Altered Striatocerebellar Metabolism and Systemic Inflammation in Parkinson’s Disease

Parkinson’s disease (PD) is the most second common neurodegenerative movement disorder. Neuroinflammation due to systemic inflammation and elevated oxidative stress is considered a major factor promoting the pathogenesis of PD, but the relationship of structural brain imaging parameters to clinical inflammatory markers has not been well studied. Our aim was to evaluate the association of magnetic resonance spectroscopy (MRS) measures with inflammatory markers. Blood samples were collected from 33 patients with newly diagnosed PD and 30 healthy volunteers. MRS data including levels of N-acetylaspartate (NAA), creatine (Cre), and choline (Cho) were measured in the bilateral basal ganglia and cerebellum. Inflammatory markers included plasma nuclear DNA, plasma mitochondrial DNA, and apoptotic leukocyte levels. The Cho/Cre ratio in the dominant basal ganglion, the dominant basal ganglia to cerebellum ratios of two MRS parameters NAA/Cre and Cho/Cre, and levels of nuclear DNA, mitochondrial DNA, and apoptotic leukocytes were significantly different between PD patients and normal healthy volunteers. Significant positive correlations were noted between MRS measures and inflammatory marker levels. In conclusion, patients with PD seem to have abnormal levels of inflammatory markers in the peripheral circulation and deficits in MRS measures in the dominant basal ganglion and cerebellum

An Intelligent Artificial System : Artificial Immune based Hybrid Genetic Algorithm for the Vehicle Routing Problem

Vehicle routing problems are well-known combinational optimization problems with considerable economic significance. Considering the vehicle routing problem with limited capacity on tree is a problem that often naturally arises in railway, river, and rural road networks. In this paper, we describe an artificial immune system that is distributed, robust, dynamic, diverse and adaptive. It captures many features of the vertebrate immune system and proposed an intelligent artificial system which hybrid genetic and immune algorithm to solve the vehicle routing problem with limited capacity on tree. Computational results show the proposed technique to be very competitive with the best-known heuristic routing procedures providing some new best-known solutions

An Intelligent Artificial System : Artificial Immune based Hybrid Genetic Algorithm for the Vehicle Routing Problem

Vehicle routing problems are well-known combinational optimization problems with considerable economic significance. Considering the vehicle routing problem with limited capacity on tree is a problem that often naturally arises in railway, river, and rural road networks. In this paper, we describe an artificial immune system that is distributed, robust, dynamic, diverse and adaptive. It captures many features of the vertebrate immune system and proposed an intelligent artificial system which hybrid genetic and immune algorithm to solve the vehicle routing problem with limited capacity on tree. Computational results show the proposed technique to be very competitive with the best-known heuristic routing procedures providing some new best-known solutions

based Hybrid Genetic Algorithm for the Vehicle Routing Problem

Abstract: Vehicle routing problems are well-known combinational optimization problems with considerable economic significance. Considering the vehicle routing problem with limited capacity on tree is a problem that often naturally arises in railway, river, and rural road networks. In this paper, we describe an artificial immune system that is distributed, robust, dynamic, diverse and adaptive. It captures many features of the vertebrate immune system and proposed an intelligent artificial system which hybrid genetic and immune algorithm to solve the vehicle routing problem with limited capacity on tree. Computational results show the proposed technique to be very competitive with the best-known heuristic routing procedures providing some new best-known solutions

Magnetic properties and microstructure of exchange coupled FePt–FeB films

Multilayers [(FexB1 − x)/FePt)]10 were deposited on a glass substrate and formed the exchange-coupled (Fe–Pt)90(FeB)10 graded film after rapid thermal annealing at 800 °C for 3 min. Out-of-plane coercivity was decreased and remanent magnetization increased when the FeB was co-doped in FePt films. When Fe content was below 40% in B, the exchange-coupled FePt–FeB films showed perpendicular magnetization with the single switching field. For higher Fe concentration (x = 0.5, 0.7, 1), easy magnetization of (001) textured FePt–FeB film was changed from perpendicular to mix-magnetization and finally to in-plane magnetization. Based on the microstructure, the FePtB film exhibits a granular structure, the FePt grains were isolated by nanocrystalline B or FeB cluster at the grain boundaries. The granular film was changed to interaction grain structure in the (FePt)90(Fe0.4B0.6)10 film. The hard-soft magnetic FePt–FeB grains formed the aggregated grains

Vowel production of Mandarin-speaking hearing aid users with different types of hearing loss

<div><p>In contrast with previous research focusing on cochlear implants, this study examined the speech performance of hearing aid users with conductive (n = 11), mixed (n = 10), and sensorineural hearing loss (n = 7) and compared it with the speech of hearing control. Speech intelligibility was evaluated by computing the vowel space area defined by the Mandarin Chinese corner vowels /a, u, i/. The acoustic differences between the vowels were assessed using the Euclidean distance. The results revealed that both the conductive and mixed hearing loss groups exhibited a reduced vowel working space, but no significant difference was found between the sensorineural hearing loss and normal hearing groups. An analysis using the Euclidean distance further showed that the compression of vowel space area in conductive hearing loss can be attributed to the substantial lowering of the second formant of /i/. The differences in vowel production between groups are discussed in terms of the occlusion effect and the signal transmission media of various hearing devices.</p></div

Achromatic and chromatic contrast discrimination in patients with type 2 diabetes

Abstract Effects of type 2 diabetes on achromatic and chromatic contrast sensitivity (CS) are still controversial. In this study, we aimed to investigate CS in patients without diabetic retinopathy (no-DR) and in those with non-proliferative DR (NPDR) and proliferative DR (PDR) using psychophysical methods with transient and sustained achromatic stimuli and color patches. Achromatic CS was measured with the pulsed pedestal (PP) paradigm (7, 12, and 19 cd/m2) and pedestal-△-pedestal (P-△-P) paradigm (11.4, 18, and 28.5 cd/m2). A chromatic discrimination paradigm that assesses protan, deutan, and tritan color vision was adopted. Forty-two patients (no-DR n = 24, NPDR n = 12, PDR = 6; male n = 22, mean age = 58.1 y/o) and 38 controls (male n = 18, mean age = 53.4 y/o) participated. In patients, mean thresholds were higher than in controls and linear trends were significant in most conditions. For the PP paradigm, differences were significant in the PDR and NPDR groups in the 7 and 12 cd/m2 condition. For the P-△-P paradigm, differences were only significant in the PDR group in the 11 cd/m2 condition. Chromatic contrast loss was significant in the PDR group along the protan, deutan and tritan axes. The results suggest independent involvements of achromatic and chromatic CS in diabetic patients

Speaker demographics.

<p>Speaker demographics.</p