Effect and Mechanism of Functional Sweetener on Obesity: A Review

Obesity has become a serious threat to human health, with excessive intake of sugar being one of the major causes of obesity. Therefore, replacing high-calorie sugar with low-calorie functional sweeteners or sugar substituents is a popular dietary choice for the prevention and management of obesity. However, the relationship between functional sweeteners and obesity is complex, and no definitive conclusion has been reached. This is because the effect of functional sweeteners is influenced by various factors, including the type and dosage of functional sweetener, as well as individual differences such as gender, health status and gut microbiota composition. In this article, we review the effect of common functional sweeteners on energy metabolism, fat metabolism and the gut microbiota in the body. Furthermore, we summarize the current studies on the effect and mechanism of functional sweeteners on obesity hoping to provide a reference for better selection or application of foods and beverages containing non-nutritional sweeteners in the future

Oligo/Amenorrhea Is an Independent Risk Factor Associated With Low Ovarian Response

CapsuleOligo/amenorrhea is an independent risk factor of low ovarian response but not high ovarian response, particularly in women with low AMH levels.ObjectiveTo investigate the association of menstrual cycle length (MCL) with anti-Müllerian hormone (AMH) and ovarian response.MethodsThis was a retrospective cohort study. A total of 7471 women who underwent ovarian stimulation and oocyte retrieval were enrolled. The main outcome was the number of oocytes retrieved.Main ResultsA total of 5734 patients were eligible for analysis. In women without polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS), serum AMH levels and antral follicle count were significantly lower in women with short cycles and higher in women with oligo/amenorrhea than those with a normal menstrual cycle. In women with PCOS, compared to women with a normal menstrual cycle, women with short cycles and women with oligo/amenorrhea showed higher antral follicle count and higher serum AMH levels. Compared with the 0-25th range group of AMH levels, 75-100th percentile groups showed a significantly increased rate of oligo/amenorrhea in women with and without PCOS [adjusted odds ratio (OR) =1.9 (1.04, 3.46), 2.4 (1.70, 3.35)]. In women without PCOS, the low ovarian response was more common in women with short cycles and less common in women with oligo/amenorrhea compared to women with normal cycles [OR=3.0 (2.38, 3.78), 0.7 (0.55, 0.96), respectively]. When adjusted for AMH levels, both short cycles and oligo/amenorrhea were associated with an increased risk of low response [adjusted OR=1.3 (1.02, 1.75), 1.3 (0.93, 1.86), respectively]. In women without PCOS and with low AMH levels, the low ovarian response was more common in women with short cycles as well as in women with oligo/amenorrhea [OR=1.5 (1.08, 1.98), 1.7 (1.08, 2.69), adjusted OR=1.2 (0.86, 1.74), 2.2 (1.31, 3.82), respectively].ConclusionAMH levels are significantly associated with increased risk of oligo/amenorrhea in women with and without PCOS. AMH is an indispensable confounder in the association between MCL and ovarian response in women without PCOS. Oligo/amenorrhea is an independent risk factor associated with a low ovarian response in women without PCOS, particularly those with low AMH levels

Joint analysis of three genome-wide association studies of esophageal squamous cell carcinoma in Chinese populations

We conducted a joint (pooled) analysis of three genome-wide association studies (GWAS) 1-3 of esophageal squamous cell carcinoma (ESCC) in ethnic Chinese (5,337 ESCC cases and 5,787 controls) with 9,654 ESCC cases and 10,058 controls for follow-up. In a logistic regression model adjusted for age, sex, study, and two eigenvectors, two new loci achieved genome-wide significance, marked by rs7447927 at 5q31.2 (per-allele odds ratio (OR) = 0.85, 95% CI 0.82-0.88; P=7.72x10−20) and rs1642764 at 17p13.1 (per-allele OR= 0.88, 95% CI 0.85-0.91; P=3.10x10−13). rs7447927 is a synonymous single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) in TMEM173 and rs1642764 is an intronic SNP in ATP1B2, near TP53. Furthermore, a locus in the HLA class II region at 6p21.32 (rs35597309) achieved genome-wide significance in the two populations at highest risk for ESSC (OR=1.33, 95% CI 1.22-1.46; P=1.99x10−10). Our joint analysis identified new ESCC susceptibility loci overall as well as a new locus unique to the ESCC high risk Taihang Mountain region

On-Line Monitoring of Shunt Capacitor Bank Based on Relay Protection Device

In modern power systems, the installation of a shunt capacitor bank is one of the cheapest and most widely used methods for improving the voltage profile. One shunt capacitor bank is composed of mass capacitor units and have ground, ungrounded, delta, wye connections that make configuration of capacitor banks is various. In the case of long-term operation, the failure of a single capacitor unit of a capacitor bank is likely to cause uneven voltage, which will lead to the breakdown and burning of the whole group, resulting in huge losses. The relay protection device can detect the simultaneous voltage and current of the capacitor. By utilizing these data from the relay, the abnormal state of the shunt capacitor banks at the initial stage of the fault can be found through monitoring the slight change in capacitance. Timely and early maintenance and repair would avoid capacitor bank faults and potentially greater economic losses. Capacitor banks have different connection modes. For ungrounded wye-connected capacitor banks with an unknown neutral point voltage, the capacitance parameters of each branch cannot be calculated. A parameter symmetry based on the calculation method for capacitor parameters is proposed. For long-term monitoring and observation of the capacitor capacitance value, the fault state and abnormal state of the capacitor are identified based on statistical methods. The simulation established by PSCAD verified that a relay protection device can realized an effective monitoring of the early abnormal state of the capacitor bank

A Cross-Domain Alliance Authentication Scheme based on Bilinear Group

With the development of grid computing, cloud computing and other large distributed network technology, users need them to provide services of unlimited space and unlimited speed. In order to meeting this request of users, all the domains in these large distributed networks need coordination for each other. For ensuring the safety to access resources in all domains, we propose a crossdomain union authentication scheme.We compute a large prime cyclic group by elliptic curve, and use the direct decomposition of this group to decompose automorphism groups ,and design an signcryption scheme between domains by bilinear of automorphism group to achieve cross-domain union authentication. This scheme overcome the complexity of certificate transmission and bottlenecks in the scheme of PKI-based, and it can trace the entities and supports two-way entities anonymous authentication, which avoid the domain certificate authority counterfeiting its member to access cross-domain resources. Analyses show that its advantages on security and communication-consumption

A Cross-Domain Alliance Authentication Scheme based on Bilinear Group

Abstract: With the development of grid computing, cloud computing and other large distributed network technology, users need them to provide services of unlimited space and unlimited speed. In order to meeting this request of users, all the domains in these large distributed networks need coordination for each other. For ensuring the safety to access resources in all domains, we propose a crossdomain union authentication scheme. We compute a large prime cyclic group by elliptic curve, and use the direct decomposition of this group to decompose automorphism groups,and design an signcryption scheme between domains by bilinear of automorphism group to achieve cross-domain union authentication. This scheme overcome the complexity of certificate transmission and bottlenecks in the scheme of PKI-based, and it can trace the entities and supports two-way entities anonymous authentication, which avoid the domain certificate authority counterfeiting its member to access cross-domain resources. Analyses show that its advantages on security and communication-consumption

Risk factors associated with truck-involved fatal crash severity: analyzing their impact for different groups of truck drivers

Introduction: Fatal crashes that include at least one fatality of an occupant within 30 days of the crash cause large numbers of injured persons and property losses, especially when a truck is involved. Method: To better understand the underlying effects of truck-driver-related characteristics in fatal crashes, a five-year (from 2012 to 2016) dataset from the Fatality Analysis Reporting System (FARS) was used for analysis. Based on demographic attributes, driving violation behavior, crash histories, and conviction records of truck drivers, a latent class clustering analysis was applied to classify truck drivers into three groups, namely, ‘‘middle-aged and elderly drivers with low risk of driving violations and high historical crash records,” ‘‘drivers with high risk of driving violations and high historical crash records,” and ‘‘middle-aged drivers with no driving violations and conviction records.” Next, equivalent fatalities were used to scale fatal crash severities into three levels. Subsequently, a partial proportional odds (PPO) model for each driver group was developed to identify the risk factors associated with the crash severity. Results' Conclusions: The model estimation results showed that the risk factors, as well as their impacts on different driver groups, were different. Adverse weather conditions, rural areas, curved alignments, tractor-trailer units, heavier weights and various collision manners were significantly associated with the crash severities in all driver groups, whereas driving violation behaviors such as driving under the influence of alcohol or drugs, fatigue, or carelessness were significantly associated with the high-risk group only, and fewer risk factors and minor marginal effects were identified for the low-risk groups. Practical Applications: Corresponding countermeasures for specific truck driver groups are proposed. And drivers with high risk of driving violations and high historical crash records should be more concerned