Aging reduces cardiac baroreflex sensitivity. Our primary aim in the present study was to assess the effects of aging on cardiac baroreflex sensitivity, as determined by power spectral analysis (alpha index), in a large population of healthy subjects. We also compared the alpha indexes determined by power spectral analysis with cardiac baroreflex sensitivity measured by the phenylephrine method...

OBJECTIVE To assess the acute effects of blood transfusion on insulin sensitivity and pancreatic β-cell function in thalassemia patients. METHODS Fifty children and adolescents with β-thalassemia/HbE disease were enrolled in a prospective cohort study. Hemoglobin, serum ferritin and oral glucose tolerance test (OGTT) were performed prior to, and one week after blood transfusion. Insulin sensi...

In this work, a comparative study aimed to investigate the effects of cladding stripping on the external refractive index sensitivity in tapered and UV long period gratings is presented. Here, wet chemical etching combined with microscopic analysis allow us to identify the experimental dependence of the surrounding refractive index (SRI) sensitivity on the cladding radius for both grating types...

identification of the best vegetation indices (vis) for use in quantitative analyzes of vegetation is one of the important issues for ecologists. the objective of this study was sensitivity evaluation of vegetation indices to a stand volume for identification of the best vegetation index (vi) in stand volume estimation using a statistical sensitivity method. also, another objective of this stud...

CONTEXT Methods to directly measure insulin resistance are invasive, complex, and costly. Surrogate indexes derived from the oral glucose tolerance test (OGTT) have been developed, but few studies have systematically analyzed these indexes. OBJECTIVE We examined the relation of surrogate and direct measures of insulin resistance to metabolic variables. DESIGN AND SETTING We conducted a cros...

OBJECTIVES This cross-sectional study aimed to individually and cumulatively compare sensitivity and specificity of the (1) ankle brachial index and (2) pulse volume waveform analysis recorded by the same automated device, with the presence or absence of peripheral arterial disease being verified by ultrasound duplex scan. METHODS Patients (n=205) referred for lower limb arterial assessment u...

A new technique for the refractive index change with high-sensitivity measurements was proposed by the digital image of porous silicon (PSi) microarray utilization in this paper. Under the irradiation of a He-Ne laser, the surface images of the PSi array cells with the microcavity structure were obtained by the digital imaging equipment, whereas the refractive index change of each array cells w...

The acute phase-reactant high-sensitivity C-reactive protein, a marker of vascular inflammation and an atherosclerotic risk factor, is related to arterial stiffness in healthy subjects and in systemic vasculitis. To explore the relationship between markers of inflammation, interleukin-6 (IL-6), tumor necrosis factor-alpha (TNF-alpha), and high-sensitivity C-reactive protein with arterial stiffn...

OBJECTIVE To validate fasting indices of insulin sensitivity and secretion in a diverse pediatric population against gold standard estimates from euglycemic and hyperglycemic clamps. RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODS A total of 31 children (mean BMI 25.1 +/- 4.9 kg/m(2), mean age 8.7 +/- 1.4 years, 15 girls and 16 boys, 12 black and 19 white) underwent euglycemic and hyperglycemic clamps 2-6 weeks ...

The paper presents a novel pressure sensor based on a silicon nitride (SiNx) nanocoated long-period grating (LPG). The high-temperature, radio-frequency plasma-enhanced chemical-vapor-deposited (RF PECVD) SiNx nanocoating was applied to tune the sensitivity of the LPG to the external refractive index. The technique allows for deposition of good quality, hard and wear-resistant nanofilms as requ...