Potential drug-drug interactions in the intensive care:Frequency, clinical relevance and improvement strategy

Drugs are an important part of medical treatment for patients admitted to the intensive care unit (ICU). During medication prescribing, errors can occur, resulting in adverse drug events (ADEs). In hospitalized patients, around 16% of ADEs are caused by a potential drug-drug interaction (pDDI). ICU patients are particularly vulnerable to pDDIs due to polypharmacy and their compromised health. However, continuous monitoring facilitates effective and timely risk management of pDDIs. Computerized decision support systems (CDSSs) can support clinicians to prescribe medication safely, by showing pDDI alerts. Yet, CDSSs can generate irrelevant alerts, leading to alert fatigue, alert overrides and reduced CDSS effectiveness. To address this, we hypothesized that tailoring pDDI alerts to the ICU setting could improve alert relevance and advance CDSS effectiveness, resulting in less exposure to clinically relevant pDDIs for ICU patients.This thesis aims to answer the following questions:1. What is the frequency of clinically relevant pDDIs in the ICU?2. Which pDDIs are clinically relevant in the ICU setting?3. Does tailoring pDDI alerts to the ICU setting reduce the frequency of administering clinically relevant pDDIs? This thesis shows that 40% of the assessed pDDIs were considered not clinically relevant in the ICU. Still, ICU patients are frequently exposed to clinically relevant pDDIs, potentially resulting in patient harm. Therefore, the use of CDSSs to warn about these clinically relevant pDDIs is justified. Tailoring pDDI alerts to the ICU setting reduced exposure to clinically relevant pDDIs for ICU patients, improved patient monitoring, and decreased ICU length of stay

Scaling Structures in Four-dimensional Simplicial Gravity

Four-dimensional(4D) spacetime structures are investigated using the concept of the geodesic distance in the simplicial quantum gravity. On the analogy of the loop length distribution in 2D case, the scaling relations of the boundary volume distribution in 4D are discussed in various coupling regions i.e. strong-coupling phase, critical point and weak-coupling phase. In each phase the different scaling relations are found.Comment: 4 pages, latex, 4 ps figures, uses espcrc2.sty. Talk presented at LATTICE96(gravity). All figures and its captions have been improve

Consumer acceptance of novel fruits and fruit products

The task of the Deliverable 1.3.7 Report on case studies of fruit innovations is to provide information on consumers' acceptance of innovative fruit and fruit products selected for case studies in Deliverable 1.3.2 List of selected fruit innovations, and to validate findings from previous stages of WP 1.3 research. The task of the Deliverable 1.3.9 List of characteristics for future fruit innovations is to provide a list of product characteristics and recommendations that can increase the success of fruit innovations in the future. This report presents results of case studies carried out in February and March, 2010, in four European countries: Greece, the Netherlands, Poland and Spain. It also presents product characteristics accepted by consumers and recommendations for development of future innovative fresh fruits and fruit products, as well as recommended strategies and policies, which were formulated on the basis of findings of case study and previous stages of WP1.3 research and their validation

Mitochondrial and chloroplast DNA-based phylogeny of Pelargonium (Geraniaceae)

Overall phylogenetic relationships within the genus Pelargonium (Geraniaceae) were inferred based on DNA sequences from mitochondrial(mt)-encoded nad1 b/c exons and from chloroplast(cp)-encoded trnL (UAA) 5' exon-trnF (GAA) exon regions using two species of Geranium and Sarcocaulon vanderetiae as outgroups. The group II intron between nad1 exons b and c was found to be absent from the Pelargonium, Geranium, and Sarcocaulon sequences presented here as well as from Erodium, which is the first recorded loss of this intron in angiosperms. Separate phylogenetic analyses of the mtDNA and cpDNA data sets produced largely congruent topologies, indicating linkage between mitochondrial and chloroplast genome inheritance. Simultaneous analysis of the combined data sets yielded a well-resolved topology with high clade support exhibiting a basic split into small and large chromosome species, the first group containing two lineages and the latter three. One large chromosome lineage (x = 11) comprises species from sections Myrrhidium and Chorisma and is sister to a lineage comprising P. mutans (x = 11) and species from section Jenkinsonia (x = 9). Sister to these two lineages is a lineage comprising species from sections Ciconium (x = 9) and Subsucculentia (x = 10). Cladistic evaluation of this pattern suggests that x = 11 is the ancestral basic chromosome number for the genus

Abelian Monopoles and Action Density in SU(2) Gluodynamics on the Lattice

We show that the extended Abelian magnetic monopoles in the Maximal Abelian projection of lattice SU(2) gluodynamics are locally correlated with the magnetic and the electric parts of the SU(2) action density. These correlations are observed in the confined and in the deconfined phases.Comment: 11 pages, LaTeX2e, 5 figures, uses epsf.sty; revision: Introduction is extended and a few references are adde