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Evaluating the effects of personalized strength training on isokinetic muscle strength and balance ability in fencers with chronic ankle instability (CAI), focusing on functional outcomes and rehabilitation efficacy. Twenty-one fencers with CAI were randomly assigned to three groups: a control group (CG, n  = 7), a standardized strength training group (SG, n  = 7), and a personalized strength training group (PG, n  = 7). During the six-week intervention, training sessions were performed three times per week. Isokinetic muscle strength was assessed at 30°/s and 120°/s with concentric and eccentric ankle eversion. Balance ability was measured using the single-leg stance (with eyes open and closed) and Y-balance tests. Functional performance was evaluated using the Cumberland Ankle Instability Tool (CAIT). The personalized strength training group presented significant improvements in eccentric eversion peak torques at 30°/s ( p  < 0.001) and 120°/s ( p  = 0.004) and the dynamic control ratio (DCR) at 30°/s ( p  = 0.001) and 120°/s ( p  = 0.012). In terms of balance ability, this group demonstrated apparent improvements in the single-leg stance test with eyes closed ( p  = 0.000) and a trend toward improvement in dynamic balance in the Y-balance test. Additionally, this group showed a highly significant increase in CAIT scores ( p  < 0.001), indicating enhanced functional stability. By comparison, no evident improvements were observed in the control and standardized strength training groups. Personalized strength training is more effective than standardized programs in improving isokinetic muscle strength, balance ability, and functional stability in fencers with CAI. The findings suggest that incorporating personalized strength training into rehabilitation protocols can enhance recovery efficiency and injury prevention among athletes with CAI.

Background The role of airway impairment assessed by impulse oscillometry (IOS) in patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) remains unclear. Therefore, this study aimed to analyze the proportion and clinical characteristics of airway impairment assessed by IOS across COPD severities, and explore whether airway impairment is a subtype of COPD. Methods This study was based on cross-sectional data from the ECOPD cohort in Guangdong, China. Subjects were consecutively recruited from July 2019 to August 2021. They filled out questionnaires and underwent lung function tests, IOS and computed tomography (CT). COPD was defined as post-bronchodilator forced expiratory volume in one second/forced vital capacity < lower limit of normal (LLN). Meanwhile, airway impairment was defined as IOS parameters > upper limit of normal or < LLN. On the one hand, Poisson regression was employed to analyze the associations between acute exacerbations of COPD (AECOPD) in the previous year and airway impairment. On the other hand, logistic regression was used to assess differences in CT imaging between patients with IOS parameters’ abnormalities and patients with normal IOS parameters. Results 768 COPD subjects were finally enrolled in the study. The proportion of airway impairment assessed by R 5 , R 20 , R 5 –R 20 , X 5 , AX, and F res was 59.8%, 29.7%, 62.5%, 52.9%, 60.9% and 67.3%, respectively. Airway impairment assessed by IOS parameters (R 5 , R 5 –R 20 , X 5 , AX, and F res ) in patients with COPD was present across all severities of COPD, particularly in GOLD 3–4 patients. Compared with patients with normal IOS parameters, patients with IOS parameters’ abnormalities had more respiratory symptoms, more severe airway obstruction and imaging structural abnormalities. Patients with IOS parameters’ abnormalities assessed by R 5 [risk ratio (RR): 1.58, 95% confidential interval (CI): 1.13–2.19, P = 0.007], R 5 –R 20 [RR: 1.73, 95%CI: 1.22–2.45, P = 0.002], X 5 [RR: 2.11, 95%CI: 1.51–2.95, P < 0.001], AX [RR: 2.20, 95%CI: 1.53–3.16, P < 0.001], and F res [RR: 2.13, 95%CI: 1.44–3.15, P < 0.001] had a higher risk of AECOPD in the previous year than patients with normal IOS parameters. Conclusions Airway impairment assessed by IOS may be a subtype of COPD. Future studies are warranted to identify the underlying mechanisms and longitudinal progression of airway impairment.

In the area of brain-computer interfaces (BCI), the detection of P300 is a very important technique and has a lot of applications. Although this problem has been studied for decades, it is still a tough problem in electroencephalography (EEG) signal processing owing to its high dimension features and low signal-to-noise ratio (SNR). Recently, neural networks, like conventional neural networks (CNN), has shown excellent performance on many applications. However, standard convolutional neural networks suffer from performance degradation on dealing with noisy data or data with too many redundant information. In this paper, we proposed a novel convolutional neural network with variational information bottleneck for P300 detection. Wiht the CNN architecture and information bottleneck, the proposed network termed P300-VIB-Net could remove the redundant information in data effectively. The experimental results on BCI competition data sets show that P300-VIB-Net achieves cutting-edge character recognition performance. Furthermore, the proposed model is capable of restricting the flow of irrelevant information adaptively in the network from perspective of information theory. The experimental results show that P300-VIB-Net is a promising tool for P300 detection.

Background Aging has been evidenced to bring about some structural and functional lung changes, especially in COPD. However, whether aging affects SAD, a possible precursor of COPD, has not been well characterized. Objective We aimed to comprehensively assess the relationship between aging and SAD from computed tomography, impulse oscillometry, and spirometry perspectives in Chinese. Methods We included 1859 participants from ECOPD, and used a linear-by-linear association test for evaluating the prevalence of SAD across various age subgroups, and multivariate regression models for determining the impact of age on the risk and severity of SAD. We then repeated the analyses in these subjects stratified by airflow limitation. Results The prevalence of SAD increases over aging regardless of definitional methods. After adjustment for other confounding factors, per 10-yrs increase in age was significantly associated with the risk of CT-defined SAD (OR 2.57, 95% CI 2.13 to 3.10) and the increase in the severity of air trapping (β 2.09, 95% CI − 0.06 to 4.25 for LAA -856 ), airway reactance (β − 0.02, 95% CI − 0.04 to − 0.01 for X5; β 0.30, 95% CI 0.13 to 0.47 for AX; β 1.75, 95% CI 0.85 to 2.66 for Fres), as well as the decrease in expiratory flow rates (β − 3.95, 95% CI − 6.19 to − 1.71 for MMEF%predicted; β − 5.42, 95% CI − 7.88 to − 2.95 for FEF 50 %predicted) for SAD. All these associations were generally maintained in SAD defined by IOS or spirometry. After stratification of airflow limitation, we further found that the effect of age on LAA -856 was the most significant among almost all subgroups. Conclusions Aging is significantly associated with the prevalence, increased risk, as well as worse severity of SAD. CT may be a more optimal measure to assess aging-related SAD. The molecular mechanisms for the role of aging in SAD need to be explored in the future. Trial registration  Chinese Clinical Trial Registry ChiCTR1900024643. Registered on 19 July 2019

BackgroundThe relationship between airway inflammation in chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) and clinical characteristics remains unclear. This study aimed to investigate the airway inflammatory phenotypes in COPD and their association with clinical characteristics.Methods895 patients with COPD were recruited from Guangdong Province, China in this study. Each patient underwent questionnaire interviews, spirometry testing, CT scans and induced sputum examination. Classification of airway inflammation phenotypes was based on sputum inflammatory cell counts. Covariance analysis was applied to assess associations with airway inflammation phenotypes.ResultsIn this study, we found that neutrophilic phenotype (NP, 58.0%) was the most common airway inflammation phenotype in patients with COPD, followed by mixed granulocytic phenotype (MGP, 32.6%), eosinophilic phenotype (EP, 5.4%) and paucigranulocytic phenotype (PP, 4.0%). Compared with NP patients, those with MGP exhibited more frequent chronic respiratory symptoms, and a higher proportion of individuals classified under Global Initiative for Chronic Obstructive Lung Disease stages 3 and 4. After adjusting for confounding factors, MGP patients had lower lung function, and more severe emphysema and air trapping. On the contrary, patients with PP had the best pulmonary function and less emphysema and air trapping.ConclusionsNP was the most common airway inflammation phenotype in patients with COPD. Patients with MGP had more respiratory symptoms, greater loss of lung function, and more severe emphysema and gas trapping compared with those with NP. Meanwhile, PP may be a phenotype of mild damage to lung structure in patients with COPD.

The existing collaborative channel perception suffers from unreasonable data fusion weight allocation, which mismatches the channel perception capability of the node devices. This often leads to significant deviations between the channel perception results and the actual channel state. To solve this issue, this paper integrates the data fusion algorithm from evidence fusion theory with data link channel state perception. It applies the data fusion advantages of evidence fusion theory to evaluate the traffic pulse statistical capability of network node devices. Specifically, the typical characteristic parameters describing the channel perception capability of node devices are regarded as evidence parameter sets under the recognition framework. By calculating the credibility and falsity of the characteristic parameters, the differences and conflicts between nodes are measured to achieve a comprehensive evaluation of the traffic pulse statistical capabilities of node devices. Based on this evaluation, the geometric mean method is adopted to calculate channel state perception weights for each node within a single-hop range, and a weight allocation strategy is formulated to improve the accuracy of channel state perception.

The potential protective role of serum total bilirubin (TB) for chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) is controversial. We aimed to investigate whether serum TB could prevent airflow limitation (reduce the risk of COPD) and whether these associations were causal or reversely causal. We conducted a multi-center and cross-sectional study including 3069 participants. Logistic regression model (LRM) with restricted cubic spline (RCS) and priori defined quintile categories were used to assess the associations of TB with COPD. Besides, ordinary least squares (OLS) regression model with RCS curves were applied to assess the dose-response relationship between serum TB and airflow limitation (FEV /FVC). To verify the causal direction between TB and COPD, a bidirectional Mendelian randomization analysis was carried out with GWAS data from European ancestry. In the cross-sectional study, the relationship between levels of TB and COPD risk was U shaped (P=0.001), and the low and high concentrations of TB apparently increasing the risk of COPD (OR 1.40, 95% CI 1.07 to 1.82 for less than 9 μmol/L; OR 1.36, 95% CI 1.06 to 1.76 for 9.01-1 0.88 μmol/L; OR 1.50, 95% CI 1.16 to 1.95 for more than 13 μmol/L). There was a significant non-linear relationship between TB and FEV /FVC (non-linear p=0.004). Furthermore, results of bidirectional Mendelian randomization analysis (OR 1.000; 95% CI 0.983 to 1.017 for MR and OR 0.998; 95% CI 0.976 to 1.020 for reversal MR) did not support the causal effects between serum TB and FEV /FVC after controlling the effect of potential confounders and revised causality. Our study reveals that there was non-linear does-response pattern between serum TB and COPD. However, there was little evidence for the linear causal associations of serum TB with airflow limitation. The relationship of TB with COPD needs further study and careful interpretation.

Serum total bilirubin has been reported to have antioxidant properties against chronic respiratory diseases. The objective of our study is to evaluate the association of total bilirubin (TB) with annual lung function decline in COPD patients with different GOLD stages. This study used pooled data from two observational and prospective cohorts of 612 COPD patients whose TB levels were measured at baseline. The associations between TB and postbronchodilator FEV , FEV pred, FVC, FVCpred, FEV /FVC, and the rate of their decline were all determined using linear regression models in the total population and strata of GOLD stages. Serum TB was positively related to FEV and FVC in the total group (β 0.02, 95% CI 0.001~0.02, P = 0.025 and β 0.02, 95% CI 0.002~0.03, P = 0.022, respectively). Additionally, TB was inversely associated with the annual decline in FEV and FEV pred (β 4.91, 95% CI 1.68~8.14, P = 0.025 and β 0.21, 95% CI 0.06~0.36, P = 0.022, respectively) when adjusted for multivariables. After stratification, the significant associations merely persisted in COPD patients with GOLD 2 and GOLD 3-4. Increased TB level was related to less annual decline in FEV as well as FEV pred in moderate-to-severe COPD but not mild COPD, which indicated the different status of TB in different COPD severity and the possible role as potential biomarker merely in moderate-to-severe COPD. Future researches to determine whether TB could be served as biomarker for COPD and the mechanisms should be focused on some target patients with a certain disease severity.

Measurement of turbulence fluxes were performed over the Erhai Lake using eddy covariance（EC） method.Basic physical parameters in the lake-air interaction processes,such as surface albedo of the lake,aerodynamic roughness length,bulk transfer coefficients,etc.,were investigated using the EC data in 2012.The characteristics of turbulence fluxes over the lake including momentum flux,sensible heat flux,latent heat flux,and CO2 flux,and their controlling factors were analyzed.The total annual evaporation of the lake was also estimated based on the artificial neural network（ANN） gap-filling technique.Results showed that the total annual evaporation in 2012 was 1165 ± 15 mm,which was larger than the annual precipitation（818 mm）.Local circulation between the lake and the surrounding land was found to be significant throughout the year due to the land-lake breeze or the mountain-valley breeze in this area.The prevailing winds of southeasterly and northwesterly were observed throughout the year.The sensible heat flux over this plateau lake usually had a few tens of W m-2,and generally became negative in the afternoon,indicating that heat was transferred from the lake to the atmosphere.The sensible heat flux was governed by the lake-air temperature difference and had its maximum in the early morning.The diurnal variation of the latent heat flux was controlled by vapor pressure deficit with a peak in the afternoon.The latent heat flux was dominant in the partition of available energy in daytime over this lake.The lake acted as a weak CO2 source to the atmosphere except for the midday of summer.Seasonal variations of surface albedo over the lake were related to the solar elevation angle and opacity of the water.Furthermore,compared with the observation data,the surface albedo estimated by CLM4-LISSS model was underestimated in winter and overestimated in summer.

My research aimed at analyzing the recently proposed correntropy function and presents a new centered correntropy function from time-domain and frequency-domain approaches. It demonstrats that correntropy and centered correntropy functions not only capture the time and space structures of signals, but also partially characterize the higher order statistical information and nonlinearity intrinsic to random processes. Correntropy and centered correntropy functions have rich geometrical structures. Correntropy is positive definite and centered correntropy is non-negative definite, hence by Moore-Aronszajn theorem they uniquely induce reproducing kernel Hilbert spaces. Correntropy and centered correntropy functions combine the data dependent expectation operator and data independent kernels to form another data dependent operator. Correntropy and centered correntropy functions can be formulated as \"generalized\" correlation and covariance functions on nonlinearly transformed random signals via the data independent kernel functions. Those nonlinearly transformed signals appear on the sphere in the reproducing kernel Hilbert space induced by the kernel functions if isotropic kernel functions are used. The other approach is to directly work with the reproducing kernel Hilbert space induced by the correntropy and centered correntropy functions directly. The nonlinearly transformed signals in the reproducing kernel Hilbert space is no longer stochastic but rather deterministic. The reproducing kernel Hilbert space induced by the correntropy and centered correntropy functions includes the expectation operator as embedded vectors. The two views further our understandings of correntropy and centered correntropy functions in geometrical perspective. The two reproducing kernel Hilbert space induced by kernel functions and correntropy functions respectively represent stochastic and deterministic functional analysis. The correntropy dependence measure is proposed based on the correntropy coefficient as a novel statistical dependence measure. The new measure satisfies all the fundamental desirable properties postulated by Renyi. We apply the correntropy concept in pitch determination, and nonlinear component analysis. The correntropy coefficient is also employed as a novel similarity measure to quantify the inder-dependencies of multi-channel signals.