Technology and Health Care - Volume 29, issue S1

Authors: Sun, Ge | Xu, Qi | Zhang, Song | Yang, Lin | Liu, Guoli | Meng, Yu | Chen, Aiqing | Yang, Yimin | Li, Xuwen | Hao, Dongmei | Liu, Xiaohong | Shao, Jing

Article Type: Research Article

Abstract: BACKGROUND: Placental growth factor (PlGF), one of the biomarkers, has a certain predictive effect on hypertensive disorders in pregnancy (HDP). OBJECTIVE: To study the HDP prediction effect of different methods for variable selection and modeling for models containing PlGF. METHODS: For the model containing PlGF, the appropriate range of PlGF parameters needed to be selected. Step-logistic regression and lasso were used to compare the model effect of twice range selection. The PlGF model with good predictive effect and appropriate detecting gestational age was selected for the final prediction. RESULTS: The effect of the …model containing PlGF tested at 15–16 weeks was better than the PlGF value without comprehensive screening. The sensitivity of both methods was over 92%. By comprehensive comparison, the final model of lasso method in this study was more effective. CONCLUSIONS: In this study, a variety of methods were used to screen models containing PlGF parameters. According to clinical needs and model effects, the optimal HDP prediction model with PlGF parameters in the second trimester of 15–26 weeks of pregnancy was finally selected. Show more

Keywords: Placental growth factor, model parameters, variable selection

DOI: 10.3233/THC-218040

Citation: Technology and Health Care, vol. 29, no. S1, pp. 427-432, 2021

Authors: Jeon, Hyeong-Min | Lee, Ki-Kwang | Lee, Jun-Young | Shin, Ju-Hwan | Eom, Gwang-Moon

Article Type: Research Article

Abstract: BACKGROUND: Joint loads in different walking strategies during stair descent have been investigated in terms of the joint moment in association with the risk of osteoarthritis. However, the absorption mechanisms of the potential energy loss are not known. OBJECTIVE: This study aims to compare the mechanical energy absorptions in lower limb joints in different initial foot contact strategies. METHODS: Nineteen young subjects walked down on instrumented stairs with two different strategies, i.e., forefoot and rearfoot strike. Power and energy at lower limb joints during stance phase were compared between strategies. RESULTS: …Lower limb joints absorbed 73 ± 11% of the potential energy released by descending stairs and there was no difference between strategies. Rearfoot strategy absorbed less energy than forefoot strategy at the ankle joint in the 1st phase, which was compensated mainly by more energy absorption at the knee in the 2nd phase and less energy generation at the hip joints in the 3rd phase. CONCLUSION: The results suggest that a leg absorbs most of the potential energy while descending stairs irrespective of the walking strategies and that any reduction of energy absorption at one joint is compensated by other joints. Greater energy absorption at the knee joint compared to the other joints suggests high burden of knee joint muscles and connective tissues during stair-descent, which is even more significant for the rearfoot strike strategy. Show more

Keywords: Energy absorption, mechanism, stair descent, foot strike strategy, osteoarthritis

DOI: 10.3233/THC-218041

Citation: Technology and Health Care, vol. 29, no. S1, pp. 433-440, 2021

Authors: Ding, Hongjun | Li, Yanju | Zhang, Yanlong | Meng, Huipeng | Wang, Keqiang | Sun, Qian | Li, Xichuan | Dong, Huajiang | Chen, Long | He, Feng

Article Type: Research Article

Abstract: BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVE: We aimed to further study the role of Myelin Transcription Factor 1(MyT1) in tumor and other diseases and epigenetic regulation, and better understand the regulatory mechanism of MyT1. METHODS: Using bioinformatics analysis, the structure and function of MyT1sequence were predicted and analyzed using bioinformatics analysis, and providing a theoretical basis for further experimental verification and understanding the regulatory mechanism of MyT1. The first, second and third-level structures of MyT1 were predicted and analyzed by bioinformatics analysis tools. RESULTS: MyT1 is found to be an unstable hydrophilic protein, rather than a secretory …protein, with no signal peptide or trans-membrane domain; total amino acids located on the surface of the cell membrane. It contains seven zinc finger domains structurally. At sub-cellular level, MyT1 is localized in the nucleus. The phosphorylation site mainly exists in serine, and its secondary structure is mainly composed of random coils and alpha helices; the three-dimensional structure is analyzed by modeling. CONCLUSIONS: In this study, the structure and function of MyT1 protein were predicted, thereby providing a basis for subsequent expression analysis and functional research; it laid the foundation for further investigation of the molecular mechanism involved in the development of diseases. Show more

Keywords: Transcription Factor 1, MyT1, structure, function, bioinformatics

DOI: 10.3233/THC-218042

Citation: Technology and Health Care, vol. 29, no. S1, pp. 441-453, 2021

Authors: Hu, Bing | Wang, Zhizhi | Xu, Minbo | Zhu, Luyao | Wang, Dingjiang

Article Type: Research Article

Abstract: BACKGROUND: The selection of optimal target areas in the surgical treatment of epilepsy is always a difficult problem in medicine. OBJECTIVE: We employed a theoretical calculation model to explore the control mechanism of seizures by an external voltage stimulus acting in different nerve nuclei. METHODS: Theoretical analysis and numerical simulation were combined. RESULTS: The globus pallidus, excitatory pyramidal neurons, striatal D1 neurons, thalamic reticular nucleus and specific relay nuclei were selected, we analyzed that the electrical stimulation has different effects in these target areas. CONCLUSIONS: The data selected were reasonable …in study, the results may give a theoretical support for similar studies in clinical. Show more

Keywords: Epilepsy, a computing network, voltage stimulation, nerve nuclei

DOI: 10.3233/THC-218043

Citation: Technology and Health Care, vol. 29, no. S1, pp. 455-461, 2021

Authors: Zhang, Liang | Ji, Zhenyu

Article Type: Research Article

Abstract: BACKGROUND: Wound monitoring is very meaningful for the clinical research, diagnosis and treatment. But the existing wound monitoring technology is hard to meet the needs of modern medical care in terms of real-time, non-invasive and anti-interference. OBJECTIVE: To solve this problem, this paper proposed a new kind of monitoring technology based on the co-planar waveguide transmission line theory and assessed the application value of this method as a wound monitoring technology. METHODS: The simplified wound model included the skin, fat, muscle, tissue fluid and bandage and a new co-planar waveguide sensor were designed and …established. All of the simulation was achieved in the electromagnetic special software. The data processing method was based on the transmission line theory. RESULTS: Detailed analyses of the results from the simulation were conducted. The sensor has a good monitoring effect in the low frequency band. The monitoring results could be influenced by the thickness of the bandage outside the wound. The thickness of the bandage should not be larger than 10 mm. The effective monitoring area of the sensor is 30 × 20 mm 2 . CONCLUSIONS: The proposed sensor based on the CPW transmission principle in this paper has good wound monitoring potential. Show more

Keywords: CPW, electromagnetic field, impedance, monitoring technology, wound healing

DOI: 10.3233/THC-218044

Citation: Technology and Health Care, vol. 29, no. S1, pp. 463-473, 2021

Authors: Petryshak, Bohdan | Kachko, Illia | Maksymenko, Mykola | Dobosevych, Oles

Article Type: Research Article

Abstract: BACKGROUND: Premature ventricular contraction (PVC) is among the most frequently occurring types of arrhythmias. Existing approaches for automated PVC identification suffer from a range of disadvantages related to hand-crafted features and benchmarking on datasets with a tiny sample of PVC beats. OBJECTIVE: The main objective is to address the drawbacks described above in the proposed framework, which takes a raw ECG signal as an input and localizes R peaks of the PVC beats. METHODS: Our method consists of two neural networks. First, an encoder-decoder architecture trained on PVC-rich dataset localizes the R peak …of both Normal and anomalous heartbeats. Provided R peaks positions, our CardioIncNet model does the delineation of healthy versus PVC beats. RESULTS: We have performed an extensive evaluation of our pipeline with both single- and cross-dataset paradigms on three public datasets. Our approach results in over 0.99 and 0.979 F1-measure on both single- and cross-dataset paradigms for R peaks localization task and above 0.96 and 0.85 F1 score for the PVC beats classification task. CONCLUSIONS: We have shown a method that provides robust performance beyond the beats of Normal nature and clearly outperforms classical algorithms both in the case of a single and cross-dataset evaluation. We provide a Github 1 repository for the reproduction of the results. Show more

Keywords: Electrocardiography, PVC identification, ECG segmentation, ECG classification

DOI: 10.3233/THC-218045

Citation: Technology and Health Care, vol. 29, no. S1, pp. 475-486, 2021

Authors: Wen, Junling | Jiang, Miao | Wang, Yihui | Huang, Na | Gao, Ming

Article Type: Research Article

Abstract: BACKGROUND: Auricular acupuncture point (AAP) therapy is an important part of traditional Chinese medicine and is featured with a sophisticated location method based on the division of auricular subzones. OBJECTIVE: This study aimed to realize the automatic computerized division on the relatively small area of the research object which has long been considered difficult. METHOD: We propose a novel method based on the active shape model algorithm and the “Name and location of AAPs” issued by the World Federation of Acupuncture-Moxibustion Societies (WFAS STANDARD-002:2013). RESULTS: The experimental results showed that the subzones of the …auricle could be divided for the location of AAPs using the proposed method automatically and efficiently. The average Hausdorff distance and Euclid distance of landmarks between the machine and the manual positioning were 6.28 ± 0.50 and 6.67 ± 0.59, respectively. CONCLUSIONS: The proposed method might provide benefits for further development of therapeutic and educational applications of AAPs. Show more

Keywords: Active shape model, auricular division, auricular acupuncture point, image processing, Traditional Chinese medicine

DOI: 10.3233/THC-218046

Citation: Technology and Health Care, vol. 29, no. S1, pp. 487-495, 2021

Authors: Wang, Mengjie | Chen, Weiyang

Article Type: Research Article

Abstract: BACKGROUND: Age is an essential feature of people, so the study of facial aging should have particular significance. OBJECTIVE: The purpose of this study is to improve the performance of age prediction by combining facial landmarks and texture features. METHODS: We first measure the distribution of each texture feature. From a geometric point of view, facial feature points will change with age, so it is essential to study facial feature points. We annotate the facial feature points, label the corresponding feature point coordinates, and then use the coordinates of feature points and texture features to predict …the age. RESULTS: We use the Support Vector Machine regression prediction method to predict the age based on the extracted texture features and landmarks. Compared with facial texture features, the prediction results based on facial landmarks are better. This suggests that the facial morphological features contained in facial landmarks can reflect facial age better than facial texture features. Combined with facial landmarks and texture features, the performance of age prediction can be improved. CONCLUSIONS: According to the experimental results, we can conclude that texture features combined with facial landmarks are useful for age prediction. Show more

Keywords: Facial aging, texture features, age estimation, facial landmarks, regression analysis

DOI: 10.3233/THC-218047

Citation: Technology and Health Care, vol. 29, no. S1, pp. 497-507, 2021

Authors: Yan, Gen | Yi, Meizhi | Li, Shengkai | Yang, Lin | Dai, Zhuozhi | Xuan, Yinghua | Wu, Renhua

Article Type: Research Article

Abstract: BACKGROUND: The determination of tumor peripheral is of great significance in clinical diagnosis and treatment. OBJECTIVE: In this study, we aim to obtain the metabolic condition in tumor peripheral of gliomas in vivo at 7T. METHODS: C6 glioma cells were implanted into the right basal ganglia of Sprague-Dawley (SD) rats under stereotactic guided to create the glioma models. The models were sequentially undergone MRI and MRS examination on an 7T MR scanner designed for animals 7 days after the operation. Neuro metabolites were investigated from the center of the tumor, solid part of the …tumor, peritumoral region, and contralateral white matter, and be quantified using the LCmodel software. Glial fibrillary acidic protein (GFAP) immunohistochemistry and conventional hematoxylin and eosin (HE) staining were performed after the imaging protocol. RESULTS: Our results found that the inositol (Ins) and taurine (Tau) significantly defected in tumor peripheral compared to both tumor solid and normal tissues (P < 0.05). In contrast, the glutamate and glutamine (Glx) escalated and peaked at the tumor peripheral (P < 0.05). CONCLUSIONS: This study revealed that Ins, Tau, and Glx have the potential to provide specific biomarkers for the location of tumor peripheral of glioma. Show more

Keywords: Glioma, tumor metabolism, Magnetic resonance imaging, Magnetic resonance spectroscopy (MRS)

DOI: 10.3233/THC-218048

Citation: Technology and Health Care, vol. 29, no. S1, pp. 509-517, 2021

Authors: Lee, Sang-Hong

Article Type: Research Article

Abstract: BACKGROUND: Feature selection is a technology that improves the performance result by eliminating overlapping or unrelated features. OBJECTIVE: To improve the performance result, this study proposes a new feature selection that uses the distance between the centers. METHODS: This study uses the distance between the centers of gravity (DBCG) of the bounded sum of the weighted fuzzy memberships (BSWFMs) supported by a neural network with weighted fuzzy membership (NEWFM). RESULTS: Using distance-based feature selection, 22 minimum features with a high performance result are selected, with the shortest DBCG of BSWFMs …removed individually from the initial 24 features. The NEWFM used 22 minimum features as inputs to obtain a sensitivity, accuracy, and specificity of 99.3%, 99.5%, and 99.7%, respectively. CONCLUSIONS: In this study, only the mean DBCG is used to select the features; in the future, however, it will be necessary to incorporate statistical methods such as the standard deviation, maximum, and normal distribution. Show more

Keywords: Feature selection, neuro fuzzy networks, EEG signal, epileptic seizure, wavelet transforms

DOI: 10.3233/THC-218049

Citation: Technology and Health Care, vol. 29, no. S1, pp. 519-529, 2021