Imaging of congenital Zika virus infection: the route to identification of prognostic factors

Zika virus (ZIKV) has recently emerged as a novel teratogenic agent associated with severe neurological complications. The risk associated with maternal infection remains to be exactly defined but appears to be significant. Like other TORCH agents (toxoplasmosis, other agents, rubella, cytomegalovirus and herpes simplex), it is unlikely that all affected fetuses will be symptomatic at birth. It is therefore urgent to better define the spectrum of anomalies observed in infected fetuses to provide adequate parental counseling. In this review, we provide a comprehensive analysis of major cases described to date and highlight specific prenatal and postnatal radiological findings of congenital ZIKV infection. A total of 19 reports were included in our analysis. ZIKV seemed to harbor a specific tropism for the central nervous system, and anomalies were mostly limited to the brain. Major radiological findings were ventriculomegaly, diffuse calcifications and signs of abnormal gyration as well as cortical development. In addition, a significant number of fetuses suffered from intra uterine growth restriction. Based on these findings, we provide recommendations for adequate radiological monitoring of at-risk pregnancies. © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Estimates of yield loss and virus titre in sorghum hybrids infected with maize dwarf mosaic virus strain B

Sorghum genotypes having the red-leaf reaction to infection by maize dwarf mosaic virus strain B had significantly higher virus concentrations and 33–755 yield reductions. Sorghum having only the mosaic reaction to infection had low virus levels and 0–8% yield reductions.     

基于病毒防护的填埋场隔离距离研究

为研究渗滤液中致病性病毒对填埋场隔离距离的影响,提出一种基于系统健康风险目标的建模方法,用于确定地下水梯度、水力传导系数和包气带厚度对隔离距离的影响,基于线性剂量-效应模型和可接受的感染风险[<10^-4/（人·a）]推导确定了饮用水肠道病毒浓度限值,通过耦合渗漏源强模型-以及水流和病毒在包气带中的纵向迁移转化和含水层中的水平迁移转化模型,构建了污染物泄露-迁移-降解的解析模型,并基于Monte-Carlo模拟表征解析模型中参数的不确定性.选择某典型生活垃圾填埋场开展案例研究,结果表明,在砂含水层中为44~564m,在砾石含水层中为91m~2.39km,在粗砾石含水层中为1.74~27.29km;地下水梯度从0.001变化到0.05,导致最高梯度处的隔离距离比最低梯度大10~20倍;当包气带厚度从1m增加到10m时,隔离距离可缩短到10m以内.隔离距离的确定需根据具体的安全防护要求和水文地质条件确定.