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The objective of the present study was to examine whether Clostridium butyricum supplementation has a role in the regulation of the intestinal flora and the development of the immune system of neonatal mice. A total of 30 pregnant BALB/c mice, including their offspring, were randomly divided into three groups: In the maternal intervention group (Ba), maternal mice were treated with Clostridium butyricum from birth until weaning at postnatal day 21 (PD21) followed by administration of saline to the offspring at PD21-28; in the offspring intervention group (Ab), breast-feeding maternal mice were supplemented with saline and offspring were directly supplemented with Clostridium butyricum from PD21-28; in the both maternal and offspring intervention group (Bb), both maternal mice and offspring were supplemented with Clostridium butyricum at PD 0-21 and at PD21-28. While mice in the control group were given the same volume of normal saline. Stool samples from the offspring were collected at PD14, -21 and -28 to observe the intestinal flora by colony counts of Enterococcus spp., Enterobacter spp., Bifidobacterium spp. and Lactobacillus spp. Detection of intestinal secreted immunoglobulin A (sIgA) levels and serum cytokine (interferon-γ, and interleukin-12, -4 and -10) levels in offspring was performed to evaluate the effect on their immune system. The results revealed that compared with the control group, offspring in the Ba group displayed significantly decreased stool colony counts of Enterococcus spp. (t=3.123, P

A field experiment was conducted to evaluate clofentezine residue levels and dissipation trend in tangerine and soil for the safe application of clofentezine. A modified QuEChERS-HPLC-UVD method was developed to analyse clofentezine in tangerine and soil. Tangerine samples were homogenised and extracted by acetonitrile and then cleaned up with dispersive solid phase extraction (dSPE) by primary and secondary amine (PSA) and C18. Clofentezine residue was determined by high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) with a UV detector (UVD) at the wavelength of 268 nm. The presented method achieved the good linear relationship within the range from 0.05 to 5.0 mg kg−1 for clofentezine (R2 > 0.998). At the fortification levels of 0.05, 0.50 and 1.00 mg kg−1 in tangerine pulp, tangerine peel and soil, recoveries ranged from 75.9% to 117.7% with relative standard deviations (RSD) less than 8.2%. In the supervised field trials, the half-lives of clofentezine in tangerine and soil were approximately 11.3 and 8.6 d...

Hexabromocyclododecanes (HBCDs), a new type of persistent organic pollutants widely used as brominated flame retardants, have attracted wide attention due to their increasing level and toxicity. A method based on high-performance liquid chromatography mass spectrometry (HPLC-MS-MS) in electrospray ionization mode has been developed by optimization of various parameters, which effectively improved the separation degree and responsive intensity of α-, β- and γ-HBCD isomers. The concentrations and distribution profiles of three HBCD isomers were investigated in sediments from the Haihe River in China. It was observed that the concentrations of HBCDs varied in the range of 0.4-58.82ng/g, showing a decreasing trend along the flow direction, possibly due to attenuation and biodegradation along the flow direction of the Haihe River. The distribution profile of α-, β-, γ-HBCD was 7.91%-88.6%, 0-91.47%, and 0.62%-42.83%, respectively. Interestingly, α-HBCD dominated in most sample sites. This was different from the distribution profile in commercial industrial products, which might be attributed to the inter-transformation and different degradation rates of the three HBCD isomers. The potential ecological risk of HBCDs in sediment was characterized under the two-tiered procedure of the European Medicines Evaluation Agency for environmental risk assessment. Although the HBCDs in the selected section of the Haihe River presented "no risk" in the sediment compartment, its risk in sediment cannot be neglected since sediment is one of the important sinks and reservoirs of pollutants.

The objective of the present study was to examine whether Clostridium butyricum supplementation has a role in the regulation of the intestinal flora and the development of the immune system of neonatal mice. A total of 30 pregnant BALB/c mice, including their offspring, were randomly divided into three groups: In the maternal intervention group (Ba), maternal mice were treated with Clostridium butyricum from birth until weaning at postnatal day 21 (PD21) followed by administration of saline to the offspring at PD21-28; in the offspring intervention group (Ab), breast-feeding maternal mice were supplemented with saline and offspring were directly supplemented with Clostridium butyricum from PD21-28; in the both maternal and offspring intervention group (Bb), both maternal mice and offspring were supplemented with Clostridium butyricum at PD 0–21 and at PD21-28. While mice in the control group were given the same volume of normal saline. Stool samples from the offspring were collected at PD14, −21 and −28 to observe the intestinal flora by colony counts of Enterococcus spp., Enterobacter spp., Bifidobacterium spp. and Lactobacillus spp. Detection of intestinal secreted immunoglobulin A (sIgA) levels and serum cytokine (interferon-γ, and interleukin-12, −4 and −10) levels in offspring was performed to evaluate the effect on their immune system. The results revealed that compared with the control group, offspring in the Ba group displayed significantly decreased stool colony counts of Enterococcus spp. (t=3.123, P

Chlorophenols are structurally similar to PCDD/Fs and have been considered as highly potential precursors for PCDD/Fs formation. The suppressing effects of PCDD/F formation from pentachlorophenol (PCP) were investigated on various mass ratios of CaO and urea. The total concentration of 2,3,7,8-PCDD/Fs, mostly dominated by OCDD, was determined to be 48.58-10186ng/mg in inhibitor-reaction systems, being much lower than that in blank reaction system (75654ng/mg). Interestingly, compared with pure CaO and urea reaction system, the concentration and TEQ of formed 2,3,7,8-PCDD/Fs in mixed urea/CaO reaction system were lower, especially with 5-20% urea reaction systems being respectively at decrease by 96.5-99.4% and 99.2-99.7%. The suppression efficiency of TEQ in 5-20% urea reaction systems could be always approximately 100% under 250-350°C. These results suggested that mixed inhibitors, especially 5-20% urea inhibitors, have a synergetic inhibition effect for PCDD/Fs formation from PCP. Mixed inhibitor generated several intermediates, involving CO2, H2O, NH3, Ca(OH)2, CaCO3, HNCO, biuret and ammelide. The complex between PCP and Ca, N-doped species, lower chlorinated phenols and benzenediol, and organic acids were also determined. Synergetic inhibition mechanism may be attributed to accelerated facilitation of acid-base reaction and N doping. The decomposition of PCP itself also contributes to prevent PCDD/Fs formation.

A series of Fe-Al composite oxides were synthesized by the hydrothermal method using different urea dosages and examined towards the degradation of 2,2',4,4'-tetrabromodiphenyl ether (BDE-47) at 300 °C. The as-prepared oxides were characterized by field-emission scanning electron microscopy, X-ray diffraction and energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy. The morphology and composition of the prepared materials could be regulated by controlling the urea concentration. Interestingly, these properties influenced the nature and amount of the hydrodebromination products generated during the degradation of BDE-47. The degradation of BDE-47 over the composite oxide prepared at a urea dosage of 3 mmol generated BDE-17 as the major isomer product, followed by BDE-28/33, -30, and -32, among the tribromodiphenyl ethers (tri-BDEs). Regarding the dibromodiphenyl ethers (di-BDEs) produced, the amount of the isomers decreased in the order of BDE-8/11 > BDE-7 > BDE-15 > BDE-10. And the BDE-1 among monobromodiphenyl was determined. In contrast, over the composite oxides prepared at urea dosages greater than 3 mmol, BDE-28/33 gradually become the major isomer product instead of BDE-17 among tri-BDEs. The amount of the other di-BDEs isomer such as BDE-15 and -10 approach to be comparable to that BDE-8/11. However, regardless of the urea dosage, BDE-47 converted into BDE-75 via an isomerization reaction. Based on these intermediate products identification, a possible hydrodebromination mechanism of BDE-47 over Fe-Al composite oxide was comprehensively traced.

Large scale preparation of Li9V3(P2O7)3 (PO4)2 nanotubes is performed by a simple molten salt route without the use of a surfactant as a template.

A rapid and simple HPLC-fluorescence detection method has been developed for the determination of abamectin residues in edible oil. Residues are extracted with acetonitrile and by vortexing and then directly derivatized with no need for a time-consuming cleanup step. Trifluoroacetic anhydride and N-methylimidazole were used as derivatizing agents of abamectin. Abamectin was detected and quantitated with fluorescence detection (excitation: 365 nm; emission: 475 nm), and methanol was used as the mobile phase. The LOD was 0.001 mg/kg and the LOQ was 0.003 mg/kg. The recoveriesranged from 86 to 100.4% with satisfactory precision (RSD < 10.1%). This method proved to be sensitive, environmentally friendly, time-saving, and efficient.

In this work, a rapid, environment friendly and sensitive method was established for the extraction and analysis of five organophosphorus pesticides (OPPs) (chlorpyrifos, chlorpyrifos-methyl, isocarbophos, malathion and phorate) in milk samples by means of gas chromatography-flame photometric detection. The pesticides were first extracted with acetonitrile from milk samples by using the modified "quick, easy, cheap, effective, rugged, and safe" (QuEChERS) method. No other clean-up was required after extraction. Then the above-mentioned acetonitrile extract was concentrated by using the dispersive liquid-liquid microextraction combined with solidification of floating organic droplets technique. Several factors that could influence the extraction efficiency, such as type of extraction solvent, disperser solvent, volume of extraction and disperser solvent, salt effect, sample pH, and extraction time, were investigated and optimized. As a result, 15 µL of 1-dodecanol were used as the extractant because of its lower toxicity, 300 µL methanol was chosen as dispersant and the extraction time was set to 1 min. Under the optimized conditions, good linearity was exhibited from 0.01 to 1.0 mg/L with the correlation coefficients higher than 0.9968. The limits of detection of the five OPPs were ranged in 0.1-0.3 μg/L, and the limits of quantification were at the range of 0.3-1.0 μg/L. Moreover, the recoveries of the target analytes from milk samples at spiking levels of 0.01, 0.05 and 0.1 mg/L were between 80.5 and 106.5% with the relative standard deviations varied from 3.6 to 6.3%. This method has been successfully applied to detect OPPs in real milk samples.

The cardiac safety of cetuximab, particularly as single approach, has not been investigated extensively. This trial was designed to evaluate the cardiac safety of cetuximab as salvage monotherapy in Chinese chemotherapy-refractory metastatic colorectal cancer (mCRC) patients. Cetuximab was administrated at an initial dose of 400 mg/m2on day 1 (week 1), followed by a maintenance dose of 250 mg/m2 on day 1 of each 7-day cycle. Electrocardiograph (ECG), routine laboratory tests, and troponin I (TNI) Ultra were performed at baseline, during, and after the cetuximab therapy. The incidence of abnormal ECGs, elevated TNI Ultra, cardiac events, and noncardiac events were recorded and analyzed. TNI Ultra+ was found in 20 patients (32.3%) during the cetuximab therapy.TNI Ultra+ occurred more frequently in patients with more than 3 organs affected and accepted fourth or above lines of chemotherapy. The most frequent abnormal ECG was ST depression in 24 (38.7%) patients. The elevated TNI Ultra and abnormal ECGs could recover after the cetuximab therapy. The most of cardiac adverse events were mild and transient and the noncardiac adverse events were also consistent with the known safety profile for cetuximab. Cetuximab showed its cardiac safety as a single agent for chemotherapy-refractory mCRC patients. And TNI Ultra and ECG could be sensitive and convenient approaches for the surveillance of adverse events.

In the crystal structure of the binuclear title complex, [Co(N3)2(C12H8N2)]n, each CoII cation is coordinated by two N atoms from one chelating 1,10-phenanthroline ligand and four azide ligands in a slightly distorted octahedral coordination. The two CoII cations of the binuclear complex are related by an inversion centre and are bridged by two symmetry-related azide ligands in both μ1,1 and μ1,3 modes. The μ1,3 bridging mode gives rise to an infinite one-dimensional chain along the a axis, whereas the μ1,1 bridging mode is responsible for the formation of the binuclear CoII complex.

The electrohydraulic servo system of a certain type of mines weeping plough is a complex and nonlinear system. It is difficult to construct its accurate model by first principle method and to achieve satisfactory control performance by traditional PID controller. In this paper, the radial basis function neural network with orthogonal least square learning algorithm is used to model the electrohydraulic system and the neural network based direct inverse is adopted to control the system. The experimental results and comparisons with other techniques clearly show the validity of the proposed methods.

The automatic depth control electrohydraulic system of a certain minesweeping tank is complex nonlinear system, and it is difficult for the linear model obtained by first principle method to represent the intrinsic nonlinear characteristics of such complex system. This paper proposes an approach to construct accurate model of the electrohydraulic system with RBF neural network trained by genetic algorithm-based technique. In order to improve accuracy of the designed model, a genetic algorithm is used to optimize centers of RBF neural network. The maximum distance measure is adopted to determine widths of radial basis functions, and the least square method is utilized to calculate weights of RBF neural network; thus, computational burden of the proposed technique is relieved. The proposed technique is applied to the modelling of the electrohydraulic system, and the results clearly indicate that the obtained RBF neural network can emulate the complex dynamic characteristics of the electrohydraulic system satisfactorily. The comparison results also show that the proposed algorithm performs better than the traditional clustering-based method.

Since the TCP protocol implements in the internet, the AIMD algorithm has always been the dominating congest control algorithm for about 20 years, and most of the common operating systems follow the recommendation of the IETF to adopt the AIMD algorithm in their TCP variations. But in recent years, many high-speed congest control algorithms have been proposed for fast data transfer over high speed and long distance networks, and many operating systems take the high-speed TCP variations as default: the Linux kernel uses CUBIC TCP as default since version 2.6.18, while Compound TCP becomes default TCP in Windows Server 2008 and a part of Microsoft Windows Vista, where it is easy to be enabled. As there are still not sufficient and comprehensive performance comparison of the high-speed TCP variations, the deployment of them as default TCP in the operating systems raises concerns about the future of congest control in the internet and worries about the fairness problem. This paper is an attempt to evaluate the fairness of the default TCP in the newest Linux and Microsoft Windows. The simulation results indicate that between CUBIC TCP and Compound TCP it indeed exhibits unfairness. The CUBIC TCP is too aggressive to the Compound TCP in the high bandwidth-delay product network, and the performance of Compound TCP is unacceptable comparing to CUBIC TCP.

To investigate the sensitivity to bleomycin (BLM) in peripheral blood lymphocytes (PBL) among coke-oven workers.Ninty-four coke-oven workers with exposure to a high level of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons and 64 non-coke-oven workers (control) were recruited into this study. PBL was challenged by 8 microg/ml BLM, a known carcinogen, to induce certain amount of DNA damage, the difference of olive tail moment (TM) measured by comet assay before and after BLM treatment reflected the sensitivity towards mutagens.The distribution of age, sex, and prevalence of smoking and drinking were not significantly different between these two groups. The geometric mean of urinary 1-hydroxypyrene (1-OHP) was significantly higher in coke-oven workers than in controls (9.0 versus 1.5 microg/L, t = -9.317, P0.01). The coke-oven workers showed significantly higher sensitivity to BLM than controls (17.7 versus 14.9, t = -2.583, P = 0.01). A large inter-group difference in sensitivity to BLM was observed in both controls and coke-oven workers. Stratification analysis revealed the significant association between high 1-OHP level (9.0 microg/L) and increased sensitivity to BLM (F = 4.001, P = 0.05) among coke-oven workers. Smoking subjects showed a significant higher value of sensitivity than nonsmokers in controls but not in coke-oven workers. No significant difference was observed between age, drinking status, coking history or external exposure class and BLM sensitivity.Exposure to coke oven emission could increase the sensitivity to mutagens, which might be a reason of high incidence of lung cancer among coke-oven workers.

In [10] a recursive algorithm was proposed for the multipeg Towers of Hanoi problem, a generalization of the standard problem. Based on the observation of the recursive algorithm, a nonrecursive approach is obtained in this paper and many characteristics disclosed to remove the recursion. Among those is the interesting relation between the Towers and the binary representation of nonnegative integers, which greatly helps the establishment of the new approach. In addition, several classes of nonnegative integers with elegant combinatorial properties will be involved in establishing and analysing the new algorithm.

To evaluate the significance of upper mediastinal lymph nodes dissection for thyroid carcinoma patients.The clinical data of 79 thyroid carcinoma patients who underwent the upper mediastinal lymph node dissection (between January 1984 and December 1998) were retrospectively analysed. There were 45 male and 34 female with a median age of 47 years (range 10 to 74 years). Follow-up was ended on December 31, 2003.Histopathologically, there were 58 (73.4%) papillary carcinoma, 14 (17.7%) medullary carcinoma, and 7 (8.9%) follicular carcinomas. Four of them had poorly-differentiated carcinoma. Upper mediastinal lymph node dissection was carried out in 62 patients through trans-cervical approach, in 10 through an inverted T-shaped incision, and in 7 through a midline sternotomy. Seventy-six patients had 93 neck lymph node dissection procedures, and 47 patients developed paratracheal lymph node metastasis. The overall 5- and 10-year cumulative survival rate was 64.6% and 63.1%, respectively. Mediastinal lymph node recurrence developed only in 10 patients after initial upper mediastinal lymph node dissection. Nine patients died of upper mediastinal lymph node metastasis. Postoperative complications were observed in 11 patients without perioperative death.Upper mediastinal lymph node metastasis is most frequently found in papillary thyroid carcinoma. Surgical dissection of upper mediastinal metastatic lymph nodes through either cervical incision or mediastinotomy is safe and effective with low rate of perioperative complications. It may improve the life quality and survival of thyroid carcinoma patients.

AIM: To explore the clinicopathological and molecular genetic features of hereditary nonpolyposis colorectal cancer (HNPCC) in Chinese population. METHODS: We collected 16 Chinese HNPCC families from Wenzhou, Zhejiang Province, China. Tumor tissues and peripheral white blood cells were studied using microdissection, microsatellite analysis, immunostaining of hMSH2 and hMLH1 proteins and direct DNA sequencing of hMSH2 and hMLH1 genes. RESULTS: (1) A total of 50 patients had CRC. Average age at diagnosis of the first CRC was 45.7 years; 40.9% and 28.7% of the CRCs were located proximal to the splenic flexure and in the rectum, respectively. Thirty-eight percent of the colorectal cancer patients had synchronous and metachronous CRC. 34.4% and 25% of the CRCs were poor differentiation cancer and mucinous adenocarcinoma, respectively. Fourteen extracoloni tumors were found, and the hepatic cancer was the most common tumor type. Twenty-one patients whose median survival time was 5.7 years died during 1-23 years. Twenty-nine patients have survived for 1-28 years, 58.6%, 41.4% and 24.1% patients have survived for more than 5, 10 and 15 years, respectively; (2) All nine tumor-tissues showed microsatellite instability (MSI) at more than two loci. Four tumor-tissues lost hMSH2 protein expression and one lost hMLH1 protein expression. Three pathological germline mutations were identified from five genetically analyzed families; two of three mutations had not been reported previously as they were a transition from C to A in exon 14 (codon 743) of hMSH2 and a TTC deletion in exon 14 (codon 530) of hMLH1. CONCLUSION: Chinese HNPCC have specific clinicopathological features, such as early onset, propensity to involve the proximal colon, and high frequency of multiple CRCs, liver cancer more frequent than endometrial cancer. Chinese HNPCC showed relatively frequent germline mutation of mismatch repair (MMR) genes that correlated closely with high-level MSI and loss of expression of MMR genes protein.