Introduction: Neutrophil CD64 expression has been demonstrated as an improved diagnostic marker of infection and sepsis. The purpose of this study was to develop a new method to evaluate neutrophil CD64 expression for diagnosis of neonatal sepsis. Methodology: Eighty neonates with neonatal sepsis (21 culture positive, 59 negative) were enrolled in this prospective study along with 19 neonates with no symptoms or signs of infection as controls. Expressions of CD64 on monocytes, lymphocytes, and neutrophils were evaluated with flow cytometry (FCM). Ratios were calculated with these levels of CD64 expression. Blood culture and other laboratory exams were done at the same time for the diagnosis of neonatal sepsis. Results were compared between the neonatal sepsis and control groups. Results: CD64 ratios showed significant difference between the groups (p < 0.01). Receiver operating curve (ROC) analysis showed that the CD64 ratios possessed high sensitivity (90%) and specificity (89.5%) in neonatal sepsis identification. Conclusions: The novel CD64 evaluation method, CD64 ratio, can be used as a supplementary method for diagnosis of neonatal sepsis.
Nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD), which is characterized by excessive fat accumulation in the liver of patients who consume little or no alcohol, becomes increasingly common with rapid economic development. Long-term excess fat accumulation leads to NAFLD and represents a global health problem with no effective therapeutic approach. NAFLD is considered to be a series of complex, multifaceted pathological processes involving oxidative stress, inflammation, apoptosis, and metabolism. Over the past decades, herbal medicines have garnered growing attention as potential therapeutic agents to prevent and treat NAFLD, due to their high efficacy and low risk of side effects. In this review, we evaluate the use of herbal medicines (including traditional Chinese herbal formulas, crude extracts from medicinal plants, and pure natural products) to treat NAFLD. These herbal medicines are natural resources that can inform innovative drug research and the development of treatments for NAFLD in the future.
：Objective To explore theconsistency between cardiac monitor and mercury sphygmomanometer for noninvasive bloodpressure ( BP) measurements in patients with atrial fibrillation, which may provideevidence for appropriate device to be applied clinically to patients with arrhythmia.Methods A cohort of 180 hospitalized patients with atrial fibrillation and a total of 160hospitalized patients with regular heart rhythm were randomly recruited. The BP of everysubject was measured with both a mercury device and a cardiac monitor using the same arm.t test was used to compare the BP parameters obtained with the two devices and atwo-tailed P < 0. 05 was considered to be statistically significant. Results In 180patients with atrial fibrillation, the mean systolic BP and diastolic BP measured by themercury sphygmomanometer were (126 ± 22) mm Hg and (75 ±13) mm Hg respectively, whereasthe cardiac monitor measured systolic BP as(134±25) mm Hg and diastolic BP as (69 ±15)mm Hg. There was statistically significant difference with regard to BP values between thetwo devices (for systolic BP, t = 3. 223 0,P =0. 001 4; for diastolic BP, t =4. 055 5 ,P =0.000 1). However, in 160 patients with regular cardiac rhythm, no significant differencewas found for the BP data obtained with the two devices [for systolic BP, (128 ±24) vs(129 ±25), t =0. 365 0,P =0. 715 4; for diastolic BP, (78 ±11) vs (76 ±12) , t = l.5541, P =0. 121 2]. Conclusions Atrial fibrillation may exert adverse effect on theaccuracy of BP measurements taken using cardiac monitor and in patients with atrialfibrillation. Mercury sphygmomanometer is preferable for BP measurement.
To explore the therapeutic mechanism of maggot for psoriasis-like lesions in mice from the perspective of immune stress and complement activation regulation.
BACKGROUND Postoperative myocardial function and microcirculation of acute coronary syndrome (ACS) was assessed by myocardial contrast echocardiography (MCE). MATERIAL AND METHODS Eighty-nine ACS patients treated with percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) were detected by MCE and two-dimensional ultrasonography before and a month later after PCI respectively. Their myocardial perfusion was evaluated by myocardial contrast score (MSC) and contrast score index (CSI); cross-sectional area of microvessel (A), average myocardial microvascular impairment (β), and myocardial blood flow (MBF) were analyzed by cardiac ultrasound quantitative analysis (CUSQ), and fractional flow reserve (FFR) change was observed. Left ventricular ejection fraction (LVEF), left ventricular end-diastolic dimension (LVEDD), and left ventricular end-systolic dimension (LVESD) were observed; the index of microcirculatory resistance (IMR), FFR, and coronary flow reserve (CFR) were detected to evaluate coronary microcirculation. RESULTS None of the 89 patients experienced no-reflow. Patients with normal myocardial perfusion mostly had normal or slightly decreased ventricular wall motion after PCI. A month after the operation, there was an increase in A, β, MBF, LVEF, E/A, IMR, FFR, and CFR (all P<0.05), while LVEDD, LVESD, diastolic gallop A peak, E/Ea, E/Ea×S, and Tei decreased (all P<0.05). LVEF and IMR were in positive correlations with A. LVEF, IMR, FFR and CFR were positively correlated with b and MBF (both r>0, P<0.05), while E/Ea×Sa and Tei were negatively correlated with b and MBF (r<0, P<0.05). CONCLUSIONS MCE can safely assess post-PCI myocardial function and microcirculation of ASC.
This paper presents a procedure for deriving and tuning a compact and solvable differential-algebraic equations (DAE) model for the LiFePO4-graphite battery cell. Electrochemical models of the battery cell are typically represented by complex partial differential equations of state variables and parameters whose relationships can be highly nonlinear. Several software packages are available for numerically solving these equations for simulations. However, their long computing time due to the complexity of the model is a major bottleneck for control and monitoring applications. A reduced order model (ROM) can drastically decrease the simulation time with a minimal loss of the prediction accuracy. A ROM is constructed by simplifying or approximating parameters of the full-order model of the battery cell. For on-line diagnostics and real-time control purposes, a lower-order compact representation of complicated transport and diffusion phenomena of a lithium-ion battery is highly desirable. In this paper, the psedo-2D (P2D) electrochemical model of the battery cell is simplified based on polynomial representations of pore-wall flux and lithium concentrations in a similar manner to previous studies. However, instead of adopting the standard Galerkin method which tends to increase the number of equations, this paper adopts Subramanian et al.’s method which demonstrated a potential for producing a compact description of a lithium-ion battery cell. While a traditional Galerkin method requires selecting particular polynomial representations which satisfy the boundary conditions, Subramanian et al.’s method selects a simple polynomial which can be analytically integrated foregoing setting up separate polynomials for solid and electrolyte potentials. This technique, therefore, has a potential to drastically reduce the size of simplified system. However, since the boundary conditions should be satisfied by additional analytical equations, one requires judicious choice of Galerkin formulations for electrolyte concentration in order to build a solvable DAE system. This paper introduces a systematic way of assessing a Galerkin formulation for the electrolyte concentration based on the theorem of Weierstrass. It is shown that each different Galerkin formulation converts the governing equation and its boundary conditions for the electrolyte concentration into a different set of linear DAE’s. However, not all DAE systems are solvable and some may induce numerical instabilities. It is shown that a full rank of the matrix pencil can ensure that a certain Galerkin formulation produces a solvable DAE system. Usefulness of the proposed method is illustrated by comparing several different Galerkin formulations for the LiFePO4-graphite system. In addition, this paper improves the accuracy of the model by accounting for the hysteresis of open-circuit voltage in LiFePO4 using a differential equation model. When the order of the polynomials are chosen at fours, the P2D model of the cell is simplified into a system of 24 DAE’s. This size is significantly smaller than those of comparable ROMs in the literature. The developed DAE system is solved by using SUNDIAL’s IDA solver where a typical charge/discharge cycle can be simulated under 10 seconds on a regular personal computer. The parameters of the developed DAE model are tuned based on charge/discharge experimental data from a commercial LiFePO4-graphite battery. In this paper, a systematic tuning of the model parameters is investigated by exploiting the fast simulation capability of the developed model. Based on a sensitivity study, six model parameters are chosen for tuning. These tuning parameters, thus selected, include the solid phase diffusivity of the negative electrode, initial hysteresis parameters, reaction rate constants, and the contact resistance. The genetic algorithm is applied to simultaneously find the six model parameters that minimize the sum of squared errors in charge/discharge voltages. The tuned model shows a good agreement with the experimental data at rates upto 4C. Contributions of this paper can be summarized as follows. This paper proposes a new method to ensure a compact DAE system is solvable when it is driven from the original higher-order model of the Lithium-ion battery cell. Moreover, a systematic tuning of the model parameters using the global optimization method is demonstrated by exploiting the computational efficiency of the simplified model. When coupled with the model for describing the hysteresis of the battery cell, the tuned model shows a good agreement with the experimental data from a LiFePO4-graphite battery cell.
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