A Textile Sleeve for Monitoring Oxygen Saturation Using Multichannel Optical Fibre Photoplethysmography

Textile-based systems are an attractive prospect for wearable technology as they can provide monitoring of key physiological parameters in a comfortable and unobtrusive form. A novel system based on multichannel optical fibre sensor probes integrated into a textile sleeve is described. The system measures the photoplethysmogram (PPG) at two wavelengths (660 and 830 nm), which is then used to calculate oxygen saturation (SpO2). In order to achieve reliable measurement without adjusting the position of the garment, four plastic optical fibre (POF) probes are utilised to increase the likelihood that a high-quality PPG is obtained due to at least one of the probes being positioned over a blood vessel. Each probe transmits and receives light into the skin to measure the PPG and SpO2. All POFs are integrated in a stretchable textile sleeve with a circumference of 15 cm to keep the sensor in contact with the subject's wrist and to minimise motion artefacts. Tests on healthy volunteers show that the multichannel PPG sensor faithfully provides an SpO2 reading in at least one of the four sensor channels in all cases with no need for adjusting the position of the sleeve. This could not be achieved using a single sensor alone. The multichannel sensor is used to monitor the SpO2 of 10 participants with an average wrist circumference of 16.0 ± 0.6 cm. Comparing the developed sensor's SpO2 readings to a reference commercial oximeter (reflectance Masimo Radical-7) illustrates that the mean difference between the two sensors' readings is -0.03%, the upper limit of agreement (LOA) is 0.52% and the lower LOA is -0.58%. This multichannel sensor has the potential to achieve reliable, unobtrusive and comfortable textile-based monitoring of both heart rate and SpO2 during everyday life

Comparative RNA‐Seq transcriptome analyses reveal distinct metabolic pathways in diabetic nerve and kidney disease

Treating insulin resistance with pioglitazone normalizes renal function and improves small nerve fibre function and architecture; however, it does not affect large myelinated nerve fibre function in mouse models of type 2 diabetes (T2DM), indicating that pioglitazone affects the body in a tissue‐specific manner. To identify distinct molecular pathways regulating diabetic peripheral neuropathy (DPN) and nephropathy (DN), as well those affected by pioglitazone, we assessed DPN and DN gene transcript expression in control and diabetic mice with or without pioglitazone treatment. Differential expression analysis and self‐organizing maps were then used in parallel to analyse transcriptome data. Differential expression analysis showed that gene expression promoting cell death and the inflammatory response was reversed in the kidney glomeruli but unchanged or exacerbated in sciatic nerve by pioglitazone. Self‐organizing map analysis revealed that mitochondrial dysfunction was normalized in kidney and nerve by treatment; however, conserved pathways were opposite in their directionality of regulation. Collectively, our data suggest inflammation may drive large fibre dysfunction, while mitochondrial dysfunction may drive small fibre dysfunction in T2DM. Moreover, targeting both of these pathways is likely to improve DN. This study supports growing evidence that systemic metabolic changes in T2DM are associated with distinct tissue‐specific metabolic reprogramming in kidney and nerve and that these changes play a critical role in DN and small fibre DPN pathogenesis. These data also highlight the potential dangers of a ‘one size fits all’ approach to T2DM therapeutics, as the same drug may simultaneously alleviate one complication while exacerbating another.Peer Reviewedhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/138206/1/jcmm13136.pdfhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/138206/2/jcmm13136_am.pd

AD51B in Familial Breast Cancer

Common variation on 14q24.1, close to RAD51B, has been associated with breast cancer: rs999737 and rs2588809 with the risk of female breast cancer and rs1314913 with the risk of male breast cancer. The aim of this study was to investigate the role of RAD51B variants in breast cancer predisposition, particularly in the context of familial breast cancer in Finland. We sequenced the coding region of RAD51B in 168 Finnish breast cancer patients from the Helsinki region for identification of possible recurrent founder mutations. In addition, we studied the known rs999737, rs2588809, and rs1314913 SNPs and RAD51B haplotypes in 44,791 breast cancer cases and 43,583 controls from 40 studies participating in the Breast Cancer Association Consortium (BCAC) that were genotyped on a custom chip (iCOGS). We identified one putatively pathogenic missense mutation c.541C>T among the Finnish cancer patients and subsequently genotyped the mutation in additional breast cancer cases (n = 5259) and population controls (n = 3586) from Finland and Belarus. No significant association with breast cancer risk was seen in the meta-analysis of the Finnish datasets or in the large BCAC dataset. The association with previously identified risk variants rs999737, rs2588809, and rs1314913 was replicated among all breast cancer cases and also among familial cases in the BCAC dataset. The most significant association was observed for the haplotype carrying the risk-alleles of all the three SNPs both among all cases (odds ratio (OR): 1.15, 95% confidence interval (CI): 1.11–1.19, P = 8.88 x 10−16) and among familial cases (OR: 1.24, 95% CI: 1.16–1.32, P = 6.19 x 10−11), compared to the haplotype with the respective protective alleles. Our results suggest that loss-of-function mutations in RAD51B are rare, but common variation at the RAD51B region is significantly associated with familial breast cancer risk

Failed Recipients: Extracting Blood in a Papua New Guinean Hospital

Anthropologists studying voluntary-anonymous systems of blood donation have noted the ways in which they facilitate imaginings of national relatedness and integration. This paper focuses on family replacement systems in Papua New Guinea, where blood donated by a patient's relative replaces the units taken from the bank, in order to examine what kinds of relational imaginings are possible when blood is transacted between people who know one another. Patients in Madang Hospital are led to believe that it is their responsibility to obtain blood donations from their relatives within a kinship obligation system. However, articulations of kinship exchange with a biomedical blood economy are not as straightforward as hospital workers suggest. Instead the hospital emerges as a crucial, but hidden, mediator in these transactions. Doctors conceal from patients the fact that blood group incompatibilities mean blood intended for a specific person may be redirected elsewhere. The obviation of this 'biomedical technology' thus enables the hospital to harness patients' 'relational technologies' of gift exchange to feed the institution's blood economy. In contrast to anthropologists' common focus on blood donation, here attention is drawn to the role of recipients in negotiating different regimes of extraction