A pandemic of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus-2 (SARS-CoV-2) infection broke out all over the world; however, epidemiological data and viral shedding in pediatric patients are limited. We conducted a retrospective, Chun-Zhen Hua and Zi-Ping Miao contributed equally to this study.

A new reconstruction of changes in Taiwan’s land cover and estimated uncertainty between 1904 and 2015 is presented. The reconstruction is made by integrating geographical information from historical maps and SPOT satellite images, to obtain spatially explicit land cover maps with a resolution of 500 × 500 m and distinguishes six land cover classes: forests, grasslands, agricultural land, inland water, built-up land, and bare soil. The temporal resolution is unbalanced being derived from four historical maps describing the land cover between 1904 and 1994 and five mosaic satellite images describing the land cover between 1995 and 2015. The uncertainty of the historical maps is quantified to show the aggregation error whereas the uncertainty of the satellite images is quantified as classification error. Since 1904, Taiwan, as a developing country, has gone through a not unusual sequence of population growth and subsequent urbanization, a decoupling of the demand for agricultural land from population growth, and a transition from shrinking in forest area to forest expansion. This new land cover reconstruction is expected to contribute to future revisions of global land cover reconstructions as well as to studies of (gross) land cover changes, the carbon budget, regional climate, urban heat islands, and air and water pollution at the national and sub-national level.

The aim of this study was to investigate the effect of metronidazole resistance (MtzR) and clarithromycin resistance (ClaR) on the eradication rate for omeprazole, clarithromycin, and metronidazole triple-therapy regimen and on the development of posttherapy drug resistance in a region of high rates of MtzR. One hundred ninety-six Helicobacter pylori isolates were recovered from patients with duodenal ulcer, gastric ulcer, or nonulcer dyspepsia during upper endoscopy. The prevalences of MtzR, ClaR, and dual resistance were 37.8%, 13.8%, and 8.7%, respectively. The intention-to-treat eradication rates for metronidazole-susceptible (87.2% vs. 67.6%; P=.001) and clarithromycin-susceptible (86.4% vs. 40.7%; P<.001) strains were significantly higher than the rates for resistant strains. Multiple logistic regression analysis implicated younger age (<40 years old), MtzR, ClaR, and the diagnosis of nonulcer dyspepsia as independent factors that predicted treatment failure. The rates of posttreatment MtzR, ClaR, and dual resistance were 88%, 88%, and 75%, respectively. MtxR and ClaR significantly affected the success of eradication therapy. Posttreatment rates of resistance were high and were related to the presence of pretreatment antibiotic resistance.

Eight aryl oxalates having an alkyoxy moiety were synthesised to improve the solubility in acetonitrile for the peroxyoxa I ate chem i I u m i nescence reaction system. Of these, bis [ 2-(3,6-d ioxa heptyloxyca rbo nyl)-4-fluorophenyl] oxalate showed the highest solubility (1685 mM). To evaluate these esters together with some known aryl oxalates as chemiluminescence reagents, a simple and rapid method using a flow injection system was developed. The chemiluminescence reaction system consisted of an oxalate, hydrogen peroxide, triethylamine and 9,lO-diphenylanthracene in acetonitrile. Of the oxalates synthesised, bis[2-(3,6-dioxaheptyloxycarbonyl)-4-bromophenyl] oxalate gave the highest intensity, which was about 100 times lower than that of bis(2,4-dinitrophenyI) oxalate. However, the chemiluminescence intensities of the oxalates synthesised continued for a far longer period of time than those of commercially available oxalates. Keywords : A r yl oxa la te; pe rox yoxa la te ch em ilu m in escen ce reaction; flow injection; b is[2-(3,6-d ioxa h ep t yloxycarbon yl)-4-fluorophen yl] oxalate Paper 9102035G