Blood Glucose Forecasting using LSTM Variants under the Context of Open Source Artificial Pancreas System

High accuracy of blood glucose prediction over the long term is essential for preventative diabetes management. The emerging closed-loop insulin delivery system such as the artificial pancreas system (APS) provides opportunities for improved glycaemic control for patients with type 1 diabetes. Existing blood glucose studies are proven effective only within 30 minutes but the accuracy deteriorates drastically when the prediction horizon increases to 45 minutes and 60 minutes. Deep learning, especially for long short term memory (LSTM) and its variants have recently been applied in various areas to achieve state-of-the-art results in tasks with complex time series data. In this study, we present deep LSTM based models that are capable of forecasting long term blood glucose levels with improved prediction and clinical accuracy. We evaluate our approach using 20 cases(878,000 glucose values) from Open Source Artificial Pancreas System (OpenAPS). On 30-minutes and 45-minutes prediction, our Stacked-LSTM achieved the best performance with Root-Mean-Square-Error (RMSE) marks 11.96 & 15.81 and Clark-Grid-ZoneA marks 0.887 & 0.784. In terms of 60-minutes prediction, our ConvLSTM has the best performance with RMSE = 19.6 and Clark-Grid-ZoneA=0.714. Our models outperform existing methods in both prediction and clinical accuracy. This research can hopefully support patients with type 1 diabetes to better manage their behavior in a more preventative way and can be used in future real APS context

The economic costs of limited health literacy in China: evidence from China’s National Health Literacy Surveillance data

BACKGROUND: Limited health literacy is a public health challenge contributing to the rising health care costs. We assess the economic costs of limited health literacy in China using data from the National Health Literacy Surveillance survey. METHODS: Our data includes a sample of 6316 residents aged 15–69 years old living in Ningbo, China, in 2019. We use box plots to examine the distribution of out-of-pocket health expenditure by the level of health literacy. We then use the estimates from a two-part model to assess the contribution of limited health literacy to individual medical spending and the aggregate health expenditure at different levels of health literacy for the adult population in Ningbo. RESULTS: Medical costs of limited health literacy are about 10% (177 CNY or about 25 USD) of the annual medical expense of a resident aged 15–69 living in Ningbo. The medical cost of limited health literacy is greater among the rural, female, and older groups than others. If the proportion of people with adequate health literacy increases from 22 to 30% (the target level by 2030), the aggregate out-of-pocket health expenditure in Ningbo will decrease by 100 million CNY (14 million USD), or 0.88% of the 2019 Ningbo government expenditure on health care. CONCLUSIONS: This paper highlights the direct and indirect economic costs associated with limited health literacy. The results should help policymakers evaluate the cost-effectiveness of relevant programs that aim to improve residents’ health literacy. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s12913-022-07795-9

The Community Health Supporting Environments and Residents’ Health and Well-Being:The Role of Health Literacy

We evaluate the impacts that health supporting environments have on residents’ health and well-being. Using a stratified multi-stage sampling method, we select a sample of 12,360 permanent adult residents aged 15–69, and collect information on their health literacy level, as well as their demographic background and health. This individual level data is then merged with the administrative health supporting environment data. More than two thirds of residents self-reported having good/excellent health, and the percent of adults living in communities with healthy parks, healthy trails, and healthy huts in their community is 23 percent, 43 percent, and 25 percent, respectively. Controlling for a series of confounding factors at the community and individual levels, we find that healthy parks and healthy trails are positively correlated with self-reported health, which increases the probability of self-reporting good health by 2.0 percentage points (p < 0.10) and 6.0 percentage points (p < 0.01), respectively. Access to healthy huts is negatively associated with self-reported health, decreasing the probability of self-reporting good health by 5.0 percentage points (p < 0.01). Health literacy plays a role in moderating the effect of health parks, and a positive effect is more likely to be observed among adults with lower health literacy. Health supporting environments may play a role in reducing the likelihood of undiagnosed diseases and changing residents’ lifestyles, which promotes the health and well-being of residents, especially among those with inadequate health literacy

Study of Alloying Process on 40Cr Surface with Electron Beam after Electroplated Cr Layer

The electroplated hard chromium coat was selected as precoating to improve surface properties of 40Cr. Then electron beam alloying process was experimentalized. The relation rules were summarized between alloying process parameters and overall surface properties by surface morphology observation, surface energy spectrum analysis, EDX analysis in section, and XRD. Experiment results showed that the microcracks appeared on surface of electron beam alloying specimen. Microcracks could disappear when the orthogonal experimental optimum process was used. The matrix metal elements diffused into metal coating surface after electron beam treatment. The maximum depth of alloyed layer could reach 8 μm after electron beam alloying treatment, and electron beam alloying process generated new residual austenite phase

Surface decoration by Spirulina polysaccharide enhances the cellular uptake and anticancer efficacy of selenium nanoparticles

A simple and solution-phase method for functionalization of selenium nanoparticles (SeNPs) with Spirulina polysaccharides (SPS) has been developed in the present study. The cellular uptake and anticancer activity of SPS-SeNPs were also evaluated. Monodisperse and homogeneous spherical SPS-SeNPs with diameters ranging from 20 nm to 50 nm were achieved under optimized conditions, which were stable in the solution phase for at least 3 months. SPS surface decoration significantly enhanced the cellular uptake and cytotoxicity of SeNPs toward several human cancer cell lines. A375 human melanoma cells were found extremely susceptible to SPS-SeNPs with half maximal (50%) inhibitory concentration value of 7.94 μM. Investigation of the underlying mechanisms revealed that SPS-SeNPs inhibited cancer cell growth through induction of apoptosis, as evidenced by an increase in sub-G1 cell population, deoxyribonucleic acid fragmentation, chromatin condensation, and phosphatidylserine translocation. Results suggest that the strategy to use SPS as a surface decorator could be an effective way to enhance the cellular uptake and anticancer efficacy of nanomaterials. SPS-SeNPs may be a potential candidate for further evaluation as a chemopreventive and chemotherapeutic agent against human cancers

Effect of growth temperature on the morphology and phonon properties of InAs nanowires on Si substrates

Catalyst-free, vertical array of InAs nanowires (NWs) are grown on Si (111) substrate using MOCVD technique. The as-grown InAs NWs show a zinc-blende crystal structure along a < 111 > direction. It is found that both the density and length of InAs NWs decrease with increasing growth temperatures, while the diameter increases with increasing growth temperature, suggesting that the catalyst-free growth of InAs NWs is governed by the nucleation kinetics. The longitudinal optical and transverse optical (TO) mode of InAs NWs present a phonon frequency slightly lower than those of InAs bulk materials, which are speculated to be caused by the defects in the NWs. A surface optical mode is also observed for the InAs NWs, which shifts to lower wave-numbers when the diameter of NWs is decreased, in agreement with the theory prediction. The carrier concentration is extracted to be 2.25 × 1017 cm-3 from the Raman line shape analysis. A splitting of TO modes is also observed

Selenium nanoparticles decorated with Ulva lactuca polysaccharide potentially attenuate colitis by inhibiting NF-κB mediated hyper inflammation

Additional file 1. Supplemental information of ULP-SeNPs concerns their stability in physiological solutions, uptake by BMDMs and effect on NF-κB activation

Significant wintertime PM_(2.5) mitigation in the Yangtze River Delta, China, from 2016 to 2019: observational constraints on anthropogenic emission controls

Ambient fine particulate matter (PM_(2.5)) mitigation relies strongly on anthropogenic emission control measures, the actual effectiveness of which is challenging to pinpoint owing to the complex synergies between anthropogenic emissions and meteorology. Here, observational constraints on model simulations allow us to derive not only reliable PM_(2.5) evolution but also accurate meteorological fields. On this basis, we isolate meteorological factors to achieve reliable estimates of surface PM_(2.5) responses to both long-term and emergency emission control measures from 2016 to 2019 over the Yangtze River Delta (YRD), China. The results show that long-term emission control strategies play a crucial role in curbing PM_(2.5) levels, especially in the megacities and other areas with abundant anthropogenic emissions. The G20 summit hosted in Hangzhou in 2016 provides a unique and ideal opportunity involving the most stringent, even unsustainable, emergency emission control measures. These emergency measures lead to the largest decrease (∼ 35 µg m⁻³, ∼ 59 %) in PM_(2.5) concentrations in Hangzhou. The hotspots also emerge in megacities, especially in Shanghai (32 µg m⁻³, 51 %), Nanjing (27 µg m⁻³, 55 %), and Hefei (24 µg m⁻³, 44 %) because of the emergency measures. Compared to the long-term policies from 2016 to 2019, the emergency emission control measures implemented during the G20 Summit achieve more significant decreases in PM_(2.5) concentrations (17 µg m⁻³ and 41 %) over most of the whole domain, especially in Hangzhou (24 µg m⁻³, 48 %) and Shanghai (21 µg m⁻³, 45 %). By extrapolation, we derive insight into the magnitude and spatial distribution of PM_(2.5) mitigation potential across the YRD, revealing significantly additional room for curbing PM_(2.5) levels