In this paper, the problem of guaranteed cost synchronization for a complex network is investigated. In order to achieve the synchronization, two types of guaranteed cost dynamic feedback controller ...are designed. Based on Lyapunov stability theory, a linear matrix inequality (LMI) convex optimization problem is formulated to find the controller which guarantees the asymptotic stability and minimizes the upper bound of a given quadratic cost function. Finally, a numerical example is given to illustrate the proposed method.
Tau proteins aggregate as cytoplasmic inclusions in a number of neurodegenerative diseases, including Alzheimer's disease and hereditary frontotemporal dementia and parkinsonism linked to chromosome ...17 (FTDP-17). Over 10 exonic and intronic mutations in the tau gene have been identified in about 20 FTDP-17 families. Analyses of soluble and insoluble tau proteins from brains of FTDP-17 patients indicated that different pathogenic mutations differentially altered distinct biochemical properties and stoichiometry of brain tau isoforms. Functional assays of recombinant tau proteins with different FTDP-17 missense mutations implicated all but one of these mutations in disease pathogenesis by reducing the ability of tau to bind microtubules and promote microtubule assembly.
To evaluate whether shear-wave velocity (SWV) can be used for predicting the prognoses of patients with colorectal cancer liver metastases (CRLMs) after chemotherapy.
Our institutional review board ...approved this prospective study, and written informed consent was obtained. SWV of CRLMs were obtained using point shear-wave elastography using acoustic radiation force impulse from 25 patients prior to and 2, 7, and 14 days after chemotherapy. Progression-free survival (PFS) after chemotherapy was estimated using the Kaplan–Meier method. The Cox proportional hazard regression model was used to determine significant predictive factors for PFS. For measurement reproducibility, an additional 37 patients with CRLMs were enrolled and assessed using intraclass correlation coefficients (ICCs).
After chemotherapy, 10 and 15 patients were classified into responder and non-responder groups, respectively. The estimated 1- and 3-year PFS values in the whole cohort were 36% and 8%, respectively. A decrease in the SWV value on day 2 relative to the initial value was a significant predictive factor for better PFS outcome (hazard ratio = 0.20, 95% confidence interval = 0.07–0.57, p=0.003). The estimated 1 and 3-year PFS rates were 66.7% and 22.2%, respectively, in nine patients with decreased SWV values on day 2 and significantly higher than 18.8% and 0% of 16 patients with increased SWV values on day 2. The ICC value of SWV of CRLMs in the additional 37 patients was 0.823 (95% CI = 0.685–0.905), indicating good agreement.
SWV values of CRLMs could provide prognostic information in patients with CRLMs treated with chemotherapy, as decreased SWV values on day 2 after chemotherapy was a significant predictive factor for better PFS.
•Almost perfect agreement for shear wave velocity (SWV) of metastasis was achieved.•The SWV of metastasis were not significantly associated with chemotherapy response.•Decreases in the SWV on day 2 were significant predicting factor for better PFS.
Abstract
Funding Acknowledgements
Type of funding sources: None. Main funding source(s): none
Background
There is a paucity of data on the artificial intelligence-estimated biological ECG heart age ...(AI ECG-heart age) for predicting cardiovascular outcomes as distinct from the chronological age (CA).
Purpose
We sought to investigate whether a deep learning-based algorithm to estimate the AI ECG-heart age using standard 12-lead ECGs predicted mortality and cardiovascular outcomes.
Methods
We trained and validated a deep neural network using raw ECG digital data from 425,051 12-lead ECGs acquired between January 2006 and December 2021. The network performed a holdout test using a separate set of 97,058 ECGs. Additionally, randomly age-sex matched patients with reduced and preserved ejection fraction (EF) were compared.
Results
The deep neural network was trained to estimate the AI ECG-heart age (the mean absolute error 5.8 ± 3.9 years and R squared of 0.7 (r=0.84, p<0.0001) (Fig 1A). In the Cox proportional-hazards models after adjusting for relevant co-morbidity factors, the subjects with an AI ECG-heart age of seven years older than the chronological age had higher all-cause mortality (HR 1.62 1.43-1.84) and major adverse cardiovascular events (MACEs) (HR 1.92 1.65-2.23), while those under seven years had an inverse relationship (HR 0.86 0.77-0.95 for all-cause mortality; HR 0.73 0.63-0.84 for MACEs) (Fig 2). Subjects with a reduced EF had a substantially higher mean AI ECG heart-age, QRS duration, and corrected QT intervals than those with a preserved EF (all p<0.001) (Fig 1B).
Conclusion
The biological heart age estimated by AI had a significant impact on mortality and MACE. Those data suggested that the AI ECG-heart age might facilitate the primary prevention and health care for cardiovascular outcomes.
The molecular mechanisms and genetics of abamectin resistance mediated by target site insensitivity in the two-spotted spider mite, Tetranychus urticae, were investigated by comparing two isogenic ...abamectin-susceptible (AbaS) and abamectin-resistant (AbaR) strains. Cloning and sequencing of full-length cDNA fragments of γ-amino butyric acid (GABA)-gated chloride channel genes revealed no polymorphisms between the two strains. However, sequence comparison of the full-length cDNA fragment of a T. urticae glutamate-gated chloride channel gene (TuGluCl) identified a G323D point mutation as being tentatively related with abamectin resistance. In individual F₂ progenies obtained by backcrossing, the G323D genotype was confirmed to correlate with abamectin resistance. Bioassays using progeny from reciprocal crossings revealed that the abamectin resistance trait resulting from TuGluCl insensitivity is incompletely recessive.
Autologous fat has long been used as a filler in the face, and has recently gained popularity in plastic surgery with a wound infection rate of 1% − 5%. The incidence of mycobacterial infections has ...increased over recent decades, which is attributed in part to the increased popularity of these procedures.2 Infections by non-tuberculosis mycobacteria often cause chronic inflammation and progressive infection that may eventually manifest themselves as severe scars, fistulas, and hollows, and irregular facial contours. However, few cases of mycobacterial infection have been reported to have been caused by plastic surgery. We present a rare case of non-tuberculosis mycobacterial infection after transfer of autologous fat to the face.
We introduce a new method for overcoming the strength–ductility trade-off by using a non-metallic alloying method, whereby numerous oxygen atoms are introduced in a conventional A356 alloy (I-A356 ...alloy). Self-organized nanofibers containing oxygen atoms formed in the melt had a chemically coherent interface with the matrix after solidification. Furthermore, the nanofibers (~10 nm in width) developed small sub-grains (<1 μm in size) with wide low-angle boundaries within the grains. Pre-existing dislocations developed by the small lattice mismatch between the nanofibers and matrix promoted strong activities. The sub-grain boundaries do the role of dislocation cells during plastic deformation, imparting high elongation to the I-A356 alloy. In addition, finely dispersed Si-rich nanoprecipitates formed during the aging treatment. The oxygen-rich intermixed layer at the Al–Si interfaces with a small radius of curvature drove Al–Si interdiffusion owing to the high attractive binding energy with Al. Thus, in addition to Mg2Si precipitates, the Si-rich nanoprecipitates further enhanced the alloy strength. Therefore, both, the ultimate tensile strength and elongation to failure of the I-A356 alloy, significantly increased by approximately 69.6 MPa and 14.8%, respectively, in relation to those of the A356 alloy.
•Nanofibers develop small sub-grains that are less than 1 μm in size and approximately 10 nm wide.•The sub-grain boundaries with small lattice-mismatched interfaces contain pre-existing dislocations.•The sub-grain boundaries with wide low-angle boundaries act as dislocation cells during plastic deformation.•Finely dispersed Si-rich nano-precipitates formed in the presence of oxygen atoms enhance the strength.
Abstract Background and Aims Despite the application of prophylaxis, the risk of hepatitis B virus (HBV) recurrence remains. However, actual mechanism(s) and definite risk factor(s) are obscure. The ...present study examined the correlation between the HBV load in liver explants and post-liver transplant (OLT) HBV recurrence. Methods HBV DNA was extracted from liver tissue taken from 50 living donor OLT (LDLT) patients using the QuickGene DNA Tissue Kit S (Fujifilm, Tokyo, Japan) and subjected to real-time polymerase chain reaction with the following primers: 5′-CACATGGCCTCCAAGGAGTAA-3′ (forward primer) and 5′-TGAGGGTCTCTCTCTTCCTCTTGT-3′ (reverse primer). To prevent HBV infection, patients were treated daily with high-dose (10,000 IU) hepatitis B immunoglobulin (HBIG) for the first week after LDLT. They then received weekly doses for the next month and then monthly doses for ≤1 year. If the anti-hepatitis surface antigen antibody titer was <1,000 IU/L, an antiviral agent (AVA) was added to the regimen. Results The mean (±SD) tissue HBV DNA and covalently closed circular DNA (cccDNA) loads were −0.8 ± 1.2 (range, −2.9 to 2.6) and −2.3 ± 1.1 (range, −4.6 to 0.6) log10 copies/cell, respectively. There was a significant correlation between serum and tissue HBV DNA ( r = 0.65; P = .00) and cccDNA concentrations ( r = 0.55; P = .00). Six patients suffered HBV recurrence and 9 required additional AVA. There was no direct correlation between HBV recurrence and tissue cccDNA concentration. However, the concentration of cccDNA was significantly greater those patients suffering recurrence and receiving AVA treatment (high-risk group). Conclusion High tissue cccDNA concentrations may be a risk factor for HBV recurrence despite high-dose HBIG prophylaxis.
Summary
Background and objective
The thromboxane A2 receptor (TBXA2R) is a receptor for a potent bronchoconstrictor, TBXA2 which is known to be related to bronchial asthma and myocardial infarction. ...TBXA2R antagonist and TBX synthase inhibitors have been found to be effective in the management of asthmatic patients. This study was aimed to evaluate whether genetic variants of TBXA2R may be related with development of acetyl salicylic acid (ASA)‐intolerant asthma (AIA).
Methods
TBXA2R gene polymorphisms (TBXA2R+795T>C, TBXA2R+924T>C) were determined using a single‐base extension method in 93 AIA patients compared with 172 patients with ASA‐tolerant asthma (ATA) and 118 normal controls (NCs) recruited from the Korean population. HLA DPB1*0301 genotype was performed using a direct sequencing method.
Results
The rare C allele frequency of TBXA2R+795T>C was significantly higher in AIA than in ATA (P=0.03) and the TBXA2R+795T>C polymorphism was also associated with extent of percent fall in forced expiratory volume in 1 s (FEV1) after the inhalation of lysine–acetyl salicylic acid in AIA patients (P=0.009); AIA patients homozygous for the +795 C allele had a greater percent fall of FEV1 compared with individuals with TBXA2R+795 CT or TT genotypes. The frequency of patients carrying both the TBXA2R+795T>C rare allele and HLA DPB1*0301 was significantly higher in AIA patients (29.4%) than in ATA patients (7.3%) (P=0.008, odds ratio=5.3).
Conclusion
These results suggest that the polymorphism of TBXA2R+795T>C may increase bronchoconstrictive response to ASA, which could contribute to the development of the AIA phenotype.
KinasePhos is a novel web server for computationally identifying catalytic kinase-specific phosphorylation sites. The known phosphorylation sites from public domain data sources are categorized by ...their annotated protein kinases. Based on the profile hidden Markov model, computational models are learned from the kinase-specific groups of the phosphorylation sites. After evaluating the learned models, the model with highest accuracy was selected from each kinase-specific group, for use in a web-based prediction tool for identifying protein phosphorylation sites. Therefore, this work developed a kinase-specific phosphorylation site prediction tool with both high sensitivity and specificity. The prediction tool is freely available at http://KinasePhos.mbc.nctu.edu.tw/.
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