A Systematic Review of Physical Activity among People with Disabilities in Mainland China : From 1992 to 2013

Context: Regular physical activity has increasingly been recommended to promote human health and wellbeing. However, information on participation in physical activities by people with disabilities is relatively scarce. The aim of this article is to conduct a systematically review of studies on physical activity among people with disabilities in mainland China from 1992 to 2013. Evidence acquisition: In 2015, a search of three major Chinese electronic databases (CNKI, WANGFAN DATA, and VIP) was conducted for studies that examined physical activity among people with disabilities. The search included studies dating from January 1992 to December 2013. After applying inclusion criteria, 31 studies, all cross-sectional in design, were included in this review. Evidence synthesis: The 31 studies included some self-reports of physical activity by people with disabilities (N=5,982). The results from 9 of the 31 studies indicated that 12.7% of the participants in those studies (N=760) had physical activity levels that met the standards recommended by national physical activity guidelines for China. Levels of physical activity among people with disabilities varied by gender, income, and education. Men and people with higher education and income levels were more physically active compared to women and those with lower education and income levels. In addition, people living in urban areas were more active than those living in rural areas. Conclusions: Relatively low levels of physical activity were found among people with disabilities in mainland China. Further research on this special population is needed. Studies that employ rigorous standards for design and methodologies, including the use of objective physical activity measures, are recommended.Keywords: Exercise, disabilities, cross-sectional design, physical activity recommendations, healthy lifestyles

The Ginger-shaped Asteroid 4179 Toutatis: New Observations from a Successful Flyby of Chang'e-2

On 13 December 2012, Chang'e-2 conducted a successful flyby of the near-Earth asteroid 4179 Toutatis at a closest distance of 770 $\pm$ 120 meters from the asteroid's surface. The highest-resolution image, with a resolution of better than 3 meters, reveals new discoveries on the asteroid, e.g., a giant basin at the big end, a sharply perpendicular silhouette near the neck region, and direct evidence of boulders and regolith, which suggests that Toutatis may bear a rubble-pile structure. Toutatis' maximum physical length and width are (4.75 $\times$ 1.95 km) $\pm$10$\%$, respectively, and the direction of the +$z$ axis is estimated to be (250$\pm$5$^\circ$, 63$\pm$5$^\circ$) with respect to the J2000 ecliptic coordinate system. The bifurcated configuration is indicative of a contact binary origin for Toutatis, which is composed of two lobes (head and body). Chang'e-2 observations have significantly improved our understanding of the characteristics, formation, and evolution of asteroids in general.Comment: 21 pages, 3 figures, 1 tabl

A novel robust fixed‐time fault‐tolerant tracking control of uncertain robot manipulators

Abstract This paper presents a novel robust fixed‐time fault‐tolerant control for global fixed‐time tracking of uncertain robot manipulators with actuator effectiveness faults. With the sufficient consideration of the effects on uncertain dynamics, external disturbances and actuator effectiveness faults to the trajectory tracking performance, a singularity‐free robust fault‐tolerant control with an auxiliary vector is constructed for the fixed‐time tracking control of uncertain robot manipulators. Lyapunov stability theory is employed to prove the global fixed‐time stability ensuring that both the position and velocity tracking errors converge globally to the origin within a fixed time. The appealing advantages of the proposed control are as follows: (i) it is easy to implement with the global robust fixed‐time fault‐tolerant tracking control for uncertain robot manipulators featuring with faster transient convergence rate and higher steady‐state tracking precision; (ii) the settling time is independent of the initial states of closed‐loop system and can be calculated in advance for robot manipulators with uncertain dynamics, external disturbances and actuator faults. Extensive simulations on a two‐DOFs robot are presented to demonstrate the effectiveness and improved performances of the proposed approach

Harlequin color change in a premature infant: A case report

Key Clinical Message This case of HCC report contributes to the knowledge of HCC in China. In this case, the longer duration of the color change observed in this case compared to previous reports, which will be useful for all medical practitioners. Abstract Harlequin color change (HCC) is a benign skin color change that lasts for a short time with no obvious physical abnormalities. Its pathogenesis is still unclear. It occurs in newborns, especially premature infants. However, few cases of HCC have been reported in China. Herein, we report a case of HCC. The infant was born at 34 + 4 weeks of gestation and was admitted to the hospital due to metabolic acidosis and neonatal pneumonia after birth. On the third day after birth, there were two red bands with obvious edges along the body centreline, and the erythema characteristics were consistent with those of HCC. The immature hypothalamus of newborns may cause the occurrence of HCC. At the same time, some drugs (midazolam), hypoxemia, and blood sampling may also be associated with HCC during neonatal hospitalization. All doctors should be thoroughly knowledgeable about the clinical characteristics of HCC and avoid using unnecessary drugs during treatment

Correlation of plasma adipokines with endometrial atypical hyperplasia and type I/II endometrial cancer

The aim of the study was to systematically explore the relationships between various adipokines and risks of endometrial atypical hyperplasia (EAH), type I endometrial cancer (EC), and type II EC. We enrolled 219 patients in this study, including 39 EAH, 87 type I EC, 38 type II EC and 55 control individuals. We subsequently explored the association of adipokine levels and the leptin-to-adiponectin (L/A) ratio with EAH, type I EC, and type II EC. The plasma leptin level and L/A ratio were significantly higher in the EAH group than in the control group (p = 0.012). Leptin, resistin, vaspin, and visfatin levels were significantly higher in the type I EC group; however, the adiponectin level was lower in the type I EC, which resulted in a higher L/A ratio. Notably, the L/A ratio and visfatin level in the type II EC group were significantly higher. Multiple logistic regression analysis revealed that a higher leptin level was significantly associated with a higher EAH risk (p = 0.012). Higher leptin level (p = 0.042) and L/A ratio (p = 0.027) were significantly associated with an increased type I EC risk. By contrast, higher leptin (p = 0.059) and visfatin (p = 0.003) levels, higher L/A ratio (p = 0.033), and lower adiponectin level (p = 0.042) were associated with an increased type II EC risk. We suggested that adipokines are potentially correlated with EAH and EC risks

Regularized RKHS-Based Subspace Learning for Motor Imagery Classification

Brain–computer interface (BCI) technology allows people with disabilities to communicate with the physical environment. One of the most promising signals is the non-invasive electroencephalogram (EEG) signal. However, due to the non-stationary nature of EEGs, a subject’s signal may change over time, which poses a challenge for models that work across time. Recently, domain adaptive learning (DAL) has shown its superior performance in various classification tasks. In this paper, we propose a regularized reproducing kernel Hilbert space (RKHS) subspace learning algorithm with K-nearest neighbors (KNNs) as a classifier for the task of motion imagery signal classification. First, we reformulate the framework of RKHS subspace learning with a rigorous mathematical inference. Secondly, since the commonly used maximum mean difference (MMD) criterion measures the distribution variance based on the mean value only and ignores the local information of the distribution, a regularization term of source domain linear discriminant analysis (SLDA) is proposed for the first time, which reduces the variance of similar data and increases the variance of dissimilar data to optimize the distribution of source domain data. Finally, the RKHS subspace framework was constructed sparsely considering the sensitivity of the BCI data. We test the proposed algorithm in this paper, first on four standard datasets, and the experimental results show that the other baseline algorithms improve the average accuracy by 2–9% after adding SLDA. In the motion imagery classification experiments, the average accuracy of our algorithm is 3% higher than the other algorithms, demonstrating the adaptability and effectiveness of the proposed algorithm