Investigation of the biomechanical effect of variable stiffness shoe on external knee adduction moment in various dynamic exercises

10.1186/1757-1146-6-39Journal of Foot and Ankle Research61

IFI27 transcription is an early predictor for COVID-19 outcomes, a multi-cohort observational study

PurposeRobust biomarkers that predict disease outcomes amongst COVID-19 patients are necessary for both patient triage and resource prioritisation. Numerous candidate biomarkers have been proposed for COVID-19. However, at present, there is no consensus on the best diagnostic approach to predict outcomes in infected patients. Moreover, it is not clear whether such tools would apply to other potentially pandemic pathogens and therefore of use as stockpile for future pandemic preparedness.MethodsWe conducted a multi-cohort observational study to investigate the biology and the prognostic role of interferon alpha-inducible protein 27 (IFI27) in COVID-19 patients.ResultsWe show that IFI27 is expressed in the respiratory tract of COVID-19 patients and elevated IFI27 expression in the lower respiratory tract is associated with the presence of a high viral load. We further demonstrate that the systemic host response, as measured by blood IFI27 expression, is associated with COVID-19 infection. For clinical outcome prediction (e.g., respiratory failure), IFI27 expression displays a high sensitivity (0.95) and specificity (0.83), outperforming other known predictors of COVID-19 outcomes. Furthermore, IFI27 is upregulated in the blood of infected patients in response to other respiratory viruses. For example, in the pandemic H1N1/09 influenza virus infection, IFI27-like genes were highly upregulated in the blood samples of severely infected patients.ConclusionThese data suggest that prognostic biomarkers targeting the family of IFI27 genes could potentially supplement conventional diagnostic tools in future virus pandemics, independent of whether such pandemics are caused by a coronavirus, an influenza virus or another as yet-to-be discovered respiratory virus

A STUDY OF PLANTAR SOFT TISSUE PROPERTIES WITH IN VIVO INDENTATION TECHNIQUE

Ph.DDOCTOR OF PHILOSOPH

Dynamic Zero Current Method to Reduce Measurement Error in Low Value Resistive Sensor Array for Wearable Electronics

One advantage of a resistive sensor array (RSA) with shared rows (M) and shared columns (N) is the reduced number of wires from M × N + 1 to M + N which can greatly lessen the complexity and burden on wearable electronic systems. However, the drawback is the crosstalk current effect between adjacent elements, which will lead to high measurement error. Although several solutions have been reported, they mainly focus on RSAs with high resistance (≥100 Ω). There is a lack of research that addresses RSAs with resistor values below 100 Ω. Here, we introduce a new circuit design named the dynamic zero current method (DZCM) to further decrease the measurement error. From the low value RSA test with ideal resistors, the DZCM exhibits lower error than the zero potential method (ZPM). In the case of the error variation ratio of amplifier offset voltage, the DZCM has a 4%/mV (row) to 7%/mV (column) ratio, while the ZPM has an almost 25%/mV (row) to 45%/mV (column) ratio and it increases with array size