非小细胞肺癌术后并发乳糜胸对患者生活质量影响的研究

目的:探讨非小细胞肺癌术后并发乳糜胸对患者生活质量的影响。方法:采用生活质量测定量表(QLQ-C30)回顾性分析第四军医大学唐都医院胸外科自2013年至2016年中收治的1015例肺癌手术患者的生活质量,发生乳糜胸组记为A组,未发生乳糜胸组记为B组。对比术前和术后1、3、6和12个月的生活质量有无统计学差异。结果:(1)术后1月时,除了社会功能、便秘、腹泻以外,两组生活质量指标评分均显著低于术前,且B组均显著低于A组,有统计学差异(表3,P0.05)。在手术后3月及以后逐渐恢复,至12月时,各组指标与术前基本相同(表3,P0.05);(2)两组术后生活质量相比较,术后1、3月,除社会功能、便秘、腹泻以外,其余生活质量功能指标B组均显著优于A组,有统计学差异(表3,P0.05)。在手术后6月及以后,B组所有指标与A组无统计学差异(表3,P0.05)。结论:肺癌根治术后发生乳糜胸患者生活质量显著低于未发生乳糜胸患者,因此应合理选择手术方式,注意术中操作,降低乳糜胸发生率,提高肺癌患者术后的生活质量。     

NMR study of the selective inhibition of water permeability of rat erythrocyte membrane

The inhibition of water diffusion across the rat erythrocyte membrane was studied by NMR using two basically different types of inhibitory agents: PCMB andin vivo irradiation. The contribution of lipid and protein to water permeability revealed the inhibitory effect of each pathway. Internal contamination with tritium (25–115 mGy) reduces water permeability due to protein modifications; for doses higher than 100 mGy the lipid mediated mechanism seems also to be impaired. The same procedure enables one to assess the extent to which the higher water permeability of rat, compared to human, erythrocyte is due to one of the two pathways.     

Electrical impedance of white spruce shoots in relation to pressure-volume analysis and free sugar content

Electrical impedance measurements made on white spruce, Picea glauca (Moench) Voss, stems were related to shoot free sugar contents and to osmotic, turgor and water potential. During seasonal dormancy induction, there were commensurate increases in free sugar contents, osmotic potential at full turgor and impedance which resulted in linear relationships among these variables. When measured over the course of laboratory drying, impedance increased curvilinearly with decreasing relative water content. There was a linear increase in impedance with decreasing water potential, with a break point coincident with the turgor loss point, possibly attributed to disruption to current flow through broken plasmodesmatal connections between adjacent cells. This technique offers a non-destructive method to measure tissue free sugar content, and therefore, short- and long-term shifts in parameters historically derived from pressure-volume analysis.     

Exotic grass invasion impacts fitness of an endangered prairie butterfly, <Emphasis Type="Italic">Icaricia icarioides fenderi</Emphasis>

Fender’s blue butterfly is an endangered species restricted to fragmented, grassland remnants that are becoming increasingly dominated by tall, invasive grasses in western Oregon, USA. I performed a removal experiment to assess the impacts of structural degradation accompanying the invasion of Arrhenatherum elatius, tall oat grass, on butterfly fitness and fitness related behaviors. Clipping of A. elatius to native grass sward height resulted in 2.5–5 times as many eggs laid per leaf of host plant. Both male and female butterflies basked more frequently in areas removed of A. elatius inflorescences and upon encountering the treatment edge butterflies had a high rate of return into a large area removed of the grass inflorescences. Although butterfly behavior appeared to be affected by the change in sward height on the treatment edge, there was no evidence for the edge causing a disproportionate egg load. Invasion and dominance by A. elatius appeared to diminish host plant apparency which may result in overloading of eggs on conspicuous host plants, increased incidence of emigration, and a decrease in the likelihood of colonization because female butterflies appeared indifferent to larval resources beneath A. elatius inflorescences. Dominance of natural shortgrass prairies by tall stature grasses like A. elatius may be an insidious form of habitat degradation for grassland Lepidoptera worldwide, but it may go largely unnoticed because larval and adult resources can persist under the unnaturally tall grass canopy.     

Biodiversity on the brink: Evaluating a transdisciplinary research collaboration

Global biodiversity is facing an extinction crisis. Australia has one of the highest terrestrial species extinction rates in the world. Scientists, policy advisors and governments have recommended that the issue be addressed at a landscape-scale, while noting that there are significant knowledge gaps that are hampering implementation of such an approach. From 2011–2015, the Australian Government funded a transdisciplinary research program, the Landscapes and Policy Hub, to meet this need. Transdisciplinary research is widely acknowledged as essential to address the complexity of contemporary environmental problems. Given that such research programs are in their infancy, it is important to evaluate their efficacy and provide an empirical basis for improving their design. This paper presents an evaluation of the strategies fostering transdisciplinarity adopted by the Landscapes and Policy Hub. A heavy emphasis on communication, with skilled knowledge brokering, regular face-to-face meetings using participatory activities and shared field engagements enhanced transdisciplinary interaction between researchers and research users. However, establishing a fully integrated interdisciplinary research program remained a challenge. Efforts to enable shared conceptual frameworks to emerge through adaptive application of theory in practice could have been balanced with increased effort at the outset for researchers and research users to collaboratively formulate shared research questions, leading to the establishment of teams that could address these questions through cross-mobilisation of interdisciplinary expertise.     

Bioaccumulation of heavy elements by Armadillidium vulgare (Crustacea,Isopoda) exposed to fallout of a municipal solid waste landfill

This paper reports the response of isopods exposed to fallout of a municipal solid waste landfill located in central Italy. Soil samples and specimens of Armadillidium vulgare were collected at different distances from the landfill and analyzed to determine the concentrations of heavy elements such as As, Cd, Co, Cr, Cu, Ni, Pb, Sb, V and Zn. The isopod analysis was performed on unpurged and purged specimens. Analytical data indicate that the soil contents of heavy elements were quite uniform and within the respective local geochemical background. Slight enrichments of Cu and Pb were found in some soils collected within the solid waste. Purged isopods showed an accumulation of As, Co, Cr, Ni, Sb and V whose body levels decreased as the distance from the landfill increased. Cd, Cu, Pb and Zn concentrations in purged specimens were rather uniform and no significant variation trend occurred. This result probably was due to the fact that the isopods are provided with physiological mechanisms of regulation for these heavy elements. Analytical data also indicate the ability of A. vulgare to adsorb differently the heavy elements according to the following order: As > Co > Ni > Pb > V. The contents of heavy elements in unpurged specimens were higher than in purged ones. This finding suggested that the defecation has marked effects on the tissue levels of heavy elements in isopods. This study indicates that the isopods provide useful information about environmental quality in areas characterized by low and discontinuous emission of heavy elements and their low accumulation in soil.     

The response of phytoplankton community to anthropogenic pressure gradient in the coastal waters of the eastern Adriatic Sea

In order to test the response of phytoplankton to anthropogenic pressure, data of chlorophyll a concentration, phytoplankton abundance, and composition are analyzed in relation to anthropogenic pressure gradient and environmental variables such as temperature, salinity and nutrients. Investigated sites encompassed wide tropic range according to a preliminary determination of anthropogenic pressure, quantified through the LUSI index. Statistical analyses indicated nitrates and silicates as proxies of freshwater influence, and phytoplankton single metrics such as concentrations of chlorophyll a and abundances as indicators of anthropogenic pressure. Boundary values for different water quality classes for coastal waters under indirect freshwater influence (Type II) are obtained according to gradient between concentration of chlorophyll a and pressure index (LUSI), which empirically fit to exponential equation. The response of phytoplankton diversity was not linear, as the highest diversity was observed in the area with intermediate disturbance level. CCA analysis identified Skeletonema marinoii, Scrippsiella trochoidea, Guinardia flaccida, Leptocylindrus spp., Prorocentrum spp., Proboscia alata, Eutreptiella spp., and Pseudonitzschia spp. as local eutrophication indicators, whose abundances increased with nutrients loads.     

Efficient tuning of potential parameters for liquid–solid interactions

Spherical and cylindrical water droplets on silicon surface are studied to tune the silicon–oxygen interaction. We use molecular dynamics simulations to estimate the contact angle of two different shaped droplets. We found that the cylindrical droplets are independent of the line tension as their three phases curvature is equal zero. Additionally, we compare an analytical model, taking into account or not the Tolman length and we show that for spherical small size droplets, this length is important to be included, in contrast to cylindrical droplets in which the influence of the Tolman length is negligible. We demonstrate that the usual convenient way to exclude linear tension in the general case can give wrong results. Here, we consider cylindrical droplets, since their contact angle does not depend on the droplet size in the range of few to 10ths of nanometres. The droplets are stabilised due to the periodic boundary conditions. This allows us to propose a new parameterisation for nanoscale droplets, which is independent the size of the droplets or its shape, minimising at the same time the calculation procedure. With the proposed methodology, we can extract the epsilon parameter of the interaction potential between a liquid and a solid from the nanoscaled molecular simulation with only as input the macrosized experimental wetting angle for a given temperature.     

Molecular dynamics simulation of the graphene–water interface: comparing water models

In this work, different water models (i.e. SPC/E, TIP3P, TIP4P/2005, TIP5P, SPC/Fw, TIP4P/2005f and SWM4_DP) are implemented to simulate water on neutral, negatively charged and positively charged graphene. In all cases ambient conditions are considered. Structural and dynamical properties for water are calculated to quantify the differences among various water models. The results show that SPC/E, TIP4P/2005, SPC/Fw, TIP4P/2005f and SWM4_DP water models yield a similar structure for interfacial water on graphene, whether it is neutral, negatively charged or positively charged. TIP5P is the model whose predictions for the structure of the interface deviate the most from those of the other models. Although qualitatively the results are for the most part similar, a large quantitative variation is observed among the dynamical properties predicted when various water models are implemented. Although experimental data are not available to discriminate the most/least accurate of the model predictions, our results could be useful for comparing results for interfacial water obtained implementing different models. Such critical comparison will benefit practical applications such as the development of energy-storage and water-desalination devices (e.g. electric double-layer capacitors), among others.     

NEW RECORD OF PIONOPSIS,TIPHYINAE, WITH DESCRIPTIONS OF TWO NEW SPECIES IN CHINESE WATER MITE FAUNA (ACARI: HYGROBATOIDEA: PIONIDAE)*

Abstract Two new species of water mites, Pionopsis (s.s.)longicosta sp. nov. and Pionopsis (s.s.) zhaoi sp. nov. are described in the present paper. This is the first record of the genus of the subfamily Tiphyinae in the family Pionidae from China.