A comparative study of low sampling non intrusive load dis-aggregation

International audienceNon-intrusive load monitoring (NILM) deals with the identification and subsequent energy estimation of the individual appliances from the smart meter data. The state of the art applications typically runs once per day and reports the detected appliances. In this work, data driven models are implemented for two different sampling rates (10 seconds and 15 minutes). The models are trained for 20 houses in the Netherlands and tested for a period of 4-weeks. The results indicate that the disaggregation methods is applicable for both sampling cases but with different use-case

The SAFE-trial:Safe surgery for glioblastoma multiforme: Awake craniotomy versus surgery under general anesthesia. Study. protocol for a multicenter prospective randomized controlled trial

Background: Surgery of GBM nowadays is usually performed under general anesthesia (GA) and resections are often not as aggressive as possible, due to the chance of seriously damaging the patient with a rather low life expectancy. A surgical technique optimizing resection of the tumor in eloquent areas but preventing neurological deficits is necessary to improve survival and quality of life in these patients. Awake craniotomy (AC) with the use of cortical and subcortical stimulation has been widely implemented for low-grade glioma resections (LGG), but not yet for GBM. AC has shown to increase resection percentage and preserve quality of life in LGG and could thus be of important value in GBM surgery. Methods/design: This study is a prospective, multicenter, randomized controlled trial (RCT). Consecutive patients with a glioblastoma in or near eloquent areas (Sawaya grading II/III) will be 1:1 randomized to awake craniotomy or craniotomy under general anesthesia. 246 patients will be included in neurosurgical centers in the Netherlands and Belgium. Primary end-points are: 1) Postoperative neurological morbidity and 2) Proportion of patients with gross-total resections. Secondary end-points are: 1) Health-related quality of life; 2) Progression-free survival (PFS); 3) Overall survival (OS) and 4) Frequency and severity of Serious Adverse Effects in each group. Also, a cost-benefit analysis will be performed. All patients will receive standard adjuvant treatment with concomitant chemoradiotherapy. Discussion: This RCT should demonstrate whether AC is superior to craniotomy under GA on neurological morbidity, extent of resection and survival for glioblastoma resections in or near eloquent areas. Trial registration: Clinicaltrials.gov: NCT03861299 Netherlands Trial Register (NTR): NL758

Does early resection of presumed low-grade glioma improve survival? A clinical perspective

Early resection is standard of care for presumed low-grade gliomas. This is based on studies including only tumors that were post-surgically confirmed as low-grade glioma. Unfortunately this does not represent the clinicians’ situation wherein he/she has to deal with a lesion on MRI that is suspect for low-grade glioma (i.e. without prior knowledge on the histological diagnosis). We therefore aimed to determine the optimal initial strategy for patients with a lesion suspect for low-grade glioma, but not histologically proven yet. We retrospectively identified 150 patients with a resectable presumed low-grade-glioma and who were otherwise in good clinical condition. In this cohort we compared overall survival between three types of initital treatment strategy: a wait-and-scan approach (n = 38), early resection (n = 83), or biopsy for histopathological verification (n = 29). In multivariate analysis, no difference was observed in overall survival for early resection compared to wait-and-scan: hazard ratio of 0.92 (95% CI 0.43–2.01; p = 0.85). However, biopsy strategy showed a shorter overall survival compared to wait-and-scan: hazard ratio

A generic data driven approach for low sampling load disaggregation

International audienceNon-intrusive load monitoring (Nilm) deals with the disaggregation of individual appliances from the total reading at the power meter. This work proposes an industrial scale solution which uses a specific modeling technique for appliance detection, trained and tested on two distinct databases extracted from actual customers readings. The proposed method is tested for different household categories to address its robustness. The validation of the implemented solution is done over a period of one month with a sampling rate of 10 seconds. The results indicate that high energy consuming appliance can be correctly detected (>80 % of accuracy). In addition, general cases of errors are analyzed, paving the way of the next step in the development of a commercial application of the proposed method

eHealth cognitive rehabilitation for brain tumor patients

Background: Evidence-based cognitive rehabilitation programs for brain tumor patients are not widely available, desp

Association of Hospital Volume with Perioperative Mortality of Endovascular Repair of Complex Aortic Aneurysms: A Nationwide Cohort Study

Objective: We evaluate nationwide perioperative outcomes of complex EVAR and assess the volume-outcome association of complex EVAR. Summary of Background Data: Endovascular treatment with fenestrated (FEVAR) or branched (BEVAR) endografts is progressively used for excluding complex aortic aneurysms (complex AAs). It is unclear if a volumeoutcome association exists in endovascular treatment of complex AAs (complex EVAR). Methods: All patients prospectively registered in the Dutch Surgical Aneurysm Audit who underwent complex EVAR (FEVAR or BEVAR) between January 2016 and January 2020 were included. The effect of annual hospital volume on perioperative mortality was examined using multivariable logistic regression analyses. Patients were stratified into quartiles based on annual hospital volume to determine hospital volume categories. Results: We included 694 patients (539 FEVAR patients, 155 BEVAR patients). Perioperative mortality following FEVAR was 4.5% and 5.2% following BEVAR. Postoperative complication rates were 30.1% and 48.7%, respectively. The first quartile hospitals performed <9 procedures/ yr; second, third, and fourth quartile hospitals performed 9-12, 13-22, and 23 procedures/yr. The highest volume hospitals treated significantly more complex patients. Perioperative mortality of complex EVAR was 9.1% in hospitals with a volume of <9, and 2.5% in hospitals with a volume of 13 (P = 0.008). After adjustment for confounders, an annual volume of 13 was associated with less perioperative mortality compared to hospitals with a volume of <9. Conclusions: Data from this nationwide mandatory quality registry shows a significant effect of hospital volume on perioperative mortality following complex EVAR, with high volume complex EVAR centers demonstrating lower mortality rates