Bio-Impedance Measurement Optimization for High-Resolution Carotid Pulse Sensing.

Continuous hemodynamic monitoring is important for long-term cardiovascular healthcare, especially in hypertension. The impedance plethysmography (IPG) based carotid pulse sensing is a non-invasive diagnosis technique for measuring pulse signals and further evaluating the arterial conditions of the patient such as continuous blood pressure (BP) monitoring. To reach the high-resolution IPG-based carotid pulse detection for cardiovascular applications, this study provides an optimized measurement parameter in response to obvious pulsation from the carotid artery.

Shifted Firefighter Health Investigation by Personal Health Insurance Record in Taiwan.

Introduction: Taiwan's firefighters use a shift rotation system with 2 days of work and 1 day of rest. Numerous papers have already explored the risks of shift work to the body. However, little data concern the impact of shift work on health as reflected in medical visits.

Association of Occupational and Physical Therapy With Duration of Prescription Opioid Use After Hip or Knee Arthroplasty: A Retrospective Cohort Study of Medicare Enrollees.

Objective: To establish whether nonpharmacologic interventions, such as occupational and physical therapy, were associated with a shorter duration of prescription opioid use after hip or knee arthroplasty.

Design: This retrospective cohort study used data from a national 5% Medicare sample database between January 1, 2010 and December 31, 2015.

Setting: Home health or outpatient.

Electrolyte-Resistant Dual Materials for the Synergistic Safety Enhancement of Lithium-Ion Batteries.

Safety issues associated with lithium-ion batteries are of major concern, especially with the ever-growing demand for higher-energy-density storage devices. Although flame retardants (FRs) added to electrolytes can reduce fire hazards, large amounts of FRs are required and they severely deteriorate battery performance. Here, we report a feasible method to balance flame retardancy and electrochemical performance by coating an electrolyte-insoluble FR on commercial battery separators.

Adherent-invasive E. coli metabolism of propanediol in Crohn's disease regulates phagocytes to drive intestinal inflammation.

Adherent-invasive E. coli (AIEC) are enriched in the intestinal microbiota of patients with Crohn's disease (CD) and promote intestinal inflammation. Yet, how AIEC metabolism of nutrients impacts intestinal homeostasis is poorly defined.

Effects of 4-Week Inspiratory Muscle Training on Sport Performance in College 800-Meter Track Runners.

Respiratory muscle fatigue is one of the important factors limiting sports performance due to the metaboreflex. This reflex will cause a decrease in blood flow to the extremities and accelerate exercising limb fatigue. Previous studies found that inspiratory muscle training (IMT) can effectively enhance the respiratory muscle endurance and reduce fatigue during long-duration exercise or aerobic exercise, thereby enhancing athletic performance.

Peptidoglycan mediates Leptospira outer membrane protein Loa22 to toll-like receptor 2 for inflammatory interaction: a novel innate immune recognition.

Leptospirosis is an overlooked zoonotic disease caused by pathogenic Leptospira depended on virulence of Leptospira and the host-pathogen interaction. Kidney is the major organ infected by Leptospira which causes tubulointerstitial nephritis. Leptospira outer membrane contains several virulence factors and an outer membrane protein A (OmpA) like protein (Loa22) is essential for virulence.

Risperidone Exacerbates Glucose Intolerance, Nonalcoholic Fatty Liver Disease, and Renal Impairment in Obese Mice.

Risperidone, a second-generation antipsychotic drug used for schizophrenia treatment with less-severe side effects, has recently been applied in major depressive disorder treatment. The mechanism underlying risperidone-associated metabolic disturbances and liver and renal adverse effects warrants further exploration. This research explores how risperidone influences weight, glucose homeostasis, fatty liver scores, liver damage, and renal impairment in high-fat diet (HFD)-administered C57BL6/J mice.

Effect of particle morphology on performance of an electrostatic air-liquid interface cell exposure system for nanotoxicology studies.

Particle morphology can affect the performance of an electrostatic precipitator air-liquid interface (ESP-ALI) cell exposure system and the resulting cell toxicity. In this study, three types of monodisperse aerosols - spherical sucrose particles, nonspherical align soot aggregates, and nanosilver aggregates/agglomerates - were selected to evaluate the collection efficiency at flow rates ranging from 0.3 to 1.

Assessing Association Between Team Structure and Health Outcome and Cost by Social Network Analysis.

Background/objective: To assess the impact of team structure composition and degree of collaboration among various providers on process and outcomes of primary care.

Design: Cross-sectional study.

Setting: Data from 20% randomly selected primary care service areas in the 2015 Medicare claims were used to identify primary care practices.

Does a Question Prompt List Improve Perceived Involvement in Care in Orthopaedic Surgery Compared with the AskShareKnow Questions? A Pragmatic Randomized Controlled Trial.

Background: Most conditions in orthopaedic surgery are preference-sensitive, where treatment choices are based on the patient's values and preferences. One set of tools increasingly used to help align treatment choices with patient preferences are question prompt lists (QPLs), which are comprehensive lists of potential questions that patients can ask their physicians during their encounters. Whether or not a comprehensive orthopaedic-specific question prompt list would increase patient-perceived involvement in care more effectively than might three generic questions (the AskShareKnow questions) remains unknown; learning the answer would be useful, since a three-question list is easier to use compared with the much lengthier QPLs.

Characteristics Associated with Feeding Tube Placement: Retrospective Cohort Study of Texas Nursing Home Residents with Advanced Dementia.

Objectives: To investigate resident-level, provider-type, nursing home (NH), and regional factors associated with feeding tube (FT) placement in advanced dementia.

Design: Retrospective cohort study.

Setting And Participants: NH residents in Texas with dementia diagnosis and severe cognitive impairment (N = 20,582).

Changes in Balance, Gait and Electroencephalography Oscillations after Robot-Assisted Gait Training: An Exploratory Study in People with Chronic Stroke.

Robot-assisted gait training (RAGT) systems offer the advantages of standard rehabilitation and provide precise and quantifiable control of therapy. We examined the clinical outcome of RAGT and analyzed the correlations between gait analysis data and event-related desynchronization (ERD) and event-related synchronization (ERS) in patients with chronic stroke. We applied the Berg balance scale (BBS) and analyzed gait parameters and the ERD and ERS of self-paced voluntary leg movements performed by patients with chronic stroke before and after undergoing RAGT.

Intraocular lens power calculation in the elderly population using the Kane formula in comparison with existing methods.

Purpose: To assess the accuracy of the Kane formula for intraocualr lens (IOL) power calculation in comparison with established formulas in the elderly population.

Setting: Shiley Eye Institute, University of California San Diego, USA.

Design: Retrospective cohort.

Achieving sustainable soil and water protection: The perspective of agricultural water price regulation on environmental protection.

With the development of Chinese economy, more and more attention has been paid to environmental protection, the implementation of water price policy affects economic and environmental changes in China. This paper analyzes the impact of water price policy on agricultural land use and the scale of water pollution discharge in 240 cities in China between 2001 and 2017, by including data from China Urban Statistical Yearbook and China Land & Resources Almanac. The theoretical analysis of this study indicates that the optimal scale of pollution depends on the local initial endowment, economic investment capital and the marginal cost of environmental pollution caused by government's economic activities.

Crystal structure of Leptospira leucine-rich repeat 20 reveals a novel E-cadherin binding protein to induce NGAL expression in HK2 cells.

Leptospirosis is the most common zoonotic disease caused by pathogenic Leptospira, which is classified into three groups according to virulence. Its pathogenic and intermediate species contain leucine-rich repeat (LRR) proteins that are rarely expressed in non-pathogenic strains. In this study, we presented the crystal structure of LSS_11580 (rLRR20) from pathogenic L.

Noisy Galvanic Vestibular Stimulation (Stochastic Resonance) Changes Electroencephalography Activities and Postural Control in Patients with Bilateral Vestibular Hypofunction.

Patients with bilateral vestibular hypofunction (BVH) often suffer from imbalance, gait problems, and oscillopsia. Noisy galvanic vestibular stimulation (GVS), a technique that non-invasively stimulates the vestibular afferents, has been shown to enhance postural and walking stability. However, no study has investigated how it affects stability and neural activities while standing and walking with a 2 Hz head yaw turning.

The Effectiveness of Acupuncture in the Treatment of Frozen Shoulder: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis.

Background: Frozen shoulder (FS) is associated with pain, reduced range of motion (ROM), and shoulder function. The condition occurs in 2-5% of the population, and it is especially common around the age of 50 years. FS symptoms will recover after 1-4 years.

Emotion anticipation induces emotion effects in neutral words during sentence reading: Evidence from event-related potentials.

This study examined whether emotion responses during reading are co-constituted by lexical items and the preceding context. Event-related potentials to coherent emotion and neutral words finishing sentences with or without strong constraint for the incoming valence were analyzed. Typical frontal P200 and posterior late positive component (LPC) emotion responses were seen to emotion words relative to neutral words in the neutral context, indicating heightened attention allocation and further valence analysis induced by word-level emotionality.

Efficacy of Acupoints Dual-Frequency Low-Level Laser Therapy on Knee Osteoarthritis.

Background: Knee osteoarthritis (OA) presented with knee pain and limitation of mobility is common, and it may become a chronic problem resulting in major loss of function, with related impaired activity of daily living. Current traditional therapy for knee OA includes pharmacological treatment and physiotherapy, but the efficacies are limited. An alternative noninvasive treatment low-level laser therapy (LLLT) applied to acupoints is still contradictory and the efficacy needs to be assessed.

Deep-learning-based human motion tracking for rehabilitation applications using 3D image features.

Motion rehabilitation is increasingly required owing to an aging population and suffering of stroke, which means human motion analysis must be valued. Based on the concept mentioned above, a deep-learning-based system is proposed to track human motion based on three-dimensional (3D) images in this work; meanwhile, the features of traditional red green blue (RGB) images, known as two-dimensional (2D) images, were used as a comparison. The results indicate that 3D images have an advantage over 2D images due to the information of spatial relationships, which implies that the proposed system can be a potential technology for human motion analysis applications.

Effect of Stem Cell Injections on Osteoarthritis-related Structural Outcomes: A Systematic Review.

Objective: To systematically review the evidence for the efficacy of mesenchymal stem cell (MSC) injections in improving osteoarthritis (OA)-related structural outcomes.

Methods: Ovid Medline and EMBASE were searched from their inceptions to April 2020 using MeSH terms and key words. Independent reviewers extracted data and assessed methodological quality.

Discoidin Domain Receptor 1 Regulates Runx2 during Osteogenesis of Osteoblasts and Promotes Bone Ossification via Phosphorylation of p38.

Discoidin domain receptor 1 () is a collagen-binding membrane protein, but its role in osteoblasts during osteogenesis remains undefined. We generated inducible osteoblast-specific knockout (OKOΔ) mice; their stature at birth, body weight and body length were significantly decreased compared with those of control mice. We hypothesize that regulates osteogenesis of osteoblasts.