Outbreaks of diarrhea in newborn piglets without detection of transmissible gastroenteritis virus (TGEV), porcine epidemic diarrhea virus (PEDV) and porcine deltacoronavirus (PDCoV), have been recorded in a pig farm in southern China since February 2017. Isolation and propagation of the pathogen in cell culture resulted in discovery of a novel swine enteric alphacoronavirus (tentatively named SeACoV) related to the bat coronavirus HKU2 identified in the same region a decade ago. Specific fluorescence signal was detected in Vero cells infected with SeACoV by using a positive sow serum collected in the same farm, but not by using TGEV-, PEDV- or PDCoV-specific antibody. Electron microscopy observation demonstrated that the virus particle with surface projections was 100-120nm in diameter. Complete genomic sequencing and analyses of SeACoV indicated that the extreme amino-terminal domain of the SeACoV spike (S) glycoprotein structurally similar to the domain 0 of the alphacoronavirus NL63, whereas the rest part of S structurally resembles domains B to D of the betacoronavirus. The SeACoV-S domain 0 associated with enteric tropism had an extremely high variability, harboring 75-amino-acid (aa) substitutions and a 2-aa insertion, compared to that of HKU2, which is likely responsible for the extended host range or cross-species transmission. The isolated virus was infectious in pigs when inoculated orally into 3-day-old newborn piglets, leading to clinical signs of diarrhea and fecal virus shedding. These results confirmed that it is a novel swine enteric coronavirus representing the fifth porcine coronavirus.
Temperate forests cover 16% of the global forest area. Within these forests, the understorey is an important biodiversity reservoir that can influence ecosystem processes and functions in multiple ways. However, we still lack a thorough understanding of the relative importance of the understorey for temperate forest functioning. As a result, understoreys are often ignored during assessments of forest functioning and changes thereof under global change. We here compiled studies that quantify the relative importance of the understorey for temperate forest functioning, focussing on litter production, nutrient cycling, evapotranspiration, tree regeneration, pollination and pathogen dynamics. We describe the mechanisms driving understorey functioning and develop a conceptual framework synthesizing possible effects of multiple global change drivers on understorey‐mediated forest ecosystem functioning. Our review illustrates that the understorey's contribution to temperate forest functioning is significant but varies depending on the ecosystem function and the environmental context, and more importantly, the characteristics of the overstorey. To predict changes in understorey functioning and its relative importance for temperate forest functioning under global change, we argue that a simultaneous investigation of both overstorey and understorey functional responses to global change will be crucial. Our review shows that such studies are still very scarce, only available for a limited set of ecosystem functions and limited to quantification, providing little data to forecast functional responses to global change.
Rapid innovation in printed circuit board, and the uncertainties surrounding quantification of the human and environmental health impacts of e-waste disposal have made it difficult to confirm the influence of evolving ewaste management strategies and regulatory policies on materials. To assess these influences, we analyzed hazardous chemicals in a market-representative set of Waste printed circuit boards (WPCBs, 1996(WPCBs, -2010. We used standard leaching tests to characterize hazard potential and USEtox ® to project impacts on human health and ecosystem. The results demonstrate that command-and-control regulations have had minimal impacts on WPCBs composition and toxicity risks; whereas technological innovation may have been influenced more by resource conservation, including a declining trend in the use of precious metals such as gold. WPCBs remain classified as hazardous under U.S. and California laws because of excessive toxic metals. Lead poses the most significant risk for cancers; zinc for non-cancer diseases; copper had the largest potential impact on ecosystem quality. Among organics, acenaphthylene, the largest risk for cancers; naphthalene for non-cancer diseases; pyrene has the highest potential for ecotoxicological impacts. These findings support the need for stronger enforcement of international policies and technology innovation to implement the strategy of design-for-theenvironment and to encourage recovery, recycling, and reuse of WPCBs.
We present a novel artistic-verisimilitude driven system for watercolor rendering of images and photos. Our system achieves realistic simulation of a set of important characteristics of watercolor paintings that have not been well implemented before. Specifically, we designed several image filters to achieve: 1) watercolor-specified color transferring; 2) saliency-based level-of-detail drawing; 3) hand tremor effect due to human neural noise; and 4) an artistically controlled wet-in-wet effect in the border regions of different wet pigments. A user study indicates that our method can produce watercolor results of artistic verisimilitude better than previous filter-based or physical-based methods. Furthermore, our algorithm is efficient and can easily be parallelized, making it suitable for interactive image watercolorization.
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