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Abstract This study aims to measure myocardial blood flow (MBF) using dynamic CT- myocardial perfusion imaging (CT-MPI) combined with mental stressors in patients with obstructive coronary artery disease (OCAD) and in patients with anxiety and no obstructive coronary artery disease (ANOCAD). A total of 30 patients with OCAD with 30 patients with ANOCAD were included in this analysis. Using the 17-segment model, the rest and stress phase MBF of major coronary arteries in participants were recorded respectively. Compared with ANOCAD patients, OCAD patients were more likely to have localized reduction of MBF (p

Background: Anxiety is a common comorbidity with coronary artery disease (CAD). The neutrophil-to-lymphocyte ratio (NLR), neutrophil-to-high-density lipoprotein cholesterol (HDL-C) ratio (NHR), lymphocyte-to-HDL-C ratio (LHR), and monocytes-to-lymphocyte ratio (MLR) can predict the severity of CAD. This retrospective study aimed to explore the relationship between NLR, NHR, LHR, and MLR and the presence of obstructive or severe CAD (OCAD, SCAD) in patients with comorbid anxiety and chest pain. Methods: A total of 1063 patients with anxiety and chest pain were divided into an NOCAD group and OCAD group according to computed topography angiography (CCTA). The 455 patients in the OCAD group were further divided into the NSCAD group (n = 216) and SCAD group (n = 239) according to coronary angiography (CAG) results, and the Gensini score (GS) was calculated. Demographic and laboratory data were collected. Results: Multiple regression analysis showed that higher NLR, NHR, and LHR served as independent risk factors for OCAD in patients with anxiety and chest pain (OR 1.37, 95%CI: 1.13–1.65, p = 0.001; OR 2.24, 95%CI: 1.89–2.65, p

To improve the application value of whey soy proteins (WSP) in soy whey wastewater, they were used to prepare antioxidant peptides by enzymatic hydrolysis in a self-made ultrasound-thermostatic reaction system. Using sing-factor tests and response surface methodology, the technology for enzymatic hydrolysis of WSP was optimized with total reducing force, scavenging rate of DPPH radical and scavenging rate of hydroxyl radical as indicators. Then, ultrafiltration with a molecular weight cut-off of 30 kDa was adopted to separate antioxidant peptides from the hydrolysates and ascorbic acid as a reference to evaluate their antioxidant activities in vitro. The results showed that neutral protease and pepsin were the most suitable for the hydrolysis of WSP. On this basis, the optimal technological conditions were determined as enzyme-substrate ratio 5000 U/g WSP, hydrolysis time 6 h and WSP concentration 9.0 mg/mL. Under these conditions, the scavenging rate of DPPH of WSP hydrolysates reached 62.3%±1.1%. The antioxidant peptides isolated from the above hydrolysates had IC50 values for total reducing force, scavenging rate of DPPH radical and scavenging rate of hydroxyl radical of 0.128, 0.221 and 0.185 mg/mL, respectively. These corresponding IC50 values were 2.56, 40.76 and 1.47 times of those of ascorbic acid, respectively. It was indicated that the antioxidant peptides had slightly lower activity than ascorbic acid. Therefore, WSP is a suitable source of antioxidant peptides with high activities.

Abstract Obesity is a recognized risk factor for heart failure. People with similar weights may have different metabolic health. Notably, insulin resistance is a hallmark of obesity and a feature of heart failure. We aimed to evaluate the effects of obesity and metabolic health status on subclinical left cardiac function. We also investigated whether insulin resistance (TyG index) plays a role in BMI-linked subclinical left cardiac dysfunction. The study involved 403 volunteers. Hierarchical multiple regression models were used to assess associations between obesity, metabolic health, and overall subclinical left cardiac function. Mediating analysis was used to explore the role of the TyG index in the association between BMI and left cardiac function. Finally, ROC analysis was performed to explore the predictive value of the TyG index in subclinical left cardiac dysfunction. The correlation analysis showed that metabolic unhealth increased the risk of subclinical left ventricular (LV) dysfunction; obesity was associated with an increased risk of global left cardiac dysfunction regardless of metabolic health status. The TyG index mediated 25% of the associations between BMI and Left atrial (LA) functional parameters. ROC analysis exhibited that the TyG index can be used as a predictor of LA dysfunction (AUC = 0.63), and the optimal cut-off point for the TyG index is 9.33. Even a “non-obese metabolically unhealthy” is a detrimental state of early LV function; obesity remains a major risk factor for global subclinical left cardiac dysfunction. Using the TyG index could allow early identification of individuals at high risk of subclinical left cardiac dysfunction. Registration number: ChiCTR2200057991; Date of registration: 2022-03-25. URL: http://www.chictr.org.cn/showproj.aspx?proj=162316 .

Abstract It is challenging to distinguish between primary and secondary intracranial hemorrhage (ICH) purely by imaging data, and the two forms of ICHs are treated differently. This study aims to evaluate the potential of CT-based machine learning to identify the etiology of ICHs and compare the effectiveness of two regions of interest (ROI) sketching methods. A total of 1702 radiomic features were extracted from the CT brain images of 238 patients with acute ICH. We used the Select K Best method, least absolute shrinkage, and selection operator logistic regression to select the most discriminable features with a support vector machine to build a classifier model. Then, a ten-fold cross-validation strategy was employed to evaluate the performance of the classifier. From all quantitative CT-based imaging features obtained by two sketch methods, eighteen features were selected respectively. The radiomics model outperformed radiologists in distinguishing between primary and secondary ICH in both the volume of interest and the three-layer ROI sketches. As a result, a machine learning-based CT radiomics model can improve the accuracy of identifying primary and secondary ICH. A three-layer ROI sketch can identify primary versus secondary ICH based on the CT radiomics method.

Earth-rock dams are among the most important and expensive infrastructure projects. A key safety issue is dam zone boundary detection to prevent the intrusion of materials from different zones. However, existing detection methods strongly highly depend on human judgement, which is time consuming and labor intensive. To solve this problem, this work proposes a fast boundary detection method based on the Otsu algorithm optimized by enhanced Harris hawks optimization (HHO). Compared with the original Otsu algorithm, the proposed method has a higher computation speed to meet the time requirements of engineering projects. Particle swarm optimization is adopted to enhance the exploration stage of HHO. In addition, a tangent function and chaotic sine map are used to improve the convergence speed and robustness. The application of the proposed method to a real-life project shows that the calculation time can be reduced to 20 s, which is approximately 18.8% of the original calculation time.

Abstract Maintenance strategies aim at reduction of the operation and maintenance cost of wind turbines. An opportunistic maintenance strategy offers cost advantages over the traditional preventive replacement maintenance strategy by considering cost dependency among maintenance activities. A new opportunistic maintenance strategy of wind turbines is proposed here. First, the proposed strategy includes two sets of reliability thresholds to handle subassemblies those are in operational and failed wind turbines. Using the reliability thresholds, ten maintenance modes and their service conditions are presented. Second, the Weibull distribution with an age reduction factor is introduced to describe reliability variation of subassemblies under imperfect maintenance. Third, the maintenance cost in each maintenance mode is expressed by a reliability variation‐based function that is dependent on the stage of maintenance activities. Fourth, due to the randomness of failures, the expected total maintenance cost is determined with Monte Carlo simulation. The proposed approach has been validated with the data provided by a wind farm located in Northern China.

Abstract Face detection is playing a pivotal role for crowd counting and abnormal events detection. However, it is vulnerable to face presentation attacks by printed photos, videos, and 3D masks of real human faces. Although numerous detection techniques based on deep learning have been employed to address the problem of face presentation attacks, there are still several weaknesses in these approaches, such as high algorithm complexity and a lack of detection ability. To overcome these weaknesses, a method based on a multilevel fusion network with Laplacian embedding (MFNet‐LE) for the detection of face presentation attacks is proposed. First, a shallow network that contains just three layers was developed, which makes the model faster. Then, an optimised multilevel fusion strategy was developed to combine the input with the output of all previous layers to improve the detection ability of the method. Finally, a Laplacian embedding algorithm is introduced to maintain the inter‐class discrimination and penalise the intra‐class distance. Under the joint supervision of Laplacian loss and softmax loss, the proposed approach can obtain more discriminative features, which enhance the accuracy of attack detection. Experiments were conducted with three public databases for face presentation attacks: CASIA FASD, Idiap Replay Attack database and MSU USSA. The results demonstrate that the MFNet‐LE model can outperform the state‐of‐the‐art methods.

Abstract Background Cs2K4Na [SiW9Nb3O40] (POM93) is a novel broad-spectrum antiviral agent with high activity, high stability, and low toxicity in vitro. Most toxicity studies for POM93 have been performed in cultured cell lines rather than in animals. Like other POMs, there is a lack of evidence for in vivo toxicity limits, oral bioavailability, and therapeutic applications. Methods The toxic properties of POM93 were evaluated comprehensively in vivo, including the acute and subchronic oral toxicity studies and genotoxicity tests. Results The acute toxicity study showed no abnormal changes or mortality in rats treated with POM93 even at the single high dose of 5000 mg/kg body weight. In the subchronic toxicity study, regardless of the body weight, the organ weight, and the hematological parameters, similar results were observed between the control group and the experimental groups. POM93 produced mild changes in rare hematological parameters in the liver and kidneys, but did not induce the clinical symptoms of liver or kidneys injury in rats as confirmed by histopathological analysis. Moreover, neither mutagenicity nor clastogenicity was caused by POM93 treatment in vitro and in vivo. Conclusions The present study demonstrates that the oral administration of POM93 is presumed safe and poses a low risk of potential health risks.

Human hand back skin texture (HBST) is often consistent for a person and distinctive from person to person. In this paper, we study the HBST pattern recognition problem with applications to personal identification and gender classification. A specially designed system is developed to capture HBST images, and an HBST image database was established, which consists of 1,920 images from 80 persons (160 hands). An efficient texton learning based method is then presented to classify the HBST patterns. First, textons are learned in the space of filter bank responses from a set of training images using the -minimization based sparse representation (SR) technique. Then, under the SR framework, we represent the feature vector at each pixel over the learned dictionary to construct a representation coefficient histogram. Finally, the coefficient histogram is used as skin texture feature for classification. Experiments on personal identification and gender classification are performed by using the established HBST database. The results show that HBST can be used to assist human identification and gender classification.

Polyoxometalates are non-nucleoside analogs that have been proven to exhibit broad-spectrum antiviral activity. In particular, Cs2K4Na[SiW9Nb3O40].H2O 1 shows low toxicity and high activity against HBV. The preclinical pharmacokinetics of Compound 1 in rats were characterized by establishing and applying inductively coupled plasma-mass spectrometry method to determine the concentration of W in plasma, urine, feces, bile and organ samples. The quantitative ICP-MS method demonstrated good sensitivity and application in the pharmacokinetics study of polyoxometalates. The pharmacokinetic behavior of Compound 1 after intravenous or oral administration fit a two-compartment model. Tmax ranges from 0.1 h to 3 h and the T1/2 of Compound 1 is between 20 h and 30 h. The absolute bioavailability of Compound 1 at 45, 180 and 720 mg/kg groups were 23.68%, 14.67% and 11.93%, respectively. The rates of plasma protein binding of Compound 1 at 9, 18 and 36 mg/ml of Compound 1 are 62.13±9.41%, 71.20±24.98% and 49.00±25.59%, respectively. Compound 1 was widely distributed throughout the body, and high levels of compound 1 were found in the kidney and liver. The level of Compound 1 in excretion was lower: 30% for urine, 0.28% for feces and 0.42% for bile, respectively. For elaborate pharmacokinetic characteristics to be fully understood, the metabolism of Compound 1 needs to be studied further.

Purpose: This research aimed to propose a three-dimensional (3D) augmented reality navigation method with point cloud–based image-patient registration that could merge virtual images in the real environment for dental implants using a 3D image overlay and to evaluate its feasibility. Materials and Methods: A total of 12 rapid prototyping mandibular models were fabricated using a 3D printing method and were divided into two groups: 3D augmented reality–guided group and traditional two-dimensional (2D) image-guided group. A point cloud–based preoperative image-to-patient registration method was introduced to replace the traditional point-to-point registration. After the registration, dental implant surgery was performed in the two model groups using an augmented reality–guided navigation method and a traditional two-dimensional image-guided navigation method. The planned and actual postoperative implant positions were compared for measuring positional implantation errors. The surgery time was also recorded and compared between the two groups. Results: In the model experiment, the root-mean-square deviation of registration was 0.54 mm, and the implant surgery results showed < 1.5-mm mean linear deviation and < 5.5-degree angular deviation. The augmented reality–guided implantation showed smaller horizontal, vertical, and angular errors in the apical areas of the central incisor and the canine region. The surgery time using the augmented reality–guided navigation method was significantly shorter than that using the two-dimensional (2D) image-guided navigation method (P < .05). Moreover, the volunteer experiment demonstrated that the preoperative 3D models in situ accurately overlaid onto the surgical site. Conclusion: The proposed point cloud–based registration method can achieve excellent registration accuracy. Dental implant placement guided by the proposed 3D augmented reality navigation method showed better accuracy and applicability, as well as higher efficiency, than the traditional 2D image navigation method. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: In epidemic regions of the world, brucellosis is a reemerging zoonosis with minimal mortality but is a serious public hygiene problem. Currently, there are various methods for brucellosis diagnosis, however few of them are available to be used to diagnose, especially for serious cross-reaction with other bacteria.Method: To overcome this disadvantage, we explored a novel multi-epitope recombinant protein as human brucellosis diagnostic antigen. We established an indirect enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) based on this recombinant protein. 248 sera obtained from three different groups including patients with brucellosis (146 samples), non-brucellosis patients (82 samples), and healthy individuals (20 samples) were tested by indirect ELISA. To evaluate the assay, a receiver-operating characteristic (ROC) analysis and immunoblotting were carried out using these characterized serum samples.Results: For this test, the area under the ROC curve was 0.9409 (95 % confidence interval, 0.9108 to 0.9709), and a sensitivity of 88.89 % and a specificity of 85.54 % was given with a cutoff value of 0.3865 from this ROC analysis. The Western blot results indicate that it is feasible to differentiate human brucellosis and non-brucellosis with the newly established method based on this recombinant protein.Conclusion: Our results obtained high diagnostic accuracy of the ELISA assay which encourage the use of this novel recombinant protein as diagnostic antigen to implement serological diagnosis of brucellosis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]