Serum 25-hydroxyvitamin D3 is associated with advanced glycation end products (AGEs) measured as skin autofluorescence: The Rotterdam Study

Advanced glycation end products (AGEs) accumulate in tissues with aging and may influence age-related diseases. They can be estimated non-invasively by skin autofluorescence (SAF) using the AGE Reader™. Serum 25-hydroxyvitamin D3 (25(OH)D3) may inhibit AGEs accumulation through anti-oxidative and anti-inflammatory properties but evidence in humans is scarce. The objective was to investigate the association between serum 25(OH)D3 and SAF in the population-based cohort study. Serum 25(OH)D3 and other covariates were measured at baseline. SAF was measured on average 11.5 years later. Known risk factors for AGE accumulation such as higher age, BMI, and coffee intake, male sex, smoking, diabetes, and decreased renal function were measured at baseline. Linear regression models were adopted to explore the association between 25(OH)D3 and SAF with adjustment for confounders. Interaction terms were tested to identify effect modification. The study was conducted in the general community. 2746 community-dwelling participants (age ≥ 45 years) from the Rotterdam Study were included. Serum 25(OH)D3 inversely associated with SAF and explained 1.5% of the variance (unstandardized B = − 0.002 (95% CI[− 0.003, − 0.002]), standardized β = − 0.125), independently of known risk factors and medication intake. The association was present in both diabetics (B = − 0.004 (95% CI[− 0.008, − 0.001]), β = − 0.192) and non-diabetics (B = − 0.002 (95% CI[− 0.003, − 0.002]), β = − 0.122), both sexes, both smokers and non-smokers and in each RS subcohort. Serum 25(OH)D3 concentration was significantly and inversely associated with SAF measured prospectively, also after adjustment for known risk factors for high SAF and the number of medication used, but the causal chain is yet to be explored in future studies. Clinical Trial Registry (1) Netherlands National Trial Register: Trial ID: NTR6831 (http://www.trialregister.nl/trialreg/admin/rctview.asp?TC=6831). (2) WHO International Clinical Trials Registry Platform: under shared catalogue number NTR6831 (www.who.int/ictrp/network/primary/en/)

Sources, Pollution Characteristics, and Ecological Risk Assessment of Steroids in Beihai Bay, Guangxi

Steroids are environmental endocrine disruptors that are discharged from vertebrates and are also byproducts of aquaculture. They have strong endocrine disrupting effects and are extremely harmful to the environment. The pollution of steroids in Beihai Bay was assessed through analyzing sources from rivers entering the bay. Six different types of steroids were detected in seagoing rivers, seagoing discharge outlets, and marine aquaculture farms, ranging from 0.12 (methyltestosterone) to 2.88 ng/L (estrone), from 0.11 (cortisol) to 5.41 ng/L (6a-methylprednisone (Dragon)), and from 0.13 (estradiol) to 2.51 ng/L (nandrolone), respectively. Moreover, 5 steroids were detected in 13 of the 19 seawater monitoring stations, accounting for 68.4% of the samples, and their concentrations ranged from 0.18 (methyltestosterone) to 4.04 ng/L (estrone). Furthermore, 7 steroids were detected in 15 of the 19 sediment monitoring stations, accounting for 78.9% of the samples, with concentrations ranging from 26 (estrone) to 776 ng/kg(androsterone). Thus, the main source of marine steroids were the discharging rivers and pollution sources entering the sea. An ecological risk assessment indicated that estrone and methyltestosterone were at high risk in this region; 17β estradiol (E2β) was medium risk, and other steroids were of low or no risk. This study provides a scientific basis for ecological risk assessment and control

Glucose Analyzer Based on Self-made Biosensor for High-performance Glucose Detection

The concentration analyzer with high precision and wide range is the core device for monitoring the fermentation process. In this work, we designed and proposed a lowcost three-electrode glucose analyzer based on a self-made screen-printed enzyme biosensor chip, which has a Prussian blue (PB) nanocubic structure and leads to high sensitivity of 117.31 μAmM-1cm-2. The hardware design of the glucose analyzer can be divided into five critical parts, including digital, signal treatment system, power supply, motor-driven and the host computer. The signal treatment system is used to collect, convert and amplify the weak current signal generated by the biosensor. The digital circuit of the central processing unit of the analyzer is designed using the STM32F407ZET6. Besides, an external analog-to-digital converter is used to achieve high precision A/D conversion. The stability of the potentiostat is ensured by designing the precision power supply, hardware filtering, and algorithm filtering. The experimental results show that the glucose analyzer has a wide linear detection range from 1g/L to 120g/L and the coefficient of variation at 1g/L is 0.038, which exhibits excellent performance in stability and detection accuracy. The analyzer can be applied in the future for in-situ measurement of glucose concentration for its wide-range and high-precision detection capabilities

Deformations of a Clamped-Clamped Elastica inside a Circular Channel with Clearance

In coherent diffraction imaging (CDI) systems, the results of phase retrieval could be deteriorated by the inevitable experimental noise. To address the problem, a noise-robust algorithm is designed with weighted feedback and adjustable frequency filtering. The frequency filter serves as the smoothness constraint and has an adaptive parameter during iterations, to suppress the noise as well as avoid the convergence stagnancy of iterative phase retrieval. Numerical simulations and experimental results demonstrate that the proposed algorithm is superior in reconstruction quality under noisy conditions and increases the convergence speed. Furthermore, the minimum acceptable number of measurements of diffracting images is reduced. This work is beneficial to data synthesis in CDI systems

Understand the effect of the confinedtrifluoromethane sulfonate (OTf−) anions by the adjacent MXene nanosheets on oriented design of Zn ion storage

Ion pre-intercalation regulating the tunnel structure of electrode materials accelerates Zn2+ insertion kinetics to realize a high energy storage contribution of Zn-ion batteries. However, electrostatic interaction induced by the pre-intercalated cation and multivalent Zn2+ ions hinders the insertion of Zn2+/H+. In order to retain the negative interlayer surface, herein, OTf− anions were intercalated into the confined spacing by MXene via an electrochemical-driven method. Without changing the potential state of the interlayer spacings, OTf− anion induced a regulated interlayer distance, and a higher oxidation state of V based on the space occupation and the electron transfer mechanism. Consequently, the zinc ion storage capacity of V2CTx MXene increases from 125.2 to 288.7 mAh/g at 0.5 A/g. Interestingly, the negatively charged MXene surface was still intact, which presents lower diffusion barriers of the Zn2+ ions. The merits of anion pre-intercalation are highlighted and provide new insights into the ion storage function-oriented design of MXene