No abstract

Interstitial cystitis (IC) is a chronic inflammatory disease characterized by bladder pain and increased urinary frequency. Although the C57BL/6J (B6) and FVB/NJ (FVB) mouse strains are commonly used as animal models for studies involving the urinary system, few reports have compared their lower urinary tract anatomy, despite the importance of such data. Our study aimed to characterize bladder function changes in FVB and B6 mouse strains with lipopolysaccharide (LPS)-induced IC, to understand mouse model-based bladder research. The bladder function parameters were measured by cystometrogram. Histological assay was examined by hematoxylin and eosin stain, Masson’s trichrome stain, and immunofluorescence staining. Results indicated that the two strains in the control group exhibited different bladder structures and functions, with significant anatomical differences, including a larger bladder size in the FVB than in the B6 strain. Furthermore, cystometry tests revealed differences in bladder function pressure. LPS-treated B6 mice presented significant changes in peak pressure, with decreased intercontraction intervals; these results were similar to symptoms of IC in humans. Each strain displayed distinct characteristics, emphasizing the care required in choosing the appropriate strain for bladder-model studies. The results suggested that the B6 mouse strain is more suitable for IC models.

No abstract

Eyelid movement patterns are a key factor in the detection of fatigue, and in this study, electroencephalography (EEG) was used to record the brainwave patterns associated with eyelid movement in subjects during various stages of fatigue. The three movements involved were no eyelid movement, closing the eye, and opening the eye. The collected signals were processed using the wavelet transform (WT) to break down the EEG signal and obtain the main features. The support vector machine (SVM) and back propagation neural network (BPNN) were used to determine eyelid movement conditions.

We analyzed an M/M/R queueing system with finite capacity N where customers have multiple classes with no priorities under steady-state conditions. It is assumed that any one class of arriving customer is serviced by one or more servers, and that each customer class has equal probability of service. Analytic explicit solutions are obtained with the assumption of exponential distributions for arrival times and service times. A cost model is developed to determine the optimal system capacity and the optimal number of servers. The minimum expected cost, the optimal system capacity, the optimal number of servers, and various system performance measures are obtained for three customer classes and four customer classes, based on assumed numerical values given to the designated system parameters