Bats are reservoir animals harboring many important pathogenic viruses and with the capability of transmitting these to humans and other animals. To establish an effective surveillance to monitor transboundary spread of bat viruses between Myanmar and China, complete organs from the thorax and abdomen from 853 bats of six species from two Myanmar counties close to Yunnan province, China, were collected and tested for their virome through metagenomics by Solexa sequencing and bioinformatic analysis. In total, 3,742,314 reads of 114 bases were generated, and over 86% were assembled into 1,649,512 contigs with an average length of 114 bp, of which 26,698 (2%) contigs were recognizable viral sequences belonging to 24 viral families. Of the viral contigs 45% (12,086/26,698) were related to vertebrate viruses, 28% (7,443/26,698) to insect viruses, 27% (7,074/26,698) to phages and 95 contigs to plant viruses. The metagenomic results were confirmed by PCR of selected viruses in all bat samples followed by phylogenetic analysis, which has led to the discovery of some novel bat viruses of the genera Mamastrovirus, Bocavirus, Circovirus, Iflavirus and Orthohepadnavirus and to their prevalence rates in two bat species. In conclusion, the present study aims to present the bat virome in Myanmar, and the results obtained further expand the spectrum of viruses harbored by bats.

Localization is indispensable for the successful deployment of wireless sensor networks (WSNs). Time-based localization approaches attract a lot of interest due to their high accuracy and potentially low cost. However, time-based localization is intensively coupled with clock synchronization. Thus, the reliability of timestamps in the time-based localization becomes an important yet challenging task to deal with. In this paper, we propose a robust time-based localization approach to locate a target node with the assistance of anchors (nodes with known positions) in an asynchronous network with clock offsets. We employ the asymmetric trip ranging (ATR) protocol to obtain time-of-arrival (TOA) measurements and facilitate clock offset cancellation. Regardless of the reliability of the timestamp report from the target node, closed-form least-squares (LS) and weighted LS estimators are derived to accurately estimate the target node position. As a result, we counter the uncertainties caused by the target node by ignoring the timestamps from this node. Furthermore, Cramér-Rao Bounds (CRBs) and simulation results corroborate the efficiency of our localization scheme.

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While myeloid-derived suppressor cells (MDSCs) have been reported to participate in the promotion of angiogenesis and tumor growth, little is known about their presence and function during perioperative period. Here, we demonstrated that human MDSCs expressing CD11b 1 , CD33 1 and HLA-DR -significantly increased in lung cancer patients after thoracotomy. CD11b 1 CD33 1 HLA-DR -MDSCs isolated 24 hr after surgery from lung cancer patients were more efficient in promoting angiogenesis and tumor growth than MDSCs isolated before surgical operation in allograft tumor model. In addition, CD11b 1 CD33 1 HLA-DR -MDSCs produced high levels of MMP-9. Using an experimental lung metastasis mouse model, we demonstrated that the numbers of metastases on lung surface and Gr-1 1 CD11b 1 MDSCs at postoperative period were enhanced in proportion to the degree of surgical manipulation. We also examined that syngeneic bone marrow mesenchymal stem cells (BMSCs) significantly inhibited the induction and proliferation of Gr-1 1 CD11b 1 MDSCs and further prevented lung metastasis formation in the mice undergoing laparotomy. Taken together, our results suggest that postoperatively induced MDSCs were qualified with potent proangiogenic and tumor-promotive ability and this cell population should be considered as a target for preventing postoperative tumor metastasis.Surgery excision of primary tumor is a mainstay of therapy in many tumor types, but emerging experimental and clinical evidence suggests that surgical intervention may promote the spreading and seeding of malignant cells and the growth of preexisting micrometastasis in some cancers. 1 Surgeryinduced stress can modify the neural, endocrine, inflammatory, metabolic and immunologic microenvironment of malignant cells. 2 Following a major surgery, cellular immunity remains suppressed for several days with decrease in circulating levels of cytotoxic T lymphocytes (CTLs), natural killer (NK) cells, dendritic cells (DCs) and T-helper cells. 2 The magnitude of this immune suppression is proportional to the degree of surgical manipulation. 3 Therefore, the immediate postoperative period may contribute substantially to the risk of subsequent emergence of metastasis, and perioperative modulations that reduce this risk may improve long-term outcome. 3,4 While the potential for surgical operation to attenuate antitumor cell-mediated immune response is well recognized, very few studies have been conducted to investigate immunosuppressive aspects in perioperative context.Myeloid-derived suppressor cells (MDSCs), a definition that reflects both their origin and function, represent a heterogeneous population of myeloid cells that inhibit antitumor immune response. 5 In humans, MDSCs are characterized by the cell surface expression of integrin CD11b, sialic acidbinding lectin CD33 and low expression of the MHC Class II molecule-HLA-DR. 6 The expression of CD14 and nuclear