Delayed recovery of coronary resistive vessel function after coronary angioplasty

AbstractObjectives. The aim of this study was to use Doppler catheterization and sequential dynamic positron emission tomography (PET) to investigate the role and time course of abnormal coronary resistive vessel function in the impairment of the coronary vasodilator response (maximal/basal coronary blood flow) after successful coronary angioplasty.Background. The coronary vasodilator response may be impaired immediately after coronary angioplasty, despite successful dilation of a flow-limiting stenosis.Methods. Twelve men (mean age 52 ± 10 years) with singlevessel coronary artery disease and normal left ventricular function were studied. The coronary vasodilator response to intravenous dipyridamole (0.5 mg·kg−1over 4 min) was determined from intracoronary Doppler measurement of coronary How velocity, before and after successful angioplasty. Basal and maximal myocardial blood flow in the angioplasty region and a normal region were determined in nine patients with positron emission tomography with H215O at 1 day (PET1), 7 days (PET2) and 3 months (PET3) after angioplasty.Results. The coronary vasodilator response, measured by Doppler catheterization, was similar before and immediately after angioplasty, 1.63 ± 0.41 and 1.62 ± 0.55, respectively (p = NS). After angioplasty, in seven of nine patients without restenosis, basal myocardial blood flow at PET1, PET2and PET3was 0.98 ± 0.16, 0.94 ± 0.09 and 0.99 ± 0.13 ml·min−1·g−1, respectively, in the remote region and 1.19 ± 0.23 (p < 0.01 vs. remote region), 1.17 ± 0.19 (p < 0.01 vs. remote region) and 1.10 ± 0.08 ml·min-1·g−1(p = NS vs. remote region), respectively, in the angioplasty region. Myocardial blood flow after dipyridamole at PET1, PET2and PET3was 3.04 ± 0.68, 3.00 ± 0.71 and 3.00 ± 0.60 ml·ml·min−1g−1, respectively, in the remote region and 2.11 ± 0.80 (p < 0.01 vs. remote region), 2.28 ± 0.73 (p = NS vs. remote region) and 3.06 ± 0.86 ml · min−1· g−1(p = NS vs. remote region), respectively, in the angioplasty region. The coronary vasodilator response at PET1, PET2and PET3was 3.15 ± 0.85, 3.18 ± 0.68 and 3.08 ± 0.75, respectively, in the remote region and 1.80 ± 0.68 (p < 0.01 vs. remote region), 1.94 ± 0.49 (p < 0.01 vs. remote region) and 2.77 ± 0.74 (p = NS vs. remote region), respectively, in the angioplasty region.Conclusions. After successful angioplasty, basal myocardial blood flow is increased for ≥7 days in the angioplasty region, with a reduction in the dipyridamole · induced increase in maximal myocardial blood flow for ≥24 h after the procedure. Thus, the coronary vasodilator response is impaired for ≥7 days after angioplasty, indicating that there is abnormal resistive vessel function in the coronary vascular bed distal to a coronary artery stenosis that persists for 7 days to 3 months

Whole genome identification, phylogeny and evolution of the cytochrome P450 family 2 (CYP2) sub-families in birds

The cytochrome P450 (CYP) superfamily defends organisms from endogenous and noxious environmental compounds, and thus is crucial for survival. However, beyond mammals the molecular evolution of CYP2 subfamilies is poorly understood. Here, we characterized the CYP2 family across 48 avian whole genomes representing all major extant bird clades. Overall,12 CYP2 subfamilies were identified, including the first description of the CYP2F, CYP2G, and several CYP2AF genes in avian genomes. Some of the CYP2 genes previously described as being lineage-specific, such as CYP2K and CYP2W, are ubiquitous to all avian groups. Furthermore, we identified a large number of CYP2J copies, which have been associated previously with water reabsorption. We detected positive selection in the avian CYP2C, CYP2D, CYP2H, CYP2J, CYP2K, and CYP2AC subfamilies. Moreover, we identified new substrate recognition sites (SRS0, SRS2_SRS3, and SRS3.1) and heme binding areas that influence CYP2 structure and function of functional importance as under significant positive selection. Some of the positively selected sites in avian CYP2D are located within the same SRS1 region that was previously linked with the metabolism of plant toxins.Additionally,we find that selective constraint variations in some avian CYP2 subfamilies are consistently associated with different feeding habits (CYP2H and CYP2J), habitats (CYP2D, CYP2H, CYP2J, and CYP2K), and migratory behaviors (CYP2D, CYP2H, and CYP2J). Overall, our findings indicate that there has been active enzyme site selection on CYP2 subfamilies and differential selection associated with different life history traits among birds

Autocalibration of accelerometer data for free-living physical activity assessment using local gravity and temperature: an evaluation on four continents.

Wearable acceleration sensors are increasingly used for the assessment of free-living physical activity. Acceleration sensor calibration is a potential source of error. This study aims to describe and evaluate an autocalibration method to minimize calibration error using segments within the free-living records (no extra experiments needed). The autocalibration method entailed the extraction of nonmovement periods in the data, for which the measured vector magnitude should ideally be the gravitational acceleration (1 g); this property was used to derive calibration correction factors using an iterative closest-point fitting process. The reduction in calibration error was evaluated in data from four cohorts: UK (n = 921), Kuwait (n = 120), Cameroon (n = 311), and Brazil (n = 200). Our method significantly reduced calibration error in all cohorts (P 0.05). Temperature correction coefficients were highest for the z-axis, e.g., 19.6-mg offset per 5°C. Further, application of the autocalibration method had a significant impact on typical metrics used for describing human physical activity, e.g., in Brazil average wrist acceleration was 0.2 to 51% lower than uncalibrated values depending on metric selection (P < 0.01). The autocalibration method as presented helps reduce the calibration error in wearable acceleration sensor data and improves comparability of physical activity measures across study locations. Temperature ultization seems essential when temperature deviates substantially from the average temperature in the record but not for multiday summary measures.This is the final version of the article. It first appeared from the American Physiological Society via http://dx.doi.org/10.1152/japplphysiol.00421.201

Hubble Space Telescope Imaging of the CFRS and LDSS Redshift Surveys---III. Field elliptical galaxies at 0.2 < z < 1.0

Surface photometry has been performed on a sample of 46 field elliptical galaxies. These galaxies are described well by a deVaucouleurs R^{1/4} profile. The sample was selected from the combined Canada-France and LDSS redshift surveys and spans the range 0.20 < z < 1.00. The relationship between galaxy half-light radius and luminosity evolves such that a galaxy of a given size is more luminous by Delta M_B=-0.97 \pm 0.14 mag at z=0.92 and the mean rest-frame color shifts blueward by Delta (U-V) =-0.68 \pm 0.11 at z=0.92 relative to the local cluster relations. Approximately 1/3 of these elliptical galaxies exhibit [OII] 3727 emission lines with equivalent widths > 15 angstroms indicating ongoing star formation. Estimated star-formation rates imply that \le 5% of the stellar mass in the elliptical galaxy population has been formed since z=1. We see no evidence for a decline in the space density of early-type galaxies with look-back time. The statistics and a comparison with local luminosity functions are both consistent with the view that the population of massive early-type galaxies was largely in place by z~1. This implies that merging is not required since that time to produce the present-day space density of elliptical galaxies.Comment: 21 pages plus 8 figures plus 5 tables. Accepted by Astrophysical Journa

Real-Life Gait Performance as a Digital Biomarker for Motor Fluctuations: The Parkinson@Home Validation Study

Background: Wearable sensors have been used successfully to characterize bradykinetic gait in patients with Parkinson disease (PD), but most studies to date have been conducted in highly controlled laboratory environments. Objective: This paper aims to assess whether sensor-based analysis of real-life gait can be used to objectively and remotely monitor motor fluctuations in PD. Methods: The Parkinson@Home validation study provides a new reference data set for the development of digital biomarkers to monitor persons with PD in daily life. Specifically, a group of 25 patients with PD with motor fluctuations and 25 age-matched controls performed unscripted daily activities in and around their homes for at least one hour while being recorded on video. Patients with PD did this twice: once after overnight withdrawal of dopaminergic medication and again 1 hour after medication intake. Participants wore sensors on both wrists and ankles, on the lower back, and in the front pants pocket, capturing movement and contextual data. Gait segments of 25 seconds were extracted from accelerometer signals based on manual video annotations. The power spectral density of each segment and device was estimated using Welch’s method, from which the total power in the 0.5- to 10-Hz band, width of the dominant frequency, and cadence were derived. The ability to discriminate between before and after medication intake and between patients with PD and controls was evaluated using leave-one-subject-out nested cross-validation. Results: From 18 patients with PD (11 men; median age 65 years) and 24 controls (13 men; median age 68 years), ≥10 gait segments were available. Using logistic LASSO (least absolute shrinkage and selection operator) regression, we classified whether the unscripted gait segments occurred before or after medication intake, with mean area under the receiver operator curves (AUCs) varying between 0.70 (ankle of least affected side, 95% CI 0.60-0.81) and 0.82 (ankle of most affected side, 95% CI 0.72-0.92) across sensor locations. Combining all sensor locations did not significantly improve classification (AUC 0.84, 95% CI 0.75-0.93). Of all signal properties, the total power in the 0.5- to 10-Hz band was most responsive to dopaminergic medication. Discriminating between patients with PD and controls was generally more difficult (AUC of all sensor locations combined: 0.76, 95% CI 0.62-0.90). The video recordings revealed that the positioning of the hands during real-life gait had a substantial impact on the power spectral density of both the wrist and pants pocket sensor. Conclusions: We present a new video-referenced data set that includes unscripted activities in and around the participants’ homes. Using this data set, we show the feasibility of using sensor-based analysis of real-life gait to monitor motor fluctuations with a single sensor location. Future work may assess the value of contextual sensors to control for real-world confounders

Innocent strategies as presheaves and interactive equivalences for CCS

Seeking a general framework for reasoning about and comparing programming languages, we derive a new view of Milner's CCS. We construct a category E of plays, and a subcategory V of views. We argue that presheaves on V adequately represent innocent strategies, in the sense of game semantics. We then equip innocent strategies with a simple notion of interaction. This results in an interpretation of CCS. Based on this, we propose a notion of interactive equivalence for innocent strategies, which is close in spirit to Beffara's interpretation of testing equivalences in concurrency theory. In this framework we prove that the analogues of fair and must testing equivalences coincide, while they differ in the standard setting.Comment: In Proceedings ICE 2011, arXiv:1108.014

Practical sand transport formula for non-breaking waves and currents

Open Access funded by Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council Under a Creative Commons license Acknowledgements This work is part of the SANTOSS project (‘SANd Transport in OScillatory flows in the Sheet-flow regime’) funded by the UK's EPSRC (GR/T28089/01) and STW in The Netherlands (TCB.6586). JW acknowledges Deltares strategic research funding under project number 1202359.09. Richard Soulsby is gratefully acknowledged for valuable discussions and feedback on the formula during the SANTOSS project.Peer reviewedPostprin

Extracts of Feijoa Inhibit Toll-Like Receptor 2 Signaling and Activate Autophagy Implicating a Role in Dietary Control of IBD

Inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) is a heterogeneous chronic inflammatory disease affecting the gut with limited treatment success for its sufferers. This suggests the need for better understanding of the different subtypes of the disease as well as nutritional interventions to compliment current treatments. In this study we assess the ability of a hydrophilic feijoa fraction (F3) to modulate autophagy a process known to regulate inflammation, via TLR2 using IBD cell lines

The influence of sex, parasitism, and ontogeny on the physiological response of European eels (Anguilla anguilla) to an abiotic stressor

Migration of adult European eels (Anguilla anguilla) from freshwater feeding grounds to oceanic spawning grounds is an energetically demanding process and is accompanied by dramatic physiological and behavioral changes. Humans have altered the aquatic environment (e.g., dams) and made an inherently challenging migration even more difficult; human activity is regarded as the primary driver of the collapse in eel populations. The neuroendocrine stress response is central in coping with these challenging conditions, yet little is known about how various biotic factors such as sex, parasites, and ontogeny influence (singly and via interactions) the stress response of eels. In this study, mixed-effects and linear models were used to quantify the influence of sex, parasitism (Anguillicola crassus), life stage (yellow and silver eels), and silvering stage on the stress response of eels when exposed to a standardized handling stressor. The physiological response of eels to a standardized abiotic stressor (netting confinement in air) was quantified through measurements of blood glucose and plasma cortisol. The relationships between biotic factors and the activity of gill Na+/K+-ATPase was also examined. Analyses revealed that in some instances a biotic factor acted alone while in other cases several factors interacted to influence the stress response. Blood glucose concentrations increased after exposure to the standardized stressor and remained elevated after 4 h. Variation in plasma cortisol concentrations after exposure to the stressor were found to be time dependent, which was exacerbated by life stage and parasitism condition. Males and nonparasitized silver eels had the highest Na+/K+-ATPase activity. Silvering stage was strongly positively correlated with Na+/K+-ATPase activity in female eels. Collectively, these findings confirm that the factors mediating stress responsiveness in fish are complicated and that aspects of inherent biotic variation cannot be ignored

The design and testing of a novel mechanomyogram-driven switch controlled by small eyebrow movements

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Individuals with severe physical disabilities and minimal motor behaviour may be unable to use conventional mechanical switches for access. These persons may benefit from access technologies that harness the volitional activity of muscles. In this study, we describe the design and demonstrate the performance of a binary switch controlled by mechanomyogram (MMG) signals recorded from the frontalis muscle during eyebrow movements.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>Muscle contractions, detected in real-time with a continuous wavelet transform algorithm, were used to control a binary switch for computer access. The automatic selection of scale-specific thresholds reduced the effect of artefact, such as eye blinks and head movement, on the performance of the switch. Switch performance was estimated by cued response-tests performed by eleven participants (one with severe physical disabilities).</p> <p>Results</p> <p>The average sensitivity and specificity of the switch was 99.7 ± 0.4% and 99.9 ± 0.1%, respectively. The algorithm performance was robust against typical participant movement.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>The results suggest that the frontalis muscle is a suitable site for controlling the MMG-driven switch. The high accuracies combined with the minimal requisite effort and training show that MMG is a promising binary control signal. Further investigation of the potential benefits of MMG-control for the target population is warranted.</p