1,774 research outputs found
Acute Effects of Resistance Exercise on Intraocular Pressure in Healthy Adults: A Systematic Review
No full textHackett, DA, Li, J, Wang, B, Way, KL, Cross, T, and Tran, DL. Acute effects of resistance exercise on intraocular pressure in healthy adults: A systematic review. J Strength Cond Res 38(2): 394–404, 2024—Intraocular pressure (IOP) tends to fluctuate during a resistance exercise (RE). This systematic review examines the acute effects of RE on IOP in healthy adults and factors that influence changes in IOP. Five electronic databases were searched using terms related to RE and IOP. A strict inclusion criterion was applied, which included being 55 years or younger with no medical conditions and RE intensity needing to be quantifiable (e.g., based on a maximal effort). Thirty-four studies met the inclusion criteria for this review. Isometric and isotonic contractions produced similar changes in IOP during RE up to 28.7 mm Hg. Exercises that involved larger muscle mass, such as squats and leg press, were found to produce changes in IOP during exercise ranging from 3.1 to 28.7 mm Hg. Smaller changes in IOP during RE were found for exercises engaging less muscle mass (e.g., handgrip and bicep curls). Intraocular pressure was found to increase during RE when lifting heavier loads and with longer exercise durations (e.g., greater repetitions). The Valsalva maneuver (VM) and breath-hold during RE accentuated the change in IOP, with more extreme changes observed with the VM. However, most studies showed that postexercise IOP returned to baseline after approximately 1 minute of recovery. An acute increase in IOP is observed during RE in healthy adults with fluctuations of varying magnitude. Factors that independently increase IOP during RE include exercises involving larger muscle mass, heavy loads, greater set duration, and when the VM or breath-hold is performed.Full Tex
Oxidative modification of albumin in the parenchymal lung tissue of current smokers with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease
No full textBackground: there is accumulating evidence that oxidative stress plays an important role in the pathophysiology of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). One current hypothesis is that the increased oxidant burden in these patients is not adequately counterbalanced by the lung antioxidant systems.Objective: to determine the levels of oxidised human serum albumin (HSA) in COPD lung explants and the effect of oxidation on HSA degradation using an ex vivo lung explant model.Methods: parenchymal lung tissue was obtained from 38 patients (15F/23M) undergoing lung resection and stratified by smoking history and disease using the GOLD guidelines and the lower limit of normal for FEV1/FVC ratio. Lung tissue was homogenised and analysed by ELISA for total levels of HSA and carbonylated HSA. To determine oxidised HSA degradation lung tissue explants were incubated with either 200 ?g/ml HSA or oxidised HSA and supernatants collected at 1, 2, 4, 6, and 24 h and analysed for HSA using ELISA and immunoblot.Results: when stratified by disease, lung tissue from GOLD II (median = 38.2 ?g/ml) and GOLD I (median = 48.4 ?g/ml) patients had lower levels of HSA compared to patients with normal lung function (median = 71.9 ?g/ml, P < 0.05). In addition the number of carbonyl residues, which is a measure of oxidation was elevated in GOLD I and II tissue compared to individuals with normal lung function (P < 0.05). When analysing smoking status current smokers had lower levels of HSA (median = 43.3 ?g/ml, P < 0.05) compared to ex smokers (median = 71.9 ?g/ml) and non-smokers (median = 71.2 ?g/ml) and significantly greater number of carbonyl residues per HSA molecule (P < 0.05). When incubated with either HSA or oxidised HSA lung tissue explants rapidly degraded the oxidised HSA but not unmodified HSA (P < 0.05).Conclusion: we report on a reliable methodology for measuring levels of oxidised HSA in human lung tissue and cell culture supernatant. We propose that differences in the levels of oxidised HSA within lung tissue from COPD patients and current smokers provides further evidence for an oxidant/antioxidant imbalance and has important biological implications for the disease.<br/
Usefulness of quantifying serum KL-6 levels in the follow-up of uveitic patients with sarcoidosis
No full textBackground: KL-6 is a human glycoprotein secreted by type II alveolar cells in the lung, and its serum levels increase in pneumonia of various causes. We previously reported that serum KL-6 levels in uveitis patients with sarcoidosis were significantly higher than those of other uveitis patients and healthy controls. Additionally, the combined measurement of serum KL-6 and angiotensin converting enzyme (ACE) was useful for screening uveitic patients to diagnose sarcoidosis. The purpose of the present study was to investigate the clinical usefulness of quantifying serum KL-6 levels for following-up the patients with sarcoidosis. Methods: Sera were obtained from 36 uveitic patients diagnosed with sarcoidosis and the same number of healthy volunteers. To examine the influence of systemic medication, we also collected blood samples from four more sarcoidosis patients, who were systemically treated with corticosteroid or angiotensin converting enzyme (ACE) inhibitor, an anti-hypertensive drug. The serum concentration of KL-6 was measured by a human KL-6 electrochemiluminescence immunoassay (ECLIA). Results: The mean KL-6 concentrations of sarcoidosis patients and healthy controls were 449.3 +/- 66.3 (mean +/- SE) and 192.1 +/- 11.3, respectively. The average levels of serum KL-6 were significantly elevated in sarcoidosis patients compared with healthy control subjects (P < 0.001), and there were significant correlations between serum KL-6 and ACE levels in the patients with sarcoidosis (r=0.70 and P < 0.0001). Moreover, serum KL-6 concentrations were less affected by systemic corticosteroid, and unaffected by ACE inhibitory drugs in contrast to ACE levels. Conclusions: Measurement of serum KL-6 in the uveitic patients may be useful to follow-up the diagnosed sarcoidosis, as well as for diagnosing sarcoidosis, because the serum KL-6 level was well correlated with the ACE level, and less affected by systemic medication than ACE levels
Serial KL-6 measurements in COVID-19 patients
No full textSARS-CoV2-induced direct cytopathic effects against type II pneumocytes are suspected to play a role in mediating and perpetuating lung damage. The aim of this study was to evaluate serum KL-6 behavior in COVID-19 patients to investigate its potential role in predicting clinical course. Sixty patients (median age IQR, 65 (52–69), 43 males), hospitalized for COVID-19 at Siena COVID Unit University Hospital, were prospectively enrolled. Twenty-six patients were selected (median age IQR, 63 (55–71), 16 males); all of them underwent follow-up evaluations, including clinical, radiological, functional, and serum KL-6 assessments, after 6 (t1) and 9 (t2) months from hospital discharge. At t0, KL-6 concentrations were significantly higher than those at t1 (760 (311–1218) vs. 309 (210–408) p = 0.0208) and t2 (760 (311–1218) vs 324 (279–458), p = 0.0365). At t0, KL-6 concentrations were increased in patients with fibrotic lung alterations than in non-fibrotic group (755 (370–1023) vs. 305 (225–608), p = 0.0225). Area under the receiver operating curve (AUROC) analysis showed that basal KL-6 levels showed good accuracy in discriminating patients with fibrotic sequelae radiologically documented (AUC 85%, p = 0.0404). KL-6 concentrations in patients with fibrotic involvement were significantly reduced at t1 (755 (370–1023) vs. 290 (197–521), p = 0.0366) and t2 (755 (370–1023) vs. 318 (173–435), p = 0.0490). Serum concentrations of KL-6 in hospitalized COVID-19 patients may contribute to identify severe patients requiring mechanical ventilation and to predict those who will develop pulmonary fibrotic sequelae in the follow-up. © 2021, The Author(s)
A smooth Lyapunov function from a class-KL estimate involving two positive semidefinite functions
No full textWe consider differential inclusions where a positive semidefinite function of the solutions satisfies a class-KL estimate in terms of time and a second positive semidefinite function of the initial condition. We show that a smooth converse Lyapunov function, i.e., one whose derivative along solutions can be used to establish the class-KL estimate, exists if and only if the class-KL estimate is robust, i.e., it holds for a larger, perturbed differential inclusion. It remains an open question whether all class-KL estimates are robust. One sufficient condition for robustness is that the original differential inclusion is locally Lipschitz. Another sufficient condition is that the two positive semidefinite functions agree and a backward completability condition holds. These special cases unify and generalize many results on converse Lyapunov theorems for differential equations and differential inclusions that have appeared in the literature. Corresponding author. y Research supported i..
`Eschericha coli' K1 interactions with human brain microvascular endothelial cells, a primary step in the development of neonatal meningitis
No full textEscherichia coli (E. coli) Kl is one of the commonest Gram negative bacteria
causing neonatal bacterial meningitis in both developed and developing countries.
Haematogenous spread is a key step in E. coli Kl meningitis; however, it is not clear how
bacteria cross the brain endothelium to gain entry into the central nervous system. Previous
studies have focussed mainly on the identification of bacterial virulence factors, as well as
the signalling pathways that are activated for the recruitment of actin cytoskeleton to the
bacterial adhesion site on the apical surface of human brain microvascular endothelial cells
(HBMEC) and finally lead to bacterial uptake. However, the cellular requirements and
mechanisms of post-invasion events are poorly understood.
This study aims to further characterize E. coli KI entry, intracellular trafficking and
the associated molecular mechanisms. To achieve this, a virulent fluorescent proteinexpressing
E. coli K I strain was constructed. In a previous study, caveolin-l, a lipid raft
marker associated with clathrin-independent endocytosis, was found associated with
invading and intracellular bacteria in HBMEC. To further study the effect of caveolin-l on
the bacterial entry, different caveolin-l mutants were applied here. Overexpression of
caveolin-l Y 14A mutant and caveolin-l~, which is non-phosphorylatable, did not block E.
coli Kl invasion of HBMEC. Furthermore, E. coli Kl invasion of caveolin-l knockout
mouse lung endothelial cells (MLEC) was not blocked, which suggested that caveolin-l
was not required for E. coli K 1 invasion of endothelial cells. The role of dynamin, a large
GTPase that has been implicated in the membrane fission of caveolae buds, was also
investigated. Based on quantitative microscopy scoring, no evidence of any inhibitory
effect on the bacterial invasion was observed in cells overexpressing green fluorescent
protein- (GFP) tagged dominant negative dynamin 2 [Dyn2(aa)K44A] and dominant
negative dynamin 1 (DynlK44A). The experimental evidence from this study therefore
suggests that E. coli Kl might invade HBMEC via a caveolae- and dynamin-independent
endocytic pathway.
To further explore the endocytosis pathway that the bacteria use to invade
HBMEC, immunofluorescence staining of E. coli Kl infected HBMEC revealed colocalization
of the bacteria with flotillin 1, another lipid raft marker associated with
clathrin-independent endocytosis. However, E. coli K1 infection of flotillin 1 knockout
MLEC demonstrated a significantly increased bacterial uptake. This observation suggests
that E. coli K 1 uptake does not require flotillin 1. In parallel, the number of intracellular
non-pathogenic E. coli K-12 recovered from the lysates of flotillin 1 knockout MLEC was
also significantly higher than that recovered from the lysates of wild type MLEC. Further,
overexpression of GFP-tagged flotillin 1 and flotillin 2 in HBMEC inhibited E. coli Kl
invasion, which suggest flotillin might have a role as a regulatory cell barrier in host
defence
KL Process Design Group: unleashing natural sugars for tomorrow's strategic energy plan
No full textPresented at the Can forests meet our energy needs? The future of forest biomass in Colorado conference, February 21, 2008, Colorado State University, Fort Collins, Colorado.James Schultze is a process engineer with KL Process Design Group in Rapid City, South Dakota. He has been working on KL's biomass project since 2006 and has been involved in the research, construction and operation of the newly constructed biomass plant in Upton, WY. His industry experience started with Shell Oil Company in Houston, TX as a production engineer in Shell's Midcontinent Division. Jim is a chemical engineering graduate of the South Dakota School of Mines and Technology in Rapid City, SD
Aircraft component health analysis for predictive maintenance: using a dilated convolutional autoencoder and KL divergence
No full textThe detection of anomalous behaviour is fundamental to component health analysis techniques. However, detecting anomalies is a difficult and time consuming task if their form, location, and frequency are unknown. This research introduces an innovative unsupervised predictive maintenance pipeline that requires minimal domain knowledge and time to create competitive and insightful health monitoring models. First, a Dilated Convolutional Autoencoder learns to recreate healthy sensor data. Then, a Kullback-Leibler (KL) divergence based health analysis transforms discrepancies between the reconstruction and the sensor data into a single performance metric per sensor per flight. A novel evaluation method based on the KL divergence metric allows for quantitative evaluation and hyperparameter tuning of the autoencoder. Results provide new insights and show competitive performance on analysing the fuel level measuring system. Additionally, in a generalisability study on the braking system of a different aircraft type the proposed method outperforms the currently employed health monitoring model in precision and F1 score. The main advantages of the proposed method are; the ability to rapidly create unbiased health indicators on a sensor level, the capability to generalise to other components, and a framework to quantitatively evaluate the model’s performance when no truth labels are available.Mechanical Engineering | Vehicle Engineering | Cognitive Robotic
BIMA ARRAY 3 MM SPECTRAL LINE SURVEY OF ORION-KL
No full textAuthor Institution: University of Illinois, Dept. of Astronomy, 1002 W. Green St, Urbana, IL 61801; National Radio Astronomy Observatory, Charlottesville, VA 22903; NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Space and Earth Data Computing Division, Code 930, Greenbelt, MD 20771; National Research Council Resident Research AssociateWith the Berkeley-Illinois-Maryland-Association (BIMA) Array we have carried out a 3 mm (80-115.9 GHz) spectral line survey of Orion-KL. Orion-KL is composed of several distinct regions separated by only a few arcseconds, most notably the ``Hot Core'', where N bearing species are most prevalent, and the ``Compact Ridge'', where O bearing species are most prevalent. For our observations the average synthesized beam was 14''x8''. We detected over 700 spectral features from the ``Hot Core'' and over 600 spectral features from the ``Compact Ridge''. We will present the abundances and spatial distribution of the detected species
A proposal for a more sustainable catering service for KL Cityhopper Fairline
No full textReducing the impact of flying is a concern in the aviation industry, especially on the short haul flights. KL Cityhopper (KLC) noticed they create food waste onboard of their European flights because they have a one-fits-all catering solution. They are aware that all back-up food and beverage options brought into the air cause extra weight and extra CO2 emission. They want their catering to have the option to be personalized to the needs of their passenger. This graduation project explores a new more sustainable way of providing a catering service to the passenger for the KLC Fairline. The internal and external analyses have been done to explore the current aviation catering and the behaviour of passengers; all gave valuable insights. The internal analysis showed that the catering on short haul is not possible to customize in advance. It is a free product provided during the flight and the passengers are not completely informed about what can be expected. While the longer flights have communications and choices in advance for the different types of catering onboard. Next to that, there is limited insights to the actual use of the service onboard. The competitors show in advance what can be expected of the free or paid services, using onboard magazines or websites with short movies. Resulting in insights about specific use per location.The passengers of KLC are demographically quite different, better to describe them by their needs during the journey. These diverse needs in the passenger travel journey are further explored by interviews, with the focus on the time they spend waiting at the airport.The future economy catering service of the KLC Fairline should be a brand store at the major airports, so KL can make use of this store too. The passengers can pick-up their own food and beverages and take it with them on the plane. The service will provide more options to fit better with the diverse food and beverage needs of passengers. The brand store is more sustainable solution because it will remove all catering trolleys from the planes on the short haul, it reduces weight and CO2 emission. The food waste will decrease significantly since the store has a system to keep track of the actual use of the service, further optimization of the service use is possible. The passengers informed of what is possible with the catering using information online, in e-mails and the KL-app.A roadmap for the KL catering service is made that includes the short, medium and long-haul flights. The steps for KLC from the current situation to the vision service are described, including how the current A La Carte product on the long haul can be extended to the medium haul.Integrated Product Desig
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