Probabilistic Daily ILI Syndromic Surveillance with a Spatio-Temporal Bayesian Hierarchical Model

BACKGROUND: For daily syndromic surveillance to be effective, an efficient and sensible algorithm would be expected to detect aberrations in influenza illness, and alert public health workers prior to any impending epidemic. This detection or alert surely contains uncertainty, and thus should be evaluated with a proper probabilistic measure. However, traditional monitoring mechanisms simply provide a binary alert, failing to adequately address this uncertainty. METHODS AND FINDINGS: Based on the Bayesian posterior probability of influenza-like illness (ILI) visits, the intensity of outbreak can be directly assessed. The numbers of daily emergency room ILI visits at five community hospitals in Taipei City during 2006-2007 were collected and fitted with a Bayesian hierarchical model containing meteorological factors such as temperature and vapor pressure, spatial interaction with conditional autoregressive structure, weekend and holiday effects, seasonality factors, and previous ILI visits. The proposed algorithm recommends an alert for action if the posterior probability is larger than 70%. External data from January to February of 2008 were retained for validation. The decision rule detects successfully the peak in the validation period. When comparing the posterior probability evaluation with the modified Cusum method, results show that the proposed method is able to detect the signals 1-2 days prior to the rise of ILI visits. CONCLUSIONS: This Bayesian hierarchical model not only constitutes a dynamic surveillance system but also constructs a stochastic evaluation of the need to call for alert. The monitoring mechanism provides earlier detection as well as a complementary tool for current surveillance programs

Dogs and humans respond to emotionally competent stimuli by producing different facial actions

The commonality of facial expressions of emotion has been studied in different species since Darwin, with most of the research focusing on closely related primate species. However, it is unclear to what extent there exists common facial expression in species more phylogenetically distant, but sharing a need for common interspecific emotional understanding. Here we used the objective, anatomically-based tools, FACS and DogFACS (Facial Action Coding Systems), to quantify and compare human and domestic dog facial expressions in response to emotionally-competent stimuli associated with different categories of emotional arousal. We sought to answer two questions: Firstly, do dogs display specific discriminatory facial movements in response to different categories of emotional stimuli? Secondly, do dogs display similar facial movements to humans when reacting in emotionally comparable contexts? We found that dogs displayed distinctive facial actions depending on the category of stimuli. However, dogs produced different facial movements to humans in comparable states of emotional arousal. These results refute the commonality of emotional expression across mammals, since dogs do not display human-like facial expressions. Given the unique interspecific relationship between dogs and humans, two highly social but evolutionarily distant species sharing a common environment, these findings give new insight into the origin of emotion expression

Genomic Characterization of Haemophilus parasuis SH0165, a Highly Virulent Strain of Serovar 5 Prevalent in China

Haemophilus parasuis can be either a commensal bacterium of the porcine respiratory tract or an opportunistic pathogen causing Glässer's disease, a severe systemic disease that has led to significant economical losses in the pig industry worldwide. We determined the complete genomic sequence of H. parasuis SH0165, a highly virulent strain of serovar 5, which was isolated from a hog pen in North China. The single circular chromosome was 2,269,156 base pairs in length and contained 2,031 protein-coding genes. Together with the full spectrum of genes detected by the analysis of metabolic pathways, we confirmed that H. parasuis generates ATP via both fermentation and respiration, and possesses an intact TCA cycle for anabolism. In addition to possessing the complete pathway essential for the biosynthesis of heme, this pathogen was also found to be well-equipped with different iron acquisition systems, such as the TonB system and ABC-type transport complexes, to overcome iron limitation during infection and persistence. We identified a number of genes encoding potential virulence factors, such as type IV fimbriae and surface polysaccharides. Analysis of the genome confirmed that H. parasuis is naturally competent, as genes related to DNA uptake are present. A nine-mer DNA uptake signal sequence (ACAAGCGGT), identical to that found in Actinobacillus pleuropneumoniae and Mannheimia haemolytica, followed by similar downstream motifs, was identified in the SH0165 genome. Genomic and phylogenetic comparisons with other Pasteurellaceae species further indicated that H. parasuis was closely related to another swine pathogenic bacteria A. pleuropneumoniae. The comprehensive genetic analysis presented here provides a foundation for future research on the metabolism, natural competence and virulence of H. parasuis