157 research outputs found
Serum autoantibodies against human oxidized low-density lipoproteins are inversely associated with severity of coronary stenotic lesions calculated by Gensini score
Background: The relationship between autoantibodies against human oxidized low-density
lipoprotein (anti-oxLDL) and the progression of atherosclerotic diseases is unclear. This study
aimed to investigate the association between serum anti-oxLDL titers and the severity and
extent of coronary stenotic lesions.
Methods: We measured the titers of IgG anti-oxLDL by enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay
(ELISA) in 154 consecutive patients undergoing coronary angiography for suspected coronary
heart disease (CHD). The severity and extent of coronary stenotic lesions were evaluated on
coronary angiography findings by Gensini score.
Results: The anti-oxLDL titers were significantly lower in 117 patients with CHD than those
in 37 controls (p < 0.01). The serum anti-oxLDL titers were significantly correlated to serum
levels of globulin (r = 0.405), conjugated bilirubin (r = 0.280), high-density lipoprotein
(HDL) cholesterol (r = 0.238), homeostatic model assessment for insulin resistance (HOMA-IR)
(r = –0.267), high sensitivity C-reactive protein (hs-CRP) (r = –0.230), triglyceride
(r = –0.207), advanced glycation end products (AGEs) (r = –0.200), and malondialdehyde
(r = –0.165). However, only HDL cholesterol and AGEs remained independent predictors of
the anti-oxLDL titers after adjusting for confounders. Multivariate regression analysis showed
that the anti-oxLDL titers, as well as serum levels of hs-CRP, fasting glucose, and albumin,
were significantly associated with Gensini scores.
Conclusions: Titers of anti-oxLDL are inversely associated with complicated proatherogenic
metabolic risk factors, and the severity of coronary stenotic lesions calculated by Gensini
scores, supporting a protective role for anti-oxLDL against the progression of atherosclerosis.
(Cardiol J 2011; 18, 4: 364–370
Sequential Condition Evolved Interaction Knowledge Graph for Traditional Chinese Medicine Recommendation
Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) has a rich history of utilizing natural
herbs to treat a diversity of illnesses. In practice, TCM diagnosis and
treatment are highly personalized and organically holistic, requiring
comprehensive consideration of the patient's state and symptoms over time.
However, existing TCM recommendation approaches overlook the changes in patient
status and only explore potential patterns between symptoms and prescriptions.
In this paper, we propose a novel Sequential Condition Evolved Interaction
Knowledge Graph (SCEIKG), a framework that treats the model as a sequential
prescription-making problem by considering the dynamics of the patient's
condition across multiple visits. In addition, we incorporate an interaction
knowledge graph to enhance the accuracy of recommendations by considering the
interactions between different herbs and the patient's condition. Experimental
results on a real-world dataset demonstrate that our approach outperforms
existing TCM recommendation methods, achieving state-of-the-art performance
Engineering the Thermoelectrical Properties of PEDOT:PSS by Alkali Metal Ion Effect
Engineering the electrical properties of poly(3,4-ethylenedioxythiophene):poly(styrenesulfonate) (PEDOT:PSS) holds great potential for various applications such as sensors, thermoelectric (TE) generators, and hole transport layers in solar cells. Various strategies have been applied to achieve optimal electrical properties, including base solution post-treatments. However, the working mechanism and the exact details of the structural transformations induced by base post-treatments are still unclear. In this work, we present a comparative study on the post-treatment effects of using three common and green alkali base solutions: namely LiOH, NaOH, and KOH. The structural modifications induced in the film by the base post-treatments are studied by techniques including atomic force microscopy, grazing-incidence wide-angle X-ray scattering, ultraviolet–visible–near-infrared spectroscopy, and attenuated total reflectance Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy. Base-induced structural modifications are responsible for an improvement in the TE power factor of the films, which depends on the basic solution used. The results are explained on the basis of the different affinity between the alkali cations and the PSS chains, which determines PEDOT dedoping. The results presented here shed light on the structural reorganization occurring in PEDOT:PSS when exposed to high-pH solutions and may serve as inspiration to create future pH-/ion-responsive devices for various applications
FPGA-Based On-Board Geometric Calibration for Linear CCD Array Sensors
With increasing demands in real-time or near real-time remotely sensed imagery applications in such as military deployments, quick response to terrorist attacks and disaster rescue, the on-board geometric calibration problem has attracted the attention of many scientists in recent years. This paper presents an on-board geometric calibration method for linear CCD sensor arrays using FPGA chips. The proposed method mainly consists of four modules—Input Data, Coefficient Calculation, Adjustment Computation and Comparison—in which the parallel computations for building the observation equations and least squares adjustment, are implemented using FPGA chips, for which a decomposed matrix inversion method is presented. A Xilinx Virtex-7 FPGA VC707 chip is selected and the MOMS-2P data used for inflight geometric calibration from DLR (Köln, Germany), are employed for validation and analysis. The experimental results demonstrated that: (1) When the widths of floating-point data from 44-bit to 64-bit are adopted, the FPGA resources, including the utilizations of FF, LUT, memory LUT, I/O and DSP48, are consumed at a fast increasing rate; thus, a 50-bit data width is recommended for FPGA-based geometric calibration. (2) Increasing number of ground control points (GCPs) does not significantly consume the FPGA resources, six GCPs is therefore recommended for geometric calibration. (3) The FPGA-based geometric calibration can reach approximately 24 times faster speed than the PC-based one does. (4) The accuracy from the proposed FPGA-based method is almost similar to the one from the inflight calibration if the calibration model and GCPs number are the same
Development of an Aptamer-Conjugated Polyrotaxane-Based Biodegradable Magnetic Resonance Contrast Agent for Tumor-Targeted Imaging
Gadolinium-based
magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) contrast agents
with biodegradability, biosafety, and high efficiency are highly desirable
for tumor diagnosis. Herein, a biodegradable, AS1411-conjugated, α-cyclodextrin
polyrotaxane-based MRI contrast agent (AS1411-G2Â(DTPA-Gd)-SS-PR) was
developed for targeted imaging of cancer. The polyrotaxane-based contrast
agent was achieved by the complexation of α-cyclodextrin (α-CD)
and a linear polyÂ(ethylene glycol) (PEG) chain containing disulfide
linkages at two terminals. The disulfides enable the dethreading of
the polyrotaxane into excretable small units due to cleavage of the
disulfide linkages by reducing agents such as intracellular glutathione
(GSH). Furthermore, the second-generation lysine dendron conjugated
with gadolinium chelates and AS1411, a G-quadruplex oligonucleotide
that has high binding affinity to nucleolin generally presenting a
high level on the surface of tumor cells, coupled to the α-CD
via click chemistry. The longitudinal relaxivity of AS1411-G2Â(DTPA-Gd)-SS-PR
(11.7 mM–1 s–1) was two times
higher than the clinically used Gd-DTPA (4.16 mM–1 s–1) at 0.5 T. The in vitro degradability was
confirmed by incubating with 10 mM 1,4-dithiothreitol (DTT). Additionally,
the cytotoxicity, histological assessment, and gadolinium retention
studies showed that the prepared polyrotaxane-based contrast agent
had a superior biocompatibility and was predominantly cleared renally
without long-term accumulation toxicity. Importantly, AS1411-G2Â(DTPA-Gd)-SS-PR
displayed the enhanced performance in MRI of breast cancer cells in
vitro as well as a subcutaneous breast tumor in vivo due to the targeting
ability of the AS1411 aptamer. The enhanced performance was due to
efficient multivalent interactions with tumor cells, producing faster
accumulation and longer contrast imaging time at the tumor site. This
work clearly confirms that the specially designed and fabricated α-CD-based
polyrotaxane is a promising contrast agent with an excellent contrast
imaging performance and biosafety for tumor MR imaging
On Board Georeferencing Using FPGA-Based Optimized Second Order Polynomial Equation
For real-time monitoring of natural disasters, such as fire, volcano, flood, landslide, and coastal inundation, highly-accurate georeferenced remotely sensed imagery is needed. Georeferenced imagery can be fused with geographic spatial data sets to provide geographic coordinates and positing for regions of interest. This paper proposes an on-board georeferencing method for remotely sensed imagery, which contains five modules: input data, coordinate transformation, bilinear interpolation, and output data. The experimental results demonstrate multiple benefits of the proposed method: (1) the computation speed using the proposed algorithm is 8 times faster than that using PC computer; (2) the resources of the field programmable gate array (FPGA) can meet the requirements of design. In the coordinate transformation scheme, 250,656 LUTs, 499,268 registers, and 388 DSP48s are used. Furthermore, 27,218 LUTs, 45,823 registers, 456 RAM/FIFO, and 267 DSP48s are used in the bilinear interpolation module; (3) the values of root mean square errors (RMSEs) are less than one pixel, and the other statistics, such as maximum error, minimum error, and mean error are less than one pixel; (4) the gray values of the georeferenced image when implemented using FPGA have the same accuracy as those implemented using MATLAB and Visual studio (C++), and have a very close accuracy implemented using ENVI software; and (5) the on-chip power consumption is 0.659W. Therefore, it can be concluded that the proposed georeferencing method implemented using FPGA with second-order polynomial model and bilinear interpolation algorithm can achieve real-time geographic referencing for remotely sensed imagery
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