CARDIOPULMONARY EXERCISE TESTING FOR VO2MAX DETERMINING IN SUBJECTS OF DIFFERENT PHYSICAL ACTIVITY

Cardiopulmonary exercise testing (CPET) provides assessment of the integrative exercise responses involving the pulmonary, cardiovascular, haematopoietic, neuropsychological, and skeletal muscle systems, which are not adequately reflected through the measurement of individual organ system function. This non-invasive, dynamic physiological overview permits the evaluation of both submaximal and peak exercise responses, providing the doctor with relevant information for clinical decision making. CPET is increasingly being used in a wide spectrum of clinical applications for the evaluation of undiagnosed exercise intolerance and for the objective determination of functional capacity and impairment. Its use in patient management is increasing with the understanding that resting pulmonary and cardiac function testing cannot reliably predict exercise performance and functional capacity and that overall health status correlates better with exercise tolerance than with resting measurements. CPET involves measurements of respiratory oxygen uptake, carbon dioxide expenditure and pulmonary ventilation during a step-vice increased physical workload up to the maximum (or symptom-limited level in patients) on ergometer. In this paper the principle of CPET is described and results for VO2max and VO2max/kg of almost 3000 measurements in subjects of different physical activity are presented. These values characterizing cardiorespiratory capacity of the subjects were compared to the values of maximal performance achieved during stress test on bicycle ergometer (Wmax and Wmax/kg) and regression equations for VO2max – Wmax and VO2max/kg – Wmax/kg were calculated

Development of Urban Electric Bus Drivetrain

The development of the drivetrain for a new series of urban electric buses is presented in the paper. The traction and design properties of several drive variants are compared. The efficiency of the drive was tested using simulation calculations of the vehicle rides based on data from real bus lines in Prague. The results of the design work and simulation calculations are presented in the paper

Estimation of Soil Physico-chemical Properties by On-the-go Measurement of Soil Electrical Conductivity

For modern crop management practices, like precision farming, is crucial information about detailed spatial distribution of soil properties. A study was conducted to evaluate the on-the-go measurement of soil electrical conductivity for mapping of agronomical relevant soil properties. The experimental work was carried out on the eight fields of Rostenice a.s. farm enterprise, located in the South Moravia region of Czech Republic. The measurement of apparent electrical conductivity of soil was done by using CMD-1 and CMD-6L instruments (GF Instruments, Czech Republic) in 2013 (117 ha) and 2016 (359 ha). Soil properties were obtained by soil sampling in irregular grid with the density of 1 sample per 3 ha. Soil samples were taken from the depth of 30 cm and analyzed for soil texture (percentage of clay, silt and sand particles), content of available nutrients (P, K, Mg, Ca) and soil organic matter (SOM) content. The results of correlation analysis showed differences in main sensitivity of EMI to the soil properties across observed fields. Most frequent correlation was found in the percentage of clay particles smaller than 0.002 mm (r = 0.598). The correlation between EMI and nutrients content in soil and pH value was significant only for few fields. These results were obtained for individual fields, the aggregated evaluation showed lower relationships to EC. These outcomes showed, that rather than predictor of soil properties could be on-the-go measurement of soil EC used for identification of main zones within the fields at high spatial level

Estimation of Soil Physico-chemical Properties by On-the-go Measurement of Soil Electrical Conductivity

For modern crop management practices, like precision farming, is crucial information about detailed spatial distribution of soil properties. A study was conducted to evaluate the on-the-go measurement of soil electrical conductivity for mapping of agronomical relevant soil properties. The experimental work was carried out on the eight fields of Rostenice a.s. farm enterprise, located in the South Moravia region of Czech Republic. The measurement of apparent electrical conductivity of soil was done by using CMD-1 and CMD-6L instruments (GF Instruments, Czech Republic) in 2013 (117 ha) and 2016 (359 ha). Soil properties were obtained by soil sampling in irregular grid with the density of 1 sample per 3 ha. Soil samples were taken from the depth of 30 cm and analyzed for soil texture (percentage of clay, silt and sand particles), content of available nutrients (P, K, Mg, Ca) and soil organic matter (SOM) content. The results of correlation analysis showed differences in main sensitivity of EMI to the soil properties across observed fields. Most frequent correlation was found in the percentage of clay particles smaller than 0.002 mm (r = 0.598). The correlation between EMI and nutrients content in soil and pH value was significant only for few fields. These results were obtained for individual fields, the aggregated evaluation showed lower relationships to EC. These outcomes showed, that rather than predictor of soil properties could be on-the-go measurement of soil EC used for identification of main zones within the fields at high spatial level

Variation in fiberoptic bead-based oligonucleotide microarrays: dispersion characteristics among hybridization and biological replicate samples

BACKGROUND: Gene expression microarray technology continues to evolve and its use has expanded into all areas of biology. However, the high dimensionality of the data makes analysis a difficult challenge. Evaluating measurements and estimating the significance of the observed differences among samples remain important issues that must be addressed for each technology platform. In this work we use a consecutive sampling method to characterize the dispersion patterns of data generated from Illumina fiberoptic bead-based oligonucleotide arrays. RESULTS: To describe general properties of the dispersion we used a linear function SD = a + bY(mean), approximating the standard deviation across arrays (Y(mean )is the mean expression of a given consecutive sample). First we examined three levels of variability: 1) same cell culture, same reverse transcription, duplicate hybridizations; 2) same cell culture, reverse transcription replicates; 3) parallel cultures. Each higher level is expected to introduce a new source of variability. We observed minor differences in the constant term: the mean values are 3.5, 3.1 and 3.5, respectively. However, the mean coefficient b increased from 0.045 to 0.147 and 0.133. We compared the coefficients derived from the consecutive sampling to those obtained from the standard deviation of individual gene expressions and found them in good agreement. In the second experiment samples we detected 11 genes with systematically different expressions between the experiment samples treated with glucose oxidase and controls and corroborated the selection using the Mann-Whitney and other tests. We also compared the consecutive sampling and coincidence method to t-test: the average percentage of consistency was above 80 for the former and below 50 for the latter. CONCLUSION: Our results indicate that the consecutive sampling method and standard deviation function provide a convenient description of the overall dispersion of Illumina arrays. We observed that the constant term of the standard deviation function is at average approximately the same for duplicate hybridization as for the assays with additional sources of variability. Furthermore, among the genes affected by glucose oxidase treatment we identified 6 genes in oxidative stress pathways and 5 genes involved in DNA repair. Finally, we noted that the consecutive sampling and coincidence test provide, under given conditions, more consistent results than the t-test. REVIEWERS: This article was reviewed by Alexander Karpikov (nominated by MarkGerstein), Jordan King and Eugene V. Koonin

Mobile dynamic passive sampling of trace organic compounds: Evaluation of sampler performance in the Danube River

Embargo until 15 September 2020A “dynamic” passive sampling (DPS) device, consisting of an electrically driven large volume water pumping device coupled to a passive sampler exposure cell, was designed to enhance the sampling rate of trace organic compounds. The purpose of enhancing the sampling rate was to achieve sufficient method sensitivity, when the period available for sampling is limited to a few days. Because the uptake principle in the DPS remains the same as for conventionally-deployed passive samplers, free dissolved concentrations can be derived from the compound uptake using available passive sampler calibration parameters. This was confirmed by good agreement between aqueous concentrations of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) and hexachlorobenzene (HCB) derived from DPS and conventional caged passive sampler. The DPS device enhanced sampling rates of compounds that are accumulated in samplers under water boundary layer control (WBL) more than five times compared with the conventionally deployed samplers. The DPS device was deployed from a ship cruising downstream the Danube River to provide temporally and spatially integrated concentrations. A DPS-deployed sampler with surface area of 400 cm2 can reach sampling rates up to 83 L d−1. The comparison of three passive samplers made of different sorbents and co-deployed in the DPS device, namely silicone rubber (SR), low density polyethylene (LDPE) and SDB-RPS Empore™ disks showed a good correlation of surface specific uptake for compounds that were sampled integratively during the entire exposure period. This provided a good basis for a cross-calibration between the samplers. The good correlation of free dissolved PAHs, PCBs and HCB concentration estimates obtained using SR and LDPE confirmed that both samplers are suitable for the identification of concentration gradients and trends in the water column. We showed that the differences in calculated aqueous concentrations between sampler types are mainly associated with different applied uptake models.acceptedVersio

Seurat-1: HepaRG, repeated and single dose exposure for Mitochondrial Health and LipidTox

The purpose of this report is to describe the experimental procedure used in order to detect changes in mitochondrial membrane potential and lipid accumulation following exposure of HepaRG cells to various chemicals both by repeated exposure as single exposure to chemicals. This procedure was created for the SEURAT-1 Project runs 15 to 18 and was developed by using live cell imaging.JRC.I.5-Systems Toxicolog

Visualizing spatial lipid distribution in porcine lens by MALDI imaging high-resolution mass spectrometry

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Spatial Distribution of Glycerophospholipids in the Ocular Lens

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