1,089 research outputs found
Treatment options for hypertension in high-risk patients
Patients are considered to be at high risk of cardiovascular events if they have diabetes, chronic kidney disease, stroke, established coronary artery disease, or a coronary artery disease equivalent. Blood pressure-lowering therapy has been shown to reduce cardiovascular events in these patients significantly. Identification of high-risk patients by global risk evaluation is recommended for every hypertensive patient. Treatment of hypertension in high-risk patients with an angiotensin-converting enzyme inhibitor or an angiotensin receptor antagonist, with or without addition of a dihydropyridine calcium channel antagonist, is a reasonable approach based on current clinical trials
Assessment of density functional methods with correct asymptotic behavior
Long-range corrected (LC) hybrid functionals and asymptotically corrected
(AC) model potentials are two distinct density functional methods with correct
asymptotic behavior. They are known to be accurate for properties that are
sensitive to the asymptote of the exchange-correlation potential, such as the
highest occupied molecular orbital energies and Rydberg excitation energies of
molecules. To provide a comprehensive comparison, we investigate the
performance of the two schemes and others on a very wide range of applications,
including the asymptote problems, self-interaction-error problems, energy-gap
problems, charge-transfer problems, and many others. The LC hybrid scheme is
shown to consistently outperform the AC model potential scheme. In addition, to
be consistent with the molecules collected in the IP131 database [Y.-S. Lin,
C.-W. Tsai, G.-D. Li, and J.-D. Chai, J. Chem. Phys., 2012, 136, 154109], we
expand the EA115 and FG115 databases to include, respectively, the vertical
electron affinities and fundamental gaps of the additional 16 molecules, and
develop a new database AE113 (113 atomization energies), consisting of accurate
reference values for the atomization energies of the 113 molecules in IP131.
These databases will be useful for assessing the accuracy of density functional
methods.Comment: accepted for publication in Phys. Chem. Chem. Phys., 46 pages, 4
figures, supplementary material include
Echocardiographic parameters versus CHA2DS2-VASc score in prediction of overall cardiac events, heart failure, and stroke in non-valvular atrial fibrillation
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Ā Background: Apart from stroke, atrial fibrillation (AF) is associated with higher mortality and heart failure (HF), in which risk stratification scheme is lacking. Therefore this investigation examined the prognostic value of echocardiographic predictors against CHA2DS2-VASc score in permanent non- -valvular AF (NVAF).
Methods: In 252 asymptomatic or mildly symptomatic consecutive patients with NVAF, comprehensive echocardiography was performed. Left atrial deformation parameters were also obtained by two-dimenĀsional speckle tracking echocardiography. End-points pertaining to HF deterioration, ischemic stroke and cardiac death were recorded.
Results: There were 74 cardiovascular events, including 44 deterioration of HF, 22 ischemic strokes and 8 cardiovascular deaths during an average follow-up period of 20.8 Ā± 13.5 months (interquartile range, 8ā31 months). For prediction of overall prognosis and HF, left ventricular mass index, peak early filling velocity (E), and E to tissue Doppler mitral annular early diastolic velocity ratio (E/eā) outperĀformed CHA2DS2-VASc score in multivariate analysis, area under curve, and stepwise nested regression models. Left ventricular hypertrophy and E/eā > 8 showed worse overall and heart-failure free survival in Kaplan-Meier curves. For prediction of ischemic stroke, the addition of E or E/eā to CHA2DS2-VASc score provides extra prognostic value.
Conclusions: Echocardiographic parameters offer incremental value over CHA2DS2-VASc score for prediction of future cardiac events in NVAF. (Cardiol J 2018; 25, 1: 60ā71
Behavioral investment strategy matters: a statistical arbitrage approach
In this study, we employ a statistical arbitrage approach to demonstrate that momentum investment strategy tend to work better in periods longer than six months, a result different from findings in past literature. Compared with standard parametric tests, the statistical arbitrage method produces more clearly that momentum strategies work only in longer
formation and holding periods. Also they yield positive significant returns in an up market, but negative yet insignificant returns in a down market. Disposition and over-confidence effects are important factors contributing
to the phenomenon. The over-confidence effect seems to dominate the disposition effect, especially in an up market. Moreover, the over-confidence investment behavior of institutional investors is the main cause for significant momentum returns observed in an up market. In a down market, the institutional investors tend to adopt a contrarian strategy while the individuals are still maintaining momentum behavior within shorter periods. The behavior difference between investor groups explains in part why momentum strategies work differently between up and down
market states. Robustness tests confirm that the momentum returns do not come from firm size, overlapping execution periods, market states definition or market frictions
Interference-Aware Deployment for Maximizing User Satisfaction in Multi-UAV Wireless Networks
In this letter, we study the deployment of Unmanned Aerial Vehicle mounted
Base Stations (UAV-BSs) in multi-UAV cellular networks. We model the multi-UAV
deployment problem as a user satisfaction maximization problem, that is,
maximizing the proportion of served ground users (GUs) that meet a given
minimum data rate requirement. We propose an interference-aware deployment
(IAD) algorithm for serving arbitrarily distributed outdoor GUs. The proposed
algorithm can alleviate the problem of overlapping coverage between adjacent
UAV-BSs to minimize inter-cell interference. Therefore, reducing co-channel
interference between UAV-BSs will improve user satisfaction and ensure that
most GUs can achieve the minimum data rate requirement. Simulation results show
that our proposed IAD outperforms comparative methods by more than 10% in user
satisfaction in high-density environments.Comment: 5 pages, 3 figures, to appear in IEEE Wireless Communications Letter
The Liquid Sensor Using Thin Film Bulk Acoustic Resonator with C-Axis Tilted AlN Films
Dual-mode thin film bulk acoustic resonator (TFBAR) devices are fabricated with c-axis tilted AlN films. To fabricate dual-mode TFBAR devices, the off-axis RF magnetron sputtering method for the growth of tilted piezoelectric AlN thin films is adopted. In this report, the AlN thin films are deposited with tilting angles of 15Ā° and 23Ā°. The frequency response of the TFBAR device with 23Ā° tilted AlN thin film is measured to reveal its ability to provide dual-mode resonance. The sensitivities of the longitudinal and shear modes to mass loading are calculated to be 2295āHzācm2/ng and 1363āHzācm2/ng with the mechanical quality factors of 480 and 287, respectively. The sensitivities of the longitudinal and shear modes are calculated to be 0 and 15āHzācm2/Ī¼g for liquid loading
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