1,130 research outputs found
Developing Policy for Integrating Biomedicine and Traditional Chinese Medical Practice Using Focus Groups and the Delphi Technique
In Hong Kong, statutory regulation for traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) practitioners has been implemented in the past decade. Increasing use of TCM on top of biomedicine (BM) services by the population has been followed; but corresponding policy development to integrate their practices has not yet been discussed. Using focus group methodology, we explore policy ideas for integration by collating views from frontline BM (n = 50) and TCM clinicians (n = 50). Qualitative data were analyzed under the guidance of structuration model of collaboration, a theoretical model for understanding interprofessional collaboration. From focus group findings we generated 28 possible approaches, and subsequently their acceptability was assessed by a two round Delphi survey amongst BM and TCM policy stakeholders (n = 12). Consensus was reached only on 13 statements. Stakeholders agreed that clinicians from both paradigms should share common goals of providing patient-centered care, promoting the development of protocols for shared care and information exchange, as well as strengthening interprofessional connectivity and leadership for integration. On the other hand, attitudes amongst policy stakeholders were split on the possibility of fostering trust and mutual learning, as well as on enhancing innovation and governmental support. Future policy initiatives should focus on these controversial areas
Closeout of Advanced Boron and Metal Loaded High Porosity Carbons.
The Penn State effort explored the development of new high-surface-area materials for hydrogen storage, materials that could offer enhancement in the hydrogen binding energy through a direct chemical modification of the framework in high specific-surface-area platforms. The team chemically substituted boron into the hexagonal sp2 carbon framework, dispersed metal atoms bound to the boro-carbon structure, and generated the theory of novel nanoscale geometries that can enhance storage through chemical frustration, sheet curvature, electron deficiency, large local fields and mixed hybridization states. New boro-carbon materials were synthesized by high temperature plasma, pyrolysis of boron-carbon precursor molecules, and post-synthesis modification of carbons. Hydrogen uptake has been assessed, and several promising leads have been identified, with the requirement to simultaneously optimize total surface area while maintaining the enhanced hydrogen binding energies already demonstrated
Insomnia as an Independent Predictor of Incident Cardiovascular Disease in HIV: Data from the Veterans Aging Cohort Study
Background: Insomnia is associated with increased cardiovascular disease (CVD) risk in the general population and is highly prevalent in people with HIV. The CVD risk conferred by insomnia in the HIV population is unknown.
Methods: Using the Veterans Aging Cohort Study-Survey Cohort, insomnia symptoms were measured and dummy coded with the item, “Difficulty falling or staying asleep?” (5-point scale from no difficulty to bothers a lot). Incident CVD event ICD-9 codes (acute myocardial infarction, stroke, or coronary artery revascularization) were identified with VA and Medicare administrative data and VA fee-for-service data. Those with baseline CVD were excluded.
Results: HIV-infected (N=3,108) veterans had a median follow-up time of 10.8 years, during which 267 CVD events occurred. Compared to HIV-infected veterans with no difficulty falling or staying asleep, HIV-infected veterans bothered a lot by insomnia symptoms had an increased risk of incident CVD after adjusting for demographics (HR=1.64, 95%CI=1.16-2.31, p=.005), CVD risk factors (HR=1.62, 95%CI=1.14-2.30, p=.007), additional potential confounders (hepatitis C infection, renal disease, anemia, alcohol use, cocaine use; HR=1.70, 95%CI=1.19-2.43, p=.003), and HIV-specific factors (HIV-1 RNA, CD4+ T-cell count, ART; HR=1.66, 95%CI=1.16-2.37, p=.005). Additional adjustment for non-benzodiazepine sleep medication (HR=1.62, 95%CI=1.13-2.32, p=.009) did not attenuate the association; however, it fell short of significance at p < .01 after adjustment for depressive symptoms (HR=1.51, 95%CI=0.98-2.32, p=.060) or antidepressant medication (HR=1.51, 95%CI=1.04-2.19, p=.031).
Conclusion: Highly bothersome insomnia symptoms were significantly associated with incident CVD in HIV-infected veterans, suggesting that insomnia may be a novel, modifiable risk factor for CVD in HIV
Advances in targeting cyclic nucleotide phosphodiesterases
Cyclic nucleotide phosphodiesterases (PDEs) catalyse the hydrolysis of cyclic AMP and cyclic GMP, thereby regulating the intracellular concentrations of these cyclic nucleotides, their signalling pathways and, consequently, myriad biological responses in health and disease. Currently, a small number of PDE inhibitors are used clinically for treating the pathophysiological dysregulation of cyclic nucleotide signalling in several disorders, including erectile dysfunction, pulmonary hypertension, acute refractory cardiac failure, intermittent claudication and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. However, pharmaceutical interest in PDEs has been reignited by the increasing understanding of the roles of individual PDEs in regulating the subcellular compartmentalization of specific cyclic nucleotide signalling pathways, by the structure-based design of novel specific inhibitors and by the development of more sophisticated strategies to target individual PDE variants
Short- and Long-Term Propagation of Spacecraft Orbits
The Planetary Observer Planning Software (POPS) comprises four computer programs for use in designing orbits of spacecraft about planets. These programs are the Planetary Observer High Precision Orbit Propagator (POHOP), the Planetary Observer Long-Term Orbit Predictor (POLOP), the Planetary Observer Post Processor (POPP), and the Planetary Observer Plotting (POPLOT) program. POHOP and POLOP integrate the equations of motion to propagate an initial set of classical orbit elements to a future epoch. POHOP models shortterm (one revolution) orbital motion; POLOP averages out the short-term behavior but requires far less processing time than do older programs that perform long-term orbit propagations. POPP postprocesses the spacecraft ephemeris created by POHOP or POLOP (or optionally can use a less accurate internal ephemeris) to search for trajectory-related geometric events including, for example, rising or setting of a spacecraft as observed from a ground site. For each such event, POPP puts out such user-specified data as the time, elevation, and azimuth. POPLOT is a graphics program that plots data generated by POPP. POPLOT can plot orbit ground tracks on a world map and can produce a variety of summaries and generic ordinate-vs.-abscissa plots of any POPP data
Depression and All-Cause Mortality Risk in HIV-infected and HIV-uninfected U.S. Veterans: A cohort study
Objectives: The contribution of depression to mortality in adults with and without HIV infection is unclear. We hypothesized that depression increases mortality risk and that this association is stronger among those with HIV infection.
Methods: Veterans Aging Cohort Study (VACS) data were analysed from the first clinic visit on or after 1 April 2003 (baseline) to 30 September 2015. Depression definitions were: (1) major depressive disorder defined using International Classification of Diseases, Ninth Revision (ICD-9) codes; (2) depressive symptoms defined as Patient Health Questionnaire (PHQ)-9 scores ≥ 10. The outcome was all-cause mortality. Covariates were demographics, comorbid conditions and health behaviours.
Results: Among 129 140 eligible participants, 30% had HIV infection, 16% had a major depressive disorder diagnosis, and 24% died over a median follow-up time of 11 years. The death rate was 25.3 [95% confidence interval (CI) 25.0-25.6] deaths per 1000 person-years. Major depressive disorder was associated with mortality [hazard ratio (HR) 1.04; 95% CI 1.01, 1.07]. This association was modified by HIV status (interaction P-value = 0.02). In HIV-stratified analyses, depression was significantly associated with mortality among HIV-uninfected veterans but not among those with HIV infection. Among those with PHQ-9 data (n = 7372), 50% had HIV infection, 22% had PHQ-9 scores ≥ 10, and 28% died over a median follow-up time of 12 years. The death rate was 27.3 (95% CI 26.1-28.5) per 1000 person-years. Depressive symptoms were associated with mortality (HR 1.16; 95% CI 1.04, 1.28). This association was modified by HIV status (interaction P-value = 0.05). In HIV-stratified analyses, depressive symptoms were significantly associated with mortality among veterans with HIV infection but not among those without HIV infection.
Conclusions: Depression was associated with all-cause mortality. This association was modified by HIV status and method of depression ascertainment
Long-term intermittent high-amplitude subcutaneous nerve stimulation reduces sympathetic tone in ambulatory dogs
BACKGROUND:
Reducing sympathetic efferent outflow from the stellate ganglia (SG) may be antiarrhythmic.
OBJECTIVE:
The purpose of this study was to test the hypothesis that chronic thoracic subcutaneous nerve stimulation (ScNS) could reduce SG nerve activity (SGNA) and control paroxysmal atrial tachycardia (PAT).
METHODS:
Thoracic ScNS was performed in 8 dogs while SGNA, vagal nerve activity (VNA), and subcutaneous nerve activity (ScNA) were monitored. An additional 3 dogs were used for sham stimulation as controls.
RESULTS:
Xinshu ScNS and left lateral thoracic nerve ScNS reduced heart rate (HR). Xinshu ScNS at 3.5 mA for 2 weeks reduced mean average SGNA from 5.32 μV (95% confidence interval [CI] 3.89-6.75) at baseline to 3.24 μV (95% CI 2.16-4.31; P = .015) and mean HR from 89 bpm (95% CI 80-98) at baseline to 83 bpm (95% CI 76-90; P = .007). Bilateral SG showed regions of decreased tyrosine hydroxylase staining with increased terminal deoxynucleotidyl transferase dUTP nick-end labeling-positive nuclei in 18.47% (95% CI 9.68-46.62) of all ganglion cells, indicating cell death. Spontaneous PAT episodes were reduced from 9.83 per day (95% CI 5.77-13.89) in controls to 3.00 per day (95% CI 0.11-5.89) after ScNS (P = .027). Left lateral thoracic nerve ScNS also led to significant bilateral SG neuronal death and significantly reduced average SGNA and HR in dogs.
CONCLUSION:
ScNS at 2 different sites in the thorax led to SG cell death, reduced SGNA, and suppressed PAT in ambulatory dogs
Kernel Spectral Clustering and applications
In this chapter we review the main literature related to kernel spectral
clustering (KSC), an approach to clustering cast within a kernel-based
optimization setting. KSC represents a least-squares support vector machine
based formulation of spectral clustering described by a weighted kernel PCA
objective. Just as in the classifier case, the binary clustering model is
expressed by a hyperplane in a high dimensional space induced by a kernel. In
addition, the multi-way clustering can be obtained by combining a set of binary
decision functions via an Error Correcting Output Codes (ECOC) encoding scheme.
Because of its model-based nature, the KSC method encompasses three main steps:
training, validation, testing. In the validation stage model selection is
performed to obtain tuning parameters, like the number of clusters present in
the data. This is a major advantage compared to classical spectral clustering
where the determination of the clustering parameters is unclear and relies on
heuristics. Once a KSC model is trained on a small subset of the entire data,
it is able to generalize well to unseen test points. Beyond the basic
formulation, sparse KSC algorithms based on the Incomplete Cholesky
Decomposition (ICD) and , , Group Lasso regularization are
reviewed. In that respect, we show how it is possible to handle large scale
data. Also, two possible ways to perform hierarchical clustering and a soft
clustering method are presented. Finally, real-world applications such as image
segmentation, power load time-series clustering, document clustering and big
data learning are considered.Comment: chapter contribution to the book "Unsupervised Learning Algorithms
Probing Grand Unified Theories with Cosmic Ray, Gamma-Ray and Neutrino Astrophysics
We explore scenarios where the highest energy cosmic rays are produced by new
particle physics near the grand unification scale. Using detailed numerical
simulations of extragalactic nucleon, gamma-ray, and neutrino propagation, we
show the existence of an interesting parameter range for which such scenarios
may explain part of the data and are consistent with all observational
constraints. A combination of proposed observatories for ultra-high energy
cosmic rays, neutrino telescopes of a few kilometer scale, and gamma-ray
astrophysics instruments should be able to test these scenarios. In particular,
for neutrino masses in the eV range, exclusive neutrino decay modes of
superheavy particles can give rise to neutrino fluxes comparable to those
predicted in models of active galactic nuclei.Comment: 15 latex pages, 5 postscript figures included, uses revtex.sty and
psfig.sty. Submitted to Physical Review
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