A method of motion estimation of segmental ventricular wall with tracking of ultrasonic echocardiogram.

BACKGROUND: Ultrasonic echocardiography is commonly used for monitoring myocardial dysfunction. However, it has limitations such as poor quality of echocardiography images and subjective judgment of doctors. METHODS: In this paper, a calculation model based on optical flow tracking of echocardiogram is proposed for the quantitative estimation motion of the segmental wall. To improve the accuracy of optical flow estimation, a method based on confidence-optimized multiresolution(COM) optical flow model is proposed to reduce the estimation errors caused by the large amplitude of myocardial motion and the presence of "shadows" and other image quality problems. In addition, motion vector decomposition and dynamic tracking of the ventricular region of interest are used to extract information regarding the myocardial segmental motion. The proposed method was validated using simulation images and 50 clinical cases (25 patients and 25 healthy volunteers) for myocardial motion analysis. RESULTS: The results demonstrated that the proposed method could track the motion information of myocardial segments well and reduce the estimation errors of optical flow caused due to the use of low-quality echocardiogram images. CONCLUSIONS: The proposed method improves the accuracy of motion estimation for the cardiac ventricular wall.

Satisfaction of Hangzhou residents with primary health care servicesand its influencing factors / 预防医学

Objective@#To understand the satisfaction of the residents in Hangzhou with primary health care services and its influencing factors, so as to provide basis for improving the quality of primary health care services.@*Methods@#This study adopted multi-stage stratified random sampling method to recruit the residents aged 14 years or over in Hangzhou from July to September, 2019. A self-designed electronic questionnaire for primary health care services in Hangzhou was used to collect the demographic information, the utilization of primary health care institutions, the scores of the indicators of primary health care services and the satisfaction. The ordinal and multinomial logistic regression model was conducted to analyze the influencing factors for the satisfaction with primary health care services. @*Results@#Totally 1 600 questionnaires were issued, 1 454 valid ones were collected, and the response rate was 90.88%. Five ( 0.34% ) residents were very dissatisfied, 16 ( 1.10% ) residents were dissatisfied, 153 ( 10.52% ) residents were generally satisfied, 780 ( 53.65% ) residents were satisfied, and 500 ( 34.39% ) residents were very satisfied with primary health care services. The ordinal and multinomial logistic regression analysis showed that basic medical insurance for urban employees ( OR=0.514, 95%CI: 0.370-0.714 ) , no health records in primary health institutions ( OR=0.528, 95%CI: 0.331-0.844 ) or unknown ( OR=0.524, 95%CI: 0.331-0.829 ) , the queuing time spent for getting medicines ( OR=0.698, 95%CI: 0.531-0.917 ) , ways of getting medicines (OR=0.639, 95%CI: 0.452-0.903 ) and completeness of testing equipment ( OR=1.315, 95%CI: 1.012-1.710) were influencing factors for the satisfaction with primary health care services.@*Conclusions@#The residents in Hangzhou are generally satisfied with the primary health care services, which are associated with the type of medical insurance, the condition of health records in primary institutions, the queuing time spent for getting medicines, the ways of getting medicines and the completeness of inspection equipment.

Hibiscus latent Fort Pierce virus in Brazil and synthesis of its biologically active full-length cDNA clone.

A Brazilian isolate of Hibiscus latent Fort Pierce virus (HLFPV-BR) was firstly found in a hibiscus plant in Limeira, SP, Brazil. RACE PCR was carried out to obtain the full-length sequences of HLFPV-BR which is 6453 nucleotides and has more than 99.15 % of complete genomic RNA nucleotide sequence identity with that of HLFPV Japanese isolate. The genomic structure of HLFPV-BR is similar to other tobamoviruses. It includes a 5' untranslated region (UTR), followed by open reading frames encoding for a 128-kDa protein and a 188-kDa readthrough protein, a 38-kDa movement protein, 18-kDa coat protein, and a 3' UTR. Interestingly, the unique feature of poly(A) tract is also found within its 3'-UTR. Furthermore, from the total RNA extracted from the local lesions of HLFPV-BR-infected Chenopodium quinoa leaves, a biologically active, full-length cDNA clone encompassing the genome of HLFPV-BR was amplified and placed adjacent to a T7 RNA polymerase promoter. The capped in vitro transcripts from the cloned cDNA were infectious when mechanically inoculated into C. quinoa and Nicotiana benthamiana plants. This is the first report of the presence of an isolate of HLFPV in Brazil and the successful synthesis of a biologically active HLFPV-BR full-length cDNA clone.