Land use pattern, socio-economic development, and assessment of their impacts on ecosystem service value: study on natural wetlands distribution area (NWDA) in Fuzhou city, southeastern China.

This paper quantifies the allocation of ecosystem services value (ESV) associated with land use pattern and qualitatively examined impacts of land use changes and socio-economic factors on spatiotemporal variation of ESV in the Natural Wetland Distribution Area (NWDA), Fuzhou city, China. The results showed that total ESV of the study area decreased from 4,332.16 × 10(6) RMB Yuan in 1989 to 3,697.42 × 10(6) RMB Yuan in 2009, mainly due to the remarkable decreases in cropland (decreased by 55.3 %) and wetland (decreased by 74.2 %). Forest, water, and wetland played major roles in providing ecosystem services, accounting for over 90 % of the total ESV. Based on time series Landsat TM/ETM+ imagery, geographic information system, and historical data, analysis of the spatiotemporal variation of ESV from 1989 to 2009 was performed. It indicated that rapid expansion of urban areas along the Minjiang River resulted in significant changes in land use types, leading to a dramatic decline in ecosystem services. Meanwhile, because of land scarcity and unique ecosystem functions, the emergency of wetland and cropland protection in built-up area has become an urgent task of local authorities to the local government. Furthermore, there was still a significant negative correlation between ESV of cropland and wetland and the GDP. The results suggest that future planning of land use pattern should control encroachment of urban areas into cropland and wetland in addition to scientific and rational policies towards minimizing the adverse effects of urbanization.

Identification of proteins responding to adrenergic receptor subtype-specific hypertrophy in cardiomyocytes by proteomic approaches.

The individual signaling pathways underlying cardiac hypertrophy, which is induced by either α or ß adrenergic receptor (AR), are different. Activation of different AR subtypes couples to different G proteins and induction of specific signaling pathways, which ultimately results in subtype-specific regulation of cardiac function. We present the first proteomics study identifying proteins that are related to AR subtype-specific hypertrophy in cardiomyocytes by comparing the two-dimensional electrophoresis patterns between neonatal rat cardiomyocytes treated by phenylepinephrin (PE) and by isoproterenol (ISO). An improved 2-DE strategy was used in these comparative experiments. Twenty-five differentially expressed proteins in cardiomyocytes treated by PE or treated by ISO were successfully analyzed and identified using matrix-assisted laser desorption/ionization-time of flight mass spectrometry, especially those that might be responsible to intracellular oxidative stress such as dismutase, peroxiredoxin, and thioredoxin-like protein p46. In addition, induced reactive oxygen species were also found to be AR subtype-specifically relevant to endoplasmic reticulum proteinase ERK1/2 phosphorylation during the development of hypertrophy induced by different AR subtypes. The results will help to better understand the underlying mechanisms of different adrenergic receptor subtype-induced hypertrophy.

[Endoscopic retrograde cholangiopancreatography-guided brush cytology diagnosis of pancreatobiliary tumors].

OBJECTIVE: To study the cytologic features of pancreatobiliary tumors in endoscopic retrograde cholangiopancreatography (ERCP)-guided brushing preparations and to evaluate the usefulness of cytology in the diagnosis of pancreatobiliary malignancy. METHODS: A retrospective analysis of 212 cases of ERCP-guided brush cytology smears performed during the period from January, 2004 to December, 2006. The cytologic diagnosis was confirmed either by the histologic diagnosis or the strict clinical criteria. RESULTS: Two of the cases studied were unsatisfactory for diagnosis, with no epithelial cells identified. One hundred and thirty-seven smears were diagnosed as "negative", 45 of which subsequently confirmed to be malignant (negative predictive value = 60.2%). Six of the 11 cases with "low-grade atypia" were proven to be malignant (positive predictive value = 54.5%), as compared to 19 of 23 cases of "high-grade atypia" (positive predictive value = 86.4%). All of the 41 cases with cytologic diagnosis of "malignancy" were confirmed to be malignant (positive predictive value = 100%). The cytologic features of malignancy in ERCP-guided brushing preparations included overlapping nuclei, anisonucleosis, coarse chromatin pattern, poor cellular cohesion, tumor diathesis, prominent nucleoli and atypical mitotic figures. CONCLUSIONS: The accuracy of ERCP-guided brush cytology relies on good specimen preparation and application of morphologic criteria. Grading of cytologic atypia is of clinical significance. A "negative" or "low-grade atypia" cytologic diagnosis requires further diagnostic workup to rule out the possibility of underlying malignancy, while a "high-grade atypia" or "malignant" diagnosis is relatively specific in guiding subsequent management of suspected pancreatobiliary malignancy.