Association of Adiposity Indices with Platelet Distribution Width and Mean Platelet Volume in Chinese Adults

Hypoxia is a prominent characteristic of inflammatory tissue lesions. It can affect platelet function. While mean platelet volume (MPV) and platelet distribution width (PDW) are sample platelet indices, they may reflect subcinical platelet activation. To investigated associations between adiposity indices and platelet indices, 17327 eligible individuals (7677 males and 9650 females) from the Dongfeng-Tongji Cohort Study (DFTJ-Cohort Study, n=27009) were included in this study, except for 9682 individuals with missing data on demographical, lifestyle, physical indicators and diseases relative to PDW and MPV. Associations between adiposity indices including waist circumstance (WC), waist-to-height ratio (WHtR), body mass index (BMI), and MPV or PDW in the participants were analyzed using multiple logistic regressions. There were significantly negative associations between abnormal PDW and WC or WHtR for both sexes (ptrend<0.001 for all), as well as abnormal MPV and WC or WHtR among female participants (ptrend<0.05 for all). In the highest BMI groups, only females with low MPV or PDW were at greater risk for having low MPV (OR=1.33, 95% CI=1.10, 1.62 ptrend<0.001) or PDW (OR=1.34, 95% CI=1.14, 1.58, ptrend<0.001) than those who had low MPV or PDW in the corresponding lowest BMI group. The change of PDW seems more sensitive than MPV to oxidative stress and hypoxia. Associations between reduced PDW and MPV values and WC, WHtR and BMI values in Chinese female adults may help us to further investigate early changes in human body

Genome-Wide Analysis of DNA Methylation and Cigarette Smoking in a Chinese Population

Background: Smoking is a risk factor for many human diseases. DNA methylation has been related to smoking, but genome-wide methylation data for smoking in Chinese populations is limited. Objectives: We aimed to investigate epigenome-wide methylation in relation to smoking in a Chinese population. Methods: We measured the methylation levels at > 485,000 CpG sites (CpGs) in DNA from leukocytes using a methylation array and conducted a genome-wide meta-analysis of DNA methylation and smoking in a total of 596 Chinese participants. We further evaluated the associations of smoking-related CpGs with internal polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon (PAH) biomarkers and their correlations with the expression of corresponding genes. Results: We identified 318 CpGs whose methylation levels were associated with smoking at a genome-wide significance level (false discovery rate < 0.05), among which 161 CpGs annotated to 123 genes were not associated with smoking in recent studies of Europeans and African Americans. Of these smoking-related CpGs, methylation levels at 80 CpGs showed significant correlations with the expression of corresponding genes (including RUNX3, IL6R, PTAFR, ANKRD11, CEP135 and CDH23), and methylation at 15 CpGs was significantly associated with urinary 2-hydroxynaphthalene, the most representative internal monohydroxy-PAH biomarker for smoking. Conclusion: We identified DNA methylation markers associated with smoking in a Chinese population, including some markers that were also correlated with gene expression. Exposure to naphthalene, a byproduct of tobacco smoke, may contribute to smoking-related methylation. Citation: Zhu X, Li J, Deng S, Yu K, Liu X, Deng Q, Sun H, Zhang X, He M, Guo H, Chen W, Yuan J, Zhang B, Kuang D, He X, Bai Y, Han X, Liu B, Li X, Yang L, Jiang H, Zhang Y, Hu J, Cheng L, Luo X, Mei W, Zhou Z, Sun S, Zhang L, Liu C, Guo Y, Zhang Z, Hu FB, Liang L, Wu T. 2016. Genome-wide analysis of DNA methylation and cigarette smoking in Chinese. Environ Health Perspect 124:966–973; http://dx.doi.org/10.1289/ehp.150983

Tuning interlayer spacing of graphene oxide membranes with enhanced desalination performance

Tuning interlayer spacing of graphene oxide membranes with enhanced desalination performanc

Study of the Mechanism of the Fe-BHA Chelates in Scheelite Flotation

Scheelite associated with calcium-containing minerals such as calcite and fluorite is difficult to separate by flotation because of the Ca ions contained in the mineral lattices, which cause scheelite to have similar surface properties and floatability to gangue minerals. Traditional collectors such as oleic acid need to add a large amount of sodium silicate as gangue inhibitors, which causes difficulties for the settlement of tailings. In addition, the use of benzohydroxamic acid (BHA), which needs the addition of Pb(NO3)2 as the scheelite activator, can also cause environmental pollution. In this paper, Fe-BHA, a new collector containing the iron complex, was studied to investigate its flotation ability of scheelite, as well as its BHA/FeCl3 ratio on scheelite flotations. In the single mineral flotations, the Fe-BHA showed a significant difference in the flotation recoveries of scheelite and calcite, with a scheelite recovery of 77.03% at pH 8.0 and calcite recovery of 16.69% at the same pH. The results of the roughing tests of Xianglushan actual ore showed that the scheelite with Fe-BHA (500 g/t BHA and 200 g/t FeCl3) and 40 g/t oleic acid as collectors obtained satisfactory flotation results with a WO3 grade of 1.56% and WO3 recovery of 65.52%, which were much higher than those of scheelite with BHA or oleic acid as the collector, but there was still a gap with those of scheelite using Pb(NO3)2 as activation and BHA as the collector. The UV-Vis curves of the Fe-BHA with different BHA/FeCl3 ratios indicated that the Fe-BHA chelates might have several different structural forms, and the single mineral tests of the BHA/FeCl3 ratios showed that when the molar ratio of benzohydroxamic acid to FeCl3 was about 1.2:1, the best scheelite flotation result was obtained in this test. In addition, the XPS analyses proved that the adsorption of the Fe-BHA on the scheelite surface occurred, and by fitting the peaks of Ca 2p and O 1s of scheelite, it was found that the mechanism of the Fe-BHA acting on the Ca sites of the scheelite surface was through the removal of H2O from the Ca-OH of scheelite and Fe-OH from Fe-BHA to form Fe-O-H

Study of the Mechanism of the Fe-BHA Chelates in Scheelite Flotation

Scheelite associated with calcium-containing minerals such as calcite and fluorite is difficult to separate by flotation because of the Ca ions contained in the mineral lattices, which cause scheelite to have similar surface properties and floatability to gangue minerals. Traditional collectors such as oleic acid need to add a large amount of sodium silicate as gangue inhibitors, which causes difficulties for the settlement of tailings. In addition, the use of benzohydroxamic acid (BHA), which needs the addition of Pb(NO3)2 as the scheelite activator, can also cause environmental pollution. In this paper, Fe-BHA, a new collector containing the iron complex, was studied to investigate its flotation ability of scheelite, as well as its BHA/FeCl3 ratio on scheelite flotations. In the single mineral flotations, the Fe-BHA showed a significant difference in the flotation recoveries of scheelite and calcite, with a scheelite recovery of 77.03% at pH 8.0 and calcite recovery of 16.69% at the same pH. The results of the roughing tests of Xianglushan actual ore showed that the scheelite with Fe-BHA (500 g/t BHA and 200 g/t FeCl3) and 40 g/t oleic acid as collectors obtained satisfactory flotation results with a WO3 grade of 1.56% and WO3 recovery of 65.52%, which were much higher than those of scheelite with BHA or oleic acid as the collector, but there was still a gap with those of scheelite using Pb(NO3)2 as activation and BHA as the collector. The UV-Vis curves of the Fe-BHA with different BHA/FeCl3 ratios indicated that the Fe-BHA chelates might have several different structural forms, and the single mineral tests of the BHA/FeCl3 ratios showed that when the molar ratio of benzohydroxamic acid to FeCl3 was about 1.2:1, the best scheelite flotation result was obtained in this test. In addition, the XPS analyses proved that the adsorption of the Fe-BHA on the scheelite surface occurred, and by fitting the peaks of Ca 2p and O 1s of scheelite, it was found that the mechanism of the Fe-BHA acting on the Ca sites of the scheelite surface was through the removal of H2O from the Ca-OH of scheelite and Fe-OH from Fe-BHA to form Fe-O-H

Photo-switchable smart metal organic framework membranes with tunable and enhanced molecular sieving performance

Photo-switchable smart metal organic framework membranes with tunable and enhanced molecular sieving performanc

A short review of medical-grade stainless steel: Corrosion resistance and novel techniques

Due to its exceptional quality as a biomedical metal, stainless steel is often utilized to produce a broad range of medical tools. The resistance of stainless steel to corrosion is a key indicator of how long and how effective it will serve its intended purpose, and it is an important factor in determining the biocompatibility of the material. However, due to the complex physiological environment within the human body, the corrosion management of medical-grade stainless steel is facing several challenges. In this article, an overview of the factors that influence the corrosion performance of medical-grade stainless steel is provided, and new technologies and methods that have been developed in recent years to improve the corrosion resistance are discussed. These cutting-edge methods are expected to improve the corrosion resistance and longevity of medical-grade stainless steel, providing strong support for the increased applicability of the material in the medical industry

Climatic drivers and ecological implications of variation in the time interval between leaf-out and flowering

Leaf-out and flowering in any given species have evolved to occur in a predetermined sequence, with the inter-stage time interval optimized to maximize plant fitness. Although warming-induced advances of both leaf-out and flowering are well documented, it remains unclear whether shifts in these phenological phases differ in magnitudes and whether changes have occurred in the length of the inter-stage intervals. Here, we present an extensive synthesis of warming effects on flower-leaf time intervals, using long-term (1963–2014) and in situ data consisting of 11,858 leaf-out and flowering records for 183 species across China. We found that the timing of both spring phenological events was generally advanced, indicating a dominant impact of forcing conditions compared with chilling. Stable time intervals between leaf-out and flowering prevailed for most of the time series despite increasing temperatures; however, some of the investigated cases featured significant changes in the time intervals. The latter could be explained by differences in the temperature sensitivity (ST) between leaf and flower phenology. Greater ST for flowering than for leaf-out caused flowering times to advance faster than leaf emergence. This shortened the inter-stage intervals in leaf-first species and lengthened them in flower-first species. Variation in the time intervals between leaf-out and flowering events may have far-reaching ecological and evolutionary consequences, with implications for species fitness, intra/inter-species interactions, and ecosystem structure, function, and stability

Interaction of Atomic Deuterium with Rutile TiO₂(011)-(2×1)

Inspired by the significance of hydrogen–solid interaction in hydrogen energy and catalysis, adsorption, diffusion, and desorption behaviors of deuterium atoms in rutile TiO2(011) have been investigated by temperature-programmed desorption (TPD) and ultraviolet photoelectron spectroscopy (UPS). Upon exposure, a small portion of D atoms adsorb at surface oxygen sites, resulting in the band gap states at 1.35 eV below the Fermi level and desorbing as water at ∼400 K. Most of the D atoms will diffuse into the bulk due to the relatively low activation barrier and the huge capacity of the solid material. These bulk D species desorb as D2/HD between 500 and 800 K. While the desorbing D2O from surface hydroxyls saturates at ∼0.10 monolayer (ML), the yielding D2 is about 96 ML (equivalent coverage) at the largest atomic D exposure of 4.54 langmuir and no saturation trend has been observed in the present work. Detailed analysis indicates the bulk D will diffuse back to the surface and recombine as D2 at elevated temperatures. The differences between the behavior of H­(D) in rutile TiO2(110) and TiO2(011) have been discussed by considering the presence of additional bridging oxygen atoms between the in-plane and topmost ones on the latter surface. The striking finding that most surface D atoms diffuse into the bulk of rutile TiO2(011) will not only broaden our understanding of the interaction of H/D with the prototypical metal oxide material but also provide clues to investigate the mechanism of H/D involving reactions over TiO2 catalysts, for example, hydrogen evolution and hydrogenation