OBJECTIVES: This study aimed to describe the nutritional status of elderly people living in a rural area of North China. DESIGN: Community-based, cross-sectional prevalence survey. SETTING: 3 rural ...towns of Lvliang City, Shanxi Province, China. PARTICIPANTS: A sample of 1845 community residents (29.1% of those eligible) 55 years or older (birth before 1958-01-01). MEASUREMENTS: The participants were assessed regarding demographic characteristics, height, weight, as well as having a physical examination and blood sampling for serum cholesterol, total homocysteine (tHcy), folate, and vitamin B12 levels. RESULTS: 991 (53.7%) were female and 139 (7.5%) did not complete the anthropometric measurement. Prevalence of underweight and obesity was 3.5% and 24.9% in men and 6.7% and 31.0% in women (P = 0.003, P = 0.005, respectively). Prevalence of hypercholesterolemia and hypocholesterolemia was 13.5% and 52.6% in men and 25.0% and 34.3% in women (P < 0.001, P < 0.001, respectively). Prevalence of high LDL-c concentrations was 8.8% in men and 16.8% in women (P < 0.001). The mean serum tHcy in men (28.8 ± 20.1 μmmol/l) was significantly higher than in women (21.0 ± 15.1 μmmol/L, P < 0.001). Prevalence of hyperhomocysteinemia (defined as > 15μmmol/L) was 79.7% in men and 65.5% in women (P < 0.001). Prevalence of low folate (defined as < 11 nmol/L) and vitamin B12 levels (defiend as < 185 pmol/L) was 70.8 % and 76.8% in men and 56.5% and 72.6% in women (P < 0.001, P = 0.036, respectively). Correlation coefficients between tHcy, folate, and vitamin B12 indicated an inverse linear correlation (r = −0.21, P < 0.001, r = −0.35, P < 0.001, respectively). CONCLUSIONS: As China’s economic climate has developed, the nutritional status of elderly people in the rural parts of the country has improved in some aspects. However, the trend toward obesity will lead to a shift in the burden of obesity-related chronic diseases. In addition, rurally-located elderly people are at high risk of death that may be associated with abnormal serum cholesterol. The data also suggest that severe deficiencies in folate and vitamin B12 levels exist, as well as there being a high prevalence of hyperhomocysteinemia. Folate and vitamin B12 supplementation are necessary to prevent related diseases.
In this paper, an electric machine with dual permanent magnet (PM) structures in both stator and rotor is proposed. Multi-pole PMs are buried both in stator and rotor slots of the proposed machine ...and the magnetic field is modulated through the stator and rotor teeth. This machine with dual magnetic flux modulation can be categorized as one special case of flux-modulating machines. A time-stepping finite-element method combined with space vector pulse width modulation-based vector control method is used to analyze the steady-state and transient performance of the machine and its control system.
Low-speed flux-modulated permanent-magnet (PM) machines do not need to conform to the conventional design rule which requires identical number of pole-pairs in both stator and rotor. In ...flux-modulated machines, special ferromagnetic segments in the airgap are used to modulate the magnetic field. In this paper, a general rule to compare different types of electric machines as well as measures to improve the torque density in these machines are presented. In this paper, the energy conversion capacity of different machines with the same physical size and the same operating temperature-rise are compared. An adaptive-order method for modeling the load-temperature-rise relationship is presented to reduce the computing time for this inverse problem. Three power-electronic-driven PM electric machines, which are, namely, a traditional PM machine, a radial-flux-modulated machine (RFMM), and an axial-flux-modulated machine (AFMM), are analyzed and compared based on their temperature distribution and electromagnetic torque density using magnetic field and thermal field computation. Experimental results of an AFMM prototype are used to validate the temperature-rise which is computed using 3-D finite-element method (3-D FEM).
Breast cancer is an extraordinarily hormone-dependent tumor. This study was to evaluate androgen receptor (AR) status and its significance in breast cancer in Chinese women.
Three hundred and ...thirty-five consecutive cases of invasive ductal breast carcinoma, 34 ductal carcinoma in situ (DCIS), and 82 DCIS adjacent to invasive tissues were involved in this study. The expression of AR was analyzed by immunohistochemistry and compared with patient outcome, and its implications were evaluated in five molecular subgroups of invasive ductal carcinoma (IDC) and in DCIS lesions.
AR expression was related to that of estrogen receptor (P < 0.001) and progesterone receptor (P = 0.035) but not correlated with the other conventional parameters. AR retained independent prognostic significance (hazard ratio 0.309, 95% confidence interval, 0.192–0.496; P < 0.001). The majority (61.0%) of basal-like breast cancers showed loss of AR expression (P < 0.001), which had poor prognosis. The percentage of AR-positive cases was significantly higher in DCIS adjacent to IDC group than in pure DCIS and IDC groups (93.9%, 79.4%, and 72.5%; P = 0.046 and P < 0.001, respectively).
Our data suggest that AR may provide another specific definition of breast cancer subtypes and reveal a potential role in DCIS progression. These findings may help develop new therapies.
The timing of the fruit-set stage (i.e., start and end of fruit set) is crucial in a plant's life cycle, but its response to temperature change is still unclear. We investigated the timing of seven ...phenological events, including fruit-set dates during 3 yr for six alpine plants transplanted to warmer (approximately +3.5 °C in soils) and cooler (approximately -3.5 °C in soils) locations along an altitudinal gradient in the Tibetan area. We found that fruit-set dates remained relatively stable under both warming and cooling during the 3-yr transplant experiment. Three earlier phenological events (emergence of first leaf, first bud set, and first flowering) and two later phenological events (first leaf coloring and complete leaf coloring) were earlier by 4.8-8.2 d/°C and later by 3.2-7.1 d/°C in response to warming. Conversely, cooling delayed the three earlier events by 3.8-6.9 d/°C and advanced the two later events by 3.2-8.1 d/°C for all plant species. The timing of the first and/or last fruit-set dates, however, did not change significantly compared to earlier and later phenological events. Statistical analyses also showed that the dates of fruit set were not significantly correlated or had lower correlations with changes of soil temperature relative to the earlier and later phenological events. Alpine plants may thus acclimate to changes in temperature for their fruiting function by maintaining relatively stable timings of fruit set compared with other phenological events to maximize the success of seed maturation and dispersal in response to short-term warming or cooling.
•Hf-Y co-doped (Ni,Pt)Al coating is prepared and shows better oxidation performance.•After oxidation, Hf and Y are observed to form composite oxides that segregated at oxide grain boundaries.•Hf-Y ...Co-doping produces greater RE effect than singular doping of Hf or Y.
Hf and/or Y doped (Ni,Pt)Al coatings were prepared to investigate their initial oxidation behavior and cyclic oxidation performance at 1150 °C. Finer grain sizes were observed in Hf and/or Y doped (Ni,Pt)Al coatings in as-received state, wherein the best oxidation resistance was achieved in the co-doped coating. In oxidation, Hf and Y were observed synchronously segregating at grain boundaries of alumina scale, which more effectively retarded the phase transformations of θ-Al2O3 to α-Al2O3 for the oxide scale and from β to γ′ for the coating. Mechanisms responsible for the merits of Hf-Y co-doping in (Ni,Pt)Al coating are discussed.
To investigate the role of RNA m6A methylation in mediating cerebellar dysplasia through analyzing the phenotypes of the mouse cerebella and the expression of several key m6A regulators upon ...hypobaric hypoxia treatment.
Five-day old C57/BL6 mice were exposed to hypobaric hypoxia for 9 days. The status of mouse cerebellar development was analyzed by comparing the body weights, brain weights and histological features. Immunostaining of cell-type-specific markers was performed to analyze the cerebellar morphology. Real-time PCR, Western blot and immunohistochemical staining were performed to detect the expression of key m6A regulators in the mouse cerebella.
Compared with the control, the body weights, brain weights and cerebellar volumes of hypobaric hypoxic mice were significantly reduced (
0.01). The expression of specific markers in different cells, including NeuN (mature neuron), Calbindin-D28K (Purkinje cell) and GFAP (astrocyte), was decreased in hypobaric hypoxic mouse cerebella (
0.01), accompanied with
For large power transformers, the hot-spot temperature rise in their structural parts is an essential issue to address. Computation of the hot-spot temperature rise is, however, a complicated ...engineering problem because of the uneven loss distribution and effect of internal oil flow upon the convective heat transfer coefficients on the body surfaces of transformers. This paper presents a novel approach to compute and analyze the hot-spot temperature rise of the structural parts for an ODFS-334 MVA/500 kV single-phase auto-transformer. The surface convection heat transfer coefficients, which are computed based on computational fluid dynamics, are used as the boundary conditions of the magnetic-thermal coupling analysis using finite-element method. To validate the feasibility and applicability of the proposed method, the numerical results obtained from the proposed method are compared with those of experimental ones.
Contemporary models of intrafibrillar mineralization mechanisms are established using collagen fibrils as templates without considering the contribution from collagen-bound apatite nucleation ...inhibitors. However, collagen matrices destined for mineralization in vertebrates contain bound matrix proteins for intrafibrillar mineralization. Negatively charged, high-molecular weight polycarboxylic acid is cross-linked to reconstituted collagen to create a model for examining the contribution of collagen-ligand interaction to intrafibrillar mineralization. Cryogenic electron microscopy and molecular dynamics simulation show that, after cross-linking to collagen, the bound polyelectrolyte caches prenucleation cluster singlets into chain-like aggregates along the fibrillar surface to increase the pool of mineralization precursors available for intrafibrillar mineralization. Higher-quality mineralized scaffolds with better biomechanical properties are achieved compared with mineralization of unmodified scaffolds in polyelectrolyte-stabilized mineralization solution. Collagen-ligand interaction provides insights on the genesis of heterogeneously mineralized tissues and the potential causes of ectopic calcification in nonmineralized body tissues.
Metal enrichment of road dust is well characterized but available data on the bioaccessibility of metals in particle size fractions relevant to human respiratory health remain limited. The study goal ...was to investigate the bioaccessibility of platinum group elements (PGE), which are used as catalysts in automotive exhaust converters, in the inhalable fraction of road dust. Street sweepings were provided by the City of Toronto, Canada, collected as part of its Clean Roads to Clean Air program.The particle size relevance of road dust for inhalation exposures was confirmed using a laser diffraction particle size analyzer (mean Dx(50): 9.42 μm). Total PGE were determined in both bulk and inhalable fractions using nickel sulfide (NiS) fire-assay and instrumental neutron-activation analysis (INAA). PGE lung solubility was examined for the inhalable fraction using Gamble’s extraction. Sample digests were co-precipitated with Te-Sn, to pre-concentrate and isolate PGE, prior to their measurement using inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (ICP-MS).Total PGE concentrations were enriched in the inhalable fraction of road sweepings. Geomean concentrations in the inhalable fraction were: palladium (Pd) (152 μg/kg), platinum (Pt) (55 μg/kg), rhodium (Rh) (21 μg/kg) and iridium (Ir) (0.23 μg/kg). Osmium (Os) concentrations were below the limit of detection (LOD). Bioaccessible PGEs (n = 16) using Gamble’s solution were below LOD for Ir and ruthenium (Ru). For the remainder, the geomean % bioaccessibility was highest for platinum (16%), followed by rhodium (14%) and palladium (3.4%). This study provides evidence that PGE in road dust are bioaccessible in the human lung.
Display omitted
•Size fractionated road sweepings were collected over a road length of ca. 840 km.•PGE concentrations were enriched in the inhalable fraction (<10 μm) of road dust.•Palladium had the highest relative concentrations in road dust.•PGE in inhalable road dust shown to be bioaccessible using a lung simulant.•Platinum had the highest measured % bioaccessibility in Gamble’s solution.
Platinum group elements, which are shown to be enriched in the inhalable fraction (<10 μm) of road dust, are bioaccessible in the human lung; thereby, posing a potential health risk in exposed individuals.
PDF
