Non-Linear Heart Rate Variability and Risk Stratification in Cardiovascular Disease

Traditional time and frequency domain heart rate variability (HRV) have cardiac patients at risk of mortality post-myocardial infarction. More recently, non linear HRV has been applied to risk stratification of cardiac patients. In this review we describe studies of non linear HRV and outcome in cardiac patients. We have included studies that used the three most common non-linear indices: power law slope, the short term fractal scaling exponent and measures based on Poincaré plots. We suggest that a combination of traditional and non-linear HRV may be optimal for risk stratification. Considerations in using non linear HRV in a clinical setting are described

The Stored Energy of Cold Work, Thermal Annealing, and Other Thermodynamic Issues in Single Crystal Plasticity at Small Length Scales

This paper develops a thermodynamically consistent gradient theory of single-crystal plasticity using the principle of virtual power as a paradigm to develop appropriate balance laws for forces and energy. The resulting theory leads to a system of microscopic force balances, one balance for each slip system, and to an energy balance that accounts for power expended during plastic flow via microscopic forces acting in concert with slip-rates and slip-rate gradients. Central to the theory are an internal energy and entropy, plastic in nature, dependent on densities that account for the accumulation of glide dislocations as well as geometrically necessary dislocations – and that, consequently, represent quantities associated with cold work. Our theory allows us to discuss – within the framework of a gradient theory – the fraction of plastic stress-power that goes into heating, as well as the reduction of the dislocation density in a cold-worked material upon subsequent (or concurrent) thermal annealing.National Science Foundation (U.S.) (NSF CMMI Award No.1063626)National Research Foundation (South Africa

Estimation of wheat crop evapotranspiration using NDVI vegetation index

The evapotranspiration of the wheat crop grown in Tarafeni South Main Canal (TSMC) irrigation command area of West Bengal, India was estimated based on Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) from LANDSAT images. The crop evapotranspiration (ETc) of wheat crop was estimated using the crop coefficient (Kc) maps and the reference evapotranspiration (ETo) in the TSMC irrigation command area. The ETo was estimated from the well known temperature based ETo estimation method, i.e. FAO-24 modified Blaney-Criddle method using measured maximum and minimum air temperatures data during January 2011 in the command area. The Kc maps were mapped in ARC GIS software using procured LANDSAT images for the study period. The area under wheat crop was clipped from land use/land cover map generated from LANDSAT image of January, 2011 for winter season. Further, the crop evapotranspiration map was obtained by multiplying Kc map with the estimated ETo value i.e., 5.76 mm/day for a particular day. The maximum crop evapotranspiration computed for Rabi crop was 5.57 mm/ day, whereas minimum was 1.59 mm/day for the TSMC command area

Ignition and Flame Spread in Wood-Based Composites

This thesis investigates the ignition and flame spread behaviour of engineered wood-based materials, focusing on Medium-Density Fibreboard (MDF), Particleboard, Oriented Strand Board (OSB), and Plywood. Thermal properties, such as thermal conductivity and specific heat capacity, were analysed using Transient Plane Source (TPS) measurements. A new technique has been introduced for measuring thermal inertia as a surface property, enabling its determination through a single measurement. This method addresses the limitations of traditional approaches, which involve separate measurements of thermal conductivity, density, and specific heat capacity, often leading to compounded uncertainties. By consolidating the measurement process, the new method reduces uncertainty levels, and this improvement is particularly beneficial for applications involving ignition and flame spread. Fire behaviour was assessed through small- and medium-scale tests, including Cone Calorimeter, Single Burning Item (SBI), and Intermediate-scale façade fire tests. Results showed variations in ignition times, heat release rates (HRR), and flame spread across different materials and heat flux levels. Plywood, for example, exhibited earlier ignition and faster flame spread compared to other materials. Additionally, the study compared several classical empirical ignition models against experimental data. While the models corresponded well to the experimental data at higher heat flux levels (35 and 50 kW/m²), discrepancies were noted at lower heat flux level (20 kW/m²), indicating that factors beyond thermal inertia have a stronger influence on ignition under certain conditions. Overall, this research contributes a more practical method for measuring thermal inertia and detailed insights into the fire behaviour of wood-based materials

Wireless Environment Aware Adaptive Scheduling Technique For Cellular Networks

It is now well known that employing channel knowledge based on signaling techniques in wireless mobile ad-hoc networks (MANET) system can yield large improvements in almost all performance metric. Here we proposed the adaptive scheduling, in which the work done is based upon the bandwidth information of channel to provide better quality of service (‘QoS’) to the cell-edge mobile stations. Channel information is critical based on which scheduling is carried out. The bandwidth channel information contains estimation delay, the pilot channel noise and pilot contamination. Afterwards, Zero Forcing precoding methodology has applied for removing the interference at user nodes, destination nodes and gateway side. By extending the characteristics of ZF, the modified Zero Forcing (MZF) has proposed to achieve higher throughput rate and higher spectrum efficiency. The achievable-rates of the ZF and MZF has derived under the comprehensive model of imperfect bandwidth information

Bulk viscosity in 2SC quark matter

The bulk viscosity of three-flavor color-superconducting quark matter originating from the nonleptonic process u+s u+d is computed. It is assumed that up and down quarks form Cooper pairs while the strange quark remains unpaired (2SC phase). A general derivation of the rate of strangeness production is presented, involving contributions from a multitude of different subprocesses, including subprocesses that involve different numbers of gapped quarks as well as creation and annihilation of particles in the condensate. The rate is then used to compute the bulk viscosity as a function of the temperature, for an external oscillation frequency typical of a compact star r-mode. We find that, for temperatures far below the critical temperature T_c for 2SC pairing, the bulk viscosity of color-superconducting quark matter is suppressed relative to that of unpaired quark matter, but for T >~ 10^(-3) T_c the color-superconducting quark matter has a higher bulk viscosity. This is potentially relevant for the suppression of r-mode instabilities early in the life of a compact star.Comment: 18 pages + appendices (28 pages total), 8 figures; v3: corrected numerical error in the plots; 2SC bulk viscosity is now larger than unpaired bulk viscosity in a wider temperature rang

Genome‐Wide Family‐Based Linkage Analysis of Exome Chip Variants and Cardiometabolic Risk

Linkage analysis of complex traits has had limited success in identifying trait‐influencing loci. Recently, coding variants have been implicated as the basis for some biomedical associations. We tested whether coding variants are the basis for linkage peaks of complex traits in 42 African‐American ( n = 596) and 90 Hispanic ( n = 1,414) families in the Insulin Resistance Atherosclerosis Family Study (IRASFS) using Illumina HumanExome Beadchips. A total of 92,157 variants in African Americans (34%) and 81,559 (31%) in Hispanics were polymorphic and tested using two‐point linkage and association analyses with 37 cardiometabolic phenotypes. In African Americans 77 LOD scores greater than 3 were observed. The highest LOD score was 4.91 with the APOE SNP rs7412 (MAF = 0.13) with plasma apolipoprotein B (ApoB). This SNP was associated with ApoB ( P ‐value = 4 × 10 −19 ) and accounted for 16.2% of the variance in African Americans. In Hispanic families, 104 LOD scores were greater than 3. The strongest evidence of linkage (LOD = 4.29) was with rs5882 (MAF = 0.46) in CETP with HDL. CETP variants were strongly associated with HDL (0.00049 < P ‐value <4.6 × 10 −12 ), accounting for up to 4.5% of the variance. These loci have previously been shown to have effects on the biomedical traits evaluated here. Thus, evidence of strong linkage in this genome wide survey of primarily coding variants was uncommon. Loci with strong evidence of linkage was characterized by large contributions to the variance, and, in these cases, are common variants. Less compelling evidence of linkage and association was observed with additional loci that may require larger family sets to confirm.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/106817/1/gepi21801.pd

Villous Adenoma: A Rare Cause of Neural Epidermal Growth Factor-Like 1-Positive Membranous Nephropathy

We report the case of a 70-year-old woman diagnosed with neural epidermal growth factor-like 1 antigen-positive membranous nephropathy and nephrotic syndrome. Following thorough exclusion of autoimmune diseases, medications, or infections as potential causes, colonoscopy was performed as part of malignancy evaluation, revealing an 18 mm villous adenoma in the sigmoid colon and a 7 mm tubulovillous adenoma in the cecum. Despite the absence of gastrointestinal symptoms initially and the absence of high-grade dysplasia in the pathology report, the patient experienced a remarkable improvement in symptoms and a reduction in nephrotic-range proteinuria following polypectomy, observed within a few months