Identification of risk factors for hypertension in overweight and obese people and analysis of risk factor interactions: an R-based analysis

ObjectiveThis study identified the independent risk factors for hypertension in overweight and obese people and also analyzed the interaction between the risk factors.MethodsA total of 5,098 overweight and obese people were enrolled in this study. First, the clinical metabolic characteristics of hypertension and control groups were compared. The logistic regression (LR) and classification and regression trees (CRT)-based decision tree (DT) models were used to screen the independent risk factors for hypertension in overweight and obese people. The multiplicative and additive scale analyses were used to analyze the two risk factors with interaction from the perspective of statistics and biological interaction. Finally, the receiver operating characteristic (ROC) and calibration curves were used to analyze the accuracy and identification ability of the LR and DT models.ResultsAge, UA, FPG, SBP, Cr, AST, TG, and FPG were higher in the hypertension group than in the control group (P < 0.05). The results of LR revealed that NAFLD, FPG, age, TG, LDL-c, UA, and Cr were positively correlated with hypertension in overweight and obese people, and GFR was negatively correlated with hypertension in overweight and obese people (P < 0.05). The DT model suggested that the risk factors of age, FPG, and UA interacted with each other. The multiplicative single and multiple factor analysis for FPG + UA, age + UA, age + FPG revealed a positive multiplicative interaction (P < 0.05, B ≠ 0, OR > 1). The additive single and multiple factor analysis for age + UA indicated a positive additive interaction. The ROC and calibration curve analysis indicated that the CRT decision tree, FPG + UA, age + UA, and age + FPG have certain accuracy and discrimination ability.ConclusionThe independent risk factors for hypertension in overweight and obese people included NAFLD, FPG, age, TG, LDL-c, UA, and Cr. Among these, age + UA exhibited synergistic interaction, thereby providing a reference for the prevention and control of hypertension in overweight and obese people

The Tissue Response and Degradation of Electrospun Poly( ε

Due to the advantage of controllability on the mechanical property and the degradation rates, electrospun PCL/PTMC nanofibrous scaffold could be appropriate for vascular tissue engineering. However, the tissue response and degradation of electrospun PCL/PTMC scaffold in vivo have never been evaluated in detail. So, electrospun PCL/PTMC scaffolds with different blend ratios were prepared in this study. Mice subcutaneous implantation showed that the continuous degradation of PCL/PTMC scaffolds induced a lasted macrophage-mediated foreign body reaction, which could be in favor of the tissue regeneration in graft

Kinematics Based Visual Localization for Skid-Steering Robots: Algorithm and Theory

To build commercial robots, skid-steering mechanical design is of increased popularity due to its manufacturing simplicity and unique mechanism. However, these also cause significant challenges on software and algorithm design, especially for pose estimation (i.e., determining the robot's rotation and position), which is the prerequisite of autonomous navigation. While the general localization algorithms have been extensively studied in research communities, there are still fundamental problems that need to be resolved for localizing skid-steering robots that change their orientation with a skid. To tackle this problem, we propose a probabilistic sliding-window estimator dedicated to skid-steering robots, using measurements from a monocular camera, the wheel encoders, and optionally an inertial measurement unit (IMU). Specifically, we explicitly model the kinematics of skid-steering robots by both track instantaneous centers of rotation (ICRs) and correction factors, which are capable of compensating for the complexity of track-to-terrain interaction, the imperfectness of mechanical design, terrain conditions and smoothness, and so on. To prevent performance reduction in robots' lifelong missions, the time- and location- varying kinematic parameters are estimated online along with pose estimation states in a tightly-coupled manner. More importantly, we conduct in-depth observability analysis for different sensors and design configurations in this paper, which provides us with theoretical tools in making the correct choice when building real commercial robots. In our experiments, we validate the proposed method by both simulation tests and real-world experiments, which demonstrate that our method outperforms competing methods by wide margins.Comment: 18 pages in tota

Effect of Low Tube Voltage on Image Quality, Radiation Dose, and Low-Contrast Detectability at Abdominal Multidetector CT: Phantom Study

Purpose. To investigate the effect of low tube voltage (80 kV) on image quality, radiation dose, and low-contrast detectability (LCD) at abdominal computed tomography (CT). Materials and Methods. A phantom containing low-contrast objects was scanned with a CT scanner at 80 and 120 kV, with tube current-time product settings at 150–650 mAs. The differences between image noise, contrast-to-noise ratio (CNR), and scores of LCD obtained with 80 kV at 150–650 mAs and those obtained with 120 kV at 300 mAs were compared respectively. Results. The image noise substantially increased with low tube voltage. However, with identical dose, use of 80 kV resulted in higher CNR compared with CNR at 120 kV. There were no statistically significant difference in CNR and scores of LCD between 120 kV at 300 mAs and 80 kV at 550–650 mAs (P > 0.05). The relative dose delivered at 80 kV ranged from 58% at 550 mAs to 68% at 650 mAs. Conclusion. With a reduction of the tube voltage from 120 kV to 80 kV at abdominal CT, the radiation dose can be reduced by 32% to 42% without degradation of CNR and LCD

CodeVIO: Visual-Inertial Odometry with Learned Optimizable Dense Depth

In this work, we present a lightweight, tightly-coupled deep depth network and visual-inertial odometry (VIO) system, which can provide accurate state estimates and dense depth maps of the immediate surroundings. Leveraging the proposed lightweight Conditional Variational Autoencoder (CVAE) for depth inference and encoding, we provide the network with previously marginalized sparse features from VIO to increase the accuracy of initial depth prediction and generalization capability. The compact encoded depth maps are then updated jointly with navigation states in a sliding window estimator in order to provide the dense local scene geometry. We additionally propose a novel method to obtain the CVAE's Jacobian which is shown to be more than an order of magnitude faster than previous works, and we additionally leverage First-Estimate Jacobian (FEJ) to avoid recalculation. As opposed to previous works relying on completely dense residuals, we propose to only provide sparse measurements to update the depth code and show through careful experimentation that our choice of sparse measurements and FEJs can still significantly improve the estimated depth maps. Our full system also exhibits state-of-the-art pose estimation accuracy, and we show that it can run in real-time with single-thread execution while utilizing GPU acceleration only for the network and code Jacobian.Comment: 6 Figure

Unbalanced expression of VEGF and PEDF in ischemia-induced retinal neovascularization

AbstractRetinal levels of vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) and pigment epithelium-derived factor (PEDF), an angiogenic inhibitor, were measured and correlated with the ischemia-induced retinal neovascularization in rats. The retinas with neovascularization showed a 5-fold increase in VEGF while 2-fold decrease in PEDF, compared to the age-matched controls, resulting in an increased VEGF/PEDF ratio. The time course of the VEGF/PEDF ratio change correlated with the progression of retinal neovascularization. Changes in the VEGF and PEDF mRNAs preceded their protein level changes. These results suggest that an unbalance between angiogenic stimulators and inhibitors may contribute to retinal neovascularization

Tea polyphenols induced apoptosis of breast cancer cells by suppressing the expression of Survivin

To study the mechanism of tea polyphenols (TP)-induced apoptosis of breast cancer cells. Proliferation of MCF-7 and SK-BR-3 cells was evaluated by MTT assays. Cellular ultrastructure was examined by electron microscopy. Apoptosis was detected by TUNEL. PCNA, Cyclin D1, Cyclin E and Survivin expression was measured by Western blot. Cell proliferation was significantly inhibited by TP. Spindle and round cells were loosely distributed with increased particles after TP treatment. Increased cell size, frequent nuclear atypia and a collapse of apoptosis were observed. The nucleus was pushed towards one side, while the cytoplasm was rich in free ribosome. The membrane of mitochondria was thickening, and the cell apoptotic body was observed. TP treated cells experienced significantly enhanced apoptosis compared with 5-Fu treated or control groups. The expression of survivin was downregulated by TP. To conclude, TP can inhibit cell growth and induce apoptosis through downregulating the expression of survivin in breast cancer