Legumain in acute coronary syndromes: A substudy of the PLATO (Platelet Inhibition and Patient Outcomes) trial

Background The cysteine protease legumain is increased in patients with atherosclerosis, but its causal role in atherogenesis and cardiovascular disease is still unclear. The aim of the study was to investigate the association of legumain with clinical outcome in a large cohort of patients with acute coronary syndrome. Methods and Results Serum levels of legumain were analyzed in 4883 patients with acute coronary syndrome from a substudy of the PLATO (Platelet Inhibition and Patient Outcomes) trial. Levels were analyzed at admission and after 1 month follow‐up. Associations between legumain and a composite of cardiovascular death, spontaneous myocardial infarction or stroke, and its individual components were assessed by multivariable Cox regression analyses. At baseline, a 50% increase in legumain level was associated with a hazard ratio (HR) of 1.13 (95% CI, 1.04–1.21), P=0.0018, for the primary composite end point, adjusted for randomized treatment. The association remained significant after adjustment for important clinical and demographic variables (HR, 1.10; 95% CI, 1.02–1.19; P=0.013) but not in the fully adjusted model. Legumain levels at 1 month were not associated with the composite end point but were negatively associated with stroke (HR, 0.62; 95% CI, 0.44–0.88; P=0.0069), including in the fully adjusted model (HR, 0.57; 95% CI, 0.37–0.88; P=0.0114). Conclusions Baseline legumain was associated with the primary outcome in patients with acute coronary syndrome, but not in the fully adjusted model. The association between high levels of legumain at 1 month and decreased occurrence of stroke could be of interest from a mechanistic point of view, illustrating the potential dual role of legumain during atherogenesis and acute coronary syndrome. Registration URL: https://www.clini​caltr​ials.gov; Unique identifier: NCT00391872

Assessment of reproducibility of thigh marker ranking during walking and landing tasks

NOTICE: this is the author’s version of a work that was accepted for publication in Medical Engineering and Physics. Changes resulting from the publishing process, such as peer review, editing, corrections, structural formatting, and other quality control mechanisms may not be reflected in this document. Changes may have been made to this work since it was submitted for publication. A definitive version was subsequently published in Medical Engineering and Physics, vol 34, issue 8, 2012 DOI: 10.1016/j.medengphy.2012.05.006The aim of this paper is to analyse the repeatability of marker deformation and marker ranking across subjects and motor tasks. A method based on the solidification of the thigh with optimized rototranslation was applied which used 26 markers placed on the left thigh. During five trials of landing and five trials of walking for eight participants, the deformation between the actual positions of the 26 markers and the recalled positions from solidification were calculated. Markers were then sorted and ranked from the most deformed to the least deformed. Like previous studies, marker deformation found in this paper is subject and movement-dependant. The reproducibility of the marker rankings was assessed using Kendall's coefficient of concordance. Results highlighted that the marker ranking was similar between the trials of landing and between the trials of walking. Moreover, for walking and landing the rankings were consistent across the eight subjects. © 2012 IPEM

New Place-to-Place Housing Price Indexes for U.S. Metropolitan Areas, and Their Determinants

Housing prices vary widely from market to market in the United States. The purpose of this study is to (1) construct new place-to-place indexes of the price of housing, using the 1990 Census, and (2) analyze the determinants of housing prices, with a particular focus on the supply side determinants-regulatory and natural constraint-as well as the usual demand determinants. Copyright American Real Estate and Urban Economics Association.