Estimation of HIV-1 incidence among five focal populations in Dehong, Yunnan: a hard hit area along a major drug trafficking route

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Since 1989 when the first 146 HIV positives in China were identified, Dehong Prefecture had been one of the areas hardest-hit by HIV in China. The local and national governments have put substantial financial resources into tackling the HIV epidemic in Dehong from 2004. The objective of this study was to track dynamic changes in HIV-1 prevalence and incidence among five focal populations in Dehong and to assess the impact of HIV prevention and control efforts.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>Consecutive cross-sectional surveys conducted in five focal populations between 2004 and 2008. Specimens seropositive for HIV were tested with the BED IgG capture enzyme immunoassay to identify recent seroconversions (median, 155 days) using normalized optical density of 0.8 and adjustments.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>From 2004 to 2008, estimated annual HIV incidence among injecting drug users (IDUs) decreased significantly [from 15.0% (95% CI = 11.4%-18.5%) in 2004 to 4.3% (95% CI = 2.4%-6.2%) in 2008; trend test P < 0.0001]. The incidence among other focal populations, such as HIV discordant couples (varying from 5.5% to 4.7%), female sex workers (varying from 1.4% to 1.3%), pregnant women (0.1%), and pre-marital couples (0.2 to 0.1%) remained stable. Overall, the proportion of recent HIV-1 infections was higher among females than males (P < 0.0001).</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>The HIV epidemic in Dehong continued to expand during a five-year period but at a slowing rate among IDUs, and HIV incidence remains high among IDUs and discordant couples. Intensive prevention measures should target sub-groups at highest risk to further slow the epidemic and control the migration of HIV to other areas of China, and multivariate analysis is needed to explore which measures are more effective for different populations.</p

Modeling Resource Allocation Decisions in the U.S. Agricultural Sector

We model the U.S. agricultural sector as the producer of multiple goods and services, and we model its resource allocation decisions within a framework based on the theory of multiproduct firms. We estimate an input demand allocation model using maximum likelihood method. The results show that intermediate goods, capital, and labor are all complementary to land, which makes sense in the real agricultural production process. Intermediate goods are substitutes to capital, while labor is complementary to land. Due to the overly aggregated output variables, price changes of output variables do not have significant impact on the demand for inputs, except one case in which 1% price increase of other farm-related products will lead to 0.036% change in the demand for land

An empirical application of the output allocation model for major U.S. crops

How much major crop supplies are affected by output and input prices are important questions for food security concerns. Agricultural policies in the U.S. focus on supporting output prices with relatively little attention to input prices. However, crop productions seem to react sensitively to input price changes. Therefore, linking input and output markets in models of supply response is crucial since farmers’ planting decisions are based on the joint effect from the two markets

China’s soybean import allocation analysis by country-of-origin

The purpose of this paper is to estimate China’s soybeans import allocation by country-of-origin using the input allocation model for the multiproduct firm under input-output seperability. From the results, we find there is a competition between the U.S. and South America (Brazil and Argentina). Therefore, for U.S. policymakers, it might be necessary to provide certain export price support when facing strong international soybean exporting competition

microRNA-mRNA Profile of Skeletal Muscle Differentiation and Relevance to Congenital Myotonic Dystrophy

microRNAs (miRNAs) regulate messenger RNA (mRNA) abundance and translation during key developmental processes including muscle differentiation. Assessment of miRNA targets can provide insight into muscle biology and gene expression profiles altered by disease. mRNA and miRNA libraries were generated from C2C12 myoblasts during differentiation, and predicted miRNA targets were identified based on presence of miRNA binding sites and reciprocal expression. Seventeen miRNAs were differentially expressed at all time intervals (comparing days 0, 2, and 5) of differentiation. mRNA targets of differentially expressed miRNAs were enriched for functions related to calcium signaling and sarcomere formation. To evaluate this relationship in a disease state, we evaluated the miRNAs differentially expressed in human congenital myotonic dystrophy (CMD) myoblasts and compared with normal control. Seventy-four miRNAs were differentially expressed during healthy human myocyte maturation, of which only 12 were also up- or downregulated in CMD patient cells. The 62 miRNAs that were only differentially expressed in healthy cells were compared with differentiating C2C12 cells. Eighteen of the 62 were conserved in mouse and up- or down-regulated during mouse myoblast differentiation, and their C2C12 targets were enriched for functions related to muscle differentiation and contraction

The changing face of HIV in China

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