Search results for " function"
showing 10 items of 9395 documents
The Artificial Kidney Initiation in Kidney Injury 2 (AKIKI2): study protocol for a randomized controlled trial
2019
Abstract Background The Artificial Kidney Initiation in Kidney Injury (AKIKI) trial showed that a delayed renal replacement therapy (RRT) strategy for severe acute kidney injury (AKI) in critically ill patients was safe and associated with major reduction in RRT initiation compared with an early strategy. The five criteria which mandated RRT initiation in the delayed arm were: severe hyperkalemia, severe acidosis, acute pulmonary edema due to fluid overload resulting in severe hypoxemia, serum urea concentration > 40 mmol/l and oliguria/anuria > 72 h. However, duration of anuria/oliguria and level of blood urea are still criteria open to debate. The objective of the study is to compar…
A central nervous system-focused treatment approach for people with frozen shoulder: protocol for a randomized clinical trial
2019
Background: Frozen shoulder (FS) is a musculoskeletal condition of poorly understood etiology that results in shoulder pain and large mobility deficits. Despite some physical therapy interventions, such as joint mobilization and exercise, having shown therapeutic benefit, a definitive treatment does not currently exist. The aim of this study will be to compare the effectiveness of a central nervous system (CNS)-directed treatment program versus a standard medical and physical therapy care program on outcomes in participants with FS. Methods/design: The study is a two-group, randomized clinical trial with blinding of participants and assessors. Participants will be recruited via referrals fr…
Comparison of basis functions for 3D PET reconstruction using a Monte Carlo system matrix.
2012
In emission tomography, iterative statistical methods are accepted as the reconstruction algorithms that achieve the best image quality. The accuracy of these methods relies partly on the quality of the system response matrix (SRM) that characterizes the scanner. The more physical phenomena included in the SRM, the higher the SRM quality, and therefore higher image quality is obtained from the reconstruction process. High-resolution small animal scanners contain as many as 103?104 small crystal pairs, while the field of view (FOV) is divided into hundreds of thousands of small voxels. These two characteristics have a significant impact on the number of elements to be calculated in the SRM. …
Effects of aclidinium on determinants of COPD severity: symptoms and quality of life
2016
Marco Contoli,1 Paolo Solidoro,2 Fabiano Di Marco,3,4 Nicola Scichilone,5 Angelo Corsico,6 Fulvio Braido,7 Pierachille Santus4,8 1Research Centre on Asthma and COPD, Department of Medical Sciences, University of Ferrara, Ferrara, Italy; 2Cardiovascular and Thoracic Department, Città della Salute, Turin, Italy; 3Department of Health Sciences, University of Milan, Milan, Italy; 4Respiratory Unit, San Paolo Hospital, Milan, Italy; 5Department of Internal Medicine, Section of Pulmonology (DIBIMIS), University of Palermo, Palermo, Italy; 6Department of Molecular Medicine, Fondazione IRCCS Policlinico San Matteo, Pavia, Italy; 7Allergy and Respiratory Diseases Clinic, DIMI, University of G…
Phylogenetic analysis of the isopenicillin-N-synthetase horizontal gene transfer.
1996
A phylogenetic study of the isopenicillin-N-synthetase (IPNS) gene sequence from prokaryotic and lower eukaryotic producers of beta-lactam antibiotics by means of a maximum-likelihood approach has been carried out. After performing an extensive search, rather than invoking a global molecular clock, the results obtained are best explained by a model with three rates of evolution. Grouped in decreasing order, these correspond to A. nidulans and then to the rest of the eukaryotes and prokaryotes, respectively. The estimated branching date between prokaryotic and fungal IPNS sequences (852 +/- 106 MY) strongly supports the hypothesis that the IPNS gene was horizontally transferred from bacteria…
LFA-1 activity state on dendritic cells regulates contact duration with T cells and promotes T-cell priming.
2010
AbstractA key event in the successful induction of adaptive immune responses is the antigen-specific activation of T cells by dendritic cells (DCs). Although LFA-1 (lymphocyte function–associated antigen 1) on T cells is considered to be important for antigen-specific T-cell activation, the role for LFA-1 on DCs remains elusive. Using 2 different approaches to activate LFA-1 on DCs, either by deletion of the αL-integrin cytoplasmic GFFKR sequence or by silencing cytohesin-1–interacting protein, we now provide evidence that DCs are able to make use of active LFA-1 and can thereby control the contact duration with naive T cells. Enhanced duration of DC/T-cell interaction correlates inversely …
Effect of aspirin on renal disease progression in patients with type 2 diabetes: A multicenter, double-blind, placebo-controlled, randomized trial. T…
2017
Background Type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) is one of the most common causes of chronic kidney disease and kidney failure. It has been estimated that the annual decline of estimated glomerular filtration rate (eGFR) among patients with T2DM is approximately 2.0-2.5 mL min−1 y−1. Cyclooxygenase-dependent eicosanoids, such as 11-dehydro-thromboxane (Tx)B2, are increased in T2DM patients and are potentially involved in the regulation of renal blood flow. Animal models showed that cyclooxygenase inhibitors, such as aspirin, are associated with improvements in renal plasma flow and eGFR values. Hypothesis The primary end point of the LEDA trial is to evaluate the 1-year decline of eGFR in T2DM pa…
Integrated treatment of first episode psychosis with online training (e-learning): study protocol for a randomised controlled trial
2014
Background: The integrated treatment of first episode psychosis has been shown to improve functionality and negative symptoms in previous studies. In this paper, we describe a study of integrated treatment (individual psychoeducation complementary to pharmacotherapy) versus treatment as usual, comparing results at baseline with those at 6-month re-assessment (at the end of the study) for these patients, and online training of professionals to provide this complementary treatment, with the following objectives: 1) to compare the efficacy of individual psychoeducation as add-on treatment versus treatment as usual in improving psychotic and mood symptoms; 2) to compare adherence to medication,…
Distributed Consensus for Discrete-Time Directed Networks of Multiagents with Time-Delays and Random Communication Links
2013
Published version of an article in the journal: Abstract and Applied Analysis. Also available from the publisher at: http://dx.doi.org/10.1155/2013/158731 Open Access This paper is concerned with the leader-following consensus problem in mean-square for a class of discrete-time multiagent systems. The multiagent systems under consideration are the directed and contain arbitrary discrete time-delays. The communication links are assumed to be time-varying and stochastic. It is also assumed that some agents in the network are well informed and act as leaders, and the others are followers. By introducing novel Lyapunov functionals and employing some new analytical techniques, sufficient conditi…
Notice of Violation of IEEE Publication Principles: New Delay-Dependent Exponential $H_{\infty}$ Synchronization for Uncertain Neural Networks With M…
2010
This paper establishes an exponential H infin synchronization method for a class of uncertain master and slave neural networks (MSNNs) with mixed time delays, where the mixed delays comprise different neutral, discrete, and distributed time delays. The polytopic and the norm-bounded uncertainties are separately taken into consideration. An appropriate discretized Lyapunov-Krasovskii functional and some free-weighting matrices are utilized to establish some delay-dependent sufficient conditions for designing delayed state-feedback control as a synchronization law in terms of linear matrix inequalities under less restrictive conditions. The controller guarantees the exponential H infin synchr…