Biomarkers for cardiovascular risk assessment in autoimmune diseases

Autoimmune diseases, such as antiphospholipid syndrome, systemic lupus erythematosus, and rheumatoid arthritis, are characterized by a high prevalence of cardiovascular (CV) disease (CVD), which constitutes the leading causes of morbidity and mortality among such patients. Although such effects are partly explained by a higher prevalence of traditional CV risk factors, many studies indicate that such factors do not fully explain the enhanced CV risk in these patients. In addition, risk stratification algorithms based upon traditional CV risk factors are not as predictive in autoimmune diseases as in the general population. For these reasons, the timely and accurate assessment of CV risk in these high-risk populations still remains an unmet clinical need. An enhanced contribution of different inflammatory components of the immune response, as well as autoimmune elements (e.g. autoantibodies, autoantigens, and cellular response), has been proposed to underlie the incremental CV risk observed in these populations. Recent advances in proteomic tools have contributed to the discovery of proteins involved in CVDs, including some that may be suitable to be used as biological markers. In this review we summarize the main markers in the field of CVDs associated with autoimmunity, as well as the recent advances in proteomic technology and their application for biomarker discovery in autoimmune disease.     

Compensation for occupational injuries and diseases: its effect upon prevention at the workplace

Abstract

In Switzerland, as in many other industrialized countries, the nature and extent of prevention at the workplace is determined, at least partially, by known cases of compensated occupational injuries and diseases. At both the national and international levels ∥ILO conventions) injuries and diseases that fit appropriate lists and definitions are eligible for compensation. It has been found, based upon an investigation of a representative sample (965 subjects) of the working population in the French-speaking region of Switzerland, that this restrictive view does not take into account the fact that a large proportion of injuries and diseases are claimed by the victims to be caused by their job. These injuries and diseases, responsible for at least one month's absence from work, are not considered to be eligible for compensation but must be covered by the patient's own insurance. Moreover, the survey showed that workers considered the ill effects on health and safety to be a consequence less of the physical working environment than of the work organization, and that this category of risks was not recognized. Thus, in addition to the reduction of hazards by the application of industrial hygiene, an informed improvement of the workplace and the work organization was required. Consequently, laws and regulations on occupational injuries and diseases should be changed in order to emphasize the role of more appropriate preventive tools, which includes ergonomics.     

Modeling the influence of risk factors and chronic diseases on the development of strokes and peripheral arterial-vascular disease

Several chronic diseases and risky lifestyles have become an important social burden in many countries around the world, a problem which should not be underestimated. The situation is even more worrying when we take into account their influence on serious health complications that can threaten patients’ lives or significantly reduce their quality of life. The presented modeling-and-simulation study enables us to estimate the number of patients with type-2 diabetes, hypercholesterolemia and hypertension, obese and smoking people and the influence of these conditions on the development of strokes and peripheral arterial-vascular diseases. In addition, an estimate of treatment costs makes it possible to evaluate the social burden and provide information about the potential savings resulting from treating intensive chronic diseases.     

Long term cardiovascular risk models' combination

The correct diagnosis of cardiovascular disease is a key factor to reduce social and economic costs. In this context, cardiovascular disease risk assessment tools are of fundamental importance. This work addresses two major drawbacks of the current cardiovascular risk score systems: reduced number of risk factors considered by each individual tool and the inability of these tools to deal with incomplete information.To achieve these goals a two phase strategy was followed. In the first phase, a common representation procedure, based on a Naïve-Bayes classifier methodology, was applied to a set of current risk assessment tools. Classifiers’ individual parameters and conditional probabilities were initially evaluated through a frequency estimation method. In a second phase, a combination scheme was proposed exploiting the particular features of Bayes probabilistic reasoning, followed by conditional probabilities optimization based on a genetic algorithm approach.This strategy was applied to describe and combine ASSIGN and Framingham models. Validation results were obtained based on individual models, assuming their statistical correctness. The achieved results are very promising, showing the potential of the strategy to accomplish the desired goals.     

Implementation programme of the Swedish ordinance concerning work postures and working movements

Ergonomically-rclated occupational injuries have been increasingly recognized in Sweden. The official injury statistics show that ergonomically-related injuries accounted for about 20% of all reported occupational injuries (ISA 1985). On 1 January 1984 an ordinance concerning work postures and working movements was passed. It was built upon and is a complement to the Work Environment Act of 1978. There are in Sweden about 400 labour inspectors in 19 regional Labour Inspectorates, to ensure among other things that rules concerning the occupational environment are complied with at the workplace level. Sweden has a working population of about 4 million people. To implement the above-mentioned ordinance, a 2-year implementation programme was set up. The labour inspectors first identified major areas with severe non-ergonomic working conditions, in all areas of work. Six typical work situations were then selected and the inspectors were asked to pay special attention to them, and to intensify their efforts on these work situations, during a 10-month period. Eighteen months after the ordinance came into effect, the implementation programme and the labour inspectorate input was evaluated. The preliminary results showed an overall increase in ergonomic awareness. The ordinance was distributed in about 120000 copies, and the labour inspectors found it to be a useful tool in their work. Citations concerning ergonomics had increased considerably during this period.     

基于ARM和Zigbee的心血管功能测试诊断平台设计与实现

心血管疾病作为慢性疾病之首,严重威胁全国10.3%人群的生命健康,对其进行有效的防控治疗已成为当下研究热点;而目前国内慢性疾病信息实时采集终端与分析诊断平台匮乏,致使心血管等慢性疾病无法得到跟踪和快速有效的治疗;为此,文章利用物联网技术,结合SQL Server数据库,使用C#语言以及WPF开发技术设计了基于物联网的心血管功能测试及诊断平台;该平台通过终端实现对心血管疾病患者健康信息的采集,采用Zigbee通讯技术上传至云端,平台通过Socket技术接收数据并给出诊断结论,生成体检报告,系统测试中涉及了心率、心输出量CO、心搏出量SV以及脉搏波形特征量K等关键参数,结果验证了该心血管功能测试诊断平台的合理性与有效性,实验结果达到了预期目标,为及早发现和治疗心血管等慢性疾病提供了数据支撑与平台基础。     

动态蛋白质网络的构建、分析及应用研究进展

蛋白质组学的快速发展,特别是高通量技术的发展产生了大量的蛋白质相互作用数据,为人们从更深层次理解蛋白质之间的相互作用及其在复杂疾病的作用机理提供了基础.一个生物体内所有的蛋白质与蛋白质之间的相互作用组成的网络称为蛋白质网络.传统的研究多是基于静态的蛋白质网络模型.然而,由于蛋白质自身表达的动态性及蛋白质间相互作用的动态性,真实的蛋白质网络会随着时间和条件不断变化,与疾病的发生和发展有关的蛋白质功能模块也与这种动态变化密切相关.因此,研究者已经把注意力从关注蛋白质网络的静态属性转移到动态属性上,提出了一系列的动态蛋白质网络的构建方法.在介绍静态蛋白质网络的基础上,分类讨论了动态蛋白质网络的构建方法,将现有的动态蛋白质网络的构建方法归纳为基于蛋白质表达动态性的方法、基于多状态下表达及相关性变化的方法和基于时空动态变化的方法这3类：第1类体现的是蛋白质自身表达随时间演化的动态性,第2类则表现为不同条件下蛋白质之间表达相关性的改变,第3类则体现了蛋白质及蛋白质相互作用在时间和空间上的动态变化.然后,对动态蛋白质网络的蛋白质节点和相关子网络进行了动态分析并详细介绍了动态蛋白质网络在复杂疾病中的一些主流应用,如蛋白质复合物识别、蛋白质功能预测、生物标志物识别、疾病基因预测等.最后,对动态蛋白质网络所面临的挑战与未来的研究方向进行了探讨.     

复杂疾病模型快速参数求解算法

全基因组关联研究（GWAS）是在探究人类复杂疾病相关基因的重要方法,实用有效的算法是GWAS成功的关键,因此根据疾病模型生成模拟数据对GWAS算法进行比较测试具有重要的意义。模拟测试要求根据各种输入的控制量计算出疾病模型的相关参数,但是目前缺乏相关公开的算法。提出了一个求解这些参数的分支限界算法。大量实验测试表明该算法能快速精确地计算出疾病模型的相关参数,可用于搭建GWAS算法测试平台。     

Urinary proteomics in renal pathophysiology: Impact of proteinuria

Urinary differential proteomics is used to study renal pathophysiological mechanisms, find novel markers of biological processes and renal diseases, and stratify patients according to proteomic profiles. The proteomic procedure determines the pathophysiological meaning and clinical relevance of results. Urine samples for differential proteomic studies are usually normalized by protein content, regardless of its pathophysiological characteristics. In the field of nephrology, this approach translates into the comparison of a different fraction of the total daily urine output between proteinuric and nonproteinuric samples. Accordingly, alterations in the level of specific proteins found by this method reflect the relative presence of individual proteins in the urine; but they do not necessarily show alterations in their daily excretion, which is a key parameter for the understanding of the pathophysiological meaning of urinary components. For renal pathophysiology studies and clinical biomarker identification or determination, an alternative proteomic concept providing complementary information is based on sample normalization by daily urine output, which directly informs on changes in the daily excretion of individual proteins. This is clinically important because daily excretion (rather than absolute or relative concentration) is the only self-normalized way to evaluate the real meaning of urinary parameters, which is also independent of urine concentration.     

2nd Combined Working Group and Management Committee Meeting of Urine and Kidney Proteomics COST Action 29-30 March 2009, Nafplio, Greece

EuroKUP (Urine and Kidney Proteomics; www.eurokup.org) is a COST (European Cooperation in the field of Scientific and Technical research: www.cost.esf.org Action fostering a multi-disciplinary network of investigators from 25 countries and focusing on facilitating translational proteomic research in kidney diseases. Four Working Groups focusing respectively on defining clinically important research questions in kidney diseases, kidney tissue proteomics, urine proteomics and bioinformatics have been generated. The EuroKUP members had their second combined Working Group and Management Committee (MC) meeting in Nafplio, Greece from March 29 to 30, 2009. This report summarizes the main presentations, discussions and agreed action points during this meeting. These refer to the design of collaborative projects and clinical center networks for specific kidney diseases; establishment of guidelines for kidney tissue proteomics analysis by laser-based imaging- and laser capture microdissection-MS; development and characterization of a "standard" urine specimen to be used for assessment of platform capability and data comparability in clinical proteomics applications; definition of statistical requirements in biomarker discovery studies; and development of a specialized kidney and urine ontology. Various training activities are planned involving training schools on laser capture microdissection- and imaging-MS, workshops on ontologies as well as short-term travel grants for junior investigators.     

The main features of BAHUS — biometeorological system for messages on the occurrence of diseases in fruits and vines

Recently, there has been an increasing demand for providing a high level of production of wholesome plant food but without losing its quality from the consumer's point of view. In this regard, it is required to provide reliable information about the occurrence of plant diseases so as to ensure their efficient control. The reliability of this information increases substantially if both the meteorological and the biological quantities, measured or modelled, are properly integrated in a prognostic system. By the joint efforts of the authors' institutions the biometeorological system BAHUS for messages on the occurrence of the most important diseases in fruits and vines has been developed. This system has been developed in Microsoft FoxPro 2.6(X) following standards of analysis of a large amount of data. It consists of two modules. The first provides input for prediction in the form of the measured or modelled meteorological and biological data, while the second, on the basis of available input data, selects the corresponding method for messages on the occurrence of disease. Depending on the method selected, the meteorological data can be assimilated either from weather stations, atmospheric models or software packages LAPS (land–air parameterization schemes providing 10 min prognostic values) and KARLOS (providing their climatological values) integrated in the system as a whole. The BAHUS has been designed as an open system giving a wide range of possibilities for increasing its level of sophistication.     

Cervical Diseases Prediction Using LHVR Techniques

The stabilizing mechanisms of cervical spine spondylosis are involved in the degenerating segmentation vertebra, which often causes pain. Health of the individual is affected, both physically and mentally. Due to depression, nervousness, and psychological damages occur thereby losing their human activity functions. The nucleus pulposus of spinal disc herniation is prolapsed through a deficiency of annulus fibrosus. A jelly-like core part of the disc contains proteins that cause the tissues to become swollen when it touches the nucleus pulposus. The proposed Gradient Linear Classification (GLC) algorithm is used for the efficient automatic classification of disc degeneration herniation of Inter vertebral/ vertebra in a cervical disc. Distance between the disc degeneration is classified through gradient operator and is estimated using the rotation of angles between the correlations. Specialists of the orthopedic spine are searching for high-precision algorithms, which are achieved using proposed Linear Hybrid Vertebra Regression (LHVR) diagnostic techniques to identify the degree of cervical disc degeneration using an accurate location. Our experimental results have been used to determine a high range of classification in predicting the spinal cord which saves handling time and accomplishes high accuracy in detection.     

Using system dynamics to evaluate control strategies for mosquito-borne diseases spread by human travel

The aim of this paper is to evaluate the effectiveness of control strategies for diseases transmitted by the Aedes albopictus mosquito (the “Asian tiger”) and spread by human travel. This mosquito, which has become established in southern Europe in recent years, is a vector for many diseases. For example, an outbreak of chikungunya, hitherto regarded as a tropical disease, occurred in Italy in 2007. The initial case was a person who had acquired the disease overseas. Mosquito-borne infections can only be spread over large distances by human travel, as the flight range of mosquitos is very limited. A system dynamics model has been developed which describes the mosquito life-cycle, the natural history of mosquito-borne disease in humans and mosquitos, and human behaviour including travel. Potential disease control strategies include chemical treatments to destroy either larvae or adult mosquitos, campaigns to influence human behaviour, or quarantine of infectious people. In this paper, which is based on the Italian chikungunya outbreak, this model is used to study and compare the effect of different control strategies, where the various actions are combined in different ways and implemented for different time periods.     

ENERGY REQUIREMENTS OE PRACTICAL JOBS FROM PULSE INCREASE AND ERGOMETER TEST

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to determine whether the angle of the knee joint has an effect on the Fitness Index Scores of the HST. Thirty-three young Caucasoid male subjects were used in this study. The HST was administered in four different knee-joint angles. A repeated measures one-way classification analysis of variance, a one-way classification analysis of variance and an analysis of covariance were used to analyse the data obtained during nine weeks. All tests yielded significant F ratios at the 0·01 level of confidence. Based on these findings, persons who perform the HST in different knee-joint angles have indices which are not measuring cardiopulmonary stress on the same scale. The HST based on standardization of the knee-joint angle promises to increase the evaluating or discriminating power of the test.     

Inter-rater reliability of an observation-based ergonomics assessment checklist for office workers

Objectives: To establish the inter-rater reliability of an observation-based ergonomics assessment checklist for computer workers. Methods: A 37-item (38-item if a laptop was part of the workstation) comprehensive observational ergonomics assessment checklist comparable to government guidelines and up to date with empirical evidence was developed. Two trained practitioners assessed full-time office workers performing their usual computer-based work and evaluated the suitability of workstations used. Practitioners assessed each participant consecutively. The order of assessors was randomised, and the second assessor was blinded to the findings of the first. Unadjusted kappa coefficients between the raters were obtained for the overall checklist and subsections that were formed from question-items relevant to specific workstation equipment. Results: Twenty-seven office workers were recruited. The inter-rater reliability between two trained practitioners achieved moderate to good reliability for all except one checklist component. Conclusions: This checklist has mostly moderate to good reliability between two trained practitioners.

Practitioner Summary: This reliable ergonomics assessment checklist for computer workers was designed using accessible government guidelines and supplemented with up-to-date evidence. Employers in Queensland (Australia) can fulfil legislative requirements by using this reliable checklist to identify and subsequently address potential risk factors for work-related injury to provide a safe working environment.     

食源性疾病预警与控制系统研究

食源性疾病的危害较大。基于信息技术的食源性疾病防范体系,利用先进的信息技术,构建良好的食品卫生安全体系,建立综合性的、可持续的系统,将积极有效地预防和及时高效地控制食源性疾病,从而降低食源性疾病对社会的危害。食源性疾病预警与控制系统主要由信息收集系统与信息处理决策系统组成,通过信息的快速传输、资料共享和信息相关处理,及时有效地预警控制食源性疾病。     

有指导的数据挖掘在心脏病风险评价中的应用

本文讲述了什么是数据挖掘,以及数据挖掘的两种策略:有指导和无指导学习。作者用心脏病数据集范例来解释有指导学习的过程。实验表明患心脏病病人的某些属性特征和患心脏病风险的大小有较大关系。数据挖掘的结果对于医生临床诊断有很重要的意义。     

Exploring the potential of platelet proteomics in children

Proteomics is a rapidly evolving ‘‘post-genomic’’ science utilizing advanced technologies in protein separation, identification, quantitation and heavily relying on bioinformatics. Proteomic research in pediatrics is important and most of the successes thus far are seen in research that utilize samples that require less invasive procedures and focus on prevailing childhood diseases such as acute lymphoblastic leukaemia and neuroblastoma. Recent advances in proteomics are helping to elucidate platelet processes that are relevant to bleeding and clotting disorders, as well as other important roles of platelets such as in angiogenesis and inflammation. Nevertheless, most of platelet proteome data obtained to date are derived from the adult population and the potential of platelet proteomic application in children has not yet been explored. As it happens in all research fields, there are additional challenges in studying children such as procuring sufficient biological samples and access to less common disease cohorts as compared to in adults. Furthermore, many of the prevalent platelet-mediated diseases in adults, such as coronary heart disease and atherosclerotic lesions, are believed to have origins during childhood. Hence, platelet proteomic research in children may reveal some important information on how platelet plays a role in the pathogenesis of disease. In this article, we refer to the current knowledge from platelet proteomic research strategies in adults and address the specific concerns in the study of pediatric samples.     

森林病虫灾害的航空录像监测技

摘要:我国自20世纪90年代中期开始引进和消化吸收航空录像监测系统,该系统主要由数据获取、数据处理、灾害区(点)现地调查和飞行器4个部分组成。主要介绍了该系统的应用方法,以及在我国重大森林病虫害--松毛虫和松材线虫灾害监测生产中的研究应用情况。生产实践表明,这种集成了遥感、地理信息系统和全球定位系统技术的监测系统,具有灵活、方便、机动性强、成本低廉的优势,在森林病虫灾害的监测中将大有可为。关　键　词:森林病虫害;监测;航空录像中图分类号:TP 79