Risk Factors for Low Birth Weight and Preterm Birth：A Population-based Case-control Study in Wuhan,China

Low birth weight（LBW） and preterm birth（PB） are associated with newborn mortality and diseases in adulthood.We explored factors related to LBW and PB by conducting a population-based case-control study from January 2011 to December 2013 in Wuhan,China.A total of 337 LBW newborn babies,472 PB babies,and 708 babies with normal birth weights and born from term pregnancies were included in this study.Information of newborns and their parents was collected by trained investigators using questionnaires and referring to medical records.Univariate and logistic regression analyses with the stepwise selection method were used to determine the associations of related factors with LBW and PB.Results showed that maternal hypertension（OR=6.78,95% CI：2.27–20.29,P=0.001）,maternal high-risk pregnancy（OR=1.53,95% CI：1.06–2.21,P=0.022）,and maternal fruit intake ≥300 g per day during the first trimester（OR=1.70,95% CI：1.17–2.45,P=0.005） were associated with LBW.BMI ≥24 kg/m^2 of mother prior to delivery（OR=0.48,95% CI：0.32–0.74,P=0.001） and gestation ≥37 weeks（OR=0.01,95% CI：0.00–0.02,P〈0.034） were protective factors for LBW.Maternal hypertension（OR=3.36,95% CI：1.26–8.98,P=0.016）,maternal high-risk pregnancy（OR=4.38,95% CI：3.26–5.88,P〈0.001）,maternal meal intake of only twice per day（OR=1.88,95% CI：1.10–3.20,P=0.021）,and mother liking food with lots of aginomoto and salt（OR=1.60,95% CI：1.02–2.51,P=0.040） were risk factors for PB.BMI ≥24 kg/m^2 of mother prior to delivery（OR=0.66,95% CI：0.47–0.93,P=0.018）,distance of house from road ≥36 meters（OR=0.72,95% CI：0.53– 0.97,P=0.028）,and living in rural area（OR= 0.60,95% CI：0.37–0.99,P=0.047） were protective factors for PB.Our study demonstrated some risk factors and protective factors for LBW and PB,and provided valuable information for the prevention of the conditions among newborns.

Broad-Band FMR Linewidth of Co_2MnSi Thin Films with Low Damping Factor:The Role of Two-Magnon Scattering

The low Gilbert damping factor, which is usually measured by ferromagnetic resonance, is crucial in spintronic applications. Two-magnon scattering occurs when the orthogonMity of the ferromagnetic resonance mode and other degenerate spin wave modes was broken by magnetic anisotropy, voids, second phase, surface defects, etc., which is important in analysis of ferromagnetic resonance linewidth. Direct fitting to linewidth with Gilbert damping is advisable only when the measured linewidth is a linear function of measuring frequency in a broad band measurement. We observe the nonlinear ferromagnetic resonance linewidth of Co2MnSi thin films with respect to measuring frequency in broad band measurement. Experimental data could be well fitted with the model including two-magnon scattering with no fixed parameters. The fitting results show that two-magnon scattering results in the nonlinear linewidth behavior, and the Gilbert damping factor is much smaller than reported ones, indicating that our Co2MnSi films are more suitable for the applications of spin transfer torque.

A functional study of low molecular weight IgM from patients with autoimmune disease

High levels of low molecular weight (LMW) IgM in certain diseases are associated with clinical and laboratory indices which reflect the severity of the disease. These associations suggest that LMW IgM may play an important role in the immunopathogenesis of these diseases. To further approach the question concerning the functional activity of LMW IgM in disease, a panel of LMW IgM and high molecular weight (HMW) IgM preparations with or without rheumatoid factor (RF) activity were used to investigate their antibody binding activity and their effector function. It was found that LMW IgM-RF and HMW IgM-RF had a similar binding capacity to Fc fragment as there was no significant difference in the affinity index between them. It further showed that the rate of activation and total amount of utilization of complement by LMW IgM and HMW IgM was similar, although the mean fluorescence of C3 deposition by IgM-RF and HMW IgM-RF was slightly higher than that of LMW IgM-RF and other control RF antibodies. However, the current study demonstrated that LMW IgM had strong neutrophil activating properties when compared with HMW IgM. These findings suggest that one mechanism of LMW IgM contributing to the immunopathogenesis of RA may be due to the formation of circulating immune complex ( CIC) by LMW IgM with subsequent activation of neutrophils. Whether LMW IgM has other functional activity in disease is unclear and needs further investigation.

Is low postoperative cholesterol level really an independent risk factor of adverse outcomes after living donor liver transplantation?

To the Editor:We read with great interest the article by Yang et al.[1]evaluating the effects of postoperative serum total cholesterol(s TC)changes on early allograft dysfunction and survival after living donor liver transplantation(LDLT).By the multivariate regression analysis,they showed that patients with s TC<1.42 mmol/L on postoperative day 3 had 4.08-fold and 2.72-fold greater risks of

SNIG PROPERTY OF MATRIX LOW-RANK FACTORIZATION MODEL

Recently, the matrix factorization model attracts increasing attentions in handling large-scale rank minimization problems, which is essentially a nonconvex minimization problem. Specifically, it is a quadratic least squares problem and consequently a quartic polynomial optimization problem. In this paper, we introduce a concept of the SNIG （＂Second-order Necessary optimality Implies Global optimality＂） condition which stands for the property that any second-order stationary point of the matrix factorization model must be a global minimizer. Some scenarios under which the SNIG condition holds are presented. Furthermore, we illustrate by an example when the SNIG condition may fail.