No additional value of conventional and high-sensitivity cardiac troponin over clinical scoring systems in the differential diagnosis of type 1 versus type 2 myocardial infarction.

BACKGROUND: The distinction of type 1 and type 2 myocardial infarction (MI) is of major clinical importance. Our aim was to evaluate the diagnostic ability of absolute and relative conventional cardiac troponin I (cTnI) and high-sensitivity cardiac troponin T (hs-cTnT) in the distinction between type 1 and type 2 MI in patients presenting at the emergency department with non-ST-segment elevation acute chest pain within the first 12 h. METHODS: We measured cTnI (Dimension Vista) and hs-cTnT (Cobas e601) concentrations at presentation and after 4 h in 200 patients presenting with suspected acute MI. The final diagnosis, based on standard criteria, was adjudicated by two independent cardiologists. RESULTS: One hundred and twenty-five patients (62.5%)were classified as type 1 MI and 75 (37.5%) were type 2 MI. In a multivariable setting, age (relative risk [RR]=1.43, p=0.040), male gender (RR=2.22, p=0.040), T-wave inversion (RR=8.51, p<0.001), ST-segment depression (RR=8.71, p<0.001) and absolute delta hs-cTnT (RR=2.10, p=0.022) were independently associated with type 1 MI. In a receiver operating characteristic curve analysis, the discriminatory power of absolute delta cTnI and hs-cTnT was significantly higher compared to relative c-TnI and hs-cTnT changes. The additive information provided by cTnI and hs-cTnT over and above the information provided by the "clinical" model was only marginal. CONCLUSIONS: The diagnostic information provided by serial measurements of conventional or hs-cTnT is not better than that yielded by a simple clinical scoring model. Absolute changes are more informative than relative troponin changes

Active surveillance of bat rabies in France: A 5-year study (2004–2009)

Active surveillance of bats in France started in 2004 with an analysis of 18 of the 45 bat species reported in Europe. Rabies antibodies were detected in six indigenous species, mainly in Eptesicus serotinus and Myotis myotis, suggesting previous contact with the EBLV-1 rabies virus. Nineteen of the 177 tested bats were shown serologically positive in seven sites, particularly in central and south-western France. Neither infectious viral particles nor viral genomes were detected in 173 and 308 tested oral swabs, respectively. The presence of neutralising antibodies in female bats (18.6%) was significantly higher than in males (5.6%)

Eliminating Rabies in Estonia

The compulsory vaccination of pets, the recommended vaccination of farm animals in grazing areas and the extermination of stray animals did not succeed in eliminating rabies in Estonia because the virus was maintained in two main wildlife reservoirs, foxes and raccoon dogs. These two species became a priority target therefore in order to control rabies. Supported by the European Community, successive oral vaccination (OV) campaigns were conducted twice a year using Rabigen® SAG2 baits, beginning in autumn 2005 in North Estonia. They were then extended to the whole territory from spring 2006. Following the vaccination campaigns, the incidence of rabies cases dramatically decreased, with 266 cases in 2005, 114 in 2006, four in 2007 and three in 2008. Since March 2008, no rabies cases have been detected in Estonia other than three cases reported in summer 2009 and one case in January 2011, all in areas close to the South-Eastern border with Russia. The bait uptake was satisfactory, with tetracycline positivity rates ranging from 85% to 93% in foxes and from 82% to 88% in raccoon dogs. Immunisation rates evaluated by ELISA ranged from 34% to 55% in foxes and from 38% to 55% in raccoon dogs. The rabies situation in Estonia was compared to that of the other two Baltic States, Latvia and Lithuania. Despite regular OV campaigns conducted throughout their territory since 2006, and an improvement in the epidemiological situation, rabies has still not been eradicated in these countries. An analysis of the number of baits distributed and the funding allocated by the European Commission showed that the strategy for rabies control is more cost-effective in Estonia than in Latvia and Lithuania

Motion planning and control from temporal logic specifications with probabilistic satisfaction guarantees

Abstract — We present a computational framework for auto-matic deployment of a robot from a temporal logic specification over a set of properties of interest satisfied at the regions of a partitioned environment. We assume that, during the motion of the robot in the environment, the current region can be precisely determined, while due to sensor and actuation noise, the out-come of a control action can only be predicted probabilistically. Under these assumptions, the deployment problem translates to generating a control strategy for a Markov Decision Process (MDP) from a temporal logic formula. We propose an algorithm inspired from probabilistic Computation Tree Logic (PCTL) model checking to find a control strategy that maximizes the probability of satisfying the specification. We illustrate our method with simulation and experimental results. I

On Weakening Conditions for Discrete Maximum Principles for Linear Finite Element Schemes.

In this work we discuss weakening requirements on the set of sufficient conditions due to Ph. Ciarlet [4,5] for matrices associated to linear finite element schemes, which is commonly used for proving validity of discrete maximum principles (DMPs) for the second order elliptic problems. © Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2009

Lawra – linear algebra with recursive algorithms

Recursion leads to automatic variable blocking for dense linear‐algebra algorithms. The recursive way of programming algorithms eliminates using BLAS level 2 during the factorization steps. For this and other reasons recursion usually speeds up the algorithms. The Cholesky factorization algorithm for positive definite matrices and&nbsp;LU&nbsp;factorization for general matrices are formulated. Different storage data formats and recursive BLAS are explained in this paper. Performance graphes of packed and recursive Cholesky algorithms are presented. Lawra - rekursyviniai tiesinės algebros algoritmai Santrauka Rekursyviniai algoritmai leidžia automatiškai parinkti optimalu bloko dydi realizuojant tiesines algebros algoritmus su pilnomis matricomis. Naudojant rekursyvini programavima išvengiama BLAS bibliotekos antrojo lygio paprogramiu naudojimo vykdant faktorizaci‐jos cikla. Del šios ir kitu priežasčiu rekursyviniai algoritmai dažniausiai yra greitesni už standartinius tiesines algebros algoritmus. Straipsnyje pateikti Choleckio ir LU išskaidy‐mo rekursyviniai algoritmai. Apibrežti skirtingi rekursyviniai duomenu saugojimo formatai ir aprašytas naujas BLAS bibliotekos projektas. Pateikiami naujojo rekursyvinio Choleckio išskaidymo algoritmo efektyvumo tyrimo rezultatai, kurie buvo atlikti su ivairiu tipu kompiuteriais. First Published Online: 14 Oct 201