The application of infrared thermography in evaluation of patients at high risk for lower extremity peripheral arterial disease

ObjectiveWe investigated the usefulness of infrared thermography in evaluating patients at high risk for lower extremity peripheral arterial disease (PAD), including severity, functional capacity, and quality of life.MethodsA total of 51 patients (23 males; age 70 ± 9.8 years) were recruited. They completed three PAD-associated questionnaires, including walking impairment, vascular quality of life, and 7-day physical activity recall questionnaires before a 6-minute walking test (6MWT). Ankle-brachial index (ABI) and segmental pressure were analyzed for PAD diagnosis and stenotic level assessment. The cutaneous temperature at shin and sole were recorded by infrared thermography before and after the walk test. Detailed demographic information and medication list were obtained.ResultsTwenty-eight subjects had abnormal ABI (ABI <1), while PAD was diagnosed in 20. No subjects had non-compressible artery (ABI >1.3). Demographic profiles and clinical parameters in PAD and non-PAD patients were similar, except for age, smoking history, and hyperlipidemia. PAD patients walked shorter distances (356 ± 102 m vs 218 ± 92 m; P < .001). Claudication occurred in 14 patients, while seven failed in completing the 6MWT. The rest temperatures were similar in PAD and non-PAD patients. However, the post-exercise temperature dropped in the lower extremities with arterial stenosis, but was maintained or elevated slightly in the extremities with patent arteries (temperature changes at sole in PAD vs non-PAD patients: −1.25 vs −0.15°C; P < .001). The exercise-induced temperature changes at the sole were not only positively correlated with the 6MWD (Spearman correlation coefficient = 0.31, P = .03), but was also correlated with ABI (Spearman correlation coefficient = 0.48, P < .001) and 7-day physical activity recall scores (Spearman correlation coefficient = 0.30, P = .033).ConclusionBy detecting cutaneous temperature changes in the lower extremities, infrared thermography offers another non-invasive, contrast-free option in PAD evaluation and functional assessment

Knowledge-Enriched Visual Storytelling

Stories are diverse and highly personalized, resulting in a large possible output space for story generation. Existing end-to-end approaches produce monotonous stories because they are limited to the vocabulary and knowledge in a single training dataset. This paper introduces KG-Story, a three-stage framework that allows the story generation model to take advantage of external Knowledge Graphs to produce interesting stories. KG-Story distills a set of representative words from the input prompts, enriches the word set by using external knowledge graphs, and finally generates stories based on the enriched word set. This distill-enrich-generate framework allows the use of external resources not only for the enrichment phase, but also for the distillation and generation phases. In this paper, we show the superiority of KG-Story for visual storytelling, where the input prompt is a sequence of five photos and the output is a short story. Per the human ranking evaluation, stories generated by KG-Story are on average ranked better than that of the state-of-the-art systems. Our code and output stories are available at https://github.com/zychen423/KE-VIST.Comment: AAAI 202

A Power-Efficient Multiband Planar USB Dongle Antenna for Wireless Sensor Networks

Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs) had been applied in Internet of Things (IoT) and in Industry 4.0. Since a WSN system contains multiple wireless sensor nodes, it is necessary to develop a low-power and multiband wireless communication system that satisfies the specifications of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) and the Certification European (CE). In a WSN system, many devices are of very small size and can be slipped into a Universal Serial Bus (USB), which is capable of connecting to wireless systems and networks, as well as transferring data. These devices are widely known as USB dongles. This paper develops a planar USB dongle antenna for three frequency bands, namely 2.30–2.69 GHz, 3.40–3.70 GHz, and 5.15–5.85 GHz. This study proposes a novel antenna design that uses four loops to develop the multiband USB dongle. The first and second loops construct the low and intermediate frequency ranges. The third loop resonates the high frequency property, while the fourth loop is used to enhance the bandwidth. The performance and power consumption of the proposed multiband planar USB dongle antenna were significantly improved compared to existing multiband designs

Plasma fatty acids and the risk of metabolic syndrome in ethnic Chinese adults in Taiwan

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Evidence of predictive power of various fatty acids on the risk of metabolic syndrome was scanty. We evaluated the role of various fatty acids, including saturated fat, monounsaturated fat, transfat, n-6 fatty acid, eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA) and docosahexaenoic acid (DHA), for the risk of the metabolic syndrome in Taiwan.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>A nested case-control study based on 1000 cases of metabolic syndrome and 1:1 matched control subjects. For saturated fat, monounsaturated fat and transfat, the higher the concentration the higher the risk for metabolic syndrome: participants in the highest quintile had a 2.22-fold (95% confidence interval [CI], 1.66 to 2.97) higher risk of metabolic syndrome. In addition, the participants in higher EPA quintiles were less likely to have the risk of metabolic syndrome (adjusted risk, 0.46 [0.34 to 0.61] for the fifth quintile). Participants in the highest risk group (low EPA and high transfat) had a 2.36-fold higher risk of metabolic syndrome (95% CI, 1.38 to 4.03), compared with those in the lowest risk group (high EPA and low transfat). For prediction power, the area under ROC curves increased from 0.926 in the baseline model to 0.928 after adding fatty acids. The net reclassification improvement for metabolic syndrome risk was substantial for saturated fat (2.1%, <it>P </it>= 0.05).</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>Plasma fatty acid components improved the prediction of the metabolic syndrome risk in Taiwan.</p

Clinical meaning of age-related expression of fecal cytokeratin 19 in colorectal malignancy

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Colorectal cancer (CRC) is one of the leading causes of malignant death worldwide. Because young age of onset is often considered a poor prognostic factor for CRC, it is important to identify the poor outcomes of CRC in a younger population and to consider an aggressive approach by implementing early treatment. Our aim was to specifically quantify the fecal cytokeratin 19 (CK19) transcript from CRC patients and investigate its correlation with clinical stage, tumor malignancy, and age.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>The quantitation of fecal CK19 transcript was determined by a quantitative real-time reverse transcription polymerase chain in 129 CRC patients (45 younger than 60 years at diagnosis) and 85 healthy controls. The levels of CK19 protein were examined both in colonic cell lines and tissues.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>The analysis of 45 younger CRC patients (age ≤ 60 years) revealed that patients at the M1 stage had significantly higher expression levels of fecal CK19 mRNA when compared with healthy controls (<it>p </it>< 0.001) and patients at the M0 stage (<it>p </it>= 0.004). Additionally, the degree of consistency between the mean level of fecal CK19 mRNA and the distant metastatic rate in each age interval was up to 89% (<it>p </it>= 0.042).</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>These results indicate that high levels of fecal CK19 mRNA represent a potential marker for colorectal malignancy and for aggressive treatment of younger CRC patients.</p

Time-Dependent Benefit of Initial Thrombosuction on Myocardial Reperfusion in Primary Percutaneous Coronary Intervention

Background: In ST-segment elevation acute myocardial infarction (STEMI), dislodgement of thrombus within the culprit artery during primary percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) may cause distal embolisation and impaired myocardial reperfusion. Clinical results of thromboembolic protection strategies have been controversial . We conducted this study to investigate whether the benefit of thrombus removal is time dependent. Methods: Seventy- four STEMI patients within 12 h from onset were randomised to receive either primary PCI with initial thrombosuction ( IT) or standard strategy. Results were analysed in subgroups according to the onset-to-lab time intervals (subgroup 1: 0 -240 min, subgroup 2: 241-480 min and subgroup 3: 481-720 min). Results: The primary end-points were improvements in thrombolysis in myocardial infarction flow (Delta TIMI) and myocardial blush grade (Delta MBG) postprocedure. Better Delta TIMI (2 .2 +/- 1.1 vs. 1.5 +/- 1.3, p = 0.014) and Delta MBG (2.3 +/- 1.1 vs. 1.0 +/- 1.5, p < 0.001) were observed in IT patients, compared with standard PCI patients . In onset-to-lab time subgroup analysis, the difference between IT and standard PCI is significant only in subgroup 2 (Delta TIMI 2.6 +/- 1.0 vs. 1.3 +/- 1.2, p = 0.007; Delta MBG 2.6 +/- 0.9 vs. 1.0 +/- 1.1, p = 0.010), but not in the other two subgroups. Conclusions: This prospective randomised study shows that primary PCI with IT may improve epicardial flow and myocardial reperfusion in patients with STEMI, and this benefit is the most significant in patients treated within 4-8 h after symptom onset

Impairment of Cerebrovascular Reactivity by Methionine-Induced Hyperhomocysteinemia and Amelioration by Quinapril Treatment

Background and Purpose-Human studies have shown that methionine-induced hyperhomocysteinemia impairs brachial artery endothelial function via decreasing nitric oxide activity. However, the effect of homocysteine on cerebrovascular reactivity (CVR), which has been reported to be nitric oxide related in experimental and animal studies, remains unclear in humans. Inhibition of angiotensin- converting enzyme may improve nitric oxide-mediated cerebral as well as peripheral endothelial function. The aim of the present study was to investigate the effect of methionine- induced hyperhomocysteinemia on CVR before and after treatment with quinapril, an angiotensin-converting enzyme inhibitor, in healthy adults. Methods-Plasma homocysteine and CVR were measured at baseline and 4 hours after methionine load (0.1 g/kg body wt) before and after quinapril treatment (10 mg/d for 1 week) in both younger and older groups. CVR was assessed by transcranial Doppler ultrasonography, measuring the percent increase of flow velocity in the middle cerebral artery after brief carotid compression (expressed as transient hyperemic response ratio [THRR ]). Results-Homocysteine levels were significantly increased after methionine load either before or after quinapril treatment in both groups. Before quinapril treatment, postmethionine THRR was preserved in younger adults (24.2+/-5.3% versus 23.8+/-6.3% at baseline, P=0.73) and decreased in older adults (12.9+/-2.2% versus 21.8+/-4.0 % at baseline, P<0.001). After quinapril treatment, postmethionine THRR was preserved in both groups (24.5+/-5.9 % versus 24.0+/-5.0% at baseline, P=0.42 in younger adults; 20.4+/-3.9% versus 21.3+/-3.3% at baseline, P=0.35 in older adults ). Conclusions-Our study suggests that methionine- induced hyperhomocysteinemia may be causally associated with impairment of CVR in older normal subjects

Effect at Short-Term Vitamin (Folic Acid, Vitamins B-6 and B-12) Administration on Endothelial Dysfunction Induced by Post-Methionine Load Hyperhomocysteinemia

This study showed that short-term vitamin administration effectively reduced post-methionine load homocysteine levels and thereby ameliorated endothelium-dependent flow-mediated vasodilation in 16 healthy adults. Post-methionine load homocysteine levels decreased from 22.7 +/- 3.8 to 17 .0 +/- 2.1 mu mol/L (p <0.001), and flow-mediated vasodilation after methionine load increased from 8.6 +/- 3.6% to 13.8 +/ - 2.9% (p <0.001) after vitamin administration