The effect of salts on the derivatization and chromatography of amino acids

Effect of salts on derivatization and chromatography of amino acid

Cardiac safety of tiotropium in patients with cardiac events: a retrospective analysis of the UPLIFT® trial.

BackgroundTiotropium is an anticholinergic bronchodilator for symptom relief and reducing exacerbations with an established safety profile in patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). Using data from the 4-year Understanding Potential Long-term Impacts on Function with Tiotropium (UPLIFT®) study, we re-evaluated the safety of tiotropium HandiHaler® in patients who experienced recent myocardial infarction (MI), heart failure or unstable rhythm disorder during the study.MethodsA post-hoc analysis of all-cause mortality and serious cardiac adverse events (cardiac SAEs), including cardiac deaths and death unknown, was conducted in patients who had experienced cardiac arrhythmia, MI or cardiac failure during UPLIFT® and who completed the study. Descriptive analyses were performed.ResultsMost patients experiencing cardiac events, for which they would have been excluded at baseline, remained in the trial. Kaplan-Meier analyses revealed a trend to later occurrence of cardiac SAEs with tiotropium HandiHaler® versus placebo. Patients who experienced a cardiac event and continued in UPLIFT® were not found to be at subsequently increased risk of all-cause mortality or cardiac SAEs with tiotropium treatment. Evaluation of deaths by major adverse cardiac events composite endpoints also showed that patients treated with tiotropium were not at increased risk of mortality or cardiac SAEs compared with placebo.ConclusionsRisk of cardiac events, mortality or SAEs was not increased by tiotropium in patients experiencing cardiac events for which they would have been excluded at study baseline. The findings support the cardiac safety of tiotropium HandiHaler® in patients with COPD

Investigations on the system boron-carbon silicon

The above elements form with each other binary compounds which are very interesting from the point of view of their structure and their chemistry and which are important for technology. The present investigation is concerned with the three-component system and the behavior of the binary compounds occurring in it. Investigations employing various techniques, such as X-ray, chemical analysis, microscopy and fusion experiments showed that no ternary phase exists within the boundary of the ternary system. There is no compound with a higher abrasion capacity than boron carbide. The probable phase field divisions at two isothermic intersections and the fusion isotherms are indicated

Does the 2013 GOLD classification improve the ability to predict lung function decline, exacerbations and mortality: a post-hoc analysis of the 4-year UPLIFT trial

BACKGROUND: The 2013 GOLD classification system for COPD distinguishes four stages: A (low symptoms, low exacerbation risk), B (high symptoms, low risk), C (low symptoms, high risk) and D (high symptoms, high risk). Assessment of risk is based on exacerbation history and airflow obstruction, whatever results in a higher risk grouping. The previous system was solely based on airflow obstruction. Earlier studies compared the predictive performance of new and old classification systems with regards to mortality and exacerbations. The objective of this study was to compare the ability of both classifications to predict the number of future (total and severe) exacerbations and mortality in a different patient population, and to add an outcome measure to the comparison: lung function decline.METHODS: Patient-level data from the UPLIFT trial were used to analyze 4-year survival in a Weibull model, with GOLD stages at baseline as covariates. A generalized linear model was used to compare the numbers of exacerbations (total and severe) per stage. Analyses were repeated with stages C and D divided into substages depending on lung function and exacerbation history. Lung function decline was analysed in a repeated measures model.RESULTS: Mortality increased from A to D, but there was no difference between B and C. For the previous GOLD stages 2-4, survival curves were clearly separated. Yearly exacerbation rates were: 0.53, 0.72 and 0.80 for stages 2-4; and 0.35, 0.45, 0.58 and 0.74 for A-D. Annual rates of lung function decline were: 47, 38 and 26 ml for stages 2-4 and 44, 48, 38 and 39 for stages A-D. With regards to model fit, the new system performed worse at predicting mortality and lung function decline, and better at predicting exacerbations. Distinguishing between the sub-stages of high-risk led to substantial improvements.CONCLUSIONS: The new classification system is a modest step towards a phenotype approach. It is probably an improvement for the prediction of exacerbations, but a deterioration for predicting mortality and lung function decline.TRIAL REGISTRATION: ClinicalTrials.gov NCT00144339 (September 2, 2005)

Herausforderungen an der Schnittstelle Schule - Beruf: Beiträge zur Fachtagung "Wege ebnen an der Schnittstelle Schule - Beruf. Wie gelingt ein erfolgreicher Übergang?" vom 18. September 2013 in Wien

Aus dem Vorwort: "... Ziel dieser Veranstaltung, die am 18. September 2013 in der Zentrale der OeAD GmbH in Wien stattfand, war es, Stärken und Schwächen im Übergangsmanagement in Österreich auszuloten und bisherige gute Ansätze (Good Practices) in diesem Kontext aufzuzeigen. Die Veranstaltung gab zahlreichen PraktikerInnen, WissenschafterInnen und Verantwortlichen aus der bildungs- wie arbeitsmarktpolitischen Praxis die Möglichkeit, den Diskurs zu diesem Thema fortzuführen, neue Beiträge zu liefern und politischen Verbesserungsbedarf zu formulieren. Der vorliegend AMS report enthält die erweiterten Versionen ausgewählter Vorträge, die anlässlich dieser Tagung gehalten wurden. Die Veranstalter der Tagung, die OeAD GmbH - Nationalagentur Lebenslanges Lernen, die Abt. Arbeitsmarktforschung und Berufsinformation des AMS Österreich sowie das sozialwissenschaftliche Forschungsinstitut abif - Analyse, Beratung und interdisziplinäre Forschung bedanken sich bei allen TeilnehmerInnen dieser rege besuchten Veranstaltung und wünschen allen LeserInnen dieses AMS reports eine aufschlussreiche und interessante Lektüre. ...

In-host evolution of Staphylococcus epidermidis in a pacemaker-associated endocarditis resulting in increased antibiotic tolerance

Treatment failure in biofilm-associated bacterial infections is an important healthcare issue. In vitro studies and mouse models suggest that bacteria enter a slow-growing/non-growing state that results in transient tolerance to antibiotics in the absence of a specific resistance mechanism. However, little clinical confirmation of antibiotic tolerant bacteria in patients exists. In this study we investigate a Staphylococcus epidermidis pacemaker-associated endocarditis, in a patient who developed a break-through bacteremia despite taking antibiotics to which the S. epidermidis isolate is fully susceptible in vitro. Characterization of the clinical S. epidermidis isolates reveals in-host evolution over the 16-week infection period, resulting in increased antibiotic tolerance of the entire population due to a prolonged lag time until growth resumption and a reduced growth rate. Furthermore, we observe adaptation towards an increased biofilm formation capacity and genetic diversification of the S. epidermidis isolates within the patient

Chicana Photography: The Power of Place

Abstract: The concern with space, location, place, and geographic site has received heightened attention from artists and theorists from the 1960s onward. For critics and creators engaged with these concepts, the analysis of the interaction between of the processes of spatialization, identity formation, and memory has emerged as an important aspect of critical discourse. Lucy Lippard defines space as a physical site, understood as landscape or nature, while place implies intimacy, a familiarity with a certain geographic location. For Lippard, human interaction and, most importantly, the infusion of memory into space or a geographic site produces place. Michel de Certeau proposes that everyday practices create a text or unseen pathway in the physical nvironment. People transform space into place through interaction in their daily lived locale. Contemporary Chicana photographers Laura Aguilar, Kathy Vargas, and Delilah Montoya have produced extensive bodies of work during the past four decades that investigate the body, land, memory, and the issues of identity formation in relationship to location. The essay considers each artist in turn and first provides a general overview of each photographer’s art production. The essay then uses Lippard and Certeau’s concepts of space and place to analyze selected images from Aguilar’s Stillness (1999), Motion (1999), and Center (2001), Vargas’ My Alamo (1995), and Delilah Montoya’s Sed: The Trail of Thirst (2004). The work excavates the multiple meanings of the locations and bodies portrayed in these works, and demonstrates how the depiction of geographic space in these artists’ work becomes an intimate, personal site where the construction of places and identities occur

A computational model for continual learning and synaptic consolidation

How humans are able to learn and memorize is a long-standing question in science. Much progress has been achieved in recent decades to answer this question but the are still many open problems. One of these problems refers to the human ability to learn several tasks in sequence without forgetting. In neuronal networks learning can interfere with pre-existing memories when the network is engaged in continual learning. The interference is particularly pronounced if, for instance, similar sensory stimuli require different responses depending on the context. Unlike in humans, this can lead to a memory loss termed catastrophic forgetting. To avoid interference and its fatal consequences, only a subset of synaptic weights should be consolidated. In this work we propose as computational model which performs selective consolidation by incorporating the synaptic tagging and capture hypothesis. This hypothesis, well grounded by experimental evidences, claims that synaptic consolidation requires both a synaptic-specific tag and diffusible plasticity-related proteins. We show that synaptic tagging and capture can be modeled by two classes of synaptic processes acting on different time scales. The two classes, characterized whether protein synthesis is required, are represented in our model by two synaptic components interacting with each other. With our approach we demonstrate that synaptic consolidation can not only diminishes the problem of catastrophic forgetting during continual learning but also enables fast learning through strongly changing synaptic strengths during the early phase of long-term potentiation. The model reproduces various experimental observations on synaptic tagging and cross-tagging. It also explains why learning in psychophysical experiments is hampered when different types of stimuli are randomly intermixed

Analysis of a Reduced-Order Model for the Simulation of Elastic Geometric Zigzag-Spring Meta-Materials

We analyze the performance of a reduced-order simulation of geometric meta-materials based on zigzag patterns using a simplified representation. As geometric meta-materials we denote planar cellular structures which can be fabricated in 2d and bent elastically such that they approximate doubly-curved 2-manifold surfaces in 3d space. They obtain their elasticity attributes mainly from the geometry of their cellular elements and their connections. In this paper we focus on cells build from so-called zigzag springs. The physical properties of the base material (i.e., the physical substance) influence the behavior as well, but we essentially factor them out by keeping them constant. The simulation of such complex geometric structures comes with a high computational cost, thus we propose an approach to reduce it by abstracting the zigzag cells by a simpler model and by learning the properties of their elastic deformation behavior. In particular, we analyze the influence of the sampling of the full parameter space and the expressiveness of the reduced model compared to the full model. Based on these observations, we draw conclusions on how to simulate such complex meso-structures with simpler models.Comment: 14 pages, 12 figures, published in Computers & Graphics, extended version of arXiv:2010.0807