Approximative filtering of XML documents in a publish/subscribe system

Publish/subscribe systems filter published documents and inform their subscribers about documents matching their interests. Recent systems have focussed on documents or messages sent in XML format. Subscribers have to be familiar with the underlying XML format to create meaningful subscriptions. A service might support several providers with slightly differing formats, e.g., several publishers of books. This makes the definition of a successful subscription almost impossible. This paper proposes the use of an approximative language for subscriptions. We introduce the design of our ApproXFilter algorithm for approximative filtering in a publish/subscribe system. We present the results of our performance analysis of a prototypical implementation

Chondrocalcinosis and osteoporosis in a patient with renal tubular disorder

We report the case of a 50-year old male patient presenting with a combination of chondrocalcinosis and osteoporosis related to a renal tubular disorder. Laboratory studies revealed hypokalemia, hypomagnesemia, hypocalcemia with renal wastage and metabolic alkalosis, compatible with a renal tubular transport disorder with similarities to Bartter's and Gitelman's syndrome. Calcifications of the menisci and cartilage on X-rays of knee joints suggested chondrocalcinosis, which has been associated with Gitelman's syndrome. Radiologically suspected osteopenia was confirmed by a bone density scan that revealed osteoporosis of the vertebral column. An association of osteoporosis with hypercalciuria, which commonly occurs in Bartter's syndrome patients, has been reported. Upon treatment of the renal tubular disorder with spironolactone and a thiazide diuretic in combination with calcium and magnesium supplementation, the electrolyte abnormalities resolved and arthralgias disappeared. Our case demonstrates a renal tubular dysfunction with features of both Bartter's and Gitelman's syndrome along with concurrent chondrocalcinosis and osteoporosis. Furthermore, the occurrence of osteoporosis in this relatively young patient, in the absence of other risk factors, demonstrates that renal tubular disorders should be suspected in presenile osteoporosis. Vice versa, since osteoporosis usually is asymptomatic before fracturing, patients with renal tubular disorders should be examined for osteoporosis

Insufficient access to harm reduction measures in prisons in 5 countries (PRIDE Europe): a shared European public health concern

Background: Prisoners constitute a high-risk population, particularly for infectious diseases. The aim of this study was to estimate the level of infectious risk in the prisons of five different European countries by measuring to what extent the prison system adheres to WHO/UNODC recommendations. Methods: Following the methodology used in a previous French survey, a postal/electronic questionnaire was sent to all prisons in Austria, Belgium, Denmark and Italy to collect data on the availability of several recommended HIV-HCV prevention interventions and HBV vaccination for prisoners. A score was built to compare adherence to WHO/UNODC recommendations (considered a proxy of environmental infectious risk) in those 4 countries. It ranged from 0 (no adherence) to 12 (full adherence). A second score (0 to 9) was built to include data from a previous French survey, thereby creating a 5-country comparison. Results: A majority of prisons answered in Austria (100 %), France (66 %) and Denmark (58 %), half in Belgium (50 %) and few in Italy (17 %), representing 100, 74, 89, 47 and 23 % coverage of the prison populations, respectively. Availability of prevention measures was low, with median adherence scores ranging from 3.5 to 4.5 at the national level. These results were confirmed when using the second score which included France in the inter-country comparison. Overall, the adherence score was inversely associated with prison overpopulation rates (p = 0.08). Conclusions: Using a score of adherence to WHO/UNODC recommendations, the estimated environmental infectious risk remains extremely high in the prisons of the 5 European countries assessed. Public health strategies should be adjusted to comply with the principle of equivalence of care and prevention with the general community

Inductive Freeness of Ziegler's Canonical Multiderivations for Reflection Arrangements

Let $A$ be a free hyperplane arrangement. In 1989, Ziegler showed that the restriction $A''$ of $A$ to any hyperplane endowed with the natural multiplicity is then a free multiarrangement. We initiate a study of the stronger freeness property of inductive freeness for these canonical free multiarrangements and investigate them for the underlying class of reflection arrangements. More precisely, let $A = A(W)$ be the reflection arrangement of a complex reflection group $W$. By work of Terao, each such reflection arrangement is free. Thus so is Ziegler's canonical multiplicity on the restriction $A''$ of $A$ to a hyperplane. We show that the latter is inductively free as a multiarrangement if and only if $A''$ itself is inductively free.Comment: 23 pages; v2 minor changes; final version, to appear in J. Algebr

Stereotactic radiotherapy in the treatment of brain metastases

This thematic review is part of a larger, comparative dosimetric analysis of the evaluation of treatment plans created by different modulated intensity irradiation, which is delivered by means a linear accelerator for the treatment of multiple metastases in the brain. There is currently no consensus as to which method is dosimetrically better. A further study will be aimed at determining the dosimetric advantages of each irradiation technique to introduce additional certainty into the planning process

Safety and Efficacy of Lysergic Acid Diethylamide-Assisted Psychotherapy for Anxiety Associated With Life-threatening Diseases

Abstract A double-blind, randomized, active placebo-controlled pilot study was conducted to examine safety and efficacy of lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD)-assisted psychotherapy in 12 patients with anxiety associated with life-threatening diseases. Treatment included drug-free psychotherapy sessions supplemented by two LSD-assisted psychotherapy sessions 2 to 3 weeks apart. The participants received either 200 μg of LSD (n = 8) or 20 μg of LSD with an open-label crossover to 200 μg of LSD after the initial blinded treatment was unmasked (n = 4). At the 2-month follow-up, positive trends were found via the State-Trait Anxiety Inventory (STAI) in reductions in trait anxiety (p = 0.033) with an effect size of 1.1, and state anxiety was significantly reduced (p = 0.021) with an effect size of 1.2, with no acute or chronic adverse effects persisting beyond 1 day after treatment or treatment-related serious adverse events. STAI reductions were sustained for 12 months. These results indicate that when administered safely in a methodologically rigorous medically supervised psychotherapeutic setting, LSD can reduce anxiety, suggesting that larger controlled studies are warranted