Development of a Manual Measurement Device for Measuring Hallux Valgus Angle in Patients with Hallux Valgus

open access articleBackground: Hallux valgus (HV) is one of the most common forefoot deformities, and its prevalence increases with age. HV has been associated with poor foot function, difficulty in fitting footwear and poor health-related quality of life. The aims of this study were to design and develop an easy-to-use measurement device for measuring hallux valgus angle (HVA) in patients with HV and to assess the measurement reliability of the newly designed measurement device. Methods: A manual measurement device for measuring HVA was designed and developed to test on patients with HV. Two measuring methods, i.e., test–retest and intra-observer measurements, were used to evaluate the repeatability and reliability of the newly designed measurement device. In the test–retest measurements, a total of 42 feet from 26 patients with HV were repeatedly measured by the same researcher using the manual measurement device every 3 weeks over a period of 12 months. The measurement reliability of the newly designed measurement device was analysed based on the collected HVA data. In the intra-observer measurements, a total of 22 feet from the same group of HV patients were measured by the same researcher using the manual measurement device and by a consultant using X-ray measurement for comparison. The intraclass correlation coefficient (ICC) was used to determine the correlation of measurements between the manual measurement device and X-ray measurement. Results: The mean of the difference between the two repeat measurements of HVA using the newly designed manual device was 0.62°, and the average of ICC was 0.995, which indicates excellent reliability. The ICC between X-ray and the average of twice-repeated manual measurements was 0.868, with 95% CI (0.649, 0.947) (p = 0.000). When the relationship in HVA between X-ray measurement and manual measurement using the new device was regressed as a linear relationship, the regression equation was y = 1.13x - 4.76 (R2 = 0.70). Conclusions: The newly designed measurement device is easy to use, with low-cost and excellent reliability for HVA measurement, with the potential for use in clinical practice

Enhancement of two-dimensional acoustic source identification with Fourier-based deconvolution beamforming

When utilizing conventional regular focus point distributions to define a relatively large source region, Fourier-based deconvolution beamforming, an attractive acoustic source identification technique, would suffer from some limitations: 1) significantly deteriorative location and quantification accuracy for sources away from the center of the focus region; 2) pronounced sidelobe contaminations. The arch-criminal is the assumption that the point spread function (PSF) is definitely shift-invariant over the entire focus region fails to be satisfied well. This paper focuses on remedying these limitations for two-dimensional (2D) acoustic source identification. First and foremost, a novel focus point generation approach is introduced, which can generate unconventional irregular 2D focus point distributions tending to make PSF more shift-invariant. Additionally, a sidelobe suppression approach is suggested. Effects of these approaches are examined both with computer simulations and experimentally. This study provides the feasibility of using Fourier-based deconvolution beamforming to accurately and efficiently identify acoustic sources in a relatively large region

The Evaluation of Orthotics in Reducing Hallux Valgus Angle in Patients with Hallux Valgus over a Twelve-Month Treatment

open access articleBackground: Hallux valgus (HV) is one of the most common forefoot deformities among females, and its prevalence increases with age. This study aims to evaluate the effectiveness of three different types of orthotics on the reduction in hallux valgus angle (HVA) for patients with mild and moderate hallux valgus deformities. Methods: Twenty-six patients (42 feet) with mild or moderate HV participated in the treatment with three types of orthotics in the current study. Patients were divided into three groups depending on their HV severities and the consideration of different function of the orthotics. Orthotic Type 1 is a biomechanical style orthotic applied to moderated HV in Group 1. Orthotic Type 2 is a wrap style orthotic used on mild and moderate HV with two sub-groups: mild HV in Group 2A and moderate HV in Group 2B. Orthotic Type 3 is a gel style orthotic for mild HV. Patients were required to wear the orthotics for between 6 and 8 h per night over a period of 12 months. The HVA was measured every 3 weeks using a newly designed Measuring Block. A paired t-test was used to compare the differences between initial and final HVA at different stages of HVA treatment with orthotics. Results: After the 12-month treatment, for moderate HV patients treated with the Orthotic Type 1, their HVA reduced by 5.05 degree (95% CI 1.37, 8.73), (p 0.05). For mild HV patients treated with the Orthotic Type 2, their HVA reduced by 2.44 degree (95% CI 1.39, 3.49) (p 0.05). Conclusions: Orthotic Type 1 showed a consistent significance in reduction in the HVA during the 12-month treatment, so it could be recommended for treating moderate HV. Orthotic Type 2 reduced the HVA, but it did not show a consistent significance in reduction in the HVA for mild and moderate HV. Orthotic Type 3 reduced the HVA, but it showed a volatile trend during 12 months without significant differences

Expectation-Maximization Contrastive Learning for Compact Video-and-Language Representations

Most video-and-language representation learning approaches employ contrastive learning, e.g., CLIP, to project the video and text features into a common latent space according to the semantic similarities of text-video pairs. However, such learned shared latent spaces are not often optimal, and the modality gap between visual and textual representation can not be fully eliminated. In this paper, we propose Expectation-Maximization Contrastive Learning (EMCL) to learn compact video-and-language representations. Specifically, we use the Expectation-Maximization algorithm to find a compact set of bases for the latent space, where the features could be concisely represented as the linear combinations of these bases. Such feature decomposition of video-and-language representations reduces the rank of the latent space, resulting in increased representing power for the semantics. Extensive experiments on three benchmark text-video retrieval datasets prove that our EMCL can learn more discriminative video-and-language representations than previous methods, and significantly outperform previous state-of-the-art methods across all metrics. More encouragingly, the proposed method can be applied to boost the performance of existing approaches either as a jointly training layer or an out-of-the-box inference module with no extra training, making it easy to be incorporated into any existing methods.Comment: Accepted to NeurIPS 202

A colorimetric method for point mutation detection using high-fidelity DNA ligase

The present study reported proof-of-principle for a genotyping assay approach that can detect single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) through the gold nanoparticle assembly and the ligase reaction. By incorporating the high-fidelity DNA ligase (Tth DNA ligase) into the allele-specific ligation-based gold nanoparticle assembly, this assay provided a convenient yet powerful colorimetric detection that enabled a straightforward single-base discrimination without the need of precise temperature control. Additionally, the ligase reaction can be performed at a relatively high temperature, which offers the benefit for mitigating the non-specific assembly of gold nanoparticles induced by interfering DNA strands. The assay could be implemented via three steps: a hybridization reaction that allowed two gold nanoparticle-tagged probes to hybrid with the target DNA strand, a ligase reaction that generates the ligation between perfectly matched probes while no ligation occurred between mismatched ones and a thermal treatment at a relatively high temperature that discriminate the ligation of probes. When the reaction mixture was heated to denature the formed duplex, the purple color of the perfect-match solution would not revert to red, while the mismatch gave a red color as the assembled gold nanoparticles disparted. The present approach has been demonstrated with the identification of a single-base mutation in codon 12 of a K-ras oncogene that is of significant value for colorectal cancers diagnosis, and the wild-type and mutant type were successfully scored. To our knowledge, this was the first report concerning SNP detection based on the ligase reaction and the gold nanoparticle assembly. Owing to its ease of operation and high specificity, it was expected that the proposed procedure might hold great promise in practical clinical diagnosis of gene-mutant diseases

Genome level analysis of rice mRNA 3′-end processing signals and alternative polyadenylation

The position of a poly(A) site of eukaryotic mRNA is determined by sequence signals in pre-mRNA and a group of polyadenylation factors. To reveal rice poly(A) signals at a genome level, we constructed a dataset of 55 742 authenticated poly(A) sites and characterized the poly(A) signals. This resulted in identifying the typical tripartite cis-elements, including FUE, NUE and CE, as previously observed in Arabidopsis. The average size of the 3′-UTR was 289 nucleotides. When mapped to the genome, however, 15% of these poly(A) sites were found to be located in the currently annotated intergenic regions. Moreover, an extensive alternative polyadenylation profile was evident where 50% of the genes analyzed had more than one unique poly(A) site (excluding microheterogeneity sites), and 13% had four or more poly(A) sites. About 4% of the analyzed genes possessed alternative poly(A) sites at their introns, 5′-UTRs, or protein coding regions. The authenticity of these alternative poly(A) sites was partially confirmed using MPSS data. Analysis of nucleotide profile and signal patterns indicated that there may be a different set of poly(A) signals for those poly(A) sites found in the coding regions. Based on the features of rice poly(A) signals, an updated algorithm termed PASS-Rice was designed to predict poly(A) sites

Up-Regulation of Mitochondrial Activity and Acquirement of Brown Adipose Tissue-Like Property in the White Adipose Tissue of Fsp27 Deficient Mice

Fsp27, a member of the Cide family proteins, was shown to localize to lipid droplet and promote lipid storage in adipocytes. We aimed to understand the biological role of Fsp27 in regulating adipose tissue differentiation, insulin sensitivity and energy balance. Fsp27−/− mice and Fsp27/lep double deficient mice were generated and we examined the adiposity, whole body metabolism, BAT and WAT morphology, insulin sensitivity, mitochondrial activity, and gene expression changes in these mouse strains. Furthermore, we isolated mouse embryonic fibroblasts (MEFs) from wildtype and Fsp27−/− mice, followed by their differentiation into adipocytes in vitro. We found that Fsp27 is expressed in both brown adipose tissue (BAT) and white adipose tissue (WAT) and its levels were significantly elevated in the WAT and liver of leptin-deficient ob/ob mice. Fsp27−/− mice had increased energy expenditure, lower levels of plasma triglycerides and free fatty acids. Furthermore, Fsp27−/− and Fsp27/lep double-deficient mice are resistant to diet-induced obesity and display increased insulin sensitivity. Moreover, white adipocytes in Fsp27−/− mice have reduced triglycerides accumulation and smaller lipid droplets, while levels of mitochondrial proteins, mitochondrial size and activity are dramatically increased. We further demonstrated that BAT-specific genes and key metabolic controlling factors such as FoxC2, PPAR and PGC1α were all markedly upregulated. In contrast, factors inhibiting BAT differentiation such as Rb, p107 and RIP140 were down-regulated in the WAT of Fsp27−/− mice. Remarkably, Fsp27−/− MEFs differentiated in vitro show many brown adipocyte characteristics in the presence of the thyroid hormone triiodothyronine (T3). Our data thus suggest that Fsp27 acts as a novel regulator in vivo to control WAT identity, mitochondrial activity and insulin sensitivity

Predictive modeling of plant messenger RNA polyadenylation sites

BACKGROUND: One of the essential processing events during pre-mRNA maturation is the post-transcriptional addition of a polyadenine [poly(A)] tail. The 3'-end poly(A) track protects mRNA from unregulated degradation, and indicates the integrity of mRNA through recognition by mRNA export and translation machinery. The position of a poly(A) site is predetermined by signals in the pre-mRNA sequence that are recognized by a complex of polyadenylation factors. These signals are generally tri-part sequence patterns around the cleavage site that serves as the future poly(A) site. In plants, there is little sequence conservation among these signal elements, which makes it difficult to develop an accurate algorithm to predict the poly(A) site of a given gene. We attempted to solve this problem. RESULTS: Based on our current working model and the profile of nucleotide sequence distribution of the poly(A) signals and around poly(A) sites in Arabidopsis, we have devised a Generalized Hidden Markov Model based algorithm to predict potential poly(A) sites. The high specificity and sensitivity of the algorithm were demonstrated by testing several datasets, and at the best combinations, both reach 97%. The accuracy of the program, called poly(A) site sleuth or PASS, has been demonstrated by the prediction of many validated poly(A) sites. PASS also predicted the changes of poly(A) site efficiency in poly(A) signal mutants that were constructed and characterized by traditional genetic experiments. The efficacy of PASS was demonstrated by predicting poly(A) sites within long genomic sequences. CONCLUSION: Based on the features of plant poly(A) signals, a computational model was built to effectively predict the poly(A) sites in Arabidopsis genes. The algorithm will be useful in gene annotation because a poly(A) site signifies the end of the transcript. This algorithm can also be used to predict alternative poly(A) sites in known genes, and will be useful in the design of transgenes for crop genetic engineering by predicting and eliminating undesirable poly(A) sites

Supplementation of hyaluronic acid injections with vitamin D improve knee function by attenuating synovial fluid oxidative stress in osteoarthritis patients with vitamin D insufficiency

ObjectivesThere is still controversy about the effect of vitamin D supplementation on osteoarthritis (OA). The purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of vitamin D supplementation with Hyaluronic acid (HA) injection on OA.MethodsWe investigated serum vitamin D levels and oxidative stress (OS) in synovial fluid from patients with OA who underwent total knee arthroplasty (grade IV, n = 24) and HA injection (grade II and III, n = 40). The effects of HA injection with or without oral vitamin D supplementation on synovial fluid OS and knee pain and function were then further investigated. Finally, patients underwent HA injection were divided into two groups according to vitamin D levels (vitamin D < or > 30 ng/ml), and the efficacy of the two groups were compared.ResultsThe results showed that the levels of glutathione peroxidase (GSH-PX) (P < 0.05) in the synovial fluid were lower in patients with stage IV OA than that in patients with stage II-III OA, while the levels of malondialdehyde (MDA) (P < 0.05) and lactate dehydrogenase (LDH) (P < 0.01) were significantly higher. Moreover, we found that age, BMI and vitamin D levels were significantly associated with the levels of oxidants and/or antioxidants in synovial fluid, and that vitamin D was significantly negatively correlated with BMI (R = −0.3527, p = 0.0043). Supplementation of HA injections with vitamin D significantly reduced the OS status in synovial fluid, attenuated knee pain and improved knee function in OA patients with vitamin D insufficiency.ConclusionWe conclude that maintenance of vitamin D sufficiency may be beneficial for the treatment of OA by improving OS in synovial fluid