A multi-sensing physical therapy assessment for children with cerebral palsy

This work presents the development of a multi-sensing interface called Palsy Thera Sense, to provide information data obtained during physical therapy of the children with cerebral palsy. It allows the monitoring the children's motor skills, and provide metrics that can be later used for proper and effective training. This interface is based on distributed force measurement system characterized by two different load cells. The signals from signals from the load cells distributed on the level of a force platform and at the level of child's body support ropes that are tied on the cerebral palsy spider cage are acquired and wireless transmitted to a client computation platform. Thus different tests can be carried out including, center of forces measurements and gait simulations. These tests can be study of children balance during different activities such as serious game playing for upper limb rehabilitation. The interface shown to be an important tool that provide support to cerebral palsy rehabilitation process, and for objective evaluation of the patients during the rehabilitation period. Several experimental results are included in the paper highlighting the capabilities of the designed and implemented multi-sensing system.info:eu-repo/semantics/acceptedVersio

Design of an artificial neural network and feature extraction to identify arrhythmias from ECG

This paper presents a design of an artificial neural network (ANN) and feature extraction methods to identify two types of arrhythmias in datasets obtained through electrocardiography (ECG) signals, namely arrhythmia dataset (AD) and supraventricular arrhythmia dataset (SAD). No special ANN toolkit was used; instead, each neuron and necessary calculus were modeled and individually programmed. Thus, four temporal-based features are used: heart rate (HR), R-peaks root mean square (R-RMS), RR-peaks variance (RR-VAR), and QSR-complex standard deviation (QSR-SD). The network architecture presents four neurons in the input layer, eight in hidden layer and an output layer with two neurons. The proposed classification method uses the MIT-BIH Dataset (Massachusetts Institute of Technology-Beth Israel Hospital) for training, validation and execution or test phases. Preliminary results show the high efficiency of the proposed ANN design and its classification method, reaching accuracies between 98.76% and 98.91%, when in the identification of NSRD and arrhythmic ECG; and accuracies of 86.37% (AD) and 76.35% (SAD), when analyzing only classifications between both arrhythmias.info:eu-repo/semantics/acceptedVersio

Emotions Assessment on Simulated Flights

Trabalho apresentado em 14th edition of IEEE International Symposium on Medical Measurement and Applications (MeMeA'19), junho 2019, Istanbul, TurquiaN/

Effect Of Long-term High-fat Diet Intake On Peripheral Insulin Sensibility, Blood Pressure, And Renal Function In Female Rats

Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo (FAPESP)Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES)This study determines whether 8-week high-fat diet (HFD) consumption alters insulin sensitivity, kidney function, and blood pressure (BP) in female rats when compared with standard rodent diet (ND) intake in gender-and age-matched rats. Methods: The present study investigates, in female Wistar HanUnib rats, the effect of long-term high-fat fed group (HFD) compared with standard chow on BP by an indirect tail-cuff method using an electro-sphygmomanometer, insulin and glucose function, and kidney function by creatinine and lithium clearances. Results: The current study shows glucose tolerance impairment, as demonstrated by increased fasting blood glucose (ND: 78 +/- 2.8 vs. HFD: 87 +/- 3.8 mg/dL) associated with reduced insulin secretion (ND: 0.58 +/- 0.07 vs. HFD: 0.40 +/- 0.03 ng/mL) in 8-week female HFD-treated rats. The incremental area under the curve (AUC, ND: 1,4558.0 +/- 536.0 vs. HFD: 1,6507.8 +/- 661.9), homeostasis model assessment of insulin resistance (HOMA-IR) index, and the first-order rate constant for the disappearance of glucose (Kitt) were significantly enhanced in 8-week HFD-treated rats compared with age-matched ND group (respectively, P = 0.03, P = 0.002, and P<0.0001). The current study also shows a significantly higher systolic BP measured in 5 and 8 weeks posttreatment in HFD (5-week HFD-treated: 155.25 +/- 10.54 mmHg and 8-week HFD-treated: 165 +/- 5.8 mmHg) (P=0.0001), when compared to BP values in 5-week ND, 137 +/- 4.24 mmHg and 8-week ND, 131.75 +/- 5.8 mmHg age-matched group. Otherwise, the glomerular filtration rate and renal sodium handling evaluated by FENa, FEPNa and FEPPNa, were unchanged in both groups. Conclusion: We may conclude that 8-week female HFD-fed rats compared with ND group stimulate harmful effects, such as BP rise and peripheral glucose intolerance. The increased BP occurs through insulin resistance and supposedly decreased vasodilatation response without any change on renal function.60FAPESP [2013/12486-5, 2009/513296-0]CAPESFundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo (FAPESP)Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES

Effect of long-term high-fat diet intake on peripheral insulin sensibility, blood pressure, and renal function in female rats

This study determines whether 8-week high-fat diet (HFD) consumption alters insulin sensitivity, kidney function, and blood pressure (BP) in female rats when compared with standard rodent diet (ND) intake in gender- and age-matched rats. The present study investigates, in female Wistar HanUnib rats, the effect of long-term high-fat fed group (HFD) compared with standard chow on BP by an indirect tail-cuff method using an electrosphygmomanometer, insulin and glucose function, and kidney function by creatinine and lithium clearances. The current study shows glucose tolerance impairment, as demonstrated by increased fasting blood glucose (ND: 78±2.8 vs. HFD: 87±3.8 mg/dL) associated with reduced insulin secretion (ND: 0.58±0.07 vs. HFD: 0.40±0.03 ng/mL) in 8-week female HFD-treated rats. The incremental area under the curve (AUC, ND: 1,4558.0±536.0 vs. HFD: 1,6507.8±661.9), homeostasis model assessment of insulin resistance (HOMA-IR) index, and the first-order rate constant for the disappearance of glucose (Kitt) were significantly enhanced in 8-week HFD-treated rats compared with age-matched ND group (respectively, P=0.03, P=0.002, and P<0.0001). The current study also shows a significantly higher systolic BP measured in 5 and 8 weeks posttreatment in HFD (5-week HFD-treated: 155.25±10.54 mmHg and 8-week HFD-treated: 165±5.8 mmHg) (P=0.0001), when compared to BP values in 5-week ND, 137±4.24 mmHg and 8-week ND, 131.75±5.8 mmHg age-matched group. Otherwise, the glomerular filtration rate and renal sodium handling evaluated by FENa, FEPNa and FEPPNa, were unchanged in both groups. We may conclude that 8-week female HFD-fed rats compared with ND group stimulate harmful effects, such as BP rise and peripheral glucose intolerance. The increased BP occurs through insulin resistance and supposedly decreased vasodilatation response without any change on renal function60COORDENAÇÃO DE APERFEIÇOAMENTO DE PESSOAL DE NÍVEL SUPERIOR - CAPESFUNDAÇÃO DE AMPARO À PESQUISA DO ESTADO DE SÃO PAULO - FAPESPnão tem2013/12486-5; 2009/513296-

Maternal psychological distress and fetal growth trajectories: the Generation R Study

Abstract BACKGROUND: Previous research suggests, though not consistently, that maternal psychological distress during pregnancy leads to adverse birth outcomes. We investigated whether maternal psychological distress affects fetal growth during the period of mid-pregnancy until birth. METHOD: Pregnant women (n=6313) reported levels of psychological distress using the Brief Symptom Inventory (anxious and depressive symptoms) and the Family Assessment Device (family stress) at 20.6 weeks pregnancy and had fetal ultrasound measurements in mid- and late pregnancy. Estimated fetal weight was calculated using head circumference, abdominal circumference and femur length. RESULTS: In mid-pregnancy, maternal distress was not linked to fetal size. In late pregnancy, however, anxious symptoms were related to fetal size after controlling for potential confounders. Anxious symptoms were also associated with a 37.73 g [95% confidence interval (CI) -69.22 to -6.25, p=0.019] lower birth weight. Wh

The Suppressor of AAC2 Lethality SAL1 Modulates Sensitivity of Heterologously Expressed Artemia ADP/ATP Carrier to Bongkrekate in Yeast

The ADP/ATP carrier protein (AAC) expressed in Artemia franciscana is refractory to bongkrekate. We generated two strains of Saccharomyces cerevisiae where AAC1 and AAC3 were inactivated and the AAC2 isoform was replaced with Artemia AAC containing a hemagglutinin tag (ArAAC-HA). In one of the strains the suppressor of ΔAAC2 lethality, SAL1, was also inactivated but a plasmid coding for yeast AAC2 was included, because the ArAACΔsal1Δ strain was lethal. In both strains ArAAC-HA was expressed and correctly localized to the mitochondria. Peptide sequencing of ArAAC expressed in Artemia and that expressed in the modified yeasts revealed identical amino acid sequences. The isolated mitochondria from both modified strains developed 85% of the membrane potential attained by mitochondria of control strains, and addition of ADP yielded bongkrekate-sensitive depolarizations implying acquired sensitivity of ArAAC-mediated adenine nucleotide exchange to this poison, independent from SAL1. However, growth of ArAAC-expressing yeasts in glycerol-containing media was arrested by bongkrekate only in the presence of SAL1. We conclude that the mitochondrial environment of yeasts relying on respiratory growth conferred sensitivity of ArAAC to bongkrekate in a SAL1-dependent manner. © 2013 Wysocka-Kapcinska et al

Piecewise Linear Models for the Quasiperiodic Transition to Chaos

We formulate and study analytically and computationally two families of piecewise linear degree one circle maps. These families offer the rare advantage of being non-trivial but essentially solvable models for the phenomenon of mode-locking and the quasi-periodic transition to chaos. For instance, for these families, we obtain complete solutions to several questions still largely unanswered for families of smooth circle maps. Our main results describe (1) the sets of maps in these families having some prescribed rotation interval; (2) the boundaries between zero and positive topological entropy and between zero length and non-zero length rotation interval; and (3) the structure and bifurcations of the attractors in one of these families. We discuss the interpretation of these maps as low-order spline approximations to the classic ``sine-circle'' map and examine more generally the implications of our results for the case of smooth circle maps. We also mention a possible connection to recent experiments on models of a driven Josephson junction.Comment: 75 pages, plain TeX, 47 figures (available on request

Analysis of sex and gender-specific research reveals a common increase in publications and marked differences between disciplines

Oertelt-Prigione S, Parol R, Krohn S, Preißner R, Regitz-Zagrosek V. Analysis of sex and gender-specific research reveals a common increase in publications and marked differences between disciplines. BMC Medicine. 2010;8(1): 70.© 2010 Oertelt-Prigione et al; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the CreativeCommons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited