The causative agents in infective endocarditis: a systematic review comprising 33,214 cases.

Infective endocarditis (IE) incidence remains high with considerable fatality rates; guidelines for prophylaxis against IE are currently under review in some settings which highlights the importance of maintaining up-to-date epidemiological estimates about the most common microbial causes. The objective of this systematic review, following PRISMA guidelines, was to identify the most common microbial causes of IE in recent years. Medline was searched from January 1, 2003 to March 31, 2013 for all articles containing the term "infective endocarditis". All relevant studies reporting diagnostic results were included. Special patient subpopulations were assessed separately. A total of 105 studies were included, from 36 countries, with available data on a total of 33,214 cases. Staphylococcus aureus was found to be the most common microorganism, being the most frequent in 54.3 % of studies (N = 57) (and in 55.4 % of studies using Duke's criteria for diagnosis [N = 51]). Viridans group streptococci (VGS), coagulase-negative staphylococci (CoNS), Enterococcus spp and Streptococcus bovis were among the most common causes. S. aureus was the most common pathogen in almost all population subgroups; however, this was not the case in patients with implantable devices, prosthetic valves, or immunocompromised non-HIV, as well as in the sub-group from Asia, emphasizing that a global one-size-fits-all approach to the management of suspected IE is not appropriate. This review provides an evidence-based map of the most common causative agents of IE, highlighting S. aureus as the leading cause in the 21st century. The changing epidemiology of IE in some patient sub-groups in the last decade and the very high number of microbiologically undiagnosed cases (26.6 %) suggest the need to revisit IE prophylaxis and diagnostic strategies

Investments and uncertainty revisited: The case of the US economy

This paper examines the relationship between investments and uncertainty for the US economy, as the latter is approximated by consumer sentiment, purchasing managers’ prospects and economic policy uncertainty. Contrary to the existing literature, we provide evidence that this relationship is time-varying. The time variation is attributed to the observed temporal replacement effect between private and public investments. Furthermore, we show that there are two distinct correlation regimes in this relationship and unless we concentrate on the two regimes, we cannot fully unravel the real link between uncertainty and investments. Finally, we examine whether the use of two correlation regimes provides better forecasts of investments compared to the use of the uncertainty indices alone. The forecasting exercise reveals that the use of correlation regimes provides statistically superior out-of-sample forecasts

Diabetes is associated with increased risk for in-hospital mortality in patients with COVID-19: a systematic review and meta-analysis comprising 18,506 patients

© 2020, Hellenic Endocrine Society. Purpose: Infectious diseases are more frequent and can be associated with worse outcomes in patients with diabetes. The aim of this study was to systematically review and conduct a meta-analysis of the available observational studies reporting the effect of diabetes on mortality among hospitalized patients with COVID-19. Methods: The Medline, Embase, Google Scholar, and medRxiv databases were reviewed for identification of eligible studies. A random effects model meta-analysis was used, and I2 was utilized to assess the heterogeneity. In-hospital mortality was defined as the endpoint. Sensitivity, subgroup, and meta-regression analyses were performed. Results: A total of 18,506 patients were included in this meta-analysis (3713 diabetics and 14,793 non-diabetics). Patients with diabetes were associated with a higher risk of death compared with patients without diabetes (OR 1.65; 95% CI 1.35–1.96; I2 77.4%). The heterogeneity was high. A study-level meta-regression analysis was performed for all the important covariates, and no significant interactions were found between the covariates and the outcome of mortality. Conclusion: This meta-analysis shows that that the likelihood of death seems to be higher in diabetic patients hospitalized with COVID-19 compared with non-diabetic patients. Further studies are needed to assess whether this association is independent or not, as well as to investigate the role of adequate glycemic control prior to infection with COVID-19

Management of venous thromboembolism in pregnancy

Venous thromboembolism (VTE) in pregnancy, consisting of deep venous thrombosis (DVT) and pulmonary embolism (PE), is a major factor of maternal mortality. Several patient-specific risk factors along with the physiologic changes of pregnancy promote a state of hypercoagulability in pregnant women. Detailed assessment of all pregnant women can establish a risk profile that would guide clinical decisions, and balance potential therapeutic benefits with side effects. Differentiating between physiologic changes of pregnancy and symptoms of VTE can be challenging and warrants meticulous clinical evaluation. Timely and accurate diagnosis of VTE with proper imaging is essential for its management, and systemic anticoagulation remains the cornerstone of VTE prevention and therapy. Furthermore, advanced invasive treatment options such as inferior vena cava filters and thrombectomy can be considered for complex cases. Importantly, the risk of systemic anticoagulation should be balanced against the risk of VTE-associated morbidity and mortality for mother and fetus, and an informed decision should be made. In this review, we present an up-to-date overview of VTE management in pregnancy and the postpartum period. Keywords: Anticoagulants; Deep venous thrombosis; Pregnancy; Pulmonary embolism; Venous thromboembolism

A Benchmark Suite for the OmpSs-2@ ArgoDSM task-based distributed shared memory environment

Applications with high complexity, heavy computations and processing of large amount of data require powerful computer systems and programming models that allow efficient parallel execution without excessive programming effort. Benchmarking of these systems and models is of vital importance in order to identify their strengths, weaknesses, and potential improvements. The aim of this thesis is to create benchmarks for OmpSs-2@ArgoDSM, that is the combination of the OmpSs-2task-based parallel programming model with ArgoDSM, a reliable software solutionfor data coherence in distributed systems. In this effort, three benchmarks from PARSEC 3.0 suite are selected, implemented in parallel and measured initially using OmpSs-2 for SMPs, afterwards using OmpSs-2@Cluster for execution on distributed systems, and finally using OmpSs-2@ArgoDSM. Having implemented various versions of every benchmark, their performance and scaling is demonstrated, and a comparative study is conducted. The results indicate that, in general,OmpSs-2@ArgoDSM can achieve similar performance to that of OmpSs-2@Cluster,while the programs are significantly easier to implement. What is more, distributed execution using OmpSs-2 requires either zero data sharing,or serious changes in the code and compromise in the expected performance. Lastly,for applications that process regular size data sets, OmpSs-2@Cluster andOmpSs2@ArgoDSM can equally compete with OmpSs-2’s performance only when the data migration is extremely low and the partial processing workload is relatively heavy

A Benchmark Suite for the OmpSs-2@ ArgoDSM task-based distributed shared memory environment

Applications with high complexity, heavy computations and processing of large amount of data require powerful computer systems and programming models that allow efficient parallel execution without excessive programming effort. Benchmarking of these systems and models is of vital importance in order to identify their strengths, weaknesses, and potential improvements. The aim of this thesis is to create benchmarks for OmpSs-2@ArgoDSM, that is the combination of the OmpSs-2task-based parallel programming model with ArgoDSM, a reliable software solutionfor data coherence in distributed systems. In this effort, three benchmarks from PARSEC 3.0 suite are selected, implemented in parallel and measured initially using OmpSs-2 for SMPs, afterwards using OmpSs-2@Cluster for execution on distributed systems, and finally using OmpSs-2@ArgoDSM. Having implemented various versions of every benchmark, their performance and scaling is demonstrated, and a comparative study is conducted. The results indicate that, in general,OmpSs-2@ArgoDSM can achieve similar performance to that of OmpSs-2@Cluster,while the programs are significantly easier to implement. What is more, distributed execution using OmpSs-2 requires either zero data sharing,or serious changes in the code and compromise in the expected performance. Lastly,for applications that process regular size data sets, OmpSs-2@Cluster andOmpSs2@ArgoDSM can equally compete with OmpSs-2’s performance only when the data migration is extremely low and the partial processing workload is relatively heavy

Νομιμοποίηση εσόδων από εγκληματικές δραστηριότητες (ξέπλυμα χρήματος) με έμφαση στο οικονομικό έγκλημα στον Κυβερνοχώρο

Σκοπός της παρούσας να καταγράψει τις εγκληματικές ενέργειες που εντοπίσθηκαν από την Διεύθυνση Δίωξης Ηλεκτρονικού Εγκλήματος την περίοδο 2013-2016 και να δώσει τα βασικά χαρακτηριστικά αυτών των συναλλαγών.The purpose of this document is to record the criminal activities identified by the Cyber Crime Prosecution Division in the period 2013-2016 and to give the key features of these transactions

COVID-19 Therapeutics: Improvise—Adapt—Learn

“In the midst of chaos, there is also opportunity”—Sun Tzu, The Art of War [...

Transcatheter Closure of Patent Foramen Ovale: Randomized Trial Update

A patent foramen ovale (PFO) is found in about one-quarter of all adults, but the prevalence increases to approximately half of those with a history of a so-called cryptogenic stroke. The true efficacy of PFO closure for prevention of recurrent paradoxical embolism has been debated for years, as the early 3 randomized trials did not show a statistically significant benefit of PFO closure over standard-of-care medical therapy. However, 3 recent randomized trials along with the long-term follow-up data from the largest early trial demonstrated superiority of device closure for secondary stroke prevention. © 2019 Elsevier Inc

The causative agents in infective endocarditis: A systematic review comprising 33,214 cases

Infective endocarditis (IE) incidence remains high with considerable fatality rates; guidelines for prophylaxis against IE are currently under review in some settings which highlights the importance of maintaining up-to-date epidemiological estimates about the most common microbial causes. The objective of this systematic review, following PRISMA guidelines, was to identify the most common microbial causes of IE in recent years. Medline was searched from January 1, 2003 to March 31, 2013 for all articles containing the term “in-fective endocarditis”. All relevant studies reporting diagnostic results were included. Special patient subpopula-tions were assessed separately. A total of 105 studies were included, from 36 countries, with available data on a total of 33,214 cases. Staphylococcus aureus was found to be the most common microorganism, being the most frequent in 54.3 % of studies (N = 57) (and in 55.4 % of studies using Duke’s criteria for diagnosis [ N = 51]. Vi r i dans gr oup st r ept ococci (VGS), coagulase-negative staphylococci (CoNS), Enterococcus spp and Streptococcus bovis were among the most common causes. S. aureus was the most common pathogen in almost all population subgroups; however, this was not the case in patients with implantable devices, prosthetic valves, or immunocompromised non-HIV, as well as in the sub-group from Asia, emphasizing that a global one-size-fits-all approach to the management of suspected IE is not appropriate. This review provides an evidence-based map of the most common causative agents of IE, highlighting S. aureus as the leading cause in the 21st century. The changing epidemiology of IE in some patient sub-groups in the last decade and the very high number of microbiologically undiagnosed cases (26.6 %) suggest the need to revisit IE prophylaxis and diagnostic strategies. © Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2016