Recurrent miscarriage and the subsequent risk of cardiovascular disease

Cardiovascular disease (CVD) is the leading cause of  death in women in the Western world. In this thesis, several studies are presented examining the association between recurrent miscarriage and cardiovascular disease. Main aim of this thesis was to assess whether miscarriages are independently associated with an increased risk of cardiovascular disease later in life. And, if this was true, to identify cardiovascular risk factors and predict long term cardiovascular disease risk in women with a history of recurrent miscarriage. We found an increased risk of ischemic heart disease in women with a history of two (multivariate analysis HR 1.82) and three or more miscarriages (HR 3.18), irrespective whether consecutive or not (chapter 2). Women with a history of recurrent miscarriage have significantly higher 10- and 30-year cardiovascular risk scores compared to women with a history of no miscarriage. These results indicate an opportunity for the early identification of women prone to cardiovascular disease later in life. Women with a history of two or more miscarriages must be made aware of their increased cardiovascular risk and appropriate risk factor modifications will have to be offered, for example life style advises; weight management and smoking control. LUMC / Geneeskunde Repositoriu

Towards Normalizing the Edit Distance Using a Genetic Algorithms Based Scheme

The normalized edit distance is one of the distances derived from the edit distance. It is useful in some applications because it takes into account the lengths of the two strings compared. The normalized edit distance is not defined in terms of edit operations but rather in terms of the edit path. In this paper we propose a new derivative of the edit distance that also takes into consideration the lengths of the two strings, but the new distance is related directly to the edit distance. The particularity of the new distance is that it uses the genetic algorithms to set the values of the parameters it uses. We conduct experiments to test the new distance and we obtain promising results.Comment: The 8th International Conference on Advanced Data Mining and Applications (ADMA 2012

Topotecan distribution in an anephric infant with therapy resistant bilateral Wilms tumor with a novel germline WT1 gene mutation

The therapeutic strategy for bilateral Wilms tumor (WT) remains a challenge. Especially in cases with chemotherapy resistant disease, bilateral nephrectomy is sometimes inevitable. For optimal cure rates stage V WT patients benefit from adjuvant treatment; however, there are limited data available on chemotherapy pharmacokinetics in anephric children. In this report, we describe a 10-month old girl with bilateral Wilms tumor and a novel germline WT1 gene mutation. This patient hardly showed any response on preoperative chemotherapy, and ultimately, underwent sequential bilateral tumor-nephrectomy. Subsequently, during peritoneal dialysis, she received topotecan as adjuvant chemotherapy based on plasma levels, indicating that this is a reasonable option as adjuvant treatment in therapy-resistant Wilms tumor patients after bilateral nephrectomy. This case showed a novel germline WT1 gene mutation of which the correlation with resistant phenotype has to be confirmed in larger cohorts of WT patients

Non-Arrhenius Behavior of Secondary Relaxation in Supercooled Liquids

Dielectric relaxation spectroscopy (1 Hz - 20 GHz) has been performed on supercooled glass-formers from the temperature of glass transition (T_g) up to that of melting. Precise measurements particularly in the frequencies of MHz-order have revealed that the temperature dependences of secondary beta-relaxation times deviate from the Arrhenius relation in well above T_g. Consequently, our results indicate that the beta-process merges into the primary alpha-mode around the melting temperature, and not at the dynamical transition point T which is approximately equal to 1.2 T_g.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figures, revtex

Low Energy Analyzing Powers in Pion-Proton Elastic Scattering

Analyzing powers of pion-proton elastic scattering have been measured at PSI with the Low Energy Pion Spectrometer LEPS as well as a novel polarized scintillator target. Angular distributions between 40 and 120 deg (c.m.) were taken at 45.2, 51.2, 57.2, 68.5, 77.2, and 87.2 MeV incoming pion kinetic energy for pi+ p scattering, and at 67.3 and 87.2 MeV for pi- p scattering. These new measurements constitute a substantial extension of the polarization data base at low energies. Predictions from phase shift analyses are compared with the experimental results, and deviations are observed at low energies.Comment: 15 pages, 4 figure

Universal behavior of localization of residue fluctuations in globular proteins

Localization properties of residue fluctuations in globular proteins are studied theoretically by using the Gaussian network model. Participation ratio for each residue fluctuation mode is calculated. It is found that the relationship between participation ratio and frequency is similar for all globular proteins, indicating a universal behavior in spite of their different size, shape, and architecture.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figures. To appear in Phys. Rev.

Relativistic versus Nonrelativistic Optical Potentials in A(e,e'p)B Reactions

We investigate the role of relativistic and nonrelativistic optical potentials used in the analysis of ($e,e'p$) data. We find that the relativistic calculations produce smaller ($e,e'p$) cross sections even in the case in which both relativistic and nonrelativistic optical potentials fit equally well the elastic proton--nucleus scattering data. Compared to the nonrelativistic impulse approximation, this effect is due to a depletion in the nuclear interior of the relativistic nucleon current, which should be taken into account in the nonrelativistic treatment by a proper redefinition of the effective current operator.Comment: Added one new figure, the formalism section has been enlarged and the list of references updated. Added one appendix. This version will appear in Phys. Rev. C. Revtex 3.0, 6 figures (not included). Full postscript version of the file and figures available at http://www.nikhefk.nikhef.nl/projects/Theory/preprints

Comparing the effectiveness and cost-effectiveness of self-management interventions in four high-priority chronic conditions in Europe (COMPAR-EU): a research protocol

Introduction Population ageing and increasing chronic illness burden have sparked interest in innovative care models. While self-management interventions (SMIs) are drawing increasing attention, evidence of their efficacy is mostly based on pairwise meta-analysis, generally derived from randomised controlled trials comparing interventions versus a control or no intervention. As such, relevant efficacy data for comparisons among dif