A Follow-up Study of Neonatal Interatrial Shunt with Echocardiography until Twelve to Fifteen Months of Age

ObjectiveTo assess the incidence and natural history of full-term neonates with interatrial shunt (IAS).MethodsA follow-up study of 1389 neonates who received screening echocardiography between 2003 and 2006. Babies with IAS at 2 to 4 days of life underwent follow-up echocardiography at 2 to 4 months, 6 to 9 months and 12 to 15 months of age until closure of IAS.ResultsThe ratio of IAS was 68.3% initially. No significant demographic differences were identified between infants with and without initial IAS. Among 949 neonates with initial IAS, 84.5% infants had a left-to-right interatrial shunt, 13.5% had bidirectional shunt and 2% had predominantly right-to-left shunt. The persistence rate of IAS at 12 to 15 months of age was 3.8% (44/1166). The initial size of IAS ranged from 1.2 to 7.7 mm (4.3 ± 1.1 mm) detected by color Doppler flow mapping and cases were divided into three groups: small (≦5 mm), medium (5 to 8 mm) and large group (≧8 mm). There were 74.6% infants in the small group and 25.4% in the medium group initially. The neonates in the initial small group would always see their IAS close or else they would remain in the small group. Those in the final medium and large size groups always came from the initial medium group. The late closure rate of IAS was 93.9% of infants with initial IAS. The closure curves of initial small and medium sized groups were significantly different, and their late closure rates were 95.1% and 90.4%, respectively.ConclusionsIAS was very common during early neonatal stage, but most cases would close after 1 year. The late closure rate of initial IAS was different if using a cutpoint of 5 mm

Tight Competitive Analyses of Online Car-Sharing Problems

The car-sharing problem, proposed by Luo, Erlebach and Xu in 2018, mainly focuses on an online model in which there are two locations: 0 and 1, and $k$ total cars. Each request which specifies its pick-up time and pick-up location (among 0 and 1, and the other is the drop-off location) is released in each stage a fixed amount of time before its specified start (i.e. pick-up) time. The time between the booking (i.e. released) time and the start time is enough to move empty cars between 0 and 1 for relocation if they are not used in that stage. The model, called $k$S2L-F, assumes that requests in each stage arrive sequentially regardless of the same booking time and the decision (accept or reject) must be made immediately. The goal is to accept as many requests as possible. In spite of only two locations, the analysis does not seem easy and the (tight) competitive ratio (CR) is only known to be 2.0 for $k=2$ and 1.5 for a restricted value of $k$, i.e., a multiple of three. In this paper, we remove all the holes of unknown CR's; namely we prove that the CR is $\frac{2k}{k + \lfloor k/3 \rfloor}$ for all $k\geq 2$. Furthermore, if the algorithm can delay its decision until all requests have come in each stage, the CR is improved to roughly 4/3. We can take this advantage even further, precisely we can achieve a CR of $\frac{2+R}{3}$ if the number of requests in each stage is at most $Rk$, $1 \leq R \leq 2$, where we do not have to know the value of $R$ in advance. Finally we demonstrate that randomization also helps to get (slightly) better CR's

THE KINEMATIC ANALYSIS of BASKETBALL THREE POINT SHOOT AFTER HIGH INTENSITY PROGRAM

The purpose of this study was to analyze kinetic and kinematic characteristics of three points shooting by high speed camera. Basketball players have to finish the high intensity program which was designed from simulative basketball games. The high intensity testing program includes dribbling, sprint, slide, jump shooting and three points shooting. The results of the experiments indicated that elbow, wrist, hip and ankle joints angle velocities would decrease, except the knee joint, after the high intensity program. The knee angle of take-off would also increase. It indicated that the upper limb joints angular velocity would decrease and players had to increase knee joint angular velocity to maintain original power. The time from take-off to ball release also decreased which means that there was a change in the coordinates in knee joint and elbow joint. After high intensity program the elbow and knee joints extension were closed to produce more power for the shot

An overview of the rare parotid gland cancer

Cancer of the parotid gland is relatively rare, but carries poor prognosis owing to its prevailing distant metastases. In addition to the disease's basic epidemiology and pathology, we review some current discoveries of its tumorigenesis molecular mechanism. Based on published salivary gland cancer clinical trial data, non-surgical antitumor efficacies amongst a range of chemotherapy, radiation, and concurrent therapy regimens are compared. We also present the current development status of novel radiation therapy and targeted therapeutics, focusing on intensity-modulated radiation therapy (IMRT), and epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) and vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) blockages, which are showing promise for improving parotid gland cancer management

THE STUDY OF KNEE JOINT FORCE AND TORQUE DURING STEPPING EXERCISE ON THE GROUND AND UNDERWATER

Step aerobic is a popular exercise in a fitness center. Unfortunately, stepping activities will bring lower-extremity stress and pain especially for stepping dancer in aerobic exercise (Hains et al., 1997). This study characterized the lower-extremity joint biomechanics associated with stepping activities in different environment. The impact forces on knee joint are important for walking, running and stepping in the lower-extremity, because it may cause knee joint injuries such as OA. Loading is also believed to play a role in the onset of OA (William et al., 2004). He found that the forces at the knee are considerably larger during stair climbing than during walking: the average resultant peak force during stair climbing is 5.4 times body weight (BW). Because of the decrease of the BW loading, former researchers agree that exercises underwater are better than those on the ground. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to identify the knee joint loading difference between ground and underwater stepping exercise. My hypotheses are 1) the knee force underwater is larger than on the ground during the up stepping position; 2) the knee force underwater is smaller than on the ground during the down stepping position

THE ANALYSES OF KNEE INTERNAL FORCE DURING PASSIVE REPETITIVE ISOKINETIC PLYOMETRIC TRAINING

Passive Repetitive Isokinetic (PRI) training was a novel method for improving sport performance (Chiang Liu et al, 2005). As you know it can comprehensively advance muscular power characteristic of an athlete (Hsiang-Hsin Wang et al, 2005). But did you ever think that PRP training program might cause sport injury. It is not clear how much training effect would cause injury. Especially knee joint would sustain the most internal force for lower extremity. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to investigate the effects of plymeric training on overuse injuries of the knee. The hypothesis is that the torque of knee joint variables will be greatly affected by injury

High expression FUT1 and B3GALT5 is an independent predictor of postoperative recurrence and survival in hepatocellular carcinoma.

Cancer may arise from dedifferentiation of mature cells or maturation-arrested stem cells. Previously we reported that definitive endoderm from which liver was derived, expressed Globo H, SSEA-3 and SSEA-4. In this study, we examined the expression of their biosynthetic enzymes, FUT1, FUT2, B3GALT5 and ST3GAL2, in 135 hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) tissues by qRT-PCR. High expression of either FUT1 or B3GALT5 was significantly associated with advanced stages and poor outcome. Kaplan Meier survival analysis showed significantly shorter relapse-free survival (RFS) for those with high expression of either FUT1 or B3GALT5 (P = 0.024 and 0.001, respectively) and shorter overall survival (OS) for those with high expression of B3GALT5 (P = 0.017). Combination of FUT1 and B3GALT5 revealed that high expression of both genes had poorer RFS and OS than the others (P < 0.001). Moreover, multivariable Cox regression analysis identified the combination of B3GALT5 and FUT1 as an independent predictor for RFS (HR: 2.370, 95% CI: 1.505-3.731, P < 0.001) and OS (HR: 2.153, 95% CI: 1.188-3.902, P = 0.012) in HCC. In addition, the presence of Globo H, SSEA-3 and SSEA-4 in some HCC tissues and their absence in normal liver was established by immunohistochemistry staining and mass spectrometric analysis

Deer Antler Extract Improves Fatigue Effect through Altering the Expression of Genes Related to Muscle Strength in Skeletal Muscle of Mice

Deer antler is a well-known traditional Chinese medicine used in Asian countries for the tonic and the improvement of aging symptoms. The present study was designed to investigate the antifatigue effect and mechanism of Formosan sambar deer tip antler extract (FSDTAE). The swimming times to exhaustion of mice administered FSDTAE (8.2 mg/day) for 28 days were apparently longer than those of the vehicle-treated mice in forced swim test. However, the indicators of fatigue, such as the reduction in glucose level and the increases in blood urea nitrogen and lactic acid levels, were not significantly inhibited by FSDTAE. Therefore, microarray analysis was further used to examine the anti-fatigue mechanism of FSDTAE. We selected genes with fold changes >2 or <−2 in skeletal muscle for pathway analysis. FSDTAE-affected genes were involved in 9 different signaling pathways, such as GnRH signaling pathway and insulin signaling pathway. All of the significantly expressed genes were classified into 8 different categories by their functions. The most enriched category was muscular system, and 6 upregulated genes, such as troponin I, troponin T1, cysteine and glycine-rich protein 2, myosin heavy polypeptide 7, tropomyosin 2, and myomesin family member 3, were responsible for the development and contraction of muscle. Real-time PCR analysis indicated that FSDTAE increased troponins mRNA expression in skeletal muscle. In conclusion, our findings suggested that FSDTAE might increase the muscle strength through the upregulation of genes responsible for muscle contraction and consequently exhibited the anti-fatigue effect in mice