1,360 research outputs found
Exercise-Induced Changes in Exhaled NO Differentiates Asthma With or Without Fixed Airway Obstruction From COPD With Dynamic Hyperinflation.
Asthmatic patients with fixed airway obstruction (FAO) and patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) share similarities in terms of irreversible pulmonary function impairment. Exhaled nitric oxide (eNO) has been documented as a marker of airway inflammation in asthma, but not in COPD. To examine whether the basal eNO level and the change after exercise may differentiate asthmatics with FAO from COPD, 27 normal subjects, 60 stable asthmatics, and 62 stable COPD patients were studied. Asthmatics with FAO (nā=ā29) were defined as showing a postbronchodilator FEV(1)/forced vital capacity (FVC) ā¤70% and FEV(1) less than 80% predicted after inhaled salbutamol (400āĪ¼g). COPD with dynamic hyperinflation (nā=ā31) was defined as a decrease in inspiratory capacity (ĪIC%) after a 6 minute walk test (6MWT). Basal levels of eNO were significantly higher in asthmatics and COPD patients compared to normal subjects. The changes in eNO after 6MWT were negatively correlated with the percent change in IC (rā=āā0.380, nā=ā29, Pā=ā0.042) in asthmatics with FAO. Their levels of basal eNO correlated with the maximum mid-expiratory flow (MMEF % predicted) before and after 6MWT. In COPD patients with air-trapping, the percent change of eNO was positively correlated to ĪIC% (rsā=ā0.404, nā=ā31, Pā=ā0.024). We conclude that asthma with FAO may represent residual inflammation in the airways, while dynamic hyperinflation in COPD may retain NO in the distal airspace. eNO changes after 6MWT may differentiate the subgroups of asthma or COPD patients and will help toward delivery of individualized therapy for airflow obstruction
An Efficient Alarm Notification Algorithm for Earthquake Early Warning System
Alarm Notification is a service that addresses devices and users with messages to be processed immediately or at a specific time. In this paper, we propose an efficient alarm notification algorithm for earthquake early warning system in Taiwan. Due to the lack of multicast support in the general IP network, we try to deliver notification messages to multiple receivers in time base on location informationćnetwork throughput with peering ISPs and priority with IoT devices. With the proposed algorithm, we can not only reduce the burst message traffic for network but also send the messages in time
Counting Crowds in Bad Weather
Crowd counting has recently attracted significant attention in the field of
computer vision due to its wide applications to image understanding. Numerous
methods have been proposed and achieved state-of-the-art performance for
real-world tasks. However, existing approaches do not perform well under
adverse weather such as haze, rain, and snow since the visual appearances of
crowds in such scenes are drastically different from those images in clear
weather of typical datasets. In this paper, we propose a method for robust
crowd counting in adverse weather scenarios. Instead of using a two-stage
approach that involves image restoration and crowd counting modules, our model
learns effective features and adaptive queries to account for large appearance
variations. With these weather queries, the proposed model can learn the
weather information according to the degradation of the input image and
optimize with the crowd counting module simultaneously. Experimental results
show that the proposed algorithm is effective in counting crowds under
different weather types on benchmark datasets. The source code and trained
models will be made available to the public.Comment: including supplemental materia
Characterization of novel transforming growth factor-beta type I receptors found in malignant pleural effusion tumor cells
<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Tumors expressing a transforming growth factor-beta type I receptor (TĪ²RI) mutant with sequence deletions in a nine-alanine (9A) stretch of the signal peptide are reported to be highly associated with disease progression. Expression of this mutant could interfere with endogenous TGFĪ² signaling in the cell. However, little is known about the importance of the remaining part of the signal peptide on the cellular function of TĪ²RI.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>We cloned and identified four new in-frame deletion variants of TĪ²RI, designated DM1 to DM4, in pleural effusion-derived tumor cells. Intriguingly, DM1 and DM2, with a small region truncated in the putative signal peptide of TĪ²RI, had a serious defect in their protein expression compared with that of the wild-type receptor. Using serial deletion mutagenesis, we characterized a region encoded by nucleotides 16ā51 as a key element controlling TĪ²RI protein expression. Consistently, both DM1 and DM2 have this peptide deleted. Experiments using cycloheximde and MG132 further confirmed its indispensable role for the protein stability of TĪ²RI. In contrast, truncation of the 9A-stretch itself or a region downstream to the stretch barely affected TĪ²RI expression. However, variants lacking a region C-terminal to the stretch completely lost their capability to conduct TGFĪ²-induced transcriptional activation. Intriguingly, expression of DM3 in a cell sensitive to TGFĪ² made it significantly refractory to TGFĪ²-mediated growth inhibition. The effect of DM3 was to ablate the apoptotic event induced by TGFĪ².</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>We identified four new transcript variants of TĪ²RI in malignant effusion tumor cells and characterized two key elements controlling its protein stability and transcriptional activation. Expression of one of variants bestowed cancer cells with a growth advantage in the presence of TGFĪ². These results highlight the potential roles of some naturally occurring TĪ²RI variants on the promotion of tumor malignancy.</p
Towards a Privacy Rule Conceptual Model for Smart Toys
A smart toy is defined as a device consisting of a physical toy component that connects to one or more toy computing services to facilitate gameplay in the cloud through networking and sensory technologies to enhance the functionality of a traditional toy. A smart toy in this context can be effectively considered an Internet of Things (IoT) with Artificial Intelligence (AI) which can provide Augmented Reality (AR) experiences to users. In this paper, the first assumption is that children do not understand the concept of privacy and the children do not know how to protect themselves online, especially in a social media and cloud environment. The second assumption is that children may disclose private information to smart toys and not be aware of the possible consequences and liabilities. This paper presents a privacy rule conceptual model with the concepts of smart toy, mobile service, device, location, and guidance with related privacy entities: purpose, recipient, obligation, and retention for smart toys. Further the paper also discusses an implementation of the prototype interface with sample scenarios for future research works
Drawing from Grotowski and Beyond: Kuo Pao Kunās Discourse on Audiences in Singapore in the 1980s
Much has been researched on Kuo Pao Kunās multilingualism and multiculturalism. However, as one of one of the most important Asian dramatists, the analysis of Kuoās discourse on audiences remains largely unexplored. There is a pressing need to understand the ways which theatre practitioners imagine audiences as it points to issues of subjectivity, audience participation and social engagement, especially in a neoliberal society like Singapore where people are often positioned as docile economic subjects. Among the many Asian and Western dramatists Kuo drew inspiration from, Jerzy Grotowski was pivotal. This essay seeks to address this gap by examining how the latterās ideas was crucial to understanding how Kuo envisioned theatre and audiences alongside his artistic practice
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