Performance Evaluation of the VB-TDMA Protocol for Long-term Tracking and Monitoring of Mobile Entities in the Outdoors

The Virtual Beacon-Time Division Multiple Access (VB-TDMA) communication protocol has been proposed in [12] for a growing class of applications which require GPS tracking of autonomous mobile entities in the outdoors, and the long-term continuous monitoring of their contextual information using wireless sensors. Examples include monitoring animal behaviour in their natural habitat over the annual cycle, tracking shipping containers during their life-cycle of transit, loading/unloading and storage, and the handling of high-value packages during transportation. This paper employs simulations to evaluate the network performance of the VB-TDMA communication protocol in a representative scenario involving wild horses attached with collars, each containing a custom-designed platform with a three-axis accelerometer, a GPS module and ancillary electronics and battery, which uploads wirelessly to static base-stations, its position (sensed thrice an hour) and a summary of its activities between uploads. The simulations benefited from movement models derived from real data obtained from a long-term deployment of the collars on wild horses in the Donana National Park in south-west Spain. Comparisons with other MAC protocols have demonstrated the superior performance of the VB-TDMA protocol over a range of metrics for the representative example. An enhanced version of the VB-TDMA protocol - a multi-hop variant - is introduced for low latency requirements and was simulated for an urban scenario of bicycles fitted with sensors for crowd-sourcing spatio-temporal air quality information along the route of travel which is uploaded to the server when within range of static base-stations, for cases where low latency data upload is a requirement to enable access to the latest air quality information

Correlative study of structural and optical properties of ZnSe under severe plastic deformation

The effect of plastic deformation on the optical and structural properties of ZnSe crystals has been investigated. The optical properties have been monitored by cathodoluminescence measurements as a function of the deformation degree. Remarkable differences in the defect-related emissions from the most severely deformed areas have been encountered. Deformation of the crystal lattice of ZnSe, associated with slip phenomena, has been studied by means of Electron Backscattered Diffraction and micro-Raman spectroscopy. The relation between the deformation and the optical properties of the ZnSe crystals has been described

Cause of Death and Predictors of All-Cause Mortality in Anticoagulated Patients With Nonvalvular Atrial Fibrillation : Data From ROCKET AF

M. Kaste on työryhmän ROCKET AF Steering Comm jäsen.Background-Atrial fibrillation is associated with higher mortality. Identification of causes of death and contemporary risk factors for all-cause mortality may guide interventions. Methods and Results-In the Rivaroxaban Once Daily Oral Direct Factor Xa Inhibition Compared with Vitamin K Antagonism for Prevention of Stroke and Embolism Trial in Atrial Fibrillation (ROCKET AF) study, patients with nonvalvular atrial fibrillation were randomized to rivaroxaban or dose-adjusted warfarin. Cox proportional hazards regression with backward elimination identified factors at randomization that were independently associated with all-cause mortality in the 14 171 participants in the intention-to-treat population. The median age was 73 years, and the mean CHADS(2) score was 3.5. Over 1.9 years of median follow-up, 1214 (8.6%) patients died. Kaplan-Meier mortality rates were 4.2% at 1 year and 8.9% at 2 years. The majority of classified deaths (1081) were cardiovascular (72%), whereas only 6% were nonhemorrhagic stroke or systemic embolism. No significant difference in all-cause mortality was observed between the rivaroxaban and warfarin arms (P=0.15). Heart failure (hazard ratio 1.51, 95% CI 1.33-1.70, P= 75 years (hazard ratio 1.69, 95% CI 1.51-1.90, P Conclusions-In a large population of patients anticoagulated for nonvalvular atrial fibrillation, approximate to 7 in 10 deaths were cardiovascular, whereasPeer reviewe

Incidence of cancer and overall risk of mortality in individuals treated with raltegravir-based and non-raltegravir-based combination antiretroviral therapy regimens

Objectives: There are currently few data on the long-term risk of cancer and death in individuals taking raltegravir (RAL). The aim of this analysis was to evaluate whether there is evidence for an association. Methods: The EuroSIDA cohort was divided into three groups: those starting RAL-based combination antiretroviral therapy (cART) on or after 21 December 2007 (RAL); a historical cohort (HIST) of individuals adding a new antiretroviral (ARV) drug (not RAL) to their cART between 1 January 2005 and 20 December 2007, and a concurrent cohort (CONC) of individuals adding a new ARV drug (not RAL) to their cART on or after 21 December 2007. Baseline characteristics were compared using logistic regression. The incidences of newly diagnosed malignancies and death were compared using Poisson regression. Results: The RAL cohort included 1470 individuals [with 4058 person-years of follow-up (PYFU)] compared with 3787 (4472 PYFU) and 4467 (10 691 PYFU) in the HIST and CONC cohorts, respectively. The prevalence of non-AIDS-related malignancies prior to baseline tended to be higher in the RAL cohort vs. the HIST cohort [adjusted odds ratio (aOR) 1.31; 95% confidence interval (CI) 0.95–1.80] and vs. the CONC cohort (aOR 1.89; 95% CI 1.37–2.61). In intention-to-treat (ITT) analysis (events: RAL, 50; HIST, 45; CONC, 127), the incidence of all new malignancies was 1.11 (95% CI 0.84–1.46) per 100 PYFU in the RAL cohort vs. 1.20 (95% CI 0.90–1.61) and 0.83 (95% CI 0.70–0.99) in the HIST and CONC cohorts, respectively. After adjustment, there was no evidence for a difference in the risk of malignancies [adjusted rate ratio (RR) 0.73; 95% CI 0.47–1.14 for RALvs. HIST; RR 0.95; 95% CI 0.65–1.39 for RALvs. CONC] or mortality (adjusted RR 0.87; 95% CI 0.53–1.43 for RALvs. HIST; RR 1.14; 95% CI 0.76–1.72 for RALvs. CONC). Conclusions: We found no evidence for an oncogenic risk or poorer survival associated with using RAL compared with control groups.Peer reviewe

Antiinflammatory Therapy with Canakinumab for Atherosclerotic Disease

Background: Experimental and clinical data suggest that reducing inflammation without affecting lipid levels may reduce the risk of cardiovascular disease. Yet, the inflammatory hypothesis of atherothrombosis has remained unproved. Methods: We conducted a randomized, double-blind trial of canakinumab, a therapeutic monoclonal antibody targeting interleukin-1β, involving 10,061 patients with previous myocardial infarction and a high-sensitivity C-reactive protein level of 2 mg or more per liter. The trial compared three doses of canakinumab (50 mg, 150 mg, and 300 mg, administered subcutaneously every 3 months) with placebo. The primary efficacy end point was nonfatal myocardial infarction, nonfatal stroke, or cardiovascular death. RESULTS: At 48 months, the median reduction from baseline in the high-sensitivity C-reactive protein level was 26 percentage points greater in the group that received the 50-mg dose of canakinumab, 37 percentage points greater in the 150-mg group, and 41 percentage points greater in the 300-mg group than in the placebo group. Canakinumab did not reduce lipid levels from baseline. At a median follow-up of 3.7 years, the incidence rate for the primary end point was 4.50 events per 100 person-years in the placebo group, 4.11 events per 100 person-years in the 50-mg group, 3.86 events per 100 person-years in the 150-mg group, and 3.90 events per 100 person-years in the 300-mg group. The hazard ratios as compared with placebo were as follows: in the 50-mg group, 0.93 (95% confidence interval [CI], 0.80 to 1.07; P = 0.30); in the 150-mg group, 0.85 (95% CI, 0.74 to 0.98; P = 0.021); and in the 300-mg group, 0.86 (95% CI, 0.75 to 0.99; P = 0.031). The 150-mg dose, but not the other doses, met the prespecified multiplicity-adjusted threshold for statistical significance for the primary end point and the secondary end point that additionally included hospitalization for unstable angina that led to urgent revascularization (hazard ratio vs. placebo, 0.83; 95% CI, 0.73 to 0.95; P = 0.005). Canakinumab was associated with a higher incidence of fatal infection than was placebo. There was no significant difference in all-cause mortality (hazard ratio for all canakinumab doses vs. placebo, 0.94; 95% CI, 0.83 to 1.06; P = 0.31). Conclusions: Antiinflammatory therapy targeting the interleukin-1β innate immunity pathway with canakinumab at a dose of 150 mg every 3 months led to a significantly lower rate of recurrent cardiovascular events than placebo, independent of lipid-level lowering. (Funded by Novartis; CANTOS ClinicalTrials.gov number, NCT01327846.

Relational Equivalence Proofs Between Imperative and MapReduce Algorithms

MapReduce frameworks are widely used for the implementation of distributed algorithms. However, translating imperative algorithms into these frameworks requires significant structural changes to the algorithm. As the costs of running faulty algorithms at scale can be severe, it is highly desirable to verify the correctness of the translation, i.e., to prove that the MapReduce version is equivalent to the imperative original. We present a novel approach for proving equivalence between imperative and MapReduce algorithms based on partitioning the equivalence proof into a sequence of equivalence proofs between intermediate programs with smaller differences. Our approach is based on the insight that two kinds of sub-proofs are required: (1) uniform transformations changing the controlflow structure that are mostly independent of the particular context in which they are applied; and (2) context-dependent transformations that are not uniform but that preserve the overall structure and can be proved correct using coupling invariants. We demonstrate the feasibility of our approach by evaluating it on two prototypical algorithms commonly used as examples in MapReduce frameworks: k-means and PageRank. To carry out the proofs, we use the interactive theorem prover Coq with partial proof automation. The results show that our approach and its prototypical implementation based on Coq enables equivalence proofs of non-trivial algorithms and could be automated to a large degree

Refactoring GrPPI:Generic Refactoring for Generic Parallelism in C++

Funding: EU Horizon 2020 project, TeamPlay (https://www.teamplay-xh2020.eu), Grant Number 779882, UK EPSRC Discovery, grant number EP/P020631/1, and Madrid Regional Government, CABAHLA-CM (ConvergenciA Big dAta-Hpc: de Los sensores a las Aplicaciones) Grant Number S2018/TCS-4423.The Generic Reusable Parallel Pattern Interface (GrPPI) is a very useful abstraction over different parallel pattern libraries, allowing the programmer to write generic patterned parallel code that can easily be compiled to different backends such as FastFlow, OpenMP, Intel TBB and C++ threads. However, rewriting legacy code to use GrPPI still involves code transformations that can be highly non-trivial, especially for programmers who are not experts in parallelism. This paper describes software refactorings to semi-automatically introduce instances of GrPPI patterns into sequential C++ code, as well as safety checking static analysis mechanisms which verify that introducing patterns into the code does not introduce concurrency-related bugs such as race conditions. We demonstrate the refactorings and safety-checking mechanisms on four simple benchmark applications, showing that we are able to obtain, with little effort, GrPPI-based parallel versions that accomplish good speedups (comparable to those of manually-produced parallel versions) using different pattern backends.Publisher PDFPeer reviewe

Radiofrequency ablation in primary colo-rectal cancer and liver metastasis

Institutul Oncologic Bucuresti, Clinica de Chirurgie Nr. 1, Al XI-lea Congres al Asociației Chirurgilor „Nicolae Anestiadi” din Republica Moldova și cea de-a XXXIII-a Reuniune a Chirurgilor din Moldova „Iacomi-Răzeșu” 27-30 septembrie 2011Ablaţia prin radiofrecvenţă constituie o soluţie terapeutică recentă în chirurgia determinărilor primare sau secundare din neoplasmele colorectale. Realizată prin abord deschis, laparo-endoscopic sau percutan, metoda asigură un control acceptabil asupra procesului tumoral, cu riscuri reduse comparativ cu chirurgia de exereză, cu condiţia respectării stricte a indicaţiilor. Obiective. Evaluăm această procedură terapeutică, aplicată pentru indicaţia clasică din metastazele hepatice, cât şi pentru tumorile rectale joase sau recidive pelvine după cancer rectal operat, prin prisma experienţei acumulate pe parcursul a 4 ani, focusând complicaţiile perioperatorii şi rata de recidivă locală şi evoluţia la distanţă. Metoda. În perioada decembrie 2006 – martie 2010 au fost trataţi prin radiofrecvenţă 64 pacienţi, 46 cu metastaze hepatice secundare CRC, iar 18 cu cancer rectal inferior sau recidive pelvine; procedura s-a realizat în majoritatea cazurilor sub control echografic intraoperator, prin abord chirurgical clasic în 59 cazuri, iar în 5 cazuri prin abord laparoscopic. Evoluţia pacienţilor a fost monitorizată imagistic prin CT postoperator la 30 zile, ulterior din 3 în 3 luni, urmărirea markerilor tumorali (CEA, CA19.9.) şi control endoscopic. Rezultate. Complicaţii perioperatorii s-au inregistrat la 6 pacienţi si au constat în sindroame febrile, citolize hepatice. Nu s-au înregistrat complicaţii de tipul hemoragiilor, fistulelor sau peritonitelor; şi nici mortalitate perioperatorie imputabilă metodei. Recidive locale înregistrate, la un interval de 6-25 luni, la 12 pacienți. Concluzii. Experienţa iniţială arată că radioablaţia în chirurgia determinărilor primare sau secundare din neoplasmele colo-rectale este o procedură relativ sigură, grefată de morbiditate redusă şi rata scazută de recidivă locală; urmează ca studii de urmărire pe perioade mai întinse să confirme valoarea metodei.Radiofrequency ablation represent a therapeutic option for primary colo-rectal cancer and liver metastasis, performed by open surgery, laparoscopic approach or percutaneous, provide a reasonable local tumor control, involved low risks comparative resection surgery. Objectives. We analyzed this procedure, for classic indication in hepatic metastatic tumors, as well as in low rectal tumors and pelvic recurrences after rectal surgery based on four years experience, focused on perioperative complications, recurrence rate and long distant evolution. Method. Between December 2006 and March 2010, 64 patients underwent RFA; 46 cases had metastatic lesions from colo-rectal cancer and 18 cases had low rectal cancer or pelvic recuurrence. RFA was performed in 59 patients via open surgery and laparoscopic approach in 5 patients. Postoperative course was followed with CT scan at 1 month, and then at 3 month interval, in correlation with tumor markers level (CEA, CA19.9.) and endoscopic control. Results. Perioperative complications occurred in 6 cases, consist of prolonged fever, severe hepatic cytolysis, without other complications such, biliary tract injury, hemorrhage, and peritonitis; no mortality caused by RFA procedure. 12 cases had local recurrence, at 6 and 25 month after post RFA procedure. Concluzii. Initial experience shows that RFA is a safe procedure for treatment of primary colo-rectal cancer and liver metastasis, with low rate of morbidity and local recurrence, indicated for patients with unresecable lesions or high risks for surgical resection