F-Wave Extraction from Single-Lead Electrocardiogram Signals with Atrial Fibrillation by Utilizing an Optimized Resonance-Based Signal Decomposition Method.

(1) Background: A typical cardiac cycle consists of a P-wave, a QRS complex, and a T-wave, and these waves are perfectly shown in electrocardiogram signals (ECG). When atrial fibrillation (AF) occurs, P-waves disappear, and F-waves emerge. F-waves contain information on the cause of atrial fibrillation. Therefore it is essential to extract F-waves from the ECG signal. However, F-waves overlap the QRS complex and T-waves in both the time and frequency domain, causing this matter to be a difficult one. (2) Methods: This paper presents an optimized resonance-based signal decomposition method for detecting F-waves in single-lead ECG signals with atrial fibrillation (AF). It represents the ECG signal utilizing morphological component analysis as a linear combination of a finite number of components selected from the high-resonance and low-resonance dictionaries, respectively. The linear combination of components in the low-resonance dictionary reconstructs the oscillatory part (F-wave) of the ECG signal. In contrast, the linear combination of components in the high-resonance dictionary reconstructs the transient components part (QRST wave). The tunable Q-factor wavelet transform generates the high and low resonance dictionaries, with a high Q-factor producing a high resonance dictionary and a low Q-factor producing a low resonance dictionary. The different Q-factor settings affect the dictionaries' characteristics, hence the F-wave extraction. A genetic algorithm was used to optimize the Q-factor selection to select the optimal Q-factor. (3) Results: The presented method helps reduce RMSE between the extracted and the simulated F-waves compared to average beat subtraction (ABS) and principal component analysis (PCA). According to the amplitude of the F-wave, RMSE is reduced by 0.24-0.32. Moreover, the dominant frequency of F-waves extracted by the presented method is clearer and more resistant to interference. The presented method outperforms the other two methods, ABS and PCA, in F-wave extraction from AF-ECG signals with the ventricular premature heartbeat. (4) Conclusion: The proposed method can potentially improve the accuracy of F-wave extraction for mobile ECG monitoring equipment, especially those with fewer leads.

CNN-FWS: A Model for the Diagnosis of Normal and Abnormal ECG with Feature Adaptive.

(1) Background and objective: Cardiovascular disease is one of the most common causes of death in today's world. ECG is crucial in the early detection and prevention of cardiovascular disease. In this study, an improved deep learning method is proposed to diagnose abnormal and normal ECG accurately. (2) Methods: This paper proposes a CNN-FWS that combines three convolutional neural networks (CNN) and recursive feature elimination based on feature weights (FW-RFE), which diagnoses abnormal and normal ECG. F1 score and Recall are used to evaluate the performance. (3) Results: A total of 17,259 records were used in this study, which validated the diagnostic performance of CNN-FWS for normal and abnormal ECG signals in 12 leads. The experimental results show that the F1 score of CNN-FWS is 0.902, and the Recall of CNN-FWS is 0.889. (4) Conclusion: CNN-FWS absorbs the advantages of convolutional neural networks (CNN) to obtain three parts of different spatial information and enrich the learned features. CNN-FWS can select the most relevant features while eliminating unrelated and redundant features by FW-RFE, making the residual features more representative and effective. The method is an end-to-end modeling approach that enables an adaptive feature selection process without human intervention.

A Review of Bile Acid Metabolism and Signaling in Cognitive Dysfunction-Related Diseases.

Bile acids are commonly known as one of the vital metabolites derived from cholesterol. The role of bile acids in glycolipid metabolism and their mechanisms in liver and cholestatic diseases have been well studied. In addition, bile acids also serve as ligands of signal molecules such as FXR, TGR5, and S1PR2 to regulate some physiological processes in vivo. Recent studies have found that bile acids signaling may also play a critical role in the central nervous system. Evidence showed that some bile acids have exhibited neuroprotective effects in experimental animal models and clinical trials of many cognitive dysfunction-related diseases. Besides, alterations in bile acid metabolisms well as the expression of different bile acid receptors have been discovered as possible biomarkers for prognosis tools in multiple cognitive dysfunction-related diseases. This review summarizes biosynthesis and regulation of bile acids, receptor classification and characteristics, receptor agonists and signaling transduction, and recent findings in cognitive dysfunction-related diseases.

Network pharmacology modeling identifies synergistic interaction of therapeutic and toxicological mechanisms for Tripterygium hypoglaucum Hutch.

BACKGROUND: Tripterygium hypoglaucum Hutch (THH) both has prominent efficacy and unwarranted toxicity in the treatment of autoimmune diseases. Nevertheless, its pharmacological and toxicological profiles still remain to be elucidated. In the current study, the network pharmacology approach was applied to identify synergistic interaction and mechanism of efficacy and toxicity for THH from a holistic perspective. METHODS: The compounds from THH were collected using literature retrieval and relevant databases. After the production of putative therapeutic targets for dominant diseases and harmful targets of adverse reactions (ADRs) induced by THH, the protein-protein interactions (PPIs), topological analysis and pathway enrichment were established to distinguish the hub targets and pathways. Additionally, the binding activity of candidate ingredients with core targets were revealed by molecular docking simulation. RESULTS: A total of eight bioactive components in THH were enrolled, and 633 targets were responsible for rheumatoid arthritis (RA), 1067 targets were corresponding to systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE), 1318 targets of ADRs were obtained. The results of enrichment analysis among THH-RA, THH-SLE and THH-ADR networks indicated that pathway in cancer, hepatitis B, rheumatoid arthritis, and PI3K-Akt signaling pathway might participate in THH for treating RA and SLE. Besides, the mechanism of ADRs that induced by THH were associated with viral carcinogenesis, p53 signaling pathway, PI3K-Akt signaling pathway, and so on. Whereas, these active ingredients of THH exerted the superior binding activities with crucial targets including STAT3, VEGFA, TP53 and MMP9 that functioned synergistically efficacy and toxicity as observed via molecular docking simulation. CONCLUSION: The present research preliminarily interpreted the synergistic interaction of therapeutic and toxicological mechanisms for THH through the comprehensive analysis of relationship and binding activity between primary components and core targets, providing a feasible and promising approach to facilitate the development of toxic and irreplaceable herbs.

The clinical benefits of Chinese patent medicines against COVID-19 based on current evidence.

The outbreak of emerging infectious pneumonia caused by 2019 Novel Coronavirus (2019-nCoV) has posed an enormous threat to public health, and traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) have made vast contribution to the prevention, treatment and rehabilitation of coronavirus disease 19 (COVID-19) among Chinese population. As an indispensable part of TCM, Chinese patent medicines (CPMs) are highly valued and critically acclaimed in their campaign to contain and tackle the epidemic, they can achieve considerable effects for both suspected cases under medical observation period, and confirmed individuals with serious underlying diseases or critical conditions. Given this, based on the Guideline on Diagnosis and Treatment of Coronavirus Disease 2019 in China, the present review summarized the basic information, clinical evidence and published literatures of recommended CPMs against COVID-19. The details were thoroughly introduced involving compositions, therapeutic effects, clinical indications, medication history of CPMs and the profiles of corresponding research. With regard to infected patients with different stages and syndrome, the preferable potentials and therapeutic mechanism of CPMs were addressed through the comprehensive collection of relevant literatures and on-going clinical trials. This study could provide an insight into clinical application and underlying mechanism of recommended CPMs against COVID-19, with the aim to share the Chinese experience in clinical practice and facilitate scientific development of TCM, especially CPMs in the fierce battle of COVID-19.

The characteristics and regularities of cardiac adverse drug reactions induced by Chinese materia medica: A bibliometric research and association rules analysis.

ETHNOPHARMACOLOGICAL RELEVANCE: Chinese materia medica (CMM) has been widely used as an approach of ethnomedicine worldwide. Recently, there are growing concerns related to the potential cardiotoxicity of herbal medicines but comprehensive studies are limited. METHODS: Comprehensive literature retrieval via publicly available electronic databases was performed to identify the case reports that focused on cardiac adverse reactions (ADRs) triggered by oral CMMs. And a bibliometric survey was conducted to analyze the most commonly suspected risk factors in terms of responsible CMMs, susceptible patients and clinical administration of cardiac ADRs. Moreover, the techniques of data mining were utilized to investigate the regularities and association between the ADRs status and major contributory factors. RESULTS: The available evidence of current research indicated that many influential factors were strongly associated with cardiac ADRs caused by oral CMMs inevitably, including pediatric patients, poisonous CMMs (especially herbs of Aconitum species), overdose and self-medication. Specifically, the timely and effective resuscitation could attribute their favorable capacity to reduce mortality for cardiac ADRs. Notably, the cardiac ADRs cases had often concomitant the ADRs of the nervous system and digestive system. CONCLUSION: The comprehensive features and risk factors of cardiac ADRs induced by oral CMMs can be discovered and elucidated through the approaches of bibliometric research, association rules analysis, and data mining technology, which raise the profile and awareness of the rational applications of CMMs and pharmacovigilance within relevant heart side effects.