Continuous positive airway pressure improves respiratory mechanics and efficiency of neural drive in stable COPD: an exploratory study.

Background: Continuous positive airway pressure (CPAP) is a major treatment strategy for severe chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), especially with respiratory failure. However, it remains inconclusive whether CPAP affects respiratory mechanics and neural drive in stable COPD patients without respiratory failure.

Methods: Twenty-two COPD patients without respiratory failure received CPAP starting from 4 to 10 cmHO in 1 cmHO increments.

[VOCs Emission Inventory and Impact Range Simulation of Antibiotic Enterprises].

Drug production consumes a large amount of raw materials and is recognized as a "high-pollution, high-energy-consumption" industry. In consideration of the small amount of emission inventory research in the pharmaceutical industry, firstly, based on the actual monitoring data and production information of typical antibiotic enterprises, the emission factors of various volatile organic compounds (VOCs) were determined using the field measurement method. Then, combined with the activity level information of antibiotics from A to G plant in the same park, the emission factor method was used to calculate and obtain the emissions of each plant, and an emission list was established.

Parathyroid Hormone-Related Protein (1-40) Enhances Calcium Uptake in Rat Enterocytes Through PTHR1 Receptor and Protein Kinase Cα/β Signaling.

Background/aims: Parathyroid hormone-related protein (PTHrP) is implicated in regulating calcium homeostasis in vertebrates, including sea bream, chick, and mammals. However, the molecular mechanism underlying the function of PTHrP in regulating calcium transport is still not fully investigated. This study aimed to investigate the effect of PTHrP on the calcium uptake and its underlying molecular mechanism in rat enterocytes.

Online learning algorithms for principal component analysis applied on single-lead ECGs.

This article evaluates several adaptive approaches to solve the principal component analysis (PCA) problem applied on single-lead ECGs. Recent studies have shown that the principal components can indicate morphologically or environmentally induced changes in the ECG signal and can be used to extract other vital information such as respiratory activity. Special interest is focused on the convergence behavior of the selected gradient algorithms, which is a major criterion for the usability of the gained results.

Effect of expiratory load on neural inspiratory drive.

Background: Neural respiratory drive is usually measured during inspiration, even in patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) in whom the primary physiological deficit is expiratory flow limitation. The purpose of the study was to test the hypothesis that inspiratory muscle neural respiratory drive could be used to assess expiratory load.

Methods: Ten healthy young men, (26 ± 4) years old, were asked to expire through a tube immersed in water where an expiratory load was required.

[Respiratory effort assessed by surface diaphragm EMG in patients with sleep apnea].

Objective: Measurement of esophageal pressure is considered to be the gold standard for assessing respiratory effort and neural respiratory drive but this requires placement of an esophageal catheter. We hypothesized that neural drive could be reflected by the diaphragm EMG recorded from chest wall surface electrodes.

Methods: We simultaneously recorded esophageal pressure and the chest wall diaphragm EMG in 11 patients with suspected obstructive sleep apnea/hypopnea syndrome during full night polysomnography.