke.

Epidemic Characteristics and Spatio-Temporal Patterns of HFRS in Qingdao City,China,2010-2022

Objective This study investigated the epidemic characteristics and spatio-temporal dynamics of hemorrhagic fever with renal syndrome(HFRS)in Qingdao City,China.Methods Information was collected on HFRS cases in Qingdao City from 2010 to 2022.Descriptive epidemiologic,seasonal decomposition,spatial autocorrelation,and spatio-temporal cluster analyses were performed.Results A total of 2,220 patients with HFRS were reported over the study period,with an average annual incidence of 1.89/100,000 and a case fatality rate of 2.52%.The male:female ratio was 2.8:1.75.3%of patients were aged between 16 and 60 years old,75.3%of patients were farmers,and 11.6%had both“three red”and“three pain”symptoms.The HFRS epidemic showed two-peak seasonality:the primary fall-winter peak and the minor spring peak.The HFRS epidemic presented highly spatially heterogeneous,street/township-level hot spots that were mostly distributed in Huangdao,Pingdu,and Jiaozhou.The spatio-temporal cluster analysis revealed three cluster areas in Qingdao City that were located in the south of Huangdao District during the fall-winter peak.Conclusion The distribution of HFRS in Qingdao exhibited periodic,seasonal,and regional characteristics,with high spatial clustering heterogeneity.The typical symptoms of“three red”and“three pain”in patients with HFRS were not obvious.

Interaction between Anomalous Winter Monsoon in East Asia and EI Nino Events

Based on a series of data analyses, the intimate relations between anomalous winter monsoon in East Asia and El Nino arc studied in this paper.Anomalistic circulation in the Northern Hemisphere caused by El Nino event can lead to enhancing the Ferre! cell and the westerlies in the mid-latitudes as the Hadley cell and result in the location of the front zone in East Asia to the north. These are unfavourable for the cold wave breaking out southward in East Asia. Therefore, there ate warmer weather and weaker winter monsoon in East Asia in El Nino winter.There are stronger and frequent cold waves in East Asia during the wintertime prior to the occurrence of El Nino event. They will induce stronger winter monsoon in East Asia. Thus, the weakened trade wind and enhanced cumulus convection in the equatorial middle-western Pacific area caused by the stronger winter monsoon will play an important role in the occurrence of El Nino event. Therefore, the anomalously strong winter monsoon in East Asia during wintertime might be an important mechanism to cause El Nino event.

Intelligent Deep Learning Model for Privacy Preserving IIoT on 6G Environment

In recent times,Industrial Internet of Things(IIoT)experiences a high risk of cyber attacks which needs to be resolved.Blockchain technology can be incorporated into IIoT system to help the entrepreneurs realize Industry 4.0 by overcoming such cyber attacks.Although blockchain-based IIoT network renders a significant support and meet the service requirements of next generation network,the performance arrived at,in existing studies still needs improvement.In this scenario,the current research paper develops a new Privacy-Preserving Blockchain with Deep Learning model for Industrial IoT(PPBDL-IIoT)on 6G environment.The proposed PPBDLIIoT technique aims at identifying the existence of intrusions in network.Further,PPBDL-IIoT technique also involves the design of Chaos Game Optimization(CGO)with Bidirectional Gated Recurrent Neural Network(BiGRNN)technique for both detection and classification of intrusions in the network.Besides,CGO technique is applied to fine tune the hyperparameters in BiGRNN model.CGO algorithm is applied to optimally adjust the learning rate,epoch count,and weight decay so as to considerably improve the intrusion detection performance of BiGRNN model.Moreover,Blockchain enabled Integrity Check(BEIC)scheme is also introduced to avoid the misrouting attacks that tamper the OpenFlow rules of SDN-based IIoT system.The performance of the proposed PPBDL-IIoT methodology was validated using Industrial Control System Cyber-attack(ICSCA)dataset and the outcomes were analysed under various measures.The experimental results highlight the supremacy of the presented PPBDL-IIoT technique than the recent state-of-the-art techniques with the higher accuracy of 91.50%.

Forest height mapping using inventory and multi-source satellite data over Hunan Province in southern China

Background:Accurate mapping of forest canopy heights at a fine spatial resolution over large geographical areas is challenging.It is essential for the estimation of forest aboveground biomass and the evaluation of forest ecosystems.Yet current regional to national scale forest height maps were mainly produced at coarse-scale.Such maps lack spatial details for decision-making at local scales.Recent advances in remote sensing provide great opportunities to fill this gap.Method:In this study,we evaluated the utility of multi-source satellite data for mapping forest heights over Hunan Province in China.A total of 523 plot data collected from 2017 to 2018 were utilized for calibration and validation of forest height models.Specifically,the relationships between three types of in-situ measured tree heights(maximum-,averaged-,and basal area-weighted-tree heights)and plot-level remote sensing metrics(multispectral,radar,and topo variables from Landsat,Sentinel-1/PALSAR-2,and SRTM)were analyzed.Three types of models(multilinear regression,random forest,and support vector regression)were evaluated.Feature variables were selected by two types of variable selection approaches(stepwise regression and random forest).Model parameters and model performances for different models were tuned and evaluated via a 10-fold cross-validation approach.Then,tuned models were applied to generate wall-to-wall forest height maps for Hunan Province.Results:The best estimation of plot-level tree heights(R2 ranged from 0.47 to 0.52,RMSE ranged from 3.8 to 5.3 m,and rRMSE ranged from 28%to 31%)was achieved using the random forest model.A comparison with existing forest height maps showed similar estimates of mean height,however,the ranges varied under different definitions of forest and types of tree height.Conclusions:Primary results indicate that there are small biases in estimated heights at the province scale.This study provides a framework toward establishing regional to national scale maps of vertical forest structure.

Discussion of Meridional Propagation Mechanism of Quasi-40-Day Oscillation

Based on researches made by the author in recent years, discussion is made of the quasi-40-day oscillation (QDO) nature and its characteristic propagation, with emphasis on the Southern Hemisphere mill-latitude quasi-periodic cold air forcing on the tropical atmosphere quasi-40-day oscillation along with its effect upon the Northern Hemisphere summer monsoon. It is proposed that the interaction between, or lateral coupling of, meridional circulation systems may serve as the mechanism of the oscillation propagation in a meridional direction.

Rat recombinant β-defensin 22 is a heparin-binding protein with antimicrobial activity

Approximately 40-50 β-defensins are predominantly expressed in the male reproductive system of mammals. This selective expression raises the question as to the roles of these molecules in innate immunity and fertility in the male reproductive tract. Rat β-defensin 22 is an epididymis-specific β-defensin expressed in segments 12-14 of the epididymis. This protein contains both β-defensin and lectin signature sequences, yet its antimicrobial activity and carbohydrate-binding ability have not been shown. We herein demonstrated the antimicrobial activity of recombinant rat β-defensin 22 against Escherichia coliand Candida albicans. Its lectinJike activity was also investigated by demonstrating its binding ability with heparin beads. This heparin-binding activity implies some potential roles for this defensin in determining the fertilisation capabilities of sperm.

Development of City Transport System and Two-wheel Vehicles

Based on the study on the city transport systems of some typical cities worldwide,this paper put forward that each city transport system has its own development mode,which is influenced by the city development plan,economic development level,traveling vehicle composition etc..When some problems occur,such as the congestions caused by contradiction between the road capacity and vehicle composition,the city transport system may come into temporary maturity period.If the improvement for road system is limited meanwhile,optimized structure of vehicle composition should be an effective solution in this case.With the development of economy-internationalization,the development speed of city transport modernization is rapid.When traveling easiness is conflicting with efficiency,the advantages of public transport system become more obvious.Correspondingly,the superiority of two-wheel vehicles will reappear.Though the important function of two-wheel vehicles for alleviating city traffic problems is obvious,however,their development strategy must be reasonably proposed,and operation regulations must be performed accordingly.

让温度控制管得更多些

北化机的现场工程师认为,功能全面、实用的温控曲线与控制参数编辑表是组态王温控版的两大特色。

构建节能省钱的换热站自控系统

该自控系统最大的优点是可根据环境温度的变化和热负荷的变化自动调节智能控制换热站设备的运行和变热量输出,避免能源的无效损耗。