Preliminary Study:Learning the Impact of Simulation Time on Reentry Location and Morphology Induced by Personalized Cardiac Modeling

Personalized cardiac modeling is widely used for studying the mechanisms of cardiac arrythmias. Due to the high demanding of computational resource of modeling, the arrhythmias induced in the models are usually simulated for just a few seconds. In clinic, it is common that arrhythmias last for more than several minutes and the morphologies of reentries are not always stable, so it is not clear that whether the simulation of arrythmias for just a few seconds is long enough to match the arrhythmias detected in patients. This study aimed to observe how long simulation of the induced arrhythmias in the personalized cardiac models is sufficient to match the arrhythmias detected in patients. A total of 5 contrast enhanced MRI datasets of patient hearts with myocardial infarction were used in this study. Then, a classification method based on Gaussian mixture model was used to detect the infarct tissue. For each reentry, 3 s and 10 s were simulated. The characteristics of each reentry simulated for different duration were studied. Reentries were induced in all 5 ventricular models and sustained reentries were induced at 39 stimulation sites in the model. By analyzing the simulation results, we found that 41% of the sustained reentries in the 3 s simulation group terminated in the longer simulation groups (10 s). The second finding in our simulation was that only 23.1% of the sustained reentries in the 3 s simulation did not change location and morphology in the extended 10 s simulation. The third finding was that 35.9% reentries were stable in the 3 s simulation and should be extended for the simulation time. The fourth finding was that the simulation results in 10 s simulation matched better with the clinical measurements than the 3 s simulation. It was shown that 10 s simulation was sufficient to make simulation results stable. The findings of this study not only improve the simulation accuracy, but also reduce the unnecessary simulation time to achieve the optimal use of computer resources to improve the simulation efficiency and shorten the simulation time to meet the time node requirements of clinical operation on patients

Ankyrin repeat and SOCS box containing protein 4 (Asb-4) colocalizes with insulin receptor substrate 4 (IRS4) in the hypothalamic neurons and mediates IRS4 degradation

Abstract Background The arcuate nucleus of the hypothalamus regulates food intake. Ankyrin repeat and SOCS box containing protein 4 (Asb-4) is expressed in neuropeptide Y and proopiomelanocortin (POMC) neurons in the arcuate nucleus, target neurons in the regulation of food intake and metabolism by insulin and leptin. However, the target protein(s) of Asb-4 in these neurons remains unknown. Insulin receptor substrate 4 (IRS4) is an adaptor molecule involved in the signal transduction by both insulin and leptin. In the present study we examined the colocalization and interaction of Asb-4 with IRS4 and the involvement of Asb-4 in insulin signaling. Results In situ hybridization showed that the expression pattern of Asb-4 was consistent with that of IRS4 in the rat brain. Double in situ hybridization showed that IRS4 colocalized with Asb-4, and both Asb-4 and IRS4 mRNA were expressed in proopiomelanocortin (POMC) and neuropeptide Y (NPY) neurons within the arcuate nucleus of the hypothalamus. In HEK293 cells co-transfected with Myc-tagged Asb-4 and Flag-tagged IRS4, Asb-4 co-immunoprecipitated with IRS4; In these cells endogenous IRS4 also co-immunoprecipitated with transfected Myc-Asb-4; Furthermore, Asb-4 co-immunoprecipitated with IRS4 in rat hypothalamic extracts. In HEK293 cells over expression of Asb-4 decreased IRS4 protein levels and deletion of the SOCS box abolished this effect. Asb-4 increased the ubiquitination of IRS4; Deletion of SOCS box abolished this effect. Expression of Asb-4 decreased both basal and insulin-stimulated phosphorylation of AKT at Thr308. Conclusions These data demonstrated that Asb-4 co-localizes and interacts with IRS4 in hypothalamic neurons. The interaction of Asb-4 with IRS4 in cell lines mediates the degradation of IRS4 and decreases insulin signaling

Measurement Technique and Result Analysis of Helicopter Rotor Blade Structural Vibration Load

The measurement of helicopter rotor blade structural load amid flight has always been the difficulty in flight test. In this paper, the principle of the existing blade structural load measurement method (electrical measurement method) was analyzed, and the problem of physical decoupling in the use of this method was expounded. As a weak signal measurement, the electrical measurement method also has electromagnetic interference problems, which will affect the flight test period of blade structural load measurement. Therefore, a numerical decoupling measurement method based on fiber Bragg grating (FBG) was proposed. Then, the new method was applied and verified in the load equation modeling test and the flight test under the real atmospheric environment was carried out. Through comparing and analyzing the measured data of the new method and the electrical measurement one, the correctness of the FBG data decoupling method was validated. The results indicate that the method proposed in this paper can effectively improve the efficiency of blade load equation modeling engineering and has good application value

Preparation and properties of poly(ε-caprolactone)/bioactive glass nanofibre membranes for skin tissue engineering

Poly(ε-caprolactone) composite nanofibres for skin tissue engineering and regeneration applications were prepared via electrospinning of poly(ε-caprolactone) nanofibres with bioactive glass nanoparticles at bioactive glass contents of 0, 2, 4, 6 and 8 wt%. The surface properties, water absorptivities, porosities, mechanical properties and biocompatibilities of the composite electrospun nanofibres were characterised in detail. Addition of bioactive glass improved the hydrophilicity and elastic modulus of membranes. The fibre diameter of the neat poly(ε-caprolactone) nanofibres was only 700 nm, but reinforcement with 2, 4, 6 and 8 wt% bioactive glass nanofibres increased the diameter to 1000, 1100, 900 and 800 nm, respectively. The minimum elongation at break of the bioactive glass–reinforced poly(ε-caprolactone) exceeded 100%, which indicated that the composite nanofibres had good mechanical properties. The porosities of the various nanofibres containing different mass loadings of bioactive glass all exceeded 90%. The best performance in terms of cell proliferation and adhesion was found when the bioactive glass mass percent reached 6 wt%. However, higher loadings were unfavourable for cell growth. These preliminary results indicate that poly(ε-caprolactone)/bioactive glass composite nanofibres have promise for skin tissue engineering applications.</p

RYGB increases postprandial gastric nesfatin-1 and rapid relieves NAFLD via gastric nerve detachment.

BackgroundRoux-en-Y gastric bypass (RYGB) could reduce nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) ahead of the weight-loss effects. But the detailed mechanisms remain unclear.Material and methodsA high-fat diet (HFD) was fed to induce obesity. RYGB was then performed. Gastric nesfatin-1 was measured by enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) in portal vein and polymerase chain reaction (PCR) in gastric tissues. Modified surgeries including vagus-preserved bypass and vagectomy were performed and postprandial gastric nesfatin-1 were analyzed. The effects of nesfatin-1 on hepatocytes were studied by PCR and immunohistochemistry. Both intraperitoneal and intracerebroventricular injection (ICV) were performed to analyze the in vivo effects on liver lipid metabolism.ResultsIncreased postprandial portal vein nesfatin-1 was observed in RYGB but not in control groups. This increase is mainly due to induction of gastric nesfatin-1. A modified RYGB in which the gastric vagus is preserved is conducted and, in this case, this nesfatin-1 induction effect is diminished. Mere vagectomy could also induce a similar nesfatin-1 increase pattern. The infusion of nesfatin-1 in the brain could inhibit the expression of gastric nesfatin-1, and the effects are diminished after gastric vagectomy. In vivo and in vitro nesfatin-1 stimulation in the liver resulted in improvements in lipid metabolism.ConclusionsSevering the gastric vagus during RYGB could cut off the negative control from the central nervous system (CNS) and result in increased postprandial gastric nesfatin-1 post surgery, which in turn, improves NAFLD

Integrated transcriptomics and metabolomics analysis to characterize cold stress responses in Nicotiana tabacum

Abstract Background CB-1 and K326 are closely related tobacco cultivars; however, their cold tolerance capacities are different. K326 is much more cold tolerant than CB-1. Results We studied the transcriptomes and metabolomes of CB-1 and K326 leaf samples treated with cold stress. Totally, we have identified 14,590 differentially expressed genes (DEGs) in CB-1 and 14,605 DEGs in K326; there was also 200 differentially expressed metabolites in CB-1 and 194 in K326. Moreover, there were many overlapping genes (around 50%) that were cold-responsive in both plant cultivars, although there were also many differences in the cold responsive genes between the two cultivars. Importantly, for most of the overlapping cold responsive genes, the extent of the changes in expression were typically much more pronounced in K326 than in CB-1, which may help explain the superior cold tolerance of K326. Similar results were found in the metabolome analysis, particularly with the analysis of primary metabolites, including amino acids, organic acids, and sugars. The large number of specific responsive genes and metabolites highlight the complex regulatory mechanisms associated with cold stress in tobacco. In addition, our work implies that the energy metabolism and hormones may function distinctly between CB-1 and K326. Conclusions Differences in gene expression and metabolite levels following cold stress treatment seem likely to have contributed to the observed difference in the cold tolerance phenotype of these two tobacco cultivars

Modeling Year-to-Year Variations of Clear-Sky Land Surface Temperature Using Aqua/MODIS Data

International audienceLand surface temperature (LST) and its annual or inter-annual variations play an important role in understanding global climate change, urban heat island, and the process of land-atmosphere energy exchange. Many annual temperature cycle (ATC) models [i.e., ATC with three or five parameters (ACP3 or ACP5)] have been proposed to analyze the annual variations of LST in the past decades. In this study, two year-to-year continuous and derivable models (YYCD_ACP3 and YYCD_ACP5 models) were proposed to model several years of ATCs. The fitting results of the YYCD_ACP3 model with global Aqua/MODIS daytime LSTs from 2014 to 2018 show that the YYCD_ACP3 model achieved a good performance in fitting the time-series LSTs with an overall normalized root-mean-square error (NRMSE) of 0.21, coefficient of determination (R 2) of 0.74, and refined index of agreement (d) of 0.85. In addition, the modeling results of ten representative samples covering different climatic conditions and land cover worldwide show that, except for two sites located in tropical and Antarctic, the YYCD_ACP3 model could show a good performance with R 2 greater than 0.6. Although the ACP3 model shows similar performance to the YYCD_ACP3 model, the fitting curve of the YYCD_ACP3 model is continuous and smooth for describing the interannual variations of LST. When the LSTs of 2014-2018 are fitted as a whole by using both models, the YYCD_ACP3 model shows a slightly better performance than that of the ACP3 model. The application of the YYCD_ACP3 model with the global MODIS LSTs from 2003 to 2018 indicates that the results of the YYCD_ACP3 model have the potential to reveal the interannual variations of LST. Therefore, we conclude that the YYCD models are valuable for modeling the variations of LST over several years and can be widely applied. INDEX TERMS Land surface temperature, annual temperature cycle, modeling, MODIS