Study on the correlation between adipocyte fatty-acid binding protein, glucolipid metabolism, and pre-eclampsia.

AIM: We aimed to explore the relation between the level of adipocyte fatty-acid binding protein (A-FABP) in the gestational period and related indices of glucolipid metabolism, and the possible mechanisms of occurrence and development of pre-eclampsia. METHODS: Seventy-six pre-eclampsia patients were enrolled and divided into the mild pre-eclampsia (n = 42) and severe pre-eclampsia (n = 34) groups. Forty-eight healthy pregnant women were selected as a control group. The indices of all participants were examined, including serum A-FABP, fasting insulin (FINS), fasting blood glucose, total cholesterol (TC), triglycerides (TG), low-density lipoprotein (LDL), and high-density lipoprotein (HDL), and homeostatic model assessment insulin resistance (HOMA-IR) index was calculated. After the delivery of the placenta, the level of A-FABP in the placenta was detected by immunochemistry. Then, the correlation between serum A-FABP and indices of glucolipid metabolism and placental A-FABP were analyzed. RESULTS: Serum A-FABP, FINS, TG, TC, HOMA-IR, and placental A-FABP were significantly higher in pre-eclampsia patients and the level of HDL was obviously lower than in the control group. Serum A-FABP was positively correlated with FINS, TG, TC, and HOMA-IR, and placental A-FABP was negatively correlated with HDL in pre-eclampsia patients. In the control group, serum A-FABP was positively correlated only with TG, and uncorrelated with the other indices (P > 0.05). CONCLUSION: The level of A-FABP was correlated with insulin resistance and indices of glucolipid metabolism in pre-eclampsia patients. High-levels of A-FABP might increase insulin resistance by causing glucose and lipid metabolism disorders and ultimately inducing the occurrence and development of pre-eclampsia.

[Impact of Light Polarization on the Measurement of Water Particulate Backscattering Coefficient].

Particulate backscattering coefficient is a main inherent optical properties (IOPs) of water, which is also a determining factor of ocean color and a basic parameter for inversion of satellite ocean color remote sensing. In-situ measurement with optical instruments is currently the main method for obtaining the particulate backscattering coefficient of water. Due to reflection and refraction by the mirrors in the instrument optical path, the emergent light source from the instrument may be partly polarized, thus to impact the measurement accuracy of water backscattering coefficient. At present, the light polarization of measuring instruments and its impact on the measurement accuracy of particulate backscattering coefficient are still poorly known. For this reason, taking a widely used backscattering coefficient measuring instrument HydroScat6 (HS-6) as an example in this paper, the polarization characteristic of the emergent light from the instrument was systematically measured, and further experimental study on the impact of the light polarization on the measurement accuracy of the particulate backscattering coefficient of water was carried out. The results show that the degree of polarization(DOP) of the central wavelength of emergent light ranges from 20% to 30% for all of the six channels of the HS-6, except the 590 nm channel from which the DOP of the emergent light is slightly low (-15%). Therefore, the emergent light from the HS-6 has significant polarization. Light polarization has non-neglectable impact on the measurement of particulate backscattering coefficient, and the impact degree varies with the wave band, linear polarization angle and suspended particulate matter (SPM) concentration. At different SPM concentrations, the mean difference caused by light polarization can reach 15.49%, 11.27%, 12.79%, 14.43%, 13.76%, and 12.46% in six bands, 420, 442, 470, 510, 590, and 670 nm, respectively. Consequently, the impact of light polarization on the measurement of particulate backscattering coefficient with an optical instrument should be taken into account, and the DOP of the emergent light should be reduced as much as possible.

Highly photoluminescent MoO(x) quantum dots: Facile synthesis and application in off-on Pi sensing in lake water samples.

Molybdenum oxide (MoOx) is a well-studied transition-metal semiconductor material, and has a wider band gap than MoS2 which makes it become a promising versatile probe in a variety of fields, such as gas sensor, catalysis, energy storage ect. However, few MoOx nanomaterials possessing photoluminescence have been reported until now, not to mention the application as photoluminescent probes. Herein, a one-pot method is developed for facile synthesis of highly photoluminescent MoOx quantum dots (MoOx QDs) in which commercial molybdenum disulfide powder and hydrogen peroxide (H2O2) are involved as the precursor and oxidant, respectively. Compared with current synthesis methods, the proposed one has the advantages of rapid, one-pot, easily prepared, environment friendly as well as strong photoluminescence. The obtained MoOx QDs is further utilized as an efficient photoluminescent probe, and a new off-on sensor has been constructed for phosphate (Pi) determination in complicated lake water samples, attributed to the fact that the binding affinity of Eu(3+) ions to the oxygen atoms from Pi is much higher than that from the surface of MoOx QDs. Under the optimal conditions, a good linear relationship was found between the enhanced photoluminescence intensity and Pi concentration in the range of 0.1-160.0 µM with the detection limit of 56 nM (3σ/k). The first application of the photoluminescent MoOx nanomaterials for ion photochemical sensing will open the gate of employing MoOx nanomaterials as versatile probes in a variety of fields, such as chemi-/bio-sensor, cell imaging, biomedical and so on.

High-Frequency Observation of Water Spectrum and Its Application in Monitoring of Dynamic Variation of Suspended Materials in the Hangzhou Bay.

In situ measurement of water spectrum is the basis of the validation of the ocean color remote sensing. The traditional method to obtain the water spectrum is based on the shipboard measurement at limited stations, which is difficult to meet the requirement of validation of ocean color remote sensing in the highly dynamic coastal waters. To overcome this shortage, continuously observing systems of water spectrum have been developed in the world. However, so far, there are still few high-frequency observation systems of the water spectrum in coastal waters, especially in the highly turbid and high-dynamic waters. Here, we established a high-frequency water-spectrum observing system based on tower in the Hangzhou Bay. The system measures the water spectrum at a step of 3 minutes, which can fully match the satellite observation. In this paper, we primarily developed a data processing method for the tower-based high-frequency water spectrum data, to realize automatic judgment of clear sky, sun glint, platform shadow, and weak illumination, etc. , and verified the processing results. The results show that the normalized water-leaving radiance spectra obtained through tower observation have relatively high consistency with the shipboard measurement results, with correlation coefficient of more than 0. 99, and average relative error of 9.96%. In addition, the long-term observation capability of the tower-based high-frequency water-spectrum observing system was evaluated, and the results show that although the system has run for one year, the normalized water-leaving radiance obtained by this system have good consistency with the synchronously measurement by Portable spectrometer ASD in respect of spectral shape and value, with correlation coefficient of more than 0.90 and average relative error of 6.48%. Moreover, the water spectra from high-frequency observation by the system can be used to effectively monitor the rapid dynamic variation in concentration of suspended materials with tide. The tower-based high-frequency water-spectrum observing system provided rich in situ spectral data for the validation of ocean color remote sensing in turbid waters, especially for validation of the high temporal-resolution geostationary satellite ocean color remote sensing.

Abnormal localization of immature precursors (ALIP) detection for early prediction of acute myelocytic leukemia (AML) relapse.

Acute myelocytic leukemia (AML) is a relapsing and deadly disease. Thus, it is important to early predict leukemia relapse. Recent studies have demonstrated strong correlations of relapse with abnormal localization of immature precursors (ALIP). However, there is no related research on automated detection of ALIP so far. To this end, we have proposed an ALIP detection method to investigate the relevance with AML relapse. Kernelized fuzzy C-means clustering is applied first to separate the foreground (with cells) and background (without cells). Image repairing is then used to wipe out noises to mark region of interest. Then, image partition is introduced to separate the overlapping cells. After that, a set of features are extracted for the classification. Thereafter, support vector machine is applied to classify precursors. At last, filtering operations are applied to obtain the binary-precursor detection results. Thirty-seven patients with AML are examined. The results show that ALIP is efficiently detected in a high sensitivity and positive predictive value by our proposed method. The investigation also demonstrates the strong correlations of AML relapse with ALIP.