Human papilloma virus-related premalignant and malignant lesions of the cervix and anogenital tract in immunocompromised women

The number of immunocompromised patients is rising, and immunodeficiency is an independent risk factor for the development of premalignant and malignant lesions of the cervix and anogenital tract. The aim of this review was to summarize and update data on human papilloma virus (HPV) infections and HPV-based anogenital lesions detected in patients who were immunocompromised due to both organ transplantation and human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) infection. The incidence of HPV infections among solid organ recipients and HIV positive females is reported to be significantly higher when compared with age-matched healthy controls- i.e. higher by up to 65% and 46.6% respectively, vs 38% in the controls. These infections are also more often chronic, high risk HPV and multitype. Data suggest that HPV infections in these patients might not only occur more frequently, but that the course of the infection might also lead to faster oncogenesis. However, the treatment options for malignancies are limited; and this implies the need for intense primary and secondary prevention regimens. As infections with HPV types other than 16 and 18 and multitype infections are particularly frequently discovered in immunocompromised patients, they would probably benefit most from a nonavalent vaccine. Gynecological screening should be performed annually, including cervical smears and/ or HPV testing. In the group of non-responders, self-sampling methods should be considered

Designing Vibrotactile Widgets with Printed Actuators and Sensors

Physical controls are fabricated through complicated assembly of parts requiring expensive machinery and are prone to mechanical wear. One solution is to embed controls directly in interactive surfaces, but the proprioceptive part of gestural interaction that makes physical controls discoverable and usable solely by hand gestures is lost and has to be compensated, by vibrotactile feedback for instance. Vibrotactile actuators face the same aforementioned issues as for physical controls. We propose printed vibrotactile actuators and sensors. They are printed on plastic sheets, with piezoelectric ink for actuation, and with silver ink for conductive elements, such as wires and capacitive sensors. These printed actuators and sensors make it possible to design vibrotactile widgets on curved surfaces, without complicated mechanical assembly

Modified low-cycle fatigue (LCF) test

The fatigue test results obtained by the common low-cycle fatigue test (LCF) and its modified MLCF counterpart were presented. A satisfactory agreement of results was achieved for the two selected materials. With the MLCF method it is possible to examine from ten to twenty parameters using one single sample only. These parameters characterise the tested material in terms of its mechanical properties under the conditions of mechanical loads. Simultaneously, the study shows the implementation of the modified low-cycle fatigue test in practice

How well does B-type natriuretic peptide predict death and cardiac events in patients with heart failure: systematic review

Objective To assess how well B-type natriuretic peptide (BNP) predicts prognosis in patients with heart failure. Design Systematic review of studies assessing BNP for prognosis m patients with heart failure or asymptomatic patients. Data sources Electronic searches of Medline and Embase from January 1994 to March 2004 and reference lists of included studies. Study selection and data extraction We included all studies that estimated the relation between BNP measurement and the risk of death, cardiac death, sudden death, or cardiovascular event in patients with heart failure or asymptomatic patients, including initial values and changes in values in response to treatment. Multivariable models that included both BNP and left ventricular ejection fraction as predictors were used to compare the prognostic value of each variable. Two reviewers independently selected studies and extracted data. Data synthesis 19 studies used BNP to estimate the relative risk of death or cardiovascular events in heart failure patients and five studies in asymptomatic patients. In heart failure patients, each 100 pg/ml increase was associated with a 35% increase in the relative risk of death. BNP was used in 35 multivariable models of prognosis. In nine of the models, it was the only variable to reach significance-that is, other variables contained no prognostic information beyond that of BNP. Even allowing for the scale of the variables, it seems to be a strong indicator of risk. Conclusion Although systematic reviews of prognostic studies have inherent difficulties, including die possibility of publication bias, the results of the studies in this review show that BNP is a strong prognostic indicator for both asymptomatic patients mid for patients with heart failure at all stages of disease

Simulating Auxiliary Inputs, Revisited

For any pair $(X,Z)$ of correlated random variables we can think of $Z$ as a randomized function of $X$. Provided that $Z$ is short, one can make this function computationally efficient by allowing it to be only approximately correct. In folklore this problem is known as \emph{simulating auxiliary inputs}. This idea of simulating auxiliary information turns out to be a powerful tool in computer science, finding applications in complexity theory, cryptography, pseudorandomness and zero-knowledge. In this paper we revisit this problem, achieving the following results: \begin{enumerate}[(a)] We discuss and compare efficiency of known results, finding the flaw in the best known bound claimed in the TCC'14 paper "How to Fake Auxiliary Inputs". We present a novel boosting algorithm for constructing the simulator. Our technique essentially fixes the flaw. This boosting proof is of independent interest, as it shows how to handle "negative mass" issues when constructing probability measures in descent algorithms. Our bounds are much better than bounds known so far. To make the simulator $(s,\epsilon)$-indistinguishable we need the complexity $O\left(s\cdot 2^{5\ell}\epsilon^{-2}\right)$ in time/circuit size, which is better by a factor $\epsilon^{-2}$ compared to previous bounds. In particular, with our technique we (finally) get meaningful provable security for the EUROCRYPT'09 leakage-resilient stream cipher instantiated with a standard 256-bit block cipher, like $\mathsf{AES256}$.Comment: Some typos present in the previous version have been correcte