Relevant gender differences in epidemiological profile, exposure to first antiretroviral regimen and survival in the Spanish AIDS Research Network Cohort.

BACKGROUND The possible differences in the disease spectrum and prognosis of HIV infection in women and men is a major point of concern. Women are under-represented in randomized clinical trials and in some cohorts. Discordant results have often been obtained depending on the setting. METHODS We assessed gender differences in clinical and epidemiological features, antiretroviral treatment (ART) exposure and survival in two multicentre cohorts of HIV-positive subjects in Spain: CoRIS-MD and CoRIS. Competing risk regression models were used to assess gender effect on time to start ART and time to first ART change, and a Cox regression model to estimate gender effect on time to death. RESULTS Between January 1996 and December 2008, 1,953 women and 6,072 men naive to ART at study entry were included. The trend analysis over time showed the percentage of women in the younger (<20 years) and older (>50 years) strata increased significantly (P<0.001) from 0.5% and 1.8% in 1996 to 4.9% and 4.2% in 2008, respectively. By competing risk analysis women started ART earlier than men (adjusted subhazard ratio [ASHR] 1.21, 95% CI 1.11, 1.31) in CoRIS cohort, while in CoRIS-MD none of these differences were observed. In both cohorts women showed a shorter time to the first ART change (ASHR 1.10, 95% CI 1.01, 1.19). Pregnancy and patient's/physician's decisions as reasons for changing were more frequent in women than in men in CoRIS. In the Cox regression model, gender was not associated with differences in survival. CONCLUSIONS In two large cohorts in Spain, we observed relevant gender differences in epidemiological characteristics and antiretroviral exposure outcomes, while survival differences were not attributable to gender.

University and Network Society : research report (synthesis document)

Document de síntesi d'aquest estudi que analitza -seguint una metodologia quantitativa basada en una mostra representativa de 2.093 professors i 23.864 estudiants i reforçada amb elements qualitatius- la transició que es produeix en el sistema universitari públic català cap a un model més adaptat a les noves necessitats de la societat xarxa. Per a això, es posa especial èmfasi en l'anàlisi dels usos que es fa d'Internet (l'eina clau de la societat xarxa) en el món universitari i en les transformacions que es donen o es donaran com a conseqüència d'aquests usos.

CAC controlled services sharing a link with connectionless data services in an ATM network: a performance evaluation study

In the B-ISDN there is a provision for four classes of services, all of them supported by a single transport network (the ATM network). Three of these services, the connected oriented (CO) ones, permit connection access control (CAC) but the fourth, the connectionless oriented (CLO) one, does not. Therefore, when CLO service and CO services have to share the same ATM link, a conflict may arise. This is because a bandwidth allocation to obtain maximum statistical gain can damage the contracted ATM quality of service (QOS); and vice versa, in order to guarantee the contracted QOS, the statistical gain have to be sacrificed. The paper presents a performance evaluation study of the influence of the CLO service on a CO service (a circuit emulation service or a variable bit-rate service) when sharing the same link

The potential of the European network of congenital anomaly registers (EUROCAT) for drug safety surveillance: a descriptive study.

BACKGROUND: European Surveillance of Congenital Anomalies (EUROCAT) is a network of population-based congenital anomaly registries in Europe surveying more than 1 million births per year, or 25% of the births in the European Union. This paper describes the potential of the EUROCAT collaboration for pharmacoepidemiology and drug safety surveillance. METHODS: The 34 full members and 6 associate members of the EUROCAT network were sent a questionnaire about their data sources on drug exposure and on drug coding. Available data on drug exposure during the first trimester available in the central EUROCAT database for the years 1996-2000 was summarised for 15 out of 25 responding full members. RESULTS: Of the 40 registries, 29 returned questionnaires (25 full and 4 associate members). Four of these registries do not collect data on maternal drug use. Of the full members, 15 registries use the EUROCAT drug code, 4 use the international ATC drug code, 3 registries use another coding system and 7 use a combination of these coding systems. Obstetric records are the most frequently used sources of drug information for the registries, followed by interviews with the mother. Only one registry uses pharmacy data. Percentages of cases with drug exposure (excluding vitamins/minerals) varied from 4.4% to 26.0% among different registries. The categories of drugs recorded varied widely between registries. CONCLUSIONS: Practices vary widely between registries regarding recording drug exposure information. EUROCAT has the potential to be an effective collaborative framework to contribute to post-marketing drug surveillance in relation to teratogenic effects, but work is needed to implement ATC drug coding more widely, and to diversify the sources of information used to determine drug exposure in each registry.

A hybrid method for sag source location in power network

The work presented in this paper belongs to the power quality knowledge area and deals with the voltage sags in power transmission and distribution systems. Propagating throughout the power network, voltage sags can cause plenty of problems for domestic and industrial loads that can financially cost a lot. To impose penalties to responsible party and to improve monitoring and mitigation strategies, sags must be located in the power network. With such a worthwhile objective, this paper comes up with a new method for associating a sag waveform with its origin in transmission and distribution networks. It solves this problem through developing hybrid methods which hire multiway principal component analysis (MPCA) as a dimension reduction tool. MPCA reexpresses sag waveforms in a new subspace just in a few scores. We train some well-known classifiers with these scores and exploit them for classification of future sags. The capabilities of the proposed method for dimension reduction and classification are examined using the real data gathered from three substations in Catalonia, Spain. The obtained classification rates certify the goodness and powerfulness of the developed hybrid methods as brand-new tools for sag classification

Disentangling the attention network test: behavioral, event related potentials, and neural source analyses.

BACKGROUND The study of the attentional system remains a challenge for current neuroscience. The "Attention Network Test" (ANT) was designed to study simultaneously three different attentional networks (alerting, orienting, and executive) based in subtraction of different experimental conditions. However, some studies recommend caution with these calculations due to the interactions between the attentional networks. In particular, it is highly relevant that several interpretations about attentional impairment have arisen from these calculations in diverse pathologies. Event related potentials (ERPs) and neural source analysis can be applied to disentangle the relationships between these attentional networks not specifically shown by behavioral measures. RESULTS This study shows that there is a basic level of alerting (tonic alerting) in the no cue (NC) condition, represented by a slow negative trend in the ERP trace prior to the onset of the target stimuli. A progressive increase in the CNV amplitude related to the amount of information provided by the cue conditions is also shown. Neural source analysis reveals specific modulations of the CNV related to a task-related expectancy presented in the NC condition; a late modulation triggered by the central cue (CC) condition and probably representing a generic motor preparation; and an early and late modulation for spatial cue (SC) condition suggesting specific motor and sensory preactivation. Finally, the first component in the information processing of the target stimuli modulated by the interaction between orienting network and the executive system can be represented by N1. CONCLUSIONS The ANT is useful as a paradigm to study specific attentional mechanisms and their interactions. However, calculation of network effects is based in subtractions with non-comparable experimental conditions, as evidenced by the present data, which can induce misinterpretations in the study of the attentional capacity in human subjects.

Volatility smile extrapolation with an artificial neural network

I use a multi-layer feedforward perceptron, with backpropagation learning implemented via stochastic gradient descent, to extrapolate the volatility smile of Euribor derivatives over low-strikes by training the network on parametric prices.

Iowa Department of Transportation Fiscal Year 2002 Report of Savings by Using Videoconferencing through Iowa Communications Network to the Iowa General Assembly, 2002

ICN Videoconferencing by the Iowa Department of Transportation

Outcome and Prognostic Factors in Adenosquamous Carcinoma of the Head and Neck - a Multicenter Rare Cancer Network Study

Background: Adenosquamous carcinoma (AC) of the head and neck is a distinct entity first described in 1968. Its natural history is more aggressive than squamous-cell carcinoma. The aim of this study was to assess the clinical profile, patterns of failure, and prognostic factors in patients with AC of the head and neck treated by radiation therapy (RT) with or without chemotherapy (CT).Materials and Methods: Data from 19 patients with stage I (n = 3), II (n = 1), III (n = 4), or IVa (n = 11) AC, treated between 1989 and 2009, were collected in a retrospective multicenter Rare Cancer Network study. Median age was 60 years (range, 48−73). Fifteen patients were male, and 4 female. Risk factors, including perineural invasion, lymphangitis, vascular invasion, positive margins were present in the majority (83%) of the patients. Tumour sites included oral cavity in 4, oropharynx in 4, hypopharynx in 2, larynx in 2, salivary glands in 2, nasal vestibule in 2, maxillary sinus in 2, and nasopharynx in 1 patient. Surgery (S) was performed in all but 5 patients. S alone was performed in only 1 patient, and definitive RT alone in 3 patients. Fifteen patients received combined modality treatment (S+RT in 11, RT+CT in 2, and all of the three modalities in 2 patients). Median RT dose to the primary and to the nodes was 66 Gy (range, 50−72) and 53 Gy (range, 44−66), respectively (1.8−2.0 Gy/fr., 5 fr./week). In 4 patients, the planning treatment volume included the primary tumour site only. Eight patients were treated with 2D RT, 7 with 3D conformal RT, and 2 with intensity-modulated RT.Results: After a median follow-up period of 39 months (range, 9−62), 9 patients developed distant metastases (lung, bone, mediastinum, and liver), 7 presented nodal recurrences, and only 4 had a local relapse at the primary site (all in-field recurrences). At last follow-up, 7 patients were alive without disease, 1 alive with disease, 9 died from progressive disease, and 2 died from intercurrent disease. The 3-year and median overall survival, disease-free survival (DFS), and locoregional control rates were 55% (95% confidence interval [CI]: 32−78%) and 39 months, 34% (95% CI: 12−56%) and 22 months, and 50% (95% CI: 22−78%) and 33 months, respectively. In multivariate analysis (Cox model), DFS was negatively influenced by the presence of extracapsular extension (p = 0.01) and advanced stage (IV versus I−III, p = 0.002).Conclusions: Overall prognosis of locoregionally advanced AC remains poor, and distant metastases and nodal relapse occur in almost half of the cases. However, local control is relatively better, and early stage AC patients had prolonged DFS when treated with combined-modality treatment.

The HVEM network: new directions in targeting novel costimulatory/co-inhibitory molecules for cancer therapy.

The regulation of the immune system is controlled by many cell surface receptors. A prominent representative is the 'molecular switch' HVEM (herpes virus entry mediator) that can activate either proinflammatory or inhibitory signaling pathways. HVEM ligands belong to two distinct families: the TNF-related cytokines LIGHT and lymphotoxin-α, and the Ig-related membrane proteins BTLA and CD160. HVEM and its ligands have been involved in the pathogenesis of various autoimmune and inflammatory diseases, but recent reports indicate that this network may also be involved in tumor progression and resistance to immune response. Here we summarize the recent advances made regarding the knowledge on HVEM and its ligands in cancer cells, and their potential roles in tumor progression and escape to immune responses. Blockade or enhancement of these pathways may help improving cancer therapy.

Iowa Department of Transportation Fiscal Year 2003 Report of Savings by Using Videoconferencing Through Iowa Communications Network, Iowa Department of Transportation, December 2003

Iowa DOT savings through use of Iowa Communications Network (ICN)videoconferencing.

Iowa Communications Network, June 30, 2002

State Agency Audit Report

Iowa Communications Network, June 30, 2003

State Agency Audit Report

Small cell (neuroendocrine) carcinoma of the prostate: etiology, diagnosis, prognosis, and therapeutic implications--a retrospective study of 30 patients from the rare cancer network.

Within the framework of the Rare Cancer Network Study, we examined 30 patients suffering from small cell neuroendocrine prostate cancer, either in an early/localized or an advanced/metastatic stage. Patients were treated with cisplatin-based chemotherapy, with or without pelvic radiotherapy. Two patients with early disease achieved complete remission for a duration of 19 and 22 months. Three patients with advanced disease achieved complete remission for 6, 7, and 54 months, respectively. Twenty-five patients succumbed to massive local and/or distant failure. No patient presented with brain metastases as the initial site of relapse. Small cell neuroendocrine prostate carcinoma is a very aggressive disease with a poor prognosis, even in its localized form. Despite initial response, the common cisplatin-based chemotherapy plus radiotherapy failed to improve outcome markedly. Improvement will come from understanding the biology of the disease and integrating new targeted therapies into the treatment of this rare and aggressive tumor.