Model and Performance Analysis of Piezoelectric Energy Harvester System for Different Harvester Beam Configurations

Electricity is one of the main energy resources will be used to operate many devices and appliance for making human life as comfortable. In many of the applications the small electronics equipments or devices are used which requires power in milli Watts, micro Watts, nano Watts. This small power requirement devices are gets power form battery which is nowadays replaced by the PEH energy technology. There are many configurations are used and modeled to improve the power performance of the PEH. This paper is focus on the improvements of the PEH through the continuous beam, segmented beam with tip mass and clamped – clamped continuous beam harvester. The performances of the harvesters are analyzed with the factor like voltage generation, power generation, strain stress imposed on the harvester like that. The major difficulty in the use of PEH harvester to obtain electrical energy from the vibrations or motion energy is that the output power is very less; efficiency is very poor during the low frequency periods. The vibration frequency is not at all same for all duration of vibration. So, the vibrations in the frequency reduce the output of PEH particularly at low frequency situations. So, finding and designing a suitable PEH to produce high output power in any field of vibration energy source available

Cluster analyses from the real-world NOVELTY study : six clusters across the asthma COPD spectrum

Funding The NOVELTY study is funded by AstraZeneca. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS The authors would like to thank the patients who participated in this study and the NOVELTY Scientific Community and the NOVELTY study investigators who are listed in full in Tables E7 and E8 in the Online Repository. Medical writing support, under the direction of the authors, was provided by Richard Knight, PhD, CMC Connect, a division of IPG Health Medical Communications, funded by AstraZeneca in accordance with Good Publication Practice (GPP 2022) guidelines (Ann Intern Med. 2022;175[9]:1298-1304). J. Vestbo is supported by the NIHR Manchester Biomedical Research Centre and the NIHR Manchester Clinical Research FacilityPeer reviewedPublisher PD

Raman Spectroscopic Analysis of Fingernail Clippings Can Help Differentiate between Postmenopausal Women Who Have and Have Not Suffered a Fracture

Raman spectroscopy was applied to nail clippings from 633 postmenopausal British and Irish women, from six clinical sites, of whom 42% had experienced a fragility fracture. The objective was to build a prediction algorithm for fracture using data from four sites (known as the calibration set) and test its performance using data from the other two sites (known as the validation set). Results from the validation set showed that a novel algorithm, combining spectroscopy data with clinical data, provided area under the curve (AUC) of 74% compared to an AUC of 60% from a reduced QFracture score (a clinically accepted risk calculator) and 61% from the dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry T-score, which is in current use for the diagnosis of osteoporosis. Raman spectroscopy should be investigated further as a noninvasive tool for the early detection of enhanced risk of fragility fracture

Prospective observational study in patients with obstructive lung disease : NOVELTY design

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Heterogeneity within and between physician-diagnosed asthma and/or COPD : NOVELTY cohort

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Breathomics can discriminate between anti IgE-treated and non-treated severe asthma adults

Rationale: Omalizumab, an anti-IgE monoclonal antibody, is indicated in adults with severe persistent allergic asthma. Exhaled molecular markers can provide phenotypic information in asthma. Objectives: Determine whether adults with severe asthma on omalizumab (anti-IgE+) have a different breathprint compared with those who were not on anti-IgE therapy (anti-IgE-) as assessed by eNoses and gas chromatography/mass spectrometry (GC/MS) (breathomics). Methods: This was a cross-sectional analysis of the U- BIOPRED adult cohort. Severe asthma was defined by IMI-criteria [Bel, Thorax 2011]. Anti-IgE+ patients were on a regular treatment with s.c. omalizumab (150-375 mg) every 2-4 weeks. Exhaled volatile compounds trapped on adsorption tubes were analysed by a centralized eNose platform (Owlstone Lonestar, two Cyranose 320, Comon Invent, Tor Vergata TEN), including a total of 190 sensors, and GC/MS. Recursive feature elimination (http://topepo.github.io/caret/rfe.html) was used for feature selection and random forests, more robust to overfitting, for classification. Results: 9 anti- IgE+ (females/males 2/7, age 52.6±16.3 years, mean±SD, 1/2/6 current/ex/nonsmokers, pre-bronchodilator FEV1 70.6±21.1% predicted value) and 30 anti-IgE- patients (18/12 females/males, age 53.2±14.2 years, 0/16/14 current/ex/nonsmokers, pre-bronchodilator FEV1 59.6±30.7% predicted value) were studied. Conclusions: Preliminary results suggest that breathomics can distinguish between anti-IgE+ and anti-IgE- severe asthma patients

Novel genetic variants associated with lumbar disc degeneration in northern Europeans: A meta-analysis of 4600 subjects

Objective: Lumbar disc degeneration (LDD) is an important cause of low back pain, which is a common and costly problem. LDD is characterised by disc space narrowing and osteophyte growth at the circumference of the disc. To date, the agnostic search of the genome by genome-wide association (GWA) to identify common variants associated with LDD has not been fruitful. This study is the first GWA meta-analysis of LDD. Methods: We have developed a continuous trait based on disc space narrowing and osteophytes growth which is measurable on all forms of imaging (plain radiograph, CT scan and MRI) and performed a meta-analysis of five cohorts of Northern European extraction each having GWA data imputed to HapMap V.2. Results: This study of 4600 individuals identified four single nucleotide polymorphisms with p<5×10-8, the threshold set for genome-wide significance. We identified a variant in the PARK2 gene (p=2.8×10-8) associated with LDD. Differential methylation at one CpG island of the PARK2 promoter was observed in a small subset of subjects (β=8.74×10-4, p=0.006). Conclusions: LDD accounts for a considerable proportion of low back pain and the pathogenesis of LDD is poorly understood. This work provides evidence of association of the PARK2 gene and suggests that methylation of the PARK2 promoter may influence degeneration of the intervertebral disc. This gene has not previously been considered a candidate in LDD and further functional work is needed on this hitherto unsuspected pathway. Copyright Article author (or their employer) 2012

What bothers severe asthma patients most? A paired patient-clinician study across seven European countries

Introduction: Severe asthma is a complex, multi-dimensional disease. Optimal treatment adherence and outcomes require shared decision-making, rooted in mutual understanding between patient and clinician. This study used a novel, patient-centred approach to examine the most bothersome aspects of severe asthma to patients, as seen from both perspectives in asthma registries. Methods: Across seven countries, 126 patients with severe asthma completed an open-ended survey regarding most bothersome aspect(s) of their asthma. Patients’ responses were linked with their treating clinician who also completed free-text survey about each patient's most bothersome aspect(s). Responses were coded using content analysis, and patient and clinician responses were compared. Finally, asthma registries that are part of the SHARP Clinical Research Collaboration were examined to see the extent to which they reflected the most bothersome aspects reported by patients. Results: Eighty-eight codes and 10 themes were identified. Clinicians were more focused on direct physical symptoms and were less focused on ‘holistic’ aspects such as the effort required to self-manage their disease. Clinicians accurately identified a most bothersome symptom for 29% of patients. Agreement was particularly low in younger patients and those infrequently using oral corticosteroids. In asthma registries, patient aspects were predominantly represented in questionnaires. Conclusions: Results demonstrated different perspectives and priorities between patients and clinicians, with clinicians more focused on physical aspects. These differences must be considered when treating individual patients, and within multi-disciplinary treatment teams. The use of questionnaires that include multi-faceted aspects of disease may result in improved asthma research

Clinical and transcriptomic features of persistent exacerbation-prone severe asthma in U-BIOPRED cohort

Background: Exacerbation-prone asthma is a feature of severe disease. Yet, the basis for its persistency remains unclear. Objectives: To determine the clinical and transcriptomic features of the frequent-exacerbator (FE) and of persistent FEs (PFE) in U-BIOPRED cohort. Methods: We compared features of FE (≥2 exacerbations in past year) to infrequent exacerbators (IE, <2 exacerbations) and of PFE with repeat ≥2 exacerbations during the following year to persistent IE (PIE). Transcriptomic data in blood, bronchial and nasal epithelial brushings, bronchial biopsies and sputum cells were analysed by gene set variation analysis for 103 gene signatures. Results: Of 317 patients, 62.4 % were FE of whom 63.6% were PFE, while 37.6% were IE of whom 61.3% were PIE. Using multivariate analysis, FE was associated with short-acting beta-agonist use, sinusitis and daily oral corticosteroid use, while PFE with eczema, short-acting beta-agonist use and asthma control index. CEA Cell Adhesion Molecule 5 (CEACAM5) was the only differentially-expressed transcript in bronchial biopsies between PE and IE. There were no differentially-expressed genes in the other 4 compartments. There were higher expression scores for Type 2 , T-helper type-17 and Type 1 pathway signatures together with those associated with viral infections in bronchial biopsies from FE compared to IE, while higher expression scores of Type 2, Type 1 and steroid insensitivity pathway signatures in bronchial biopsies of PFE compared to PIE. Conclusion: FE group and its PFE subgroup are associated with poor asthma control while expressing higher Type 1 and Type 2 activation pathways compared to IE and PIE, respectively

Deep phenotyping and genomic data from a nationally representative study on dementia in India

The Harmonized Diagnostic Assessment of Dementia for the Longitudinal Aging Study in India (LASI-DAD) is a nationally representative in-depth study of cognitive aging and dementia. We present a publicly available dataset of harmonized cognitive measures of 4,096 adults 60 years of age and older in India, collected across 18 states and union territories. Blood samples were obtained to carry out whole blood and serum-based assays. Results are included in a venous blood specimen datafile that can be linked to the Harmonized LASI-DAD dataset. A global screening array of 960 LASI-DAD respondents is also publicly available for download, in addition to neuroimaging data on 137 LASI-DAD participants. Altogether, these datasets provide comprehensive information on older adults in India that allow researchers to further understand risk factors associated with cognitive impairment and dementia.Peer reviewe