Hvidberg Potts (iciclemitten5)

MIN000030786. Cognitive health expectancy estimates the proportion of the lifespan that is lived in good cognitive health at the population level. A number of cardiovascular diseases have been identified to be risk factors for cognitive decline and dementia including diabetes, stroke, heart diseases and hypertension. The aim of this study was to examine how these cardiovascular conditions relate to cognitive health expectancy. Longitudinal data were obtained from the US Health and Retirement Study. Multistate modelling was used to estimate total life expectancy (LE), cognitive impairment free life expectancy (CIFLE) and years spent with cognitive impairment (CILE) across self-reported diabetes, hypertension, heart problems and stroke. Individual and cumulative effects of multiple cardiovascular conditions were examined. The presence of cardiovascular disease was associated with a 5- to 9-year decrease in LE and 4- to 8-year decrease in CIFLE at age 55. The outcomes varied in a hierarchical fashion by cardiovascular cnitive health expectancy.The estimation of the human ankle's mechanical impedance is an important tool for modeling human balance. This work presents the implementation of a parameter-estimation approach based on the State-Augmented Extended Kalman Filter (AEKF) to infer the human ankle's mechanical impedance during quiet standing. However, the AEKF Filter is sensitive to the initialization of the noise covariance matrices. In order to avoid a time consuming trial-and-error method and to obtain a better estimation performance, an algorithm based on Genetic Algorithms (GA) is proposed for tuning the measurement noise Rk and process noise covariances Q of the Extended Kalman filter (EKF). Results using simulated data show the ef?cacy of the proposed algorithm for parameter-estimation of a third-order biomechanical model. An experimental test with real data on human subjects is also presented. The results suggest that age is a factor that influences human balance capability.Tendon injuries increase with age, yet the age-associated changes in tendon properties remain unexplained. Decorin and biglycan are two matrix proteoglycans that play complex roles in regulating tendon formation, maturation, and aging, most notably in extracellular matrix assembly and maintenance. However, the roles of decorin and biglycan have not been temporally isolated in a homeostatic aged context. The goal of this work was to temporally isolate and define the roles of decorin and biglycan in regulating aged murine patellar tendon mechanical properties. We hypothesized that decorin would have a larger influence than biglycan on aged tendon mechanical properties and that biglycan would have an additive role in this regulation. When decorin and biglycan were knocked down in aged tendons, minimal changes in gene expression were observed, implying that these models directly define the role of decorin and biglycan in regulating tendon mechanical properties. Knockdown of decorin or biglycan led to minimal changes in quasi-static mechanical properties. However, decorin deficiency led to increases in stress relaxation and phase shift that were exacerbated when coupled with biglycan deficiency. This study highlights an important role for decorin, alone and in tandem with biglycan, in regulating aged tendon viscoelastic properties. To evaluate the short-term changes in inner retinal function using the photopic negative response (PhNR) after intraocular pressure (IOP) reduction in glaucoma. Forty-seven participants with glaucoma who were commencing a new or additional IOP-lowering therapy (treatment group) and 39 participants with stable glaucoma (control group) were recruited. IOP, visual field, retinal nerve fiber layer thickness, and electroretinograms (ERGs) were recorded at baseline and at a follow-up visit (3 ± 2 months). An optimized protocol developed for a portable ERG device was used to record t