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Introduction: Arterial stiffening is associated with structural and biomechanical alterations in the aorta. However, there are still gaps in our understanding as to how the structure and properties of arteries across the vasculature are altered with high PWV.Objective: To determine whether altered ultrastructural...

Aim: This case-control study is aimed at identifying radial vascular wall abnormalities in patients with fibromuscular dysplasia (FMD). Methods: High-frequency ultrasound scans of radial arteries were obtained by VevoMD (70 MHz probe, FUJIFILM, VisualSonics). Radial wall showed two echogenic interfaces:...

Introduction: Heart rate variability (HRV) analysis is a non-invasive tool for assessing the cardiac health. There is evidence that the cardiac autonomic system and central hemodynamics respond to hemodialysis. The aim of this work is to compare HRV parameters and augmentation index (AIx) between intra-...

Background: Prevalence of overweight (OW) and obesity (O) in children and adolescents has been increased in the past three decades. Obese children are prone to develop early cardiovascular (CV) morbidity in their adult life. Impaired arterial stiffness might be detected in this population. The aim of...

Purpose/Background/Objectives: The availability of an animal model that, beside common blood parameters like hyperglycemia or high lipid levels, reliably mirrors organ damage occurring in metabolic diseases, is an urgent need. These animals have not been fully characterized in terms of cardiovascular,...

Introduction: Cardiovascular diseases are the primary cause of morbidity and mortality in patients with chronic kidney disease (CKD). Aortic stiffness is a non-traditional risk factor in these patients. Using an animal model of CKD with vascular calcification, we reported that inflammation is involved...

Many efficient deployments of large-scale wireless sensor networks based on the tree-based community rise into view recently. Sensor nodes are severely resource constrained, and lack sophisticated defense mechanisms to fight virus attacks. Cyber viruses spread through node populations over the networks,...

For medical diagnosis, fuzzy Dempster-Shafer theory is extended to model domain knowledge under probabilistic and fuzzy uncertainty. However, there are some information loss using discrete fuzzy sets and traditional matching degree method. This study aims to provide a new evidential structure to reduce...

In this paper, an α-resolution method for a set of lattice-valued Horn generalized clauses is established in lattice-valued propositional logic system ℒ P(X) based on lattice implication algebra. Firstly, the notions of lattice-valued Horn generalized clause, normal lattice-valued...

The interactions of the Mainland China offering benefits, the Taiwan benefits return, and the benefits of China-Taiwan bilateral trust between the China and Taiwan are modeled as a trust game. The trust strategy is best response for China and Taiwan if the benefit of China-Taiwan bilateral trust is increased...

Conditions necessary for the existence of local higher order generalized symmetries and conservation laws are derived for a class of dynamical lattice equations with explicit dependence on the spatial discrete variable and on time. We explain how to use the obtained conditions for checking a given equation....

A series of rational solutions are presented for an extended Lotka-Volterra eqution. These rational solutions are obtained by using Hirota's bilinear formalism and Bäcklund transformation. The crucial step is the use of nonlinear superposition fomula. The so-called extended Lotka-Volterra equation is...

Ansatzes for the Navier-Stokes field are described. These ansatzes reduce the Navier-Stokes equations to system of differential equations in three, two, and one independent variables. The large sets of exact solutions of the Navier-Stokes equations are constructed.

*Scientific research supported by the Ministry of Science and Higher Education, Poland in years 2008-2010. Grant No. N N516 265835: Protein Structure Similarity Searching in Distributed Multi Agent System †To whom the entire correspondence should be directed: Institute of Informatics, Silesian University...

Risks from future sea level rise entail significant uncertainties concerning overall potential impacts, the specific threats faced by particular areas and what benefit or costs are associated with strategies for addressing such risks. The proposed risk quantification and management framework is consistent...

The λ-symmetry approach is applied to a family of second-order ODEs whose algebra of Lie point symmetries is insufficient to integrate them. The general solution and two functionally independent first integrals of a subclass of the studied equations can be expressed in terms of a fundamental set of solutions...

This paper provides a comparison between Central Asia, the Middle East hazard models and the Chinese hazard result in Tienshan Area, based on reshaped seismogenic sources, recalculated related seismicity parameters, and calibrated ground motion models. This paper concluded that in the most areas of Tienshan,...

Background: Since 2008, dengue fever outbreaks had occurred repeatedly in various districts of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) province of Pakistan. Most importantly the outbreak of 2017 caused 70 deaths, about 121,083 suspected and 24,938 confirmed cases in 23 districts of KP. In 2018, an abrupt decline in...

The effect of CD34+ cell dose in allogeneic hematopoietic stem cell transplantation (HSCT) on overall survival (OS) and incidence of acute and chronic graft-versus-host disease (GvHD) has not been established and few studies have been performed. Our single center analysis included 189 patients with hematological...

Central augmentation index (AI) is an index for arterial stiffness and wave reflection, but the measurement requires technical precision. We recently reported that AI obtained directly from radial arterial pressure waveforms (without using the general transfer function) could provide equivalent information...

Background: Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) positive patients are likely to be at risk of other infectious pathogens such as Hepatitis B Virus (HBV). HIV and HBV are blood-borne pathogens and are transmitted via intravenous drug use, sexual contact, or mother to child during pregnancy or birth. Objective:...

In the paper, we study real forms of the complex generic Neumann system. We prove that the real forms are completely integrable Hamiltonian systems. The complex Neumann system is an example of the more general Mumford system. The Mumford system is characterized by the Lax pair (Lℂ(λ), Mℂ(λ)) of 2 × 2...

A classical Korteweg capillarity system with a Karman-Tsien type (κ, ρ) constitutive relation is shown, via a Madelung transformation and use of invariants of motion, to admit integrable Hamiltonian subsystems.

Purpose/Background/Objectives: Obesity is associated with increased risk factors for cardiovascular disease (CVD). Leptin-deficient mice (ob/ob) are widely employed to investigate obesity. This study is aimed at providing a micro-ultrasound (mUS) longitudinal evaluation of the ob/ob mouse in terms of...

Background: Peritoneal dialysis (PD) and hemodialysis (HD) are treatment options for end stage renal disease (ESRD). However, few are known on the cardiovascular impose of those therapeutic modalities. Our aim is to uncover endothelial damage and subclinical atheromatous process in male patients on chronic...

Background: Hypertension has adverse effects on microvascular function but there are limited methods that permit non-invasive assessment of the microcirculation in man in vivo. We used Near Infrared Spectroscopy (NIRS) to assess microvascular reactive hyperaemia in skeletal muscle following a short period...

Background: Middle age represents a life period where incidence of cardiovascular events typically augments. Our aim is to investigate any association between peripheral vascular rheology and distribution of coronary artery disease (CAD) in middle aged erectile dysfunction (ED) population. Methods:...

Purpose: The prognostic significance of carotid-femoral pulse wave velocity (cfPWV) remains to be determined in patients with type 1 diabetes (T1D). We investigated the predictive value of cfPWV for various endpoints in T1D. Methods: At baseline, cfPWV was measured using the SphygmoCor device in 652...

Arterial stiffness may influence the contour of the peripheral pulse, suggesting that contour analysis of the digital volume pulse (DVP) might be used to estimate peripheral blood pressure and a stiffness index (SI). The objective is to establish a transfer function that estimates the peripheral blood...

Background: Women with a history of pre-eclampsia (PE) are at higher risk of cardiovascular disease later in life. We evaluated the cardiovascular health of women who had PE in comparison with women who had normotensive pregnancies. Methods: We assessed heart rate-adjusted augmentation index (AIx SphygmoCor),...

Background: Pulse wave velocity (PWV) is independent predictor of cardiovascular outcomes. Antihypertensive treatment reduces PWV, but it is unknown whether this results from an unloading of stiffer elements in the arterial wall or a structural change in the wall. Methods: To distinguish between these...

Background: Ischemic stroke from carotid plaque embolism remains a major cause of morbidity and mortality in patients with type 2 diabetes (T2DM). However, the effect of T2DM on early carotid plaque burden and composition is sparsely elucidated. We assessed carotid plaque composition by carotid magnetic...

Background: The systemic arterial load imposed to the left ventricle (LV) is a major determinant of normal/abnormal cardiovascular function. The LV mean ejection pressure (LVMEP) is the best estimate of load faced by the LV throughout ejection. The contribution of the steady and pulsatile blood pressure...

This paper introduces a study of spoken dialogue agent systems using emotional expressions as affective human computer interaction. The paper describes an experiment investigating the effect that the expression and words of the agent have on people, introduces a spoken agent for customer services using...

With significant impact on the personalized product configuration, Interactive Genetic Algorithm is introduced to respond to customer requirement. For the user could conveniently design their favorite product and interact with the system by a graphical interface, the car console conceptual design system...

A numerical model has been formatted including ocean, rain drainage, urban channels, and pumps by the software MIKE FLOOD which coupling MIKE URBAN, MIKE 11 and MIKE 21. The different scenarios have been simulated. The flooding warning water level of the urban channel is low to the spring tide height,...

We give a new derivation and characterisation of the generalised elliptic genus of Krichever-Höhn by means of a functional equation.

This paper concerns linear standing gravity water waves on finite depth. We obtain qualitative and quantitative understanding of the particle paths within the wave.

Multi-objective optimization focuses on simultaneous optimization of multiple targets. Evolutionary game theory transforms the optimization problem into game strategic problem and using adaptable dynamic game evolution process intelligently obtains the optimized strategy. The problem of multiple frequency...

Background: Surveillance is essential to estimating the global burden of pneumonia, yet differences in surveillance methodology and health care-seeking behaviors limit inter-country comparisons. Methods: Results were compared from community surveys measuring health care-seeking for pneumonia defined...

Objective: This study describes the scope and characteristics of childhood physical abuse in a nationally representative sample of 13–24 year-old females in Swaziland. The current study also examined health consequences and risk factors of childhood physical abuse. Methods: The study utilized a two-stage...

Background: Pulse wave analysis from a brachial cuff permits ambulatory measurements of pulse wave velocity (PWV) and central blood pressure parameters. The diurnal variation of PWV in type 2 diabetes is unknown. Methods: We evaluated the Arteriograph24 which is a brachial cuff based equipment for estimating...