Prospective spatial prediction of infectious disease: experience of New York State (USA) with West Nile Virus and proposed directions for improved surveillance

Infectious disease surveillance has become an international top priority due to the perceived risk of bioterrorism. This is driving the improvement of real-time geo-spatial surveillance systems for monitoring disease indicators, which is expected to have many benefits beyond detecting a bioterror event. West Nile Virus surveillance in New York State (USA) is highlighted as a working system that uses dead American Crows (Corvus brachyrhynchos) to prospectively indicate viral activity prior to human onset. A cross-disciplinary review is then presented to argue that this system, and infectious disease surveillance in general, can be improved by complementing spatial cluster detection of an outcome variable with predictive “risk mapping” that incorporates spatiotemporal data on the environment, climate and human population through the flexible class of generalized linear mixed models.

Enteric Viruses in a Large Waterborne Outbreak of Acute Gastroenteritis in Finland

In Nokia city about 450,000 l of treated sewage water was for 2 days allowed to run into the drinking water supplies of the city due to a personal error of one employee. Within the next 5 weeks about 1,000 people sought care at the municipal health centre or regional hospital because of gastroenteritis. Here we report the results of viral analyses performed by gene amplification assays from the earliest water and sewage samples as well as from close to 300 patient samples. The contaminating treated sewage was shown to harbour several enteric viruses known to cause acute gastroenteritis. Likewise, the drinking water sample was positive for noro-, astro-, rota-, entero- and adenoviruses. Noroviruses were also found in 29.8% of stool samples from affected patients, while astro-, adeno-, rota- and enteroviruses were detected in 19.7, 18.2, 7.5 and 3.7% of the specimens, respectively. An erratum to this article can be found at     

新冠肺炎疫情下的高校复课综合风险评估

为评估新冠肺炎疫情下的高校复课综合风险,辅助高校进行复课组织决策,探讨一种高校复课风险评估方法。首先,引入压力-状态-响应(PSR)模型,分析各要素互相影响机制,并建立高校复课新冠肺炎疫情综合风险评估指标体系;然后,利用风险的致灾因子与受灾体的脆弱性衡量疫情综合风险度,提出一种高校复课新冠疫情风险的评估方法;最后,以西安市某高校为例,验证风险评估模型的可行性和有效性。结果表明:本模型能准确评估高校复课新冠肺炎疫情综合风险;学校所在地疫情风险等级、人员管控措施、学校应急演练与评估开展状况分别是P、S、R系统的主要影响因素,应重点关注。     

背景溶液对纳米氧化铁吸附病毒的影响

以噬菌体X174为病毒替代,通过等温静态批量吸附实验,研究了4种纳米氧化铁(α-Fe2O3、γ-Fe2O3-B、γ-Fe2O3-N、Fe3O4)对病毒在不同背景溶液中的吸附行为及其影响因素.结果表明,在模拟地下水中,4种纳米氧化铁对病毒均具有较高的吸附比例,其中α-Fe2O3对病毒吸附比例最高,在病毒初始浓度比较低(约1E+03PFU.mL-1)时可达100%.经Langmuir和Freundlich吸附等温线方程对上述吸附结果进行拟合表示,纳米氧化铁对病毒的吸附均为有利吸附(favorable adsorption),并可能存在多层吸附,吸附比例均随着病毒初始浓度的增加而减少.纳米氧化铁对病毒的吸附比例随着背景溶液离子强度的增加而降低,表示其吸附行为以电性吸附为主.背景溶液中阴离子存在显著降低了病毒的吸附量,这可能与阴离子竞争病毒吸附位点有关,其中HPO24-比HCO3-表现得更为明显.结果同时显示背景溶液中多价阳离子的存在(比如Ca2+和Mg2+)比单价阳离子(比如Na+和K+)更有利于纳米氧化铁对病毒的吸附.综上可知,纳米氧化铁是一种潜在的病毒净化理想材料,应用时需考虑其环境因素的影响.     

高校数字图书馆网络安全风险分析与策略

从数字图书馆网络内部和使用服务的外部两方面,分析高校图书馆网络面临的硬件安全风险、软件安全风险、技术风险、管理风险以及外部攻击安全风险等主要风险。结合网络安全技术的发展,分别提出各自的应对策略。重点分析黑客攻击和网络病毒的控制方法,包括采用杀毒防护软件、运用防火墙技术、加密认证技术、入侵检测技术、VLAN技术、内容检查与监控技术以及虚拟蜜罐技术等等。图书馆网络系统只有实现了设备的本质安全化、人员网络技术的专业化以及管理的正规化,才能有效地规避各种网络安全风险和确保网络系统的正常运行,研究结果对如何预防与控制高校数字图书馆网络安全风险具有借鉴和指导作用。     

Biopesticides: Has their time come?

Abstract

The increased tempo of developments in biopesticides is closely related to the growing awareness and emphasis on integrated pest management (IPM) and sustainable agriculture. Several economic forecasting sources predict a growth rate for the biopesticide industry at 10 to 15% per annum over the next 10 years in contrast to a 1 to 2% growth rate for synthetic chemical pesticides.

The greatest opportunity for biopesticides is in the insect pest management arena. This paper discusses several types of bioinsecticides that may have significant economic impact in the coming years.     

渤海湾天津沿岸海水中甲肝病毒的检测和定量

甲肝病毒（hepatitis A virus, HAV）是能引起传染性甲型肝炎的单链RNA病毒.用常规RT-PCR（反转录PCR）和SYBR Green实时定量RT-PCR方法,根据甲肝病毒保守的VP1-VP2基因序列设计引物,对渤海湾天津沿岸海水中的甲肝病毒进行了检测和定量分析. 9个样品取自渤海湾天津塘沽以南沿岸海水,取样时间分别是2007年夏、秋、冬季和2008年春季. 海水样品先用小型超滤装置（Millipore Pellicon Mini TFF）或超滤离心管（Millipore Centricon Plus-70）浓缩,然后进行RT-PCR检测.结果表明,从9个海水样品中都能扩增出192 bp的HAV cDNA,这些cDNA的核苷酸序列与GenBank中的同源序列相似性为95%～100%. 用SYBR Green 实时定量RT-PCR检测了春季和冬季的6个海水样品,结果表明,海水中甲肝病毒的浓度范围为5.35×10⁶～4.51×10⁷ virus particles/L.     

Virus transport in physically and geochemically heterogeneous subsurface porous media

A two-dimensional model for virus transport in physically and geochemically heterogeneous subsurface porous media is presented. The model involves solution of the advection-dispersion equation, which additionally considers virus inactivation in the solution, as well as virus removal at the solid matrix surface due to attachment (deposition), release, and inactivation. Two surface inactivation models for the fate of attached inactive viruses and their subsequent role on virus attachment and release were considered. Geochemical heterogeneity, portrayed as patches of positively charged metal oxyhydroxide coatings on collector grain surfaces, and physical heterogeneity, portrayed as spatial variability of hydraulic conductivity, were incorporated in the model. Both layered and randomly (log-normally) distributed physical and geochemical heterogeneities were considered. The upstream weighted multiple cell balance method was employed to numerically solve the governing equations of groundwater flow and virus transport. Model predictions show that the presence of subsurface layered geochemical and physical heterogeneity results in preferential flow paths and thus significantly affect virus mobility. Random distributions of physical and geochemical heterogeneity have also notable influence on the virus transport behavior. While the solution inactivation rate was found to significantly influence the virus transport behavior, surface inactivation under realistic field conditions has probably a negligible influence on the overall virus transport. It was further demonstrated that large virus release rates result in extended periods of virus breakthrough over significant distances downstream from the injection sites. This behavior suggests that simpler models that account for virus adsorption through a retardation factor may yield a misleading assessment of virus transport in "hydrogeologically sensitive" subsurface environments.     

雏鸭鸭瘟诊断初探

鸭瘟是对养鸭业危害很大的一种病毒性传染病，具有高度的传染性和致死率．常见有肿头、流泪、体温升高的典型症状以及消化道充血、出血、纤维素性坏死性炎症和肝脏坏死灶、出血等典型病变．本文报告一例鸭瘟病例的发病和诊断．