An outbreak following importation of wild poliovirus in Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, China, 2011.

Background: After more than 10 years without a case of wild poliovirus (WPV) in China, an outbreak occurred in 2011 in Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region.

Methods: Acute flaccid paralysis (AFP) case surveillance was strengthened with epidemiological investigations and specimen collection and serological surveys were conducted among hospitalized patients.

Results: There were 21 WPV cases and 23 clinical compatible polio cases reported.

Emergence of community-acquired adenovirus type 55 as a cause of community-onset pneumonia.

Background: Since 2008, severe cases of emerging human adenovirus (HAdV) type 55 (HAdV-55) were reported sporadically in China. But no comparative studies had been conducted to discern the differences in epidemiologic and clinical abnormalities between HAdV-55 and other types (HAdV-7, HAdV-3, HAdV-14, HAdV-50, and HAdV-C).

Methods: A multicenter surveillance study for adult and adolescent community-acquired pneumonia (CAP) was conducted prospectively in Beijing and Yan Tai between November 2010 and April 2012.

Identification and control of a poliomyelitis outbreak in Xinjiang, China.

Background: The last case of infection with wild-type poliovirus indigenous to China was reported in 1994, and China was certified as a poliomyelitis-free region in 2000. In 2011, an outbreak of infection with imported wild-type poliovirus occurred in the province of Xinjiang.

Methods: We conducted an investigation to guide the response to the outbreak, performed sequence analysis of the poliovirus type 1 capsid protein VP1 to determine the source, and carried out serologic and coverage surveys to assess the risk of viral propagation.

[Recent advance in new types of human adenovirus].

Adenoviruses are double stranded DNA viruses that cause an array of diseases. More than 60 types of human adenovirus have been reported so far. The discovery and division of human adenovirus types 52-67 are based on the genomic sequencing and bioinformatic analysisy and different from the pre-existing 51 serotypes identified by traditional serological methods in composition and pathogenicity.

[Rash and fever illness caused by herpes simplex virus type 1 needs to be distinguished from hand, foot and mouth disease].

An epidemic of rash and fever illnesses suspected of hand, foot and mouth disease (HFMD) occurred in Gansu Province of China in 2008, laboratory tests were performed in order to identify the pathogen that caused this epidemic. Eight clinical specimens collected from the 4 patients (each patient has throat swab and herpes fluid specimens) with rash and febrile illness, were inoculated onto RD and HEp-2 cells for virus isolation, and the viral nucleic acid was then extracted with the positive virus isolates, the dual-channel real-time reverse transcript-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) was performed to detect the nucleic acid of human enterovirus (HEV) in the viral isolates at the same time. For the viral isolates with the negative results of HEV, a sequence independent single primer amplification technique (SISPA) was used for "unknown pathogen" identification.

[Analysis the viral etiology of fever and respiratory tract infection syndrome in Shaanxi province].

Objective: Analysis the viral pathogenic spectrum for patients with fever and respiratory tract infection syndrome in Shaanxi province during 2010 and investigate the molecular epidemiology characteristics of respiratory syncytial virus.

Methods: A total of 208 patients' pharyngeal swabs were collected based on surveillance definition from January 2010 to January 2011 and screened for sixteen human respiratory virus types/subtypes by Qiaxcel-based multiplex reverse transcription-PCR assay, including HRV,HCoV, Flu, HPIV, ADV, HRSV, HMPV and HBoV and investigate molecular epidemiology of HRSV by sequencing and phylogenetic analysis of the C-terminal second hypervariable region of the G gene.

Results: 109 out of 208 specimens (53%) were positive for one or more viruses.

[Construction of NF-kappaB siRNA expression vector].

Objective: To construct a NF-kappaB siRNA expression vector and to detect the specific silencing effect of the siRNA on the expression of NF-kappaB protein.

Methods: pcDNA3.1/CT-GFP-TOPO recombinant eukaryotic expression vector and pSilencer 1.

Methane (CH4) emission from a natural wetland of northern China.

This article focuses on the seasonal and spatial changes of CH4 emission from the natural reed marsh of Liaohe Delta, China. Field experiments showed that this natural wetland acts as a CH4 sink in spring (-30 approximately -1000 microg/m2 x h), a strong source in summer (400-3000 microg/m2 x h) and a weak source in autumn (< 400 microg/m2 x h). Reed plants play an important role in transportation and emission of methane produced in soil.

On-line estimation of concentration parameters in fermentation processes.

It has long been thought that bioprocess, with their inherent measurement difficulties and complex dynamics, posed almost insurmountable problems to engineers. A novel software sensor is proposed to make more effective use of those measurements that are already available, which enable improvement in fermentation process control. The proposed method is based on mixtures of Gaussian processes (GP) with expectation maximization (EM) algorithm employed for parameter estimation of mixture of models.