Determinants of avoidable deaths from ischemic heart disease in East and West Germany

Objective: Within Germany, a significant decrease in avoidable mortality from ischemic heart disease (IHD) has been observed since the early 1990s. The objective of this paper is to identify the specific reasons that have led to the decrease in the number of avoidable deaths from IHD in West and East Germany from 1996 to 2004. Methods: We analyzed the mortality rate from IHD of the male population aged less than 65 years on the regional level of German counties over the 1996–2004 period. Methodologically, after adjusting for a number of health structure variables, the socioeconomic structure of each region, and yearly time trends in avoidable mortality, we accounted for unobservable differences among regions by using a fixed-effect estimator. Results: Our main result reveals that the number of intracardiac catheter facilities, an important diagnostic tool for IHD, significantly accounts for decreases in avoidable mortality from IHD. This is important, as the modernization of the East German health sector included a considerable catching-up process in the number of IC facilities provided relative to West Germany. Conclusion: Our results suggest that the modernization of the East German health sector may have contributed to saving people from premature deaths

Solving Phase Retrieval with a Learned Reference

Fourier phase retrieval is a classical problem that deals with the recovery of an image from the amplitude measurements of its Fourier coefficients. Conventional methods solve this problem via iterative (alternating) minimization by leveraging some prior knowledge about the structure of the unknown image. The inherent ambiguities about shift and flip in the Fourier measurements make this problem especially difficult; and most of the existing methods use several random restarts with different permutations. In this paper, we assume that a known (learned) reference is added to the signal before capturing the Fourier amplitude measurements. Our method is inspired by the principle of adding a reference signal in holography. To recover the signal, we implement an iterative phase retrieval method as an unrolled network. Then we use back propagation to learn the reference that provides us the best reconstruction for a fixed number of phase retrieval iterations. We performed a number of simulations on a variety of datasets under different conditions and found that our proposed method for phase retrieval via unrolled network and learned reference provides near-perfect recovery at fixed (small) computational cost. We compared our method with standard Fourier phase retrieval methods and observed significant performance enhancement using the learned reference.Comment: Accepted to ECCV 2020. Code is available at https://github.com/CSIPlab/learnPR_referenc

Effects of low-temperature capping on the optical properties of GaAs/AlGaAs quantum wells

We study the effects of low-temperature capping (200-450°C) on the optical properties of GaAs/AlGaAs quantum wells. Photoluminescence measurements clearly show the formation of abundant nonradiative recombination centers in an AlGaAs capping layer grown at 200°C, while there is a slight degradation of the optical quality in AlGaAs capping layers grown at temperatures above 350°C compared to that of a high-temperature capping layer. In addition, the optical quality can be restored by post-growth annealing without any structural change, except for the 200°C-capped sample

Infant mortality trends in a region of Belarus, 1980–2000

BACKGROUND: The Chernobyl disaster in 1986 and the breakup of the former Soviet Union (FSU) in 1991 challenged the public health infrastructure in the former Soviet republic of Belarus. Because infant mortality is regarded as a sensitive measure of the overall health of a population, patterns of neonatal and postneonatal deaths were examined within the Mogilev region of Belarus between 1980 and 2000. METHODS: Employing administrative death files, this study utilized a regional cohort design that included all infant deaths occurring among persons residing within the Mogilev oblast of Belarus between 1980 and 2000. Patterns of death and death rates were examined across 3 intervals: 1980–1985 (pre-Chernobyl), 1986–1991 (post-Chernobyl & pre-FSU breakup), and 1992–2000 (post-Chernobyl & post-FSU breakup). RESULTS: Annual infant mortality rates declined during the 1980s, increased during the early 1990s, and have remained stable thereafter. While infant mortality rates in Mogilev have decreased since the period 1980–1985 among both males and females, this decrement appears due to decreases in postneonatal mortality. Rates of postneonatal mortality in Mogilev have decreased since the period 1980–1985 among both males and females. Analyses of trends for infant mortality and neonatal mortality demonstrated continuous decreases between 1990, followed by a bell-shaped excess in the 1990's. Compared to rates of infant mortality for other countries, rates in the Mogilev region are generally higher than rates for the United States, but lower than rates in Russia. During the 1990s, rates for both neonatal and postneonatal mortality in Mogilev were two times the comparable rates for East and West Germany. CONCLUSIONS: While neonatal mortality rates in Mogilev have remained stable, rates for postneonatal mortality have decreased among both males and females during the period examined. Infant mortality rates in the Mogilev region of Belarus remain elevated compared to rates for other western countries, but lower than rates in Russia. The public health infrastructure might attempt to assure that prenatal, maternal, and postnatal care is maximized

Mechanical properties of femoral trabecular bone in dogs

BACKGROUND: Studying mechanical properties of canine trabecular bone is important for a better understanding of fracture mechanics or bone disorders and is also needed for numerical simulation of canine femora. No detailed data about elastic moduli and degrees of anisotropy of canine femoral trabecular bone has been published so far, hence the purpose of this study was to measure the elastic modulus of trabecular bone in canine femoral heads by ultrasound testing and to assess whether assuming isotropy of the cancellous bone in femoral heads in dogs is a valid simplification. METHODS: From 8 euthanized dogs, both femora were obtained and cubic specimens were cut from the centre of the femoral head which were oriented along the main pressure and tension trajectories. The specimens were tested using a 100 MHz ultrasound transducer in all three orthogonal directions. The directional elastic moduli of trabecular bone tissue and degrees of anisotropy were calculated. RESULTS: The elastic modulus along principal bone trajectories was found to be 11.2 GPa ± 0.4, 10.5 ± 2.1 GPa and 10.5 ± 1.8 GPa, respectively. The mean density of the specimens was 1.40 ± 0.09 g/cm(3). The degrees of anisotropy revealed a significant inverse relationship with specimen densities. No significant differences were found between the elastic moduli in x, y and z directions, suggesting an effective isotropy of trabecular bone tissue in canine femoral heads. DISCUSSION: This study presents detailed data about elastic moduli of trabecular bone tissue obtained from canine femoral heads. Limitations of the study are the relatively small number of animals investigated and the measurement of whole specimen densities instead of trabecular bone densities which might lead to an underestimation of Young's moduli. Publications on elastic moduli of trabecular bone tissue present results that are similar to our data. CONCLUSION: This study provides data about directional elastic moduli and degrees of anisotropy of canine femoral head trabecular bone and might be useful for biomechanical modeling of proximal canine femora

Differences in avoidable mortality between migrants and the native Dutch in the Netherlands

BACKGROUND: The quality of the healthcare system and its role in influencing mortality of migrant groups can be explored by examining ethnic variations in 'avoidable' mortality. This study investigates the association between the level of mortality from 'avoidable' causes and ethnic origin in the Netherlands and identifies social factors that contribute to this association. METHODS: Data were obtained from cause of death and population registries in the period 1995–2000. We compared mortality rates for selected 'avoidable' conditions for Turkish, Moroccan, Surinamese and Antillean/Aruban groups to native Dutch. RESULTS: We found slightly elevated risk in total 'avoidable' mortality for migrant populations (RR = 1.13). Higher risks of death among migrants were observed from almost all infectious diseases (most RR > 3.00) and several chronic conditions including asthma, diabetes and cerebro-vascular disorders (most RR > 1.70). Migrant women experienced a higher risk of death from maternity-related conditions (RR = 3.37). Surinamese and Antillean/Aruban population had a higher mortality risk (RR = 1.65 and 1.31 respectively), while Turkish and Moroccans experienced a lower risk of death (RR = 0.93 and 0.77 respectively) from all 'avoidable' conditions compared to native Dutch. Control for demographic and socioeconomic factors explained a substantial part of ethnic differences in 'avoidable' mortality. CONCLUSION: Compared to the native Dutch population, total 'avoidable' mortality was slightly elevated for all migrants combined. Mortality risks varied greatly by cause of death and ethnic origin. The substantial differences in mortality for a few 'avoidable' conditions suggest opportunities for quality improvement within specific areas of the healthcare system targeted to disadvantaged groups

Falling behind: life expectancy in US counties from 2000 to 2007 in an international context

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>The United States health care debate has focused on the nation's uniquely high rates of lack of insurance and poor health outcomes relative to other high-income countries. Large disparities in health outcomes are well-documented in the US, but the most recent assessment of county disparities in mortality is from 1999. It is critical to tracking progress of health reform legislation to have an up-to-date assessment of disparities in life expectancy across counties. US disparities can be seen more clearly in the context of how progress in each county compares to international trends.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>We use newly released mortality data by age, sex, and county for the US from 2000 to 2007 to compute life tables separately for each sex, for all races combined, for whites, and for blacks. We propose, validate, and apply novel methods to estimate recent life tables for small areas to generate up-to-date estimates. Life expectancy rates and changes in life expectancy for counties are compared to the life expectancies across nations in 2000 and 2007. We calculate the number of calendar years behind each county is in 2000 and 2007 compared to an international life expectancy time series.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Across US counties, life expectancy in 2007 ranged from 65.9 to 81.1 years for men and 73.5 to 86.0 years for women. When compared against a time series of life expectancy in the 10 nations with the lowest mortality, US counties range from being 15 calendar years ahead to over 50 calendar years behind for men and 16 calendar years ahead to over 50 calendar years behind for women. County life expectancy for black men ranges from 59.4 to 77.2 years, with counties ranging from seven to over 50 calendar years behind the international frontier; for black women, the range is 69.6 to 82.6 years, with counties ranging from eight to over 50 calendar years behind. Between 2000 and 2007, 80% (men) and 91% (women) of American counties fell in standing against this international life expectancy standard.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>The US has extremely large geographic and racial disparities, with some communities having life expectancies already well behind those of the best-performing nations. At the same time, relative performance for most communities continues to drop. Efforts to address these issues will need to tackle the leading preventable causes of death.</p

Multifunctional biophotonic nanostructures inspired by the longtail glasswing butterfly for medical devices

Numerous living organisms possess biophotonic nanostructures that provide colouration and other diverse functions for survival. While such structures have been actively studied and replicated in the laboratory, it remains unclear whether they can be used for biomedical applications. Here, we show a transparent photonic nanostructure inspired by the longtail glasswing butterfly (Chorinea faunus) and demonstrate its use in intraocular pressure (IOP) sensors in vivo. We exploit the phase separation between two immiscible polymers (poly(methyl methacrylate) and polystyrene) to form nanostructured features on top of a Si3_N_4 substrate. The membrane thus formed shows good angle-independent white-light transmission, strong hydrophilicity and anti-biofouling properties, which prevent adhesion of proteins, bacteria and eukaryotic cells. We then developed a microscale implantable IOP sensor using our photonic membrane as an optomechanical sensing element. Finally, we performed in vivo testing on New Zealand white rabbits, which showed that our device reduces the mean IOP measurement variation compared with conventional rebound tonometry without signs of inflammation

Self-assembly of Silver Nanoparticles and Multiwall Carbon Nanotubes on Decomposed GaAs Surfaces

Atomic Force Microscopy complemented by Photoluminescence and Reflection High Energy Electron Diffraction has been used to study self-assembly of silver nanoparticles and multiwall carbon nanotubes on thermally decomposed GaAs (100) surfaces. It has been shown that the decomposition leads to the formation of arsenic plate-like structures. Multiwall carbon nanotubes spin coated on the decomposed surfaces were mostly found to occupy the depressions between the plates and formed boundaries. While direct casting of silver nanoparticles is found to induce microdroplets. Annealing at 300°C was observed to contract the microdroplets into combined structures consisting of silver spots surrounded by silver rings. Moreover, casting of colloidal suspension consists of multiwall carbon nanotubes and silver nanoparticles is observed to cause the formation of 2D compact islands. Depending on the multiwall carbon nanotubes diameter, GaAs/multiwall carbon nanotubes/silver system exhibited photoluminescence with varying strength. Such assembly provides a possible bottom up facile way of roughness controlled fabrication of plasmonic systems on GaAs surfaces