Prevalence of diagnosed and undiagnosed cardiovascular disease burden in community dwelling 85+ year olds

Objectives: The prevalence of cardiovascular diseases including heart failure (HF), atrial fibrillation (AF) and peripheral vascular disease (PVD) rises sharply among those aged 85 years and over, who now constitute the most rapidly increasing age group worldwide. Majority of this disease burden remains undiagnosed. Most previous community-based studies of left ventricular (LV) dysfunction and HF included only small numbers in this age group. We conducted a community-based study of 85+ year olds using domiciliary echocardiography, electrocardiography and ankle brachial index (ABI) assessments to estimate the prevalence of LV dysfunction, AF and PVD. We cross-referenced our findings to pre-existing HF, AF and PVD diagnoses present in general practice (GP) medical records to estimate the proportion of undiagnosed cardiovascular pathology. We also assessed to diagnostic performance of NT-proBNP to detect underlying LV dysfunction. Design: Cross-sectional analysis of data from Newcastle 85+ Cohort Study. Setting: Primary care, North-East England. Participants: 427 men and women (60.9% women) aged 85+ years and above, from Newcastle 85+ Study. Measurements: Assessment was conducted in home setting. 2-D and Doppler echocardiography was performed, with LV systolic and diastolic function graded according to American Society of Echocardiography guidelines. A dyspnoea questionnaire was used to assign New York Heart Association (NYHA) functional severity class. ABI measurement and other measures to assess arterial stiffness including pulse wave velocity and pulse wave analysis were carried out by portable sphygmoCor and vicorder devices. Bloods samples were taken for NT-proBNP levels. Previous diagnoses of HF, AF and PVD were abstracted from the GP medical records. Results: Normal LV function (ejection fraction greater than 55% and normal/mildly impaired diastolic function) was found in just 37.2% of participants. 48.4% had LV systolic dysfunction and 14.4% had isolated diastolic dysfunction. 66.1% people with underlying LV systolic or diastolic dysfunction, had symptoms of breathlessness (NYHA II or above). Overall 37.4% of participants had undiagnosed symptomatic significant LV dysfunction (29.5% systolic, 7.9% isolated diastolic). 23.8% of participants with pre existing diagnosis of HF, had no echocardiographic evidence of underling systolic or diastolic dysfunction. Markers of arterial stiffness were not significantly associated with LV dysfunction. Diagnostic performance of NT-proBNP to detect underlying symptomatic or asymptomatic dysfunction was not robust. Prevalence of peripheral vascular disease was 22.1%. 19.0% of participants who had no formal GP diagnosis of PVD had definite PVD on the basis of ABI assessment. Prevalence of atrial fibrillation was 25.5% in the entire cohort. Nearly half (53.2%) of these patients had had no existing GP diagnosis of AF. 87.2% participants with AF were CHA2DS2-VASc score 3 or above. Only 15.6% participants with AF were taking warfarin. In remaining 84.4% participants with AF, who were not on warfarin, only 42.4% participants were taking antiplatelet medications. Conclusions: Systolic and diastolic LV dysfunction was much commoner in 85+ year olds than most previous studies have suggested, affecting around half of a community-dwelling sample; the majority of cases were symptomatic. Despite a national initiative to improve heart failure management within primary care in England, over 80% of very old people with symptomatic significant LV dysfunction remained undetected. Prevalence of AF and PVD is also much common in that rapidly expanding fraction of population, majority of which remains undiagnosed. There is need to establish effective ways to detect this cardiovascular disease burden in very old population.EThOS - Electronic Theses Online ServiceGBUnited Kingdo

Videoprompter: an ensemble of foundational models for zero-shot video understanding

Vision-language models (VLMs) classify the query video by calculating a similarity score between the visual features and text-based class label representations. Recently, large language models (LLMs) have been used to enrich the text-based class labels by enhancing the descriptiveness of the class names. However, these improvements are restricted to the text-based classifier only, and the query visual features are not considered. In this paper, we propose a framework which combines pre-trained discriminative VLMs with pre-trained generative video-to-text and text-to-text models. We introduce two key modifications to the standard zero-shot setting. First, we propose language-guided visual feature enhancement and employ a video-to-text model to convert the query video to its descriptive form. The resulting descriptions contain vital visual cues of the query video, such as what objects are present and their spatio-temporal interactions. These descriptive cues provide additional semantic knowledge to VLMs to enhance their zeroshot performance. Second, we propose video-specific prompts to LLMs to generate more meaningful descriptions to enrich class label representations. Specifically, we introduce prompt techniques to create a Tree Hierarchy of Categories for class names, offering a higher-level action context for additional visual cues, We demonstrate the effectiveness of our approach in video understanding across three different zero-shot settings: 1) video action recognition, 2) video-to-text and textto-video retrieval, and 3) time-sensitive video tasks. Consistent improvements across multiple benchmarks and with various VLMs demonstrate the effectiveness of our proposed framework. Our code will be made publicly available

Mechanical Behavior of Normal Concrete Reinforced with Kantharo Suter Fiber

Physical characteristics of concrete can be enhanced by addition of different materials in various proportions. Fibrous substances, such as, steel, synthetic, glass, and natural fibers not only increase the structural and tensile strength but also cohesion of concrete by overcoming micro cracks and deficiencies in concrete. In this study, the effect of Kantharo suter fibers (animal hair) on compressive, flexural and split tensile strength, and workability of plain concrete was determined. For that, experiments were conducted on concrete cubes, beams and cylinders by adding different proportions of Kantharo suter fibers from 0.125 to 1.0 percentage by weight of cement. In each proportion of Kantharo suter fibers, three cubes, three cylinders and one beam were casted and cured for 28 days. The acquired results were compared with the plain cement concrete specimens. It was discovered from the results that 0.375 percentages of Kantharo suter fibers in normal concrete was optimum by weight of cement. The strength parameters and slump of concrete showed better results than control mixes even without using any admixture in the specimens. This study could also be enhanced using combinations of different fibers and other admixtures

RNA interference-mediated knockdown of a cytochrome P450 gene enhanced the toxicity of α-cypermethrin in xanthotoxin-fed larvae of Spodoptera exigua (Hübner)

The beet armyworm (Spodoptera exigua) is a highly polyphagous agricultural pest that is distributed worldwide. However, the adaptive mechanisms of S. exigua for various insecticides and defensive substances in host plants are unknown. Insect P450 monooxygenases play an important role in the detoxification of plant toxins and insecticides, leading to insecticides resistance. We investigated the induced effects of xanthotoxin exposure on detoxification enzyme activity and larval tolerance to α-cypermethrin in S. exigua. Our results showed that the lethal concentration (LC50) of α-cypermethrin for xanthotoxin-exposed larvae was 2.1-fold higher than in the control. Moreover, cytochrome P450 enzyme activity was significantly elevated by upregulation of P450 genes in treated larvae. RT-qPCR results showed that CYP9A10 expression level was significantly increased in all treatments, while maximal expression level was observed in xanthotoxin+α-cypermethrin-fed larvae. RNAi-mediated silencing of CYP9A10 further increased mortality by 18%, 26% and 35% at 48 h and by 27%, 43% and 55% at 72 h when larvae were exposed to diets containing chemicals as compared to the control. The results show that CYP9A10 might play an important role in xanthotoxin and α-cypermethrin detoxification in S. exigua. RNAi-mediated silencing could provide an effective synergistic agent for pest control or insecticide resistance management

Joint Research Day, UClan, Burnley 2018

The Joint Research Day between Uclan and ELHT took place on the 27th of November, at Victoria Mills, Burnley. The event brought together researchers and clinicians to showcase recent research, share new ideas about clinical problems that need tackling and seek collaborative interest between ELHT and UCLan staff. Uclan researchers from various academic/ research disciplines such as engineering, computer science, psychology, and health participated. The event was an opportunity to: • Hear about current local research projects, • Get involved in planned research, • Develop research ideas, • Develop collaborative partnerships. The program included • Keynote lectures by Professor St John Crean, Pro Vice Chancellor, Uclan (the second keynote speaker to be announced), • Presentations and posters of local studies. • Workshops

Branding China through the internationalization of higher education sector: an international students’ perspective from China

The purpose of this research is to understand how nation branding initiatives complement education diplomacy for a country such as China and to investigate how country distance shapes perceptions of China across a large international student contingency in China. We use Ghemawat’s [(2001). Distance still matters. Harvard Business Review, 79(8), 137–147] CAGE distance framework, nation branding theory [Anholt, 2007. Competitive identity: The new brand management for nations, cities and regions. New York, NY: Palgrave Macmillan] and brand equity theory [Aaker, D. A. (1991). Managingbrand equity. New York, NY: The Free Press; Yoo & Donthu (2001). Developing and validating a multidimensional consumer-based brand equity scale. Journal of Business Research, 52(1), 1–14] to provide theoretical support for the answers to our questions. It was found out that country distances are relevant in determining national images. While national image dimensions for China positively influence behavioral intentions related to China and positively contribute to the brand equity of HEIs. A multi-group analysis shows that significant differences exist between international students belonging to different regions in their disposition towards China as a country and China as a destination for higher education. The international strategies of firms in shaping perceptions related to national images

EXPERIMENTAL ANALYSIS OF PERFORMANCE CHARACTERISTICS OF DIESEL ENGINE USING BIODIESEL BLENDS PREPARED WITH ETHANOL

Due of the predicted diminution of the fossil fuels in the near future, it has become a challenge for human beings to survive.  Serious attempts have been made to find out new and sustainable energy resources. Biodiesel, an alternative to diesel fuel, is produced by the transesterification of vegetal oil is suitable to use in diesel based engines without their modifications.  In this research biodiesel is produced whose density is similar to that of the gasoline as ethanol is used instead of methanol. Series of experiments were conducted using blends of the prepared biodiesel and the pure diesel oil. The performance characteristics of the Perkins Engine were analyzed at 1500 rpm where load was increased gradually from 50 to 100%.  A result specific fuel consumption of biodiesel has decreased by 7.0% as compared to the conventional diesel fuel.  It was also investigated that the brake thermal efficiency of the engine is increased by 6.0% when ordinary diesel is replaced with the mixture of biodiesel and diesel

In-situ oxidative degradation of sulfamethoxazole by calcium peroxide/persulfate dual oxidant system in water and soil

Calcium peroxide (CaO₂) and persulfate (PS) dual oxidant system is an innovative in-situ chemical oxidation (ISCO) technique for the restoration of contaminated groundwater. Several field applications also confirm its efficacy in remediating the groundwater, however, published articles are rarely present. In this work, the performance of the CaO₂/PS system was examined for the degradation of sulfamethoxazole (SMX) in the SMX polluted soil and water. Results indicated that SMX could be efficiently degraded with CaO₂ and PS (2 g/L dosages for each oxidant) around neutral pH (7), and 95.8% pollutant removed after 36 h of reaction time. The removal efficiency of SMX improved as the concentrations of CaO₂ and PS were increased. Moreover, SMX removal was significantly decreased with the increase of initial solution pH. This dual oxidant system at 30 °C was also used for the remediation of SMX (10 mg/kg) spiked soil. Soil degradation experiment was performed at 150 rpm of shaking speed using soil slurry (soil/water; 1/1 ratio) at pH 7. Dual oxidant dosage was kept at 2 g/L CaO₂ and 2 g/L PS. The results showed that this dual oxidant system is also very efficient for the antibiotics SMX degradation in the soil system. Overall, an insight knowledge and practical information gained from this work will help in the treatment of SMX contaminated soil and water as well as wastewater with CaO₂/PS dual oxidant system