Prediabetes. A new paradigm for early prevention of cardiovascular disease

This literature review focuses on the association of prediabetes with cardiovascular disease (CVD). Recently, much attention has been paid to the study of prediabetes due to its extremely high prevalence and strong association with a high risk of developing serious complications that worsen the quality of kife of patients. Prediabetes is not only a metabolic condition with a high risk of developing type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM), but also CVD and death from all causes. This association is true for both patients who do not yet have CVD and those with a history of CVD. Also during the COVID-19 pandemic, attention is drawn to the fact that people with prediabetes have a higher risk of a severe course of infection, complications and a worse prognosis of the disease. This is associated with hyperglycemia, the  presence of  chronic systemic inflammation of  a  low degree of  activity, impaired immune response mechanisms and a procoagulant state in patients with prediabetes, although these disorders are less developed than in patients with T2DM. Therefore, early screening of early disorders of normal metabolism. Since active early intervention at the stage of prediabetes helps to prevent the development of type 2 diabetes and CVD

Tuning Pt characteristics on Pt/C catalyst for aqueous-phase reforming of biomass-derived oxygenates to bio-H-2

Pt/C catalysts with varied Pt sizes and distributions were investigated for aqueous-phase reforming (APR) of ethylene glycol (EG) to H2. APR experiments were performed on a continuous-flow fixed bed reactor with a catalyst loading of 1 g and EG feeding of 120 mL h−1 at 225 °C and 35 bar for 7 h. The fresh and used Pt/C catalysts were characterized by XRF, BET, CO chemisorption, TEM, XTEM, and XPS. Catalyst preparation protocols changed Pt characteristics on Pt/C catalysts, leading to a distinguishable H2 production. The rates for EG conversion and H2 production increased linearly with mean Pt size (3–11 nm), while having a volcano relationship with the mean size of agglomerated Pt particles (17–30 nm). Pt with concentrated Pt particles on surface of Pt/C catalysts was more preferable for APR of EG than the homogeneously distributed in catalysts. Optimal performance was obtained over a Pt/C-PR catalyst, which was prepared by precipitation method, showing a superb turnover frequency of 248 molH2 molPt−1 min−1 for H2 production from EG in APR. Besides, Pt/C catalysts also showed excellent stability. These results have shown the promise of Pt/C catalyst for APR of EG, which can be extended for bio-H2 production via APR of biomass-derived oxygenates in waste streams

Clinical characteristics of patients with COVID-19 depending on the treatment received and the presence of type 2 diabetes mellitus

BACKGROUND. Type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) is an independent risk factor for adverse clinical outcomes in patients with Covid-19. There is currently insufficient data evaluating the efficacy and safety of drugs for the treatment of COVID-19, especially in patients with T2DM.AIM. The aim of study was to identify an associative relationship between the drugs used and the clinical outcomes of patients with Covid-19 and T2DM.MATERIALS AND METHODS. A retrospective analysis of the clinical outcomes of 1753 patients with COVID-19 who were hospitalized to the redesignated departments of multidisciplinary city clinical hospital in the period from 23.03.2020 to 01.06.2020.RESULTS. The total number of patients is 1,753, of which 311 (17.7%) are patients with DM2. 92.6% of patients received treatment for COVID-19. At the same time, 91.4% of patients received antibiotics (a/b), 61.5% — bronchodilators, 56.6% — injectable anticoagulants (a/c), 45.2% — hydroxychloroquine, 6.3% — antiviral drugs, 5.4% — oral a/c, 4.6% — glucocorticosteroids (GCS), 1.9% — Tocilizumab.Decrease of risk of death among patients with COVID-19 was as the therapy of a/b (OR 0.07, 95% CI 0.05–0.11, p<0.05), bronchodilators (OR 0.12, 95% CI 0.08–0.18, p<0.05) and injection a/c (OR 0.47, 95% CI 0.34–0.67, p<0.05). At the same time, among patients with DM2, compared with patients without DM2, there was a more pronounced reduction in the risk of death during injectable a/c therapy: among patients with DM2, the risk of death decreased by 2.6 times (OR 0.39, 95% CI 0.21–0.73, p<0.05), among patients without DM2 — by 2.1 times (OR 0.47, 95% CI 0.31–0.71, p<0.05). Antiviral drugs was associated with an increased chance of death among patients without DM2 (OR 2.64, 95% CI 1.44–4.86, p<0.05) and among patients with DM2 (OR 4.98, 95% CI 2.11–11.75, p<0.05).CONCLUSION. A significant decrease of the risk of death among patients with COVID-19 was as the therapy of a/b, bronchodilators, and injectable a/c. An increase of the risk of death was observed during therapy with antiviral drugs

On the Complexity of Query Result Diversification

Query result diversification is a bi-criteria optimization problem for ranking query results. Given a database D, a query Q and a positive integer k, it is to find a set of k tuples from Q(D) such that the tuples are as relevant as possible to the query, and at the same time, as diverse as possible to each other. Subsets of Q(D) are ranked by an objective function defined in terms of relevance and diversity. Query result diversification has found a variety of applications in databases, information retrieval and operations research. This paper studies the complexity of result diversification for relational queries. We identify three problems in connection with query result diversification, to determine whether there exists a set of k tuples that is ranked above a bound with respect to relevance and diversity, to assess the rank of a given k-element set, and to count how many k-element sets are ranked above a given bound. We study these problems for a variety of query languages and for three objective functions. We establish the upper and lower bounds of these problems, all matching, for both combined complexity and data complexity. We also investigate several special settings of these problems, identifying tractable cases. 1

Possibilities of application a fixed combination of alogliptin and pioglitazone for type 2 diabetes mellitus treatment

Hyperglycemia in T2DM is based on three main mechanisms: insulin resistance, progressive β-cell dysfunction, and excess glucose production by the liver.The onset of T2DM is usually preceded by a long period of insulin resistance. Prescribing sugar drugs that affect different links of pathogenesis, reducing a steady decrease in glycemia. To date, in clinical practice, various combinations of hypoglycemic drugs are used, the choice of which is determined by the characteristics of the course of diabetes in the patient, the presence of concomitant diseases and complications of diabetes, as well as the dominant clinical problem. This resolution provides an expert council opinion on the feasibility of using a combination of alogliptin and pioglitazone in patients with type 2 diabetes

Characterization of 30 76^{76}Ge enriched Broad Energy Ge detectors for GERDA Phase II

The GERmanium Detector Array (GERDA) is a low background experiment located at the Laboratori Nazionali del Gran Sasso in Italy, which searches for neutrinoless double beta decay of $^{76}$Ge into $^{76}$Se+2e$^-$. GERDA has been conceived in two phases. Phase II, which started in December 2015, features several novelties including 30 new Ge detectors. These were manufactured according to the Broad Energy Germanium (BEGe) detector design that has a better background discrimination capability and energy resolution compared to formerly widely-used types. Prior to their installation, the new BEGe detectors were mounted in vacuum cryostats and characterized in detail in the HADES underground laboratory in Belgium. This paper describes the properties and the overall performance of these detectors during operation in vacuum. The characterization campaign provided not only direct input for GERDA Phase II data collection and analyses, but also allowed to study detector phenomena, detector correlations as well as to test the strength of pulse shape simulation codes.Comment: 29 pages, 18 figure

2νββ2\nu\beta\beta decay of 76^{76}Ge into excited states with GERDA Phase I

Two neutrino double beta decay of $^{76}$Ge to excited states of $^{76}$Se has been studied using data from Phase I of the GERDA experiment. An array composed of up to 14 germanium detectors including detectors that have been isotopically enriched in $^{76}$Ge was deployed in liquid argon. The analysis of various possible transitions to excited final states is based on coincidence events between pairs of detectors where a de-excitation $\gamma$ ray is detected in one detector and the two electrons in the other. No signal has been observed and an event counting profile likelihood analysis has been used to determine Frequentist 90\,\% C.L. bounds for three transitions: ${0^+_{\rm g.s.}-2^+_1}$: $T^{2\nu}_{1/2}>$1.6$\cdot10^{23}$ yr, ${0^+_{\rm g.s.}-0^+_1}$: $T^{2\nu}_{1/2}>$3.7$\cdot10^{23}$ yr and ${0^+_{\rm g.s.}-2^+_2}$: $T^{2\nu}_{1/2}>$2.3$\cdot10^{23}$ yr. These bounds are more than two orders of magnitude larger than those reported previously. Bayesian 90\,\% credibility bounds were extracted and used to exclude several models for the ${0^+_{\rm g.s.}-0^+_1}$ transition

Background free search for neutrinoless double beta decay with GERDA Phase II

The Standard Model of particle physics cannot explain the dominance of matter over anti-matter in our Universe. In many model extensions this is a very natural consequence of neutrinos being their own anti-particles (Majorana particles) which implies that a lepton number violating radioactive decay named neutrinoless double beta ($0\nu\beta\beta$) decay should exist. The detection of this extremely rare hypothetical process requires utmost suppression of any kind of backgrounds. The GERDA collaboration searches for $0\nu\beta\beta$ decay of $^{76}$Ge (^{76}\rm{Ge} \rightarrow\,^{76}\rm{Se} + 2e^-) by operating bare detectors made from germanium with enriched $^{76}$Ge fraction in liquid argon. Here, we report on first data of GERDA Phase II. A background level of $\approx10^{-3}$ cts/(keV$\cdot$kg$\cdot$yr) has been achieved which is the world-best if weighted by the narrow energy-signal region of germanium detectors. Combining Phase I and II data we find no signal and deduce a new lower limit for the half-life of $5.3\cdot10^{25}$ yr at 90 % C.L. Our sensitivity of $4.0\cdot10^{25}$ yr is competitive with the one of experiments with significantly larger isotope mass. GERDA is the first $0\nu\beta\beta$ experiment that will be background-free up to its design exposure. This progress relies on a novel active veto system, the superior germanium detector energy resolution and the improved background recognition of our new detectors. The unique discovery potential of an essentially background-free search for $0\nu\beta\beta$ decay motivates a larger germanium experiment with higher sensitivity.Comment: 14 pages, 9 figures, 1 table; ; data, figures and images available at http://www.mpi-hd.mpg/gerda/publi

The first search for bosonic super-WIMPs with masses up to 1 MeV/c2^2 with GERDA

We present the first search for bosonic super-WIMPs as keV-scale dark matter candidates performed with the GERDA experiment. GERDA is a neutrinoless double-beta decay experiment which operates high-purity germanium detectors enriched in $^{76}$Ge in an ultra-low background environment at the Laboratori Nazionali del Gran Sasso (LNGS) of INFN in Italy. Searches were performed for pseudoscalar and vector particles in the mass region from 60 keV/c$^2$ to 1 MeV/c$^2$. No evidence for a dark matter signal was observed, and the most stringent constraints on the couplings of super-WIMPs with masses above 120 keV/c$^2$ have been set. As an example, at a mass of 150 keV/c$^2$ the most stringent direct limits on the dimensionless couplings of axion-like particles and dark photons to electrons of $g_{ae} < 3 \cdot 10^{-12}$ and ${\alpha'}/{\alpha} < 6.5 \cdot 10^{-24}$ at 90% credible interval, respectively, were obtained.Comment: 6 pages, 3 figures, submitted to Physical Review Letters, added list of authors, updated ref. [21