Nutritional status has been related to clinical outcomes in patients with heart failure. We assessed the association between nutritional status, indexed by prognostic nutritional index (PNI), and ...survival in patients hospitalized for acute heart failure.
A total of 1673 patients (age 76±13 years, 68% men) hospitalized for acute heart failure in a tertiary medical center were analyzed. PNI was calculated as 10×serum albumin (g/dL)+0.005×total lymphocyte count (per mm
). National Death Registry was linked to identify the clinical outcomes of all-cause and cardiovascular death. With increasing tertiles of PNI, age and N-terminal probrain natriuretic peptide decreased, and body mass index, estimated glomerular filtration rate, and hemoglobin increased. During a mean follow-up duration of 31.5 months, a higher PNI tertile was related to better survival free from all-cause and cardiovascular mortality in the total study population and in participants with either reduced or preserved left ventricular ejection fraction. After accounting for age, sex, estimated glomerular filtration rate, left ventricular ejection fraction, serum sodium level, and on-admission systolic blood pressure, PNI was independently associated with cardiovascular death and total mortality (hazard ratio per 1 SD of the natural logarithm of the PNI: 0.76 95% CI, 0.66-0.87 and 0.79 95% CI, 0.73-0.87, respectively). In subgroup analyses stratified by age, sex, left ventricular ejection fraction, body mass index, or estimated glomerular filtration rate, PNI was consistently related to mortality.
PNI is independently associated with long-term survival in patients hospitalized for acute heart failure with either reduced or preserved left ventricular ejection fraction.
The one-dimensional (1-D) Golay complementary set (GCS) has many well-known properties and has been widely employed in communications engineering. The concept of 1-D GCS can be extended to the ...two-dimensional (2-D) Golay complementary array set (GCAS) where the 2-D aperiodic autocorrelations of constituent arrays sum to zero except for the 2-D zero shift. The 2-D GCAS includes the 2-D Golay complementary array pair (GCAP) as a special case when the set size is 2. In this paper, 2-D generalized Boolean functions are introduced and constructions of 2-D GCAPs, 2-D GCASs, and 2-D Golay complementary array mates based on generalized Boolean functions are proposed. Explicit expressions of 2-D Boolean functions for 2-D GCAPs and 2-D GCASs are given. Therefore, they are all direct constructions without the aid of other existing 1-D or 2-D sequences. Moreover, the peak-to-average power ratio (PAPR) properties of the column sequences and row sequences of the constructed 2-D GCAPs and 2-D GCASs are investigated and the PAPRs are proved to be upper bounded.
Using machine learning techniques, we developed a brief questionnaire to aid neurologists and neuropsychologists in the screening of mild cognitive impairment (MCI) and dementia.
With the reduction ...of the survey size as a goal of this research, feature selection based on information gain was performed to rank the contribution of the 45 items corresponding to patient responses to the specified questions. The most important items were used to build the optimal screening model based on the accuracy, practicality, and interpretability. The diagnostic accuracy for discriminating normal cognition (NC), MCI, very mild dementia (VMD) and dementia was validated in the test group.
The screening model (NMD-12) was constructed with the 12 items that were ranked the highest in feature selection. The receiver-operator characteristic (ROC) analysis showed that the area under the curve (AUC) in the test group was 0.94 for discriminating NC vs. MCI, 0.88 for MCI vs. VMD, 0.97 for MCI vs. dementia, and 0.96 for VMD vs. dementia, respectively.
The NMD-12 model has been developed and validated in this study. It provides healthcare professionals with a simple and practical screening tool which accurately differentiates NC, MCI, VMD, and dementia.
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This paper presents a coding approach for achieving omnidirectional transmission of certain common signals in massive multi-input multi-output (MIMO) networks such that the received power at any ...direction in a cell remains constant for any given distance. Specifically, two-dimensional (2D) Golay complementary array set (GCAS) can be used to design the massive MIMO precoding matrix so as to achieve omnidirectional transmission due to its complementary autocorrelation property. In this paper, novel constructions of new 2D GCASs with arbitrary array lengths are proposed. Our key idea is to carefully truncate the columns of certain larger arrays generated by 2D generalized Boolean functions. Finally, the power radiation patterns and numerical results are provided to verify the omnidirectional property of the GCAS-based precoding. The error performances of the proposed precoding scheme are presented to validate its superiority over the existing alternatives.
In this letter, a new construction of Z-complementary pairs (ZCPs) with more flexible lengths based on generalized Boolean functions is proposed. Except for the powers of two, the proposed ZCPs exist ...for all lengths with various widths of the zero correlation zone (ZCZ). There exists a trade-off between the sequence lengths and the ZCZ widths of the proposed ZCPs. Moreover, the peak-to-average power ratio (PAPR) properties of the constructed ZCPs are investigated in this letter. Therefore, the new sequences are useful in applications in communications due to their flexible lengths, various possible ZCZ widths, and good PAPR properties.
In this letter, a novel construction of binary cross Z-complementary pairs (CZCPs) based on Boolean functions is proposed. CZCPs have been proposed to be used as training sequences in the spatial ...modulation system. Due to their zero correlation zone (ZCZ) properties for autocorrelation sums and cross-correlation sums, optimal channel estimation performance over frequency-selective channels can be achieved. In the literature, most constructions of CZCPs are based on existing Golay complementary pairs (GCPs); only one method is based on Boolean functions. However, the length of CZCPs from Boolean functions is very limited. In this letter, the proposed construction can generate CZCPs with more flexible lengths and large ZCZ widths.
The two-dimensional (2-D) Z-complementary array pair (ZCAP) can be viewed as an extension of the well-known one-dimensional (1-D) Z-complementary pair (ZCP). To date, most constructions of 2-D ZCAPs ...are indirect and based on existing 1-D sequences or 2-D arrays. In this letter, a new direct construction of 2-D ZCAPs with flexible array sizes based on 2-D generalized Boolean functions is proposed. Compared with the state-of-the-art method, the proposed 2-D ZCAPs have larger 2-D zero correlation zone (ZCZ) sizes and more flexible array sizes. Furthermore, the peak-to-average power ratio of column sequences of the proposed 2-D ZCAPs is analyzed and upper bounded by 2.
This paper aims to present novel constructions of Golay-ZCZ sequence sets with various set sizes and flexible lengths. A Golay-ZCZ sequence set is not only a Golay complementary set (GCS) but also a ...zero correlation zone (ZCZ) sequence set. Golay-ZCZ sequence sets have been employed in OFDM systems due to their low peak-to-average power ratios (PAPRs) which are upper bounded by the set sizes. Although several constructions of Golay-ZCZ sequence sets have been proposed in the literature, the known Golay-ZCZ sets cannot attain the theoretical upper bound on the ZCZ width for non-binary cases. Also, for the Golay-ZCZ sets constructed by generalized Boolean functions, parameters are limited to powers of two, such as set sizes, sequence lengths, and ZCZ widths. In this paper, constructions of Golay-ZCZ sequence sets based on the extended generalized Boolean functions are proposed, where set sizes, sequence lengths, and ZCZ widths are all flexible and not necessary to be power-of-two. Since the constructed Golay-ZCZ sets have various set sizes, their PAPR upper bounds can be tighter. In addition, the proposed Golay-ZCZ sequence sets can achieve the upper bound on the ZCZ width. Therefore, optimal and almost-optimal Golay-ZCZ sequence sets can be obtained by the proposed methods.
Abstract
Robust evidence suggests that regular exercise, including walking more than 6000 steps, is effective for preventing dementia; however, such activity is less feasible in older people with ...osteoarthritis (OA) or other motor disabilities. Therefore, we aimed to test whether the minimal amount of exercise (MAE) could help prevent dementia in older adults with OA. A retrospective longitudinal study was performed and a non-demented cohort (≥ 50-years-old) of 242 people (155 64.0% non-converters and 87 36.0% converters) from three centers in Taiwan was analyzed with a mean follow-up of 3.1 (range 0.3–5.9) and 2.9 (range 0.5–6.0) years, respectively. MAE was defined as walking for approximately 15–30 min or 1500–3000 steps. Rate of MAE (0, 1–2, or ≥ 3) within one week were defined as MAE-no, MAE-weekly, or MAE-daily, respectively. The incidence rates of dementia were compared between groups. Multivariate logistic regression and Cox proportional hazards analyses were used to study the influence of MAE on dementia occurrence. Age, education, sex, activities of daily living, neuropsychiatric symptoms, cognition, multiple vascular risk factors, and related medications were adjusted. Compared to the MAE-no group, the odds ratios for the incidents of dementia were 0.48 and 0.19 in the MAE-weekly and MAE-daily groups, respectively. In addition, older age, poorer cognition, poorer ADL performance, and congestive heart failure increased the incidence of dementia. Daily and weekly MAE prevented dementia in older adults with OA. As such, an informative public health policy may help promote adequate exercise in at-risk groups.
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In this study, we utilize blockchain to design an information transmission system for unmanned stores. It is aimed to create a network for exchanging information that does not rely on a third party, ...a so-called decentralized system. To achieve it, a peer-to-peer (P2P) network replaces the master–slave architecture and uses asymmetric encryption to identify the system users. To authenticate the identities of the stores' customers, we use the face recognition network FaceNet developed by Google. FaceNet has several advantages that make it suitable for performing identity authentication in an unmanned store, including its high accuracy and convenience. A database of face images is required to perform facial recognition, but to address privacy concerns, every pixel in all images in the database is encrypted using the Rivest-Sharmir-Adleman (RSA) algorithm. The system proposed in this paper has three identity endpoints: the host end, the recognition end, and the client end. Messages are transmitted through a P2P network, and a directed acyclic graph is used to achieve message broadcasting while avoiding infinite loops when sending and receiving messages. A sidechain is used to change the structure and consensus mechanism of a traditional blockchain so that they can apply to more scenarios, thereby increasing scalability. The simulation results are displayed via the user interface.
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