Cardiometabolic risk factors and quality of life in severely obese children and adolescents in the Netherlands

BACKGROUND: The prevalence of severe obesity in children and adolescents is increasing. However, little is known about cardiometabolic risk factors and quality of life of children with severe obesity.Therefore, the aim of this study was to assess the demographic characteristics and the prevalence of cardiometabolic risk factors and quality of life in severely obese children and adolescents undergoing intensive inpatient treatment for obesity. METHODS: Data were collected between August 2009 and April 2011 on 16 children (8-13y) and 64 adolescents (13-19y) with severe obesity (SDS-BMI >= 3.0 or SDS-BMI >= 2.3 and comorbidity) participating in an RCT evaluating two intensive inpatient treatment programs for obesity. Demographic, anthropometric, clinical characteristics and two components of the EuroQol for the assessment of quality of life are described. RESULTS: Eighty percent of participants in this study had at least one cardiometabolic risk factor in addition to severe obesity. Low HDL-cholesterol and hypertension were most prevalent (65.0% respectively 31.2%). The highest significant correlations were found between SDS-BMI and SDS-waist circumference, fasting plasma insulin and HOMA-IR (correlation coefficients respectively 0.80, 0.49, and 0.48). With regard to quality of life, the mean utility score of the participants was 0.79 on a scale of 0.0 to 1.0 on the EuroQol questionnaire and their mean individual valuation was 69.1 on a scale of 0 to100. CONCLUSION: Cardiometabolic risk factors are already highly prevalent in this group of severely obese children and adolescents. The score of 69.1 found for quality of life in this study suggests that participants experience important limitations in their quality of life. However, quality of life is not associated with the prevalence of cardiometabolic risk factors. TRIAL REGISTRATION: Netherlands Trial Register (NTR1678, registered 20-Feb-2009)

Towards an Operating System for Intercloud

Cyber physical systems, such as intelligent dikes and smart energy systems, require scalable and flexible computing infrastructures to process data from instruments and sensor networks. Infrastructure as a Service clouds provide a flexible way to allocate remote distributed resources, but lack mechanisms to dynamically configure software (dependencies) and manage application execution. This paper describes the design and implementation of the Intercloud Operating System (ICOS), which acts between applications and distributed clouds, i.e., the Intercloud. ICOS schedules, configures, and executes applications in the Intercloud while taking data dependencies, budgets, and deadlines into account. Based on our experiences with the prototype, we present considerations and additional research challenges. The research on ICOS clarifies essential concepts needed to realize a flexible and scalable on-demand execution platform for distributed applications over distributed cloud providers. © 2013 IEEE. Cloud Computing Association; et al.; IEEE Cloud Computing; IEEE Computer Society; IEEE CS STC Cloud Computing; IEEE CS TCS

Smart Cyber Infrastructure for Big Data processing

The landscape of research cyber infrastructure is rapidly changing. There is a move towards virtualized and programmable infrastructure. The cloud paradigm enables the use of computing resources in different places and allows for optimizing workflows in either bringing computing to the data or the other way around. Programmable networks allow for utilizing networks in unprecedented ways to create application specific Internets. In this context, we present here the latest developments in our research group towards supporting Big Data sciences

Car2x with software defined networks, network functions virtualization and supercomputers:technical and scientific preparations for the Amsterdam Arena telecoms fieldlab

In the invited talk “Car2x with SDN, NFV and supercomputers” we report about how our past work with SDN [1, 2] allows the design of a smart mobility fieldlab in the huge parking lot the Amsterdam Arena. We explain how we can engineer and test software that handle the complex conditions of the Car2X case. The talk starts by describing the engineering challenges that developers of smart car telecommunications and computing infrastructures face. We concentrate on the development of software defined networks (SDN) that support smart cars optimally and securely over a heterogeneous, dynamic and developing ICT infrastructure. The goal here is to enable smart cars to profit maximally from any bit of information available from fixed and moving objects as well as persons. For example, in a low tech situation, the lack of other options makes that one has to fall back to GPRS to download only traffic jam locations. As a contrast, in an advanced telecom environment video streams from multiple cars are transmitted via 5G pico cells to computers a few millisecond nearby. These computers fuse the video information to generate a local traffic model. In an ultimate situation, cars use all the communications infrastructures that are available including the numerous WiFi hotspots, all generations of mobile telecommunications, the developing car-to-car communications technologies and even the smart phone of a passing person. SDN technologies deal with the complexities of such communication environment

A comparison of the effects of propofol and nitrous oxide on the electroencephalogram in epileptic patients during conscious sedation for dental procedures

The influence of sedative doses of propofol or nitrous oxide on the electroencephalogram was studied in 11 mentally handicapped patients with treated epilepsy undergoing dental procedures. At one session, propofol was titrated to achieve conscious sedation. The mean (+/- SD) dose requirements were 5.5 +/- 1.1 mg.kg-1.h-1. In six patients, the electroencephalogram was unchanged during propofol administration. In three patients, there was a decrease in epileptic activity, and in two patients, paroxysmal discharges disappeared. At another session, nitrous oxide was administered by nasal mask. The mean (+/- SD) concentration of nitrous oxide needed was 43.6% +/- 4.8%. The electroencephalogram did not change in nine patients, whereas in two patients epileptic activity decreased. There were no clinical epileptoid or other adverse manifestations during any treatment or up to 48 h thereafter. The results of the present study suggest that propofol or nitrous oxide can be administered in subanesthetic doses for conscious sedation in mentally handicapped patients with treated epileps