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Results 61 to 68 of 68:

Segmentation and detection of physical activities during a sitting task in Parkinson's disease participants using multiple inertial sensors

Sara Memar, Mehdi Delrobaei, Greydon Gilmore, Kenneth McIsaac, Mandar Jog

J Appl Biomed 15:282-290, 2017 | DOI: 10.1016/j.jab.2017.05.002

Introduction
The development of inertial sensors in motion capture systems enables precise measurement of motor symptoms in Parkinson's disease (PD). The type of physical activities performed by the PD participants is an important factor to compute objective scores for specific motor symptoms of the disease. The goal of this study is to propose an approach to automatically detect the physical activities over a period time and segment the time stamps for such detected activities.
Methods
A wearable motion capture sensor system using inertial measurement units (IMUs) was used for data collection. Data from the sensors attached to the shoulders, elbows, and wrists were utilized for detecting and segmenting the activities. An unsupervised machine learning algorithm was employed to extract suitable features from the appropriate sensors and classify the data points to the corresponding activity group.
Results
The performance of the proposed technique was evaluated with respect to the manually labeled and segmented activities. The experimental results reveal that the proposed auto detection technique - by obtaining high average scores of accuracy (96%), precision (96%), and recall (98%) - is able to effectively detect the activities during the sitting task and segment them to the proper time stamps.

Examining the temporo-mandibular joint from a biotensegrity perspective: A change in thinking

Graham Scarr, Helen Harrison

J Appl Biomed 15:55-62, 2017 | DOI: 10.1016/j.jab.2016.10.002

The temporo-mandibular joint is a characteristic feature of mammalian development, and essential to mastication and speech, yet it causes more problems than any other joint in the body and remains the least understood. While it is generally accepted that the normal joint is loaded under compression, the problems and controversies surrounding this view remain unresolved and the disparity in opinion over its treatment continues. Although difficulties in the acquisition of reliable information have undoubtedly contributed to this situation, it is now considered that deficits in neural control and shortcomings in the underlying biomechanical theory and analysis have also played a part, and that a re-assessment from a different perspective could resolve these.
Biotensegrity considers the TMJ from this position, where the mandible is suspended within a tensioned network that extends over a much wider anatomical field than is generally recognized and significant motion control is contained within the structure itself. It is an evolutionary-conserved arrangement that enables the system to rapidly respond to changing functional demands and provides a more complete model of joint physiology that can be used to guide further research.

Hits and defeats of genome-wide association studies of atopy and asthma

Hanna Danielewicz

J Appl Biomed 15:161-168, 2017 | DOI: 10.1016/j.jab.2017.03.002

Atopy and asthma are complex conditions, recognised as outcomes in which both genes and environment play crucial role. Large number of disease associated loci have been identified within GWAS approach over last years and the knowledge of pathobiology of asthma and allergy has widened substantially. However still the results achieved are difficult to interpret. Most markers have no clear function on and expound small portion of heritability. The "missed heritability" could be hidden in the gene-by environment interactions. The most know environmental factor which interacts with asthma and atopy is farming. The common link between genes and environment could be epigenetics.

Vascular variability anomalies (VVAs) in children

Elena Vasiljevna Syutkina, Olga Viktorovna Kozhevnikova, Leila Seimurovna Namazova-Baranova, Ivan Jevgenievitch Smirnov, Anatoly Viktorovich Masalov, Germaine Cornelissen, Othild Schwartzkopff, Maria Dmitrijevna Mitish, Lyazzat Gumarova, Franz Halberg

J Appl Biomed 12:147-153, 2014 | DOI: 10.1016/j.jab.2014.02.004

This work aims at studying in children the prevalence of some vascular variability anomalies (VVAs), i.e. indices of an increased risk of heart and vessel diseases revealed by chronobiologic analysis of cardiovascular monitoring data - systolic (SBP) and diastolic (DBP) MESOR-hypertension/hypotension, circadian hyper-amplitude-tension (CHAT), ecphasia and an excessive pulse pressure (EPP). A reference group of 138 healthy Moscow schoolchildren (age 12-17 years) was used for determination of 90% prediction limits for the circadian parameters of SBP and DBP, specified by gender and age (or height). The test group included another 194 children of the same age range with headache and abnormal BP values by casual measurement. BP data series from each child were analyzed by the COSINOR method. VVAs were found in 44.8% of children from the test group. In boys, VVAs occur more often than in girls (51.5% vs. 30.6%). One child may have up to 3 VVAs. The presence of VVAs may be related to an elevated BMI. The most common VVAs in childhood are the abnormalities of PP and systolic CHAT. Cosinor analysis can reveal a large number of children with PP higher than a threshold (60 mmHg) during a relatively long portion of the day (more than 1/3 of the 24 h span).

Chronobiology's progress. Part I, season's appreciations 2004-2005: time-, frequency-, phase-, variable-, individual-, age- and site-specific chronomics

Franz Halberg, Germaine Cornélissen, George Katinas, Levan Tvildiani, Marina Gigolashvili, Ketevan Janashia, Tim Toba, Miguel Revilla, Philip Regal, Robert B. Sothern, Hans W. Wendt, Zhengrong Wang, Michal Zeman, Rita Jozsa, R.B. Singh, Gen Mitsutake, Sergei M. Chibisov, Jong Lee, Dan Holley, James E. Holte, Robert P. Sonkowsky, Othild Schwartzkopff, Patrick Delmore, Kuniaki Otsuka, Earl E. Bakken, Jerzy Czaplicki, the International BIOCOS Group

J Appl Biomed 4:1-38, 2006 | DOI: 10.32725/jab.2006.001

New components of transdisciplinary spectra or known components in new variables in us, matching those around us, are being mapped. Their hardly trivial interactions associated with the good and bad around us - from religiosity to crime and war - are being rendered measurable, for the eventual development of countermeasures to the diseases of societies and nations. Internal cycles not only underlie life itself and underlie our evolving genetics at all levels of organization; they also constitute the essential control and reference information in all transdisciplinary science. In preparing for travel to Mars and other missions in space that may take more than a year, let us do what is immediately practicable. Transyears may have very small amplitudes yet are associated with sudden cardiac death in some terrestrial locations; if they should play a role in these electrical incidents of the heart, among others like myocardial infarction and stroke, they will jeopardize lengthy missions in extraterrestrial space, away from hospitals.
The likelihood of stroke or cardiac death can be immediately reduced by chronobiologically assessing blood pressure and heart rate variability and by optimizing the efficacy of timed treatment rather than relying on an unacceptable and often inaccurate spotcheck and treating by convenience rather than pertinence. Needed are: detection of nocturnal abnormality when medication may no longer be effective (or is too effective) neither seen during office visits by day; detection of circadian hyper-amplitude-tension (CHAT) associated with a risk of stroke and kidney disease greater than other risks (including "hypertension" when all risks are assessed concomitantly); detection of CHAT as high risk among normotensives who may not need anti-hypertensive medication; individualized inferential statistical testing to determine whether a drug or non-drug intervention such as autogenic training (relaxation) is effective and for how long (detecting any initial and later success or failure), some of which conditions otherwise are not found without chronobiology; individualization of treatment timing, since the same dose of the same medication can further lower the subject's blood pressure average and circadian amplitude when the timing of daily administration is optimized, as ascertained by sequential testing and parameter tests.
Thus, we save lives by monitoring and assessing, and if need be treating, vascular disease risk through chronobiologically interpreted 24-hour or preferably longer (24-hour/7-day) blood pressure and heart rate variability. Abnormalities in the variability of blood pressure and heart rate, impossible to find during a conventional office visit (the latter aiming at the fiction of a "true" blood pressure), can raise cardiovascular disease risk in the next six years from 4% to 100%.

Carbon nanotubes: toxicological impact on human health and environment

Gracian Tejral, Nagender Reddy Panyala, Josef Havel

J Appl Biomed 7:1-13, 2009 | DOI: 10.32725/jab.2009.001

Nanotechnology is an emerging field of science which is producing nano-sized materials. Some nanomaterials are having a significant impact in health care. Of these, carbon nanotubes (CNTs) represent one of the most promising materials in the field of nano-science and technology. Their potential in industrial applications has brought them much attention and the wide spectrum of usage has made it imperative that the impact of CNTs on human health and the environment is investigated thoroughly. In addition to their various beneficial applications, there is a potential for hazardous effects on human health. For example, the potential hazards through inhalation of CNTs have not been sufficiently evaluated. CNTs produce reactive oxygen species (ROS) which are associated with diminishing cellular activities, such as a decrease in the mitochondrial membrane potential etc. This paper reviews the hazardous influence of CNTs on human health and the environment. Specifically, the effects of CNTs on lung toxicity, skin irritation and CNTs cytotoxicity on various cell lines are reviewed. Biomedical applications and biocompatibility of carbon nanotubes are also summarized.

Chronobiology's progress. Part II, chronomics for an immediately applicable biomedicine

Franz Halberg, Germaine Cornélissen, George Katinas, Levan Tvildiani, Marina Gigolashvili, Ketevan Janashia, Tim Toba, Miguel Revilla, Philip Regal, Robert B. Sothern, Hans W. Wendt, Zhengrong Wang, Michal Zeman, Rita Jozsa, R.B. Singh, Gen Mitsutake, Sergei M. Chibisov, Jong Lee, Dan Holley, James E. Holte, Robert P. Sonkowsky, Othild Schwartzkopff, Patrick Delmore, Kuniaki Otsuka, Earl E. Bakken, Jerzy Czaplicki, the International BIOCOS Group

J Appl Biomed 4:73-86, 2006 | DOI: 10.32725/jab.2006.007

Chronomic cardiovascular surveillance serves to recognise and treat any risk elevation as well as overt disease, and to ascertain whether treatment is effective and, if so, for how long treatment effects lasts, be it for lowering an increased risk and/or in surveilling the success or failure of treatment. A treatment-associated increase in circadian amplitude of blood pressure (BP) may induce iatrogenic overswinging, also dubbed CHAT ( circadian hyper- amplitude- tension), in some patients, thereby increasing cardiovascular disease risk unknowingly to care provider and receiver.

Nuclear impressionism: how the active genome creates the very canvas on which gene expression is painted

Thoru Pederson

J Appl Biomed 1:113-116, 2003 | DOI: 10.32725/jab.2003.025

This paper concerns the functional architecture of the cell nucleus. Though it is DNA that carries our literal blueprint, our ancestry includes the nucleus itself, passed down through the 2.5 billion year evolutionary history of the Eukarya. Nuclear structure is presented here as two contrasting possibilities. In one case, the nucleus is envisioned as being built upon a backbone of protein filaments, analogous to the cytoskeleton. In this conceptual framework, the chromosomes are considered to passively adopt locations that are dictated by their attachments to the imagined skeleton, and their activity is postulated to be the result of such attachments. In the other case, nothing in the architectural design of the nucleus is more deterministic than the chromosomes themselves, and their activity. Here, gene activity is thought to be based on the binding of DNA sequence-specific activator or silencing proteins that arrive at their target sites by diffusion. Moreover, additional elements of nuclear structure are viewed as arising from the very action of the genes themselves, such as nascent mRNAs packaged into ribonucleoprotein particles as well as large, heterotypic molecular machines involved in RNA processing. In this case, termed the "genome-centric model", the observed structure of the nucleus is not based on some underlying, prefabricated skeleton, but is in fact the actual ongoing cytological manifestation of genes in action. Upon careful analysis of all the evidence, the genome-centric model enjoys favor at the present time. However, we are still in kindergarten days in our understanding of the cell nucleus and, as always, it is wise to keep an open mind. New advances in biophysical, nanotechnology and systems biology approaches to nuclear architecture encourage us to believe that we may soon graduate into the gymnasium - if not university, level of our nuclear education. Viewed metaphorically as art (as in the playful title of this paper), we understand the paint at every atom of pigment on the palette - i.e., the covalent genome, the DNA. It is the final, creative work as applied to the gene expression canvas itself that we must now strive to know.

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