A Pilot Study: The Beneficial Effects of Combined Statin-exercise Therapy on Cognitive Function in Patients with Coronary Artery Disease and Mild Cognitive Decline.

Objective Hypercholesterolemia, a risk factor in cognitive impairment, can be treated with statins. However, cognitive decline associated with "statins" (HMG-CoA reductase inhibitors) is a clinical concern. This pilot study investigated the effects of combining statins and regular exercise on cognitive function in coronary artery disease (CAD) patients with prior mild cognitive decline. Methods We recruited 43 consecutive CAD patients with mild cognitive decline. These patients were treated with a statin and weekly in-hospital aerobic exercise for 5 months. We measured serum lipids, exercise capacity, and cognitive function using the mini mental state examination (MMSE). Results Low-density lipoprotein cholesterol levels were significantly decreased, and maximum exercise capacity (workload) was significantly increased in patients with CAD and mild cognitive decline after treatment compared with before. Combined statin-exercise therapy significantly increased the median (range) MMSE score from 24 (22-25) to 25 (23-27) across the cohort (p<0.01). Changes in body mass index (BMI) were significantly and negatively correlated with changes in the MMSE. After treatment, MMSE scores in the subgroup of patients that showed a decrease in BMI were significantly improved, but not in the BMI-increased subgroup. Furthermore, the patients already on a statin at the beginning of the trial displayed a more significant improvement in MMSE score than statin-naïve patients, implying that exercise might be the beneficial aspect of this intervention as regards cognition. In a multivariate logistic regression analysis adjusted for age >65 years, sex, and presence of diabetes mellitus, a decrease in BMI during statin-exercise therapy was significantly correlated with an increase in the MMSE score (odds ratio: 4.57, 95% confidence interval: 1.05-20.0; p<0.05). Conclusion Statin-exercise therapy may help improve cognitive dysfunction in patients with CAD and pre-existing mild cognitive decline

A Dual-Beam Irradiation Facility for a Novel Hybrid Cancer Therapy

In this paper we present the main ideas and discuss both the feasibility and the conceptual design of a novel hybrid technique and equipment for an experimental cancer therapy based on the simultaneous and/or sequential application of two beams, namely a beam of neutrons and a CW (continuous wave) or intermittent sub-terahertz wave beam produced by a gyrotron for treatment of cancerous tumors. The main simulation tools for the development of the computer aided design (CAD) of the prospective experimental facility for clinical trials and study of such new medical technology are briefly reviewed. Some tasks for a further continuation of this feasibility analysis are formulated as well.Comment: 18 pages, 3 tables, 8 figures, 50 reference

Developmental Bayesian Optimization of Black-Box with Visual Similarity-Based Transfer Learning

We present a developmental framework based on a long-term memory and reasoning mechanisms (Vision Similarity and Bayesian Optimisation). This architecture allows a robot to optimize autonomously hyper-parameters that need to be tuned from any action and/or vision module, treated as a black-box. The learning can take advantage of past experiences (stored in the episodic and procedural memories) in order to warm-start the exploration using a set of hyper-parameters previously optimized from objects similar to the new unknown one (stored in a semantic memory). As example, the system has been used to optimized 9 continuous hyper-parameters of a professional software (Kamido) both in simulation and with a real robot (industrial robotic arm Fanuc) with a total of 13 different objects. The robot is able to find a good object-specific optimization in 68 (simulation) or 40 (real) trials. In simulation, we demonstrate the benefit of the transfer learning based on visual similarity, as opposed to an amnesic learning (i.e. learning from scratch all the time). Moreover, with the real robot, we show that the method consistently outperforms the manual optimization from an expert with less than 2 hours of training time to achieve more than 88% of success

Obesity and Hypertension in Students of Jahangirnagar University: Alarming Issues

The prevalence of obesity and hypertension (HTN) in university students of Bangladesh has not reported yet. Considering the proper health maintenance of this population in mind, the study was aimed to determine the prevalence of obesity and HTN as well as relationship among them in the students of a residential university of Bangladesh, Jahangirnagar University. This descriptive cross sectional study included 500 randomly selected students (250 males and 250 females). Participants completed a questionnaire on physical activity, sedentary behaviour, dietary factors, smoking and family history of obesity, HTN, and coronary artery disease. Blood pressure and anthropometric parameters such as height, weight, waist and hip circumferences were measured following standard procedure. The Statistical analyses were performed using the software SPSS.The prevalence of overweight was 25% (31.1% males, 15.6% females) and obesity 7.2% (9.4% males, 4% females). Pre-HTN was found at 27.1% (38% males, 11.2% females) and HTN at 2.2% (3.3% males, 0.4% females). A high rate of smoking, sedentary behavior, physical inactivity, excessive consumption of unhealthy food, and caffeine-rich drinks was also observed. Significant correlation was found between parameters of obesity and HTN. High prevalence of pre-HTN in males and central obesity in females were found which is immediately needed to control for better health maintenance of this population

Solvability of a class of braided fusion categories

We show that a weakly integral braided fusion category C such that every simple object of C has Frobenius-Perron dimension at most 2 is solvable. In addition, we prove that such a fusion category is group-theoretical in the extreme case where the universal grading group of C is trivial.Comment: 12 pages, amslate

Supersymmetric U(N) Gauge Model and Partial Breaking of N=2 Supersymmetry

Guided by the gauging of U(N) isometry associated with the special Kahler geometry, and the discrete R symmetry, we construct the N=2 supersymmetric action of a U(N) invariant nonabelian gauge model in which rigid N=2 supersymmetry is spontaneously broken to N=1. This generalizes the abelian model considered by Antoniadis, Partouche and Taylor. We shed light on complexity of the supercurrents of our model associated with a broken N=2 supermultiplet of currents, and discuss the spontaneously broken supersymmetry as an approximate fermionic shift symmetry.Comment: 32 pages; typos corrected and references added; the version to be published in Prog. Theor. Phys, a pedagogical appendix adde

Comprehensive Analysis of Market Conditions in the Foreign Exchange Market: Fluctuation Scaling and Variance-Covariance Matrix

We investigate quotation and transaction activities in the foreign exchange market for every week during the period of June 2007 to December 2010. A scaling relationship between the mean values of number of quotations (or number of transactions) for various currency pairs and the corresponding standard deviations holds for a majority of the weeks. However, the scaling breaks in some time intervals, which is related to the emergence of market shocks. There is a monotonous relationship between values of scaling indices and global averages of currency pair cross-correlations when both quantities are observed for various window lengths $\Delta t$.Comment: 13 pages, 10 figure

Interactive form creation: exploring the creation and manipulation of free form through the use of interactive multiple input interface

Most current CAD systems support only the two most common input devices: a mouse and a keyboard that impose a limit to the degree of interaction that a user can have with the system. However, it is not uncommon for users to work together on the same computer during a collaborative task. Beside that, people tend to use both hands to manipulate 3D objects; one hand is used to orient the object while the other hand is used to perform some operation on the object. The same things could be applied to computer modelling in the conceptual phase of the design process. A designer can rotate and position an object with one hand, and manipulate the shape [deform it] with the other hand. Accordingly, the 3D object can be easily and intuitively changed through interactive manipulation of both hands.The research investigates the manipulation and creation of free form geometries through the use of interactive interfaces with multiple input devices. First the creation of the 3D model will be discussed; several different types of models will be illustrated. Furthermore, different tools that allow the user to control the 3D model interactively will be presented. Three experiments were conducted using different interactive interfaces; two bi-manual techniques were compared with the conventional one-handed approach. Finally it will be demonstrated that the use of new and multiple input devices can offer many opportunities for form creation. The problem is that few, if any, systems make it easy for the user or the programmer to use new input devices