Drying performance and energy consumption of Camellia oleifera seeds under microwave-vacuum drying.

Microwave-vacuum drying performance and energy consumption of Camellia oleifera seeds were studied in this paper. The effects of microwave power, vacuum pressure and loading quantity were evaluated and discussed. Orthogonal experiments were also conducted to optimize the drying process. A new drying model based on the weibull distribution model was developed. Results showed that the microwave-vacuum drying process was dominated by internal water diffusion and surface water evaporation. As the microwave power and vacuum pressure increased and the loading quantity decreased, the drying time and energy consumption both decreased. However, too low or too high microwave power would increase the energy consumption. The optimal microwave-vacuum drying conditions were found to be a loading quantity of 150 g, a microwave power of 350 W and a vacuum pressure of 0.09 MPa. The developed drying model and the calculated scale and shape parameter were all consistent with experimental results.

Early-pregnancy prediction of risk for pre-eclampsia using maternal blood leptin/ceramide ratio: discovery and confirmation.

OBJECTIVE: This study aimed to develop a blood test for the prediction of pre-eclampsia (PE) early in gestation. We hypothesised that the longitudinal measurements of circulating adipokines and sphingolipids in maternal serum over the course of pregnancy could identify novel prognostic biomarkers that are predictive of impending event of PE early in gestation. STUDY DESIGN: Retrospective discovery and longitudinal confirmation. SETTING: Maternity units from two US hospitals. PARTICIPANTS: Six previously published studies of placental tissue (78 PE and 95 non-PE) were compiled for genomic discovery, maternal sera from 15 women (7 non-PE and 8 PE) enrolled at ProMedDx were used for sphingolipidomic discovery, and maternal sera from 40 women (20 non-PE and 20 PE) enrolled at Stanford University were used for longitudinal observation. OUTCOME MEASURES: Biomarker candidates from discovery were longitudinally confirmed and compared in parallel to the ratio of placental growth factor (PlGF) and soluble fms-like tyrosine kinase (sFlt-1) using the same cohort. The datasets were generated by enzyme-linked immunosorbent and liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometric assays. RESULTS: Our discovery integrating genomic and sphingolipidomic analysis identified leptin (Lep) and ceramide (Cer) (d18:1/25:0) as novel biomarkers for early gestational assessment of PE. Our longitudinal observation revealed a marked elevation of Lep/Cer (d18:1/25:0) ratio in maternal serum at a median of 23 weeks' gestation among women with impending PE as compared with women with uncomplicated pregnancy. The Lep/Cer (d18:1/25:0) ratio significantly outperformed the established sFlt-1/PlGF ratio in predicting impending event of PE with superior sensitivity (85% vs 20%) and area under curve (0.92 vs 0.52) from 5 to 25 weeks of gestation. CONCLUSIONS: Our study demonstrated the longitudinal measurement of maternal Lep/Cer (d18:1/25:0) ratio allows the non-invasive assessment of PE to identify pregnancy at high risk in early gestation, outperforming the established sFlt-1/PlGF ratio test.