The management of acute venous thromboembolism in clinical practice. Results from the European PREFER in VTE Registry

Venous thromboembolism (VTE) is a significant cause of morbidity and mortality in Europe. Data from real-world registries are necessary, as clinical trials do not represent the full spectrum of VTE patients seen in clinical practice. We aimed to document the epidemiology, management and outcomes of VTE using data from a large, observational database. PREFER in VTE was an international, non-interventional disease registry conducted between January 2013 and July 2015 in primary and secondary care across seven European countries. Consecutive patients with acute VTE were documented and followed up over 12 months. PREFER in VTE included 3,455 patients with a mean age of 60.8 ± 17.0 years. Overall, 53.0 % were male. The majority of patients were assessed in the hospital setting as inpatients or outpatients (78.5 %). The diagnosis was deep-vein thrombosis (DVT) in 59.5 % and pulmonary embolism (PE) in 40.5 %. The most common comorbidities were the various types of cardiovascular disease (excluding hypertension; 45.5 %), hypertension (42.3 %) and dyslipidaemia (21.1 %). Following the index VTE, a large proportion of patients received initial therapy with heparin (73.2 %), almost half received a vitamin K antagonist (48.7 %) and nearly a quarter received a DOAC (24.5 %). Almost a quarter of all presentations were for recurrent VTE, with >80 % of previous episodes having occurred more than 12 months prior to baseline. In conclusion, PREFER in VTE has provided contemporary insights into VTE patients and their real-world management, including their baseline characteristics, risk factors, disease history, symptoms and signs, initial therapy and outcomes

Spectral upsampling approaches for RGB illumination

We present two practical approaches for high fidelity spectral upsampling of previously recorded RGB illumination in the form of an image-based representation such as an RGB light probe. Unlike previous approaches that require multiple measurements with a spectrometer or a reference color chart under a target illumination environment, our method requires no additional information for the spectral upsampling step. Instead, we construct a data-driven basis of spectral distributions for incident illumination from a set of six RGBW LEDs (three narrowband and three broadband) that we employ to represent a given RGB color using a convex combination of the six basis spectra. We propose two different approaches for estimating the weights of the convex combination using – (a) genetic algorithm, and (b) neural networks. We additionally propose a theoretical basis consisting of a set of narrow and broad Gaussians as a generalization of the approach, and also evaluate an alternate LED basis for spectral upsampling. We achieve good qualitative matches of the predicted illumination spectrum using our spectral upsampling approach to ground truth illumination spectrum while achieving near perfect matching of the RGB color of the given illumination in the vast majority of cases. We demonstrate that the spectrally upsampled RGB illumination can be employed for various applications including improved lighting reproduction as well as more accurate spectral rendering

Practical and scalable desktop-based high-quality facial capture

We present a novel desktop-based system for high-quality facial capture including geometry and facial appearance. The proposed acquisition system is highly practical and scalable, consisting purely of commodity components. The setup consists of a set of displays for con- trolled illumination for reflectance capture, in conjunction with multi- view acquisition of facial geometry. We additionally present a novel set of modulated binary illumination patterns for efficient acquisition of re- flectance and photometric normals using our setup, with diffuse-specular separation. We demonstrate high-quality results with two different vari- ants of the capture setup – one entirely consisting of portable mobile devices targeting static facial capture, and the other consisting of desk- top LCD displays targeting both static and dynamic facial capture

On the Acquisition and Reproduction of Material Appearance

Currently, new technologies (e.g. 2.5D and 3D printing processes) progress at a fast pace in their capacity to (re)produce an ever-broader range of visual aspects. At the same time, a huge research effort is needed to achieve a comprehensive scientific model for the visual sensations we experience in front of an object in its surrounding. Thanks to the projects MUVApp: Measuring and Understanding Visual Appearance funded by the Research Council of Norway, and ApPEARS: Appearance Printing—European Advanced Research School recently granted by the European Union, significant progress is being made on various topics related with acquisition and reproduction of material appearance, and also on the very understanding of appearance. This paper presents recent, ongoing, and planned research in this exciting field, with a specific emphasis on the MUVApp project

Hypertension and migraine comorbidity: prevalence and risk of cerebrovascular events: evidence from a large, multicenter, cross-sectional survey in Italy (MIRACLES study)

OBJECTIVES: To estimate the prevalence of hypertension-migraine comorbidity; to determine their demographic and clinical characteristics versus patients with hypertension or migraine alone; and to see whether a history of cerebrovascular events was more common in the comorbidity group. METHODS: The MIRACLES, multicenter, cross-sectional, survey included 2973 patients with a known diagnosis of hypertension or migraine in a general practitioner setting in Italy. RESULTS: Five hundred and seventeen patients (17%) suffered from hypertension-migraine comorbidity, whereas 1271 (43%) suffered from hypertension only, and 1185 (40%) from migraine only. In the comorbidity group, the onset of comorbidity occurred at about 45 years of age, with migraine starting significantly later than in the migraine-only group, and hypertension significantly before than in the hypertension-only group; a familial history of both hypertension and migraine had a significantly higher frequency as compared with the hypertension and migraine group. Compared to hypertension (3.1%) and migraine (0.7%), the comorbidity group had a higher prevalence (4.4%) of history of cerebrovascular events, with an odds ratio of a predicted history of stroke/transient ischemic attack (TIA) of 1.76 [95% confidence interval (CI) 1.01-3.07] compared to the hypertension group. In patients without other recognized risk factors for stroke, stroke/TIA occurred more frequently in the comorbidity group, compared to the hypertension group. In the age range 40-49 years, prevalence of history of stroke/TIA was five-fold greater (4.8% in comorbidity vs. 0.9% in hypertension group). CONCLUSION: This cross-sectional study indicates that the prevalence of comorbidity hypertension-migraine is substantial and that patients with comorbidity have a higher probability of history of cerebrovascular events, compared to hypertensive patient

The management of patients with venous thromboembolism in Italy: insights from the PREFER in VTE registry

Venous thromboembolism (VTE) is the third most common cardiovascular disease. Real-life data on the clinical presentation, risk factors, diagnosis, and treatment of VTE in Italy and Europe are required to optimize the management of this disease. The PREFER in VTE registry, a prospective non-interventional real-life study, was designed to assess clinical characteristics and management of patients with VTE, use of health care resources, and on-treatment patient quality of life. Eligible consecutive patients with objectively diagnosed VTE were enrolled in the registry and followed up for 12 months. Between January and December 2013, 816 Italian and 1027 patients from 6 European countries other than Italy (European patients) were enrolled in the registry, and followed up until December 2014. Italian patients were the oldest (mean age 65.7 years) among the European patients. The Italian patients with a history of cancer were 24.6 % of whom 63.2 % had an active cancer (18.2 and 57.0 %, respectively, in Europe). Parenteral heparin was given, as initial treatment, in 73.8 % of Italian patients (66.4 % in Europe); VKA in combination with other treatments in 45.8 % (34.7 % in Europe); and VKA as the only anticoagulant treatment in 24.4 % (17.2 % in Europe). Of the Italian patients, 43.2 and 90.6 % of patients were hospitalized for deep vein thrombosis and pulmonary embolism, respectively; 65.4 % were admitted to the hospital through the emergency department. Following a real world approach, PREFER in VTE shows that the Italian patients, among and compared to the European patients, are the oldest, have a history of cancer more commonly, receive an initial treatment with heparin more commonly, and are more commonly hospitalized, particularly if affected by PE