Effects of Anacetrapib in Patients with Atherosclerotic Vascular Disease

BACKGROUND: Patients with atherosclerotic vascular disease remain at high risk for cardiovascular events despite effective statin-based treatment of low-density lipoprotein (LDL) cholesterol levels. The inhibition of cholesteryl ester transfer protein (CETP) by anacetrapib reduces LDL cholesterol levels and increases high-density lipoprotein (HDL) cholesterol levels. However, trials of other CETP inhibitors have shown neutral or adverse effects on cardiovascular outcomes. METHODS: We conducted a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial involving 30,449 adults with atherosclerotic vascular disease who were receiving intensive atorvastatin therapy and who had a mean LDL cholesterol level of 61 mg per deciliter (1.58 mmol per liter), a mean non-HDL cholesterol level of 92 mg per deciliter (2.38 mmol per liter), and a mean HDL cholesterol level of 40 mg per deciliter (1.03 mmol per liter). The patients were assigned to receive either 100 mg of anacetrapib once daily (15,225 patients) or matching placebo (15,224 patients). The primary outcome was the first major coronary event, a composite of coronary death, myocardial infarction, or coronary revascularization. RESULTS: During the median follow-up period of 4.1 years, the primary outcome occurred in significantly fewer patients in the anacetrapib group than in the placebo group (1640 of 15,225 patients [10.8%] vs. 1803 of 15,224 patients [11.8%]; rate ratio, 0.91; 95% confidence interval, 0.85 to 0.97; P=0.004). The relative difference in risk was similar across multiple prespecified subgroups. At the trial midpoint, the mean level of HDL cholesterol was higher by 43 mg per deciliter (1.12 mmol per liter) in the anacetrapib group than in the placebo group (a relative difference of 104%), and the mean level of non-HDL cholesterol was lower by 17 mg per deciliter (0.44 mmol per liter), a relative difference of -18%. There were no significant between-group differences in the risk of death, cancer, or other serious adverse events. CONCLUSIONS: Among patients with atherosclerotic vascular disease who were receiving intensive statin therapy, the use of anacetrapib resulted in a lower incidence of major coronary events than the use of placebo. (Funded by Merck and others; Current Controlled Trials number, ISRCTN48678192 ; ClinicalTrials.gov number, NCT01252953 ; and EudraCT number, 2010-023467-18 .)

Robust proprioceptive grasping with a soft robot hand

Thesis: M. Eng., Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, 2016.Cataloged from PDF version of thesis.Includes bibliographical references (pages 85-88).This work presents a soft hand capable of robustly grasping and identifying objects based on internal state measurements along with a combined system which autonomously performs grasps. A highly compliant soft hand allows for intrinsic robustness to grasping uncertainties; the addition of internal sensing allows the configuration of the hand and object to be detected. The hand can be configured in different ways using finger unit modules. The finger module includes resistive force sensors on the fingertips for contact detection and resistive bend sensors for measuring the curvature profile of the finger. The curvature sensors can be used to estimate the contact geometry and thus to distinguish between a set of grasped objects. With one data point from each finger, the object grasped by the hand can be identified. A clustering algorithm to find the correspondence for each grasped object is presented for both enveloping grasps and pinch grasps. This hand is incorporated into a full system with vision and motion planning on the Baxter robot to autonomously perform grasps of objects placed on a table. This hand is a first step towards proprioceptive soft grasping.by Bianca Homberg.M. Eng

Robust proprioceptive grasping with a soft robot hand

This work presents a soft hand capable of robustly grasping and identifying objects based on internal state measurements along with a combined system which autonomously performs grasps. A highly compliant soft hand allows for intrinsic robustness to grasping uncertainties; the addition of internal sensing allows the configuration of the hand and object to be detected. The finger module includes resistive force sensors on the fingertips for contact detection and resistive bend sensors for measuring the curvature profile of the finger. The curvature sensors can be used to estimate the contact geometry and thus to distinguish between a set of grasped objects. With one data point from each finger, the object grasped by the hand can be identified. A clustering algorithm to find the correspondence for each grasped object is presented for both enveloping grasps and pinch grasps. A closed loop system uses a camera to detect approximate object locations. Compliance in the soft hand handles that uncertainty in addition to geometric uncertainty in the shape of the object