Social vulnerability assessment under different extreme precipitation scenarios: A case study in Henan Province, China.

Extreme precipitation usually cause grievous losses&casualties, which varies greatly under different scenarios. This paper took Henan province as an example, it innovatively constructed three different extreme precipitation scenarios and built indicators system of social vulnerability from exposure, sensitivity and resilience based on MOVE framework. Social Vulnerability Indexs(SoVI) were then calculated by mathematical models under three different reoccurrence intervals. The results show that SoVI was low in the west and high in the north. High SoVI areas expanded to the middle and south as recurrence intervals increased. SoVI in each area of Henan province increased along with the recurrence intervals at different growth rates. The larger the recurrence interval was, the faster the SoVI increased. The results indicate SoVI is greatly affected by disaster levels, which need to be incorporated into social vulnerability. This study provides not only a new thought for social vulnerability assessment, but also a reference for the policymakers to formulate related risk management policies.

Noninvasive prenatal diagnosis of common aneuploidies by semiconductor sequencing.

Massively parallel sequencing (MPS) of cell-free fetal DNA from maternal plasma has revolutionized our ability to perform noninvasive prenatal diagnosis. This approach avoids the risk of fetal loss associated with more invasive diagnostic procedures. The present study developed an effective method for noninvasive prenatal diagnosis of common chromosomal aneuploidies using a benchtop semiconductor sequencing platform (SSP), which relies on the MPS platform but offers advantages over existing noninvasive screening techniques. A total of 2,275 pregnant subjects was included in the study; of these, 515 subjects who had full karyotyping results were used in a retrospective analysis, and 1,760 subjects without karyotyping were analyzed in a prospective study. In the retrospective study, all 55 fetal trisomy 21 cases were identified using the SSP with a sensitivity and specificity of 99.94% and 99.46%, respectively. The SSP also detected 16 trisomy 18 cases with 100% sensitivity and 99.24% specificity and 3 trisomy 13 cases with 100% sensitivity and 100% specificity. Furthermore, 15 fetuses with sex chromosome aneuploidies (10 45,X, 2 47,XYY, 2 47,XXX, and 1 47,XXY) were detected. In the prospective study, nine fetuses with trisomy 21, three with trisomy 18, three with trisomy 13, and one with 45,X were detected. To our knowledge, this is the first large-scale clinical study to systematically identify chromosomal aneuploidies based on cell-free fetal DNA using the SSP and provides an effective strategy for large-scale noninvasive screening for chromosomal aneuploidies in a clinical setting.