Pulmonary complications are frequent in stroke, contributing to both mortality and morbidity rates. Respiratory parameters in such patients encompass both pulmonary function and respiratory muscle ...strength. Identifying respiratory function variables that influence the balance and gait ability of patients with stroke is crucial for enhancing their recovery in these aspects. However, no study has assessed predictions for a comprehensive array of balance and gait abilities in such patients. We aimed to examine whether initial respiratory muscle strength and pulmonary function can predict balance and gait ability at discharge from a rehabilitation program. Thirty-one patients with stroke were included in this prospective observational study. Multiple regression models with a forward selection procedure were employed to identify respiratory parameters (including peak expiratory flow and maximal expiratory pressure) that contributed to the results of balance assessments and gait evaluations at the time of discharge. The peak expiratory flow (PEF) served as a predictor explaining 42.0% of the variance. Similarly, the maximal expiratory pressure (MEP) was a predictor variable explaining 32.0% of the variance. PEF and MEP assessments at the initial stage as predictive factors for both balance and gait ability are important in stroke management.
The bioassay-directed isolation of a marine brown alga, Ecklonia cava, afforded four phlorotannin derivatives, eckol (1), 8,8′-bieckol (2), 8,4′′′-dieckol (3), and phlorofucofuroeckol A (4). Among ...these compounds, 2 and 3 exhibited an inhibitory effect on human immunodeficiency virus type 1 (HIV-1) reverse transcriptase (RT) and protease. Specifically, they inhibited the RT more potently than the protease. The inhibitory activity of compound 2 (IC50, 0.51 μM) against HIV-1 RT was comparable to that of nevirapine (IC50, 0.28 μM), a reference compound. An enzyme kinetic assay showed that this compound inhibited the RNA-dependent DNA synthesis activity of HIV-1 RT noncompetitively against dUTP/dTTP with a Ki value of 0.78 μM. With respect to the homopolymeric template/primer, (rA)n(dT)15, 8,8′-bieckol (2) displayed an uncompetitive type of inhibition (Ki, 0.23 μM).
Circuit and design techniques are presented for enhancing the performance and reliability of a 3-D-stacked high bandwidth memory-2 extension (HBM2E). A data-bus window extension technique is ...implemented to cope with reduced clock cycle time ranging from data-path architecture, through-silicon via (TSV) placement, and TSV-PHY alignment. A power TSV placement in the middle of array and at the chip edge along with a dedicated top metal for power mesh improves power IR drop by 62%. An on-die ECC (OD-ECC) scheme featuring a self-scrubbing function is designed to be orthogonal to system ECC. An uncorrectable bit error rate (UBER) is improved by 10 5 times with the proposed OD-ECC and scrubbing scheme. A memory built-in self-test (MBIST) block supports low-frequency cell and core test in a parallel manner and all channel at-speed operation with adjustable ac parameters. The proposed parallel-bit MBIST reduces test time by 66%. A 16-GB HBM2E fabricated in the second generation of 10-nm class DRAM process achieves a bandwidth up to 640 GB/s (5 Gb/s/pin) and provides a stable bit-cell operation at a high temperature (e.g., 105 ° C).
Understanding and monitoring virus-mediated infections has gained importance since the global outbreak of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic. Studies of high-throughput omics-based ...immune profiling of COVID-19 patients can help manage the current pandemic and future virus-mediated pandemics. Although COVID-19 is being studied since past 2 years, detailed mechanisms of the initial induction of dynamic immune responses or the molecular mechanisms that characterize disease progression remains unclear. This study involved comprehensively collected biospecimens and longitudinal multi-omics data of 300 COVID-19 patients and 120 healthy controls, including whole genome sequencing (WGS), single-cell RNA sequencing combined with T cell receptor (TCR) and B cell receptor (BCR) sequencing (scRNA(+scTCR/BCR)-seq), bulk BCR and TCR sequencing (bulk TCR/BCR-seq), and cytokine profiling. Clinical data were also collected from hospitalized COVID-19 patients, and HLA typing, laboratory characteristics, and COVID-19 viral genome sequencing were performed during the initial diagnosis. The entire set of biospecimens and multi-omics data generated in this project can be accessed by researchers from the National Biobank of Korea with prior approval. This distribution of largescale multi-omics data of COVID-19 patients can facilitate the understanding of biological crosstalk involved in COVID-19 infection and contribute to the development of potential methodologies for its diagnosis and treatment. BMB Reports 2022; 55(9): 465-471.
Impaired motor control, balance, muscle strength, and respiratory function may affect the exercise capacity related to motor performance and activities in individuals with stroke.
To identify a ...physical parameter that the exercise capacity has the most significant relationship among physical parameters related to motor function, trunk control, balance, and motor performance and activities in individuals with ischemic stroke.
In total, 241 ischemic stroke patients were recruited in this retrospective study. The clinical measurements included the 6-minute walk test (6 MWT), Montreal cognitive assessment (MoCA), Fugl-Meyer assessment-lower extremity motor function (FMA-LE), trunk impairment scale (TIS), Berg balance scale (BBS), timed up and go test (TUG), 10-meter walk test (10 MWT), functional ambulation category (FAC), and functional independence measure (FIM).
The 6 MWT was significantly correlated with the FMA-LE, BBS, TUG, 10 MWT, FAC, and FIM, indicating negative or positive moderate correlations. Additionally, the FMA-LE, TIS, BBS, TUG, 10 MWT, FAC, and FIM, excluding the 6 MWT, showed moderate to strong correlations with all of the other outcome measures, whereas the MoCA showed significant correlations only with the BBS and FIM.
In this study, the exercise capacity has the most significant relationship with the TUG parameter in stroke patients. Additionally, we suggest that significant relationships between 6 MWT and other comprehensive physical functions measurements are closely related to walking ability in individuals with stroke.
Celotno besedilo
Dostopno za:
DOBA, IZUM, KILJ, NUK, OILJ, PILJ, PNG, SAZU, UILJ, UKNU, UL, UM, UPUK, VSZLJ
This study was carried out to evaluate the effect of heating and physical conditions of grape seeds on the antioxidant activity of their extracts. Two forms of grape seeds, whole and powdered forms, ...were heated at four different temperatures −50, 100, 150 and 200
°C. After heating, grape seeds were extracted with 70% ethanol (0.1
g grape seed/10
mL of 70% ethanol), and total phenol contents (TPC), radical scavenging activity (RSA) and reducing power of the extracts were determined. Thermal treatment of grape seed increased the antioxidant activity of extracts. The maximum TPC and RSA of whole grape seed extract (WGSE) were achieved when the seeds were heat-treated at 150
°C for 40
min, while that of powdered grape seed extract (PGSE) were at 100
°C for 10
min, and were greater than that of the non-treated control. Also, the reducing powers of WGSE and PGSE slightly increased at the conditions. According to the GC-MS analysis, several low-molecular-weight phenolic compounds such as azelaic acid, 3,4-dihydroxy benzoic acid, and
o-cinnamic acid were newly formed in the WGSE heated at 150
°C for 40
min. There were slight differences in the kinds of phenolic compounds between non-heated and heated GSE. In HPLC analysis, the contents of gallocatechin gallate and caffeine in GSE significantly increased by heat treatment. These results indicated that antioxidant activity of GSE was affected by heating conditions (temperature and time) and physical conditions of grape seeds at the time of heat treatments.
With increasing installations of photovoltaic (PV) systems, interest in power forecasting has also increased. Inaccurate forecasts would result in substantial economic losses and system reliability ...issues. The correlation between weather variables and PV power is critical to ensure the efficient use of energy in PV systems. A key step toward accurate power forecasting is estimating the output from a PV system based on known environmental input data. In this research, all available weather data are used to predict the PV power. Meteorological and power data are then analyzed using a statistical approach to identify the order of significance of the input variables. Then, a predictive model is suggested as a function of irradiance, ambient temperature, wind speed, and relative humidity. The model produces a root mean square error of 4.957% and a mean absolute percentage error of 5.468% during the measurement period and over the entire range of irradiation.
Abstract
Osteonecrosis of the femoral head (ONFH) involves necrosis of bone and bone marrow of the femoral head caused by ischemia with unknown etiology. Previous genetic studies on ONFH failed to ...produce consistent results, presumably because ONFH has various causes with different genetic backgrounds and the underlying diseases confounded the associations. Steroid-associated ONFH (S-ONFH) accounts for one-half of all ONFH, and systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) is a representative disease underlying S-ONFH. We performed a genome-wide association study (GWAS) to identify genetic risk factors for S-ONFH in patients with SLE. We conducted a two-staged GWAS on 636 SLE patients with S-ONFH and 95 588 non-SLE controls. Among the novel loci identified, we determined S-ONFH-specific loci by comparing allele frequencies between SLE patients without S-ONFH and non-SLE controls. We also used Korean datasets comprising 148 S-ONFH cases and 37 015 controls to assess overall significance. We evaluated the functional annotations of significant variants by in silico analyses. The Japanese GWAS identified 4 significant loci together with 12 known SLE susceptibility loci. The four significant variants showed comparable effect sizes on S-ONFH compared with SLE controls and non-SLE controls. Three of the four loci, MIR4293/MIR1265 odds ratio (OR) = 1.99, P-value = 1.1 × 10−9), TRIM49/NAALAD2 (OR = 1.65, P-value = 4.8 × 10−8) and MYO16 (OR = 3.91, P-value = 4.9 × 10−10), showed significant associations in the meta-analysis with Korean datasets. Bioinformatics analyses identified MIR4293, NAALAD2 and MYO16 as candidate causal genes. MIR4293 regulates a PPARG-related adipogenesis pathway relevant to S-ONFH. We identified three novel susceptibility loci for S-ONFH in SLE.
Purpose:
To evaluate the role of the cardiopulmonary exercise test (CPET) with comorbidity index as a predictor of overall survival (OS) and non-relapse mortality (NRM) in patients with hematological ...malignancies who undergo allogeneic hematopoietic stem cell transplantation (HSCT).
Methods:
We retrospectively analyzed consecutive adult patients with hematological malignancies who underwent HLA-matched donor-HSCT at Chungnam National University Hospital (Daejeon, South Korea) between January 2014 and December 2020. Maximal oxygen consumption (VO2max) was classified using the recommendations of the Mayo Clinic database.
Results:
Of 72 patients, 38 (52.8%) had VO2max values lower than the 25th percentile (VO2max ≤ 25th) of an age- and sex-matched normal population. Patients with VO2max ≤ 25th had no significant differences both OS and NRM (30 month OS 29.8% vs 41%, P = .328; and 30 month NRM 16% vs 3.3%, P = .222), compared with other patients. VO2max ≤ 25th was assigned a weight of 1 when added to the Hematopoietic Cell Transplantation-specific Comorbidity Index (HCT-CI) to form a composite comorbidity/CPET index (HCT-CI/CPET). Patients with HCT-CI/CPET scores of 0 to 1 demonstrated significantly better OS and NRM than did patients with HCT-CI/CPET scores ≥2 median OS not reached vs 6 months, P < .001 and 30 month NRM 7.4% vs 33.3%, P = .006. An HCT-CI/CPET score ≥2 was the only adverse risk factor for NRM on multivariate analysis hazard ratio (HR) of NRM 10.36 (95% CI 1.486-2.25, P = .018).
Conclusion:
The composite HCT-CI/CPET score can predict the survival and mortality of patients with hematological malignancies who undergo allogeneic HSCT.
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