Yan Gao

BACKGROUND AND AIM: Nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) is considered to be the liver component of metabolic syndrome. However, the impact of NAFLD on metabolic syndrome is unclear. The aim of this study was to explore the influence of NAFLD on the development of metabolic disorders. METHODS: Patients with NAFLD and an age, sex, and occupation-matched control group were recruited from employees of Bao-Steel Group (Shanghai, China) who had received medical check-ups biennially between 1995 and 2002. Anthropometric and laboratory data, and incidence of metabolic disorders were assessed at baseline and at follow-up of at least 4 years. SPSS 11.5 was used for statistical analysis. RESULTS: The study consisted of 358 patients (326 men and 32 women) and 788 matched controls (711 men and 77 women) with a similar mean age of 39.0 years and median follow-up of 6 years. At the end of follow-up, incidence of obesity (47.6% vs 19.5%), hypertension (69.6% vs 16.3%), hypertriglyceridemia (39.1% vs 16.3%), hypercholesterolemia (24.5% vs 17.3%), impaired fasting glucose (IFG) (25.1% vs 11.6%), diabetes mellitus (20.3% vs 5.2%) and multiple metabolic disorders (MMD) (56.3% vs 16.3%) were significantly higher in the fatty liver group than the control group. Interestingly, the mean alanine aminotransferase (ALT) level in patients with fatty liver significantly decreased at follow-up compared with baseline (28.56 +/- 18.86 vs 31.51 +/- 18.34 U/L, P < 0.05). To separate the effects of obesity from fatty liver, the subjects were re-classified according to the presence of obesity and fatty liver at baseline. The incidence of hypertension (61.1% vs 41.3%), hypertriglyceridemia (38.1% vs 15.0%), hypercholesterolemia (29.9% vs 16.6%), IFG (21.3% vs 10.0%) and diabetes (11.1% vs 4.3%) were significantly higher in the fatty liver group without obesity (n = 84) than in the group with without fatty liver or obesity (n = 614). In addition, the incidence of hypertension (72.9% vs 57.4%), hypertriglyceridemia (39.4% vs 22.7%) and diabetes (23.2% vs 8.4%) was higher in the group with fatty liver and obesity (n = 274) than in the group with obesity alone (n = 174). CONCLUSIONS: The presence of NAFLD might predict the development of metabolic disorders due to insulin resistance, rather than obesity itself. ALT levels decreased over time in patients with fatty liver.

In the past two decades Brillouin-based sensors have emerged as a newly-developed optical fiber sensing technology for distributed temperature and strain measurements. Among these, the Brillouin optical time domain reflectometer (BOTDR) has attracted more and more research attention, because of its exclusive advantages, including single-end access, simple system architecture, easy implementation and widespread field applications. It is realized mainly by injecting optical pulses into the fiber and detecting the Brillouin frequency shift (BFS), which is linearly related to the change of ambient temperature and axial strain of the sensing fiber. In this paper, the authors provide a review of new progress on performance improvement and applications of BOTDR in the last decade. Firstly, the recent advances in improving the performance of BOTDRs are summarized, such as spatial resolution, signal-to-noise ratio and measurement accuracy, measurement speed, cross sensitivity and other properties. Moreover, novel-type optical fibers bring new characteristics to optic fiber sensors, hence we introduce the different Brillouin sensing features of special fibers, mainly covering the plastic optical fiber, photonic crystal fiber, few-mode fiber and other special fibers. Additionally, we present a brief overview of BOTDR application scenarios in many industrial fields and intelligent perception, including structural health monitoring of large-range infrastructure, geological disaster prewarning and other applications. To conclude, we discuss several challenges and prospects in the future development of BOTDRs.

To improve the regenerative performance of nano-hydroxyapatite/coralline (nHA/coral) block grafting in a canine mandibular critical-size defect model, nHA/coral blocks were coated with recombinant human vascular endothelial growth factor(165) (rhVEGF) via physical adsorption (3 μg rhVEGF165 per nHA/coral block). After the nHA/coral blocks and VEGF/nHA/coral blocks were randomly implanted into the mandibular box-shaped defects in a split-mouth design, the healing process was evaluated by histological observation and histomorphometric and immunohistological analyses. The histological evaluations revealed the ingrowth of newly formed blood vessels and bone at the periphery and cores of the blocks in both groups at both 3 and 8 weeks postsurgery, respectively. In the histomorphometric analysis, the VEGF/nHA/coral group exhibited a larger quantity of new bone formation at 3 and 8 weeks postsurgery. The percentages of newly formed bone within the entire blocks in the VEGF/nHA/coral group were 27.3% ± 8.1% and 39.3% ± 12.8% at 3 weeks and 8 weeks, respectively, and these values were slightly greater than those of the nHA/coral group (21.7% ± 3.0% and 32.6% ± 10.3%, respectively), but the differences were not significant (P>0.05). The immunohistological evaluations revealed that the neovascular density in the VEGF/nHA/coral group (146 ± 32.9 vessel/mm(2)) was much greater than that in the nHA/coral group (105 ± 51.8 vessel/mm(2)) at the 3-week time point (P<0.05), but no significant difference was observed at the 8-week time point (341 ± 86.1 and 269 ± 50.7 vessel/mm(2), respectively, P>0.05). The present study indicated that nHA/coral blocks might be optimal scaffolds for block grafting in critical-size mandibular defects and that additional VEGF coating via physical adsorption can promote angiogenesis in the early stage of bone healing, which suggests that prevascularized nHA/coral blocks have significant potential as a bioactive material for bone regeneration in large-scale alveolar defects.

Many challenges exist in improving early osseointegration, one of the most critical factors in the long-term clinical success of dental implants. Recently, ultraviolet (UV) light-mediated photofunctionalization of titanium as a new potential surface treatment has aroused great interest. This study examines the bioactivity of titanium surfaces treated with UV light of different wavelengths and the underlying associated mechanism. Micro-arc oxidation (MAO) titanium samples were pretreated with UVA light (peak wavelength of 360 nm) or UVC light (peak wavelength of 250 nm) for up to 24 h. UVC treatment promoted the attachment, spread, proliferation and differentiation of MG-63 osteoblast-like cells on the titanium surface, as well as the capacity for apatite formation in simulated body fluid (SBF). These biological influences were not observed after UVA treatment, apart from a weaker effect on apatite formation. The enhanced bioactivity was substantially correlated with the amount of Ti-OH groups, which play an important role in improving the hydrophilicity, along with the removal of hydrocarbons on the titanium surface. Our results showed that both UVA and UVC irradiation altered the chemical properties of the titanium surface without sacrificing its excellent physical characteristics, suggesting that this technology has extensive potential applications and merits further investigation.