An Assessment of Trends in HIV-1 Prevalence and Incidence and Spatio-Temporal Analyses of HIV-1 Recent Infection Among MSM During the Surveillance Period Between 2018 and 2022 in Sichuan, China.

Background: Men who have sex with men (MSM) is one main type of high-risk activities facilitating HIV-1 transmission in Sichuan province. Previous works on HIV-1 incidence and prevalence among MSM only concentrated before 2018, the situation after that is unknown. In addition, the distribution of hot-spots related to current HIV-1 epidemic is also rarely known among MSM in Sichuan. Objective: To update trends of HIV-1 prevalence and incidence and to visualize hot-spots of ongoing transmission in Sichuan province during surveillance period among MSM between 2018 and 2022. Methods: Limiting Antigen Avidity assay was performed to detect recent infection within new HIV-1 diagnoses founded during surveillance period among MSM. The HIV-1 prevalence and incidence were calculated according to an extrapolation method proposed by publications and guidelines. Trend tests were performed using χ2 tests with linear-by-linear association. The spatial analysis was conducted with ArcGIS 10.7 to figure hot-spots of HIV-1 recent infections among MSM. Results: Between 2018 and 2022, 16,697 individuals participated in HIV-1 MSM sentinel surveillance program, of which 449 samples (98.25%) were tested with LAg-Avidity EIA, and 230 samples were classified as recent infection. Respectively, the overall prevalence and incidence were 2.74% and 3.69% (95% CI: 3.21, 4.16) and both had significant declining trends (p < 0.001). Luzhou city had a highest HIV-1 incidence (10.74%, 95% CI: 8.39, 13.10) over the study period and was recognized as a hot-spot for recent HIV-1 infection among MSM. Conclusion: During the surveillance period, both HIV-1 prevalence and incidence were declining. However, Luzhou city had an unusually high HIV-1 incidence and became an emerging hot-spot of recent HIV-1 infection among MSM. This finding suggested focused attention, cross-regional intervention strategies, and prevention programs are urgently required to curb the spread of ongoing transmission.

Green Synthesis and Biosafety Assessment of MXene.

The rise of MXene-based materials with fascinating physical and chemical properties has attracted wide attention in the field of biomedicine, because it can be exploited to regulate a variety of biological processes. The biomedical applications of MXene are still in its infancy, nevertheless, the comprehensive evaluation of MXene's biosafety is desperately needed. In this review, the composition and the synthetic methods of MXene materials are first introduced from the view of biosafety. The evaluation of the interaction between MXene and cells, as well as the safety of different forms of MXene applied in vivo are then discussed. This review provides a basic understanding of MXene biosafety and may bring new inspirations to the future applications of MXene-based materials in biomedicine.

A Soft-Reference Breast Ultrasound Image Quality Assessment Method That Considers the Local Lesion Area.

The quality of breast ultrasound images has a significant impact on the accuracy of disease diagnosis. Existing image quality assessment (IQA) methods usually use pixel-level feature statistical methods or end-to-end deep learning methods, which focus on the global image quality but ignore the image quality of the lesion region. However, in clinical practice, doctors' evaluation of ultrasound image quality relies more on the local area of the lesion, which determines the diagnostic value of ultrasound images. In this study, a global-local integrated IQA framework for breast ultrasound images was proposed to learn doctors' clinical evaluation standards. In this study, 1285 breast ultrasound images were collected and scored by experienced doctors. After being classified as either images with lesions or images without lesions, they were evaluated using soft-reference IQA or bilinear CNN IQA, respectively. Experiments showed that for ultrasound images with lesions, our proposed soft-reference IQA achieved PLCC 0.8418 with doctors' annotation, while the existing end-to-end deep learning method that did not consider the local lesion features only achieved PLCC 0.6606. Due to the accuracy improvement for the images with lesions, our proposed global-local integrated IQA framework had better performance in the IQA task than the existing end-to-end deep learning method, with PLCC improving from 0.8306 to 0.8851.

Occurrence and exposure risk assessment of organochlorine pesticides in two waterbird species from Honghu Lake Wetland, Central China.

Monitoring and evaluating bird exposure to hazardous pollutants in wetlands are receiving considerable attention. In this study, the occurrence of 18 organochlorine pesticides (OCPs) in the muscle of bean geese (Anser fabalis) and common teals (Anas crecca) collected from Honghu Lake Wetland (HLW), Central China was studied. Additionally, an exposure risk assessment model was applied to obtain risk levels of OCPs to these birds through three oral routes (food intake, water drinking and soil ingestion). The results suggested that the most abundant OCPs detected in the muscle of waterbirds were DDTs (7.68-602 ng/g lipid weight), followed by HCHs (1.39-89.8 ng/g lipid weight). A significant difference (p < 0.05) existed between two species, but most of OCPs exhibited no statistically relationship with age or gender (p > 0.05). The compositional patterns of OCPs combined with ratios of certain metabolites to their parent compounds indicated that all OCPs in the HLW were largely from historical usage except heptachlor. The exposure risk assessment revealed that common teals with lighter weight had greater exposure risks than bean geese. Of the OCPs analyzed, DDTs could probably cause harm to target birds studied here. Exposure via food intake was identified to be significant while soil ingestion and water drinking contributed least, but they should still be concerned.

The Reimbursement Rate of New Rural Cooperative Medical Scheme and Self-Rated Health Among Rural Middle-Aged and Elderly.

Objectives: The ultimate goal of the New Rural Cooperative Medical Scheme (NRCMS) is to improve physical and psychological health and aim to provide equitable, affordable, cost-effective healthcare services for all rural people. One of our major concerns from the perspective of policy outcome is whether middle-aged and elderly can benefit from the insurance to improve self-rated health. The main objectives of this study are to answer the questions that the reimbursement rate of the NRCMS is a possible explanation of why and how rural middle-aged and elderly shift from non-medical service inputs to medical service to produce health based on a family production theory. Methods: Data were obtained from the China Health and Retirement Longitudinal Study (CHARLS) conducted in 2018, which involved 1,030 rural adults aged 45 years and older, and ordinal logistic regression estimator and two-step regression were used to examine these assumptions. Our approach controlled for the health status of those people at the same administrative level of the hospital. Results: Our study shows some interesting results. First, the reimbursement rate of NRCMS predicted a higher level of SRH among rural middle-aged and elderly, but that all of the indirect effect of it on SRH could be explained in total by satisfaction of local medical services utilization (ab = 0.0492). Second, the results further showed that the odds ratio of satisfaction from affordable, convenient, high-quality medical services is 2.402 times (p < 0.01) greater for those with higher reimbursement levels than for their counterparts with lower reimbursement. Third, the odds ratios of inpatient care visit, outpatient care visit, and physical examination among policyholders of NRCMS are also 1.116, 1.628, and 1.08 times greater, respectively, than their counterparts who are not satisfied with these local medical services. Conclusions: Our results concluded that generous insurance reimbursement can reduce the price of healthcare and costs of utilization that both had a dramatic effect on SRH among middle-aged and elderly when their demand for medical treatment is incurred. The government should focus on the healthcare cost, utilization, and health benefit calculations of health insurance policy options at the stage of rapid aging in rural China.

Cost-effectiveness analysis of 4 GLP-1RAs in the treatment of obesity in a US setting.

Background: The number of obese people continues to increase worldwide, and obesity-related complications add to every country's health burden. Consequently, new weight-loss medications, such as glucagon-like peptide-1 receptor agonists (GLP-1RAs), are attracting increasing attention. This study sought to assess the cost effectiveness for weight loss of 4 GLP-1RAs in adult patients with obesity in the United States. Methods: Four GLP-1RA groups that received Liraglutide (1.8 mg QD), Semaglutide (1.0 mg QW), Dulaglutide (1.5 mg QW), or Exenatide (10 µg BID), and one no-treatment group were compared using a decision-tree model. All the estimated parameters were derived from published articles. Quality-adjusted life years (QALYs), costs, and incremental cost-effectiveness ratios (ICERs) were adopted as the study endpoints. We analyzed the results with the willingness-to-pay (WTP) threshold, and conducted deterministic and probabilistic sensitivity analyses. Results: The GLP-1RAs produced effective weight-loss results; however, not all the GLP-1RAs were cost effective compared to no treatment based on a WTP threshold of $195000/QALY. Among the 4 GLP-1RAs, Semaglutide provided a cost-effective strategy with an ICER of $135467/QALY. The sensitivity analyses showed that these results are reliable. Conclusions: Among the 4 GLP-1RAs, Semaglutide was the most cost-effective obesity medication.

Comparison of Diffusion Kurtosis Imaging and Amide Proton Transfer Imaging in the Diagnosis and Risk Assessment of Prostate Cancer.

OBJECTIVES: This study aims to evaluate and compare the diagnostic value of DKI and APT in prostate cancer (PCa), and their correlation with Gleason Score (GS). MATERIALS AND METHODS: DKI and APT imaging of 49 patients with PCa and 51 patients with benign prostatic hyperplasia (BPH) were collected and analyzed, respectively. According to the GS, the patients with PCa were divided into high-risk, intermediate-risk and low-risk groups. The mean kurtosis (MK), mean diffusion (MD) and magnetization transfer ratio asymmetry (MTRasym, 3.5 ppm) values among PCa, BPH, and different GS groups of PCa were compared and analyzed respectively. The diagnostic accuracy of each parameter was evaluated by using the receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve. The correlation between each parameter and GS was analyzed by using Spearman's rank correlation. RESULTS: The MK and MTRasym (3.5 ppm) values were significantly higher in PCa group than in BPH group, while the MD value was significantly lower than in BPH group. The differences of MK/MD/MTRasym (3.5 ppm) between any two of the low-risk, intermediate-risk, and high-risk groups were all statistically significant (p <0.05). The MK value showed the highest diagnostic accuracy in differentiating PCa and BPH, BPH and low-risk, low-risk and intermediate-risk, intermediate-risk and high-risk (AUC = 0.965, 0.882, 0.839, 0.836). The MK/MD/MTRasym (3.ppm) values showed good and moderate correlation with GS (r = 0.844, -0.811, 0.640, p <0.05), respectively. CONCLUSION: DKI and APT imaging are valuable in the diagnosis of PCa and demonstrate strong correlation with GS, which has great significance in the risk assessment of PCa.

Cajanolactone A, a stilbenoid from Cajanus cajan, inhibits energy intake and lipid synthesis/storage, and promotes energy expenditure in ovariectomized mice.

BACKGROUND: We had reported that cajanolactone A (CLA) from Cajanus cajan dose-dependently inhibited ovariectomy-induced obesity and liver steatosis in mice, showing potential to prevent postmenopausal obesity and fatty liver. In this study, the role of CLA in the regulation of energy and lipid homeostasis was investigated. METHODS: Ovariectomized mice treated with CLA or vehicle for 12 weeks were performed a 48 h monitoring for energy metabolism and food uptake. After that, hypothalami, perigonadal (pWATs), inguinal (iWATs) and brown (BATs) adipose tissues, livers, sera, and fecal and cecal contents were collected and analyzed. FINDINGS: In CLA-treated mice, we observed reduced food uptake; increased energy expenditure; inhibited expression of orexigenic genes (ORX, ORXR2, pMCH and Gal) in the hypothalami, of lipogenic genes (CD36, SREBP-1c, ChREBP, PPARγ) in the livers, and of lipid storage proteins in the WATs (FSP27, MEST and caveolin-1) and livers (FSP27, Plin2 and Plin5); stimulated expression of metabolism-related proteins (pATGL and Echs1) in the adipose tissues and of thermogenic protein (UCP1) in the inguinal WATs; increased BAT content; increased mitochondria in the pWATs and livers; inhibited angiogenesis in the pWATs; and altered gut microbiome diversity with an increased abundance of Bacteroides. INTERPRETATION: CLA prevents ovariectomy-induced obesity and liver steatosis via regulating energy intake and lipid synthesis/storage, promoting UCP1-dependent heat production, and protecting the mitochondrial function of hepatocytes and adipocytes. The improved gut microecology and inhibited angiogenesis may also contribute to the anti-obese activity of CLA.

[Ongoing Evaluation of Immune-related Response Assessment in Brain Metastases].

Brain metastases are the major cause of adult malignant nervous system tumors. For this part of population, treatment options are limited and the prognosis is poor. In recent years, immunotherapy based on inhibitors of programmed cell death protein 1 (PD-1) and programmed cell death receptor ligand 1 (PD-L1), have brought innovation to the treatment of malignant tumors. Immune checkpoint inhibitors (ICIs) have revolutionized the management of advanced non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC). Encouraging results have suggested that ICIs could be active in selected advanced NSCLC brain metastases with driver-negative patients. However, for patients with brain metastases, not only the corresponding clinical data are limited, but also the evaluation of its efficacy lacks a unified standard. This article aims to review the relevant efficacy evaluation standards and their application in clinical researches, compare the similarities and differences, and look forward to future trends.
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[A Real-world Study on the Assessment of Pathological Characteristics and Targeted Therapeutic Effect of Non-small Cell Lung Cancer Patients with Positive Driving Genes and High PD-L1 Expression].

BACKGROUND: Targeted therapy for patients with driver genes positive and immunotherapy for patients with driver gene-negative but high programmed death ligand 1 (PD-L1) expression are the standards of first-line treatment for patients with advanced non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC). The treatment options for patients with driver gene positive and high PD-L1 expression are still worth exploring. METHODS: The characteristics of 315 patients with NSCLC were identified to analyze the clinicopathological characteristics of patients with driver gene positive and high PD-L1 expression, and the efficacy of targeted therapy. RESULTS: Among the 315 patients, the total positive rate of driver genes was 62.2%, and the high PD-L1 expression rate (≥50.0%) was 11.2%. The proportion of patients with driver gene positive and high PD-L1 expression was 10.7%. PD-L1 was highly expressed in patients with epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) mutation, KRAS mutation, ALK fusion, BRAF mutation, and MET 14 exon skip mutation, the proportions were 7.8% (11/141), 18.2% (4/22), and 23.1%, (3/13), 50.0% (2/4) and 100.0% (1/1) respectively. EGFR mutation positive with PD-L1 high expression was mainly in patients with stage IV lung adenocarcinoma. KRAS mutation positive with PD-L1 high expression was mainly in patients with a history of smoking. Among them, two patients were followed in detail for targeted therapy, who with ALK fusion-positive and PD-L1 high expression (90.0%), EGFR L858R mutation and PD-L1 high expression (70.0%) respectively. The total OS of the patients was 5 months, 2 months. CONCLUSIONS: The high PD-L1 expression rate in NSCLC patients with different driver gene mutations was variable, which maybe correlated with distinct clinicopathological characteristics. Patients with sensitive mutations and high PD-L1 expression may be less benefit from targeted therapy and have poor prognosis.

Multiobjective Particle Swarm Optimization for Feature Selection With Fuzzy Cost.

Feature selection (FS) is an important data processing technique in the field of machine learning. There have been various FS methods, but all assume that the cost associated with a feature is precise, which restricts their real applications. Focusing on the FS problem with fuzzy cost, a fuzzy multiobjective FS method with particle swarm optimization, called PSOMOFS, is studied in this article. The proposed method develops a fuzzy dominance relationship to compare the goodness of candidate particles and defines a fuzzy crowding distance measure to prune the elitist archive and determine the global leader of particles. Also, a tolerance coefficient is introduced into the proposed method to ensure that the Pareto-optimal solutions obtained satisfy decision makers' preferences. The developed method is used to tackle a series of the UCI datasets and is compared with three fuzzy multiobjective evolutionary methods and three typical multiobjective FS methods. Experimental results show that the proposed method can achieve feature sets with superior performances in approximation, diversity, and feature cost.

An Immunogram for an Individualized Assessment of the Antitumor Immune Response in Patients With Hepatocellular Carcinoma.

In clinical practice, the cancer-immunity cycle of an individual patient with hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) must be described to support the clinical management of cancer. The present study explored the immunograms of patients with liver cancer based on liver RNA sequencing data to visually display the individualized cancer-immunity cycles. Two independent HCC cohorts [The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) and Liver Cancer-RIKEN, Japan (LIRI-JP) HCC cohorts] with whole exome sequencing (WES) data, RNA sequencing data, and clinical data from TCGA and International Cancer Genome Consortium (ICGC) were enrolled in this study. This study constructed HCC immunograms of cancer immune cells to visually explore the anticancer immune responses of patients with HCC. The patterns of the HCC immunograms were categorized into two clusters: hot and cold HCC immunograms. Favorable overall survival (OS) and disease-free survival (DFS) were observed in the hot immunogram cluster in the TCGA cohort. The results for LIRI-JP cohort were similar to the TCGA cohort. The OS of patients with HCC presenting the hot immunogram was longer than patients with the cold immunogram in the LIRI-JP HCC cohort. Compared with cold immunograms, hot immunograms were characterized by higher levels of immune cell infiltration and stronger immune signatures, including cytolytic activity, IFN-γ signature, immunocostimulator, immunoinhibitor, chemokine, adhesion molecule, MHC I, MHC II, and non-class MHC levels. The main difference in molecular features between hot and cold immunograms was reflected in WNT-CTNNB1 alterations and copy number variant (CNV) and loss of heterozygosity (LOH) scores, which are the molecular features associated with resistance to immunotherapy and tumor escape. The immunogram patterns were distinct in terms of the different molecular features of HCC tumors. The HCC immunogram for the cancer-immune cycle was able to visualize the personalized antitumor immune response of patients with HCC, and the patterns of the HCC immunograms contributed to the clinical outcomes of patients, which may facilitate an individualized assessment of the antitumor immune response for optimal personalized immunotherapy.

Integrating opportunistic glaucoma screening into general health examinations in China: A pilot study.

IMPORTANCE: Under-detection and late diagnosis are major causes of glaucoma-related visual impairment. Cost-effective opportunistic glaucoma screening is of great interest in the early identification and prevention of glaucoma. BACKGROUND: To describe the results of a health examination centre-based opportunistic glaucoma screening and referral model. DESIGN: This single centre cross-sectional study was conducted in a health examination centre affiliated to a tertiary hospital in Shenyang, northeastern China. PARTICIPANTS: From 21 March to 30 September 2016, 14 367 individuals aged ≥ 30 years undergoing routine physical examinations were invited for this glaucoma screening. METHODS: Presenting visual acuity, non-contact pneumotonometry and non-mydriatic fundus photography were evaluated. Fundus photographs were classified as non-glaucoma, possible, probable and definitive glaucoma. Participants with probable and definite glaucomatous discs or intraocular pressure ≥ 24 mmHg were referred for definitive examinations. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: Detection rate of glaucoma suspects and ocular hypertension (OHT). Cost to identify a single case with suspected and diagnosed glaucoma was also calculated. RESULTS: Altogether, 277 glaucoma suspects and 327 ocular hypertension suspects were identified. Among 190 participants with probable/definite glaucomatous discs, 93 (48.9%) accepted further examination. Among these, 78 were diagnosed as glaucoma, seven as suspects and eight were excluded. Only 98 ocular hypertension suspects (30.0%) accepted further examinations: eight had primary angle closure and 23 had confirmed ocular hypertension. The cost to identify a single glaucoma suspect and definite glaucoma case were US$135 and US$857, respectively. CONCLUSIONS AND RELEVANCE: This novel screening model provides opportunities to improve glaucoma detection at low cost. Interventions to improve follow-up are needed.

Thermal dependence of feeding performance and resting metabolic expenditure in different altitudinal populations of toad-headed lizards.

Inter-population variations in growth rate can result from independent or interactive effects of genetic and environmental factors, and be induced by some physiological differences as well. Toad-headed lizards (Phrynocephalus vlangalii) from a higher-elevation population were shown to have a higher growth rate than those from a lower-elevation population. The physiological basis of growth rate variation in this species is not well understood. Here, we investigated the feeding performance and resting metabolic rate (RMR) of lower- and higher-elevation individuals at different test ambient temperatures to evaluate the role of differences in energy intake, assimilation efficiency and metabolic expenditure on growth rate variations. Within the range of 25-35 °C, lizard RMR increased with increasing test ambient temperature, but food intake, apparent digestive coefficient (ADC, food energy minus faecal energy divided by food energy), and assimilation efficiency (AE, food energy minus faecal and urinary energy divided by food energy) were less thermally sensitive in both populations. Higher-elevation lizards tended to eat more food and have a lower RMR than lower-elevation ones, despite the lack of differences in ADC and AE. Our result showed that more energy intake and reduced maintenance cost may be associated with the higher growth rate of higher-elevation lizards. Accordingly, inter-population differences in energy acquisition and expenditure could act as potential sources for geographic variation in growth rate.

Occurrence, behavior and risk assessment of estrogens in surface water and sediments from Hanjiang River, Central China.

Estrogens have been widely detected in water and might pose a potential threat to the aquatic ecosystem. However, little information is available about the occurrence, multi-phase fate and potential risks of estrogens in Hanjiang River (HR). In this work, the concentration, multi-phase distribution and risk assessment of eight estrogens were studied by investigating surface water and sediment samples from HR during two seasons. These samples were analyzed using the solid-phase extraction (SPE) and liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry (LC-MS). The concentrations of eight estrogens were 4.5-111 ng/l in surface water and 1.7-113 ng/g dry weight in sediments. 4-nonylphenol (NP) was the predominant estrogen in both water and sediments. The estrogens showed significantly spatial variability, with the highest average concentration in the lower section of HR (p < 0.01, F > 12.21). Meanwhile, NP, 17α-estradiol (αE2), Bisphenol A (BPA) and 4-tert-octyphenol (OP) in surface water exhibited higher concentrations in summer than in winter (p < 0.05, F > 4.62). The sediment-water partition coefficients of estrogens suggested that these compounds partitioned more to particulate phase. Risk assessment indicated that estriol (E3) was the main contributor to the total estradiol equivalent concentration. Moreover, estrogen mixtures could pose high ecological risks to aquatic organisms in surface water. Overall, estrogens are ubiquitous in HR, and their potential ecological risks should not be neglected.

Characteristics influencing high-risk sexual behaviours in elderly men.

With the objective of investigating the characteristics influencing high-risk sexual behaviours in elderly men (60-74 years of age) in Chongqing, China, a total of 1433 healthy elderly men with sexual intercourse frequencies of one to six times/month who were willing to participate in the questionnaires were studied at four hospitals. We measured serum testosterone levels and performed follow-ups every six months, with a total of 1128 elderly men followed up after two years. We also investigated socio-economic and demographic characteristics (age, education, income, location, marital status and number of marriages), types of sexual partners, age differences with fixed sexual partners, frequency of sexual intercourse, combined basic age-related diseases, sexually transmitted infections (STIs) education, elderly self-care ability and high-risk sexual behaviours (frequency of sexual intercourse and number of sexual partners) using questionnaires. We analysed the influencing factors of high-risk sexual behaviours in elderly men using a univariate analysis, multivariate logistic regression analysis, BP neural network prediction and cluster analysis. Finally, we found that serum total testosterone, age, types of sexual partners, age differences with fixed partners and frequency of sexual intercourse are five factors that influence high-risk sexual behaviours in elderly men.

Assessment of one-dose mumps-containing vaccine effectiveness on wild-type genotype F mumps viruses circulating in mainland China.

To clarify the protective effect of one-dose mumps-containing vaccines (MuCV) in mainland China, the antigenic variations of HN gene and cross-neutralization capacities between MuCV and wild type genotype F MuVs were studied. In total, 70 HN gene sequences of genotype F MuV representative strains obtained from 2001 to 2015, two types of MuCV strains, 139 pairs of pre- and post-vaccination serum samples from infants receiving one dose of MuCV vaccination were analyzed. Genotype-specific amino acid variations were observed in the potential antigenic epitopes between MuCV and wild-type genotype F MuVs circulating in mainland China. The mumps neutralization antibody titers induced by one-dose MuCV were found to be generally low. Moreover, significant differences in neutralization titers were observed between vaccine and wild-type strains. It could be concluded that one-dose MuCV had a cross-protective effect against the wild-type genotype F MuVs, but its effectiveness was limited, which might be caused by insufficient doses of MuCV vaccination and the genotype-specific antigenic differences between vaccine and wild-type MuVs as well. In addition, a poor linear correlation between mumps-specific IgG concentrations and neutralization titers was observed in this study, indicating the concentration of MuV-specific IgG could not fully reflect the neutralizing antibody titer in serum. Therefore, it is highly recommended to provide a second dose of MuCV to preschool children to increase MuV neutralizing antibody titers and use MuV cross-neutralization test as preferred tool for assessment of mumps-containing vaccine effectiveness on wild-type MuVs. This is the first report to assess the effectiveness of one-dose Chinese MuCV against wild-type genotype F MuVs, which would be benefit for the development of mumps vaccination strategy.

Antibiotics in surface water and sediments from Hanjiang River, Central China: Occurrence, behavior and risk assessment.

Thirteen antibiotics including sulfonamides (SAs), tetracyclines (TETs) and fluoroquinolones (FQs) were measured in Hanjiang River (HR) during two periods. The total concentrations of 13 antibiotics in surface water and sediments ranged from 3.1 to 109 ng/l and from 10 to 45 ng/g dry weight, respectively. SAs were dominant in water while the concentrations of TETs were the highest in sediments in two seasons. For their spatial distribution, total concentrations of 13 antibiotics in both matrices were significantly higher in the lower section of HR (p < 0.02, F > 5.15) due to wastewater release, agricultural activities and water transfer project. Obvious seasonal variations of sulfadiazine, sulfameter, trimethoprim and oxytetracycline in water were observed (p < 0.05, F > 4.62). Phase partition of antibiotics between water and sediments suggested a greater affinity of TETs and FQs to sediments. In addition, significantly positive relationships were found between SAs (sulfameter, sulfamethoxazole and trimethoprim) and sediment TOC (p < 0.05). Risk assessment indicated that the hazard quotients of antibiotics were higher in the sediment than those in the water. Moreover, antibiotic mixtures posed higher ecological risks to aquatic organisms.

Assessment of organochlorine pesticide contamination in waterbirds from an agricultural region, Central China.

Twenty-one organochlorine pesticides (OCPs) were measured in the muscle of six predominant waterbird species from Jianghan Plain, Hubei Province, Central China. Among OCPs, DDTs were the most prevalent compounds, with average concentration ranging from 31.1 to 1445 ng/g lipid weight. Little egrets (Egretta garzetta) and Chinese pond herons (Ardeola bacchus) showed significantly higher concentrations of OCPs (p < 0.05) due to their dietary habits and migratory patterns. There were no statistically significant differences (p > 0.05) for most OCPs between sex and age groups. The accumulation profiles of HCHs and DDTs suggested that these OCPs in Jianghan Plain were largely derived from historical usage. Risk assessment indicated that heptachlor could be likely to pose adverse health effects on people consuming ducks in Jianghan Plain.

A transfer learning approach to goodness of pronunciation based automatic mispronunciation detection.

Goodness of pronunciation (GOP) is the most widely used method for automatic mispronunciation detection. In this paper, a transfer learning approach to GOP based mispronunciation detection when applying maximum F1-score criterion (MFC) training to deep neural network (DNN)-hidden Markov model based acoustic models is proposed. Rather than train the whole network using MFC, a DNN is used, whose hidden layers are borrowed from native speech recognition with only the softmax layer trained according to the MFC objective function. As a result, significant mispronunciation detection improvement is obtained. In light of this, the two-stage transfer learning based GOP is investigated in depth. The first stage exploits the hidden layer(s) to extract phonetic-discriminating features. The second stage uses a trainable softmax layer to learn the human standard for judgment. The validation is carried out by experimenting with different mispronunciation detection architectures using acoustic models trained by different criteria. It is found that it is preferable to use frame-level cross-entropy to train the hidden layer parameters. Classifier based mispronunciation detection is further experimented with using features computed by transfer learning based GOP and it is shown that it also helps to achieve better results.