Recovery of renal function in dialysis patients

BACKGROUND: Although recovery of renal functions in dialysis dependent patients is estimated to be greater than 1%, there are no indicators that actually suggest such revival of renal function. Residual renal function in dialysis patients is unreliable and seldom followed. Therefore renal recovery (RR) in dialysis dependent patients may remain unnoticed. We present a group of dialysis dependent patients who regained their renal functions. The aim of this project is to determine any indicators that may identify the recovery of renal functions in dialysis dependent patients. METHODS: All the discharges from the chronic dialysis facilities were identified. Among these discharges deaths, transplants, voluntary withdrawals and transfers either to another modality or another dialysis facility were excluded in order to isolate the patients with RR. The dialysis flow sheets and medical records of these patients were subsequently reviewed. RESULTS: Eight patients with a mean age of 53.8 ± 6.7 years (± SEM) were found to have RR. Dialysis was initiated due to uremic symptoms in 6 patients and fluid overload in the remaining two. The patients remained dialysis dependent for 11.1 ± 4.2 months. All these patients had good urine output and 7 had symptoms related to dialysis. Their mean pre-initiation creatinine and BUN levels were 5.21 ± 0.6 mg/dl and 72.12 ± 11.12 mg/dl, respectively. Upon discontinuation, they remained dialysis free for 19.75 ± 5.97 months. The mean creatinine and BUN levels after cessation of dialysis were 2.85 ± 0.57 mg/dl and 29.62 ± 5.26 mg/dl, respectively, while the mean creatinine clearance calculated by 24-hour urine collection was 29.75 ± 4.78 ml/min. One patient died due to HIV complications. One patient resumed dialysis after nine months. Remaining continue to enjoy a dialysis free life. CONCLUSION: RR must be considered in patients with good urine output and unresolved acute renal failure. Dialysis intolerance may be an indicator of RR among such patients

Time of Day and its Association with Risk of Death and Chance of Discharge in Critically Ill Patients: A Retrospective Study.

Outcomes following admission to intensive care units (ICU) may vary with time and day. This study investigated associations between time of day and risk of ICU mortality and chance of ICU discharge in acute ICU admissions. Adult patients (age ≥ 18 years) who were admitted to ICUs participating in the Austrian intensive care database due to medical or surgical urgencies and emergencies between January 2012 and December 2016 were included in this retrospective study. Readmissions were excluded. Statistical analysis was conducted using the Fine-and-Gray proportional subdistribution hazards model concerning ICU mortality and ICU discharge within 30 days adjusted for SAPS 3 score. 110,628 admissions were analysed. ICU admission during late night and early morning was associated with increased hazards for ICU mortality; HR: 1.17; 95% CI: 1.08-1.28 for 00:00-03:59, HR: 1.16; 95% CI: 1.05-1.29 for 04:00-07:59. Risk of death in the ICU decreased over the day; lowest HR: 0.475, 95% CI: 0.432-0.522 for 00:00-03:59. Hazards for discharge from the ICU dropped sharply after 16:00; lowest HR: 0.024; 95% CI: 0.019-0.029 for 00:00-03:59. We conclude that there are "time effects" in ICUs. These findings may spark further quality improvement efforts

Hospital mortality is associated with ICU admission time

Previous studies have shown that patients admitted to the intensive care unit (ICU) after "office hours" are more likely to die. However these results have been challenged by numerous other studies. We therefore analysed this possible relationship between ICU admission time and in-hospital mortality in The Netherlands. This article relates time of ICU admission to hospital mortality for all patients who were included in the Dutch national ICU registry (National Intensive Care Evaluation, NICE) from 2002 to 2008. We defined office hours as 08:00-22:00 hours during weekdays and 09:00-18:00 hours during weekend days. The weekend was defined as from Saturday 00:00 hours until Sunday 24:00 hours. We corrected hospital mortality for illness severity at admission using Acute Physiology and Chronic Health Evaluation II (APACHE II) score, reason for admission, admission type, age and gender. A total of 149,894 patients were included in this analysis. The relative risk (RR) for mortality outside office hours was 1.059 (1.031-1.088). Mortality varied with time but was consistently higher than expected during "off hours" and lower during office hours. There was no significant difference in mortality between different weekdays of Monday to Thursday, but mortality increased slightly on Friday (RR 1.046; 1.001-1.092). During the weekend the RR was 1.103 (1.071-1.136) in comparison with the rest of the week. Hospital mortality in The Netherlands appears to be increased outside office hours and during the weekends, even when corrected for illness severity at admission. However, incomplete adjustment for certain confounders might still play an important role. Further research is needed to fully explain this differenc

Analyses of the Microbial Diversity across the Human Microbiome

Analysis of human body microbial diversity is fundamental to understanding community structure, biology and ecology. The National Institutes of Health Human Microbiome Project (HMP) has provided an unprecedented opportunity to examine microbial diversity within and across body habitats and individuals through pyrosequencing-based profiling of 16 S rRNA gene sequences (16 S) from habits of the oral, skin, distal gut, and vaginal body regions from over 200 healthy individuals enabling the application of statistical techniques. In this study, two approaches were applied to elucidate the nature and extent of human microbiome diversity. First, bootstrap and parametric curve fitting techniques were evaluated to estimate the maximum number of unique taxa, Smax, and taxa discovery rate for habitats across individuals. Next, our results demonstrated that the variation of diversity within low abundant taxa across habitats and individuals was not sufficiently quantified with standard ecological diversity indices. This impact from low abundant taxa motivated us to introduce a novel rank-based diversity measure, the Tail statistic, (“τ”), based on the standard deviation of the rank abundance curve if made symmetric by reflection around the most abundant taxon. Due to τ’s greater sensitivity to low abundant taxa, its application to diversity estimation of taxonomic units using taxonomic dependent and independent methods revealed a greater range of values recovered between individuals versus body habitats, and different patterns of diversity within habitats. The greatest range of τ values within and across individuals was found in stool, which also exhibited the most undiscovered taxa. Oral and skin habitats revealed variable diversity patterns, while vaginal habitats were consistently the least diverse. Collectively, these results demonstrate the importance, and motivate the introduction, of several visualization and analysis methods tuned specifically for next-generation sequence data, further revealing that low abundant taxa serve as an important reservoir of genetic diversity in the human microbiome

Jet energy measurement with the ATLAS detector in proton-proton collisions at root s=7 TeV

The jet energy scale and its systematic uncertainty are determined for jets measured with the ATLAS detector at the LHC in proton-proton collision data at a centre-of-mass energy of √s = 7TeV corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 38 pb-1. Jets are reconstructed with the anti-kt algorithm with distance parameters R=0. 4 or R=0. 6. Jet energy and angle corrections are determined from Monte Carlo simulations to calibrate jets with transverse momenta pT≥20 GeV and pseudorapidities {pipe}η{pipe}<4. 5. The jet energy systematic uncertainty is estimated using the single isolated hadron response measured in situ and in test-beams, exploiting the transverse momentum balance between central and forward jets in events with dijet topologies and studying systematic variations in Monte Carlo simulations. The jet energy uncertainty is less than 2. 5 % in the central calorimeter region ({pipe}η{pipe}<0. 8) for jets with 60≤pT<800 GeV, and is maximally 14 % for pT<30 GeV in the most forward region 3. 2≤{pipe}η{pipe}<4. 5. The jet energy is validated for jet transverse momenta up to 1 TeV to the level of a few percent using several in situ techniques by comparing a well-known reference such as the recoiling photon pT, the sum of the transverse momenta of tracks associated to the jet, or a system of low-pT jets recoiling against a high-pT jet. More sophisticated jet calibration schemes are presented based on calorimeter cell energy density weighting or hadronic properties of jets, aiming for an improved jet energy resolution and a reduced flavour dependence of the jet response. The systematic uncertainty of the jet energy determined from a combination of in situ techniques is consistent with the one derived from single hadron response measurements over a wide kinematic range. The nominal corrections and uncertainties are derived for isolated jets in an inclusive sample of high-pT jets. Special cases such as event topologies with close-by jets, or selections of samples with an enhanced content of jets originating from light quarks, heavy quarks or gluons are also discussed and the corresponding uncertainties are determined. © 2013 CERN for the benefit of the ATLAS collaboration

Observation of associated near-side and away-side long-range correlations in √sNN=5.02 TeV proton-lead collisions with the ATLAS detector

Two-particle correlations in relative azimuthal angle (Δϕ) and pseudorapidity (Δη) are measured in √sNN=5.02  TeV p+Pb collisions using the ATLAS detector at the LHC. The measurements are performed using approximately 1  μb-1 of data as a function of transverse momentum (pT) and the transverse energy (ΣETPb) summed over 3.1<η<4.9 in the direction of the Pb beam. The correlation function, constructed from charged particles, exhibits a long-range (2<|Δη|<5) “near-side” (Δϕ∼0) correlation that grows rapidly with increasing ΣETPb. A long-range “away-side” (Δϕ∼π) correlation, obtained by subtracting the expected contributions from recoiling dijets and other sources estimated using events with small ΣETPb, is found to match the near-side correlation in magnitude, shape (in Δη and Δϕ) and ΣETPb dependence. The resultant Δϕ correlation is approximately symmetric about π/2, and is consistent with a dominant cos⁡2Δϕ modulation for all ΣETPb ranges and particle pT

Search for the neutral Higgs bosons of the minimal supersymmetric standard model in pp collisions at root s=7 TeV with the ATLAS detector

A search for neutral Higgs bosons of the Minimal Supersymmetric Standard Model (MSSM) is reported. The analysis is based on a sample of proton-proton collisions at a centre-of-mass energy of 7TeV recorded with the ATLAS detector at the Large Hadron Collider. The data were recorded in 2011 and correspond to an integrated luminosity of 4.7 fb-1 to 4.8 fb-1. Higgs boson decays into oppositely-charged muon or τ lepton pairs are considered for final states requiring either the presence or absence of b-jets. No statistically significant excess over the expected background is observed and exclusion limits at the 95% confidence level are derived. The exclusion limits are for the production cross-section of a generic neutral Higgs boson, φ, as a function of the Higgs boson mass and for h/A/H production in the MSSM as a function of the parameters mA and tan β in the mhmax scenario for mA in the range of 90GeV to 500 GeV. Copyright CERN

Search for R-parity-violating supersymmetry in events with four or more leptons in sqrt(s) =7 TeV pp collisions with the ATLAS detector

A search for new phenomena in final states with four or more leptons (electrons or muons) is presented. The analysis is based on 4.7 fb−1 of $\sqrt{s}=7\;\mathrm{TeV}$ proton-proton collisions delivered by the Large Hadron Collider and recorded with the ATLAS detector. Observations are consistent with Standard Model expectations in two signal regions: one that requires moderate values of missing transverse momentum and another that requires large effective mass. The results are interpreted in a simplified model of R-parity-violating supersymmetry in which a 95% CL exclusion region is set for charged wino masses up to 540 GeV. In an R-parity-violating MSUGRA/CMSSM model, values of m 1/2 up to 820 GeV are excluded for 10 < tan β < 40

Search for high-mass resonances decaying to dilepton final states in pp collisions at s√=7 TeV with the ATLAS detector

The ATLAS detector at the Large Hadron Collider is used to search for high-mass resonances decaying to an electron-positron pair or a muon-antimuon pair. The search is sensitive to heavy neutral Z′ gauge bosons, Randall-Sundrum gravitons, Z * bosons, techni-mesons, Kaluza-Klein Z/γ bosons, and bosons predicted by Torsion models. Results are presented based on an analysis of pp collisions at a center-of-mass energy of 7 TeV corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 4.9 fb−1 in the e + e − channel and 5.0 fb−1 in the μ + μ −channel. A Z ′ boson with Standard Model-like couplings is excluded at 95 % confidence level for masses below 2.22 TeV. A Randall-Sundrum graviton with coupling k/MPl=0.1 is excluded at 95 % confidence level for masses below 2.16 TeV. Limits on the other models are also presented, including Technicolor and Minimal Z′ Models