Evaluation of different biochemical markers in prediction of metabolic syndrome in polycystic ovary syndrome patients

Background: Polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS) is the commonest cause of chronic hyperandrogenic anovulation. Insulin resistance and compensatory hyperinsulinemia are keys of the pathogenesis of PCOS. It is also considered as a metabolic disorder. Since the components of metabolic syndrome (MBS) namely obesity, glucose intolerance, dyslipidemia, and hypertension are the common features of this syndrome. The association between MBS and PCOS can be explained by different theories as insulin resistance, obesity, and related adipose tissue factors (adipocytokines) independent of insulin resistance are the main pathogenic contributors to both disorders.Methods: A total of 143 women with PCOS were recruited as study subjects. All participants were subjected to anthropometric measurements, clinical assessment, and biochemical tests [fasting glucose, fasting insulin, and homeostatic model assessment-insulin resistance (HOMA-IR)]. Hormonal profile particularly leptin and homocysteine levels were also evaluated.Results: 25 patients (17.4%) out of 143 women with PCOS met the criteria for MBS. Patients with MBS had significantly higher body mass index, blood pressure, HOMA-IR, leptin, and homocysteine levels compared to PCOS only patients. When HOMA-IR cut off was ≥4.3 sensitivity and specificity were 90%, 88.6%, but when leptin level was ≥34.5 the corresponding statistics were 79.6%, 75.5%.Conclusions: Serum leptin, homocysteine, HOMA-IR as well as other biochemical markers are significantly higher in women with PCOS and MBS compared to PCOS only women. PCOS is associated with various factors like insulin resistance, obesity, and dyslipidemia. Consequently, adipocytokines and HOMA-IR play important role in the prediction of MBS in patients with PCOS

Relationship between Gait Parameters and Postural Stability in Early and Late Parkinson's Disease and Visual Feedback-Based Balance Training Effects

BACKGROUND: Gait disorders or postural instability has been done before. However, lack of reviews has addressed the relation between gait and postural stability in Parkinson's disease (PD).AIM: The aim was to evaluate the relation between gait parameters and postural stability in early and late stages of PD.MATERIALS AND METHODS: The forty-one idiopathic PD patients were divided into two groups into a group (A) considered as early PD and group (B) considered as late ambulant PD. They were evaluated for postural stability by computerised dynamic posturography (CDP) device and gait analysis using an 8 m-camera Vicon 612 data capturing system set.RESULTS: There was a statistically significant improvement of composite equilibrium score, the composite latency of motor response, walking speed and cadence after treatment as compared to before training (p < 0.05) in early PD. However, in the late PD, there was a non-significant change of previous parameters after treatment as compared to before training (p > 0.05).There was a significant correlation between UPDRS motor part score, walking speed and composite equilibrium score after training in early PD (p > 0.05).CONCLUSIONS: Both gait analysis and CDP are important quantitative assessment tools of gait and posture instability

Precision tomography of a three-qubit electron-nuclear quantum processor in silicon

Nuclear spins were among the first physical platforms to be considered for quantum information processing, because of their exceptional quantum coherence and atomic-scale footprint. However, their full potential for quantum computing has not yet been realized, due to the lack of methods to link nuclear qubits within a scalable device combined with multi-qubit operations with sufficient fidelity to sustain fault-tolerant quantum computation. Here we demonstrate universal quantum logic operations using a pair of ion-implanted $^{31}$P nuclei in a silicon nanoelectronic device. A nuclear two-qubit controlled-Z gate is obtained by imparting a geometric phase to a shared electron spin, and used to prepare entangled Bell states with fidelities up to 94.2(2.7)%. The quantum operations are precisely characterised using gate set tomography (GST), yielding one-qubit gate fidelities up to 99.93(3)%, two-qubit gate fidelity of 99.21(14)% and two-qubit preparation/measurement fidelities of 98.95(4)%. These three metrics indicate that nuclear spins in silicon are approaching the performance demanded in fault-tolerant quantum processors. We then demonstrate entanglement between the two nuclei and the shared electron by producing a Greenberger-Horne-Zeilinger three-qubit state with 92.5(1.0)% fidelity. Since electron spin qubits in semiconductors can be further coupled to other electrons or physically shuttled across different locations, these results establish a viable route for scalable quantum information processing using nuclear spins.Comment: 27 pages, 14 figures, plus 20 pages supplementary information. v2 includes new and updated references, and minor text change

A Radically Configurable Six-State Compound

Most organic radicals possess short lifetimes and quickly undergo dimerization or oxidation. Here, we report on the synthesis by radical templation of a class of air- and water-stable organic radicals, trapped within a homo[2]catenane composed of two rigid and fixed cyclobis (paraquat-p-phenylene) rings. The highly energetic octacationic homo[2]catenane, which is capable of accepting up to eight electrons, can be configured reversibly, both chemically and electrochemically, between each one of six experimentally accessible redox states (0, 2+, 4+, 6+, 7+, and 8+) from within the total of nine states evaluated by quantum mechanical methods. All six of the observable redox states have been identified by electrochemical techniques, three (4+, 6+, and 7+) have been characterized by x-ray crystallography, four (4+, 6+, 7+, and 8+) by electron paramagnetic resonance spectroscopy, one (7+) by superconducting quantum interference device magnetometry, and one (8+) by nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy

Approaches to improve the diagnosis and management of infertility

Recent advances in our understanding of the causes of infertility and of assisted reproductive technology (ART) have led to the development of complex diagnostic tools, prognostic models and treatment options. The Third Evian Annual Reproduction (EVAR) Workshop Meeting was held on 26-27 April 2008 to evaluate evidence supporting current approaches to the diagnosis and management of infertility and to identify areas for future research efforts. Specialist reproductive medicine clinicians and scientists delivered presentations based on published literature and ongoing research on patient work-up, ovarian stimulation and embryo quality assessment during ART. This report is based on the expert presentations and subsequent group discussions and was supplemented with publications from literature searches and the authors' knowledge. It was agreed that single embryo transfer (SET) should be used with increasing frequency in cycles of ART. Continued improvements in cryopreservation techniques, which improve pregnancy rates using supernumerary frozen embryos, are expected to augment the global uptake of SET. Adaptation and personalization of fertility therapy may help to optimize efficacy and safety outcomes for individual patients. Prognostic modelling and personalized management strategies based on individual patient characteristics may prove to represent real progress towards improved treatment. However, at present, there is limited good-quality evidence to support the use of these individualized approaches. Greater quality control and standardization of clinical and laboratory evaluations are required to optimize ART practices and improve individual patient outcomes. Well-designed, good-quality studies are required to drive improvements to the diagnosis and management of ART processes

Current issues in medically assisted reproduction and genetics in Europe: research, clinical practice, ethics, legal issues and policy. European Society of Human Genetics and European Society of Human Reproduction and Embryology.

In March 2005, a group of experts from the European Society of Human Genetics and European Society of Human Reproduction and Embryology met to discuss the interface between genetics and assisted reproductive technology (ART), and published an extended background paper, recommendations and two Editorials. Seven years later, in March 2012, a follow-up interdisciplinary workshop was held, involving representatives of both professional societies, including experts from the European Union Eurogentest2 Coordination Action Project. The main goal of this meeting was to discuss developments at the interface between clinical genetics and ARTs. As more genetic causes of reproductive failure are now recognised and an increasing number of patients undergo testing of their genome before conception, either in regular health care or in the context of direct-to-consumer testing, the need for genetic counselling and preimplantation genetic diagnosis (PGD) may increase. Preimplantation genetic screening (PGS) thus far does not have evidence from randomised clinical trials to substantiate that the technique is both effective and efficient. Whole-genome sequencing may create greater challenges both in the technological and interpretational domains, and requires further reflection about the ethics of genetic testing in ART and PGD/PGS. Diagnostic laboratories should be reporting their results according to internationally accepted accreditation standards (International Standards Organisation - ISO 15189). Further studies are needed in order to address issues related to the impact of ART on epigenetic reprogramming of the early embryo. The legal landscape regarding assisted reproduction is evolving but still remains very heterogeneous and often contradictory. The lack of legal harmonisation and uneven access to infertility treatment and PGD/PGS fosters considerable cross-border reproductive care in Europe and beyond. The aim of this paper is to complement previous publications and provide an update of selected topics that have evolved since 2005

Quantification and Characterization of the Motion and Shape of a Moving Cell

The main function of a blood cell's surface is to receive information the environment. Recently, experiments have indicated that the cell membrane plays a vital role in the life, development, and regulation of cells. However, there is no existing method to quantify the observable changes in membrane shape that occur in locomotion. To achieve this objective using automatic techniques of digital image processing, the main goal of this research is to develop an image interpretation system capable of analyzing the structural changes in the morphology of a non-rigid moving object from a sequence of pictures. […]La principale fonction de la membrane d'un globule est de recevoir de l’information de son environnement. Recemment, des expériences ont démontré que la membrane joue un role primordial dans la vie, le développement et la régulation des globules. Toutefois, il n'existe pas de méthode permettant de quantifier les changements observables de la forme de la membrane au cours de la locomotion. Afin d'atteindre cet objectif tout en utilisant des techniques automatiques de traitement des images digitales, le but principal de cette recherche est de concevoir un système d'interprétation d'images capable d'analyser les changements structuraux de la morphologie d'un objet non-rigide en mouvement à partir d'une séquence d'images. […

Efficient online quantum state estimation using a matrix-exponentiated gradient method

© 2019 The Author(s). Published by IOP Publishing Ltd on behalf of the Institute of Physics and Deutsche Physikalische Gesellschaft. In this paper, we explore an efficient online algorithm for quantum state estimation based on a matrix-exponentiated gradient method previously used in the context of machine learning. The state update is governed by a learning rate that determines how much weight is given to the new measurement results obtained in each step. We show convergence of the running state estimate in probability to the true state for both noiseless and noisy measurements. We find that in the latter case the learning rate has to be chosen adaptively and decreasing to guarantee convergence beyond the noise threshold. As a practical alternative we then propose to use running averages of the measurement statistics and a constant learning rate to overcome the noise problem. The proposed algorithm is numerically compared with batch maximum-likelihood and least-squares estimators. The results show a superior performance of the new algorithm in terms of accuracy and runtime complexity