The additional value of patient-reported health status in predicting 1-year mortality after invasive coronary procedures: A report from the Euro Heart Survey on Coronary Revascularisation

Objective: Self-perceived health status may be helpful in identifying patients at high risk for adverse outcomes. The Euro Heart Survey on Coronary Revascularization (EHS-CR) provided an opportunity to explore whether impaired health status was a predictor of 1-year mortality in patients with coronary artery disease (CAD) undergoing angiographic procedures. Methods: Data from the EHS-CR that included 5619 patients from 31 member countries of the European Society of Cardiology were used. Inclusion criteria for the current study were completion of a self-report measure of health status, the EuroQol Questionnaire (EQ-5D) at discharge and information on 1-year follow-up, resulting in a study population of 3786 patients. Results: The 1-year mortality was 3.2% (n = 120). Survivors reported fewer problems on the five dimensions of the EQ-5D as compared with non-survivors. A broad range of potential confounders were adjusted for, which reached a p<0.10 in the unadjusted analyses. In the adjusted analyses, problems with self-care (OR 3.45; 95% CI 2.14 to 5.59) and a low rating (≤ 60) on health status (OR 2.41; 95% CI 1.47 to 3.94) were the most powerful independent predictors of mortality, among the 22 clinical variables included in the analysis. Furthermore, patients who reported no problems on all five dimensions had significantly lower 1-year mortality rates (OR 0.47; 95% CI 0.28 to 0.81). Conclusions: This analysis shows that impaired health status is associated with a 2-3-fold increased risk of all-cause mortality in patients with CAD, independent of other conventional risk factors. These results highlight the importance of including patients' subjective experience of their own health status in the evaluation strategy to optimise risk stratification and management in clinical practice

Etude électrochimique du système Zn-Se en milieu eutectique chlorure de choline-urée

Le présent travail porte sur l’étude de l’électrodéposition du système Zn-Se sur une électrode d’orpolycristallin (Au (poly)) en milieu chlorure de choline – urée (ChCl-U). Le choix de ZnSe est guidé par sesnombreuses applications optiques surtout dans les cellules solaires. Afin de mettre en évidence la formation d’un filmde Zn-Se par électrodéposition, différentes investigations électrochimiques ont été effectuées. La première étape desétudes a permis d’optimiser l’électrodéposition du sélénium par voltampérométrie cyclique à 110°C dans ChCl-U + 10mM SeO2 à v = 20 mV/s. Il s’en est suivi l’étude du comportement électrochimique du zinc en mettant l’accent sur latempérature, la concentration du précurseur et la vitesse de balayage. Cette étude a permis d’optimiser le dépôt de zincdans ChCl-U + 100 mM ZnO sur Au (poly) à 20 mV/s entre -1 et -1,5V. Enfin des mesures de voltampérométriecycliques ont permis de mettre en évidence les réponses électrochimiques obtenues en présence d’un mélange de ZnO etde SeO2 dissous à 110°C. L’analyse de ces données montre qu’un dépôt de composé binaire Zn-Se s’opère dans unegamme de potentiel bien précise comprise entre -0.4 V et -0.5V à des temps courts compris entre 30 et 300s.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishe

Clinical Cases : use of a low fat diet in hyperlipidaemic dogs

peer reviewe

Is it possible to obtain a coherent image of the texture of a porous material?

peer reviewedThis study consists in verifying the coherence of a few commonly used analysis methods of nitrogen adsorption-desorption isotherms. These methods were tested on model samples obtained by mechanically mixing two micro- and mesoporous solids respectively with known, mass proportions. Although the individual analysis methods may lead to discrepancies in the interpretation of the isotherms, their systematic comparison allows drawing a coherent picture of the porous texture

Growth and characterization of large, high quality MoSe2 single crystals

MoSe2 single crystals were grown by chemical vapor transport using TeCl4 as transport agents in the temperature gradient 1020-980°C. They were characterized by scanning electron microscopy (SEM), optical microscopy, image analysis coupled with SEM, microanalysis by SEM-EDX, X-ray fluorescence, inductively coupled plasma (ICP), X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) and electrical conductivity. The characterizations showed that single crystals are perfectly homogeneous, stoichiometric and have very few defects and clean surfaces with areas in the range of 35-100 mm2. Single crystals grown by TeCl4 showed a high electrical conductivity. Their properties were highly dependent on the quality of the polycrystalline powders used for the growth. © 2012 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.SCOPUS: ar.jinfo:eu-repo/semantics/publishe

Growth and characterization of WSe2 single crystals usingTeCl4 as transport agent

The growth of WSe2 single crystals, using TeCl4 as transport agent was performed successfully from slowly cooled polycrystalline powders as precursors. The resulting single crystals were characterized by X-ray diffraction (XRD) and their surfaces examined by scanning electron microscopy (SEM) presented fewer defects than single crystals prepared from air-quenched polycrystalline powders. Energy Dispersive X-ray microanalysis (EDX), inductively coupled plasma (ICP) spectroscopy and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) revealed that the single crystals are homogeneous and stoichiometric. Electrical conductivity and photocurrent measurements have confirmed the semiconducting character of the single crystals and a photocurrent of 75 mA cm^(-2) has been reached. In addition, single crystals with areas in the 25-100 mm2 range can be obtained under the reported growth conditions.SCOPUS: ar.jinfo:eu-repo/semantics/publishe

Suicide rates in the world: Update.

Carrington's comment on our article “Gender and the impact of gun control on homicide and suicide”, recently published in Archives of Suicide Research (1996,2,223-234), is a case of an additional statistical analysis technique on the data set. Carrington uses a statistical analysis of the regression slopes for pre- and post-regressions. We used a statistical package from Doan (1990) for time series regression, using the Cochrane-Orcutt technique to correct for serial autocorrelation. We could begin to critique Carrington's comment, for example, by noting that one would expect him to cite the test he is using and give further sources of the test. There are different tests of this sort and sometimes they yield different results. Of course, there is the ubiquitous issue of statistics in all of science, what tests to use. However, truthfully, we welcome Carrington's additional finding - both males and females benefitted from gun control by drops in suicide rates and homicide rates. This finding is in keeping with our view of the impact of environmental control for violence prevention (see special issue, Archives of Suicide Research, 1998, 4, No. 1). Thus, rather than respond further, we would like to present our own further analysis of the data in keeping with Stack's critique in Archives of Suicide Research (1998, 4) of the whole area in general. Stack argues that there is relatively little work testing sophisticated multivariate models that incorporate gun availability as one factor. The main problem according to Stack, is that we - and thus, Carrington - did not control for social economic changes in Canadian society which are co-variates of the passage of the gun control. © 1999 Kluwer Academic Publishers. All rights reserved