Journal of Geophysical Research最新文献

Rift Valley fever (RVF) is an arthropod-borne zoonotic disease responsible for severe outbreaks in livestock and humans with concomitant economic losses in many countries in sub-Saharan Africa. The study, therefore, investigated the seroprevalence of the Rift Valley fever virus (RVFV) among wild and domestic animals. Blood samples were collected between 2013 and 2015 from 106 wild animals, 300 cattle (Bos indicus), and 200 horses (Equus caballus), respectively, in Yankari Game Reserve (YGR) and Sumu Wildlife Park (SWP) in Bauchi state, Nigeria. Harvested sera from blood were evaluated for the presence of anti-RVFV IgM/IgG antibodies. The overall seroprevalence in cattle was 11.3% (p = 0.677; 95% CI: 0.624-0.730) and in wildlife was 8.5% (p = 0.006; 95% CI: 0.00-0.60). The diversity of wildlife species sampled indicated seropositivity of 36.0% in waterbuck (Kobus ellipsiprymus), 25.0% in elephant (Loxodonta africana), 12.5% in eland (Taurotragus oryx), and 8.3% in wildebeest (Connochaetes taurinus). Whereas, samples from zebra (Equus quagga crawshayi), kudu (Tragelaphus strepsiceros), and hartebeest (Alcelaphus buselaphus caama) did not show detectable antibodies to RVFV, and seroprevalence in female (15.0%) wildlife species was higher than in males (4.5%) (p = 0.061). Classification of cattle into breed and sex showed no significant difference in seropositivity. Seropositivity of 12.0% was observed in White Fulani, 12.1% in Red Bororo, and 7.8% in Sokoto Gudali breeds of cattle (p = 0.677). Whereas, seropositivity of 13.6% was observed in females and 6.4% observed in males (p = 0.068). This study indicated the presence of antibodies to RVFV among some wild animals and cattle in the absence of a reported outbreak in the study area. The circulation of RVFV in the study area may pose a significant health risk to livestock, wildlife, and humans. Therefore, surveillance for RVFV should be intensified targeting mosquito vectors and humans in Bauchi state, Nigeria.

Purpose: The Optic Neuritis Treatment Trial was a landmark study with implications worldwide. In the advent of antibody testing for neuromyelitis optica spectrum disease (NMOSD) and myelin oligodendrocyte glycoprotein antibody-associated disease (MOGAD), emerging concepts, such as routine antibody testing and management, remain controversial, resulting mostly from studies in White populations. We evaluate the practice patterns of optic neuritis investigation and management by neuro-ophthalmologists and neurologists in Singapore.

Design: 21-question online survey consisting of 4 clinical vignettes.

Methods: The survey was sent to all Singapore Medical Council- registered ophthalmologists and neurologists who regularly manage patients with optic neuritis.

Results: Forty-two recipients (17 formally trained neuro-ophthalmol-ogists [100% response rate] and 25 neurologists) responded. Participants opted for routine testing of anti-aquaporin-4 antibodies (88.1% in mild optic neuritis and 97.6% in severe optic neuritis). Anti-MOG antibodies were frequently obtained (76.2% in mild and 88.1% in severe optic neuritis). Plasmapheresis was rapidly initiated (85.7%) in cases of nonresponse to intravenous steroids, even before obtaining anti-aquaporin-4 or anti-MOG serology results. In both NMOSD and MOGAD, oral mycophenolate mofetil was the preferred option if chronic immunosuppression was necessary. Steroids were given for a longer duration and tapered more gradually than in idiopathic optic neuritis cases.

Conclusions: Serological testing for NMOSD and MOGAD is considered as a routine procedure in cases of optic neuritis in Singapore, possibly due to local epidemiological features of these conditions. Chronic oral immunosuppression is preferred for the long term, but further research is necessary to establish the efficacy and cost-effectiveness of these practices.

Lysine β-hydroxybutyrylation (Kbhb) is a newly identified protein posttranslational modification (PTM) derived from β-hydroxybutyrate (BHB), a product of ketone body metabolism in liver. BHB could serve as an energy source and play a role in the suppression of oxidative stress. The plasma concentration of BHB could increase up to 20 mM during starvation and in pathological conditions. Despite the progress, how the cells derived from extrahepatic tissues respond to elevated environmental BHB remains largely unknown. Given that BHB can significantly drive Kbhb, we characterized the BHB-induced lysine β-hydroxybutyrylome and acetylome by quantitative proteomics. A total of 840 unique Kbhb sites on 429 proteins were identified, with 42 sites on 39 proteins increased by more than 50% in response to BHB. The results showed that the upregulated Kbhb induced by BHB was involved in aminoacyl-tRNA biosynthesis, 2-oxocarboxylic acid metabolism, citrate cycle, glycolysis/gluconeogenesis, and pyruvate metabolism pathways. Moreover, some BHB-induced Kbhb substrates were significantly involved in diseases such as cancer. Taken together, we investigate the dynamics of lysine β-hydroxybutyrylome and acetylome induced by environmental BHB, which reveals the roles of Kbhb in regulating various biological processes and expands the biological functions of BHB.

Background: Peripheral blood smear examination is an invaluable laboratory test, which provides the complete hematologic and/or nonhematologic picture of a case. In addition to verifying the results of automated cell counters, it has the potential to identify some pathologic and morphologic changes that remain hidden using the cell counters alone. Case Presentation. A 40-year-old man with a three-year history of alcohol intake and marijuana abuse presented with severe lower extremities of the bone and abdominal pain. Physical examination showed high blood pressure, high pulse rate, and abdominal tenderness. He underwent extensive laboratory and imaging tests, and cholecystectomy and bone marrow studies were associated with no definite diagnosis. Right after all these invasive, expensive, and time-consuming investigations during a month, finding coarse basophilic stippling in the red blood cells in the peripheral blood smear by an expert led to the final diagnosis. Elevated blood lead level and the presence of ring sideroblasts in the bone marrow study confirmed the diagnosis of lead poisoning, and the patient responded well to chelator therapy in a short period.

Conclusion: This case clearly showed the value of peripheral blood smear review and its impact on patient care. In order not to lose the cases, laboratories are recommended to design their own policy for peripheral blood smear review. The peripheral blood smear is the fastest, simplest, and most available screening test, which can prevent many misdiagnoses and malpractices. It provides rich morphological information, among which basophilic stippling is highly suggestive of lead poisoning.

Some of China's major cities have entered the middle and late stages of urbanization, and the development focus of these cities has gradually shifted from outward expansion to inward renewal. The community, as the basic unit of a city, is undoubtedly the main object of urban renewal. In order to efficiently and effectively address the problems in current community construction, it is necessary to conduct a large-scale in-depth assessment of the community livability, which can directly imply the satisfaction of residents with their quality of life. This study achieved the first comprehensive livability assessment at the individual community scale for 42 major cities of China from the perspective of remotely sensed and crowd-sourced geographic information. Specifically, we produced abundant fine-grained datasets for 42 cities, including high-resolution land cover maps interpreted from Ziyuan-3 satellites (ZY-3, 2.1 m), building height, point-of-interest, and boundaries of 101,630 communities. As designed in our proposed framework, the community livability was evaluated by 5 level-1 indicators, 27 level-2 indicators and an integrated community livability index (CLI). A number of interesting findings were obtained from this assessment: (1) According to the expert questionnaires, living comfort was considered as the most important livability factor for residents with the highest weight, while the building environment was rated the least. The negative factors (e.g., the factories around the community) impacted more on livability than the positive ones. (2) Most communities in major Chinese cities were characterized by dense buildings and sparse green spaces. (3) In these cities, community security construction was severely insufficient, particularly in less developed regions. (4) Imbalanced community livability development was prevalent across cities, and simultaneously, the CLI distribution within cities also exhibited significant spatial aggregation and heterogeneity. This research is expected to reveal the status quo of community livability in China, and thus allow for targeted policy formulation.

Electronic supplementary material: Supplementary material is available for this article at 10.1007/s11430-021-9896-4 and is accessible for authorized users.

Traditionally, patients with opioid use disorder (OUD) seen in EDs have been medically cleared, discharged, and left to navigate a complex treatment system after discharge. Replacing this system of care requires reimagining the ED visit to promote best practices, including starting treatment with lifesaving medications for OUD in the ED. In this article, the authors present stakeholder-informed design of strategies for implementation of evidence-based ED OUD care at Penn Medicine. They used a participatory design approach to incorporate insights from diverse clinician groups in an iterative fashion to develop new processes of care that identified patients early to initiate OUD care pathways. Their design process led to the development of a nurse-driven protocol with OUD screening in ED triage coupled with automated prompts to both nurses and physicians or advanced practice providers to perform assessment and treatment of OUD and to deliver evidence-based treatment interventions.

Fermatean fuzzy set theory is emerging as a novel mathematical tool to handle uncertainties in different domains of real world. Fermatean fuzzy sets were presented in order that uncertain information from quite general real-world decision-making situations could be mathematically tractable. To that purpose, these sets are more flexible and reliable than intuitionistic and Pythagorean fuzzy sets. This paper presents a novel hybrid model, namely, the Fermatean fuzzy bipolar soft set (FFBSS, in short) model as a general extension of two powerful existing models, that is, fuzzy bipolar soft set and Pythagorean fuzzy bipolar soft set models. Some fundamental properties of the proposed FFBSS model, namely, subset-hood, equal FFBSSs, relative null and relative absolute FFBSSs, restricted intersection and union, extended intersection and union, AND operation and OR operation are investigated along with numerical examples. In addition, certain basic operations, including Fermatean fuzzy weighted average and score function of FFBSSs are proposed. Furthermore, two applications of FFBSS are explored to deal with different multiattribute decision-making situations, that is, selection of best surgeon robot and analysis of most affected country due to COVID-19 ('CO' stands for corona, 'VI' for virus, 'D' for disease, and '19' stands for its year of emergence, that is, 2019). The proposed methodology is supported by an algorithm. At the end, a comparison analysis of the proposed hybrid model with some existing models, including Pythagorean fuzzy bipolar soft sets is provided.

Background: Urban-rural differences in schizophrenia risk have been widely evidenced across Western countries. However, explanation of these differences is lacking. We aimed to identify contextual risk factors for schizophrenia that explain urban-rural differences in schizophrenia risk.

Methods: Utilizing Danish population-based registers, we partitioned Denmark into 1885 geographic "neighborhoods" homogeneously sized in terms of population. Information on the entire Danish population from 1981 to 2016 was used to quantify a spectrum of neighborhood-level domains. We subsequently conducted multilevel survival analyses following persons born in Denmark from 1971 to 1982 for the development of schizophrenia allowing for clustering of people within neighborhoods. We used this method to tease apart the effects of individual, specific, and general contextual risk factors for schizophrenia.

Results: A significant general contextual effect in schizophrenia risk across neighborhoods was estimated (Medium Incidence Rate Ratio (MRR):1.41; 95% CI:1.35-1.48). Most of the specific contextual factors examined were associated with schizophrenia risk. For instance, neighborhood-level proportion of lone adult households (Incidence Rate Ratios (IRR):1.53; 95% CI:1.44-1.63) had largest risk estimate. Adjustment for all individual-level and specific contextual constructs reduced the IRR for urbanicity from 1.98 (95% CI:1.77-2.22) to 1.30 (95% CI:1.11-1.51).

Conclusions: In the largest prospective multilevel survival analyses of schizophrenia risk conducted to date, multiple neighborhood-level characteristics were associated with raised schizophrenia risk, with these contextual factors explaining most of the elevated risk linked with urbanicity. However, the unexplained heterogeneity that was evident in our multilevel models indicates that our understanding of the role of urbanicity in schizophrenia's etiology remains incomplete.

The Publisher regrets that this article is an accidental duplication of an article that has already been published, https://doi.org/10.1053/j.gastro.2021.07.041. The duplicate article has therefore been withdrawn.