Clinical Implication of Coronary Tortuosity in Patients with Coronary Artery Disease

Background: Coronary tortuosity (CT) is a common coronary angiography finding. The exact pathogenesis, clinical implication and long-term prognosis of CT are not fully understood. The purpose of this study is to investigate the clinical characteristics of CT in patients with suspected coronary artery disease(CAD) in a Chinese population. Methods: A total of 1010 consecutive patients underwent coronary angiography with complaints of chest pain or related symptoms were included in the present study (544 male, mean age: 64611 years). CT was defined by the finding of $3 bends (defined as$45u change in vessel direction) along main trunk of at least one artery in systole and in diastole. Patients with or without CAD were further divided into CT-positive and CT-negative groups, all patients were followed up for the incidence of major adverse cardiovascular events (MACE) for 2 to 4 years. Results: The prevalence of CT was 39.1 % in this patient cohort and incidence of CT was significantly higher in female patients than that in male patients (OR = 2.603, 95%CI 1.897, 3.607, P,0.001). CT was positively correlated with essential hypertension (OR = 1.533, 95%CI 1.131, 2.076, P = 0.006) and negatively correlated with CAD (OR = 0.755, 95%CI 0.574, 0.994, P = 0.045). MACE during follow up was similar between CAD patients with or without CT. Conclusions: CT is more often seen in females and positively correlated with hypertension and negatively correlated wit

Vasculoprotective effects of rosiglitazone through modulating renin-angiotensin system in vivo and vitro

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>The peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor-γ (PPARγ) agonist rosiglitazone has been suggested to exert cardiovascular protection through the improvement of lipid metabolism, anti-inflammation, anti-proliferation etc. However, whether renin-angiotensin system (RAS) is involved in the vascular protective effects of PPARγ agonists is not fully understood. The present study aimed to investigate the effects of the renin-angiotensin system in vascular protection mediated by PPARγ agonists.</p> <p>Objective</p> <p>To investigate the actions of the renin-angiotensin system in vascular protection mediated by activation of PPARγ in vivo and in vitro.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>Rats were fed a regular diet (n = 8), a cholesterol-rich diet plus methylthiouracil (80 mg/Kg/day, n = 10), a cholesterol-rich diet plus methylthiouracil and rosiglitazone (4 mg/kg/day, n = 10). The rosiglitazone treatment was started from one month after the start of cholesterol-rich diet plus methylthiouracil, and lasted five months. Cultured vascular smooth muscle cells (VSMCs) were pretreated with 1 μmol/L angiotensin II (ANG II) for 6 h and randomly divided into the control group; the ANG II group (1 μmol/L ANG II); the groups respectively treated with different concentration rosiglitazone (20, 30, 50) μmol/L for 12 h; the groups treated with 30 μmol/L rosiglitazone for (6, 12, 24) h. Morphology changes of the aortic tissues were observed by hematoxylin and eosin stain. The VSMC growth was detected by 3-(4,5-dimethylthiazol-2-yl)-2,5-diphenyltetrazolium bromide (MTT) colorimetric assay. Angiotensin II and expression of angiotensin receptors were determined by radioimmunoassay, reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR), western blot, and immunohistochemistry.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>After 6 months, lipid deposition, VSMC proliferation and migration toward intima were observed in aortic tissues in the rats on a cholesterol-rich diet plus methylthiouracil, while these pathological changes induced by the cholesterol-rich diet were significantly suppressed by rosiglitazone. In addition, VSMC proliferation induced by ANG II was markedly inhibited by rosiglitazone. Rosiglitazone markedly down-regulated expression of angiotensin type 1 receptor (AT₁R) and up-regulated expression of angiotensin type 2 receptor (AT₂R) in the aortic tissues and ANG II-treated VSMCs.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>The present study demonstrated that PPARγ agonist rosiglitazone suppressed ANG II-induced VSMC proliferation in vitro and early atherosclerotic formation evoked by cholesterol-rich diet in vivo. These vasculoprotective effects of rosiglitazone were mediated at least partially by reduction in local tissue ANG II concentration, down-regulation of AT₁R expression and up-regulation of AT₂R expression both at the mRNA and protein levels.</p

RePAST: A ReRAM-based PIM Accelerator for Second-order Training of DNN

The second-order training methods can converge much faster than first-order optimizers in DNN training. This is because the second-order training utilizes the inversion of the second-order information (SOI) matrix to find a more accurate descent direction and step size. However, the huge SOI matrices bring significant computational and memory overheads in the traditional architectures like GPU and CPU. On the other side, the ReRAM-based process-in-memory (PIM) technology is suitable for the second-order training because of the following three reasons: First, PIM's computation happens in memory, which reduces data movement overheads; Second, ReRAM crossbars can compute SOI's inversion in $O\left(1\right)$ time; Third, if architected properly, ReRAM crossbars can perform matrix inversion and vector-matrix multiplications which are important to the second-order training algorithms. Nevertheless, current ReRAM-based PIM techniques still face a key challenge for accelerating the second-order training. The existing ReRAM-based matrix inversion circuitry can only support 8-bit accuracy matrix inversion and the computational precision is not sufficient for the second-order training that needs at least 16-bit accurate matrix inversion. In this work, we propose a method to achieve high-precision matrix inversion based on a proven 8-bit matrix inversion (INV) circuitry and vector-matrix multiplication (VMM) circuitry. We design \archname{}, a ReRAM-based PIM accelerator architecture for the second-order training. Moreover, we propose a software mapping scheme for \archname{} to further optimize the performance by fusing VMM and INV crossbar. Experiment shows that \archname{} can achieve an average of 115.8$\times$/11.4$\times$ speedup and 41.9$\times$/12.8$\times$energy saving compared to a GPU counterpart and PipeLayer on large-scale DNNs.Comment: 13pages, 13 figure

Evaluation of Symmetric Functions and Boolean Functions over Stochastic Input

In our daily life, we often face situations where we need to make precise judgments based on initially unknown information, while gathering all the evidence to make informed conclusions can be very costly. In this dissertation, we explore the problem of optimizing the decision-making process under uncertainty, and we focus on problems that can be found in both theoretical computer science and discrete mathematics. The primary goal is to develop approximation algorithms with guaranteed worst-case performance. These algorithms aim to minimize the expected cost of acquiring information necessary for evaluating fundamental functions, such as Boolean and symmetric functions. Furthermore, we examine the adaptivity gaps for evaluating some typical Boolean functions, highlighting the critical need for incorporating adaptivity into the decision-making process for these problems. Our research contributes to a deeper understanding of the underlying concepts, and hopefully also paves the way for the development of more effective and efficient decision-making strategies in the face of uncertainty

Projection on China’s Automobile Stock and Traffic Carbon Emissions

As a means of transportation, automobiles produce large carbon emissions. On the basis of analyzing the carbon emissions of automobile transportation in 2021, the ownership model, new car sales structure model and carbon emissions analysis model are constructed, and the carbon emissions of automobiles under the baseline scenario and dual carbon scenario in 2022-2060 are predicted. For dual carbon, the main technology path of automobile can be divided into four parts: popularizing new energy vehicles, energy-saving fuel vehicles, green transportation and zero-carbon fuels

Projection on China’s Automobile Stock and Traffic Carbon Emissions

As a means of transportation, automobiles produce large carbon emissions. On the basis of analyzing the carbon emissions of automobile transportation in 2021, the ownership model, new car sales structure model and carbon emissions analysis model are constructed, and the carbon emissions of automobiles under the baseline scenario and dual carbon scenario in 2022-2060 are predicted. For dual carbon, the main technology path of automobile can be divided into four parts: popularizing new energy vehicles, energy-saving fuel vehicles, green transportation and zero-carbon fuels