Accurate identification of physical activity types has been achieved in laboratory conditions using single-site accelerometers and classification algorithms. This methodology is then applied to ...free-living subjects to determine activity behavior. This study is aimed at analyzing the reproducibility of the accuracy of laboratory-trained classification algorithms in free-living subjects during daily life. A support vector machine (SVM), a feed-forward neural network (NN), and a decision tree (DT) were trained with data collected by a waist-mounted accelerometer during a laboratory trial. The reproducibility of the classification performance was tested on data collected in daily life using a multiple-site accelerometer augmented with an activity diary for 20 healthy subjects (age: 30 ± 9; BMI: 23.0 ± 2.6 kg/m 2 ). Leave-one-subject-out cross validation of the training data showed accuracies of 95.1 ± 4.3%, 91.4 ± 6.7%, and 92.2 ± 6.6% for the SVM, NN, and DT, respectively. All algorithms showed a significantly decreased accuracy in daily life as compared to the reference truth represented by the IDEEA and diary classifications (75.6 ± 10.4%, 74.8 ± 9.7%, and 72.2 ± 10.3 %; p <; 0.05). In conclusion, cross validation of training data overestimates the accuracy of the classification algorithms in daily life.
Camera trapping allows scientists to study activity patterns of animals under natural conditions. However, comparisons of activity patterns across seasons or latitudes can be biased, because activity ...is often attuned to sunrise and sunset, the timing of which varies with latitude and season. Existing transformation methods to solve this problem have limitations.
Here, we explore whether and how activity patterns can be transformed more accurately using two alternative ‘double anchoring’ transformations – equinoctial and average anchoring – that anchor activity time to two chosen anchor points during the study period.
Using simulated noisy datasets mimicking species with either crepuscular, diurnal or cathemeral activity patterns, we compared the ability of different transformation methods to extract the latent pattern and activity levels under different study conditions. We found that average anchoring best retrieved the original diel activity pattern and yielded accurate estimates of activity level. Two alternative transformation methods – single anchoring and equinoctial anchoring – performed less well. Bias in estimates from using untransformed clock times was most marked (up to 2.5‐fold overestimation) for longer studies covering 4–5 months either side of an equinox at high latitude, and focusing on crepuscular species.
We applied the average anchoring method to 9 months of data on Red deer Cervus elaphus, Wild boar Sus scrofa and Mouflon Ovis amon musimon activity as captured by camera traps in National Park Hoge Veluwe, the Netherlands. Average anchoring revealed more pronounced peaks of activity after sunset than was apparent from untransformed data in red deer and wild boar, but not for mouflon, a cathemeral species. Similarly, activity level was lower when calculated using average anchored time for red deer and wild boar, but no difference was observed for mouflon.
We conclude that transformation of time might not be necessary at latitudes below 20°, or in studies with a duration of less than a month (below 40° latitude). For longer study periods and/or higher latitudes, average anchoring resolves the problem of variable day length. Code is provided. The transformation functions are incorporated in the r‐package ‘activity’.
In this research, twenty-four hydrazide-hydrazones of 2,4-dihydroxybenzoic acid were designed, synthesized, and subjected to in vitro and in vivo bioactivity studies. The chemical structure of the ...obtained compounds was confirmed by spectral methods. Antimicrobial activity screening was performed against a panel of microorganisms for all synthesized hydrazide-hydrazones. The performed assays revealed the interesting antibacterial activity of a few substances against Gram-positive bacterial strains including MRSA-
ATCC 43300 (compound
: 2,4-dihydroxy-
-(2-hydroxy-3,5-diiodophenyl)methylidenebenzohydrazide-Minimal Inhibitory Concentration, MIC = 3.91 µg/mL). In addition, we performed the in vitro screening of antiproliferative activity and also assessed the acute toxicity of six hydrazide-hydrazones. The following human cancer cell lines were used: 769-P, HepG2, H1563, and LN-229, and the viability of the cells was assessed using the MTT method. The HEK-293 cell line was used as a reference line. The toxicity was tested in vivo on
embryos using the Fish Embryo Acute Toxicity (FET) test procedure according to OECD No. 236. The inhibitory concentration values obtained in the in vitro test showed that
-(4-nitrophenyl)methylidene-2,4-dihydroxybenzhydrazide (
) inhibited cancer cell proliferation the most, with an extremely low IC
(Inhibitory Concentration) value, estimated at 0.77 µM for LN-229. In addition, each of the compounds tested was selective against cancer cell lines. The compounds with a nitrophenyl substituent were the most promising in terms of inhibition cancer cell proliferation. The toxicity against zebrafish embryos and larvae was also very low or moderate.
To accelerate the development of novel fungicides, a variety of
-(pyrazol-5-yl)benzamide derivatives with a diphenylamine moiety were designed and synthesized using a pharmacophore recombination ...strategy based on the structure of pyrazol-5-yl-aminophenyl-benzamides. The bioassay results demonstrated that most of the target compounds had excellent
antifungal activities against
,
, and
. In particular, compound
exhibited remarkable activity against
(EC
= 0.37 mg/L), which was similar to that of fluxapyroxad (EC
= 0.27 mg/L). In addition, compound
(EC
= 1.32 mg/L) was observed to be more effective against
than fluxapyroxad (EC
= 12.8 mg/L) and comparable to trifloxystrobin (EC
= 1.62 mg/L). Furthermore, compound
demonstrated remarkable
protective antifungal properties against
, with an inhibition rate of 96.8% at 100 mg/L, which was close to that of fluxapyroxad (99.6%). Compounds
(66.7%) and
(62.9%) exhibited good
antifungal effects against
at 100 mg/L, which were superior to that of fluxapyroxad (11.1%) but lower than that of trifloxystrobin (88.9%). The succinate dehydrogenase (SDH) enzymatic inhibition assay was conducted to confirm the mechanism of action. Molecular docking analysis further revealed that compound
has significant hydrogen-bonding, π-π, and p-π conjugation interactions with ARG 43, SER 39, TRP 173, and TYR 58 in the binding site of SDH, and the binding mode was similar to that of the commercial fungicide fluxapyroxad. All of the results suggest that compound
could be a potential SDH inhibitor, offering a valuable reference for future studies.
Based on natural cerbinal, a series of novel 4-bit modified cyclopenta
pyridine derivatives containing a substituted amide or ester moiety were designed and synthesized for the first time. Their ...structures were systematically characterized by NMR and high-resolution mass spectra (HRMS). The anti-TMV activities, such as protection, inactivation, and curative effects in vivo, were evaluated methodically. The lethal activities of the target compounds against the agriculturally common pests
and
were evaluated by the immersion method. The bioassay results indicated that most of the target compounds exhibited good to excellent anti-TMV activity levels, good lethal activity against
at 600 μg/mL, and greater insecticidal activities against
compared to the plant-derived insecticide rotenone. The binding mode of cerbinal and cyclopenta
pyridine derivatives
,
, and
with the TMV protein was studied with a molecular docking method, which indicated that the functional group of the 2- and 4-positions is vital for anti-TMV activity. The systematic research provides strong evidence that these novel 4-bit modified cyclopenta
pyridine derivatives could become potential agrochemical insecticides and anti-TMV agents.
ABSTRACT
BACKGROUND
This was a cross‐sectional survey to investigate the relationship of age, parent education, sleep duration, physical activity, and dietary habits with overweight or obesity in ...school‐age children in Shanghai.
METHODS
The survey gathered information from 13,001 children in grades 1 through 5 (age 6 to 10 years) among 26 elementary schools in 7 districts. Activity level was evaluated using the International Children's Leisure Activities Study Survey Questionnaire (CLASS‐C). The definitions of normal, overweight, and obese were adjusted for each age.
RESULTS
Logistic regression analysis indicated that age, being male, having ≤10 hours of sleep on non‐school days, eating ≥1 vegetable/day, or drinking ≥1 sugar‐sweetened drink/day increased the risk for a child being overweight or obese compared with having >10 hours of sleep or ≤3 vegetables or ≤3 sugar‐sweetened drinks/month (p ≤ .008). Having >2 hours of outdoor activities on non‐school days reduced the risk of being overweight or obese compared with ≤2 hours of outdoor activities on non‐school days (p < .001).
CONCLUSIONS
We found that age, sex, sleep, and some dietary habits impacted weight, and suggests that specific cultural and economic factors may impact risk of a child being overweight or obese.
Smartphones, smartwatches, fitness trackers, and ad-hoc wearable devices are being increasingly used to monitor human activities. Data acquired by the hosted sensors are usually processed by ...machine-learning-based algorithms to classify human activities. The success of those algorithms mostly depends on the availability of training (labeled) data that, if made publicly available, would allow researchers to make objective comparisons between techniques. Nowadays, there are only a few publicly available data sets, which often contain samples from subjects with too similar characteristics, and very often lack specific information so that is not possible to select subsets of samples according to specific criteria. In this article, we present a new dataset of acceleration samples acquired with an Android smartphone designed for human activity recognition and fall detection. The dataset includes 11,771 samples of both human activities and falls performed by 30 subjects of ages ranging from 18 to 60 years. Samples are divided in 17 fine grained classes grouped in two coarse grained classes: one containing samples of 9 types of activities of daily living (ADL) and the other containing samples of 8 types of falls. The dataset has been stored to include all the information useful to select samples according to different criteria, such as the type of ADL performed, the age, the gender, and so on. Finally, the dataset has been benchmarked with four different classifiers and with two different feature vectors. We evaluated four different classification tasks: fall vs. no fall, 9 activities, 8 falls, 17 activities and falls. For each classification task, we performed a 5-fold cross-validation (i.e., including samples from all the subjects in both the training and the test dataset) and a leave-one-subject-out cross-validation (i.e., the test data include the samples of a subject only, and the training data, the samples of all the other subjects). Regarding the classification tasks, the major findings can be summarized as follows: (i) it is quite easy to distinguish between falls and ADLs, regardless of the classifier and the feature vector selected. Indeed, these classes of activities present quite different acceleration shapes that simplify the recognition task; (ii) on average, it is more difficult to distinguish between types of falls than between types of activities, regardless of the classifier and the feature vector selected. This is due to the similarity between the acceleration shapes of different kinds of falls. On the contrary, ADLs acceleration shapes present differences except for a small group. Finally, the evaluation shows that the presence of samples of the same subject both in the training and in the test datasets, increases the performance of the classifiers regardless of the feature vector used. This happens because each human subject differs from other subjects in performing activities even if she shares with them the same physical characteristics.
The ethanolic extract of the leaves of
Piper carpunya was subjected to column chromatography and 16 pure compounds were isolated and identified. Among these, the terpenoids sitosterol, stigmasterol ...and phytol as well as the flavonoids vitexin, isovitexin, rhamnopyranosylvitexin and isoembigenin probably contribute to the significant myeloperoxidase,
Helicobater pylori and H
+, K
+-ATPase inhibitory activity observed with many of the fractions. Furthermore, neolignan, which is a DNA polymerase β lyase inhibitor, and (6S, 9S)-roseoside, that shows strong anti-bacterial activity, were isolated, for the first time, from the genus
Piper.
The leaves of
Piper carpunya Ruiz & Pav. (syn
Piper lenticellosum C.D.C.) (Piperaceae), are widely used in folk medicine in tropical and subtropical countries of South America as an anti-inflammatory, anti-ulcer, anti-diarrheal and anti-parasitical remedy as well as an ailment for skin irritations.
To study the anti-inflammatory, anti-secretory and anti-
Helicobacter pylori activities of different fractions isolated from an ethanolic extract of the leaves of
Piper carpunya, in order to provide evidence for the use of this plant as an anti-ulcer remedy. Moreover, to isolate the main compounds of the extract and relate their biological activity to the experimental results obtained with the fractions.
Sixteen fractions were obtained from the ethanolic extract (F I–XVI) and 16 pure compounds were isolated and identified from these fractions. We studied the effects of the fractions (0.1–400
μg/mL) on the release of myeloperoxidase (MPO) enzyme from rat peritoneal leukocytes, on rabbit gastric microsomal H
+, K
+-ATPase activity and anti-
Helicobacter pylori anti-microbial activity using the microdilution method (MM). The main compounds contained in the fractions were isolated and identified by
1H- and
13C NMR spectra analysis and comparison with the literature data.
Eight fractions showed inhibition of MPO enzyme (F I–IV, X, XII, XIV and XV). The highest inhibition was observed with F XIV (50
μg/mL, 60.9%,
p
<
0.001). F X and XII were the most active ones, inhibiting the gastric H
+, K
+-ATPase activity with IC
50 values equal to 22.3
μg/mL and 28.1
μg/mL, respectively. All fractions, except F XV, presented detectable anti-
Helicobacter pylori activity, with a diameter of inhibition zones ranging from 11
mm up to 50
mm. The best anti-
Helicobacter pylori activity was obtained with F III and V. Both fractions killed
Helicobacter pylori with lowest concentration values, about 6.25
μg/mL. Sixteen pure compounds were isolated, five of them are flavonoids that possess strong anti-oxidant and free radical scavenging activity, e.g. vitexin, isovitexin, and rhamnopyranosylvitexin. Terpenoids like sitosterol, stigmasterol and phytol, which have shown gastroprotective activity, and dihydrochalcones, like asebogenin, with anti-bacterial activity, were also isolated. Furthermore, the rare neolignan
1, that is a DNA polymerase β lyase inhibitor, and (6S, 9S)-roseoside, that shows strong anti-bacterial activity, were isolated, for the first time, from the genus Piper.
We suggest that the flavonoids isolated from F I and II (vitexin, isovitexin, rhamnopyranosylvitexin and isoembigenin) contribute to the anti-MPO activity, as well as to their anti-
Helicobacter pylori activity. These flavonoids may also be responsible for the important inhibition of H
+, K
+-ATPase activity. Also the phytosterols and phytol obtained from F XIV and XV could be involved in these gastroprotective activities. These results encourage us to continue phytochemical studies on these fractions in order to obtain full scientific validation for this species.
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