Under-measured daily maximum precipitation from manual gauge observations over the northern regions

Extreme precipitation is a major issue for regional climate, hydrology, and safety of society. Our knowledge of extreme precipitation is poor because of difficulties in gauge observations and biases in regional and global datasets, in particular over the snow dominated regions. Here we investigate and report the distribution and magnitude of under-measured of the maximum daily total precipitation (herein daily maximum precipitation) due to biases in manual gauge observations in the high latitudes (over 45°N), using historical data during 1973–2004. We find remarkable patterns in under-measured of the long-term mean daily maximum precipitation and their association to regional climatic regimes. In contrast to relatively small and large-scale under-measured (less than 5 mm) of daily maximum rainfall, the biases in daily maximum snowfall are very serious, with the regional high values over 15 mm along the Ural Mountains and the coasts of east Asia, Greenland, in particular northern Eurasia coasts. The frequency distribution of observed daily maximum snowfall underestimate significantly the higher risk events over the high latitudes. Furthermore, defining the phase of extreme precipitation should be cautious over the northern regions, in particular the coasts. These results clearly demonstrate the urgent need to review and update precipitation datasets including recent automatic gauge observations and the knowledge of climate regimes and extremes over the broader northern regions

The role of an active surveillance strategy of targeting household and neighborhood contacts related to leprosy cases released from treatment in a low-endemic area of China.

OBJECTIVE:Early diagnosis remains the primary goal for leprosy management programs. This study aims to determine whether active surveillance of patients with leprosy and their contact individuals increased identification of latent leprosy cases in the low-endemic areas. METHODS:This cross-sectional survey was carried out between October 2014 and August 2016 in 21 counties throughout Shandong Province. The survey was conducted among patients with leprosy released from treatment (RFT) and their contacts from both household and neighbors. RESULTS:A total of 2,210 RFT patients and 9,742 contacts comprising 7877 household contacts (HHCs), including 5,844 genetic related family members (GRFMs) and 2033 non-genetic related family members and 1,865 contacts living in neighboring houses (neighbor contacts, NCs), were recruited. Among identified individuals, one relapsed and 13 were newly diagnosed, giving a detection rate of 0.12%, corresponding to 120 times the passive case detection rate. Detection rates were similar for HHCs and NCs (0.114% vs. 0.214%, P = 0.287). Analysis of the family history of leprosy patients revealed clustering of newly diagnosed cases and association with residential coordinates of previously-diagnosed multibacillary leprosy cases. CONCLUSION:Active case-finding programs are feasible and contributes to early case detection by tracking HHCs and NCs in low-endemic areas

Anassociation study of TOLL and CARD with leprosy susceptibility in Chinese population

10.1093/hmg/ddt286Human Molecular Genetics22214430-4437HMGE

Genome-Wide Analysis of Protein-Coding Variants in Leprosy.

Although genome-wide association studies have greatly advanced our understanding of the contribution of common noncoding variants to leprosy susceptibility, protein-coding variants have not been systematically investigated. We carried out a three-stage genome-wide association study of protein-coding variants in Han Chinese, of whom were 7,048 leprosy patients and 14,398 were healthy control subjects. Seven coding variants of exome-wide significance were discovered, including two rare variants: rs145562243 in NCKIPSD (P = 1.71 × 10-9, odds ratio [OR] = 4.35) and rs149308743 in CARD9 (P = 2.09 × 10-8, OR = 4.75); three low-frequency variants: rs76418789 in IL23R (P = 1.03 × 10-10, OR = 1.36), rs146466242 in FLG (P = 3.39 × 10-12, OR = 1.45), and rs55882956 in TYK2 (P = 1.04 × 10-6, OR = 1.30); and two common variants: rs780668 in SLC29A3 (P = 2.17 × 10-9, OR = 1.14) and rs181206 in IL27 (P = 1.08 × 10-7, OR = 0.83). Discovered protein-coding variants, particularly low-frequency and rare ones, showed involvement of skin barrier and endocytosis/phagocytosis/autophagy, in addition to known innate and adaptive immunity, in the pathogenesis of leprosy, highlighting the merits of protein-coding variant studies for complex diseases. J Invest Dermatol 2017 Dec; 137(12):2544-2551