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Acute phase reaction and acute phase proteins
GRUYS E., TOUSSAINT M.J.M., NIEWOLD T.A., KOOPMANS S.J.
Journal of Zhejiang University-SCIENCE B (Biomedicine & Biotechnology), 2005, 6(11): 1-.
https://doi.org/10.1631/jzus.2005.B1045
A review of the systemic acute phase reaction with major cytokines involved, and the hepatic metabolic changes, negative and positive acute phase proteins (APPs) with function and associated pathology is given. It appears that APPs represent appropriate analytes for assessment of animal health. Whereas they represent non-specific markers as biological effect reactants, they can be used for assessing nutritional deficits and reactive processes, especially when positive and negative acute phase variables are combined in an index. When such acute phase index is applied to separate healthy animals from animals with some disease, much better results are obtained than with single analytes and statistically acceptable results for culling individual animals may be reached. Unfortunately at present no cheap, comprehensive and easy to use system is available for assessing various acute phase proteins in serum or blood samples at the same time. Protein microarray or fluid phase microchip technology may satisfy this need; and permit simultaneous analysis of numerous analytes in the same small volume sample and enable integration of information derived from systemic reactivity and nutrition with disease specific variables. Applying such technology may help to solve health problems in various countries not only in animal husbandry but also in human populations.
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Comparative study of Anaplasma parasites in tick carrying buffaloes and cattle
RAJPUT Z.I., HU Song-hua, ARIJO A.G., HABIB M., KHALID M.
Journal of Zhejiang University-SCIENCE B (Biomedicine & Biotechnology), 2005, 6(11): 2-.
https://doi.org/10.1631/jzus.2005.B1057
A comparative study on the prevalence of Anaplasma parasite was conducted on ticks carrying buffaloes and cattle. Five hundred blood samples of both animals (250 of each) were collected during February, March and April. Thin blood smears on glass slides were made, fixed in 100% methyl alcohol and examined. Microscopic examination revealed that 205 (41%) animals had Anaplasma parasites, out of which 89, 44 and 72 animals had Anaplasma marginale, Anaplasma centrale and mixed infection respectively. Infected buffaloes and cattle were 75 and 130 respectively. The infection in female was 53 and 92 in buffaloes and cattle respectively. Twenty-two and 92 blood samples of male were found positive in buffaloes and cattle respectively. Comparative study revealed that the cattle were 26.82% more susceptible than buffaloes. The parasite prevailing percentage in female of both animals was slightly higher than that of the male. This investigation was aimed at studying the comparative prevalence of Anaplasma parasite in tick carrying buffaloes and cattle.
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Measurement and analysis of soil nitrogen and organic matter content using near-infrared spectroscopy techniques
HE Yong, SONG Hai-yan, PEREIRA Annia García, GÓMEZ Antihus Hernández
Journal of Zhejiang University-SCIENCE B (Biomedicine & Biotechnology), 2005, 6(11): 6-.
https://doi.org/10.1631/jzus.2005.B1081
Near infrared reflectance (NIR) spectroscopy is as a rapid, convenient and simple nondestructive technique useful for quantifying several soil properties. This method was used to estimate nitrogen (N) and organic matter (OM) content in a soil of Zhejiang Province, Hangzhou County. A total of 125 soil samples were taken from the field. Ninety-five samples spectra were used during the calibration and cross validation stage. Thirty samples spectra were used to predict N and OM concentration. NIR spectra of these samples were correlated using partial least square regression. The regression coefficients between measured and predicted values of N and OM was 0.92 and 0.93, and SEP (standard error of prediction) were 3.28 and 0.06, respectively, which showed that NIR method had potential to accurately predict these constituents in this soil. The results showed that NIR spectroscopy could be a good tool for precision farming application.
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Effective extraction of elastase from Bacillus sp. fermentation broth using aqueous two-phase system
XU Ying, HE Guo-qing, LI Jing-jun
Journal of Zhejiang University-SCIENCE B (Biomedicine & Biotechnology), 2005, 6(11): 7-.
https://doi.org/10.1631/jzus.2005.B1087
This paper presents the evaluation of an aqueous two-phase system (ATPS) for extracting elastase produced by Bacillus sp. EL31410. The elastase and cell partition behavior in polyethylene glycol (PEG)/salt systems was investigated. The suitable system for elastase extraction was PEG/KH2PO4-K2HPO4, in which elastase is mainly partitioned into the PEG-rich phase, while the cells remained in the other phase. The influence of defined system parameters (e.g. PEG molecular mass, pH, NaCl addition) on the partitioning behavior of elastase is described. The concentration of phase forming components, PEG and KH2PO4-K2HPO4, was optimized for elastase recovery by means of response surface methodology, and it was found that they greatly influenced extraction recovery. The optimal ATPS was 23.1% (w/w) PEG 2 000 and 11.7% (w/w) KH2PO4-K2HPO4. The predicted recovery was about 89.5%, so this process is suggested to be a rapid and convenient method for elastase extraction.
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Use of fluorometry for determination of skim milk powder adulteration in fresh milk
GUAN Rong-fa, LIU Dong-hong, YE Xing-qian, YANG Kai
Journal of Zhejiang University-SCIENCE B (Biomedicine & Biotechnology), 2005, 6(11): 9-.
https://doi.org/10.1631/jzus.2005.B1101
A FAST (fluorescence of advanced Maillard products and Soluble Tryptophan) method for identification of reconstituted milk made from skim milk powder in the fresh milk was developed. Considering milk and skim milk powders variations from different seasons and countries, milk was collected from different dairy farms in different seasons and skim milk powders were collected from different countries to measure the Tryptophan (Trp), advanced Maillard products (AMP) fluorescence values. The results showed that there were differences (P<0.01) between raw and reconstituted milk. The plot of values in each mixed level of raw and reconstituted milk had a correlation coefficient >0.97. The FAST method is a simple, rapid, low-cost and sensitive method enabling the detection of 5% reconstituted milk in fresh milk. The measurement of the Trp, AMP fluorescence values and calculation of the FAST index is a suitable method for large-scale monitoring of fresh milk samples.
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Liver fibrosis identification based on ultrasound images captured under varied imaging protocols
CAO Gui-tao, SHI Peng-fei, HU Bing
Journal of Zhejiang University-SCIENCE B (Biomedicine & Biotechnology), 2005, 6(11): 10-.
https://doi.org/10.1631/jzus.2005.B1107
Diagnostic ultrasound is a useful and noninvasive method in clinical medicine. Although due to its qualitative, subjective and experience-based nature, ultrasound image interpretation can be influenced by image conditions such as scanning frequency and machine settings. In this paper, a novel method is proposed to extract the liver features using the joint features of fractal dimension and the entropies of texture edge co-occurrence matrix based on ultrasound images, which is not sensitive to changes in emission frequency and gain. Then, Fisher linear classifier and support vector machine are employed to test a group of 99 in-vivo liver fibrosis images from 18 patients, as well as other 273 liver images from 18 normal human volunteers.
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Pretreatment of coking wastewater using anaerobic sequencing batch reactor (ASBR)
LI Bing, SUN Ying-lan, LI Yu-ying
Journal of Zhejiang University-SCIENCE B (Biomedicine & Biotechnology), 2005, 6(11): 11-.
https://doi.org/10.1631/jzus.2005.B1115
A laboratory-scale anaerobic sequencing batch reactor (ASBR) was used to pretreat coking wastewater. Inoculated anaerobic granular biomass was acclimated for 225 d to the coking wastewater, and then the biochemical methane potential (BMP) of the coking wastewater in the acclimated granular biomass was measured. At the same time, some fundamental technological factors, such as the filling time and the reacting time ratio (tf/tr), the mixing intensity and the intermittent mixing mode, that affect anaerobic pretreatment of coking wastewater with ASBR, were evaluated through orthogonal tests. The COD removal efficiency reached 38%~50% in the stable operation period with the organic loading rate of 0.37~0.54 kg COD/(m3×d) at the optimum conditions of tf/tr, the mixing intensity and the intermittent mixing mode. In addition, the biodegradability of coking wastewater distinctly increased after the pretreatment using ASBR. At the end of the experiment, the microorganism forms on the granulated sludge in the ASBR were observed using SEM (scanning electron microscope) and fluoroscope. The results showed that the dominant microorganism on the granular sludge was Methanosaeta instead of Methanosarcina dominated on the inoculated sludge.
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Protein and hordein fraction content in barley seeds as affected by sowing date and their relations to malting quality
QI Jun-cong, CHEN Jin-xin, WANG Jun-mei, WU Fei-bo, CAO Lian-pu, ZHANG Guo-ping
Journal of Zhejiang University-SCIENCE B (Biomedicine & Biotechnology), 2005, 6(11): 1069-1075.
https://doi.org/10.1631/jzus.2005.B1069
The effect of sowing date on grain protein, hordein fraction content and malting quality of two-rowed spring barley was investigated by using ten commercial cultivars with different grain protein content and the relationships among these traits were examined. The results showed that grain protein content and B hordein content increased as the sowing date postponed and were significantly affected by sowing date, while C and D hordein contents were less influenced by sowing date. There were significant differences in grain protein and hordein fraction content among the ten cultivars. The coefficient of variation of D hordein content was much larger than that of B and C hordein contents, suggesting its greater variation caused by different sowing dates. Beta-amylase activity and diastatic power were also significantly affected by sowing date, with malt extract being less affected. Significant differences in measured malt quality were found among the ten cultivars. Grain protein was significantly correlated with B hordein and malt extract positively and negatively, respectively. There was no significant correlation between beta-amylase activity or diastatic power and grain protein content. B hordein was negatively and significantly correlated with malt extract, but no significant correlations between C hordein, D hordein and malting quality traits.
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Identification of rice seed varieties using neural network
LIU Zhao-yan, CHENG Fang, YING Yi-bin, RAO Xiu-qin
Journal of Zhejiang University-SCIENCE B (Biomedicine & Biotechnology), 2005, 6(11): 1095-1100.
https://doi.org/10.1631/jzus.2005.B1095
A digital image analysis algorithm based color and morphological features was developed to identify the six varieties (ey7954, syz3, xs11, xy5968, xy9308, z903) rice seeds which are widely planted in Zhejiang Province. Seven color and fourteen morphological features were used for discriminant analysis. Two hundred and forty kernels used as the training data set and sixty kernels as the test data set in the neural network used to identify rice seed varieties. When the model was tested on the test data set, the identification accuracies were 90.00%, 88.00%, 95.00%, 82.00%, 74.00%, 80.00% for ey7954, syz3, xs11, xy5968, xy9308, z903 respectively.
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The impact of NiO on microstructure and electrical property of solid oxide fuel cell anode
LI Yan, LUO Zhong-yang, YU Chun-jiang, LUO Dan, XU Zhu-an, CEN Ke-fa
Journal of Zhejiang University-SCIENCE B (Biomedicine & Biotechnology), 2005, 6(11): 1124-1129.
https://doi.org/10.1631/jzus.2005.B1124
Ni-Ce0.8Sm0.2O1.9 (Ni-SDC) cermet was selected as anode material for reduced temperature (800 °C) solid oxide fuel cells in this study. The influence of NiO powder fabrication methods for Ni-SDC cermets on the electrode performance was investigated so that the result obtained can be applied to make high-quality anode. Three kinds of NiO powder were synthesized with a fourth kind being available in the market. Four types of anode precursors were fabricated with these NiO powders and Ce0.8Sm0.2O1.9 (SDC), and then were reduced to anode wafers for sequencing measurement. The electrical conductivity of the anodes was measured and the effect of microstructure was investigated. It was found that the anode electrical conductivity depends strongly on the NiO powder morphologies, microstructure of the cermet anode and particle sizes, which are decided by NiO powder preparation technique. The highest electrical conductivity is obtained for anode cermets with NiO powder synthesized by NiCO3·2Ni(OH)2·4H2O or Ni(NO3)2·6H2O decomposition technique.
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14 articles
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