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The purpose of this study was to analyse the differences in joint kinematic patterns among runners with different spatiotemporal characteristics in the running cycle. Lower extremity kinematic data and spatiotemporal stride parameters were collected for ninety-two recreational runners during a treadmill run at a self-selected comfortable speed. A K-means clustering analysis was conducted on normalised stride cadence and Duty Factor to identify running style. Cluster 1 characterised by reduced stance times and low Duty Factor; Cluster 2, long stance times and low stride cadence; Cluster 3, high Duty Factor and stride cadence. Functional principal component analysis was used to identify patterns of variability between runners. Runners who used a combination of high cadence and Duty Factor showed differences in hip, knee and ankle sagittal kinematics compared to other runners. On the contrary, the joint kinematics was not altered when the Duty Factor was increased along with a decrease in the stride cadence. This study has demonstrated that the combination of several spatial-temporal parameters of the running cycle should be considered when analysing the movement pattern of the lower limb. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We introduce two support vector machine (SVM)-based approaches for solving antenna problems such as beamforming, sidelobe suppression, and maximization of the signal-to-noise ratio. A basic introduction to SVM optimization is provided and a complex nonlinear SVM formulation developed to handle antenna array processing in space and time. The new optimization formulation is compared with both the minimum mean square error and the minimum variance distortionless response methods. Several examples are included to show the performance of the new approaches [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The purpose of this study was to compare the diagnostic sensitivity of 1-day Holter monitoring versus 7-day Holter monitoring (7DH) to detect atrial and ventricular arrhythmias in a population of stable patients with chronic heart failure and left ventricular dysfunction. Sixty-three consecutive stable patients with chronic heart failure with left ventricular ejection fractions ≤50% were included. Blood samples were obtained, the Minnesota Living With Heart Failure Questionnaire was administered, and echocardiography, 6-minute walk tests, and 7DH were performed at enrollment. The mean ejection fraction was 35.8 ± 9.8%, and the mean age was 55.5 ± 13.9 years. Seven-day Holter monitoring did not significantly increase the detection of nonsustained atrial tachycardia or atrial fibrillation. In contrast, the incidence of nonsustained ventricular tachycardia increased in nonischemic patients from 35.1% on day 1 to 54.1% on day 7 (p = 0.01). In ischemic patients, the sensitivity increased from 11.5% to 46.2% (p = 0.004). Two patients without nonsustained ventricular tachycardia on day 1 had episodes of 13 and 16 beats on days 3 and 6 of monitoring. In patients with left ventricular ejection fractions >35% and N-terminal–pro-brain natriuretic peptide levels <1,000 pg/ml, no episodes of nonsustained ventricular tachycardia were detected on day 1 in nonischemic and ischemic patients, but 7DH detected 3 new patients in each group. In conclusion, 7DH clearly improves the detection and allows a better characterization of ventricular arrhythmic episodes but seems to be less useful for supraventricular events. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]