Secular Trends in Cardiovascular Disease in Kidney Transplant Recipients: 1994 to 2009

Cardiovascular events are a major cause of morbidity and mortality in kidney transplant recipients. We conducted a retrospective study using healthcare databases in Ontario, Canada to determine whether the incidence of cardiovascular events has changed from 1994 to 2009 in 4954 kidney transplant recipients. Our primary endpoint was a 3-year composite outcome of post-transplant death or cardiovascular event (myocardial infarction, percutaneous coronary intervention, coronary artery bypass graft, or stroke). Recipients were older and had more baseline co-morbidity in recent eras (1994-1997 vs. 2006-2009: median age 45 vs. 53 years; coronary artery disease 22% vs. 37%). A total of 445 recipients (9.0%) died or experienced a cardiovascular event within 3 years. There was no significant change in the composite outcome or death-censored cardiovascular events (p=0.41 and 0.92, respectively) over time. Despite transplant centers accepting recipients who are older with more co-morbidities, the incidence of death or cardiovascular event has remained stable

A tighter extra-resource analysis of online deadline scheduling

This paper is concerned with online algorithms for scheduling jobs with deadlines on a single processor. It has been known for long that unless the system is underloaded, no online scheduling algorithm can be 1-competitive, i.e., matching the performance of the optimal offline algorithm. Nevertheless, recent work has revealed that some online algorithms using a moderately faster processor (or extra processors) can guarantee very competitive performance Kalyanasundaram and Pruhs, 2000 or even be 1-competitive Koo et al., 2002; Lam and To, 2001. This paper takes a further step to investigate online scheduling algorithms with an even higher performance guarantee (i.e., better than 1-competitive algorithms) and in particular, presents an extra-resource analysis of the earliest-deadline-first strategy (EDF) with respect to such a higher performance guarantee. © 2005 Springer Science + Business Media, Inc.postprin

Extra processors versus future information in optimal deadline scheduling

This paper is concerned with the extra-resource analysis of online scheduling algorithms. In particular, it studies how to make use of multiple processors to counteract the lack of future information in online deadline scheduling. Our results extend the previous work that are primarily based on using a faster processor to obtain a performance guarantee. The challenge arises from the fact that jobs are sequential in nature and cannot be executed on more than one processor at the same time. Thus, a faster processor can speed up a job while multiple unit-speed processors cannot help.postprin

Using social media to develop and commercialize new ICT products

Objective The commercialization or go-to-market process is one of the most important activities for any business. Companies are searching for methodologies and techniques to rapidly validate their concepts and at an early stage integrate market needs into their development process so that they can accelerate the go-to-market process of a new product. In order to create an effective tool to support companies, this research is conducted to study on how social media be used in developing and commercializing new products. Methodology The research used qualitative research method in which a mix of different types of data were collected. Multiple case study approach analyses various aspects of the commercialization processes and social media practices thus seeking for answers from the overview phenomena. Results and findings An integration framework generated from theory review helps companies to better understand their development process as well as practices that need to be carried out in certain phases of the process and to accelerate the innovation in entering a new market. The social media canvas was created and aimed to be a practical tool for company in conducting a workshop within the team and planning how to utilize social media in developing or commercializing a product

A Cross-Cultural study of the Relations between Kindergarteners’ Skills And the Teachers’ Directional Language

Psychologyhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/85310/1/nngan.pd

Competitive deadline scheduling via additional or faster processors

This paper studies on-line scheduling in a single-processor system that allows preemption. The aim is to maximize the total value of jobs completed by their deadlines. It is known that if the on-line scheduler is given a processor faster (say, two times faster) than the off-line scheduler, then there exists an on-line algorithm called SLACKER that can achieve an O(1) competitive ratio. In this paper, we show that using additional unit-speed processors instead of a faster processor is a possible but not cost effective way to achieve an O(1) competitive ratio. Specifically, we find that-θ(log k) unit-speed processors are required, where k is the importance ratio. Another contribution of this paper is an improved analysis of the competitiveness of SLACKER; this new analysis enables us to show that SLACKER, when extended to multi-processor systems, can still guarantee an O(1) competitive ratio.postprin

Will oil price crash destabilize petro-states? : a study of oil price crashes in 1985-1986 and 2014-2015 and the impacts on the political stability of petro-states : Venezuela, Algeria, the Soviet Union/Russia, Saudi Arabia and Indonesia

published_or_final_versionInternational and Public AffairsMasterMaster of International and Public Affair

Novel geometric coordination registration in cone-beam computed tomogram

Paper ID: AIPR-140701-9The use of cone-beam computed tomography (CBCT) in medical field can help the clinicians to visualize the hard tissues in head and neck region via a cylindrical field of view (FOV). The images are usually presented with reconstructed three-dimensional (3D) imaging and its orthogonal (x-, y-and z-planes) images. Spatial relationship of the structures in these orthogonal views is important for diagnosis of diseases as well as planning for treatment. However, the non-standardized positioning of the object during the CBCT data acquisition often induces errors in measurement since orthogonal images cut at different planes might look similar. In order to solve the problem, this paper proposes an effective mapping from the Cartesian coordinates of a cube physically to its respective coordinates in 3D imaging. Therefore, the object (real physical domain) and the imaging (computerized virtual domain) can be linked up and registered. In this way, the geometric coordination of the object/imaging can be defined and its orthogonal images would be fixed on defined planes. The images can then be measured with vector information and serial imagings can also be directly compared. © 2014 IEEE.published_or_final_versio