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Our previous study has found that circulating microRNA (miRNA, or miR) -122, -140-3p, -720, -2861, and -3149 are significantly elevated during early stage of acute coronary syndrome (ACS). This study was conducted to determine the origin of these elevated plasma miRNAs in ACS. qRT-PCR was performed to detect the expression profiles of these 5 miRNAs in liver, spleen, lung, kidney, brain, skeletal muscles, and heart. To determine their origins, these miRNAs were detected in myocardium of acute myocardial infarction (AMI), and as well in platelets and peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMCs, including monocytes, circulating endothelial cells (CECs) and lymphocytes) of the AMI pigs and ACS patients. MiR-122 was specifically expressed in liver, and miR-140-3p, -720, -2861, and -3149 were highly expressed in heart. Compared with the sham pigs, miR-122 was highly expressed in the border zone of the ischemic myocardium in the AMI pigs without ventricular fibrillation (P < 0.01), miR-122 and -720 were decreased in platelets of the AMI pigs, and miR-122, -140-3p, -720, -2861, and -3149 were increased in PBMCs of the AMI pigs (all P < 0.05). Compared with the non-ACS patients, platelets miR-720 was decreased and PBMCs miR-122, -140-3p, -720, -2861, and -3149 were increased in the ACS patients (all P < 0.01). Furthermore, PBMCs miR-122, -720, and -3149 were increased in the AMI patients compared with the unstable angina (UA) patients (all P < 0.05). Further origin identification revealed that the expression levels of miR-122 in CECs and lymphocytes, miR-140-3p and -2861 in monocytes and CECs, miR-720 in monocytes, and miR-3149 in CECs were greatly up-regulated in the ACS patients compared with the non-ACS patients, and were higher as well in the AMI patients than that in the UA patients except for the miR-122 in CECs (all P < 0.05). The elevated plasma miR-122, -140-3p, -720, -2861, and -3149 in the ACS patients were mainly originated from CECs and monocytes.

The association of milk intake with cardiovascular disease (CVD) and cause-specific mortality remained controversial and evidence among the Chinese population was limited. We aimed to study the relationship between milk intake and CVDs among general Chinese adults. A total of 104,957 participants received questionnaire survey. Results of physical examination such as anthropometric measurements and biochemical tests during 2007 to 2008, demographic data and their information on milk intake were collected through standardized questionnaires. Cox proportional hazard regression models were used to calculate hazard ratios (HRs) and their corresponding 95% confidence intervals (CIs) of CVD incidence, cause-specific mortality and all-cause mortality related to milk intake. Restricted cubic splines (RCSs) were applied to examine dose-response associations. Among the 91,757 participants with a median follow-up period of 5.8 years, we documented 3877 CVD cases and 4091 all-cause deaths. Compared with participants who never consumed milk, the multivariate-adjusted HRs (95% CIs) of CVD incidence for 1 to 150 g/day, 151 to 299 g/day, and ≥300 g/day were 0.94 (0.86-1.03) (P > 0.05), 0.77 (0.66-0.89) (P < 0.05), and 0.59 (0.40-0.89) (P < 0.05), respectively; each 100 g increase of daily milk intake was associated with 11% lower risk of CVD incidence (HR, 0.89; 95% CI: 0.85-0.94; P < 0.001), and 11% lower risk of CVD mortality (HR, 0.89; 95% CI: 0.82-0.97; P = 0.008) after adjustment for age, sex, residential area, geographic region, education level, family history of CVD, smoking, alcohol drinking, physical activity level, body mass index, and healthy diet status (ideal or not). RCS analyses also showed a linear dose-response relationship with CVD (P for overall significance of the curve <0.001; P for non-linearity = 0.979; P for linearity <0.001) and stroke (P for overall significance of the curve = 0.010; P for non-linearity = 0.998; P for linearity = 0.002) incidence, and CVD mortality (P for overall significance of the curve = 0.045; P for non-linearity = 0.768; P for linearity = 0.014) within the current range of daily milk intake. Daily milk intake was associated with lower risk of CVD incidence and mortality in a linear inverse relationship. The findings provide new evidence for dietary recommendations in CVD prevention among Chinese adults and people with similar dietary pattern in other countries.

The association between elevated body mass index (BMI) and risk of death has been reported in many studies. However, the association between BMI and all-cause mortality for hypertensive Chinese adults remains unclear. We conducted a post-hoc analysis using data from the China Stroke Primary Prevention Trial (CSPPT). Cox regression analysis was performed to determine the significance of the association of BMI with all-cause mortality. During a mean follow-up duration of 4.5 years, 622 deaths (3.0%) occurred among the 20,694 participants aged 45–75 years. A reversed J-shaped relationship was observed between BMI and all-cause mortality. The hazard ratios (HRs) for underweight (<18.5 kg/m2), overweight (24.0–27.9 kg/m2), and obesity (≥28.0 kg/m2) were calculated relative to normal weight (18.5–23.9 kg/m2). The summary HRs were 1.56 (95% CI, 1.11–2.18) for underweight, 0.78 (95% CI 0.64–0.95) for overweight and 0.64 (95% CI, 0.48–0.85) for obesity. In sex-age-specific analyses, participants over 60 years of age had optimal BMI in the obesity classification and the results were consistent in both males and females. Relative to normal weight, underweight was associated with significantly higher mortality. Excessive weight was not associated with increased risk of mortality. Chinese hypertensive adults had the lowest mortality in grade 1 obesity.

Envelope analysis is an effective method for characterizing impulsive vibrations in wired condition monitoring (CM) systems. This paper depicts the implementation of envelope analysis on a wireless sensor node for obtaining a more convenient and reliable CM system. To maintain CM performances under the constraints of resources available in the cost effective Zigbee based wireless sensor network (WSN), a low cost cortex-M4F microcontroller is employed as the core processor to implement the envelope analysis algorithm on the sensor node. The on-chip 12 bit analog-to-digital converter (ADC) working at 10 kHz sampling rate is adopted to acquire vibration signals measured by a wide frequency band piezoelectric accelerometer. The data processing flow inside the processor is optimized to satisfy the large memory usage in implementing fast Fourier transform (FFT) and Hilbert transform (HT). Thus, the envelope spectrum can be computed from a data frame of 2048 points to achieve a frequency resolution acceptable for identifying the characteristic frequencies of different bearing faults. Experimental evaluation results show that the embedded envelope analysis algorithm can successfully diagnose the simulated bearing faults and the data transmission throughput can be reduced by at least 95% per frame compared with that of the raw data, allowing a large number of sensor nodes to be deployed in the network for real time monitoring.

Using a controlled-temperature shear cell mounted on a polarizing microscope, we observe the behavior of nematic 4,4′-n-octyl-cyanobiphenyl (8CB) during start-up and reversal of shearing in a torsional parallel-plate geometry and correlate this behavior with rheological measurements. During the start-up, a sequence of birefringent rings, or “twist walls”, are observed that originate at the sample edge and propagate radially inward. Each twist wall is a thin region in which the director is twisted out of the plane of the velocity and velocity-gradient directions. The radial variation of in-plane orientation can be explained by the variation of strain in the parallel-plate device. A high Ericksen-number solution of the Leslie-Ericksen equations predicts a damped oscillatory shear stress response which agrees quantitatively with the measured stress oscillations out to an edge strain of around 50. The damping of the stress oscillations is due to the nonuniformity of strain in the parallel-plate geometry. On reversal of the flow, if the strain, γ, is smaller than about 500 units, the damping of stress oscillations is reversed; this correlates with an outward radial migration of twist walls. When γ > 500, disclinations nucleate and spoil the reversibility of stress damping.

The association of milk intake with cardiovascular disease (CVD) and cause-specific mortality remained controversial and evidence among the Chinese population was limited. We aimed to study the relationship between milk intake and CVDs among general Chinese adults. A total of 104,957 participants received questionnaire survey. Results of physical examination such as anthropometric measurements and biochemical tests during 2007 to 2008, demographic data and their information on milk intake were collected through standardized questionnaires. Cox proportional hazard regression models were used to calculate hazard ratios (HRs) and their corresponding 95% confidence intervals (CIs) of CVD incidence, cause-specific mortality and all-cause mortality related to milk intake. Restricted cubic splines (RCSs) were applied to examine dose-response associations. Among the 91,757 participants with a median follow-up period of 5.8 years, we documented 3877 CVD cases and 4091 all-cause deaths. Compared with participants who never consumed milk, the multivariate-adjusted HRs (95% CIs) of CVD incidence for 1 to 150 g/day, 151 to 299 g/day, and ≥300 g/day were 0.94 (0.86-1.03) (P > 0.05), 0.77 (0.66-0.89) (P < 0.05), and 0.59 (0.40-0.89) (P < 0.05), respectively; each 100 g increase of daily milk intake was associated with 11% lower risk of CVD incidence (HR, 0.89; 95% CI: 0.85-0.94; P < 0.001), and 11% lower risk of CVD mortality (HR, 0.89; 95% CI: 0.82-0.97; P = 0.008) after adjustment for age, sex, residential area, geographic region, education level, family history of CVD, smoking, alcohol drinking, physical activity level, body mass index, and healthy diet status (ideal or not). RCS analyses also showed a linear dose-response relationship with CVD (P for overall significance of the curve <0.001; P for non-linearity = 0.979; P for linearity <0.001) and stroke (P for overall significance of the curve = 0.010; P for non-linearity = 0.998; P for linearity = 0.002) incidence, and CVD mortality (P for overall significance of the curve = 0.045; P for non-linearity = 0.768; P for linearity = 0.014) within the current range of daily milk intake. Daily milk intake was associated with lower risk of CVD incidence and mortality in a linear inverse relationship. The findings provide new evidence for dietary recommendations in CVD prevention among Chinese adults and people with similar dietary pattern in other countries.

Dietary potassium-supplementation has been associated with a decreased risk of hypertension and other cardiovascular outcomes. However, blood pressure (BP) responses to potassium supplementation vary among individuals. This study was designed to examine the association between 12 single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) in the adducin 1 alpha (ADD1) and guanine nucleotide binding protein (G protein) beta polypeptide 3 (GNB3) genes and systolic BP (SBP), diastolic BP (DBP), and mean arterial pressure (MAP) responses to potassium-supplementation. We conducted a 7-day high-sodium intervention (307.8 mmol sodium/day) followed by a 7-day high-sodium with potassium-supplementation (60 mmol potassium/day) among 1906 Han Chinese participants from rural north China. BP measurements were obtained at the end of each intervention period using a random-zero sphygmomanometer. We identified significant associations between ADD1 variant rs17833172 and SBP, DBP, and MAP responses to potassium-supplementation (all P < 0.0001) that remained significant after adjustment for multiple comparisons. In participants that were heterozygous or homozygous for the G allele of this marker, SBP, DBP, and MAP response to potassium-supplementation were − 3.52 ( − 3.82, − 3.21), − 1.41 ( − 1.66, − 1.15) and − 2.12 ( − 2.37, − 1.87), respectively, as compared to the corresponding responses of 1.99 (0.25, 3.73), − 0.65 ( − 0.10, − 0.21), and − 0.23 ( − 0.37, 0.83), respectively, for those who were homozygous for A allele. In addition, participants with at least one copy of the G allele of rs12503220 of the ADD1 gene had significantly increased DBP and MAP response to potassium-supplementation (P = 0.0041 and 0.01, respectively), which was also significant after correction for multiple testing. DBP and MAP responses to potassium-supplementation were − 1.36 ( − 1.63, − 1.10) and − 2.07 ( − 2.32, − 1.82) for those with at least G allele compared to corresponding responses of 0.86 ( − 0.68, 2.40) and − 0.45 ( − 1.74, 0.84) for those who were homozygous for A allele. In summary, our study identified novel associations between genetic variants of the ADD1 gene and BP response to potassium-supplementation, which could have important clinical and public health implications. Future studies aimed at replicating these novel findings are warranted.

Background::The association of milk intake with cardiovascular disease (CVD) and cause-specific mortality remained controversial and evidence among the Chinese population was limited. We aimed to study the relationship between milk intake and CVDs among general Chinese adults.Methods::A total of 104,957 participants received questionnaire survey. Results of physical examination such as anthropometric measurements and biochemical tests during 2007 to 2008, demographic data and their information on milk intake were collected through standardized questionnaires. Cox proportional hazard regression models were used to calculate hazard ratios (HRs) and their corresponding 95% confidence intervals (CIs) of CVD incidence, cause-specific mortality and all-cause mortality related to milk intake. Restricted cubic splines (RCSs) were applied to examine dose-response associations.Results::Among the 91,757 participants with a median follow-up period of 5.8 years, we documented 3877 CVD cases and 4091 all-cause deaths. Comp