Effects of vitamin D, dietary calcium and vitamin D restriction, pregnancy and lactation on gene expression of calcium transporting factors

The purpose of the first study was to determine the changes in intestinal vitamin D-dependent plasma membrane calcium ATPase (PMCA1) and calcium binding protein-9K (CaBP-9K) mRNA induced by a single injection of 1,25-D3 or 1,25,28-trihydroxyvitamin D2 (1,25,28-D2) in vitamin D-deficient rats. The results indicated that a single injection of 20 ng of 1,25-D3 per rat double intestinal PMCA1 mRNA at 4, 8, 12, hours and CaBP-9K mRNA at 8, 12, and 24 hours after injection. The mRNA of PMCA1 and CaBP-9K could be increased by a larger dose of 1,25,28-D2 (20 ng). These data suggest that the up-regulation of PMCA1 and CaBP-9K mRNA may be critical to active calcium transport;In the second study, the effect of dietary calcium and/or vitamin D-deficiency on intestinal PMCA1 and CaBP-9K mRNA expression in rats was examined. The results indicate both intestinal CaATPase and CaBP-9K mRNA are down-regulated in rats fed diets containing no vitamin D. However, our data suggest that dietary calcium restriction alone did not have any effect on CaATPase and CaBP mRNA. This study demonstrates that dietary calcium itself is probably not a regulator of mRNA gene expression of PMCA1 and CaBP-9K;In the third study, intestinal PMCA1, CaBP-9K and vitamin D receptor (VDR) mRNA were determined at different stages of pregnancy and early lactation in rats. At 21 days gestation and 7 days of lactation, both PMCA1 and CaBP-9K mRNA levels increased 2-3 fold. PMCA1 and CaBP-9K mRNA remained elevated at 7 days of lactation. Interestingly, VDR mRNA levels did not change during the entire experiment. However, VDR content increased 2-fold in late pregnancy and lactation. These data suggest that the effects of gestation and lactation on PMCA1 and CaBP-9K are probably transcriptional and on VDR are post transcriptional

New Viewpoints about Pseudo Measurements Method in Equality-Constrained State Estimation

We discuss the pseudo measurement method which is one of the main approaches to equality-constrained state estimation for a dynamic system. We demonstrate by the fundamental theory of Kalman filtering that reviewing the equality constraint as a pseudo measurement seems questionable. The main reason is that the additional pseudo measurement is actually a constant here which cannot help to estimate the state. More specifically, when the states in an unconstrained dynamic system model have already satisfied the equality constraint, the extra constraint is obviously not necessary. When the true equality-constrained states do not satisfy the unconstrained dynamic process equation, the effect of pseudo measurement is projecting the estimate which is not optimal onto the constraint set. However, since the performance of a projected estimate is also certainly influenced by its original estimate, we show through a numerical example that the pseudo measurement method is not always a good choice, especially when the process equation mismatch is large

A Longitudinal Analysis about the Effect of Air Pollution on Astigmatism for Children and Young Adults

Purpose: This study aimed to investigate the correlation between air pollution and astigmatism, considering the detrimental effects of air pollution on respiratory, cardiovascular, and eye health. Methods: A longitudinal study was conducted with 127,709 individuals aged 4-27 years from 9 cities in Guangdong Province, China, spanning from 2019 to 2021. Astigmatism was measured using cylinder values. Multiple measurements were taken at intervals of at least 1 year. Various exposure windows were used to assess the lagged impacts of air pollution on astigmatism. A panel data model with random effects was constructed to analyze the relationship between pollutant exposure and astigmatism. Results: The study revealed significant associations between astigmatism and exposure to carbon monoxide (CO), nitrogen dioxide (NO2), and particulate matter (PM2.5) over time. A 10 {\mu}g/m3 increase in a 3-year exposure window of NO2 and PM2.5 was associated with a decrease in cylinder value of -0.045 diopters and -0.017 diopters, respectively. A 0.1 mg/m3 increase in CO concentration within a 2-year exposure window correlated with a decrease in cylinder value of -0.009 diopters. No significant relationships were found between PM10 exposure and astigmatism. Conclusion: This study concluded that greater exposure to NO2 and PM2.5 over longer periods aggravates astigmatism. The negative effect of CO on astigmatism peaks in the exposure window of 2 years prior to examination and diminishes afterward. No significant association was found between PM10 exposure and astigmatism, suggesting that gaseous and smaller particulate pollutants have easier access to human eyes, causing heterogeneous morphological changes to the eyeball

Effects of yeast culture supplementation on milk yield, rumen fermentation, metabolism, and bacterial composition in dairy goats

The effects of yeast culture (YC) on dairy goat milk yield and potential effects of rumen microbial population changes on rumen fermentation are poorly understood. This study aimed to evaluate the effects of YC on milk yield and rumen fermentation in dairy goats and explore the potential microbial mechanisms. Forty Laoshan dairy goats with a weight of 51.23 ± 2.23 kg and daily milk yield of 1.41 ± 0.26 kg were randomly divided into 4 groups: control (no YC), YC1 (10 g/day per goat), YC2 (25 g/day per goat), and YC3 (40 g/day per goat). The pre-feeding period was 15 days, and the official period was 60 days. Laoshan dairy goats were milked twice daily, and the individual milk yield was recorded. On the last day of the official period, rumen fluid was collected to measure rumen fermentation, perform quantitative polymerase chain reaction (PCR), and detect metabolites. Compared to the control group, the YC group had greater milk yield; higher acetic acid, butyric acid, and total volatile fatty acid contents; and lower ammonia-N (NH3-N) content in the rumen (p < 0.05). YC increased the abundance of Clostridia_UCG-014 and Paraprevotella (p < 0.05). Differential metabolites L-leucine and aspartic acid were screened. This study revealed the microbial mechanisms linking the relative abundance of Paraprevotella and Clostridia_UCG-014 to L-leucine and aspartic acid utilization. These results describe the potential benefits of supplementing 10 g/day per goat YC in the diets of Laoshan dairy goats for improving the rumen environment and milk yield

Customer Relationship Management for the Anhui WHYWIN International Co., Ltd

The customer relationship management (CRM) is valued by every company nowadays due to its importance for companies’ future development. How to build and maintain the customer relationships proves to be a big and serious issue for each company no matter their size. After 10 years of development, Anhui WHYWIN International Co., Ltd (AHW) has made a lot of great progress and become one of the most famous companies in the foreign trade area in Anhui Province. In 2013, the company decided to go public and expand their business scope. These big decisions will affect many issues within the company including the CRM. Therefore, how to keep and maintain the current relationships with the old customers and build new relationships during the expansion process will be a topic to be followed by AHW. The theoretical part of the thesis focused on the concepts and the implementation strategies of the customer relationship management. When it talked to the CRM strategies, theoretical and empirical parts are combined, aim to give readers a more clear understanding of the theory. The quantitative (a survey for employees) and qualitative (an interview with a manager) methods were used in the research, with the purpose of investigating the different opinions of managers and employees and their suggestions for the CRM of AHW. The research for employees was sent as a questionnaire via paper, and the interview with the manager who worked in the documentary department in AHW contained 10 questions. After the analysis of the result, combining with the real situation in the AHW company, it will be given some suggestions, with the hope to promote the better development of CRM implementation in the future

Effects of vitamin D, dietary calcium and vitamin D restriction, pregnancy and lactation on gene expression of calcium transporting factors

The purpose of the first study was to determine the changes in intestinal vitamin D-dependent plasma membrane calcium ATPase (PMCA1) and calcium binding protein-9K (CaBP-9K) mRNA induced by a single injection of 1,25-D3 or 1,25,28-trihydroxyvitamin D2 (1,25,28-D2) in vitamin D-deficient rats. The results indicated that a single injection of 20 ng of 1,25-D3 per rat double intestinal PMCA1 mRNA at 4, 8, 12, hours and CaBP-9K mRNA at 8, 12, and 24 hours after injection. The mRNA of PMCA1 and CaBP-9K could be increased by a larger dose of 1,25,28-D2 (20 ng). These data suggest that the up-regulation of PMCA1 and CaBP-9K mRNA may be critical to active calcium transport;In the second study, the effect of dietary calcium and/or vitamin D-deficiency on intestinal PMCA1 and CaBP-9K mRNA expression in rats was examined. The results indicate both intestinal CaATPase and CaBP-9K mRNA are down-regulated in rats fed diets containing no vitamin D. However, our data suggest that dietary calcium restriction alone did not have any effect on CaATPase and CaBP mRNA. This study demonstrates that dietary calcium itself is probably not a regulator of mRNA gene expression of PMCA1 and CaBP-9K;In the third study, intestinal PMCA1, CaBP-9K and vitamin D receptor (VDR) mRNA were determined at different stages of pregnancy and early lactation in rats. At 21 days gestation and 7 days of lactation, both PMCA1 and CaBP-9K mRNA levels increased 2-3 fold. PMCA1 and CaBP-9K mRNA remained elevated at 7 days of lactation. Interestingly, VDR mRNA levels did not change during the entire experiment. However, VDR content increased 2-fold in late pregnancy and lactation. These data suggest that the effects of gestation and lactation on PMCA1 and CaBP-9K are probably transcriptional and on VDR are post transcriptional.</p

Globally Optimal Distributed Kalman Filtering for Multisensor Systems with Unknown Inputs

In this paper, the state estimation for dynamic system with unknown inputs modeled as an autoregressive AR (1) process is considered. We propose an optimal algorithm in mean square error sense by using difference method to eliminate the unknown inputs. Moreover, we consider the state estimation for multisensor dynamic systems with unknown inputs. It is proved that the distributed fused state estimate is equivalent to the centralized Kalman filtering using all sensor measurement; therefore, it achieves the best performance. The computation complexity of the traditional augmented state algorithm increases with the augmented state dimension. While, the new algorithm shows good performance with much less computations compared to that of the traditional augmented state algorithms. Moreover, numerical examples show that the performances of the traditional algorithms greatly depend on the initial value of the unknown inputs, if the estimation of initial value of the unknown input is largely biased, the performances of the traditional algorithms become quite worse. However, the new algorithm still works well because it is independent of the initial value of the unknown input