2,3,4-Tri-O-acetyl-β-d-xylosyl 2,4-dichloro­phenoxy­acetate

In the title compound, C19H20Cl2O10, the hexopyranosyl ring adopts a chair conformation. The four substituents are in equatorial positions. The mol­ecules arelinked via C—H⋯O contacts along the a axis

Validation of Sentinel-2, MODIS, CGLS, SAF, GLASS and C3S leaf area index products in maize crops

Altres ajuts: this research was funded by the Copernicus Global Land Service (CGLOPS-1, 199494-JRC).We proposed a direct approach to validate hectometric and kilometric resolution leaf area index (LAI) products that involved the scaling up of field-measured LAI via the validation and recalibration of the decametric Sentinel-2 LAI product. We applied it over a test study area of maize crops in northern China using continuous field measurements of LAINet along the year 2019. Sentinel-2 LAI showed an overall accuracy of 0.67 in terms of Root Mean Square Error (RMSE) and it was used, after recalibration, as a benchmark to validate six coarse resolution LAI products: MODIS, Copernicus Global Land Service 1 km Version 2 (called GEOV2) and 300 m (GEOV3), Satellite Application Facility EUMETSAT Polar System (SAF EPS) 1.1 km, Global LAnd Surface Satellite (GLASS) 500 m and Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S) 1 km V2. GEOV2, GEOV3 and MODIS showed a good agreement with reference LAI in terms of magnitude (RMSE ≤ 0.29) and phenology. SAF EPS (RMSE = 0.68) and C3S V2 (RMSE = 0.41), on the opposite, systematically underestimated high LAI values and showed systematic differences for phenological metrics: a delay of 6 days (d), 20 d and 24 d for the start, peak and the end of growing season, respectively, for SAF EPS and an advance of −4 d, −6 d and −6 d for C3S

Exploring the Potential of Gaofen-1/6 for Crop Monitoring: Generating Daily Decametric-Resolution Leaf Area Index Time Series

High spatiotemporal resolution time series of leaf area index (LAI) are essential for monitoring crop dynamics and validating coarse-resolution LAI products. The optical satellite sensors at decametric resolution have historically suffered from a long revisit cycle and cloud contamination issues that hampered the acquisition of frequent and high-quality observations. The 16-m/four-day resolution of the new-generation Gaofen-1 (GF-1) and Gaofen-6 (GF-6) satellites provide an unprecedented opportunity to address these limitations. Here, we developed an effective strategy to generate daily 16-m LAI maps combining GF-1/6 data and ground LAINet measurements. All high-quality GF-1/6 observations were utilized first to derive smoothed time series of vegetation indices (VIs). Second, a random forest regression (RF-r) model was trained to link the VIs with corresponding field LAI measurements. The trained RF-r was finally employed to generate the LAI maps. Results demonstrated the reliability of the reconstructed daily VIs (relative error (RE) < 1%) and the derived LAI time series, which greatly benefited from GF-1/6 high-frequency observations. The direct comparison with field LAI measurements by LAI-2200/LI-3000 showed the good performance of retrieved LAI maps, with bias, root mean square error (RMSE), and R2 of 0.05, 0.59, and 0.75, respectively. The LAI time series well captured the spatiotemporal variation of crop growth. Furthermore, the continuous GF-1/6 LAI maps outperformed Sentinel-2 LAI estimates both in terms of temporal frequency and accuracy. Our study indicates the potential of GF-1/6 to generate continuous decametric-resolution LAI maps for fine-scale agricultural monitoring

Microgeographic Heterogeneity of Border Malaria During Elimination Phase, Yunnan Province, China, 2011–2013

To identify township-level high-risk foci of malaria transmission in Yunnan Province, China, along the international border, we retrospectively reviewed data collected in hospitals and clinics of 58 townships in 4 counties during 2011–2013. We analyzed spatiotemporal distribution, especially hot spots of confirmed malaria, using geographic information systems and Getis-Ord Gi*(d) cluster analysis. Malaria incidence, transmission seasonality, and Plasmodium vivax:P. falciparum ratio remained almost unchanged from 2011 to 2013, but heterogeneity in distribution increased. The number of townships with confirmed malaria decreased significantly during the 3 years; incidence became increasingly concentrated within a few townships. High-/low-incidence clusters of P. falciparum shifted in location and size every year, whereas the locations of high-incidence P. vivax townships remained unchanged. All high-incidence clusters were located along the China–Myanmar border. Because of increasing heterogeneity in malaria distribution, microgeographic analysis of malaria transmission hot spots provided useful information for designing targeted malaria intervention during the elimination phase

A Systematic Analysis on DNA Methylation and the Expression of Both mRNA and microRNA in Bladder Cancer

Background: DNA methylation aberration and microRNA (miRNA) deregulation have been observed in many types of cancers. A systematic study of methylome and transcriptome in bladder urothelial carcinoma has never been reported. Methodology/Principal Findings: The DNA methylation was profiled by modified methylation-specific digital karyotyping (MMSDK) and the expression of mRNAs and miRNAs was analyzed by digital gene expression (DGE) sequencing in tumors and matched normal adjacent tissues obtained from 9 bladder urothelial carcinoma patients. We found that a set of significantly enriched pathways disrupted in bladder urothelial carcinoma primarily related to "neurogenesis" and "cell differentiation" by integrated analysis of -omics data. Furthermore, we identified an intriguing collection of cancer-related genes that were deregulated at the levels of DNA methylation and mRNA expression, and we validated several of these genes (HIC1, SLIT2, RASAL1, and KRT17) by Bisulfite Sequencing PCR and Reverse Transcription qPCR in a panel of 33 bladder cancer samples. Conclusions/Significance: We characterized the profiles between methylome and transcriptome in bladder urothelial carcinoma, identified a set of significantly enriched key pathways, and screened four aberrantly methylated and expressed genes. Conclusively, our findings shed light on a new avenue for basic bladder cancer research

Contributions of mean and shape of blood pressure distribution to worldwide trends and variations in raised blood pressure: A pooled analysis of 1018 population-based measurement studies with 88.6 million participants

© The Author(s) 2018. Background: Change in the prevalence of raised blood pressure could be due to both shifts in the entire distribution of blood pressure (representing the combined effects of public health interventions and secular trends) and changes in its high-blood-pressure tail (representing successful clinical interventions to control blood pressure in the hypertensive population). Our aim was to quantify the contributions of these two phenomena to the worldwide trends in the prevalence of raised blood pressure. Methods: We pooled 1018 population-based studies with blood pressure measurements on 88.6 million participants from 1985 to 2016. We first calculated mean systolic blood pressure (SBP), mean diastolic blood pressure (DBP) and prevalence of raised blood pressure by sex and 10-year age group from 20-29 years to 70-79 years in each study, taking into account complex survey design and survey sample weights, where relevant. We used a linear mixed effect model to quantify the association between (probittransformed) prevalence of raised blood pressure and age-group- and sex-specific mean blood pressure. We calculated the contributions of change in mean SBP and DBP, and of change in the prevalence-mean association, to the change in prevalence of raised blood pressure. Results: In 2005-16, at the same level of population mean SBP and DBP, men and women in South Asia and in Central Asia, the Middle East and North Africa would have the highest prevalence of raised blood pressure, and men and women in the highincome Asia Pacific and high-income Western regions would have the lowest. In most region-sex-age groups where the prevalence of raised blood pressure declined, one half or more of the decline was due to the decline in mean blood pressure. Where prevalence of raised blood pressure has increased, the change was entirely driven by increasing mean blood pressure, offset partly by the change in the prevalence-mean association. Conclusions: Change in mean blood pressure is the main driver of the worldwide change in the prevalence of raised blood pressure, but change in the high-blood-pressure tail of the distribution has also contributed to the change in prevalence, especially in older age groups

Rising rural body-mass index is the main driver of the global obesity epidemic in adults

Body-mass index (BMI) has increased steadily in most countries in parallel with a rise in the proportion of the population who live in cities(.)(1,2) This has led to a widely reported view that urbanization is one of the most important drivers of the global rise in obesity(3-6). Here we use 2,009 population-based studies, with measurements of height and weight in more than 112 million adults, to report national, regional and global trends in mean BMI segregated by place of residence (a rural or urban area) from 1985 to 2017. We show that, contrary to the dominant paradigm, more than 55% of the global rise in mean BMI from 1985 to 2017-and more than 80% in some low- and middle-income regions-was due to increases in BMI in rural areas. This large contribution stems from the fact that, with the exception of women in sub-Saharan Africa, BMI is increasing at the same rate or faster in rural areas than in cities in low- and middle-income regions. These trends have in turn resulted in a closing-and in some countries reversal-of the gap in BMI between urban and rural areas in low- and middle-income countries, especially for women. In high-income and industrialized countries, we noted a persistently higher rural BMI, especially for women. There is an urgent need for an integrated approach to rural nutrition that enhances financial and physical access to healthy foods, to avoid replacing the rural undernutrition disadvantage in poor countries with a more general malnutrition disadvantage that entails excessive consumption of low-quality calories.Peer reviewe