2,711 research outputs found
Epidemiology of hepatitis C virus infection
No full textAlthough a lot of novel information and data on the epidemiology of hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection are available worldwide, the majority of these information are often fragmentary and sometimes contradictory. This review tries to highlight all the data available on the prevalence (i.e. the number of cases present in a known population), the risk factors, the natural history and the incidence (i.e. the number of new cases that occur every year) of HCV infection in the world, and particularly in Italy
Gene expression of ABC proteins in hepatocellular carcinoma, perineoplastic tissue and liver diseases
No full textBACKGROUND: The development of hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is a frequent event during the natural history of cirrhosis. Effective treatment is, however, hampered by drug resistance related to the expression of multidrug resistance (MDR) proteins belonging to the ABC family transporters. Studying expression of genes coding for these proteins may help to explain the potential sensitivity of HCC to chemotherapy.
MATERIAL AND METHODS:The expression of MRP1, MRP2, MRP3, MDR1, and MDR3 was investigated by quantitative RT-PCR analyses in paraffin-embedded tissues obtained from 9 cases of HCC, 16 cases of cirrhosis, 10 cases of chronic extrahepatic cholestasis, and 16 cases of normal liver. In HCC cases, gene expression was assessed both in neoplastic and perineoplastic tissue after microscopically assisted microdissection.
RESULTS: MRP1 was significantly and similarly overexpressed in HCC and perineoplastic tissue. MRP2 and MDR1 were also increased in HCC, but the level of expression did not correlate with that of perineoplastic tissue. The level of expression was either reduced or normal in cirrhotic liver and during chronic cholestasis. Expression of MDR3 was unchanged in all conditions investigated.
CONCLUSIONS: The genetic expression of multi-drug resistance proteins, in particular MRP1, MRP2, and MDR1, is increased during HCC. In the case of MRP1, the extent of expression is similar in neoplastic and perineoplastic tissue, but this is not the case for MRP2 and MDR1. The assessment of ABC protein expression pattern may provide important information for the diagnosis and treatment of HCC
Rapid identification system of frontal dysfunction in subclinical hepatic encephalopathy
No full textIntroduction & Aim: Liver disease is associated with cognitive dysfunction also at early stages and minimal hepatic encephalopathy, affecting 20-70% of patients, is frequently under-recognised.
The main purpose of this work is to demonstrate that a huge number of patients, enrolled due to acute confusional state, without any clinical diagnosis, presented hepatic encephalopathy. Material & Methods: 410 acute confusional state subjects, not diagnosed before, have been enrolled in this study, due to the further subsequent diagnosis of well compensated liver diseases; among them 237 (57.8%) have hepatic alterations, acute, subacute or chronic. Results: Even in acute minimal hepatic sufferance the psychometric tests applied demonstrated precocious signs of cerebral frontal alteration, which become more evident while they have their clinical pathway, transforming themselves, in minimal hepatic failure or chronic liver disease. Conclusions: In conclusion, these instruments are essential to detect even very precocious and totally subclinical frontal failure and can be a good instrument to follow these patients and to give a valid score for the chronic liver disease, in relation to frontal alterations
Author Attributions in Medieval Text Collections: An Exploration
No full textThis article examines the role and function of author attributions in multi-text manuscripts containing Dutch, English, French or German short verse narratives. The findings represent one strand of the investigations undertaken by the cross-European project ‘The Dynamics of the Medieval Manuscript’, which analysed the dissemination of short verse narratives and the principles of organisation underlying the compilation of text collections. Whilst short verse narratives are more commonly disseminated anonymously, there are manuscripts in which authorship is repeatedly attributed to a text or corpus. Through six case studies, this article explores medieval concepts of authorship and how they relate to constructions of authority, whether regarding an empirical figure or a literary construction. In addition, it looks at how authorship plays a role in manuscript compilation, and at the effects of attributions (by author and/or compiler) on reception. The case studies include manuscripts from the thirteenth to fifteenth centuries, produced in a range of social and cultural contexts, and featuring some of the most important European authors of short verse narratives: Rutebeuf, Baudouin de Condé, Der Striker, Konrad von Würzberg, Willem of Hildegaersberch, and Geoffrey Chaucer. The preliminary findings contribute to our understanding of author attributions in text collections from across northern Europe and point towards future lines of enquiry into the role of authorship in medieval textual dissemination
Batch Bayesian Learning of Large-Scale LS-SVMs Based on Low-rank Tensor Networks
No full textLeast Squares Support Vector Machines (LS-SVMs) are state-of-the-art learning algorithms that have been widely used for pattern recognition. The solution for an LS-SVM is found by solving a system of linear equations, which involves the computational complexity of O(N^3). When datasets get larger, solving LS-SVM problems with standard methods becomes burdensome or even unfeasible. The Tensor Train (TT) decomposition provides an approach to representing data in highly compressed formats without loss of accuracy. By converting vectors and matrices in the TT format, the storage and computational requirements can be greatly reduced. In this thesis, we develop a Bayesian learning method in the TT format to solve large-scale LS-SVM problems, which involves the computation of a matrix inverse. This method allows us to include the information we know about the model parameters in the prior distribution. As a result, we are able to obtain a probability distribution of the parameters, which enables us to construct confidence levels of the predictions. In the numerical experiment, we show that the developed method performs competitively with the current methods.Mechanical Engineering | Systems and Contro
Additive Manufacturing: Polymers Applicable for Laser Sintering (LS)
No full textAbstractAdditive Manufacturing (AM) is close to become a production technique changing the way of part fabrication in future. Enhanced complexity and personalized features are aimed. The expectations in AM for the future are enormous and betimes it is considered as kind of the next industrial revolution. Laser Sintering (LS) of polymer powders is one component of the AM production techniques. However materials successfully applicable to Laser Sintering (LS) are very limited today. The presentation picks up this topic and gives a short introduction on the material available today. Important factors of polymer powders, their significance for effective LS processing and analytical approaches to access those values are presented in the main part. Concurrently the exceptional position of polyamide 12 powders is this connection is outlined
Spleen Stiffness Probability Index (SSPI): A simple and accurate method to detect esophageal varices in patients with compensated liver cirrhosis
No full textIntroduction and objectives: Recent findings pointed out that even low-risk esophageal varices (EVs) are markers of severe prognosis. Accordingly, we analyzed spleen stiffness (SS) as a non-invasive method to predict EVs of any grade in a cohort of patients with compensated liver cirrhosis. Method: We measured SS and liver stiffness (LS) using point-Shear-Wave Elastography (pSWE) with Philips Affiniti 70 system in 210 cirrhotic patients who had undergone endoscopic screening for EVs. We compared SS and LS predictive capability for EVs of any grade. Results: SS was higher in cirrhotic patients with EVs if compared to patients without EVs (p < 0.001). The cut-off analysis detected 31 kPa (100% sensitivity and negative predictive value) as the value to rule-out EVs and 69 kPa (100% specificity and positive predictive value) to rule-in EVs. Besides, we developed the Spleen Stiffness Probability Index (SSPI), that can provide a probability of presence/absence of EVs. SSPI was the best model according to all discriminative and calibration metrics (AIC = 120, BIC = 127, AUROC = 0.95, Pseudo-R2 = 0.74). SS demonstrated higher correlation with spleen bipolar diameter and spleen surface (r = 0.52/0.55) if compared to LS (r = 0.30/0.25) – and with platelet count as well (r = 0.67 vs r = 0.4). Conclusion: SS showed significantly higher performance than other parameters, proving to be the best non-invasive test in the screening of EVs: by directly applying SS cut-off of 31 kPa, our department could have safely avoided endoscopy in 36% of patients. Despite cut-off analyses, it was possible to create a probability model that could further stratify low-risk from high-risk patients (for any grade of EVs)
The Social Cost-of-Living: Welfare Foundations and Estimation
No full textWe present a new class of social cost-of-living indices and a nonparametric framework for estimating these and other social cost-of- living indices. Common social cost-of-living indices can be understood as aggregator functions of approximations of individual cost-of-living indices. The Consumer Price Index (CPI) is the expenditure-weighted average of first-order approximations of each individual’s cost-of-living index. This is troubling for three reasons. First, it has not been shown to have a welfare economic foundation for the case where agents are heterogeneous (as they clearly are.) Second, it uses an expenditure-weighted average which downweights the experience of poor households relative to rich households. Finally, it uses only first-order approximations of each individual’s cost-of-living index, and thus ignores substitution effects. We propose a “common-scaling” social cost-of-living index, which is defined as the single scaling to everyone’s expenditure which holds social welfare constant across a price change. Our approach has an explicit social welfare foundation and allows us to choose the weights on the costs of rich and poor households. We also give a unique solution for the welfare function for the case where the weights are independent of household expenditure. A first order approximation of our social cost-of- living index nests as special cases commonly used indices such as the CPI. We also provide a nonparametric method for estimating second- order approximations (which account for substitution effects).Inflation, Social cost-of-living, Demand, Average Derivatives
The Social Cost-of-Living: Welfare Foundations and Estimation
No full textWe present a new class of social cost-of-living indices and a nonparametric framework for estimating these and other social cost-of-living indices. Common social cost-of-living indices can be understood as aggregator functions of approximations of individual cost-of-living indices. The Consumer Price Index (CPI) is the expenditure-weighted average of first-order approximations of each individual’s cost-of-living index. This is troubling for three reasons. First, it has not been shown to have a welfare economic foundation for the case where agents are heterogeneous (as they clearly are.) Second, it uses an expenditure-weighted average which downweights the experience of poor households relative to rich households. Finally, it uses only first-order approximations of each individual’s cost-of-living index, and thus ignores substitution effects. We propose a “common-scaling” social cost-of-living index, which is defined as the single scaling to everyone’s expenditure which holds social welfare constant across a price change. Our approach has an explicit social welfare foundation and allows us to choose the weights on the costs of rich and poor households. We also give a unique solution for the welfare function for the case where the weights are independent of household expenditure. A first order approximation of our social cost-of-living index nests as special cases commonly used indices such as the CPI. We also provide a nonparametric method for estimating second-order approximations (which account for substitution effects).Inflation, Social cost-of-living, Demand, Average derivatives
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