Objective To evaluated a new automate ultra sonographic system for detecting benign and malignant breast tumors in three-dimensions.Methods A magnetic sensor to track the probe in a real time during scanning and a series of sequential cross-sectional images,together with information giving precise location and the direction of movement of the probe,were fed into the computer.Fuzzy logic was used to classify tumor, boundary, and normal breast tissue in order to extract an image of the tumor and its margin through three-dimensional (3D) transformation. Results The difference between the surface roughness of benign and malignant tumors was found by comparing their computer -rendered surface images.The values of the S/V ratio of surface area (S 3) divided by volume (V 2) of malignant tumors were larger than those of benign tumors. Mean ratio was 3.43 in benign tumors, 9.08 in malignant tumors.T-test results showed these differences between benign and malignant tumors to be significant(P

Adolescent ; Atherosclerosis ; drug therapy ; etiology ; prevention & control ; therapy ; Child ; Humans ; Hyperlipidemias ; complications ; prevention & control ; therapy ; Hypolipidemic Agents ; therapeutic use ; Life Style ; Obesity ; complications ; prevention & control ; Primary Prevention ; Risk Factors

Objective To investigate the correlations of body mass index (BMI) with plasma apelin, waist-hip ratio (WHR), fasting plasma glucose (FPG), glycosylated hemoglobin (HbAlc), biochemical indicator, blood fat and ultrasonic cardiogram (UCG) figures in patients with congestive heart failure (CHF).Methods A total of 41 elderly CHF patients (20 males and 21 females, aged 66.0±12.3 years) were divided into 3 groups according to BMI: normal group (n= 16), overweight group (n=13) and obese group (n= 12).And they were also divided into 2 subgroups: grade Ⅲ heart function group (n=22) and grade Ⅳ heart function group (n= 19).Enzyme linked immunosorbent assay was used to detect the levels of plasma apelin, and BMI, WHR, C-reactive protein (CRP), FPG, creatine kinase (CK), CK-MB, blood fat, electrolyte and UCG of all patients were detected .Results There were significant differences in waist circumference, hip circumference and WHR among the 3 groups (P<0.05 or P<0.01).But there were no significant differences in high density lipoprotein (HDL), low density lipoprotein (LDL), total cholesterol (TC), triglyceride (TG), FPG, HbAlc, CK, CK-MB, potassium, sodium, CRP, left ventricular internal diameter at end-diastole (LVIDd), left ventricular internal diameter at end-diastole (LVIDs), interventricular septal thickness at end diastole (IVSd) and left ventrieular ejection fraction (LVEF) among the 3 groups (all P> 0.05).The apelin level was higher in obese group than in normal group and in overweight group ((0.48±0.15) mg/L vs.(0.18±0.15) mg/L and (0.27±0.06) mg/L, both P<0.01].And the plasma apelin level was higher in grade Ⅳ heart function group than in grade Ⅲ heart function group [(0.35±0.16) mg/L vs.(0.26±0.13)mg/L, P<0.05].The level of plasma apelin was positively correlated with BMI, white blood cell, CK, hemoglobin and TG, and was negatively correlated with cardiac function and LVEF.The influencing factors for the plasma apelin were BMI (β=0.672, P<0.01), age (β=0.244, P<0.05) and HDL (β=-1.000, P<0.01).Conclusions The plasma apelin level is closely correlated with the development of heart failure.Cardiac dysfunction is more severer when the level of plasma apelin is higher.The high level of plasma apelin may be one of factors for the higher survival rate of the obese CHF patients.Plasma apelin level may be used as an indicator of state of illness.

Biomechanical Phenomena ; Humans ; Lumbosacral Region ; physiology ; Male ; Occupational Health ; Wood ; Workplace

Competency has been talked and studied a lot on management science. This article briefly reviewed the concept of competen-cy and competency model with its construction methodology. The details of the documents (or analogous documents), that described the competencies for physical therapist published by Ireland, UK, Canada, USA, World Confederation for Physical Therapy, and Australia, were introduced. Then the research development of competencies for physical therapist in China was represented.

Objective By using optical coherence tomography (OCT) to observe the residual subretina fluid changes in fovea that may explain visual recovery after anatomically successful repair of rhegmatogenous retinal detachments (RD). Design Prospective observational case series. Participants 34 patients(35 eyes) with successful retinal reattachment after macula involving RD repair. Methods 34 patients were followed up at 3 days, 15 days, 2 months and 6 months after sclera buckling. The best corrected visual acuity(BCVA), eye fundus status were recorded. The OCT images through the center of the fovea were obtained. Main Outcome Measures The OCT images and BCVA after RD repair. Results The BCVA and OCT images were obtained 3 days to 6 months postoperatively. There were 3 eyes, 5 eyes, 9 eyes and 23 eyes respectively with residual subfovea fluid absorbed totally at 3 days, 15 days, 2 months and 6 months. In the residual subforvea fluid group, the mean visual acuity increased at 0.124?0.013. In the subfovea fluid absorbed group, the mean visual acuity increased at only 0.019?0.006. Conclusions After anatomically successful repair of RD performend with sclera buckling, the minimal residual subforvea fluid will exist for a long time and will be absorbed slowly. This may explain slow increase of postoperative visual acuity after anatomically successful repair.

Objective To study on the changes of the IL-6、IL-8、TNF-? in the type 2 diabetes with insulin resistance and the relation of plasma glucose or insulin resistance and cytokines. Methods (1) To assay the serum level of cytokines in 90 cases with type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) and 30 normal controls. (2)To measure the level of fasting plasma glucose (FPG),hemoglohin A_1c (HBA_1c),fasting insulin(FINS),fasting C-peptide (FCP).(3) To analysis the relation of the level of FPG,HBA_1c,FINS,FCP and cytokines. Results (1) The serum levels of cytokines in T2DM group were significantly increase than in control groups,IL-6 and TNF-? in T2DM group with insulin resistance were significantly increase than in T2DM group without insulin resistance (2) There was significantly positively correlated between insulin resistance and the increasing of cytokine levels. Conclusion There is an excess activation of cytokines in T2DM,which is significantly correlated with insulin resistance. Cytokines play the important role in the occurrence and development of T2DM and insulin resistance.

Purpose To investigate the effects of human vitreous fluid on proliferation of cultured human retinal pigment epithelial (RPE) cells and vascular endothelial cell lines(VEC304). Methods Human RPE cells and VEC304 were cultured and treated in different human vitreous conditioned medium (VCM) with or without serum, vitreous volume concentrations of VCM were 1∶8, 1∶4 and 1∶2. Cells proliferation was assayed by tetrazolium (MTT) colorimetry at the 2nd, 4th and 6th day respectively. Results In the presence of serum, 1∶4, 1∶2 VCM had a significantly stimulative effect on RPE cells proliferation compared with control group at the 2nd, 4th, and 6th day retrospectively ( P

Objective To describe cultured human retinal pigment epithelial (RPE) cells transdifferentiation and investigate the effects of human vitreous fluid on the morphologic and cytoskeleton changes of RPE cells in vitro. Methods Cytoskeleton characteristics in the 2 nd, 5 th, 8 th passage of RPE cells in normal culture, which included cytokeratin 18 (CK18) and ?-smooth muscle actin (?-SMA) were analyzed by Western blot. RPE cells were cultured in human vitreous-conditioned medium (VCM) at the concentration of 1∶4 for 6 days, morphologic changes were examined by light and electron microscopy, and cytoskeleton characteristics were analyzed by imunocytochemistry and Western blot. Results During culture in vitro, RPE cells lost epithelial characteristics and aquired fibroblast-like phenotype. The expression of CK18 was the highest at the 5 th passage, and it decreased in the following passage, but ?-SMA increased gradually. The morphologic transdifferentiation from epithelial to fibroblast-like cells of RPE was accelerated by VCM. Ultrastructural changes such as decreased microvilli and gradually increased rough endoplasmic reticulum and Golgi complex were found during the cultivation. CK18 produced by RPE cells decreased in VMC (P

Objective To propose an extraction algorithm for extraction of breast tumor boundary in its ultrasonic image. Methods A novel Global-Local Energy function was proposed in the variational Level Set formulation for the curve evolution. By enhancing the intensity of local information, the breast tumor boundary was obtained from ultrasonic images accurately. Results Experiments on a synthetic ultrasound image showed that this method was more accurate at segmenting the object from the background than the Chan-Vese algorithm based on the global optimization. Experiments on 103 ultrasonic breast tumor images also showed that the boundaries were extracted accurately with this method without any pre-processing step. Conclusion This proposed method is expected for the fast and accurate boundary extraction of ultrasonic breast tumor boundary from ultrasonic image.