The Sulu orogenic belt is an uplift zone that was formed in the Late Triassic. Several Jurassic to Cretaceous sedimentary successions has been recognized within the Sulu orogenic belt in recent ...studies, including outcrops that are considered to be related to the newly discovered Riqingwei Basin. This basin has been the focus of extensive study due to its continuous Cretaceous rock sequence, geological location and petroleum resource potential. However, the lack of a consolidated chronology for the strata has precluded a better understanding of stratigraphy, tectonic evolution and resource potential of the Riqingwei Basin. Here, we present the results of a new magnetostratigraphic study of the continental scientific drilling borehole LK-1, which is located on Lingshan Island, offshore Shandong province, eastern China. The goals of this study are to (1) refine the Late Jurassic to Early Cretaceous chronostratigraphic framework of the Riqingwei Basin, and (2) investigate the location of the J/K boundary in the Borehole Core LK-1. The observed patterns of the paleomagnetic polarity zone in the LK-1 borehole correlate well with the geomagnetic polarity time scale (GPTS), and the continuous magnetostratigraphy profile defined in this core indicates an age ranging from 146.5 to 125.8 Ma for the samples interval. The sediment accumulation rates (SAR) of LK-1 show one period of high SAR (∼10.5 cm kyr
−1
) at 135.3–130.6 Ma and two periods of low SAR (∼4.8 and ∼2.2 cm kyr
−1
) at 145.7–135.3 and 130.6–125.8 Ma, respectively. In addition, the magnetostratigraphic results suggest that the Jurassic-Cretaceous (J/K) boundary of the LK-1 is located within the magnetozone N21.2n (∼1254 m). This comprehensive geochronologic framework provides a good correlation of the marine Upper Jurassic to Lower Cretaceous strata in the Riqingwei Basin to other marine strata and continental sequences, in addition to providing a foundation for the study of the structural evolution of eastern China.
•Urine samples were collected serially from infants within the first year of life.•Free and total phthalate metabolites were measured by LC/MS/MS.•Time series variability in phthalate metabolites and ...their metabolism was characterized.•Most phthalate metabolites changed and their trends increased significantly over age.•Infant phthalate exposure is highly prevalent, but cannot metabolize as efficiently as adults.
Infantile development of phthalate metabolism is crucial for risk assessment of endocrine disruption and has important toxico/pharmacokinetic implications.
To characterize temporal variability in urinary phthalate metabolites in infants and to examine their growth-dependent detoxification.
In this cohort study, urine samples (n = 876) from 155 healthy Chinese infants were collected serially at eight time points from birth to one year old. Free and total (i.e., free plus glucuronide conjugated) phthalate metabolites (PMEs) were measured by LC/MS/MS. Time variability in PMEs and PME metabolism capacity was characterized using intraclass correlation coefficients (ICCs) and linear mixed regression models.
Concentrations of most PMEs changed significantly, with ICCs ranging from 0.213 to 0.318, and trends increased significantly over time (p < 0.001), while MEHP showed fair reproducibility (ICC = 0.480). Glucuronidation increased considerably (ICC ≤ 0.250; p < 0.001) for most PMEs but not for MMP or MEHP. Ester-chain ω-/ω-1-oxidation and α-/β-oxidation patterns of MEHP steeply increased from 3 months to 8 months, where they peaked, resulting in a molar percentage of MEHP in ΣDEHP showing the inversion pattern. MEHP detoxification through oxidation of the hydrophobic ester-chain is apparently a priority for carboxyl glucuronidation in infants.
Infant phthalate exposure is prevalent, but they cannot metabolize or eliminate these compounds as efficiently as adults, especially during the first 6 months of life. From an environmental biomonitoring view, age-dependent phthalate metabolism provides crucial implications for infantile ontogeny and health risk assessment within the first year of life.
In May-June 2023, an unprecedented outbreak of human respiratory syncytial virus (HRSV) infections occurred in a kindergarten, Zhejiang Province, China. National, provincial, and local public health ...officials investigated the cause of the outbreak and instituted actions to control its spread.
We interviewed patients with the respiratory symptoms by questionnaire. Respiratory samples were screened for six respiratory pathogens by real-time quantitative polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR). The confirmed cases were further sequenced of G gene to confirm the HRSV genotype. A phylogenetic tree was reconstructed by maximum likelihood method.
Of the 103 children in the kindergarten, 45 were classified as suspected cases, and 25 cases were confirmed by RT-PCR. All confirmed cases were identified from half of classes. 36% (9/25) were admitted to hospital, none died. The attack rate was 53.19%. The median ages of suspected and confirmed cases were 32.7 months and 35.8 months, respectively. Nine of 27 confirmed cases lived in one community. Only two-family clusters among 88 household contacts were HRSV positive. A total of 18 of the G gene were obtained from the confirmed cases. Phylogenetic analyses revealed that 16 of the sequences belonged to the HRSV B/BA9 genotype, and the other 2 sequences belonged to the HRSV A/ON1 genotype. The school were closed on June 9 and the outbreak ended on June 15.
These findings suggest the need for an increased awareness of HRSV coinfections outbreak in the kindergarten, when HRSV resurges in the community after COVID-19 pandemic.
WNW-directed faults are widespread in eastern China, but debates regarding their distributions and evolutionary processes remain unsettled. Based on the latest 3-D seismic data, a series of ...WNW-directed faults south of the Liaodong Bay subbasin was identified, for which the evolution and formation mechanisms were discussed. The results show that four WNW-directed faults are characterized by poor continuity and nearly parallel orientations. Vertically, they exhibit listric geometries and cut through Paleozoic and Mesozoic formations. Since the late Triassic, these faults began as reverse faults under nearly S-N horizontal compression. In the Jurassic, those faults maintained their reverse-faulting activities with dramatically decreased intensities. In the Early Cretaceous, the WNW-directed faults were changed into normal faults under regional extension and were influenced by the sinistral strike-slip movement along the Tan-Lu fault zone. In the Late Cretaceous, the WNW-directed normal faults probably stopped moving due to a regional compressional event. During the Paleogene, the WNW-directed faults were reactivated with decreased intensities and were cut by NNE-directed faults. Here, we emphasize that the evolution of the WNW-directed faults could shed light on the regional tectonics. The WNW-trending faults that developed in the Liaodong Bay subbasin are closely related to the faults in the Yanshan orogenic belt. Therefore, investigating the characteristics and origin of WNW-induced faults will provide evidence for the tectonic evolution of the North China Block. In addition, the development of WNW-directed faults in the southern Liaodong Bay subbasin was conducive to the formation of buried Mesozoic and Paleozoic hills and hydrocarbon accumulations. In addition, we suggest that the compressional segment of the conjugated strike-slip transition zone that was formed by the interaction of the WNW- and NNE-directed strike-slip faults was conducive to hydrocarbon accumulations.
Cognitive radio techniques represent an emerging approach for mitigating the spectrum scarcity problem in wireless communications. Cooperative sensing is an effective solution to improve sensing ...accuracy and robustness in the presence of fading and shadowing that make individual sensing less reliable. However, when an adversary can corrupt some nodes in the network, the effectiveness of cooperative sensing may degrade dramatically. We design the first fully distributed security scheme ReDiSen to counter attacks in cooperative sensing. We apply reputation generated from exchanged sensing results as an aid to restrict the impact of the malicious behaviours. Both theoretical analysis and simulation results indicate that ReDiSen provides an effective countermeasure against security attacks by enabling secondary users to obtain more accurate cooperative sensing results in adversarial environments. ReDiSen does not rely on a central authority, nor a common control channel, and is therefore more applicable in dynamic cognitive radio networks.
Weak gravitational lensing provides a direct statistical measure of dark matter distribution. The variance is easiest to measure, which constrains the degenerate product σ8Ω0.60. The degeneracy is ...broken by measuring the skewness arising from the fact that densities must remain positive, which is not possible when the initially symmetric perturbations become nonlinear. Skewness measures the nonlinear mass scale, which in combination with the variance measures Ω0 directly. We present the first detection of dark matter skewness from the VIRMOS-DESCART survey. We have measured the full three-point function and its projections onto windowed skewness. We separate the lensing mode and the B-mode. The lensing skewness is detected for a compensated Gaussian on scales of 5.37‧ to be κ3=(1.06+/-0.06)×10-6. The B-modes are consistent with zero at this scale. The variance for the same window function is κ2=(5.32+/-0.62+/-0.98)×10-5, resulting in S3=375+342-124. Comparing with N-body simulations, we find Ω0<0.5 at 90% confidence. The Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope legacy survey and newer simulations should be able to improve significantly on the constraint.
In a cognitive radio network, selfish secondary users may not voluntarily contribute to desired cooperative sensing. We design the first fully distributed scheme to incentivize participation of nodes ...in cooperative sensing, by connecting sensing and spectrum allocation, and offering incentive from latter to the former. Secondary users that are more active and report more accurate sensing values will be given higher reputation values, which results in lower prices in the spectrum allocation phase. Theoretical analysis and simulation results indicate that the proposed method effectively incentivizes sensing participation, and rewards truthful and accurate reporting. Our proposed system is fully distributed and does not rely on a central authority, and so is more applicable in dynamic cognitive radio networks in practice. We also show how to improve the robustness of reputation when malicious nodes report spurious reputation.
We use simulated Hubble parameter data in the redshift range 0 <= z <= 2 to explore the role and power of observational H(z) data in constraining cosmological parameters of the Delta *LCDM model. The ...error model of the simulated data is empirically constructed from available measurements and scales linearly as z increases. By comparing the median figures of merit calculated from simulated data sets with that of current Type Ia supernova (SNIa) data, we find that as many as 64 further independent measurements of H(z) are needed to match the parameter constraining power of SNIa. If the error of H(z) could be lowered to 3%, the same number of future measurements would be needed, but then the redshift coverage would only be required to reach z = 1. We also show that accurate measurements of the Hubble constant H 0 can be used as priors to increase the H(z) data's figure of merit.
Per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) can pass through the placental barrier and pose health risks to fetuses. However, exposure and transplacental transfer patterns of emerging PFAS remain ...unclear. Here, 24 PFAS were measured in paired maternal whole blood (n = 228), umbilical cord whole blood (n = 119) and serum (n = 120). Orthogonal partial least-squares discriminant analysis (OPLS-DA) was used to differentiate PFAS between different matrices. The transplacental transfer (TPT) of PFAS was calculated using cord to maternal whole blood concentration ratios. PFOS and PFOA were still the dominant PFAS in maternal samples. The emerging PFAS had higher TPT than PFOS and PFOA. Moreover, PFAS with the same chain length but different functional groups and C-F bonds showed different TPT, such as PFOS and PFOSA (C8, median: 0.090 vs. 0.305, p < 0.05) and PFHxS and 4:2 FTS (C6, median: 0.220 vs. 1.190, p < 0.05). A significant sex difference in 4:2 FTS (median: boys 1.250, girls 1.010, p < 0.05) were found. Furthermore, we observed a significant U-shaped trend for the TPT of carboxylates with increasing carbon chain length. PFAS showed a compound-specific transfer through placental barrier and a compound-specific distribution between different matrices in this study.
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•Profiles and transplacental transfer of PFAS were characterized in paired maternal and cord blood samples (n = 467) from a Chinese birth cohort.•The emerging PFAS were detected in three matrices and had higher transplacental transfer (TPT).•PFAS with the same chain length but different functional groups and C-F bonds showed different TPT.•OPLS-DA models revealed a compound-specific transfer of PFAS through placental barrier and a compound-specific distribution between different matrices.