Association of lipid profiles and the ratios with arterial stiffness in middle-aged and elderly Chinese

BACKGROUND: Serum lipids and the ratios are known to be associated with the cardiovascular diseases (CVD). However, the associations of serum lipids and the ratios related to arterial stiffness are unclear. We sought to compare the strength of these serum lipids and the ratios with arterial stiffness assessing by brachial-ankle pulse wave velocity (baPWV) in the middle-aged and elderly Chinese subjects. METHODS: A total number of 1133 Chinese aged from 50 to 90 years old were recruited from Shanghai downtown district. The serum lipids, baPWV and major cardiovascular risk factors of the participants were measured. RESULTS: Participants with high baPWV exhibited higher levels of non-HDL-c, TC/HDL-c, TG/HDL-c, LDL-c/HDL-c, and non-HDL-c/HDL-c, while HDL-c worked in the opposite direction (all P<0.05). In addition, TC, TG, LDL-c, non-HDL-c, TC/HDL-c, TG/HDL-c, LDL-c/HDL-c, and non-HDL-c/HDL-c had a positive relationship with the baPWV value, while HDL-c was on the contrary (all P <0.05). Finally, individuals with high non-HDL-c/HDL-c (OR 1.71, 95% CI 1.06-2.55, P = 0.013) and low HDL-c (OR 0.57, 95% CI 0.35-0.96, P = 0.024) were seem to be at high risk of arterial stiffness. CONCLUSIONS: As a risk indicator, non-HDL-c/HDL-c, which could be readily obtained from routine serum lipids, was significantly associated with baPWV. Non-HDL-c/HDL-c was superior to traditional lipid variables for estimating arterial stiffness in the middle-aged and elderly Chinese population

Anemia is a risk factor for rapid eGFR decline in type 2 diabetes

ObjectiveTo investigate the association between anemia and progression of diabetic kidney disease (DKD) in type 2 diabetes.MethodsThis was a retrospective study. A total of 2570 in-patients with type 2 diabetes hospitalized in Jinan branch of Huashan hospital from January 2013 to October 2017 were included, among whom 526 patients were hospitalized ≥ 2 times with a median follow-up period of 2.75 years. Annual rate of eGFR decline was calculated in patients with multiple admissions. A rate of eGFR decline exceeding -5 ml/min per 1.73 m2 per year was defined as rapid eGFR decline. The prevalence of DKD and clinical characteristics were compared between anemia and non-anemia patients. Correlation analysis was conducted between anemia and clinical parameters. Comparison of clinical features were carried out between rapid eGFR decline and slow eGFR decline groups. The risk factors for rapid DKD progression were analyzed using logistic regression analysis.ResultsThe prevalence of anemia was 28.2% among the 2570 diabetic patients, while in patients with DKD, the incidence of anemia was 37.8%. Patients with anemia had greater prevalence of DKD, higher levels of urinary albumin-to-creatinine ratio (UACR), serum creatinine, BUN, urine α1-MG, urine β2-MG, urine NAG/Cr, hsCRP, Cystatin C, homocysteine and lower eGFR, as compared to the patients without anemia. Anemia was correlated with age, UACR, eGFR, urinary NAG/Cr, hsCRP and diabetic retinopathy (DR). Logistic regression analysis of 526 patients with type 2 diabetes during the follow-up period showed that anemia was an independent risk factor for rapid eGFR decline.ConclusionAnemia is associated with worse renal function and is an independent risk factor for rapid eGFR decline in type 2 diabetes

Molecular Cloning, Characterization and Expression Analysis of Two Members of the Pht1 Family of Phosphate Transporters in Glycine max

BACKGROUND: Phosphorus is one of the macronutrients essential for plant growth and development. The acquisition and translocation of phosphate are pivotal processes of plant growth. In a large number of plants, phosphate uptake by roots and translocation within the plant are presumed to occur via a phosphate/proton cotransport mechanism. PRINCIPAL FINDINGS: We cloned two cDNAs from soybean (Glycine max), GmPT1 and GmPT2, which show homology to the phosphate/proton cotransporter PHO84 from the budding yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae. The amino acid sequence of the products predicted from GmPT1 and GmPT2 share 61% and 63% identity, respectively, with the PHO84 in amino acid sequence. The deduced structure of the encoded proteins revealed 12 membrane-spanning domains with a central hydrophilic region. The molecular mass values are ∼58.7 kDa for GmPT1 and ∼58.6 kDa for GmPT2. Transiently expressed GFP-protein fusions provide direct evidence that the two Pi transporters are located in the plasma membrane. Uptake of radioactive orthophosphate by the yeast mutant MB192 showed that GmPT1 and GmPT2 are dependent on pH and uptake is reduced by the addition of uncouplers of oxidative phosphorylation. The K(m) for phosphate uptake by GmPT1 and GmPT2 is 6.65 mM and 6.63 mM, respectively. A quantitative real time RT-PCR assay indicated that these two genes are expressed in the roots and shoots of seedlings whether they are phosphate-deficient or not. Deficiency of phosphorus caused a slight change of the expression levels of GmPT1 and GmPT2. CONCLUSIONS: The results of our experiments show that the two phosphate transporters have low affinity and the corresponding genes are constitutively expressed. Thereby, the two phosphate transporters can perform translocation of phosphate within the plant

Amplitude Variation with Offsets and Azimuths Simultaneous Inversion for Elastic and Fracture Parameters

Azimuthal elastic inversion or AVO/AVA analysis has proven to be effective for fracture description and stress evaluation in unconventional resource plays. Fracture weakness including normal and tangential weakness from linear slip theory bridge the seismic data and fracturing parameters as intermediate parameters. However, the stability of the azimuthal elastic inversion methods available for anisotropic parameters or fracture parameters in field data remains challenging. This study explores a practical azimuthal simultaneous elastic inversion method in heterogeneous medium for fracture weakness estimation. Taking the heterogeneity and anisotropy of fracture media into consideration, and based on perturbation theory and stable phase approximation, the fracture medium can be considered as the superimposition of background medium and perturbation medium, and then the seismic scattering coefficient of fracture media can be derived. This equation establishes the relationship between seismic data and fracture weakness together with elastic parameters like P-wave and S-wave moduli and weaknesses. With this equation, a heterogeneous inversion method is proposed. This method implements the estimation of P-wave and S-wave moduli and fracture weaknesses simultaneously, and the constraint from initial model and multi-iterations enhances the stability of this method. In this approach, the parameters of the perturbation medium are initially estimated, and then they can be superposed to the parameters of the known background medium as the renewal parameters of the background medium in next iteration. We can yield the final estimation of the parameters in heterogeneous medium after several iterations when the last two estimated results are similar. Model test and field data examples verify the feasibility and potential of the proposed approach

Energy-Saving Oriented Manufacturing Workshop Facility Layout: A Solution Approach Using Multi-Objective Particle Swarm Optimization

Low-carbon sustainable development has become the consensus of manufacturing enterprises to fulfill their social responsibilities. Facility layout is an essential part of manufacturing system planning. Current research has demonstrated the advantages of energy saving on the manufacturing system level where operational methods (e.g., energy-efficient production scheduling and path planning) can be utilized and do not require massive investment in the existing legacy system. However, these efforts are mostly based on the existing fixed facility layout. Meanwhile, although facility layout problems have been extensively studied so far, the related work seldom involves the optimization of energy consumption (EC) or other EC-related environmental impact indicators, and does not clearly reveal if EC can be an independent optimization objective in facility layout. Accordingly, whether the energy-saving potential of a manufacturing system can be further tapped through rational facility layout is the gap of the current study. To address this, an investigation into energy-saving oriented manufacturing workshop facility layout is conducted. Correspondingly, an energy-efficient facility layout (EFL) model for the multi-objective optimization problem that minimizes total load transport distance and EC is formulated, and a multi-objective particle swarm optimization-based method is proposed as the solution. Furthermore, experimental studies verify the effectiveness of the presented model and its solution, indicating that EC can be regarded as an independent optimization objective during facility layout, and EFL is a feasible energy-saving approach for a manufacturing system

Energy-Saving Oriented Manufacturing Workshop Facility Layout: A Solution Approach Using Multi-Objective Particle Swarm Optimization

Low-carbon sustainable development has become the consensus of manufacturing enterprises to fulfill their social responsibilities. Facility layout is an essential part of manufacturing system planning. Current research has demonstrated the advantages of energy saving on the manufacturing system level where operational methods (e.g., energy-efficient production scheduling and path planning) can be utilized and do not require massive investment in the existing legacy system. However, these efforts are mostly based on the existing fixed facility layout. Meanwhile, although facility layout problems have been extensively studied so far, the related work seldom involves the optimization of energy consumption (EC) or other EC-related environmental impact indicators, and does not clearly reveal if EC can be an independent optimization objective in facility layout. Accordingly, whether the energy-saving potential of a manufacturing system can be further tapped through rational facility layout is the gap of the current study. To address this, an investigation into energy-saving oriented manufacturing workshop facility layout is conducted. Correspondingly, an energy-efficient facility layout (EFL) model for the multi-objective optimization problem that minimizes total load transport distance and EC is formulated, and a multi-objective particle swarm optimization-based method is proposed as the solution. Furthermore, experimental studies verify the effectiveness of the presented model and its solution, indicating that EC can be regarded as an independent optimization objective during facility layout, and EFL is a feasible energy-saving approach for a manufacturing system