Non-AIDS defining cancers in the D:A:D Study-time trends and predictors of survival : a cohort study

BACKGROUND:Non-AIDS defining cancers (NADC) are an important cause of morbidity and mortality in HIV-positive individuals. Using data from a large international cohort of HIV-positive individuals, we described the incidence of NADC from 2004-2010, and described subsequent mortality and predictors of these.METHODS:Individuals were followed from 1st January 2004/enrolment in study, until the earliest of a new NADC, 1st February 2010, death or six months after the patient's last visit. Incidence rates were estimated for each year of follow-up, overall and stratified by gender, age and mode of HIV acquisition. Cumulative risk of mortality following NADC diagnosis was summarised using Kaplan-Meier methods, with follow-up for these analyses from the date of NADC diagnosis until the patient's death, 1st February 2010 or 6 months after the patient's last visit. Factors associated with mortality following NADC diagnosis were identified using multivariable Cox proportional hazards regression.RESULTS:Over 176,775 person-years (PY), 880 (2.1%) patients developed a new NADC (incidence: 4.98/1000PY [95% confidence interval 4.65, 5.31]). Over a third of these patients (327, 37.2%) had died by 1st February 2010. Time trends for lung cancer, anal cancer and Hodgkin's lymphoma were broadly consistent. Kaplan-Meier cumulative mortality estimates at 1, 3 and 5 years after NADC diagnosis were 28.2% [95% CI 25.1-31.2], 42.0% [38.2-45.8] and 47.3% [42.4-52.2], respectively. Significant predictors of poorer survival after diagnosis of NADC were lung cancer (compared to other cancer types), male gender, non-white ethnicity, and smoking status. Later year of diagnosis and higher CD4 count at NADC diagnosis were associated with improved survival. The incidence of NADC remained stable over the period 2004-2010 in this large observational cohort.CONCLUSIONS:The prognosis after diagnosis of NADC, in particular lung cancer and disseminated cancer, is poor but has improved somewhat over time. Modifiable risk factors, such as smoking and low CD4 counts, were associated with mortality following a diagnosis of NADC

Principal Component Analysis For Symmetric Key Generation [análise De Componentes Principais Para A Geração De Chaves Simétricas]

This work presents a novel biometric encryption scheme based on feature vectors extracted from a face recognition system. This system uses principal component analysis, in order to generate a symmetric secret key, being this key used to encrypt any information data, like a biometric template. The data is therefore concealed and only an individual having a similar biometric feature vector is capable to regenerate the correct key. This scheme is applied to a system using eigenfaces for recognition, where the corrected detected class from a sample image can guarantee the corrected generation of a symmetric key. Due to the efficiency of the system being dependent of the face recognition algorithm, the tests showed a rate of 90.4% of corrected symmetric key generation, or sucessfull encryption/ decryption scheme, for 25 face classes, with 5 images each.216368Crepeau, C., Efficient Cryptographic Protocols Based on Noisy Channels (1997) LECTURE NOTES in COMPUTER SCIENCE, (1233), pp. 306-317. , Advances in Cryptology - Eurocrypt '97Davida, G.I., On Enabling Secure Applications through Off-line Biometric Identification IEEE Symposium on Security and Privacy, Oakland, California, 3-6 May, 1998Davida, G.I., Frankel, Y., Matt, B.J., On the Relation of Error Correction and Cryptography to an Off-Line Biometric Based Identication Scheme Proceedings of WCC99, Workshop on Coding and Cryptography, 1999Janbandhu, P.K., Siyal, M.Y., Novel Biometric Digital Signatures forJuels, A., Wattenberg, M., A Fuzzy Commitment Scheme ACM Conference on Computer and Communications Security, 1999Juels, A., Sudan, M., A Fuzzy Vault Scheme (2002) Proceedings of IEEE International Symposium on Information Theory, p. 408. , IEEE Press, Lausanne, SwitzerlandMenezes, A.J., (2001) Handbook of Applied Cryptography, , http://www.cacr.math.uwaterloo.ca/hac/, CRC Press, Fourth Edition, Available for download inMonrose, F., Cryptographic Key Generation from Voice Proceedings of the 2001 IEEE Symposium on Security and Privacy, May 2001Nichols, R.K., (1999) ICSA Guide to Cryptography, , McGraw-HillPentland, A., Turk, M., Eigenfaces for Recognition (1991) Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 3 (1), pp. 71-86. , Massachusetts Institute of TechnologyStallings, W., (2002) Cryptography and Network Security - Principles and Practice, , Prentice Hall, 3 a editionSklar, B., (2000) Digital Communications - Fundamentals and Applications, , Prentice Hal

Effects of high-energy particle showers on the embedded front-end electronics of an electromagnetic calorimeter for a future lepton collider

Application Specific Integrated Circuits, ASICs, similar to those envisaged for the readout electronics of the central calorimeters of detectors for a future lepton collider have been exposed to high-energy electromagnetic showers. A salient feature of these calorimeters is that the readout electronics will be embedded into the calorimeter layers. In this article it is shown that interactions of shower particles in the volume of the readout electronics do not alter the noise pattern of the ASICs. No signal at or above the MIP level has been observed during the exposure. The upper limit at the 95% confidence level on the frequency of faked signals is smaller than 1x10^{-5} for a noise threshold of about 60% of a MIP. For ASICs with similar design to those which were tested, it can thus be largely excluded that the embedding of the electronics into the calorimeter layers compromises the performance of the calorimeters