Using culturomics and social media data to characterize wildlife consumption

Wildlife provides food, medicine, clothing, and other necessities for humans, but overexploitation can disrupt the sustainability of wildlife resources and severely threaten global biodiversity. Understanding the characteristics of consumer behavior is helpful for wildlife managers and policy makers, but the traditional survey methods are laborious and time-consuming. In contrast, culturomics may more efficiently identify the features of wildlife consumption. As a case study of the culturomics approach, we examined tiger bone wine consumption in China based on social media and Baidu search engine data. Tiger bone wine is one of the most purchased tiger products; its consumption is closely related to tiger poaching, which greatly threatens wild tiger survival. We searched a popular social media website for the term “tiger bone wine” and focused on posts that were originally created from 1 January 2012 to 31 December 2018. We filtered and classified posts related to the purchase, sale, or consumption of tiger bone wine and extracted information on providers, consumption motivations, year of production, and place of origin of the tiger bone wines based on the texts and photos of these posts. We found 756 posts related to tiger bone wine consumption, 113 of which mentioned providers of tiger bone wine, including friends (53%), elder relatives (37%), peer relatives (7%), and others (3%). Out of the 756 posts, 266 indicated the motivations of tiger bone wine consumption. Tiger bone wines were consumed as a tonic (34%), medicine (23%), game product (30%), and a symbol of wealth (28%). Some posts indicated ≥2 consumption motivations. These findings were consistent with the search queries from Baidu index. Such information could help develop targeted strategies for tiger conservation. The culturomics approach illustrated by our study is a rapid and cost-efficient way to characterize wildlife consumption.     

Fluoride removal and its impact on oral health in Sri Lanka's dry zone: Discussion and recommendation

Fifty percent of the dry zone areas in Sri Lanka have fluoride levels above 1 ppm. This paper discusses the ground conditions and recommends an appropriate range of fluoride in drinking water which can support preventive practices for improving the oral health of children 8-years old and younger. In efforts to address the Chronic Kidney Disease of Unknown etiology (CKDU), water treatment to reduce contaminant level in potable water has been implemented. Such treatment would also remove fluoride and has resulted in potable water with various fluoride levels, depending on concentrations in the raw water. While it is important to reduce fluoride levels, it is important to have appropriate residual levels for prevention of dental caries. It needs, however, to be noted fluoride in excess can cause dental fluorosis. In Sri Lanka's dry zone areas increasing prevalence of dental fluorosis with decreasing prevalence of dental caries has been noted. Consumption of tea and powdered milk could increase total intake of fluoride. Fluoridated toothpaste, when used properly, may, however, result in negligible intake of fluoride. Sri Lanka's hot tropical climate which results in substantial intake of fluids reinforces the need to consider reduction in water fluoride. Consideration of local studies and international standards indicate fluoride levels should be in the range of 0.225–0.500 ppm. In the range of 0.225–0.500 ppm, the prevalence of dental fluorosis and caries was only 14% and 8%, respectively, in an endemic district. When fluoride levels are above 0.500 ppm, the issue of dental fluorosis shall need to be addressed. When levels are below 0.225 ppm, oral health care services shall need to be directed at preventing dental caries.     

Prenatal ultrasound diagnosis of Toriello–Carey syndrome

Toriello–Carey syndrome is a rare malformative complex, described for the first time in 1988, characterized by agenesis of the corpus callosum, facial anomalies, cardiac defects and hypotonia. Relatively few neonatal cases have been reported. We describe here the first prenatal ultrasound diagnosis of the syndrome based on the detection of agenesis of the corpus callosum and spongious cardiomyopathy in a 22-week-old fetus of a couple with positive family history. The first sib of the couple was diagnosed with Toriello–Carey syndrome at 1 year of age, and had, in addition to the typical facial anomalies not detectable by ultrasound, agenesis of the corpus callosum and the same heart lesion (spongious cardiomyopathy). This report demonstrates that prenatal diagnosis of Toriello–Carey syndrome is feasible in the second trimester of pregnancy. Copyright © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

南宁城市大气污染对人体健康的危害及治理对策

南宁市大气属煤烟型污染 ,大气的主要污染物为SO2 、NOx、TSP、降尘 ,虽然随着环境管理和污染治理工作的加强 ,污染物浓度逐年下降 ,但是工业区大气污染仍然较重。污染物流行病学调查显示 :工业区癌症和呼吸系统疾病死亡率均高于全市平均水平 2倍左右 ,城区又高于郊区 2倍 ,大气污染综合指数与呼吸内科门诊就诊人数呈正相关。用邓聚龙的灰色系统理论分析得知污染物对癌症和呼吸系统疾病死亡率有关联 ,关联度从大到小排序为 :TSP >降尘 >SO2 >NOx ,最后提出了大气污染治理的对策。     

面向作物病害识别的高光谱波谱库设计与开发

自20世纪70年代以来,国内外波谱数据库发展迅速,但都存在着针对性不强的缺陷,不能满足我国现阶段遥感应用的需要。该文通过以小麦条锈病为案例的高光谱波谱库的设计与开发,实现了波谱查询、影像管理、用户管理、数据管理、反演模型等功能,可供其它面向病害识别的高光谱波谱库的建立参考。     

A Sensitivity Analysis of an Integrated Modelling Approach to Assess the Risk of Wind-borne Spread of Foot-and-mouth Disease Virus from Infected Premises

The sensitivity of an integrated model to assess the potential for wind-borne spread of foot-and-mouth disease (FMD) to variations in key parameters controlling different physical and biological processes was evaluated. The estimated number of farms at risk is sensitive to the virus strain used and the accompanying effective contact rate. The C Noville strain increased the estimated number of exposed farms ranked as high and medium risk of being infected by a factor of 5, compared to the baseline, based on the O UKG 2001 strain. The inclusion of a model for biological ageing of the virus can also have a significant effect on the concentration patterns arising from transport and dispersion of the virus. Its inclusion has the practical advantage of markedly reducing the time required for the calculations. The estimated number of farms affected by exposure to high and medium virus concentrations is not grossly sensitive to attenuation caused by temperature or relative humidity effects. Changes in susceptibility to infection, as determined by the parameter θ in the exposure-risk model, does not change the configuration of the virus plumes, but it does change the distribution of farms at risk by risk category. These findings suggest that a good understanding of characteristics (excretion rates from infected animals, susceptibility of different species to infection, virus survival, etc.) of the virus strain involved in an FMD outbreak is necessary to provide a reliable assessment of the risk of wind-borne spread. In the event of an incursion of FMD, provision for laboratory studies on the virus will be an essential component of the disease response and should be factored into contingency plans.

含钒石煤烧渣的稳定化试验研究

研究了含钒石煤烧渣稳定化处理的一种有效方法。利用石灰为稳定剂与烧渣相混合进行稳定化处理，渣中的水溶态钒转化为钒酸钙沉淀而降低毒性。浸出试验表明，水中钒浓度〈5mg／h，并且具有长期的稳定性，无二次污染。     

恐龙骨骼化石与其它脊椎动物骨骼的微量元素的对比研究

采用中子活化分析 (INAA)技术 ,对比分析恐龙骨骼化石及其它脊椎动物 (乌龟、鱼和大量哺乳动物 )骨骼中微量元素的含量组合 ,结果表明稀土、砷、钡、铀元素在恐龙骨骼化石中的含量远高于其它脊椎动物骨骼 ,而锌元素的含量情况却与之相反 ;同时进一步分析推测得出 :这种砷、钡元素含量的高异常和锌元素的低异常 ,极可能是导致四川盆地恐龙动物群集群死亡的原因之一。     

Prenatal diagnosis for huntington's disease: A molecular and psychological study

Two linked probes were used to determine the Huntington's disease status of the fetus conceived by a woman affected with the condition. The fetus was found to be unaffected with a certainty of 97 per cent. The ethical issues associated with presymptomatic testing were avoided since the mother presented with initial symptoms of Huntington's disease, but other psychological and ethical issues arose. The concerns of an affected woman planning a pregnancy, and the dilemmas involved in decision-making regarding prenatal diagnosis and possible selective abortion were exposed and explored with the patient and her husband.     

中国臭氧短期暴露与人群死亡之间关系的Meta分析研究

为探讨中国臭氧短期暴露与死亡率之间的关系，更新适用于中国本地化的暴露-反应系数，本研究全面检索了1990年1月1日-2020年1月1日在Web of Science数据库、PubMed、中国期刊全文数据库（CNKI）、万方医学数据库和维普数据库上发表的文献，以"O₃/臭氧（ozone）"、"空气污染（air pollution）"、"死亡率（mortality）"、"时间序列（time-series）"，"病例交叉（case-crossover）"、"中国（China）"为关键词，对符合纳入标准的文献进行质量评价后提取相关数据，通过Meta分析方法合并估计值.结果显示，大气中臭氧浓度每增加10 μg·m^-3，人群总死亡率、心血管系统疾病和呼吸系统疾病死亡率分别增加0.40%（95% CI：0.28%~0.52%）、0.67%（95% CI：0.46%~0.88%）、0.23%（95% CI：-0.20%~0.66%）.亚组分析结果表明，除季节外，温度、年龄、性别均不存在显著的修饰作用.本文结论可为开展城市大气污染健康风险精细化评估提供依据.