Corona Virus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) originated in Wuhan, China has caused many healthcare workers (HCWs) infected. Seventy-two HCWs manifested with acute respiratory illness were retrospectively enrolled to analyze the risk factors. The high-risk department, longer duty hours, and suboptimal hand hygiene after contacting with patients were linked to COVID-19.
Land use change and climate variability are two key factors impacting watershed hydrology, which is strongly related to the availability of water resources and the sustainability of local ecosystems. This study assessed separate and combined hydrological impacts of land use change and climate variability in the headwater region of a typical arid inland river basin, known as the Heihe River Basin, northwest China, in the recent past (1995–2014) and near future (2015–2024), by combining two land use models (i.e., Markov chain model and Dyna-CLUE) with a hydrological model (i.e., SWAT). The potential impacts in the near future were explored using projected land use patterns and hypothetical climate scenarios established on the basis of analyzing long-term climatic observations. Land use changes in the recent past are dominated by the expansion of grassland and a decrease in farmland; meanwhile the climate develops with a wetting and warming trend. Land use changes in this period induce slight reductions in surface runoff, groundwater discharge and streamflow whereas climate changes produce pronounced increases in them. The joint hydrological impacts are similar to those solely induced by climate changes. Spatially, both the effects of land use change and climate variability vary with the sub-basin. The influences of land use changes are more identifiable in some sub-basins, compared with the basin-wide impacts. In the near future, climate changes tend to affect the hydrological regimes much more prominently than land use changes, leading to significant increases in all hydrological components. Nevertheless, the role of land use change should not be overlooked, especially if the climate becomes drier in the future, as in this case it may magnify the hydrological responses.
A key event in the process of spermiogenesis is the formation of the flagella, which enables sperm to reach eggs for fertilization. Yeast two-hybrid studies revealed that meiosis-expressed gene 1 (MEIG1) and Parkin co-regulated gene (PACRG) interact, and that sperm-associated antigen 16, which encodes an axoneme central apparatus protein, is also a binding partner of MEIG1. In spermatocytes of wild-type mice, MEIG1 is expressed in the whole germ cell bodies, but the protein migrates to the manchette, a unique structure at the base of elongating spermatid that directs formation of the flagella. In the elongating spermatids of wild-type mice, PACRG colocalizes with α-tubulin, a marker for the manchette, whereas this localization was not changed in the few remaining elongating spermatids of Meig1-deficient mice. In addition, MEIG1 no longer localizes to the manchette in the remaining elongating spermatids of Pacrg-deficient mice, indicating that PACRG recruits MEIG1 to the manchette. PACRG is not stable in mammalian cells, but can be stabilized by MEIG1 or by inhibition of proteasome function. SPAG16L is present in the spermatocyte cytoplasm of wild-type mice, and in the manchette of elongating spermatids, but in the Meig1 or Pacrg-deficient mice, SPAG16L no longer localizes to the manchette. By contrast, MEIG1 and PACRG are still present in the manchette of Spag16L-deficient mice, indicating that SPAG16L is a downstream partner of these two proteins. Together, our studies demonstrate that MEIG1/PACRG forms a complex in the manchette and that this complex is necessary to transport cargos, such as SPAG16L, to build the sperm flagella.
Intraflagellar transport (IFT) is a conserved mechanism essential for the assembly and maintenance of most eukaryotic cilia and flagella. However, IFT25, a component of the IFT complex, is not required for the formation of cilia in somatic tissues. In mice, the gene is highly expressed in the testis, and its expression is upregulated during the final phase when sperm flagella are formed. To investigate the role of IFT25 in sperm flagella formation, the gene was specifically disrupted in male germ cells. All homozygous knockout mice survived to adulthood and did not show any gross abnormalities. However, all homozygous knockout males were completely infertile. Sperm numbers were reduced and these sperm were completely immotile. Multiple morphological abnormalities were observed in sperm, including round heads, short and bent tails, with some tails showing branched flagella and others with frequent abnormal thicknesses, as well as swollen tips of the tail. Transmission electron microscopy revealed that flagellar accessory structures, including the fibrous sheath and outer dense fibers, were disorganized, and most sperm had also lost the "9+2" microtubule structure. In the testis, IFT25 forms a complex with other IFT proteins. In Ift25 knockout testes, IFT27, an IFT25 binding partner, was missing, and IFT20 and IFT81 levels were also reduced. Our findings suggest that IFT25, although not necessary for the formation of cilia in somatic cells, is indispensable for sperm flagellum formation and male fertility in mice.
This research aims to determine the impacts caused by the endogenous change factor of land use and different policies related to water resource management in a hydrographic watershed over the socio-ecological system associated with it. This research focuses on the Santa Elena township (Medellín, Colombia) districts El Llano, El Plan, Santa Elena Central, and Perico.where the San Pedro micro-watershed is located.San Pedro micro-watershed supplies water to 1034 users and ecological reforestation was carried out there by the Municipality of Medellín. Based on this information collected in the field and complemented documentation review, the interactions and strength of social and ecological networks are analyzed to identify the structure and behavior of the socio-ecological system of the present study. This research shows the development of the socio-ecological system in a simulation model representing the system dynamics which aims to identify the impacts caused by water resource management policies and the influence of endogenous population growth. The results demonstrate that the most important impact generated by the endogenous influence and the execution of water resource management policies within the socio-ecological system of the San Pedro micro-watershed is the reduction of the land designated to agriculture, thus generating changes in the traditional economic activities of the territory of study. Likewise, the effects generated by the application of the policy of water resource management are efficient, and that guarantees the water supply in the San Pedro stream, despite the demand increasing of domestic water.
Health literacy (HL) has become an important public health issue and is receiving growing attention. However, the HL levels of military college students in China have never been analyzed. This study aimed to investigate the HL and related associate factors in military college students in Chongqing, China. Data was obtained with the “Chinese Citizen Health Literacy Questionnaire (2012 edition)” from 3183 military college students aged 16–28 years at Chongqing in December 2015. A total score of ≥80 points determined adequate HL, and HL level was defined as the proportion of students who had adequate HL out of the total number of participants. Multiple logistic regression analysis with a stepwise forward likelihood ratio (LR) method was used to determine the effects of sociodemographic characteristics, health-related behaviors, and family-related factors on HL level. The mean score of HL was 68.56, and the HL level of military college students was 21.05%; the overall knowledge rate was 71.33%. The independent factors that were associated with HL level were years in college, educational system, time playing online games, annual household income and father's education level. Senior (odds ratio [OR] = 1.229, 95% confidence interval [CI] 1.018∼1.484), undergraduate (OR = 1.509, 95% CI 1.151∼1.978), time played games more than 5 hours each week (OR = 0.638, 95% CI 0.486∼0.837), annual household incomes more than 50,000 yuan (OR = 1.231, 95% CI 1.027∼1.476) and father's education level (high school: OR = 2.327, 95% CI 1.186∼4.565; university: OR = 2.450, 95% CI 1.244∼4.825), were independently associated with higher HL level. HL levels of military college students in Chongqing need to be improved across the board. Our data suggests that special emphasis should be placed on students in junior and those in the specialist educational system. School departments may also benefit from incorporating health literacy into their curricula and helping students manage the time they spend playing online games.
Residual images and illumination estimation have been proved very helpful in image enhancement. In this paper, we propose a general and novel framework RIS-GAN which explores residual and illumination with Generative Adversarial Networks for shadow removal. Combined with the coarse shadow-removal image, the estimated negative residual images and inverse illumination maps can be used to generate indirect shadow-removal images to refine the coarse shadow-removal result to the fine shadow-free image in a coarse-to-fine fashion. Three discriminators are designed to distinguish whether the predicted negative residual images, shadow-removal images, and the inverse illumination maps are real or fake jointly compared with the corresponding ground-truth information. To our best knowledge, we are the first one to explore residual and illumination for shadow removal. We evaluate our proposed method on two benchmark datasets, i.e., SRD and ISTD, and the extensive experiments demonstrate that our proposed method achieves the superior performance to state-of-the-arts, although we have no particular shadow-aware components designed in our generators.
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