Dermatitis caused by insects and mites, diagnosed as papular urticaria or scabies, is a common skin disease. However, there is still a lack of studies about the effects of weather and air pollution ...on outpatient visits for this disease. This study aims to explore the impacts of meteorological and environmental factors on daily visits of dermatitis outpatients.
Analyses are conducted on a total of 43,101 outpatient visiting records during the years 2015-2020 from the largest dermatology specialist hospital in Guangzhou, China. Hierarchical cluster models based on Pearson correlation between risk factors are utilized to select regression variables. Linear regression models are fitted to identify the statistically significant associations between the risk factors and daily visits, taking into account the short-term effects of temperatures. Permutation importance is adopted to evaluate the predictive ability of these factors.
Short-term temperatures have positive associations with daily visits and exhibit strong predictive abilities. In terms of total outpatients, the one-day lagged temperature not only has a significant impact on daily visits, but also has the highest median value of permutation importance. This conclusion is robust across most subgroups except for subgroups of summer and scabies, wherein the three-day lagged temperature has a negative effect. By contrast, air pollution has insignificant associations with daily visits and exhibits weak predictive abilities. Moreover, weekdays, holidays and trends have significant impacts on daily visits, but with weak predictive abilities.
Our study suggests that short-term temperatures have positive associations with daily visits and exhibit strong predictive abilities. Nevertheless, air pollution has insignificant associations with daily visits and exhibits weak predictive abilities. The results of this study provide a reference for local authorities to formulate intervention measures and establish an environment-based disease early warning system.
Metastases are the most prevalent tumors in the brain and are commonly associated with high morbidity and mortality. Previous studies have suggested that brain tumors can induce a loss of functional ...connectivity and alter the brain network architecture. Little is known about the effect of brain metastases on whole-brain functional and structural connectivity networks. In this study, 14 patients with brain metastases and 16 healthy controls underwent resting state functional magnetic resonance imaging (rs-fMRI) and diffusion tensor imaging (DTI). We constructed functional connectivity network using rs-fMRI signal correlations and structural connectivity network using DTI tractography. Graph theoretical analysis was employed to calculate network properties. We further evaluated the performance of brain networks after metastases resection by a simulated method. Compared to healthy controls, patients with brain metastases showed an altered "small-world" architecture in both functional and structural connectivity networks, shifting to a more randomness organization. Besides, the coupling strength of functional-structural connectivity was decreased in patients. After removing nodes infiltrated by metastases, aggravated disruptions were found in both functional and structural connectivity networks, and the alterations of network properties correlated with the removed hubs number. Our findings suggest that brain metastases interfere with the optimal network organization and relationship of functional and structural connectivity networks, and tumor resection involving hubs could cause a worse performance of brain networks. This study provides neuroimaging guidance for neurosurgical planning and postoperative assessment of brain metastases from the aspect of brain networks.
Recently, issues of human resource management gradually attract a lot of attention from organizational behavior scholars, thus how to effectively improve service employees' job attitude and ...performance to meet the needs of stakeholders is one of the key issues in internal marketing. Based on the perspective of internal marketing, the study transforms the relevant factors applied to maintaining external customer relations into internal employee-oriented factors, so as to increase the understanding of the relationship between internal service recovery and internal relationship quality (IRQ). This study aims to explore (1) whether internal service recovery enhances IRQ; (2) whether internal relationship investment (IRI) positively moderates relationship between internal service recovery and IRQ; and (3) whether effectiveness of internal service recovery differentiates under different exchange relationship (high/low quality leader-member exchange). In this study, a total of 206 Mainland China and 250 Taiwanese participants were collected. In this study, a variance-based structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) was performed to test the proposed hypothesizes and conduct comparative analysis. Empirical results in both samples show that internal service recovery has positive and significant effects on IRQ; internal relationship investment and leader-member exchange (LMX) positively and significantly moderate the relationship between internal service recovery and IRQ. Finally, based on the results, this study provides some discussions, suggestions and managerial implications for future studies in organizational management.
Neonicotinoid insecticides are one of the most important commercial insecticides used worldwide. The potential toxicity of the residues present in environment to humans has received considerable ...attention. In this study, a novel Ochrobactrum sp. strain D-12 capable of using acetamiprid as the sole carbon source as well as energy, nitrogen source for growth was isolated and identified from polluted agricultural soil. Strain D-12 was able to completely degrade acetamiprid with initial concentrations of 0-3000 mg · L(-1) within 48 h. Haldane inhibition model was used to fit the special degradation rate at different initial concentrations, and the parameters q max, K s and K i were determined to be 0.6394 (6 h)(-1), 50.96 mg · L(-1) and 1879 mg · L(-1), respectively. The strain was found highly effective in degrading acetamiprid over a wide range of temperatures (25-35 °C) and pH (6-8). The effects of co-substrates on the degradation efficiency of acetamiprid were investigated. The results indicated that exogenously supplied glucose and ammonium chloride could slightly enhance the biodegradation efficiency, but even more addition of glucose or ammonium chloride delayed the biodegradation. In addition, one metabolic intermediate identified as N-methyl-(6-chloro-3-pyridyl)methylamine formed during the degradation of acetamiprid mediated by strain D-12 was captured by LC-MS, allowing a degradation pathway for acetamiprid to be proposed. This study suggests the bacterium could be a promising candidate for remediation of environments affected by acetamiprid.
Proposed pathway for AAP degradation by strain Pseudoxanthomonas sp. AAP-7.
•A new bacterium AAP-7 was isolated and characterized.•A new AAP-degrading strain belonging to Pseudoxanthomonas sp. was ...first reported.•A novel degradation pathway of AAP was proposed according to the metabolites.•Degradation kinetics of AAP was also first studied, with its regularity described.
An AAP-degrading bacterium, AAP-7, was isolated from AAP-polluted soil. AAP-7 was identified as Pseudoxanthomonas sp. on the basis of the comparative analysis of 16S rDNA sequences. The strain was able to transformate more than 80% AAP by means of co-metabolism and degraded AAP via hydrolysis or demethylation to form (E)-3-(((6-chloropyridin-3yl)methyl)(methyl)amino)acrylonitrile and N-((6-chloropyridin-3yl)methyl)-N-methylprop-1-en-2-amine, both of which transformed into ultimate product, which was 1-(6-chloropyridin-3yl)-N-methylmethanamine. A novel degradation pathway was proposed based on these metabolites. AAP could be transformed with a maximum specific degradation rate, half-saturation constant and inhibit constant of 1.775/36h, 175.3mgL−1, and 396.5mgL−1, respectively, which proved that the degradation rate of AAP could be restrained at high AAP concentration. This paper highlights a significant potential use of co-metabolic cultures of microbial cells for the cleanup of AAP-contaminated soil.
Chlorothalonil (CTN) is one of the most widely used fungicides and is often detected in the environment. Here, we report the isolation and characterization of a novel CTN-degrading bacterial strain ...XF-3 from long-term CTN-contaminated sites and identify it as a strain of the Paracoccus sp. The isolate could utilise CTN as the sole source of carbon and energy for growth. The optimal pH and temperature for degradation by XF-3 were 7.0 and 30°C, respectively. The CTN degradation gene was cloned by PCR. Although the results of a BLAST sequence search indicated that this gene has a 99% similarity with chd (a gene encoding the CTN hydrolytic dehalogenase), its hydrolytic efficiency for CTN was slightly greater than the chd from strain CTN-3. This is the first report of this gene from the genus Paracoccus. Therefore, there is a practical significance and a potential value of the isolated novel strain, XF-3.
The sorption of three organic contaminants with different structure and polarity including non-polar phenanthrene (PHEN), 1,2,4,5-tetrachlorobenzene (TeCB), and polar 1,2-dichlorobenzene (DCB) onto ...original kaolinite, smectite, vermiculite, and fulvic acid (FA)/humic acid (HA)–clay complexes were investigated, and possible sorption mechanisms were inferred from sorption isotherms and characteristics of humic substances (HS) and HS–mineral complexes. Results showed smectite and vermiculite had stronger sorption ability than kaolinite, and the adsorbed amount of DCB was much higher than that of PHEN and TeCB on each clay. Due to FA/HA-facilitated hydrophobic interaction, FA/HA–clay complexes except FA–vermiculite complex showed a stronger affinity for PHEN and TeCB than the original clays, particularly for HA–clay complexes. The non-linearity parameter values of
n
for all the Freundlich sorption isotherms of DCB were greater than 1, indicating that clays possessed some unique sites with strong affinity and capacity to sorb DCB from aqueous solutions. FA/HA did not significantly affect the sorption of polar DCB on clays, implying sorption of DCB on clays was probably due to polar interactions between the polar group of DCB and clays. Cation-π bonding between PHEN and iron cation was directly evidenced by X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy, and FA impeded the sorption of PHEN on vermiculite by occupation of iron cation sites. This study will benefit understanding behaviors of contaminants in the soil environments.
► The chlorimuron-ethyl-degrader D310-1 was successfully tagged with gfp gene. ► GFP-tagged D310-1 had good survival ability in soil spiked with chlorimuron-ethyl. ► GFP-tagged D310-1 maintained high ...degradation activity to chlorimuron-ethyl. ► Effects of GFP-tagged D310-1 on indigenous microbial community were negligible. ► GFP-tagged D310-1 is promising for chlorimuron-ethyl-contaminated soil remediation.
The recently isolated bacterial strain Rhodococcus sp. D310-1 can degrade high concentrations of chlorimuron-ethyl (up to 1000mgL−1), indicating its potential for the bioremediation of soil contaminated with high levels of chlorimuron-ethyl. In this study, Rhodococcus sp. D310-1 was tagged with green fluorescent protein gene (gfp) to track its survival in soil. Subsequently, degradation activity of the gfp-tagged strain and its effects on indigenous microbial community were analyzed. Results showed the cell numbers of Rhodococcus sp. D310-1::gfp in non-sterilized soil maintained at 8.5×104 cellsg−1 dry soil 45 days after inoculation of 7.74×106 cellsg−1 dry soil and approximately 49% of chlorimuron-ethyl was removed. However, The cell numbers of Rhodococcus sp. D310-1::gfp in sterilized samples increased gradually to 7.85×107 cellsg−1 dry soil and approximately 78% of chlorimuron-ethyl was removed. PCR-DGGE demonstrated that inoculation of this gfp-tagged strain in chlorimuron-ethyl-contaminated soil has negligible impact on the community structure of bacteria, actinomycetes and fungi. These results indicate that Rhodococcus sp. D310-1 is effective for the remediation of chlorimuron-ethyl-contaminated soil and also provides valuable information about the behavior of the inoculant population during bioremediation, which could be directly used in the risk assessment of inoculant population and optimization of bioremediation process.
Purpose
Monascus pigment was widely applied in food processing industry as functional additive, so more attention was paid to the fermentation optimization of pigment production. Therefore, this ...paper aims to evaluate the best possible fermentative conditions for maximum production of biopigment using submerged fermentation (SFM) and solid state fermentation (SSF) by Monascus purpureus HBSD 08.
Design/methodology/approach
The biopigment was produced by using an SMF and an SSF with optimized substrate to achieve higher yield. The antioxidant activity was evaluated by DPPH radical scavenging ability, superoxide anion radical scavenging ability and hydroxyl radical scavenging ability. The pigment composition was analyzed by thin layer chromatography.
Findings
Maximum Monascus pigment production (79.6 U/ml and 1,102 U/g) were obtained under an SFM and an SFF. The antioxidant activity of the pigment in an SFM was significantly higher than that in an SFM. The composition of pigment was not different in an SFM and an SFF.
Originality/value
The study developed new conditions, and Monascus strain was a candidate for producing pigment in an SFM and an SFF. To the authors’ best knowledge, this is a first attempt toward comparative evaluation on antioxidant capacity and composition between pigment in an SSF and an SFM. This result will serve for Monascus pigment production.
•A 3PL firm’s incentive for providing logistics and financial services is studied.•The 3PL firm’s interest and freight rates can be substitutable and complementary.•Effect of risk preference is more ...significant under price competition.•The 3PL firm is suggested to work with a risk-averse manufacturer.
This paper considers a third-party logistics (3PL) firm that provides integrated logistics and financial services to a budget-constrained manufacturer with different risk preferences. We adopt a mean–standard deviation objective function to reflect different risk preferences and concentrate on the effects of risk preference and demand volatility. Interestingly, we discover that substitution and complementary effects exist between the interest and freight rates of the 3PL firm. The effects of risk preference and demand volatility on the equilibrium interest rate become more significant when supply chains engage in price competition. Furthermore, we demonstrate that the 3PL firm prefers a risk-averse manufacturer.
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