The effects of knee flexion on muscle activation and performance during chin-up exercise

Background and Study Aim Chin-up is an exercise that is done to improve the strength, muscular endurance and size of the upper back and arm muscles. There are many ways to perform chin-up exercises including by performing it with different forms of knee flexion. This study aims to examine the effects of knee flexion on muscle activation and performance during chin-up exercise. Material and Methods a total of twenty-one healthy trained male (age 20-25 years old) were recruited and were instructed to perform chin-up exercises in three knee conditions: i) knee fully flexed, ii) partial knee flexed, and iii) straight knee. Chin-up performance was measured by the number of repetitions performed in three sets. Muscle activation was measured using EMG and taken from latissimus dorsi (LD), posterior deltoid (PD), and biceps brachii (BB) during both concentric and eccentric phase. One-way repeated measure Analysis of Variances (ANOVA) were conducted to compare the muscle activation and number of repetitions performed across the three variation of chin-up exercise. Results Findings showed that during the concentric phase, BB recorded higher muscle activation during straight knee compared to knee fully flexed and partial knee flexed, p < .05. In addition, chin-up performance during straight knee and partial knee flexed were better than knee fully flexed, p < .05. Conclusions The results of this study demonstrated the importance to consider techniques manipulation during exercises due to its effects on acute responses as shown by number of repetitions and muscle activation in this study that might also affect the long-term outcomes

Outcomes and regional differences in practice in a worldwide coronary stent registry

Objective: The primary objective was to assess the performance of a new generation thin-strut sirolimus-eluting coronary stent with abluminal biodegradable polymer in an all comer population. The secondary objective was to detail differences in contemporary percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) practice worldwide. Methods: e-Ultimaster was an all-comer, prospective, global registry (NCT02188355) with independent event adjudication enrolling patients undergoing PCI with the study stent. The primary outcome measure was target lesion failure (TLF) at 1 year, defined as the composite of cardiac death, target vessel myocardial infarction and clinically driven target lesion revascularisation. Data were stratified according to 4 geographical regions. Results: A total of 37 198 patients were enrolled (Europe 69.2%, Asia 17.8%, Africa/Middle East 6.6% and South America/Mexico 6.5%) and 1-year follow-up was available for 35 389 patients (95.1%). One-year TLF occurred in 3.2% of the patients, ranging from 2% (Africa/Middle East) to 4.1% (South America/Mexico). In patients with acute coronary syndrome, potent P2Y(12) inhibitors were prescribed in 48% of patients at discharge, while at 1 year 72% were on any dual antiplatelet therapy. Lipid-lowering treatment was administered in 80.9% and 75.5% of patients at discharge and 1 year, respectively. Regional differences in the profile of the treated patients as well as in PCI practice were reported. Conclusions: In this investigation with worldwide representation, contemporary PCI using a new generation thin-strut sirolimus-eluting coronary stent with abluminal biodegradable polymer was associated with low 1-year TLF across clinical presentations and continents. Suboptimal adherence to current recommendations around antiplatelet and lipid lowering treatments was detected

Influenza Vaccination After Myocardial Infarction: A Randomized, Double-Blind, Placebo-Controlled, Multicenter Trial.

BACKGROUND: Observational and small, randomized studies suggest that influenza vaccine may reduce future cardiovascular events in patients with cardiovascular disease. METHODS: We conducted an investigator-initiated, randomized, double-blind trial to compare inactivated influenza vaccine with saline placebo administered shortly after myocardial infarction (MI; 99.7% of patients) or high-risk stable coronary heart disease (0.3%). The primary end point was the composite of all-cause death, MI, or stent thrombosis at 12 months. A hierarchical testing strategy was used for the key secondary end points: all-cause death, cardiovascular death, MI, and stent thrombosis. RESULTS: Because of the COVID-19 pandemic, the data safety and monitoring board recommended to halt the trial before attaining the prespecified sample size. Between October 1, 2016, and March 1, 2020, 2571 participants were randomized at 30 centers across 8 countries. Participants assigned to influenza vaccine totaled 1290 and individuals assigned to placebo equaled 1281; of these, 2532 received the study treatment (1272 influenza vaccine and 1260 placebo) and were included in the modified intention to treat analysis. Over the 12-month follow-up, the primary outcome occurred in 67 participants (5.3%) assigned influenza vaccine and 91 participants (7.2%) assigned placebo (hazard ratio, 0.72 [95% CI, 0.52-0.99]; P=0.040). Rates of all-cause death were 2.9% and 4.9% (hazard ratio, 0.59 [95% CI, 0.39-0.89]; P=0.010), rates of cardiovascular death were 2.7% and 4.5%, (hazard ratio, 0.59 [95% CI, 0.39-0.90]; P=0.014), and rates of MI were 2.0% and 2.4% (hazard ratio, 0.86 [95% CI, 0.50-1.46]; P=0.57) in the influenza vaccine and placebo groups, respectively. CONCLUSIONS: Influenza vaccination early after an MI or in high-risk coronary heart disease resulted in a lower risk of a composite of all-cause death, MI, or stent thrombosis, and a lower risk of all-cause death and cardiovascular death, as well, at 12 months compared with placebo. Registration: URL: https://www.clinicaltrials.gov; Unique identifier: NCT02831608

May Measurement Month 2018: a pragmatic global screening campaign to raise awareness of blood pressure by the International Society of Hypertension

Aims Raised blood pressure (BP) is the biggest contributor to mortality and disease burden worldwide and fewer than half of those with hypertension are aware of it. May Measurement Month (MMM) is a global campaign set up in 2017, to raise awareness of high BP and as a pragmatic solution to a lack of formal screening worldwide. The 2018 campaign was expanded, aiming to include more participants and countries. Methods and results Eighty-nine countries participated in MMM 2018. Volunteers (≥18 years) were recruited through opportunistic sampling at a variety of screening sites. Each participant had three BP measurements and completed a questionnaire on demographic, lifestyle, and environmental factors. Hypertension was defined as a systolic BP ≥140 mmHg or diastolic BP ≥90 mmHg, or taking antihypertensive medication. In total, 74.9% of screenees provided three BP readings. Multiple imputation using chained equations was used to impute missing readings. 1 504 963 individuals (mean age 45.3 years; 52.4% female) were screened. After multiple imputation, 502 079 (33.4%) individuals had hypertension, of whom 59.5% were aware of their diagnosis and 55.3% were taking antihypertensive medication. Of those on medication, 60.0% were controlled and of all hypertensives, 33.2% were controlled. We detected 224 285 individuals with untreated hypertension and 111 214 individuals with inadequately treated (systolic BP ≥ 140 mmHg or diastolic BP ≥ 90 mmHg) hypertension. Conclusion May Measurement Month expanded significantly compared with 2017, including more participants in more countries. The campaign identified over 335 000 adults with untreated or inadequately treated hypertension. In the absence of systematic screening programmes, MMM was effective at raising awareness at least among these individuals at risk

“Asyraf & Adab 2: let’s learn”s android animation application by enisaNimation

This project involves in creating and designing 3D animation which has been launched specifically in Android as an application. The content of this application widely focused in terms of the Islamic teachings where by it highlights mainly on the Islamic manners and du'a.

Extra-biliary complications during laparoscopic cholecystectomy: How serious is the problem?

<b>Objective:</b> To deteremine the incidence, nature and management of extra-biliary complications of laparoscopic cholecystectomy. <b>Materials and Methods:</b> This study presents a retrospective analysis of extra-biliary complications occuring during 1046 laparoscopic cholecystectomies performed from August 2003 to December 2006. The study population included all the patients with symptomatic gallstone disease in whom laparoscopic cholecystectomy was performed. The extra-biliary complications were divided into two distinct categories: (i) Procedure related and (ii) Access related. <b>Results:</b> The incidence of access-related complications was 3.77&#x0025; and that of procedure-related complications was 6.02&#x0025;. Port-site bleeding was troublesome at times and demanded a re-do laparoscopy or conversion. Small bowel laceration occurred in two patients where access was achieved by closed technique. Five cases of duodenal and two of colonic perforations were the major complications encountered during dissection in the area of Calot&#x2032;s triangle. In 21 (2&#x0025;) patients the procedure was converted to open surgery due to different complications. Biliary complications occurred in 2.6&#x0025; patients in the current series. <b>Conclusion:</b> Major extra-biliary complications are as frequent as the biliary complications and can be life-threatening. An early diagnosis is critical to their management

Machine-Learning-Based DDoS Attack Detection Using Mutual Information and Random Forest Feature Importance Method

Cloud computing facilitates the users with on-demand services over the Internet. The services are accessible from anywhere at any time. Despite the valuable services, the paradigm is, also, prone to security issues. A Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attack affects the availability of cloud services and causes security threats to cloud computing. Detection of DDoS attacks is necessary for the availability of services for legitimate users. The topic has been studied by many researchers, with better accuracy for different datasets. This article presents a method for DDoS attack detection in cloud computing. The primary objective of this article is to reduce misclassification error in DDoS detection. In the proposed work, we select the most relevant features, by applying two feature selection techniques, i.e., the Mutual Information (MI) and Random Forest Feature Importance (RFFI) methods. Random Forest (RF), Gradient Boosting (GB), Weighted Voting Ensemble (WVE), K Nearest Neighbor (KNN), and Logistic Regression (LR) are applied to selected features. The experimental results show that the accuracy of RF, GB, WVE, and KNN with 19 features is 0.99. To further study these methods, misclassifications of the methods are analyzed, which lead to more accurate measurements. Extensive experiments conclude that the RF performed well in DDoS attack detection and misclassified only one attack as normal. Comparative results are presented to validate the proposed method

Machine-Learning-Based DDoS Attack Detection Using Mutual Information and Random Forest Feature Importance Method

Cloud computing facilitates the users with on-demand services over the Internet. The services are accessible from anywhere at any time. Despite the valuable services, the paradigm is, also, prone to security issues. A Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attack affects the availability of cloud services and causes security threats to cloud computing. Detection of DDoS attacks is necessary for the availability of services for legitimate users. The topic has been studied by many researchers, with better accuracy for different datasets. This article presents a method for DDoS attack detection in cloud computing. The primary objective of this article is to reduce misclassification error in DDoS detection. In the proposed work, we select the most relevant features, by applying two feature selection techniques, i.e., the Mutual Information (MI) and Random Forest Feature Importance (RFFI) methods. Random Forest (RF), Gradient Boosting (GB), Weighted Voting Ensemble (WVE), K Nearest Neighbor (KNN), and Logistic Regression (LR) are applied to selected features. The experimental results show that the accuracy of RF, GB, WVE, and KNN with 19 features is 0.99. To further study these methods, misclassifications of the methods are analyzed, which lead to more accurate measurements. Extensive experiments conclude that the RF performed well in DDoS attack detection and misclassified only one attack as normal. Comparative results are presented to validate the proposed method

Extra-biliary complications during laparoscopic cholecystectomy: How serious is the problem?

Objective: To deteremine the incidence, nature and management of extra-biliary complications of laparoscopic cholecystectomy. Materials and Methods: This study presents a retrospective analysis of extra-biliary complications occuring during 1046 laparoscopic cholecystectomies performed from August 2003 to December 2006. The study population included all the patients with symptomatic gallstone disease in whom laparoscopic cholecystectomy was performed. The extra-biliary complications were divided into two distinct categories: (i) Procedure related and (ii) Access related. Results: The incidence of access-related complications was 3.77% and that of procedure-related complications was 6.02%. Port-site bleeding was troublesome at times and demanded a re-do laparoscopy or conversion. Small bowel laceration occurred in two patients where access was achieved by closed technique. Five cases of duodenal and two of colonic perforations were the major complications encountered during dissection in the area of Calot′s triangle. In 21 (2%) patients the procedure was converted to open surgery due to different complications. Biliary complications occurred in 2.6% patients in the current series. Conclusion: Major extra-biliary complications are as frequent as the biliary complications and can be life-threatening. An early diagnosis is critical to their management

Tobacco use among urban residents with diagnosed major Non-communicable diseases in Bangladesh

Background Tobacco use is an important risk factor for non-communicable diseases (NCD) and 43.3% adult use tobacco on regular basis in Bangladesh. Many patients continue to use tobacco even after diagnosis of NCDs indicating lack of awareness and appropriate cessation support. Present study was done to investigate the pattern of tobacco use among NCD patients in an urban population in Dhaka city, Bangladesh. Methods A cross sectional study was done in a middle class urban population of Dhaka city in 2013. Household survey was done to collect information on demography, lifestyle, personal habits, and disease history. Information on tobacco use of all adult residents aged 25 years or more were collected from household head by a structured questionnaire. Household members having history of ischemic heart disease (IHD), stroke, hypertension and diabetes were identified and corroborated by presence of physician's record. Results In total information of 43,727 individuals was collected and data of 23,731(54.3%) respondents aged 25 and above were analyzed for the present study. Among the respondent's overall tobacco use were 29.6% (smoking 19.1%, smokeless tobacco 12.3%). Smoking and smokeless tobacco user among male were 36.9%, 8.5% and among female were 0.3%, 16.4% respectively. Among the respondents 29.7% were diagnosed case of one of the major NCDs (21.9% were hypertensive, 12.9% were diabetic, 6.4% had IHD and 2.7% had history of stroke). Among NCD patients 35.5% continued to use tobacco even after diagnosis. 35.3% hypertensive patients, 32.1% diabetic patients, 36.3% IHD patients and 34.5% stroke patients were tobacco user respectively. Conclusions Tobacco use was highly prevalent in urban male population. Large number of hypertensive, diabetic, IHD and stroke patients of urban population continue to use tobacco. Measures should be taken for control of tobacco use at population level as well as NCD patients should be intervened effectively for tobacco cessation