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Objective: The purpose of this study was to evaluate the association between starchy vegetable consumption and subgroup consumption in the first trimester and the risk of gestational diabetes mellitus (GDM). Methods: A prospective study (n = 1444) was conducted in China. Dietary information was assessed by 24-hour dietary recalls for three days and then we calculated the consumption of total starchy vegetable and its subgroups, including (1) potato and (2) other starchy vegetable (pumpkin, lotus root, yam, taro, water chestnut, pea, and cowpea). GDM was diagnosed according to the results of 75-g two-hour oral glucose tolerance test (OGTT) at 24–28 weeks of gestation. A modified log-binomial regression was used to estimate RRs and 95% CIs of GDM risk. Results: Among the 1444 participants in our study, 520 were diagnosed with GDM. The adjusted RRs (95% CIs) for GDM from the lowest to the highest quartiles of total starchy vegetable consumption were 1.00 (reference), 1.29 (1.06, 1.57), 1.13 (0.93, 1.40), and 1.26 (1.02, 1.56), respectively; p for trend = .032. For potato, the RR of GDM risk was 1.32 for the highest potato intake quartile compared with the lowest quartile (95% CI 1.07–1.64, p for trend = .003). In addition, we did not observe an association between other starchy vegetable intakes and GDM risk. Conclusions: A higher consumption of total starchy vegetables and potatoes in the first trimester is associated with a greater risk of GDM. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Climate change and human activities have changed a number of characteristics of river flow in the northwest of China. Numerous problems such as water resource shortage, drying up of rivers, water pollution are the direct consequences of these changes. In this paper, we used the example of Yulin city in northwest China to assess the spatio-temporal characteristics and driving forces of annual river flow changes. Our research was based on the long-term time series of hydrological data from 1956 to 2005, to analyse annual flow in four main rivers (Kuye River, Tuwei River, Wuding River and Jialu River). The river flow depends upon the runoff characteristics of the river catchment, therefore we used variation ratio, variation index, unevenness, Runoff-Concentration Degree (RCD) and Runoff-Concentration Period (RCP) to determine the change in runoff characteristics of the four main rivers flows of the Yulin city. We tested the tendency of runoff by the Mann-Kendall non-parameter statistical method to obtain the temporal evolution law. At the same time, Kriging spatial interpolation and GIS were used to derive the spatial evolution law. The dates of climate change (precipitation) and human activities were also used to calculate the driving forces for annual runoff changes of the rivers’ catchments. Through the accumulation curves and multi-recursive techniques, we built the correlation between precipitation and runoff. The driving factors for annual runoff change were then calculated by using the runoff coefficient method. Results showed that the distribution of annual runoff was uneven and had a small accumulation in July and August, especially in Kuye River, and there seemed to be a significant reducing trend in annual runoff. Isolines and the thematic map of Mann-Kendall tests U(R) revealed that the Tuwei River's catchment is the most affected catchment, with annual runoff substantially changed. At the 5% significance level, precipitation did not significantly drop compared with annual runoff. We also found that precipitation is not the only factor responsible for the decreased annual runoff. Therefore we included human activities affect in this case study by using the past 25 years land use, water conservancy and urbanisation data. We discriminated the impacts of climate change and human activities on the surface runoff by multi-recursive analysis method and runoff coefficient method. The results showed that human activities are the direct cause for the changes of river runoff. The results of the study also revealed that the Wuding and Jialu rivers had the most and the least changes in the runoff respectively; this phenomenon should be seriously considered for future water resources planning and management. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The soliton-effect pulse compression of ultrashort solitons in a dispersion-shifted fiber (DSF) is investigated based on solving the higher-order nonlinear Schrodinger equation with the effects of third-order dispersion (TOD), self-steepening (SS) and stimulated Raman scattering (SRS). By using Hirota's bilinear method with a set of parametric conditions, the analytic one-, two- and three-soliton solutions of this model are obtained. According to those solutions, the higher-order soliton is shown to be compressed in the DSF for the pulse with width in the range of a few picoseconds or less. An appealing feature of the soliton-effect pulse compression is that, in contrast to the second-order soliton compression due to the combined effects of negative TOD and SRS, the third-order soliton can significantly enhance the soliton compression in the DSF with small values of the group-velocity dispersion (GVD) at the operating wavelength. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study investigated the effects of vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) intravenous administration on cardiac performance and cardiomyocyte apoptosis in a rat model of acute myocardial infarction. Left coronary artery ligation produced extensive myocardial infarction in 48 rats and sham operated in 24 animals. Twenty-four hours after surgery, the rats were randomized to receive VEGF165–heparin (treated group) or heparin–saline (control group) treatment. The sham-operated animals were also to receive VEGF165–heparin (sham group) treatment. VEGF165 (2 μg/ml) with heparin (50 U) or heparin–saline (50 U/ml) was administered daily via the tail vein for 7 and 14 days. Fifty-eight rats survived and included in the study. There were not significant effects of VEGF on hemodynamic parameters in sham animals. As compared with control animals at 9 days after ligation (with 10 rats for each group), rats treated with VEGF had significantly higher maximum rate of left ventricular pressure rise (+dP/dtmax) or fall ( - dP/dtmax) and microvessel counts, and significantly lower left ventricular end-diastolic pressure (LVEDP) and infarct size. At 16 days after surgery (12, 7 and 9 rats in sham, control and treated groups; respectively), VEGF treatment significantly increased mean arterial pressure (MAP), left ventricular systolic pressure (LVSP), ± dP/dtmax and microvessel counts, and significantly decreased LVEDP and infarct size. VEGF treatment significantly inhibited cardiomyocyte apoptosis and the expression of p53, Fas and Bax protein, and increased the expression of Bcl-2 protein in myocardium at 9 days after myocardial infarction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Our previous work has proved that mechanical properties of a blending alginate with cellulose was significantly enhanced in a wet state and maintained its biodegradability. In this article, ion-exchange beads were prepared from cellulose and alginate in 6 wt% NaOH/4 wt% urea aqueous solution by using an emulsion phase separation method. The structure and morphology of the beads were characterized by scanning electron microscope (SEM) and Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) spectra, and the adsorption behaviors to Cd2+ and Cu2+ ions were measured by atomic absorption spectrometry (AAS). The effects of pH, adsorption time, ion concentration, temperature, and reusability of the beads on the adsorbed amount of Cd2+ and Cu2+ ions in aqueous solution were investigated by a batch method. The results indicated that the beads had a spherical shape, with ∼4–20 µm of diameter and relatively high ion-exchange capacity (3.81 mmol g−1). The combined action of Cd2+ and Cu2+ ions on beads generally was found to be antagonistic. The selectivity of the beads for the adsorption of Cd2+ ions was higher than that of Cu2+ ions. The adsorbed amount was given to a maximum for Cd2+ ions at pH 2.2, and for Cu2+ ions at pH 3.2. The adsorbed amount of the beads reached the values of 0.7 and 0.5 mmol g−1 for Cd2+ and Cu2+ ions, respectively. The beads could be regenerated by using 1 mol L−1 HCl aqueous solution, up to 95% recovery, and the adsorption–desorption cycles, performed over 10 times, maintained the adsorption capacity, indicating a good reusability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]