Complete chloroplast genome and phylogenetic analysis of Smallanthus sonchifolius (Asteraceae).

Smallanthus sonchifolius (Asteraceae), is an important food plant in the world. There is no systematic report on the chloroplast genome of S. sonchifolius. Here we reported its complete chloroplast genome and analyzed the basic characteristics. The chloroplast genome was 152,301 bp in length, had a GC content of 37.55%, and encoded 113 unique genes, including 79 protein-coding genes, 4 ribosomal RNA genes, and 30 transfer RNA genes. Phylogenetic analysis showed that the tribe Millerieae and the tribe Madieae are closely related in the Asteraceae family. In the tribe Millerieae, Smallanthus was more closely related to Guizotia and Sigesbeckia. This chloroplast genome not only enriches the genome information of Smallanthus, but also lays the foundation for understanding the phylogeny within the genus Smallanthus.

Adsorption Behavior and Mechanism of Cesium Ions in Low-Concentration Brine Using Ammonium Molybdophosphate-Zirconium Phosphate on Polyurethane Sponge.

Salt lake brine originating from Qinghai, China has abundant cesium resources and huge total reserves. The inorganic ion exchangers ammonium molybdophosphate (AMP) and zirconium phosphate (ZrP) have the significant advantages of separating and extracting Cs+ as a special adsorbent. Nevertheless, their high solubility in water leads to a decrease in their ability to adsorb Cs+ in aqueous solutions, causing problems such as difficulty with using adsorbents alone and a difficult recovery. In this work, an environmentally friendly polyurethane sponge (PU sponge) with a large specific surface area is employed as an adsorbent carrier by physically impregnating dopamine-coated AMP and ZrP onto a PU sponge, respectively. The experiment found that under the same conditions, the AMP/PU sponge performs better than the ZrP/PU sponge for Cs+ adsorption. When the amount of adsorbent reaches 0.025 g, the adsorption capacity reaches saturation. The adsorption efficiency remains above 80% when the concentration of Cs+ is 5-35 mg/L. The kinetic calculations show that adsorption is spontaneous, feasible, and has a higher driving force at high temperatures. In addition, the power and mechanism of the interaction between adsorbent and adsorbent are explained using the density functional theory calculation. This efficient, stable, and selective Cs+ adsorbent provides design guidelines.

Time-specific ecologic niche models forecast the risk of hemorrhagic fever with renal syndrome in Dongting Lake district, China, 2005-2010.

BACKGROUND: Hemorrhagic fever with renal syndrome (HFRS), a rodent-borne infectious disease, is one of the most serious public health threats in China. Increasing our understanding of the spatial and temporal patterns of HFRS infections could guide local prevention and control strategies. METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS: We employed statistical models to analyze HFRS case data together with environmental data from the Dongting Lake district during 2005-2010. Specifically, time-specific ecologic niche models (ENMs) were used to quantify and identify risk factors associated with HFRS transmission as well as forecast seasonal variation in risk across geographic areas. Results showed that the Maximum Entropy model provided the best predictive ability (AUC = 0.755). Time-specific Maximum Entropy models showed that the potential risk areas of HFRS significantly varied across seasons. High-risk areas were mainly found in the southeastern and southwestern areas of the Dongting Lake district. Our findings based on models focused on the spring and winter seasons showed particularly good performance. The potential risk areas were smaller in March, May and August compared with those identified for June, July and October to December. Both normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) and land use types were found to be the dominant risk factors. CONCLUSIONS/SIGNIFICANCE: Our findings indicate that time-specific ENMs provide a useful tool to forecast the spatial and temporal risk of HFRS.

Vaccination and risk of type 1 diabetes mellitus in active component U.S. Military, 2002-2008.

AIMS/HYPOTHESIS: To evaluate whether vaccination increases the risk of type 1 diabetes mellitus in active component U.S. military personnel. METHODS: We conducted a retrospective cohort study among active component U.S. military personnel age 17-35 years. Individuals with first time diagnoses of type 1 diabetes between January 1, 2002 and December 31, 2008 were identified using International Classification of Diseases, Ninth Revision, Clinical Modification (ICD-9-CM) codes. We used Poisson regression to estimate risk ratios between individual vaccine exposures and type 1 diabetes. Secondary analyses were performed controlling for receipt of multiple vaccines and available demographic variables. RESULTS: Our study population consisted of 2,385,102 individuals followed for approximately 7,644,098 person-years of service. This included 1074 incident type 1 diabetes cases. We observed no significant increased risk of type 1 diabetes after vaccination with anthrax vaccine adsorbed (AVA) [RR=1.00; 95% CI (0.85, 1.17)], smallpox vaccine [RR=0.84; 95% (CI 0.70, 1.01)], typhoid vaccine [RR=1.03; 95% CI (0.87, 1.22)], hepatitis B vaccine [RR=0.83; 95% CI (0.72, 0.95)], measles mumps rubella vaccine (MMR) [RR=0.71, 95% CI (0.61, 0.83)], or yellow fever vaccine [RR=0.70; 95% CI (0.59, 0.82)]. CONCLUSIONS: We did not find an increased risk of diagnosed type 1 diabetes and any of the study vaccines. We recommend that follow-up studies using medical record review to confirm case status should be considered to corroborate these findings.

A comparative assessment of immunization records in the Defense Medical Surveillance System and the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System.

We compared immunization data in the Defense Medical Surveillance System (DMSS) and immunization data for service members with an anthrax vaccine-associated adverse event reported to the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS) during January 1998 through December 2004. Our main measure of agreement was sensitivity of the DMSS conditional on an immunization record(s) occurring in VAERS. The sensitivity of DMSS was 73% for all vaccines and 74% for the anthrax vaccine on the VAERS index immunization date. Our study is the first to quantify the agreement between immunization records in VAERS and DMSS. Our data suggest the immunization information in military VAERS reports and the DMSS is similar for anthrax and non-anthrax immunizations.