Yueping Yin

The Three Gorges region in China was basically a geohazard-prone area prior to construction of the Three Gorges Reservoir (TGR). After construction of the TGR, the water level was raised from 70 m to 175 m above sea level (ASL), and annual reservoir regulation has caused a 30-m water level difference after impoundment of the TGR since September 2008. This paper first presents the spatiotemporal distribution of landslides in six periods of 175 m ASL trial impoundments from 2008 to 2014. The results show that the number of landslides sharply decreased from 273 at the initial stage to less than ten at the second stage of impoundment. Based on this, the reservoir-induced landslides in the TGR region can be roughly classified into five failure patterns, i.e. accumulation landslide, dip-slope landslide, reversed bedding landslide, rockfall, and karst breccia landslide. The accumulation landslides and dip-slope landslides account for more than 90%. Taking the Shuping accumulation landslide (a sliding mass volume of 20.7 × 106 m3) in Zigui County and the Outang dip-slope landslide (a sliding mass volume of about 90 × 106 m3) in Fengjie County as two typical cases, the mechanisms of reactivation of the two landslides are analyzed. The monitoring data and factor of safety (FOS) calculation show that the accumulation landslide is dominated by water level variation in the reservoir as most part of the mass body is under 175 m ASL, and the dip-slope landslide is controlled by the coupling effect of reservoir water level variation and precipitation as an extensive recharge area of rainfall from the rear and the front mass is below 175 m ASL. The characteristics of landslide-induced impulsive wave hazards after and before reservoir impoundment are studied, and the probability of occurrence of a landslide-induced impulsive wave hazard has increased in the reservoir region. Simulation results of the Ganjingzi landslide in Wushan County indicate the strong relationship between landslide-induced surge and water variation with high potential risk to shipping and residential areas. Regarding reservoir regulation in TGR when using a single index, i.e. 1-d water level variation, water resources are not well utilized, and there is also potential risk of disasters since 2008. In addition, various indices such as 1-d, 5-d, and 10-d water level variations are proposed for reservoir regulation. Finally, taking reservoir-induced landslides in June 2015 for example, the feasibility of the optimizing indices of water level variations is verified.

BACKGROUND: Strain typing is a tool for determining the diversity and epidemiology of infections. METHODS: Treponema pallidum DNA was isolated from 158 patients with syphilis from the United States, China, Ireland, and Madagascar and from 15 T. pallidum isolates. Six typing targets were assessed: (1) the number of 60‐bp repeats in the acidic repeat protein gene, (2) restriction fragment length polymorphism (RFLP) analysis of T. pallidum repeat (tpr) subfamily II genes, (3) RFLP analysis of the tprC gene, (4) determination of tprD allele in the tprD gene locus, (5) the presence of a 51‐bp insertion between tp0126 and tp0127, and (6) sequence analysis of an 84‐bp region of tp0548. The combination of targets 1 and 2 comprises the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) T. pallidum subtyping method. RESULTS: Adding sequence analysis of tp0548 to the CDC method yielded the most discriminating typing system. Twenty‐five strain types were identified and designated as "CDC subtype/tp0548 sequence type." Type 14d/f was found in samples from 5 of 6 locations. In Seattle, Washington, strain types changed from 1999 through 2008 (P < .001). Twenty‐one (50%) of 42 patients infected with type 14d/f had neurosyphilis compared with 10 (24%) of 41 patients infected with any of the other types combined (P = .02). CONCLUSION: We describe an enhanced T. pallidum strain typing system that shows biological and clinical relevance.

This paper presents findings from an investigation of the large-scale construction solid waste (CSW) landslide that occurred at a landfill at Shenzhen, Guangdong, China, on December 20, 2015, and which killed 77 people and destroyed 33 houses. The landslide involved 2.73×106 m3 of CSW and affected an area about 1100 m in length and 630 m in maximum width, making it the largest landfill landslide in the world. The investigation of this disaster used a combination of unmanned aerial vehicle surveillance and multistage remote-sensing images to reveal the increasing volume of waste in the landfill and the shifting shape of the landfill slope for nearly two years before the landslide took place, beginning with the creation of the CSW landfill in March, 2014, that resulted in the uncertain conditions of the landfill's boundaries and the unstable state of the hydrologic performance. As a result, applying conventional stability analysis methods used for natural landslides to this case would be difficult. In order to analyze this disaster, we took a multistage modeling technique to analyze the varied characteristics of the landfill slope's structure at various stages of CSW dumping and used the non-steady flow theory to explain the groundwater seepage problem. The investigation showed that the landfill could be divided into two units based on the moisture in the land: a front uint, consisted of the landfill slope, which had low water content; and a rear unit, consisted of fresh waste, which had a high water content. This structure caused two effects—surface-water infiltration and consolidation seepage that triggered the landslide in the landfill. Surface-water infiltration induced a gradual increase in pore water pressure head, or piezometric head, in the front slope because the infiltrating position rose as the volume of waste placement increased. Consolidation seepage led to higher excess pore water pressures as the loading of waste increased. We also investigated the post-failure soil dynamics parameters of the landslide deposit using cone penetration, triaxial, and ring-shear tests in order to simulate the characteristics of a flowing slide with a long run-out due to the liquefaction effect. Finally, we conclude the paper with lessons from the tens of catastrophic landslides of municipal solid waste around the world and discuss how to better manage the geotechnical risks of urbanization.