Since its first emergence in 1998 in Malaysia, Nipah virus (NiV) has become a great threat to domestic animals and humans. Sporadic outbreaks associated with human‐to‐human transmission caused hundreds of human fatalities. Here, we collected all available NiV sequences and combined phylogenetics, molecular selection, structural biology and receptor analysis to study the emergence and adaptive evolution of NiV. NiV can be divided into two main lineages including the Bangladesh and Malaysia lineages. We formly confirmed a significant association with geography which is probably the result of long‐term evolution of NiV in local bat population. The two NiV lineages differ in many amino acids; one change in the fusion protein might be involved in its activation via binding to the G protein. We also identified adaptive and positively selected sites in many viral proteins. In the receptor‐binding G protein, we found that sites 384, 386 and especially 498 of G protein might modulate receptor‐binding affinity and thus contribute to the host jump from bats to humans via the adaption to bind the human ephrin‐B2 receptor. We also found that site 1645 in the connector domain of L was positive selected and involved in adaptive evolution; this site might add methyl groups to the cap structure present at the 5′‐end of the RNA and thus modulate its activity. This study provides insight to assist the design of early detection methods for NiV to assess its epidemic potential in humans.

Porcine viral diarrhea diseases affect the swine industry, resulting in significant economic losses. Porcine epidemic diarrhea virus (PEDV) genotypes G1 and G2, and groups A and C of the porcine rotavirus, are major etiological agents of severe gastroenteritis and profuse diarrhea, particularly among piglets, with mortality rates of up to 100%. Based on the high prevalence rate and frequent co-infection of PEDV, RVA, and RVC, close monitoring is necessary to avoid greater economic losses. We have developed a multiplex TaqMan probe-based real-time PCR for the rapid simultaneous detection and differentiation of PEDV subtypes G1 and G2, RVA, and RVC. This test is highly sensitive, as the detection limits were 20 and 100 copies/μL for the G1 and G2 subtypes of PEDV, respectively, and 50 copies/μL for RVA and RVC, respectively. Eighty-eight swine clinical samples were used to evaluate this new test. The results were 100% in concordance with the standard methods. Since reassortment between porcine and human rotaviruses has been reported, this multiplex test not only provides a basis for the management of swine diarrheal viruses, but also has the potential to impact public health as well.

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Background As an important feature of anxiety disorders, anxiety refers to the emotional response to the anticipation of future threat, and excessive anxiety is more likely to trigger multi-kinds of disease symptoms. The aim of this study was to detect different performance of high-anxiety and low-anxiety individuals to deal with the discrimination and reasoning tasks and the mutual influence between the two tasks. Methods A modified “reasoning-discrimination” paradigm with the discrimination (d’) of discrimination task and the projectability of the reasoning task as response variables was used. Sixty-nine participants assessed through STAI, GAD-7 and interviews, divided into two groups. Results The results revealed that all individuals showed emotional bias in discrimination tasks, but as to complex tasks, the d’ of the high-anxiety group was lower than that of the low-anxiety group, especially in neutral and positive conditions; in reasoning tasks, the difference between the two groups of emotional effects was not significant. Conclusions The findings suggest that high anxiety could impair the discrimination ability, especially the discrimination ability of the positive information, and lead to a greater negative bias. And the effects of anxiety in different cognitive domains are probably not universal, but specific.