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Purpose: The declining physical condition of the older adults is a pressing issue. Wu Qin Xi exercise, despite being low-intensity, is highly effective among older adults. Inspired by its characteristics, we designed a new exercise program for frail older adults, combining strength, endurance, and Wu Qin Xi. Furthermore, we employed machine learning to predict whether frailty can be reversed in older adults after the intervention. Methods: A total of 181 community-dwelling frail older adults aged 65 years or older participated in this single-center, randomized controlled study, with 54.7% (n=99) being female. The study assessed the effectiveness of several exercise modalities in reversing frailty. The Fried's frailty criterion was used to assess the degree of frailty of the subjects. Participants were assigned a three-digit code 001–163 and randomly assigned (1:1:1) by computer to three different groups based on the study participant number: the Wu Qin Xi group (WQX), the strength exercise mixed with endurance exercise training group (SE), and the WQXSE hybrid exercise group incorporated the above two. Body composition and frailty-related physical fitness factors were measured before and after a 24-week intervention. The measurements included Body height, Body mass, Timed Up and Go Test (TUGT), grip strength assessment (GS), 6min walk test (6 min WT), and 10 m maximum walk speed (10 m MWS). Data were analyzed using repeated measures ANOVA to determine group and time interaction effects and machine learning models were used to predict program effectiveness. Results: A total of 163 participants completed the study, with 53.9% (n=88) of them being female. The two items, 10 m maximum walking speed (10 m MWS) and grip strength, were significantly affected by the interaction of group and time. Compared to the other two groups, the WQXSE group showed the most improvement in the item 10 m MWS. In addition, following 24 weeks of training, 68 (41.7%) of the initially frail older adults had reversed their frailty status. Among them, 19 (36.5%) were in the WQX group, 24 (44.4%) were in the WQXSE group, and 25 (43.9%) were in the SE group. The stacking model exhibited superior performance when compared to other algorithms. Conclusion: A hybrid exercise regimen comprising the Wu Qin Xi routine and exercises focused on both strength and endurance holds the potential to yield greater improvements in the physical fitness of older adults, as well as reducing frailty. Leveraging a stacking model, it is possible to forecast the likelihood of older adults successfully reversing their frailty status following participation in a prevention exercise program. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: The research into the recurrence of cough variant asthma (CVA) in congenital heart disease (CHD) are few in number. The purpose of this study is to investigate the effect of CHD on the risk of the recurrence of CVA.Methods: This study was a retrospective cohort study of 489 children with CVA aged between one and 14 years, of whom 67 had CHD complicated with CVA and 134 had CVA without CHD at a ratio of 1:2 according to age, sex and index year. The adjusted hazard ratio (aHR) of CVA recurrence in both the CHD cohort and the non-CHD cohort was determined by multivariate analysis using the Cox proportional hazard regression model.Results: Adjusting for CHD classification, Mycoplasma pneumonia (MP) infection and immunoglobulin E (IgE) sensitization, the recurrence hazard of CVA in the complex congenital heart disease (CCHD) group (aHR = 3.281; 95% CI 1.648-6.530; P < 0.01) was significantly higher than that in the simple congenital heart disease group (aHR = 2.555; 95% CI 1.739-3.752; P < 0.01). Further, children with IgE sensitization (aHR = 2.172; 95% CI 1.482-3.184; P < 0.01) had a higher recurrence hazard of CVA than those without IgE sensitization, and children with MP infection (aHR = 1.777; 95% CI 1.188-2.657; P < 0.01) had a higher recurrence hazard of CVA than those without the MP infection.Conclusion: The hazard of recurrent CVA is higher in children with CHD, especially in the CCHD children. In addition, those children with IgE sensitization or a MP infection had an increased hazard of recurrent CVA. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: To investigate the association between obstetric haemorrhage and cardiovascular disease up to three decades after pregnancy.Design: Population-based cohort study.Setting and Population: All women who delivered between 1989 and 2016 in Quebec, Canada.Methods: Using hospital admissions data, 1 224 975 women were followed from their first delivery until March 2018. The main exposure measures were antenatal (placenta praevia, placental abruption, peripartum haemorrhage) or postpartum haemorrhage, with or without transfusion. Adjusted Cox regression models were used to assess the association between obstetric haemorrhage and future cardiovascular disease.Main Outcome Measure: Cardiovascular hospitalisation.Results: Among 104 291 (8.5%) women with haemorrhage, 4612 (4.4%) required transfusion. Women with haemorrhage had a higher incidence of cardiovascular hospitalisation than women without haemorrhage (15.5 versus 14.1 per 10 000 person-years; 2437 versus 28 432 events). Risk of cardiovascular hospitalisation was higher for obstetric haemorrhage, with or without transfusion, compared with no haemorrhage (adjusted hazard ratio [aHR] 1.06, 95% CI 1.02-1.10). Women with haemorrhage and transfusion had a substantially greater risk of cardiovascular hospitalisation (aHR 1.47, 95% CI 1.23-1.76). Among transfused women, placental abruption (aHR 1.79, 95% CI 1.06-3.00) and postpartum haemorrhage (aHR 1.38, 95% CI 1.13-1.68) were both associated with risk of cardiovascular hospitalisation. Antenatal haemorrhage with transfusion was associated with 2.46 times the risk of cardiovascular hospitalisation at 5 years (95% CI 1.59-3.80) and 2.14 times the risk at 10 years (95% CI 1.47-3.12).Conclusions: Obstetric haemorrhage requiring transfusion is associated with maternal cardiovascular disease. The benefit of cardiovascular risk prevention in pregnant women with obstetric haemorrhage requires further investigation.Tweetable Abstract: Risk of future cardiovascular disease is increased for women with obstetric haemorrhage who require transfusion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The effects of subcooled flow boiling of nanofluids (Al2O3/water and Cu/water) through a vertical heated pipe are investigated numerically considering a number real flow factors such as uneven particle distributions and particle deposition on the wall surface. The results from the Eulerian-Eulerian two-phase model (liquid/nanofluid-gas) and those of the Eulerian-Lagrangian three-phase model (liquid-gas particles) are compared in detail. For the heat transfer coefficient prediction, the latter model gives about 6% error, whereas the Eulerian-Eulerian model gives about 12% error when it is compared with Chen's correlation. The uneven distribution of nanoparticles concentrations, i.e., lower near the tube wall and higher at the pipe center, is well predicted by the Eulerian-Lagrangian model. On top that, for the first time, the changes on heating surface wettability induced by nanoparticles deposition is included via user define functions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Four typical crude oil samples collected from the Junggar Basin of northwest China were analyzed by comprehensive two-dimensional gas chromatography coupled with time-of-flight mass spectrometry (GC×GC-TOFMS) under different experimental conditions, which include normal phase column system (nonpolar × polar) and reversed phase column system (polar × nonpolar). A comparative study was conducted on the general chromatogram features, and chromatogram features of saturate and aromatic hydrocarbons. Analytical results show that the normal phase (NP) column system has higher resolution for the identification of high molecular weight polycyoalkanes and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, while the reverse phase (RP) column system has higher separation on the saturate hydrocarbons, especially on medium-low molecular weight iso-alkanes and cycloalkanes. In addition, the RP system can also meet the separation requirements of aromatic compounds, by the extraction of diverse organic compounds by characteristic ions. Therefore, the RP system has special advantages in the analysis of medium-low molecular weight hydrocarbon compounds in crude oil, and can be applied more widely in the future besides the presently common use of the NP system. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Dried distiller's grain (DDG) is considered as an alternative ingredient of dietary feed due to its high contents of protein, fibre and fat. In this study, 60 g kg-1 of DDG was used to feed grass carp ( Ctenopharyngodon idella), bluntnose black bream ( Megalobrama amblycephala), gibel carp ( Carassius gibelio) and black carp ( Mylopharyngodon piceus) for 8 weeks, and its effect on fish production and gut allochthonous microbiota was investigated for the development of a suitable fish feed high in nutrients and low in cost for polyculture freshwater fish. DDG supplementation resulted in the less weight gain and higher feed conversion ratio of black carp ( P < 0.05), but had no significant effects on other fish or parameters. PCR-denaturing gradient gel electrophoresis (DGGE) analysis indicated that all four fish species had some common and unique bacteria in their digestive tracts, and the gut microbiota of bluntnose black and gibel carp fed the control diet and DDG diets were very similar (Cs > 91%); of them, the total counts of intestinal bacteria studied by qPCR increased in grass carp ( P < 0.05) and depressed in black carp ( P < 0.05) when fed dietary DDG. Thus, we assumed that dietary DDG modulated production and gut microbiota of fish in a host-specific way. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Structured Abstract Objectives To evaluate the accuracy of volumetric measurement of simulated root resorption cavities based on cone beam computed tomography ( CBCT), in comparison with that of Micro-computed tomography ( Micro- CT) which served as the reference. Setting and Sample Population The State Key Laboratory of Oral Diseases at Sichuan University. Material and Methods Thirty-two bovine teeth were included for standardized CBCT scanning and Micro- CT scanning before and after the simulation of different degrees of root resorption. The teeth were divided into three groups according to the depths of the root resorption cavity (group 1: 0.15, 0.2, 0.3 mm; group 2: 0.6, 1.0 mm; group 3: 1.5, 2.0, 3.0 mm). Each depth included four specimens. Differences in tooth volume before and after simulated root resorption were then calculated from CBCT and Micro- CT scans, respectively. The overall between-method agreement of the measurements was evaluated using the concordance correlation coefficient ( CCC). Results For the first group, the average volume of resorption cavity was 1.07 mm3, and the between-method agreement of measurement for the volume changes was low ( CCC = 0.098). For the second and third groups, the average volumes of resorption cavities were 3.47 and 6.73 mm3 respectively, and the between-method agreements were good ( CCC = 0.828 and 0.895, respectively). Conclusions The accuracy of 3- D quantitative volumetric measurement of simulated root resorption based on CBCT was fairly good in detecting simulated resorption cavities larger than 3.47 mm3, while it was not sufficient for measuring resorption cavities smaller than 1.07 mm3. This method could be applied in future studies of root resorption although further studies are required to improve its accuracy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Imputation of high-density genotypes from low- or medium-density platforms is a promising way to enhance the efficiency of whole-genome selection programs at low cost. In this study, we compared the efficiency of three widely used imputation algorithms (fastPHASE, BEAGLE and findhap) using Chinese Holstein cattle with Illumina BovineSNP50 genotypes. A total of 2108 cattle were randomly divided into a reference population and a test population to evaluate the influence of the reference population size. Three bovine chromosomes, BTA1, 16 and 28, were used to represent large, medium and small chromosome size, respectively. We simulated different scenarios by randomly masking 20%, 40%, 80% and 95% single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) on each chromosome in the test population to mimic different SNP density panels. Illumina Bovine3K and Illumina BovineLD (6909 SNPs) information was also used. We found that the three methods showed comparable accuracy when the proportion of masked SNPs was low. However, the difference became larger when more SNPs were masked. BEAGLE performed the best and was most robust with imputation accuracies >90% in almost all situations. fastPHASE was affected by the proportion of masked SNPs, especially when the masked SNP rate was high. findhap ran the fastest, whereas its accuracies were lower than those of BEAGLE but higher than those of fastPHASE. In addition, enlarging the reference population improved the imputation accuracy for BEAGLE and findhap, but did not affect fastPHASE. Considering imputation accuracy and computational requirements, BEAGLE has been found to be more reliable for imputing genotypes from low- to high-density genotyping platforms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: An experimental investigation into the three-dimensional flow characteristics of the double-diffusive system was carried out using enclosures of a fixed unit height/span aspect ratio (10mm×10mm) but various widths: 2.5cm, 5cm, 10cm, 23cm and 46cm in the third direction. The ranges of the Rayleigh number and buoyancy ratio of the experiments are 0.89×108–2.67×108 and 0.59–1.18 respectively. It has been shown that an enclosure of a shorter width experiences a shorter mixing time compared to one of a greater width. This result contrasts the dominant presumption in the literature that the end-walls have a stabilizing effect, which is stronger in a shorter enclosure, producing higher flow resistance leading to a longer mixing time. The result can be explained by the observation that a three-dimensional flow is caused by the presence of the front/back walls, which enhances the mixing and destabilizes the flow system. This effect is stronger in a shorter enclosure. A close investigation of the time series and the probability density distribution of the fluid temperature suggests that the fluctuations of the temperature are mostly caused by the intermittent appearance of fluid pockets of discretely different temperatures which significantly contributes to the mixing of the two layers. In addition, the flow visualisation study shows that mixing mechanisms are distinctly different in the fast, intermediate and slow mixing cases. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: The paper presents a numerical investigation of the pulsatile blood flow in the detailed arterial vasculatures of a mouse retina using the mathematical model based on frequency domain incorporating an appropriate outlet boundary impedance at the end of the terminal vessels of the arterial trees. The viscosity in the vessels was evaluated considering the Fahraeus-Lindqvist effect, the plasma skimming effect and in vivo viscosity effect in the microcirculation. Comparative studies of the pulsatile circulation were carried out for cases of rigid vessels, constant viscosity, zero and non-zero outlet boundary impedances. In addition, the dependence of the oscillating input impedance at the inlet of the arterial trees on angular frequencies of the oscillation and vessel elasticises was also studied. The study shows that the pressure wave continues in the pre-capillary vessels throughout the retina. In elastic vessels, the amplitude of oscillatory velocity and wall shear stress in larger vessels and in vessels at the periphery region of the retina is amplified. The pulsatile blood flow is significantly influenced by the outlet boundary (or load) impedance which simulates the effect of the capillary and venous vasculatures. The oscillating input impedance at the inlet of the arterial trees is also found to be dependent on the angular frequency and the Young modulus of the vessel segment. Insights into the potential variations of the dynamic responses of the system under retinal pathological condition of arteriosclerosis may be inferred from the findings of the present study. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

A fast algorithm for localising multiple current dipoles in the human brain by measuring the external magnetic field is presented. A genetic algorithm is used first for rough estimate of locations. To speed up the global optimisation algorithm, an explicit solution for a spherical head model is used for the rough estimation. This rough estimate is then used as a start for a fine search using a gradient-based algorithm, in which a boundary element solution for a realistic brain-shaped head model is used. Numerical simulation indicates that the present algorithm converges three-four times faster than an algorithm using a brain-shaped head model in all the steps. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background Numerous studies have demonstrated the efficacy of rituximab before autologous stem cell transplantation (ASCT) for the treatment of B-cell non-Hodgkin lymphoma, but the few studies on rituximab treatment after ASCT have not established conclusively the clinical benefits of this particular treatment regimen. Patients and Methods We conducted a metaanalysis of 3 comparative studies encompassing 407 lymphoma patients treated with rituximab after ASCT. Results Combined results revealed a significantly higher event-free survival (EFS) in the rituximab-treated (R+) group compared with the R− group ( P = .003 at 1 year; P = .03 at 3 years; P = .001 at 4 years). Moreover, the R+ group also demonstrated higher overall survival (OS) and complete remission (CR) rates ( P = .0006 and P < .0001, respectively, at 1 year) without a significant increase in adverse events. Conclusions According to the included articles, there were no differences in CR, overall response, 3-year EFS, or 3-year OS between rituximab-naïve patients and patients previously treated with rituximab before ASCT. Post-ASCT maintenance regimens including rituximab show increased EFS, OS, and CR. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: The Virus Pathogen Resource (ViPR; www.viprbrc.org) and Influenza Research Database (IRD; www.fludb.org) have developed a metadata-driven Comparative Analysis Tool for Sequences (meta-CATS), which performs statistical comparative analyses of nucleotide and amino acid sequence data to identify correlations between sequence variations and virus attributes (metadata). Meta-CATS guides users through: selecting a set of nucleotide or protein sequences; dividing them into multiple groups based on any associated metadata attribute (e.g. isolation location, host species); performing a statistical test at each aligned position; and identifying all residues that significantly differ between the groups. As proofs of concept, we have used meta-CATS to identify sequence biomarkers associated with dengue viruses isolated from different hemispheres, and to identify variations in the NS1 protein that are unique to each of the 4 dengue serotypes. Meta-CATS is made freely available to virology researchers to identify genotype-phenotype correlations for development of improved vaccines, diagnostics, and therapeutics. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Aim: To gather and compare related clinical studies, and to investigate the accuracy and reliability of deep learning in detecting orthopaedic fractures.Materials and Methods: This study is a retrospective combination and interpretation of prospectively acquired data. Articles from PubMed, EMBASE, the Cochrane library databases, and reference lists of the qualified articles were retrieved. Heterogeneity between studies was assessed using a random effective model. Pooled sensitivity, specificity, diagnostic odds ratio, and area under the receiver operating characteristic curve (AUC) were obtained by a random model. This work was managed from October 2018 to March 2020.Results: Fourteen studies were included in this systematic review and nine were synthesized in the meta-analysis. The pooled sensitivity and specificity for the whole group (17 trials, 5,434 images) were 0.87 and 0.91, respectively. The AUC was 0.95. Eight trials (1,574 images) were included in the long-bone group, which contained seven studies. The pooled sensitivity was 0.96 and specificity was 0.94. The AUC was 0.99. Heterogeneity existed in the four pooled results of the whole group and the pooled specificity of the long-bone group.Conclusions: Deep learning is reliable in fracture diagnosis and has high diagnostic accuracy, which is similar to that of general physicians and is unlikely to produce a large number of false diagnoses; however, the ability of deep learning to localize the fracture needs more attention and testing. Deep learning can be extremely helpful with pre-classification of clinical diagnoses. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]