Heart failure diagnosis and ejection fraction classification via feature fusion model using non-contact vital sign signals.

Background And Objectives: Ballistocardiography (BCG) has emerged as a promising modality for home-based heart failure (HF) monitoring, yet existing single-dimensional manual feature analyses fail to adequately characterize left ventricular ejection fraction (LVEF < 40%) dynamics. We address this limitation by developing a hybrid feature fusion framework that synergizes manual feature engineering with deep learning for improved HF diagnosis and LVEF classification.

Methods: 83 participants were recruited from a hospital, with their samples categorized into two (healthy and HF) and three classes (healthy, LVEF ≥ 40% HF, and LVEF < 40% HF) based on clinical diagnosis.

Vision-Based Assessment of Skeletal Muscle Decline: Correlating Gait Variance with SPPB Performance.

Background: With the global population aging, the proportion of the elderly is increasing, leading to health challenges. The decline in the elderly's physical function raises their fall risk, which affects their health and burdens the healthcare system. Traditional fall risk assessment methods like Short Physical Performance Battery (SPPB) have limitations, while computer vision technology shows potential but also has drawbacks.

Case report: Diversity of imaging in cardiac angiosarcoma: two cases with disparate enhancement and metabolic manifestations.

Cardiac angiosarcoma, a rare and aggressive malignancy arising from endothelial cells, is difficult to diagnose owing to its nonspecific clinical symptoms and variable imaging features. Two cases of cardiac angiosarcoma (CA) are presented, each with different enhancement and metabolic patterns on imaging. Case 1: A 59-year-old man presented with chest tightness and lower extremity edema.

Needs Companion: A Novel Approach to Continuous User Needs Sensing Using Virtual Agents and Large Language Models.

In today's world, services are essential in daily life, and identifying each person's unique needs is key to creating a human-centered society. Traditional research has used machine learning to recommend services based on user behavior logs without directly detecting individual needs. This study introduces a system called Needs Companion, which automatically detects individual service needs, laying the groundwork for accurate needs sensing.

Establishing a novel model to assess exercise capacity in chronic heart failure based on stress echocardiography.

Aims: The aim of this study was to develop a simple, fast and efficient clinical diagnostic model, composed of exercise stress echocardiography (ESE) indicators, of the exercise capacity of patients with chronic heart failure (CHF) by comparing the effectiveness of different classifiers.

Methods And Results: Eighty patients with CHF (aged 60 ± 11 years; 78% male) were prospectively enrolled in this study. All patients underwent both cardiopulmonary exercise test (CPET) and ESE and were divided into two groups according to the VE/VCO slope: 30 patients with VE/VCO slope ventilation classification (VC)1 (i.

A Versatile Chitosan-Based Hydrogel Accelerates Infected Wound Healing via Bacterial Elimination, Antioxidation, Immunoregulation, and Angiogenesis.

Drug-resistant bacterial infection of cutaneous wounds causes great harm to the human body. These infections are characterized by a microenvironment with recalcitrant bacterial infections, persistent oxidative stress, imbalance of immune regulation, and suboptimal angiogenesis. Treatment strategies available to date are incapable of handling the healing dynamics of infected wounds.

A High-Performance Liquid Chromatography with Electrochemical Detection Method Developed for the Sensitive Determination of Ascorbic Acid: Validation, Application, and Comparison with Titration, Spectrophotometric, and High-Performance Liquid Chromatography with Diode-Array Detection Methods.

L-ascorbic acid (vitamin C, VC), an essential nutrient obtained from the diet to maintain various vital signs for the human body, is a crucial indicator of food quality and nutritional value. Herein, high-performance liquid chromatography with electrochemical detection (HPLC-ECD) was developed and validated with the advantages of higher sensitivity, simpler operation processes, and more rapid detection in measuring VC levels in honey samples when compared with the common methods (titration, spectrophotometric, and HPLC-DAD methods). The results of the HPLC-ECD methodological validation showed that the limit of detection (LOD) was 0.

Left atrial dysfunction can independently predict exercise capacity in patients with chronic heart failure who use beta-blockers.

Background: Beta-blockers are first-line clinical drugs for the treatment of chronic heart failure (CHF). In the guidelines for cardiac rehabilitation, patients with heart failure who do or do not receive beta-blocker therapy have different reference thresholds for maximal oxygen uptake (VO). It has been reported that left atrial (LA) strain can be used to predict VO in patients with heart failure, which can be used to assess exercise capacity.

Machine learning-aided detection of heart failure (LVEF ≤ 49%) by using ballistocardiography and respiratory effort signals.

Under the influence of COVID-19 and the in-hospital cost, the in-home detection of cardiovascular disease with smart sensing devices is becoming more popular recently. In the presence of the qualified signals, ballistocardiography (BCG) can not only reflect the cardiac mechanical movements, but also detect the HF in a non-contact manner. However, for the potential HF patients, the additional quality assessment with ECG-aided requires more procedures and brings the inconvenience to their in-home HF diagnosis.

Composition, Properties, and Utilization of Fumaric Acid Sludge By-Produced from Industrial Phthalic Anhydride Wastewater Treatment.

To understand fumaric acid sludge (FAS) systematically and comprehensively and find out how to utilize it, we conducted a series of characterization analyses on FAS. Fourier transform infrared (FT-IR) Spectra shows that the main component of FAS is fumaric acids and also contains a small amount of silicate. The nuclear magnetic resonance hydrogen (H-NMR) spectrum also shows that fumaric acid accounted for a large proportion of FAS.

Immunoglobulin Y Specific for SARS-CoV-2 Spike Protein Subunits Effectively Neutralizes SARS-CoV-2 Infectivity and Ameliorates Disease Manifestations In Vivo.

(Background) The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) that is caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) carries high infectivity and mortality. Efficient intervention strategies are urgently needed. Avian immunoglobulin Y (IgY) showed efficacy against viral infection whereas the in vivo efficacy remains unclear.

Gel Stability of Calcium Bentonite Suspension in Brine and Its Application in Water-Based Drilling Fluids.

With the development of the oil industry and the increasingly complex drilling environment, the performance of drilling fluids has to be constantly improved. In order to solve the problem of bentonite dispersion and hydration in a saline medium, a drilling fluid additive with good performance and acceptable cost was sought. The effects of several water-soluble polymers, such as cellulose polymers, synthetic polymers and natural polymers, on the rheology and gel suspension stability of calcium-based bentonite were compared in this study.

Effect of Iron Plaque on Gaseous Elemental Mercury Uptake, Translocation, and Volatilization by Paddy Rice.

Paddy rice is a typical wetland plant species, and mercury (Hg) accumulation in this rice has received much attention over the last two decades. The role of root iron plaque on rice Hg accumulation is not well understood. The effects of iron plaque on Hg uptake, translocation, and volatilization in rice seedlings were investigated under hydroponic conditions using different rice genotypes.

Alternative to Sugar, Honey Does Not Provoke Insulin Resistance in Rats Based on Lipid Profiles, Inflammation, and IRS/PI3K/AKT Signaling Pathways Modulation.

Insulin resistance (IR) is the central link to metabolic syndrome (MS), and IR prevention has become the key to overcoming this worldwide public health problem. A diet rich in simple sugars is an important pathogenic factor in IR development. To investigate the effect of honey on IR compared to the sugar-water diet, we analyzed phenolics and oligosaccharides in jujube honey and rape honey based on LC-MS and silane derivatization/GC-MS.

Beneficial effects of Gynostemma pentaphyllum honey paste on obesity via counteracting oxidative stress and inflammation: An exploration of functional food developed from two independent foods rich in saponins and phenolics.

The development of functional foods that possess a combination of biological functions and good sensory properties is an emerging topic in the field of food and function. Gynostemma pentaphyllum (G. pentaphyllum) is widely considered to exert anti-obesity effect owing to its abundant saponins and other bioactive components, but bitter and unacceptable taste limit its utilization.

Assisting Personalized Healthcare of Elderly People: Developing a Rule-Based Virtual Caregiver System Using Mobile Chatbot.

To assist personalized healthcare of elderly people, our interest is to develop a virtual caregiver system that retrieves the expression of mental and physical health states through human-computer interaction in the form of dialogue. The purpose of this paper is to implement and evaluate a virtual caregiver system using mobile chatbot. Unlike the conventional health monitoring approach, our key idea is to integrate a rule-based virtual caregiver system (called "Mind Monitoring" service) with the physical, mental, and social questionnaires into the mobile chat application.

Synthesis and Weak Hydrogelling Properties of a Salt Resistance Copolymer Based on Fumaric Acid Sludge and Its Application in Oil Well Drilling Fluids.

Fumaric acid sludge (FAS) by-produced from phthalic anhydride production wastewater treatment contains a large amount of refractory organic compounds with a complex composition, which will cause environmental pollution unless it is treated in a deep, harmless manner. FAS included saturated carboxylic acid, more than 60%, and unsaturated carboxylic acid, close to 30%, which accounted for the total mass of dry sludge. A new oil well drilling fluid filtrate loss reducer, poly(AM-AMPS-FAS) (PAAF), was synthesized by copolymerizing FAS with acrylamide (AM) and 2-acrylamide-2-methyl propane sulfonic acid (AMPS).

Rapid detection of porcine encephalomyocarditis virus (EMCV) by isothermal reverse transcription recombinase polymerase amplification assays.

In this study, we combined reverse transcription recombinase polymerase amplification assay with the fluorescence detection platform (qRT-RPA) and lateral flow biosensor (LFB RT-RPA) to allow for rapid detection of porcine encephalomyocarditis virus (EMCV). Primers and probes were designed to target the highly conserved region of 3D gene of porcine EMCV. The optimal reaction condition of qRT-RPA and LFB RT-RPA was set as 42 °C for 20 min.

Mitigation of DSS-Induced Colitis Potentially via Th1/Th2 Cytokine and Immunological Function Balance Induced by Phenolic-Enriched Buckwheat ( Moench) Bee Pollen Extract.

Colitis is an inflammatory disease that results from the overactivation of effector immune cells, producing a high quantity of pro-inflammatory cytokines. Our study aimed to explore whether buckwheat () bee pollen extract (FBPE) could inhibit the progression of dextran sulfate sodium (DSS)-induced colitis via regulating immune function. We isolated and identified six main phenolic compounds of FBPE such as luteolin (9.

Toward Capturing Scientific Evidence in Elderly Care: Efficient Extraction of Changing Facial Feature Points.

To capture scientific evidence in elderly care, a user-defined facial expression sensing service was proposed in our previous study. Since the time-series data of feature values have been growing at a high rate as the measurement time increases, it may be difficult to find points of interest, especially for detecting changes from the elderly facial expression, such as many elderly people can only be shown in a micro facial expression due to facial wrinkles and aging. The purpose of this paper is to implement a method to efficiently find points of interest (PoI) from the facial feature time-series data of the elderly.

Ultrasound-assisted ethanol extraction of Actinidia arguta pollen possesses antioxidant activity and protects DNA from oxidative damage.

Actinidia arguta pollen owns abundant nutrients, such as vitamins, polyphenols, etc., however, little research on its antioxidant ability and biological function was conducted. In this study, we observed A.

A novel biocomposite scaffold with antibacterial potential and the ability to promote bone repair.

Clinical treatment of bone defects caused by trauma, tumor resection and other bone diseases, especially bone defects that can lead to infection, remains a major challenge. Currently, autologous bone implantation is the gold standard for treatment of bone defects, but it is limited by secondary trauma and insufficient autologous material. Moreover, postoperative infection is an important factor affecting bone healing.

Efficacy and safety of the Amplatzer Duct Occluder II for ventricular septal defect closure: a meta-analysis.

Background: Transcatheter closure has become an effective and safe method to repair ventricular septal defects (VSDs). However, the devices used for VSD closure in the past frequently led to serious complications, such as complete atrioventricular block. The second‑generation device, the Amplatzer Duct Occluder (ADO II), was originally designed to block small‑ and medium‑sized patent ductus arteriosus.

Nonintrusive Fine-Grained Home Care Monitoring: Characterizing Quality of In-Home Postural Changes Using Bone-Based Human Sensing.

In contrast to the physical activities of able-bodied people at home, most people who require long-term specific care (e.g., bedridden patients and patients who have difficulty walking) usually show more low-intensity slow physical activities with postural changes.