Recovery of dialysis patients with COVID-19 : health outcomes 3 months after diagnosis in ERACODA

Background. Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19)-related short-term mortality is high in dialysis patients, but longer-term outcomes are largely unknown. We therefore assessed patient recovery in a large cohort of dialysis patients 3 months after their COVID-19 diagnosis. Methods. We analyzed data on dialysis patients diagnosed with COVID-19 from 1 February 2020 to 31 March 2021 from the European Renal Association COVID-19 Database (ERACODA). The outcomes studied were patient survival, residence and functional and mental health status (estimated by their treating physician) 3 months after COVID-19 diagnosis. Complete follow-up data were available for 854 surviving patients. Patient characteristics associated with recovery were analyzed using logistic regression. Results. In 2449 hemodialysis patients (mean ± SD age 67.5 ± 14.4 years, 62% male), survival probabilities at 3 months after COVID-19 diagnosis were 90% for nonhospitalized patients (n = 1087), 73% for patients admitted to the hospital but not to an intensive care unit (ICU) (n = 1165) and 40% for those admitted to an ICU (n = 197). Patient survival hardly decreased between 28 days and 3 months after COVID-19 diagnosis. At 3 months, 87% functioned at their pre-existent functional and 94% at their pre-existent mental level. Only few of the surviving patients were still admitted to the hospital (0.8-6.3%) or a nursing home (∼5%). A higher age and frailty score at presentation and ICU admission were associated with worse functional outcome. Conclusions. Mortality between 28 days and 3 months after COVID-19 diagnosis was low and the majority of patients who survived COVID-19 recovered to their pre-existent functional and mental health level at 3 months after diagnosis

Search for jet extinction in the inclusive jet-pT spectrum from proton-proton collisions at s=8 TeV

Published by the American Physical Society under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License. Further distribution of this work must maintain attribution to the author(s) and the published articles title, journal citation, and DOI.The first search at the LHC for the extinction of QCD jet production is presented, using data collected with the CMS detector corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 10.7  fb−1 of proton-proton collisions at a center-of-mass energy of 8 TeV. The extinction model studied in this analysis is motivated by the search for signatures of strong gravity at the TeV scale (terascale gravity) and assumes the existence of string couplings in the strong-coupling limit. In this limit, the string model predicts the suppression of all high-transverse-momentum standard model processes, including jet production, beyond a certain energy scale. To test this prediction, the measured transverse-momentum spectrum is compared to the theoretical prediction of the standard model. No significant deficit of events is found at high transverse momentum. A 95% confidence level lower limit of 3.3 TeV is set on the extinction mass scale

A Metaheuristic Framework for Bi-level Programming Problems with Multi-disciplinary Applications

Bi-level programming problems arise in situations when the decision maker has to take into account the responses of the users to his decisions. Several problems arising in engineering and economics can be cast within the bi-level programming framework. The bi-level programming model is also known as a Stackleberg or leader-follower game in which the leader chooses his variables so as to optimise his objective function, taking into account the response of the follower(s) who separately optimise their own objectives, treating the leader’s decisions as exogenous. In this chapter, we present a unified framework fully consistent with the Stackleberg paradigm of bi-level programming that allows for the integration of meta-heuristic algorithms with traditional gradient based optimisation algorithms for the solution of bi-level programming problems. In particular we employ Differential Evolution as the main meta-heuristic in our proposal.We subsequently apply the proposed method (DEBLP) to a range of problems from many fields such as transportation systems management, parameter estimation and game theory. It is demonstrated that DEBLP is a robust and powerful search heuristic for this class of problems characterised by non smoothness and non convexity

Searches for electroweak neutralino and chargino production in channels with Higgs, Z, and W bosons in pp collisions at 8 TeV

Searches for supersymmetry (SUSY) are presented based on the electroweak pair production of neutralinos and charginos, leading to decay channels with Higgs, Z, and W bosons and undetected lightest SUSY particles (LSPs). The data sample corresponds to an integrated luminosity of about 19.5 fb(-1) of proton-proton collisions at a center-of-mass energy of 8 TeV collected in 2012 with the CMS detector at the LHC. The main emphasis is neutralino pair production in which each neutralino decays either to a Higgs boson (h) and an LSP or to a Z boson and an LSP, leading to hh, hZ, and ZZ states with missing transverse energy (E-T(miss)). A second aspect is chargino-neutralino pair production, leading to hW states with E-T(miss). The decays of a Higgs boson to a bottom-quark pair, to a photon pair, and to final states with leptons are considered in conjunction with hadronic and leptonic decay modes of the Z and W bosons. No evidence is found for supersymmetric particles, and 95% confidence level upper limits are evaluated for the respective pair production cross sections and for neutralino and chargino mass values

Impact of telephonic interviews on persistence and daily adherence to insulin treatment in insulin-naïve type 2 diabetes patients: Dropout study

Objective: The objective of this study is to evaluate the impact of sequential telephonic interviews on treatment persistence and daily adherence to insulin injections among insulin-naïve type 2 diabetes patients initiated on different insulin regimens in a 3-month period. Methods: A total of 1,456 insulin-naïve patients with type 2 diabetes (mean [standard deviation, SD] age: 56.0 [12.0] years, 49.1% were females) initiated on insulin therapy and consecutively randomized to sequential (n=733) and single (n=723) telephonic interview groups were included. Data on insulin treatment and self-reported blood glucose values were obtained via telephone interview. Logistic regression analysis was performed for factors predicting increased likelihood of persistence and skipping an injection. Results: Overall, 76.8% patients (83.2% in sequential vs 70.3% in single interview group, (P<0.001) remained on insulin treatment at the third month. Significantly higher rate for skipping doses was noted in basal bolus than in other regimens (27.0% vs 15.0% for premixed and 15.8% basal insulin, respectively, P<0.0001). Logistic regression analysis revealed sequential telephonic interview (odds ratio [OR], 1.531 95% confidence interval [CI], 1.093-2.143 P=0.013), higher hemoglobin A1c levels (OR, 1.090 95% CI, 0.999-1.189 P=0.049), and less negative appraisal of insulin therapy as significant predictors of higher persistence. Basal bolus regimen (OR, 1.583 95% CI, 1.011-2.479 P=0.045) and higher hemoglobin A1c levels (OR, 1.114 95% CI, 1.028-1.207 P=0.008) were the significant predictors of increased likelihood of skipping an injection. Conclusion: Our findings revealed positive influence of sequential telephonic interview, although including no intervention in treatment, on achieving better treatment persistence in type 2 diabetes patients initiating insulin. © 2016 Yavuz et al

Clinical characteristics and therapeutic outcomes of elderly patients with chronic myeloid leukemia: A retrospective multicenter study

Aims: We aimed to investigate whether older age leads to limitations in the starting dose of imatinib in daily treatment of chronic myeloid leukemia, and to determine the compliance of elderly patients with tyrosine kinase inhibitors (TKI) therapy. Methods: Data including the clinical characteristics, therapeutic outcomes and compliance with TKI therapy of elderly patients with chronic myeloid leukemia aged >65years were collected from 13 institutions in Turkey, retrospectively. Results: A total of 69 patients (27 [39%] men, 42 [61%] women) were evaluated retrospectively. The median age of the patients was 71years (range 66-85years). Of the patients, 66 (96%) were in the chronic phase and three (4.3%) were in the accelerated phase when diagnosed. A total of 63 (91.3%) patients were receiving imatinib as the first-line therapy. The initial dose of imatinib was 400mg/day in 59 patients (93.6%). Imatinib treatment induced 57 (90.5%) complete hematological responses at 3months, 29 (46%) complete cytogenetic responses at 6months and 49 (77.7%) major molecular responses at 12months. As a result, nilotinib and dasatinib were used in 14 patients as second-line therapy. Second-line TKI induced nine complete hematological responses (64.3%) at 3months, four complete cytogenetic responses (28.6%) at 12months and seven major molecular responses (50%) at 18months. A total of 56 of the patients (81.2%) are still alive. The median overall survival and progression-free survival rates were 35months (range 1-95months) and 17months (range 0.8-95months), respectively. Conclusion: Elderly patients should receive TKI according to the same guidelines that apply to younger patients. © 2014 Japan Geriatrics Society

Molecular resonances and the Jacobi shape transition in 48^{48}Cr

The ^{24]Mg + $^{24}$Mg reaction has been studied at the Legnaro Tandem at a CM bombarding energy of 45.7 MeV where a narrow and high spin resonance has been reported previously. The decay of the resonance into the inelastic and fusion-evaporation channels has been investigated. The ON and OFF resonance decay yields have been measured using, for the inelastic channels, the fragment spectrometer PRISMA and the $\gamma$ array CLARA, and, for the fusion-evaporation channels, the Si array EUCLIDES and the $\gamma$ array GASP. The resonant effects observed in both experiments are discussed and it is suggested that the resonance populates a deformed $^{48}$Cr after a Jacobi shape transition