Nonlinear resonances of an idealized saccular aneurysm

This paper investigates the occurrence of dynamic instabilities in idealized intracranial saccular aneurysms subjected to pulsatile blood flow and surrounded by cerebral spinal fluid. The problem has been approached extending the original 2D model of Shah and Humphrey (1999) to a 3D framework. The justification for using a 3D formulation arises from the works of Suzuki and Ohara (1978), MacDonald et al. (2000) and Costalat et al. (2011) who showed experimental evidences of intracranial aneurysms with a ratio between wall thickness and inner radius larger that 0.1. Two different material models have been used to describe the mechanical behaviour of the aneurysmal wall: Neo-Hookean and Mooney-Rivlin. To the authors' knowledge, for the first time in literature, the dynamic response of the aneurysm has been analysed using complete nonlinear resonance diagrams that have been obtained from a numerical procedure specifically designed for that purpose. Our numerical results show that, for a wide range of wall thicknesses and both constitutive models considered, the saccular aneurysms are dynamically stable within the range of frequencies associated to the normal heart rates, which confirms previous results of Shah and Humphrey (1999). On the other hand, our results also show that the geometric and material nonlinearities of the problem could bring closer than expected the resonance frequencies of the aneurysm to the frequencies of the pulsatile blood flow.The authors are indebted to the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness (Project EUIN2015-62556) for the financial support received which allowed conducting part of this work

Do Serum 25-Hydroxyvitamin D Concentrations Affect Body Composition, Physical Fitness, Bone Strength and Bone Biomarkers in Female Children and Adolescent Football Players? A One-Season Study

The aim was to compare changes in body composition, physical fitness, and bone biomarkers in female children and adolescent football players with different Vitamin D levels. Twenty-two players were classified into two groups according to 25(OH)D concentrations: 11 with deficient/insufficient 25(OH)D levels (IVD; <30 ng/mL) and 11 with sufficient 25(OH)D levels (SVD; ≥30 ng/mL). Body composition parameters were measured using dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry and a peripheral quantitative computed tomography scanner. The following physical fitness tests were applied: maximal isometric knee extension (MIF), long jump, 30-m sprint, and 20-m shuttle run test (VO2max). Electrochemiluminescence immunoassays were used to analyze bone biomarkers and 25(OH)D. All variables were registered at the beginning and the end of the football season. The increase in subtotal bone mineral density (BMD) was higher in players with SVD than those with IVD (p = 0.030). Only players with SVD improved their MIF of the left leg (p = 0.005); whereas, only players with IVD decreased their 30-m sprint performance (p = 0.007) and VO2max (p = 0.046). No significant between- and within-group differences were found for bone biomarkers. SVD might cause an extra improvement of subtotal BMD in female children and adolescent football players. Moreover, it seems that the 25(OH)D concentration could be an important parameter for physical fitness improvement in this population

PREVALENCE OF UNKNOWN DIABETES AND IMPAIRED GLUCOSE TOLERANCE IN PATIENTS WITH IMPAIRED FASTING GLUCOSE

There are many community-based studies on the prevalence of diabetes, impaired glucose tolerance (IGT) and impaired fasting glucose (IFG). However, studies on the prevalence of IGT and diabetes unknown in patients with IFG, by 75-g oral glucose tolerance test (OGTT), are few and small.CIBEROBN is an Instituto de Salud Carlos III initiative. This work has been co-financied by CIBEROBN, Research Grants of the Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad of Spain (Instituto de Salud Carlos III: PI10/00913), and Consejería de Salud de la Junta de Andalucía of Spain (PI-0037/2008 and PI-0112-2013).Peer Reviewe

15th International Conference, Salamanca, Spain, September 10-12, 2014. Proceedings

This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 15th International Conference on Intelligent Data Engineering and Automated Learning, IDEAL 2014, held in Salamanca, Spain, in September 2014. The 60 revised full papers presented were carefully reviewed and selected from about 120 submissions. These papers provided a valuable collection of recent research outcomes in data engineering and automated learning, from methodologies, frameworks, and techniques to applications. In addition the conference provided a good sample of current topics from methodologies, frameworks, and techniques to applications and case studies. The techniques include computational intelligence, big data analytics, social media techniques, multi-objective optimization, regression, classification, clustering, biological data processing, text processing, and image/video analysis

The correlation between urinary 5-hydroxyindoleacetic acid and sperm quality in infertile men and rotating shift workers

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Serotonin is a neurotransmitter that modulates a wide range of neuroendocrine functions. However, excessive circulating serotonin levels may induce harmful effects in the male reproductive system. The objective of this study was to evaluate whether the levels of urinary 5-hydroxyindoleacetic acid (5-HIIA), a major serotonin metabolite, correlate with different classical seminal parameters.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>Human ejaculates were obtained from 40 men attending infertility counselling and rotating shift workers by masturbation after 4-5 days of abstinence. Urinary 5- HIIA concentration was quantified by using a commercial ELISA kit. Forward motility was assessed by a computer-aided semen analysis (CASA) system. Sperm concentration was determined using the haemocytometer method. Sperm morphology was evaluated after Diff-Quik staining, while sperm vitality was estimated after Eosin-Nigrosin vital staining.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Our results show that urinary 5-HIIA levels obtained from a set of 20 volunteers negatively correlated with sperm concentration, forward motility, morphology normal range and sperm vitality. On the other hand, we checked the relationship between male infertility and urinary 5-HIIA levels in 20 night shift workers. Thus, urinary 5-HIIA levels obtained from 10 recently-proven fathers were significantly lower than those found in 10 infertile males. Additionally, samples from recent fathers exhibited higher sperm concentration, as well as better forward motility and normal morphology rate.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>In the light of our findings, we concluded that high serotonin levels, indirectly measured as urinary 5-HIIA levels, appear to play a role as an infertility determinant in male subjects.</p

Redesign and performance of an automatic segmentation method

[Resumen] La información más relevante de las angiografías coronarias se extrae empleando técnicas de segmentación, que pueden ser automáticas, semiautomáticas o manuales. Existen numerosos algoritmos de segmentación vascular, obteniendo mejores resultados, por normal general, aquellos que emplean múltiples técnicas e imágenes a diferentes escalas para proporcionar los resultados requeridos. Se presenta un nuevo método de segmentación automatizado basado en el método manual de Hamarneh incluyendo un estudio estadístico que demuestra su idoneidad para el problema

Evaluation of dynamic spinal morphology and core muscle activation in cyclists. A comparison between standing posture and on the bicycle

(1) Background: Cycling is characterized by a sustained sitting posture on the bicycle, where physiologic spinal curvatures are modified from standing to cycling. Therefore, the main objective was to evaluate and compare the morphology of the spine and the core muscle activity in standing posture and cycling at low intensity. (2) Methods: Twelve competitive cyclists participated in the study. Spinal morphology was evaluated using an infrared-camera system. Muscle activation was recorded using a surface electromyography device. (3) Conclusions: The lumbar spine changes its morphology from lordosis in standing to kyphosis (lumbar flexion) when pedaling on the bicycle. The sacral tilt significantly increases its anterior tilt when cycling compared to when standing. The spinal morphology and sacral tilt are dynamic depending on the pedal’s position during the pedal stroke quadrants. The infraspinatus, latissimus dorsi, external oblique, and pectoralis major showed significantly higher activation pedaling than when standing, although with very low values

Automatic multiscale vascular image segmentation algorithm for coronary angiography

[Abstract] Cardiovascular diseases, particularly severe stenosis, are the main cause of death in the western world. The primary method of diagnosis, considered to be the standard in the detection and quantification of stenotic lesions, is a coronary angiography. This article proposes a new automatic multiscale segmentation algorithm for the study of coronary trees that offers results comparable to the best existing semi-automatic method. According to the state-of-the-art, a representative number of coronary angiography images that ensures the generalisation capacity of the algorithm has been used. All these images were selected by clinics from an Haemodynamics Unit. An exhaustive statistical analysis was performed in terms of sensitivity, specificity and Jaccard. Algorithm improvements imply that the clinician can perform tests on the patient and, bypassing the images through the system, can verify, in that moment, the intervention of existing differences in a coronary tree from a previous test, in such a way that it could change its clinical intra-intervention criteria.Galicia. Consellería de Cultura, Educación e Ordenación Universitaria; GRC2014/049Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad; TIN2015-70648-

SysGpr: System of Generation of Pseudo-realistic Synthetic Signals

[EN] Signals obtained from sensors are widely used in different scientific fields. However, the resources to obtain the data are not always available due to structural constraints, physical, economic, environmental, and data collection failures, etc. It is in this scenario that the generation of synthetic data is established. The generation of synthetic data has several benefits, such as, reducing waiting times compared to the long periods required by some sensors to obtain large volumes of samples. In addition, the generated data can be as robust as users need it to be. For this reason, this paper presents a pseudo-realistic synthetic signal generation system for use in the validation of methods and design of experiments. The proposed signal generation method makes use of statistical models and the gradient of the signal to generate new data. The developed system is open for the public, available as a web tool.[ES] Las señales obtenidas desde sensores son ampliamente utilizadas en diferentes campos científicos. Sin embargo, no siempre se dispone de los recursos necesarios para obtener dichos datos, debido a limitaciones estructurales, físicas, económicas, ambientales, fallos en la recolección de los datos, etc. Es en este escenario limitante, donde se erige la generación de datos sintéticos. La generación de datos sintéticos tiene la característica de reducir tiempos de espera frente a los largos periodos temporales que necesitan algunos sensores para obtener grandes volúmenes de muestras. Además, los datos generados pueden llegar a ser todo lo robustos que los usuarios necesiten. Por ello este trabajo presenta un sistema de generación de señales sintéticas con carácter pseudo-realista para su uso aplicado a la validación de métodos y diseño de experimentos. El método de la generación de señales propuesto, hace uso de modelos estadísticos y el comportamiento del gradiente de la señal para ir generando nuevos datos. El sistema desarrollado se encuentra disponible públicamente como herramienta web.Este trabajo ha sido parcialmente financiado mediante el proyecto DPI2013-47347-C2-2-R.León, F.; Rodríguez-Lozano, FJ.; Cubero-Fernández, A.; Palomares, JM.; Olivares., J. (2019). SysGpr: Sistema de generación de señales sintéticas pseudo-realistas. Revista Iberoamericana de Automática e Informática. 16(3):369-379. https://doi.org/10.4995/riai.2019.10025SWORD36937916

Health status and productivity of sheep fed coffee pulp during fattening

The objective of this study was to evaluate the productivity and health of fattening lambs fed different levels of coffee pulp in their diets. Thirty-five crossbred lambs with an average weight of 21.8 kg were fed isoproteic and isoenergetic diets with different percentages of coffee pulp (T0: control; T1: 7%; T2: 14%, T3: 21% and T4: 28%), the base diet was formulated with corn, soybean meal, alfalfa stubble, molasses, urea and mineral salt. The fattening period was 98 days. Productivity was measured by weight gain, feed intake and feed conversion. At the beginning and end of the study, blood samples were taken to determine the health status using a biochemical profile and blood count. Analysis of variance was performed using the initial weight as the covariate for the productive variables and the initial values of the analytes in the blood chemistry and hematological analysis tests. The coffee pulp did not affect productivity, although the amount of neutrophils decreased (P&lt;0.05) as the coffee pulp in the diet increased. In all treatments, urea exceeded the reference values, whereas creatinine was below the reference values. We concluded that the inclusion of up to 28% coffee pulp in the diet did not affect the productive parameters, decreases the neutrophil count without affect health status of lambs during fattening