In this paper it is proved that every $3$-connected planar graph contains a path on $3$ vertices each of which is of degree at most $15$ and a path on $4$ vertices each of which has degree at most $23$. Analogous results are stated for $3$-connected planar graphs of minimum degree $4$ and $5$. Moreover, for every pair of integers $n\ge 3$, $ k\ge 4$ there is a $2$-connected planar graph such that every path on $n$ vertices in it has a vertex of degree $k$.
Heart disease diagnosis is an important non-invasive technique. Therefore, there exists an effort to increase the accuracy of arrhythmia classification based on ECG signals. In this work, we present a novel approach of heart arrhythmia detection. The model consists of two parts. The first part extracts important features from raw ECG signal using Auto-Encoder Neural Network. Extracted features obtained by Auto-Encoder represent an input for the second part of the model, the Gradient Boosting and Feedforward Neural Network classifiers. For comparison purposes, we evaluated our approach by using MIT-BIH ECG database and also following recommendations of the Association for the Advancement of Medical Instrumentation (AAMI) for ECG class labeling. We divided our experiment into two scenarios. The first scenario represents the classification task for the patient-adapted paradigm and the second one was dedicated to the inter-patient paradigm. We compared the measured results to the state-of-the-art methods and it shows that our method outperforms the state-of-the art methods in the Ventricular Ectopic (VEB) class for both paradigms and Supraventricular Ectopic (SVEB) class in the inter-patient paradigm.
Glucocorticoid (GC) therapy is one of the methods of choices for treatment of autoimmune diseases (ADs). In addition, adrenal androgens are known as immunoprotective GC-antagonists. Adrenal steroids preferentially influence the Th1-components over the Th2 ones. We investigated steroid metabolome (using gas chromatography-mass spectrometry) in healthy controls (H), GC-untreated patients with ADs different from IgA nephropathy (U), GC-treated patients with ADs different from IgA nephropathy (T) and in patients with IgA nephropathy (IgAN), which were monitored on the beginning (N0), after one week (N1) and after one month (N2) of prednisolone therapy (60 mg of prednisolone/day/m2 of body surface). Between-group differences were assessed by one-way ANOVA, while the changes during the therapy were evaluated by repeated measures ANOVA. The ANOVA testing was followed by Duncan’s multiple comparisons. IgAN patients and patients with other ADs exhibited lack of adrenal androgens due to attenuated activity of adrenal zona reticularis (ZR). Androgen levels including their 7α-, 7β-, and 16α-hydroxy-metabolites were further restrained by GC-therapy. Based on these results and data from the literature, we addressed the question, whether a combination of GCs with Δ5-steroids or their more stable synthetic derivatives may be optimal for the treatment of antibodies-mediated ADs., I. Šterzl, M. Hill, L. Stárka, M. Velíková, R. Kančeva, J. Jemelková, L. Czerneková, P. Kosztyu, J. Zadražil, K. Matoušovic, K. Vondrák, M. Raška., and Obsahuje bibliografii
Komunikace mezi urologem a pacientem s rakovinou prostaty při sdělení diagnózy trvá v ČR průměrně 15 minut. Článek seznamuje se strukturou lékařské konzultace a s výsledky mezinárodního výzkumu TAPE zaměřeného na informativní složku komunikace urologa a jeho pacienta s cílem zlepšení stávající situace., The discussion between patient and his urologist who is announcing him the diagnosis of prostate cancer takes in Czech Republic approximately 15 minutes. The author describes the structure of medical consultation and presents the results of the international TAPE research focused on the informational aspect of the patient-urologist communication with the aim of improving the current status., and Janáčková L.