490 research outputs found
Adverse drug events associated with vitamin K antagonists: factors of therapeutic imbalance
Nancy El-Helou, Amal Al-Hajje, Rola Ajrouche, Sanaa Awada, Samar Rachidi, Salam Zein, Pascale SalamehClinical and Epidemiological Research Laboratory, Faculty of Pharmacy, Lebanese University, Beirut, LebanonBackground: Adverse drug events (ADE) occur frequently during treatment with vitamin K antagonists (AVK) and contribute to increase hemorrhagic risks.Methods: A retrospective study was conducted over a period of 2 years. Patients treated with AVK and admitted to the emergency room of a tertiary care hospital in Beirut were included. The aim of the study was to identify ADE characterized by a high international normalized ratio (INR) and to determine the predictive factors responsible for these events. Statistical analysis was performed with the SPSS statistical package.Results: We included 148 patients. Sixty-seven patients (47.3%) with an INR above the therapeutic range were identified as cases. The control group consisted of 81 patients (54.7%) with an INR within the therapeutic range. Hemorrhagic complications were observed in 53.7% of cases versus 6.2% of controls (P < 0.0001). No significant difference was noticed between cases and controls regarding the indication and the dose of AVK. Patients aged over 75 years were more likely to present an INR above the therapeutic range (58.2%, P = 0.049). Recent infection was present in 40.3% of cases versus 6.2% of controls (P < 0.0001) and hypoalbuminemia in 37.3% of cases versus 6.1% of controls (P < 0.0001). Treatment with antibiotics, amiodarone, and anti-inflammatory drugs were also factors of imbalance (P < 0.0001).Conclusion: Many factors may be associated with ADE related to AVK. Monitoring of INR and its stabilization in the therapeutic range are important for preventing these events.Keywords: adverse drug events, vitamin K antagonists, bleeding risks, therapeutic imbalanc
W2S: Microscopy Data with Joint Denoising and Super-Resolution for Widefield to SIM Mapping
In fluorescence microscopy live-cell imaging, there is a critical trade-off
between the signal-to-noise ratio and spatial resolution on one side, and the
integrity of the biological sample on the other side. To obtain clean
high-resolution (HR) images, one can either use microscopy techniques, such as
structured-illumination microscopy (SIM), or apply denoising and
super-resolution (SR) algorithms. However, the former option requires multiple
shots that can damage the samples, and although efficient deep learning based
algorithms exist for the latter option, no benchmark exists to evaluate these
algorithms on the joint denoising and SR (JDSR) tasks. To study JDSR on
microscopy data, we propose such a novel JDSR dataset, Widefield2SIM (W2S),
acquired using a conventional fluorescence widefield and SIM imaging. W2S
includes 144,000 real fluorescence microscopy images, resulting in a total of
360 sets of images. A set is comprised of noisy low-resolution (LR) widefield
images with different noise levels, a noise-free LR image, and a corresponding
high-quality HR SIM image. W2S allows us to benchmark the combinations of 6
denoising methods and 6 SR methods. We show that state-of-the-art SR networks
perform very poorly on noisy inputs. Our evaluation also reveals that applying
the best denoiser in terms of reconstruction error followed by the best SR
method does not necessarily yield the best final result. Both quantitative and
qualitative results show that SR networks are sensitive to noise and the
sequential application of denoising and SR algorithms is sub-optimal. Lastly,
we demonstrate that SR networks retrained end-to-end for JDSR outperform any
combination of state-of-the-art deep denoising and SR networksComment: ECCVW 2020. Project page: \<https://github.com/ivrl/w2s
Challenges in context-aware mobile language learning: the MASELTOV approach
Smartphones, as highly portable networked computing devices with embedded sensors including GPS receivers, are ideal platforms to support context-aware language learning. They can enable learning when the user is en-gaged in everyday activities while out and about, complementing formal language classes. A significant challenge, however, has been the practical implementation of services that can accurately identify and make use of context, particularly location, to offer meaningful language learning recommendations to users. In this paper we review a range of approaches to identifying context to support mobile language learning. We consider how dynamically changing aspects of context may influence the quality of recommendations presented to a user. We introduce the MASELTOV project’s use of context awareness combined with a rules-based recommendation engine to present suitable learning content to recent immigrants in urban areas; a group that may benefit from contextual support and can use the city as a learning environment
Pre-cooling for endurance exercise performance in the heat: a systematic review.
PMCID: PMC3568721The electronic version of this article is the complete one and can be found online at: http://www.biomedcentral.com/1741-7015/10/166.
This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.Endurance exercise capacity diminishes under hot environmental conditions. Time to exhaustion can be increased by lowering body temperature prior to exercise (pre-cooling). This systematic literature review synthesizes the current findings of the effects of pre-cooling on endurance exercise performance, providing guidance for clinical practice and further research
Nestin downregulation in rat vascular smooth muscle cells represents an early marker of vascular disease in experimental type I diabetes
From Oxford to Hawaii Ecophysiological Barriers Limit Human Progression in Ten Sport Monuments
In order to understand the determinants and trends of human performance evolution, we analyzed ten outdoor events among the oldest and most popular in sports history. Best performances of the Oxford-Cambridge boat race (since 1836), the channel crossing in swimming (1875), the hour cycling record (1893), the Elfstedentocht speed skating race (1909), the cross country ski Vasaloppet (1922), the speed ski record (1930), the Streif down-hill in Kitzbühel (1947), the eastward and westward sailing transatlantic records (1960) and the triathlon Hawaii ironman (1978) all follow a similar evolutive pattern, best described through a piecewise exponential decaying model (r2 = 0.95±0.07). The oldest events present highest progression curvature during their early phase. Performance asymptotic limits predicted from the model may be achieved in fourty years (2049±32 y). Prolonged progression may be anticipated in disciplines which further rely on technology such as sailing and cycling. Human progression in outdoor sports tends to asymptotic limits depending on physiological and environmental parameters and may temporarily benefit from further technological progresses
Less is more: Antibiotics at the beginning of life
Antibiotic exposure at the beginning of life can lead to increased antimicrobial resistance and perturbations of the developing microbiome. Early-life microbiome disruption increases the risks of developing chronic diseases later in life. Fear of missing evolving neonatal sepsis is the key driver for antibiotic overtreatment early in life. Bias (a systemic deviation towards overtreatment) and noise (a random scatter) affect the decision-making process. In this perspective, we advocate for a factual approach quantifying the burden of treatment in relation to the burden of disease balancing antimicrobial stewardship and effective sepsis management
Orbital decay in an accreting and eclipsing 13.7 minute orbital period binary with a luminous donor
We report the discovery of ZTF J0127+5258, a compact mass-transferring binary
with an orbital period of 13.7 minutes. The system contains a white dwarf
accretor, which likely originated as a post-common envelope carbon-oxygen (CO)
white dwarf, and a warm donor ().
The donor probably formed during a common envelope phase between the CO white
dwarf and an evolving giant which left behind a helium star or helium white
dwarf in a close orbit with the CO white dwarf. We measure gravitational
wave-driven orbital inspiral with significance, which yields a
joint constraint on the component masses and mass transfer rate. While the
accretion disk in the system is dominated by ionized helium emission, the donor
exhibits a mixture of hydrogen and helium absorption lines. Phase-resolved
spectroscopy yields a donor radial-velocity semi-amplitude of , and high-speed photometry reveals that the system is eclipsing.
We detect a {\it Chandra} X-ray counterpart with . Depending on the mass-transfer rate, the system will
likely evolve into either a stably mass-transferring helium CV, merge to become
an R Crb star, or explode as a Type Ia supernova in the next million years. We
predict that the Laser Space Interferometer Antenna (LISA) will detect the
source with a signal-to-noise ratio of after 4 years of observations.
The system is the first \emph{LISA}-loud mass-transferring binary with an
intrinsically luminous donor, a class of sources that provide the opportunity
to leverage the synergy between optical and infrared time domain surveys, X-ray
facilities, and gravitational-wave observatories to probe general relativity,
accretion physics, and binary evolution.Comment: 13 pages, 7 figures, 2 tables, submitted to ApJ
Impact of Environmental Parameters on Marathon Running Performance
PURPOSE: The objectives of this study were to describe the distribution of all runners' performances in the largest marathons worldwide and to determine which environmental parameters have the maximal impact. METHODS: We analysed the results of six European (Paris, London, Berlin) and American (Boston, Chicago, New York) marathon races from 2001 to 2010 through 1,791,972 participants' performances (all finishers per year and race). Four environmental factors were gathered for each of the 60 races: temperature (°C), humidity (%), dew point (°C), and the atmospheric pressure at sea level (hPA); as well as the concentrations of four atmospheric pollutants: NO(2)-SO(2)-O(3) and PM(10) (μg x m(-3)). RESULTS: All performances per year and race are normally distributed with distribution parameters (mean and standard deviation) that differ according to environmental factors. Air temperature and performance are significantly correlated through a quadratic model. The optimal temperatures for maximal mean speed of all runners vary depending on the performance level. When temperature increases above these optima, running speed decreases and withdrawal rates increase. Ozone also impacts performance but its effect might be linked to temperature. The other environmental parameters do not have any significant impact. CONCLUSIONS: The large amount of data analyzed and the model developed in this study highlight the major influence of air temperature above all other climatic parameter on human running capacity and adaptation to race conditions
- …