717 research outputs found
Evaluating the impact of financing structure decisions on FTTH deployment: a comparison between New Zealand and Europe
Measuring quality of life in rheumatic conditions
Musculoskeletal disorders often have associated pain, functional impairment and work disability, and, not surprisingly, are the most common reasons for utilizing healthcare resources. Rheumatoid arthritis (RA) and fibromyalgia (FM) are causes of musculoskeletal pain and disability. Research indicates that there is a widespread impact of RA and FM on physical, psychological and social factors in affected individuals, and thus, outcome measures that encompass multiple aspects of quality of life are needed. Generic measures of quality of life identify associations between physical conditions and mental health and highlight the need to address psychological functioning to ultimately improve the individuals’ quality of life
Warfarin Genotyping Reduces Hospitalization Rates Results From the MM-WES (Medco-Mayo Warfarin Effectiveness Study)
ObjectivesThis study was designed to determine whether genotype testing for patients initiating warfarin treatment will reduce the incidence of hospitalizations, including those due to bleeding or thromboembolism.BackgroundGenotypic variations in CYP2C9and VKORC1have been shown to predict warfarin dosing, but no large-scale studies have prospectively evaluated the clinical effectiveness of genotyping in naturalistic settings across the U.S.MethodsThis national, prospective, comparative effectiveness study compared the 6-month incidence of hospitalization in patients receiving warfarin genotyping (n = 896) versus a matched historical control group (n = 2,688). To evaluate for temporal changes in the outcomes of warfarin treatment, a secondary analysis compared outcomes for 2 external control groups drawn from the same 2 time periods.ResultsCompared with the historical control group, the genotyped cohort had 31% fewer hospitalizations overall (adjusted hazard ratio [HR]: 0.69, 95% confidence interval [CI]: 0.58 to 0.82, p < 0.001) and 28% fewer hospitalizations for bleeding or thromboembolism (HR: 0.72, 95% CI: 0.53 to 0.97, p = 0.029) during the 6-month follow-up period. Findings from a per-protocol analysis were even stronger: 33% lower risk of all-cause hospitalization (HR: 0.67, 95% CI: 0.55 to 0.81, p < 0.001) and 43% lower risk of hospitalization for bleeding or thromboembolism (HR: 0.57, 95% CI: 0.39 to 0.83, p = 0.003) in patients who were genotyped. During the same period, there was no difference in outcomes between the 2 external control groups.ConclusionsWarfarin genotyping reduced the risk of hospitalization in outpatients initiating warfarin. (The Clinical and Economic Impact of Pharmacogenomic Testing of Warfarin Therapy in Typical Community Practice Settings [MHSMayoWarf1]; NCT00830570
Recent changes in the surface salinity of the North Atlantic subpolar gyre
Sea surface salinity (SSS) was measured since 1896 along 60°N between Greenland and the North Sea and since 1993 between Iceland and Newfoundland. Along 60°N away from the shelves, and north of 53°N, the amplitude of the seasonal cycle is comparable to or less than interannual variability. In these parts of the North Atlantic subpolar gyre, large-scale deviations from the seasonal cycle correlate from one season to the next. This suggests that in these regions, summer and autumn surface data are useful for monitoring changes in upper ocean salinity best diagnosed from less common winter surface data. Further south near the subarctic front, the Labrador Current or near shelves where seasonal variability is strong, this is not the case. Along 60°N, the multiannual low-frequency variability is well correlated across the basin and exhibits fresher surface water since the mid 1970s than in the late 1920s to 1960s. SSS in the Irminger Sea along 60°N lags by 1-year SSS farther east in the Iceland Basin. Variability between Iceland and Newfoundland within the Irminger Sea north of 54°N presents similar characteristics to what is observed along 60°N. Variability near the northwest corner of the North Atlantic Current (52°N/45°W) is larger and is not correlated to what is found further north. Maps of SSS were constructed for a few recent seasons between July 1996 and June 2000, which illustrate the fresh conditions found usually during that period across the whole North Atlantic subpolar gyre, although this includes an episode of higher salinity. The SSS anomaly maps have large uncertainties but suggest that the highest SSS occurred before the spring of 1998 in the Iceland Basin, and after that, in the Irminger Sea. This is followed by fresher conditions, first in the Labrador and Iceland Basin, reaching recently the Irminger Sea
Techno-economic benchmarking of NOBEL solutions for end-to-end broadband communications (invited paper)
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Predicting Early Mortality Among Implantable Defibrillator Patients Treated With Cardiac Resynchronization Therapy
Background: The beneficial effects of a cardiac resynchronization defibrillator (CRT-D) in patients with heart failure, low left ventricular ejection fraction (LVEF), and wide QRS have clearly been established. Nevertheless, mortality r
Swept under the carpet? The role of mucociliary clearance in ventilator-induced lung injury
A Research Agenda for Hybrid Intelligence: Augmenting Human Intellect With Collaborative, Adaptive, Responsible, and Explainable Artificial Intelligence
The State of the Art in Multilayer Network Visualization
Modelling relationships between entities in real-world systems with a simple
graph is a standard approach. However, reality is better embraced as several
interdependent subsystems (or layers). Recently the concept of a multilayer
network model has emerged from the field of complex systems. This model can be
applied to a wide range of real-world datasets. Examples of multilayer networks
can be found in the domains of life sciences, sociology, digital humanities and
more. Within the domain of graph visualization there are many systems which
visualize datasets having many characteristics of multilayer graphs. This
report provides a state of the art and a structured analysis of contemporary
multilayer network visualization, not only for researchers in visualization,
but also for those who aim to visualize multilayer networks in the domain of
complex systems, as well as those developing systems across application
domains. We have explored the visualization literature to survey visualization
techniques suitable for multilayer graph visualization, as well as tools,
tasks, and analytic techniques from within application domains. This report
also identifies the outstanding challenges for multilayer graph visualization
and suggests future research directions for addressing them
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