BP Reduction, Kidney Function Decline, and Cardiovascular Events in Patients without CKD.

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES: In the Systolic Blood Pressure Intervention Trial (SPRINT), intensive systolic BP treatment (target <120 mm Hg) was associated with fewer cardiovascular events and higher incidence of kidney function decline compared with standard treatment (target <140 mm Hg). We evaluated the association between mean arterial pressure reduction, kidney function decline, and cardiovascular events in patients without CKD. DESIGN, SETTING, PARTICIPANTS, & MEASUREMENTS: We categorized patients in the intensive treatment group of the SPRINT according to mean arterial pressure reduction throughout follow-up: <20, 20 to <40, and ≥40 mm Hg. We defined the primary outcome as kidney function decline (≥30% reduction in eGFR to <60 ml/min per 1.73 m2 on two consecutive determinations at 3-month intervals), and we defined the secondary outcome as cardiovascular events. In a propensity score analysis, patients in each mean arterial pressure reduction category from the intensive treatment group were matched with patients from the standard treatment group to calculate the number needed to treat regarding cardiovascular events and the number needed to harm regarding kidney function decline. RESULTS: In the intensive treatment group, 1138 (34%) patients attained mean arterial pressure reduction <20 mm Hg, 1857 (56%) attained 20 to <40 mm Hg, and 309 (9%) attained ≥40 mm Hg. Adjusted hazard ratios for kidney function decline were 2.10 (95% confidence interval, 1.22 to 3.59) for mean arterial pressure reduction between 20 and 40 mm Hg and 6.22 (95% confidence interval, 2.75 to 14.08) for mean arterial pressure reduction ≥40 mm Hg. In propensity score analysis, mean arterial pressure reduction <20 mm Hg presented a number needed to treat of 44 and a number needed to harm of 65, reduction between 20 and <40 mm Hg presented a number needed to treat of 42 and a number needed to harm of 35, and reduction ≥40 mm Hg presented a number needed to treat of 95 and a number needed to harm of 16. CONCLUSIONS: In the intensive treatment group of SPRINT, larger declines in mean arterial pressure were associated with higher incidence of kidney function decline. Intensive treatment seemed to be less favorable when a larger reduction in mean arterial pressure was needed to attain the BP target.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Information entropy of classical versus explosive percolation

We study the Shannon entropy of the cluster size distribution in classical as well as explosive percolation, in order to estimate the uncertainty in the sizes of randomly chosen clusters. At the critical point the cluster size distribution is a power-law, i.e. there are clusters of all sizes, so one expects the information entropy to attain a maximum. As expected, our results show that the entropy attains a maximum at this point for classical percolation. Surprisingly, for explosive percolation the maximum entropy does not match the critical point. Moreover, we show that it is possible determine the critical point without using the conventional order parameter, just analysing the entropy's derivatives.Comment: 6 pages, 6 figure

Ion motion in the wake driven by long particle bunches in plasmas

We explore the role of the background plasma ion motion in self-modulated plasma wakefield accelerators. We employ J. Dawson's plasma sheet model to derive expressions for the transverse plasma electric field and ponderomotive force in the narrow bunch limit. We use these results to determine the on-set of the ion dynamics, and demonstrate that the ion motion could occur in self-modulated plasma wakefield accelerators. Simulations show the motion of the plasma ions can lead to the early suppression of the self-modulation instability and of the accelerating fields. The background plasma ion motion can nevertheless be fully mitigated by using plasmas with heavier plasmas.Comment: 23 pages, 6 figure

Optimization conditions of UV-C radiation combined with ultrasound-assisted extraction of cherry tomato (Lycopersicon esculentum) lycopene extract

The aim of this work was to study the effect of UV-C radiation on ultrasound assisted extraction (UAE) of cherry tomato bioactive compounds. Cherry tomatoes were exposed to two UV-C radiation doses (0.5 and 1.0 J cm−2 ) and stored at 20 ± 0.5 oC for 7 days. Next, they were lyophilized, and the bioactive compounds were extracted by UAE at 20 KHz. To evaluate the effectiveness of the extraction process of the bioactive compounds, a CCRD (central composite rotational design) was used together with RSM (response surface methodology), for extraction times from 4 to 12 minutes and concentrations (g of lyophilized product / L of ethanol) of 1:10, 1:20 and 1:30. The extracts obtained from the irradiated tomatoes presented 5.8 times more lycopene content than the controls and higher antioxidant activity was obtained for 4 and 8 min, in the concentrations 1:10 and 1:20 (m v−1). Through numerical model optimization, optimal extraction conditions were obtained. The results demonstrated that by previously irradiating tomatoes with UV-C light, the UAE yielded considerably higher amounts of lycopene and other bioactives.CNPq (National Council of Technological and Scientific Development, Brazil), Erasmus Mundus action 2; Fellow Mundus Project; Department of Chemical Engineering and Food Engineering (UFSC - Brazil) and the Department of Food Engineering (UAlg - Portugal) .info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Modelling radiation emission in the transition from the classical to the quantum regime

An emissivity formula is derived using the generalised Fermi-Weizacker-Williams method of virtual photons which accounts for the recoil the charged particle experiences as it emits radiation. It is found that through this derivation the formula obtained by Sokolov et al using QED perturbation theory is recovered. The corrected emissivity formula is applied to nonlinear Thomson scattering scenarios in the transition from the classical to the quantum regime, for small values of the nonlinear quantum parameter \chi. Good agreement is found between this method and a QED probabilistic approach for scenarios where both are valid. In addition, signatures of the quantum corrections are identified and explored.Comment: 11 pages, 4 figures, submitted for publicatio

A Method for Individual Source Brightness Estimation in Single- and Multi-band Data

We present a method of reliably extracting the flux of individual sources from sky maps in the presence of noise and a source population in which number counts are a steeply falling function of flux. The method is an extension of a standard Bayesian procedure in the millimeter/submillimeter literature. As in the standard method, the prior applied to source flux measurements is derived from an estimate of the source counts as a function of flux, dN/dS. The key feature of the new method is that it enables reliable extraction of properties of individual sources, which previous methods in the literature do not. We first present the method for extracting individual source fluxes from data in a single observing band, then we extend the method to multiple bands, including prior information about the spectral behavior of the source population(s). The multi-band estimation technique is particularly relevant for classifying individual sources into populations according to their spectral behavior. We find that proper treatment of the correlated prior information between observing bands is key to avoiding significant biases in estimations of multi-band fluxes and spectral behavior, biases which lead to significant numbers of misclassified sources. We test the single- and multi-band versions of the method using simulated observations with observing parameters similar to that of the South Pole Telescope data used in Vieira, et al. (2010).Comment: 11 emulateapj pages, 3 figures, revised to match published versio