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Background: China is realizing increases in women engaged in premarital sex and multiple sex partner behavior. Our aim was to examine prevalence and determinants of multiple sex partner behavior among female undergraduates in China.

The incidence of diabetes in Zhejiang was relatively low, although rapidly rising trends have been found in recent years, particularly in younger children. Further monitoring and research are urgently required to better understand possible environmental risk factors and formulate preventive strategies.

BackgroundIn China, waterborne outbreaks of infectious diarrheal disease mainly occur in schools, and contaminated well water is a common source of pathogens. The objective of this review was to present the attack rates, durations of outbreak, pathogens of infectious diarrheal disease, and sanitary conditions of wells in primary and secondary schools in China, and to analyze risk factors and susceptibility of school children.MethodsRelevant articles and reports were identified by searching PubMed, Web of Science, China National Knowledge Infrastructure, China Information System for Disease Control and Prevention, and the Chinese Field Epidemiology Training Program. Essential information, including urban/rural areas, school types, attack rates, pathogens, durations of outbreak, report intervals, and interventions were extracted from the eligible articles. Wilcoxon signed-rank test, Kruskal–Wallis H test, and Spearman correlation test were conducted in statistical analyses. Sex- and age-specific attack rate ratios were calculated as pooled effect sizes.ResultsWe screened 2188 articles and retrieved data of 85 outbreaks from 1987 to 2014. Attack rates of outbreaks in rural areas (median, 12.63 cases/100 persons) and in primary schools (median, 14.54 cases/100 persons) were higher than those in urban areas (median, 5.62 cases/100 persons) and in secondary schools (median, 8.74 cases/100 persons) (P = 0.004 and P = 0.013, respectively). Shigella, pathogenic Escherichia coli, and norovirus were the most common pathogens. Boys tended toward higher attack rates than girls (sex-specific attack rate ratio, 1.13; 95% CI, 1.00–1.29, P = 0.05). Unsanitary conditions of water wells were reported frequently, and unhealthy behavior habits were common in students.ConclusionSchool children were susceptible to waterborne disease in China. Chinese government should make efforts to improve access to safe water in schools. Health education promotion and conscientiousness of school leaders and teachers should be enhanced.

Background Zhejiang Province has the fifth-highest incidence of severe fever with thrombocytopenia syndrome (SFTS) in China. While the top four provinces are all located in northern and central China, only Zhejiang Province is located in the Yangtze River Delta region of southeast China. This study was undertaken to identify the epidemiological characteristics of SFTS in Zhejiang from 2011 to 2018. Methods The epidemic data from SFTS cases in Zhejiang Province from January 2011 to December 2018 were obtained from the China Information Network System of Disease Prevention and Control. Meteorological data were collected from the China Meteorological Data Sharing Service System. A multivariate time series model was used to analyze the heterogeneity of spatial-temporal transmission of the disease. Random forest analysis was performed to detect the importance of meteorological factors and the dose-response association of the incidence of SFTS with these factors. Results In total, 412 SFTS cases (49 fatal) were reported from January 2011 to December 2018 in Zhejiang Province, China. The number of SFTS cases and the number of affected counties increased year by year. The case fatality rate in Zhejiang Province was 11.89%, which was the highest in China. Elderly patients and farmers were the most affected. The total effect values of the autoregressive component, spatiotemporal component and endemic component of the model in all ranges were 0.4580, 0.0377 and 0.0137, respectively. There was obvious heterogeneity across counties for the mean values of the spatiotemporal component and the autoregressive component. The autoregressive component was obviously the PLOS NEGLECTED TROPICAL DISEASES

Zhejiang Province is one of the six provinces in China that has the highest incidence of haemorrhagic fever with renal syndrome (HFRS). Data on HFRS cases in Zhejiang Province from January 2007 to July 2017 were obtained from the China Information Network System of Disease Prevention and Control. Joinpoint regression analysis was used to observe the trend of the incidence rate of HFRS. The monthly incidence rate was predicted by autoregressive integrated moving average(ARIMA) models. Spatial autocorrelation analysis was performed to detect geographic clusters. A multivariate time series model was employed to analyze heterogeneous transmission of HFRS. There were a total of 4,836 HFRS cases, with 15 fatal cases reported in Zhejiang Province, China in the last decade. Results show that the mean absolute percentage error (MAPE) of the modelling performance and the forecasting performance of the ARIMA model were 27.53% and 16.29%, respectively. Male farmers and middle-aged patients account for the majority of the patient population. There were 54 high-high clusters and 1 high-low cluster identified at the county level. The random effect variance of the autoregressive component is 0.33; the spatio-temporal component is 1.30; and the endemic component is 2.45. According to the results, there was obvious spatial heterogeneity in the endemic component and spatio-temporal component but little spatial heterogeneity in the autoregressive component. A significant decreasing trend in the incidence rate was identified, and obvious clusters were discovered. Spatial heterogeneity in the factors driving HFRS transmission was discovered, which suggested that a targeted preventive effort should be considered in different districts based on their own main factors that contribute to the epidemics.

Summary Dispersing metal nanoclusters on the oxide supports is attracting close attention in heterogeneous catalysis, but great challenges still lie in controlling the size and dispersion of nanoclusters due to the inevitable agglomeration. Here, we propose a sequential photochemical deposition strategy named “first store, and then release” to uniformly fabricate the size-controlling noble metal nanoclusters on semiconductor oxides. Using the typical semiconductor TiO 2 , the photoexcited electrons can be first stored as reduced species (e.g. Ti 3+ ) under irradiation and the Ti 3+ species can optimize both the nucleation and growth processes in dark reaction, resulting in a uniform dispersing of various noble metals (Au, Pt, Ag etc.) with size diameters of ∼1 nm. The nanoclusters catalysts exhibited superior performance in catalytic oxidation of HCHO compared with that of nanoparticles. This work brings a new and useful strategy to construct size-controlling noble metals on the oxide supports for heterogeneous catalysis and the related fields.

The retro Michael-type addition and thiol exchange of thioether succinimide click linkages in response to thiol-containing environments offers a novel strategy for the design of glutathione-sensitive degradable hydrogels for controlled drug delivery. Here we characterize the kinetics and extent of the retro Michael-type addition and thiol exchange with changes in both the pK a of the thiols and the identity of N-substituents of maleimides. A series of N-substituted thioether succinimides were prepared through typical Michael-type addition. Model studies (1H NMR, HPLC) of 4-mercaptophenylacetic acid (MPA, pK a 6.6) conjugated to N-ethyl maleimide (NEM), N-phenyl maleimide (NPM), or N-aminoethyl maleimide (NAEM) and then incubated with glutathione showed half-lives of conversion from 3.1 to 18 h, with extents of conversion from approximately 12% to 90%. The variations in the rates of exchange and hydrolytic ring opening appear to be mediated by resonance effects, electron-withdrawing capacity of the N-substituted moiety, as well as the potential for intramolecular catalytic hydrogen bonding of amine substituents with water (particularly in the case of ring opening). Further model studies of 4-mercaptohydrocinnamic acid (MPP, pK a 7.0) and N-acetyl-l-cysteine (NAC, pK a 9.5) conjugated to selected N-substituted maleimides and then incubated with glutathione showed half-lives of conversion from 3.6 to 258 h, with extents of conversion from approximately 1% to 90%. A higher pK a of the thiol decreased the rate of the exchange reaction and limited the impact of other electronic effects of N-substituents on the extents of conversion. Additional factors affecting the conversion kinetics were studied on NEM conjugates. The kinetics of the retro Michael-type addition and exchange reaction were not hindered by thiol traps of lower pK a, but were retarded in conditions of lower pH. These studies shed light into details of thiol and maleimide design that could be used to tune the rates of degradation of drug and polymer conjugates for a variety of applications.