Exposure to antipsychotics and risk of stroke: self controlled case series study

Objectives To investigate the association between use of typical and atypical antipsychotic drugs and incidence of stroke in patients with and without dementia

Self-controlled case series with multiple event types

Self-controlled case series methods for events that may be classified as one of several types are described. When the event is non-recurrent, the different types correspond to competing risks. It is shown that, under circumstances that are likely to arise in practical applications, the SCCS multi-type likelihood reduces to the product of the type-specific likelihoods. For recurrent events, this applies whether or not the marginal type-specific counts are dependent. As for the standard SCCS method, a rare disease assumption is required for non-recurrent events. Several forms of this assumption are investigated by simulation. The methods are applied to data on MMR vaccine and convulsions (febrile and non-febrile), and to data on thiazolidinediones and fractures (at different sites)

A case-control study of drug risk factors for age-related macular degeneration.

OBJECTIVE: To investigate the association between age-related macular degeneration (AMD) and exposure to antacids, antithyroids, thyroid hormones, and thiazide diuretics. DESIGN: Matched case-control study. PARTICIPANTS: Population-based participants were selected from the United Kingdom General Practice Research Database. A total of 18,007 people with diagnosed AMD were compared with 86 169 controls matched for age, gender, and general practice. METHODS: Conditional logistic regression was used to determine the association between exposure to each drug group of interest and a diagnosis of AMD, adjusting for relevant confounding variables. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: The primary outcome was the odds ratio for the association between exposure to antacids, antithyroids, thyroid hormones, or thiazide diuretics and AMD. Secondary analyses were conducted to assess the effect of recent exposure to the drugs of interest, the total number of prescriptions received, and restricting the data set to participants with more than 2 years of observation time. RESULTS: The crude odds ratios for association between any record of drug exposure and AMD were as follows: 1.34 (95% confidence interval [CI], 1.29-1.39) for antacids; 1.15 (95% CI, 0.92-1.44) for antithyroids; 1.34 (95% CI, 1.29-1.39) for thyroid hormones; and 1.13 (95% CI, 1.08-1.17) for thiazide diuretics. After adjusting for consultation rate, observation time, diabetes, heart failure, hyperlipidemia, cardiovascular drug use, atherosclerosis, hypertension, aspirin use, hormone replacement therapy use, body mass index, alcohol consumption, and smoking, the odds ratios reduced to: 1.06 (95% CI, 1.02-1.10) for antacids, 0.98 (95% CI, 0.78-1.24) for antithyroids, 0.99 (95% CI, 0.92-1.06) for thyroid hormones, and 0.98 (95% CI, 0.94-1.02) for thiazides. Secondary analyses were consistent with these findings for all 4 drug categories. CONCLUSIONS: No association was detected between short- and medium-term use of antithyroids, thyroid hormones, and thiazide diuretics and the risk of AMD. Short- and medium-term use of antacids seems to be associated with a small increase in the risk of this disease. However, this increased risk is likely the result of residual confounding by smoking or uncontrolled confounding resulting from socioeconomic status. No conclusions could be drawn regarding longer-term use of each drug category

Experimental evaluation of 802.11e EDCA for enhanced voice over WLAN performance

The 802.11e MAC protocol extends the 802.11 CSMA/CA contention mechanism by allowing the adjustment of MAC parameters that were previously fixed. While the 802.11e protocol has been extensively studied, this work is almost entirely confined to analytical and simulation studies. In this paper we demonstrate a technique for measuring one-way delay in an 802.11e hardware testbed and thereby study delay in the context of protecting a voice call competing against data traffic. We demonstrate that with the standard 802.11b MAC settings greedy data traffic is able to seize bandwidth from a low-rate voice call. Only 5 competing data stations are needed in order to induce a voice call loss rate exceeding 10%, which in practice would lead to an unacceptable level of voice quality and dropping of the call. We present experimental measurements which demonstrate that the use of 802.11e to provide a practical solution that can successfully deliver quality of service to voice traffic in a mixed voice/data environment. To our knowledge, this is the first experimental demonstration of accurate one way delay measurements being used to show the priorisation of voice in an 802.11e hardware test-bed

Verification of Common 802.11 MAC Model Assumptions

There has been considerable success in analytic modeling of the 802.11 MAC layer. These models are based on a number of fundamental assumptions. In this paper we attempt to verify these assumptions by taking careful measurements using an 802.11e testbed with commodity hardware. We show that the assumptions do not always hold but our measurements offer insight as to why the models may still produce good predictions. To our knowledge, this is the first in-detail attempt to compare 802.11 models and their assumptions with experimental measurements from an 802.11 testbed. The measurements collect also allow us to test if the basic MAC operation adhere to the 802.11 standards

Verification of Common 802.11 MAC Model Assumptions

There has been considerable success in analytic modeling of the 802.11 MAC layer. These models are based on a number of fundamental assumptions. In this paper we attempt to verify these assumptions by taking careful measurements using an 802.11e testbed with commodity hardware. We show that the assumptions do not always hold but our measurements offer insight as to why the models may still produce good predictions. To our knowledge, this is the first in-detail attempt to compare 802.11 models and their assumptions with experimental measurements from an 802.11 testbed. The measurements collect also allow us to test if the basic MAC operation adhere to the 802.11 standards

echinus, required for interommatidial cell sorting and cell death in the Drosophila pupal retina, encodes a protein with homology to ubiquitin-specific proteases

Background: Programmed cell death is used to remove excess cells between ommatidia in the Drosophila pupal retina. This death is required to establish the crystalline, hexagonal packing of ommatidia that characterizes the adult fly eye. In previously described echinus mutants, interommatidial cell sorting, which precedes cell death, occurred relatively normally. Interommatidial cell death was partially suppressed, resulting in adult eyes that contained excess pigment cells, and in which ommatidia were mildly disordered. These results have suggested that echinus functions in the pupal retina primarily to promote interommatidial cell death. Results: We generated a number of new echinus alleles, some of which are likely null mutants. Analysis of these alleles provides evidence that echinus has roles in cell sorting as well as cell death. echinus encodes a protein with homology to ubiquitin-specific proteases, which cleave ubiquitin-conjugated proteins at the ubiquitin C-terminus. The echinus locus encodes multiple splice forms, including two proteins that lack residues thought to be critical for deubiquitination activity. Surprisingly, ubiquitous expression in the eye of versions of Echinus that lack residues critical for ubiquitin specific protease activity, as well as a version predicted to be functional, rescue the echinus loss-of-function phenotype. Finally, genetic interactions were not detected between echinus loss and gain-of-function and a number of known apoptotic regulators. These include Notch, EGFR, the caspases Dronc, Drice, Dcp-1, Dream, the caspase activators, Rpr, Hid, and Grim, the caspase inhibitor DIAP1, and Lozenge or Klumpfuss. Conclusions: The echinus locus encodes multiple splice forms of a protein with homology to ubiquitin-specific proteases, but protease activity is unlikely to be required for echinus function, at least when echinus is overexpressed. Characterization of likely echinus null alleles and genetic interactions suggests that echinus acts at a novel point(s) to regulate interommatidial cell sorting and/or cell death in the fly eye

Improving GPS Global Navigation Accuracy for Connected Vehicles in an Urban Canyon

Connected Vehicles are expected to provide a major improvement in road safety. By broadcasting Basic Safety Messages (BSM) using Dedicated Short Range Communications (DSRC) all connected vehicles will have situational awareness of other connected vehicles in the area near them, and capability to provide ample warning of impending collisions. These systems rely on highly accurate GPS location data. GPS by design expects a clear line of sight (LoS) to four or more satellites for accuracy. City roads are often surrounded by buildings. These structures create areas isolated from sky views. Intelligent Transportation System (ITS) researchers have called these areas “urban canyons”. Buildings may block and/or bounce satellite signals, which can cause receivers to ‘see’ these signals either directly, indirectly, or both direct and indirect signals at the same time—which is the so-called multipath problem. Driving test results have been published which demonstrate the challenge. ITS researchers have noticed that position data taken by on-board units (OBU’s) contain these anomalies. When analyzed, these plots show vehicles as if they were driving through buildings. This is not helpful in preventing collisions. I will show that there is a data based approach to identify when Global Navigational Satellite System (GNSS) receivers are identifying impossible position results. I will also show a method using other available CAN bus data to interpolate expected geographic location and eliminate sending erroneous position reports