Fuzzy rule based multiwavelet ECG signal denoising

Since different multiwavelets, pre- and post-filters have different impulse responses and frequency responses, different multiwavelets, pre- and post-filters should be selected and applied at different noise levels for signal denoising if signals are corrupted by additive white Gaussian noises. In this paper, some fuzzy rules are formulated for integrating different multiwavelets, pre- and post-filters together so that expert knowledge on employing different multiwavelets, pre- and post-filters at different noise levels on denoising performances is exploited. When an ECG signal is received, the noise level is first estimated. Then, based on the estimated noise level and our proposed fuzzy rules, different multiwavelets, pre- and post-filters are integrated together. A hard thresholding is applied on the multiwavelet coefficients. According to extensive numerical computer simulations, our proposed fuzzy rule based multiwavelet denoising algorithm outperforms traditional multiwavelet denoising algorithms by 30%

Autonomous response of a third-order digital filter with two’s complement arithmetic realized in parallel form

This paper investigates the output and state trajectories of a third-order digital filter with two’s complement arithmetic realized in parallel form. Although the output of the third-order digital filter seems to behave randomly, some regular patterns can be displayed on the plot of versus , where those regular patterns are similar to the second-order case. When the first-order subsystem is operated at the marginally stable points, the output of the third-order system is still mainly dependent on the behaviors of the corresponding second-order digital filter, even though overflow occurs. Explicit equations relating the trajectories of the system to the filter parameters and the initial conditions provide further insights into the behaviors of the system

Fuzzy multiwavelet denoising on an ECG signal

Since different multiwavelets, pre- and post-filters have different impulse and frequency responses characteristics, different multiwavelets, pre- and post-filters should be selected, integrated and applied at different noise levels if a signal is corrupted by an additive white Gaussian noise (AWGN). In this letter, some fuzzy rules on selecting and integrating different multiwavelets, pre- and post-filters together are proposed. These fuzzy rules are setup based on the training results of the denoising performances of applying different multiwavelets, pre- and post-filters at different noise levels. When a new electrocardiogram (ECG) signal is applied, the appropriate multiwavelets, pre- and post-filters are selected and integrated based on fuzzy rules and the noise level of the signal. A hard thresholding is applied on the multiwavelet coefficients. According to an extensive simulation, we found that our proposed fuzzy rule-based multiwavelet denoising algorithm achieves 30% improvement compared to the traditional multiwavelet denoising algorithms

Viscoelastic solid-repellent coatings for extreme water saving and global sanitation

Water scarcity threatens over half of the world’s population, yet over 141 billion litres of fresh water are used globally each day for toilet flushing. This is nearly six times the daily water consumption of the population in Africa. The toilet water footprint is so large primarily because large volumes of water are necessary for the removal of human faeces; human faeces is viscoelastic and sticky in nature, causing it to adhere to conventional surfaces. Here, we designed and fabricated the liquid-entrenched smooth surface (LESS)—a sprayable non-fouling coating that can reduce cleaning water consumption by ~90% compared with untreated surfaces due to its extreme repellency towards liquids, bacteria and viscoelastic solids. Importantly, LESS-coated surfaces can repel viscoelastic solids with dynamic viscosities spanning over nine orders of magnitude (that is, three orders of magnitude higher than has previously been reported for other repellent materials). With an estimated 1 billion or more toilets and urinals worldwide, incorporating LESS coating into sanitation systems will have significant implications for global sanitation and large-scale wastewater reduction for sustainable water management

Genome-Wide Association Study of Hepatocellular Carcinoma in Southern Chinese Patients with Chronic Hepatitis B Virus Infection

One of the most relevant risk factors for hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) development is chronic hepatitis B virus (HBV) infection, but only a fraction of chronic HBV carriers develop HCC, indicating that complex interactions among viral, environmental and genetic factors lead to HCC in HBV-infected patients. So far, host genetic factors have incompletely been characterized. Therefore, we performed a genome-wide association (GWA) study in a Southern Chinese cohort consisting of 95 HBV-infected HCC patients (cases) and 97 HBV-infected patients without HCC (controls) using the Illumina Human610-Quad BeadChips. The top single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) were then validated in an independent cohort of 500 cases and 728 controls. 4 SNPs (rs12682266, rs7821974, rs2275959, rs1573266) at chromosome 8p12 showed consistent association in both the GWA and replication phases (ORcombined = 1.31–1.39; pcombined = 2.71×10−5–5.19×10−4; PARcombined = 26–31%). We found a 2.3-kb expressed sequence tag (EST) in the region using in-silico data mining and verified the existence of the full-length EST experimentally. The expression level of the EST was significantly reduced in human HCC tumors in comparison to the corresponding non-tumorous liver tissues (P<0.001). Results from sequence analysis and in-vitro protein translation study suggest that the transcript might function as a long non-coding RNA. In summary, our study suggests that variations at chromosome 8p12 may promote HCC in patients with HBV. Further functional studies of this region may help understand HBV-associated hepatocarcinogenesis

ITGAM is associated with disease susceptibility and renal nephritis of systemic lupus erythematosus in Hong Kong Chinese and Thai

ITGAM was recently found to be associated with systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) in populations of not only European ancestry, but also in Hispanic- and African-Americans, Mexicans and Colombians. The risk alleles in the gene, however, were found to be monomorphic in two Asian populations examined: Japanese and Korean. In this study, using a collection of 910 SLE patients and 2360 controls from Chinese living in Hong Kong, analyzed by both genome-wide association and direct sequencing, we confirmed the association of the same risk alleles in ITGAM with the disease. These findings were further replicated in the Thai population with 278 patients and 383 ethnicity- and geography-matched controls. Subphenotype stratification analyses showed significantly more involvement of the gene in patients with renal nephritis and neurological disorders. Although our results support a pivotal role by rs1143679 (R77H) in disease association, our data also suggests an additional contribution from rs1143683, another non-synonymous polymorphism in this gene (A858V). Therefore, despite the low-allele frequencies of the risk alleles of the gene in our two Asian populations, ITGAM was confirmed to be a risk factor related to disease susceptibility and probably severe manifestations of SLE

Genome-Wide Association Study in Asian Populations Identifies Variants in ETS1 and WDFY4 Associated with Systemic Lupus Erythematosus

Systemic lupus erythematosus is a complex and potentially fatal autoimmune disease, characterized by autoantibody production and multi-organ damage. By a genome-wide association study (320 patients and 1,500 controls) and subsequent replication altogether involving a total of 3,300 Asian SLE patients from Hong Kong, Mainland China, and Thailand, as well as 4,200 ethnically and geographically matched controls, genetic variants in ETS1 and WDFY4 were found to be associated with SLE (ETS1: rs1128334, P = 2.33×10−11, OR = 1.29; WDFY4: rs7097397, P = 8.15×10−12, OR = 1.30). ETS1 encodes for a transcription factor known to be involved in a wide range of immune functions, including Th17 cell development and terminal differentiation of B lymphocytes. SNP rs1128334 is located in the 3′-UTR of ETS1, and allelic expression analysis from peripheral blood mononuclear cells showed significantly lower expression level from the risk allele. WDFY4 is a conserved protein with unknown function, but is predominantly expressed in primary and secondary immune tissues, and rs7097397 in WDFY4 changes an arginine residue to glutamine (R1816Q) in this protein. Our study also confirmed association of the HLA locus, STAT4, TNFSF4, BLK, BANK1, IRF5, and TNFAIP3 with SLE in Asians. These new genetic findings may help us to gain a better understanding of the disease and the functions of the genes involved

PacBio But Not Illumina Technology Can Achieve Fast, Accurate and Complete Closure of the High GC, Complex Burkholderia pseudomallei Two-Chromosome Genome

Although PacBio third-generation sequencers have improved the read lengths of genome sequencing which facilitates the assembly of complete genomes, no study has reported success in using PacBio data alone to completely sequence a two-chromosome bacterial genome from a single library in a single run. Previous studies using earlier versions of sequencing chemistries have at most been able to finish bacterial genomes containing only one chromosome with de novo assembly. In this study, we compared the robustness of PacBio RS II, using one SMRT cell and the latest P6-C4 chemistry, with Illumina HiSeq 1500 in sequencing the genome of Burkholderia pseudomallei, a bacterium which contains two large circular chromosomes, very high G+C content of 68–69%, highly repetitive regions and substantial genomic diversity, and represents one of the largest and most complex bacterial genomes sequenced, using a reference genome generated by hybrid assembly using PacBio and Illumina datasets with subsequent manual validation. Results showed that PacBio data with de novo assembly, but not Illumina, was able to completely sequence the B. pseudomallei genome without any gaps or mis-assemblies. The two large contigs of the PacBio assembly aligned unambiguously to the reference genome, sharing &gt;99.9% nucleotide identities. Conversely, Illumina data assembled using three different assemblers resulted in fragmented assemblies (201–366 contigs), sharing only 92.2–100% and 92.0–100% nucleotide identities to chromosomes I and II reference sequences, respectively, with no indication that the B. pseudomallei genome consisted of two chromosomes with four copies of ribosomal operons. Among all assemblies, the PacBio assembly recovered the highest number of core and virulence proteins, and housekeeping genes based on whole-genome multilocus sequence typing (wgMLST). Most notably, assembly solely based on PacBio outperformed even hybrid assembly using both PacBio and Illumina datasets. Hybrid approach generated only 74 contigs, while the PacBio data alone with de novo assembly achieved complete closure of the two-chromosome B. pseudomallei genome without additional costly bench work and further sequencing. PacBio RS II using P6-C4 chemistry is highly robust and cost-effective and should be the platform of choice in sequencing bacterial genomes, particularly for those that are well-known to be difficult-to-sequence

Meta-analysis Followed by Replication Identifies Loci in or near CDKN1B, TET3, CD80, DRAM1, and ARID5B as Associated with Systemic Lupus Erythematosus in Asians

Systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) is a prototype autoimmune disease with a strong genetic involvement and ethnic differences. Susceptibility genes identified so far only explain a small portion of the genetic heritability of SLE, suggesting that many more loci are yet to be uncovered for this disease. In this study, we performed a meta-analysis of genome-wide association studies on SLE in Chinese Han populations and followed up the findings by replication in four additional Asian cohorts with a total of 5,365 cases and 10,054 corresponding controls. We identified genetic variants in or near CDKN1B, TET3, CD80, DRAM1, and ARID5B as associated with the disease. These findings point to potential roles of cell-cycle regulation, autophagy, and DNA demethylation in SLE pathogenesis. For the region involving TET3 and that involving CDKN1B, multiple independent SNPs were identified, highlighting a phenomenon that might partially explain the missing heritability of complex diseases

Constraints on the χ_(c1) versus χ_(c2) polarizations in proton-proton collisions at √s = 8 TeV

The polarizations of promptly produced χ_(c1) and χ_(c2) mesons are studied using data collected by the CMS experiment at the LHC, in proton-proton collisions at √s=8  TeV. The χ_c states are reconstructed via their radiative decays χ_c → J/ψγ, with the photons being measured through conversions to e⁺e⁻, which allows the two states to be well resolved. The polarizations are measured in the helicity frame, through the analysis of the χ_(c2) to χ_(c1) yield ratio as a function of the polar or azimuthal angle of the positive muon emitted in the J/ψ → μ⁺μ⁻ decay, in three bins of J/ψ transverse momentum. While no differences are seen between the two states in terms of azimuthal decay angle distributions, they are observed to have significantly different polar anisotropies. The measurement favors a scenario where at least one of the two states is strongly polarized along the helicity quantization axis, in agreement with nonrelativistic quantum chromodynamics predictions. This is the first measurement of significantly polarized quarkonia produced at high transverse momentum