34,125 research outputs found
Recommended from our members
Metabolic syndrome does not affect sustained virologic response of direct-acting antivirals while hepatitis C clearance improves hemoglobin A1c.
AimTo determine whether successful treatment with directacting antivirals (DAA) is associated with improvements in hemoglobin A1c (HbA1c) and if type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) or metabolic syndrome affects sustained virologic response (SVR).MethodsWe performed a retrospective analysis of all hepatitis C virus (HCV) patients at the VA Greater Los Angeles Healthcare System treated with varying DAA therapy between 2014-2016. Separate multivariable logistic regression was performed to determine predictors of HbA1c decrease ≥ 0.5 after DAA treatment and predictors of SVR 12-wk post treatment (SVR12).ResultsA total of 1068 patients were treated with DAA therapy between 2014-2016. The presence of T2DM or metabolic syndrome did not adversely affect SVR12. 106 patients had both HCV and T2DM. Within that cohort, patients who achieved SVR12 had lower mean HbA1c pre treatment (7.35 vs 8.60, P = 0.02), and lower mean HbA1c post-treatment compared to non-responders (6.55 vs 8.61, P = 0.01). The mean reduction in HbA1c after treatment was greater for those who achieved SVR12 than for non-responders (0.79 vs 0.01, P = 0.03). In adjusted models, patients that achieved SVR12 were more likely to have a HbA1c decrease of ≥ 0.5 than those that did not achieve SVR12 (adjusted OR = 7.24, 95%CI: 1.22-42.94).ConclusionIn HCV patients with T2DM, successful treatment with DAA was associated with a significant reduction in HbA1c suggesting that DAA may have a role in improving insulin sensitivity. Furthermore, the presence of T2DM or metabolic syndrome does not adversely affect SVR12 rates in patients treated with DAA
Rice seed quality development and temperature during late development and maturation
The potential longevity of japonica rice (Oryza sativa L.
subsp. japonica) seed is particularly sensitive to high
temperature – and thus climate change – during
development and maturation. Cultivar Taipei 309 was
grown at 28/208C (12 h/12 h) and then from 19 DAA
(days after 50% anthesis), when seeds were just over
half filled, at 28/208C, 30/228C, 32/248C or 34/268C
(12 h/12 h). Whereas ability to germinate ex planta had
been achieved in almost all seeds by 24 DAA, only half
the population were desiccation tolerant. Desiccation
tolerance continued to increase over the subsequent
28 d, similarly at all four temperatures. Subsequent
longevity, assessed by p50 (period in days to reduce
viability to 50% in hermetic storage at 408C with c. 15%
moisture content), increased progressively at 28/208C
until 38 DAA, and remained constant until the final
harvest (52 DAA). The three warmer temperature
regimes provided similar longevity to 28/208C at any
one harvest, except at 38 DAA where the warmest
(34/268C) was poorer. That temperature regime also
provided greater seed-to-seed variability within each
survival curve. The results confirm that appreciable
improvement in seed quality occurs during seed
development and also subsequent maturation in
japonica rice, but that increase in temperature from
28/208C to 34/268C during late seed filling onwards has
comparatively little effect thereon. Comparison with
previous investigations suggests that seed quality
development may be less sensitive to high temperatures
during late development and maturation than
during the early seed development that precedes it
Directed abelian algebras and their applications to stochastic models
To each directed acyclic graph (this includes some D-dimensional lattices)
one can associate some abelian algebras that we call directed abelian algebras
(DAA). On each site of the graph one attaches a generator of the algebra. These
algebras depend on several parameters and are semisimple. Using any DAA one can
define a family of Hamiltonians which give the continuous time evolution of a
stochastic process. The calculation of the spectra and ground state
wavefunctions (stationary states probability distributions) is an easy
algebraic exercise. If one considers D-dimensional lattices and choose
Hamiltonians linear in the generators, in the finite-size scaling the
Hamiltonian spectrum is gapless with a critical dynamic exponent . One
possible application of the DAA is to sandpile models. In the paper we present
this application considering one and two dimensional lattices. In the one
dimensional case, when the DAA conserves the number of particles, the
avalanches belong to the random walker universality class (critical exponent
). We study the local densityof particles inside large
avalanches showing a depletion of particles at the source of the avalanche and
an enrichment at its end. In two dimensions we did extensive Monte-Carlo
simulations and found .Comment: 14 pages, 9 figure
Combination interventions for Hepatitis C and Cirrhosis reduction among people who inject drugs: An agent-based, networked population simulation experiment
Hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection is endemic in people who inject drugs
(PWID), with prevalence estimates above 60 percent for PWID in the United
States. Previous modeling studies suggest that direct acting antiviral (DAA)
treatment can lower overall prevalence in this population, but treatment is
often delayed until the onset of advanced liver disease (fibrosis stage 3 or
later) due to cost. Lower cost interventions featuring syringe access (SA) and
medically assisted treatment (MAT) for addiction are known to be less costly,
but have shown mixed results in lowering HCV rates below current levels. Little
is known about the potential synergistic effects of combining DAA and MAT
treatment, and large-scale tests of combined interventions are rare. While
simulation experiments can reveal likely long-term effects, most prior
simulations have been performed on closed populations of model agents--a
scenario quite different from the open, mobile populations known to most health
agencies. This paper uses data from the Centers for Disease Control's National
HIV Behavioral Surveillance project, IDU round 3, collected in New York City in
2012 by the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene to
parameterize simulations of open populations. Our results show that, in an open
population, SA/MAT by itself has only small effects on HCV prevalence, while
DAA treatment by itself can significantly lower both HCV and HCV-related
advanced liver disease prevalence. More importantly, the simulation experiments
suggest that cost effective synergistic combinations of the two strategies can
dramatically reduce HCV incidence. We conclude that adopting SA/MAT
implementations alongside DAA interventions can play a critical role in
reducing the long-term consequences of ongoing infection
Access and response to direct antiviral agents (DAA) in HIV-HCV co-infected patients in Italy: Data from the Icona cohort
Background Real-life data on access and response to direct antiviral agents (DAA) in HIV-HCV coinfected individuals are lacking. Methods HCV viremic, HIV-positive patients from Icona and Hepaicona cohorts nave to DAA by January 2013 were included. Access and predictors of starting DAA were evaluated. Switches of antiretroviral drugs at starting DAA were described. We calculated sustained virological response (SVR12) in those reaching 12 weeks after end-of-treatment (EOT), and defined treatment failure (TF) as discontinuation of DAA before EOT or non-SVR12. Statistical analyses included Kaplan-Meier curves, univariable and multivariable analyses evaluating predictors of access to DAA and of treatment outcome (non-SVR and TF). Results 2,607 patients included. During a median follow-up of 38 (IQR:30-41) months, 920 (35.3%) patients started DAA. Eligibility for reimbursement was the strongest predictor to access to treatment: 761/1,090 (69.8%) eligible and 159/1,517 (10.5%) non-eligible to DAA reimbursement. Older age, HIV-RNA50 copies/mL were associated to faster DAA initiation, higher CD4 count and HCV-genotype 3 with delayed DAA initiation in those eligible to DAA reimbursement. Up to 28% of patients (36% of those on ritonavir-boosted protease inhibitors, PI/r) underwent antiretroviral (ART) modification at DAA initiation. 545/595 (91.6%) patients reaching EOT achieved SVR12. Overall, TF occurred in 61/606 patients (10.1%), with 11 discontinuing DAA before EOT. Suboptimal DAA was the only independent predictor of both non-SVR12 (AHR 2.52, 95%CI:1.24-5.12) and TF (AHR: 2.19; 95%CI:1.13-4.22). Conclusions Only 35.3% had access to HCV treatment. Despite excellent rates of SVR12 rates (91.6%), only 21% (545/2,607) of our HIV-HCV co-infected patients are cured. © 2017 d'Arminio Monforte et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited
Anonymous attestation with user-controlled linkability
This paper is motivated by the observation that existing security models for direct anonymous attestation (DAA) have problems to the extent that insecure protocols may be deemed secure when analysed under these models. This is particularly disturbing as DAA is one of the few complex cryptographic protocols resulting from recent theoretical advances actually deployed in real life. Moreover, standardization bodies are currently looking into designing the next generation of such protocols. Our first contribution is to identify issues in existing models for DAA and explain how these errors allow for proving security of insecure protocols. These issues are exhibited in all deployed and proposed DAA protocols (although they can often be easily fixed). Our second contribution is a new security model for a class of "pre-DAA scheme", that is, DAA schemes where the computation on the user side takes place entirely on the trusted platform. Our model captures more accurately than any previous model the security properties demanded from DAA by the trusted computing group (TCG), the group that maintains the DAA standard. Extending the model from pre-DAA to full DAA is only a matter of refining the trust models on the parties involved. Finally, we present a generic construction of a DAA protocol from new building blocks tailored for anonymous attestation. Some of them are new variations on established ideas and may be of independent interest. We give instantiations for these building blocks that yield a DAA scheme more efficient than the one currently deployed, and as efficient as the one about to be standardized by the TCG which has no valid security proof. © 2013 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg
- …