Racial Disparities Study in Diabetes-Related Complication Using National Health Survey Data

The main aim of this study is to compare the prevalence of diabetes-related complications in white to the prevalence in other racial and ethnic groups in United States using 2009 Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (BRFSS). By constructing the logistic regression model, odds ratios (OR) were calculated to compare the prevalence of diabetes complications in white and other groups. Compared to white, the prevalence of hypertension and stroke in African Americans were higher, while the prevalence of heart attack and coronary heart disease were lower. The Asian Americans or Pacific Islanders, African Americans and Hispanics were more likely to develop retinopathy compared to white. The prevalence of hypertension, hypercholesterolemia, heart attack, coronary heart disease, Stroke in Native Americans and “other” group were not significantly different from the prevalence in white. Asian or Pacific Islanders were less likely to experience stroke

Rapid Determination of Ractopamine Residues in Edible Animal Products by Enzyme-Linked Immunosorbent Assay: Development and Investigation of Matrix Effects

To determine ractopamine residues in animal food products (chicken muscle, pettitoes, pig muscle, and pig liver), we established a rapid direct competitive enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) using a polyclonal antibody generated from ractopamine-linker-BSA. The antibody showed high sensitivity and specificity in phosphate buffer, with an IC50 of 0.6 ng/mL, and the limit of detection was 0.04 ng/mL. The matrix effect of the samples was easily eliminated by one-step extraction with PBS, without any organic solution or clean-up procedure such as SPE or liquid-liquid extraction, making it a much more simple and rapid method than previously reported ones. The detection limit in blank samples was 0.2 μg/kg. To validate this new RAC (ractopamine hydrochloride) ELISA, a RAC-free pig liver sample spiked at three different concentrations was prepared and analyzed by HPLC and ELISA. The results showed a good correlation between the data of ELISA and HPLC (R2 > 0.95), which proves that the established ELISA is accurate enough to quantify the residue of RAC in the animal derived foods

OMAE2010-21049 ANALYSIS OF EROSION AND FAILURE IN THE SUDDEN EXPANSION FRACTURING TUBING OF DEEP GAS WELLS

ABSTRACT With the increasing of flow rate during fracturing in deep gas well, the erosion of fracturing tubing is an issue of immense concern to the industry. Based on the Euler-Euler two -fluid theory, the numerical simulations have been performed to predict the flow field in the sudden expansion fracturing tubing. The velocity distributions and sand concentration profiles are obtained, and the simulation results show that separation and reflux come into being in the sudden expansion fracturing tubing when pumping sand slurries at high rate, and the sand concentration increases at some regions. The erosion and failure of the fracturing tubing are relevant to the sand concentration, the velocity and the impact angle. The erosion model was established with the erosion experiment, and the numerical simulation results were used to describe the erosion rate of sudden expansion fracturing tubing according to the established erosion models. The mainly erosion region obtained through the simulation is basically agree with the failure region of tubing during fracturing in deep gas wells

OMAE2010-21069 TEST AND ANALYSIS OF VIBRATION CHARACTERISTIC ON NEW TYPE DYNAMIC HYDROCYCLONE

ABSTRACT Dynamic hydrocyclone is currently used in separating oil and water from the crude oil, in which the fluid rolling motion is drived by the external power. Compared with the static type, the dynamic hydrocylone has higher separating property, while its structure is more complex and its separating property is influenced seriously by all the rotary components. Based on the original model, dynamic hydrocyclone of the new type is designed and manufactured, while applying the vibration signal collection and analysis system of IOtech640 type in the vibration characteristic analysis of the model body. The result shows that, when the rotating speed rises from 600r/min to 2000r/min and the flux from 1 to 3 m 3 /h, the level time-domain vibration peak of the monitoring site both the near the electromotor and the faraway is under 3.4×10 -4 , while the vertical is under 3.2×10 -4 , with steady frequency components in the vibration signal. It is illustrated that vibration intensity of the dynamic hydrocyclone of the new optimized type is lightened, which may confirm the improvement of the separation property and the operational life

Enhanced Expression of Deoxynivalenol-Degrading Enzyme DepB in Bacillus subtilis by Optimizing Expression Elements

A deoxynivalenol-degrading enzyme DepB was successfully expressed in Bacillus subtilis RIK 1285 in this study, but the fermentation level of DepB was low, which hinders its application in food and feed processing. Thus, an integrative strategy of transcriptional and translational regulation was explored to enhance the expression level of DepB. First, nine single strong promoters were selected to replace the original promoter P43, among which the recombinant bacteria mediated by the promoter PspoVG gave the highest enzyme activity of 29.59 U/mL after fermentation. Second, four promoters (P43, PsacB, PspoVG, and PaprE) with relatively high DepB expression levels were chosen to construct a dual-promoter system. DepB mediated by the dual promoter PaprE-PspoVG reached the highest activity of 48.87 U/mL. Moreover, the DepB activity of Mutant-5 with optimized core region (-35 and -10 boxes) of PaprE-PspoVG reached 69.17 U/mL, which was 4.79 times higher than that of the original strain (14.45 U/mL). Finally, DepB expression level was further improved by optimizing the ribosome binding site (RBS) sequence of the promoter PspoVG, and the enzyme activity of RBS15 reached 115.15 U/mL, which was 7.97-fold higher than that of the original strain. The results suggest that combined transcriptional and translational regulation is an effective strategy to improve the fermentation level of recombinant proteins

Gene Expression Profiles Deciphering Rice Phenotypic Variation between Nipponbare (Japonica) and 93-11 (Indica) during Oxidative Stress

Rice is a very important food staple that feeds more than half the world's population. Two major Asian cultivated rice (Oryza sativa L.) subspecies, japonica and indica, show significant phenotypic variation in their stress responses. However, the molecular mechanisms underlying this phenotypic variation are still largely unknown. A common link among different stresses is that they produce an oxidative burst and result in an increase of reactive oxygen species (ROS). In this study, methyl viologen (MV) as a ROS agent was applied to investigate the rice oxidative stress response. We observed that 93-11 (indica) seedlings exhibited leaf senescence with severe lesions under MV treatment compared to Nipponbare (japonica). Whole-genome microarray experiments were conducted, and 1,062 probe sets were identified with gene expression level polymorphisms between the two rice cultivars in addition to differential expression under MV treatment, which were assigned as Core Intersectional Probesets (CIPs). These CIPs were analyzed by gene ontology (GO) and highlighted with enrichment GO terms related to toxin and oxidative stress responses as well as other responses. These GO term-enriched genes of the CIPs include glutathine S-transferases (GSTs), P450, plant defense genes, and secondary metabolism related genes such as chalcone synthase (CHS). Further insertion/deletion (InDel) and regulatory element analyses for these identified CIPs suggested that there may be some eQTL hotspots related to oxidative stress in the rice genome, such as GST genes encoded on chromosome 10. In addition, we identified a group of marker genes individuating the japonica and indica subspecies. In summary, we developed a new strategy combining biological experiments and data mining to study the possible molecular mechanism of phenotypic variation during oxidative stress between Nipponbare and 93-11. This study will aid in the analysis of the molecular basis of quantitative traits

Insights into salt tolerance from the genome of Thellungiella salsuginea

Thellungiella salsuginea, a close relative of Arabidopsis, represents an extremophile model for abiotic stress tolerance studies. We present the draft sequence of the T. salsuginea genome, assembled based on ∼134-fold coverage to seven chromosomes with a coding capacity of at least 28,457 genes. This genome provides resources and evidence about the nature of defense mechanisms constituting the genetic basis underlying plant abiotic stress tolerance. Comparative genomics and experimental analyses identified genes related to cation transport, abscisic acid signaling, and wax production prominent in T. salsuginea as possible contributors to its success in stressful environments