Ambient Air Pollution as a Mediator in the Pathway Linking Race/Ethnicity to Hypertension: the Multi-Ethnic Study of Atherosclerosis (MESA)

Background: Racial/ethnic disparities in blood pressure and hypertension have been evident in previous studies, as were associations between race/ethnicity with ambient air pollution and those between air pollution with hypertension, which suggests that air pollution may have mediating effects linking race/ethnicity to hypertension. Objective: To assess the potential mediating effects of ambient air pollution on the association between race/ethnicity and blood pressure/hypertension. Methods: We studied 6,463 White, Black, Hispanic and Chinese adults enrolled between 2000 and 2002 across 6 US cities. Systolic (SBP) and diastolic blood pressure (DBP) were measured at Exam 1 (2000-2002) and Exam 2 (2002-2004). Household-level annual average concentrations of fine particulate matter (PM2.5), oxides of nitrogen (NOX), and ozone(O3) for the year 2000 were estimated for participants. Results: The difference in SBP levels by race/ethnicity that was related to higher PM2.5 concentrations compared with White men (“indirect associations”) was 0.3 (95% CI: 0.1, 0.5) mmHg for Black men, 0.3 (95% CI: 0.1, 0.6) mmHg for Hispanic men and 1.0 (95% CI: 0.2, 1.8) mmHg for Chinese men. Findings were similar although not statistically significant for women. PM2.5 did not mediate racial/ethnic differences in DBP. Indirect associations were significant for ozone for both SBP and DBP among men and women. In contrast, racial/ethnic disparities were attenuated due to exposure to NOX. Associations with blood pressure levels were stronger among participants with hypertension. Among the 3,089 participants without hypertension at baseline, 422 developed incident hypertension. For racial/ethnic disparities in incident hypertension, only indirect associations for ozone among men were marginally significant. Conclusion: Racial disparities in blood pressure were reduced after accounting for PM2.5 and ozone while increased after accounting for NOX, but mediating effects of air pollution on the pathway linking race/ethnicity to incident hypertension were barely found

Ambient Air Pollution as a Mediator in the Pathway Linking Race/Ethnicity to Hypertension: the Multi-Ethnic Study of Atherosclerosis (MESA)

Background: Racial/ethnic disparities in blood pressure and hypertension have been evident in previous studies, as were associations between race/ethnicity with ambient air pollution and those between air pollution with hypertension, which suggests that air pollution may have mediating effects linking race/ethnicity to hypertension. Objective: To assess the potential mediating effects of ambient air pollution on the association between race/ethnicity and blood pressure/hypertension. Methods: We studied 6,463 White, Black, Hispanic and Chinese adults enrolled between 2000 and 2002 across 6 US cities. Systolic (SBP) and diastolic blood pressure (DBP) were measured at Exam 1 (2000-2002) and Exam 2 (2002-2004). Household-level annual average concentrations of fine particulate matter (PM2.5), oxides of nitrogen (NOX), and ozone(O3) for the year 2000 were estimated for participants. Results: The difference in SBP levels by race/ethnicity that was related to higher PM2.5 concentrations compared with White men (“indirect associations”) was 0.3 (95% CI: 0.1, 0.5) mmHg for Black men, 0.3 (95% CI: 0.1, 0.6) mmHg for Hispanic men and 1.0 (95% CI: 0.2, 1.8) mmHg for Chinese men. Findings were similar although not statistically significant for women. PM2.5 did not mediate racial/ethnic differences in DBP. Indirect associations were significant for ozone for both SBP and DBP among men and women. In contrast, racial/ethnic disparities were attenuated due to exposure to NOX. Associations with blood pressure levels were stronger among participants with hypertension. Among the 3,089 participants without hypertension at baseline, 422 developed incident hypertension. For racial/ethnic disparities in incident hypertension, only indirect associations for ozone among men were marginally significant. Conclusion: Racial disparities in blood pressure were reduced after accounting for PM2.5 and ozone while increased after accounting for NOX, but mediating effects of air pollution on the pathway linking race/ethnicity to incident hypertension were barely found

A Bibliometric Narrative Review on Modern Navigation Aids for People with Visual Impairment

The innovations in the field of specialized navigation systems have become prominent research topics. As an applied science for people with special needs, navigation aids for the visually impaired are a key sociotechnique that helps users to independently navigate and access needed resources indoors and outdoors. This paper adopts the informetric analysis method to assess the current research and explore trends in navigation systems for the visually impaired based on bibliographic records retrieved from the Web of Science Core Collection (WoSCC). A total of 528 relevant publications from 2010 to 2020 were analyzed. This work answers the following questions: What are the publication characteristics and most influential publication sources? Who are the most active and influential authors? What are their research interests and primary contributions to society? What are the featured key studies in the field? What are the most popular topics and research trends, described by keywords? Additionally, we closely investigate renowned works that use different multisensor fusion methods, which are believed to be the bases of upcoming research. The key findings of this work aim to help upcoming researchers quickly move into the field, as they can easily grasp the frontiers and the trend of R&D in the research area. Moreover, we suggest the researchers embrace smartphone-based agile development, as well as pay more attention to phone-based prominent frameworks such as ARCore or ARKit, to achieve a fast prototyping for their proposed systems. This study also provides references for the associated fellows by highlighting the critical junctures of the modern assistive travel aids for people with visual impairments

An experimental evaluation of imbalanced learning and time-series validation in the context of CI/CD prediction

Background: Machine Learning (ML) has been widely used as a powerful tool to support Software Engineering (SE). The fundamental assumptions of data characteristics required for specific ML methods have to be carefully considered prior to their applications in SE. Within the context of Continuous Integration (CI) and Continuous Deployment (CD) practices, there are two vital characteristics of data prone to be violated in SE research. First, the logs generated during CI/CD for training are imbalanced data, which is contrary to the principles of common balanced classifiers; second, these logs are also time-series data, which violates the assumption of cross-validation. Objective: We aim to systematically study the two data characteristics and further provide a comprehensive evaluation for predictive CI/CD with the data from real projects. Method: We conduct an experimental study that evaluates 67 CI/CD predictive models using both cross-validation and time-series-validation. Results: Our evaluation shows that cross-validation makes the evaluation of the models optimistic in most cases, there are a few counter-examples as well. The performance of the top 10 imbalanced models are better than the balanced models in the predictions of failed builds, even for balanced data. The degree of data imbalance has a negative impact on prediction performance. Conclusion: In research and practice, the assumptions of the various ML methods should be seriously considered for the validity of research. Even if it is used to compare the relative performance of models, cross-validation may not be applicable to the problems with time-series features. The research community need to revisit the evaluation results reported in some existing research

A Finite-Element Simulation of Galvanic Coupling Intra-Body Communication Based on the Whole Human Body

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Simulation of the Recharging Method of Implantable Biosensors Based on a Wearable Incoherent Light Source

Recharging implantable electronics from the outside of the human body is very important for applications such as implantable biosensors and other implantable electronics. In this paper, a recharging method for implantable biosensors based on a wearable incoherent light source has been proposed and simulated. Firstly, we develop a model of the incoherent light source and a multi-layer model of skin tissue. Secondly, the recharging processes of the proposed method have been simulated and tested experimentally, whereby some important conclusions have been reached. Our results indicate that the proposed method will offer a convenient, safe and low-cost recharging method for implantable biosensors, which should promote the application of implantable electronics

Craniocervical posture in patients with skeletal malocclusion and its correlation with craniofacial morphology during different growth periods

Abstract The association between craniocervical posture and craniofacial structures in the various sagittal skeletal malocclusion during different growth stages has been the focus of intense interest in fields of orthodontics, but it has not been conclusively demonstrated. Thus, this study aimed to investigate the association between craniofacial morphology and craniocervical posture in patients with sagittal skeletal malocclusion during different growth periods. A total of 150 from a large pool of cephalograms qualified for the inclusion and exclusion were evaluated and classified into three groups according to the Cervical Vertebral Maturation (CVM) by examining the morphological modifications of the second through fourth cervical vertebrae, each group consisted of 50 cephalograms. In each growth period, for the comparison of head and cervical posture differences among various skeletal classes, the radiographs were further subdivided into skeletal Class I (0°  0.05). Some variables were found to be significant during pubertal growth and later in patients with sagittal skeletal malocclusion (P < 0.05). Most indicators describing craniocervical posture were largest in skeletal Class II and smallest in skeletal Class III during the peak growth periods and later. Cervical inclination variables were greater in skeletal Class III than in skeletal Class II. Variables of craniofacial morphology and craniocervical posture are more correlated during the pubertal growth period and later in patients with sagittal skeletal malocclusion. A tendency is an indication of the close interrelationship that a more extended head was in skeletal Class II while a flexed head was in skeletal Class III. Nevertheless, with the considerations of some limitations involved in this study, further longitudinal studies with large samples are required to elucidate the relationship clearly