Behandling av gangfunksjon ved MS

Abstract. Background: Fampyra is a potassium channel blocker that reduces the leakage through ion-channels. Fampyra is approved for use in patients with multiple sclerosis (MS) who have walking difficulties. Previous studies have shown that Fampyra can have a positive effect on walking speed in patients with MS. Objectives: To investigate the effect of Fampyra in a group of MS patients and see the effect on walking speed and endurance. In addition, we wanted to examine whether factors such as age, gender, degree of handicap and physical activity could predict response to treatment. Methods: The patients treated with Fampyra were tested before starting treatment and after two weeks and three months. 25-foot walk test and 2-min walk test were preformed. In addition, patients were asked to complete a questionnaire on physical activity. Results: 135 patients, 78 women and 57 men initiated treatment with Fampyra. The patients in our study had a mean age of 54,5 years, mean EDSS 5,6 and mean disease duration of 13,4 years. 65,8% completed three months of Fampyra, 34,1% did stop medication due to perceived lack of efficacy or side effects. Conclusions: Fampyra was associated with improvements in walking speed and walking distance. The study could not identify any significant differences considering age, gender or degree of handicap predicting treatment response

Real-Time JPEG2000 Video Decoding on General-Purpose Computer Hardware

There is widespread use of compression in multimedia content delivery, e.g. within video on demand services and transport links between live events and production sites. The content must undergo compression prior to transmission in order to deliver high quality video and audio over most networks, this is especially true for high definition video content. JPEG2000 is a recent image compression standard and a suitable compression algorithm for high definition, high rate video. With its highly flexible embedded lossless and lossy compression scheme, JPEG2000 has a number of advantages over existing video codecs. The only evident drawbacks with respect to real-time applications, are that the computational complexity is quite high and that JPEG2000, being an image compression codec as opposed to video codec, typically has higher bandwidth requirements. Special-purpose hardware can deliver high performance, but is expensive and not easily updated. A JPEG2000 decoder application running on general-purpose computer hardware can complement solutions depending on special-purpose hardware and will experience performance scaling together with the available processing power. In addition, production costs will be none-existing, once developed. The application implemented in this project is a streaming media player. It receives a compressed video stream through an IP interface, decodes it frame by frame and presents the decoded frames in a window. The decoder is designed to better take advantage of the processing power available in today's desktop computers. Specifically, decoding is performed on both CPU and GPU in order to decode minimum 50 frames per second of a 720p JPEG2000 video stream. The CPU executed part of the decoder application is written in C++, based on the Kakadu SDK and involve all decoding steps up to and including reverse wavelet transform. The GPU executed part of the decoder is enabled by the CUDA programming language, and include luma upsampling and irreversible color transform. Results indicate that general purpose computer hardware today easily can decode JPEG2000 video at bit rates up to 45 Mbit/s. However, when the video stream is received at 50 fps through the IP interface, packet loss at the socket level limits the attained frame rate to about 45 fps at rates of 40 Mbit/s or lower. If this packet loss could be eliminated, real-time decoding would be obtained up to 40 Mbit/s. At rates above 40 Mbit/s, the attained frame rate is limited by the decoder performance and not the packet loss. Higher codestream rates should be endurable if reverse wavelet transform could be mapped from the CPU to the GPU, since the current pipeline is highly unbalanced

Hydrological Characteristics of the Mae Klong River Basin in Thailand

[ABSTRACT] This paper discusses hydrological characteristics in the Mae Klong River Basin in Thailand. Firstly, rainfall distribution characteristics are examined by using daily rainfall data in sixteen rainfall observatories. Secondly, hydrological events of the two dam basins were qualitatively analyzed. It was found that, there was a relationship between the Western Monsoon and the rain occurrences; Si Sawat (Sri Nagarind) zone was draughtier in the Mae Klong River Basin. Si Sawat Dam Basin and Khao Laem Dam Basin, although they are close to each other (50 Km in distance), their differences concerning hydrological characteristics are high

CEReS Newsletter No.62, January 2011

[掲載記事] 「＜調印式報告＞千葉大学・パジャジャラン大学との大学間交流協定」ほ

STOCHASTIC FRONTIER ANALYSIS OF SPECIALIST SURGEON CLINICS

Stochastic frontier analysis was used to estimate the technical efficiency of specialist surgeon practices based in Gauteng Province, South Africa. The analysis was conducted for both single and multiple output production functions, while efficiency was allowed to depend upon surgeon and practice characteristics.Multiple output models, due to an increase in the number of observations, can be more precisely estimated and, as there are multiple observations per surgeon, can be estimated with fixed effects. The results of the analyses suggest that efficiency averages around 50% for this sample and is convex in years of surgical experience. The benefit of multiple output analysis – improved precision – obtains, while surgeon-level fixed effects alleviate some concerns related to unobserved heterogeneity.http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/journal/10.1111/(ISSN)1813-698

The characteristics and activities of child and adolescent mental health services in Italy: a regional survey

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>To date, no studies have assessed in detail the characteristics, organisation, and functioning of Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services (CAMHS). This information gap represents a major limitation for researchers and clinicians because most mental disorders have their onset in childhood or adolescence, and effective interventions can therefore represent a major factor in avoiding chronicity. Interventions and mental health care are delivered by and through services, and not by individual, private clinicians, and drawbacks or limitations of services generally translate in inappropriateness and ineffectiveness of treatments and interventions: therefore information about services is essential to improve the quality of care and ultimately the course and outcome of mental disorders in childhood and adolescence.</p> <p>The present paper reports the results of the first study aimed at providing detailed, updated and comprehensive data on CAMHS of a densely populated Italian region (over 4 million inhabitants) with a target population of 633,725 subjects aged 0-17 years.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>Unit Chiefs of all the CAMHS filled in a structured 'Facility Form', with activity data referring to 2008 (data for inpatient facilities referred to 2009), which were then analysed in detail.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Eleven CAMHS were operative, including 110 outpatient units, with a ratio of approximately 20 child psychiatrists and 23 psychologists per 100,000 inhabitants aged 0-17 years. All outpatient units were well equipped and organized and all granted free service access. In 2008, approximately 6% of the target population was in contact with outpatient CAMHS, showing substantial homogeneity across the eleven areas thereby. Most patients in contact in 2008 received a language disorder- or learning disability diagnosis (41%). First-ever contacts accounted for 30% of annual visits across all units. Hospital bed availability was 5 per 100,000 inhabitants aged 0-17 years.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>The percentage of young people in contact with CAMHS for mental disorders is in line with those observed in previous epidemiological studies. The overall number of child psychiatrists per 100,000 inhabitants is one of the highest in Europe and it is comparable with the most well equipped areas in the US. This comparison should be interpreted with caution, however, because in Italy, child psychiatrists also treat neurological disorders. Critical areas requiring improvement are: the uneven utilisation of standardised assessment procedures and the limited availability of dedicated emergency services during non-office hours (e.g., nights and holidays).</p

Skatteetatens adgang til å utlevere taushetsbelagte opplysninger til politiet ved etterretning og etterforskning

Master i rettsvitenskapJUS399MAJU