Measurement of Daily Energy Expenditure in Individuals with Chronic Heart Failure

Being able to accurately monitor and quantify the amount of physical activity an individual with chronic heart failure (CHF) performs can be of assistance in developing appropriate interventions. This thesis attempted to evaluate the validity of the RT3 accelerometer (RT3) and 7-day Physical Activity Recall Questionnaire (7 day PAR) in measuring the daily activity levels of community dwelling individuals with CHF. Fifty-four individuals with CHF participated in a 7 day session to estimate their daily physical activity by using the RT3 accelerometer and 7-day PAR questionnaire. In addition, 15 of the 54 individuals participated in a second study in with the validity of RT3was compared to oxygen consumption (VO2) measured by a MedGraphics VO2000 gas analyzer during typical daily activities. Although there was no significant difference between the RT3 and VO2 on mean caloric (Kcal) expenditure (p=0.67), the accelerometer tended to underestimate the energy expenditure (EE) and its validity was affected by activity intensity, movement patterns, placement location and soft tissue adhesion. The 7-day PAR overestimated EE by 22%, when compared to the RT3. There was no significant difference in the outcomes if the 7-day PAR only focused on day time activity versus 24-hour activity which included sleep. The second study revealed that the resting metabolic rate in individuals with CHF is significantly lower than 3.5 ml/kg/min, which indicates this metabolic constant for the general population is probably not appropriate for estimating daily energy expenditure in individuals with CHF

IRS-assisted UAV Communications: A Comprehensive Review

Intelligent reflecting surface (IRS) can smartly adjust the wavefronts in terms of phase, frequency, amplitude and polarization via passive reflections and without any need of radio frequency (RF) chains. It is envisaged as an emerging technology which can change wireless communication to improve both energy and spectrum efficiencies with low energy consumption and low cost. It can intelligently configure the wireless channels through a massive number of cost effective passive reflecting elements to improve the system performance. Similarly, unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) communication has gained a viable attention due to flexible deployment, high mobility and ease of integration with several technologies. However, UAV communication is prone to security issues and obstructions in real-time applications. Recently, it is foreseen that UAV and IRS both can integrate together to attain unparalleled capabilities in difficult scenarios. Both technologies can ensure improved performance through proactively altering the wireless propagation using smart signal reflections and maneuver control in three dimensional (3D) space. IRS can be integrated in both aerial and terrene environments to reap the benefits of smart reflections. This study briefly discusses UAV communication, IRS and focuses on IRS-assisted UAC communications. It surveys the existing literature on this emerging research topic and highlights several promising technologies which can be implemented in IRS-assisted UAV communication. This study also presents several application scenarios and open research challenges. This study goes one step further to elaborate research opportunities to design and optimize wireless systems with low energy footprint and at low cost. Finally, we shed some light on future research aspects for IRS-assisted UAV communication

New method for initial density reconstruction

A theoretically interesting and practically important question in cosmology is the reconstruction of the initial density distribution provided a late-time density field. This is a long-standing question with a revived interest recently, especially in the context of optimally extracting the baryonic acoustic oscillation (BAO) signals from observed galaxy distributions. We present a new efficient method to carry out this reconstruction, which is based on numerical solutions to the nonlinear partial differential equation that governs the mapping between the initial Lagrangian and final Eulerian coordinates of particles in evolved density fields. This is motivated by numerical simulations of the quartic Galileon gravity model, which has similar equations that can be solved effectively by multigrid Gauss-Seidel relaxation. The method is based on mass conservation, and does not assume any specific cosmological model. Our test shows that it has a performance comparable to that of state-of-the-art algorithms that were very recently put forward in the literature, with the reconstructed density field over ∼80% (50%) correlated with the initial condition at k ≲ 0.6 h=Mpc (1.0 h=Mpc). With an example, we demonstrate that this method can significantly improve the accuracy of BAO reconstruction

PhOBF1, a petunia ocs element binding factor, plays an important role in antiviral RNA silencing.

Virus-induced gene silencing (VIGS) is a common reverse genetics strategy for characterizing the function of genes in plants. The detailed mechanism governing RNA silencing efficiency triggered by viruses is largely unclear. Here, we reveal that a petunia (Petunia hybrida) ocs element binding factor, PhOBF1, one of the basic leucine zipper (bZIP) transcription factors, was up-regulated by Tobacco rattle virus (TRV) infection. Simultaneous silencing of PhOBF1 and a reporter gene, phytoene desaturase (PDS) or chalcone synthase (CHS), by TRV-based VIGS led to a failure of the development of leaf photobleaching or the white-corollas phenotype. PhOBF1 silencing caused down-regulation of RNA silencing-related genes, including RNA-dependent RNA polymerases (RDRs), Dicer-like RNase III enzymes (DCLs), and Argonautes (AGOs). After inoculation with the TRV-PhPDS, PhOBF1-RNAi lines exhibited a substantially impaired PDS silencing efficiency, whereas overexpression of PhOBF1 resulted in a recovery of the silencing phenotype (photobleaching) in systemic leaves. A compromised resistance to TRV and Tobacco mosaic virus was found in PhOBF1-RNAi lines, while PhOBF1-overexpressing lines displayed an enhanced resistance to their infections. Compared with wild-type plants, PhOBF1-silenced plants accumulated lower levels of free salicylic acid (SA), salicylic acid glucoside, and phenylalanine, contrarily to higher levels of those in plants overexpressing PhOBF1. Furthermore, transcripts of a number of genes associated with the shikimate and phenylpropanoid pathways were decreased or increased in PhOBF1-RNAi or PhOBF1-overexpressing lines, respectively. Taken together, the data suggest that PhOBF1 regulates TRV-induced RNA silencing efficiency through modulation of RDRs, DCLs, and AGOs mediated by the SA biosynthesis pathway

The Research on Exogenous Problems of Farmers’ Piritual and Cultural Education in China

The author studied and analyzed the exogenous problems of the farmers’ spiritual and cultural education, and found out: In today’s China, the exogenous problems of the farmers’ spiritual and cultural education mainly reflected in the separation of spiritual and cultural education is from social environment, political system, economic development, and cultural concepts etc. Then the author put forward to the countermeasures and suggestions aimed at optimizing the allocation of famers’ spiritual and cultural educations resources, environment and evaluation system construction and so on

Financial risks and metods of their redaction in mofern conditions

The article considers the classification of financial risks in order to manage them and the methods used in practice to reduce financial risks