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Introduction: Parameters of arterial stiffness are independent cardiovascular risk factors for end-stage renal disease patients. Significant changes of these parameters between intra- and interdialytic periods have been reported previously [1]. The aim of this cross-sectional study is to describe the...

In the field of risks analysis, the domino effect has been documented in technical literature since 1947. The accidents caused by the domino effect are the most destructive accidents related to industrial plants. Fire and explosion are among the most frequent primary accidents for a domino effect due...

As global warming urbanization process accelerated, urban waterlogging problem is increasingly serious, has become the research hotspot nowadays. City rainstorm waterlogging scene simulation is one of the important link in the research of the process in which residents shelter when city rainstorm waterlogging...

Process condition was changed by preventative maintenance that may lead to the inconsistency of process output. In practice, process engineers have difficulties to discover the inconsistency that the defect wafer may have been produced before the next measurement. This study proposes a virtual metrology...

This paper is an informal collection of observations on how established rewriting techniques can be applied to or need to be adapted for use in non-associative algebras, operads, and PROPs.

Using the theory of self-adjoint extensions, we study the interaction model formally given by the Hamiltonian H + V (r), where H is the Aharonov-Bohm Hamiltonian and V (r) is the -type interaction potential on the cylinder of radius R . We give the mathematical definition of the model, the self-adjointness...

In this paper we study symmetry reductions of a class of nonlinear fourth order partial differential equations utt = u + u2 xx + uuxxxx + µuxxtt + uxuxxx + u2 xx, (1) where , , , and µ are arbitrary constants. This equation may be thought of as a fourth order analogue of a generalization of the Camassa-Holm...

A necessary condition for the existence of conserved densities and fluxes of a differential-difference equation which depend on q shifts, for q sufficiently large, is presented. This condition depends on the eigenvalues of the leading terms in the differential-difference equation. It also gives, explicitly,...

The decision-theoretic rough set model is adopted to derive a profit-based three-way approach to investment decision-making. A three-way decision is made based on a pair of thresholds on conditional probabilities. A positive rule makes a decision of investment, a negative rule makes a decision of noninvestment,...

Environmental planning requires integration of disparate geographic database and services in a distributed environment involving multiple stakeholders. As more and more mapping resources are becoming available, the Web is becoming a confluence of collaborative interactions, negotiations and planning...

The paper presents a development of emotion recognition system which can detect human emotion in real-time leveraging information captured from human body’s electromagnetic (EM) signals. A new model of controller framework was designed to embed the emotion recognition module which was evaluated on a...

It has been postulated that everyone has an affinity for one of two cognitive approaches: experiential (intuitive) or rational (conscious). The aim of this study was to analyze the thinking processes of Saudi emergency physicians at nine hospitals in Riyadh. This was a cross-sectional study, which was...

In this paper, we consider a general family of distributions generated by Topp–Leone distribution (known as TL family of distributions) proposed by Rezaei et al. [1]. We consider the problem of estimation of the shape parameter, scale parameter, and reliability function based on record data from TL family...

Utilizing a World Health Organization (WHO) multi-national dataset, the present study examined the relationships between emotion, affective variability (i.e., the fluctuation of emotional status), and depression across six developing countries, including China (N = 15,050); Ghana (N = 5,573); India (N...

Tick-borne Encephalitis (TBE) is an arboviral infection widespread in Europe and northern parts of Asia. Ticks transmit the associated flavivirus usually between March and November to people with outdoor activities in the countryside, in gardens or, rarely, in urban parks. The clinical picture of TBE...

Internal thoracic artery (ITA) and small saphenous vein (SSV) are two viable conduits for coronary artery bypass grafts. The aim of this study was to investigate the viscoelastic behavior of the small saphenous vein and internal thoracic artery under compressive and tensile loadings at body temperature....

Background: Cathepsin L (Cat L) is involved in the regulation of vascular aging processes. The aim of this study was to evaluate the relationship between plasma Cat L level and arterial stiffness marker through brachial-ankle pulse wave velocity (baPWV) in geriatric patients. Methods: Cross-sectional...

When asked why the level of intra-regional trade in West Africa is low despite regional integration efforts, the literature highlights the poorly diversified structure of economies, the non-application of community arrangements, the inconsistency or mismanagement of trade policies, supply constraints,...

Background: We examined several measures of ventricular–vascular load as they relate to ECG-derived measures of left ventricular (LV) morphology in a cross-section of 19 young African American and 19 white men. Methods: Measures of steady and pulsatile LV load derived from aortic blood pressure waveforms...

Background: Arterial stiffness is a well-established indicator of cardiovascular disease outcome. Pulse Wave Velocity (PWV) is a surrogate for arterial stiffness that is measured either globally using carotid-to-femoral applanation tonometry or locally using biomedical imaging methods. Pulse Wave Imaging...

Background: Higher white blood cell (WBC) count is associated with impaired endothelium-dependent vasodilation. However, the influence of higher WBC count on endothelin (ET)-1 vasoconstrictor activity is currently unknown. We tested the hypothesis that adults with elevated WBC count demonstrate enhanced...

Background: Labor and delivery under the supervision of a skilled birth attendant have been shown to promote positive maternal and neonatal outcomes; yet, more than a third of births in Kenya occur outside a health facility. We investigated the association between measures of women’s empowerment and...

Thoracic aortic aneurysm is a common cardiovascular disease consisting of marked dilation of the aorta. Aortic aneurysms carry a high risk of life-threatening complications such as aortic dissection or rupture. Classically, maximum aortic diameter has been used as the sole descriptor of aneurysm severity...

Introduction: E-learning is the use of the internet and associated devices for educational purposes without geographical constraints. This study aims to assess the perception of students at King Saud bin Abdulaziz University for Health Sciences in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, about E-learning as a teaching...

It is shown that the exact solubility of the massless Thirring model in the canonical quantization scheme originates from the intrinsic hidden linearizability of its Heisenberg equations in the method of dynamical mappings. The corresponding role of inequivalent representations of free massless Dirac...

Hypertension has classically been attributed to an increase in peripheral vascular resistance. Such an increase in peripheral vascular resistance would increase mean and diastolic blood pressure but have little influence on pulse pressure. However, hypertension in our ageing society occurs mainly as...

Objectives: Cardio-ankle vascular index (CAVI), a parameter of arterial stiffness, has been increasingly used for cardiovascular risk estimation. Currently used CAVI reference values are derived from the Japanese population. It is not clear whether the same reference values can be used in the Caucasian...

The complex pathophysiological mechanisms involved in stroke confound the associative and causal role of blood pressure. This is particularly relevant in monitoring changes in blood pressure with respect to treatment efficacy and stroke outcome, which is highly dependent on the both patient and stroke...

Background: Pulse pressure amplification (PPA), i.e. the amplification from central arteries to the periphery, is inversely related to arterial stiffness, organ damage and mortality. It is known that arterial stiffness is higher in black than white populations, but it is unclear if this is due to early...

Purpose: The feasibility of pulse wave analysis (PWA) over 24 hours with oscillometric devices has already been shown and first studies indicate additional information compared to single measurements. Nevertheless, diurnal patterns of PWA parameters in healthy subjects, which can potentially serve as...

Arterial Hypertension is one of the leading causes of death and disability worldwide. Measurement of peripheral brachial blood pressure using cuff sphygmomanometry belongs to the clinical routine assessment from childhood on. Based on age and length related reference values, it is widely accepted as...

Background: Accumulation of advanced glycation end-products (AGEs) is one of pathophysiological processes, responsible for progressive stiffening of vessel wall. In contrast, soluble isoform of receptor for AGEs (sRAGE) act as “decoy” and physiological defense against circulating AGEs. We hypothesized...

Background: A recent study has shown that the central pressure waveform could be determined by a very small set of parameters accounting for the physical properties of the heart and the arteries [1]. Particularly, main pressure features like first systolic shoulder (P1) and systolic (P2) pressures were...

Increased arterial stiffness, a biomarker of vascular aging, is a recognized subclinical organ damage, and may thus serve as predictor of cardiovascular disease. The predictive value of arterial stiffness is higher in patients with higher baseline cardiovascular risk, such as in patients with hypertension....

The RhoA signaling pathway is a master regulator of mechanostransduction and plasticity of vascular smooth muscle cells (VSMCs) that controls arterial stiffening. The RhoA exchange factor Arhgef1 is causally involved in the development of angiotensin II-dependent hypertension. Our aim was to determine...

We are planning a prospective study in 200 patients with an abdominal artery aneurysm (AAA). Non-invasive measurements will be performed including tonometry-based pulse wave analysis (PWA) and pulse wave velocity (PWV), echocardiography, and 24-hour blood pressure measurements. This study will provide...

We introduce a five-parameter continuous model, called the McDonald log-logistic distribution, to extend the two-parameter log-logistic distribution. Some structural properties of this new distribution such as reliability measures and entropies are obtained. The model parameters are estimated by the...

Robot is designed for achieving specific task. However, robot is able to do much more things than it is expected by its own hardware. In this paper, concept of conquest oriented robot is proposed to know its availability systemati-cally and autonomously. Algorithm of conquest oriented robot and its experimental...

Verification is critical to the design of large and complex systems. SPIN is a well-known and extensively used verification tool. In this paper, we consider two tool chains, one existing, WSAT, and one introduced here, that support using SPIN to model check systems specified as Simulink Stateflow models....

Inspired by the phenomenon of bio-parasitic behavior in natural ecosystem, this paper presents a novel particle swarm optimizer named PSOPB, in which particles are composed of the host and the parasite population. In the presented algorithm, the two populations mimic facultative bio-parasitic behaviour...

Triangular intuitionistic fuzzy numbers (TIFNs) are a special kind of intuitionistic fuzzy sets (IFSs) on a real number set. TIFNs are useful to deal with ill-known quantities in decision data and decision making problems themselves. The purpose of this paper is on developing a new ranking method of...

This paper introduces the four parameter transmuted generalized Gompertz distribution which includes the transmuted Gompertz, transmuted generalized exponential, transmuted exponential, Gompertz, generalized exponential and exponential distributions as special cases and studies its statistical properties....

In this work, we explain in what sense the generic level set of the constants of motion for the periodic nonlinear Schrödinger equation is an infinite dimensional torus on which each generalized nonlinear Schrödinger flow is reduced to straight line almost periodic motion, and describe how neighboring...

A special asymptotic solution of the Painlevé-2 equation with small parameter is stdied. This solution has a critical point t corresponding to a bifurcation phenomenon. When t t the solution oscillates very fast. We investigate the transitional layer in detail and obtain a smooth asymptotic solution,...