In the Tang era, official sacrifices to mountain and water spirits became more methodical than those of preceding dynasties. What deserves attention is that imperial court bestowed noble titles, which were normally awarded aristocrats powerful officials, on twenty-eight spirits, including Five Sacred Peaks, Four Strongholds, Seas Waterways. These practices reflected two-sided attitude rulers sp...

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Serious consideration is needed about which non-communicable diseases to discuss at this month’s United Nations meeting if people in low income countries are to benefit. The diseases selected are more problematic in high income than in low income countries. Stroke, heart disease, diabetes, and chronic obstructive lung disease primarily affect older adults while low income countries remain large...

Until recently, we suspect that very few of those reading the present article were familiar with the D68 serotype of enterovirus. However, starting in August 2014, reports arose of severe respiratory disease in children with enterovirus D68 (EV-D68) in both Chicago, Illinois, and Kansas City, Kansas (USA) (Table 1) (1), right in the midst of concerns worldwide about a more virulent pathogen tha...

Significant improvements have been made in the treatment of acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) during the past 2 decades, and measurement of submicroscopic (minimal) levels of residual disease (MRD) is increasingly used to monitor treatment efficacy. For a better comparability of MRD data, there are ongoing efforts to standardize MRD quantification using real-time quantitative PCR of clonal imm...