Maysa Eslami

In this work, we have developed and evaluated an electrocardiogram (ECG) feature extraction system based on the multi-resolution wavelet transform. ECG signals from Modified Lead II (MLII) are chosen for processing. The result of applying two wavelet filters (D4 and D6) of different length on the signal is compared. The wavelet filter with scaling function more closely to the shape of the ECG signal achieved better detection. In the first step, the ECG signal was de-noised by removing the corresponding wavelet coefficients at higher scales. Then, QRS complexes are detected and each complex is used to locate the peaks of the individual waves, including onsets and offsets of the P and T waves which are present in one cardiac cycle. We evaluated the algorithm on MIT-BIH Database, the manually annotated database, for validation purposes. The proposed QRS detector achieved sensitivity of 75. 2 % 18 . 99 .. and a positive predictivity of 45 . 4 % 00 . 98 .. over the validation database.

The COVID19 pandemic has affected all aspects of people's lives. Eating habit plays a crucial role in children and adolescents' physical and mental development and the impacts might last until adulthood. This systematic review aimed to summarize a comprehensive and updated overview of eating habits changes due to COVID19 confinements among children and adolescents. A systematic literature search was performed in three databases for all the English studies published from the start of the confinements until April 2022. Two researchers screened articles independently and included observational studies which evaluated children's and adolescents' eating habits before and during confinements. The quality of the included studies was assessed by Newcastle-Ottawa Quality Assessment checklists for cross-sectional and cohort studies. Among 2,436 studies, 39 final full-text articles were included. The total participants of this systematic review consist of 157,900 children and adolescents. Seven categories were identified: daily eating patterns, junk food, beverage, fruits and vegetables, milk and dairy, protein-rich foods, and legumes and cereals. In summary, most of the included studies reported a significant increase in consumption of home-cooked meals, amount of food, snack, french fries, sweets, fruits, vegetables, legumes, bread, and bakery products. On the other hand, studies demonstrated significantly lower intake of fast food and soft drink. The studies reported controversial results about breakfast consumption, sugar-added drinks, caffeinated drinks, milk and dairy products, protein-rich foods (including meat, fish, egg and chicken, and poultry), rice, and cereal. Changes in children's and adolescents' eating habits during the COVID-19 era were both positive and negative, for example, a decrease in fast food, fruit, and vegetable consumption vs. an increase in snacking and sweet consumption. Both changes have significant short-term and long-term impacts on population health. This study could provide us with insight into the changes in eating habits in children and adolescents in the COVID-19 era which we can use to limit the negative consequences on health.

Introduction Waist circumference-to-height ratio (WHtR) is a simple anthropometric index with good screening power and fast interpretation for early detection of childhood abdominal obesity. This systematic review and meta-analysis aims to determine the best cut-off value of WHtR to use in clinical setting. Methods Comprehensive searches were conducted in PubMed, Scopus, and Web of Science by the end of March 2021. Observational studies investigated the best WHtR cut-off to detect abdominal obesity in children and adolescents were included. Thirteen articles ( n = 180,119) were included in this systematic review and eight documents were included in the meta-analysis. Results The overall optimal cut-off was 0.49 with pooled sensitivity, specificity and diagnostic odds ratio (DOR) of 0.93 (95% confidence interval (CI): 0.93–0.96), 0.88 (95% CI: 0.85–0.91) and 102.6 (95% CI: 50.7–207.5), respectively. The optimal WHtR cut-off to predict abdominal obesity in girls and boys were both 0.49. Discussion The current study shows that we could use this cut-off as a simple index for predicting abdominal obesity in children and adolescents without the need for any charts in practice.

Abstract Background Cardiometabolic conditions are major contributors to the global burden of disease. An emerging body of evidence has associated access to and surrounding public open spaces (POS) and greenspace with cardiometabolic risk factors, including obesity, body mass index (BMI), hypertension (HTN), blood glucose (BG), and lipid profiles. This systematic review aimed to synthesize this evidence. Methods This systematic review was conducted based on the PRISMA guidelines. Four electronic databases including Web of Science, PubMed, Scopus, and Google Scholar were searched for eligible articles published until July 2023. All observational studies which assessed the association of greenspace and POS with cardiometabolic risk factors including obesity, BMI, HTN, BG, and lipid profiles were included and reviewed by two authors independently. Heterogeneity between studies was assessed using the I 2 index and Cochrane’s Q test. Random/fixed effect meta-analyses were used to combine the association between greenspace exposure with cardiometabolic risk factors. Results Overall, 118 relevant articles were included in our review. The majority of the articles were conducted in North America or Europe. In qualitative synthesis, access or proximity to greenspaces or POS impacts BMI and blood pressure or HTN, BG, and lipid profiles via various mechanisms. According to the random effect meta-analysis, more access to greenspace was significantly associated with lower odds of HTN (odds ratio (OR): 0.81, 95% confidence intervals (CIs): 0.61–0.99), obesity (OR: 0.83, 95% CIs: 0.77–0.90), and diabetes (OR:0.79, 95% CI: 0.67,0.90). Conclusions Findings of this systematic review and meta-analysis suggested that greenspace accessibility is associated with some cardiometabolic risk factors. Improving greenspace accessibility could be considered as one of the main strategies to reduce cardiometabolic risk factors at population level.