Effect of Cardiac Rehabilitation on Physical Capacity of Heart Failure Patients in Senegal

Background: Heart failure is a chronic and severe condition that often results from various heart diseases. Cardiac rehabilitation (CR) is currently a crucial component in managing this condition. The aim was to assess the effects of cardiac rehabilitation on physical capacity of heart failure patients. Methods: This was a cross-sectional study conducted from February 1, 2021, to June 30, 2023. We included all patients with heart failure who underwent cardiac rehabilitation. Data analysis was performed using SPSS software version 24.0, with a significance level set at p Results: The study included 87 heart failure patients, with a male-to-female ratio of 1.8. Mean age was 57.10 years (±11.75). Coronary artery disease was the primary cause of heart failure, accounting for 75.9% of cases. Atrial fibrillation was present in 4.7% of cases. Following cardiac rehabilitation, Left Ventricular Ejection Fraction increased from 40.15% to 49.48% (p = 0.001). Resting heart rate decreased significantly from 81.4 bpm to 68.3 bpm (p = 0.000), and the number of METS increased from 4.3 to 6.57 (+56.8%;p = 0.000). The mean distance covered in the 6-minute walk test significantly increased from 337.8 meters to 522.7 meters (p = 0.000), reflecting a gain of 183.5 meters. Moreover, the increase in the number of METS was more pronounced in females (p = 0.001), non-obese individuals (p = 0.000), non-diabetics (p = 0.001), non-sedentary individuals (p = 0.000), and non-smokers (p = 0.000). The study reported a low readmissions rate of 2.2% and a mortality rate of 1.1%. Conclusion: Our study demonstrates that cardiac rehabilitation is beneficial for black African heart failure patients, resulting in significant improvements in symptoms, physical and capacity.

Effects of COVID-19 Lockdown on Body Composition and Fitness Performance among Football Players in Negro African Environment

Context and Objective: The nutritional and sports dimension of the lockdown implemented during the COVID-19 pandemic is unexplored in the African environment. The purpose of this study was to assess the effects of COVID-19 lockdown on body composition and fitness performance in Congolese football players. Methods: This was an observational study carried out in Brazzaville between February 9 and October 30, 2020. It included 16 male players among Congolese senior national team and 11 male football players of first division Brazzaville clubs. Two types of measurements were carried out: anthropometric measures (height, body mass, total fat percent, lean body mass);physical capacities [30 m sprint, repeated sprint, aerobic endurance (Yo-Yo Intermittent Recovery test), vertical jump (Squat Jump test, Countermovement test)]. The measurements were realized at 4 times: before lockdown (month of february, T0), 1st week of june (T1), 1st week of september (T2), 1st week of october (T3). Data were compared using Student t test, Sokal S test, Anova, Newman-Keuls test (multiple contrasts) and correlation analysis. Results: A significant increase in body mass (p Conclusion: The present data suggest that COVID-19 lockdown promotes weight gain and decreased physical ability in football players.

A New Index Developed for Fast Diagnosis of Meteorological Roles in Ground-Level Ozone Variations

China experienced worsening ground-level ozone(O_(2)) pollution from 2013 to 2019. In this study, meteorological parameters, including surface temperature(T_(2)), solar radiation(SW), and wind speed(WS), were classified into two aspects,(1) Photochemical Reaction Condition(PRC = T_(2)× SW) and(2) Physical Dispersion Capacity(PDC = WS). In this way, a Meteorology Synthetic Index(MSI = PRC/PDC) was developed for the quantification of meteorology-induced ground-level O_(2)pollution. The positive linear relationship between the 90 th percentile of MDA8(maximum daily 8-h average) O_(2)concentration and MSI determined that the contribution of meteorological changes to ground-level O-3 varied on a latitudinal gradient, decreasing from ~40% in southern China to 10%–20% in northern China. Favorable photochemical reaction conditions were more important for ground-level O_(2)pollution. This study proposes a universally applicable index for fast diagnosis of meteorological roles in ground-level O_(2)variability, which enables the assessment of the observed effects of precursor emissions reductions that can be used for designing future control policies.

A Survey of Security Issues in Cognitive Radio Networks

In the last decade,cognitive radio(CR) has emerged as a major next generation wireless networking technology,which is the most promising candidate solution to solve the spectrum scarcity and improve the spectrum utilization.However,there exist enormous challenges for the open and random access environment of CRNs,where the unlicensed secondary users(SUs) can use the channels that are not currently used by the licensed primary users(PUs) via spectrum-sensing technology.Because of this access method,some malicious users may access the cognitive network arbitrarily and launch some special attacks,such as primary user emulation attack,falsifying data or denial of service attack,which will cause serious damage to the cognitive radio network.In addition to the specifi c security threats of cognitive network,CRNs also face up to the conventional security threats,such as eavesdropping,tampering,imitation,forgery,and noncooperation etc..Hence,Cognitive radio networks have much more risks than traditional wireless networks with its special network model.In this paper,we considered the security threats from passive and active attacks.Firstly,the PHY layer security is presented in the view of passive attacks,and it is a compelling idea of using the physical properties of the radio channel to help provide secure wireless communications.Moreover,malicious user detection is introduced in the view of active attacks by means of the signal detection techniques to decrease the interference and the probabilities of false alarm and missed detection.Finally,we discuss the general countermeasures of security threats in three phases.In particular,we discuss the far reaching effect of defensive strategy against attacks in CRNs.

Guaranteeing Wireless Communication Secrecy via a WFRFT-Based Cooperative System

In this paper, a weighted fractional Fourier transform(WFRFT) based cooperative overlay system, aiming to guarantee physical layer(PHY) security, is proposed. The paper elaborates how WFRFT and physical layer properties of the wireless medium are collaborated to guarantee the secrecy of wireless transmissions. In the proposed system, WFRFT is first preform on the secret data, such that the transmitted signal is distorted and can only be neutralized by inverse-WFRFT with the same parameter. And then two streams of the transformed sequences that bearing different messages are cooperatively and simultaneously transmitted to two legitimate receivers via a beamforming-liked method, respectively. In general, both the rapid spatial decorrelation property and the inherent security features of WFRFT are leveraged, such that only the eavesdropper's is degraded, and hence, the wireless communication secrecy is reliably guaranteed. Numerical simulations are conducted to evaluate the performance of the proposed system in terms of the average bit error rate and the secrecy capacity.

Tough superabsorbent poly(acrylic acid) nanocomposite physical hydrogels fabricated by a dually cross-linked single network strategy

In this work, we report a facile method for the preparation of tough and highly stretchable physical hydrogels by dual cross-linking composed of vinyl-hybrid silica nanoparticles（VSNPs） as multivalent covalent cross-linking and hydrogen bonding as physical cross-linking. Poly（acrylic acid） nanocomposite physical hydrogels（NCP gels） are obtained without adding any organic chemical cross-linkers. When the content of VSNPs is 0.7 wt%（relative to the monomer）, the NCP gels exhibit good mechanical properties（fracture strength = 370 k Pa, elongation at break = 2200%） and a high swelling capacity in both deionized water（2300 g/g） and saline（220 g/g）. Meanwhile, the NCP gels have good recovery ability.

Applications of low temperature calorimetry in material research

Low temperature calorimetry is an experimental method of heat capacity measurements, and heatcapacity is one of the most important and fundamental thermodynamic properties of substances. Theheat capacity can provide an average evaluation of the thermal property of a sample since it is a bull（property of substances. In the other hand, the condensed states of substances could be mainly controlledby the molecular motions, intermolecular interactions, and interplay among molecular structures. Thephysical property reflected in a material may be closely related to the energy changes in these threefactors, which can be directly observed in a heat capacity curve. Therefore, low temperature calorimetryhas been used not only to obtain heat capacity, entropy, enthalpy and Gibbs free energy, but also toinvestigate and understand lattice vibrations, metals, superconductivity, electronic and nuclearmagnetism, dilute magnetic systems and structural transitions. In this review, we have presented theconcept of low temperature calorimetry and its applications in the related field of material researches,such as nano-materials, magnetic materials, ferroelectric materials, phase change materials and othermaterials.