Independent Prognostic Value of Stroke Volume Index in Patients With Immunoglobulin Light Chain Amyloidosis.

Science.gov (United States)

2018-05-01

Heart involvement is the most important prognostic determinant in AL amyloidosis patients. Echocardiography is a cornerstone for the diagnosis and provides important prognostic information. We studied 754 patients with AL amyloidosis who underwent echocardiographic assessment at the Mayo Clinic, including a Doppler-derived measurement of stroke volume (SV) within 30 days of their diagnosis to explore the prognostic role of echocardiographic variables in the context of a well-established soluble cardiac biomarker staging system. Reproducibility of SV, myocardial contraction fraction, and left ventricular strain was assessed in a separate, yet comparable, study cohort of 150 patients from the Pavia Amyloidosis Center. The echocardiographic measures most predictive for overall survival were SV index <33 mL/min, myocardial contraction fraction <34%, and cardiac index <2.4 L/min/m 2 with respective hazard ratios (95% confidence intervals) of 2.95 (2.37-3.66), 2.36 (1.96-2.85), and 2.32 (1.91-2.80). For the subset that had left ventricular strain performed, the prognostic cut point was -14% (hazard ratios, 2.70; 95% confidence intervals, 1.84-3.96). Each parameter was independent of systolic blood pressure, Mayo staging system (NT-proBNP [N-terminal pro-B-type natriuretic peptide] and troponin), and ejection fraction on multivariable analysis. Simple predictive models for survival, including biomarker staging along with SV index or left ventricular strain, were generated. SV index prognostic performance was similar to left ventricular strain in predicting survival in AL amyloidosis, independently of biomarker staging. Because SV index is routinely calculated and widely available, it could serve as the preferred echocardiographic measure to predict outcomes in AL amyloidosis patients. © 2018 American Heart Association, Inc.

[Value of the palliative prognostic index, controlling nutritional status, and prognostic nutritional index for objective evaluation during transition from chemotherapy to palliative care in cases of advanced or recurrent gastrointestinal cancer].

Science.gov (United States)

Fukushima, Tsuyoshi; Annen, Kazuya; Kawamukai, Yuji; Onuma, Noritomo; Kawashima, Mayu

2014-07-01

We investigated whether objective evaluation by using the palliative prognostic index(PPI), controlling nutritional status(COUNT), and prognostic nutritional index(PNI)can provide prognostic information during the transition from chemotherapy to palliative care in patients with advanced or recurrent gastrointestinal cancer. The subjects were 28 patients with gastrointestinal cancer who died of their disease between January 2009 and June 2012. We compared the PPI, COUNT, and PNI scores between patients who died within 90 days of completing chemotherapy(Group A, n=14)and patients who survived for 90 or more days(Group B, n=14). The PPI score for Group A(4.0)was significantly higher than that for Group B(0.8)(pevaluation during the transition from chemotherapy to palliative care.

A clinically based prognostic index for diffuse large B-cell lymphoma with a cut-off at 70 years of age significantly improves prognostic stratification

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Gang, Anne O.; Pedersen, Michael; d'Amore, Francesco

2015-01-01

The introduction of rituximab and generally improved health among elderly patients have increased the survival of patients with diffuse large B-cell lymphoma (DLBCL). The International Prognostic Index (IPI) from 1992 is based on pre-rituximab data from clinical trials including several lymphoma ...... dehydrogenase (LDH), stage and albumin level, and (2) a separate age-adjusted DLBCL-PI for patients 1 extranodal lesion, however excluding stage....... subtypes. We applied IPI factors to a population-based rituximab-treated cohort of 1990 patients diagnosed 2000-2010 and explored new factors and the optimal prognostic age cut-off for DLBCL. Multivariate-analyses (MVA) confirmed the prognostic value of all IPI factors except the presence of > 1 extranodal...... lesion. The optimal age cut-off was 70 years. In a MVA of albumin, lymphocyte count, sex, immunoglobulin G, bulky disease, hemoglobin and B-symptoms, only albumin was prognostic. We propose: (1) a modified DLBCL prognostic index (DLBCL-PI) including: age (70 years), performance status (PS), lactate...

Prognostic factors and scoring system for survival in colonic perforation.

Science.gov (United States)

Komatsu, Shuhei; Shimomatsuya, Takumi; Nakajima, Masayuki; Amaya, Hirokazu; Kobuchi, Taketsune; Shiraishi, Susumu; Konishi, Sayuri; Ono, Susumu; Maruhashi, Kazuhiro

2005-01-01

No ideal and generally accepted prognostic factors and scoring systems exist to determine the prognosis of peritonitis associated with colonic perforation. This study was designed to investigate prognostic factors and evaluate the various scoring systems to allow identification of high-risk patients. Between 1996 and 2003, excluding iatrogenic and trauma cases, 26 consecutive patients underwent emergency operations for colorectal perforation and were selected for this retrospective study. Several clinical factors were analyzed as possible predictive factors, and APACHE II, SOFA, MPI, and MOF scores were calculated. The overall mortality was 26.9%. Compared with the survivors, non-survivors were found more frequently in Hinchey's stage III-IV, a low preoperative marker of pH, base excess (BE), and a low postoperative marker of white blood cell count, PaO2/FiO2 ratio, and renal output (24h). According to the logistic regression model, BE was a significant independent variable. Concerning the prognostic scoring systems, an APACHE II score of 19, a SOFA score of 8, an MPI score of 30, and an MOF score of 7 or more were significantly related to poor prognosis. Preoperative BE and postoperative white blood cell count were reliable prognostic factors and early classification using prognostic scoring systems at specific points in the disease process are useful to improve our understanding of the problems involved.

Development of an MPI benchmark program library

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Uehara, Hitoshi

2001-03-01

Distributed parallel simulation software with message passing interfaces has been developed to realize large-scale and high performance numerical simulations. The most popular API for message communication is an MPI. The MPI will be provided on the Earth Simulator. It is known that performance of message communication using the MPI libraries gives a significant influence on a whole performance of simulation programs. We developed an MPI benchmark program library named MBL in order to measure the performance of message communication precisely. The MBL measures the performance of major MPI functions such as point-to-point communications and collective communications and the performance of major communication patterns which are often found in application programs. In this report, the description of the MBL and the performance analysis of the MPI/SX measured on the SX-4 are presented. (author)

Expansion of the prognostic assessment of patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease : the updated BODE index and the ADO index

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Puhan, Milo A.; Garcia-Aymerich, Judith; Frey, Martin; ter Riet, Gerben; Anto, Josep M.; Agusti, Alvar G.; Gomez, Federico P.; Rodriguez-Roisin, Roberto; Moons, Karel G. M.; Kessels, Alphons G.; Held, Ulrike

2009-01-01

Background The BODE index (including body-mass index, airflow obstruction, dyspnoea, and exercise capacity) was an important contribution to the prognostic assessment of patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). However, no study has assessed whether the risk of mortality predicted

X-space MPI: magnetic nanoparticles for safe medical imaging.

Science.gov (United States)

Goodwill, Patrick William; Saritas, Emine Ulku; Croft, Laura Rose; Kim, Tyson N; Krishnan, Kannan M; Schaffer, David V; Conolly, Steven M

2012-07-24

One quarter of all iodinated contrast X-ray clinical imaging studies are now performed on Chronic Kidney Disease (CKD) patients. Unfortunately, the iodine contrast agent used in X-ray is often toxic to CKD patients' weak kidneys, leading to significant morbidity and mortality. Hence, we are pioneering a new medical imaging method, called Magnetic Particle Imaging (MPI), to replace X-ray and CT iodinated angiography, especially for CKD patients. MPI uses magnetic nanoparticle contrast agents that are much safer than iodine for CKD patients. MPI already offers superb contrast and extraordinary sensitivity. The iron oxide nanoparticle tracers required for MPI are also used in MRI, and some are already approved for human use, but the contrast agents are far more effective at illuminating blood vessels when used in the MPI modality. We have recently developed a systems theoretic framework for MPI called x-space MPI, which has already dramatically improved the speed and robustness of MPI image reconstruction. X-space MPI has allowed us to optimize the hardware for fi ve MPI scanners. Moreover, x-space MPI provides a powerful framework for optimizing the size and magnetic properties of the iron oxide nanoparticle tracers used in MPI. Currently MPI nanoparticles have diameters in the 10-20 nanometer range, enabling millimeter-scale resolution in small animals. X-space MPI theory predicts that larger nanoparticles could enable up to 250 micrometer resolution imaging, which would represent a major breakthrough in safe imaging for CKD patients.

Prognostic model based on nailfold capillaroscopy for identifying Raynaud's phenomenon patients at high risk for the development of a scleroderma spectrum disorder: PRINCE (prognostic index for nailfold capillaroscopic examination).

Science.gov (United States)

Ingegnoli, Francesca; Boracchi, Patrizia; Gualtierotti, Roberta; Lubatti, Chiara; Meani, Laura; Zahalkova, Lenka; Zeni, Silvana; Fantini, Flavio

2008-07-01

To construct a prognostic index based on nailfold capillaroscopic examinations that is capable of predicting the 5-year transition from isolated Raynaud's phenomenon (RP) to RP secondary to scleroderma spectrum disorders (SSDs). The study involved 104 consecutive adult patients with a clinical history of isolated RP, and the index was externally validated in another cohort of 100 patients with the same characteristics. Both groups were followed up for 1-8 years. Six variables were examined because of their potential prognostic relevance (branching, enlarged and giant loops, capillary disorganization, microhemorrhages, and the number of capillaries). The only factors that played a significant prognostic role were the presence of giant loops (hazard ratio [HR] 2.64, P = 0.008) and microhemorrhages (HR 2.33, P = 0.01), and the number of capillaries (analyzed as a continuous variable). The adjusted prognostic role of these factors was evaluated by means of multivariate regression analysis, and the results were used to construct an algorithm-based prognostic index. The model was internally and externally validated. Our prognostic capillaroscopic index identifies RP patients in whom the risk of developing SSDs is high. This model is a weighted combination of different capillaroscopy parameters that allows physicians to stratify RP patients easily, using a relatively simple diagram to deduce the prognosis. Our results suggest that this index could be used in clinical practice, and its further inclusion in prospective studies will undoubtedly help in exploring its potential in predicting treatment response.

SPECT myocardial perfusion imaging. Long-term prognostic value in diabetic patients with and without coronary artery disease

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Koehli, M.; Monbaron, D.; Gaillard, R.C.; Ruiz, J.; Prior, J.O.; Bischof Delaloye, A.; Calcagni, M.L.; Fivaz-Arbane, M.; Stauffer, J.C.

2006-01-01

Aim: To determine the long-term prognostic value of SPECT myocardial perfusion imaging (MPI) for the occurrence of cardiovascular events in diabetic patients. Patients, methods: SPECT MPI of 210 consecutive Caucasian diabetic patients were analysed using Kaplan-Meier event-free survival curve and independent predictors were determined by Cox multivariate analyses. Results: Follow-up was complete in 200 (95%) patients with a median period of 3.0 years (0.8-5.0). The population was composed of 114 (57%) men, age 65 ± 10 years, 181 (90.5%) type 2 diabetes mellitus, 50 (25%) with a history of coronary artery disease (CAD) and 98 (49%) presenting chest pain prior to MPI. The prevalence of abnormal MPI was 58%. Patients with a normal MPI had neither cardiac death, nor myocardial infarction, independently of a history of coronary artery disease or chest pain. Among the independent predictors of cardiac death and myocardial infarction, the strongest was abnormal MPI (p 5-fold increase in cardiovascular events. This emphasizes the value of SPECT MPI in predicting and risk-stratifying cardiovascular events in diabetic patients. (orig.)

MPI support in the DIRAC Pilot Job Workload Management System

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Tsaregorodtsev, A; Hamar, V

2012-01-01

Parallel job execution in the grid environment using MPI technology presents a number of challenges for the sites providing this support. Multiple flavors of the MPI libraries, shared working directories required by certain applications, special settings for the batch systems make the MPI support difficult for the site managers. On the other hand the workload management systems with Pilot Jobs became ubiquitous although the support for the MPI applications in the Pilot frameworks was not available. This support was recently added in the DIRAC Project in the context of the GISELA Latin American Grid Initiative. Special services for dynamic allocation of virtual computer pools on the grid sites were developed in order to deploy MPI rings corresponding to the requirements of the jobs in the central task queue of the DIRAC Workload Management System. Pilot Jobs using user space file system techniques install the required MPI software automatically. The same technique is used to emulate shared working directories for the parallel MPI processes. This makes it possible to execute MPI jobs even on the sites not supporting them officially. Reusing so constructed MPI rings for execution of a series of parallel jobs increases dramatically their efficiency and turnaround. In this contribution we describe the design and implementation of the DIRAC MPI Service as well as its support for various types of MPI libraries. Advantages of coupling the MPI support with the Pilot frameworks are outlined and examples of usage with real applications are presented.

Design of Superparamagnetic Nanoparticles for Magnetic Particle Imaging (MPI

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Philip W. T. Pong

2013-09-01

Full Text Available Magnetic particle imaging (MPI is a promising medical imaging technique producing quantitative images of the distribution of tracer materials (superparamagnetic nanoparticles without interference from the anatomical background of the imaging objects (either phantoms or lab animals. Theoretically, the MPI platform can image with relatively high temporal and spatial resolution and sensitivity. In practice, the quality of the MPI images hinges on both the applied magnetic field and the properties of the tracer nanoparticles. Langevin theory can model the performance of superparamagnetic nanoparticles and predict the crucial influence of nanoparticle core size on the MPI signal. In addition, the core size distribution, anisotropy of the magnetic core and surface modification of the superparamagnetic nanoparticles also determine the spatial resolution and sensitivity of the MPI images. As a result, through rational design of superparamagnetic nanoparticles, the performance of MPI could be effectively optimized. In this review, the performance of superparamagnetic nanoparticles in MPI is investigated. Rational synthesis and modification of superparamagnetic nanoparticles are discussed and summarized. The potential medical application areas for MPI, including cardiovascular system, oncology, stem cell tracking and immune related imaging are also analyzed and forecasted.

Long-term prognostic implications of myocardial perfusion imaging in octogenarians: an all-comer, cohort study

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Katsikis, Athanasios [Onassis Cardiac Surgery Center, Nuclear Medicine Department, Athens (Greece); 401 General Military Hospital of Athens, Cardiology Department, Athens (Greece); Theodorakos, Athanasios; Manira, Vassiliki; Koutelou, Maria [Onassis Cardiac Surgery Center, Nuclear Medicine Department, Athens (Greece); Papaioannou, Spyridon [Athens Naval Hospital, Cardiology Department, Athens (Greece); Kolovou, Genovefa; Voudris, Vassilios [Onassis Cardiac Surgery Center, Cardiology Department, Athens (Greece)

2017-08-15

Evaluation of the long-term prognostic value of myocardial perfusion imaging (MPI) in octogenarians. Six hundred and twenty-nine octogenarians [51% previous myocardial infarction (MI) or revascularization] who underwent single-isotope MPI (78% {sup 201}Tl, 22% {sup 99m}Tc-tetrofosmin) with exercise (38% Bruce, 2% leg ergometry) or pharmacologic (58% adenosine, 2% dobutamine) stress were studied. All patients had LVEF determined by echocardiography within 1 month from MPI. Myocardial perfusion scoring was performed on a 17-segment LV-model with a 5-point grading system and three summed stress score (SSS)-based risk categories were formed [high-(SSS > 12), low-(SSS < 4), medium]. Prospective follow-up was performed to document all-cause (ACD), cardiac death (CD), MI, and revascularization. Revascularization was used to censor follow-up in survival analysis regarding ACD, CD, and CD/MI. For analysis of the CD, MI, or late revascularization (LR) composite, only revascularizations within 3 months from MPI (early revascularizations) were used for censoring. After 9.3 years there were 187 ACDs, 86 CDs, 28 MIs, and 77 revascularizations, including 28 early revascularizations. Adjusting for LVEF and stress-modality type, SSS was identified as an independent predictor of ACD [HR 1.03 (1.01-1.05)], CD [HR 1.05 (1.03-1.08)], CD,MI [HR 1.05 (1.02-1.07)], and CD,MI or LR [HR 1.05 (1.03-1.07)] (p ≤ 0.001 in all cases). Increased lung uptake had independent prognostic value only for the CD, MI, or LR end-point [HR 3 (1.2-7.7), p = 0.02]. Survival modeling demonstrated that LVEF and SSS, but not non-perfusion scintigraphic data provided incremental prognostic value over pre-test available clinical and historical information for all end-points. Differences between Kaplan-Meier survival curves of SSS-based risk groups were significant for all end-points (p < 0.001 in all cases). In octogenarians, MPI provides effective long-term risk stratification, regardless of stress type used

Development of Mixed Mode MPI / OpenMP Applications

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Lorna Smith

2001-01-01

Full Text Available MPI / OpenMP mixed mode codes could potentially offer the most effective parallelisation strategy for an SMP cluster, as well as allowing the different characteristics of both paradigms to be exploited to give the best performance on a single SMP. This paper discusses the implementation, development and performance of mixed mode MPI / OpenMP applications. The results demonstrate that this style of programming will not always be the most effective mechanism on SMP systems and cannot be regarded as the ideal programming model for all codes. In some situations, however, significant benefit may be obtained from a mixed mode implementation. For example, benefit may be obtained if the parallel (MPI code suffers from: poor scaling with MPI processes due to load imbalance or too fine a grain problem size, memory limitations due to the use of a replicated data strategy, or a restriction on the number of MPI processes combinations. In addition, if the system has a poorly optimised or limited scaling MPI implementation then a mixed mode code may increase the code performance.

Practical prognostic index for patients with metastatic recurrent breast cancer: retrospective analysis of 2,322 patients from the GEICAM Spanish El Alamo Register.

Science.gov (United States)

Puente, Javier; López-Tarruella, Sara; Ruiz, Amparo; Lluch, Ana; Pastor, Miguel; Alba, Emilio; de la Haba, Juan; Ramos, Manuel; Cirera, Luis; Antón, Antonio; Llombart, Antoni; Plazaola, Arrate; Fernández-Aramburo, Antonio; Sastre, Javier; Díaz-Rubio, Eduardo; Martin, Miguel

2010-07-01

Women with recurrent metastatic breast cancer from a Spanish hospital registry (El Alamo, GEICAM) were analyzed in order to identify the most helpful prognostic factors to predict survival and to ultimately construct a practical prognostic index. The inclusion criteria covered women patients diagnosed with operable invasive breast cancer who had metastatic recurrence between 1990 and 1997 in GEICAM hospitals. Patients with stage IV breast cancer at initial diagnosis or with isolated loco-regional recurrence were excluded from this analysis. Data from 2,322 patients with recurrent breast cancer after primary treatment (surgery, radiation and systemic adjuvant treatment) were used to construct the prognostic index. The prognostic index score for each individual patient was calculated by totalling up the scores of each independent variable. The maximum score obtainable was 26.1. Nine-hundred and sixty-two patients who had complete data for all the variables were used in the computation of the prognostic index score. We were able to stratify them into three prognostic groups based on the prognostic index score: 322 patients in the good risk group (score or =15.61). The median survivals for these groups were 3.69, 2.27 and 1.02 years, respectively (P < 0.0001). In conclusion, risk scores are extraordinarily valuable tools, highly recommendable in the clinical practice.

Static Deadlock Detection in MPI Synchronization Communication

OpenAIRE

Ming-Xue, Liao; Xiao-Xin, He; Zhi-Hua, Fan

2007-01-01

It is very common to use dynamic methods to detect deadlocks in MPI programs for the reason that static methods have some restrictions. To guarantee high reliability of some important MPI-based application software, a model of MPI synchronization communication is abstracted and a type of static method is devised to examine deadlocks in such modes. The model has three forms with different complexity: sequential model, single-loop model and nested-loop model. Sequential model is a base for all ...

Benchmarking MILC code with OpenMP and MPI

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Gottlieb, Steven; Tamhankar, Sonali

2001-01-01

A trend in high performance computers that is becoming increasingly popular is the use of symmetric multi-processing (SMP) rather than the older paradigm of MPP. MPI codes that ran and scaled well on MPP machines can often be run on an SMP machine using the vendor's version of MPI. However, this approach may not make optimal use of the (expensive) SMP hardware. More significantly, there are machines like Blue Horizon, an IBM SP with 8-way SMP nodes at the San Diego Supercomputer Center that can only support 4 MPI processes per node (with the current switch). On such a machine it is imperative to be able to use OpenMP parallelism on the node, and MPI between nodes. We describe the challenges of converting MILC MPI code to using a second level of OpenMP parallelism, and benchmarks on IBM and Sun computers

Tei index in neonatal respiratory distress and perinatal asphyxia

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Ahmed Anwer Attia Khattab

2015-09-01

Full Text Available Cardiovascular compromise is a common complication of neonatal respiratory distress and perinatal asphyxia. Tei index is a Doppler-derived index for the assessment of overall left ventricular function that combines systolic and diastolic time intervals. Aim: Assess the role of MPI versus cardiac troponin I as early indicator of hypoxic cardiac damage in neonates with respiratory distress or perinatal asphyxia. The present work was conducted on forty neonates, 15 with neonatal respiratory distress (group I, 15 with perinatal asphyxia (group II, and 10 apparently healthy neonates as a control (group III. All have: Detailed history-thorough clinical examination-Plain X-ray-ECG-Two dimensional, M-mode and Doppler echocardiographic examination with the measurement of both myocardial performance index (MPI of the right and left ventricle-Serum cardiac troponin I. Results: There was statistically significant increase in serum cardiac troponin I in groups I and II than group III. Left and right ventricular myocardial performance index (MPI were increased in group I and II than the control group. No correlation between Tei index and each of postnatal age, apgar score at 5-min, heart rate, serum cardiac troponin I, ejection fraction and fractional shortening, but there was direct relationship between MPI and LVEDD and inverse relationship between MPI and each of EF% and FS%. But there was significant correlation between L.V. MPI and gestational age. Conclusion: Tei index was higher in neonates with respiratory distress and neonates with perinatal asphyxia than in normal neonates despite normal or even increased ejection fraction which indicates that these patients may have subclinical ventricular dysfunction which should be followed up carefully.

Prognostic importance of objective nutritional indexes in patients with chronic heart failure.

Science.gov (United States)

Narumi, Taro; Arimoto, Takanori; Funayama, Akira; Kadowaki, Shinpei; Otaki, Yoichiro; Nishiyama, Satoshi; Takahashi, Hiroki; Shishido, Tetsuro; Miyashita, Takehiko; Miyamoto, Takuya; Watanabe, Tetsu; Kubota, Isao

2013-11-01

Although malnutrition indicates an unfavorable prognosis in some clinical settings, the association between nutritional indexes and outcomes for patients with chronic heart failure (CHF) is unclear. All the previously established objective nutritional indexes were evaluated. The controlling nutritional status score (CONUT), prognostic nutritional index (PNI), and geriatric nutritional risk index (GNRI) were determined for 388 consecutive patients with CHF (mean age 69.6±12.3 years). The prevalence of malnutrition in this cohort was 60-69%. Patients were followed prospectively, with the endpoints being death due to a cardiovascular event or re-hospitalization. There were 130 events, including 33 deaths and 97 re-hospitalizations, during a mean follow-up period of 28.4 months. Patients experiencing cardiovascular events showed impaired nutritional status, higher CONUT scores, lower PNI scores, and lower GNRI scores, compared with those who did not experience cardiovascular events. CONUT score [hazard ratio 40.9, 95% confidence interval (CI) 10.8-154.8], PNI score (hazard ratio 6.4, 95% CI 5.4-25.1), and GNRI score (hazard ratio 11.6, 95% CI 3.7-10.0) were independently associated with cardiovascular events. Kaplan-Meier analysis showed that there was a significantly higher incidence of cardiovascular events in patients who were malnourished than in those who were not. Malnutrition was common in patients with CHF. Evaluation of nutritional status may provide additional prognostic information in patients with CHF. Copyright © 2013 Japanese College of Cardiology. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Final report: Compiled MPI. Cost-Effective Exascale Application Development

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Gropp, William Douglas [Univ. of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, IL (United States)

2015-12-21

This is the final report on Compiled MPI: Cost-Effective Exascale Application Development, and summarizes the results under this project. The project investigated runtime enviroments that improve the performance of MPI (Message-Passing Interface) programs; work at Illinois in the last period of this project looked at optimizing data access optimizations expressed with MPI datatypes.

Comparison of Glasgow prognostic score and prognostic index in patients with advanced non-small cell lung cancer.

Science.gov (United States)

Jiang, Ai-Gui; Chen, Hong-Lin; Lu, Hui-Yu

2015-03-01

Previous studies have shown that Glasgow prognostic score (GPS) and prognostic index (PI) are also powerful prognostic tool for patients with advanced non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC). The aim of this study was to compare the prognostic value between GPS and PI. We enrolled consecutive patients with advanced NSCLC in this prospective cohort. GPS and PI were calculated before the onset of chemotherapy. The prognosis outcomes included 1-, 3-, and 5-year progression-free survival and overall survival (OS). The performance of two scores in predicting prognosis was analyzed regarding discrimination and calibration. 138 patients were included in the study. The area under the receiver operating characteristic curve for GPS predicting 1-year DFS was 0.62 (95 % confidence interval (CI) 0.56-0.68, P statistic showed good fit of the predicted 1-year DFS to the actual 1-year DFS by GPS (χ(2) = 4.326, P = 0.462), while no fit was found between the predicted 1-year DFS and the actual 1-year DFS by PI (χ(2) = 15.234, P = 0.091). Similar results of calibration power were found for predicting 3-year DFS, 5-year DFS, 1-year OS, 3-year OS, and 5-year OS by GPS and PI. GPS is more accurate than PI in predicting prognosis for patients with advanced NSCLC. GPS can be used as a useful and simple tool for predicting prognosis in patients with NSCLC. However, GPS only can be used for preliminary assessment because of low predicting accuracy.

Compiled MPI: Cost-Effective Exascale Applications Development

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Bronevetsky, G; Quinlan, D; Lumsdaine, A; Hoefler, T

2012-04-10

The complexity of petascale and exascale machines makes it increasingly difficult to develop applications that can take advantage of them. Future systems are expected to feature billion-way parallelism, complex heterogeneous compute nodes and poor availability of memory (Peter Kogge, 2008). This new challenge for application development is motivating a significant amount of research and development on new programming models and runtime systems designed to simplify large-scale application development. Unfortunately, DoE has significant multi-decadal investment in a large family of mission-critical scientific applications. Scaling these applications to exascale machines will require a significant investment that will dwarf the costs of hardware procurement. A key reason for the difficulty in transitioning today's applications to exascale hardware is their reliance on explicit programming techniques, such as the Message Passing Interface (MPI) programming model to enable parallelism. MPI provides a portable and high performance message-passing system that enables scalable performance on a wide variety of platforms. However, it also forces developers to lock the details of parallelization together with application logic, making it very difficult to adapt the application to significant changes in the underlying system. Further, MPI's explicit interface makes it difficult to separate the application's synchronization and communication structure, reducing the amount of support that can be provided by compiler and run-time tools. This is in contrast to the recent research on more implicit parallel programming models such as Chapel, OpenMP and OpenCL, which promise to provide significantly more flexibility at the cost of reimplementing significant portions of the application. We are developing CoMPI, a novel compiler-driven approach to enable existing MPI applications to scale to exascale systems with minimal modifications that can be made incrementally over

Master Veteran Index (MVI)

Data.gov (United States)

Department of Veterans Affairs — As of June 28, 2010, the Master Veteran Index (MVI) database based on the enhanced Master Patient Index (MPI) is the authoritative identity service within the VA,...

Automatic Migration from PARMACS to MPI in Parallel Fortran Applications

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Rolf Hempel

1999-01-01

Full Text Available The PARMACS message passing interface has been in widespread use by application projects, especially in Europe. With the new MPI standard for message passing, many projects face the problem of replacing PARMACS with MPI. An automatic translation tool has been developed which replaces all PARMACS 6.0 calls in an application program with their corresponding MPI calls. In this paper we describe the mapping of the PARMACS programming model onto MPI. We then present some implementation details of the converter tool.

Prognostic nutritional index as a prognostic biomarker for survival in digestive system carcinomas.

Science.gov (United States)

Zhao, Yang; Xu, Peng; Kang, Huafeng; Lin, Shuai; Wang, Meng; Yang, Pengtao; Dai, Cong; Liu, Xinghan; Liu, Kang; Zheng, Yi; Dai, Zhijun

2016-12-27

The prognostic nutritional index (PNI) has been reported to correlate with the prognosis in patients with various malignancies. We performed a meta-analysis to determine the predictive potential of PNI in digestive system cancers. Twenty-three studies with a total of 7,384 patients suffering from digestive system carcinomas were involved in this meta-analysis. A lower PNI was significantly associated with the shorter overall survival (OS) [Hazard Ratio (HR) 1.83, 95% Confidence Interval (CI) 1.62-2.07], the poorer disease-free survival (DFS) (HR 1.85, 95% CI 1.19-2.89), and the higher rate of post-operative complications (HR 2.31, 95% CI 1.63-3.28). In conclusion, PNI was allowed to function as an efficient indicator for the prognosis of patients with digestive system carcinomas.

Fault Tolerance Assistant (FTA): An Exception Handling Programming Model for MPI Applications

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Fang, Aiman [Univ. of Chicago, IL (United States). Dept. of Computer Science; Laguna, Ignacio [Lawrence Livermore National Lab. (LLNL), Livermore, CA (United States); Sato, Kento [Lawrence Livermore National Lab. (LLNL), Livermore, CA (United States); Islam, Tanzima [Lawrence Livermore National Lab. (LLNL), Livermore, CA (United States); Mohror, Kathryn [Lawrence Livermore National Lab. (LLNL), Livermore, CA (United States)

2016-05-23

Future high-performance computing systems may face frequent failures with their rapid increase in scale and complexity. Resilience to faults has become a major challenge for large-scale applications running on supercomputers, which demands fault tolerance support for prevalent MPI applications. Among failure scenarios, process failures are one of the most severe issues as they usually lead to termination of applications. However, the widely used MPI implementations do not provide mechanisms for fault tolerance. We propose FTA-MPI (Fault Tolerance Assistant MPI), a programming model that provides support for failure detection, failure notification and recovery. Specifically, FTA-MPI exploits a try/catch model that enables failure localization and transparent recovery of process failures in MPI applications. We demonstrate FTA-MPI with synthetic applications and a molecular dynamics code CoMD, and show that FTA-MPI provides high programmability for users and enables convenient and flexible recovery of process failures.

Prognostic value of stress myocardial perfusion positron emission tomography: results from a multicenter observational registry.

Science.gov (United States)

Dorbala, Sharmila; Di Carli, Marcelo F; Beanlands, Rob S; Merhige, Michael E; Williams, Brent A; Veledar, Emir; Chow, Benjamin J W; Min, James K; Pencina, Michael J; Berman, Daniel S; Shaw, Leslee J

2013-01-15

The primary objective of this multicenter registry was to study the prognostic value of positron emission tomography (PET) myocardial perfusion imaging (MPI) and the improved classification of risk in a large cohort of patients with suspected or known coronary artery disease (CAD). Limited prognostic data are available for MPI with PET. A total of 7,061 patients from 4 centers underwent a clinically indicated rest/stress rubidium-82 PET MPI, with a median follow-up of 2.2 years. The primary outcome of this study was cardiac death (n = 169), and the secondary outcome was all-cause death (n = 570). Net reclassification improvement (NRI) and integrated discrimination analyses were performed. Risk-adjusted hazard of cardiac death increased with each 10% myocardium abnormal with mildly, moderately, or severely abnormal stress PET (hazard ratio [HR]: 2.3 [95% CI: 1.4 to 3.8; p = 0.001], HR: 4.2 [95% CI: 2.3 to 7.5; p statistic 0.805 [95% CI: 0.772 to 0.838] to 0.839 [95% CI: 0.809 to 0.869]) and risk reclassification for cardiac death (NRI 0.116 [95% CI: 0.021 to 0.210]), with smaller improvements in risk assessment for all-cause death. In patients with known or suspected CAD, the extent and severity of ischemia and scar on PET MPI provided powerful and incremental risk estimates of cardiac death and all-cause death compared with traditional coronary risk factors. Copyright © 2013 American College of Cardiology Foundation. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Confirmation of the mantle-cell lymphoma International Prognostic Index in randomized trials of the European Mantle-Cell Lymphoma Network

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Hoster, Eva; Klapper, Wolfram; Hermine, Olivier

2014-01-01

PURPOSE: Mantle-cell lymphoma (MCL) is a distinct B-cell lymphoma associated with poor outcome. In 2008, the MCL International Prognostic Index (MIPI) was developed as the first prognostic stratification tool specifically directed to patients with MCL. External validation was planned.......9) and 2.6 (2.0 to 3.3), respectively. MIPI was similarly prognostic for TTF. All four clinical baseline characteristics constituting the MIPI, age, performance status, lactate dehydrogenase level, and WBC count, were confirmed as independent prognostic factors for OS and TTF. The validity of MIPI...

Prognostic value of vasodilator response using rubidium-82 positron emission tomography myocardial perfusion imaging in patients with coronary artery disease

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Arasaratnam, Punitha; Sadreddini, Masoud; Yam, Yeung; Kansal, Vinay; Beanlands, Rob S. [University of Ottawa Heart Institute, Canada, Department of Medicine (Cardiology), Ottawa, ON (Canada); Dorbala, Sharmila; Di Carli, Marcelo F. [Brigham and Women' s Hospital, Division of Cardiovascular Medicine and Division of Nuclear Medicine, Boston, MA (United States); Merhige, Michael E. [Niagara Falls Memorial Medical Center, Departments of Cardiology, Internal Medicine, and Nuclear Medicine, Buffalo, NY (United States); Williams, Brent A. [Geisinger Medical Center, Department of Center for Health Research, Danville, PA (United States); Veledar, Emir; Shaw, Leslee J. [Emory University School of Medicine, Department of Medicine, Atlanta, GA (United States); Min, James K. [Weill Cornell Medical College, Department of Radiology and Department of Imaging, New York, NY (United States); Chen, Li [University of Ottawa Heart Institute, Cardiovascular Research Methods Centre, Ottawa, ON (Canada); Ruddy, Terrence D.; Chow, Benjamin J.W. [University of Ottawa Heart Institute, Canada, Department of Medicine (Cardiology), Ottawa, ON (Canada); University of Ottawa, Department of Radiology, Ottawa, ON (Canada); Germano, Guido; Berman, Daniel S. [Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, Department of Imaging, Los Angeles, CA (United States)

2018-04-15

Prognostic value of positron emission tomography (PET) myocardial perfusion imaging (MPI) is well established. There is paucity of data on how the prognostic value of PET relates to the hemodynamic response to vasodilator stress. We hypothesize that inadequate hemodynamic response will affect the prognostic value of PET MPI. Using a multicenter rubidium (Rb)-82 PET registry, 3406 patients who underwent a clinically indicated rest/stress PET MPI with a vasodilator agent were analyzed. Patients were categorized as, ''responders'' [increase in heart rate ≥ 10 beats per minute (bpm) and decrease in systolic blood pressure (SBP) ≥10 mmHg], ''partial responders'' (either a change in HR or SBP), and ''non-responders'' (no change in HR or SBP). Primary outcome was all-cause death (ACD), and secondary outcome was cardiac death (CD). Ischemic burden was measured using summed stress score (SSS) and % left ventricular (LV) ischemia. After a median follow-up of 1.68 years (interquartile range = 1.17- 2.55), there were 7.9% (n = 270) ACD and 2.6% (n = 54) CD. Responders with a normal PET MPI had an annualized event rate (AER) of 1.22% (SSS of 0-3) and 1.58% (% LV ischemia = 0). Partial and non-responders had higher AER with worsening levels of ischemic burden. In the presence of severe SSS ≥12 and LV ischemia of ≥10%, partial responders had an AER of 10.79% and 10.36%, compared to non-responders with an AER of 19.4% and 12.43%, respectively. Patient classification was improved when SSS was added to a model containing clinical variables (NRI: 42%, p < 0.001) and responder category was added (NRI: 61%, p < 0.001). The model including clinical variables, SSS and hemodynamic response has good discrimination ability (Harrell C statistics: 0.77 [0.74-0.80]). Hemodynamic response during a vasodilator Rb-82 PET MPI is predictive of ACD. Partial and non-responders may require additional risk stratification leading to

Geriatric nutritional risk index as a prognostic factor in patients with diffuse large B cell lymphoma.

Science.gov (United States)

Kanemasa, Yusuke; Shimoyama, Tatsu; Sasaki, Yuki; Hishima, Tsunekazu; Omuro, Yasushi

2018-06-01

The geriatric nutritional risk index (GNRI) is a simple and well-established nutritional assessment tool that is a significant prognostic factor for various cancers. However, the role of the GNRI in predicting clinical outcomes of diffuse large B cell lymphoma (DLBCL) patients has not been investigated. To address this issue, we retrospectively analyzed a total of 476 patients with newly diagnosed de novo DLBCL. We defined the best cutoff value of the GNRI as 96.8 using a receiver operating characteristic curve. Patients with a GNRI risk by National Comprehensive Cancer Network-International Prognostic Index (NCCN-IPI), the 5-year OS was significantly lower in patients with a GNRI risk, 59.5 vs. 75.2%, P = 0.006; high risk, 37.4 vs. 64.9%, P = 0.033). In the present study, we demonstrated that the GNRI was an independent prognostic factor in DLBCL patients. The GNRI could identify a population of poor-risk patients among those with high-intermediate and high-risk by NCCN-IPI.

SPECT myocardial perfusion imaging. Long-term prognostic value in diabetic patients with and without coronary artery disease

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Koehli, M. [Dept. of Endocrinology, Diabetology and Metabolism, Univ. Hospital Lausanne (Switzerland); Dept. of Nuclear Medicine, Univ. Hospital Lausanne (Switzerland); Monbaron, D.; Gaillard, R.C.; Ruiz, J. [Dept. of Endocrinology, Diabetology and Metabolism, Univ. Hospital Lausanne (Switzerland); Prior, J.O.; Bischof Delaloye, A. [Dept. of Nuclear Medicine, Univ. Hospital Lausanne (Switzerland); Calcagni, M.L. [Dept. of Nuclear Medicine, Univ. Hospital Lausanne (Switzerland); Dept. of Cardiology, Univ. Hospital Lausanne (Switzerland); Fivaz-Arbane, M.; Stauffer, J.C. [Inst. of Nuclear Medicine, Univ. Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, Roma (Italy)

2006-07-01

Aim: To determine the long-term prognostic value of SPECT myocardial perfusion imaging (MPI) for the occurrence of cardiovascular events in diabetic patients. Patients, methods: SPECT MPI of 210 consecutive Caucasian diabetic patients were analysed using Kaplan-Meier event-free survival curve and independent predictors were determined by Cox multivariate analyses. Results: Follow-up was complete in 200 (95%) patients with a median period of 3.0 years (0.8-5.0). The population was composed of 114 (57%) men, age 65 {+-} 10 years, 181 (90.5%) type 2 diabetes mellitus, 50 (25%) with a history of coronary artery disease (CAD) and 98 (49%) presenting chest pain prior to MPI. The prevalence of abnormal MPI was 58%. Patients with a normal MPI had neither cardiac death, nor myocardial infarction, independently of a history of coronary artery disease or chest pain. Among the independent predictors of cardiac death and myocardial infarction, the strongest was abnormal MPI (p < 0.0001), followed by history of CAD (Hazard Ratio (HR) = 15.9; p = 0.0001), diabetic retinopathy (HR = 10.0; p = 0.001) and inability to exercise (HR = 7.7; p = 0.02). Patients with normal MPI had a low revascularisation rate of 2.4% during the follow-up period. Compared to normal MPI, cardiovascular events increased 5.2 fold for reversible defects, 8.5 fold for fixed defects and 20.1 fold for the association of both defects. Conclusion: Diabetic patients with normal MPI had on excellent prognosis independently of history of CAD. On the opposite, an abnormal MPI led to a > 5-fold increase in cardiovascular events. This emphasizes the value of SPECT MPI in predicting and risk-stratifying cardiovascular events in diabetic patients. (orig.)

Prognostic significance of the prognostic nutritional index in esophageal cancer patients undergoing neoadjuvant chemotherapy.

Science.gov (United States)

Nakatani, M; Migita, K; Matsumoto, S; Wakatsuki, K; Ito, M; Nakade, H; Kunishige, T; Kitano, M; Kanehiro, H

2017-08-01

Nutritional status is one of the most important issues faced by cancer patients. Several studies have shown that a low preoperative nutritional status is associated with a worse prognosis in patients with various types of cancer, including esophageal cancer (EC). Recently, neoadjuvant chemotherapy (NAC) and/or radiotherapy have been accepted as the standard treatment for resectable advanced EC. However, NAC has the potential to deteriorate the nutritional status of a patient. This study aimed to evaluate the prognostic significance of the nutritional status for EC patients who underwent NAC. We retrospectively reviewed 66 squamous cell EC patients who underwent NAC consisting of docetaxel, cisplatin, and 5-fluorouracil followed by subtotal esophagectomy at Nara Medical University Hospital between January 2009 and August 2015. To assess the patients' nutritional status, the prognostic nutritional index (PNI) before commencing NAC and prior to the operation was calculated as 10 × serum albumin (g/dl) + 0.005 × total lymphocyte count in the peripheral blood (per mm3). The cutoff value of the PNI was set at 45. A multivariable analysis was performed to identify prognostic factors for overall survival (OS) and relapse-free survival (RFS). The mean pre-NAC and preoperative PNI were 50.2 ± 5.7 and 48.1 ± 4.7, respectively (P = 0.005). The PNI decreased following NAC in 44 (66.7%) patients. Before initiating NAC, 9 (13.6%) patients had a low PNI, and 12 (18.2%) patients had a low PNI prior to the operation. The pre-NAC PNI and preoperative PNI were significantly associated with the OS (P = 0.013 and P = 0.004, respectively) and RFS (P = 0.036 and P = 0.005, respectively) rates. The multivariable analysis identified the preoperative PNI as an independent prognostic factor for poor OS and RFS, although the pre-NAC PNI was not an independent predictor. Our results suggest that the preoperative PNI is a useful marker for predicting the long-term outcomes of EC patients

Towards deductive verification of MPI programs against session types

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Eduardo R. B. Marques

2013-12-01

Full Text Available The Message Passing Interface (MPI is the de facto standard message-passing infrastructure for developing parallel applications. Two decades after the first version of the library specification, MPI-based applications are nowadays routinely deployed on super and cluster computers. These applications, written in C or Fortran, exhibit intricate message passing behaviours, making it hard to statically verify important properties such as the absence of deadlocks. Our work builds on session types, a theory for describing protocols that provides for correct-by-construction guarantees in this regard. We annotate MPI primitives and C code with session type contracts, written in the language of a software verifier for C. Annotated code is then checked for correctness with the software verifier. We present preliminary results and discuss the challenges that lie ahead for verifying realistic MPI program compliance against session types.

Memory Compression Techniques for Network Address Management in MPI

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Guo, Yanfei; Archer, Charles J.; Blocksome, Michael; Parker, Scott; Bland, Wesley; Raffenetti, Ken; Balaji, Pavan

2017-05-29

MPI allows applications to treat processes as a logical collection of integer ranks for each MPI communicator, while internally translating these logical ranks into actual network addresses. In current MPI implementations the management and lookup of such network addresses use memory sizes that are proportional to the number of processes in each communicator. In this paper, we propose a new mechanism, called AV-Rankmap, for managing such translation. AV-Rankmap takes advantage of logical patterns in rank-address mapping that most applications naturally tend to have, and it exploits the fact that some parts of network address structures are naturally more performance critical than others. It uses this information to compress the memory used for network address management. We demonstrate that AV-Rankmap can achieve performance similar to or better than that of other MPI implementations while using significantly less memory.

MPI@LHC Talk.

CERN Document Server

AUTHOR|(INSPIRE)INSPIRE-00392933; The ATLAS collaboration

2016-01-01

Draft version of talk for MPI@LHC, regarding the topic of "Monte Carlo Tuning @ ATLAS". The talk introduces the event generator chain, concepts of tuning, issues/problems with over tuning, and then proceeds to explain 3(4) tunes performed at ATLAS. A 4th tune known as A15-MG5aMC@NLO(-TTBAR) is also included, but is awaiting note approval.

Practical Formal Verification of MPI and Thread Programs

Science.gov (United States)

Gopalakrishnan, Ganesh; Kirby, Robert M.

Large-scale simulation codes in science and engineering are written using the Message Passing Interface (MPI). Shared memory threads are widely used directly, or to implement higher level programming abstractions. Traditional debugging methods for MPI or thread programs are incapable of providing useful formal guarantees about coverage. They get bogged down in the sheer number of interleavings (schedules), often missing shallow bugs. In this tutorial we will introduce two practical formal verification tools: ISP (for MPI C programs) and Inspect (for Pthread C programs). Unlike other formal verification tools, ISP and Inspect run directly on user source codes (much like a debugger). They pursue only the relevant set of process interleavings, using our own customized Dynamic Partial Order Reduction algorithms. For a given test harness, DPOR allows these tools to guarantee the absence of deadlocks, instrumented MPI object leaks and communication races (using ISP), and shared memory races (using Inspect). ISP and Inspect have been used to verify large pieces of code: in excess of 10,000 lines of MPI/C for ISP in under 5 seconds, and about 5,000 lines of Pthread/C code in a few hours (and much faster with the use of a cluster or by exploiting special cases such as symmetry) for Inspect. We will also demonstrate the Microsoft Visual Studio and Eclipse Parallel Tools Platform integrations of ISP (these will be available on the LiveCD).

Prognostic significance of stress myocardial gated SPECT among Japanese patients referred for coronary angiography: A study of data from the J-ACCESS database

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Momose, Mitsuru [Tokyo Women' s Medical University, Department of Radiology, Tokyo (Japan); Nakajima, Kenichi [Kanazawa University Hospital, Department of Nuclear Medicine, Kanazawa (Japan); Nishimura, Tsunehiko [Kyoto Prefectural University of Medicine, Department of Radiology, Graduate School of Medical Science, Kyoto (Japan)

2009-08-15

The J-ACCESS [Japanese investigation of prognosis based on gated single photon emission computed tomography (SPECT)] study found that quantitative gated myocardial SPECT (QGS) is valuable for predicting the prognosis of Japanese patients with known or suspected ischaemic heart disease. The present study evaluates the incremental prognostic value of myocardial perfusion imaging (MPI) with QGS among patients referred for coronary angiography (CAG). Among 4,031 Japanese patients registered at 117 hospitals for the J-ACCESS study, we selected 1,011 who underwent CAG within 3 months before or after MPI with QGS. Summed stress, rest and difference scores (SSS, SRS and SDS) were generated from myocardial perfusion images using a 20-segment scoring system. Myocardial ischaemia was judged visually. End-diastolic volume (EDV), end-systolic volume (ESV) and ejection fraction (EF) were determined by QGS. Numbers of diseased (> 75% stenosis) coronary vessels (CDV) were assessed by CAG. All patients were followed up for 3 years to determine cardiac events (CE) including cardiac death, non-fatal myocardial infarction and severe heart failure. Univariate and multivariate analyses of prognostic ability included age, cardiac risk factors (hypertension, hyperlipidaemia, diabetes mellitus and prior myocardial infarction), angiographic findings and the QGS parameters as independent variables. Cardiac events occurred more frequently with increasing numbers of coronary vessel lesions (p=0.0016). Cox univariate analysis revealed that diabetes, CDV, SSS, SDS, EDV, ESV and EF were significant predictors (Wald {chi}{sup 2}=5.99, 12.9, 8.39, 9.11, 35.5, 42.1 and 31.1, respectively), whereas multivariate analysis selected only ESV and SDS as significant predictors (Wald {chi}{sup 2}=36.4, 8.4; p = 0.0038, p < 0.001). MPI with QGS, especially with gated functional data, has incremental prognostic value in addition to angiographic findings. MPI with QGS findings predominantly contribute to the

Prognostic value and molecular correlates of a CT image-based quantitative pleural contact index in early stage NSCLC

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Lee, Juheon; Cui, Yi; Li, Bailiang; Wu, Jia; Gensheimer, Michael F. [Stanford University School of Medicine, Department of Radiation Oncology, Stanford, CA (United States); Sun, Xiaoli [First Affiliated Hospital of Zhejiang University, Radiotherapy Department, Hangzhou, Zhejiang (China); Li, Dengwang [Stanford University School of Medicine, Department of Radiation Oncology, Stanford, CA (United States); Shandong Normal University, Shandong Province Key Laboratory of Medical Physics and Image Processing Technology, Institute of Biomedical Sciences, School of Physics and Electronics, Jinan Shi (China); Loo, Billy W.; Li, Ruijiang [Stanford University School of Medicine, Department of Radiation Oncology, Stanford, CA (United States); Stanford University School of Medicine, Stanford Cancer Institute, Stanford, CA (United States); Diehn, Maximilian [Stanford University School of Medicine, Department of Radiation Oncology, Stanford, CA (United States); Stanford University School of Medicine, Stanford Cancer Institute, Stanford, CA (United States); Stanford University School of Medicine, Institute for Stem Cell Biology and Regenerative Medicine, Stanford, CA (United States)

2018-02-15

To evaluate the prognostic value and molecular basis of a CT-derived pleural contact index (PCI) in early stage non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC). We retrospectively analysed seven NSCLC cohorts. A quantitative PCI was defined on CT as the length of tumour-pleura interface normalised by tumour diameter. We evaluated the prognostic value of PCI in a discovery cohort (n = 117) and tested in an external cohort (n = 88) of stage I NSCLC. Additionally, we identified the molecular correlates and built a gene expression-based surrogate of PCI using another cohort of 89 patients. To further evaluate the prognostic relevance, we used four datasets totalling 775 stage I patients with publically available gene expression data and linked survival information. At a cutoff of 0.8, PCI stratified patients for overall survival in both imaging cohorts (log-rank p = 0.0076, 0.0304). Extracellular matrix (ECM) remodelling was enriched among genes associated with PCI (p = 0.0003). The genomic surrogate of PCI remained an independent predictor of overall survival in the gene expression cohorts (hazard ratio: 1.46, p = 0.0007) adjusting for age, gender, and tumour stage. CT-derived pleural contact index is associated with ECM remodelling and may serve as a noninvasive prognostic marker in early stage NSCLC. (orig.)

Performance Comparison of OpenMP, MPI, and MapReduce in Practical Problems

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Sol Ji Kang

2015-01-01

Full Text Available With problem size and complexity increasing, several parallel and distributed programming models and frameworks have been developed to efficiently handle such problems. This paper briefly reviews the parallel computing models and describes three widely recognized parallel programming frameworks: OpenMP, MPI, and MapReduce. OpenMP is the de facto standard for parallel programming on shared memory systems. MPI is the de facto industry standard for distributed memory systems. MapReduce framework has become the de facto standard for large scale data-intensive applications. Qualitative pros and cons of each framework are known, but quantitative performance indexes help get a good picture of which framework to use for the applications. As benchmark problems to compare those frameworks, two problems are chosen: all-pairs-shortest-path problem and data join problem. This paper presents the parallel programs for the problems implemented on the three frameworks, respectively. It shows the experiment results on a cluster of computers. It also discusses which is the right tool for the jobs by analyzing the characteristics and performance of the paradigms.

Re-evaluation of DNA Index as a Prognostic Factor in Children with Precursor B Cell Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia.

Science.gov (United States)

Noh, O Kyu; Park, Se Jin; Park, Hyeon Jin; Ju, HeeYoung; Han, Seung Hyon; Jung, Hyun Joo; Park, Jun Eun

2017-09-01

We aimed to investigate the prognostic value of DNA index (DI) in children with precursor B cell acute lymphoblastic lymphoma (pre-B ALL). From January 2003 to December 2014, 72 children diagnosed with pre-B ALL were analyzed. We analyzed the prognostic value of DI and its relations with other prognostic factors. The DI cut-point of 1.16 did not discriminate significantly the groups between high and low survivals (DI≥1.16 versus 1.90), and the survival of children with a DI between 1.00-1.90 were significantly higher than that of children with DI of 1.90 (5-year OS, 90.6% vs. 50.0%, p children with pre-B ALL. However, the DI divided by specific ranges of values remained an independent prognostic factor. Further studies are warranted to re-evaluate the prognostic value and cut-point of DI in children treated with recent treatment protocols. © 2017 by the Association of Clinical Scientists, Inc.

Scalable High Performance Message Passing over InfiniBand for Open MPI

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Friedley, A; Hoefler, T; Leininger, M L; Lumsdaine, A

2007-10-24

InfiniBand (IB) is a popular network technology for modern high-performance computing systems. MPI implementations traditionally support IB using a reliable, connection-oriented (RC) transport. However, per-process resource usage that grows linearly with the number of processes, makes this approach prohibitive for large-scale systems. IB provides an alternative in the form of a connectionless unreliable datagram transport (UD), which allows for near-constant resource usage and initialization overhead as the process count increases. This paper describes a UD-based implementation for IB in Open MPI as a scalable alternative to existing RC-based schemes. We use the software reliability capabilities of Open MPI to provide the guaranteed delivery semantics required by MPI. Results show that UD not only requires fewer resources at scale, but also allows for shorter MPI startup times. A connectionless model also improves performance for applications that tend to send small messages to many different processes.

Prognostic nutritional index predicts postoperative complications and long-term outcomes of gastric cancer.

Science.gov (United States)

Jiang, Nan; Deng, Jing-Yu; Ding, Xue-Wei; Ke, Bin; Liu, Ning; Zhang, Ru-Peng; Liang, Han

2014-08-14

To investigate the impact of prognostic nutritional index (PNI) on the postoperative complications and long-term outcomes in gastric cancer patients undergoing total gastrectomy. The data for 386 patients with gastric cancer were extracted and analyzed between January 2003 and December 2008 in our center. The patients were divided into two groups according to the cutoff value of the PNI: those with a PNI ≥ 46 and those with a PNI gastric cancer patients.

The Prognostic Nutritional Index Predicts Survival and Identifies Aggressiveness of Gastric Cancer.

Science.gov (United States)

Eo, Wan Kyu; Chang, Hye Jung; Suh, Jungho; Ahn, Jin; Shin, Jeong; Hur, Joon-Young; Kim, Gou Young; Lee, Sookyung; Park, Sora; Lee, Sanghun

2015-01-01

Nutritional status has been associated with long-term outcomes in cancer patients. The prognostic nutritional index (PNI) is calculated by serum albumin concentration and absolute lymphocyte count, and it may be a surrogate biomarker for nutritional status and possibly predicts overall survival (OS) of gastric cancer. We evaluated the value of the PNI as a predictor for disease-free survival (DFS) in addition to OS in a cohort of 314 gastric cancer patients who underwent curative surgical resection. There were 77 patients in PNI-low group (PNI ≤ 47.3) and 237 patients in PNI-high group (PNI > 47.3). With a median follow-up of 36.5 mo, 5-yr DFS rates in PNI-low group and PNI-high group were 63.5% and 83.6% and 5-yr OS rates in PNI-low group and PNI-high group were 63.5% and 88.4%, respectively (DFS, P < 0.0001; OS, P < 0.0001). In the multivariate analysis, the only predictors for DFS were PNI, tumor-node-metastasis (TNM) stage, and perineural invasion, whereas the only predictors for OS were PNI, age, TNM stage, and perineural invasion. In addition, the PNI was independent of various inflammatory markers. In conclusion, the PNI is an independent prognostic factor for both DFS and OS, and provides additional prognostic information beyond pathologic parameters.

Creating a placental inflammatory composite index that has a high prognostic relevance to child morbidity.

Science.gov (United States)

Chen, Yan; Zou, Lile; Zhao, Yanjun; Wu, Ting; Ye, Jiangfeng; Zhang, Huijuan; Zhang, Jun

2017-07-01

Selecting pathologic measures of placental inflammation that affect pregnancy and childhood health is largely empirical. We aimed to systematically select several core inflammation-related placental measures to construct a novel placental inflammatory evaluation criterion with a high prognostic relevance to child morbidity. We used data from the US Collaborative Perinatal Project (1959-1976), a longitudinal birth cohort study that recruited women during pregnancy and followed the children until 7 years of age. Bootstrap resampling, least absolute shrinkage and selection operator, and receiver-operator curve were used to select placental pathologic measures that were closely related to child morbidity to form a placental inflammatory composite index. Twenty-six candidate placental inflammation-related measures were ranked based on their close association with adverse neonatal outcomes. The top five placental measures were: (i) neutrophilic infiltration in umbilical artery; (ii) placental weight-birthweight ratio; (iii) necrosis in decidua capsularis; (iv) bacterial colony in epithelium of amnion; and (v) opacity of membranes and fetal surface. Several composite indexes were constructed. A five-measure composite index that had the highest prognostic relevance was chosen. Compared with subjects without any of the five abnormal measures, those with any lesion ranging from 1 to 5 had a 1.2- to 4.6-fold risk of adverse child outcomes, respectively. Our composite index is simple, evidence-based, and has predictive value for child morbidity. It may be used as a novel placental inflammatory evaluation criterion. © 2017 Japan Society of Obstetrics and Gynecology.

What does fault tolerant Deep Learning need from MPI?

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Amatya, Vinay C.; Vishnu, Abhinav; Siegel, Charles M.; Daily, Jeffrey A.

2017-09-25

Deep Learning (DL) algorithms have become the {\\em de facto} Machine Learning (ML) algorithm for large scale data analysis. DL algorithms are computationally expensive -- even distributed DL implementations which use MPI require days of training (model learning) time on commonly studied datasets. Long running DL applications become susceptible to faults -- requiring development of a fault tolerant system infrastructure, in addition to fault tolerant DL algorithms. This raises an important question: {\\em What is needed from MPI for designing fault tolerant DL implementations?} In this paper, we address this problem for permanent faults. We motivate the need for a fault tolerant MPI specification by an in-depth consideration of recent innovations in DL algorithms and their properties, which drive the need for specific fault tolerance features. We present an in-depth discussion on the suitability of different parallelism types (model, data and hybrid); a need (or lack thereof) for check-pointing of any critical data structures; and most importantly, consideration for several fault tolerance proposals (user-level fault mitigation (ULFM), Reinit) in MPI and their applicability to fault tolerant DL implementations. We leverage a distributed memory implementation of Caffe, currently available under the Machine Learning Toolkit for Extreme Scale (MaTEx). We implement our approaches by extending MaTEx-Caffe for using ULFM-based implementation. Our evaluation using the ImageNet dataset and AlexNet neural network topology demonstrates the effectiveness of the proposed fault tolerant DL implementation using OpenMPI based ULFM.

Association Between Nutritional Status, Inflammatory Condition, and Prognostic Indexes with Postoperative Complications and Clinical Outcome of Patients with Gastrointestinal Neoplasia.

Science.gov (United States)

Costa, Milena Damasceno de Souza; Vieira de Melo, Camila Yandara Sousa; Amorim, Ana Carolina Ribeiro de; Cipriano Torres, Dilênia de Oliveira; Dos Santos, Ana Célia Oliveira

2016-10-01

The aim of this study is to describe and relate nutritional and inflammatory status and prognostic indexes with postoperative complications and clinical outcome of patients with gastrointestinal malignancies. Twenty-nine patients were evaluated; nutritional assessment was carried out by subjective and objective parameters; albumin, pre-albumin, C-reactive protein (CRP), and alpha-1-acid glycoprotein (AGP) were determined. To assess prognosis, the Glasgow scale, the Prognostic Inflammatory Nutritional Index (PINI), and CRP/albumin ratio were used; the clinical outcomes considered were hospital discharge and death. A high Subjective Global Assessment (SGA) score was associated with the occurrence of postoperative complications: 73% of the patients with postoperative complications had the highest SGA score, but only 6% of those without postoperative complications had the highest SGA score (P 1, and Glasgow score 2. There was a positive correlation between weight loss percentage with serum CRP levels (P = 0.002), CRP/albumin (P = 0.002), PINI (P = 0.002), and Glasgow score (P = 0.000). This study provides evidence that the assessment of the nutritional status and the use of prognostic indexes are good tools for predicting postoperative complications and clinical outcome in patients with gastrointestinal neoplasia.

MPI Debugging with Handle Introspection

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Brock-Nannestad, Laust; DelSignore, John; Squyres, Jeffrey M.

The Message Passing Interface, MPI, is the standard programming model for high performance computing clusters. However, debugging applications on large scale clusters is difficult. The widely used Message Queue Dumping interface enables inspection of message queue state but there is no general in...

DISP: Optimizations towards Scalable MPI Startup

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Fu, Huansong [Florida State University, Tallahassee; Pophale, Swaroop S [ORNL; Gorentla Venkata, Manjunath [ORNL; Yu, Weikuan [Florida State University, Tallahassee

2016-01-01

Despite the popularity of MPI for high performance computing, the startup of MPI programs faces a scalability challenge as both the execution time and memory consumption increase drastically at scale. We have examined this problem using the collective modules of Cheetah and Tuned in Open MPI as representative implementations. Previous improvements for collectives have focused on algorithmic advances and hardware off-load. In this paper, we examine the startup cost of the collective module within a communicator and explore various techniques to improve its efficiency and scalability. Accordingly, we have developed a new scalable startup scheme with three internal techniques, namely Delayed Initialization, Module Sharing and Prediction-based Topology Setup (DISP). Our DISP scheme greatly benefits the collective initialization of the Cheetah module. At the same time, it helps boost the performance of non-collective initialization in the Tuned module. We evaluate the performance of our implementation on Titan supercomputer at ORNL with up to 4096 processes. The results show that our delayed initialization can speed up the startup of Tuned and Cheetah by an average of 32.0% and 29.2%, respectively, our module sharing can reduce the memory consumption of Tuned and Cheetah by up to 24.1% and 83.5%, respectively, and our prediction-based topology setup can speed up the startup of Cheetah by up to 80%.

Value of the prognostic nutritional index in advanced gastric cancer treated with preoperative chemotherapy.

Science.gov (United States)

Sun, Jianyi; Wang, Donghai; Mei, Ying; Jin, Hailong; Zhu, Kankai; Liu, Xiaosun; Zhang, Qing; Yu, Jiren

2017-03-01

The prognostic nutritional index (PNI) is a useful parameter indicating the immune and nutritional status of cancer patients; this study investigated the prognostic value of the PNI in advanced gastric cancer patients treated with preoperative chemotherapy. We retrospectively reviewed 117 advanced gastric cancer patients who met the inclusion criteria for preoperative chemotherapy and underwent surgical resection from July 2004 to December 2011. The patients were divided into PNI-high (PNI ≥ 45) and PNI-low (PNI  0.05). Cox regression analysis indicated that yield pathologic T (ypT), yield pathologic N (ypN) stage, and prechemotherapy PNI were independent prognostic factors (ypT: HR = 2.914, 95% CI = 1.312-6.470, P = 0.009; ypN: HR = 4.909, 95% CI = 1.764-13.660, P = 0.003; prechemotherapy PNI: HR = 1.963, 95% CI = 1.101-3.499, P = 0.022). The prechemotherapy PNI is a useful predictor of the long-term outcome of patients with advanced gastric cancer treated with preoperative chemotherapy. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Prognostic value of Ki-67 index in adult medulloblastoma after accounting for molecular subgroup: a retrospective clinical and molecular analysis.

Science.gov (United States)

Zhao, Fu; Zhang, Jing; Li, Peng; Zhou, Qiangyi; Zhang, Shun; Zhao, Chi; Wang, Bo; Yang, Zhijun; Li, Chunde; Liu, Pinan

2018-04-23

Medulloblastoma (MB) is a rare primary brain tumor in adults. We previously evaluated that combining both clinical and molecular classification could improve current risk stratification for adult MB. In this study, we aimed to identify the prognostic value of Ki-67 index in adult MB. Ki-67 index of 51 primary adult MBs was reassessed using a computer-based image analysis (Image-Pro Plus). All patients were followed up ranging from 12 months up to 15 years. Gene expression profiling and immunochemistry were used to establish the molecular subgroups in adult MB. Combined risk stratification models were designed based on clinical characteristics, molecular classification and Ki-67 index, and identified by multivariable Cox proportional hazards analysis. In our cohort, the mean Ki-67 value was 30.0 ± 11.3% (range 6.56-63.55%). The average Ki-67 value was significantly higher in LC/AMB than in CMB and DNMB (P = .001). Among three molecular subgroups, Group 4-tumors had the highest average Ki-67 value compared with WNT- and SHH-tumors (P = .004). Patients with Ki-67 index large than 30% displayed poorer overall survival (OS) and progression free survival (PFS) than those with Ki-67 less than 30% (OS: P = .001; PFS: P = .006). Ki-67 index (i.e. > 30%, < 30%) was identified as an independent significant prognostic factor (OS: P = .017; PFS: P = .024) by using multivariate Cox proportional hazards model. In conclusion, Ki-67 index can be considered as a valuable independent prognostic biomarker for adult patients with MB.

Prognostic Significance of Modified Advanced Lung Cancer Inflammation Index (ALI) in Patients with Small Cell Lung Cancer_ Comparison with Original ALI.

Science.gov (United States)

Kim, Eun Young; Kim, Nambeom; Kim, Young Saing; Seo, Ja-Young; Park, Inkeun; Ahn, Hee Kyung; Jeong, Yu Mi; Kim, Jeong Ho

2016-01-01

Advanced lung cancer inflammation index (ALI, body mass index [BMI] x serum albumin/neutrophil-lymphocyte ratio [NLR]) has been shown to predict overall survival (OS) in small cell lung cancer (SCLC). CT enables skeletal muscle to be quantified, whereas BMI cannot accurately reflect body composition. The purpose was to evaluate prognostic value of modified ALI (mALI) using CT-determined L3 muscle index (L3MI, muscle area at L3/height2) beyond original ALI. L3MIs were calculated using the CT images of 186 consecutive patients with SCLC taken at diagnosis, and mALI was defined as L3MI x serum albumin/NLR. Using chi-squared test determined maximum cut-offs for low ALI and low mALI, the prognostic values of low ALI and low mALI were tested using Kaplan-Meier method and Cox proportional hazards analysis. Finally, deviance statistics was used to test whether the goodness of fit of the prognostic model is improved by adding mALI as an extra variable. Patients with low ALI (cut-off, 31.1, n = 94) had shorter OS than patients with high ALI (median, 6.8 months vs. 15.8 months; p ALI and low mALI (z = 0.000, p = 1.000) and between high ALI and high mALI (z = 0.330, p = 0.740). Multivariable analysis showed that low ALI was an independent prognostic factor for shorter OS (HR, 1.67, p = 0.004), along with advanced age (HR, 1.49, p = 0.045), extensive disease (HR, 2.27, p ALI using BMI. ALI is a simple and useful prognostic indicator in SCLC.

Cell verification of parallel burnup calculation program MCBMPI based on MPI

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Yang Wankui; Liu Yaoguang; Ma Jimin; Wang Guanbo; Yang Xin; She Ding

2014-01-01

The parallel burnup calculation program MCBMPI was developed. The program was modularized. The parallel MCNP5 program MCNP5MPI was employed as neutron transport calculation module. And a composite of three solution methods was used to solve burnup equation, i.e. matrix exponential technique, TTA analytical solution, and Gauss Seidel iteration. MPI parallel zone decomposition strategy was concluded in the program. The program system only consists of MCNP5MPI and burnup subroutine. The latter achieves three main functions, i.e. zone decomposition, nuclide transferring and decaying, and data exchanging with MCNP5MPI. Also, the program was verified with the pressurized water reactor (PWR) cell burnup benchmark. The results show that it,s capable to apply the program to burnup calculation of multiple zones, and the computation efficiency could be significantly improved with the development of computer hardware. (authors)

Assessment of prognostic value of semiquantitative parameters on gated single photon emission computed tomography myocardial perfusion scintigraphy in a large middle eastern population

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Chavoshi, Maryam; Fard-Esfahani, Armaghan; Fallahi, Babak; Emami-Ardekani, Alireza; Beiki, Davood; Hassanzadeh-Rad, Arman; Eftekhari, Mohammad

2005-01-01

Coronary artery disease is the leading cause of mortality worldwide. The goal of this study is to determine the prognostic value of semiquantitative parameters of electrocardiogram-gated single photon emission computed tomography (SPECT) myocardial perfusion imaging (MPI) in a large Middle Eastern (Iranian) population. This study was a prospective study including all patients referred to our center for myocardial perfusion scan. The patients were followed annually up to 24 months and their survival information was collected. From 1148 patients, 473 (41.2%) men and 675 (58.8%) women, 40.6% had normal MPI, 13.3% near normal and 46.1% abnormal MPI. After follow-up of 929 patients, 97.4% of patients were alive, and 2.6% succumbed to cardiac deaths. Abnormal ejection fraction was related with cardiac events (P = 0.001), but neither transient ischemic dilation (TID) (P = 0.09) nor lung/heart ratio (P = 0.92) showed such relationship. Association between summed difference score (SDS) and soft cardiac events (P < 0.001) was significant. Summed motion score (SMS) and summed thickening score (STS) showed a significant relation with hard cardiac events, including myocardial infarction and cardiac death (P < 0.001 and P = 0.001, respectively). Totally, risk of all cardiac events was significantly higher in abnormal MPI group than normal group (P < 0.001, 0.02, and 0.025, respectively). No significant relationship was found between TID and total cardiac events (P = 0.478). Semiquantitative variables derived from gated SPECT MPI have independent prognostic value. Rate of total cardiac events is higher in patients with higher summed stress score and SDS. Total and hard cardiac events are higher in upper scores of functional parameters (SMS and STS). Total cardiac events are higher in patients with lower left ventricular ejection fraction

Cumulus cell mitochondrial activity in relation to body mass index in women undergoing assisted reproductive therapy

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Victoria K. Gorshinova

2017-06-01

Full Text Available Most studies have considered the negative influence of obesity on fertility in both genders. In the present study, we assessed mitochondrial activity expressed as the mitochondrial potential index (MPI in cumulus cells from obese women and women with a normal body mass index (BMI during assisted reproductive therapy. The results revealed a significant reduction of MPI with increased body mass. The lower MPI levels in cumulus cells from obese women may reflect mitochondrial dysfunction caused by oxidative stress, which can affect the cumulus-oocyte complex and have an impact on oocyte development.

The Fetal Modified Myocardial Performance Index: Is Automation the Future?

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Priya Maheshwari

2015-01-01

Full Text Available The fetal modified myocardial performance index (Mod-MPI is a noninvasive, pulsed-wave Doppler-derived measure of global myocardial function. This review assesses the progress in technical refinements of its measurement and the potential for automation to be the crucial next step. The Mod-MPI is a ratio of isovolumetric to ejection time cardiac time intervals, and the potential for the left ventricular Mod-MPI as a tool to clinically assess fetal cardiac function is well-established. However, there are wide variations in published reference ranges, as (1 a standardised method of selecting cardiac time intervals used in Mod-MPI calculation has not been established; (2 cardiac time interval measurement currently requires manual, inherently subjective placement of callipers on Doppler ultrasound waveforms; and (3 ultrasound machine settings and ultrasound system type have been found to affect Mod-MPI measurement. Collectively these factors create potential for significant inter- and intraobserver measurement variability. Automated measurement of the Mod-MPI may be the next key development which propels the Mod-MPI into routine clinical use. A novel automated system of Mod-MPI measurement is briefly presented and its implications for the future of the Mod-MPI in fetal cardiology are discussed.

Exploiting Efficient Transpacking for One-Sided Communication and MPI-IO

Science.gov (United States)

Mir, Faisal Ghias; Träff, Jesper Larsson

Based on a construction of socalled input-output datatypes that define a mapping between non-consecutive input and output buffers, we outline an efficient method for copying of structured data. We term this operation transpacking, and show how transpacking can be applied for the MPI implementation of one-sided communication and MPI-IO. For one-sided communication via shared-memory, we demonstrate the expected performance improvements by up to a factor of two. For individual MPI-IO, the time to read or write from file dominates the overall time, but even here efficient transpacking can in some scenarios reduce file I/O time considerably. The reported results have been achieved on a single NEC SX-8 vector node.

Nailfold capillaroscopy for day-to-day clinical use: construction of a simple scoring modality as a clinical prognostic index for digital trophic lesions.

Science.gov (United States)

Smith, Vanessa; De Keyser, Filip; Pizzorni, Carmen; Van Praet, Jens T; Decuman, Saskia; Sulli, Alberto; Deschepper, Ellen; Cutolo, Maurizio

2011-01-01

Construction of a simple nailfold videocapillaroscopic (NVC) scoring modality as a prognostic index for digital trophic lesions for day-to-day clinical use. An association with a single simple (semi)-quantitatively scored NVC parameter, mean score of capillary loss, was explored in 71 consecutive patients with systemic sclerosis (SSc), and reliable reduction in the number of investigated fields (F32-F16-F8-F4). The cut-off value of the prognostic index (mean score of capillary loss calculated over a reduced number of fields) for present/future digital trophic lesions was selected by receiver operating curve (ROC) analysis. Reduction in the number of fields for mean score of capillary loss was reliable from F32 to F8 (intraclass correlation coefficient of F16/F32: 0.97; F8/F32: 0.90). Based on ROC analysis, a prognostic index (mean score of capillary loss as calculated over F8) with a cut-off value of 1.67 is proposed. This value has a sensitivity of 72.22/70.00, specificity of 70.59/69.77, positive likelihood ratio of 2.46/2.32 and a negative likelihood ratio of 0.39/0.43 for present/future digital trophic lesions. A simple prognostic index for digital trophic lesions for daily use in SSc clinics is proposed, limited to the mean score of capillary loss as calculated over eight fields (8 fingers, 1 field per finger).

Medulloblastoma: evaluation of proliferative index by monoclonal antibody Mib-1, its prognostic correlation and therapeutic implications

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Ferrari Antonio Fernandes

2003-01-01

Full Text Available In the past few years, the monoclonal antibody MIB-1 has been used by researchers in order to retrospectively study paraffin imbibed tumor fragments. The medulloblastoma is the most common malignant central nervous system tumor in childhood. The objectives were: determination of the mean Mib-1 LI value from these patients, as well as the prognostic value of the method.This retrospective study represents an analysis of the cellular proliferation index of posterior fossa medulloblastomas collected from 22 patients at A.C. Camargo Hospital, from January 1990 to December 1999. The histopathological diagnosis was confirmed by H&E and proliferative index (LI was achived with Mib-1 which detects proliferating cells during G1, G2, S and M phases.The results demostrated that the mean Mib-1 was 30,1%, and ranged from 5,2% to 62,0%.In conclusion, this method has prognostic value, has to be used as routine for patients harboring medulloblastomas and the ones who have PI greater than the mean value found in this study, should be treated aggressively.

Prognostic significance of stress myocardial ECG-gated perfusion imaging in asymptomatic patients with diabetic chronic kidney disease on initiation of haemodialysis

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Momose, Mitsuru; Kondo, Chisato; Kobayashi, Hideki; Kusakabe, Kiyoko [Tokyo Women' s Medical University, School of Medicine, Department of Radiology, Shinjuku-ku, Tokyo (Japan); Babazono, Tetsuya [Tokyo Women' s Medical University, School of Medicine, Diabetes Centre, Shinjuku-ku, Tokyo (Japan); Nakajima, Takatomo [Tokyo Women' s Medical University, School of Medicine, Department of Cardiology, Shinjuku-ku, Tokyo (Japan)

2009-08-15

Diabetic patients with chronic kidney disease (CKD) frequently develop cardiac events within several years of the initiation of haemodialysis. The present study assesses the prognostic significance of stress myocardial ECG-gated perfusion imaging (MPI) in patients with diabetic CKD requiring haemodialysis. Fifty-five asymptomatic patients with diabetic stage V CKD and no history of heart disease scheduled to start haemodialysis were enrolled in this study (56{+-}11 years old; 49 with type 2 diabetes mellitus). All patients underwent {sup 201}Tl stress ECG-gated MPI 1 month before or after the initiation of haemodialysis to assess myocardial involvement. We evaluated SPECT images using 17-segment defect scores graded on a 5-point scale, summed stress score (SSS) and summed difference scores (SDS). The patients were followed up for at least 2 years (42{+-}15 months) to determine coronary intervention (CI) and heart failure (HF) as soft events and acute myocardial infarction (AMI) and all causes of deaths as hard events. The frequencies of myocardial ischaemia, resting perfusion defects, low ejection fraction and left ventricular (LV) dilatation were 24,20,29 and 49%, respectively. Ten events (18%) developed during the follow-up period including four CI, one HF, one AMI and four sudden deaths. Multivariate Cox analysis selected SDS (p=0.0011) and haemoglobin A{sub 1c} (HbA{sub 1c}) (p=0.0076) as independent prognostic indicators for all events. Myocardial ischaemia, in addition to glycaemic control, is a strong prognostic marker for asymptomatic patients with diabetic CKD who are scheduled to start haemodialysis. Stress MPI is highly recommended for the management and therapeutic stratification of such patients. (orig.)

Experiences implementing the MPI standard on Sandia`s lightweight kernels

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Brightwell, R.; Greenberg, D.S.

1997-10-01

This technical report describes some lessons learned from implementing the Message Passing Interface (MPI) standard, and some proposed extentions to MPI, at Sandia. The implementations were developed using Sandia-developed lightweight kernels running on the Intel Paragon and Intel TeraFLOPS platforms. The motivations for this research are discussed, and a detailed analysis of several implementation issues is presented.

A new prognostic score for AIDS-related lymphomas in the rituximab-era

Science.gov (United States)

Barta, Stefan K.; Xue, Xiaonan; Wang, Dan; Lee, Jeannette Y.; Kaplan, Lawrence D.; Ribera, Josep-Maria; Oriol, Albert; Spina, Michele; Tirelli, Umberto; Boue, Francois; Wilson, Wyndham H.; Wyen, Christoph; Dunleavy, Kieron; Noy, Ariela; Sparano, Joseph A.

2014-01-01

While the International Prognostic Index is commonly used to predict outcomes in immunocompetent patients with aggressive B-cell non-Hodgkin lymphomas, HIV-infection is an important competing risk for death in patients with AIDS-related lymphomas. We investigated whether a newly created prognostic score (AIDS-related lymphoma International Prognostic Index) could better assess risk of death in patients with AIDS-related lymphomas. We randomly divided a dataset of 487 patients newly diagnosed with AIDS-related lymphomas and treated with rituximab-containing chemoimmunotherapy into a training (n=244) and validation (n=243) set. We examined the association of HIV-related and other known risk factors with overall survival in both sets independently. We defined a new score (AIDS-related lymphoma International Prognostic Index) by assigning weights to each significant predictor [age-adjusted International Prognostic Index, extranodal sites, HIV-score (composed of CD4 count, viral load, and prior history of AIDS)] with three risk categories similar to the age-adjusted International Prognostic Index (low, intermediate and high risk). We compared the prognostic value for overall survival between AIDS-related lymphoma International Prognostic Index and age-adjusted International Prognostic Index in the validation set and found that the AIDS-related lymphoma International Prognostic Index performed significantly better in predicting risk of death than the age-adjusted International Prognostic Index (P=0.004) and better discriminated risk of death between each risk category (P=0.015 vs. P=0.13). Twenty-eight percent of patients were defined as low risk by the ARL-IPI and had an estimated 5-year overall survival (OS) of 78% (52% intermediate risk, 5-year OS 60%; 20% high risk, 5-year OS 50%). PMID:25150257

Implementation and validation of a model of the MPI Stewart platform

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Nieuwenhuizen, F.M.; Van Paasen, M.M.; Mulder, M.; Bülthoff, H.H.

2010-01-01

A simulated model of the MPI Stewart platform can be used to identify the influence of motion system characteristics on human control behaviour in active closed-loop control experiments on the SIMONA Research Simulator. In this paper, a previously identified model of the MPI Stewart platform was

Overlapping Communication and Computation with OpenMP and MPI

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Timothy H. Kaiser

2001-01-01

Full Text Available Machines comprised of a distributed collection of shared memory or SMP nodes are becoming common for parallel computing. OpenMP can be combined with MPI on many such machines. Motivations for combing OpenMP and MPI are discussed. While OpenMP is typically used for exploiting loop-level parallelism it can also be used to enable coarse grain parallelism, potentially leading to less overhead. We show how coarse grain OpenMP parallelism can also be used to facilitate overlapping MPI communication and computation for stencil-based grid programs such as a program performing Gauss-Seidel iteration with red-black ordering. Spatial subdivision or domain decomposition is used to assign a portion of the grid to each thread. One thread is assigned a null calculation region so it was free to perform communication. Example calculations were run on an IBM SP using both the Kuck & Associates and IBM compilers.

The Prognostic Value of International Prognostic Index and MIB-l Immunostaining of Peripheral Lymphoid Tissues and Bone Marrow in Patients with High-Grade Non-Hodgkin's Lymphoma

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Assem, M.M.

2001-01-01

Cell kinetic data are important indicator of the aggressiveness of tumour and clinical response. The Ki-67 antigen plays a pivotal role in maintaining cell proliferation and the expression of this antigen was found to be a valuable indicator for aggressive disease in a variety of neoplastic disorders. Aim of the study: This study aimed to assess the prognostic significance of the expression of Ki-67 antigen in peripheral lymphoid tissues and bone marrow, using the monoclonal antibody MIB-l that is applicable in formaline-fixed paraffin embedded samples in cases with high-grade non-Hodgkin's lymphomas. Material and methods: The MIB-I immunostaining was performed on 96 samples from 48 patients with high-grade non-Hodgkin's lymphomas. The study was performed on tissue sections, nodal or extra nodal, as well as on BM smears or BM paraffin embedded sections of same patients. Ki-67 index was determined using image analyzer. Results: Forty-five out of the studied 48 cases (93.8%) were positive with a median labelling index of 20.425% (Range, 0-58%). We were able to detect bone marrow involvement by detecting MIB-l positive cells in BM samples of 29 patients who were not morphologically diagnosed to have BM infiltration. There was a strong correlation between BM positivity for Ki-67 and Ki-67 labelling index (p < 0.001). Twenty-eight (58.3%) out of the studied 48 cases achieved complete remission (CR). The median duration of CR was 35 months (range, 8-42 months) and the overall survival at 48 months was 35.4% (median 22 months, 95% CI, 13-31 months). The median Ki-67 index (20.425%) was chosen as a cut-off level for statistical analysis of the variables that influence clinical outcome. The probability of inducing CR was associated with low and low intermediate International Prognostic Index (IPI) whereas a low growth fraction was associated, although not significant, with a trend toward a higher probability of inducing a CR. In univariate analysis, high MIB1 labelling

Serial Doppler echocardiographic assessment of left and right ventricular performance after a first myocardial infarction

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Møller, J E; Søndergaard, E; Poulsen, S H

2001-01-01

We sought to investigate the relation between left ventricular (LV) and right ventricular (RV) function assessed with the Doppler-derived myocardial performance index (MPI), to assess serial changes, and to investigate the prognostic value of biventricular assessment of cardiac function after a f...

No prognostic value added by vitamin D pathway SNPs to current prognostic system for melanoma survival.

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Li Luo

Full Text Available The prognostic improvement attributed to genetic markers over current prognostic system has not been well studied for melanoma. The goal of this study is to evaluate the added prognostic value of Vitamin D Pathway (VitD SNPs to currently known clinical and demographic factors such as age, sex, Breslow thickness, mitosis and ulceration (CDF. We utilized two large independent well-characterized melanoma studies: the Genes, Environment, and Melanoma (GEM and MD Anderson studies, and performed variable selection of VitD pathway SNPs and CDF using Random Survival Forest (RSF method in addition to Cox proportional hazards models. The Harrell's C-index was used to compare the performance of model predictability. The population-based GEM study enrolled 3,578 incident cases of cutaneous melanoma (CM, and the hospital-based MD Anderson study consisted of 1,804 CM patients. Including both VitD SNPs and CDF yielded C-index of 0.85, which provided slight but not significant improvement by CDF alone (C-index = 0.83 in the GEM study. Similar results were observed in the independent MD Anderson study (C-index = 0.84 and 0.83, respectively. The Cox model identified no significant associations after adjusting for multiplicity. Our results do not support clinically significant prognostic improvements attributable to VitD pathway SNPs over current prognostic system for melanoma survival.

Prognostic utility of carotid ultrasound and cardiac SPECT imaging in coronary artery bypass patients

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Bosevski, M.; Peovska, I.; Maksimovic, J.; Vavlukis, M.; Meskovska, S.

2006-01-01

The aim of our study was to evaluate the role of myocardial perfusion imaging (MPI) and common carotid artery intima-media thickness (CCA IMT) in the prognosis of patients with coronary artery disease referred for coronary artery bypass surgery (CABG) in a newly made prognostic model. 63 patients (age 60.36 ± 8.28 years) with angiographically established coronary artery disease referred for CABG were evaluated for: age, smoking, family disposition, dyslipidaemia, arterial hypertension, obesity, diabetes mellitus, previous myocardial infarction and revascularization. Patients underwent nitrate enhanced Gated SPECT myocardial perfusion imaging, with 17-segment analysis for calculation of perfusion scores and viability index. Common carotid artery IMT was measured by B-mode ultrasound. Patients were followed for cardiovascular events 12 months after CABG. The obtained data reported mean values of left ventricular ejection fraction (LVEF) 46.2±14.4%, viability index 0.76± 0.55, SRS 17.76±13.81 and summed nitrate score 12.89 ±10.36. Ultrasound detected CCA IMT 0.90± 0.24 mm, with increased value in 67.2% and presence of carotid plaques in 27.1% of pts. We registered 14 events and 8.8% mortality rate. Multiple regression modelling showed bilateral carotid plaque presence as a predictor of total events. Viability index and CCA IMT have been found as independent death predictors. Myocardial perfusion viability index and CCA IMT are predictors, independently associated with prognosis of patients referred for CABG. (author)

SBML-PET-MPI: a parallel parameter estimation tool for Systems Biology Markup Language based models.

Science.gov (United States)

Zi, Zhike

2011-04-01

Parameter estimation is crucial for the modeling and dynamic analysis of biological systems. However, implementing parameter estimation is time consuming and computationally demanding. Here, we introduced a parallel parameter estimation tool for Systems Biology Markup Language (SBML)-based models (SBML-PET-MPI). SBML-PET-MPI allows the user to perform parameter estimation and parameter uncertainty analysis by collectively fitting multiple experimental datasets. The tool is developed and parallelized using the message passing interface (MPI) protocol, which provides good scalability with the number of processors. SBML-PET-MPI is freely available for non-commercial use at http://www.bioss.uni-freiburg.de/cms/sbml-pet-mpi.html or http://sites.google.com/site/sbmlpetmpi/.

Power-aware load balancing of large scale MPI applications

OpenAIRE

Etinski, Maja; Corbalán González, Julita; Labarta Mancho, Jesús José; Valero Cortés, Mateo; Veidenbaum, Alex

2009-01-01

Power consumption is a very important issue for HPC community, both at the level of one application or at the level of whole workload. Load imbalance of a MPI application can be exploited to save CPU energy without penalizing the execution time. An application is load imbalanced when some nodes are assigned more computation than others. The nodes with less computation can be run at lower frequency since otherwise they have to wait for the nodes with more computation blocked in MPI calls. A te...

Prognostic Significance of Modified Advanced Lung Cancer Inflammation Index (ALI in Patients with Small Cell Lung Cancer_ Comparison with Original ALI.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Eun Young Kim

Full Text Available Advanced lung cancer inflammation index (ALI, body mass index [BMI] x serum albumin/neutrophil-lymphocyte ratio [NLR] has been shown to predict overall survival (OS in small cell lung cancer (SCLC. CT enables skeletal muscle to be quantified, whereas BMI cannot accurately reflect body composition. The purpose was to evaluate prognostic value of modified ALI (mALI using CT-determined L3 muscle index (L3MI, muscle area at L3/height2 beyond original ALI.L3MIs were calculated using the CT images of 186 consecutive patients with SCLC taken at diagnosis, and mALI was defined as L3MI x serum albumin/NLR. Using chi-squared test determined maximum cut-offs for low ALI and low mALI, the prognostic values of low ALI and low mALI were tested using Kaplan-Meier method and Cox proportional hazards analysis. Finally, deviance statistics was used to test whether the goodness of fit of the prognostic model is improved by adding mALI as an extra variable.Patients with low ALI (cut-off, 31.1, n = 94 had shorter OS than patients with high ALI (median, 6.8 months vs. 15.8 months; p < 0.001, and patients with low mALI (cut-off 67.7, n = 94 had shorter OS than patients with high mALI (median, 6.8 months vs. 16.5 months; p < 0.001. There was no significant difference in estimates of median survival time between low ALI and low mALI (z = 0.000, p = 1.000 and between high ALI and high mALI (z = 0.330, p = 0.740. Multivariable analysis showed that low ALI was an independent prognostic factor for shorter OS (HR, 1.67, p = 0.004, along with advanced age (HR, 1.49, p = 0.045, extensive disease (HR, 2.27, p < 0.001, supportive care only (HR, 7.86, p < 0.001, and elevated LDH (HR, 1.45, p = 0.037. Furthermore, goodness of fit of this prognostic model was not significantly increased by adding mALI as an extra variable (LR difference = 2.220, p = 0.136.The present study confirms mALI using CT-determined L3MI has no additional prognostic value beyond original ALI using BMI. ALI

MPI to Coarray Fortran: Experiences with a CFD Solver for Unstructured Meshes

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Anuj Sharma

2017-01-01

Full Text Available High-resolution numerical methods and unstructured meshes are required in many applications of Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD. These methods are quite computationally expensive and hence benefit from being parallelized. Message Passing Interface (MPI has been utilized traditionally as a parallelization strategy. However, the inherent complexity of MPI contributes further to the existing complexity of the CFD scientific codes. The Partitioned Global Address Space (PGAS parallelization paradigm was introduced in an attempt to improve the clarity of the parallel implementation. We present our experiences of converting an unstructured high-resolution compressible Navier-Stokes CFD solver from MPI to PGAS Coarray Fortran. We present the challenges, methodology, and performance measurements of our approach using Coarray Fortran. With the Cray compiler, we observe Coarray Fortran as a viable alternative to MPI. We are hopeful that Intel and open-source implementations could be utilized in the future.

MSAProbs-MPI: parallel multiple sequence aligner for distributed-memory systems.

Science.gov (United States)

González-Domínguez, Jorge; Liu, Yongchao; Touriño, Juan; Schmidt, Bertil

2016-12-15

MSAProbs is a state-of-the-art protein multiple sequence alignment tool based on hidden Markov models. It can achieve high alignment accuracy at the expense of relatively long runtimes for large-scale input datasets. In this work we present MSAProbs-MPI, a distributed-memory parallel version of the multithreaded MSAProbs tool that is able to reduce runtimes by exploiting the compute capabilities of common multicore CPU clusters. Our performance evaluation on a cluster with 32 nodes (each containing two Intel Haswell processors) shows reductions in execution time of over one order of magnitude for typical input datasets. Furthermore, MSAProbs-MPI using eight nodes is faster than the GPU-accelerated QuickProbs running on a Tesla K20. Another strong point is that MSAProbs-MPI can deal with large datasets for which MSAProbs and QuickProbs might fail due to time and memory constraints, respectively. Source code in C ++ and MPI running on Linux systems as well as a reference manual are available at http://msaprobs.sourceforge.net CONTACT: jgonzalezd@udc.esSupplementary information: Supplementary data are available at Bioinformatics online. © The Author 2016. Published by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved. For Permissions, please e-mail: journals.permissions@oup.com.

A combined pulmonary function and emphysema score prognostic index for staging in Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Afroditi K Boutou

Full Text Available Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD is characterized by high morbidity and mortality. Lung computed tomography parameters, individually or as part of a composite index, may provide more prognostic information than pulmonary function tests alone.To investigate the prognostic value of emphysema score and pulmonary artery measurements compared with lung function parameters in COPD and construct a prognostic index using a contingent staging approach.Predictors of mortality were assessed in COPD outpatients whose lung computed tomography, spirometry, lung volumes and gas transfer data were collected prospectively in a clinical database. Univariate and multivariate Cox proportional hazard analysis models with bootstrap techniques were used.169 patients were included (59.8% male, 61.1 years old; Forced Expiratory Volume in 1 second % predicted: 40.5±19.2. 20.1% died; mean survival was 115.4 months. Age (HR = 1.098, 95% Cl = 1.04-1.252 and emphysema score (HR = 1.034, 95% CI = 1.007-1.07 were the only independent predictors of mortality. Pulmonary artery dimensions were not associated with survival. An emphysema score of 55% was chosen as the optimal threshold and 30% and 65% as suboptimals. Where emphysema score was between 30% and 65% (intermediate risk the optimal lung volume threshold, a functional residual capacity of 210% predicted, was applied. This contingent staging approach separated patients with an intermediate risk based on emphysema score alone into high risk (Functional Residual Capacity ≥210% predicted or low risk (Functional Residual Capacity <210% predicted. This approach was more discriminatory for survival (HR = 3.123; 95% CI = 1.094-10.412 than either individual component alone.Although to an extent limited by the small sample size, this preliminary study indicates that the composite Emphysema score-Functional Residual Capacity index might provide a better separation of high and low risk patients

Performance modeling of hybrid MPI/OpenMP scientific applications on large-scale multicore supercomputers

KAUST Repository

Wu, Xingfu; Taylor, Valerie

2013-01-01

In this paper, we present a performance modeling framework based on memory bandwidth contention time and a parameterized communication model to predict the performance of OpenMP, MPI and hybrid applications with weak scaling on three large-scale multicore supercomputers: IBM POWER4, POWER5+ and BlueGene/P, and analyze the performance of these MPI, OpenMP and hybrid applications. We use STREAM memory benchmarks and Intel's MPI benchmarks to provide initial performance analysis and model validation of MPI and OpenMP applications on these multicore supercomputers because the measured sustained memory bandwidth can provide insight into the memory bandwidth that a system should sustain on scientific applications with the same amount of workload per core. In addition to using these benchmarks, we also use a weak-scaling hybrid MPI/OpenMP large-scale scientific application: Gyrokinetic Toroidal Code (GTC) in magnetic fusion to validate our performance model of the hybrid application on these multicore supercomputers. The validation results for our performance modeling method show less than 7.77% error rate in predicting the performance of hybrid MPI/OpenMP GTC on up to 512 cores on these multicore supercomputers. © 2013 Elsevier Inc.

Performance modeling of hybrid MPI/OpenMP scientific applications on large-scale multicore supercomputers

KAUST Repository

Wu, Xingfu

2013-12-01

In this paper, we present a performance modeling framework based on memory bandwidth contention time and a parameterized communication model to predict the performance of OpenMP, MPI and hybrid applications with weak scaling on three large-scale multicore supercomputers: IBM POWER4, POWER5+ and BlueGene/P, and analyze the performance of these MPI, OpenMP and hybrid applications. We use STREAM memory benchmarks and Intel\\'s MPI benchmarks to provide initial performance analysis and model validation of MPI and OpenMP applications on these multicore supercomputers because the measured sustained memory bandwidth can provide insight into the memory bandwidth that a system should sustain on scientific applications with the same amount of workload per core. In addition to using these benchmarks, we also use a weak-scaling hybrid MPI/OpenMP large-scale scientific application: Gyrokinetic Toroidal Code (GTC) in magnetic fusion to validate our performance model of the hybrid application on these multicore supercomputers. The validation results for our performance modeling method show less than 7.77% error rate in predicting the performance of hybrid MPI/OpenMP GTC on up to 512 cores on these multicore supercomputers. © 2013 Elsevier Inc.

Proliferative activity (MIB-1 index) is an independent prognostic parameter in patients with high-grade soft tissue sarcomas of subtypes other than malignant fibrous histiocytomas

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Jensen, V; Sørensen, Flemming Brandt; Bentzen, S M

1998-01-01

. The proliferative activity was assessed by use of the monoclonal antibody MIB-1 and evaluated in multiple, random systematic sampled fields of vision. The percentage of proliferating cells (the MIB-1 index) ranged between 1% and 85% (median 12%). A significant increase in mean MIB-1 index was seen with increasing...... histological malignancy grade. Variation in the incidence of p53 accumulation and bcl-2 positivity among different histological subtypes was observed. p53 accumulation was frequent in synovial sarcomas and leiomyo- and rhabdomyosarcomas, whereas bcl-2 preferentially was expressed in synovial sarcomas....... Univariate analysis identified patient age, tumour size, histological grade of malignancy, MIB-1 index and p53 accumulation as significant prognostic parameters. Multivariate Cox analysis, including tests for interaction terms between histological subtypes and MIB-1 index, showed independent prognostic...

Conflict Detection Algorithm to Minimize Locking for MPI-IO Atomicity

Science.gov (United States)

Sehrish, Saba; Wang, Jun; Thakur, Rajeev

Many scientific applications require high-performance concurrent I/O accesses to a file by multiple processes. Those applications rely indirectly on atomic I/O capabilities in order to perform updates to structured datasets, such as those stored in HDF5 format files. Current support for atomicity in MPI-IO is provided by locking around the operations, imposing lock overhead in all situations, even though in many cases these operations are non-overlapping in the file. We propose to isolate non-overlapping accesses from overlapping ones in independent I/O cases, allowing the non-overlapping ones to proceed without imposing lock overhead. To enable this, we have implemented an efficient conflict detection algorithm in MPI-IO using MPI file views and datatypes. We show that our conflict detection scheme incurs minimal overhead on I/O operations, making it an effective mechanism for avoiding locks when they are not needed.

High-Level Topology-Oblivious Optimization of MPI Broadcast Algorithms on Extreme-Scale Platforms

KAUST Repository

Hasanov, Khalid

2014-01-01

There has been a significant research in collective communication operations, in particular in MPI broadcast, on distributed memory platforms. Most of the research works are done to optimize the collective operations for particular architectures by taking into account either their topology or platform parameters. In this work we propose a very simple and at the same time general approach to optimize legacy MPI broadcast algorithms, which are widely used in MPICH and OpenMPI. Theoretical analysis and experimental results on IBM BlueGene/P and a cluster of Grid’5000 platform are presented.

Topology-oblivious optimization of MPI broadcast algorithms on extreme-scale platforms

KAUST Repository

Hasanov, Khalid

2015-11-01

© 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. Significant research has been conducted in collective communication operations, in particular in MPI broadcast, on distributed memory platforms. Most of the research efforts aim to optimize the collective operations for particular architectures by taking into account either their topology or platform parameters. In this work we propose a simple but general approach to optimization of the legacy MPI broadcast algorithms, which are widely used in MPICH and Open MPI. The proposed optimization technique is designed to address the challenge of extreme scale of future HPC platforms. It is based on hierarchical transformation of the traditionally flat logical arrangement of communicating processors. Theoretical analysis and experimental results on IBM BlueGene/P and a cluster of the Grid\\'5000 platform are presented.

[Preoperative Prognostic Nutrition Index Is a Predictive Factor of Complications in Laparoscopic Colorectal Surgery].

Science.gov (United States)

Yano, Yuki; Sagawa, Masano; Yokomizo, Hajime; Okayama, Sachiyo; Yamada, Yasufumi; Usui, Takebumi; Yamaguchi, Kentaro; Shiozawa, Shunichi; Yoshimatsu, Kazuhiko; Shimakawa, Takeshi; Katsube, Takao; Kato, Hiroyuki; Naritaka, Yoshihiko

2017-10-01

Paitients and methods: We retrospectively reviewed a database of 188 patients who underwent resection for colorectal cancer with laparoscopic surgery between July 2007 and March 2015. The prognostic nutrition index(PNI), modified Glas- gow prognostic score(mGPS), controlling nutritional status(CONUT), and neutrophil/lymphocyte ratio(N/L)were measured in these patients. We examined the association between postoperative complications and clinicopathological factors. The study included 110 men and 78 women. Median age was 68 years. The site of the primary lesion was colon in 118 and rectum in 70 patients. Postoperative complications higher than Grade II(Clavien-Dindo classification)were reported in 24(12.8%)patients: Surgical site infection(SSI)in 12, remote infection in 7, ileus in 5, and others in 2 patients. Clinicopathological factors related to complications were rectal surgery, large amount of intraoperative bleeding, and long operative time. The related immunologic and nutritional factors were mGPS 2, PNI below 40, and N/L above 3. CONUT was not associated with complications in ourcases. mGPS, PNI, and N/L are predictive factors for complications in laparoscopic colorectal surgery.

Computational mathematics models, methods, and analysis with Matlab and MPI

CERN Document Server

White, Robert E

2004-01-01

Computational Mathematics: Models, Methods, and Analysis with MATLAB and MPI explores and illustrates this process. Each section of the first six chapters is motivated by a specific application. The author applies a model, selects a numerical method, implements computer simulations, and assesses the ensuing results. These chapters include an abundance of MATLAB code. By studying the code instead of using it as a "black box, " you take the first step toward more sophisticated numerical modeling. The last four chapters focus on multiprocessing algorithms implemented using message passing interface (MPI). These chapters include Fortran 9x codes that illustrate the basic MPI subroutines and revisit the applications of the previous chapters from a parallel implementation perspective. All of the codes are available for download from www4.ncsu.edu./~white.This book is not just about math, not just about computing, and not just about applications, but about all three--in other words, computational science. Whether us...

A novel prognostic indicator for in-hospital and 4-year outcomes in patients with pulmonary embolism: TIMI risk index.

Science.gov (United States)

Keskin, Muhammed; Güvenç, Tolga Sinan; Hayıroğlu, Mert İlker; Kaya, Adnan; Tatlısu, Mustafa Adem; Avşar, Şahin; Öz, Ahmet; Keskin, Taha; Uzun, Ahmet Okan; Kozan, Ömer

2017-10-01

Thrombolysis in Myocardial Infarction (TIMI) risk index (TRI) was recently evaluated in patients with acute myocardial infarction and found as an important prognostic index. In the current study, we evaluated the prognostic value of TRI in patients with moderate-high and high risk pulmonary embolism (PE) who were treated with thrombolytic agents. We retrospectively evaluated the in-hospital and long-term (4-year) prognostic impact of TRI in a total number of 456 patients with moderate-high and high risk PE. Patients were stratified by quartiles (Q) of admission TRI. In-hospital analysis revealed significantly higher rates of in-hospital death for patients with TRI in Q4. After adjustment for confounding baseline variables, TRI in Q4 was associated with 2.8-fold hazard of in-hospital death. Upon multivariate analysis, admission TRI in Q4 vs. Q1-3 was associated with 3.1 fold hazard of 4-year mortality rate. TRI in Q4, as compared to Q1-3, was significantly predictive of short term and long-term outcomes in PE patients who treated with thrombolytic agents. Our data suggest TRI to be an independent, feasible, and cost-effective tool for rapid risk stratification in moderate-high and high risk PE patients who treated with thrombolytic agents. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

High-Level Topology-Oblivious Optimization of MPI Broadcast Algorithms on Extreme-Scale Platforms

KAUST Repository

Hasanov, Khalid; Quintin, Jean-Noë l; Lastovetsky, Alexey

2014-01-01

by taking into account either their topology or platform parameters. In this work we propose a very simple and at the same time general approach to optimize legacy MPI broadcast algorithms, which are widely used in MPICH and OpenMPI. Theoretical analysis

Coupling of THALES and FROST using MPI Method

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Park, Jin Woo; Ryu, Seok Hee; Jung, Chan Do; Jung, Jee Hoon; Um, Kil Sup; Lee, Jae Il

2013-01-01

This paper presents the coupling method between THALES and FROST and the simulation results with the coupled code system. In this study, subchannel analysis code THALES and transient fuel performance code FROST were coupled using MPI method as the first stage of the development of the multi-dimensional safety analysis methodology. As a part of the validation, the CEA ejection accident was simulated using the coupled THALES-FROST code and the results were compared with the ShinKori 3 and 4 FSAR. Comparison results revealed that CHASER using MPI method predicts fuel temperatures and heat flux quantitatively well. Thus it was confirmed that the THALES and FROST are properly coupled. In near future, ASTRA, multi-dimensional core neutron kinetics code, will be linked to THALESFROST code for the detailed three-dimensional CEA ejection analysis. The current safety analysis methodology for a CEA ejection accident based on numerous conservative assumptions with the point kinetics model results in quite adverse consequences. Thus, KNF is developing the multi-dimensional safety analysis methodology to enhance the consequences of the CEA ejection accident. For this purpose, three-dimensional core neutron kinetics code ASTRA, subchannel analysis code THALES, and transient fuel performance analysis code FROST are being coupled using message passing interface(MPI). For the first step, THALES and FROST are coupled and tested

Evaluation of iron oxide nanoparticle micelles for Magnetic Particle Imaging (MPI) of thrombosis

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Starmans, L.W.E.; Moonen, R.P.M.; Aussems-Custers, E.; Daemen, M.J.A.P.; Strijkers, G. J.; Nicolay, K.; Grüll, H.

2015-01-01

Magnetic particle imaging (MPI) is an emerging medical imaging modality that directly visualizes magnetic particles in a hot-spot like fashion. We recently developed an iron oxide nanoparticle-micelle (ION-Micelle) platform that allows highly sensitive MPI. The goal of this study was to assess the

How to use MPI communication in highly parallel climate simulations more easily and more efficiently.

Science.gov (United States)

Behrens, Jörg; Hanke, Moritz; Jahns, Thomas

2014-05-01

In this talk we present a way to facilitate efficient use of MPI communication for developers of climate models. Exploitation of the performance potential of today's highly parallel supercomputers with real world simulations is a complex task. This is partly caused by the low level nature of the MPI communication library which is the dominant communication tool at least for inter-node communication. In order to manage the complexity of the task, climate simulations with non-trivial communication patterns often use an internal abstraction layer above MPI without exploiting the benefits of communication aggregation or MPI-datatypes. The solution for the complexity and performance problem we propose is the communication library YAXT. This library is built on top of MPI and takes high level descriptions of arbitrary domain decompositions and automatically derives an efficient collective data exchange. Several exchanges can be aggregated in order to reduce latency costs. Examples are given which demonstrate the simplicity and the performance gains for selected climate applications.

32 CFR 637.8 - Identification of MPI.

Science.gov (United States)

2010-07-01

... CRIMINAL INVESTIGATIONS MILITARY POLICE INVESTIGATION Investigations § 637.8 Identification of MPI. (a... referring to themselves as “INVESTIGATOR.” When signing military police records the title “Military Police Investigator” may be used in lieu of military titles. Civilian personnel will refer to themselves as...

MPI-AMRVAC FOR SOLAR AND ASTROPHYSICS

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Porth, O. [Department of Applied Mathematics, The University of Leeds, Leeds LS2 9JT (United Kingdom); Xia, C.; Hendrix, T.; Moschou, S. P.; Keppens, R., E-mail: o.porth@leeds.ac.uk [Centre for mathematical Plasma Astrophysics, Department of Mathematics, KU Leuven, Celestijnenlaan 200B, B-3001 Leuven (Belgium)

2014-09-01

In this paper, we present an update to the open source MPI-AMRVAC simulation toolkit where we focus on solar and non-relativistic astrophysical magnetofluid dynamics. We highlight recent developments in terms of physics modules, such as hydrodynamics with dust coupling and the conservative implementation of Hall magnetohydrodynamics. A simple conservative high-order finite difference scheme that works in combination with all available physics modules is introduced and demonstrated with the example of monotonicity-preserving fifth-order reconstruction. Strong stability-preserving high-order Runge-Kutta time steppers are used to obtain stable evolutions in multi-dimensional applications, realizing up to fourth-order accuracy in space and time. With the new distinction between active and passive grid cells, MPI-AMRVAC is ideally suited to simulate evolutions where parts of the solution are controlled analytically or have a tendency to progress into or out of a stationary state. Typical test problems and representative applications are discussed with an outlook toward follow-up research. Finally, we discuss the parallel scaling of the code and demonstrate excellent weak scaling up to 30, 000 processors, allowing us to exploit modern peta-scale infrastructure.

Preoperative prognostic nutritional index and nomogram predicting recurrence-free survival in patients with primary non-muscle-invasive bladder cancer without carcinoma in situ

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Cui J

2017-11-01

Full Text Available Jianfeng Cui,1,* Shouzhen Chen,1,* Qiyu Bo,2 Shiyu Wang,1 Ning Zhang,1 Meng Yu,1 Wenfu Wang,1 Jie Han,3 Yaofeng Zhu,1 Benkang Shi1 1Department of Urology, 2Department of First Operating Room, Qilu Hospital of Shandong University, 3Department of Radiation Oncology, Shandong Cancer Hospital and Institute Affiliated to Shandong University, Jinan, People’s Republic of China *These authors contributed equally to this work Background and objectives: Among the cancers of the urogenital system, bladder cancer is ranked second both in incidence and mortality, and hence, a more accurate estimate of the prognosis for individual patients with non-muscle-invasive bladder cancer (NMIBC is urgently needed. Prognostic nutritional index (PNI which is based on serum albumin levels and peripheral lymphocyte count has been confirmed to have prognostic value in various cancers. The aim of this study was to clarify the prognostic value of PNI in patients with NMIBC.Methods: Data of 329 patients with NMIBC were evaluated retrospectively. Recurrence-free survival (RFS was assessed using the Kaplan–Meier method, and the equivalences of survival curves were tested by log-rank tests. The univariate and multivariate analyses were performed using the Cox proportional hazards regression model. Discrimination of the nomogram was measured by the concordance index. A p-value of <0.05 was considered statistically significant.Results: In univariate analysis, age, tumor focality, tumor size, tumor grade, pathological T stage and preoperative PNI were significantly associated with RFS. Multivariate analysis identified PNI as an independent predictor of RFS in patients with NMIBC. According to these independent predictors, a nomogram for the prediction of recurrence was developed.Conclusion: PNI can be regarded as an independent prognostic factor for predicting RFS in NMIBC. The nomogram could be useful to improve personalized therapy for patients with NMIBC. Keywords: non

Evaluation of an Optimal Cut-Off Point for the Ki-67 Index as a Prognostic Factor in Primary Breast Cancer: A Retrospective Study.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Rumiko Tashima

Full Text Available The Ki-67 index is an important biomarker for indicating the proliferation of cancer cells and is considered to be an effective prognostic factor for breast cancer. However, a standard cut-off point for the Ki-67 index has not yet been established. Therefore, the aim of this retrospective study was to determine an optimal cut-off point in order to establish it as a more accurate prognostic factor. Immunohistochemical analysis of the Ki-67 index was performed on 4329 patients with primary breast cancer from August 1987 to March 2012. Out of this sample, there were 3186 consecutive cases from September 1997 with simultaneous evaluations of ER, PgR and HER2 status. Cox's proportional hazard model was used to perform univariate and multivariate analyses of the factors related to OS. The hazard ratios (HR and the p values were then compared to determine the optimal cut-off point for the Ki-67 index. The median Ki-67 index value was 20.5% (mean value 26.2%. The univariate analysis revealed that there was a statistically significant negative correlation with DFS and OS and the multivariate analysis revealed that the Ki-67 index value was a significant factor for DFS and OS. The top seven cut-off points were then carefully chosen based on the results of the univariate analysis using the lowest p-values and the highest HR as the main selection criteria. The multivariate analysis of the factors for OS showed that the cut-off point of 20% had the highest HR in all of the cases. However, the cutoff point of 20% was only a significant factor for OS in the Luminal/HER2- subtype. There was no correlation between the Ki-67 index value and OS in any of the other subtypes. These data indicate that the optimal cut-off point of 20% is the most effective prognostic factor for Luminal/HER2- breast cancer.

Specification of Fenix MPI Fault Tolerance library version 1.0.1

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Gamble, Marc [Rutgers Univ., New Brunswick, NJ (United States); Van Der Wijngaart, Rob [Intel Corps., Mountain View, CA (United States); Teranishi, Keita [Sandia National Lab. (SNL-NM), Albuquerque, NM (United States); Parashar, Manish [Rutgers Univ., New Brunswick, NJ (United States)

2016-10-01

This document provides a specification of Fenix, a software library compatible with the Message Passing Interface (MPI) to support fault recovery without application shutdown. The library consists of two modules. The first, termed process recovery , restores an application to a consistent state after it has suffered a loss of one or more MPI processes (ranks). The second specifies functions the user can invoke to store application data in Fenix managed redundant storage, and to retrieve it from that storage after process recovery.

Prognostic impact of body mass index stratified by smoking status in patients with esophageal squamous cell carcinoma

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Sun P

2016-10-01

Full Text Available Peng Sun,1,2,* Fei Zhang,1,2,* Cui Chen,3,* Chao Ren,1,2 Xi-Wen Bi,1,2 Hang Yang,1,2 Xin An,1,2 Feng-Hua Wang,1,2 Wen-Qi Jiang1,2 1State Key Laboratory of Oncology in South China, Collaborative Innovation Center for Cancer Medicine, 2Department of Medical Oncology, Sun Yat-Sen University Cancer Center, 3Department of Oncology, the First Affiliated Hospital, Sun Yat-Sen University, Guangzhou, People’s Republic of China *These authors contributed equally to this work Background: As smoking affects the body mass index (BMI and causes the risk of esophageal squamous cell carcinoma (ESCC, the prognostic impact of BMI in ESCC could be stratified by smoking status. We investigated the true prognostic effect of BMI and its potential modification by smoking status in ESCC. Methods: We retrospectively analyzed 459 patients who underwent curative treatment at a single institution between January 2007 and December 2010. BMI was calculated using the measured height and weight before surgery. Chi-square test was used to evaluate the relationships between smoking status and other clinicopathological variables. The Cox proportional hazard models were used for univariate and multivariate analyses of variables related to overall survival. Results: BMI <18.5 kg/m2 was a significantly independent predictor of poor survival in the overall population and never smokers after adjusting for covariates, but not in ever smokers. Among never smokers, underweight patients (BMI <18.5 kg/m2 had a 2.218 times greater risk of mortality than non-underweight (BMI =18.5 kg/m2 patients (P=0.015. Among ever smokers, BMI <18 kg/m2 increased the risk of mortality to 1.656 (P=0.019, compared to those having BMI =18 kg/m2. Conclusion: Our study is likely the first to show that the prognostic effect of BMI was substantial in ESCC, even after stratifying by smoking status. Furthermore, the risk of death due to low BMI would be significantly increased in never smokers. We believe that

Prognostic significance of the PC10 index for patients with stage II and III oesophageal cancer treated with radiotherapy

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Sugahara, Shinji; Irie, Toshiyuki; Nozawa, Kumiko; Nakajima, Kotaro [Hitachi General Hospital, Ibaraki (Japan). Dept. of Radiology; Ohara, Kiyoshi; Itai, Yuji [Tsukuba Univ., Ibaraki (Japan). Dept. of Radiology; Takahashi, Atsushi [Hitachi General Hospital, Ibaraki (Japan). Dept. of Pathology; Watanabe, Teruo [Tsukuba Univ., Ibaraki (Japan). Dept. of Pathology; Tanaka, Naomi [Tsukuba Univ., Ibaraki (Japan). Dept. of Internal Medicine

1999-07-01

The monoclonal antibody PC10 is used for immunohistochemical staining of the proliferating cell nuclear antigen (PCNA). The percentage of PC10-positive cancer cells is defined as the PC10 index. We evaluated the relationship between the PC10 index in pretreatment endoscopic biopsies and the prognoses of 47 patients with Stage II-III oesophageal squamous cell carcinoma treated with radiotherapy. The patients with a PC10 index >40% had significantly poorer prognoses than the other patients (p=0.0007). Proportional hazards model analysis indicated that only the PC10 index was a prognostic factor (p=0.0009). The patient group of complete responders showed significantly lower PC10 indices compared to patients with a partial response or no change (p=0.049). The PC10 index can be a good predictive indicator of the prognosis in patients with Stage II-III oesophageal cancer treated with radiotherapy. (orig.)

Prognostic value of body mass index before treatment for laryngeal squamous cell carcinoma

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Li, Zhao-Qu; Zou, Lan; Liu, Tian-Run; Yang, An-Kui

2015-01-01

Patients with head and neck cancer often suffer from malnutrition. This study aims to investigate the influence of body mass index (BMI) on the prognosis of laryngeal squamous cell carcinoma (LSCC). A total of 473 patients with LSCC initially treated at Sun Yat-sen University Cancer Center between January 2005 and July 2009 were retrospectively reviewed. Survival analysis was performed by the Kaplan-Meier method and Cox regression model. Low BMI before treatment was significantly associated with poor overall survival in patients with LSCC (P<0.001). BMI was an independent prognostic factor for patients with LSCC. Leanness before treatment was associated with poor prognosis in patients with LSCC. Good nutritional status is favorable to improve survival in patients with LSCC

Performance Modeling of Hybrid MPI/OpenMP Scientific Applications on Large-scale Multicore Cluster Systems

KAUST Repository

Wu, Xingfu; Taylor, Valerie

2011-01-01

In this paper, we present a performance modeling framework based on memory bandwidth contention time and a parameterized communication model to predict the performance of OpenMP, MPI and hybrid applications with weak scaling on three large-scale multicore clusters: IBM POWER4, POWER5+ and Blue Gene/P, and analyze the performance of these MPI, OpenMP and hybrid applications. We use STREAM memory benchmarks to provide initial performance analysis and model validation of MPI and OpenMP applications on these multicore clusters because the measured sustained memory bandwidth can provide insight into the memory bandwidth that a system should sustain on scientific applications with the same amount of workload per core. In addition to using these benchmarks, we also use a weak-scaling hybrid MPI/OpenMP large-scale scientific application: Gyro kinetic Toroidal Code in magnetic fusion to validate our performance model of the hybrid application on these multicore clusters. The validation results for our performance modeling method show less than 7.77% error rate in predicting the performance of hybrid MPI/OpenMP GTC on up to 512 cores on these multicore clusters. © 2011 IEEE.

Performance Modeling of Hybrid MPI/OpenMP Scientific Applications on Large-scale Multicore Cluster Systems

KAUST Repository

Wu, Xingfu

2011-08-01

In this paper, we present a performance modeling framework based on memory bandwidth contention time and a parameterized communication model to predict the performance of OpenMP, MPI and hybrid applications with weak scaling on three large-scale multicore clusters: IBM POWER4, POWER5+ and Blue Gene/P, and analyze the performance of these MPI, OpenMP and hybrid applications. We use STREAM memory benchmarks to provide initial performance analysis and model validation of MPI and OpenMP applications on these multicore clusters because the measured sustained memory bandwidth can provide insight into the memory bandwidth that a system should sustain on scientific applications with the same amount of workload per core. In addition to using these benchmarks, we also use a weak-scaling hybrid MPI/OpenMP large-scale scientific application: Gyro kinetic Toroidal Code in magnetic fusion to validate our performance model of the hybrid application on these multicore clusters. The validation results for our performance modeling method show less than 7.77% error rate in predicting the performance of hybrid MPI/OpenMP GTC on up to 512 cores on these multicore clusters. © 2011 IEEE.

Prognostic significance of peripheral monocyte count in patients with extranodal natural killer/T-cell lymphoma

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Huang, Jia-Jia; Li, Zhi-Ming; Li, Ya-Jun; Xia, Yi; Wang, Yu; Wei, Wen-Xiao; Zhu, Ying-Jie; Lin, Tong-Yu; Huang, Hui-Qiang; Jiang, Wen-Qi

2013-01-01

Extranodal natural killer/T-cell lymphoma (ENKL) has heterogeneous clinical manifestations and prognosis. This study aims to evaluate the prognostic impact of absolute monocyte count (AMC) in ENKL, and provide some immunologically relevant information for better risk stratification in patients with ENKL. Retrospective data from 163 patients newly diagnosed with ENKL were analyzed. The absolute monocyte count (AMC) at diagnosis was analyzed as continuous and dichotomized variables. Independent prognostic factors of survival were determined by Cox regression analysis. The AMC at diagnosis were related to overall survival (OS) and progression-free survival (PFS) in patients with ENKL. Multivariate analysis identified AMC as independent prognostic factors of survival, independent of International Prognostic Index (IPI) and Korean prognostic index (KPI). The prognostic index incorporating AMC and absolute lymphocyte count (ALC), another surrogate factor of immune status, could be used to stratify all 163 patients with ENKL into different prognostic groups. For patients who received chemotherapy followed by radiotherapy (102 cases), the three AMC/ALC index categories identified patients with significantly different survivals. When superimposed on IPI or KPI categories, the AMC/ALC index was better able to identify high-risk patients in the low-risk IPI or KPI category. The baseline peripheral monocyte count is shown to be an effective prognostic indicator of survival in ENKL patients. The prognostic index related to tumor microenvironment might be helpful to identify high-risk patients with ENKL

Prognostic significance of peripheral monocyte count in patients with extranodal natural killer/T-cell lymphoma.

Science.gov (United States)

Huang, Jia-Jia; Li, Ya-Jun; Xia, Yi; Wang, Yu; Wei, Wen-Xiao; Zhu, Ying-Jie; Lin, Tong-Yu; Huang, Hui-Qiang; Jiang, Wen-Qi; Li, Zhi-Ming

2013-05-03

Extranodal natural killer/T-cell lymphoma (ENKL) has heterogeneous clinical manifestations and prognosis. This study aims to evaluate the prognostic impact of absolute monocyte count (AMC) in ENKL, and provide some immunologically relevant information for better risk stratification in patients with ENKL. Retrospective data from 163 patients newly diagnosed with ENKL were analyzed. The absolute monocyte count (AMC) at diagnosis was analyzed as continuous and dichotomized variables. Independent prognostic factors of survival were determined by Cox regression analysis. The AMC at diagnosis were related to overall survival (OS) and progression-free survival (PFS) in patients with ENKL. Multivariate analysis identified AMC as independent prognostic factors of survival, independent of International Prognostic Index (IPI) and Korean prognostic index (KPI). The prognostic index incorporating AMC and absolute lymphocyte count (ALC), another surrogate factor of immune status, could be used to stratify all 163 patients with ENKL into different prognostic groups. For patients who received chemotherapy followed by radiotherapy (102 cases), the three AMC/ALC index categories identified patients with significantly different survivals. When superimposed on IPI or KPI categories, the AMC/ALC index was better able to identify high-risk patients in the low-risk IPI or KPI category. The baseline peripheral monocyte count is shown to be an effective prognostic indicator of survival in ENKL patients. The prognostic index related to tumor microenvironment might be helpful to identify high-risk patients with ENKL.

Safety and efficacy of Regadenoson in myocardial perfusion imaging (MPI) stress tests: A review

Science.gov (United States)

Ahmed, Ambereen

2018-02-01

Myocardial perfusion imaging (MPI) tests are often used to help diagnose coronary heart disease (CAD). The tests usually involve applying stress, such as hard physical exercise together with administration of vasodilators, to the patients. To date, many of these tests use non-selective A2A adenosine receptor agonists which, however, can be associated with highly undesirable and life-threatening side effects such as chest pain, dyspnea, severe bronchoconstriction and atrioventricular conduction anomalies. Regadenoson is a relatively new, highly selective A2A adenosine receptor agonist, suitable for use in MPI tests which exhibits far fewer adverse side effects and, unlike others testing agents, can be used without the necessity of excessive concomitant exercise. Also, the dose of regadenoson required is not dependent upon patient weight or renal impairment, and it can be rapidly administered by i.v. Injection. Regadenoson use in MPI testing thus has the potential as a simplified, relatively safe, time-saving and cost-effective method for helping diagnose CAD. The present study was designed to review several articles on the safety, efficacy, and suitability of regadenoson in MPI testing for CAD. Overall, the combined studies demonstrated that use of regadenoson in conjunction with low-level exercise in MPI is a highly efficient and relatively safe test for CAD, especially for more severe health-compromised patients.

Efficacy of NETDC (New England Trophoblastic Disease Center prognostic index score to predict gestational trophoblastic tumor from hydatidiform mole

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Khrismawan Khrismawan

2004-03-01

Full Text Available A prospective longitudinal analytic study assessing the efficacy of NETDC (New England Trophoblastic Disease Center prognostic index score in predicting malignancy after hydatidiform mole had been performed. Of the parameter evaluated; age of patients, type of hydatidiform mole, uterine enlargement, serum hCG level, lutein cyst, and presence of complicating factors were significant risk factors for malignancy after hydatidiform mole were evacuated (p<0.032. The study were done on 50 women diagnosed with hydatidiform mole with 1 year observation (January 2001-December 2002 at the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, Mohammad Hoesin Hospital, Palembang. The results showed that the NETDC prognostic index score predicted malignancy in 50% of high risk group and 10% in low risk group (p<0.05. This showed a higher number than that found by the WHO (19%-30%. The risk for incidence of  malignancy after hydatidiform mole in the high risk group is 9.0 times higher compared to that of the low risk group (CI: 1.769-45.786. (Med J Indones 2004; 13: 40-6 Keywords: New England Trophoblastic Disease Center (NETDC, gestational trophoblastic tumor, hydatidiform mole, high and low risk

Prognostic indices for brain metastases – usefulness and challenges

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Nieder Carsten

2009-03-01

Full Text Available Abstract Background This review addresses the strengths and weaknesses of 6 different prognostic indices, published since the Radiation Therapy Oncology Group (RTOG developed and validated the widely used 3-tiered prognostic index known as recursive partitioning analysis (RPA classes, i.e. between 1997 and 2008. In addition, other analyses of prognostic factors in groups of patients, which typically are underrepresented in large trials or databases, published in the same time period are reviewed. Methods Based on a systematic literature search, studies with more than 20 patients were included. The methods and results of prognostic factor analyses were extracted and compared. The authors discuss why current data suggest a need for a more refined index than RPA. Results So far, none of the indices has been derived from analyses of all potential prognostic factors. The 3 most recently published indices, including the RTOG's graded prognostic assessment (GPA, all expanded from the primary 3-tiered RPA system to a 4-tiered system. The authors' own data confirm the results of the RTOG GPA analysis and support further evaluation of this tool. Conclusion This review provides a basis for further refinement of the current prognostic indices by identifying open questions regarding, e.g., performance of the ideal index, evaluation of new candidate parameters, and separate analyses for different cancer types. Unusual primary tumors and their potential differences in biology or unique treatment approaches are not well represented in large pooled analyses.

Interval Changes in Myocardial Performance Index Predict Outcome in Severe Sepsis.

Science.gov (United States)

Nizamuddin, Junaid; Mahmood, Feroze; Tung, Avery; Mueller, Ariel; Brown, Samuel M; Shaefi, Shahzad; O'Connor, Michael; Talmor, Daniel; Shahul, Sajid

2017-06-01

Septic cardiomyopathy is a well-described consequence of septic shock and is associated with increased sepsis-related mortality. The myocardial performance index (MPI), a parameter derived from echocardiographic tissue Doppler measurements, allows for a more sensitive assessment of global cardiac function than do traditional metrics for cardiac function. The authors hypothesized that changes in left ventricular MPI in patients with severe sepsis would be associated with a higher 90-day mortality. Prospective, observational study. Intensive care units of a tertiary medical center. The study comprised 47 patients admitted with new diagnoses of severe sepsis or septic shock. All patients underwent transthoracic echocardiograms with assessment of MPI at enrollment and 24 hours later. Hemodynamic data and information on sepsis-related mortality were collected. In the primary analysis, the association between change in MPI from enrollment to 24 hours and sepsis-related 90-day mortality was assessed. Of the 47 patients enrolled, 30 demonstrated an improvement in MPI from 0 to 24 hours ("improved" group), and MPI worsened in the remaining 17 patients ("worsened" group). Despite no significant differences in ejection fraction or severity of illness, the median MPI at enrollment in the "improved" group was higher than baseline values in the "worsened" group (p = 0.005). A worsening MPI over the 24-hour study interval was associated with increased mortality at 90 days (p = 0.04), which remained significant (hazard ratio 3.72; 95% confidence interval 1.12-12.41; p = 0.03) after adjusting for severity of illness (Acute Physiology and Chronic Health Evaluation II score), intravenous fluids, and vasopressor use. In patients admitted to the intensive care unit with a diagnosis of severe sepsis or septic shock, a worsening MPI during the first 24 hours after intensive care unit admission was associated with higher 90-day mortality. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Inc. All rights

Performance of MPI parallel processing implemented by MCNP5/ MCNPX for criticality benchmark problems

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Mark Dennis Usang; Mohd Hairie Rabir; Mohd Amin Sharifuldin Salleh; Mohamad Puad Abu

2012-01-01

MPI parallelism are implemented on a SUN Workstation for running MCNPX and on the High Performance Computing Facility (HPC) for running MCNP5. 23 input less obtained from MCNP Criticality Validation Suite are utilized for the purpose of evaluating the amount of speed up achievable by using the parallel capabilities of MPI. More importantly, we will study the economics of using more processors and the type of problem where the performance gain are obvious. This is important to enable better practices of resource sharing especially for the HPC facilities processing time. Future endeavours in this direction might even reveal clues for best MCNP5/ MCNPX coding practices for optimum performance of MPI parallelisms. (author)

Effect of body mass index on diagnostic and prognostic usefulness of amino-terminal pro-brain natriuretic peptide in patients with acute dyspnea

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Bayes-Genis, Antoni; Lloyd-Jones, Donald M.; van Kimmenade, Roland R. J.; Lainchbury, John G.; Richards, A. Mark; Ordoñez-Llanos, Jordi; Santaló, Miquel; Pinto, Yigal M.; Januzzi, James L.

2007-01-01

BACKGROUND: Amino (N)-terminal pro-brain natriuretic peptide (NT-proBNP) testing is useful for diagnostic and prognostic evaluation in patients with dyspnea. An inverse relationship between body mass index (BMI); (calculated as weight in kilograms divided by height in meters squared) and NT-proBNP

Validity of Three Recently Proposed Prognostic Grading Indexes for Breast Cancer Patients With Radiosurgically Treated Brain Metastases

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Yamamoto, Masaaki, E-mail: BCD06275@nifty.com [Katsuta Hospital Mito GammaHouse, Hitachi-naka (Japan); Department of Neurosurgery, Tokyo Women' s Medical University Medical Center E, Tokyo (Japan); Kawabe, Takuya [Katsuta Hospital Mito GammaHouse, Hitachi-naka (Japan); Department of Neurosurgery, Kyoto Prefectural University of Medicine Graduate School of Medical Sciences, Kyoto (Japan); Higuchi, Yoshinori [Department of Neurosurgery, Chiba University Graduate School of Medicine, Chiba (Japan); Sato, Yasunori [Clinical Research Center, Chiba University Graduate School of Medicine, Chiba (Japan); Barfod, Bierta E. [Katsuta Hospital Mito GammaHouse, Hitachi-naka (Japan); Kasuya, Hidetoshi [Department of Neurosurgery, Tokyo Women' s Medical University Medical Center E, Tokyo (Japan); Urakawa, Yoichi [Katsuta Hospital Mito GammaHouse, Hitachi-naka (Japan)

2012-12-01

Purpose: We tested the validity of 3 recently proposed prognostic indexes for breast cancer patients with brain metastases (METs) treated radiosurgically. The 3 indexes are Diagnosis-Specific Graded Prognostic Assessment (DS-GPA), New Breast Cancer (NBC)-Recursive Partitioning Analysis (RPA), and our index, sub-classification of RPA class II patients into 3 sub-classes (RPA class II-a, II-b and II-c) based on Karnofsky performance status, tumor number, original tumor status, and non-brain METs. Methods and Materials: This was an institutional review board-approved, retrospective cohort study using our database of 269 consecutive female breast cancer patients (mean age, 55 years; range, 26-86 years) who underwent Gamma Knife radiosurgery (GKRS) alone, without whole-brain radiation therapy, for brain METs during the 15-year period between 1996 and 2011. The Kaplan-Meier method was used to estimate the absolute risk of each event. Results: Kaplan-Meier plots of our patient series showed statistically significant survival differences among patients stratified into 3, 4, or 5 groups based on the 3 systems (P<.001). However, the mean survival time (MST) differences between some pairs of groups failed to reach statistical significance with all 3 systems. Thus, we attempted to regrade our 269 breast cancer patients into 3 groups by modifying our aforementioned index along with the original RPA class I and III, (ie, RPA I+II-a, II-b, and II-c+III). There were statistically significant MST differences among these 3 groups without overlap of 95% confidence intervals (CIs) between any 2 pairs of groups: 18.4 (95% CI = 14.0-29.5) months in I+II-a, 9.2 in II-b (95% CI = 6.8-12.9, P<.001 vs I+II-a) and 5.0 in II-c+III (95% CI = 4.2-6.8, P<.001 vs II-b). Conclusions: As none of the new grading systems, DS-GPS, BC-RPA and our system, was applicable to our set of radiosurgically treated patients for comparing survivals after GKRS, we slightly modified our system for breast cancer

Relationship Between Coronary Contrast-Flow Quantitative Flow Ratio and Myocardial Ischemia Assessed by SPECT MPI.

Science.gov (United States)

Smit, Jeff M; Koning, Gerhard; van Rosendael, Alexander R; Dibbets-Schneider, Petra; Mertens, Bart J; Jukema, J Wouter; Delgado, Victoria; Reiber, Johan H C; Bax, Jeroen J; Scholte, Arthur J

2017-10-01

A new method has been developed to calculate fractional flow reserve (FFR) from invasive coronary angiography, the so-called "contrast-flow quantitative flow ratio (cQFR)". Recently, cQFR was compared to invasive FFR in intermediate coronary lesions showing an overall diagnostic accuracy of 85%. The purpose of this study was to investigate the relationship between cQFR and myocardial ischemia assessed by single-photon emission computed tomography myocardial perfusion imaging (SPECT MPI). Patients who underwent SPECT MPI and coronary angiography within 3 months were included. The cQFR computation was performed offline, using dedicated software. The cQFR computation was based on 3-dimensional quantitative coronary angiography (QCA) and computational fluid dynamics. The standard 17-segment model was used to determine the vascular territories. Myocardial ischemia was defined as a summed difference score ≥2 in a vascular territory. A cQFR of ≤0.80 was considered abnormal. Two hundred and twenty-four coronary arteries were analysed in 85 patients. Overall accuracy of cQFR to detect ischemia on SPECT MPI was 90%. In multivariable analysis, cQFR was independently associated with ischemia on SPECT MPI (OR per 0.01 decrease of cQFR: 1.10; 95% CI 1.04-1.18, p = 0.002), whereas clinical and QCA parameters were not. Furthermore, cQFR showed incremental value for the detection of ischemia compared to clinical and QCA parameters (global chi square 48.7 to 62.6; p relationship between cQFR and SPECT MPI was found. cQFR was independently associated with ischemia on SPECT MPI and showed incremental value to detect ischemia compared to clinical and QCA parameters.

Parallel Computing Characteristics of CUPID code under MPI and Hybrid environment

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Lee, Jae Ryong; Yoon, Han Young [Korea Atomic Energy Research Institute, Daejeon (Korea, Republic of); Jeon, Byoung Jin; Choi, Hyoung Gwon [Seoul National Univ. of Science and Technology, Seoul (Korea, Republic of)

2014-05-15

In this paper, a characteristic of parallel algorithm is presented for solving an elliptic type equation of CUPID via domain decomposition method using the MPI and the parallel performance is estimated in terms of a scalability which shows the speedup ratio. In addition, the time-consuming pattern of major subroutines is studied. Two different grid systems are taken into account: 40,000 meshes for coarse system and 320,000 meshes for fine system. Since the matrix of the CUPID code differs according to whether the flow is single-phase or two-phase, the effect of matrix shape is evaluated. Finally, the effect of the preconditioner for matrix solver is also investigated. Finally, the hybrid (OpenMP+MPI) parallel algorithm is introduced and discussed in detail for solving pressure solver. Component-scale thermal-hydraulics code, CUPID has been developed for two-phase flow analysis, which adopts a three-dimensional, transient, three-field model, and parallelized to fulfill a recent demand for long-transient and highly resolved multi-phase flow behavior. In this study, the parallel performance of the CUPID code was investigated in terms of scalability. The CUPID code was parallelized with domain decomposition method. The MPI library was adopted to communicate the information at the neighboring domain. For managing the sparse matrix effectively, the CSR storage format is used. To take into account the characteristics of the pressure matrix which turns to be asymmetric for two-phase flow, both single-phase and two-phase calculations were run. In addition, the effect of the matrix size and preconditioning was also investigated. The fine mesh calculation shows better scalability than the coarse mesh because the number of coarse mesh does not need to decompose the computational domain excessively. The fine mesh can be present good scalability when dividing geometry with considering the ratio between computation and communication time. For a given mesh, single-phase flow

Fenix, A Fault Tolerant Programming Framework for MPI Applications

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

2016-10-05

Fenix provides APIs to allow the users to add fault tolerance capability to MPI-based parallel programs in a transparent manner. Fenix-enabled programs can run through process failures during program execution using a pool of spare processes accommodated by Fenix.

Performance characteristics of hybrid MPI/OpenMP implementations of NAS parallel benchmarks SP and BT on large-scale multicore supercomputers

KAUST Repository

Wu, Xingfu; Taylor, Valerie

2011-01-01

The NAS Parallel Benchmarks (NPB) are well-known applications with the fixed algorithms for evaluating parallel systems and tools. Multicore supercomputers provide a natural programming paradigm for hybrid programs, whereby OpenMP can be used with the data sharing with the multicores that comprise a node and MPI can be used with the communication between nodes. In this paper, we use SP and BT benchmarks of MPI NPB 3.3 as a basis for a comparative approach to implement hybrid MPI/OpenMP versions of SP and BT. In particular, we can compare the performance of the hybrid SP and BT with the MPI counterparts on large-scale multicore supercomputers. Our performance results indicate that the hybrid SP outperforms the MPI SP by up to 20.76%, and the hybrid BT outperforms the MPI BT by up to 8.58% on up to 10,000 cores on BlueGene/P at Argonne National Laboratory and Jaguar (Cray XT4/5) at Oak Ridge National Laboratory. We also use performance tools and MPI trace libraries available on these supercomputers to further investigate the performance characteristics of the hybrid SP and BT.

Performance characteristics of hybrid MPI/OpenMP implementations of NAS parallel benchmarks SP and BT on large-scale multicore supercomputers

KAUST Repository

Wu, Xingfu

2011-03-29

The NAS Parallel Benchmarks (NPB) are well-known applications with the fixed algorithms for evaluating parallel systems and tools. Multicore supercomputers provide a natural programming paradigm for hybrid programs, whereby OpenMP can be used with the data sharing with the multicores that comprise a node and MPI can be used with the communication between nodes. In this paper, we use SP and BT benchmarks of MPI NPB 3.3 as a basis for a comparative approach to implement hybrid MPI/OpenMP versions of SP and BT. In particular, we can compare the performance of the hybrid SP and BT with the MPI counterparts on large-scale multicore supercomputers. Our performance results indicate that the hybrid SP outperforms the MPI SP by up to 20.76%, and the hybrid BT outperforms the MPI BT by up to 8.58% on up to 10,000 cores on BlueGene/P at Argonne National Laboratory and Jaguar (Cray XT4/5) at Oak Ridge National Laboratory. We also use performance tools and MPI trace libraries available on these supercomputers to further investigate the performance characteristics of the hybrid SP and BT.

Beyond Body Mass Index. Is the Body Cell Mass Index (BCMI) a useful prognostic factor to describe nutritional, inflammation and muscle mass status in hospitalized elderly?: Body Cell Mass Index links in elderly.

Science.gov (United States)

Rondanelli, Mariangela; Talluri, Jacopo; Peroni, Gabriella; Donelli, Chiara; Guerriero, Fabio; Ferrini, Krizia; Riggi, Emilia; Sauta, Elisabetta; Perna, Simone; Guido, Davide

2018-06-01

The aim of this study was to establish the effectiveness of Body Cell Mass Index (BCMI) as a prognostic index of (mal)nutrition, inflammation and muscle mass status in the elderly. A cross-sectional observational study has been conducted on 114 elderly patients (80 women and 34 men), with mean age equal to 81.07 ± 6.18 years. We performed a multivariate regression model by Structural Equation Modelling (SEM) framework. We detected the effects over a Mini Nutritional Assessment (MNA) stratification, by performing a multi-group multivariate regression model (via SEM) in two MNA nutritional strata, less and bigger (or equal) than 17. BCMI had a significant effect on albumin (β = +0.062, P = 0.001), adjusting for the other predictors of the model as Body Mass Index (BMI), age, sex, fat mass and cognitive condition. An analogous result is maintained in MNAelderly patients. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Ltd and European Society for Clinical Nutrition and Metabolism. All rights reserved.

Relationship between coronary contrast-flow quantitative flow ratio and myocardial ischemia assessed by SPECT MPI

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Smit, Jeff M.; Rosendael, Alexander R. van; Jukema, J.W.; Delgado, Victoria; Bax, Jeroen J.; Scholte, Arthur J. [Leiden University Medical Center, Department of Cardiology, Leiden (Netherlands); Koning, Gerhard [Medis Medical Imaging Systems B.V., Leiden (Netherlands); Dibbets-Schneider, Petra [Leiden University Medical Center, Department of Nuclear Medicine, Leiden (Netherlands); Mertens, Bart J. [Leiden University Medical Center, Department of Medical Statistics, Leiden (Netherlands); Reiber, Johan H.C. [Medis Medical Imaging Systems B.V., Leiden (Netherlands); Leiden University Medical Center, Department of Radiology, Leiden (Netherlands)

2017-10-15

A new method has been developed to calculate fractional flow reserve (FFR) from invasive coronary angiography, the so-called ''contrast-flow quantitative flow ratio (cQFR)''. Recently, cQFR was compared to invasive FFR in intermediate coronary lesions showing an overall diagnostic accuracy of 85%. The purpose of this study was to investigate the relationship between cQFR and myocardial ischemia assessed by single-photon emission computed tomography myocardial perfusion imaging (SPECT MPI). Patients who underwent SPECT MPI and coronary angiography within 3 months were included. The cQFR computation was performed offline, using dedicated software. The cQFR computation was based on 3-dimensional quantitative coronary angiography (QCA) and computational fluid dynamics. The standard 17-segment model was used to determine the vascular territories. Myocardial ischemia was defined as a summed difference score ≥2 in a vascular territory. A cQFR of ≤0.80 was considered abnormal. Two hundred and twenty-four coronary arteries were analysed in 85 patients. Overall accuracy of cQFR to detect ischemia on SPECT MPI was 90%. In multivariable analysis, cQFR was independently associated with ischemia on SPECT MPI (OR per 0.01 decrease of cQFR: 1.10; 95% CI 1.04-1.18, p = 0.002), whereas clinical and QCA parameters were not. Furthermore, cQFR showed incremental value for the detection of ischemia compared to clinical and QCA parameters (global chi square 48.7 to 62.6; p <0.001). A good relationship between cQFR and SPECT MPI was found. cQFR was independently associated with ischemia on SPECT MPI and showed incremental value to detect ischemia compared to clinical and QCA parameters. (orig.)

Hybrid x-space: a new approach for MPI reconstruction.

Science.gov (United States)

Tateo, A; Iurino, A; Settanni, G; Andrisani, A; Stifanelli, P F; Larizza, P; Mazzia, F; Mininni, R M; Tangaro, S; Bellotti, R

2016-06-07

Magnetic particle imaging (MPI) is a new medical imaging technique capable of recovering the distribution of superparamagnetic particles from their measured induced signals. In literature there are two main MPI reconstruction techniques: measurement-based (MB) and x-space (XS). The MB method is expensive because it requires a long calibration procedure as well as a reconstruction phase that can be numerically costly. On the other side, the XS method is simpler than MB but the exact knowledge of the field free point (FFP) motion is essential for its implementation. Our simulation work focuses on the implementation of a new approach for MPI reconstruction: it is called hybrid x-space (HXS), representing a combination of the previous methods. Specifically, our approach is based on XS reconstruction because it requires the knowledge of the FFP position and velocity at each time instant. The difference with respect to the original XS formulation is how the FFP velocity is computed: we estimate it from the experimental measurements of the calibration scans, typical of the MB approach. Moreover, a compressive sensing technique is applied in order to reduce the calibration time, setting a fewer number of sampling positions. Simulations highlight that HXS and XS methods give similar results. Furthermore, an appropriate use of compressive sensing is crucial for obtaining a good balance between time reduction and reconstructed image quality. Our proposal is suitable for open geometry configurations of human size devices, where incidental factors could make the currents, the fields and the FFP trajectory irregular.

Influence of prognostic nutritional index and tumor markers on survival in gastric cancer surgery patients.

Science.gov (United States)

Saito, Hiroaki; Kono, Yusuke; Murakami, Yuki; Kuroda, Hirohiko; Matsunaga, Tomoyuki; Fukumoto, Yoji; Osaki, Tomohiro

2017-05-01

Blood analytes are easily used in routine clinical practice. Tumor markers (TMs) are useful in diagnosing, treating, and predicting prognosis of gastric cancer (GC). The prognostic nutritional index (PNI) was also recently found to be useful in predicting GC prognosis. The PNI and serum levels of CEA and CA19-9 of 453 patients with GC were measured to examine correlations between those levels and patients' prognoses. Of the 453 patients, 84 (18.5%) were positive for CEA and/or CA19-9 and therefore considered positive for TMs. Prognosis of patients who were TM+ was significantly worse than for those who were TM-. Mean PNI was 48.2 (range 27.7-63.6). ROC analysis indicated that 46.7 was the optimal PNI cutoff value. Prognosis of patients in the PNI Low group (<46.7) was significantly worse than in the PNI High group (≥46.7). Prognosis of patients who were both TM+ and PNI Low was significantly worse than that of patients who were either TM+ or PNI Low and those who were both TM- and PNI High . Multivariate analysis indicated that combination of TM and PNI was an independent prognostic indicator. The combination of TM and PNI offers accurate information about a patient's prognosis.

Comparison of risk of local-regional recurrence after mastectomy or breast conservation therapy for patients treated with neoadjuvant chemotherapy and radiation stratified according to a prognostic index score

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Huang, Eugene H.; Strom, Eric A.; Perkins, George H.; Oh, Julia L.; Chen, Allen M.; Meric-Bernstam, Funda; Hunt, Kelly K.; Sahin, Aysegul A.; Hortobagyi, Gabriel N.; Buchholz, Thomas A.

2006-01-01

Purpose: We previously developed a prognostic index that stratified patients treated with breast conservation therapy (BCT) after neoadjuvant chemotherapy into groups with different risks for local-regional recurrence (LRR). The purpose of this study was to compare the rates of LRR as a function of prognostic index score for patients treated with BCT or mastectomy plus radiation after neoadjuvant chemotherapy. Methods and Materials: We retrospectively analyzed 815 patients treated with neoadjuvant chemotherapy, surgery, and radiation. Patients were assigned an index score from 0 to 4 and given 1 point for the presence of each factor: clinical N2 to N3 disease, lymphovascular invasion, pathologic size >2 cm, and multifocal residual disease. Results: The 10-year LRR rates were very low and similar between the mastectomy and BCT groups for patients with an index score of 0 or 1. For patients with a score of 2, LRR trended lower for those treated with mastectomy vs. BCT (12% vs. 28%, p = 0.28). For patients with a score of 3 to 4, LRR was significantly lower for those treated with mastectomy vs. BCT (19% vs. 61%, p = 0.009). Conclusions: This analysis suggests that BCT can provide excellent local-regional treatment for the vast majority of patients after neoadjuvant chemotherapy. For the few patients with a score of 3 to 4, LRR was >60% after BCT and was <20% with mastectomy. If these findings are confirmed in larger randomized studies, the prognostic index may be useful in helping to select the type of surgical treatment for patients treated with neoadjuvant chemotherapy, surgery, and radiation

Proceedings of the first international workshop on multiple partonic interactions at the LHC. MPI'08

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Bartalini, Paolo; Fano, Livio

2009-06-01

The objective of this first workshop on Multiple Partonic Interactions (MPI) at the LHC, that can be regarded as a continuation and extension of the dedicated meetings held at DESY in the years 2006 and 2007, is to raise the profile of MPI studies, summarizing the legacy from the older phenomenology at hadronic colliders and favouring further specific contacts between the theory and experimental communities. The MPI are experiencing a growing popularity and are currently widely invoked to account for observations that would not be explained otherwise: the activity of the Underlying Event, the cross sections for multiple heavy flavour production, the survival probability of large rapidity gaps in hard diffraction, etc. At the same time, the implementation of the MPI effects in the Monte Carlo models is quickly proceeding through an increasing level of sophistication and complexity that in perspective achieves deep general implications for the LHC physics. The ultimate ambition of this workshop is to promote the MPI as unification concept between seemingly heterogeneous research lines and to profit of the complete experimental picture in order to constrain their implementation in the models, evaluating the spin offs on the LHC physics program. The workshop is structured in five sections, with the first one dedicated to few selected hot highlights in the High Energy Physics and directly connected to the other ones: Multiple Parton Interactions (in both the soft and the hard regimes), Diffraction, Monte Carlo Generators and Heavy Ions. (orig.)

Proceedings of the first international workshop on multiple partonic interactions at the LHC. MPI'08

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Bartalini, Paolo [National Taiwan Univ., Taipei (China); Fano, Livio [Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare, Perugia (Italy)

2009-06-15

The objective of this first workshop on Multiple Partonic Interactions (MPI) at the LHC, that can be regarded as a continuation and extension of the dedicated meetings held at DESY in the years 2006 and 2007, is to raise the profile of MPI studies, summarizing the legacy from the older phenomenology at hadronic colliders and favouring further specific contacts between the theory and experimental communities. The MPI are experiencing a growing popularity and are currently widely invoked to account for observations that would not be explained otherwise: the activity of the Underlying Event, the cross sections for multiple heavy flavour production, the survival probability of large rapidity gaps in hard diffraction, etc. At the same time, the implementation of the MPI effects in the Monte Carlo models is quickly proceeding through an increasing level of sophistication and complexity that in perspective achieves deep general implications for the LHC physics. The ultimate ambition of this workshop is to promote the MPI as unification concept between seemingly heterogeneous research lines and to profit of the complete experimental picture in order to constrain their implementation in the models, evaluating the spin offs on the LHC physics program. The workshop is structured in five sections, with the first one dedicated to few selected hot highlights in the High Energy Physics and directly connected to the other ones: Multiple Parton Interactions (in both the soft and the hard regimes), Diffraction, Monte Carlo Generators and Heavy Ions. (orig.)

The Prognostic Value of the Work Ability Index for Sickness Absence among Office Workers.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Kerstin G Reeuwijk

Full Text Available The work ability index (WAI is a frequently used tool in occupational health to identify workers at risk for a reduced work performance and for work-related disability. However, information about the prognostic value of the WAI to identify workers at risk for sickness absence is scarce.To investigate the prognostic value of the WAI for sickness absence, and whether the discriminative ability differs across demographic subgroups.At baseline, the WAI (score 7-49 was assessed among 1,331 office workers from a Dutch financial service company. Sickness absence was registered during 12-months follow-up and categorised as 0 days, 0index (ORC. Test characteristics were determined for dichotomised outcomes. Additional analyses were performed for separate WAI dimensions, and subgroup analyses for demographic groups.A lower WAI was associated with sickness absence (≥15 days vs. 0 days: per point lower WAI score OR=1.27; 95%CI 1.21-1.33. The WAI showed reasonable ability to discriminate between categories of sickness absence (ORC=0.65; 95%CI 0.63-0.68. Highest discrimination was found for comparing workers with ≥15 sick days with 0 sick days (AUC=0.77 or with 1-5 sick days (AUC=0.69. At the cut-off for poor work ability (WAI≤27 the sensitivity to identify workers at risk for ≥15 sick days was 7.5%, the specificity 99.6%, and the positive predictive value 82%. The performance was similar across demographic subgroups.The WAI could be used to identify workers at high risk for prolonged sickness absence. However, due to low sensitivity many workers will be missed. Hence, additional factors are required to better identify workers at highest risk.

Parallelizing AT with MatlabMPI

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

2011-01-01

The Accelerator Toolbox (AT) is a high-level collection of tools and scripts specifically oriented toward solving problems dealing with computational accelerator physics. It is integrated into the MATLAB environment, which provides an accessible, intuitive interface for accelerator physicists, allowing researchers to focus the majority of their efforts on simulations and calculations, rather than programming and debugging difficulties. Efforts toward parallelization of AT have been put in place to upgrade its performance to modern standards of computing. We utilized the packages MatlabMPI and pMatlab, which were developed by MIT Lincoln Laboratory, to set up a message-passing environment that could be called within MATLAB, which set up the necessary pre-requisites for multithread processing capabilities. On local quad-core CPUs, we were able to demonstrate processor efficiencies of roughly 95% and speed increases of nearly 380%. By exploiting the efficacy of modern-day parallel computing, we were able to demonstrate incredibly efficient speed increments per processor in AT's beam-tracking functions. Extrapolating from prediction, we can expect to reduce week-long computation runtimes to less than 15 minutes. This is a huge performance improvement and has enormous implications for the future computing power of the accelerator physics group at SSRL. However, one of the downfalls of parringpass is its current lack of transparency; the pMatlab and MatlabMPI packages must first be well-understood by the user before the system can be configured to run the scripts. In addition, the instantiation of argument parameters requires internal modification of the source code. Thus, parringpass, cannot be directly run from the MATLAB command line, which detracts from its flexibility and user-friendliness. Future work in AT's parallelization will focus on development of external functions and scripts that can be called from within MATLAB and configured on multiple nodes, while

Performance Characteristics of Hybrid MPI/OpenMP Implementations of NAS Parallel Benchmarks SP and BT on Large-Scale Multicore Clusters

KAUST Repository

Wu, X.; Taylor, V.

2011-01-01

The NAS Parallel Benchmarks (NPB) are well-known applications with fixed algorithms for evaluating parallel systems and tools. Multicore clusters provide a natural programming paradigm for hybrid programs, whereby OpenMP can be used with the data sharing with the multicores that comprise a node, and MPI can be used with the communication between nodes. In this paper, we use Scalar Pentadiagonal (SP) and Block Tridiagonal (BT) benchmarks of MPI NPB 3.3 as a basis for a comparative approach to implement hybrid MPI/OpenMP versions of SP and BT. In particular, we can compare the performance of the hybrid SP and BT with the MPI counterparts on large-scale multicore clusters, Intrepid (BlueGene/P) at Argonne National Laboratory and Jaguar (Cray XT4/5) at Oak Ridge National Laboratory. Our performance results indicate that the hybrid SP outperforms the MPI SP by up to 20.76 %, and the hybrid BT outperforms the MPI BT by up to 8.58 % on up to 10 000 cores on Intrepid and Jaguar. We also use performance tools and MPI trace libraries available on these clusters to further investigate the performance characteristics of the hybrid SP and BT. © 2011 The Author. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of The British Computer Society. All rights reserved.

Performance Characteristics of Hybrid MPI/OpenMP Implementations of NAS Parallel Benchmarks SP and BT on Large-Scale Multicore Clusters

KAUST Repository

Wu, X.

2011-07-18

The NAS Parallel Benchmarks (NPB) are well-known applications with fixed algorithms for evaluating parallel systems and tools. Multicore clusters provide a natural programming paradigm for hybrid programs, whereby OpenMP can be used with the data sharing with the multicores that comprise a node, and MPI can be used with the communication between nodes. In this paper, we use Scalar Pentadiagonal (SP) and Block Tridiagonal (BT) benchmarks of MPI NPB 3.3 as a basis for a comparative approach to implement hybrid MPI/OpenMP versions of SP and BT. In particular, we can compare the performance of the hybrid SP and BT with the MPI counterparts on large-scale multicore clusters, Intrepid (BlueGene/P) at Argonne National Laboratory and Jaguar (Cray XT4/5) at Oak Ridge National Laboratory. Our performance results indicate that the hybrid SP outperforms the MPI SP by up to 20.76 %, and the hybrid BT outperforms the MPI BT by up to 8.58 % on up to 10 000 cores on Intrepid and Jaguar. We also use performance tools and MPI trace libraries available on these clusters to further investigate the performance characteristics of the hybrid SP and BT. © 2011 The Author. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of The British Computer Society. All rights reserved.

Ductal carcinoma in situ: USC/Van Nuys Prognostic Index and the impact of margin status.

Science.gov (United States)

Silverstein, Melvin J; Buchanan, Claire

2003-12-01

As our knowledge of ductal carcinoma in situ (DCIS) continues to evolve, treatment decision-making has become increasingly complex and controversial for both patients and physicians. Treatment options include mastectomy, and breast conservation with or without radiation therapy. Data produced from the randomized clinical trials for DCIS has provided the basis for important treatment recommendations, but are not without limitations. In this article, we review our prospectively collected database consisting of 1036 patients with DCIS treated at the Van Nuys Breast Center and the USC/Norris Comprehensive Cancer Center. We review the use of the USC/Van Nuys Prognostic Index, a clinical algorithm designed to assist physicians in selection of appropriate treatments, and examine the impact of margin status as a sole predictor of local recurrence.

A prognostic factor index for overall survival in patients receiving first-line chemotherapy for HER2-negative advanced breast cancer: an analysis of the ATHENA trial.

Science.gov (United States)

Llombart-Cussac, Antonio; Pivot, Xavier; Biganzoli, Laura; Cortes-Funes, Hernan; Pritchard, Kathleen I; Pierga, Jean-Yves; Smith, Ian; Thomssen, Christoph; Srock, Stefanie; Sampayo, Miguel; Cortes, Javier

2014-10-01

Evidence-based definitions of 'poor-prognosis' or 'aggressive' advanced breast cancer are lacking. We developed a prognostic factor index using data from 2203 patients treated with first-line chemotherapy plus bevacizumab for HER2-negative advanced breast cancer. The risk factors most closely associated with worse OS were: disease-free interval ≤24 months; liver metastases or ≥3 involved organ sites; prior anthracycline and/or taxane therapy; triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC); and performance status 2 or prior analgesic/corticosteroid treatment. Risk of death was increased threefold in patients with ≥3 versus ≤1 risk factors (hazard ratio 3.0 [95% CI 2.6-3.4; p < 0.001]; median 16.0 vs 38.8 months, respectively). This prognostic index may enable identification of patients with a poorer prognosis in whom more intensive systemic regimens may be appropriate. The index may also be considered in designing new trials, although it requires validation in other datasets before extrapolation to non-bevacizumab-containing therapy. ClinicalTrials.gov identifier: NCT00448591. Copyright © 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Tei index in neonatal respiratory distress and perinatal asphyxia

OpenAIRE

Ahmed Anwer Attia Khattab

2015-01-01

Cardiovascular compromise is a common complication of neonatal respiratory distress and perinatal asphyxia. Tei index is a Doppler-derived index for the assessment of overall left ventricular function that combines systolic and diastolic time intervals. Aim: Assess the role of MPI versus cardiac troponin I as early indicator of hypoxic cardiac damage in neonates with respiratory distress or perinatal asphyxia. The present work was conducted on forty neonates, 15 with neonatal respiratory dist...

Proceedings of the first international workshop on multiple partonic interactions at the LHC. MPI'08

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Bartalini, Paolo [National Taiwan Univ., Taipei (China); Fano, Livio (eds.) [Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare, Perugia (Italy)

2009-06-15

The objective of this first workshop on Multiple Partonic Interactions (MPI) at the LHC, that can be regarded as a continuation and extension of the dedicated meetings held at DESY in the years 2006 and 2007, is to raise the profile of MPI studies, summarizing the legacy from the older phenomenology at hadronic colliders and favouring further specific contacts between the theory and experimental communities. The MPI are experiencing a growing popularity and are currently widely invoked to account for observations that would not be explained otherwise: the activity of the Underlying Event, the cross sections for multiple heavy flavour production, the survival probability of large rapidity gaps in hard diffraction, etc. At the same time, the implementation of the MPI effects in the Monte Carlo models is quickly proceeding through an increasing level of sophistication and complexity that in perspective achieves deep general implications for the LHC physics. The ultimate ambition of this workshop is to promote the MPI as unification concept between seemingly heterogeneous research lines and to profit of the complete experimental picture in order to constrain their implementation in the models, evaluating the spin offs on the LHC physics program. The workshop is structured in five sections, with the first one dedicated to few selected hot highlights in the High Energy Physics and directly connected to the other ones: Multiple Parton Interactions (in both the soft and the hard regimes), Diffraction, Monte Carlo Generators and Heavy Ions. (orig.)

High-order finite-element seismic wave propagation modeling with MPI on a large GPU cluster

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Komatitsch, Dimitri; Erlebacher, Gordon; Goeddeke, Dominik; Michea, David

2010-01-01

We implement a high-order finite-element application, which performs the numerical simulation of seismic wave propagation resulting for instance from earthquakes at the scale of a continent or from active seismic acquisition experiments in the oil industry, on a large cluster of NVIDIA Tesla graphics cards using the CUDA programming environment and non-blocking message passing based on MPI. Contrary to many finite-element implementations, ours is implemented successfully in single precision, maximizing the performance of current generation GPUs. We discuss the implementation and optimization of the code and compare it to an existing very optimized implementation in C language and MPI on a classical cluster of CPU nodes. We use mesh coloring to efficiently handle summation operations over degrees of freedom on an unstructured mesh, and non-blocking MPI messages in order to overlap the communications across the network and the data transfer to and from the device via PCIe with calculations on the GPU. We perform a number of numerical tests to validate the single-precision CUDA and MPI implementation and assess its accuracy. We then analyze performance measurements and depending on how the problem is mapped to the reference CPU cluster, we obtain a speedup of 20x or 12x.

Fortran code for SU(3) lattice gauge theory with and without MPI checkerboard parallelization

Science.gov (United States)

Berg, Bernd A.; Wu, Hao

2012-10-01

We document plain Fortran and Fortran MPI checkerboard code for Markov chain Monte Carlo simulations of pure SU(3) lattice gauge theory with the Wilson action in D dimensions. The Fortran code uses periodic boundary conditions and is suitable for pedagogical purposes and small scale simulations. For the Fortran MPI code two geometries are covered: the usual torus with periodic boundary conditions and the double-layered torus as defined in the paper. Parallel computing is performed on checkerboards of sublattices, which partition the full lattice in one, two, and so on, up to D directions (depending on the parameters set). For updating, the Cabibbo-Marinari heatbath algorithm is used. We present validations and test runs of the code. Performance is reported for a number of currently used Fortran compilers and, when applicable, MPI versions. For the parallelized code, performance is studied as a function of the number of processors. Program summary Program title: STMC2LSU3MPI Catalogue identifier: AEMJ_v1_0 Program summary URL:http://cpc.cs.qub.ac.uk/summaries/AEMJ_v1_0.html Program obtainable from: CPC Program Library, Queen's University, Belfast, N. Ireland Licensing provisions: Standard CPC licence, http://cpc.cs.qub.ac.uk/licence/licence.html No. of lines in distributed program, including test data, etc.: 26666 No. of bytes in distributed program, including test data, etc.: 233126 Distribution format: tar.gz Programming language: Fortran 77 compatible with the use of Fortran 90/95 compilers, in part with MPI extensions. Computer: Any capable of compiling and executing Fortran 77 or Fortran 90/95, when needed with MPI extensions. Operating system: Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server 6.1 with OpenMPI + pgf77 11.8-0, Centos 5.3 with OpenMPI + gfortran 4.1.2, Cray XT4 with MPICH2 + pgf90 11.2-0. Has the code been vectorised or parallelized?: Yes, parallelized using MPI extensions. Number of processors used: 2 to 11664 RAM: 200 Mega bytes per process. Classification: 11

The significance of the Van Nuys prognostic index in the management of ductal carcinoma in situ

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Davies Mary

2008-06-01

Full Text Available Abstract Background Debate regarding the benefit of radiotherapy after local excision of ductal carcinoma in situ (DCIS continues. The Van Nuys Prognostic Index (VNPI is thought to be a useful aid in deciding which patients are at increased risk of local recurrence and who may benefit from adjuvant radiotherapy (RT. Recently published interim data from the Sloane project has showed that the VNPI score did significantly affect the chances of getting planned radiotherapy in the UK, suggesting that British clinicians may already be using this scoring system to assist in decision making. This paper independently assesses the prognostic validity of the VNPI in a British population. Patients and methods A retrospective review was conducted of all patients (n = 215 who underwent breast conserving surgery for DCIS at a single institution between 1997 – 2006. No patients included in the study received additional radiotherapy or hormonal treatment. Kaplan Meier survival curves were calculated, to determine disease free survival, for the total sample and a series of univariate analyses were performed to examine the value of various prognostic factors including the VNPI. The log-rank test was used to determine statistical significance of differential survival rates. Multivariate Cox regression analysis was performed to analyze the significance of the individual components of the VNPI. All analyses were conducted using SPSS software, version 14.5. Results The mean follow-up period was 53 months (range 12–97, SD19.9. Ninety five tumours were high grade (44% and 84 tumours exhibited comedo necrosis (39%. The closest mean initial excision margin was 2.4 mm (range 0–22 mm, standard deviation 2.8 and a total of 72 tumours (33% underwent further re-excision. The observed and the actuarial 8 year disease-free survival rates in this study were 91% and 83% respectively. The VNPI score and the presence of comedo necrosis were the only statistically significant

Prognostic criteria of sensitivity to antibiotics of staphylococcus clinical strains

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Gordiy Paliy

2015-06-01

Department of Microbiology, Virology and Immunology, Vinnytsya National Pirogov Memorial Medical University Ministry of Health of Ukraine   Abstract In the article, the new data of sensitivity to antibiotics in clinical strains of Staphylococci are presented. For the first time, analytic dependence of dynamic prognostic criteria of the change of sensitivity of S. aureus clinical strains, isolated from patients, was obtained by means of mathematical prediction. There were investigated prognosticated indexes of Staphylococcus strains’ sensitivity to beta-lactams (oxacillin, ceftriaxone, imipenem and meropenem, vancomycin and linezolid. The dynamic of sensitivity decreasing to oxacillin, ceftriaxone, carbapenems (imipenem, meropenem, vancomycin (92,5 % and high sensitivity to linezolid in clinical strains of S. aureus were found out. Key words: sensitivity, antibiotics, Staphylococcus, prognostic indexes.

Prognostic value of 18F-FLT PET in patients with neuroendocrine neoplasms

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Johnbeck, Camilla B.; Knigge, Ulrich; Langer, Seppo W.

2016-01-01

Neuroendocrine neoplasms (NENs) constitute a heterogeneous group of tumors arising in various organs and with a large span of aggressiveness and survival rates. The Ki-67 proliferation index is presently used as the key marker of prognosis, and treatment guidelines are largely based on this index...... study was to investigate 18F-FLT PET as a prognostic marker for NENs in comparison with 18F-FDG PET and Ki-67 index. Methods: One hundred patients were PET-scanned with both 18F-FLT and 18F-FDG within the same week, and the prognostic value of a positive scan was examined in terms of progression...... prognostic value in NEN patients but when 18F-FDG PET and Ki-67 index are also available, a multivariate model revealed that 18F-FLT PET only adds information regarding PFS but not OS, whereas 18F-FDG PET remains predictive of both PFS and OS. However, a clinically robust algorithm including 18F...

The labelling index: a prognostic factor in head and neck carcinoma.

Science.gov (United States)

Chauvel, P; Courdi, A; Gioanni, J; Vallicioni, J; Santini, J; Demard, F

1989-03-01

The thymidine labelling index (LI), representing the percentage of cells in the DNA-synthesis phase, was measured in vitro prior to therapy in 87 patients with squamous cell carcinoma of the head and neck, who were treated between 1977 and 1982. The LI was not related to patient age, site of the tumour, clinical stage or histological grade. Overall survival was 44.5%. Univariate analysis demonstrated that survival was affected by the following factors: (1) age: patients older than 55 had a better outcome (p = 0.03); (2) site of the tumour (p = 0.005): laryngeal tumours had the best survival; (3) clinical stage (p = 0.05). Histological grade did not influence the survival (p = 0.41). Patients having a tumour LI higher than 15.5% (mean + 1 S.D.) had a significantly lower survival than patients with lower tumour LI (p = 0.008). A multivariate analysis using the Cox model showed that clinical stage and LI kept their prognostic impact with regard to survival. Finally, survival after relapse was lower in patients with a high tumour LI. These results demonstrate that a high tumour proliferation rate is an additional factor influencing the disease outcome in head and neck carcinoma. Patients with bad prognosis defined by this parameter could be offered a more energetic treatment.

Validation of the new graded prognostic assessment scale for brain metastases: a multicenter prospective study

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Villà, Salvador; Verger, Eugènia; Balañà, Carme; Graus, Francesc; Weber, Damien C; Moretones, Cristina; Mañes, Anabel; Combescure, Christophe; Jové, Josep; Puyalto, Paloma; Cuadras, Patricia; Bruna, Jordi

2011-01-01

Prognostic indexes are useful to guide tailored treatment strategies for cancer patients with brain metastasis (BM). We evaluated the new Graded Prognostic Assessment (GPA) scale in a prospective validation study to compare it with two published prognostic indexes. A total of 285 newly diagnosed BM (n = 85 with synchronous BM) patients, accrued prospectively between 2000 and 2009, were included in this analysis. Mean age was 62 ± 12.0 years. The median KPS and number of BM was 70 (range, 20-100) and 3 (range, 1-50), respectively. The majority of primary tumours were lung (53%), or breast (17%) cancers. Treatment was administered to 255 (89.5%) patients. Only a minority of patients could be classified prospectively in a favourable prognostic class: GPA 3.5-4: 3.9%; recursive partitioning analysis (RPA) 1, 8.4% and Basic Score for BM (BSBM) 3, 9.1%. Mean follow-up (FU) time was 5.2 ± 4.7 months. During the period of FU, 225 (78.9%) patients died. The 6 months- and 1 year-OS was 36.9% and 17.6%, respectively. On multivariate analysis, performance status (P < 0.001), BSBM (P < 0.001), Center (P = 0.007), RPA (P = 0.02) and GPA (P = 0.03) were statistically significant for OS. The survival prediction performances' of all indexes were identical. Noteworthy, the significant OS difference observed within 3 months of diagnosis between the BSBM, RPA and GPA classes/groups was not observed after this cut-off time point. Harrell's concordance indexes C were 0.58, 0.61 and 0.58 for the GPA, BSBM and RPA, respectively. Our data suggest that the new GPA index is a valid prognostic index. In this prospective study, the prediction performance was as good as the BSBM or RPA systems. These published indexes may however have limited long term prognostication capability

Prognostic value of body mass index in transcatheter aortic valve implantation: A "J"-shaped curve.

Science.gov (United States)

González-Ferreiro, Rocío; Muñoz-García, Antonio J; López-Otero, Diego; Avanzas, Pablo; Pascual, Isaac; Alonso-Briales, Juan H; Trillo-Nouche, Ramiro; Pun, Federico; Jiménez-Navarro, Manuel F; Hernández-García, José M; Morís, César; González Juanatey, José R

2017-04-01

We aimed to determine whether body mass index (BMI) is a prognostic indicator for long-term, all-cause mortality in patients undergoing transcatheter aortic valve implantation (TAVI). Obesity in patients with established cardiovascular disease has previously been identified as an indicator of good prognosis, a phenomenon known as the "obesity paradox". The prognostic significance of BMI in patients with severe aortic stenosis (AoS) undergoing TAVI is a matter of current debate, as published studies are scarce and their results conflicting. This is an observational, retrospective study involving 770 patients who underwent TAVI for AoS. The cohort was divided into three groups based on their BMI: normal weight (≥18.5 to value=0.036]). After adjustment by logistic EuroSCORE, being overweight was found to be an independent protective factor against mortality (HR: 0.63 [95% CI: 0.42 to 0.94], p=0.024). This was not the case for obesity (HR: 0.92 [95% CI: 0.63 to 1.35], p=0.664). We therefore describe for the first time, a "J-shaped" regression curve describing the relationship between BMI and mortality. BMI is a predictive factor of all-cause mortality in AoS patients undergoing TAVI. This relationship takes the form of a "J-shaped" curve in which overweight patients are associated with the lowest mortality rate at follow-up. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.

Topology-oblivious optimization of MPI broadcast algorithms on extreme-scale platforms

KAUST Repository

Hasanov, Khalid; Quintin, Jean-Noë l; Lastovetsky, Alexey

2015-01-01

operations for particular architectures by taking into account either their topology or platform parameters. In this work we propose a simple but general approach to optimization of the legacy MPI broadcast algorithms, which are widely used in MPICH and Open

Myocardial Performance Index in Childhood Onset Essential Hypertension and White Coat Hypertension.

Science.gov (United States)

Gupta-Malhotra, Monesha; Hamzeh, Rabih K; Poffenbarger, Tim; McNiece-Redwine, Karen; Hashmi, Syed Shahrukh

2016-03-01

As a global measure of ventricular systolic and diastolic function, the myocardial performance index (MPI) can be an early indicator of hypertensive cardiomyopathy in children with essential hypertension (EH). Children with untreated newly diagnosed EH and white coat hypertension (WCH) by a 24-hour ambulatory blood pressure monitoring (ABPM), both groups without any identifiable etiology for the hypertension, were enrolled for the study. Echocardiograms and vascular ultrasounds for carotid artery intimal medial thickness were performed on all children prior to therapy. Diastolic function (peak E and A velocities, E/A ratio, isovolumic relaxation time, and deceleration times) and MPI were evaluated by simultaneous transmitral and transaortic spectral Doppler flow velocities. Systolic function was evaluated by shortening fraction and ejection fraction. A cohort of 66 children (24 with EH, 42 with WCH, males 61%, median age of 13 years, range 10-17 years) were enrolled in the study. The demographic, anthropometric, laboratory tests, vascular ultrasound, and conventional echocardiographic parameters were similar between the 2 groups. There was a very small difference in MPI between the EH and WCH children (0.28 SD: 0.07 vs. 0.31 SD: 0.08, P = 0.045). However, in EH children, MPI increased by 0.14 units for every 10 unit increase in mean ABPM systolic BP (95% confidence interval: 0.03-0.25). We found the increasing MPI was associated with increasing 24-hour mean systolic BP in children with EH. Therefore, MPI may have utility as a single, quick, noninvasive method of detection and tracking of subclinical hypertensive heart disease. © American Journal of Hypertension, Ltd 2015. All rights reserved. For Permissions, please email: journals.permissions@oup.com.

Prognostic value of exercise echocardiography: validation of a new risk index combining echocardiographic, treadmill, and exercise electrocardiographic parameters.

Science.gov (United States)

Mazur, Wojciech; Rivera, Jose M; Khoury, Alexander F; Basu, Abhijeet G; Perez-Verdia, Alejandro; Marks, Gary F; Chang, Su Min; Olmos, Leopoldo; Quiñones, Miguel A; Zoghbi, William A

2003-04-01

Exercise (Ex) echocardiography has been shown to have significant prognostic power, independent of other known predictors of risk from an Ex stress test. The purpose of this study was to evaluate a risk index, incorporating echocardiographic and conventional Ex variables, for a more comprehensive risk stratification and identification of a very low-risk group. Two consecutive, mutually exclusive populations referred for treadmill Ex echocardiography with the Bruce protocol were investigated: hypothesis-generating (388 patients; 268 males; age 55 +/- 13 years) and hypothesis-testing (105 patients; 61 males age: 54 +/- 14 years).Cardiac events included cardiac death, myocardial infarction, late revascularization (>90 days), hospital admission for unstable angina, and admission for heart failure. Mean follow-up in the hypothesis-generating population was 3.1 years. There were 38 cardiac events. Independent predictors of events by multivariate analysis were: Ex wall motion score index (odds ratio [OR] = 2.77/Unit; P or = 1 mm (OR = 2.84; P =.002); and treadmill time (OR = 0.87/min; P =.037). A risk index was generated on the basis of the multivariate Cox regression model as: risk index = 1.02 (Ex wall motion score index) + 1.04 (S-T change) - 0.14 (treadmill time). The validity of this index was tested in the hypothesis-testing population. Event rates at 3 years were lowest (0%) in the lower quartile of risk index (-1.22 to -0.47), highest (29.6%) in the upper quartile (+0.66 to +2.02), and intermediate (19.2% to 15.3%) in the intermediate quartiles. The OR of the risk index for predicting cardiac events was 2.94/Unit ([95% confidence interval: 1.4 to 6.2]; P =.0043). Echocardiographic and Ex parameters are independent powerful predictors of cardiac events after treadmill stress testing. A risk index can be derived with these parameters for a more comprehensive risk stratification with Ex echocardiography.

Machine-learning model observer for detection and localization tasks in clinical SPECT-MPI

Science.gov (United States)

Parages, Felipe M.; O'Connor, J. Michael; Pretorius, P. Hendrik; Brankov, Jovan G.

2016-03-01

In this work we propose a machine-learning MO based on Naive-Bayes classification (NB-MO) for the diagnostic tasks of detection, localization and assessment of perfusion defects in clinical SPECT Myocardial Perfusion Imaging (MPI), with the goal of evaluating several image reconstruction methods used in clinical practice. NB-MO uses image features extracted from polar-maps in order to predict lesion detection, localization and severity scores given by human readers in a series of 3D SPECT-MPI. The population used to tune (i.e. train) the NB-MO consisted of simulated SPECT-MPI cases - divided into normals or with lesions in variable sizes and locations - reconstructed using filtered backprojection (FBP) method. An ensemble of five human specialists (physicians) read a subset of simulated reconstructed images, and assigned a perfusion score for each region of the left-ventricle (LV). Polar-maps generated from the simulated volumes along with their corresponding human scores were used to train five NB-MOs (one per human reader), which are subsequently applied (i.e. tested) on three sets of clinical SPECT-MPI polar maps, in order to predict human detection and localization scores. The clinical "testing" population comprises healthy individuals and patients suffering from coronary artery disease (CAD) in three possible regions, namely: LAD, LcX and RCA. Each clinical case was reconstructed using three reconstruction strategies, namely: FBP with no SC (i.e. scatter compensation), OSEM with Triple Energy Window (TEW) SC method, and OSEM with Effective Source Scatter Estimation (ESSE) SC. Alternative Free-Response (AFROC) analysis of perfusion scores shows that NB-MO predicts a higher human performance for scatter-compensated reconstructions, in agreement with what has been reported in published literature. These results suggest that NB-MO has good potential to generalize well to reconstruction methods not used during training, even for reasonably dissimilar datasets (i

Experiences Using Hybrid MPI/OpenMP in the Real World: Parallelization of a 3D CFD Solver for Multi-Core Node Clusters

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Gabriele Jost

2010-01-01

Full Text Available Today most systems in high-performance computing (HPC feature a hierarchical hardware design: shared-memory nodes with several multi-core CPUs are connected via a network infrastructure. When parallelizing an application for these architectures it seems natural to employ a hierarchical programming model such as combining MPI and OpenMP. Nevertheless, there is the general lore that pure MPI outperforms the hybrid MPI/OpenMP approach. In this paper, we describe the hybrid MPI/OpenMP parallelization of IR3D (Incompressible Realistic 3-D code, a full-scale real-world application, which simulates the environmental effects on the evolution of vortices trailing behind control surfaces of underwater vehicles. We discuss performance, scalability and limitations of the pure MPI version of the code on a variety of hardware platforms and show how the hybrid approach can help to overcome certain limitations.

The Prognostic Value of the Work Ability Index for Sickness Absence among Office Workers.

Science.gov (United States)

Reeuwijk, Kerstin G; Robroek, Suzan J W; Niessen, Maurice A J; Kraaijenhagen, Roderik A; Vergouwe, Yvonne; Burdorf, Alex

2015-01-01

The work ability index (WAI) is a frequently used tool in occupational health to identify workers at risk for a reduced work performance and for work-related disability. However, information about the prognostic value of the WAI to identify workers at risk for sickness absence is scarce. To investigate the prognostic value of the WAI for sickness absence, and whether the discriminative ability differs across demographic subgroups. At baseline, the WAI (score 7-49) was assessed among 1,331 office workers from a Dutch financial service company. Sickness absence was registered during 12-months follow-up and categorised as 0 days, 0performed for separate WAI dimensions, and subgroup analyses for demographic groups. A lower WAI was associated with sickness absence (≥15 days vs. 0 days: per point lower WAI score OR=1.27; 95%CI 1.21-1.33). The WAI showed reasonable ability to discriminate between categories of sickness absence (ORC=0.65; 95%CI 0.63-0.68). Highest discrimination was found for comparing workers with ≥15 sick days with 0 sick days (AUC=0.77) or with 1-5 sick days (AUC=0.69). At the cut-off for poor work ability (WAI≤27) the sensitivity to identify workers at risk for ≥15 sick days was 7.5%, the specificity 99.6%, and the positive predictive value 82%. The performance was similar across demographic subgroups. The WAI could be used to identify workers at high risk for prolonged sickness absence. However, due to low sensitivity many workers will be missed. Hence, additional factors are required to better identify workers at highest risk.

Neuromagnetic index of hemispheric asymmetry prognosticating the outcome of sudden hearing loss.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Lieber Po-Hung Li

Full Text Available The longitudinal relationship between central plastic changes and clinical presentations of peripheral hearing impairment remains unknown. Previously, we reported a unique plastic pattern of "healthy-side dominance" in acute unilateral idiopathic sudden sensorineural hearing loss (ISSNHL. This study aimed to explore whether such hemispheric asymmetry bears any prognostic relevance to ISSNHL along the disease course. Using magnetoencephalography (MEG, inter-hemispheric differences in peak dipole amplitude and latency of N100m to monaural tones were evaluated in 21 controls and 21 ISSNHL patients at two stages: initial and fixed stage (1 month later. Dynamics/Prognostication of hemispheric asymmetry were assessed by the interplay between hearing level/hearing gain and ipsilateral/contralateral ratio (I/C of N100m latency and amplitude. Healthy-side dominance of N100m amplitude was observed in ISSNHL initially. The pattern changed with disease process. There is a strong correlation between the hearing level at the fixed stage and initial I/C(amplitude on affected-ear stimulation in ISSNHL. The optimal cut-off value with the best prognostication effect for the hearing improvement at the fixed stage was an initial I/C(latency on affected-ear stimulation of 1.34 (between subgroups of complete and partial recovery and an initial I/C(latency on healthy-ear stimulation of 0.76 (between subgroups of partial and no recovery, respectively. This study suggested that a dynamic process of central auditory plasticity can be induced by peripheral lesions. The hemispheric asymmetry at the initial stage bears an excellent prognostic potential for the treatment outcomes and hearing level at the fixed stage in ISSNHL. Our study demonstrated that such brain signature of central auditory plasticity in terms of both N100m latency and amplitude at defined time can serve as a prognostication predictor for ISSNHL. Further studies are needed to explore the long

Analysis of prognostic value of clinical information and myocardial perfusion imaging in diabetic patients on cardiac events occurrence

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Wu Zhifang; Li Sijin

2004-01-01

Objective: To explore the risk factors of cardiac event (CE) occurrence and evaluate the prognostic value of myocardial perfusion imaging (MPI) in diabetic patients. Methods: We conducted a study with 172(16.4%) consecutively registered patients with diabetes (132 males, 40 females; age range 16-90 years, mean age 55.94±12.46 years) and 875(83.6%) patients without diabetes with known or suspected coronary artery disease (CAD) undergoing SPECT MPI. Follow-up information was obtained through telephone interviews. Patients were followed up for at least 18 months. End points were defined as death due to primary cardiac cause, or nonfatal acute myocardial infarction and revascularization. The mean time of follow-up was 33.25±14.95 (1∼56) months. Results: Logistic stepwise regression analysis evaluated history of smoking and drinking, hypertension, hyperlipemia and the family history of CAD as predictors. A multiple regression formula was obtained: Y=-5.593+0.958X1+0.921 X2+0.428X3, (Y=cardiac events, X1=diabetes, X2=the family history of CAD, X3=hypertension). Diabetes, the family history of CAD and hypertension were dangerous factors for cardiac events, but hyperlipemia, history of smoking and drinking were protective factors for cardiac events. Over the follow-up period, there are 42 cardiac events in diabetic group, 86 in non-diabetic group. Patients with diabetes had significantly higher rates of cardiac events (24.4% versus 9.8%; chi-square 28.5, P<0.0001), compared with rates among patients without diabetes (table 1). Kaplan-Meier survival curves analyzing the no-CE rates in the diabetic and non-diabetic groups, diabetic patients were significantly lower than non-diabetic ones (Log-rank statistic, chi-square 28.75, P <0.0001). Of 172 diabetic patients, 32.2% of the patients with abnormal MPI occurred cardiac events, but only 7.4% of the patients with normal ones did(chi-square 12.34, P <0.001) (figure 1). Abnormal SPECT MPI was associated with the higher rate

Low child survival index in a multi-dimensionally poor Amerindian population in Venezuela.

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Julian A Villalba

Full Text Available Warao Amerindians, who inhabit the Orinoco Delta, are the second largest indigenous group in Venezuela.  High Warao general mortality rates were mentioned in a limited study 21 years ago. However, there have been no comprehensive studies addressing child survival across the entire population.To determine the Child Survival-Index (CSI (ratio: still-living children/total-live births in the Warao population, the principal causes of childhood death and the socio-demographic factors associated with childhood deaths.We conducted a cross-sectional epidemiological survey of 688 women from 97 communities in 7 different subregions of the Orinoco Delta. Data collected included socio-demographic characteristics and the reproductive history of each woman surveyed. The multidimensional poverty index (MPI was used to classify the households as deprived across the three dimensions of the Human Development Index. Multivariable linear regression and Generalized Linear Model Procedures were used to identify socioeconomic and environmental characteristics statistically associated with the CSI.The average CSI was 73.8% ±26. The two most common causes of death were gastroenteritis/diarrhea (63% and acute respiratory tract Infection/pneumonia (18%.  Deaths in children under five years accounted for 97.3% of childhood deaths, with 54% occurring in the neonatal period or first year of life.  Most of the women (95.5% were classified as multidimensionally poor.  The general MPI in the sample was 0.56.   CSI was negatively correlated with MPI, maternal age, residence in a traditional dwelling and profession of the head of household other than nurse or teacher.The Warao have a low CSI which is correlated with MPI and maternal age.  Infectious diseases are responsible for 85% of childhood deaths.  The low socioeconomic development, lack of infrastructure and geographic and cultural isolation suggest that an integrated approach is urgently needed to

Low child survival index in a multi-dimensionally poor Amerindian population in Venezuela.

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Villalba, Julian A; Liu, Yushi; Alvarez, Mauyuri K; Calderon, Luisana; Canache, Merari; Cardenas, Gaudymar; Del Nogal, Berenice; Takiff, Howard E; De Waard, Jacobus H

2013-01-01

Warao Amerindians, who inhabit the Orinoco Delta, are the second largest indigenous group in Venezuela.  High Warao general mortality rates were mentioned in a limited study 21 years ago. However, there have been no comprehensive studies addressing child survival across the entire population. To determine the Child Survival-Index (CSI) (ratio: still-living children/total-live births) in the Warao population, the principal causes of childhood death and the socio-demographic factors associated with childhood deaths. We conducted a cross-sectional epidemiological survey of 688 women from 97 communities in 7 different subregions of the Orinoco Delta. Data collected included socio-demographic characteristics and the reproductive history of each woman surveyed. The multidimensional poverty index (MPI) was used to classify the households as deprived across the three dimensions of the Human Development Index. Multivariable linear regression and Generalized Linear Model Procedures were used to identify socioeconomic and environmental characteristics statistically associated with the CSI. The average CSI was 73.8% ±26. The two most common causes of death were gastroenteritis/diarrhea (63%) and acute respiratory tract Infection/pneumonia (18%).  Deaths in children under five years accounted for 97.3% of childhood deaths, with 54% occurring in the neonatal period or first year of life.  Most of the women (95.5%) were classified as multidimensionally poor.  The general MPI in the sample was 0.56.   CSI was negatively correlated with MPI, maternal age, residence in a traditional dwelling and profession of the head of household other than nurse or teacher. The Warao have a low CSI which is correlated with MPI and maternal age.  Infectious diseases are responsible for 85% of childhood deaths.  The low socioeconomic development, lack of infrastructure and geographic and cultural isolation suggest that an integrated approach is urgently needed to improve the

Prognostic significance of perioperative nutritional parameters in patients with gastric cancer.

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Oh, Sung Eun; Choi, Min-Gew; Seo, Jeong-Meen; An, Ji Yeong; Lee, Jun Ho; Sohn, Tae Sung; Bae, Jae Moon; Kim, Sung

2018-02-20

It has been suggested that nutritional status is related to the survival outcomes of cancer patients. The purpose of the current research is to evaluate the importance of the prognosis of various nutritional parameters during the perioperative period in patients with gastric cancer. This study enrolled patients with gastric cancer who underwent D2 gastrectomy at the Department of Surgery, Samsung Medical Center, in 2008. The prognostic significance of nutritional parameters was analyzed, along with other clinical and pathological variables, preoperatively and postoperatively at 3, 6, and 12 months. The total number of patients was 1415. The mean values of nutritional parameters, weight, body mass index (BMI), hemoglobin, total cholesterol, and total lymphocyte count (TLC) decreased significantly over time after surgery. On the contrary, albumin and prognostic nutritional index (PNI) score increased significantly during the postoperative follow-up period. Preoperatively, low BMI (nutritional prognostic indicators. Various perioperative nutritional parameters were confirmed as independent prognostic factors in patients with gastric cancer. Our results imply prognostic benefit from careful nutritional support for patients with poor nutritional parameters. Copyright © 2018 Elsevier Ltd and European Society for Clinical Nutrition and Metabolism. All rights reserved.

Prognostic Value of the Nutritional Risk Index in Heart Transplant Recipients.

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Barge-Caballero, Eduardo; García-López, Fernando; Marzoa-Rivas, Raquel; Barge-Caballero, Gonzalo; Couto-Mallón, David; Paniagua-Martín, María J; Solla-Buceta, Miguel; Velasco-Sierra, Carlos; Pita-Gutiérrez, Francisco; Herrera-Noreña, José M; Cuenca-Castillo, José J; Vázquez-Rodríguez, José Manuel; Crespo-Leiro, María G

2017-08-01

To study the prognostic impact of preoperative nutritional status, as assessed through the nutritional risk index (NRI), on postoperative outcomes after heart transplantation (HT). We conducted a retrospective, single-center study of 574 patients who underwent HT from 1991 to 2014. Preoperative NRI was calculated as 1.519 × serum albumin (g/L) + 41.7 × (body weight [kg] / ideal body weight [kg]). The association between preoperative NRI and postoperative outcomes was analyzed by means of multivariable logistic regression and multivariable Cox regression. Mean NRI before HT was 100.9 ± 9.9. According to this parameter, the prevalence of severe nutritional risk (NRI risk (83.5 ≤ NRI risk (97.5 ≤ NRI risk of postoperative infection (adjusted OR, 0.97; 95%CI, 0.95-1.00; P = .027) and prolonged postoperative ventilator support (adjusted OR, 0.96; 95%CI, 0.94-0.98; P = .001). Patients at moderate or severe nutritional risk had significantly higher 1-year post-HT mortality (adjusted HR, 1.55; 95%CI, 1.22-1.97; P risk of postoperative complications and mortality after HT. Preoperative NRI determination may help to identify HT candidates who might benefit from nutritional intervention. Copyright © 2016 Sociedad Española de Cardiología. Published by Elsevier España, S.L.U. All rights reserved.

Using prognostic models in CLL to personalize approach to clinical care: Are we there yet?

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Mina, Alain; Sandoval Sus, Jose; Sleiman, Elsa; Pinilla-Ibarz, Javier; Awan, Farrukh T; Kharfan-Dabaja, Mohamed A

2018-03-01

Four decades ago, two staging systems were developed to help stratify CLL into different prognostic categories. These systems, the Rai and the Binet staging, depended entirely on abnormal exam findings and evidence of anemia and thrombocytopenia. Better understanding of biologic, genetic, and molecular characteristics of CLL have contributed to better appreciating its clinical heterogeneity. New prognostic models, the GCLLSG prognostic index and the CLL-IPI, emerged. They incorporate biologic and genetic information related to CLL and are capable of predicting survival outcomes and cases anticipated to need therapy earlier in the disease course. Accordingly, these newer models are helping develop better informed surveillance strategies and ultimately tailor treatment intensity according to presence (or lack thereof) of certain prognostic markers. This represents a step towards personalizing care of CLL patients. We anticipate that as more prognostic factors continue to be identified, the GCLLSG prognostic index and CLL-IPI models will undergo further revisions. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Prognostic value of brachioradialis muscle oxygen saturation index and vascular occlusion test in septic shock patients.

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Marín-Corral, J; Claverias, L; Bodí, M; Pascual, S; Dubin, A; Gea, J; Rodriguez, A

2016-05-01

To compare rSO2 (muscle oxygen saturation index) static and dynamic variables obtained by NIRS (Near Infrared Spectroscopy) in brachioradialis muscle of septic shock patients and its prognostic implications. Prospective and observational study. Intensive care unit. Septic shock patients and healthy volunteers. The probe of a NIRS device (INVOS 5100) was placed on the brachioradialis muscle during a vascular occlusion test (VOT). Baseline, minimum and maximum rSO2 values, deoxygenation rate (DeOx), reoxygenation slope (ReOx) and delta value. Septic shock patients (n=35) had lower baseline rSO2 (63.8±12.2 vs. 69.3±3.3%, p<0.05), slower DeOx (-0.54±0.31 vs. -0.91±0.35%/s, p=0.001), slower ReOx (2.67±2.17 vs. 9.46±3.5%/s, p<0.001) and lower delta (3.25±5.71 vs. 15.1±3.9%, p<0.001) when compared to healthy subjects (n=20). Among septic shock patients, non-survivors showed lower baseline rSO2 (57.0±9.6 vs. 69.8±11.3%, p=0.001), lower minimum rSO2 (36.0±12.8 vs. 51.3±14.8%, p<0.01) and lower maximum rSO2 values (60.6±10.6 vs. 73.3±11.2%, p<0.01). Baseline rSO2 was a good mortality predictor (AUC 0.79; 95%CI: 0.63-0.94, p<0.01). Dynamic parameters obtained with VOT did not improve the results. Septic shock patients present an important alteration of microcirculation that can be evaluated by NIRS with prognostic implications. Monitoring microvascular reactivity in the brachioradialis muscle using VOT with our device does not seem to improve the prognostic value of baseline rSO2. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier España, S.L.U. and SEMICYUC. All rights reserved.

Magnetic Particle / Magnetic Resonance Imaging: In-Vitro MPI-Guided Real Time Catheter Tracking and 4D Angioplasty Using a Road Map and Blood Pool Tracer Approach.

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Salamon, Johannes; Hofmann, Martin; Jung, Caroline; Kaul, Michael Gerhard; Werner, Franziska; Them, Kolja; Reimer, Rudolph; Nielsen, Peter; Vom Scheidt, Annika; Adam, Gerhard; Knopp, Tobias; Ittrich, Harald

2016-01-01

In-vitro evaluation of the feasibility of 4D real time tracking of endovascular devices and stenosis treatment with a magnetic particle imaging (MPI) / magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) road map approach and an MPI-guided approach using a blood pool tracer. A guide wire and angioplasty-catheter were labeled with a thin layer of magnetic lacquer. For real time MPI a custom made software framework was developed. A stenotic vessel phantom filled with saline or superparamagnetic iron oxide nanoparticles (MM4) was equipped with bimodal fiducial markers for co-registration in preclinical 7T MRI and MPI. In-vitro angioplasty was performed inflating the balloon with saline or MM4. MPI data were acquired using a field of view of 37.3×37.3×18.6 mm3 and a frame rate of 46 volumes/sec. Analysis of the magnetic lacquer-marks on the devices were performed with electron microscopy, atomic absorption spectrometry and micro-computed tomography. Magnetic marks allowed for MPI/MRI guidance of interventional devices. Bimodal fiducial markers enable MPI/MRI image fusion for MRI based roadmapping. MRI roadmapping and the blood pool tracer approach facilitate MPI real time monitoring of in-vitro angioplasty. Successful angioplasty was verified with MPI and MRI. Magnetic marks consist of micrometer sized ferromagnetic plates mainly composed of iron and iron oxide. 4D real time MP imaging, tracking and guiding of endovascular instruments and in-vitro angioplasty is feasible. In addition to an approach that requires a blood pool tracer, MRI based roadmapping might emerge as a promising tool for radiation free 4D MPI-guided interventions.

Magnetic Particle / Magnetic Resonance Imaging: In-Vitro MPI-Guided Real Time Catheter Tracking and 4D Angioplasty Using a Road Map and Blood Pool Tracer Approach.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Johannes Salamon

Full Text Available In-vitro evaluation of the feasibility of 4D real time tracking of endovascular devices and stenosis treatment with a magnetic particle imaging (MPI / magnetic resonance imaging (MRI road map approach and an MPI-guided approach using a blood pool tracer.A guide wire and angioplasty-catheter were labeled with a thin layer of magnetic lacquer. For real time MPI a custom made software framework was developed. A stenotic vessel phantom filled with saline or superparamagnetic iron oxide nanoparticles (MM4 was equipped with bimodal fiducial markers for co-registration in preclinical 7T MRI and MPI. In-vitro angioplasty was performed inflating the balloon with saline or MM4. MPI data were acquired using a field of view of 37.3×37.3×18.6 mm3 and a frame rate of 46 volumes/sec. Analysis of the magnetic lacquer-marks on the devices were performed with electron microscopy, atomic absorption spectrometry and micro-computed tomography.Magnetic marks allowed for MPI/MRI guidance of interventional devices. Bimodal fiducial markers enable MPI/MRI image fusion for MRI based roadmapping. MRI roadmapping and the blood pool tracer approach facilitate MPI real time monitoring of in-vitro angioplasty. Successful angioplasty was verified with MPI and MRI. Magnetic marks consist of micrometer sized ferromagnetic plates mainly composed of iron and iron oxide.4D real time MP imaging, tracking and guiding of endovascular instruments and in-vitro angioplasty is feasible. In addition to an approach that requires a blood pool tracer, MRI based roadmapping might emerge as a promising tool for radiation free 4D MPI-guided interventions.

The prognostic value of FET PET at radiotherapy planning in newly diagnosed glioblastoma

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Hoejklint Poulsen, Sidsel [The Finsen Center, Rigshospitalet, Department of Radiation Biology, Copenhagen (Denmark); Center of Diagnostic Investigation, Rigshospitalet, Department of Clinical Physiology, Nuclear Medicine and PET, Copenhagen (Denmark); Urup, Thomas; Grunnet, Kirsten; Skovgaard Poulsen, Hans [The Finsen Center, Rigshospitalet, Department of Radiation Biology, Copenhagen (Denmark); The Finsen Center, Rigshospitalet, Department of Oncology, Copenhagen (Denmark); Jarle Christensen, Ib [University of Copenhagen, Hvidovre Hospital, Laboratory of Gastroenterology, Copenhagen (Denmark); Larsen, Vibeke Andree [Center of Diagnostic Investigation, Rigshospitalet, Department of Radiology, Copenhagen (Denmark); Lundemann Jensen, Michael; Munck af Rosenschoeld, Per [The Finsen Center, Rigshospitalet, Department of Oncology, Copenhagen (Denmark); The Finsen Center, Rigshospitalet, Section of Radiotherapy, Copenhagen (Denmark); Law, Ian [Center of Diagnostic Investigation, Rigshospitalet, Department of Clinical Physiology, Nuclear Medicine and PET, Copenhagen (Denmark)

2017-03-15

Glioblastoma patients show a great variability in progression free survival (PFS) and overall survival (OS). To gain additional pretherapeutic information, we explored the potential of O-(2-{sup 18}F-fluoroethyl)-L-tyrosine (FET) PET as an independent prognostic biomarker. We retrospectively analyzed 146 consecutively treated, newly diagnosed glioblastoma patients. All patients were treated with temozolomide and radiation therapy (RT). CT/MR and FET PET scans were obtained postoperatively for RT planning. We used Cox proportional hazards models with OS and PFS as endpoints, to test the prognostic value of FET PET biological tumor volume (BTV). Median follow-up time was 14 months, and median OS and PFS were 16.5 and 6.5 months, respectively. In the multivariate analysis, increasing BTV (HR = 1.17, P < 0.001), poor performance status (HR = 2.35, P < 0.001), O(6)-methylguanine-DNA methyltransferase protein status (HR = 1.61, P = 0.024) and higher age (HR = 1.32, P = 0.013) were independent prognostic factors of poor OS. For poor PFS, only increasing BTV (HR = 1.18; P = 0.002) was prognostic. A prognostic index for OS was created based on the identified prognostic factors. Large BTV on FET PET is an independent prognostic factor of poor OS and PFS in glioblastoma patients. With the introduction of FET PET, we obtain a prognostic index that can help in glioblastoma treatment planning. (orig.)

Systemic immune–inflammation index as a useful prognostic indicator predicts survival in patients with advanced gastric cancer treated with neoadjuvant chemotherapy

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Chen L

2017-12-01

Full Text Available Li Chen,1,* Ying Yan,2,* Lihua Zhu,3 Xiliang Cong,1 Sen Li,1 Shubin Song,1 Hongjiang Song,1 Yingwei Xue1 1Department of Gastrointestinal Surgery, Harbin Medical University Cancer Hospital, Harbin Medical University, Harbin, Heilongjiang, 2Department of Internal Oncology, Harbin The First Hospital, Harbin, Heilongjiang, 3Department of Pathogen Biology, School of Basic Medical Sciences, North China University of Science and Technology, Tangshan, Hebei, China *These authors contributed equally to this work Background and objective: A novel systemic immune–inflammation index named SII (SII=N×P/L, which is based on neutrophil (N, platelet (P and lymphocyte (L counts, has emerged and reflects comprehensively the balance of host inflammatory and immune status. We aimed to evaluate the potential prognostic significance of SII in patients with advanced gastric cancer who received neoadjuvant chemotherapy.Subjects and methods: The retrospective analysis included data from 107 patients with advanced gastric cancer undergoing neoadjuvant chemotherapy and 185 patients with pathology-proven gastric cancer. The optimal cutoff value of SII by receiver operating characteristic curve stratified patients into low SII (<600×109/L and high SII (SII ≥600×109/L groups. The clinical outcomes of disease-free survival (DFS and overall survival (OS were calculated by Kaplan–Meier survival curves and compared using log-rank test. Univariate and multivariate Cox proportional hazards regression models were used to analyze the prognostic value of SII.Results: The results indicated that SII had prognostic significance using the cutoff value of 600×109/L on DFS and OS in univariate and multivariate Cox regression survival analyses. Low SII was associated with prolonged DFS and OS, and the mean DFS and OS for patients with low SII were longer than for those with high SII (57.22 vs 41.56 months and 62.25 vs 45.60 months, respectively. Furthermore, we found that patients

Radiotherapy for carcinoma of the vagina. Immunocytochemical and cytofluorometric analysis of prognostic factors

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Blecharz, P. [Maria Sklodowska-Curie Memorial Institute, Krakow (Poland). Dept. of Gynecological Oncology; Reinfuss, M.; Jakubowicz, J. [Maria Sklodowska-Curie Memorial Institute, Krakow (Poland). Dept. of Radiation Oncology; Rys, J. [Maria Sklodowska-Curie Memorial Institute, Krakow (Poland). Dept. of Tumor Pathology Oncology; Skotnicki, P.; Wysocki, W. [Maria Sklodowska-Curie Memorial Institute, Krakow (Poland). Dept. of Oncological Surgery

2013-05-15

Background and purpose: The aim of this study was to assess the potential prognostic factors in patients with primary invasive vaginal carcinoma (PIVC) treated with radical irradiation. Patients and methods: The analysis was performed on 77 patients with PIVC treated between 1985 and 2005 in the Maria Sklodowska-Curie Memorial Institute of Oncology, Cancer Center in Krakow. A total of 36 patients (46.8 %) survived 5 years with no evidence of disease (NED). The following groups of factors were assessed for potential prognostic value: population-based (age), clinical (Karnofsky Performance Score [KPS], hemoglobin level, primary location of the vaginal lesion, macroscopic type, length of the involved vaginal wall, FIGO stage), microscopic (microscopic type, grade, mitotic index, presence of atypical mitoses, lymphatic vessels invasion, lymphocytes/plasmocytes infiltration, focal necrosis, VAIN-3), immunohistochemical (protein p53 expression, MIB-1 index), cytofluorometric (ploidity, index DI, S-phase fraction, proliferation index SG2M) factors. Results: Significantly better 5-year NED was observed in patients: < 60 years, KPS {<=} 80, FIGO stage I and II, grade G1-2, MIB-1 index < 70, S-phase fraction < 10, and proliferation index < 25. Independent factors for better prognosis in the multivariate Cox analysis were age < 60 years, FIGO stage I or II, and MIB-1 index < 70. Conclusion: Independent prognostic factors in the radically irradiated PIVC patients were as follows: age, FIGO stage, MIB-1 index. (orig.)

The prognostic value of pulmonary embolism severity index in acute pulmonary embolism: a meta-analysis

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Zhou Xiao-Yu

2012-12-01

Full Text Available Abstract Background Prognostic assessment is important for the management of patients with acute pulmonary embolism (APE. Pulmonary Embolism Severity Index (PESI and simple PESI (sPESI are new emerged prognostic assessment tools for APE. The aim of this meta-analysis is to assess the accuracy of the PESI and the sPESI to predict prognostic outcomes (all-cause and PE-related mortality, serious adverse events in APE patients, and compare between these two PESIs. Methods MEDLINE and EMBASE database were searched up to June 2012 using the terms “Pulmonary Embolism Severity Index” and “pulmonary embolism”. Summary odds ratio (OR with 95% confidence intervals (CIs for prognostic outcomes in low risk PESI versus high risk PESI were calculated. Summary receiver operating characteristic curve (SROC used to estimate overall predicting accuracies of prognostic outcomes. Results Twenty-one studies were included in this meta-analysis. The results showed low-risk PESI was significantly associated with lower all-cause mortality (OR 0.13; 95% CI 0.12 to 0.15, PE-related mortality (OR 0.09; 95% CI 0.05 to 0.17 and serious adverse events (OR 0.34; 95% CI 0.29 to 0.41, with no homogeneity across studies. In sPESI subgroup, the OR of all-cause mortality, PE-related mortality, and serious adverse events was 0.10 (95% CI 0.08 to 0.14, 0.09 (95% CI 0.03 to 0.26 and 0.40 (95% CI 0.31 to 0.51, respectively; while in PESI subgroup, the OR was 0.14 (95% CI 0.13 to 0.16, 0.09 (95% CI 0.04 to 0.21, and 0.30 (95% CI 0.23 to 0.38, respectively. For accuracy analysis, the pooled sensitivity, the pooled specificity, and the overall weighted AUC for PESI predicting all-cause mortality was 0.909 (95% CI: 0.900 to 0.916, 0.411 (95% CI: 0.407 to 0.415, and 0.7853±0.0058, respectively; for PE-related mortality, it was 0.953 (95% CI: 0.913 to 0.978, 0.374 (95% CI: 0.360 to 0.388, and 0.8218±0.0349, respectively; for serious adverse events, it was 0.821 (95% CI: 0.795 to 0

The prognostic value of FET PET at radiotherapy planning in newly diagnosed glioblastoma

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Poulsen, Sidsel Højklint; Urup, Thomas; Grunnet, Kirsten

2017-01-01

the prognostic value of FET PET biological tumor volume (BTV). RESULTS: Median follow-up time was 14 months, and median OS and PFS were 16.5 and 6.5 months, respectively. In the multivariate analysis, increasing BTV (HR = 1.17, P ...-DNA methyltransferase protein status (HR = 1.61, P = 0.024) and higher age (HR = 1.32, P = 0.013) were independent prognostic factors of poor OS. For poor PFS, only increasing BTV (HR = 1.18; P = 0.002) was prognostic. A prognostic index for OS was created based on the identified prognostic factors. CONCLUSION: Large...

Clinical impact of ki-67 labeling index in non-small cell lung cancer

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Jakobsen, Jan Nyrop; Sørensen, Jens Benn

2013-01-01

The ki-67 index is a marker of proliferation in malignant tumors. Studies from the period 2000 to 2012 on the prognostic and predictive value of ki-67 labeling index (LI) in non-small cell cancer (NSCLC) are reviewed. Twenty-eight studies reported on the prognostic value of ki-67 index with various...

Automatic Transformation of MPI Programs to Asynchronous, Graph-Driven Form

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Baden, Scott B [University of California, San Diego; Weare, John H [University of California, San Diego; Bylaska, Eric J [Pacific Northwest National Laboratory

2013-04-30

The goals of this project are to develop new, scalable, high-fidelity algorithms for atomic-level simulations and program transformations that automatically restructure existing applications, enabling them to scale forward to Petascale systems and beyond. The techniques enable legacy MPI application code to exploit greater parallelism though increased latency hiding and improved workload assignment. The techniques were successfully demonstrated on high-end scalable systems located at DOE laboratories. Besides the automatic MPI program transformations efforts, the project also developed several new scalable algorithms for ab-initio molecular dynamics, including new massively parallel algorithms for hybrid DFT and new parallel in time algorithms for molecular dynamics and ab-initio molecular dynamics. These algorithms were shown to scale to very large number of cores, and they were designed to work in the latency hiding framework developed in this project. The effectiveness of the developments was enhanced by the direct application to real grand challenge simulation problems covering a wide range of technologically important applications, time scales and accuracies. These included the simulation of the electronic structure of mineral/fluid interfaces, the very accurate simulation of chemical reactions in microsolvated environments, and the simulation of chemical behavior in very large enzyme reactions.

Blood pyrrole-protein adducts as a diagnostic and prognostic index in pyrrolizidine alkaloid-hepatic sinusoidal obstruction syndrome.

Science.gov (United States)

Gao, Hong; Ruan, Jianqing Q; Chen, Jie; Li, Na; Ke, Changqiang Q; Ye, Yang; Lin, Ge; Wang, Jiyao Y

2015-01-01

The diagnosis of hepatic sinusoidal obstruction syndrome (HSOS) induced by pyrrolizidine alkaloids is mainly based on clinical investigation. There is currently no prognostic index. This study evaluated the quantitative measurement of blood pyrrole-protein adducts (PPAs) as a diagnostic and prognostic index for pyrrolizidine alkaloid-induced HSOS. Suspected drug-induced liver injury patients were prospectively recruited. Blood PPAs were quantitatively measured using ultra-performance liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry. Patients' age, sex, biochemistry test results, and a detailed drug history were recorded. The patients were divided into two groups, ie, those with HSOS induced by pyrrolizidine alkaloid-containing drugs and those with liver injury induced by drugs without pyrrolizidine alkaloids. The relationship between herb administration, clinical outcomes, blood sampling time, and blood PPA concentration in pyrrolizidine alkaloid-associated HSOS patients was analyzed using multiple linear regression analysis. Forty patients met the entry criteria, among whom 23 had pyrrolizidine alkaloid-associated HSOS and 17 had liver injury caused by drugs without pyrrolizidine alkaloids. Among the 23 patients with pyrrolizidine alkaloid-associated HSOS, ten recovered, four developed chronic disease, eight died, and one underwent liver transplantation within 6 months after onset. Blood PPAs were detectable in 24 of 40 patients with concentrations from 0.05 to 74.4 nM. Sensitivity and specificity of the test for diagnosis of pyrrolizidine alkaloid-associated HSOS were 100% (23/23) and 94.1% (23/24), respectively. The positive predictive value was 95.8% and the negative predictive value was 100%, whereas the positive likelihood ratio was 23.81. The level of blood PPAs in the severe group (died or received liver transplantation) was significantly higher than that in the recovery/chronicity group (P=0.004). Blood PPAs measured by ultra-performance liquid

Phosphohistone-H3 (PHH3) is prognostic relevant in Merkel cell carcinomas but Merkel cell polyomavirus is a more powerful prognostic factor than AJCC clinical stage, PHH3, Ki-67 or mitotic indices.

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Iwasaki, Takeshi; Matsushita, Michiko; Nonaka, Daisuke; Kato, Masako; Nagata, Keiko; Murakami, Ichiro; Hayashi, Kazuhiko

2015-08-01

Merkel cell carcinomas (MCCs) associated with Merkel cell polyomavirus (MCPyV) have better prognosis than those without MCPyV. The relationship between mitotic index (MI) and MCC outcome has remained elusive because of the difficulty in differentiating mitotic cells from apoptotic ones. We evaluated the role of phosphohistone-H3 (PHH3) (Ser10), a new mitotic count biomarker, in MCPyV-positive or -negative MCC patients, and assessed its prognostic value in comparison to Ki-67 labeling index or MI using hematoxylin and eosin (HE) staining. We compared the prognostic value of PHH3 mitotic index with that of MI by HE in 19 MCPyV-positive and 9 MCPyV-negative MCC patients. PHH3-positive immunoreactivity was mostly observed in mitotic figures. Multivariate analysis significantly showed that MCPyV status (HR, 0.004; 95% CI 0.0003-0.058) and the American Joint Committee of Cancer (AJCC) stage (HR, 5.02; 95% CI 1.23-20.51) were observed as significantly independent prognostic factors for OS. PHH3-positive cell counts/10 HPF was a slightly significant independent prognostic factor for OS (HR, 4.96; 95% CI 0.93-26.55). PHH3-positive MI and MCPyV status in MCC patients are useful in prognostication, although MCPyV-infection is a more powerful prognostic factor in MCCs than the AJCC scheme on proliferation or mitotic indices. © 2015 Japanese Society of Pathology and Wiley Publishing Asia Pty Ltd.

CORBA and MPI-based 'backbone' for coupling advanced simulation tools

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Seydaliev, M.; Caswell, D.

2014-01-01

There is a growing international interest in using coupled, multidisciplinary computer simulations for a variety of purposes, including nuclear reactor safety analysis. Reactor behaviour can be modeled using a suite of computer programs simulating phenomena or predicting parameters that can be categorized into disciplines such as Thermalhydraulics, Neutronics, Fuel, Fuel Channels, Fission Product Release and Transport, Containment and Atmospheric Dispersion, and Severe Accident Analysis. Traditionally, simulations used for safety analysis individually addressed only the behaviour within a single discipline, based upon static input data from other simulation programs. The limitation of using a suite of stand-alone simulations is that phenomenological interdependencies or temporal feedback between the parameters calculated within individual simulations cannot be adequately captured. To remove this shortcoming, multiple computer simulations for different disciplines must exchange data during runtime to address these interdependencies. This article describes the concept of a new framework, which we refer to as the 'Backbone', to provide the necessary runtime exchange of data. The Backbone, currently under development at AECL for a preliminary feasibility study, is a hybrid design using features taken from the Common Object Request Broker Architecture (CORBA), a standard defined by the Object Management Group, and the Message Passing Interface (MPI), a standard developed by a group of researchers from academia and industry. Both have well-tested and efficient implementations, including some that are freely available under the GNU public licenses. The CORBA component enables individual programs written in different languages and running on different platforms within a network to exchange data with each other, thus behaving like a single application. MPI provides the process-to-process intercommunication between these programs. This paper outlines the different CORBA and

Optimization approaches to mpi and area merging-based parallel buffer algorithm

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Junfu Fan

Full Text Available On buffer zone construction, the rasterization-based dilation method inevitably introduces errors, and the double-sided parallel line method involves a series of complex operations. In this paper, we proposed a parallel buffer algorithm based on area merging and MPI (Message Passing Interface to improve the performances of buffer analyses on processing large datasets. Experimental results reveal that there are three major performance bottlenecks which significantly impact the serial and parallel buffer construction efficiencies, including the area merging strategy, the task load balance method and the MPI inter-process results merging strategy. Corresponding optimization approaches involving tree-like area merging strategy, the vertex number oriented parallel task partition method and the inter-process results merging strategy were suggested to overcome these bottlenecks. Experiments were carried out to examine the performance efficiency of the optimized parallel algorithm. The estimation results suggested that the optimization approaches could provide high performance and processing ability for buffer construction in a cluster parallel environment. Our method could provide insights into the parallelization of spatial analysis algorithm.

Effect of preload alternations on a new Doppler echocardiographic index of combined systolic and diastolic performance

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Møller, J E; Poulsen, S H; Egstrup, K

1999-01-01

The objective of the study was to assess the effect of preload alternations on a nongeometric Doppler index of combined systolic and diastolic myocardial performance (MPI). Doppler echocardiography was performed during Valsalva maneuver, passive leg lifting, and after sublingual administration of...

Prognostic index to identify patients who may not benefit from whole brain radiotherapy for multiple brain metastases from lung cancer

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Sundaresan, P.; Yeghiaian, R.; Gebski, V.

2010-01-01

Full text: Palliative whole brain radiotherapy (WBRT) is often recommended in the management of multiple brain metastases. Allowing for WBRT waiting time, duration of the WBRT course and time to clinical response, it may take 6 weeks from the point of initial assessment for a benefit from WBRT to manifest. Patients who die within 6 weeks ('early death') may not benefit from WBRT and may instead experience a decline in quality of life. This study aimed to develop a prognostic index (PI) that identifies the subset of patients with lung cancer with multiple brain metastases who may not benefit from WBRT because of'early death'. The medical records of patients with lung cancer who had WBRT recommended for multiple brain metastases over a 10-year period were retrospectively reviewed. Patients were classified as either having died within 6 weeks or having lived beyond 6 weeks. Potential prognostic indicators were evaluated for correlation with 'early death'. A PI was constructed by modelling the survival classification to determine the contribution of these factors towards shortened survival. Of the 275 patients recommended WBRT, 64 (23.22%) died within 6 weeks. The main prognostic factor predicting early death was Eastern Cooperative Oncology Group (ECOG) status >2. Patients with a high PI score (>13) were at higher risk of'early death'. Twenty-three per cent of patients died prior to benefit from WBRT. ECOG status was the most predictive for 'early death'. Other factors may also contribute towards a poor outcome. With further refinement and validation, the PI could be a valuable clinical decision tool.

Accelerated Aging with Electrical Overstress and Prognostics for Power MOSFETs

Science.gov (United States)

Saha, Sankalita; Celaya, Jose Ramon; Vashchenko, Vladislav; Mahiuddin, Shompa; Goebel, Kai F.

2011-01-01

Power electronics play an increasingly important role in energy applications as part of their power converter circuits. Understanding the behavior of these devices, especially their failure modes as they age with nominal usage or sudden fault development is critical in ensuring efficiency. In this paper, a prognostics based health management of power MOSFETs undergoing accelerated aging through electrical overstress at the gate area is presented. Details of the accelerated aging methodology, modeling of the degradation process of the device and prognostics algorithm for prediction of the future state of health of the device are presented. Experiments with multiple devices demonstrate the performance of the model and the prognostics algorithm as well as the scope of application. Index Terms Power MOSFET, accelerated aging, prognostics

Lemon : An MPI parallel I/O library for data encapsulation using LIME

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Deuzeman, Albert; Reker, Siebren; Urbach, Carsten

We introduce Lemon, an MPI parallel I/O library that provides efficient parallel I/O of both binary and metadata on massively parallel architectures. Motivated by the demands of the lattice Quantum Chromodynamics community, the data is stored in the SciDAC Lattice QCD Interchange Message

Automatic translation of MPI source into a latency-tolerant, data-driven form

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Nguyen, Tan; Cicotti, Pietro; Bylaska, Eric; Quinlan, Dan; Baden, Scott

2017-01-01

Hiding communication behind useful computation is an important performance programming technique but remains an inscrutable programming exercise even for the expert. We present Bamboo, a code transformation framework that can realize communication overlap in applications written in MPI without the need to intrusively modify the source code. We reformulate MPI source into a task dependency graph representation, which partially orders the tasks, enabling the program to execute in a data-driven fashion under the control of an external runtime system. Experimental results demonstrate that Bamboo significantly reduces communication delays while requiring only modest amounts of programmer annotation for a variety of applications and platforms, including those employing co-processors and accelerators. Moreover, Bamboo’s performance meets or exceeds that of labor-intensive hand coding. As a result, the translator is more than a means of hiding communication costs automatically; it demonstrates the utility of semantic level optimization against a well-known library.

Enabling Highly-Scalable Remote Memory Access Programming with MPI-3 One Sided

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Robert Gerstenberger

2014-01-01

Full Text Available Modern interconnects offer remote direct memory access (RDMA features. Yet, most applications rely on explicit message passing for communications albeit their unwanted overheads. The MPI-3.0 standard defines a programming interface for exploiting RDMA networks directly, however, it's scalability and practicability has to be demonstrated in practice. In this work, we develop scalable bufferless protocols that implement the MPI-3.0 specification. Our protocols support scaling to millions of cores with negligible memory consumption while providing highest performance and minimal overheads. To arm programmers, we provide a spectrum of performance models for all critical functions and demonstrate the usability of our library and models with several application studies with up to half a million processes. We show that our design is comparable to, or better than UPC and Fortran Coarrays in terms of latency, bandwidth and message rate. We also demonstrate application performance improvements with comparable programming complexity.

The prognostic value of 99MTc-MIBI stress-rest myocardial perfusion imaging in patients suspected with coronary artery disease

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Wu Zhifang; Li Sijin; Liu Jianzhong; Zhang Wanchun

2004-01-01

Objective: To evaluate the prognostic value of 99mTc-MIBI stress-rest myocardial perfusion imaging (MPI) for patients suspected with coronary artery disease (CAD). Methods: 206 consecutive patients suspected with CAD (165 males, 41 females; age range 16-90 years, mean age 55.94±12.46 years) underwent 99mTc-MIBI stress-rest myocardial perfusion imaging (two days protocol), 57 pts with hypertension, 68 pts with hyperlipemia, 39 pts with diabetes and 62 pts with the family history of CAD. According to the imaging results, the 206 patients were divided into 3 groups. G1, normal, 135 pts; G2, reversible defects, 20 pts; G3, fixed defects, 51 pts. The mean time of follow-up was 33.25±14.95 (1-56) months. Results: The rate of cardiac events (CE) occurrence of the three groups was 1.5% (2/135), 65% ( 13/20) and 7.8% (4/51) respectively and there was significant difference between them. Kaplan-Meier survival curves analyzing the no-CE rates in the three groups, ischemic patients demonstrated a more significantly lower than normal and infarction ones in the no-CE rates(Log-rank statistic, chi-square 124.89, P <0.0001). The better predictor of future cardiac events is the reversible defect. Over all, 23.9% of the patients with abnormal stress MPI occurred cardiac events, but only 7.5% of the patients with abnormal rest ones did(chi-square 5.80, P =0.016). The prognoses of patients with normal stress MPI result were better than those with normal rest ones (1.5% versus 9.7%, chi-square 8.94, P =0.0028). Compared with rest MPI, the stress one is a better predictable method to analyze the patient' s condition and evaluate the prognosis. Conclusions: 99mTc-MIBI stress-rest myocardial perfusion imaging is a better Methods to evaluate the prognosis of patients suspected with CAD, and the rate of CE occurrence was 65% in reversible defects patients in this study. (authors)

Thermodynamic behavior of binary mixtures CnMpyNTf2 ionic liquids with primary and secondary alcohols

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Calvar, N.; Gómez, E.; Domínguez, Á.; Macedo, E.A.

2012-01-01

Highlights: ► Osmotic coefficients of alcohols with C n MpyNTf 2 (n = 2, 3, 4) are determined. ► Experimental data were correlated with Extended Pitzer model of Archer and MNRTL. ► Mean molal activity coefficients and excess Gibbs free energies were calculated. ► The results have been interpreted in terms of interactions. - Abstract: In this paper, the osmotic and activity coefficients and vapor pressures of the binary mixtures containing the ionic liquids 1-ethyl-3-methylpyridinium bis(trifluoromethylsulfonyl)imide, C 2 MpyNTf 2 , and 1-methyl-3-propylpyridinium bis(trifluoromethylsulfonyl)imide, C 3 MpyNTf 2 , with 1-propanol, or 2-propanol and the ionic liquid 1-butyl-3-methylpyridinium bis(trifluoromethylsulfonyl)imide, C 4 MpyNTf 2 , with 1-propanol or 2-propanol or 1-butanol or 2-butanol were determined at T = 323.15 K using the vapor pressure osmometry technique. The influence of the structure of the alcohol and of the ionic liquid on both coefficients and vapor pressures is discussed and a comparison with literature data on binary mixtures containing ionic liquids with different cations and anion is also performed. Besides, the results have been interpreted in terms of solute–solvent and ion–ion interactions. The experimental osmotic coefficients were correlated using the Extended Pitzer model of Archer and the Modified Non-Random Two Liquids model obtaining standard deviations lower than 0.059 and 0.102 respectively, and the mean molal activity coefficients and the excess Gibbs free energy for the studied mixtures were calculated.

Study on MPI/OpenMP hybrid parallelism for Monte Carlo neutron transport code

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Liang Jingang; Xu Qi; Wang Kan; Liu Shiwen

2013-01-01

Parallel programming with mixed mode of messages-passing and shared-memory has several advantages when used in Monte Carlo neutron transport code, such as fitting hardware of distributed-shared clusters, economizing memory demand of Monte Carlo transport, improving parallel performance, and so on. MPI/OpenMP hybrid parallelism was implemented based on a one dimension Monte Carlo neutron transport code. Some critical factors affecting the parallel performance were analyzed and solutions were proposed for several problems such as contention access, lock contention and false sharing. After optimization the code was tested finally. It is shown that the hybrid parallel code can reach good performance just as pure MPI parallel program, while it saves a lot of memory usage at the same time. Therefore hybrid parallel is efficient for achieving large-scale parallel of Monte Carlo neutron transport. (authors)

The Myocardial Performance Index During Low Dose Dobutamine Echocardiography in Normals and Patients With a Recent Myocardial Infarction

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Nørager, Betina; Husic, Mirza; Møller, Jacob E

2004-01-01

BACKGROUND: Wall-motion analysis during low-dose dobutamine echocardiography (LDDE) is a semiquantitative measure of left ventricular contractile reserve after myocardial infarction (MI). The Doppler echocardiographic myocardial performance index (MPI) is a quantitative measure of combined left...

CEA to peritoneal carcinomatosis index (PCI) ratio is prognostic in patients with colorectal cancer peritoneal carcinomatosis undergoing cytoreduction surgery and intraperitoneal chemotherapy: A retrospective cohort study.

Science.gov (United States)

Kozman, Mathew A; Fisher, Oliver M; Rebolledo, Bree-Anne J; Parikh, Roneil; Valle, Sarah J; Arrowaili, Arief; Alzahrani, Nayef; Liauw, Winston; Morris, David L

2018-03-01

Serum tumor markers are prognostic in patients with colorectal cancer peritoneal carcinomatosis (CRPC) undergoing cytoreductive surgery (CRS) and intraperitoneal chemotherapy (IPC). Assessment of the ratio of tumor marker to volume, as depicted by peritoneal carcinomatosis index (PCI), and how this may affect overall (OS) and recurrence free survival (RFS) has not been reported. Survival effect of this ratio was analyzed in patients with CRPC managed from 1996 to 2016 with CRS and IPC. Of 260 patients included, those with low CEA/PCI ratio (PCI ratio was most pronounced in patients with PCI ≤ 10 (OS of 72 vs 30 months, P PCI ratio was independently associated with poorer OS (adjusted HR 1.85, 95%CI 1.11-3.10, P = 0.02) and RFS (adjusted HR 1.58, 95%CI 1.04-2.41, P = 0.03). CEA/PCI ratio is an independent prognostic factor for OS and RFS in CRPC. This novel approach allows both tumor activity and volume to be accounted for in one index, thus potentially providing a more accurate indication of tumor biological behavior. © 2017 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Prognostic factors in pediatric pulmonary arterial hypertension: A systematic review and meta-analysis.

Science.gov (United States)

Ploegstra, Mark-Jan; Zijlstra, Willemijn M H; Douwes, Johannes M; Hillege, Hans L; Berger, Rolf M F

2015-04-01

Despite the introduction of targeted therapies in pediatric pulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH), prognosis remains poor. For the definition of treatment strategies and guidelines, there is a high need for an evidence-based recapitulation of prognostic factors. The aim of this study was to identify and evaluate prognostic factors in pediatric PAH by a systematic review of the literature and to summarize the prognostic value of currently reported prognostic factors using meta-analysis. Medline, EMBASE and Cochrane Library were searched on April 1st 2014 to identify original studies that described predictors of mortality or lung-transplantation exclusively in children with PAH. 1053 citations were identified, of which 25 were included for further analysis. Hazard ratios (HR) and 95% confidence intervals were extracted from the papers. For variables studied in at least three non-overlapping cohorts, a combined HR was calculated using random-effects meta-analysis. WHO functional class (WHO-FC, HR 2.7), (N-terminal pro-) brain natriuretic peptide ([NT-pro]BNP, HR 3.2), mean right atrial pressure (mRAP, HR 1.1), cardiac index (HR 0.7), indexed pulmonary vascular resistance (PVRi, HR 1.3) and acute vasodilator response (HR 0.3) were identified as significant prognostic factors (p ≤ 0.001). This systematic review combined with separate meta-analyses shows that WHO-FC, (NT-pro)BNP, mRAP, PVRi, cardiac index and acute vasodilator response are consistently reported prognostic factors for outcome in pediatric PAH. These variables are useful clinical tools to assess prognosis and should be incorporated in treatment strategies and guidelines for children with PAH. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.

Pthreads vs MPI Parallel Performance of Angular-Domain Decomposed S

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Azmy, Y.Y.; Barnett, D.A.

2000-01-01

Two programming models for parallelizing the Angular Domain Decomposition (ADD) of the discrete ordinates (S n ) approximation of the neutron transport equation are examined. These are the shared memory model based on the POSIX threads (Pthreads) standard, and the message passing model based on the Message Passing Interface (MPI) standard. These standard libraries are available on most multiprocessor platforms thus making the resulting parallel codes widely portable. The question is: on a fixed platform, and for a particular code solving a given test problem, which of the two programming models delivers better parallel performance? Such comparison is possible on Symmetric Multi-Processors (SMP) architectures in which several CPUs physically share a common memory, and in addition are capable of emulating message passing functionality. Implementation of the two-dimensional,(S n ), Arbitrarily High Order Transport (AHOT) code for solving neutron transport problems using these two parallelization models is described. Measured parallel performance of each model on the COMPAQ AlphaServer 8400 and the SGI Origin 2000 platforms is described, and comparison of the observed speedup for the two programming models is reported. For the case presented in this paper it appears that the MPI implementation scales better than the Pthreads implementation on both platforms

Blood pyrrole-protein adducts as a diagnostic and prognostic index in pyrrolizidine alkaloid-hepatic sinusoidal obstruction syndrome

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Gao H

2015-08-01

Full Text Available Hong Gao,1,* Jianqing Q Ruan,2,* Jie Chen,1 Na Li,2 Changqiang Q Ke,3 Yang Ye,3–5 Ge Lin,2,4,5 Jiyao Y Wang1,61Department of Gastroenterology, Zhongshan Hospital, Fudan University, Shanghai, People’s Republic of China; 2School of Biomedical Sciences, Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong; 3Shanghai Institute of Materia Medica, Shanghai, People’s Republic of China; 4Joint Research Laboratory for Promoting Globalization of Traditional Chinese Medicines, Shanghai Institute of Materia Medica, 5Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong; 6Center of Evidence-Based Medicine Fudan University, Shanghai, People’s Republic of China*These authors contributed equally to this work and share first authorship Background: The diagnosis of hepatic sinusoidal obstruction syndrome (HSOS induced by pyrrolizidine alkaloids is mainly based on clinical investigation. There is currently no prognostic index. This study evaluated the quantitative measurement of blood pyrrole-protein adducts (PPAs as a diagnostic and prognostic index for pyrrolizidine alkaloid-induced HSOS.Methods: Suspected drug-induced liver injury patients were prospectively recruited. Blood PPAs were quantitatively measured using ultra-performance liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry. Patients’ age, sex, biochemistry test results, and a detailed drug history were recorded. The patients were divided into two groups, ie, those with HSOS induced by pyrrolizidine alkaloid-containing drugs and those with liver injury induced by drugs without pyrrolizidine alkaloids. The relationship between herb administration, clinical outcomes, blood sampling time, and blood PPA concentration in pyrrolizidine alkaloid-associated HSOS patients was analyzed using multiple linear regression analysis.Results: Forty patients met the entry criteria, among whom 23 had pyrrolizidine alkaloid-associated HSOS and 17 had liver injury caused by drugs without pyrrolizidine alkaloids. Among the 23�

Prognostic, quantitative histopathologic variables in lobular carcinoma of the breast

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Ladekarl, M; Sørensen, Flemming Brandt

1993-01-01

BACKGROUND: A retrospective investigation of 53 consecutively treated patients with operable lobular carcinoma of the breast, with a median follow-up of 6.6 years, was performed to examine the prognostic value of quantitative histopathologic parameters.METHODS: The measurements were performed...... of disease, vv(nuc), MI, and NI were of significant independent, prognostic value. On the basis of the multivariate analyses, a prognostic index with highly distinguishing capacity between prognostically poor and favorable cases was constructed.CONCLUSION: Quantitative histopathologic variables are of value...... for objective grading of malignancy in lobular carcinomas. The new parameter--estimates of the mean nuclear volume--is highly reproducible and suitable for routine use. However, larger and prospective studies are needed to establish the true value of the quantitative histopathologic variables in the clinical...

Prognostic, quantitative histopathologic variables in lobular carcinoma of the breast

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Ladekarl, M; Sørensen, Flemming Brandt

1993-01-01

BACKGROUND: A retrospective investigation of 53 consecutively treated patients with operable lobular carcinoma of the breast, with a median follow-up of 6.6 years, was performed to examine the prognostic value of quantitative histopathologic parameters. METHODS: The measurements were performed...... of disease, vv(nuc), MI, and NI were of significant independent, prognostic value. On the basis of the multivariate analyses, a prognostic index with highly distinguishing capacity between prognostically poor and favorable cases was constructed. CONCLUSION: Quantitative histopathologic variables are of value...... for objective grading of malignancy in lobular carcinomas. The new parameter--estimates of the mean nuclear volume--is highly reproducible and suitable for routine use. However, larger and prospective studies are needed to establish the true value of the quantitative histopathologic variables in the clinical...

Prognostic Value of Echocardiography in Hypertensive Versus Nonhypertensive Participants From the General Population

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Modin, Daniel; Biering-Sørensen, Sofie Reumert; Mogelvang, Rasmus

2018-01-01

Hypertension may be the most significant cardiovascular risk factor. Few studies have assessed the prognostic value of echocardiography in hypertensive individuals. This study examines the incremental prognostic value of adding echocardiographic parameters to established risk factors in individuals...... of echocardiography in predicting cardiovascular outcomes in the general population is altered by hypertension. In hypertensive individuals, left ventricular mass index added incremental prognostic value in addition to established risk factors. In nonhypertensive individuals, global longitudinal strain added...

Hypoglycemia Is Independently Associated with Multidimensional Impairment in Elderly Diabetic Patients

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A. Pilotto

2014-01-01

Full Text Available Aim. To identify the characteristics associated with multidimensional impairment, evaluated through the Multidimensional Prognostic Index (MPI, a validated predictive tool for mortality derived from a standardized Comprehensive Geriatric Assessment (CGA, in a cohort of elderly diabetic patients treated with oral hypoglycemic drugs. Methods and Results. The study population consisted of 1342 diabetic patients consecutively enrolled in 57 diabetes centers distributed throughout Italy, within the Metabolic Study. Inclusion criteria were diagnosis of type 2 diabetes mellitus (DM, 65 years old or over, and treatment with oral antidiabetic medications. Data concerning DM duration, medications for DM taken during the 3-month period before inclusion in the study, number of hypoglycemic events, and complications of DM were collected. Multidimensional impairment was assessed using the MPI evaluating functional, cognitive, and nutritional status; risk of pressure sores; comorbidity; number of drugs taken; and cohabitation status. The mean age of participants was 73.3 ± 5.5 years, and the mean MPI score was 0.22 ± 0.13. Multivariate analysis showed that advanced age, female gender, hypoglycemic events, and hospitalization for glycemic decompensation were independently associated with a worse MPI score. Conclusion. Stratification of elderly diabetic patients using the MPI might help to identify those patients at highest risk who need better-tailored treatment.

Development of a parallel genetic algorithm using MPI and its application in a nuclear reactor core. Design optimization

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Waintraub, Marcel; Pereira, Claudio M.N.A.; Baptista, Rafael P.

2005-01-01

This work presents the development of a distributed parallel genetic algorithm applied to a nuclear reactor core design optimization. In the implementation of the parallelism, a 'Message Passing Interface' (MPI) library, standard for parallel computation in distributed memory platforms, has been used. Another important characteristic of MPI is its portability for various architectures. The main objectives of this paper are: validation of the results obtained by the application of this algorithm in a nuclear reactor core optimization problem, through comparisons with previous results presented by Pereira et al.; and performance test of the Brazilian Nuclear Engineering Institute (IEN) cluster in reactors physics optimization problems. The experiments demonstrated that the developed parallel genetic algorithm using the MPI library presented significant gains in the obtained results and an accentuated reduction of the processing time. Such results ratify the use of the parallel genetic algorithms for the solution of nuclear reactor core optimization problems. (author)

Prognostic nutritional index is associated with survival after total gastrectomy for patients with gastric cancer.

Science.gov (United States)

Ishizuka, Mitsuru; Oyama, Yusuke; Abe, Akihito; Tago, Kazuma; Tanaka, Genki; Kubota, Keiichi

2014-08-01

To investigate the influence of clinical characteristics including nutritional markers on postoperative survival in patients undergoing total gastrectomy (TG) for gastric cancer (GC). One hundred fifty-four patients were enrolled. Uni- and multivariate analyses using the Cox proportional hazard model were performed to explore the most valuable clinical characteristic that was associated with postoperative survival. Multivariate analysis using twelve clinical characteristics selected from univariate analyses revealed that age (≤ 72/>72), carcinoembryonic antigen (≤ 20/>20) (ng/ml), white blood cell count (≤ 9.5/>9.5) (× 10(3)/mm(3)), prognostic nutritional index (PNI) (≤ 45/>45) and lymph node metastasis (negative/positive) were associated with postoperative survival. Kaplan-Meier analysis and log-rank test showed that patients with higher PNI (>45) had a higher postoperative survival rate than those with lower PNI (≤ 45) (p<0.001). PNI is associated with postoperative survival of patients undergoing TG for GC and is able to divide such patients into two independent groups before surgery. Copyright© 2014 International Institute of Anticancer Research (Dr. John G. Delinassios), All rights reserved.

Prognostic usefulness of repeated echocardiographic evaluation after acute myocardial infarction. TRACE Study Group. TRAndolapril Cardiac Evaluation

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Korup, E; Køber, L; Torp-Pedersen, C

1999-01-01

The prognostic value of repeated echocardiographic measurement of left ventricular function after acute myocardial infarction was evaluated. We found that repeated measurements of wall motion index in survivors of acute myocardial infarction, with no reinfarction, provide important prognostic...

A Comparison of Systemic Inflammation-Based Prognostic Scores in Patients on Regular Hemodialysis

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Akihiko Kato

2013-10-01

Full Text Available Background/Aims: Systemic inflammation-based prognostic scores have prognostic power in patients with cancer, independently of tumor stage and site. Although inflammatory status is associated with mortality in hemodialysis (HD patients, it remains to be determined as to whether these composite scores are useful in predicting clinical outcomes. Methods: We calculated the 6 prognostic scores [Glasgow prognostic score (GPS, modified GPS (mGPS, neutrophil-lymphocyte ratio (NLR, platelet lymphocyte ratio (PLR, prognostic index (PI and prognostic nutritional index (PNI], which have been established as a useful scoring system in cancer patients. We enrolled 339 patients on regular HD (age: 64 ± 13 years; time on HD: 129 ± 114 months; males/females = 253/85 and followed them for 42 months. The area under the receiver-operating characteristics curve was used to determine which scoring system was more predictive of mortality. Results: Elevated GPS, mGPS, NLR, PLR, PI and PNI were all associated with total mortality, independent of covariates. If GPS was raised, mGPS, NLR, PLR and PI were also predictive of all-cause mortality and/or hospitalization. GPS and PNI were associated with poor nutritional status. Using overall mortality as an endpoint, the area under the curve (AUC was significant for a GPS of 0.701 (95% CI: 0.637-0.765; p Conclusion: GPS, based on serum albumin and highly sensitive C-reactive protein, has the most prognostic power for mortality prediction among the prognostic scores in HD patients. However, as the determination of serum albumin reflects mortality similarly to GPS, other composite combinations are needed to provide additional clinical utility beyond that of albumin alone in HD patients.

Histologic prognosticators in feline osteosarcoma: a comparison with phenotypically similar canine osteosarcoma.

Science.gov (United States)

Dimopoulou, Maria; Kirpensteijn, Jolle; Moens, Hester; Kik, Marja

2008-07-01

To investigate the histologic characteristics of feline osteosarcoma (OS) and compare the histologic data with phenotypically comparable canine OS. The effects of histologic and clinical variables on survival statistics were evaluated. Retrospective study. Cats (n=62) and dogs (22). Medical records of 62 cats with OS were reviewed for clinically relevant data. Clinical outcome was obtained by telephone interview. Histologic characteristics of OS were classified using a standardized grading system. Histologic characteristics in 22 feline skeletal OS were compared with 22 canine skeletal OS of identical location and subtype. Prognostic variables for clinical outcome were determined using multivariate analysis. Feline OS was characterized by moderate to abundant cellular pleomorphism, low mitotic index, small to moderate amounts of matrix, high cellularity, and a moderate amount of necrosis. There was no significant difference between histologic variables in feline and canine OS. Histologic grade, surgery, and mitotic index significantly influenced clinical outcome as determined by multivariate analysis. Tumor invasion into vessels was not identified as a significant prognosticator. Feline and canine skeletal OS have similar histologic but different prognostic characteristics. Prognosis for cats with OS is related to histologic grade and mitotic index of the tumor.

Prognostic indices in stereotactic radiotherapy of brain metastases of non-small cell lung cancer.

Science.gov (United States)

Kaul, David; Angelidis, Alexander; Budach, Volker; Ghadjar, Pirus; Kufeld, Markus; Badakhshi, Harun

2015-11-26

Our purpose was to analyze the long-term clinical outcome and to identify prognostic factors after Linac-based stereotactic radiosurgery (SRS) or fractionated stereotactic radiotherapy (FSRT) on patients with brain metastases (BM) from non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC). We performed a retrospective analysis of survival on 90 patients who underwent SRS or FSRT of intracranial NSCLC metastases between 04/2004 and 05/2014 that had not undergone prior surgery or whole brain radiotherapy (WBRT) for BM. Follow-up data was analyzed until May 2015. Potential prognostic factors were examined in univariable and multivariable analyses. The Golden Grading System (GGS), the disease-specific graded prognostic assessment (DS-GPA), the RADES II prognostic index as well as the NSCLC-specific index proposed by Rades et al. in 2013 (NSCLC-RADES) were calculated and their predictive values were tested in univariable analysis. The median follow-up time of the surviving patients was 14 months. The overall survival (OS) rate was 51 % after 6 months and 29.9 % after 12 months. Statistically significant factors of better OS after univariable analysis were lower International Union Against Cancer (UICC) stage at first diagnosis, histology of adenocarcinoma, prior surgery of the primary tumor and lower total BM volume. After multivariable analysis adenocarcinoma histology remained a significant factor; higher Karnofsky Performance Score (KPS) and the presence of extracranial metastases (ECM) were also significant. The RADES II and the NSCLC-RADES indices were significant predictors of OS. However, the NSCLC-RADES failed to differentiate between intermediate- and low-risk patients. The DS-GPA and GGS were not statistically significant predictors of survival in univariable analysis. The ideal prognostic index has not been defined yet. We believe that more specific indices will be developed in the future. Our results indicate that the histologic subtype of NSCLC could add to the prognostic

Clinical Significance of the Prognostic Nutritional Index for Predicting Short- and Long-Term Surgical Outcomes After Gastrectomy: A Retrospective Analysis of 7781 Gastric Cancer Patients.

Science.gov (United States)

Lee, Jee Youn; Kim, Hyoung-Il; Kim, You-Na; Hong, Jung Hwa; Alshomimi, Saeed; An, Ji Yeong; Cheong, Jae-Ho; Hyung, Woo Jin; Noh, Sung Hoon; Kim, Choong-Bai

2016-05-01

To evaluate the predictive and prognostic significance of the prognostic nutritional index (PNI) in a large cohort of gastric cancer patients who underwent gastrectomy.Assessing a patient's immune and nutritional status, PNI has been reported as a predictive marker for surgical outcomes in various types of cancer.We retrospectively reviewed data from a prospectively maintained database of 7781 gastric cancer patients who underwent gastrectomy from January 2001 to December 2010 at a single center. From this data, we analyzed clinicopathologic characteristics, PNI, and short- and long-term surgical outcomes for each patient. We used the PNI value for the 10th percentile (46.70) of the study cohort as a cut-off for dividing patients into low and high PNI groups.Regarding short-term outcomes, multivariate analysis showed a low PNI (odds ratio [OR] = 1.505, 95% CI = 1.212-1.869, P cancer recurrence.

[Prognostic factors of early breast cancer].

Science.gov (United States)

Almagro, Elena; González, Cynthia S; Espinosa, Enrique

2016-02-19

Decision about the administration of adjuvant therapy for early breast cancer depends on the evaluation of prognostic factors. Lymph node status, tumor size and grade of differentiation are classical variables in this regard, and can be complemented by hormonal receptor status and HER2 expression. These factors can be combined into prognostic indexes to better estimate the risk of relapse or death. Other factors are less important. Gene profiles have emerged in recent years to identify low-risk patients who can forgo adjuvant chemotherapy. A number of profiles are available and can be used in selected cases. In the future, gene profiling will be used to select patients for treatment with new targeted therapies. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier España, S.L.U. All rights reserved.

Prognostic evaluation of platelet to lymphocyte ratio in patients with colorectal cancer.

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Lu, Chong; Gao, Peng; Yang, Yuchong; Chen, Xiaowan; Wang, Longyi; Yu, Dehao; Song, Yongxi; Xu, Qingzhou; Wang, Zhenning

2017-10-17

Growing evidence indicates that inflammation plays an important role in cancer progression and prognosis; however, the prognostic role of platelet to lymphocyte ratio (PLR) in colorectal cancer (CRC) is unknown. A cohort of 1845 CRC patients from the Department of Surgical Oncology at The First Hospital of China Medical University (CMU-SO) was retrospectively analyzed. Harrell's concordance index (c-index) was used to determine the optimal cut-off value of PLR and evaluate its predictive ability. Our results from CMU-SO indicated that the overall survival (OS) rate was significantly lower in the high-PLR group compared with the low-PLR group ( P = 0.001). A similar result was observed for the cancer-specific survival (CSS) rate between these two groups ( P = 0.001). The multivariate analysis indicated that high PLR was an independent prognostic indicator of poor OS (hazard ratio [HR] = 1.356, 95% confidence interval [CI] = 1.117-1.647, P = 0.002) and CSS (HR = 1.364, 95% CI = 1.111-1.675, P = 0.003). In addition, the c-indexes of TNM staging combined with PLR were greater than those of TNM staging alone (OS: 0.768 vs. 0.732; CSS: 0.785 vs. 0.746). In conclusion, elevated PLR is a negative prognostic indicator of CRC and may serve as an additional index of the current TNM staging system for predicting CRC.

PrognosticValue of PINP,BoneAlkaline Phosphatase, CTX-I, andYKL-40 in Patients With Metastatic Prostate Carcinoma

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Brasso, Klaus; Christensen, Ib Jarle; Johansen, Julia S

2006-01-01

Prognostic value of PINP, bone alkaline phosphatase, CTX-I, and YKL-40 in patients with metastatic prostate carcinoma. Prostate. 2006 Apr 1;66(5):503-13. PMID: 16372331 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]......Prognostic value of PINP, bone alkaline phosphatase, CTX-I, and YKL-40 in patients with metastatic prostate carcinoma. Prostate. 2006 Apr 1;66(5):503-13. PMID: 16372331 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]...

Novel magnetic multicore nanoparticles designed for MPI and other biomedical applications: From synthesis to first in vivo studies.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Harald Kratz

Full Text Available Synthesis of novel magnetic multicore particles (MCP in the nano range, involves alkaline precipitation of iron(II chloride in the presence of atmospheric oxygen. This step yields green rust, which is oxidized to obtain magnetic nanoparticles, which probably consist of a magnetite/maghemite mixed-phase. Final growth and annealing at 90°C in the presence of a large excess of carboxymethyl dextran gives MCP very promising magnetic properties for magnetic particle imaging (MPI, an emerging medical imaging modality, and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI. The magnetic nanoparticles are biocompatible and thus potential candidates for future biomedical applications such as cardiovascular imaging, sentinel lymph node mapping in cancer patients, and stem cell tracking. The new MCP that we introduce here have three times higher magnetic particle spectroscopy performance at lower and middle harmonics and five times higher MPS signal strength at higher harmonics compared with Resovist®. In addition, the new MCP have also an improved in vivo MPI performance compared to Resovist®, and we here report the first in vivo MPI investigation of this new generation of magnetic nanoparticles.

Does advanced lung inflammation index (ALI) have prognostic significance in metastatic non-small cell lung cancer?

Science.gov (United States)

Ozyurek, Berna Akinci; Ozdemirel, Tugce Sahin; Ozden, Sertac Buyukyaylaci; Erdoğan, Yurdanur; Ozmen, Ozlem; Kaplan, Bekir; Kaplan, Tugba

2018-01-22

Lung cancer is the most commonly diagnosed and death-related cancer type and is more frequent in males. Non-small-cell lung cancer (NSCLC) accounts for about 85% of all case. In this study, it was aimed to research the relationship between advanced lung inflammation index (ALI) and the primary mass maximum standardized uptake value (SUVmax) and C-reactive protein (CRP) at initial diagnosis and the prognostic value of ALI in determining the survival in metastatic NSCLC. A total of 112 patients diagnosed as stage 4 non-small-lung cancer in our hospital between January 2006 and December 2013 were included in this study. ALI was calculated as body mass index (BMI) × serum albumin/neutrophil-to-lymphocyte ratio (NLR). The patients were divided into two groups as ALI ALI ≥ 18 (low inflammation). The log-rank test and Cox proportional hazard model were used to identify predictors of mortality. Evaluation was made of 94 male and 18 female patients with a mean age of 59.7 ± 9.9 years. A statistically significant negative relationship was determined between ALI and CRP values (P ALI and SUVmax values (P = .436). The median survival time in patients with ALI ALI ≥ 18, it was 16 months (P = .095). ALI is an easily calculated indicator of inflammation in lung cancer patients. Values <18 can be considered to predict a poor prognosis. © 2018 John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

Hybrid MPI/OpenMP parallelization of the explicit Volterra integral equation solver for multi-core computer architectures

KAUST Repository

Al Jarro, Ahmed

2011-08-01

A hybrid MPI/OpenMP scheme for efficiently parallelizing the explicit marching-on-in-time (MOT)-based solution of the time-domain volume (Volterra) integral equation (TD-VIE) is presented. The proposed scheme equally distributes tested field values and operations pertinent to the computation of tested fields among the nodes using the MPI standard; while the source field values are stored in all nodes. Within each node, OpenMP standard is used to further accelerate the computation of the tested fields. Numerical results demonstrate that the proposed parallelization scheme scales well for problems involving three million or more spatial discretization elements. © 2011 IEEE.

Unavailability of thymidine kinase does not preclude the use of German comprehensive prognostic index: results of an external validation analysis in early chronic lymphocytic leukemia and comparison with MD Anderson Cancer Center model.

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Molica, Stefano; Giannarelli, Diana; Mirabelli, Rosanna; Levato, Luciano; Russo, Antonio; Linardi, Maria; Gentile, Massimo; Morabito, Fortunato

2016-01-01

A comprehensive prognostic index that includes clinical (i.e., age, sex, ECOG performance status), serum (i.e., ß2-microglobulin, thymidine kinase [TK]), and molecular (i.e., IGVH mutational status, del 17p, del 11q) markers developed by the German CLL Study Group (GCLLSG) was externally validated in a prospective, community-based cohort consisting of 338 patients with early chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL) using as endpoint the time to first treatment (TTFT). Because serum TK was not available, a slightly modified version of the model based on seven instead of eight prognostic variables was used. By German index, 62.9% of patients were scored as having low-risk CLL (score 0-2), whereas 37.1% had intermediate-risk CLL (score 3-5). This stratification translated into a significant difference in the TTFT [HR = 4.21; 95% C.I. (2.71-6.53); P reliability [HR = 2.73; 95% C.I. (1.79-4.17); P German score. The c-statistic of the MDACC model was 0.65 (range, 0.53-0.78) a level below that of the German index [0.71 (range, 0.60-0.82)] and below the accepted 0.7 threshold necessary to have value at the individual patient level. Results of this external comparative validation analysis strongly support the German score as the benchmark for comparison of any novel prognostic scheme aimed at evaluating the TTFT in patients with early CLL even when a modified version which does not include TK is utilized. © 2015 John Wiley & Sons A/S. Published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

Treatment selection for patients with ductal carcinoma in situ (DCIS) of the breast using the University of Southern California/Van Nuys (USC/VNPI) prognostic index.

Science.gov (United States)

Silverstein, Melvin J; Lagios, Michael D

2015-01-01

The University of Southern California/Van Nuys Prognostic Index (USC/VNPI) is an algorithm that quantifies five measurable prognostic factors known to be important in predicting local recurrence in conservatively treated patients with ductal carcinoma in situ (DCIS) (tumor size, margin width, nuclear grade, age, and comedonecrosis). With five times as many patients since originally developed, sufficient numbers now exist for analysis by individual scores rather than groups of scores. To achieve a local recurrence rate of less than 20% at 12 years, these data support excision alone for all patients scoring 4, 5, or 6 and patients who score 7 but have margin widths ≥3 mm. Excision plus RT achieves the less than 20% local recurrence threshold at 12 years for patients who score 7 and have margins USC/VNPI is a numeric tool that can be used to aid the treatment decision-making process. © 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Improvement of the myocardial performance index in atrial fibrilation patients treated with amiodarone after cardioversion.

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Besli, Feyzullah; Basar, Cengiz; Kecebas, Mesut; Turker, Yasin

2015-03-01

This study evaluated the response to electrical cardioversion (EC) and the effect on the myocardial performance index (MPI) in patients with persistent and long-standing persistent atrial fibrillation (AF). We enrolled 103 patients (mean age 69.6 ± 8.9 years, 40.7% males) with a diagnosis of persistent and long-standing persistent AF. EC was applied to all patients after one g of amiodarone administration. Echocardiographic findings before EC were compared in patients with successful versus unsuccessful cardioversions and in patients with maintained sinus rhythm (SR) versus those with AF recurrence at the end of the first month. We also compared echocardiographic data before EC versus at the end of the first month in the same patients with maintained SR. SR was achieved in 72.8% of patients and was continued at the end of the first month in 69.3% of the patients. The MPI value of all patients was found to be 0.73 ± 0.21. The size of the left atrium was determined to be an independent predictor of the maintenance of SR at 1 month. In subgroup analyses, when we compared echocardiographic findings before EC and at the end of the first month in patients with maintained SR, the MPI (0.66 ± 0.14 vs 0.56 ± 0.09, p < 0.001) values were significantly decreased. Our study is the first to show impairment of the MPI, which is an indicator of systolic and diastolic function, in patients with persistent and long-standing persistent AF and improvement of the MPI after successful EC.

Cutaneous Lymphoma International Consortium Study of Outcome in Advanced Stages of Mycosis Fungoides and Sézary Syndrome: Effect of Specific Prognostic Markers on Survival and Development of a Prognostic Model

Science.gov (United States)

Scarisbrick, Julia J.; Prince, H. Miles; Vermeer, Maarten H.; Quaglino, Pietro; Horwitz, Steven; Porcu, Pierluigi; Stadler, Rudolf; Wood, Gary S.; Beylot-Barry, Marie; Pham-Ledard, Anne; Foss, Francine; Girardi, Michael; Bagot, Martine; Michel, Laurence; Battistella, Maxime; Guitart, Joan; Kuzel, Timothy M.; Martinez-Escala, Maria Estela; Estrach, Teresa; Papadavid, Evangelia; Antoniou, Christina; Rigopoulos, Dimitis; Nikolaou, Vassilki; Sugaya, Makoto; Miyagaki, Tomomitsu; Gniadecki, Robert; Sanches, José Antonio; Cury-Martins, Jade; Miyashiro, Denis; Servitje, Octavio; Muniesa, Cristina; Berti, Emilio; Onida, Francesco; Corti, Laura; Hodak, Emilia; Amitay-Laish, Iris; Ortiz-Romero, Pablo L.; Rodríguez-Peralto, Jose L.; Knobler, Robert; Porkert, Stefanie; Bauer, Wolfgang; Pimpinelli, Nicola; Grandi, Vieri; Cowan, Richard; Rook, Alain; Kim, Ellen; Pileri, Alessandro; Patrizi, Annalisa; Pujol, Ramon M.; Wong, Henry; Tyler, Kelly; Stranzenbach, Rene; Querfeld, Christiane; Fava, Paolo; Maule, Milena; Willemze, Rein; Evison, Felicity; Morris, Stephen; Twigger, Robert; Talpur, Rakhshandra; Kim, Jinah; Ognibene, Grant; Li, Shufeng; Tavallaee, Mahkam; Hoppe, Richard T.; Duvic, Madeleine; Whittaker, Sean J.; Kim, Youn H.

2015-01-01

Purpose Advanced-stage mycosis fungoides (MF; stage IIB to IV) and Sézary syndrome (SS) are aggressive lymphomas with a median survival of 1 to 5 years. Clinical management is stage based; however, there is wide range of outcome within stages. Published prognostic studies in MF/SS have been single-center trials. Because of the rarity of MF/SS, only a large collaboration would power a study to identify independent prognostic markers. Patients and Methods Literature review identified the following 10 candidate markers: stage, age, sex, cutaneous histologic features of folliculotropism, CD30 positivity, proliferation index, large-cell transformation, WBC/lymphocyte count, serum lactate dehydrogenase, and identical T-cell clone in blood and skin. Data were collected at specialist centers on patients diagnosed with advanced-stage MF/SS from 2007. Each parameter recorded at diagnosis was tested against overall survival (OS). Results Staging data on 1,275 patients with advanced MF/SS from 29 international sites were included for survival analysis. The median OS was 63 months, with 2- and 5-year survival rates of 77% and 52%, respectively. The median OS for patients with stage IIB disease was 68 months, but patients diagnosed with stage III disease had slightly improved survival compared with patients with stage IIB, although patients diagnosed with stage IV disease had significantly worse survival (48 months for stage IVA and 33 months for stage IVB). Of the 10 variables tested, four (stage IV, age > 60 years, large-cell transformation, and increased lactate dehydrogenase) were independent prognostic markers for a worse survival. Combining these four factors in a prognostic index model identified the following three risk groups across stages with significantly different 5-year survival rates: low risk (68%), intermediate risk (44%), and high risk (28%). Conclusion To our knowledge, this study includes the largest cohort of patients with advanced-stage MF/SS and

GASFLOW-MPI. A scalable computational fluid dynamics code for gases, aerosols and combustion. Vol. 2. Users' manual (Revision 1.0)

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Xiao, Jianjun; Travis, Jack; Royl, Peter; Necker, Gottfried; Svishchev, Anatoly; Jordan, Thomas

2016-07-01

Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) is developing the parallel computational fluid dynamics code GASFLOW-MPI as a best-estimate tool for predicting transport, mixing, and combustion of hydrogen and other gases in nuclear reactor containments and other facility buildings. GASFLOW-MPI is a finite-volume code based on proven computational fluid dynamics methodology that solves the compressible Navier-Stokes equations for three-dimensional volumes in Cartesian or cylindrical coordinates.

SeMPI: a genome-based secondary metabolite prediction and identification web server.

Science.gov (United States)

Zierep, Paul F; Padilla, Natàlia; Yonchev, Dimitar G; Telukunta, Kiran K; Klementz, Dennis; Günther, Stefan

2017-07-03

The secondary metabolism of bacteria, fungi and plants yields a vast number of bioactive substances. The constantly increasing amount of published genomic data provides the opportunity for an efficient identification of gene clusters by genome mining. Conversely, for many natural products with resolved structures, the encoding gene clusters have not been identified yet. Even though genome mining tools have become significantly more efficient in the identification of biosynthetic gene clusters, structural elucidation of the actual secondary metabolite is still challenging, especially due to as yet unpredictable post-modifications. Here, we introduce SeMPI, a web server providing a prediction and identification pipeline for natural products synthesized by polyketide synthases of type I modular. In order to limit the possible structures of PKS products and to include putative tailoring reactions, a structural comparison with annotated natural products was introduced. Furthermore, a benchmark was designed based on 40 gene clusters with annotated PKS products. The web server of the pipeline (SeMPI) is freely available at: http://www.pharmaceutical-bioinformatics.de/sempi. © The Author(s) 2017. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of Nucleic Acids Research.

Study on High Performance of MPI-Based Parallel FDTD from WorkStation to Super Computer Platform

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Z. L. He

2012-01-01

Full Text Available Parallel FDTD method is applied to analyze the electromagnetic problems of the electrically large targets on super computer. It is well known that the more the number of processors the less computing time consumed. Nevertheless, with the same number of processors, computing efficiency is affected by the scheme of the MPI virtual topology. Then, the influence of different virtual topology schemes on parallel performance of parallel FDTD is studied in detail. The general rules are presented on how to obtain the highest efficiency of parallel FDTD algorithm by optimizing MPI virtual topology. To show the validity of the presented method, several numerical results are given in the later part. Various comparisons are made and some useful conclusions are summarized.

[Preoperative evaluation of surgery for intractable aspiration based on the prognostic nutritional index].

Science.gov (United States)

Uchida, Masaya; Hashimoto, Keiko; Mukudai, Shigeyuki; Ushijima, Chihisa; Dejima, Kenji

2014-12-01

Because there is no absolute indicator of the nutritional status and prognosis in patients with severe aspiration problems, it is quite difficult to arrive at a true long-time prognosis. By performing surgery for intractable aspiration on such patients, both the prognosis and QOL of the patients could be expected to improve. In our department, we have experienced patients dying within 6 months after surgery. In these cases, the patient's preoperative nutritional status was not good. Therefore, we consider that, when we adopt this procedure, there should be some indicators we should use which could have an effect on the prognosis of such nutritionally-challenged patients. In patients who underwent surgery for intractable aspiration; we examined the relationship between their survival and the prognostic nutritional index (PNI) which is an indicator of the risk of complications such as post-operative events in the surgical field. We investigated the relationship between the prognosis and the postoperative indicators of each of the following: WBC, CRP, serum albumin level, and PNI. Out of a total of 31 cases, the average O-PNI of eight cases in which death occurred was 29.45, and the average of six cases in which death occurred within 6 months after surgery was 28.26. The average O-PNI of the survivors was 36.01. A significant association was noted between the early postoperative deaths and some of the four indicators namely that serum albumin level and O-PNI. Based on the ROC curve, the O-PNI offered higher precision than the albumin level. The cut-off value of the O-PNI value for early postoperative mortality rate was 32. The early postoperative mortality rate was 44.4% in patients with less than 32 O-PNI in the preoperative examination, but if it were O-PNI 32 or more, the early postoperative mortality rate was 9.1%, significantly lower. Therefore, O-PNI could be useful as one of the prognostic evaluation factors in the case of preoperative surgery for intractable

Prognostic role of ABO blood type in patients with extranodal natural killer/T cell lymphoma, nasal type: a triple-center study.

Science.gov (United States)

Li, Ya-Jun; Yi, Ping-Yong; Li, Ji-Wei; Liu, Xian-Ling; Tang, Tian; Zhang, Pei-Ying; Jiang, Wen-Qi

2017-07-31

The prognostic significance of ABO blood type for lymphoma is largely unknown. We evaluated the prognostic role of ABO blood type in patients with extranodal natural killer (NK)/T-cell lymphoma (ENKTL). We retrospectively analyzed clinical data of 697 patients with newly diagnosed ENKTL from three cancer centers. The prognostic value of ABO blood type was evaluated using Kaplan-Meier curves and Cox proportional hazard models. The prognostic values of the International Prognostic Index (IPI) and the Korean Prognostic Index (KPI) were also evaluated. Compared with patients with blood type O, those with blood type non-O tended to display elevated baseline serum C-reactive protein levels (P = 0.038), lower rate of complete remission (P = 0.005), shorter progression-free survival (PFS, P 60 years (P KPI in distinguishing between the intermediate-to-low- and high-to-intermediate-risk groups. ABO blood type was an independent predictor of clinical outcome for patients with ENKTL.

New prognostic model for extranodal natural killer/T cell lymphoma, nasal type.

Science.gov (United States)

Cai, Qingqing; Luo, Xiaolin; Zhang, Guanrong; Huang, Huiqiang; Huang, Hui; Lin, Tongyu; Jiang, Wenqi; Xia, Zhongjun; Young, Ken H

2014-09-01

Extranodal natural killer/T cell lymphoma, nasal type (ENKTL) is an aggressive disease with a poor prognosis, requiring risk stratification in affected patients. We designed a new prognostic model specifically for ENKTL to identify high-risk patients who need more aggressive therapy. We retrospectively reviewed 158 patients who were newly diagnosed with ENKTL. The estimated 5-year overall survival rate was 39.4 %. Independent prognostic factors included total protein (TP) 100 mg/dL, and Korean Prognostic Index (KPI) score ≥2. We constructed a new prognostic model by combining these prognostic factors: group 1 (64 cases (41.0 %)), no adverse factors; group 2 (58 cases (37.2 %)), one adverse factor; and group 3 (34 cases (21.8 %)), two or three adverse factors. The 5-year overall survival (OS) rates of these groups were 66.7, 23.0, and 5.9 %, respectively (p KPI model alone (p KPI model alone.

Implementing the PM Programming Language using MPI and OpenMP - a New Tool for Programming Geophysical Models on Parallel Systems

Science.gov (United States)

Bellerby, Tim

2015-04-01

PM (Parallel Models) is a new parallel programming language specifically designed for writing environmental and geophysical models. The language is intended to enable implementers to concentrate on the science behind the model rather than the details of running on parallel hardware. At the same time PM leaves the programmer in control - all parallelisation is explicit and the parallel structure of any given program may be deduced directly from the code. This paper describes a PM implementation based on the Message Passing Interface (MPI) and Open Multi-Processing (OpenMP) standards, looking at issues involved with translating the PM parallelisation model to MPI/OpenMP protocols and considering performance in terms of the competing factors of finer-grained parallelisation and increased communication overhead. In order to maximise portability, the implementation stays within the MPI 1.3 standard as much as possible, with MPI-2 MPI-IO file handling the only significant exception. Moreover, it does not assume a thread-safe implementation of MPI. PM adopts a two-tier abstract representation of parallel hardware. A PM processor is a conceptual unit capable of efficiently executing a set of language tasks, with a complete parallel system consisting of an abstract N-dimensional array of such processors. PM processors may map to single cores executing tasks using cooperative multi-tasking, to multiple cores or even to separate processing nodes, efficiently sharing tasks using algorithms such as work stealing. While tasks may move between hardware elements within a PM processor, they may not move between processors without specific programmer intervention. Tasks are assigned to processors using a nested parallelism approach, building on ideas from Reyes et al. (2009). The main program owns all available processors. When the program enters a parallel statement then either processors are divided out among the newly generated tasks (number of new tasks number of processors

Short and long term prognostic importance of regional dyskinesia versus akinesia in acute myocardial infarction

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Kjøller, E; Køber, L; Jørgensen, S

2002-01-01

outcome (up to seven years) with respect to mortality. RESULTS: Dyskinesia occurred in 673 patients (10.8%). In multivariate analysis, WMI was an important prognostic factor, with a relative risk of 2.4 (95% confidence interval (CI), 2.2 to 2.7), while dyskinesia had no independent long term prognostic...... information, but the presence of dyskinesia only has prognostic importance for the first 30 days.......BACKGROUND: The prognostic importance of dyskinesia after acute myocardial infarction is unknown, and recommendations have been made that dyskinesia be included in calculations of wall motion index (WMI). OBJECTIVE: To determine whether it is necessary to distinguish between dyskinesia and akinesia...

Prognostic information in administrative co-morbidity data following coronary artery bypass grafting

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Abildstrøm, Steen Zabell; Hvelplund, Anders; Rasmussen, Søren

2010-01-01

Objectives: The aim of this study was to evaluate the prognostic information obtainable from administrative data with respect to 30-day mortality following coronary artery bypass grafting (CABG) and to compare it with the European System for Cardiac Operative Risk Evaluation (EuroSCORE) recorded ...... was equal to that of the EuroSCORE (c-statistic 0.79). Conclusions: A standard co-morbidity index based on administrative data as well as on clinical data has proven equally useful for prediction of mortality amongst CABG patients.......Objectives: The aim of this study was to evaluate the prognostic information obtainable from administrative data with respect to 30-day mortality following coronary artery bypass grafting (CABG) and to compare it with the European System for Cardiac Operative Risk Evaluation (EuroSCORE) recorded...... in a clinical database. Methods: We used a co-morbidity index calculated from administrative data in the Danish National Patient Register by means of all admissions 1 year prior to CABG. In addition, each CABG was categorised as being isolated or not, and acute or not. The prognostic power of the co...

GASFLOW-MPI. A scalable computational fluid dynamics code for gases, aerosols and combustion. Vol. 1. Theory and computational model (Revision 1.0)

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Xiao, Jianjun; Travis, Jack; Royl, Peter; Necker, Gottfried; Svishchev, Anatoly; Jordan, Thomas

2016-07-01

Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) is developing the parallel computational fluid dynamics code GASFLOW-MPI as a best-estimate tool for predicting transport, mixing, and combustion of hydrogen and other gases in nuclear reactor containments and other facility buildings. GASFLOW-MPI is a finite-volume code based on proven computational fluid dynamics methodology that solves the compressible Navier-Stokes equations for three-dimensional volumes in Cartesian or cylindrical coordinates.

Hybrid MPI-OpenMP Parallelism in the ONETEP Linear-Scaling Electronic Structure Code: Application to the Delamination of Cellulose Nanofibrils.

Science.gov (United States)

Wilkinson, Karl A; Hine, Nicholas D M; Skylaris, Chris-Kriton

2014-11-11

We present a hybrid MPI-OpenMP implementation of Linear-Scaling Density Functional Theory within the ONETEP code. We illustrate its performance on a range of high performance computing (HPC) platforms comprising shared-memory nodes with fast interconnect. Our work has focused on applying OpenMP parallelism to the routines which dominate the computational load, attempting where possible to parallelize different loops from those already parallelized within MPI. This includes 3D FFT box operations, sparse matrix algebra operations, calculation of integrals, and Ewald summation. While the underlying numerical methods are unchanged, these developments represent significant changes to the algorithms used within ONETEP to distribute the workload across CPU cores. The new hybrid code exhibits much-improved strong scaling relative to the MPI-only code and permits calculations with a much higher ratio of cores to atoms. These developments result in a significantly shorter time to solution than was possible using MPI alone and facilitate the application of the ONETEP code to systems larger than previously feasible. We illustrate this with benchmark calculations from an amyloid fibril trimer containing 41,907 atoms. We use the code to study the mechanism of delamination of cellulose nanofibrils when undergoing sonification, a process which is controlled by a large number of interactions that collectively determine the structural properties of the fibrils. Many energy evaluations were needed for these simulations, and as these systems comprise up to 21,276 atoms this would not have been feasible without the developments described here.

A copula-based sampling method for data-driven prognostics

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Xi, Zhimin; Jing, Rong; Wang, Pingfeng; Hu, Chao

2014-01-01

This paper develops a Copula-based sampling method for data-driven prognostics. The method essentially consists of an offline training process and an online prediction process: (i) the offline training process builds a statistical relationship between the failure time and the time realizations at specified degradation levels on the basis of off-line training data sets; and (ii) the online prediction process identifies probable failure times for online testing units based on the statistical model constructed in the offline process and the online testing data. Our contributions in this paper are three-fold, namely the definition of a generic health index system to quantify the health degradation of an engineering system, the construction of a Copula-based statistical model to learn the statistical relationship between the failure time and the time realizations at specified degradation levels, and the development of a simulation-based approach for the prediction of remaining useful life (RUL). Two engineering case studies, namely the electric cooling fan health prognostics and the 2008 IEEE PHM challenge problem, are employed to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed methodology. - Highlights: • We develop a novel mechanism for data-driven prognostics. • A generic health index system quantifies health degradation of engineering systems. • Off-line training model is constructed based on the Bayesian Copula model. • Remaining useful life is predicted from a simulation-based approach

The prognostic effect of perineural invasion in esophageal squamous cell carcinoma

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Chen, Jie-Wei; Cai, Mu-Yan; Xie, Jing-Dun; Ling, Yi-Hong; Li, Peng; Yan, Shu-Mei; Xi, Shao-Yan; Luo, Rong-Zhen; Yun, Jing-Ping; Xie, Dan

2014-01-01

Perineural invasion (PNI) is correlated with adverse survival in several malignancies, but its significance in esophageal squamous cell carcinoma (ESCC) remains to be clearly defined. The objective of this study was to determine the association between PNI status and clinical outcomes. We retrospectively evaluated the PNI of 433 patients with ESCC treated with surgery between 2000 and 2007 at a single academic center. The resulting data were analyzed using Spearman’s rank correlation, the Kaplan-Meier method, Cox proportional hazards regression modeling and Harrell’s concordance index (C-index). PNI was identified in 209 of the 433 (47.7%) cases of ESCC. The correlation analysis demonstrated that PNI in ESCC was significantly correlated with tumor differentiation, infiltration depth, pN classification and stage (P < 0.05). The five-year overall survival rate was 0.570 for PNI-negative tumors versus 0.326 for PNI-positive tumors. Patients with PNI-negative tumors exhibited a 1.7-fold increase in five-year recurrence-free survival compared with patients with PNI-positive tumors (0.531 v 0.305, respectively; P < 0.0001). In the subset of patients with node-negative disease, PNI was evaluated as a prognostic predictor as well (P < 0.05). In the multivariate analysis, PNI was an independent prognostic factor for overall survival (P = 0.027). The C-index estimate for the combined model (PNI, gender and pN status) was a significant improvement on the C-index estimate of the clinicopathologic model alone (0.739 v 0.706, respectively). PNI can function as an independent prognostic factor of outcomes in ESCC patients, and the PNI status in primary ESCC specimens should be considered for therapy stratification

Validation of EORTC Prognostic Factors for Adults With Low-Grade Glioma: A Report Using Intergroup 86-72-51

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Daniels, Thomas B.; Brown, Paul D.; Felten, Sara J.; Wu, Wenting; Buckner, Jan C.; Arusell, Robert M.; Curran, Walter J.; Abrams, Ross A.; Schiff, David; Shaw, Edward G.

2011-01-01

Purpose: A prognostic index for survival was constructed and validated from patient data from two European Organisation for Research and Treatment of Cancer (EORTC) radiation trials for low-grade glioma (LGG). We sought to independently validate this prognostic index with a separate prospectively collected data set (Intergroup 86-72-51). Methods and Materials: Two hundred three patients were treated in a North Central Cancer Treatment Group-led trial that randomized patients with supratentorial LGG to 50.4 or 64.8 Gy. Risk factors from the EORTC prognostic index were analyzed for prognostic value: histology, tumor size, neurologic deficit, age, and tumor crossing the midline. The high-risk group was defined as patients with more than two risk factors. In addition, the Mini Mental Status Examination (MMSE) score, extent of surgical resection, and 1p19q status were also analyzed for prognostic value. Results: On univariate analysis, the following were statistically significant (p < 0.05) detrimental factors for both progression-free survival (PFS) and overall survival (OS): astrocytoma histology, tumor size, and less than total resection. A Mini Mental Status Examination score of more than 26 was a favorable prognostic factor. Multivariate analysis showed that tumor size and MMSE score were significant predictors of OS whereas tumor size, astrocytoma histology, and MMSE score were significant predictors of PFS. Analyzing by the EORTC risk groups, we found that the low-risk group had significantly better median OS (10.8 years vs. 3.9 years, p < 0.0001) and PFS (6.2 years vs. 1.9 years, p < 0.0001) than the high-risk group. The 1p19q status was available in 66 patients. Co-deletion of 1p19q was a favorable prognostic factor for OS vs. one or no deletion (median OS, 12.6 years vs. 7.2 years; p = 0.03). Conclusions: Although the low-risk group as defined by EORTC criteria had a superior PFS and OS to the high-risk group, this is primarily because of the influence of

WImpiBLAST: web interface for mpiBLAST to help biologists perform large-scale annotation using high performance computing.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Parichit Sharma

Full Text Available The function of a newly sequenced gene can be discovered by determining its sequence homology with known proteins. BLAST is the most extensively used sequence analysis program for sequence similarity search in large databases of sequences. With the advent of next generation sequencing technologies it has now become possible to study genes and their expression at a genome-wide scale through RNA-seq and metagenome sequencing experiments. Functional annotation of all the genes is done by sequence similarity search against multiple protein databases. This annotation task is computationally very intensive and can take days to obtain complete results. The program mpiBLAST, an open-source parallelization of BLAST that achieves superlinear speedup, can be used to accelerate large-scale annotation by using supercomputers and high performance computing (HPC clusters. Although many parallel bioinformatics applications using the Message Passing Interface (MPI are available in the public domain, researchers are reluctant to use them due to lack of expertise in the Linux command line and relevant programming experience. With these limitations, it becomes difficult for biologists to use mpiBLAST for accelerating annotation. No web interface is available in the open-source domain for mpiBLAST. We have developed WImpiBLAST, a user-friendly open-source web interface for parallel BLAST searches. It is implemented in Struts 1.3 using a Java backbone and runs atop the open-source Apache Tomcat Server. WImpiBLAST supports script creation and job submission features and also provides a robust job management interface for system administrators. It combines script creation and modification features with job monitoring and management through the Torque resource manager on a Linux-based HPC cluster. Use case information highlights the acceleration of annotation analysis achieved by using WImpiBLAST. Here, we describe the WImpiBLAST web interface features and architecture

WImpiBLAST: web interface for mpiBLAST to help biologists perform large-scale annotation using high performance computing.

Science.gov (United States)

Sharma, Parichit; Mantri, Shrikant S

2014-01-01

The function of a newly sequenced gene can be discovered by determining its sequence homology with known proteins. BLAST is the most extensively used sequence analysis program for sequence similarity search in large databases of sequences. With the advent of next generation sequencing technologies it has now become possible to study genes and their expression at a genome-wide scale through RNA-seq and metagenome sequencing experiments. Functional annotation of all the genes is done by sequence similarity search against multiple protein databases. This annotation task is computationally very intensive and can take days to obtain complete results. The program mpiBLAST, an open-source parallelization of BLAST that achieves superlinear speedup, can be used to accelerate large-scale annotation by using supercomputers and high performance computing (HPC) clusters. Although many parallel bioinformatics applications using the Message Passing Interface (MPI) are available in the public domain, researchers are reluctant to use them due to lack of expertise in the Linux command line and relevant programming experience. With these limitations, it becomes difficult for biologists to use mpiBLAST for accelerating annotation. No web interface is available in the open-source domain for mpiBLAST. We have developed WImpiBLAST, a user-friendly open-source web interface for parallel BLAST searches. It is implemented in Struts 1.3 using a Java backbone and runs atop the open-source Apache Tomcat Server. WImpiBLAST supports script creation and job submission features and also provides a robust job management interface for system administrators. It combines script creation and modification features with job monitoring and management through the Torque resource manager on a Linux-based HPC cluster. Use case information highlights the acceleration of annotation analysis achieved by using WImpiBLAST. Here, we describe the WImpiBLAST web interface features and architecture, explain design

Parallel Fortran-MPI software for numerical inversion of the Laplace transform and its application to oscillatory water levels in groundwater environments

Science.gov (United States)

Zhan, X.

2005-01-01

A parallel Fortran-MPI (Message Passing Interface) software for numerical inversion of the Laplace transform based on a Fourier series method is developed to meet the need of solving intensive computational problems involving oscillatory water level's response to hydraulic tests in a groundwater environment. The software is a parallel version of ACM (The Association for Computing Machinery) Transactions on Mathematical Software (TOMS) Algorithm 796. Running 38 test examples indicated that implementation of MPI techniques with distributed memory architecture speedups the processing and improves the efficiency. Applications to oscillatory water levels in a well during aquifer tests are presented to illustrate how this package can be applied to solve complicated environmental problems involved in differential and integral equations. The package is free and is easy to use for people with little or no previous experience in using MPI but who wish to get off to a quick start in parallel computing. ?? 2004 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Prognostic accuracy of electroencephalograms in preterm infants

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Fogtmann, Emilie Pi; Plomgaard, Anne Mette; Greisen, Gorm

2017-01-01

CONTEXT: Brain injury is common in preterm infants, and predictors of neurodevelopmental outcome are relevant. OBJECTIVE: To assess the prognostic test accuracy of the background activity of the EEG recorded as amplitude-integrated EEG (aEEG) or conventional EEG early in life in preterm infants...... for predicting neurodevelopmental outcome. DATA SOURCES: The Cochrane Library, PubMed, Embase, and the Cumulative Index to Nursing and Allied Health Literature. STUDY SELECTION: We included observational studies that had obtained an aEEG or EEG within 7 days of life in preterm infants and reported...... neurodevelopmental outcomes 1 to 10 years later. DATA EXTRACTION: Two reviewers independently performed data extraction with regard to participants, prognostic testing, and outcomes. RESULTS: Thirteen observational studies with a total of 1181 infants were included. A metaanalysis was performed based on 3 studies...

An Institutional Retrospective Analysis of 93 Patients with Brain Metastases from Breast Cancer: Treatment Outcomes, Diagnosis-Specific Prognostic Factors

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Delphine Antoni

2012-12-01

Full Text Available To evaluate the prognostic factors and indexes of a series of 93 patients with breast cancer and brain metastases (BM in a single institution. Treatment outcomes were evaluated according to the major prognostic indexes (RPA, BSBM, GPA scores and breast cancer subtypes. Independent prognostic factors for overall survival (OS were identified. The median OS values according to GPA 0–1, 1.5–2, 2.5–3 and 3.5–4, were 4.5, 9.5, 14.2 and 19.1 months, respectively (p < 0.0001 and according to genetic subtypes, they were 5, 14.2, 16.5 and 17.1 months for basal-like, luminal A and B and HER, respectively (p = 0.04. Using multivariate analysis, we established a new grading system using the six factors that were identified as indicators of longer survival: age under 60 (p = 0.001, high KPS (p = 0.007, primary tumor control (p = 0.05, low number of extracranial metastases and BM (p = 0.01 and 0.0002, respectively and triple negative subtype (p = 0.002. Three groups with significantly different median survival times were identified: 4.1, 9.5 and 26.3 months, respectively (p < 0.0001. Our new grading system shows that prognostic indexes could be improved by using more levels of classification and confirms the strength of biological prognostic factors.

Serum C-reactive protein (CRP) as a simple and independent prognostic factor in extranodal natural killer/T-cell lymphoma, nasal type.

Science.gov (United States)

Li, Ya-Jun; Li, Zhi-Ming; Xia, Yi; Huang, Jia-Jia; Huang, Hui-Qiang; Xia, Zhong-Jun; Lin, Tong-Yu; Li, Su; Cai, Xiu-Yu; Wu-Xiao, Zhi-Jun; Jiang, Wen-Qi

2013-01-01

C-reactive protein (CRP) is a biomarker of the inflammatory response, and it shows significant prognostic value for several types of solid tumors. The prognostic significance of CRP for lymphoma has not been fully examined. We evaluated the prognostic role of baseline serum CRP levels in patients with extranodal natural killer (NK)/T-cell lymphoma (ENKTL). We retrospectively analyzed 185 patients with newly diagnosed ENKTL. The prognostic value of the serum CRP level was evaluated for the low-CRP group (CRP≤10 mg/L) versus the high-CRP group (CRP>10 mg/L). The prognostic value of the International Prognostic Index (IPI) and the Korean Prognostic Index (KPI) were evaluated and compared with the newly developed prognostic model. Patients in the high-CRP group tended to display increased adverse clinical characteristics, lower rates of complete remission (P60 years, hypoalbuminemia, and elevated lactate dehydrogenase levels were independent adverse predictors of OS. Based on these four independent predictors, we constructed a new prognostic model that identified 4 groups with varying OS: group 1, no adverse factors; group 2, 1 factor; group 3, 2 factors; and group 4, 3 or 4 factors (PKPI in distinguishing between the low- and intermediate-low-risk groups, the intermediate-low- and high-intermediate-risk groups, and the high-intermediate- and high-risk groups. Our results suggest that pretreatment serum CRP levels represent an independent predictor of clinical outcome for patients with ENKTL. The prognostic value of the new prognostic model is superior to both IPI and KPI.

Development and Validation of a New Prognostic System for Patients with Hepatocellular Carcinoma.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Fabio Farinati

2016-04-01

very high discrimination and calibration features also in the external validation cohort. The concordance index (C index of the ITA.LI.CA score in the internal and external validation cohorts was 0.71 and 0.78, respectively. The ITA.LI.CA score's prognostic ability was significantly better (p < 0.001 than that of BCLC stage (respective C indexes of 0.64 and 0.73, CLIP score (0.68 and 0.75, JIS stage (0.67 and 0.70, MESIAH score (0.69 and 0.77, and HKLC stage (0.68 and 0.75. The main limitations of this study are its retrospective nature and the intrinsically significant differences between the Taiwanese and Italian groups.The ITA.LI.CA prognostic system includes both a tumor staging-stratifying patients with HCC into six main stages (0, A, B1, B2, B3, and C-and a prognostic score-integrating ITA.LI.CA tumor staging, CPS, ECOG performance status, and AFP. The ITA.LI.CA prognostic system shows a strong ability to predict individual survival in European and Asian populations.

Prognostic significance of MCM 2 and Ki-67 in neuroblastic tumors in children.

Science.gov (United States)

Lewandowska, Magdalena; Taran, Katarzyna; Sitkiewicz, Anna; Andrzejewska, Ewa

2015-12-02

Neuroblastic tumors can be characterized by three features: spontaneous regression, maturation and aggressive proliferation. The most common and routinely used method of assessing tumor cell proliferation is to determine the Ki-67 index in the tumor tissue. Despite numerous studies, neuroblastoma biology is not fully understood, which makes treatment results unsatisfactory. MCM 2 is a potential prognostic factor in the neuroblastoma group. The study is based on retrospective analysis of 35 patients treated for neuroblastic tumors in the Department of Pediatric Surgery and Oncology of the Medical University of Lodz, during the period 2001-2011. The material comprised tissues of 16 tumors excised during the operation and 19 biopsy specimens. Immunohistochemical examinations were performed with immunoperoxidase using mouse monoclonal anti-MCM 2 and anti-Ki-67 antibodies. We observed that MCM 2 expression ranged from 2% to 98% and the Ki-67 index ranged from 0 to 95%. There was a statistically significant correlation between expression of MCM 2 and the value of the Ki-67 index and a correlation close to statistical significance between expression of MCM 2 and unfavorable histopathology. There was no statistical relationship between expression of MCM 2 and age over 1 year and N-myc amplification. The presented research shows that MCM 2 may have prognostic significance in neuroblastic pediatric tumors and as a potential prognostic factor could be the starting point of new individualized therapy.

Addition of rituximab to chemotherapy overcomes the negative prognostic impact of cyclin E expression in diffuse large B-cell lymphoma

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Frei, E; Visco, C; Xu-Monette, Z Y

2013-01-01

High levels of cyclin E (CCNE) are accompanied by shorter survival in cyclophosphamide, hydroxydaunorubicin, oncovin and prednisone (CHOP)-treated diffuse large B-cell lymphomas (DLBCL), independent of the international prognostic index (IPI). Data on the prognostic role of CCNE in the 'rituximab...

[Prognostic criteria of efficacy of programmed laparoscopic sanitation of the abdominal cavity in peritonitis].

Science.gov (United States)

Salakhov, E K; Vlasov, A P; Bolotskyh, V A

To define prognostic criteria of efficacy of programmed laparoscopic sanitation of the abdominal cavity in peritonitis. There were 32 patients after programmed laparoscopic sanitation of abdominal cavity for peritonitis due to different acute surgical diseases. Subsequently 12 of them required relaparotomy due to poor effectiveness of laparoscopic sanitation. Comprehensive clinical examination and laboratory assessment of some indexes of homeostasis and oxidative status were conducted. Prognostic clinical and laboratory criteria of efficacy of laparoscopic abdominal sanitation were suggested after analysis of intraoperative data during primary surgery and laboratory values in the 1st postoperative day. The offered prognostic criteria allow to define further management of peritonitis patients after primary laparotomy.

Prognostic durability of liver fibrosis tests and improvement in predictive performance for mortality by combining tests.

Science.gov (United States)

Bertrais, Sandrine; Boursier, Jérôme; Ducancelle, Alexandra; Oberti, Frédéric; Fouchard-Hubert, Isabelle; Moal, Valérie; Calès, Paul

2017-06-01

There is currently no recommended time interval between noninvasive fibrosis measurements for monitoring chronic liver diseases. We determined how long a single liver fibrosis evaluation may accurately predict mortality, and assessed whether combining tests improves prognostic performance. We included 1559 patients with chronic liver disease and available baseline liver stiffness measurement (LSM) by Fibroscan, aspartate aminotransferase to platelet ratio index (APRI), FIB-4, Hepascore, and FibroMeter V2G . Median follow-up was 2.8 years during which 262 (16.8%) patients died, with 115 liver-related deaths. All fibrosis tests were able to predict mortality, although APRI (and FIB-4 for liver-related mortality) showed lower overall discriminative ability than the other tests (differences in Harrell's C-index: P fibrosis, 1 year in patients with significant fibrosis, and liver disease (MELD) score testing sets. In the training set, blood tests and LSM were independent predictors of all-cause mortality. The best-fit multivariate model included age, sex, LSM, and FibroMeter V2G with C-index = 0.834 (95% confidence interval, 0.803-0.862). The prognostic model for liver-related mortality included the same covariates with C-index = 0.868 (0.831-0.902). In the testing set, the multivariate models had higher prognostic accuracy than FibroMeter V2G or LSM alone for all-cause mortality and FibroMeter V2G alone for liver-related mortality. The prognostic durability of a single baseline fibrosis evaluation depends on the liver fibrosis level. Combining LSM with a blood fibrosis test improves mortality risk assessment. © 2016 Journal of Gastroenterology and Hepatology Foundation and John Wiley & Sons Australia, Ltd.

Hybrid MPI/OpenMP parallelization of the explicit Volterra integral equation solver for multi-core computer architectures

KAUST Repository

Al Jarro, Ahmed; Bagci, Hakan

2011-01-01

A hybrid MPI/OpenMP scheme for efficiently parallelizing the explicit marching-on-in-time (MOT)-based solution of the time-domain volume (Volterra) integral equation (TD-VIE) is presented. The proposed scheme equally distributes tested field values

Aminophylline and caffeine for reversal of adverse symptoms associated with regadenoson SPECT MPI.

Science.gov (United States)

Doran, Jesse A; Sajjad, Waseem; Schneider, Marabel D; Gupta, Rohit; Mackin, Maria L; Schwartz, Ronald G

2017-06-01

Aminophylline shortages led us to compare intravenous (IV) aminophylline with IV and oral (PO) caffeine during routine pharmacologic stress testing with SPECT MPI. We measured presence, duration, and reversal of adverse symptoms and cardiac events following regadenoson administration in consecutive patients randomized to IV aminophylline (100 mg administered over 30-60 seconds), IV caffeine citrate (60 mg infused over 3-5 minutes), or PO caffeine as coffee or diet cola. Of 241 patients, 152 (63%) received regadenoson reversal intervention. Complete (CR), predominant (PRE), or partial (PR) reversal was observed in 99%. CR by IV aminophylline (87%), IV caffeine (87%), and PO caffeine (78%) were similar (P = NS). Time to CR (162 ± 12.6 seconds, mean ± SD) was similar in treatment arms. PO caffeine was inferior to IV aminophylline for CR + PRE. IV aminophylline and IV caffeine provide rapid, safe reversal of regadenoson-induced adverse effects during SPECT MPI. Oral caffeine appeared similarly effective for CR but not for the combined CR + PRE. Our results suggest PO caffeine may be an effective initial strategy for reversal of regadenoson, but IV aminophylline or IV caffeine should be available to optimize symptom reversal as needed.

Performance Characteristics of Hybrid MPI/OpenMP Scientific Applications on a Large-Scale Multithreaded BlueGene/Q Supercomputer

KAUST Repository

Wu, Xingfu; Taylor, Valerie

2013-01-01

In this paper, we investigate the performance characteristics of five hybrid MPI/OpenMP scientific applications (two NAS Parallel benchmarks Multi-Zone SP-MZ and BT-MZ, an earthquake simulation PEQdyna, an aerospace application PMLB and a 3D particle-in-cell application GTC) on a large-scale multithreaded Blue Gene/Q supercomputer at Argonne National laboratory, and quantify the performance gap resulting from using different number of threads per node. We use performance tools and MPI profile and trace libraries available on the supercomputer to analyze and compare the performance of these hybrid scientific applications with increasing the number OpenMP threads per node, and find that increasing the number of threads to some extent saturates or worsens performance of these hybrid applications. For the strong-scaling hybrid scientific applications such as SP-MZ, BT-MZ, PEQdyna and PLMB, using 32 threads per node results in much better application efficiency than using 64 threads per node, and as increasing the number of threads per node, the FPU (Floating Point Unit) percentage decreases, and the MPI percentage (except PMLB) and IPC (Instructions per cycle) per core (except BT-MZ) increase. For the weak-scaling hybrid scientific application such as GTC, the performance trend (relative speedup) is very similar with increasing number of threads per node no matter how many nodes (32, 128, 512) are used. © 2013 IEEE.

Performance Characteristics of Hybrid MPI/OpenMP Scientific Applications on a Large-Scale Multithreaded BlueGene/Q Supercomputer

KAUST Repository

Wu, Xingfu

2013-07-01

In this paper, we investigate the performance characteristics of five hybrid MPI/OpenMP scientific applications (two NAS Parallel benchmarks Multi-Zone SP-MZ and BT-MZ, an earthquake simulation PEQdyna, an aerospace application PMLB and a 3D particle-in-cell application GTC) on a large-scale multithreaded Blue Gene/Q supercomputer at Argonne National laboratory, and quantify the performance gap resulting from using different number of threads per node. We use performance tools and MPI profile and trace libraries available on the supercomputer to analyze and compare the performance of these hybrid scientific applications with increasing the number OpenMP threads per node, and find that increasing the number of threads to some extent saturates or worsens performance of these hybrid applications. For the strong-scaling hybrid scientific applications such as SP-MZ, BT-MZ, PEQdyna and PLMB, using 32 threads per node results in much better application efficiency than using 64 threads per node, and as increasing the number of threads per node, the FPU (Floating Point Unit) percentage decreases, and the MPI percentage (except PMLB) and IPC (Instructions per cycle) per core (except BT-MZ) increase. For the weak-scaling hybrid scientific application such as GTC, the performance trend (relative speedup) is very similar with increasing number of threads per node no matter how many nodes (32, 128, 512) are used. © 2013 IEEE.

Lifecycle Prognostics Architecture for Selected High-Cost Active Components

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

N. Lybeck; B. Pham; M. Tawfik; J. B. Coble; R. M. Meyer; P. Ramuhalli; L. J. Bond

2011-08-01

There are an extensive body of knowledge and some commercial products available for calculating prognostics, remaining useful life, and damage index parameters. The application of these technologies within the nuclear power community is still in its infancy. Online monitoring and condition-based maintenance is seeing increasing acceptance and deployment, and these activities provide the technological bases for expanding to add predictive/prognostics capabilities. In looking to deploy prognostics there are three key aspects of systems that are presented and discussed: (1) component/system/structure selection, (2) prognostic algorithms, and (3) prognostics architectures. Criteria are presented for component selection: feasibility, failure probability, consequences of failure, and benefits of the prognostics and health management (PHM) system. The basis and methods commonly used for prognostics algorithms are reviewed and summarized. Criteria for evaluating PHM architectures are presented: open, modular architecture; platform independence; graphical user interface for system development and/or results viewing; web enabled tools; scalability; and standards compatibility. Thirteen software products were identified and discussed in the context of being potentially useful for deployment in a PHM program applied to systems in a nuclear power plant (NPP). These products were evaluated by using information available from company websites, product brochures, fact sheets, scholarly publications, and direct communication with vendors. The thirteen products were classified into four groups of software: (1) research tools, (2) PHM system development tools, (3) deployable architectures, and (4) peripheral tools. Eight software tools fell into the deployable architectures category. Of those eight, only two employ all six modules of a full PHM system. Five systems did not offer prognostic estimates, and one system employed the full health monitoring suite but lacked operations and

Lifecycle Prognostics Architecture for Selected High-Cost Active Components

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Lybeck, N.; Pham, B.; Tawfik, M.; Coble, J.B.; Meyer, R.M.; Ramuhalli, P.; Bond, L.J.

2011-01-01

There are an extensive body of knowledge and some commercial products available for calculating prognostics, remaining useful life, and damage index parameters. The application of these technologies within the nuclear power community is still in its infancy. Online monitoring and condition-based maintenance is seeing increasing acceptance and deployment, and these activities provide the technological bases for expanding to add predictive/prognostics capabilities. In looking to deploy prognostics there are three key aspects of systems that are presented and discussed: (1) component/system/structure selection, (2) prognostic algorithms, and (3) prognostics architectures. Criteria are presented for component selection: feasibility, failure probability, consequences of failure, and benefits of the prognostics and health management (PHM) system. The basis and methods commonly used for prognostics algorithms are reviewed and summarized. Criteria for evaluating PHM architectures are presented: open, modular architecture; platform independence; graphical user interface for system development and/or results viewing; web enabled tools; scalability; and standards compatibility. Thirteen software products were identified and discussed in the context of being potentially useful for deployment in a PHM program applied to systems in a nuclear power plant (NPP). These products were evaluated by using information available from company websites, product brochures, fact sheets, scholarly publications, and direct communication with vendors. The thirteen products were classified into four groups of software: (1) research tools, (2) PHM system development tools, (3) deployable architectures, and (4) peripheral tools. Eight software tools fell into the deployable architectures category. Of those eight, only two employ all six modules of a full PHM system. Five systems did not offer prognostic estimates, and one system employed the full health monitoring suite but lacked operations and

The Value of Attenuation Correction in Hybrid Cardiac SPECT/CT on Inferior Wall According to Body Mass Index

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Tamam, Muge; Mulazimoglu, Mehmet; Edis, Nurcan; Ozpacaci, Tevfik

2016-01-01

The purpose of this study was to evaluate the diagnostic value of attenuation-corrected single photon emission computed tomography (SPECT) myocardial perfusion imaging (MPI) on the inferior wall compared to uncorrected (NC) SPECT MPI between obese and nonobese patients. A total of 157 consecutive patients (122 males and 35 females, with median age: 57.4 ± 11 years) who underwent AC technetium 99m-methoxyisobutylisonitrile (AC Tc99m-sestamibi) SPECT MPI were included to the study. A hybrid SPECT and transmission computed tomography (CT) system was used for the diagnosis with 1-day protocol, and stress imaging was performed first. During attenuation correction (AC) processing on a Xeleris Workstation using Myovation cardiac software with ordered subset expectation maximization (OSEM), iterative reconstruction with attenuation correction (IRAC) and NC images filtered back projection (FBP) were used. For statistical purposes, P < 0.05 was considered significant. This study included 73 patients with body mass index (BMI) <30 and 84 patients with BMI ≥ 30. In patients with higher BMI, increased amount of both visual and semiquantitative attenuation of the inferior wall was detected. IRAC reconstruction corrects the diaphragm attenuation of the inferior wall better than FBP. AC with OSEM iterative reconstruction significantly improves the diagnostic value of stress-only SPECT MPI in patients with normal weight and those who are obese, but the improvements are significantly greater in obese patients. Stress-only SPECT imaging with AC provides shorter and lower radiation exposure

Usefulness of scoring right ventricular function for assessment of prognostic factors in patients with chronic thromboembolic pulmonary hypertension.

Science.gov (United States)

Kamimura, Yoshihiro; Okumura, Naoki; Adachi, Shiro; Shimokata, Shigetake; Tajima, Fumitaka; Nakano, Yoshihisa; Hirashiki, Akihiro; Murohara, Toyoaki; Kondo, Takahisa

2018-04-27

Right ventricular (RV) function is associated with prognosis in chronic thromboembolic pulmonary hypertension (CTEPH). This study aimed to establish an RV dysfunction score using RV echocardiographic parameters to clarify the clinical characteristics in patients with CTEPH and to compare RV dysfunction score with parameters such as World Health Organization (WHO) functional class, hemodynamics, exercise capacity, and plasma BNP level. We enrolled 35 inpatients with CTEPH (mean age, 62 ± 15 years, 15 males). We constructed 'an RV dysfunction score' calculated as the summation of each point awarded for the presence of four parameters: tricuspid annular plane systolic excursion (TAPSE)  0.4, 1 point. TAPSE, S', RVFAC, and RV-MPI was 18.7 ± 4.8 mm, 11.9 ± 3.1 cm/s, 33.5 ± 13.9%, and 0.39 ± 0.2, respectively. The RV dysfunction score was associated with symptom [WHO functional class (p = 0.026)], hemodynamics [mean PAP (p = 0.01), cardiac index (p = 0.009), pulmonary vascular resistance (p = 0.001), and SvO 2 (p = 0.039)], exercise capacity [6-min walk distance (p = 0.046), peakVO 2 (p = 0.016), and VE/VCO 2 slope (p = 0.031)], and plasma BNP level (p = 0.005). This RV dysfunction score using the four RV echocardiographic parameters could be a simple and useful scoring system to evaluate prognostic factors in patients with CTEPH.

Solution of finite element problems using hybrid parallelization with MPI and OpenMP Solution of finite element problems using hybrid parallelization with MPI and OpenMP

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

José Miguel Vargas-Félix

2012-11-01

Full Text Available The Finite Element Method (FEM is used to solve problems like solid deformation and heat diffusion in domains with complex geometries. This kind of geometries requires discretization with millions of elements; this is equivalent to solve systems of equations with sparse matrices and tens or hundreds of millions of variables. The aim is to use computer clusters to solve these systems. The solution method used is Schur substructuration. Using it is possible to divide a large system of equations into many small ones to solve them more efficiently. This method allows parallelization. MPI (Message Passing Interface is used to distribute the systems of equations to solve each one in a computer of a cluster. Each system of equations is solved using a solver implemented to use OpenMP as a local parallelization method.The Finite Element Method (FEM is used to solve problems like solid deformation and heat diffusion in domains with complex geometries. This kind of geometries requires discretization with millions of elements; this is equivalent to solve systems of equations with sparse matrices and tens or hundreds of millions of variables. The aim is to use computer clusters to solve these systems. The solution method used is Schur substructuration. Using it is possible to divide a large system of equations into many small ones to solve them more efficiently. This method allows parallelization. MPI (Message Passing Interface is used to distribute the systems of equations to solve each one in a computer of a cluster. Each system of equations is solved using a solver implemented to use OpenMP as a local parallelization method.

11C-methionine PET as a prognostic marker in patients with glioma: comparison with18F-FDG PET

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Kim, Sungeun; Chung, June-Key; Jeong, Jae Min; Im, So-Hyang; Kim, Dong Gyu; Jung, Hee Won; Lee, Dong Soo; Lee, Myung Chul

2005-01-01

The purpose of this study was to compare the prognostic value of 11 C-methionine (MET) and 18 F-fluorodeoxyglucose (FDG) positron emission tomography (PET) in glioma patients. The study population comprised 47 patients with gliomas (19 glioblastoma, 28 others). Pretreatment magnetic resonance imaging, MET PET and FDG PET were performed within a time interval of 2 weeks in all patients. The uptake ratio and standard uptake values were calculated. Univariate and multivariate analyses were done to determine significant prognostic factors. Ki-67 index was measured by immunohistochemical staining, and compared with FDG and MET uptake in glioma. Among the several clinicopathological prognostic factors, tumour pathology (glioblastoma or not), age (≥60 or <60 years), Karnofsky performance status (KPS) (≥70 or <70) and MET PET (higher uptake or not compared with normal cortex) were found to be significant predictors by univariate analysis. In multivariate analysis, tumour pathology, KPS and MET PET were identified as significant independent predictors. The Ki-67 proliferation index was significantly correlated with MET uptake (r=0.64), but not with FDG uptake. Compared with FDG PET in glioma, MET PET was an independent significant prognostic factor and MET uptake was correlated with cellular proliferation. MET PET may be a useful biological prognostic marker in glioma patients. (orig.)

Naples Prognostic Score, Based on Nutritional and Inflammatory Status, is an Independent Predictor of Long-term Outcome in Patients Undergoing Surgery for Colorectal Cancer.

Science.gov (United States)

Galizia, Gennaro; Lieto, Eva; Auricchio, Annamaria; Cardella, Francesca; Mabilia, Andrea; Podzemny, Vlasta; Castellano, Paolo; Orditura, Michele; Napolitano, Vincenzo

2017-12-01

The existing scores reflecting the patient's nutritional and inflammatory status do not include all biomarkers and have been poorly studied in colorectal cancers. The purpose of this study was to assess a new prognostic tool, the Naples prognostic score, comparing it with the prognostic nutritional index, controlling nutritional status score, and systemic inflammation score. This was an analysis of patients undergoing surgery for colorectal cancer. The study was conducted at a university hospital. A total of 562 patients who underwent surgery for colorectal cancer in July 2004 through June 2014 and 468 patients undergoing potentially curative surgery were included. MaxStat analysis dichotomized neutrophil:lymphocyte ratio, lymphocyte:monocyte ratio, prognostic nutritional index, and the controlling nutritional status score. The Naples prognostic scores were divided into 3 groups (group 0, 1, and 2). The receiver operating characteristic curve for censored survival data compared the prognostic performance of the scoring systems. Overall survival and complication rates in all patients, as well as recurrence and disease-free survival rates in radically resected patients, were measured. The Naples prognostic score correlated positively with the other scoring systems (p cancer. See Video Abstract at http://links.lww.com/DCR/A469.

Prognostic significance of snail expression in hilar cholangiocarcinoma

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Kong, Dalu [Department of Hepatobiliary Surgery, Tianjin Medical University Cancer Institute and Hospital, Hexi District, Tianjin (China); Liang, Jun [Department of Oncology, Affiliated Hospital of Medical College, Qingdao University, Qingdao, Shandong Province (China); Li, Rong [Department of Hepatobiliary Surgery, Tianjin Medical University Cancer Institute and Hospital, Hexi District, Tianjin (China); Liu, Shihai [Department of Laboratory Center, Affiliated Hospital of Medical College, Qingdao University, Qingdao, Shandong Province (China); Wang, Jigang [Department of Oncology, Affiliated Hospital of Medical College, Qingdao University, Qingdao, Shandong Province (China); Zhang, Kejun; Chen, Dong [Department of General Surgery, Affiliated Hospital of Medical College, Qingdao University, Qingdao, Shandong Province (China)

2012-05-11

Many patients with hilar cholangiocarcinoma (HC) have a poor prognosis. Snail, a transcription factor and E-cadherin repressor, is a novel prognostic factor in many cancers. The aim of this study was to evaluate the relationship between snail and E-cadherin protein expression and the prognostic significance of snail expression in HC. We examined the protein expression of snail and E-cadherin in HC tissues from 47 patients (22 males and 25 females, mean age 61.2 years) using immunohistochemistry and RT-PCR. Proliferation rate was also evaluated in the same cases by the MIB1 index. High, low and negative snail protein expression was recorded in 18 (38%), 17 (36%), and 12 (26%) cases, respectively, and 40.4% (19/47) cases showed reduced E-cadherin protein expression in HC samples. No significant correlation was found between snail and E-cadherin protein expression levels (P = 0.056). No significant correlation was found between snail protein expression levels and gender, age, tumor grade, vascular or perineural invasion, nodal metastasis and invasion, or proliferative index. Cancer samples with positive snail protein expression were associated with poor survival compared with the negative expresser groups. Kaplan-Meier curves comparing different snail protein expression levels to survival showed highly significant separation (P < 0.0001, log-rank test). With multivariate analysis, only snail protein expression among all parameters was found to influence survival (P = 0.0003). We suggest that snail expression levels can predict poor survival regardless of pathological features and tumor proliferation. Immunohistochemical detection of snail protein expression levels in routine sections may provide the first biological prognostic marker.

Utilization of the MPI Process for in-tank solidification of heel material in large-diameter cylindrical tanks

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Kauschinger, J.L.; Lewis, B.E.

2000-01-01

A major problem faced by the US Department of Energy is remediation of sludge and supernatant waste in underground storage tanks. Exhumation of the waste is currently the preferred remediation method. However, exhumation cannot completely remove all of the contaminated materials from the tanks. For large-diameter tanks, amounts of highly contaminated ``heel'' material approaching 20,000 gal can remain. Often sludge containing zeolite particles leaves ``sand bars'' of locally contaminated material across the floor of the tank. The best management practices for in-tank treatment (stabilization and immobilization) of wastes require an integrated approach to develop appropriate treatment agents that can be safely delivered and mixed uniformly with sludge. Ground Environmental Services has developed and demonstrated a remotely controlled, high-velocity jet delivery system termed, Multi-Point-Injection (MPI). This robust jet delivery system has been field-deployed to create homogeneous monoliths containing shallow buried miscellaneous waste in trenches [fiscal year (FY) 1995] and surrogate sludge in cylindrical (FY 1998) and long, horizontal tanks (FY 1999). During the FY 1998 demonstration, the MPI process successfully formed a 32-ton uniform monolith of grout and waste surrogates in about 8 min. Analytical data indicated that 10 tons of zeolite-type physical surrogate were uniformly mixed within a 40-in.-thick monolith without lifting the MPI jetting tools off the tank floor. Over 1,000 lb of cohesive surrogates, with consistencies similar to Gunite and Associated Tank (GAAT) TH-4 and Hanford tank sludges, were easily intermixed into the monolith without exceeding a core temperature of 100 F during curing.

Prognostic Impact of Visceral Fat Amount and Branched-Chain Amino Acids (BCAA) in Hepatocellular Carcinoma.

Science.gov (United States)

Higashi, Takaaki; Hayashi, Hiromitsu; Kaida, Takayoshi; Arima, Kota; Takeyama, Hideaki; Taki, Katsunobu; Izumi, Daisuke; Tokunaga, Ryuma; Kosumi, Keisuke; Nakagawa, Shigeki; Okabe, Hirohisa; Imai, Katsunobu; Nitta, Hidetoshi; Hashimoto, Daisuke; Chikamoto, Akira; Beppu, Toru; Baba, Hideo

2015-12-01

Dysregulation of lipid and amino acid metabolism in patients with liver diseases results in obesity-related carcinogenesis and decreased levels of branched-chain amino acids (BCAA), respectively. This study assessed the clinical and prognostic impact of visceral fat amount (VFA) and its association with amino acid metabolism in patients with hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). In this study, 215 patients who underwent hepatic resection for HCC were divided into two groups based on VFA criteria for metabolic abnormalities in Japan. Computed tomography was used to measure VFA at the third lumbar vertebra in the inferior direction. Of the 215 patients, 132 had high and 83 had low VFA. High VFA was significantly associated with older age and higher body mass index (BMI), subcutaneous fat amount, and BCAA, but not with liver function, nutrient status, or tumoral factors. VFA was positively correlated with BMI (P BCAA levels (P BCAA, serum albumin, and prognostic nutritional index were not. High VFA was associated with a high BCAA level, with high VFA prognostic of improved overall survival in Japanese patients with HCC.

Prognostic, quantitative histopathologic variables in lobular carcinoma of the breast

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Ladekarl, M; Sørensen, Flemming Brandt

1993-01-01

BACKGROUND: A retrospective investigation of 53 consecutively treated patients with operable lobular carcinoma of the breast, with a median follow-up of 6.6 years, was performed to examine the prognostic value of quantitative histopathologic parameters. METHODS: The measurements were performed...... in routinely processed histologic sections using a simple, unbiased technique for the estimation of the three-dimensional mean nuclear volume (vv(nuc)). In addition, quantitative estimates were obtained of the mitotic index (MI), the nuclear index (NI), the nuclear volume fraction (Vv(nuc/tis)), and the mean...... management of patients with breast cancer....

Mixing thermodynamic properties of 1-butyl-4-methylpyridinium tetrafluoroborate [b4mpy][BF{sub 4}] with water and with an alkan-1ol (methanol to pentanol)

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Ortega, J. [Laboratorio de Termodinamica y Fisicoquimica de Fluidos, Parque Cientifico-Tecnologico, Campus Universitario de Tafira, Universidad de Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, 35071-Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, Canary Islands (Spain)], E-mail: jortega@dip.ulpgc.es; Vreekamp, R.; Penco, E.; Marrero, E. [Laboratorio de Termodinamica y Fisicoquimica de Fluidos, Parque Cientifico-Tecnologico, Campus Universitario de Tafira, Universidad de Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, 35071-Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, Canary Islands (Spain)

2008-07-15

This article presents a study of the behaviour in solution of 1-butyl-4-methylpyridinium tetrafluoroborate [b4mpy][BF{sub 4}] in water and in the first five alkanols of the series methanol to pentan-1-ol. The excess enthalpies, H{sub m}{sup E} and volumes, V{sub m}{sup E} were determined at the temperatures (298.15 and 318.15) K. At these temperatures, the [b4mpy][BF{sub 4}] was completely miscible in water, methanol, and ethanol, but only partially miscible in the other alkanols. A solubility study was carried out and the (liquid + liquid) equilibria of the ([b4mpy][BF{sub 4}] + alkanol) systems were experimentally determined, evaluating zones of complete miscibility and determining the UCST in each case. The mixtures with water gave positive values of H{sub m}{sup E} and V{sub m}{sup E}, being also positive the changes of these quantities with temperature. The mixtures with alkanols gave values of H{sub m}{sup E}>0 and V{sub m}{sup E}<0, and for these binary mixtures (dH{sub m}{sup E}/dT){sub p}>0 and (dV{sub m}{sup E}/dT){sub p}<0. For all cases, results were interpreted and compared with data obtained in mixtures with another isomer [b3mpy][BF{sub 4}]. Excess properties were correlated with a suitable equation and the area and volume parameters were calculated for [b4mpy][BF{sub 4}].

Incorporation of p-53 mutation status and Ki-67 proliferating index in ...

African Journals Online (AJOL)

Ayesha Ahmed

2018-04-26

Apr 26, 2018 ... gastric cancer. p-53 mutation status and Ki-67 proliferation index are established prognostic ... could not only be predictive in patientLs prognostics but could also form a basis of molecular ... a similar status to Her2-neu in gastric cancer, yet no ..... HER2-based biology in 1,006 cases of gastric cancer in.

Prognostic factors in operable breast cancer treated with neoadjuvant chemotherapy: towards a quantification of residual disease.

Science.gov (United States)

Mombelli, Sarah; Kwiatkowski, Fabrice; Abrial, Catherine; Wang-Lopez, Qian; de Boissieu, Paul; Garbar, Christian; Bensussan, Armand; Curé, Hervé

2015-01-01

Neoadjuvant chemotherapy (NACT) allows for a more frequent use of breast-conservative surgery; it is also an in vivo model of individual tumor sensitivity which permits to determine new prognostic factors to personalize the therapeutic approach. Between 2000 and 2012, 318 patients with primary invasive breast cancer were treated with a median of 6 cycles of NACT; they received either an anthracycline-based FEC 100 protocol (31.1%), or anthracyclines + taxanes (53.5%), with trastuzumab if indicated (15.4%). After a median follow-up of 44.2 months, the pathological complete response rate according to the classification of Chevallier et al. [Am J Clin Oncol 1993;16:223-228] was 19.3%, and overall (OS) and disease-free survival (DFS) at 10 years were 60.2 and 69.6%, respectively. Univariate analyses demonstrated that the Residual Disease in Breast and Nodes (RDBN) index was the most significant prognostic factor for OS (p = 0.0082) and DFS (p = 0.0022), and multivariate analyses mainly revealed that the residual tumor size, residual involved node number and post-chemotherapy Scarff-Bloom-Richardson (SBR) grading were the most significant prognostic factors. In a cohort of patients who were all homogeneously treated with some of the most common drugs for breast cancer, we demonstrate that NACT may provide additional prognostic factors and confirm the RDBN index. As this index allows for the prediction of survival with different breast cancer subtypes, we suggest that it should be calculated routinely to help clinicians to select patients who need adjuvant treatments. 2015 S. Karger AG, Basel

A comprehensive study of MPI parallelism in three-dimensional discrete element method (DEM) simulation of complex-shaped granular particles

Science.gov (United States)

Yan, Beichuan; Regueiro, Richard A.

2018-02-01

A three-dimensional (3D) DEM code for simulating complex-shaped granular particles is parallelized using message-passing interface (MPI). The concepts of link-block, ghost/border layer, and migration layer are put forward for design of the parallel algorithm, and theoretical scalability function of 3-D DEM scalability and memory usage is derived. Many performance-critical implementation details are managed optimally to achieve high performance and scalability, such as: minimizing communication overhead, maintaining dynamic load balance, handling particle migrations across block borders, transmitting C++ dynamic objects of particles between MPI processes efficiently, eliminating redundant contact information between adjacent MPI processes. The code executes on multiple US Department of Defense (DoD) supercomputers and tests up to 2048 compute nodes for simulating 10 million three-axis ellipsoidal particles. Performance analyses of the code including speedup, efficiency, scalability, and granularity across five orders of magnitude of simulation scale (number of particles) are provided, and they demonstrate high speedup and excellent scalability. It is also discovered that communication time is a decreasing function of the number of compute nodes in strong scaling measurements. The code's capability of simulating a large number of complex-shaped particles on modern supercomputers will be of value in both laboratory studies on micromechanical properties of granular materials and many realistic engineering applications involving granular materials.

Warm Paleocene/Eocene climate as simulated in ECHAM5/MPI-OM

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M. Heinemann

2009-12-01

Full Text Available We investigate the late Paleocene/early Eocene (PE climate using the coupled atmosphere-ocean-sea ice model ECHAM5/MPI-OM. The surface in our PE control simulation is on average 297 K warm and ice-free, despite a moderate atmospheric CO₂ concentration of 560 ppm. Compared to a pre-industrial reference simulation (PR, low latitudes are 5 to 8 K warmer, while high latitudes are up to 40 K warmer. This high-latitude amplification is in line with proxy data, yet a comparison to sea surface temperature proxy data suggests that the Arctic surface temperatures are still too low in our PE simulation.

To identify the mechanisms that cause the PE-PR surface temperature differences, we fit two simple energy balance models to the ECHAM5/MPI-OM results. We find that about 2/3 of the PE-PR global mean surface temperature difference are caused by a smaller clear sky emissivity due to higher atmospheric CO₂ and water vapour concentrations in PE compared to PR; 1/3 is due to a smaller planetary albedo. The reduction of the pole-to-equator temperature gradient in PE compared to PR is due to (1 the large high-latitude effect of the higher CO₂ and water vapour concentrations in PE compared to PR, (2 the lower Antarctic orography, (3 the smaller surface albedo at high latitudes, and (4 longwave cloud radiative effects. Our results support the hypothesis that local radiative effects rather than increased meridional heat transports were responsible for the "equable" PE climate.

USEFULNESS OF A NEW PROGNOSTIC INDEX FOR ALCOHOLIC HEPATITIS

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Jazon Romilson de Souza ALMEIDA

2015-03-01

Full Text Available Background Alcoholic liver disease is a major cause of end-stage liver disease worldwide and severe forms of alcoholic hepatitis are associated with a high short-term mortality. Objectives To analyze the importance of age-bilirubin-INR-creatinine (ABIC score as an index of mortality and predictor for complications in patients with alcoholic hepatitis. To evaluate its correlation with those complications, with risk of death, as well as the scores model for end stage liver disease (MELD and Maddrey’s discriminat function. Methods A total of 46 medical records of patients who had been hospitalized with alcoholic hepatitis were assessed retrospectively with lab tests on admission and after seven days. Score calculations were carried out and analyzed as well. Results The scores showed positive reciprocal correlation and were associated with both hepatic encephalopathy and ascites. ABIC index, which was classified as high risk, presented as a risk factor for these complications and for death. In univariate logistic regression analysis of mortality, the ABIC index at hospital admission odds ratio was 19.27, whereas after 7 days, it was 41.29. The average survival of patients with ABIC of low and intermediate risk was 61.1 days, and for those with high risk, 26.2 days. Conclusions ABIC index is a predictor factor for complications such as ascites and hepatic encephalopathy, as well as for risk of death. Thus, it is a useful tool for clinical practice.

A new prognostic index - leucocyte infiltration - in human cerebral infarcts by 99Tcm-HMPAO-labelled white blood cell brain SPECT

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Kao, C.H.; Wang, P.Y.; Wang, Y.L.; Chang, L.; Wang, S.J.; Yeh, S.H.

1991-01-01

Twenty-six patients with acute cerebral infarction were imaged by 99 Tc m -hexamethylpropylene-amine oxime (HMPAO)-labelled white blood cell brain (Tc-WBC) single photon emission computed tomography (SPECT). The regions of interest were equally placed in the whole hemispheres of both sides with summation of all transaxial slices in the Tc-WBC SPECT. The asymmetric indices (AI) were calculated as 200 [|(right -left)|/(right + left)]. Grouping of patients with cerebral infarction was based on activities of daily living (ADL) at outcome. The results showed that the poor outcome patient group had a higher AI of Tc-WBC than that of the other patients (13.0 ± 3.0 S.E.M. versus 5.4 ± 1.0 S.E.M., and P < 0.05 by Wilcoxon rank sum test). In conclusion, the Tc-WBC SPECT may be considered as a new prognostic index to predict patient outcome in human cerebral ischaemic infarctions consistent with newly established ischaemic injury theories. (author)

Radiosurgery for brain metastases: a score index for predicting prognosis

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Weltman, Eduardo; Salvajoli, Joao Victor; Brandt, Reynaldo Andre; Morais Hanriot, Rodrigo de; Prisco, Flavio Eduardo; Cruz, Jose Carlos; Oliveira Borges, Sandra Regina de; Wajsbrot, Dalia Ballas

2000-01-01

Purpose: To analyze a prognostic score index for patients with brain metastases submitted to stereotactic radiosurgery (the Score Index for Radiosurgery in Brain Metastases [SIR]). Methods and Materials: Actuarial survival of 65 brain metastases patients treated with radiosurgery between July 1993 and December 1997 was retrospectively analyzed. Prognostic factors included age, Karnofsky performance status (KPS), extracranial disease status, number of brain lesions, largest brain lesion volume, lesions site, and receiving or not whole brain irradiation. The SIR was obtained through summation of the previously noted first five prognostic factors. Kaplan-Meier actuarial survival curves for all prognostic factors, SIR, and recursive partitioning analysis (RPA) (RTOG prognostic score) were calculated. Survival curves of subsets were compared by log-rank test. Application of the Cox model was utilized to identify any correlation between prognostic factors, prognostic scores, and survival. Results: Median overall survival from radiosurgery was 6.8 months. Utilizing univariate analysis, extracranial disease status, KPS, number of brain lesions, largest brain lesion volume, RPA, and SIR were significantly correlated with prognosis. Median survival for the RPA classes 1, 2, and 3 was 20.19 months, 7.75 months, and 3.38 months respectively (p = 0.0131). Median survival for patients, grouped under SIR from 1 to 3, 4 to 7, and 8 to 10, was 2.91 months, 7.00 months, and 31.38 months respectively (p = 0.0001). Using the Cox model, extracranial disease status and KPS demonstrated significant correlation with prognosis (p 0.0001 and 0.0004 respectively). Multivariate analysis also demonstrated significance for SIR and RPA when tested individually (p = 0.0001 and 0.0040 respectively). Applying the Cox Model to both SIR and RPA, only SIR reached independent significance (p = 0.0004). Conclusions: Systemic disease status, KPS, SIR, and RPA are reliable prognostic factors for patients

Prognostics for Microgrid Components

Science.gov (United States)

Saxena, Abhinav

2012-01-01

Prognostics is the science of predicting future performance and potential failures based on targeted condition monitoring. Moving away from the traditional reliability centric view, prognostics aims at detecting and quantifying the time to impending failures. This advance warning provides the opportunity to take actions that can preserve uptime, reduce cost of damage, or extend the life of the component. The talk will focus on the concepts and basics of prognostics from the viewpoint of condition-based systems health management. Differences with other techniques used in systems health management and philosophies of prognostics used in other domains will be shown. Examples relevant to micro grid systems and subsystems will be used to illustrate various types of prediction scenarios and the resources it take to set up a desired prognostic system. Specifically, the implementation results for power storage and power semiconductor components will demonstrate specific solution approaches of prognostics. The role of constituent elements of prognostics, such as model, prediction algorithms, failure threshold, run-to-failure data, requirements and specifications, and post-prognostic reasoning will be explained. A discussion on performance evaluation and performance metrics will conclude the technical discussion followed by general comments on open research problems and challenges in prognostics.

Prognostic Impact of DNA-Image-Cytometry in Neuroendocrine (Carcinoid Tumours

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

H. Raatz

2004-01-01

Full Text Available Establishing prognosis proves particularly difficult with neuroendocrine tumours (NETs as a benign looking histology can be associated with a malignant behaviour. In order to identify prognostic factors we examined 44 gastrointestinal and pulmonary, paraffin‐embedded NETs histologically and immunohistochemically. DNA‐image‐cytometry was used to examine 40 of these. We found that poor differentiation (corresponding to a Soga and Tazawa type D and infiltrative growth correlated with a poorer prognosis. Moreover, parameters determined by diagnostic DNA cytometry like the 5c‐exceeding rate, the 2c‐deviation index, DNA‐grade of malignancy, DNA‐entropy and the type of DNA histogram were found to be of prognostic relevance. Morphometric parameters like the form factor and the mean nuclear area were relevant for survival, tumour recurrence and metastasis. However, in the multivariate analysis the only independent risk factor was the histological differentiation. The 5c‐exceeding rate is a good objective risk factor, which can be used particularly in cases in which only a fine needle biopsie is available. Direct comparison of the histology and the 5c‐exceeding rate in the multivariate analysis suggests that the 5c‐exceeding rate taken as sole prognostic factor might be of higher prognostic relevance than the histology but larger studies are needed to confirm this.

CT myocardial perfusion imaging. Ready for prime time?

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Takx, Richard A.P.; Celeng, Csilla [University Medical Center Utrecht, Department of Radiology, Utrecht (Netherlands); Schoepf, U.J. [Medical University of South Carolina, Division of Cardiovascular Imaging, Department of Radiology and Radiological Science, Charleston, SC (United States); Medical University of South Carolina, Ashley River Tower, Heart and Vascular Center, Charleston, SC (United States)

2018-03-15

The detection of functional coronary artery stenosis with coronary CT angiography (CCTA) is suboptimal. Additional CT myocardial perfusion imaging (CT-MPI) may be helpful to identify patients with myocardial ischaemia in whom coronary revascularization therapy would be beneficial. CT-MPI adds incremental diagnostic and prognostic value over obstructive disease on CCTA. It allows for the quantitation of myocardial blood flow and calculation of coronary flow reserve and shows good correlation with {sup 15}O-H{sub 2}O positron emission tomography and invasive fractional flow reserve. In addition, patients prefer CCTA/CT-MPI over SPECT, MRI and invasive coronary angiography. CT-MPI is ready for clinical use for detecting myocardial ischaemia caused by obstructive disease. Nevertheless, the clinical utility of CT-MPI to identify ischaemia in patients with non-obstructive/microvascular disease still has to be established. (orig.)

Prediction of overall survival for metastatic pancreatic cancer: Development and validation of a prognostic nomogram with data from open clinical trial and real-world study.

Science.gov (United States)

Hang, Junjie; Wu, Lixia; Zhu, Lina; Sun, Zhiqiang; Wang, Ge; Pan, Jingjing; Zheng, Suhua; Xu, Kequn; Du, Jiadi; Jiang, Hua

2018-06-01

It is necessary to develop prognostic tools of metastatic pancreatic cancer (MPC) for optimizing therapeutic strategies. Thus, we tried to develop and validate a prognostic nomogram of MPC. Data from 3 clinical trials (NCT00844649, NCT01124786, and NCT00574275) and 133 Chinese MPC patients were used for analysis. The former 2 trials were taken as the training cohort while NCT00574275 was used as the validation cohort. In addition, 133 MPC patients treated in China were taken as the testing cohort. Cox regression model was used to investigate prognostic factors in the training cohort. With these factors, we established a nomogram and verified it by Harrell's concordance index (C-index) and calibration plots. Furthermore, the nomogram was externally validated in the validation cohort and testing cohort. In the training cohort (n = 445), performance status, liver metastasis, Carbohydrate antigen 19-9 (CA19-9) log-value, absolute neutrophil count (ANC), and albumin were independent prognostic factors for overall survival (OS). A nomogram was established with these factors to predict OS and survival probabilities. The nomogram showed an acceptable discrimination ability (C-index: .683) and good calibration, and was further externally validated in the validation cohort (n = 273, C-index: .699) and testing cohort (n = 133, C-index: .653).The nomogram total points (NTP) had the potential to stratify patients into 3-risk groups with median OS of 11.7, 7.0 and 3.7 months (P < .001), respectively. In conclusion, the prognostic nomogram with NTP can predict OS for patients with MPC with considerable accuracy. © 2018 The Authors. Cancer Medicine published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

A Semi-Analytical Methodology for Multiwell Productivity Index of Well-Industry-Production-Scheme in Tight Oil Reservoirs

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Guangfeng Liu

2018-04-01

Full Text Available Recently, the well-industry-production-scheme (WIPS has attracted more and more attention to improve tight oil recovery. However, multi-well pressure interference (MWPI induced by well-industry-production-scheme (WIPS strongly challenges the traditional transient pressure analysis methods, which focus on single multi-fractured horizontal wells (SMFHWs without MWPI. Therefore, a semi-analytical methodology for multiwell productivity index (MPI was proposed to study well performance of WIPS scheme in tight reservoir. To facilitate methodology development, the conceptual models of tight formation and WIPS scheme were firstly described. Secondly, seepage models of tight reservoir and hydraulic fractures (HFs were sequentially established and then dynamically coupled. Numerical simulation was utilized to validate our model. Finally, identification of flow regimes and sensitivity analysis were conducted. Our results showed that there was good agreement between our proposed model and numerical simulation; moreover, our approach also gave promising calculation speed over numerical simulation. Some expected flow regimes were significantly distorted due to WIPS. The slope of type curves which characterize the linear or bi-linear flow regime is bigger than 0.5 or 0.25. The horizontal line which characterize radial flow regime is also bigger 0.5. The smaller the oil rate, the more severely flow regimes were distorted. Well rate mainly determines the distortion of MPI curves, while fracture length, well spacing, fracture spacing mainly determine when the distortion of the MPI curves occurs. The bigger the well rate, the more severely the MPI curves are distorted. While as the well spacing decreases, fracture length increases, fracture spacing increases, occurrence of MWPI become earlier. Stress sensitivity coefficient mainly affects the MPI at the formation pseudo-radial flow stage, almost has no influence on the occurrence of MWPI. This work gains some

Characterization of Sendai virus persistently infected L929 cells and Sendai virus pi strain: recombinant Sendai viruses having Mpi protein shows lower cytotoxicity and are incapable of establishing persistent infection

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Nishio, Machiko; Tsurudome, Masato; Ito, Morihiro; Kawano, Mitsuo; Komada, Hiroshi; Ito, Yasuhiko

2003-01-01

It is commonly accepted that the temperature-sensitive phenotype of Sendai virus (SeV) persistently infected cells is caused by the M and/or HN proteins. Expression level of the L, M, HN, and V proteins is extremely low in L929 cells persistently infected with SeVpi (L929/SeVpi cells) incubated at 38 deg. C. The HN protein quickly disappears in L929/SeVpi cells following a temperature shift up to 38 deg. C, and pulse-chase experiments show that the Lpi, HNpi, and Mpi proteins are unstable at 38 deg. C. Following a temperature shift either upward or downward, M protein is translocated into the nucleus and then localizes to the perinuclear region. None of virus-specific polypeptides are detected in the cells primarily infected with SeVpi and incubated at 38 deg. C and virus proteins are not pulse-labeled at 38 deg. C, indicating that temperature-sensitive step is at an early stage of infection. The Mpi protein is transiently located in the nucleus of the SeVpi primarily infected cells. Recombinant SeVs possessing the HNpi or/and Mpi proteins are not temperature-sensitive. The HN protein is expressed at very low levels and the F protein localizes to the perinuclear region in rSeV(Mpi)-infected cells incubated at 38 deg. C for 18 h. rSeVs having the Mpi protein exhibit lower cytotoxicity and are incapable of establishing persistent infection. Amino acid 116 of the Mpi protein is related to the nuclear translocation and lower cytopathogenesis, whereas aa183 is involved in the interaction between M protein and viral glycoproteins

Prognostic and predictive factors in colorectal cancer.

Science.gov (United States)

Bolocan, A; Ion, D; Ciocan, D N; Paduraru, D N

2012-01-01

Colorectal cancer (CRC) is an important public health problem; it is a leading cause of cancer mortality in the industrialized world, second to lung cancer: each year there are nearly one million new cases of CRC diagnosed worldwide and half a million deaths (1). This review aims to summarise the most important currently available markers for CRC that provide prognostic or predictive information. Amongst others, it covers serum markers such as CEA and CA19-9, markers expressed by tumour tissues, such as thymidylate synthase, and also the expression/loss of expression of certain oncogenes and tumour suppressor genes such as K-ras and p53. The prognostic value of genomic instability, angiogenesis and proliferative indices, such as the apoptotic index, are discussed. The advent of new therapies created the pathway for a personalized approach of the patient. This will take into consideration the complex genetic mechanisms involved in tumorigenesis, besides the classical clinical and pathological stagings. The growing number of therapeutic agents and known molecular targets in oncology lead to a compulsory study of the clinical use of biomarkers with role in improving response and survival, as well as in reducing toxicity and establishing economic stability. The potential predictive and prognostic biomarkers which have arisen from the study of the genetic basis of colorectal cancer and their therapeutical significance are discussed. RevistaChirurgia.

Generation and validation of a prognostic score to predict outcome after re-irradiation of recurrent glioma

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Combs, Stephanie E.; Welzel, Thomas; Debus, Juergen; Edler, Lutz; Rausch, Renate; Wick, Wolfgang

2013-01-01

Re-irradiation using high-precision radiation techniques has been established within the clinical routine for patients with recurrent gliomas. In the present work, we developed a practical prognostic score to predict survival outcome after re-irradiation. Patients and methods. Fractionated stereotactic radiotherapy (FSRT) was applied in 233 patients. Primary histology included glioblastoma (n = 89; 38%), WHO Grade III gliomas (n = 52; 22%) and low-grade glioma (n = 92; 40%). FSRT was applied with a median dose of 36 Gy in 2 Gy single fractions. We evaluated survival after re-irradiation as well as progression-free survival after re-irradiation; prognostic factors analyzed included age, tumor volume at re-irradiation, histology, time between initial radiotherapy and re-irradiation, age and Karnofsky Performance Score. Results. Median survival after FSRT was 8 months for glioblastoma, 20 months for anaplastic gliomas, and 24 months for recurrent low-grade patients. The strongest prognostic factors significantly impacting survival after re-irradiation were histology (p 12 months (p < 0.0001). We generated a four-class prognostic score to distinguish patients with excellent (0 points), good (1 point), moderate (2 points) and poor (3-4 points) survival after re-irradiation. The difference in outcome was highly significant (p < 0.0001). Conclusion. We generated a practical prognostic score index based on three clinically relevant factors to predict the benefit of patients from re-irradiation. This score index can be helpful in patient counseling, and for the design of further clinical trials. However, individual treatment decisions may include other patient-related factors not directly influencing outcome.

[Clinical significance of prognostic nutritional index in patients with advanced gastric cancer].

Science.gov (United States)

Song, Shubin; Liu, Honggang; Xue, Yingwei

2018-02-25

To investigate the relationship of prognostic nutritional index (PNI) with clinicopathological factors and the clinical significance of PNI in predicting the survival in patients with advanced gastric cancer. Clinicopathological and follow-up data of 1150 patients with advanced gastric cancer who underwent radical gastrectomy from January 2007 to December 2010 at the Department of Gastrointestinal Surgery, Harbin Medical University Cancer Hospital were analyzed retrospectively. The PNI value was calculated [PNI=absolute value of lymphocyte(10 9 /L)×5 + serum albumin (g/L)] and was grouped according to the mean value of PNI. Relationships of PNI with gender, age, tumor size, depth of invasion, tumor differentiation, tumor stage, tumor location, lymph node metastasis and tumor marker detection level were analyzed. At the same time, for the survival analysis of patients, log-rank method was used for univariate analysis, and Cox method was used for multivariate analysis. Of 1150 cases, 846 were males and 304 were females with an average age of 62 (24 to 88) years. The average maximum diameter of tumor was 5.4(1.0 to 20.0) cm. Tumor of 159 cases located in the gastric fundus, 221 cases in the gastric body, 705 cases in the gastric antrum and 65 cases in the whole stomach. Well differentiated tumors were found in 198 cases and poorly differentiated tumors in 952 cases. As for depth of tumor invasion, 165 cases were T2, 343 cases were T3 and 642 cases were T4. According to TNM stage, 53 cases were stage I(, 397 cases were stage II( and 700 cases were stage III(. The average lymph node metastasis rate was 25.0%, meanwhile lymph node metastasis was N0 in 296 cases, N1 in 246 cases, N2 in 277 cases and N3 in 331 cases. Blood examination showed hemoglobin ≤130 g/L in 544 cases and >130 g/L in 606 cases; carcinoembryonic antigen ≤5 μg/L in 903 cases and >5 μg /L in 247 cases; carbohydrate antigen 19-9 ≤37 kU/L in 927 cases and >37 kU/L in 223 cases. In whole patients

A comparison of the prognostic value of preoperative inflammation-based scores and TNM stage in patients with gastric cancer

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Pan QX

2015-06-01

Full Text Available Qun-Xiong Pan,* Zi-Jian Su,* Jian-Hua Zhang, Chong-Ren Wang, Shao-Ying KeDepartment of Oncosurgery, Quanzhou First Affiliated Hospital of Fujian Medical University, Quanzhou, Fujian, People’s Republic of China*These authors contributed equally to this workBackground: People’s Republic of China is one of the countries with the highest incidence of gastric cancer, accounting for 45% of all new gastric cancer cases in the world. Therefore, strong prognostic markers are critical for the diagnosis and survival of Chinese patients suffering from gastric cancer. Recent studies have begun to unravel the mechanisms linking the host inflammatory response to tumor growth, invasion and metastasis in gastric cancers. Based on this relationship between inflammation and cancer progression, several inflammation-based scores have been demonstrated to have prognostic value in many types of malignant solid tumors.Objective: To compare the prognostic value of inflammation-based prognostic scores and tumor node metastasis (TNM stage in patients undergoing gastric cancer resection.Methods: The inflammation-based prognostic scores were calculated for 207 patients with gastric cancer who underwent surgery. Glasgow prognostic score (GPS, neutrophil lymphocyte ratio (NLR, platelet lymphocyte ratio (PLR, prognostic nutritional index (PNI, and prognostic index (PI were analyzed. Linear trend chi-square test, likelihood ratio chi-square test, and receiver operating characteristic were performed to compare the prognostic value of the selected scores and TNM stage.Results: In univariate analysis, preoperative serum C-reactive protein (P<0.001, serum albumin (P<0.001, GPS (P<0.001, PLR (P=0.002, NLR (P<0.001, PI (P<0.001, PNI (P<0.001, and TNM stage (P<0.001 were significantly associated with both overall survival and disease-free survival of patients with gastric cancer. In multivariate analysis, GPS (P=0.024, NLR (P=0.012, PI (P=0.001, TNM stage (P<0.001, and degree of

Heterogeneity of (18)F-FDG PET combined with expression of EGFR may improve the prognostic stratification of advanced oropharyngeal carcinoma.

Science.gov (United States)

Wang, Hung-Ming; Cheng, Nai-Ming; Lee, Li-Yu; Fang, Yu-Hua Dean; Chang, Joseph Tung-Chieh; Tsan, Din-Li; Ng, Shu-Hang; Liao, Chun-Ta; Yang, Lan-Yan; Yen, Tzu-Chen

2016-02-01

The Ang's risk profile (based on p16, smoking and cancer stage) is a well-known prognostic factor in oropharyngeal squamous cell carcinoma (OPSCC). Whether heterogeneity in (18)F-fluorodeoxyglucose (FDG) positron emission tomographic (PET) images and epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) expression could provide additional information on clinical outcomes in advanced-stage OPSCC was investigated. Patients with stage III-IV OPSCC who completed primary therapy were eligible. Zone-size nonuniformity (ZSNU) extracted from pretreatment FDG PET scans was used as an index of image heterogeneity. EGFR and p16 expression were examined by immunohistochemistry. Disease-specific survival (DSS) and overall survival (OS) served as outcome measures. Kaplan-Meier estimates and Cox proportional hazards regression models were used for survival analysis. A bootstrap resampling technique was applied to investigate the stability of outcomes. Finally, a recursive partitioning analysis (RPA)-based model was constructed. A total of 113 patients were included, of which 28 were p16-positive. Multivariate analysis identified the Ang's profile, EGFR and ZSNU as independent predictors of both DSS and OS. Using RPA, the three risk factors were used to devise a prognostic scoring system that successfully predicted DSS in both p16-positive and -negative cases. The c-statistic of the prognostic index for DSS was 0.81, a value which was significantly superior to both AJCC stage (0.60) and the Ang's risk profile (0.68). In patients showing an Ang's high-risk profile (N = 77), the use of our scoring system clearly identified three distinct prognostic subgroups. It was concluded that a novel index may improve the prognostic stratification of patients with advanced-stage OPSCC. © 2015 UICC.

Coupling Computer Codes for The Analysis of Severe Accident Using A Pseudo Shared Memory Based on MPI

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Cho, Young Chul; Park, Chang-Hwan; Kim, Dong-Min

2016-01-01

As there are four codes in-vessel analysis code (CSPACE), ex-vessel analysis code (SACAP), corium behavior analysis code (COMPASS), and fission product behavior analysis code, for the analysis of severe accident, it is complex to implement the coupling of codes with the similar methodologies for RELAP and CONTEMPT or SPACE and CAP. Because of that, an efficient coupling so called Pseudo shared memory architecture was introduced. In this paper, coupling methodologies will be compared and the methodology used for the analysis of severe accident will be discussed in detail. The barrier between in-vessel and ex-vessel has been removed for the analysis of severe accidents with the implementation of coupling computer codes with pseudo shared memory architecture based on MPI. The remaining are proper choice and checking of variables and values for the selected severe accident scenarios, e.g., TMI accident. Even though it is possible to couple more than two computer codes with pseudo shared memory architecture, the methodology should be revised to couple parallel codes especially when they are programmed using MPI

Coupling Computer Codes for The Analysis of Severe Accident Using A Pseudo Shared Memory Based on MPI

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Cho, Young Chul; Park, Chang-Hwan; Kim, Dong-Min [FNC Technology Co., Yongin (Korea, Republic of)

2016-10-15

As there are four codes in-vessel analysis code (CSPACE), ex-vessel analysis code (SACAP), corium behavior analysis code (COMPASS), and fission product behavior analysis code, for the analysis of severe accident, it is complex to implement the coupling of codes with the similar methodologies for RELAP and CONTEMPT or SPACE and CAP. Because of that, an efficient coupling so called Pseudo shared memory architecture was introduced. In this paper, coupling methodologies will be compared and the methodology used for the analysis of severe accident will be discussed in detail. The barrier between in-vessel and ex-vessel has been removed for the analysis of severe accidents with the implementation of coupling computer codes with pseudo shared memory architecture based on MPI. The remaining are proper choice and checking of variables and values for the selected severe accident scenarios, e.g., TMI accident. Even though it is possible to couple more than two computer codes with pseudo shared memory architecture, the methodology should be revised to couple parallel codes especially when they are programmed using MPI.

Surface Prognostic Charts

Data.gov (United States)

National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Department of Commerce — Surface Prognostic Charts are historical surface prognostic (forecast) charts created by the United States Weather Bureau. They include fronts, isobars, cloud, and...

Systematic review of prognostic factors predicting outcome in non-surgically treated patients with sciatica.

Science.gov (United States)

Verwoerd, A J H; Luijsterburg, P A J; Lin, C W C; Jacobs, W C H; Koes, B W; Verhagen, A P

2013-09-01

Identification of prognostic factors for surgery in patients with sciatica is important to be able to predict surgery in an early stage. Identification of prognostic factors predicting persistent pain, disability and recovery are important for better understanding of the clinical course, to inform patient and physician and support decision making. Consequently, we aimed to systematically review prognostic factors predicting outcome in non-surgically treated patients with sciatica. A search of Medline, Embase, Web of Science and Cinahl, up to March 2012 was performed for prospective cohort studies on prognostic factors for non-surgically treated sciatica. Two reviewers independently selected studies for inclusion and assessed the risk of bias. Outcomes were pain, disability, recovery and surgery. A best evidence synthesis was carried out in order to assess and summarize the data. The initial search yielded 4392 articles of which 23 articles reporting on 14 original cohorts met the inclusion criteria. High clinical, methodological and statistical heterogeneity among studies was found. Reported evidence regarding prognostic factors predicting the outcome in sciatica is limited. The majority of factors that have been evaluated, e.g., age, body mass index, smoking and sensory disturbance, showed no association with outcome. The only positive association with strong evidence was found for leg pain intensity at baseline as prognostic factor for subsequent surgery. © 2013 European Federation of International Association for the Study of Pain Chapters.

Prognostic radiographic aspects of spondylolisthesis

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Saraste, H.; Brostroem, L.A.; Aparisi, T.

1984-01-01

A series of 202 patients (133 men, 69 women) with lumbar spondylolysis were examined radiographically on two occasions, first at the time of diagnosis and later at a follow-up, after an observation period of 20 years or more. The films frompatients in groups without and with moderate and severe olisthesis were evaluated with respect to variables describing lumbosacral lordosis, wedging of the spondylolytic vertebra, lengths of the transverse processes and iliolumbar ligaments, disk height, progression of slipping, and influence on measured olisthesis of lumbar spine flexion and extension at the radiographic examination. The evaluation was made with special attention to possible signs which could be predictive for the prognosis of vertebral slipping. Progression of slipping did not differ between patients diagnosed as adults or adolescents. Reduction of disk height was correlated to the degree of slipping present at the initial examination and to the progression of olisthesis. Flexion and extension of the lumbar spine did not modify the degree of olisthesis. Data concerning the lengths of the transverse processes and the iliolumbar ligaments, and lumbar lordosis, cannot be used for prognostic purposes. The lumbar index reflecting the degree of wedge deformity of the spondylolytic vertebra was shown to be the only variable of prognostic value for the development of vertebral slipping. (orig.)

Prognostic radiographic aspects of spondylolisthesis

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Saraste, H; Brostroem, L A; Aparisi, T

1984-01-01

A series of 202 patients (133 men, 69 women) with lumbar spondylolysis were examined radiographically on two occasions, first at the time of diagnosis and later at a follow-up, after an observation period of 20 years or more. The films from patients in groups without and with moderate and severe olisthesis were evaluated with respect to variables describing lumbosacral lordosis, wedging of the spondylolytic vertebra, lengths of the transverse processes and iliolumbar ligaments, disk height, progression of slipping, and influence on measured olisthesis of lumbar spine flexion and extension at the radiographic examination. The evaluation was made with special attention to possible signs which could be predictive for the prognosis of vertebral slipping. Progression of slipping did not differ between patients diagnosed as adults or adolescents. Reduction of disk height was correlated to the degree of slipping present at the initial examination and to the progression of olisthesis. Flexion and extension of the lumbar spine did not modify the degree of olisthesis. Data concerning the lengths of the transverse processes and the iliolumbar ligaments, and lumbar lordosis, cannot be used for prognostic purposes. The lumbar index reflecting the degree of wedge deformity of the spondylolytic vertebra was shown to be the only variable of prognostic value for the development of vertebral slipping.

An approach to computing discrete adjoints for MPI-parallelized models applied to Ice Sheet System Model 4.11

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

E. Larour

2016-11-01

Full Text Available Within the framework of sea-level rise projections, there is a strong need for hindcast validation of the evolution of polar ice sheets in a way that tightly matches observational records (from radar, gravity, and altimetry observations mainly. However, the computational requirements for making hindcast reconstructions possible are severe and rely mainly on the evaluation of the adjoint state of transient ice-flow models. Here, we look at the computation of adjoints in the context of the NASA/JPL/UCI Ice Sheet System Model (ISSM, written in C++ and designed for parallel execution with MPI. We present the adaptations required in the way the software is designed and written, but also generic adaptations in the tools facilitating the adjoint computations. We concentrate on the use of operator overloading coupled with the AdjoinableMPI library to achieve the adjoint computation of the ISSM. We present a comprehensive approach to (1 carry out type changing through the ISSM, hence facilitating operator overloading, (2 bind to external solvers such as MUMPS and GSL-LU, and (3 handle MPI-based parallelism to scale the capability. We demonstrate the success of the approach by computing sensitivities of hindcast metrics such as the misfit to observed records of surface altimetry on the northeastern Greenland Ice Stream, or the misfit to observed records of surface velocities on Upernavik Glacier, central West Greenland. We also provide metrics for the scalability of the approach, and the expected performance. This approach has the potential to enable a new generation of hindcast-validated projections that make full use of the wealth of datasets currently being collected, or already collected, in Greenland and Antarctica.

Generation and validation of a prognostic score to predict outcome after re-irradiation of recurrent glioma

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Combs, Stephanie E.; Welzel, Thomas; Debus, Juergen [Univ. Hospital of Heidelberg, Dept. of Radiation Oncology, Heidelberg (Germany)], E-mail: Stephanie.combs@med.uni-heidelberg.de; Edler, Lutz; Rausch, Renate [German Cancer Research Center (dkfz), Dept. of Biostatistics, Heidelberg (Germany); Wick, Wolfgang [Univ. Hospital of Heidelberg, Dept. of Neurooncology, Heidelberg (Germany)

2013-01-15

Re-irradiation using high-precision radiation techniques has been established within the clinical routine for patients with recurrent gliomas. In the present work, we developed a practical prognostic score to predict survival outcome after re-irradiation. Patients and methods. Fractionated stereotactic radiotherapy (FSRT) was applied in 233 patients. Primary histology included glioblastoma (n = 89; 38%), WHO Grade III gliomas (n = 52; 22%) and low-grade glioma (n = 92; 40%). FSRT was applied with a median dose of 36 Gy in 2 Gy single fractions. We evaluated survival after re-irradiation as well as progression-free survival after re-irradiation; prognostic factors analyzed included age, tumor volume at re-irradiation, histology, time between initial radiotherapy and re-irradiation, age and Karnofsky Performance Score. Results. Median survival after FSRT was 8 months for glioblastoma, 20 months for anaplastic gliomas, and 24 months for recurrent low-grade patients. The strongest prognostic factors significantly impacting survival after re-irradiation were histology (p <0.0001) and age (<50 vs. ={>=}50, p < 0.0001) at diagnosis and the time between initial radiotherapy and re-irradiation {<=}12 vs. >12 months (p < 0.0001). We generated a four-class prognostic score to distinguish patients with excellent (0 points), good (1 point), moderate (2 points) and poor (3-4 points) survival after re-irradiation. The difference in outcome was highly significant (p < 0.0001). Conclusion. We generated a practical prognostic score index based on three clinically relevant factors to predict the benefit of patients from re-irradiation. This score index can be helpful in patient counseling, and for the design of further clinical trials. However, individual treatment decisions may include other patient-related factors not directly influencing outcome.

Low Preoperative Prognostic Nutritional Index Predicts Poor Survival Post-gastrectomy in Elderly Patients with Gastric Cancer.

Science.gov (United States)

Sakurai, Katsunobu; Tamura, Tatsuro; Toyokawa, Takahiro; Amano, Ryosuke; Kubo, Naoshi; Tanaka, Hiroaki; Muguruma, Kazuya; Yashiro, Masakazu; Maeda, Kiyoshi; Ohira, Masaichi; Hirakawa, Kosei

2016-10-01

Preoperative nutritional status may predict short- and long-term outcomes of patients with cancer. The aim of this study was to clarify the impact of preoperative nutritional status on outcomes of elderly patients who have undergone gastrectomy for gastric cancer (GC). A review examining 147 patients treated for GC by gastrectomy at our institution between January 2004 and December 2011 was conducted. Onodera's prognostic nutritional index (PNI) was invoked, using an optimal cutpoint to stratify patients by high (PNI > 43.8; n = 84) or low (PNI ≤ 43.8; n = 63) nutritional status. Clinicopathologic features and short- and long-term outcomes, including the cause of death, were compared. In multivariate analysis, low PNI was identified as an independent correlate of poor 5-year overall survival (OS). In subgroup analysis, 5-year OS rates for patients with stage 1 GC were significantly worse in the low PNI (vs. high PNI) patient subset, which also posed a significantly higher risk of death from other disease; however, 5-year cancer-specific survival and PNI were unrelated. Deaths from recurrence in both groups were statistically similar, and morbidity rates did not differ significantly by group. PNI is useful in predicting long-term outcomes of elderly patients surgically treated for GC, helping to identify those at high risk of death from other disease. In an effort to improve patient outcomes, nutritional status and oncologic staging merit attention.

Prognostics 101: A tutorial for particle filter-based prognostics algorithm using Matlab

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

An, Dawn; Choi, Joo-Ho; Kim, Nam Ho

2013-01-01

This paper presents a Matlab-based tutorial for model-based prognostics, which combines a physical model with observed data to identify model parameters, from which the remaining useful life (RUL) can be predicted. Among many model-based prognostics algorithms, the particle filter is used in this tutorial for parameter estimation of damage or a degradation model. The tutorial is presented using a Matlab script with 62 lines, including detailed explanations. As examples, a battery degradation model and a crack growth model are used to explain the updating process of model parameters, damage progression, and RUL prediction. In order to illustrate the results, the RUL at an arbitrary cycle are predicted in the form of distribution along with the median and 90% prediction interval. This tutorial will be helpful for the beginners in prognostics to understand and use the prognostics method, and we hope it provides a standard of particle filter based prognostics. -- Highlights: ► Matlab-based tutorial for model-based prognostics is presented. ► A battery degradation model and a crack growth model are used as examples. ► The RUL at an arbitrary cycle are predicted using the particle filter

Acute lymphoblastic leukemia in children and adolescents: prognostic factors and analysis of survival

Science.gov (United States)

Lustosa de Sousa, Daniel Willian; de Almeida Ferreira, Francisco Valdeci; Cavalcante Félix, Francisco Helder; de Oliveira Lopes, Marcos Vinicios

2015-01-01

Objective To describe the clinical and laboratory features of children and adolescents with acute lymphoblastic leukemia treated at three referral centers in Ceará and evaluate prognostic factors for survival, including age, gender, presenting white blood cell count, immunophenotype, DNA index and early response to treatment. Methods Seventy-six under 19-year-old patients with newly diagnosed acute lymphoblastic leukemia treated with the Grupo Brasileiro de Tratamento de Leucemia da Infância – acute lymphoblastic leukemia-93 and -99 protocols between September 2007 and December 2009 were analyzed. The diagnosis was based on cytological, immunophenotypic and cytogenetic criteria. Associations between variables, prognostic factors and response to treatment were analyzed using the chi-square test and Fisher's exact test. Overall and event-free survival were estimated by Kaplan–Meier analysis and compared using the log-rank test. A Cox proportional hazards model was used to identify independent prognostic factors. Results The average age at diagnosis was 6.3 ± 0.5 years and males were predominant (65%). The most frequently observed clinical features were hepatomegaly, splenomegaly and lymphadenopathy. Central nervous system involvement and mediastinal enlargement occurred in 6.6% and 11.8%, respectively. B-acute lymphoblastic leukemia was more common (89.5%) than T-acute lymphoblastic leukemia. A DNA index >1.16 was found in 19% of patients and was associated with favorable prognosis. On Day 8 of induction therapy, 95% of the patients had lymphoblast counts <1000/μL and white blood cell counts <5.0 × 109/L. The remission induction rate was 95%, the induction mortality rate was 2.6% and overall survival was 72%. Conclusion The prognostic factors identified are compatible with the literature. The 5-year overall and event-free survival rates were lower than those reported for developed countries. As shown by the multivariate analysis, age and baseline white

Acute lymphoblastic leukemia in children and adolescents: prognostic factors and analysis of survival

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Daniel Willian Lustosa de Sousa

2015-08-01

Full Text Available OBJECTIVE: To describe the clinical and laboratory features of children and adolescents with acute lymphoblastic leukemia treated at three referral centers in Ceará and evaluate prognostic factors for survival, including age, gender, presenting white blood cell count, immunophenotype, DNA index and early response to treatment.METHODS: Seventy-six under 19-year-old patients with newly diagnosed acute lymphoblastic leukemia treated with the Grupo Brasileiro de Tratamento de Leucemia da Infância - acute lymphoblastic leukemia-93 and -99 protocols between September 2007 and December 2009 were analyzed. The diagnosis was based on cytological, immunophenotypic and cytogenetic criteria. Associations between variables, prognostic factors and response to treatment were analyzed using the chi-square test and Fisher's exact test. Overall and event-free survival were estimated by Kaplan-Meier analysis and compared using the log-rank test. A Cox proportional hazards model was used to identify independent prognostic factors.RESULTS: The average age at diagnosis was 6.3 ± 0.5 years and males were predominant (65%. The most frequently observed clinical features were hepatomegaly, splenomegaly and lymphadenopathy. Central nervous system involvement and mediastinal enlargement occurred in 6.6% and 11.8%, respectively. B-acute lymphoblastic leukemia was more common (89.5% than T-acute lymphoblastic leukemia. A DNA index >1.16 was found in 19% of patients and was associated with favorable prognosis. On Day 8 of induction therapy, 95% of the patients had lymphoblast counts <1000/µL and white blood cell counts <5.0 Ã- 109/L. The remission induction rate was 95%, the induction mortality rate was 2.6% and overall survival was 72%.CONCLUSION: The prognostic factors identified are compatible with the literature. The 5-year overall and event-free survival rates were lower than those reported for developed countries. As shown by the multivariate analysis, age

How to stir a revolution as a reluctant rebel: Rudolf Trümpy in the Alps

Science.gov (United States)

Şengör, A. M. Celâl; Bernoulli, Daniel

2011-07-01

Rudolf Trümpy (1921-2009) was one of the great Alpine geologists of the twentieth century and an influential figure in the international geological community. He played a dominant role in the change of opinion concerning the Alpine evolution by showing that normal faulting dominated the early development of the Alpine realm from the Triassic to the early Cretaceous. This provided a convenient model for later plate-tectonic interpretations of collisional mountain belts. His further recognition of strike-slip faulting during all stages of the Alpine evolution presaged the realisation that the Alps were not built by a simple open-and-shut mechanism. Trümpy was educated during an intellectual lull, a time when simplistic models of the earth behaviour inherited from the middle of the nineteenth century became prevalent under the influence of a close-minded, positivist approach to geological problems. This period, which we term the Dark Intermezzo, lasted from about 1925 to 1965. The grand syntheses of Suess and Argand which preceded this period were viewed from this narrow angle and consequently misunderstood. It was thought that earth history was punctuated by global orogenic events of short duration taking place within and among continents and oceans whose relative positions had remained fixed since the origin of the planet. These views, summarised under the term `fixism', were developed when the ocean floors were almost totally unknown. When data began coming in from the post World War II oceanographic surveys, the world geological community was slow to receive and digest them. Trümpy followed these developments closely, realising that his work was important in placing the geology of the mountain belts within the emerging, new theoretical framework. He adopted the position of a critic and emphasised where detailed knowledge of the Alps, unquestionably the best known mountain belt in the world, supported and where it contradicted the new ideas. His voice was

Prognostic impact of sarcopenia in patients with diffuse large B-cell lymphoma treated with rituximab plus cyclophosphamide, doxorubicin, vincristine, and prednisone.

Science.gov (United States)

Go, Se-Il; Park, Mi Jung; Song, Haa-Na; Kim, Hoon-Gu; Kang, Myoung Hee; Lee, Hyang Rae; Kim, Yire; Kim, Rock Bum; Lee, Soon Il; Lee, Gyeong-Won

2016-12-01

Sarcopenia is known to be related to an increased risk of chemotherapy toxicity and to a poor prognosis in patients with malignancy. We assessed the prognostic role of sarcopenia in patients with diffuse large B-cell lymphoma (DLBCL). In total, 187 consecutive patients with DLBCL treated with induction rituximab, cyclophosphamide, doxorubicin, vincristine, and prednisolone (R-CHOP) immunochemotherapy were reviewed. Sarcopenia was defined as the lowest sex-specific quartile of the skeletal muscle index, calculated by dividing the pectoralis muscle area by the height. Clinical outcomes were compared between the sarcopenic and non-sarcopenic groups. A nomogram was constructed from the Cox regression model for overall survival (OS). Treatment-related mortality (21.7 vs. 5.0%, P  = 0.002) and early discontinuation of treatment (32.6 vs. 14.9%, P  = 0.008) were more common in the sarcopenic group than in the non-sarcopenic group. The 5 year progression-free survival (PFS) rates were 35.3% in the sarcopenic group and 65.8% in the non-sarcopenic group ( P  Sarcopenia and the five variables of the International Prognostic Index (IPI) were independent prognostic factors in a multivariate analysis for PFS and OS and were used to construct the nomogram. The calibration plot showed good agreement between the nomogram predictions and actual observations. The c index of the nomogram (0.80) was higher than those of other prognostic indices (IPI, 0.77, P  = 0.009; revised-IPI, 0.74, P  Sarcopenia is associated with intolerance to standard R-CHOP chemotherapy as well as a poor prognosis. Moreover, sarcopenia itself can be included in prognostic models in DLBCL.

McMPI – a managed-code message passing interface library for high performance communication in C#

OpenAIRE

Holmes, Daniel John

2012-01-01

This work endeavours to achieve technology transfer between established best-practice in academic high-performance computing and current techniques in commercial high-productivity computing. It shows that a credible high-performance message-passing communication library, with semantics and syntax following the Message-Passing Interface (MPI) Standard, can be built in pure C# (one of the .Net suite of computer languages). Message-passing has been the dominant paradigm in high-pe...

Using the geometric mean fluorescence intensity index method to measure ZAP-70 expression in patients with chronic lymphocytic leukemia.

Science.gov (United States)

Wu, Yu-Jie; Wang, Hui; Liang, Jian-Hua; Miao, Yi; Liu, Lu; Qiu, Hai-Rong; Qiao, Chun; Wang, Rong; Li, Jian-Yong

2016-01-01

Expression of ζ-chain-associated protein kinase 70 kDa (ZAP-70) in chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL) is associated with more aggressive disease and can help differentiate CLL from cases expressing mutated or unmutated immunoglobulin heavy chain variable region (IgHV) genes. However, standardizing ZAP-70 expression by flow cytometric analysis has proved unsatisfactory. The key point is that ZAP-70 is weakly expressed with a continuous expression pattern rather than a clear discrimination between positive and negative CLL cells, which means that the resulting judgment is subjective. Thus, in this study, we aimed at assessing the reliability and repeatability of ZAP-70 expression using the geometric mean fluorescence intensity (geo MFI) index method based on flow cytometry with 256-channel resolution in a series of 402 CLL patients and to compare ZAP-70 with other biological and clinical prognosticators. According to IgHV mutational status, we were able to confirm that the optimal cut-off point for the geo MFI index was 3.5 in the test set. In multivariate analyses that included the major clinical and biological prognostic markers for CLL, the prognostic impact of ZAP-70 expression appeared to have stronger discriminatory power when the geo MFI index method was applied. In addition, we found that ZAP-70-positive patients according to the geo MFI index method had shorter time to first treatment or overall survival (P=0.0002, P=0.0491). This is the first report showing that ZAP-70 expression can be evaluated by a new approach, the geo MFI index, which could be a useful prognostic method as it is more reliable, less subjective, and therefore better associated with improvement of CLL prognostication and prediction of clinical course.

The Prognostic Influence of BRAF Mutation and other Molecular, Clinical and Laboratory Parameters in Stage IV Colorectal Cancer.

Science.gov (United States)

Karadima, Maria L; Saetta, Angelica A; Chatziandreou, Ilenia; Lazaris, Andreas C; Patsouris, Efstratios; Tsavaris, Nikolaos

2016-10-01

Our aim was to evaluate the predictive and prognostic influence of BRAF mutation and other molecular, clinical and laboratory parameters in stage IV colorectal cancer (CRC). 60 patients were included in this retrospective analysis, and 17 variables were examined for their relation with treatment response and survival. KRAS mutation was identified in 40.3 % of cases, BRAF and PIK3CA in 8.8 % and 10.5 % respectively. 29.8 % of patients responded to treatment. Median survival time was 14.3 months. Weight loss, fever, abdominal metastases, blood transfusion, hypoalbuminaimia, BRAF and PIK3CA mutations, CRP and DNA Index were associated with survival. In multivariate analysis, male patients had 3.8 times higher probability of response, increased DNA Index was inversely correlated with response and one unit raise of DNA Index augmented 6 times the probability of death. Our findings potentiate the prognostic role of BRAF, PIK3CA mutations and ploidy in advanced CRC.

A Novel Prognostic Score, Based on Preoperative Nutritional Status, Predicts Outcomes of Patients after Curative Resection for Gastric Cancer.

Science.gov (United States)

Liu, Xuechao; Qiu, Haibo; Liu, Jianjun; Chen, Shangxiang; Xu, Dazhi; Li, Wei; Zhan, Youqing; Li, Yuanfang; Chen, Yingbo; Zhou, Zhiwei; Sun, Xiaowei

2016-01-01

PURPOSE: We aimed to determine whether preoperative nutritional status (PNS) was a valuable predictor of outcome in patients with gastric cancer (GC). METHODS: We retrospectively evaluated 1320 patients with GC undergoing curative resection. The PNS score was constructed based on four objective and easily measurable criteria: prognostic nutritional index (PNI) score 1, serum albumin nutritional-based prognostic score, is independently associated with OS in GC. Prospective studies are needed to validate its clinical utility.

MCT4 surpasses the prognostic relevance of the ancillary protein CD147 in clear cell renal cell carcinoma.

Science.gov (United States)

Fisel, Pascale; Stühler, Viktoria; Bedke, Jens; Winter, Stefan; Rausch, Steffen; Hennenlotter, Jörg; Nies, Anne T; Stenzl, Arnulf; Scharpf, Marcus; Fend, Falko; Kruck, Stephan; Schwab, Matthias; Schaeffeler, Elke

2015-10-13

Cluster of differentiation 147 (CD147/BSG) is a transmembrane glycoprotein mediating oncogenic processes partly through its role as binding partner for monocarboxylate transporter MCT4/SLC16A3. As demonstrated for MCT4, CD147 is proposed to be associated with progression in clear cell renal cell carcinoma (ccRCC). In this study, we evaluated the prognostic relevance of CD147 in comparison to MCT4/SLC16A3 expression and DNA methylation. CD147 protein expression was assessed in two independent ccRCC-cohorts (n = 186, n = 59) by immunohistochemical staining of tissue microarrays and subsequent manual as well as automated software-supported scoring (Tissue Studio, Definien sAG). Epigenetic regulation of CD147 was investigated using RNAseq and DNA methylation data of The Cancer Genome Atlas. These results were validated in our cohort. Relevance of prognostic models for cancer-specific survival, comprising CD147 and MCT4 expression or SLC16A3 DNA methylation, was compared using chi-square statistics. CD147 protein expression generated with Tissue Studio correlated significantly with those from manual scoring (P CD147 in ccRCC. Association of CD147 expression with patient outcome differed between cohorts. DNA methylation in the CD147/BSG promoter was not associated with expression. Comparison of prognostic relevance of CD147/BSG and MCT4/SLC16A3, showed higher significance for MCT4 expression and superior prognostic power for DNA methylation at specific CpG-sites in the SLC16A3 promoter (e.g. CD147 protein: P = 0.7780,Harrell's c-index = 53.7% vs. DNA methylation: P = 0.0076, Harrell's c-index = 80.0%). Prognostic significance of CD147 protein expression could not surpass that of MCT4, especially of SLC16A3 DNA methylation, corroborating the role of MCT4 as prognostic biomarker for ccRCC.

Prognostic significance of radionuclide-assessed right ventricular function in dilated cardiomyopathy

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Ohno, Akira; Nishimura, Tsunehiko; Uehara, Toshiisa; Shimonagata, Tsuyoshi; Kumita, Shinichiro; Ogawa, Youji; Nagata, Seiki; Miyatake, Kunio

1991-01-01

To assess the prognostic significance of right ventricular function in dilated cardiomyopathy (DCM), we studied consecutive 57 DCM patients. There were 41 men and 16 women, whose mean age was 48 years (range 3-68 years). The mean left ventricular ejection fraction (LVEF) in all patients was 29±11%, and the mean interval from the onset of symptom of cardiac failure (CHF history) was 4 years (range 0-33 years). With follow-up of 3.8 years, five patients had died until the first year, and 14 had died until the third year. By using multivariate regression analysis, there were no prognostic significance in clinical parameters such as age, CHF history, sex, atrial fibrillation, except for NYHA class, and medication at the third year. In survival curves according to Kaplan-Meier method, right ventricular ejection fraction (RVEF) and mean pulmonary artery (PA) had predictive value (p<0.05), while LVEF did not. The patients with RVEF<45% had poor survival rate compared to those with RVEF≥45%. The patients with RVEF<45% showed lower LVEF and left ventricular end-systolic volume index. RVEF may offer prognostic predictive value through the effect of not only mean PA but also left ventricular parameter. In conclusion, radionuclide assessment of right ventricular function should be valuable for the prognostic evaluation of DCM patients. (author)

Prognostic significance of radionuclide-assessed right ventricular function in dilated cardiomyopathy

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Ohno, Akira; Nishimura, Tsunehiko; Uehara, Toshiisa; Shimonagata, Tsuyoshi; Kumita, Shinichiro; Ogawa, Youji; Nagata, Seiki; Miyatake, Kunio [National Cardiovascular Center, Suita, Osaka (Japan)

1991-09-01

To assess the prognostic significance of right ventricular function in dilated cardiomyopathy (DCM), we studied consecutive 57 DCM patients. There were 41 men and 16 women, whose mean age was 48 years (range 3-68 years). The mean left ventricular ejection fraction (LVEF) in all patients was 29{+-}11%, and the mean interval from the onset of symptom of cardiac failure (CHF history) was 4 years (range 0-33 years). With follow-up of 3.8 years, five patients had died until the first year, and 14 had died until the third year. By using multivariate regression analysis, there were no prognostic significance in clinical parameters such as age, CHF history, sex, atrial fibrillation, except for NYHA class, and medication at the third year. In survival curves according to Kaplan-Meier method, right ventricular ejection fraction (RVEF) and mean pulmonary artery (PA) had predictive value (p<0.05), while LVEF did not. The patients with RVEF<45% had poor survival rate compared to those with RVEF{>=}45%. The patients with RVEF<45% showed lower LVEF and left ventricular end-systolic volume index. RVEF may offer prognostic predictive value through the effect of not only mean PA but also left ventricular parameter. In conclusion, radionuclide assessment of right ventricular function should be valuable for the prognostic evaluation of DCM patients. (author).

Performance Comparison of a Matrix Solver on a Heterogeneous Network Using Two Implementations of MPI: MPICH and LAM

Science.gov (United States)

Phillips, Jennifer K.

1995-01-01

Two of the current and most popular implementations of the Message-Passing Standard, Message Passing Interface (MPI), were contrasted: MPICH by Argonne National Laboratory, and LAM by the Ohio Supercomputer Center at Ohio State University. A parallel skyline matrix solver was adapted to be run in a heterogeneous environment using MPI. The Message-Passing Interface Forum was held in May 1994 which lead to a specification of library functions that implement the message-passing model of parallel communication. LAM, which creates it's own environment, is more robust in a highly heterogeneous network. MPICH uses the environment native to the machine architecture. While neither of these free-ware implementations provides the performance of native message-passing or vendor's implementations, MPICH begins to approach that performance on the SP-2. The machines used in this study were: IBM RS6000, 3 Sun4, SGI, and the IBM SP-2. Each machine is unique and a few machines required specific modifications during the installation. When installed correctly, both implementations worked well with only minor problems.

Use of observation followed by outpatient stress testing in chest pain patients with prior coronary artery disease history: An evaluation of prognostic utility.

Science.gov (United States)

Khalil, Yasser; Schwartz, Melvin H; Pandey, Prasant S; Abdul Latif, Maida S; Matsumura, Martin E

2015-06-01

To determine the outcomes of patients with chest pain (CP) and prior history of coronary artery disease (CAD) managed with observation followed by outpatient stress myocardial perfusion imaging (MPI). Retrospective analysis of patients with CP managed with observation followed by outpatient stress MPI, comparing cardiovascular (CV) event rates stratified by CAD history. 375 patients were included: 111 with and 264 without a CAD history. All patients underwent outpatient stress MPI within 72 h of observation. MPI identified patients at risk for CV events. However, while patients with negative MPI and without a CAD history had very low rates of short- and long-term CAD events (0.8%, 0.8%, and 1.3% at 30 days, 1 year, and 3 years, respectively), event rates of those with a negative test but a CAD history were significantly higher (2.6%, 5.3%, and 6.6% at 30 days, 1 year and 3 years, respectively; p = 0.044 and p = 0.034 compared to CAD- patients at 1 year and 3 years, respectively). In a multivariable logistic regression model, a positive MPI proved to be an independent predictor of long-term CV events in patients with CP and prior CAD. Observation followed by stress MPI can effectively risk stratify CP patients with prior CAD for CV risk. These patients are at increased risk of CV events even after a low-risk stress MPI study. Patients presenting with CP and managed with a strategy of observation followed by a negative stress MPI warrant close short- and long-term monitoring for recurrent events.

Prognostics and health management system for hydropower plant based on fog computing and docker container

Science.gov (United States)

Xiao, Jian; Zhang, Mingqiang; Tian, Haiping; Huang, Bo; Fu, Wenlong

2018-02-01

In this paper, a novel prognostics and health management system architecture for hydropower plant equipment was proposed based on fog computing and Docker container. We employed the fog node to improve the real-time processing ability of improving the cloud architecture-based prognostics and health management system and overcome the problems of long delay time, network congestion and so on. Then Storm-based stream processing of fog node was present and could calculate the health index in the edge of network. Moreover, the distributed micros-service and Docker container architecture of hydropower plants equipment prognostics and health management was also proposed. Using the micro service architecture proposed in this paper, the hydropower unit can achieve the goal of the business intercommunication and seamless integration of different equipment and different manufacturers. Finally a real application case is given in this paper.

Using the geometric mean fluorescence intensity index method to measure ZAP-70 expression in patients with chronic lymphocytic leukemia

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Wu YJ

2016-02-01

Full Text Available Yu-Jie Wu, Hui Wang, Jian-Hua Liang, Yi Miao, Lu Liu, Hai-Rong Qiu, Chun Qiao, Rong Wang, Jian-Yong Li Department of Hematology, First Affiliated Hospital of Nanjing Medical University, Jiangsu Province Hospital, Nanjing, People’s Republic of China Abstract: Expression of ζ-chain-associated protein kinase 70 kDa (ZAP-70 in chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL is associated with more aggressive disease and can help differentiate CLL from cases expressing mutated or unmutated immunoglobulin heavy chain variable region (IgHV genes. However, standardizing ZAP-70 expression by flow cytometric analysis has proved unsatisfactory. The key point is that ZAP-70 is weakly expressed with a continuous expression pattern rather than a clear discrimination between positive and negative CLL cells, which means that the resulting judgment is subjective. Thus, in this study, we aimed at assessing the reliability and repeatability of ZAP-70 expression using the geometric mean fluorescence intensity (geo MFI index method based on flow cytometry with 256-channel resolution in a series of 402 CLL patients and to compare ZAP-70 with other biological and clinical prognosticators. According to IgHV mutational status, we were able to confirm that the optimal cut-off point for the geo MFI index was 3.5 in the test set. In multivariate analyses that included the major clinical and biological prognostic markers for CLL, the prognostic impact of ZAP-70 expression appeared to have stronger discriminatory power when the geo MFI index method was applied. In addition, we found that ZAP-70-positive patients according to the geo MFI index method had shorter time to first treatment or overall survival (P=0.0002, P=0.0491. This is the first report showing that ZAP-70 expression can be evaluated by a new approach, the geo MFI index, which could be a useful prognostic method as it is more reliable, less subjective, and therefore better associated with improvement of CLL prognostication

Prognostic significance of Fas and Fas ligand system-associated apoptosis in gastric cancer.

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Ohno, S; Tachibana, M; Shibakita, M; Dhar, D K; Yoshimura, H; Kinugasa, S; Kubota, H; Masunaga, R; Nagasue, N

2000-12-01

Previous studies indicate that gastric carcinomas express Fas ligand and down-regulate Fas to escape from the host immune attack; however, the prognostic importance of Fas/FasL expression in this tumor is yet to be evaluated. Specimens from 87 gastric carcinoma patients of different stages treated in a defined period with curative intent were evaluated for apoptosis, Fas, FasL, and CD8 expression using an immunohistochemical method. The percentage of terminal deoxynucleotidyl transferase-mediated dUTP nick-end labeling (TUNEL)-positive apoptotic cells expressed as apoptotic index (AI) was higher in 43 patients when the cut-off value was set at the median value. There were no significant correlations between AI and clinicopathologic parameters. Thirty-nine patients showed a high number of CD8+ cells within cancer nests. Positive FasL and Fas expression was seen in 53 and 72 patients, respectively. CD8 and FasL expressions were related only to patients' age. Fas expression had significant correlations with tumor invasion and Lauren classification. There were significant direct correlations between AI and number of nest CD8+ cells and between AI and grade of Fas expression. Apoptotic index, pT stage, CD8 expression, and Fas expression were identified as independent prognostic factors. Spontaneous apoptosis in gastric carcinoma may be an independent prognosticator for survival and is significantly influenced by tumor Fas expression and number of nest CD8 + cells.

Prognostic factors of breast cancer

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Gonzalez Ortega, Jose Maria; Morales Wong, Mario Miguel; Lopez Cuevas, Zoraida; Diaz Valdez, Marilin

2011-01-01

The prognostic factors must to be differentiated of the predictive ones. A prognostic factor is any measurement used at moment of the surgery correlated with the free interval of disease or global survival in the absence of the systemic adjuvant treatment and as result is able to correlate with the natural history of the disease. In contrast, a predictive factor is any measurement associated with the response to a given treatment. Among the prognostic factors of the breast cancer are included the clinical, histological, biological, genetic and psychosocial factors. In present review of psychosocial prognostic factors has been demonstrated that the stress and the depression are negative prognostic factors in patients presenting with breast cancer. It is essential to remember that the assessment of just one prognostic parameter is a help but it is not useful to clinical and therapeutic management of the patient.(author)

Persistence of the prognostic importance of left ventricular systolic function and heart failure after myocardial infarction: 17-year follow-up of the TRACE register.

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Kümler, Thomas; Gislason, Gunnar Hilmar; Køber, Lars; Torp-Pedersen, Christian

2010-08-01

Left ventricular systolic function and presence of heart failure (HF) are important prognostic factors and dictate future therapeutic strategies after myocardial infarction (MI). We evaluated persistence of the prognostic importance of left ventricular dysfunction and HF in consecutive MI patients screened for entry in the Trandolopril Cardiac Evaluation Registry (TRACE) study. The study population comprised 6676 MI patients screened for entry into the TRACE study, a double-blind, randomized, parallel group, placebo-controlled study of trandolapril vs. placebo in patients with left ventricular dysfunction after MI. In unadjusted analysis, patients with reduced left ventricular function and HF continued to show increased mortality. Landmark analysis and Cox proportional-hazards models showed that wall motion index (WMI) was a significant prognostic factor until 10 years of follow-up with hazard ratios ranging between 0.74 [confidence interval (CI) 0.71-0.78] and 0.90 (CI 0.82-0.98) associated with a 12% improvement in left ventricular ejection fraction (0.4 WMI units). The prognostic significance of HF persisted for 8 years with hazard ratios between 1.47 (CI 1.21-1.78) and 2.62 (95% CI 2.30-2.98) for the first 8 years. When assessed during the index MI, WMI and HF carry prognostic information for up to 10 years.

Prognostic value and importance of surgery combined with postoperative radiotherapy for oral and oropharyngeal cancer

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Maciejewski, A.

2001-01-01

clinical data into four risk groups. Increase of TRRI+n by one point correlates with the decrease in 5-year DFS by about 3%. The TRRI+n factor has been found the most powetful and independent prognostic and predictive factor. For patients with oral cavity or pharyngeal cancer, macro- and microscopically radical surgery is an effective treatment if combined with radiotherapy, and it provides a high probability of 5-year disease free survival and decreases the risk of distant metastases. 2. Presence and semi-quantitative value of well known clinical, surgical and pathological prognostic factors can be counted as a single numerical index of local failure, according to the modified Peters scale. The TRRI+n index is the most powerful, significant and independent predictor and prognostic factor. (author)

Large Scale Frequent Pattern Mining using MPI One-Sided Model

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Vishnu, Abhinav; Agarwal, Khushbu

2015-09-08

In this paper, we propose a work-stealing runtime --- Library for Work Stealing LibWS --- using MPI one-sided model for designing scalable FP-Growth --- {\\em de facto} frequent pattern mining algorithm --- on large scale systems. LibWS provides locality efficient and highly scalable work-stealing techniques for load balancing on a variety of data distributions. We also propose a novel communication algorithm for FP-growth data exchange phase, which reduces the communication complexity from state-of-the-art O(p) to O(f + p/f) for p processes and f frequent attributed-ids. FP-Growth is implemented using LibWS and evaluated on several work distributions and support counts. An experimental evaluation of the FP-Growth on LibWS using 4096 processes on an InfiniBand Cluster demonstrates excellent efficiency for several work distributions (87\\% efficiency for Power-law and 91% for Poisson). The proposed distributed FP-Tree merging algorithm provides 38x communication speedup on 4096 cores.

Prediction of melanoma metastasis by the Shields index based on lymphatic vessel density

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Metcalfe Chris

2010-05-01

Full Text Available Abstract Background Melanoma usually presents as an initial skin lesion without evidence of metastasis. A significant proportion of patients develop subsequent local, regional or distant metastasis, sometimes many years after the initial lesion was removed. The current most effective staging method to identify early regional metastasis is sentinel lymph node biopsy (SLNB, which is invasive, not without morbidity and, while improving staging, may not improve overall survival. Lymphatic density, Breslow's thickness and the presence or absence of lymphatic invasion combined has been proposed to be a prognostic index of metastasis, by Shields et al in a patient group. Methods Here we undertook a retrospective analysis of 102 malignant melanomas from patients with more than five years follow-up to evaluate the Shields' index and compare with existing indicators. Results The Shields' index accurately predicted outcome in 90% of patients with metastases and 84% without metastases. For these, the Shields index was more predictive than thickness or lymphatic density. Alternate lymphatic measurement (hot spot analysis was also effective when combined into the Shields index in a cohort of 24 patients. Conclusions These results show the Shields index, a non-invasive analysis based on immunohistochemistry of lymphatics surrounding primary lesions that can accurately predict outcome, is a simple, useful prognostic tool in malignant melanoma.

An inflammation-based cumulative prognostic score system in patients with diffuse large B cell lymphoma in rituximab era.

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Sun, Feifei; Zhu, Jia; Lu, Suying; Zhen, Zijun; Wang, Juan; Huang, Junting; Ding, Zonghui; Zeng, Musheng; Sun, Xiaofei

2018-01-02

Systemic inflammatory parameters are associated with poor outcomes in malignant patients. Several inflammation-based cumulative prognostic score systems were established for various solid tumors. However, there is few inflammation based cumulative prognostic score system for patients with diffuse large B cell lymphoma (DLBCL). We retrospectively reviewed 564 adult DLBCL patients who had received rituximab, cyclophosphamide, doxorubicin, vincristine and prednisolone (R-CHOP) therapy between Nov 1 2006 and Dec 30 2013 and assessed the prognostic significance of six systemic inflammatory parameters evaluated in previous studies by univariate and multivariate analysis:C-reactive protein(CRP), albumin levels, the lymphocyte-monocyte ratio (LMR), the neutrophil-lymphocyte ratio(NLR), the platelet-lymphocyte ratio(PLR)and fibrinogen levels. Multivariate analysis identified CRP, albumin levels and the LMR are three independent prognostic parameters for overall survival (OS). Based on these three factors, we constructed a novel inflammation-based cumulative prognostic score (ICPS) system. Four risk groups were formed: group ICPS = 0, ICPS = 1, ICPS = 2 and ICPS = 3. Advanced multivariate analysis indicated that the ICPS model is a prognostic score system independent of International Prognostic Index (IPI) for both progression-free survival (PFS) (p systemic inflammatory status was associated with clinical outcomes of patients with DLBCL in rituximab era. The ICPS model was shown to classify risk groups more accurately than any single inflammatory prognostic parameters. These findings may be useful for identifying candidates for further inflammation-related mechanism research or novel anti-inflammation target therapies.

Prognostic value of the C-reactive protein to albumin ratio: a novel inflammation-based prognostic indicator in osteosarcoma

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Li YJ

2017-11-01

Full Text Available Yong-Jiang Li,1,* Kai Yao,2,* Min-Xun Lu,2 Wen-Biao Zhang,1 Cong Xiao,2 Chong-Qi Tu2 1Department of Oncology, 2Department of Orthopedics, West China Hospital, Sichuan University, Chengdu, People’s Republic of China *These authors contributed equally to this work Abstract: The prognostic role of the C-reactive protein to albumin ratio (CRP/Alb ratio in patients with osteosarcoma has not been investigated. A total of 216 osteosarcoma patients were enrolled in the study. Univariate and multivariate survival analyses between the groups were performed and Kaplan–Meier analysis was conducted to plot the survival curves. Receiver operating characteristic curves were generated and areas under the curve (AUCs were compared to assess the discriminatory ability of the inflammation-based indicators, including CRP/Alb ratio, Glasgow prognostic score (GPS, neutrophil–lymphocyte ratio (NLR, and platelet–lymphocyte ratio (PLR. The optimal cutoff value was 0.210 for CRP/Alb ratio with a Youden index of 0.319. Higher values of CRP/Alb ratio were significantly associated with poorer overall survival in univariate (HR =2.62, 95% CI =1.70–4.03; P<0.001 and multivariate (HR =2.21, 95% CI =1.40–3.49; P=0.001 analyses. In addition, the CRP/Alb ratio had significantly higher AUC values compared with GPS (P=0.003, NLR (P<0.001, and PLR (P<0.001. The study demonstrated that the CRP/Alb ratio is an effective inflammation-based prognostic indicator in osteosarcoma, which potentially has a discriminatory ability superior to that of other inflammatory indicators including GPS, NLR, and PLR. Keywords: osteosarcoma, CRP to albumin ratio, prognosis

The prognostic value of oncogenic antigen 519 (OA-519) expression and proliferative activity detected by antibody MIB-1 in node-negative breast cancer

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Jensen, V; Ladekarl, M; Holm-Nielsen, P

1995-01-01

The prognostic value of oncogenic antigen 519 (OA-519) expression and tumour proliferative activity was evaluated in a retrospective series of 118 patients with low-risk breast cancer. Low risk was defined as negative axillary nodes, tumour diameter histological evidence...... analysis, both the MIB-1 index and OA-519 expression were of independent prognostic value (2p breast cancer who might benefit from adjuvant therapy....

Systematic assessment of prognostic gene signatures for breast cancer shows distinct influence of time and ER status

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Zhao, Xi; Rødland, Einar Andreas; Sørlie, Therese; Vollan, Hans Kristian Moen; Russnes, Hege G; Kristensen, Vessela N; Lingjærde, Ole Christian; Børresen-Dale, Anne-Lise

2014-01-01

The aim was to assess and compare prognostic power of nine breast cancer gene signatures (Intrinsic, PAM50, 70-gene, 76-gene, Genomic-Grade-Index, 21-gene-Recurrence-Score, EndoPredict, Wound-Response and Hypoxia) in relation to ER status and follow-up time. A gene expression dataset from 947 breast tumors was used to evaluate the signatures for prediction of Distant Metastasis Free Survival (DMFS). A total of 912 patients had available DMFS status. The recently published METABRIC cohort was used as an additional validation set. Survival predictions were fairly concordant across most signatures. Prognostic power declined with follow-up time. During the first 5 years of followup, all signatures except for Hypoxia were predictive for DMFS in ER-positive disease, and 76-gene, Hypoxia and Wound-Response were prognostic in ER-negative disease. After 5 years, the signatures had little prognostic power. Gene signatures provide significant prognostic information beyond tumor size, node status and histological grade. Generally, these signatures performed better for ER-positive disease, indicating that risk within each ER stratum is driven by distinct underlying biology. Most of the signatures were strong risk predictors for DMFS during the first 5 years of follow-up. Combining gene signatures with histological grade or tumor size, could improve the prognostic power, perhaps also of long-term survival

Prognostic factors of liver cirrhosis mortality after a first episode of spontaneous bacterial peritonitis. A multicenter study.

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Melcarne, Luigi; Sopeña, Julia; Martínez-Cerezo, Francisco José; Vergara, Mercedes; Miquel, Mireia; Sánchez-Delgado, Jordi; Dalmau, Blai; Machlab, Salvador; Portilla, Dustin; González-Padrón, Yonaisy; Real Álvarez, Mónica; Carpintero, Chantal; Casas, Meritxell

2018-02-01

Spontaneous bacterial peritonitis is an infectious complication with a negative impact on survival of patients with cirrhosis. To analyze the short- and long-term survival after a first episode of bacterial peritonitis and the associated prognostic factors. This was a retrospective, multicenter study of patients admitted to hospital for spontaneous bacterial peritonitis between 2008 and 2013. Independent variables related to mortality were analyzed by logistic regression. The prognostic power of the Child Pugh Score, the Model for End-Stage Liver Disease (MELD) and the Charlson index was analyzed by ROC curve. A total of 159 patients were enrolled, 72% were males with a mean age of 63.5 years and a mean MELD score of 19 (SD ± 9.5). Mortality at 30 and 90 days and one and two years was 21%, 31%, 55% and 69%, respectively. Hepatic encephalopathy (p = 0.008, OR 3.5, 95% CI 1.4-8.8) and kidney function (p = 0.026, OR 2.7, 95% CI 1.13-16.7) were independent factors for short- and long-term mortality. MELD was a good marker of short- and long-term survival (area under the curve [AUC] 0.7: 95% CI 1.02-1.4). The Charlson index was related to long-term mortality (AUC 0.68: 95% CI 0.6-0.77). Short- and long-term mortality of spontaneous bacterial peritonitis is still high. The main prognostic factors for mortality are impairment of liver and kidney function. MELD and the Charlson index are good markers of survival.

Glasgow Prognostic Score as a Prognostic Clinical Marker in T4 Esophageal Squamous Cell Carcinoma.

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Ohira, Masaichi; Kubo, Naoshi; Masuda, Go; Yamashita, Yoshito; Sakurai, Katsunobu; Toyokawa, Takahiro; Tanaka, Hiroaki; Muguruma, Kazuya; Hirakawa, Kosei

2015-09-01

Patients with clinical T4 esophageal squamous cell carcinoma (ESCC) have an unfavorable prognosis, mainly indicated by the response to chemoradiotherapy (CRT), crucial to estimating long-term survival. Other prognostic measures include systemic inflammatory or immunonutritional indices such as the Glasgow Prognostic Score (GPS) and Prognostic Nutritional Index (PNI) that have not been sufficiently documented. This study retrospectively evaluated 91 patients with T4 ESCC treated at our Hospital between 2000 and 2013. All patients initially received CRT, including 5-fluorouracil (5FU) and cisplatin or nedaplatin with concurrent 2-Gy/fraction radiation (total dose, 40-60 Gy). Curative tumor resection was undertaken in suitable patients on completing CRT. Patients were classified as GPS0, GPS1, or GPS2 based on C-reactive protein (CRP) ≤ 10 mg/l and albumin ≥ 35 g/l, CRP >10 mg/l or albumin l, or CRP >10 mg/l and albumin l, respectively. PNI was calculated as 10-times the serum albumin (g/dl)+0.005 × total lymphocyte count (/mm(3)). The impact of the pre-treatment GPS and PNI on the prognosis of patients with T4 ESCC was investigated in univariate and multivariate analyses. Sixty (67%) patients responded to CRT (9 complete responses and 51 partial responses). Forty-one (45%) patients also underwent surgical resection of the residual tumor. The overall 5-year survival rate and median survival time were 27.0% and 11.8 months, respectively. In the cohort of CRT-plus-surgical resection, the 5-year survival rate was significantly higher than in the groups treated with CRT-alone (51.1% vs. 6.5%; p GPS1/2 (HR=2.151, p=0.015), and surgical resection (HR=0.282, pGPS is a useful, simple survival marker for patients with T4 ESCC undergoing multimodal therapy. Copyright© 2015 International Institute of Anticancer Research (Dr. John G. Delinassios), All rights reserved.

Prognostics

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National Aeronautics and Space Administration — Prognostics has received considerable attention recently as an emerging sub-discipline within SHM. Prognosis is here strictly defined as “predicting the time at...

Incremental prognostic value of coronary computed tomographic angiography high-risk plaque characteristics in newly symptomatic patients.

Science.gov (United States)

Fujimoto, Shinichiro; Kondo, Takeshi; Takamura, Kazuhisa; Baber, Usman; Shinozaki, Tomohiro; Nishizaki, Yuji; Kawaguchi, Yuko; Matsumori, Rie; Hiki, Makoto; Miyauchi, Katsumi; Daida, Hiroyuki; Hecht, Harvey; Stone, Gregg W; Narula, Jagat

2016-06-01

The incremental prognostic value of the plaque features in coronary computed tomographic angiography (CTA) has not been well assessed. This study was designed to determine whether CTA high-risk plaques have prognostic value incremental to the Framingham risk score (FRS) and the severity of luminal obstruction. A total of 628 newly symptomatic patients without known coronary artery disease underwent CTA. They were followed for a median of 677 days during which there were 26 cardiac events, including cardiac death, acute myocardial infarction, and hospitalization for unstable angina. Incremental prognostic value of adding plaque characteristics to the number of diseased vessels and the FRS was evaluated using 3 Cox models and net reclassification indexes. The discrimination index was significantly increased by adding the number of diseased vessels to the FRS (change in c-statistic from 65.8% to 78.6%, p=0.028) but not significantly by further adding plaque characteristics (change in c-statistic from 78.6% to 80.0%, p=0.812). However, improved model-fitting by adding plaque characteristics into the linear combination with risk score and the number of diseased vessels (p=0.007 from likelihood ratio test) and the lowest value of Akaike's information criteria of that model indicated that plaque characteristics improved both predictive accuracy and discrimination perspective. More subjects reclassified by plaque characteristics were moved to directions consistent with their subsequent cardiac event status than in an inconsistent direction. Evaluation of CTA plaque characteristics may provide incremental prognostic value to the number of diseased vessels and the FRS. Copyright © 2015 Japanese College of Cardiology. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

A Distributed Approach to System-Level Prognostics

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Daigle, Matthew J.; Bregon, Anibal; Roychoudhury, Indranil

2012-01-01

Prognostics, which deals with predicting remaining useful life of components, subsystems, and systems, is a key technology for systems health management that leads to improved safety and reliability with reduced costs. The prognostics problem is often approached from a component-centric view. However, in most cases, it is not specifically component lifetimes that are important, but, rather, the lifetimes of the systems in which these components reside. The system-level prognostics problem can be quite difficult due to the increased scale and scope of the prognostics problem and the relative Jack of scalability and efficiency of typical prognostics approaches. In order to address these is ues, we develop a distributed solution to the system-level prognostics problem, based on the concept of structural model decomposition. The system model is decomposed into independent submodels. Independent local prognostics subproblems are then formed based on these local submodels, resul ting in a scalable, efficient, and flexible distributed approach to the system-level prognostics problem. We provide a formulation of the system-level prognostics problem and demonstrate the approach on a four-wheeled rover simulation testbed. The results show that the system-level prognostics problem can be accurately and efficiently solved in a distributed fashion.

Generic Software Architecture for Prognostics (GSAP) User Guide

Science.gov (United States)

Teubert, Christopher Allen; Daigle, Matthew John; Watkins, Jason; Sankararaman, Shankar; Goebel, Kai

2016-01-01

The Generic Software Architecture for Prognostics (GSAP) is a framework for applying prognostics. It makes applying prognostics easier by implementing many of the common elements across prognostic applications. The standard interface enables reuse of prognostic algorithms and models across systems using the GSAP framework.

Prognostic Value of the Pretreatment Advanced Lung Cancer Inflammation Index (ALI) in Diffuse Large B Cell Lymphoma Patients Treated with R-CHOP Chemotherapy.

Science.gov (United States)

Park, Young Hoon; Yi, Hyeon Gyu; Lee, Moon Hee; Kim, Chul Soo; Lim, Joo Han

2017-01-01

The Advanced Lung Cancer Inflammation Index (ALI, body mass index × albumin/neutrophil-to-lymphocyte ratio) has been demonstrated to be a prognostic factor of survival in some solid cancers. We retrospectively investigated the usefulness of the ALI to predict chemotherapy response and survival in 212 patients with diffuse large B cell lymphoma (DLBCL) treated with R-CHOP (rituximab, cyclophosphamide, doxorubicin, vincristine, and prednisolone) chemotherapy. Patients were allocated to a low ALI group (n = 82, 38.7%) or a high ALI group (n = 130, 61.3%) according to an optimal pretreatment ALI cut-off value of 15.5 as determined by receiver operating curve analysis. The low ALI group displayed more adverse clinical characteristics, lower rates of complete remission (54.9 vs. 75.4%, p = 0.008), and poorer 5-year progression-free (PFS, 58.1 vs. 77.3%, p = 0.006) and overall (OS, 64.2 vs. 80.2%, p = 0.008) survival. Multivariate analysis showed that low ALI was found to independently predict shorter PFS and OS. Interestingly, a low ALI reverted to a high ALI during treatment in 58 patients (27.4%), and the 5-year OS of these patients was better than that of patients whose ALI remained low (n = 24, 72.5 vs. 24%, p ALI might be an easily available marker for predicting clinical outcomes in DLBCL patients treated with R-CHOP chemotherapy. © 2017 S. Karger AG, Basel.

Prognostic methods in medicine

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Lucas, P. J.; Abu-Hanna, A.

1999-01-01

Prognosis--the prediction of the course and outcome of disease processes--plays an important role in patient management tasks like diagnosis and treatment planning. As a result, prognostic models form an integral part of a number of systems supporting these tasks. Furthermore, prognostic models

The prognostic value of MRI in determining reinjury risk following acute hamstring injury: a systematic review

NARCIS (Netherlands)

van Heumen, Moniek; Tol, Johannes L.; de Vos, Robert-Jan; Moen, Maarten H.; Weir, Adam; Orchard, John; Reurink, Gustaaf

2017-01-01

A challenge for sports physicians is to estimate the risk of a hamstring re-injury, but the current evidence for MRI variables as a risk factor is unknown. To systematically review the literature on the prognostic value of MRI findings at index injury and/or return to play for acute hamstring

Aircraft Anomaly Prognostics, Phase I

Data.gov (United States)

National Aeronautics and Space Administration — Ridgetop Group will leverage its proven Electromechanical Actuator (EMA) prognostics methodology to develop an advanced model-based actuator prognostic reasoner...

Replication protein A in nonearly ovarian adenocarcinomas: correlation with MCM-2, MCM-5, Ki-67 index and prognostic significance.

Science.gov (United States)

Levidou, Georgia; Ventouri, Kiriaki; Nonni, Afroditi; Gakiopoulou, Hariklia; Bamias, Aristotle; Sotiropoulou, Maria; Papaspirou, Irene; Dimopoulos, Meletios A; Patsouris, Efstratios; Korkolopoulou, Penelope

2012-07-01

Replication protein A (RPA) is an ssDNA-binding protein required for the initiation of DNA replication and the stabilization of ssDNA. Collaboration with several molecules, that is, the MCM2-7 complex, has been suggested to be imperative for its multifaceted role. In this study, we investigated the immunohistochemical expression of the RPA2 subunit in correlation with the MCM-2 and MCM-5 and Ki67 index, and assessed its prognostic significance in 76 patients with nonearly ovarian adenocarcinomas, the majority of whom had a serous histotype. RPA2 protein expression was observed in all cases, whereas the staining intensity varied from weak to strong. RPA2 expression was correlated with the tumor stage in the entire cohort and in serous tumors (P=0.0053 in both relationships). Moreover, RPA2 immunoexpression was positively correlated with MCM-2 (P=0.0001) and MCM-5 (P0.10). In multivariate survival analysis, RPA2 expression emerged as an independent predictor of adverse outcome (PMCM-2 and MCM-5 expression and when analysis was restricted to serous carcinomas (P=0.004). Our results further support the interrelation of RPA2 protein with MCM-2 and MCM-5 in OCs. Moreover, RPA2 protein may play an important role in ovarian tumorigenesis, and may serve as a useful independent molecular marker for stratifying patients with OC in terms of prognosis.

Prognostic value of PET/CT in lung cancer. Study of survival and tumor metabolic characterization

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Ladron de Guevara, David; Fuentes Anibal; Farina, Ciro; Corral, Camilo; Pefaur, Raul

2013-01-01

PET/CT (Positron emission tomography/computed tomography) is a hybrid image modality widely used in oncology, for staging, therapy evaluation or follow up. Aim: To evaluate the prognostic value of PET/CT in lung cancer. Material and Methods: Retrospective review of PET/CT records, selecting 51 patients with a lung malignancy, mass or nodule referred for PET/CT between December 2008 and December 2010. All had pathological confirmation of malignancy and had not been treated previously. Age, gender, body mass index, radiological features of lung tumor and metastases, and lung tumor 18 F-fluoro-2-deoxy-d-glucose uptake using the SUV (Standardized uptake value) index were recorded. Survival was analyzed using Kaplan-Meier curves and a Cox proportional regression analysis. Results: Pathology confirmed the presence of lung cancer in 47 patients aged 30 to 88 years. Four patients (7.8%) had other type of tumors such as carcinoid or lymphoma. Fifty percent of lung cancer patients died during a mean observation lapse of 18 months (range: 2-34 months). Patients with metastases, local lymph node involvement, a lung tumor size ≥ 3 cm and high tumor uptake (SUVmax > 6) had significantly lower survival. Occurrence of metastases was the only independent prognostic factor in the Cox regression. A lung lesion with a SUVmax ≥ 12 was always associated to hilar/mediastinal lymph node involvement. Conclusions: PET/CT imaging gives important prognostic information in lung cancer patients

Evaluating biomarkers for prognostic enrichment of clinical trials.

Science.gov (United States)

Kerr, Kathleen F; Roth, Jeremy; Zhu, Kehao; Thiessen-Philbrook, Heather; Meisner, Allison; Wilson, Francis Perry; Coca, Steven; Parikh, Chirag R

2017-12-01

A potential use of biomarkers is to assist in prognostic enrichment of clinical trials, where only patients at relatively higher risk for an outcome of interest are eligible for the trial. We investigated methods for evaluating biomarkers for prognostic enrichment. We identified five key considerations when considering a biomarker and a screening threshold for prognostic enrichment: (1) clinical trial sample size, (2) calendar time to enroll the trial, (3) total patient screening costs and the total per-patient trial costs, (4) generalizability of trial results, and (5) ethical evaluation of trial eligibility criteria. Items (1)-(3) are amenable to quantitative analysis. We developed the Biomarker Prognostic Enrichment Tool for evaluating biomarkers for prognostic enrichment at varying levels of screening stringency. We demonstrate that both modestly prognostic and strongly prognostic biomarkers can improve trial metrics using Biomarker Prognostic Enrichment Tool. Biomarker Prognostic Enrichment Tool is available as a webtool at http://prognosticenrichment.com and as a package for the R statistical computing platform. In some clinical settings, even biomarkers with modest prognostic performance can be useful for prognostic enrichment. In addition to the quantitative analysis provided by Biomarker Prognostic Enrichment Tool, investigators must consider the generalizability of trial results and evaluate the ethics of trial eligibility criteria.

The Predictive Value of Scores Used in Intensive Care Unit for Burn Patients Prognostic.

Science.gov (United States)

Novac, M; Dragoescu, Alice; Stanculescu, Andreea; Duca, Lucica; Cernea, Daniela

2014-01-01

Statistical evaluation of the prognosis of burned patients based on the analysis of prognostic scores as quickly and easily obtainable that track the evolution of burned patient in ICU. Material / Methods: The prospective study included 92 patients were performed with severe burns on 35-67% body surface large area, aiming to establish a cut-off score for each studied and statistically significant prognostic parameter for assessing the risk of mortality. The control group was represented by 20 patients with burns on the body surface of 0.05) sex (male / female), but we had p cut-off. Quantification of variables by calculating the area under the ROC curve (AUC), sensitivity and sensitivity, positive predictive value (PPV) and negative predictive value (NPV), allowed a better appreciation of these prognostic scores. These systems applicable to the burned patient scores, making a cut-off of each index / mortality probability score, he can manifest usefulness in medical decision making process and strategy to reduce the risk of death in patients with severe burns.

Significance of the inital cytomorphological and immunocytochemical findings and the correlation with the international prognostic index for the survival in patients with non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Mihaljević Biljana

2006-01-01

Full Text Available Background/Aim. Fine-needle aspiration biopsy is a quick, economical, and safe initial method in managing a patient with suspected lymphoma. According to a few reports on this preoblem, the aim of this study was to compare histological findings to cytomorphological ones in needle aspirates. We also compared these findings to the overal survival (OS time. Methods. We analyzed the fine-needle aspiration biopsies of peripheral lymph nodes, and the International Prognostic Index (IPI in 81 patients with non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma (NHL. We put these findings into correlation with OS time. Results. According to the International Working Formulation (IWF criteria, the dominant cell population was as follows: 18 patients had the small cell population, 21 patients had small cleaved cells, 18 patients had the mixed cell population, 21 patients had large cell population, 2 patients had Burkitt lymphoma type, and 1 patient had the dominant lymphoblasts. On presentation, 32 patients had a low IPI index, 32 patients had a low intermediate, and 17 patients had a high intermediate IPI. We confirmed the statistical significance (Kaplan-Mayer of cytomorphology (p = 0.013 and IPI index (p = 0.016 for survival time. During a 48-month follow-up, OS was 37.2 months for the patients with the dominant small cells, and 32 months for the patients with small cleaved cells (PH equivalent to indolent NHL. For the patients with the dominant mixed cell population, large cell population and Burkitt limphoma cell, OS were 17, 14.4, and 9.3 months, respectively (PH equivalent to aggressive NHL. Patients with low IPI had the highest OS, 36 months for the low intermediate and only 11.6 months for the high intermediate IPI index. Conclusion. We concluded that an initial cytological and clinical profile of patients with NHL, might give a quick and relevant information for planning an adequate therapy.

Application of the isotopic index in isotope geochemical investigation

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Schuetze, H.

1982-06-01

A method is described which allows to calculate approximately isotope exchange equilibria between different crystalline silicates. The algorithm uses a newly introduced isotopic index. It is defined using isotopic increments of the variant types of silicatic bonds. This isotopic index gives a quantitative measure of the ability to enrich 18 O or 30 Si, respectively. The dependence of isotopic fractionations on temperature can be calculated approximately by means of the isotopic index, too. On this theoretical base some problems of magmatism and two varieties of an isotope geochemical model of the evolution of the Earth's crust are treated. Finally, the possibility is demonstrated to give prognostic statements about the likelihood of ore bearing of different granites. (author)

The MPI facial expression database--a validated database of emotional and conversational facial expressions.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Kathrin Kaulard

Full Text Available The ability to communicate is one of the core aspects of human life. For this, we use not only verbal but also nonverbal signals of remarkable complexity. Among the latter, facial expressions belong to the most important information channels. Despite the large variety of facial expressions we use in daily life, research on facial expressions has so far mostly focused on the emotional aspect. Consequently, most databases of facial expressions available to the research community also include only emotional expressions, neglecting the largely unexplored aspect of conversational expressions. To fill this gap, we present the MPI facial expression database, which contains a large variety of natural emotional and conversational expressions. The database contains 55 different facial expressions performed by 19 German participants. Expressions were elicited with the help of a method-acting protocol, which guarantees both well-defined and natural facial expressions. The method-acting protocol was based on every-day scenarios, which are used to define the necessary context information for each expression. All facial expressions are available in three repetitions, in two intensities, as well as from three different camera angles. A detailed frame annotation is provided, from which a dynamic and a static version of the database have been created. In addition to describing the database in detail, we also present the results of an experiment with two conditions that serve to validate the context scenarios as well as the naturalness and recognizability of the video sequences. Our results provide clear evidence that conversational expressions can be recognized surprisingly well from visual information alone. The MPI facial expression database will enable researchers from different research fields (including the perceptual and cognitive sciences, but also affective computing, as well as computer vision to investigate the processing of a wider range of natural

Impact of chronic kidney disease and stress myocardial perfusion imaging as a predictor of cardiovascular events

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Furuhashi, Tatsuhiko; Joki, Nobuhiko; Hase, Hiroki; Masai, Hirofumi; Kunimasa, Taeko; Nakazato, Ryo; Fukuda, Hiroshi; Sugi, Kaoru; Moroi, Masao

2011-01-01

Stress myocardial perfusion imaging (MPI) is an established means of predicting cardiovascular events and is suitable in chronic kidney disease (CKD) patients. We aimed to evaluate the prognostic value of CKD parameters and an abnormal stress MPI for cardiovascular events. A total of 495 patients with suspected coronary artery disease (CAD) or history of CAD including 130 CKD patients not undergoing hemodialysis, underwent stress MPI (313 males, mean age 70 years) and were followed up for 14 months (mean period). CKD was defined as an estimated GFR of 2 and/or persistent proteinuria. Cardiovascular events were defined as sudden cardiac death, acute coronary syndrome and congestive heart failure requiring hospitalization. Cardiovascular events occurred in 41 (8.3%) patients. Multivariate Cox regression analysis indicated that CKD [hazard ratio (HR) =3.76, p<0.001] and a stress MPI summed difference score (SDS) of ≥2 (HR=3.78, p<0.001) were independent predictors of cardiovascular events; CKD plus abnormal stress MPI was also a strong predictor of cardiovascular events (non-CKD and SDS <2 vs. CKD and SDS ≥2, HR=15.9, p<0.001). Both CKD and myocardial ischemia detected by stress MPI are independent predictors for cardiovascular events. Coexistence of CKD and myocardial ischemia detected by stress MPI is more useful for short-term risk stratification of cardiovascular events. (author)

Distributed Prognostic Health Management with Gaussian Process Regression

Science.gov (United States)

Saha, Sankalita; Saha, Bhaskar; Saxena, Abhinav; Goebel, Kai Frank

2010-01-01

Distributed prognostics architecture design is an enabling step for efficient implementation of health management systems. A major challenge encountered in such design is formulation of optimal distributed prognostics algorithms. In this paper. we present a distributed GPR based prognostics algorithm whose target platform is a wireless sensor network. In addition to challenges encountered in a distributed implementation, a wireless network poses constraints on communication patterns, thereby making the problem more challenging. The prognostics application that was used to demonstrate our new algorithms is battery prognostics. In order to present trade-offs within different prognostic approaches, we present comparison with the distributed implementation of a particle filter based prognostics for the same battery data.

Prognostic impact of germinal center-associated proteins and chromosomal breakpoints in poor-risk diffuse large B-cell lymphoma

NARCIS (Netherlands)

van Imhoff, Gustaaf W.; Boerma, Evert-Jan G.; van der Holt, Bronno; Schuuring, Ed; Verdonck, Leo F.; Kluin-Nelemans, Hanneke C.; Kluin, Philip M.

2006-01-01

Purpose Outcome of diffuse large B-cell lymphoma (DLBCL) with a germinal center B-cell (GCB) expression profile is superior to that of non-GCB DLBCL. This conclusion is mainly derived from patients with mixed international prognostic index (IPI) risk profiles treated with CHOP-like therapy

Vibration Analysis and Time Series Prediction for Wind Turbine Gearbox Prognostics

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Hossam A. Gabbar

2013-01-01

Full Text Available Premature failure of a gearbox in a wind turbine poses a high risk of increasing the operational and maintenance costs and decreasing the profit margins. Prognostics and health management (PHM techniques are widely used to access the current health condition of the gearbox and project it in future to predict premature failures. This paper proposes such techniques for predicting gearbox health condition index extracted from the vibration signals emanating from the gearbox. The progression of the monitoring index is predicted using two different prediction techniques, adaptive neuro-fuzzy inference system (ANFIS and nonlinear autoregressive model with exogenous inputs (NARX. The proposed prediction techniques are evaluated through sun-spot data-set and applied on vibration based health related monitoring index calculated through psychoacoustic phenomenon. A comparison is given for their prediction accuracy. The results are helpful in understanding the relationship of machine conditions, the corresponding indicating features, the level of damage/degradation, and their progression.

Parallel MCNP Monte Carlo transport calculations with MPI

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Wagner, J.C.; Haghighat, A.

1996-01-01

The steady increase in computational performance has made Monte Carlo calculations for large/complex systems possible. However, in order to make these calculations practical, order of magnitude increases in performance are necessary. The Monte Carlo method is inherently parallel (particles are simulated independently) and thus has the potential for near-linear speedup with respect to the number of processors. Further, the ever-increasing accessibility of parallel computers, such as workstation clusters, facilitates the practical use of parallel Monte Carlo. Recognizing the nature of the Monte Carlo method and the trends in available computing, the code developers at Los Alamos National Laboratory implemented the message-passing general-purpose Monte Carlo radiation transport code MCNP (version 4A). The PVM package was chosen by the MCNP code developers because it supports a variety of communication networks, several UNIX platforms, and heterogeneous computer systems. This PVM version of MCNP has been shown to produce speedups that approach the number of processors and thus, is a very useful tool for transport analysis. Due to software incompatibilities on the local IBM SP2, PVM has not been available, and thus it is not possible to take advantage of this useful tool. Hence, it became necessary to implement an alternative message-passing library package into MCNP. Because the message-passing interface (MPI) is supported on the local system, takes advantage of the high-speed communication switches in the SP2, and is considered to be the emerging standard, it was selected

An efficient MPI/OpenMP parallelization of the Hartree–Fock–Roothaan method for the first generation of Intel® Xeon Phi™ processor architecture

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Mironov, Vladimir; Moskovsky, Alexander; D’Mello, Michael; Alexeev, Yuri

2017-01-01

The Hartree-Fock (HF) method in the quantum chemistry package GAMESS represents one of the most irregular algorithms in computation today. Major steps in the calculation are the irregular computation of electron repulsion integrals (ERIs) and the building of the Fock matrix. These are the central components of the main Self Consistent Field (SCF) loop, the key hotspot in Electronic Structure (ES) codes. By threading the MPI ranks in the official release of the GAMESS code, we not only speed up the main SCF loop (4x to 6x for large systems), but also achieve a significant (>2x) reduction in the overall memory footprint. These improvements are a direct consequence of memory access optimizations within the MPI ranks. We benchmark our implementation against the official release of the GAMESS code on the Intel R Xeon PhiTM supercomputer. Here, scaling numbers are reported on up to 7,680 cores on Intel Xeon Phi coprocessors.

Military Interoperable Digital Hospital Testbed

Science.gov (United States)

2012-07-01

Subject outcome measures include blood pressure, waist circumference, weight, body mass index (BMI), body fat, HDL cholesterol, triglycerides , glucose ...master patient index (MPI), 625 duplicate chest x-rays and CT scans of the head between sending and receiving institution (taken within 0-7 days) were... Index (MPI) software. The report included chest x-rays (CPT 71010 and 71020) and CT scans of the head (CPT 70450) for the stated time periods. The

State of the art and taxonomy of prognostics approaches, trends of prognostics applications and open issues towards maturity at different technology readiness levels

Science.gov (United States)

Javed, Kamran; Gouriveau, Rafael; Zerhouni, Noureddine

2017-09-01

Integrating prognostics to a real application requires a certain maturity level and for this reason there is a lack of success stories about development of a complete Prognostics and Health Management system. In fact, the maturity of prognostics is closely linked to data and domain specific entities like modeling. Basically, prognostics task aims at predicting the degradation of engineering assets. However, practically it is not possible to precisely predict the impending failure, which requires a thorough understanding to encounter different sources of uncertainty that affect prognostics. Therefore, different aspects crucial to the prognostics framework, i.e., from monitoring data to remaining useful life of equipment need to be addressed. To this aim, the paper contributes to state of the art and taxonomy of prognostics approaches and their application perspectives. In addition, factors for prognostics approach selection are identified, and new case studies from component-system level are discussed. Moreover, open challenges toward maturity of the prognostics under uncertainty are highlighted and scheme for an efficient prognostics approach is presented. Finally, the existing challenges for verification and validation of prognostics at different technology readiness levels are discussed with respect to open challenges.

Prognostic value of weight change in chronic obstructive pulmonary disease

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Prescott, E; Almdal, T; Mikkelsen, K L

2002-01-01

An association between low body mass index (BMI) and poor prognosis in patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) has been found in a number of studies. The prevalence and prognostic importance of weight change in unselected subjects with COPD was examined. Subjects with COPD...... change: in the normal-to-underweight (BMI or = 25), best survival was seen in stable weight. A high proportion of subjects with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease experienced a significant weight loss......, which was associated with increased mortality. The results support further intervention studies that aim at avoiding weight loss in normal-to-underweight chronic obstructive pulmonary disease patients....

The MPI Facial Expression Database — A Validated Database of Emotional and Conversational Facial Expressions

Science.gov (United States)

Kaulard, Kathrin; Cunningham, Douglas W.; Bülthoff, Heinrich H.; Wallraven, Christian

2012-01-01

The ability to communicate is one of the core aspects of human life. For this, we use not only verbal but also nonverbal signals of remarkable complexity. Among the latter, facial expressions belong to the most important information channels. Despite the large variety of facial expressions we use in daily life, research on facial expressions has so far mostly focused on the emotional aspect. Consequently, most databases of facial expressions available to the research community also include only emotional expressions, neglecting the largely unexplored aspect of conversational expressions. To fill this gap, we present the MPI facial expression database, which contains a large variety of natural emotional and conversational expressions. The database contains 55 different facial expressions performed by 19 German participants. Expressions were elicited with the help of a method-acting protocol, which guarantees both well-defined and natural facial expressions. The method-acting protocol was based on every-day scenarios, which are used to define the necessary context information for each expression. All facial expressions are available in three repetitions, in two intensities, as well as from three different camera angles. A detailed frame annotation is provided, from which a dynamic and a static version of the database have been created. In addition to describing the database in detail, we also present the results of an experiment with two conditions that serve to validate the context scenarios as well as the naturalness and recognizability of the video sequences. Our results provide clear evidence that conversational expressions can be recognized surprisingly well from visual information alone. The MPI facial expression database will enable researchers from different research fields (including the perceptual and cognitive sciences, but also affective computing, as well as computer vision) to investigate the processing of a wider range of natural facial expressions

Survival and Prognostic Factors for Metachronous Peritoneal Metastasis in Patients with Colon Cancer.

Science.gov (United States)

Nagata, Hiroshi; Ishihara, Soichiro; Hata, Keisuke; Murono, Koji; Kaneko, Manabu; Yasuda, Koji; Otani, Kensuke; Nishikawa, Takeshi; Tanaka, Toshiaki; Kiyomatsu, Tomomichi; Kawai, Kazushige; Nozawa, Hiroaki; Watanabe, Toshiaki

2017-05-01

The clinical course of metachronous peritoneal metastasis of colorectal origin is poorly understood. In this retrospective study, we aimed to elucidate survival and prognostic factors for metachronous peritoneal metastasis. Patients with metachronous peritoneal metastasis after curative resection for stage I-III colon cancer were retrospectively reviewed, and the incidence and prognosis of metachronous peritoneal metastasis were investigated. Prognostic factors were identified by univariate and multivariate analyses. Among 1582 surgically resected stage I-III colon cancer patients, 65 developed metachronous peritoneal metastasis. The 5-year cumulative incidence rate was 4.5%, and the median survival after diagnosis of peritoneal metastasis was 29.6 months. None of the patients underwent peritonectomy or intraperitoneal chemotherapy. Independent prognostic factors included right colon cancer [hazard ratio (HR) 2.69, 95% confidence interval (CI) 1.26-5.64; p = 0.011], time to metachronous peritoneal metastasis of Cancer Index (PCI) >10 (HR 3.68, 95% CI 1.37-8.99; p = 0.012), concurrent metastases (HR 4.09, 95% CI 2.02-8.23; p colon cancer patients with metachronous peritoneal metastasis may benefit from combined peritoneal nodule resection and systemic chemotherapy. Right colon cancer, early peritoneal metastasis, a high PCI, and concurrent metastases negatively affected prognosis in patients with metachronous peritoneal metastasis.

Biomarkers improve mortality prediction by prognostic scales in community-acquired pneumonia.

Science.gov (United States)

Menéndez, R; Martínez, R; Reyes, S; Mensa, J; Filella, X; Marcos, M A; Martínez, A; Esquinas, C; Ramirez, P; Torres, A

2009-07-01

Prognostic scales provide a useful tool to predict mortality in community-acquired pneumonia (CAP). However, the inflammatory response of the host, crucial in resolution and outcome, is not included in the prognostic scales. The aim of this study was to investigate whether information about the initial inflammatory cytokine profile and markers increases the accuracy of prognostic scales to predict 30-day mortality. To this aim, a prospective cohort study in two tertiary care hospitals was designed. Procalcitonin (PCT), C-reactive protein (CRP) and the systemic cytokines tumour necrosis factor alpha (TNFalpha) and interleukins IL6, IL8 and IL10 were measured at admission. Initial severity was assessed by PSI (Pneumonia Severity Index), CURB65 (Confusion, Urea nitrogen, Respiratory rate, Blood pressure, > or = 65 years of age) and CRB65 (Confusion, Respiratory rate, Blood pressure, > or = 65 years of age) scales. A total of 453 hospitalised CAP patients were included. The 36 patients who died (7.8%) had significantly increased levels of IL6, IL8, PCT and CRP. In regression logistic analyses, high levels of CRP and IL6 showed an independent predictive value for predicting 30-day mortality, after adjustment for prognostic scales. Adding CRP to PSI significantly increased the area under the receiver operating characteristic curve (AUC) from 0.80 to 0.85, that of CURB65 from 0.82 to 0.85 and that of CRB65 from 0.79 to 0.85. Adding IL6 or PCT values to CRP did not significantly increase the AUC of any scale. When using two scales (PSI and CURB65/CRB65) and CRP simultaneously the AUC was 0.88. Adding CRP levels to PSI, CURB65 and CRB65 scales improves the 30-day mortality prediction. The highest predictive value is reached with a combination of two scales and CRP. Further validation of that improvement is needed.

Effect of gender on the prognostic value of dobutamine stress myocardial contrast echocardiography

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Constantina Aggeli

2017-11-01

Full Text Available Background: Dobutamine stress contrast echo (DSCE has a well-established prognostic value in the context of coronary artery disease (CAD. However, data regarding its prognostic capability separately in men and women are scarce. The aim of the current study was to assess gender-related differences in the prognostic performance of DSCE. Methods: DSCE was performed in 2645 consecutive patients, who were classified into two groups depending on gender. Follow-up lasted 57.1±10.1 months. End points included all-cause mortality, cardiac death, late revascularization, and hospitalizations. Survival analysis was performed comparing men and women. Results: Of the 2645 patients (59.3±8.7 years, 69.1% were men. DSCE was positive in 23.4% of male patients, while in females, the respective percentage was 14.3%. There was statistically significant difference between the two groups with regard to end point occurrence (11.6% vs. 6.1%, p<0.05. Multivariate analysis revealed that the DSCE response was the strongest predictor of adverse outcomes (Exp(B=51.9, p<0.05 in both groups. The predictive model including DSCE results along with clinical data performed well without significant differences between males and females (C-index 0.93 vs. 0.87 respectively, p=NS. Conclusion: DSCE has a strong prognostic value for patients with known or suspected CAD, regardless of patient gender. This makes DSCE an attractive screening option for women in whom CAD assessment can be challenging. Keywords: stress echocardiography, women, gender, prognosis, coronary artery disease

Prognostic factors in lupus nephritis

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Faurschou, Mikkel; Starklint, Henrik; Halberg, Poul

2006-01-01

To evaluate the prognostic significance of clinical and renal biopsy findings in an unselected cohort of patients with systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) and nephritis.......To evaluate the prognostic significance of clinical and renal biopsy findings in an unselected cohort of patients with systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) and nephritis....

The Glasgow Prognostic Score as a significant predictor of diffuse large B cell lymphoma treated with R-CHOP in China.

Science.gov (United States)

Li, Xiaoyang; Zhang, Yunxiang; Zhao, Weili; Liu, Zhao; Shen, Yang; Li, Junmin; Shen, Zhixiang

2015-01-01

The Glasgow Prognostic Score (GPS) incorporates C-reactive protein and albumin as clinically useful markers of tumor behavior and shows significant prognostic value in several types of solid tumors. The accuracy of the GPS in predicting outcomes in diffuse large B cell lymphoma (DLBCL) remains unknown. We performed this study to evaluate the prognostic significance of the GPS in DLBCL in China. We retrospectively analyzed 160 patients with newly diagnosed DLBCL at the Shanghai Ruijin Hospital (China). The prognostic value of the GPS was evaluated and compared with that of the International Prognostic Index (IPI) and immunohistochemical subtyping. The GPS was defined as follows: GPS-0, C-reactive protein (CRP) ≤10 mg/L and albumin ≥35 g/L; GPS-1, CRP >10 mg/L or albumin L; and GPS-2, CRP >10 mg/L and albumin L. Patients with lower GPS tended to have better outcomes including progression-free survival (PFS, P GPS and high IPI score were independent adverse predictors of OS. Similar to several other tumors, GPS is a reliable predictor of survival outcomes in DLBCL patients treated with R-CHOP therapy. Inflammatory responses are implicated in the progression and survival of patients with DLBCL.

Quantitative Analysis of "1"8F-Fluorodeoxyglucose Positron Emission Tomography Identifies Novel Prognostic Imaging Biomarkers in Locally Advanced Pancreatic Cancer Patients Treated With Stereotactic Body Radiation Therapy

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Cui, Yi; Song, Jie; Pollom, Erqi; Alagappan, Muthuraman; Shirato, Hiroki; Chang, Daniel T.; Koong, Albert C.; Li, Ruijiang

2016-01-01

Purpose: To identify prognostic biomarkers in pancreatic cancer using high-throughput quantitative image analysis. Methods and Materials: In this institutional review board–approved study, we retrospectively analyzed images and outcomes for 139 locally advanced pancreatic cancer patients treated with stereotactic body radiation therapy (SBRT). The overall population was split into a training cohort (n=90) and a validation cohort (n=49) according to the time of treatment. We extracted quantitative imaging characteristics from pre-SBRT "1"8F-fluorodeoxyglucose positron emission tomography, including statistical, morphologic, and texture features. A Cox proportional hazard regression model was built to predict overall survival (OS) in the training cohort using 162 robust image features. To avoid over-fitting, we applied the elastic net to obtain a sparse set of image features, whose linear combination constitutes a prognostic imaging signature. Univariate and multivariate Cox regression analyses were used to evaluate the association with OS, and concordance index (CI) was used to evaluate the survival prediction accuracy. Results: The prognostic imaging signature included 7 features characterizing different tumor phenotypes, including shape, intensity, and texture. On the validation cohort, univariate analysis showed that this prognostic signature was significantly associated with OS (P=.002, hazard ratio 2.74), which improved upon conventional imaging predictors including tumor volume, maximum standardized uptake value, and total legion glycolysis (P=.018-.028, hazard ratio 1.51-1.57). On multivariate analysis, the proposed signature was the only significant prognostic index (P=.037, hazard ratio 3.72) when adjusted for conventional imaging and clinical factors (P=.123-.870, hazard ratio 0.53-1.30). In terms of CI, the proposed signature scored 0.66 and was significantly better than competing prognostic indices (CI 0.48-0.64, Wilcoxon rank sum test P<1e-6

Quantitative Analysis of {sup 18}F-Fluorodeoxyglucose Positron Emission Tomography Identifies Novel Prognostic Imaging Biomarkers in Locally Advanced Pancreatic Cancer Patients Treated With Stereotactic Body Radiation Therapy

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Cui, Yi [Department of Radiation Oncology, Stanford University, Palo Alto, California (United States); Global Institution for Collaborative Research and Education, Hokkaido University, Sapporo (Japan); Song, Jie; Pollom, Erqi; Alagappan, Muthuraman [Department of Radiation Oncology, Stanford University, Palo Alto, California (United States); Shirato, Hiroki [Global Institution for Collaborative Research and Education, Hokkaido University, Sapporo (Japan); Chang, Daniel T.; Koong, Albert C. [Department of Radiation Oncology, Stanford University, Palo Alto, California (United States); Stanford Cancer Institute, Stanford, California (United States); Li, Ruijiang, E-mail: rli2@stanford.edu [Department of Radiation Oncology, Stanford University, Palo Alto, California (United States); Global Institution for Collaborative Research and Education, Hokkaido University, Sapporo (Japan); Stanford Cancer Institute, Stanford, California (United States)

2016-09-01

Purpose: To identify prognostic biomarkers in pancreatic cancer using high-throughput quantitative image analysis. Methods and Materials: In this institutional review board–approved study, we retrospectively analyzed images and outcomes for 139 locally advanced pancreatic cancer patients treated with stereotactic body radiation therapy (SBRT). The overall population was split into a training cohort (n=90) and a validation cohort (n=49) according to the time of treatment. We extracted quantitative imaging characteristics from pre-SBRT {sup 18}F-fluorodeoxyglucose positron emission tomography, including statistical, morphologic, and texture features. A Cox proportional hazard regression model was built to predict overall survival (OS) in the training cohort using 162 robust image features. To avoid over-fitting, we applied the elastic net to obtain a sparse set of image features, whose linear combination constitutes a prognostic imaging signature. Univariate and multivariate Cox regression analyses were used to evaluate the association with OS, and concordance index (CI) was used to evaluate the survival prediction accuracy. Results: The prognostic imaging signature included 7 features characterizing different tumor phenotypes, including shape, intensity, and texture. On the validation cohort, univariate analysis showed that this prognostic signature was significantly associated with OS (P=.002, hazard ratio 2.74), which improved upon conventional imaging predictors including tumor volume, maximum standardized uptake value, and total legion glycolysis (P=.018-.028, hazard ratio 1.51-1.57). On multivariate analysis, the proposed signature was the only significant prognostic index (P=.037, hazard ratio 3.72) when adjusted for conventional imaging and clinical factors (P=.123-.870, hazard ratio 0.53-1.30). In terms of CI, the proposed signature scored 0.66 and was significantly better than competing prognostic indices (CI 0.48-0.64, Wilcoxon rank sum test P<1e-6

Prognostic Value of microRNA-9 in Various Cancers: a Meta-analysis.

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Zhang, Yunyuan; Zhou, Jun; Sun, Meiling; Sun, Guirong; Cao, Yongxian; Zhang, Haiping; Tian, Runhua; Zhou, Lan; Duan, Liang; Chen, Xian; Lun, Limin

2017-07-01

Recently, there are more and more evidences from studies have revealed the association between microRNA-9 (miR-9) expression and outcome in multiple cancers, but inconsistent results have also been reported. It is necessary to rationalize a meta analysis of all available data to clarify the prognostic role of miR-9. Eligible studies were selected through multiple search strategies and the quality was assessed by MOOSE. Data was extracted from studies according to the key statistics index. All analyses were performed using STATA software. Twenty studies were selected in the meta-analysis to evaluate the prognostic role of miR-9 in multiple tumors. MiR-9 expression level was an independent prognostic biomarker for OS in tumor patients using multivariate and univariate analyses. High expression levels of miR-9 was demonstrated to associated with poor overall survival (OS) (HR = 2.23, 95 % CI: 1.56-3.17, P analysis showed that residence region (China and Japan), sample size, cancer type (solid or leukemia), follow-up months and analysis method (qPCR) did not alter the predictive value of miR-9 on OS in various cancers. Furthermore, no significant associations were detected for miR-9 expression and lymph node metastasis or distant metastasis. The present results suggest that promoted miR-9 expression is associated with poor OS in patients with general cancers.

Localized primary gastrointestinal diffuse large B cell lymphoma received a surgical approach: an analysis of prognostic factors and comparison of staging systems in 101 patients from a single institution.

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Zhang, Shengting; Wang, Li; Yu, Dong; Shen, Yang; Cheng, Shu; Zhang, Li; Qian, Ying; Shen, Zhixiang; Li, Qinyu; Zhao, Weili

2015-08-15

Diffuse large B cell lymphoma (DLBCL) represents the most common histological subtype of primary gastrointestinal lymphoma and is a heterogeneous group of disease. Prognostic characterization of individual patients is an essential prerequisite for a proper risk-based therapeutic choice. Clinical and pathological prognostic factors were identified, and predictive value of four previously described prognostic systems were assessed in 101 primary gastrointestinal DLBCL (PG-DLBCL) patients with localized disease, including Ann Arbor staging with Musshoff modification, International Prognostic Index (IPI), Lugano classification, and Paris staging system. Univariate factors correlated with inferior survival time were clinical parameters [age>60 years old, multiple extranodal/gastrointestinal involvement, elevated serum lactate dehydrogenase and β2-microglobulin, and decreased serum albumin], as well as pathological parameters (invasion depth beyond serosa, involvement of regional lymph node or adjacent tissue, Ki-67 index, and Bcl-2 expression). Major independent variables of adverse outcome indicated by multivariate analysis were multiple gastrointestinal involvement. In patients unfit for Rituximab but received surgery, radical surgery significantly prolonged the survival time, comparing with alleviative surgery. Addition of Rituximab could overcome the negative prognostic effect of alleviative surgery. Among the four prognostic systems, IPI and Lugano classification clearly separated patients into different risk groups. IPI was able to further stratify the early-stage patients of Lugano classification into groups with distinct prognosis. Radical surgery might be proposed for the patients unfit for Rituximab treatment, and a combination of clinical and pathological staging systems was more helpful to predict the disease outcome of PG-DLBCL patients.

Gastric lymphomas in Turkey. Analysis of prognostic factors with special emphasis on flow cytometric DNA content.

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Aydin, Z D; Barista, I; Canpinar, H; Sungur, A; Tekuzman, G

2000-07-01

In contrast to DNA ploidy, to the authors' knowledge the prognostic significance of S-phase fraction (SPF) in gastric lymphomas has not been determined. In the current study, the prognostic significance of various parameters including SPF and DNA aneuploidy were analyzed and some distinct epidemiologic and biologic features of gastric lymphomas in Turkey were found. A series of 78 gastric lymphoma patients followed at Hacettepe University is reported. DNA flow cytometry was performed for 34 patients. The influence of various parameters on survival was investigated with the log rank test. The Cox proportional hazards model was fitted to identify independent prognostic factors. The median age of the patients was 50 years. There was no correlation between patient age and tumor grade. DNA content analysis revealed 4 of the 34 cases to be aneuploid with DNA index values < 1.0. The mean SPF was 33.5%. In the univariate analysis, surgical resection of the tumor, modified Ann Arbor stage, performance status, response to first-line chemotherapy, lactate dehydrogenase (LDH) level, and SPF were important prognostic factors for disease free survival (DFS). The same parameters, excluding LDH level, were important for determining overall survival (OS). In the multivariate analysis, surgical resection of the tumor, disease stage, performance status, and age were found to be important prognostic factors for OS. To the authors' knowledge the current study is the first to demonstrate the prognostic significance of SPF in gastric lymphomas. The distinguishing features of Turkish gastric lymphoma patients are 1) DNA indices of aneuploid cases that all are < 1.0, which is a unique feature; 2) a lower percentage of aneuploid cases; 3) a higher SPF; 4) a younger age distribution; and 5) lack of an age-grade correlation. The authors conclude that gastric lymphomas in Turkey have distinct biologic and epidemiologic characteristics. Copyright 2000 American Cancer Society.

The impact of chronic kidney disease as a predictor of major cardiac events in patients with no evidence of coronary artery disease

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Furuhashi, Tatsuhiko; Moroi, Masao; Joki, Nobuhiko; Hase, Hiroki; Masai, Hirofumi; Kunimasa, Taeko; Nakazato, Ryo; Fukuda, Hiroshi; Sugi, Kaoru

2010-01-01

Normal stress myocardial perfusion images (MPI) generally show good prognosis for cardiovascular events. However, chronic kidney disease (CKD) is one of the important risk factors for coronary artery disease (CAD), and the interpretation of normal stress MPI has not been well established in CKD patients with no evidence of CAD. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the long-term prognostic value of stress MPI in CKD patients with no evidence of myocardial ischemia or infarction. Patients who had no history but were suspected of CAD and had normal stress MPI (n=307, male=208, age=67 years, CKD/non-CKD=46/261) were followed-up for 4.5 years. CKD was defined as a glomerular filtration ratio of 2 and/or persistent proteinuria. Cardiac death, non-fatal myocardial infarction, and unstable angina requiring hospitalization were defined as major cardiac events. Major cardiac events were observed in 3 of 261 (1.1%) non-CKD patients and 6 of 46 (13%) CKD patients (p<0.001, with log-rank test). CKD was an independent risk factor for major cardiac events (hazard ratio=13.1, p<0.001, multivariate Cox regression analysis). Normal stress MPI does not always promise a good prognosis for major cardiac events. Even in patients with no evidence of CAD from stress MPI, CKD can be an independent and significant risk factor for major cardiac events. (author)

Analyzing the risk of recurrence after mastectomy for DCIS: a new use for the USC/Van Nuys Prognostic Index.

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Kelley, Leah; Silverstein, Melvin; Guerra, Lisa

2011-02-01

Patients with ductal carcinoma in situ (DCIS) who are treated with mastectomy seldom recur locally or with metastatic disease. When patients with DCIS recur with invasive cancer, they are upstaged and their lives are threatened. We questioned whether histopathologic data could be used to predict these infrequent events. We reviewed a prospective database of 1,472 patients with pure DCIS. All patients were scored from 4 to 12 using the USC Van Nuys Prognostic Index, an algorithm based on DCIS size, nuclear grade, necrosis, margin width, and patient age. Probabilities of recurrence and death were calculated using the Kaplan-Meier method. A total of 496 patients with pure DCIS were treated with mastectomy. None received any form of postmastectomy adjuvant treatment. Average follow-up was 83 months. Eleven patients developed recurrences, all of whom scored 10-12 using the USC/VNPI. No patient who scored 4-9 recurred. All 11 patients who recurred had multifocal disease and comedo-type necrosis. The probability of disease recurrence after mastectomy for patients scoring 10-12 was 9.6% at 12 years, compared with 0% for those scoring 4-9. There was no difference in overall survival. There were no recurrences among mastectomy patients who scored 4-9 using the USC/VNPI. Patients scoring 10-12 were significantly more likely to develop recurrence after mastectomy. At risk were young patients with large, high-grade, and multifocal or multicentric tumors. For every 100 patients with USC/VNPI scores of 10-12, 10 patients will recur by 12 years and 2-3 will develop metastatic disease.

Prognostic value of biological markers in myocardial infarction patients.

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Berezin, Alexander E; Samura, Tatiana A

2013-04-01

The aim of this study was to compare the prognostic value of matrix metalloproteinase-3 and -9, and NT-pro-natriuretic peptide for fatal and nonfatal complications in Q-wave myocardial infarction patients in the acute and postinfarction periods. 85 men and women with documented Q-wave myocardial infarction were observed for 1 year after hospitalization. Clinical endpoints were identified through the hospital patient-tracking system, with a review of medical records for each recorded endpoint. Left ventricular ejection fraction and wall motion index were calculated. Measurements of matrix metalloproteinases and NT-pro-natriuretic peptide were performed by an enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay. A cutoff value of 9.7 ng·mL(-1) for matrix metalloproteinase-3 showed the best discriminatory power (sensitivity = 77.8%, specificity = 90.8%). The optimal cutoff value of matrix metalloproteinase-9 was 18.1 ng·mL(-1) (sensitivity, 70.5%; specificity, 75%), and the cutoff for NT-pro-natriuretic peptide was 885 pmol·L(-1) (sensitivity, 58%; specificity, 68.6%). Matrix metalloproteinase-3 and -9 were strongly related with a positive prognostic value of 70% (sensitivity and specificity, 84% and 82%, respectively). These data may be helpful for further stratification of patients into cardiovascular mortality risk groups.

259 Patients with DCIS of the breast applying USC/Van Nuys prognostic index: a retrospective review with long term follow up.

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Di Saverio, Salomone; Catena, Fausto; Santini, Donatella; Ansaloni, Luca; Fogacci, Tommaso; Mignani, Stefano; Leone, Antonio; Gazzotti, Filippo; Gagliardi, Stefano; De Cataldis, Angelo; Taffurelli, Mario

2008-06-01

The Van Nuys Prognostic Index (VNPI) is a simple score for predicting the risk of local recurrence (LR) in patients with Ductal Carcinoma In Situ (DCIS) conservatively treated. This score combines three independent predictors of Local Recurrence. The VNPI has recently been updated with the addition of age as a fourth parameter into the scoring system (University of Southern California/ VNPI). Our database consisted of 408 women with DCIS. Applying the USC/VNPI we reviewed retrospectively 259 patients who were treated with breast conserving surgery with or without radiotherapy (RT). Of these patients 63.5% had a low VNPI score, 32% intermediate and 4.5% a high score. In the low score group, the majority of the patients underwent Conservative Surgery (CS) without RT while in the intermediate group, almost half of the patients received RT. Eighty-three percent (83%) of the patients with high VNPI were treated with Conservative Surgery plus RT. Nodal assessment by Sentinel Lymph Node Biopsy was obtained in 32 patients since 2002. Twenty-one Local Recurrences were observed (8%) with a mean follow up of 130 months: sixteen were invasive. No statistically significant differences in Disease Free Survival were reached in all groups of VNPI score between patients treated with Conservative Surgery or Conservative Surgery plus RT. However it was noted that the higher the VNPI score, the lower was the risk of local recurrence in the group treated additionally with RT, even though it was not statistically significant. Further analysis included those patients treated with Conservative Surgery alone and followed up. Disease-free survival (DFS) at 10 years was 94% with low VNPI and 83% in both intermediate and high score (P USC/VNPI is still a simple and reliable scoring system for therapeutic management of DCIS. We did not find any statistically significant advantage in groups treated with the addition of RT. Obtaining wide surgical margins appears to be the strongest prognostic

Prognostic nomograms for predicting survival and distant metastases in locally advanced rectal cancers.

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Junjie Peng

Full Text Available To develop prognostic nomograms for predicting outcomes in patients with locally advanced rectal cancers who do not receive preoperative treatment.A total of 883 patients with stage II-III rectal cancers were retrospectively collected from a single institution. Survival analyses were performed to assess each variable for overall survival (OS, local recurrence (LR and distant metastases (DM. Cox models were performed to develop a predictive model for each endpoint. The performance of model prediction was validated by cross validation and on an independent group of patients.The 5-year LR, DM and OS rates were 22.3%, 32.7% and 63.8%, respectively. Two prognostic nomograms were successfully developed to predict 5-year OS and DM-free survival rates, with c-index of 0.70 (95% CI = [0.66, 0.73] and 0.68 (95% CI = [0.64, 0.72] on the original dataset, and 0.76 (95% CI = [0.67, 0.86] and 0.73 (95% CI = [0.63, 0.83] on the validation dataset, respectively. Factors in our models included age, gender, carcinoembryonic antigen value, tumor location, T stage, N stage, metastatic lymph nodes ratio, adjuvant chemotherapy and chemoradiotherapy. Predicted by our nomogram, substantial variability in terms of 5-year OS and DM-free survival was observed within each TNM stage category.The prognostic nomograms integrated demographic and clinicopathological factors to account for tumor and patient heterogeneity, and thereby provided a more individualized outcome prognostication. Our individualized prediction nomograms could help patients with preoperatively under-staged rectal cancer about their postoperative treatment strategies and follow-up protocols.

Detection of lymphangiogenesis in non-small cell lung cancer and its prognostic value

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Liao Rong-xia

2009-02-01

Full Text Available Abstract Background Our aim was to detect lymphatic endothelial marker podoplanin, lymphatic vessel endothelial hyaluronan receptor-1 (LYVE-1 and vascular endothelial growth factor receptor-3 (VEGFR-3 and study the prognostic relevance of lymphangiogenesis in non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC. Materials 82 paraffin-embedded tissues and 40 fresh frozen tissues from patients with NSCLC were studied. Tumor samples were immunostained for the lymphatic endothelial markers. Lymphangiogenesis was assessed by immunohistochemical double stains for Podoplanin and Ki-67. The prognostic relevance of lymphangiogenesis-related clinicopathological parameters in NSCLC was evaluated. Results We found that the number of podoplanin positive vessels was correlated positively with the number of LYVE-1 positive vessels. Most of VEGFR-3 positive, few of LYVE-1 positive and none of podoplanin positive vessels were blood vessels. Peritumoral lymphatic vessel density (ptLVD, pathologic stage, lymph node status, lymphatic vessel invasion (LVI, vascular endothelial growth factor-C (VEGF-C expression and Ki-67 index of the endothelium cells of the micro lymphatic vessels (Ki67% were associated significantly with a higher risk of tumor progress. ptLVD, pathologic stage, lymph-node metastasis and Ki67% were independent prognostic parameters for overall survival. Conclusion Podoplanin positive ptLVD might play important roles in the lymphangiogenesis and progression of NSCLC. Patients with high podoplanin+ ptLVD have a poor prognosis.

Selected acute phase CSF factors in ischemic stroke: findings and prognostic value

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Intskirveli Nino

2011-03-01

Full Text Available Abstract Background Study aimed at investigation of pathogenic role and prognostic value of several selected cerebrospinal fluid acute phase factors that can reflect the severity of ischemic brain damage. Methods Ninety five acute ischemic stroke patients were investigated. Ischemic region visualized at the twenty fourth hour by conventional Magnetic Resonance Imaging. Stroke severity evaluated by National Institute Health Stroke Scale. One month outcome of disease was assessed by Barthel Index. Cerebrospinal fluid was taken at the sixth hour of stroke onset. CSF pro- and anti-inflammatory cytokines were studied by Enzyme Linked Immunosorbent Assay. Nitric Oxide and Lipoperoxide radical were measured by Electron Paramagnetic Resonance. CSF Nitrate levels were detected using the Griess reagent. Statistics performed by SPSS-11.0. Results At the sixth hour of stroke onset, cerebrospinal fluid cytokine levels were elevated in patients against controls. Severe stroke patients had increased interleukin-6 content compared to less severe strokes (P Conclusion According to present study the cerebrospinal fluid contents of interleukin-6 and nitrates seem to be the most reliable prognostic factors in acute phase of ischemic stroke.

Albumin and Neutrophil Combined Prognostic Grade as a New Prognostic Factor in Non-Small Cell Lung Cancer: Results from a Large Consecutive Cohort.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Haifeng Sun

Full Text Available It has been reported nutritional status and systemic inflammation were associated with the outcome of patients with malignancies. However, the prognostic value of combination of them was really scarce, especially in non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC. In order to find a more simple and efficient predictor, we hypothesized that pretreatment albumin and neutrophil combined prognostic grade (ANPG could offer an improved prognostic ability in NSCLC patients.We collected pretreatment albumin and neutrophil, clinicopathological, treatment and follow-up data of 1033 consecutive NSCLC patients treated between 2006 and 2011 in this retrospective study. The ANPG was calculated according to pretreatment albumin and neutrophil levels dichotomized by the optimal cut-off values, the quartile values and the clinical reference values. Kaplan-Meier (K-M curves and Cox proportional regression were used for survival analyses. All the data was analyzed by SPSS 20.0.According to optimal cut-off values and quartile values, significant differences were found in different pretreatment albumin, neutrophil levels and ANPG from the K-M curve (all p<0.05. Univariate analyses and multivariate analyses disclosed ANPG was a more sensitive independent predictor for both overall survival (OS and progression free survival (PFS than either albumin level or neutrophil level (HRs were higher for ANPG. As for clinical reference values, no significant difference of pretreatment albumin levels was found in K-M curve and univariate analyses. All three indexes lost their significance in multivariate analyses.Higher ANPG predicts worse OS and PFS in NSCLC patients independently, and it is more sensitive than hypoalbuminaemia and neutrophilia. It might be used as a reliable, convenient and more sensitive predictor to assist the identification of patients with poor prognosis and be a hierarchical factor in the future NSCLC clinical trials.

Expression of connective tissue growth factor in male breast cancer: clinicopathologic correlations and prognostic value.

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Lacle, Miangela M; van Diest, Paul J; Goldschmeding, Roel; van der Wall, Elsken; Nguyen, Tri Q

2015-01-01

Connective tissue growth factor (CTGF/CCN2) is a member of the CCN family of secreted proteins that are believed to play an important role in the development of neoplasia. In particular, CTGF has been reported to play an important role in mammary tumorigenesis and to have prognostic value in female breast cancer (FBC). The aim of the present study was to investigate clinicopathologic correlations and prognostic value of CTGF in male breast cancer (MBC) and to compare these findings with FBC. For this, we studied CTGF protein expression by immunohistochemistry in 109 MBC cases and 75 FBC cases. In MBC, stromal CTGF expression was seen in the majority of the cases 78% (85/109) with high expression in 31/109 cases (28.4%), but expression in tumor cells was only seen in 9.2% (10/109) of cases. High stromal CTGF expression correlated with high grade and high proliferation index (>15%) assessed by MIB-1 immunohistochemical staining. CTGF expression in tumor epithelial cells did not correlate with any of the clinicopathologic features. In FBC, stromal CTGF expression positively correlated with mitotic count and tumor CTGF expression was associated with triple negative status of the tumor (p = 0.002). Neither stromal nor tumor epithelial cell CTGF expression had prognostic value in MBC and FBC. In conclusion, stromal CTGF expression was seen in a high percentage of MBC and was correlated with high grade and high proliferation index. In view of the important role of the microenvironment in cancer progression, this might suggest that stromal CTGF could be an interesting target for novel therapies and molecular imaging. However, the lack of association with prognosis warrants caution. The potential role of CTGF as a therapeutic target for triple negative FBC deserves to be further studied.

Cytogenetic prognostication within medulloblastoma subgroups.

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Shih, David J H; Northcott, Paul A; Remke, Marc; Korshunov, Andrey; Ramaswamy, Vijay; Kool, Marcel; Luu, Betty; Yao, Yuan; Wang, Xin; Dubuc, Adrian M; Garzia, Livia; Peacock, John; Mack, Stephen C; Wu, Xiaochong; Rolider, Adi; Morrissy, A Sorana; Cavalli, Florence M G; Jones, David T W; Zitterbart, Karel; Faria, Claudia C; Schüller, Ulrich; Kren, Leos; Kumabe, Toshihiro; Tominaga, Teiji; Shin Ra, Young; Garami, Miklós; Hauser, Peter; Chan, Jennifer A; Robinson, Shenandoah; Bognár, László; Klekner, Almos; Saad, Ali G; Liau, Linda M; Albrecht, Steffen; Fontebasso, Adam; Cinalli, Giuseppe; De Antonellis, Pasqualino; Zollo, Massimo; Cooper, Michael K; Thompson, Reid C; Bailey, Simon; Lindsey, Janet C; Di Rocco, Concezio; Massimi, Luca; Michiels, Erna M C; Scherer, Stephen W; Phillips, Joanna J; Gupta, Nalin; Fan, Xing; Muraszko, Karin M; Vibhakar, Rajeev; Eberhart, Charles G; Fouladi, Maryam; Lach, Boleslaw; Jung, Shin; Wechsler-Reya, Robert J; Fèvre-Montange, Michelle; Jouvet, Anne; Jabado, Nada; Pollack, Ian F; Weiss, William A; Lee, Ji-Yeoun; Cho, Byung-Kyu; Kim, Seung-Ki; Wang, Kyu-Chang; Leonard, Jeffrey R; Rubin, Joshua B; de Torres, Carmen; Lavarino, Cinzia; Mora, Jaume; Cho, Yoon-Jae; Tabori, Uri; Olson, James M; Gajjar, Amar; Packer, Roger J; Rutkowski, Stefan; Pomeroy, Scott L; French, Pim J; Kloosterhof, Nanne K; Kros, Johan M; Van Meir, Erwin G; Clifford, Steven C; Bourdeaut, Franck; Delattre, Olivier; Doz, François F; Hawkins, Cynthia E; Malkin, David; Grajkowska, Wieslawa A; Perek-Polnik, Marta; Bouffet, Eric; Rutka, James T; Pfister, Stefan M; Taylor, Michael D

2014-03-20

Medulloblastoma comprises four distinct molecular subgroups: WNT, SHH, Group 3, and Group 4. Current medulloblastoma protocols stratify patients based on clinical features: patient age, metastatic stage, extent of resection, and histologic variant. Stark prognostic and genetic differences among the four subgroups suggest that subgroup-specific molecular biomarkers could improve patient prognostication. Molecular biomarkers were identified from a discovery set of 673 medulloblastomas from 43 cities around the world. Combined risk stratification models were designed based on clinical and cytogenetic biomarkers identified by multivariable Cox proportional hazards analyses. Identified biomarkers were tested using fluorescent in situ hybridization (FISH) on a nonoverlapping medulloblastoma tissue microarray (n = 453), with subsequent validation of the risk stratification models. Subgroup information improves the predictive accuracy of a multivariable survival model compared with clinical biomarkers alone. Most previously published cytogenetic biomarkers are only prognostic within a single medulloblastoma subgroup. Profiling six FISH biomarkers (GLI2, MYC, chromosome 11 [chr11], chr14, 17p, and 17q) on formalin-fixed paraffin-embedded tissues, we can reliably and reproducibly identify very low-risk and very high-risk patients within SHH, Group 3, and Group 4 medulloblastomas. Combining subgroup and cytogenetic biomarkers with established clinical biomarkers substantially improves patient prognostication, even in the context of heterogeneous clinical therapies. The prognostic significance of most molecular biomarkers is restricted to a specific subgroup. We have identified a small panel of cytogenetic biomarkers that reliably identifies very high-risk and very low-risk groups of patients, making it an excellent tool for selecting patients for therapy intensification and therapy de-escalation in future clinical trials.

Distributed Prognostics Based on Structural Model Decomposition

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National Aeronautics and Space Administration — Within systems health management, prognostics focuses on predicting the remaining useful life of a system. In the model-based prognostics paradigm, physics-based...

Prognostic Performance Metrics

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National Aeronautics and Space Administration — This chapter presents several performance metrics for offline evaluation of prognostics algorithms. A brief overview of different methods employed for performance...

DNA level and stereologic estimates of nuclear volume in squamous cell carcinomas of the uterine cervix. A comparative study with analysis of prognostic impact

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Sørensen, Flemming Brandt; Bichel, P; Jakobsen, A

1992-01-01

Grading of malignancy in squamous cell carcinomas of the uterine cervix is based on qualitative, morphologic examination and suffers from poor reproducibility. Using modern stereology, unbiased estimates of the three-dimensional, volume-weighted mean nuclear volume (nuclear vv), were obtained...... in pretreatment biopsies from 51 patients treated for cervical cancer in clinical Stages I through III (mean age of 56 years, follow-up period greater than 5 years). In addition, conventional, two-dimensional morphometric estimates of nuclear and mitotic features were obtained. DNA indices (DI) were estimated...... of nuclear vv were only of marginal prognostic significance (2P = 0.07). However, Cox multivariate regression analysis showed independent prognostic value of patient age and nuclear vv along with clinical stage and DI. All other investigated variables were rejected from the model. A prognostic index...

Prognostic Value of Geriatric Conditions Beyond Age After Acute Coronary Syndrome.

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Sanchis, Juan; Ruiz, Vicente; Bonanad, Clara; Valero, Ernesto; Ruescas-Nicolau, Maria Arantzazu; Ezzatvar, Yasmin; Sastre, Clara; García-Blas, Sergio; Mollar, Anna; Bertomeu-González, Vicente; Miñana, Gema; Núñez, Julio

2017-06-01

The aim of the present study was to investigate the prognostic value of geriatric conditions beyond age after acute coronary syndrome. This was a prospective cohort design including 342 patients (from October 1, 2010, to February 1, 2012) hospitalized for acute coronary syndrome, older than 65 years, in whom 5 geriatric conditions were evaluated at discharge: frailty (Fried and Green scales), comorbidity (Charlson and simple comorbidity indexes), cognitive impairment (Pfeiffer test), physical disability (Barthel index), and instrumental disability (Lawton-Brody scale). The primary end point was all-cause mortality. The median follow-up for the entire population was 4.7 years (range, 3-2178 days). A total of 156 patients (46%) died. Among the geriatric conditions, frailty (Green score, per point; hazard ratio, 1.11; 95% CI, 1.02-1.20; P=.01) and comorbidity (Charlson index, per point; hazard ratio, 1.18; 95% CI, 1.0-1.40; P=.05) were the independent predictors. The introduction of age in a basic model using well-established prognostic clinical variables resulted in an increase in discrimination accuracy (C-statistic=.716-.744; P=.05), though the addition of frailty and comorbidity provided a nonsignificant further increase (C-statistic=.759; P=.36). Likewise, the addition of age to the clinical model led to a significant risk reclassification (continuous net reclassification improvement, 0.46; 95% CI, 0.21-0.67; and integrated discrimination improvement, 0.04; 95% CI, 0.01-0.09). However, the addition of frailty and comorbidity provided a further significant risk reclassification in comparison to the clinical model with age (continuous net reclassification improvement, 0.40; 95% CI, 0.16-0.65; and integrated discrimination improvement, 0.04; 95% CI, 0.01-0.10). In conclusion, frailty and comorbidity are mortality predictors that significantly reclassify risk beyond age after acute coronary syndrome. Copyright © 2017 Mayo Foundation for Medical Education and

Delaying ACL reconstruction and treating with exercise therapy alone may alter prognostic factors for 5-year outcome

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Filbay, Stephanie R; Roos, Ewa M; Frobell, Richard B

2017-01-01

, body mass index, preinjury activity level, education and smoking. RESULTS: For all participants (n=118), graft/contralateral ACL rupture, non-ACL surgery and worse baseline 36-item Short-Form Mental Component Scores were associated with worse outcomes. Treatment with exercise therapy alone......AIM: Identify injury-related, patient-reported and treatment-related prognostic factors for 5-year outcomes in acutely ACL-ruptured individuals managed with early reconstruction plus exercise therapy, exercise therapy plus delayed reconstruction or exercise therapy alone. METHODS: Exploratory...... was a prognostic factor for less knee symptoms compared with early reconstruction plus exercise therapy (regression coefficient 10.1, 95% CI 2.3 to 17.9). Baseline meniscus lesion was associated with worse sport/recreation function (-14.4, 95% CI -27.6 to -1.3) and osteochondral lesions were associated with worse...

Long-term prognostic importance of hyperkinesia following acute myocardial infarction. TRACE Study Group. TRAndolapril Cardiac Evaluation

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Kjøller, E; Køber, L; Jørgensen, S

1999-01-01

The long-term prognostic importance of hyperkinesia is unknown following an acute myocardial infarction (AMI). The American Society of Echocardiography recommends that hyperkinesia should not be included in calculation of wall motion index (WMI). The objective of the present study was to determine...... if hyperkinesia should be included in WMI when it is estimated for prognostic purposes following an AMI. Six thousand, six hundred seventy-six consecutive patients were screened 1 to 6 days after AMI in 27 Danish hospitals. WMI was measured in 6,232 patients applying the 9-segment model and the following scoring...... system: 3 for hyperkinesia, 2 for normokinesia, 1 for hypokinesia, 0 for akinesia, and -1 for dyskinesia. All patients were followed with respect to mortality for at least 3 years. WMI was calculated in 2 different ways: 1 including hyperkinetic segments (hyperkinetic-WMI) and the other excluding...

Stage-dependent prognostic impact of molecular signatures in clear cell renal cell carcinoma

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Weber T

2014-05-01

Full Text Available Thomas Weber,1,2 Matthias Meinhardt,3 Stefan Zastrow,1 Andreas Wienke,4 Kati Erdmann,1 Jörg Hofmann,1 Susanne Fuessel,1 Manfred P Wirth11Department of Urology, Technische Universität Dresden, Dresden, Germany; 2Department of Oncology and Hematology, Martin-Luther-University Halle-Wittenberg, Halle (Saale, Germany; 3Institute of Pathology, Technische Universität Dresden, Dresden, Germany; 4Institute of Medical Epidemiology, Biostatistics, and Informatics, Martin-Luther-University Halle-Wittenberg, Halle (Saale, GermanyPurpose: To enhance prognostic information of protein biomarkers for clear cell renal cell carcinomas (ccRCCs, we analyzed them within prognostic groups of ccRCC harboring different tumor characteristics of this clinically and molecularly heterogeneous tumor entity.Methods: Tissue microarrays from 145 patients with primary ccRCC were immunohistochemically analyzed for VHL (von Hippel-Lindau tumor suppressor, Ki67 (marker of proliferation 1, p53 (tumor protein p53, p21 (cyclin-dependent kinase inhibitor 1A, survivin (baculoviral IAP repeat containing 5, and UEA-1 (ulex europaeus agglutinin I to assess microvessel-density.Results: When analyzing all patients, nuclear staining of Ki67 (hazard ratio [HR] 1.08, 95% confidence interval [CI] 1.04–1.12 and nuclear survivin (nS; HR 1.04, 95% CI 1.01–1.08 were significantly associated with disease-specific survival (DSS. In the cohort of patients with advanced localized or metastasized ccRCC, high staining of Ki67, p53 and nS predicted shorter DSS (Ki67: HR 1.07, 95% CI 1.02–1.11; p53: HR 1.05, 95% CI 1.01–1.09; nS: HR 1.08, 95% CI 1.02–1.14. In organ-confined ccRCC, patients with high p21-staining had a longer DSS (HR 0.96, 95% CI 0.92–0.99. In a multivariate model with stepwise backward elimination, tumor size and p21-staining showed a significant association with DSS in patients with "organ-confined" ccRCCs. The p21-staining increased the concordance index of tumor size from

A new extranodal scoring system based on the prognostically relevant extranodal sites in diffuse large B-cell lymphoma, not otherwise specified treated with chemoimmunotherapy.

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Hwang, Hee Sang; Yoon, Dok Hyun; Suh, Cheolwon; Huh, Jooryung

2016-08-01

Extranodal involvement is a well-known prognostic factor in patients with diffuse large B-cell lymphomas (DLBCL). Nevertheless, the prognostic impact of the extranodal scoring system included in the conventional international prognostic index (IPI) has been questioned in an era where rituximab treatment has become widespread. We investigated the prognostic impacts of individual sites of extranodal involvement in 761 patients with DLBCL who received rituximab-based chemoimmunotherapy. Subsequently, we established a new extranodal scoring system based on extranodal sites, showing significant prognostic correlation, and compared this system with conventional scoring systems, such as the IPI and the National Comprehensive Cancer Network-IPI (NCCN-IPI). An internal validation procedure, using bootstrapped samples, was also performed for both univariate and multivariate models. Using multivariate analysis with a backward variable selection, we found nine extranodal sites (the liver, lung, spleen, central nervous system, bone marrow, kidney, skin, adrenal glands, and peritoneum) that remained significant for use in the final model. Our newly established extranodal scoring system, based on these sites, was better correlated with patient survival than standard scoring systems, such as the IPI and the NCCN-IPI. Internal validation by bootstrapping demonstrated an improvement in model performance of our modified extranodal scoring system. Our new extranodal scoring system, based on the prognostically relevant sites, may improve the performance of conventional prognostic models of DLBCL in the rituximab era and warrants further external validation using large study populations.

Echocardiographic predictors of early in-hospital heart failure during first ST-elevation acute myocardial infarction: does myocardial performance index and left atrial volume improve diagnosis over conventional parameters of left ventricular function?

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Machado Cristiano V

2011-06-01

Full Text Available Abstract Background Left ventricular ejection fraction (LVEF has been considered a major determinant of early outcome in acute myocardial infarction (AMI. Myocardial performance index (MPI has been associated to early evolution in AMI in a heterogeneous population, including non ST-elevation or previous AMI. Left atrial volume has been related with late evolution after AMI. We evaluated the independent role of clinical and echocardiographic variables including LVEF, MPI and left atrial volume in predicting early in-hospital congestive heart failure (CHF specifically in patients with a first isolated ST-elevation AMI. Methods Echocardiography was performed within 30 hours of chest pain in 95 patients with a first ST-elevation AMI followed during the first week of hospitalization. Several clinical and echocardiographic variables were analyzed. CHF was defined as Killip class ≥ II. Multivariate regression analysis was used to select independent predictor of in-hospital CHF. Results Early in-hospital CHF occurred in 29 (31% of patients. LVEF ≤ 0.45 was the single independent and highly significant predictor of early CHF among other clinical and echocardiographic variables (odds ratio 17.0; [95% CI 4.1 - 70.8]; p Conclusion For patients with first, isolated ST-elevation AMI, LVEF assessed by echocardiography still constitutes a strong and accurate independent predictor of early in-hospital CHF, superior to isolated MPI and left atrial volume in this particular subset of patients.

Conceptualizing prognostic awareness in advanced cancer: a systematic review.

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Applebaum, Allison J; Kolva, Elissa A; Kulikowski, Julia R; Jacobs, Jordana D; DeRosa, Antonio; Lichtenthal, Wendy G; Olden, Megan E; Rosenfeld, Barry; Breitbart, William

2014-09-01

This systematic review synthesizes the complex literature on prognostic awareness in cancer. A total of 37 studies examining cancer patients' understanding of their prognosis were included. Prognostic awareness definitions and assessment methods were inconsistent across studies. A surprisingly high percentage of patients (up to 75%) were unaware of their poor prognosis, and in several studies, even their cancer diagnosis (up to 96%), particularly in studies conducted outside of North America. This review highlights surprisingly low rates of prognostic awareness in patients with advanced cancer as well as discrepancies in prognostic awareness assessment, suggesting the need for empirically validated measures of prognostic awareness. © The Author(s) 2013.

Cardiovascular outcomes after pharmacologic stress myocardial perfusion imaging.

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Lee, Douglas S; Husain, Mansoor; Wang, Xuesong; Austin, Peter C; Iwanochko, Robert M

2016-04-01

While pharmacologic stress single photon emission computed tomography myocardial perfusion imaging (SPECT-MPI) is used for noninvasive evaluation of patients who are unable to perform treadmill exercise, its impact on net reclassification improvement (NRI) of prognosis is unknown. We evaluated the prognostic value of pharmacologic stress MPI for prediction of cardiovascular death or non-fatal myocardial infarction (MI) within 1 year at a single-center, university-based laboratory. We examined continuous and categorical NRI of pharmacologic SPECT-MPI for prediction of outcomes beyond clinical factors alone. Six thousand two hundred forty patients (median age 66 years [IQR 56-74], 3466 men) were studied and followed for 5963 person-years. SPECT-MPI variables associated with increased risk of cardiovascular death or non-fatal MI included summed stress score, stress ST-shift, and post-stress resting left ventricular ejection fraction ≤50%. Compared to a clinical model which included age, sex, cardiovascular disease, risk factors, and medications, model χ(2) (210.5 vs. 281.9, P statistic (0.74 vs. 0.78, P stress score, stress ST-shift and stress resting left ventricular ejection fraction). SPECT-MPI predictors increased continuous NRI by 49.4% (P 3% annualized risk of cardiovascular death or non-fatal MI, yielded a 15.0% improvement in NRI (95% CI 7.6%-27.6%, P stress MPI substantially improved net reclassification of cardiovascular death or MI risk beyond that afforded by clinical factors. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

[Frail-VIG index: Design and evaluation of a new frailty index based on the Comprehensive Geriatric Assessment].

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Amblàs-Novellas, Jordi; Martori, Joan Carles; Molist Brunet, Núria; Oller, Ramon; Gómez-Batiste, Xavier; Espaulella Panicot, Joan

Frailty is closely linked to health results. Frailty indexes (FI) and the Comprehensive Geriatric Assessment (CGA) are multidimensional tools. FI serve to quantitatively measure frailty levels. They have shown to have an excellent correlation with mortality. However, they are infrequently used in clinical practice. Given the need for new, more concise, and pragmatic FI, a new FI is proposed based on a CGA (Frail-VIG Index). A prospective, observational, longitudinal study was conducted, with cohort follow up at 12 months or death. Participants were patients admitted in the Geriatric Unit of the University Hospital of Vic (Barcelona, Spain) during 2014. Contrast of hypothesis log-rank for survival curves according to Frail-VIG index, and analysis of ROC curves were performed to assess prognostic capacity. A total of 590 patients were included (mean age=86.39). Mortality rate at 12 months was 46.4%. The comparative analysis showed statistically significant differences (P<.05) for almost all variables included in the Frail-VIG index. Survival curves also show significant differences (X 2 =445, P<.001) for the different Frail-VIG index scores. The area under the ROC curve at 12 months was 0.9 (0.88-0.92). An administration time of the Index is estimated at less than 10minutes. Results endorse the Frail-VIG index as a simple (as for contents), rapid (for administration time) tool, with discriminative (for situational diagnosis) and predictive capacity (high correlation with mortality). Copyright © 2016 SEGG. Publicado por Elsevier España, S.L.U. All rights reserved.

Integrated multigene expression panel to prognosticate patients with gastric cancer.

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Kanda, Mitsuro; Murotani, Kenta; Tanaka, Haruyoshi; Miwa, Takashi; Umeda, Shinichi; Tanaka, Chie; Kobayashi, Daisuke; Hayashi, Masamichi; Hattori, Norifumi; Suenaga, Masaya; Yamada, Suguru; Nakayama, Goro; Fujiwara, Michitaka; Kodera, Yasuhiro

2018-04-10

Most of the proposed individual markers had limited clinical utility due to the inherent biological and genetic heterogeneity of gastric cancer. We aimed to build a new molecular-based model to predict prognosis in patients with gastric cancer. A total of 200 patients who underwent gastric resection for gastric cancer were divided into learning and validation cohorts using a table of random numbers in a 1:1 ratio. In the learning cohort, mRNA expression levels of 15 molecular markers in gastric tissues were analyzed and concordance index (C-index) values of all single and combinations of the 15 candidate markers for overall survival were calculated. The multigene expression panel was designed according to C-index values and the subpopulation index. Expression scores were determined with weighting according to the coefficient of each constituent. The reproducibility of the panel was evaluated in the validation cohort. C-index values of the 15 single candidate markers ranged from 0.506-0.653. Among 32,767 combinations, the optimal and balanced expression panel comprised four constituents ( MAGED2, SYT8, BTG1 , and FAM46 ) and the C-index value was 0.793. Using this panel, patients were provisionally categorized with scores of 1-3, and clearly stratified into favorable, intermediate, and poor overall survival groups. In the validation cohort, both overall and disease-free survival rates decreased incrementally with increasing expression scores. Multivariate analysis revealed that the expression score was an independent prognostic factor for overall survival after curative gastrectomy. We developed an integrated multigene expression panel that simply and accurately stratified risk of patients with gastric cancer.

Prognostic utility of vitamin D in acute coronary syndrome patients in coastal Norway.

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Naesgaard, Patrycja A; Pönitz, Volker; Aarsetoey, Hildegunn; Brügger-Andersen, Trygve; Grundt, Heidi; Harris, William S; Staines, Harry; Nilsen, Dennis W T

2015-01-01

An inverse relationship between cardiovascular risk and levels of vitamin D and omega-3 index may exist. To evaluate the prognostic utility of serum 25-hydroxyvitamin D [25(OH)D] in 871 patients with suspected acute coronary syndrome (ACS) and to assess the seasonal correlation between 25(OH)D and the omega-3 index in 456 ACS patients from southwestern Norway. In the univariate analysis the hazard ratio (HR) at 2-year follow-up for all-cause mortality in the highest as compared to the lowest quartile of 25(OH)D in the total population was 0.61 (95% confidence interval (CI), 0.37-1.00), P = 0.050. At 7-year follow-up, the corresponding HR for all-cause mortality was 0.66 (95% CI, 0.49-0.90), P = 0.008, and for females alone 0.51 (95% CI, 0.32-0.83), P = 0.006. Quartile survival did not differ in the multivariable analysis, whereas 25(OH)D omega-3 index, were noted, and the two biomarkers were positively correlated, especially during winter-spring; Pearson's correlation coefficient was 0.358, P omega-3 index.

Prognostic value of tumor necrosis at CT in diffuse large B-cell lymphoma

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Adams, Hugo J.A., E-mail: h.j.a.adams@gmail.com [Department of Radiology and Nuclear Medicine, University Medical Center Utrecht, Utrecht (Netherlands); Klerk, John M.H. de [Department of Nuclear Medicine, Meander Medical Center, Amersfoort (Netherlands); Fijnheer, Rob [Department of Hematology, Meander Medical Center, Amersfoort (Netherlands); Dubois, Stefan V. [Department of Pathology, Meander Medical Center, Amersfoort (Netherlands); Nievelstein, Rutger A.J.; Kwee, Thomas C. [Department of Radiology and Nuclear Medicine, University Medical Center Utrecht, Utrecht (Netherlands)

2015-03-15

Highlights: •CT is compulsory for staging newly diagnosed DLBCL. •Approximately 13.7% of DLBCL patients have tumor necrosis at CT. •Tumor necrosis status at CT is not associated with any NCCN-IPI factor. •Patients with tumor necrosis at CT have a significantly worse outcome. -- Abstract: Objective: To determine the prognostic value of tumor necrosis at computed tomography (CT) in newly diagnosed diffuse large B-cell lymphoma (DLBCL). Materials and methods: This retrospective study included 51 patients with newly diagnosed DLBCL who had undergone both unenhanced and intravenous contrast-enhanced CT before R-CHOP (rituximab, cyclophosphamide, hydroxydaunorubicin, oncovin and prednisolone) chemo-immunotherapy. Presence of tumor necrosis was visually and quantitatively assessed at CT. Associations between tumor necrosis status at CT and the National Comprehensive Cancer Network (NCCN) International Prognostic Index (IPI) factors were assessed. Cox regression analysis was used to determine the prognostic impact of NCCN-IPI scores and tumor necrosis status at CT. Results: There were no correlations between tumor necrosis status at CT and the NCCN-IPI factors categorized age (ρ = −0.042, P = 0.765), categorized lactate dehydrogenase (LDH) ratio (ρ = 0.201, P = 0.156), extranodal disease in major organs (φ = −0.245, P = 0.083), Ann Arbor stage III/IV disease (φ = −0.208, P = 0.141), and Eastern Cooperative Oncology Group (ECOG) performance status (φ = 0.015, P = 0.914). In the multivariate Cox proportional hazards model, only tumor necrosis status at CT was an independent predictive factor of progression-free survival (P = 0.003) and overall survival (P = 0.004). Conclusion: The findings of this study indicate the prognostic potential of tumor necrosis at CT in newly diagnosed DLBCL.

MPI-AMRVAC 2.0 for Solar and Astrophysical Applications

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Xia, C.; Teunissen, J.; El Mellah, I.; Chané, E.; Keppens, R.

2018-02-01

We report on the development of MPI-AMRVAC version 2.0, which is an open-source framework for parallel, grid-adaptive simulations of hydrodynamic and magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) astrophysical applications. The framework now supports radial grid stretching in combination with adaptive mesh refinement (AMR). The advantages of this combined approach are demonstrated with one-dimensional, two-dimensional, and three-dimensional examples of spherically symmetric Bondi accretion, steady planar Bondi–Hoyle–Lyttleton flows, and wind accretion in supergiant X-ray binaries. Another improvement is support for the generic splitting of any background magnetic field. We present several tests relevant for solar physics applications to demonstrate the advantages of field splitting on accuracy and robustness in extremely low-plasma β environments: a static magnetic flux rope, a magnetic null-point, and magnetic reconnection in a current sheet with either uniform or anomalous resistivity. Our implementation for treating anisotropic thermal conduction in multi-dimensional MHD applications is also described, which generalizes the original slope-limited symmetric scheme from two to three dimensions. We perform ring diffusion tests that demonstrate its accuracy and robustness, and show that it prevents the unphysical thermal flux present in traditional schemes. The improved parallel scaling of the code is demonstrated with three-dimensional AMR simulations of solar coronal rain, which show satisfactory strong scaling up to 2000 cores. Other framework improvements are also reported: the modernization and reorganization into a library, the handling of automatic regression tests, the use of inline/online Doxygen documentation, and a new future-proof data format for input/output.

Nutritional status in the era of target therapy: poor nutrition is a prognostic factor in non-small cell lung cancer with activating epidermal growth factor receptor mutations.

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Park, Sehhoon; Park, Seongyeol; Lee, Se-Hoon; Suh, Beomseok; Keam, Bhumsuk; Kim, Tae Min; Kim, Dong-Wan; Kim, Young Whan; Heo, Dae Seog

2016-11-01

Pretreatment nutritional status is an important prognostic factor in patients treated with conventional cytotoxic chemotherapy. In the era of target therapies, its value is overlooked and has not been investigated. The aim of our study is to evaluate the value of nutritional status in targeted therapy. A total of 2012 patients with non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) were reviewed and 630 patients with activating epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) mutation treated with EGFR tyrosine kinase inhibitor (TKI) were enrolled for the final analysis. Anemia, body mass index (BMI), and prognostic nutritional index (PNI) were considered as nutritional factors. Hazard ratio (HR), progression-free survival (PFS) and overall survival (OS) for each group were calculated by Cox proportional analysis. In addition, scores were applied for each category and the sum of scores was used for survival analysis. In univariable analysis, anemia (HR, 1.29; p = 0.015), BMI lower than 18.5 (HR, 1.98; p = 0.002), and PNI lower than 45 (HR, 1.57; p nutritional status is a prognostic marker in NSCLC patients treated with EGFR TKI. Hence, baseline nutritional status should be more carefully evaluated and adequate nutrition should be supplied to these patients.

Prognostic factors in Guillain-Barre syndrome

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Semra Mungan

2014-12-01

Full Text Available Objective: Guillain–Barre syndrome (GBS is an immune-mediated disorder of peripheral nerves resulting as acute inflammatory demyelinating polyradiculoneuropathy. GBS has a heterogeneous clinical course and laboratory findings. Acute onset and progressive course, and is usually associated with a good prognosis but some forms have a poor prognosis. Factors that can affect the prognosis of GBS have been investigated in several studies. Assessment of poor prognostic factors of GBS plays a vital role in the management and monitorization of patients. Methods: In this retrospective study of patients admitted to the acute phase of GBS removing clinical and laboratory profiles and was planned to investigate the prognostic factors. Results: Totally 23 patients (Female/male: 16/7 were recruited. Mean age was 47 (range: 17-70 years. Statistically significant poor prognostic factors were advanced age (p=0.042, erythrocyte sedimentation rate (p=0.027 and serum albumin level (p=0.007. Conclusion: Advanced age, increased ESR and decreased albumin levels were found as poor prognostic factors in GBS.

Prognostic Assessment in Patients with Indolent B-Cell Lymphomas

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Luca Arcaini

2012-01-01

Full Text Available Follicular lymphoma (FL is an indolent lymphoma with long median survival. Many studies have been performed to build up prognostic scores potentially useful to identify patients with poorer outcome. In 2004, an international consortium coordinated by the International Follicular Lymphoma Prognostic Factor project was established and a new prognostic study was launched (FLIPI2 using progression-free survival (PFS as main endpoint and integrating all the modern parameters prospectively collected. Low-grade non-Hodgkin lymphomas were once considered as a heterogenous group of lymphomas characterized by an indolent clinical course. Each entity is characterized by unique clinicobiologic features. Some studies have been focused on prognostic factors in single lymphoma subtypes, with the development of specific-entity scores based on retrospective series, for instance splenic marginal zone lymphoma (SMZL. A widely accepted prognostic tool for clinical usage for indolent non-follicular B-cell lymphomas is largely awaited. In this paper we summarized the current evidence regarding prognostic assessment of indolent follicular and non-follicular lymphomas.

The risk and prognostic impact of definite stent thrombosis or in-stent restenosis after coronary stent implantation

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Thayssen, Per; Jensen, Lisette Okkels; Lassen, Jens Flensted

2012-01-01

Aims: Data are limited on the prognostic impact of stent thrombosis and in-stent restenosis in patients treated with coronary stents. We examined the prognostic impact of stent thrombosis and in-stent restenosis in patients treated with percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI). Methods and results......: All patients who underwent stent implantation from 2002 to 2005 were identified in the Western Denmark Heart Registry. The hazard ratio (HR) for death associated with stent thrombosis or in-stent restenosis was estimated with a Cox regression analysis with stent thrombosis or in-stent restenosis...... as time-dependent variables. A total of 12,277 patients were treated with stent implantation. Stent thrombosis was observed in 111 (0.9%) patients and in-stent restenosis in 503 (4.1%) patients within 12 months after the index PCI. Occurrence of stent thrombosis was associated with an increased risk...

Prognostic value of severity indicators of nursing-home-acquired pneumonia versus community-acquired pneumonia in elderly patients.

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Ugajin, Motoi; Yamaki, Kenichi; Hirasawa, Natsuko; Kobayashi, Takanori; Yagi, Takeo

2014-01-01

The credibility of prognostic indicators in nursing-home-acquired pneumonia (NHAP) is not clear. We previously reported a simple prognostic indicator in community-acquired pneumonia (CAP): blood urea nitrogen to serum albumin (B/A) ratio. This retrospective study investigated the prognostic value of severity indicators in NHAP versus CAP in elderly patients. Patients aged ≥65 years and hospitalized because of NHAP or CAP within the previous 3 years were enrolled. Demographics, coexisting illnesses, laboratory and microbiological findings, and severity scores (confusion, urea, respiratory rate, blood pressure, and age ≥65 [CURB-65] scale; age, dehydration, respiratory failure, orientation disturbance, and pressure [A-DROP] scale; and pneumonia severity index [PSI]) were retrieved from medical records. The primary outcome was mortality within 28 days of admission. In total, 138 NHAP and 307 CAP patients were enrolled. Mortality was higher in NHAP (18.1%) than in CAP (4.6%) (Pscale, 0.69 for the CURB-65 scale, 0.67 for the PSI class, and 0.65 for the B/A ratio. The area under the curve in CAP was 0.73 for the A-DROP scale, 0.76 for the CURB-65 scale, 0.81 for the PSI class, and 0.83 for the B/A ratio. Patient mortality was greater in NHAP than in CAP. Patient characteristics, coexisting illnesses, and detected pathogens differed greatly between NHAP and CAP. The existing severity indicators had less prognostic value for NHAP than for CAP.

Prognostic value of hemoglobin concentration in radiotherapy for cancer of supraglottic larynx

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Tarnawski, Rafal; Skladowski, Krzysztof; Maciejewski, Boguslaw

1997-01-01

Purpose: The aim of this work is the estimation of correlations between hemoglobin concentration either before or after radiotherapy and local tumor control probability for laryngeal cancer. Methods and Materials: Retrospective analysis of 847 cases of laryngeal supraglottic squamous cell carcinoma treated with radiation alone was performed using maximum likelihood estimations, and step-wise logistic regression. All patients were in good initial performance status (Karnofsky index >70). The minimum follow-up time was 3 years. Results: Logistic regression showed that the hemoglobin concentration after radiotherapy is an important prognostic factor. There was a very strong correlation between hemoglobin concentration and tumor local control probability. Hemoglobin concentration at the beginning of radiotherapy does not correlate with treatment outcome, but any decrease of hemoglobin during therapy is a strong prognostic factor for treatment failure. Conclusions: Although regression models with many variables may be instable, the present results suggest that hemoglobin concentration after treatment is at least as important as overall treatment time. It was not possible to find out whether the low concentration of hemoglobin is an independent cause of low TCP or whether it reflects other mechanisms that may influence both hemoglobin level and the TCP

Communication Optimizations for a Wireless Distributed Prognostic Framework

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National Aeronautics and Space Administration — Distributed architecture for prognostics is an essential step in prognostic research in order to enable feasible real-time system health management. Communication...

Prognostics of Power MOSFET

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Celaya, Jose Ramon; Saxena, Abhinav; Vashchenko, Vladislay; Saha, Sankalita; Goebel, Kai Frank

2011-01-01

This paper demonstrates how to apply prognostics to power MOSFETs (metal oxide field effect transistor). The methodology uses thermal cycling to age devices and Gaussian process regression to perform prognostics. The approach is validated with experiments on 100V power MOSFETs. The failure mechanism for the stress conditions is determined to be die-attachment degradation. Change in ON-state resistance is used as a precursor of failure due to its dependence on junction temperature. The experimental data is augmented with a finite element analysis simulation that is based on a two-transistor model. The simulation assists in the interpretation of the degradation phenomena and SOA (safe operation area) change.

2D and 3D CT Radiomics Features Prognostic Performance Comparison in Non-Small Cell Lung Cancer

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Chen Shen

2017-12-01

Full Text Available OBJECTIVE: To compare 2D and 3D radiomics features prognostic performance differences in CT images of non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC. METHOD: We enrolled 588 NSCLC patients from three independent cohorts. Two sets of 463 patients from two different institutes were used as the training cohort. The remaining cohort with 125 patients was set as the validation cohort. A total of 1014 radiomics features (507 2D features and 507 3D features correspondingly were assessed. Based on the dichotomized survival data, 2D and 3D radiomics indicators were calculated for each patient by trained classifiers. We used the area under the receiver operating characteristic curve (AUC to assess the prediction performance of trained classifiers (the support vector machine and logistic regression. Kaplan–Meier and Cox hazard survival analyses were also employed. Harrell's concordance index (C-Index and Akaike's information criteria (AIC were applied to assess the trained models. RESULTS: Radiomics indicators were built and compared by AUCs. In the training cohort, 2D_AUC = 0.653, 3D_AUC = 0.671. In the validation cohort, 2D_AUC = 0.755, 3D_AUC = 0.663. Both 2D and 3D trained indicators achieved significant results (P < .05 in the Kaplan-Meier analysis and Cox regression. In the validation cohort, 2D Cox model had a C-Index = 0.683 and AIC = 789.047; 3D Cox model obtained a C-Index = 0.632 and AIC = 799.409. CONCLUSION: Both 2D and 3D CT radiomics features have a certain prognostic ability in NSCLC, but 2D features showed better performance in our tests. Considering the cost of the radiomics features calculation, 2D features are more recommended for use in the current study.

Distributed Prognostics System Implementation on Wireless Embedded Devices

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National Aeronautics and Space Administration — Distributed prognostics is the next step in the evolution of prognostic methodologies. It is an important enabling technology for the emerging Condition Based...

Accounting for treatment use when validating a prognostic model: a simulation study.

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Pajouheshnia, Romin; Peelen, Linda M; Moons, Karel G M; Reitsma, Johannes B; Groenwold, Rolf H H

2017-07-14

Prognostic models often show poor performance when applied to independent validation data sets. We illustrate how treatment use in a validation set can affect measures of model performance and present the uses and limitations of available analytical methods to account for this using simulated data. We outline how the use of risk-lowering treatments in a validation set can lead to an apparent overestimation of risk by a prognostic model that was developed in a treatment-naïve cohort to make predictions of risk without treatment. Potential methods to correct for the effects of treatment use when testing or validating a prognostic model are discussed from a theoretical perspective.. Subsequently, we assess, in simulated data sets, the impact of excluding treated individuals and the use of inverse probability weighting (IPW) on the estimated model discrimination (c-index) and calibration (observed:expected ratio and calibration plots) in scenarios with different patterns and effects of treatment use. Ignoring the use of effective treatments in a validation data set leads to poorer model discrimination and calibration than would be observed in the untreated target population for the model. Excluding treated individuals provided correct estimates of model performance only when treatment was randomly allocated, although this reduced the precision of the estimates. IPW followed by exclusion of the treated individuals provided correct estimates of model performance in data sets where treatment use was either random or moderately associated with an individual's risk when the assumptions of IPW were met, but yielded incorrect estimates in the presence of non-positivity or an unobserved confounder. When validating a prognostic model developed to make predictions of risk without treatment, treatment use in the validation set can bias estimates of the performance of the model in future targeted individuals, and should not be ignored. When treatment use is random, treated

Experiences in the parallelization of the discrete ordinates method using OpenMP and MPI

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Pautz, A. [TUV Hannover/Sachsen-Anhalt e.V. (Germany); Langenbuch, S. [Gesellschaft fur Anlagen- und Reaktorsicherheit (GRS) mbH (Germany)

2003-07-01

The method of Discrete Ordinates is in principle parallelizable to a high degree, since the transport 'mesh sweeps' are mutually independent for all angular directions. However, in the well-known production code Dort such a type of angular domain decomposition has to be done on a spatial line-byline basis, causing the parallelism in the code to be very fine-grained. The construction of scalar fluxes and moments requires a large effort for inter-thread or inter-process communication. We have implemented two different parallelization approaches in Dort: firstly, we have used a shared-memory model suitable for SMP (Symmetric Multiprocessor) machines based on the standard OpenMP. The second approach uses the well-known Message Passing Interface (MPI) to establish communication between parallel processes running in a distributed-memory environment. We investigate the benefits and drawbacks of both models and show first results on performance and scaling behaviour of the parallel Dort code. (authors)

Experiences in the parallelization of the discrete ordinates method using OpenMP and MPI

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Pautz, A.; Langenbuch, S.

2003-01-01

The method of Discrete Ordinates is in principle parallelizable to a high degree, since the transport 'mesh sweeps' are mutually independent for all angular directions. However, in the well-known production code Dort such a type of angular domain decomposition has to be done on a spatial line-byline basis, causing the parallelism in the code to be very fine-grained. The construction of scalar fluxes and moments requires a large effort for inter-thread or inter-process communication. We have implemented two different parallelization approaches in Dort: firstly, we have used a shared-memory model suitable for SMP (Symmetric Multiprocessor) machines based on the standard OpenMP. The second approach uses the well-known Message Passing Interface (MPI) to establish communication between parallel processes running in a distributed-memory environment. We investigate the benefits and drawbacks of both models and show first results on performance and scaling behaviour of the parallel Dort code. (authors)

Prognostic index for patients with parotid carcinoma - External validation using the nationwide 1985-1994 Dutch Head and Neck Oncology Cooperative Group database

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Vander Poorten, Vincent L. M.; Hart, Augustinus A. M.; van der Laan, Bernardus F. A. M.; Baatenburg de Jong, Robert J.; Manni, Johannes J.; Marres, Henri A. M.; Meeuwis, Cees A.; Lubsen, Herman; Terhaard, Chris H. J.; Balm, Alfonsus J. M.

2003-01-01

BACKGROUND. Validation of the prognostic indices for the recurrence-free interval of patients with parotid carcinoma, the development of which was described in a previous report, is needed to be confident of their generalizability and justified prospective use. METHODS. The Dutch Cooperative Group

Concordance for prognostic models with competing risks

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Wolbers, Marcel; Blanche, Paul; Koller, Michael T

2014-01-01

The concordance probability is a widely used measure to assess discrimination of prognostic models with binary and survival endpoints. We formally define the concordance probability for a prognostic model of the absolute risk of an event of interest in the presence of competing risks and relate i...

EMMPRIN/CD147 is an independent prognostic biomarker in cutaneous melanoma.

Science.gov (United States)

Caudron, Anne; Battistella, Maxime; Feugeas, Jean-Paul; Pages, Cécile; Basset-Seguin, Nicole; Mazouz Dorval, Sarra; Funck Brentano, Elisa; Sadoux, Aurélie; Podgorniak, Marie-Pierre; Menashi, Suzanne; Janin, Anne; Lebbé, Céleste; Mourah, Samia

2016-08-01

CD147 has been implicated in melanoma invasion and metastasis mainly through increasing metalloproteinase synthesis and regulating VEGF/VEGFR signalling. In this study, the prognostic value of CD147 expression was investigated in a cohort of 196 cutaneous melanomas including 136 consecutive primary malignant melanomas, 30 lymph nodes, 16 in-transit and 14 visceral metastases. A series of 10 normal skin, 10 blue nevi and 10 dermal nevi was used as control. CD147 expression was assessed by immunohistochemistry, and the association of its expression with the clinicopathological characteristics of patients and survival was evaluated using univariate and multivariate statistical analyses. Univariate analysis showed that high CD147 expression was significantly associated with metastatic potential and with a reduced overall survival (P CD147 expression level was correlated with histological factors which were associated with prognosis: Clark level, ulceration status and more particularly with Breslow index (r = 0.7, P CD147 expression level and ulceration status as predicting factors for metastasis and overall survival (P CD147 emerges as an important factor in the aggressive behaviour of melanoma and deserves further evaluation as an independent prognostic biomarker. © 2016 John Wiley & Sons A/S. Published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

Nutritional prognostic scores in patients with hilar cholangiocarcinoma treated by percutaneous transhepatic biliary stenting combined with 125I seed intracavitary irradiation: A retrospective observational study.

Science.gov (United States)

Cui, Peiyuan; Pang, Qing; Wang, Yong; Qian, Zhen; Hu, Xiaosi; Wang, Wei; Li, Zongkuang; Zhou, Lei; Man, Zhongran; Yang, Song; Jin, Hao; Liu, Huichun

2018-06-01

We mainly aimed to preliminarily explore the prognostic values of nutrition-based prognostic scores in patients with advanced hilar cholangiocarcinoma (HCCA).We retrospectively analyzed 73 cases of HCCA, who underwent percutaneous transhepatic biliary stenting (PTBS) combined with I seed intracavitary irradiation from November 2012 to April 2017 in our department. The postoperative changes of total bilirubin (TBIL), direct bilirubin (DBIL), alanine aminotransferase (ALT), aspartate aminotransferase (AST), alkaline phosphatase (ALP), and albumin (ALB) were observed. The preoperative clinical data were collected to calculate the nutrition-based scores, including controlling nutritional status (CONUT), C-reactive protein/albumin ratio (CAR), and prognostic nutritional index (PNI). Kaplan-Meier curve and Cox regression model were used for overall survival (OS) analyses.The serum levels of TBIL, DBIL, ALT, AST, and ALP significantly reduced, and ALB significantly increased at 1 month and 3 months postoperatively. The median survival time of the cohort was 12 months and the 1-year survival rate was 53.1%. Univariate analysis revealed that the statistically significant factors related to OS were CA19-9, TBIL, ALB, CONUT, and PNI. Multivariate analysis further identified CA19-9, CONUT, and PNI as independent prognostic factors.Nutrition-based prognostic scores, CONUT and PNI in particular, can be used as predictors of survival in unresectable HCCA.

Prognostic Factors for Satisfaction After Decompression Surgery for Lumbar Spinal Stenosis

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Paulsen, Rune Tendal; Bouknaitir, Jamal Bech; Fruensgaard, Søren

2018-01-01

: To present clinical outcome data and identify prognostic factors related to patient satisfaction 1 yr after posterior decompression surgery for lumbar spinal stenosis. METHOD: This multicenter register study included 2562 patients. Patients were treated with various types of posterior decompression. Patients...... with previous spine surgery or concomitant fusion were excluded. Patient satisfaction was analyzed for associations with age, sex, body mass index, smoking status, duration of pain, number of decompressed vertebral levels, comorbidities, and patient-reported outcome measures, which were used to quantify....... CONCLUSION: This study found smoking, long duration of leg pain, and cancerous and neurological disease to be associated with patient dissatisfaction, whereas good walking capacity at baseline was positively associated with satisfaction after 1 yr....

Correlation of chronic kidney disease, diabetes and peripheral artery disease with cardiovascular events in patients using stress myocardial perfusion imaging

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Furuhashi, Tatsuhiko; Masai, Hirofumi; Kunimasa, Taeko; Nakazato, Ryo; Fukuda, Hiroshi; Sugi, Kaoru; Moroi, Masao

2011-01-01

Normal stress myocardial perfusion imaging (MPI) studies generally suggest an excellent prognosis for cardiovascular events. Chronic kidney disease (CKD), diabetes and peripheral artery disease (PAD) have been established as the risk factors for cardiovascular events. However, whether these risk factors significantly predict cardiovascular events in patients with normal stress MPI is unclear. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the prognostic value of these risk factors in patients with normal stress MPI. Patients with normal stress MPI (n=372, male=215 and female=157, age=69 years, CKD without hemodialysis=95, diabetes=99, PAD=19, previous coronary artery disease=116) were followed up for 14 months. Normal stress MPI was defined as a summed stress score of 2 and/or persistent proteinuria. Cardiovascular events included cardiac death, non-fatal myocardial infarction and congestive heart failure requiring hospitalization. Cardiovascular events occurred in 20 of 372 patients (5.4%). In univariate Cox regression analysis, PAD, diabetes, diabetic retinopathy, insulin use, anemia, hypoalbuminemia, CKD, left ventricular ejection fraction and pharmacological stress tests were significant predictors of cardiovascular events. In multivariate Cox regression analysis, PAD, diabetes and CKD were independent and significant predictors for cardiovascular events, and their number was the strongest predictor for cardiovascular events (hazard ratio=21.7, P<0.001). PAD, diabetes and CKD are coexisting, independent and significant risk factors for cardiovascular events, CKD being the strongest predictor. The number of coexisting risk factors is important in predicting cardiovascular events in patients with normal stress MPI. (author)

Prognostic value of comorbidity for auto-SCT eligibility and outcome in relapsed or refractory aggressive non-Hodgkin's lymphoma.

Science.gov (United States)

Plattel, W J; Kluin-Nelemans, H C; de Bock, G H; van Imhoff, G W

2011-06-01

Salvage reinduction therapy followed by high-dose chemotherapy (HDCT) and auto-SCT is the treatment of choice for fit patients with refractory or relapsed aggressive non-Hodgkin's lymphoma (NHL). We assessed the prognostic value of comorbidity at the time of relapse to predict receipt of auto-SCT and outcome. We analyzed 156 consecutive NHL patients, referred to our center between 1999 and 2007 for salvage reinduction therapy, followed by HDCT and auto-SCT. Comorbidity according to the hematopoietic SCT comorbidity index was scored at relapse and directly before HDCT and auto-SCT. Primary end points were actual receipt of auto-SCT and survival. At relapse, comorbidity scores of 0, 1-2 and ≥3 were found among 64 (41%), 62 (40%) and 30 (19%) patients, respectively. Ultimately, 95 patients received auto-SCT. Higher comorbidity scores at relapse were associated with significantly less chance of receiving auto-SCT and with inferior OS, independently from secondary age-adjusted International Prognostic Index (sAAIPI) scores. For transplanted patients, OS rates at 5 years were 62, 30 and 17% for relapse comorbidity scores of 0, 1-2 and ≥3, respectively. In patients with relapsed NHL, comorbidity at relapse is associated with receipt of auto-SCT and subsequent survival independently from the sAAIPI.

External validation of prognostic models to predict risk of gestational diabetes mellitus in one Dutch cohort: prospective multicentre cohort study.

Science.gov (United States)

Lamain-de Ruiter, Marije; Kwee, Anneke; Naaktgeboren, Christiana A; de Groot, Inge; Evers, Inge M; Groenendaal, Floris; Hering, Yolanda R; Huisjes, Anjoke J M; Kirpestein, Cornel; Monincx, Wilma M; Siljee, Jacqueline E; Van 't Zelfde, Annewil; van Oirschot, Charlotte M; Vankan-Buitelaar, Simone A; Vonk, Mariska A A W; Wiegers, Therese A; Zwart, Joost J; Franx, Arie; Moons, Karel G M; Koster, Maria P H

2016-08-30

 To perform an external validation and direct comparison of published prognostic models for early prediction of the risk of gestational diabetes mellitus, including predictors applicable in the first trimester of pregnancy.  External validation of all published prognostic models in large scale, prospective, multicentre cohort study.  31 independent midwifery practices and six hospitals in the Netherlands.  Women recruited in their first trimester (diabetes mellitus of any type were excluded.  Discrimination of the prognostic models was assessed by the C statistic, and calibration assessed by calibration plots.  3723 women were included for analysis, of whom 181 (4.9%) developed gestational diabetes mellitus in pregnancy. 12 prognostic models for the disorder could be validated in the cohort. C statistics ranged from 0.67 to 0.78. Calibration plots showed that eight of the 12 models were well calibrated. The four models with the highest C statistics included almost all of the following predictors: maternal age, maternal body mass index, history of gestational diabetes mellitus, ethnicity, and family history of diabetes. Prognostic models had a similar performance in a subgroup of nulliparous women only. Decision curve analysis showed that the use of these four models always had a positive net benefit.  In this external validation study, most of the published prognostic models for gestational diabetes mellitus show acceptable discrimination and calibration. The four models with the highest discriminative abilities in this study cohort, which also perform well in a subgroup of nulliparous women, are easy models to apply in clinical practice and therefore deserve further evaluation regarding their clinical impact. Published by the BMJ Publishing Group Limited. For permission to use (where not already granted under a licence) please go to http://group.bmj.com/group/rights-licensing/permissions.

Standardized uptake value for (18)F-fluorodeoxyglucose is correlated with a high International Prognostic Index and the presence of extranodal involvement in patients with diffuse large B-cell lymphoma.

Science.gov (United States)

Akkas, B E; Vural, G U

2014-01-01

The aim of this study was to evaluate whether the maximum standardized uptake value (SUVmax) of (18)F-fluorodeoxyglucose (FDG) correlates with the International Prognostic Index (IPI) and the presence of extranodal involvement in patients with Diffuse Large B-Cell Lymphoma (DLBCL). 77 patients (age: 57.2±18.5, 40F, 37M) with DLBCL who underwent FDG PET/CT for initial staging were included. SUVmax of the predominant lesions were compared to Ann Arbor stage, IPI scores, the presence of extranodal involvement and the number extranodal sites. PET/CT detected nodal (n:25) and extranodal involvement (n:52) in all the patients. In 27 patients, extranodal disease could only be detected by PET. SUVmax of the predominant lesion in patients with extranodal disease was significantly higher than that of the patients who had only nodal disease (25±12 vs. 15.3±10 respectively, p=0.001). SUVmax significantly correlated with IPI scores; the average SUVmax was significantly correlated with the IPI: Mean SUVmax of the predominant lesion was 13.9±9.5 in patients with low risk (IPI=0-1), 14.2±8.8 in low-intermediate risk group (IPI=2) whereas 26.6±9.5 in high-intermediate risk group (IPI=3) and 25±13.6 in high risk group patients (IPI=4-5) (p=0.002). SUVmax was not correlated with clinical stage, the number of extranodal sites and serum LDH levels. FDG uptake correlates with IPI and the presence of extranodal involvement in DLBCL. PET is a powerful method to detect extranodal disease in DLBCL. The correlation of SUVmax with these prognostic factors may highlight the importance of pretreatment FDG uptake as a metabolic marker of poor prognosis for patients with DLBCL. Copyright © 2013 Elsevier España, S.L. and SEMNIM. All rights reserved.

Distinguishing prognostic and predictive biomarkers: An information theoretic approach.

Science.gov (United States)

Sechidis, Konstantinos; Papangelou, Konstantinos; Metcalfe, Paul D; Svensson, David; Weatherall, James; Brown, Gavin

2018-05-02

The identification of biomarkers to support decision-making is central to personalised medicine, in both clinical and research scenarios. The challenge can be seen in two halves: identifying predictive markers, which guide the development/use of tailored therapies; and identifying prognostic markers, which guide other aspects of care and clinical trial planning, i.e. prognostic markers can be considered as covariates for stratification. Mistakenly assuming a biomarker to be predictive, when it is in fact largely prognostic (and vice-versa) is highly undesirable, and can result in financial, ethical and personal consequences. We present a framework for data-driven ranking of biomarkers on their prognostic/predictive strength, using a novel information theoretic method. This approach provides a natural algebra to discuss and quantify the individual predictive and prognostic strength, in a self-consistent mathematical framework. Our contribution is a novel procedure, INFO+, which naturally distinguishes the prognostic vs predictive role of each biomarker and handles higher order interactions. In a comprehensive empirical evaluation INFO+ outperforms more complex methods, most notably when noise factors dominate, and biomarkers are likely to be falsely identified as predictive, when in fact they are just strongly prognostic. Furthermore, we show that our methods can be 1-3 orders of magnitude faster than competitors, making it useful for biomarker discovery in 'big data' scenarios. Finally, we apply our methods to identify predictive biomarkers on two real clinical trials, and introduce a new graphical representation that provides greater insight into the prognostic and predictive strength of each biomarker. R implementations of the suggested methods are available at https://github.com/sechidis. konstantinos.sechidis@manchester.ac.uk. Supplementary data are available at Bioinformatics online.

Prognostic DNA Methylation Markers for Prostate Cancer

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Siri H. Strand

2014-09-01

Full Text Available Prostate cancer (PC is the most commonly diagnosed neoplasm and the third most common cause of cancer-related death amongst men in the Western world. PC is a clinically highly heterogeneous disease, and distinction between aggressive and indolent disease is a major challenge for the management of PC. Currently, no biomarkers or prognostic tools are able to accurately predict tumor progression at the time of diagnosis. Thus, improved biomarkers for PC prognosis are urgently needed. This review focuses on the prognostic potential of DNA methylation biomarkers for PC. Epigenetic changes are hallmarks of PC and associated with malignant initiation as well as tumor progression. Moreover, DNA methylation is the most frequently studied epigenetic alteration in PC, and the prognostic potential of DNA methylation markers for PC has been demonstrated in multiple studies. The most promising methylation marker candidates identified so far include PITX2, C1orf114 (CCDC181 and the GABRE~miR-452~miR-224 locus, in addition to the three-gene signature AOX1/C1orf114/HAPLN3. Several other biomarker candidates have also been investigated, but with less stringent clinical validation and/or conflicting evidence regarding their possible prognostic value available at this time. Here, we review the current evidence for the prognostic potential of DNA methylation markers in PC.

Postoperative outcome after oesophagectomy for cancer: Nutritional status is the missing ring in the current prognostic scores.

Science.gov (United States)

Filip, B; Scarpa, M; Cavallin, F; Cagol, M; Alfieri, R; Saadeh, L; Ancona, E; Castoro, C

2015-06-01

Several prognostic scores were designed in order to estimate the risk of postoperative adverse events. None of them includes a component directly associated to the nutritional status. The aims of the study were the evaluation of performance of risk-adjusted models for early outcomes after oesophagectomy and to develop a score for severe complication prediction with special consideration regarding nutritional status. A comparison of POSSUM and Charlson score and their derivates, ASA, Lagarde score and nutritional index (PNI) was performed on 167 patients undergoing oesophagectomy for cancer. A logistic regression model was also estimated to obtain a new prognostic score for severe morbidity prediction. Overall morbidity was 35.3% (59 cases), severe complications (grade III-V of Clavien-Dindo classification) occurred in 20 cases. Discrimination was poor for all the scores. Multivariable analysis identified pulse, connective tissue disease, PNI and potassium as independent predictors of severe morbidity. This model showed good discrimination and calibration. Internal validation using standard bootstrapping techniques confirmed the good performance. Nutrition could be an independent risk factor for major complications and a nutritional status coefficient could be included in current prognostic scores to improve risk estimation of major postoperative complications after oesophagectomy for cancer. Copyright © 2015. Published by Elsevier Ltd.

Numerical Modeling of 3D Seismic Wave Propagation around Yogyakarta, the Southern Part of Central Java, Indonesia, Using Spectral-Element Method on MPI-GPU Cluster

Science.gov (United States)

Sudarmaji; Rudianto, Indra; Eka Nurcahya, Budi

2018-04-01

A strong tectonic earthquake with a magnitude of 5.9 Richter scale has been occurred in Yogyakarta and Central Java on May 26, 2006. The earthquake has caused severe damage in Yogyakarta and the southern part of Central Java, Indonesia. The understanding of seismic response of earthquake among ground shaking and the level of building damage is important. We present numerical modeling of 3D seismic wave propagation around Yogyakarta and the southern part of Central Java using spectral-element method on MPI-GPU (Graphics Processing Unit) computer cluster to observe its seismic response due to the earthquake. The homogeneous 3D realistic model is generated with detailed topography surface. The influences of free surface topography and layer discontinuity of the 3D model among the seismic response are observed. The seismic wave field is discretized using spectral-element method. The spectral-element method is solved on a mesh of hexahedral elements that is adapted to the free surface topography and the internal discontinuity of the model. To increase the data processing capabilities, the simulation is performed on a GPU cluster with implementation of MPI (Message Passing Interface).

A Discussion on Uncertainty Representation and Interpretation in Model-Based Prognostics Algorithms based on Kalman Filter Estimation Applied to Prognostics of Electronics Components

Science.gov (United States)

Celaya, Jose R.; Saxen, Abhinav; Goebel, Kai

2012-01-01

This article discusses several aspects of uncertainty representation and management for model-based prognostics methodologies based on our experience with Kalman Filters when applied to prognostics for electronics components. In particular, it explores the implications of modeling remaining useful life prediction as a stochastic process and how it relates to uncertainty representation, management, and the role of prognostics in decision-making. A distinction between the interpretations of estimated remaining useful life probability density function and the true remaining useful life probability density function is explained and a cautionary argument is provided against mixing interpretations for the two while considering prognostics in making critical decisions.

Ki-67 as a prognostic marker in mantle cell lymphoma-consensus guidelines of the pathology panel of the European MCL Network

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Klapper, W.; Hoster, E.; Determann, O.

2009-01-01

powerful prognostic biomarker. The pathology panel of the European MCL Network evaluated methods to assess the Ki-67 index including stringent counting, digital image analysis, and estimation by eyeballing. Counting of 2 x 500 lymphoma cells is the gold standard to assess the Ki-67 index since this value...... has been shown to predict survival in prospective randomized trials of the European MCL Network. Estimation by eyeballing and digital image analysis showed a poor concordance with the gold standard (concordance correlation coefficients [CCC] between 0.29 and 0.61 for eyeballing and CCC of 0.24 and 0...

The N-ERC index is a novel monitoring and prognostic marker for advanced malignant pleural mesothelioma.

Science.gov (United States)

Mori, Takanori; Tajima, Ken; Hirama, Michihiro; Sato, Tadashi; Kido, Kenji; Iwakami, Shin-Ichiro; Sasaki, Shinichi; Iwase, Akihiko; Shiomi, Kazu; Maeda, Masahiro; Hino, Okio; Takahashi, Kazuhisa

2013-04-01

Although N-ERC/mesothelin (N-ERC) is an attractive diagnostic and treatment monitoring biomarker for malignant pleural mesothelioma (MPM), its clinical utility for predicting the prognosis has not yet been clarified. The aim of this study is to investigate whether the serum N-ERC level can accurately predict the outcome in patients with MPM. Twenty-six patients with MPM were enrolled. Serum N-ERC level was measured before and after chemotherapy. The N-ERC index was determined by the logarithm of the division of the N-ERC level after two courses of chemotherapy by the prior level. The median N-ERC index in the partial response (PR) group was significantly lower than that in patients with the stable disease (SD) plus the progressive disease (PD) group. The overall survival in the group whose median N-ERC index was lower than its median value was significantly longer than the group whose median N-ERC index was higher than its median value. The N-ERC index is therefore considered to be a useful biomarker for predicting not only the chemotherapeutic response, but also the prognosis in patients with advanced MPM.

Survey on Prognostics Techniques for Updating Initiating Event Frequency in PSA

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Kim, Hyeonmin; Heo, Gyunyoung

2015-01-01

One of the applications using PSA is a risk monito. The risk monitoring is real-time analysis tool to decide real-time risk based on real state of components and systems. In order to utilize more effective, the methodologies that manipulate the data from Prognostics was suggested. Generally, Prognostic comprehensively includes not only prognostic but also monitoring and diagnostic. The prognostic method must need condition monitoring. In case of applying PHM to a PSA model, the latest condition of NPPs can be identified more clearly. For reducing the conservatism and uncertainties, we suggested the concept that updates the initiating event frequency in a PSA model by using Bayesian approach which is one of the prognostics techniques before. From previous research, the possibility that PSA is updated by using data more correctly was found. In reliability theory, the Bathtub curve divides three parts (infant failure, constant and random failure, wareout failure). In this paper, in order to investigate the applicability of prognostic methods in updating quantitative data in a PSA model, the OLM acceptance criteria from NUREG, the concept of how to using prognostic in PSA, and the enabling prognostic techniques are suggested. The prognostic has the motivation that improved the predictive capabilities using existing monitoring systems, data, and information will enable more accurate equipment risk assessment for improved decision-making

Survey on Prognostics Techniques for Updating Initiating Event Frequency in PSA

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Kim, Hyeonmin; Heo, Gyunyoung [Kyung Hee University, Yongin (Korea, Republic of)

2015-05-15

One of the applications using PSA is a risk monito. The risk monitoring is real-time analysis tool to decide real-time risk based on real state of components and systems. In order to utilize more effective, the methodologies that manipulate the data from Prognostics was suggested. Generally, Prognostic comprehensively includes not only prognostic but also monitoring and diagnostic. The prognostic method must need condition monitoring. In case of applying PHM to a PSA model, the latest condition of NPPs can be identified more clearly. For reducing the conservatism and uncertainties, we suggested the concept that updates the initiating event frequency in a PSA model by using Bayesian approach which is one of the prognostics techniques before. From previous research, the possibility that PSA is updated by using data more correctly was found. In reliability theory, the Bathtub curve divides three parts (infant failure, constant and random failure, wareout failure). In this paper, in order to investigate the applicability of prognostic methods in updating quantitative data in a PSA model, the OLM acceptance criteria from NUREG, the concept of how to using prognostic in PSA, and the enabling prognostic techniques are suggested. The prognostic has the motivation that improved the predictive capabilities using existing monitoring systems, data, and information will enable more accurate equipment risk assessment for improved decision-making.

Gene network inherent in genomic big data improves the accuracy of prognostic prediction for cancer patients.

Science.gov (United States)

Kim, Yun Hak; Jeong, Dae Cheon; Pak, Kyoungjune; Goh, Tae Sik; Lee, Chi-Seung; Han, Myoung-Eun; Kim, Ji-Young; Liangwen, Liu; Kim, Chi Dae; Jang, Jeon Yeob; Cha, Wonjae; Oh, Sae-Ock

2017-09-29

Accurate prediction of prognosis is critical for therapeutic decisions regarding cancer patients. Many previously developed prognostic scoring systems have limitations in reflecting recent progress in the field of cancer biology such as microarray, next-generation sequencing, and signaling pathways. To develop a new prognostic scoring system for cancer patients, we used mRNA expression and clinical data in various independent breast cancer cohorts (n=1214) from the Molecular Taxonomy of Breast Cancer International Consortium (METABRIC) and Gene Expression Omnibus (GEO). A new prognostic score that reflects gene network inherent in genomic big data was calculated using Network-Regularized high-dimensional Cox-regression (Net-score). We compared its discriminatory power with those of two previously used statistical methods: stepwise variable selection via univariate Cox regression (Uni-score) and Cox regression via Elastic net (Enet-score). The Net scoring system showed better discriminatory power in prediction of disease-specific survival (DSS) than other statistical methods (p=0 in METABRIC training cohort, p=0.000331, 4.58e-06 in two METABRIC validation cohorts) when accuracy was examined by log-rank test. Notably, comparison of C-index and AUC values in receiver operating characteristic analysis at 5 years showed fewer differences between training and validation cohorts with the Net scoring system than other statistical methods, suggesting minimal overfitting. The Net-based scoring system also successfully predicted prognosis in various independent GEO cohorts with high discriminatory power. In conclusion, the Net-based scoring system showed better discriminative power than previous statistical methods in prognostic prediction for breast cancer patients. This new system will mark a new era in prognosis prediction for cancer patients.

Prognostics of Power MOSFET

Data.gov (United States)

National Aeronautics and Space Administration — This paper demonstrates how to apply prognostics to power MOSFETs (metal oxide field effect transistor). The methodology uses thermal cycling to age devices and...

Early prognostication markers in cardiac arrest patients treated with hypothermia.

Science.gov (United States)

Karapetkova, M; Koenig, M A; Jia, X

2016-03-01

Established prognostication markers, such as clinical findings, electroencephalography (EEG) and biochemical markers, used by clinicians to predict neurological outcome after cardiac arrest (CA) are altered under therapeutic hypothermia (TH) conditions and their validity remains uncertain. MEDLINE and Embase were searched for evidence on the current standards for neurological outcome prediction for out-of-hospital CA patients treated with TH and the validity of a wide range of prognostication markers. Relevant studies that suggested one or several established biomarkers and multimodal approaches for prognostication are included and reviewed. Whilst the prognostic accuracy of various tests after TH has been questioned, pupillary light reflexes and somatosensory evoked potentials are still strongly associated with negative outcome for early prognostication. Increasingly, EEG background activity has also been identified as a valid predictor for outcome after 72 h after CA and a preferred prognostic method in clinical settings. Neuroimaging techniques, such as magnetic resonance imaging and computed tomography, can identify functional and structural brain injury but are not readily available at the patient's bedside because of limited availability and high costs. A multimodal algorithm composed of neurological examination, EEG-based quantitative testing and somatosensory evoked potentials, in conjunction with newer magnetic resonance imaging sequences, if available, holds promise for accurate prognostication in CA patients treated with TH. In order to avoid premature withdrawal of care, prognostication should be performed more than 72 h after CA. © 2015 EAN.

Chronotropic response to vasodilator-stress in patients submitted to myocardial perfusion imaging: impact on the accuracy in detecting coronary stenosis

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Gimelli, Alessia; Coceani, Michele; Quaranta, Angela; Emdin, Michele; Liga, Riccardo; Marzullo, Paolo

2015-01-01

A lower heart rate response (HRR) during vasodilator MPI has been shown to have a relevant adverse prognostic impact. We sought to evaluate the interaction among individual HRR to vasodilator stress and myocardial perfusion imaging (MPI) accuracy in patients with suspected ischemic heart disease (IHD). One hundred and sixty-five consecutive patients were submitted to vasodilator-stress MPI on a cardiac camera equipped with cadmium-zinc-thelluride detectors and coronary angiography. A coronary stenosis >70 % was considered significant. In every patient, the summed difference score (SDS) was computed from MPI images. Patients were categorized according to the tertiles of the distribution of individual HRR during dipyridamole: ''Group 1'' (HRR < 8 bpm; lowest tertile); ''Group 2'' (8 ≤ HRR ≤ 12 bpm; middle tertile); ''Group 3'' (HRR >12 bpm; highest tertile). Significant coronary artery disease (CAD) was present in 102 (62 %) patients. In the overall population, MPI showed a significant accuracy (AUC: 0.81, 95 % CI 0.74-0.86; p < 0.001) in unmasking the presence of significant coronary stenosis. Interestingly, in patients with a blunted HRR during dipyridamole (''Group 1'') MPI showed a significantly lower sensitivity (68 %) in detecting CAD than in those with a higher HRR (''Group 3'') (91 %, p = 0.007), despite a preserved specificity (76 % vs 77 %, P=NS). Similarly, the correlation among CAD extent and post-stress LV functional stunning was limited to ''Group 3'' patients, while it disappeared in those with blunted HRR. In patients with suspected IHD, MPI sensitivity is strongly influenced by the magnitude of patient heart rate increase to the pharmacologic stressor, suggesting an interaction among blunted HRR and lower accuracy in unmasking CAD. (orig.)

Chronotropic response to vasodilator-stress in patients submitted to myocardial perfusion imaging: impact on the accuracy in detecting coronary stenosis

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Gimelli, Alessia; Coceani, Michele; Quaranta, Angela; Emdin, Michele [Fondazione Toscana Gabriele Monasterio, Pisa (Italy); Liga, Riccardo [University Hospital of Pisa, Cardio-Thoracic and Vascular Department, Pisa (Italy); Marzullo, Paolo [Fondazione Toscana Gabriele Monasterio, Pisa (Italy); CNR, Institute of Clinical Physiology, Pisa (Italy)

2015-11-15

A lower heart rate response (HRR) during vasodilator MPI has been shown to have a relevant adverse prognostic impact. We sought to evaluate the interaction among individual HRR to vasodilator stress and myocardial perfusion imaging (MPI) accuracy in patients with suspected ischemic heart disease (IHD). One hundred and sixty-five consecutive patients were submitted to vasodilator-stress MPI on a cardiac camera equipped with cadmium-zinc-thelluride detectors and coronary angiography. A coronary stenosis >70 % was considered significant. In every patient, the summed difference score (SDS) was computed from MPI images. Patients were categorized according to the tertiles of the distribution of individual HRR during dipyridamole: ''Group 1'' (HRR < 8 bpm; lowest tertile); ''Group 2'' (8 ≤ HRR ≤ 12 bpm; middle tertile); ''Group 3'' (HRR >12 bpm; highest tertile). Significant coronary artery disease (CAD) was present in 102 (62 %) patients. In the overall population, MPI showed a significant accuracy (AUC: 0.81, 95 % CI 0.74-0.86; p < 0.001) in unmasking the presence of significant coronary stenosis. Interestingly, in patients with a blunted HRR during dipyridamole (''Group 1'') MPI showed a significantly lower sensitivity (68 %) in detecting CAD than in those with a higher HRR (''Group 3'') (91 %, p = 0.007), despite a preserved specificity (76 % vs 77 %, P=NS). Similarly, the correlation among CAD extent and post-stress LV functional stunning was limited to ''Group 3'' patients, while it disappeared in those with blunted HRR. In patients with suspected IHD, MPI sensitivity is strongly influenced by the magnitude of patient heart rate increase to the pharmacologic stressor, suggesting an interaction among blunted HRR and lower accuracy in unmasking CAD. (orig.)

Diagnostic and Prognostic Models for Generator Step-Up Transformers

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Vivek Agarwal; Nancy J. Lybeck; Binh T. Pham

2014-09-01

In 2014, the online monitoring (OLM) of active components project under the Light Water Reactor Sustainability program at Idaho National Laboratory (INL) focused on diagnostic and prognostic capabilities for generator step-up transformers. INL worked with subject matter experts from the Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI) to augment and revise the GSU fault signatures previously implemented in the Electric Power Research Institute’s (EPRI’s) Fleet-Wide Prognostic and Health Management (FW-PHM) Suite software. Two prognostic models were identified and implemented for GSUs in the FW-PHM Suite software. INL and EPRI demonstrated the use of prognostic capabilities for GSUs. The complete set of fault signatures developed for GSUs in the Asset Fault Signature Database of the FW-PHM Suite for GSUs is presented in this report. Two prognostic models are described for paper insulation: the Chendong model for degree of polymerization, and an IEEE model that uses a loading profile to calculates life consumption based on hot spot winding temperatures. Both models are life consumption models, which are examples of type II prognostic models. Use of the models in the FW-PHM Suite was successfully demonstrated at the 2014 August Utility Working Group Meeting, Idaho Falls, Idaho, to representatives from different utilities, EPRI, and the Halden Research Project.

Prognostic Marker before Treatment of Patients with Malignant Glioma

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Norbert Galldiks

2012-11-01

Full Text Available The purpose of this positron emission tomography (PET study was to compare the prognostic value of pretreatment volume of [11C] methionine (MET uptake and semiquantitative MET uptake ratio in patients with malignant glioma. The study population comprised 40 patients with malignant glioma. Pretreatment magnetic resonance imaging (MRI and MET-PET imaging were performed before the initiation of glioma treatment in all patients. The pretreatment MET uptake ratios and volumes were assessed. To create prognostically homogeneous subgroups, patients′ pretreatment prognostic factors were stratified according to the six classes of Radiation Therapy Oncology Group recursive partitioning analysis (RTOG RPA. Univariate and multivariate analyses were performed to determine significant prognostic factors. Survival analyses identified the pretreatment volume of MET uptake and a higher RTOG RPA class as significant predictors. In contrast, pretreatment maximum areas of contrast enhancement on MRI and semiquantitative MET uptake ratios could not be identified as significant prognostic factors. The patients′ outcomes and Karnofsky Performance Scale scores were significantly correlated with pretreatment volume of MET uptake but not with semiquantitative MET uptake ratio. The data suggest that pretreatment volumetry of MET uptake but not the semiquantitative MET uptake ratio is a useful biologic prognostic marker in patients with malignant glioma.

The Preoperative Composite Physiologic Index May Predict Mortality in Lung Cancer Patients with Combined Pulmonary Fibrosis and Emphysema.

Science.gov (United States)

Ueno, Fumika; Kitaguchi, Yoshiaki; Shiina, Takayuki; Asaka, Shiho; Miura, Kentaro; Yasuo, Masanori; Wada, Yosuke; Yoshizawa, Akihiko; Hanaoka, Masayuki

2017-01-01

It remains unclear whether the preoperative pulmonary function parameters and prognostic indices that are indicative of nutritional and immunological status are associated with prognosis in lung cancer patients with combined pulmonary fibrosis and emphysema (CPFE) who have undergone surgery. The aim of this study is to identify prognostic determinants in these patients. The medical records of all patients with lung cancer associated with CPFE who had undergone surgery at Shinshu University Hospital were retrospectively reviewed to obtain clinical data, including the results of preoperative pulmonary function tests and laboratory examinations, chest high-resolution computed tomography (HRCT), and survival. Univariate Cox proportional hazards regression analysis showed that a high pathological stage of the lung cancer, a higher preoperative serum carcinoembryonic antigen level, and a higher preoperative composite physiologic index (CPI) were associated with a high risk of death. Multivariate analysis showed that a high pathological stage of the lung cancer (HR: 1.579; p = 0.0305) and a higher preoperative CPI (HR: 1.034; p = 0.0174) were independently associated with a high risk of death. In contrast, the severity of fibrosis or emphysema on chest HRCT, the individual pulmonary function parameters, the prognostic nutritional index, the neutrophil-to-lymphocyte ratio, and the platelet-to-lymphocyte ratio were not associated with prognosis. In the Kaplan-Meier analysis, the log-rank test showed significant differences in survival between the high-CPI and the low-CPI group (p = 0.0234). The preoperative CPI may predict mortality and provide more powerful prognostic information than individual pulmonary function parameters in lung cancer patients with CPFE who have undergone surgery. © 2017 S. Karger AG, Basel.

Fear of knowledge: Clinical hypotheses in diagnostic and prognostic reasoning.

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Chiffi, Daniele; Zanotti, Renzo

2017-10-01

Patients are interested in receiving accurate diagnostic and prognostic information. Models and reasoning about diagnoses have been extensively investigated from a foundational perspective; however, for all its importance, prognosis has yet to receive a comparable degree of philosophical and methodological attention, and this may be due to the difficulties inherent in accurate prognostics. In the light of these considerations, we discuss a considerable body of critical thinking on the topic of prognostication and its strict relations with diagnostic reasoning, pointing out the distinction between nosographic and pathophysiological types of diagnosis and prognosis, underlying the importance of the explication and explanation processes. We then distinguish between various forms of hypothetical reasoning applied to reach diagnostic and prognostic judgments, comparing them with specific forms of abductive reasoning. The main thesis is that creative abduction regarding clinical hypotheses in diagnostic process is very unlikely to occur, whereas this seems to be often the case for prognostic judgments. The reasons behind this distinction are due to the different types of uncertainty involved in diagnostic and prognostic judgments. © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

A Model-Based Prognostics Approach Applied to Pneumatic Valves

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National Aeronautics and Space Administration — Within the area of systems health management, the task of prognostics centers on predicting when components will fail. Model-based prognostics exploits domain...

A Model-based Prognostics Approach Applied to Pneumatic Valves

Data.gov (United States)

National Aeronautics and Space Administration — Within the area of systems health management, the task of prognostics centers on predicting when components will fail. Model-based prognostics exploits domain...

Wisteria floribunda Agglutinin and Its Reactive-Glycan-Carrying Prostate-Specific Antigen as a Novel Diagnostic and Prognostic Marker of Prostate Cancer.

Science.gov (United States)

Hagiwara, Kazuhisa; Tobisawa, Yuki; Kaya, Takatoshi; Kaneko, Tomonori; Hatakeyama, Shingo; Mori, Kazuyuki; Hashimoto, Yasuhiro; Koie, Takuya; Suda, Yoshihiko; Ohyama, Chikara; Yoneyama, Tohru

2017-01-26

Wisteria floribunda agglutinin (WFA) preferably binds to LacdiNAc glycans, and its reactivity is associated with tumor progression. The aim of this study to examine whether the serum LacdiNAc carrying prostate-specific antigen-glycosylation isomer (PSA-Gi) and WFA-reactivity of tumor tissue can be applied as a diagnostic and prognostic marker of prostate cancer (PCa). Between 2007 and 2016, serum PSA-Gi levels before prostate biopsy (Pbx) were measured in 184 biopsy-proven benign prostatic hyperplasia patients and 244 PCa patients using an automated lectin-antibody immunoassay. WFA-reactivity on tumor was analyzed in 260 radical prostatectomy (RP) patients. Diagnostic and prognostic performance of serum PSA-Gi was evaluated using area under the receiver-operator characteristic curve (AUC). Prognostic performance of WFA-reactivity on tumor was evaluated via Cox proportional hazards regression analysis and nomogram. The AUC of serum PSA-Gi detecting PCa and predicting Pbx Grade Group (GG) 3 and GG ≥ 3 after RP was much higher than those of conventional PSA. Multivariate analysis showed that WFA-reactivity on prostate tumor was an independent risk factor of PSA recurrence. The nomogram was a strong model for predicting PSA-free survival provability with a c -index ≥0.7. Serum PSA-Gi levels and WFA-reactivity on prostate tumor may be a novel diagnostic and pre- and post-operative prognostic biomarkers of PCa, respectively.

Prognostic Usefulness of Cardiopulmonary Exercise Testing for Managing Patients With Severe Aortic Stenosis

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Le, Van D; Jensen, Gunnar V; Kjøller-Hansen, Lars

2017-01-01

The approach to managing asymptomatic or questionably symptomatic patients for aortic stenosis is difficult. We aimed to determine whether cardiopulmonary exercise testing (CPET) is prognostically useful in such patients. Patients judged asymptomatic or questionably symptomatic for aortic stenosis...... with aortic valve area index managed conservatively provided they had either (group 1) normal peak oxygen consumption and peak oxygen pulse (>83% and >95% of the predicted values, respectively) or (group 2) subnormal peak oxygen consumption or peak...... oxygen pulse but with CPET data pointing to pathologies other than hemodynamic compromise from aortic stenosis. Increase in systolic blood pressure events included cardiac death or hospitalization with heart...

IB: A Monte Carlo simulation tool for neutron scattering instrument design under PVM and MPI

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Zhao Jinkui

2011-01-01

Design of modern neutron scattering instruments relies heavily on Monte Carlo simulation tools for optimization. IB is one such tool written in C++ and implemented under Parallel Virtual Machine and the Message Passing Interface. The program was initially written for the design and optimization of the EQ-SANS instrument at the Spallation Neutron Source. One of its features is the ability to group simple instrument components into more complex ones at the user input level, e.g. grouping neutron mirrors into neutron guides and curved benders. The simulation engine manages the grouped components such that neutrons entering a group are properly operated upon by all components, multiple times if needed, before exiting the group. Thus, only a few basic optical modules are needed at the programming level. For simulations that require higher computer speeds, the program can be compiled and run in parallel modes using either the PVM or the MPI architectures.

Prognostic value of the pretreatment neutrophil-to-lymphocyte ratio in cervical cancer: a meta-analysis and systematic review.

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Wu, Jiayuan; Chen, Manyu; Liang, Caixia; Su, Wenmei

2017-02-21

The prognostic value of pretreatment neutrophil-to-lymphocyte ratio (NLR) in cervical cancer remains controversial. We conducted a meta-analysis based on the data from 13 studies with 3729 patients to evaluate the association between the pretreatment NLR and the clinical outcomes of overall survival and progression-free survival in patients with cervical cancer. The relationship between NLR and clinicopathological parameters was also assessed. Hazard ratio (HR) or odds ratio (OR) with its 95% confidence interval (CI) was used as the effect size estimate. Our analysis indicated that elevated pretreatment NLR was a poor prognostic marker for patients with cervical cancer because it predicted unfavorable overall survival (HR = 1.375, 95% CI: 1.200-1.576) and progression-free survival (HR = 1.646, 95% CI: 1.313-2.065). Increased NLR is also significantly associated with the larger tumor size (OR = 1.780, 95% CI: 1.090-2.908), advanced clinical stage (OR = 2.443, 95% CI: 1.730-3.451), and positive lymph node metastasis (OR = 2.380, 95% CI: 1.775-3.190). By these results, high pretreatment NLR predicted a shorter survival period for patients with cervical cancer, and it could be served as a novel index of prognostic evaluation in patients with cervical cancer.

Prognostics-Enabled Power Supply for ADAPT Testbed, Phase II

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National Aeronautics and Space Administration — Ridgetop's role is to develop electronic prognostics for sensing power systems in support of NASA/Ames ADAPT testbed. The prognostic enabled power systems from...

Prognostic value of left atrial function in systemic light-chain amyloidosis: a cardiac magnetic resonance study.

Science.gov (United States)

Mohty, Dania; Boulogne, Cyrille; Magne, Julien; Varroud-Vial, Nicolas; Martin, Sylvain; Ettaif, Hind; Fadel, Bahaa M; Bridoux, Frank; Aboyans, Victor; Damy, Thibaud; Jaccard, Arnaud

2016-09-01

Cardiac involvement in systemic light-chain amyloidosis (AL) imparts an adverse impact on outcome. The left atrium (LA), by virtue of its anatomical location and muscular wall, is commonly affected by the amyloid process. Although LA infiltration by amyloid fibrils leads to a reduction in its pump function, the infiltration of the left ventricular (LV) myocardium results in diastolic dysfunction with subsequent increase in filling pressures and LA enlargement. Even though left atrial volume (LAV) is an independent prognostic marker in many cardiomyopathies, its value in amyloid heart disease remains to be determined. In addition, few data are available as to the prognostic value of LA function in systemic AL. Using cardiac magnetic resonance (CMR), the current study aims to assess the prognostic significance of the maximal LAV and total LA emptying fraction (LAEF) in patients with AL. Fifty-four consecutive patients (age 66 ± 10 years, 59% males) with confirmed systemic AL and mean LV ejection fraction of 60 ± 12% underwent CMR. As compared with patients with no or minimal cardiac involvement (Mayo Clinic [MC] stage I), those at moderate and high risk (MC stages II and III) had significantly larger indexed maximal LAV (36 ± 15 vs. 46 ± 13 vs. 52 ± 19 mL/m(2), P = 0.03) and indexed minimal LAV (20 ± 6 vs. 34 ± 11 vs. 44 ± 17 mL/m(2), P 16% (37 ± 11 vs. 94 ± 4%, P = 0.001). In multivariate analysis, lower LAEF remained independently associated with a higher risk of 2-year mortality (HR = 1.08 per 1% decrease, 95% CI: 1.02-1.15, P = 0.003). In patients with systemic AL, LAEF as assessed by CMR is associated with NYHA functional class, MC stage, myocardial LGE and 2-year mortality. Published on behalf of the European Society of Cardiology. All rights reserved. © The Author 2016. For permissions please email: journals.permissions@oup.com.

Prognostic Value of the Amount of Bleeding After Aneurysmal Subarachnoid Hemorrhage: A Quantitative Volumetric Study.

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Lagares, Alfonso; Jiménez-Roldán, Luis; Gomez, Pedro A; Munarriz, Pablo M; Castaño-León, Ana M; Cepeda, Santiago; Alén, José F

2015-12-01

Quantitative estimation of the hemorrhage volume associated with aneurysm rupture is a new tool of assessing prognosis. To determine the prognostic value of the quantitative estimation of the amount of bleeding after aneurysmal subarachnoid hemorrhage, as well the relative importance of this factor related to other prognostic indicators, and to establish a possible cut-off value of volume of bleeding related to poor outcome. A prospective cohort of 206 patients consecutively admitted with the diagnosis of aneurysmal subarachnoid hemorrhage to Hospital 12 de Octubre were included in the study. Subarachnoid, intraventricular, intracerebral, and total bleeding volumes were calculated using analytic software. For assessing factors related to prognosis, univariate and multivariate analysis (logistic regression) were performed. The relative importance of factors in determining prognosis was established by calculating their proportion of explained variation. Maximum Youden index was calculated to determine the optimal cut point for subarachnoid and total bleeding volume. Variables independently related to prognosis were clinical grade at admission, age, and the different bleeding volumes. The proportion of variance explained is higher for subarachnoid bleeding. The optimal cut point related to poor prognosis is a volume of 20 mL both for subarachnoid and total bleeding. Volumetric measurement of subarachnoid or total bleeding volume are both independent prognostic factors in patients with aneurysmal subarachnoid hemorrhage. A volume of more than 20 mL of blood in the initial noncontrast computed tomography is related to a clear increase in poor outcome risk. : aSAH, aneurysmal subarachnoid hemorrhage.

Treatments and other prognostic factors in the management of the open abdomen: A systematic review.

Science.gov (United States)

Cristaudo, Adam T; Jennings, Scott B; Hitos, Kerry; Gunnarsson, Ronny; DeCosta, Alan

2017-02-01

The open abdomen (OA) is an important approach for managing intra-abdominal catastrophes and continues to be the standard of care. Despite this, challenges remain with it associated with a high incidence of complications and poor outcomes. The objective of this article is to perform a systematic review in accordance with Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses guidelines to identify prognostic factors in OA patients in regard to definitive fascial closure (DFC), mortality and intra-abdominal complications. An electronic database search was conducted involving Medline, Excerpta Medica, Central Register of Controlled Trials, Cumulative Index to Nursing, and Allied Health Literature and Clinicaltrials.gov. All studies that described prognostic factors in regard to the above outcomes in OA patients were eligible for inclusion. Data collected were synthesized by each outcome of interest and assessed for methodological quality. Thirty-one studies were included in the final synthesis. Enteral nutrition, organ dysfunction, local and systemic infection, number of reexplorations, worsening Injury Severity Score, and the development of a fistula appeared to significantly delay DFC. Age and Adult Physiology And Chronic Health Evaluation version II score were predictors for in-hospital mortality. Failed DFC, large bowel resection and >5 to 10 L of intravenous fluids in 5 to 10 and >10 L of intravenous fluids in management of OA patients will avoid prolonged treatment and facilitate early DFC. Future research should focus on the development of a prognostic model. Systematic review, level III.

A prognostic model of triple-negative breast cancer based on miR-27b-3p and node status.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Songjie Shen

Full Text Available Triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC is an aggressive but heterogeneous subtype of breast cancer. This study aimed to identify and validate a prognostic signature for TNBC patients to improve prognostic capability and to guide individualized treatment.We retrospectively analyzed the prognostic performance of clinicopathological characteristics and miRNAs in a training set of 58 patients with invasive ductal TNBC diagnosed between 2002 and 2012. A prediction model was developed based on independent clinicopathological and miRNA covariates. The prognostic value of the model was further validated in a separate set of 41 TNBC patients diagnosed between 2007 and 2008.Only lymph node status was marginally significantly associated with poor prognosis of TNBC (P = 0.054, whereas other clinicopathological factors, including age, tumor size, histological grade, lymphovascular invasion, P53 status, Ki-67 index, and type of surgery, were not. The expression levels of miR-27b-3p, miR-107, and miR-103a-3p were significantly elevated in the metastatic group compared with the disease-free group (P value: 0.008, 0.005, and 0.050, respectively. The Cox proportional hazards regression analysis revealed that lymph node status and miR-27b-3p were independent predictors of poor prognosis (P value: 0.012 and 0.027, respectively. A logistic regression model was developed based on these two independent covariates, and the prognostic value of the model was subsequently confirmed in a separate validation set. The two different risk groups, which were stratified according to the model, showed significant differences in the rates of distant metastasis and breast cancer-related death not only in the training set (P value: 0.001 and 0.040, respectively but also in the validation set (P value: 0.013 and 0.012, respectively.This model based on miRNA and node status covariates may be used to stratify TNBC patients into different prognostic subgroups for potentially

Prognostic value of pre-treatment DCE-MRI parameters in predicting disease free and overall survival for breast cancer patients undergoing neoadjuvant chemotherapy

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Pickles, Martin D.; Manton, David J.; Lowry, Martin; Turnbull, Lindsay W.

2009-01-01

The purpose of this study was to investigate whether dynamic contrast enhanced MRI (DCE-MRI) data, both pharmacokinetic and empirical, can predict, prior to neoadjuvant chemotherapy, which patients are likely to have a shorter disease free survival (DFS) and overall survival (OS) interval following surgery. Traditional prognostic parameters were also included in the survival analysis. Consequently, a comparison of the prognostic value could be made between all the parameters studied. MR examinations were conducted on a 1.5 T system in 68 patients prior to the initiation of neoadjuvant chemotherapy. DCE-MRI consisted of a fast spoiled gradient echo sequence acquired over 35 phases with a mean temporal resolution of 11.3 s. Both pharmacokinetic and empirical parameters were derived from the DCE-MRI data. Kaplan-Meier survival plots were generated for each parameter and group comparisons were made utilising logrank tests. The results from the 54 patients entered into the univariate survival analysis demonstrated that traditional prognostic parameters (tumour grade, hormonal status and size), empirical parameters (maximum enhancement index, enhancement index at 30 s, area under the curve and initial slope) and adjuvant therapies demonstrated significant differences in survival intervals. Further multivariate Cox regression survival analysis revealed that empirical enhancement parameters contributed the greatest prediction of both DFS and OS in the resulting models. In conclusion, this study has demonstrated that in patients who exhibit high levels of perfusion and vessel permeability pre-treatment, evidenced by elevated empirical DCE-MRI parameters, a significantly lower disease free survival and overall survival can be expected.

Prognostic value of pre-treatment DCE-MRI parameters in predicting disease free and overall survival for breast cancer patients undergoing neoadjuvant chemotherapy

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Pickles, Martin D. [Centre for Magnetic Resonance Investigations, Division of Cancer, Postgraduate Medical School, University of Hull, Hull Royal Infirmary, Anlaby Road, Hull, HU3 2JZ (United Kingdom)], E-mail: m.pickles@hull.ac.uk; Manton, David J. [Centre for Magnetic Resonance Investigations, Division of Cancer, Postgraduate Medical School, University of Hull, Hull Royal Infirmary, Anlaby Road, Hull, HU3 2JZ (United Kingdom)], E-mail: d.j.manton@hull.ac.uk; Lowry, Martin [Centre for Magnetic Resonance Investigations, Division of Cancer, Postgraduate Medical School, University of Hull, Hull Royal Infirmary, Anlaby Road, Hull, HU3 2JZ (United Kingdom)], E-mail: m.lowry@hull.ac.uk; Turnbull, Lindsay W. [Centre for Magnetic Resonance Investigations, Division of Cancer, Postgraduate Medical School, University of Hull, Hull Royal Infirmary, Anlaby Road, Hull, HU3 2JZ (United Kingdom)], E-mail: l.w.turnbull@hull.ac.uk

2009-09-15

The purpose of this study was to investigate whether dynamic contrast enhanced MRI (DCE-MRI) data, both pharmacokinetic and empirical, can predict, prior to neoadjuvant chemotherapy, which patients are likely to have a shorter disease free survival (DFS) and overall survival (OS) interval following surgery. Traditional prognostic parameters were also included in the survival analysis. Consequently, a comparison of the prognostic value could be made between all the parameters studied. MR examinations were conducted on a 1.5 T system in 68 patients prior to the initiation of neoadjuvant chemotherapy. DCE-MRI consisted of a fast spoiled gradient echo sequence acquired over 35 phases with a mean temporal resolution of 11.3 s. Both pharmacokinetic and empirical parameters were derived from the DCE-MRI data. Kaplan-Meier survival plots were generated for each parameter and group comparisons were made utilising logrank tests. The results from the 54 patients entered into the univariate survival analysis demonstrated that traditional prognostic parameters (tumour grade, hormonal status and size), empirical parameters (maximum enhancement index, enhancement index at 30 s, area under the curve and initial slope) and adjuvant therapies demonstrated significant differences in survival intervals. Further multivariate Cox regression survival analysis revealed that empirical enhancement parameters contributed the greatest prediction of both DFS and OS in the resulting models. In conclusion, this study has demonstrated that in patients who exhibit high levels of perfusion and vessel permeability pre-treatment, evidenced by elevated empirical DCE-MRI parameters, a significantly lower disease free survival and overall survival can be expected.

Prognostic factors of hydrops fetalis with pleural effusion.

Science.gov (United States)

Nakayama, Atsushi; Oshiro, Makoto; Yamada, Yasumasa; Hattori, Tetsuo; Wakano, Yasuhiro; Hayashi, Seiji; Kokubo, Minoru; Takemoto, Koji; Honda, Shigeru; Ieda, Kuniko; Yamamoto, Hikaru; Kouwaki, Masanori; Yokoi, Kyoko; Shinohara, Osamu; Kato, Takenori; Miyata, Masafumi; Tanaka, Taihei; Hayakawa, Masahiro

2017-10-01

Hydrops fetalis (HF) has a low survival rate, particularly in the case of preterm birth. In addition, the severity index of HF has not been fully investigated yet. The aim of this study was to clarify the prognostic factors of HF with pleural effusion. All live-born HF patients with pleural effusion, except for chromosomal abnormality or complex congenital heart disease, born from 2009 to 2013 in Aichi Prefecture in Japan were included. Prenatal, perinatal, and postnatal information was obtained from the medical records and was retrospectively analyzed. Forty-one HF patients with pleural effusion were included, and 28 patients (68%) survived. On multivariate logistic stepwise analysis, gestational birth week (OR, 0.71; 95% CI: 0.52-0.96, P = 0.027) and standard deviation (SD) score of the birthweight (OR, 1.74; 95% CI: 1.01-2.99, P = 0.045) were significant factors for postnatal death. All patients with both ≥32 gestational weeks and pleural effusion. © 2017 Japan Pediatric Society.

Prognostic Disclosure and its Influence on Cancer Patients

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Chen-Hsiu Chen

2014-09-01

Conclusions: In order to close the gap between patients’ preferences for prognostic disclosure and actual receipt of prognostic information, healthcare professionals should develop interventions to overcome the physicians’ difficulty in revealing prognosis, thus facilitating cancer patients’ awareness of prognosis and providing high quality end-of-life care.

Systematic review of renal carcinoma prognostic factors.

Science.gov (United States)

Lorente, D; Trilla, E; Meseguer, A; Planas, J; Placer, J; Celma, A; Salvador, C; Regis, L; Morote, J

2017-05-01

The natural history of renal cell carcinoma is heterogeneous. Some scenarios can be found in terms of clinical presentation, clinical evolution or type of recurrence (local/metastatic). The aim of this publication is to analyze the most important prognostic factors published in the literature. A literature review ob published papers was performed using the Pubmed, from first Motzer's classification published in 1999 to 2015, according to PRISMA declaration. Search was done using the following keywords: kidney neoplasm, kidney cancer, renal cell carcinoma, prognostic factors, mortality, survival and disease progression. Papers were classified according to level of evidence, the number of patients included and the type of study performed. The evolution in the knowledge of molecular pathways related to renal oncogenesis and the new targeted therapies has left to remain obsolete the old prognostic models. It's necessary to perform a continuous review to actualize nomograms and to adapt them to the new scenarios. Is necessary to perform a proper external validation of existing prognostic factors using prospective and multicentric studies to add them into the daily urologist clinical practice. Copyright © 2016 AEU. Publicado por Elsevier España, S.L.U. All rights reserved.

Thymoma - prognostic factors and treatment results

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Gripp, S.; Hilgers, K.; Schmitt, G.

1997-01-01

Purpose/Objective: To assess the prognostic factors and treatment results of thymoma with emphasis on surgery and radiotherapy. Materials and Methods: Thymoma patients treated at Duesseldorf University Hospital from 1954 to 1991 were studied in this retrospective analysis. Depending on stage and residual disease, treatment was surgery (sternotomy or thoracotomy) with and without radiotherapy and chemotherapy (Holoxan, Endoxan, Vinblastin, Adriamycin, Bleomycin, CDDP, Vepesid). 70 patients (38f, 32m) were enrolled in this study. The mean age was 46,5 years. At presentation the median Karnofsky's index was 90%. In 19% thymoma was accidentally diagnosed, 81% presented symptoms at diagnosis. Masaoka's staging system was used (I: intact capsule; II: invasion of the capsule; III: invasion of neighboring organs; IV: dissemination). Stage at presentation was I:21%; II: 26%; III: 43%; IV: 10%. All histologic slices were peer reviewed. Histologic classification according to Lewis (predominantly lymphocytic: 36%; predominantly epithelial: 23%; mixed type: 33%, spindle cell thymoma: 9%) was applied. All available paraffin embedded specimens (36) were studied with DNA cytometric analysis after Feulgen staining. Occasionally thymoma was accompanied by Myasthenia gravis (23%) or other paraneoplastic syndromes (19%). Statistical analysis was performed using the Kaplan-Meier method and logrank-tests. Multivariate analysis was also performed. Results: From 70 patients treated surgically, 68% were radically resected (R0), 26% incompletely resected (R1,2) and 6% had biopsy only. The median cause specific survival (CSS) was 132 months. All patients with localized disease (stage I and II) were completely resected and received no further therapy, whereas only 50% (15 pat) in stage III and 0% in stage IV were amenable to radical resection. 36% (25 pat) received an additional therapy (CMT): 31% (22 pat) postoperative irradiation and 4% (3 pat) combined radio-chemotherapy. The radiation

The prognostic role of 99mTc-MDP breast scintigraphy. Comparison of scintigrafic findings with histologic and molecular parameters

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Dimonte, M.; Leo, G.; Marsigliante, S.

1999-01-01

Breast scintigraphy (BS) with the bone-seeking agent 99m Tc-medronate (MDP) can be usefully combined with mammography to diagnose and characterize questionable breast lumps. However this radiotracer does not seem to provide any further prognostic information about breast cancer. Therefore it is investigated the prognostic yield of MDP-BS searching for correlations between scintigraphic findings and the major biological and histologic parameters. It is retrospectively analyzed a series of 44 primary breast cancers. All patients had undergone 99m Tc-MDP bone scan for preoperative staging, as well as conventional breast imaging. It is statistically compared the cancer/background ratio (c/b index) with lesion histotype, diameter, grading, and the tissue concentrations of steroid receptors, cathepsine D, type 1 timidine kinase, pS2 and p53 proteins). Differently from BS with 99m Tc-MIBI, 201 Tl, 18 F-FDG, 111 In-OCT and radiolabeled estrogens and despite its good overall accuracy, MDP-BS appears to have no prognostic role. In fact, despite the well-known capability of soft tissue lesions to take up the tracer, MDP tumor trapping seems to depend mainly on the increased permeability of neo vessels and on interstitial space enlargement. Few reports are available in the literature on the correlation between in vivo MDP uptake by the breast cancer and prognostic parameters. Thus, it are tested possible correlations between the amount of MDP taken up by the breast cancer, histologic features and cell concentrations of some major biomarkers. The lack of any statistical significance is in agreement with the theory, and confirms the little prognostic value of MDP-BS. Nevertheless, further trials are warranted on larger series of cases to validate personal findings [it

Prevalence and prognostic significance of malnutrition in chronic renal insufficiency.

Science.gov (United States)

Lawson, J A; Lazarus, R; Kelly, J J

2001-01-01

Malnutrition is present in a significant proportion of patients commencing dialysis. However, the prevalence and prognostic significance of malnutrition within the chronic renal insufficiency (CRI) population before the initiation of dialysis is poorly characterized. The aim of this study was to determine the prevalence and prognostic significance of malnutrition in an unselected group of patients with CRI. Cohort analytic study. Ambulatory care practice of a university teaching hospital. Fifty patients with CRI (serum creatinine concentration > or = 1.7 mg/dL) were enrolled. Patients with a recent acute illness, nephrotic syndrome, intercurrent steroid therapy, gastrointestinal disease, or other severe organ failure that may have independently influenced nutritional status were excluded. At baseline, patients had a nutritional assessment consisting of subjective global assessment (SGA), measurement of body mass index (BMI), midarm circumference (MAC), serum albumin concentration, total lymphocyte count, and single frequency bioelectrical impedance analysis. Patients received standard medical care and were followed prospectively at quarterly intervals for 12 months. At baseline assessment, 28% of patients had evidence of malnutrition by SGA criteria. The malnourished group of patients had a significantly lower creatinine clearance (18.9 +/- 9.8 v 36.5 +/- 14.0 mL/min/1.73 m(2), mean +/- SD, P renal failure. These data suggest that SGA provides a useful means of assessing nutritional status and is helpful in identifying patients with increased risk of morbidity and mortality in the setting of CRI.

Marital status is a prognostic factor in amyotrophic lateral sclerosis.

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Spataro, R; Volanti, P; Lo Coco, D; La Bella, V

2017-12-01

Several variables have been linked to a shorter survival in patients with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), for example, female sex, older age, site of disease onset, rapid disease progression, and a relatively short diagnostic delay. With regard to marital status, previous studies suggested that living with a partner might be associated to a longer survival and a higher likelihood to proceed to tracheostomy. Therefore, to further strengthen this hypothesis, we investigated the role of marital status as a prognostic variable in a cohort of ALS patients. We performed a retrospective analysis on 501 consecutive ALS patients for which a complete disease's natural history and clinical/demographic data were available. At diagnosis, 409 patients (81.6%) were married or lived with a stable partner, whereas 92 patients (18.4%) were single/widowed/divorced. In our ALS cohort, being married was associated with a median longer survival (married, 35 months [24-50] vs unmarried, 27 months [18-42]; Pmarried and unmarried patients were significantly different in many clinical and demographic variables, including age at disease onset, gender, body mass index, and number of children. Cox regression analysis showed that age at onset, diagnostic delay, and marital status were independent predictors of survival. In unmarried patients, female sex was also significantly associated with shorter survival. Marital status is a prognostic factor in ALS, and it significantly affects survival. © 2017 John Wiley & Sons A/S. Published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

Prognostic significance of immunohistochemistry-based markers and algorithms in immunochemotherapy-treated diffuse large B cell lymphoma patients.

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Culpin, Rachel E; Sieniawski, Michal; Angus, Brian; Menon, Geetha K; Proctor, Stephen J; Milne, Paul; McCabe, Kate; Mainou-Fowler, Tryfonia

2013-12-01

To reassess the prognostic validity of immunohistochemical markers and algorithms identified in the CHOP era in immunochemotherapy-treated diffuse large B cell lymphoma patients. The prognostic significance of immunohistochemical markers (CD10, Bcl-6, Bcl-2, MUM1, Ki-67, CD5, GCET1, FoxP1, LMO2) and algorithms (Hans, Hans*, Muris, Choi, Choi*, Nyman, Visco-Young, Tally) was assessed using clinical diagnostic blocks taken from an unselected, population-based cohort of 190 patients treated with R-CHOP. Dichotomizing expression, low CD10 (<10%), low LMO2 (<70%) or high Bcl-2 (≥80%) predicted shorter overall survival (OS; P = 0.033, P = 0.010 and P = 0.008, respectively). High Bcl-2 (≥80%), low Bcl-6 (<60%), low GCET1 (<20%) or low LMO2 (<70%) predicted shorter progression-free survival (PFS; P = 0.001, P = 0.048, P = 0.045 and P = 0.002, respectively). The Hans, Hans* and Muris classifiers predicted OS (P = 0.022, P = 0.037 and P = 0.011) and PFS (P = 0.021, P = 0.020 and P = 0.004). The Choi, Choi* and Tally were associated with PFS (P = 0.049, P = 0.009 and P = 0.023). In multivariate analysis, the International Prognostic Index (IPI) was the only independent predictor of outcome (OS; HR: 2.60, P < 0.001 and PFS; HR: 2.91, P < 0.001). Results highlight the controversy surrounding immunohistochemistry-based algorithms in the R-CHOP era. The need for more robust markers, applicable to the clinic, for incorporation into improved prognostic systems is emphasized. © 2013 John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

Accounting for treatment use when validating a prognostic model: a simulation study

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Romin Pajouheshnia

2017-07-01

Full Text Available Abstract Background Prognostic models often show poor performance when applied to independent validation data sets. We illustrate how treatment use in a validation set can affect measures of model performance and present the uses and limitations of available analytical methods to account for this using simulated data. Methods We outline how the use of risk-lowering treatments in a validation set can lead to an apparent overestimation of risk by a prognostic model that was developed in a treatment-naïve cohort to make predictions of risk without treatment. Potential methods to correct for the effects of treatment use when testing or validating a prognostic model are discussed from a theoretical perspective.. Subsequently, we assess, in simulated data sets, the impact of excluding treated individuals and the use of inverse probability weighting (IPW on the estimated model discrimination (c-index and calibration (observed:expected ratio and calibration plots in scenarios with different patterns and effects of treatment use. Results Ignoring the use of effective treatments in a validation data set leads to poorer model discrimination and calibration than would be observed in the untreated target population for the model. Excluding treated individuals provided correct estimates of model performance only when treatment was randomly allocated, although this reduced the precision of the estimates. IPW followed by exclusion of the treated individuals provided correct estimates of model performance in data sets where treatment use was either random or moderately associated with an individual's risk when the assumptions of IPW were met, but yielded incorrect estimates in the presence of non-positivity or an unobserved confounder. Conclusions When validating a prognostic model developed to make predictions of risk without treatment, treatment use in the validation set can bias estimates of the performance of the model in future targeted individuals, and

Inflammation-based prognostic score and number of lymph node metastases are independent prognostic factors in esophageal squamous cell carcinoma.

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Kobayashi, Takashi; Teruya, Masanori; Kishiki, Tomokazu; Kaneko, Susumu; Endo, Daisuke; Takenaka, Yoshiharu; Miki, Kenji; Kobayashi, Kaoru; Morita, Koji

2010-08-01

Few studies have investigated whether the Glasgow Prognostic Score (GPS), an inflammation-based prognostic score, is useful for postoperative prognosis of esophageal squamous cell carcinoma. GPS was calculated on the basis of admission data as follows: patients with elevated C-reactive protein level (>10 mg/l) and hypoalbuminemia (l) were assigned to GPS2. Patients with one or no abnormal value were assigned to GPS1 or GPS0. A new scoring system was constructed using independent prognostic variables and was evaluated on whether it could be used to dictate the choice of clinical options. 65 patients with esophageal squamous cell carcinoma were enrolled. GPS and the number of lymph node metastases were found to be independent prognostic variables. The scoring system comprising GPS and the number of lymph node metastases was found to be effective in the prediction of a long-term outcome (p GPS may be useful for postoperative prognosis of patients with esophageal squamous cell carcinoma. GPS and the number of lymph node metastases could be used to identify a subgroup of patients with esophageal squamous cell carcinoma who are eligible for radical resection but show poor prognosis.

Prognostic and predictive factors of the breast cancer impact at the Matanzas Provincial Oncology Unit

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Gonzalo Zambrano, Ruben Dario; Fundora Madruga, Guillermo; Rodriguez Jimenez, Pablo

2010-01-01

We carried out a descriptive study of prevalence or cross sectional study to assess predictive and prognostic factors of the breast cancer from recidivism in 406 women treated at the Matanzas Provincial Oncology Unit, and remitted from provincial and territorial hospitals, since January 2004 to December 2008. Data were collected from clinical records and biopsy informs, processed with the Epi Info System, Version 6.04. There was a higher incidence of the breast cancer in post-menopausal women and a higher aggressiveness in pre-menopausal women. Almost half of the patients were diagnosed in the precocious stage and there was a high index of recidivism, mainly in advanced stages. The invasive lobular carcinoma presented more recidivists, while the tubular one had a better prognosis; the ductal carcinoma in situ and the lobular carcinoma in situ had more recurrences than they were expected. The conservative surgery showed a higher number of recidivists in distance than the modified radical mastectomy, while the last one showed local recidivism (2,1 %) and the first, no one; the conservative one was related with a high percent of disease persistence, in which the compromised section edges. The ganglion status, tumour size and histological level were pointed out as the main anatomic-pathological prognosis facts, but not the hormonal receptors. There it was a good answer to tamoxifen and to CMF (cyclophosphamide, metothrexate and 5 flouracil) cycles. In conclusion, we demonstrated the influence of the modifiable and non-modifiable prognostic and predictive facts on the high index of recidivism and recommend taking measures to improve those indicators

PROGNOSTIC SIGNIFICANCE OF CD56 EXPRESSION IN ACUTE LEUKEMIAS

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B. M. Ahmed

2014-12-01

Conclusions. CD56 antigenic expression in AML cases represents an adverse prognostic factor. It should be regularly investigated in cases of AML for better prognostic stratification and assessment. KEY WORDS: CD56; leukemia, myeloid; prognosis

Incremental Prognostic Value of Apparent Diffusion Coefficient Histogram Analysis in Head and Neck Squamous Cell Carcinoma.

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Li, Xiaoxia; Yuan, Ying; Ren, Jiliang; Shi, Yiqian; Tao, Xiaofeng

2018-03-26

We aimed to investigate the incremental prognostic value of apparent diffusion coefficient (ADC) histogram analysis in patients with head and neck squamous cell carcinoma (HNSCC) and integrate it into a multivariate prognostic model. A retrospective review of magnetic resonance imaging findings was conducted in patients with pathologically confirmed HNSCC between June 2012 and December 2015. For each tumor, six histogram parameters were derived: the 10th, 50th, and 90th percentiles of ADC (ADC 10 , ADC 50 , and ADC 90 ); mean ADC values (ADC mean ); kurtosis; and skewness. The clinical variables included age, sex, smoking status, tumor volume, and tumor node metastasis stage. The association of these histogram and clinical variables with overall survival (OS) was determined. Further validation of the histogram parameters as independent biomarkers was performed using multivariate Cox proportional hazard models combined with clinical variables, which was compared to the clinical model. Models were assessed with C index and receiver operating characteristic curve analyses for the 12- and 36-month OS. Ninety-six patients were eligible for analysis. Median follow-up was 877 days (range, 54-1516 days). A total of 29 patients died during follow-up (30%). Patients with higher ADC values (ADC 10  > 0.958 × 10 -3 mm 2 /s, ADC 50  > 1.089 × 10 -3 mm 2 /s, ADC 90  > 1.152 × 10 -3 mm 2 /s, ADC mean  > 1.047 × 10 -3 mm 2 /s) and lower kurtosis (≤0.967) were significant predictors of poor OS (P histogram analysis has incremental prognostic value in patients with HNSCC and increases the performance of a multivariable prognostic model in addition to clinical variables. Copyright © 2018 The Association of University Radiologists. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Prognostic accuracy of antenatal neonatology consultation.

Science.gov (United States)

Kukora, S; Gollehon, N; Weiner, G; Laventhal, N

2017-01-01

Neonatologists provide antenatal counseling to support shared decision-making for complicated pregnancies. Poor or ambiguous prognostication can lead to inappropriate treatment and parental distress. We sought to evaluate the accuracy of antenatal prognosticaltion. A retrospective cohort was assembled from a prospectively populated database of all outpatient neonatology consultations. On the basis of the written consultation, fetuses were characterized by diagnosis groups (multiple anomalies or genetic disorders, single major anomaly and obstetric complications), assigned to five prognostic categories (I=survivable, IIA=uncertain but likely survivable, II=uncertain, IIB=uncertain but likely non-survivable, III non-survivable) and two final outcome categories (fetal demise/in-hospital neonatal death or survival to hospital discharge). When possible, status at last follow-up was recorded for those discharged from the hospital. Prognostic accuracy was assessed using unweighted, multi-level likelihood ratios (LRs). The final cohort included 143 fetuses/infants distributed nearly evenly among the three diagnosis groups. Over half (64%) were assigned an uncertain prognosis, but most of these could be divided into 'likely survivable' or 'likely non-survivable' subgroups. Overall survival for the entire cohort was 62% (89/143). All but one of the fetuses assigned a non-survivable prognosis suffered fetal demise or died before hospital discharge. The neonatologist's antenatal prognosis accurately predicted the probability of survival by prognosis group (LR I=4.56, LR IIA=10.53, LR II=4.71, LR IIB=0.099, LR III=0.040). The LRs clearly differentiated between fetuses with high and low probability of survival. Eleven fetuses (7.7%) had misalignment between the predicted prognosis and outcome. Five died before discharge despite being given category I or IIA prognoses, whereas six infants with category IIB or III prognoses survived to discharge, though some of these were

Prognostic influence of pre-operative C-reactive protein in node-negative breast cancer patients.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Isabel Sicking

Full Text Available The importance of inflammation is increasingly noticed in cancer. The aim of this study was to analyze the prognostic influence of pre-operative serum C-reactive protein (CRP in a cohort of 148 lymph node-negative breast cancer patients. The prognostic significance of CRP level for disease-free survival (DFS, metastasis-free survival (MFS and overall survival (OS was evaluated using univariate and multivariate Cox regression, also including information on age at diagnosis, tumor size, tumor grade, estrogen receptor (ER, progesterone receptor (PR and human epidermal growth factor receptor 2 (HER2 status, proliferation index (Ki67 and molecular subtype, as well as an assessment of the presence of necrosis and inflammation in the tumor tissue. Univariate analysis showed that CRP, as a continuous variable, was significantly associated with DFS (P = 0.002, hazard ratio [HR] = 1.04, 95% confidence interval [CI] = 1.02-1.07 and OS (P = 0.036, HR= 1.03, 95% CI = 1.00-1.06, whereas a trend was observed for MFS (P = 0.111. In the multivariate analysis, CRP retained its significance for DFS (P = 0.033, HR= 1.01, 95% CI = 1.00-1.07 as well as OS (P = 0.023, HR= 1.03, 95% CI = 1.00-1.06, independent of established prognostic factors. Furthermore, large-scale gene expression analysis by Affymetrix HG-U133A arrays was performed for 72 (48.6% patients. The correlations between serum CRP and gene expression levels in the corresponding carcinoma of the breast were assessed using Spearman's rank correlation, controlled for false-discovery rate. No significant correlation was observed between CRP level and gene expression indicative of an ongoing local inflammatory process. In summary, pre-operatively elevated CRP levels at the time of diagnosis were associated with shorter DFS and OS independent of established prognostic factors in node-negative breast cancer, supporting a possible link between inflammation and

Prognostic value of the Glasgow Prognostic Score for glioblastoma multiforme patients treated with radiotherapy and temozolomide.

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Topkan, Erkan; Selek, Ugur; Ozdemir, Yurday; Yildirim, Berna A; Guler, Ozan C; Ciner, Fuat; Mertsoylu, Huseyin; Tufan, Kadir

2018-04-25

To evaluate the prognostic value of the Glasgow Prognostic Score (GPS), the combination of C-reactive protein (CRP) and albumin, in glioblastoma multiforme (GBM) patients treated with radiotherapy (RT) and concurrent plus adjuvant temozolomide (GPS). Data of newly diagnosed GBM patients treated with partial brain RT and concurrent and adjuvant TMZ were retrospectively analyzed. The patients were grouped into three according to the GPS criteria: GPS-0: CRP L and albumin > 35 g/L; GPS-1: CRP L and albumin L or CRP > 10 mg/L and albumin > 35 g/L; and GPS-2: CRP > 10 mg/L and albumin L. Primary end-point was the association between the GPS groups and the overall survival (OS) outcomes. A total of 142 patients were analyzed (median age: 58 years, 66.2% male). There were 64 (45.1%), 40 (28.2%), and 38 (26.7%) patients in GPS-0, GPS-1, and GPS-2 groups, respectively. At median 15.7 months follow-up, the respective median and 5-year OS rates for the whole cohort were 16.2 months (95% CI 12.7-19.7) and 9.5%. In multivariate analyses GPS grouping emerged independently associated with the median OS (P GPS grouping and the RTOG RPA classification were found to be strongly correlated in prognostic stratification of GBM patients (correlation coefficient: 0.42; P GPS appeared to be useful in prognostic stratification of GBM patients into three groups with significantly different survival durations resembling the RTOG RPA classification.

A Distributed Approach to System-Level Prognostics

Science.gov (United States)

2012-09-01

the end of (useful) life ( EOL ) and/or the remaining useful life (RUL) of components, subsystems, or systems. The prognostics problem itself can be...system state estimate, computes EOL and/or RUL. In this paper, we focus on a model-based prognostics approach (Orchard & Vachtse- vanos, 2009; Daigle...been focused on individual components, and determining their EOL and RUL, e.g., (Orchard & Vachtsevanos, 2009; Saha & Goebel, 2009; Daigle & Goebel

Prognostic factors in Acanthamoeba keratitis.

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Kaiserman, Igor; Bahar, Irit; McAllum, Penny; Srinivasan, Sathish; Elbaz, Uri; Slomovic, Allan R; Rootman, David S

2012-06-01

To assess the prognostic factors influencing visual prognosis and length of treatment after acanthamoeba keratitis (AK). Forty-two AK eyes of 41 patients treated between 1999 and 2006 were included. A diagnosis of AK was made on the basis of culture results with a corresponding clinical presentation. We calculated the prognostic effect of the various factors on final visual acuity and the length of treatment. Multivariate regression analysis was used to adjust for the simultaneous effects of the various prognostic factors. Mean follow-up was 19.7 ± 21.0 months. Sixty-four percent of cases had > 1 identified risk factor for AK, the most common risk factor being contact lens wear (92.9% of eyes). At presentation, median best spectacle corrected visual acuity (BCVA) was 20/200 (20/30 to Hand Motion [HM]) that improved after treatment to 20/50 (20/20 to Counting Fingers [CF]). Infection acquired by swimming or related to contact lenses had significantly better final BCVA (p = 0.03 and p = 0.007, respectively). Neuritis and pseudodendrites were also associated with better final BCVA (p = 0.04 and p = 0.05, respectively). Having had an epithelial defect on presentation and having been treated with topical steroid were associated with worse final best spectacle corrected visual acuity (BSCVA) (p = 0.0006 and p = 0.04). Multivariate regression analysis found a good initial visual acuity (p = 0.002), infections related to swimming (p = 0.01), the absence of an epithelial defect (p = 0.03), having been treated with chlorhexidine (p = 0.05), and not having receive steroids (p = 0.003) to significantly forecast a good final BCVA. We identified several prognostic factors that can help clinicians evaluate the expected visual damage of the AK infection and thus tailor treatment accordingly. Copyright © 2012 Canadian Ophthalmological Society. All rights reserved.

FDG-PET/CT at the end of immuno-chemotherapy in follicular lymphoma: the prognostic role of the ratio between target lesion and liver SUVmax (rPET).

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Annunziata, Salvatore; Cuccaro, Annarosa; Tisi, Maria Chiara; Hohaus, Stefan; Rufini, Vittoria

2018-06-01

To retrospectively investigate the prognostic role of the ratio between target lesion and liver SUV max (rPET) in patients with follicular lymphoma (FL) submitted to FDG-PET/CT at the end of immuno-chemotherapy (PI-PET), and to compare rPET with International Harmonization Project criteria (IHP), Deauville Score (5p-DS) and FL International Prognostic Index at diagnosis (FLIPI). Eighty-nine patients with FL undergoing PI-PET were evaluated. The receiver operating characteristic (ROC) approach was applied to identify the optimal cut-point of rPET with respect to 5-years progression free survival (PFS). The prognostic significance of rPET was compared with IHP, DS and FLIPI. Positive predictive value (PPV) and negative predictive value (NPV) were calculated using the presence of adverse events as gold standard. The ROC analysis for rPET as predictor of progression showed an optimal rPET cut-point of 0.98. Patients with positive values of IHP, DS and rPET had a PFS of 50, 30 and 31%. PPV were of 56, 80 and 80%, NPV of 83, 86 and 88%, respectively. DS and rPET differed only in two patients. FLIPI was not predictive of progression and relapse. rPET is a prognostic factor in patients with FL submitted to PI-PET. Although it has a similar prognostic power as DS, it can have methodological advantages over visual analysis. PI-PET with different evaluation systems has a stronger prognostic power than FLIPI at diagnosis, so it could be useful to identify patients with FL at risk for early relapse after immuno-chemotherapy.

Prognostics and health management of engineering systems an introduction

CERN Document Server

Kim, Nam-Ho; Choi, Joo-Ho

2017-01-01

This book introduces the methods for predicting the future behavior of a system’s health and the remaining useful life to determine an appropriate maintenance schedule. The authors introduce the history, industrial applications, algorithms, and benefits and challenges of PHM (Prognostics and Health Management) to help readers understand this highly interdisciplinary engineering approach that incorporates sensing technologies, physics of failure, machine learning, modern statistics, and reliability engineering. It is ideal for beginners because it introduces various prognostics algorithms and explains their attributes, pros and cons in terms of model definition, model parameter estimation, and ability to handle noise and bias in data, allowing readers to select the appropriate methods for their fields of application. Among the many topics discussed in-depth are: • Prognostics tutorials using least-squares • Bayesian inference and parameter estimation • Physics-based prognostics algorithms including non...

Prognostic value of proliferation in pleomorphic soft tissue sarcomas

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Seinen, Jojanneke M; Jönsson, Mats; Bendahl, Pär-Ola O

2012-01-01

= 1.6-12.1), Top2a (hazard ratio = 2.2, CI = 1.2-3.5) and high S-phase fraction (hazard ratio = 1.8, CI = 1.2-3.7) significantly correlated with risk for metastasis. When combined with currently used prognostic factors, Ki-67, S-phase fraction and Top2a fraction contributed to refined identification...... of prognostic risk groups. Proliferation, as assessed by expression of Ki-67 and Top2a and evaluation of S-phase fraction and applied to statistical decision-tree models, provides prognostic information in soft tissue sarcomas of the extremity and trunk wall. Though proliferation contributes independently...... to currently applied prognosticators, its role is particularly strong when few other factors are available, which suggests a role in preoperative decision-making related to identification of high-risk individuals who would benefit from neoadjuvant therapy....

Prognostic Value of C-Reactive Protein, Leukocytes, and Vitamin D in Severe Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Moberg, Mia; Vestbo, Jørgen; Martinez, Gerd

2014-01-01

Inflammatory biomarkers predict mortality and hospitalisation in chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). Yet, it remains uncertain if biomarkers in addition to reflecting disease severity add new prognostic information on severe COPD. We investigated if leukocytes, C-reactive protein (CRP......), and vitamin D were independent predictors of mortality and hospitalisation after adjusting for disease severity with an integrative index, the i-BODE index. In total, 423 patients participating in a pulmonary rehabilitation programme, with a mean value of FEV1 of 38% of predicted, were included. Mean followup...... was 45 months. During the follow-up period, 149 deaths (35%) were observed and 330 patients (78.0%) had at least one acute hospitalisation; 244 patients (57.7%) had at least one hospitalisation due to an exacerbation of COPD. In the analysis (Cox proportional hazards model) fully adjusted for age, sex...

Prognostic relevance and performance characteristics of serum IGFBP-2 and PAPP-A in women with breast cancer: a long-term Danish cohort study.

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Espelund, Ulrick; Renehan, Andrew G; Cold, Søren; Oxvig, Claus; Lancashire, Lee; Su, Zhenqiang; Flyvbjerg, Allan; Frystyk, Jan

2018-05-03

Measurement of circulating insulin-like growth factors (IGFs), in particular IGF-binding protein (IGFBP)-2, at the time of diagnosis, is independently prognostic in many cancers, but its clinical performance against other routinely determined prognosticators has not been examined. We measured IGF-I, IGF-II, pro-IGF-II, IGF bioactivity, IGFBP-2, -3, and pregnancy-associated plasma protein A (PAPP-A), an IGFBP regulator, in baseline samples of 301 women with breast cancer treated on four protocols (Odense, Denmark: 1993-1998). We evaluated performance characteristics (expressed as area under the curve, AUC) using Cox regression models to derive hazard ratios (HR) with 95% confidence intervals (CIs) for 10-year recurrence-free survival (RFS) and overall survival (OS), and compared those against the clinically used Nottingham Prognostic Index (NPI). We measured the same biomarkers in 531 noncancer individuals to assess multidimensional relationships (MDR), and evaluated additional prognostic models using survival artificial neural network (SANN) and survival support vector machines (SSVM), as these enhance capture of MDRs. For RFS, increasing concentrations of circulating IGFBP-2 and PAPP-A were independently prognostic [HR biomarker doubling : 1.474 (95% CIs: 1.160, 1.875, P = 0.002) and 1.952 (95% CIs: 1.364, 2.792, P < 0.001), respectively]. The AUC RFS for NPI was 0.626 (Cox model), improving to 0.694 (P = 0.012) with the addition of IGFBP-2 plus PAPP-A. Derived AUC RFS using SANN and SSVM did not perform superiorly. Similar patterns were observed for OS. These findings illustrate an important principle in biomarker qualification-measured circulating biomarkers may demonstrate independent prognostication, but this does not necessarily translate into substantial improvement in clinical performance. © 2018 The Authors. Cancer Medicine published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

Cumulative Intracranial Tumor Volume Augments the Prognostic Value of Diagnosis-Specific Graded Prognostic Assessment Model for Survival in Patients with Melanoma Cerebral Metastases

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Hirshman, Brian R; Wilson, Bayard R; Ali, Mir Amaan

2018-01-01

BACKGROUND: The diagnosis-specific graded prognostic assessment scale (ds-GPA) for patients with melanoma brain metastasis (BM) utilizes only 2 key prognostic variables: Karnofsky performance status and the number of intracranial metastases. We wished to determine whether inclusion of cumulative ...

Applicability of RFID in the prognostics of logistic systems

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Lopez De La Cruz, A.M.; Veeke, H.P.M.; Lodewijks, G.

2007-01-01

The objective of this paper is to investigate the applicability of RFID in prognostic logistics. Starting from a general introduction of prognostic logistics, the system structure, and technical requirements are discussed. Based on this discussion the issues and concerns regarding the applicability

Age-adjusted Charlson Comorbidity Index predicts prognosis of laryngopharyngeal cancer treated with radiation therapy.

Science.gov (United States)

Takemura, Kazuya; Takenaka, Yukinori; Ashida, Naoki; Shimizu, Kotaro; Oya, Ryohei; Kitamura, Takahiro; Yamamoto, Yoshifumi; Uno, Atsuhiko

2017-12-01

To examine the ability of comorbidity indices to predict the prognosis of laryngopharyngeal cancer and their association with treatment modalities. This retrospective study included 198 patients with laryngeal, hypopharyngeal, and oropharyngeal cancers. The effect of comorbidity indices on overall survival between surgery and (chemo)-radiation therapy ((C)RT) groups was analyzed. The cumulative incidence rates for cancer mortality and other mortalities according to the age-adjusted Charlson Comorbidity Index (ACCI) and Charlson Comorbidity Index (CCI) were compared. Univariate survival analyses showed a significant association between the ACCI and overall survival in the (C)RT group, but not in the surgery group. The association between the CCI and overall survival was not significant in either group. In multivariate analyses, a high ACCI score was an independent prognostic factor in the (C)RT group (HR 2.89, 95% confidence interval (CI) 1.28-6.49), but not in the surgery group (HR 1.39, 95%CI 0.27-5.43). The higher ACCI group had increased mortality from other causes compared with the lower ACCI group (5-year cumulative incidence, 8.5% and 17.8%, respectively, p = .003). The ACCI was a better prognostic factor than the CCI. Surgery may be more beneficial than radiation for patients with a high ACCI.

Application of molecular biology of differentiated thyroid cancer for clinical prognostication.

Science.gov (United States)

Marotta, Vincenzo; Sciammarella, Concetta; Colao, Annamaria; Faggiano, Antongiulio

2016-11-01

Although cancer outcome results from the interplay between genetics and environment, researchers are making a great effort for applying molecular biology in the prognostication of differentiated thyroid cancer (DTC). Nevertheless, role of molecular characterisation in the prognostic setting of DTC is still nebulous. Among the most common and well-characterised genetic alterations related to DTC, including mutations of BRAF and RAS and RET rearrangements, BRAF V600E is the only mutation showing unequivocal association with clinical outcome. Unfortunately, its accuracy is strongly limited by low specificity. Recently, the introduction of next-generation sequencing techniques led to the identification of TERT promoter and TP53 mutations in DTC. These genetic abnormalities may identify a small subgroup of tumours with highly aggressive behaviour, thus improving specificity of molecular prognostication. Although knowledge of prognostic significance of TP53 mutations is still anecdotal, mutations of the TERT promoter have showed clear association with clinical outcome. Nevertheless, this genetic marker needs to be analysed according to a multigenetic model, as its prognostic effect becomes negligible when present in isolation. Given that any genetic alteration has demonstrated, taken alone, enough specificity, the co-occurrence of driving mutations is emerging as an independent genetic signature of aggressiveness, with possible future application in clinical practice. DTC prognostication may be empowered in the near future by non-tissue molecular prognosticators, including circulating BRAF V600E and miRNAs. Although promising, use of these markers needs to be refined by the technical sight, and the actual prognostic value is still yet to be validated. © 2016 Society for Endocrinology.

Analysis of changes in tornadogenesis conditions over Northern Eurasia based on a simple index of atmospheric convective instability

Science.gov (United States)

Chernokulsky, A. V.; Kurgansky, M. V.; Mokhov, I. I.

2017-12-01

A simple index of convective instability (3D-index) is used for analysis of weather and climate processes that favor to the occurrence of severe convective events including tornadoes. The index is based on information on the surface air temperature and humidity. The prognostic ability of the index to reproduce severe convective events (thunderstorms, showers, tornadoes) is analyzed. It is shown that most tornadoes in North Eurasia are characterized by high values of the 3D-index; furthermore, the 3D-index is significantly correlated with the available convective potential energy. Reanalysis data (for recent decades) and global climate model simulations (for the 21st century) show an increase in the frequency of occurrence of favorable for tornado formation meteorological conditions in the regions of Northern Eurasia. The most significant increase is found on the Black Sea coast and in the south of the Far East.

Prognostic significance of Glasgow prognostic score in patients undergoing esophagectomy for esophageal squamous cell carcinoma.

Science.gov (United States)

Feng, Ji-Feng; Zhao, Qiang; Chen, Qi-Xun

2014-01-01

Recent studies have revealed that Glasgow prognostic score (GPS), an inflammation-based prognostic score, is inversely related to prognosis in a variety of cancers; high levels of GPS is associated with poor prognosis. However, few studies regarding GPS in esophageal cancer (EC) are available. The aim of this study was to determine whether the GPS is useful for predicting cancer-specific survival (CSS) of patients for esophageal squamous cell carcinoma (ESCC). The GPS was calculated on the basis of admission data as follows: Patients with elevated C-reactive protein (CRP) level (>10 mg/L) and hypoalbuminemia (L) were assigned to GPS2. Patients with one or no abnormal value were assigned to GPS1 or GPS0, respectively. Our study showed that GPS was associated with tumor size, depth of invasion, and nodal metastasis (PGPS0, GPS1, and GPS2 were 60.8%, 34.7% and 10.7%, respectively (PGPS was a significant predictor of CSS. GPS1-2 had a hazard ratio (HR) of 2.399 [95% confidence interval (CI): 1.805-3.190] for 1-year CSS (PGPS is associated with tumor progression. GPS can be considered as an independent prognostic factor in patients who underwent esophagectomy for ESCC.

Towards Prognostics for Electronics Components

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National Aeronautics and Space Administration — Electronics components have an increasingly critical role in avionics systems and in the development of future aircraft systems. Prognostics of such components is...

A Combined MPI-CUDA Parallel Solution of Linear and Nonlinear Poisson-Boltzmann Equation

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José Colmenares

2014-01-01

Full Text Available The Poisson-Boltzmann equation models the electrostatic potential generated by fixed charges on a polarizable solute immersed in an ionic solution. This approach is often used in computational structural biology to estimate the electrostatic energetic component of the assembly of molecular biological systems. In the last decades, the amount of data concerning proteins and other biological macromolecules has remarkably increased. To fruitfully exploit these data, a huge computational power is needed as well as software tools capable of exploiting it. It is therefore necessary to move towards high performance computing and to develop proper parallel implementations of already existing and of novel algorithms. Nowadays, workstations can provide an amazing computational power: up to 10 TFLOPS on a single machine equipped with multiple CPUs and accelerators such as Intel Xeon Phi or GPU devices. The actual obstacle to the full exploitation of modern heterogeneous resources is efficient parallel coding and porting of software on such architectures. In this paper, we propose the implementation of a full Poisson-Boltzmann solver based on a finite-difference scheme using different and combined parallel schemes and in particular a mixed MPI-CUDA implementation. Results show great speedups when using the two schemes, achieving an 18.9x speedup using three GPUs.

Neurological prognostication of outcome in patients in coma after cardiac arrest.

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Rossetti, Andrea O; Rabinstein, Alejandro A; Oddo, Mauro

2016-05-01

Management of coma after cardiac arrest has improved during the past decade, allowing an increasing proportion of patients to survive, thus prognostication has become an integral part of post-resuscitation care. Neurologists are increasingly confronted with raised expectations of next of kin and the necessity to provide early predictions of long-term prognosis. During the past decade, as technology and clinical evidence have evolved, post-cardiac arrest prognostication has moved towards a multimodal paradigm combining clinical examination with additional methods, consisting of electrophysiology, blood biomarkers, and brain imaging, to optimise prognostic accuracy. Prognostication should never be based on a single indicator; although some variables have very low false positive rates for poor outcome, multimodal assessment provides resassurance about the reliability of a prognostic estimate by offering concordant evidence. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Comparison of two prognostic models for acute pulmonary embolism

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Abd-ElRahim Ibrahim Youssef

2016-10-01

Conclusion: (1 There is an agreement to great extent in risk stratification of APE patients by PESI and ESC prognostic models, where mortality rate is increased among high risk classes of both models, (2 ESC prognostic model is more accurate than PESI model in mortality prediction of APE patients especially in the high risk class, (3 echocardiographic evidence of RVD and elevated plasma BNP can help to identify APE patients at increased risk of adverse short-term outcome and (4 integration of RVD assessment by echocardiography and BNP to clinical findings improves the prognostic value of ESC model.

The Biochemical Prognostic Factors of Subclinical Hypothyroidism

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Myung Won Lee

2014-06-01

Full Text Available BackgroundPatients with subclinical hypothyroidism (SHT are common in clinical practice. However, the clinical significance of SHT, including prognosis, has not been established. Further clarifying SHT will be critical in devising a management plan and treatment guidelines for SHT patients. Thus, the aim of this study was to investigate the prognostic factors of SHT.MethodsWe reviewed the medical records of Korean patients who visited the endocrinology outpatient clinic of Severance Hospital from January 2008 to September 2012. Newly-diagnosed patients with SHT were selected and reviewed retrospectively. We compared two groups: the SHT maintenance group and the spontaneous improvement group.ResultsThe SHT maintenance group and the spontaneous improvement group had initial thyroid-stimulating hormone (TSH levels that were significantly different (P=0.035. In subanalysis for subjects with TSH levels between 5 to 10 µIU/mL, the spontaneous improvement group showed significantly lower antithyroid peroxidase antibody (anti-TPO-Ab titer than the SHT maintenance group (P=0.039. Regarding lipid profiles, only triglyceride level, unlike total cholesterol and low density lipoprotein cholesterol, was related to TSH level, which is correlated with the severity of SHT. Diffuse thyroiditis on ultrasonography only contributed to the severity of SHT, not to the prognosis. High sensitivity C-reactive protein and urine iodine excretion, generally regarded as possible prognostic factors, did not show any significant relation with the prognosis and severity of SHT.ConclusionOnly initial TSH level was a definite prognostic factor of SHT. TPO-Ab titer was also a helpful prognostic factor for SHT in cases with mildly elevated TSH. Other than TSH and TPO-Ab, we were unable to validate biochemical prognostic factors in this retrospective study for Korean SHT patients.

A search for prognostic index in the treatment of hyperthyroidism

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Sekso, M.

1980-08-01

Studies of serum thyroid-stimulating antibody (TSAb) levels and other indices of thyroid status were performed on patients with Graves' disease currently on antithyroid drugs, freshly diagnosed patients with Graves' disease and relatives of patients with Graves' disease. Of 25 patients with Graves' disease currently on anti-thyroid drugs, 12 were initially TSAb-positive and 13 TSAb-negative. At the end of medication 6 initially TSAb-positive patients were still positive and all soon relapsed; all initially TSAb-negative patients were still negative. Of 18 patients TSAb-negative at the end of medication 16 remained negative, while 2 became positive and relapsed. All of 15 freshly diagnosed patients with Graves' disease were TSAb-positive. All of 79 relatives of patients with Graves' disease were TSAb-negative, regardless of their thyroid status as judged by other indices. It is concluded that TSAb levels as measured by the direct in vitro thyroid stimulation assay of McKenzie and Zakarija provide a sensitive index for prognosis of the clinical course of hyperthyroidism in Graves' disease. Earlier reports of TSAb or long-acting thyroid stimulator (LATS) activity in the sera of euthyroid relatives of such patients were not confirmed

Optimal cut points for quality of life questionnaire-core 30 (QLQ-C30) scales: utility for clinical trials and updates of prognostic systems in advanced hepatocellular carcinoma.

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Diouf, Momar; Bonnetain, Franck; Barbare, Jean-Claude; Bouché, Olivier; Dahan, Laetitia; Paoletti, Xavier; Filleron, Thomas

2015-01-01

Health-related quality of life (QoL) has been validated as a prognostic factor for cancer patients; however, to be used in routine practice, QoL scores must be dichotomized. Cutoff points are usually based on arbitrary percentile values. We aimed to identify optimal cutoff points for six QoL scales and to quantify their added utility in the performance of four prognostic classifications in patients with hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). We reanalyzed data of 271 patients with advanced HCC recruited between July 2002 and October 2003 from 79 institutions in France in the CHOC trial, designed to assess the efficacy of long-acting octreotide. QoL was assessed with the European Organization for Research and Treatment of Cancer Quality of Life Questionnaire-Core 30 (QLQ-C30). The scores ranged from 0 to 100. Identification of optimal cutoff points was based on the method of Faraggi and Simon [Stat Med 1996;15:2203-2213]. Improvement in the performance of prognostic classifications was studied with Harrell's C-index, the net reclassification improvement (NRI), and integrated discrimination improvement (IDI). We found that optimal cutoff points were 50 for global health, 58.33 for physical functioning, 66.67 for role functioning, 66.67 for fatigue, 0 for dyspnea, and 33.33 for diarrhea. The addition of QoL and clinical factors improved the performance of all four prognostic classifications, with improvement in the range of 0.02-0.09 for the C-index, 0.24-0.78 for 3-month NRI, and 0.02-0.10 for IDI. These cutoff values for QoL scales can be useful to identify HCC patients with very poor prognosis and thus improve design of clinical trials and treatment adjustment for these patients. ©AlphaMed Press.

Prognostic markers for diet-induced weight loss in obese women

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Astrup, A; Buemann, B; Gluud, C

1995-01-01

To identify prognostic metabolic and hormonal markers for long-term weight loss outcome in obese women.......To identify prognostic metabolic and hormonal markers for long-term weight loss outcome in obese women....

Acute confusional state/delirium: An etiological and prognostic evaluation

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Dheeraj Rai

2014-01-01

Full Text Available Introduction: Acute confusional state/delirium is a frequent cause of hospital admission, in the elderly. It is characterized by an acute fluctuating impairment of cognitive functions and inattention. Recognition and prompt treatment is crucial to decrease the morbidity and mortality associated with it. Materials and Methods: In this retrospective study, we determined the etiology and prognostic factors of an acute confusional state. A total of 52 patients of acute confusional state were clinically evaluated. All patients were also subjected to a battery blood biochemical examination, cerebrospinal fluid analysis and neuroimaging. Disability was assessed by using modified Barthel index (MBI. Patients were followed-up for 3 months. Results: The mean age of our cohort was 65.04 ± 10.6 years. 32 (61.5% patients were male. In 33 patients, we were able to identify possible precipitating cause of an acute confusional state. In the rest of the patients results of all the tests were normal. Leukocytosis and hyponatremia were frequent factors associated with delirium. The mean duration of the hospital stay was 10.73 ± 3.6 days (range 5-21 days. Patients with an abnormal work-up (possible precipitating cause had significantly lower mortality, less duration of hospital stay and less severe disability after 3 months. Age, underlying illness, serum creatinine, abnormal neuroimaging and MBI were identified as a significant prognostic indicator. 18 (34.6% of our patients died, of these in 10 patients we could not find a precipitating cause. Conclusion: Patients, in whom a cause was found out, had better prognosis in terms of lesser mortality and the duration of hospital stay.

Some interesting prognostic factors related to cutaneous malignant melanoma

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Figueroa, Alejandro Yuri Joan; Diaz Anaya, Amnia; Montero Leon, Jorge Felipe; Jimenez Mendes, Lourdes

2009-01-01

The aim of present research was to determine the independent prognostic value and the 3 and 5 years survival of more significant clinicopathological prognostic factors and in each stage, according to pathological staging system of tumor-nodule-metastasis (TNM) in patients with cutaneous malignant melanoma (CMM)

Nuclear TK1 expression is an independent prognostic factor for survival in pre-malignant and malignant lesions of the cervix

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Chen, Gang; He, Cheng; Li, Ling; Lin, An; Zheng, Xiongwei; He, Ellen; Skog, Sven

2013-01-01

Thymidine kinase 1 (TK1) is a proliferation biomarker that has been found useful for prognostication in cancer patients. Here we investigate for the first time the use of TK1 expression as a prognostic factor for patients with premalignant and malignant lesions of the uterine cervix. TK1 expression was determined by immunohistochemistry in cervical lesions (cervical intraepithelial neoplasia (CIN), n = 216; invasive cervical carcinoma, n = 84). TK1 and Ki-67 expressions and pathological/FIGO stages and age were correlated with 5-year survival by Kaplan-Meier, log rank and COX hazard uni- and multivariate analyses. TK1 labeling index (LI) was significantly correlated with CIN grades and invasive cervical carcinoma stages, while TK1 labeling intensity was only correlated to CIN grades. TK1 LI was significantly higher compared with Ki-67 LI. TK1 LI correlated significantly to 5-year survival in patients with invasive cervical carcinoma, particularly nuclear TK1 LI. In a multivariate analysis, nuclear TK1 expression was independent prognostic factor in patients with in situ/invasive cervical carcinoma or in invasive cervical carcinoma alone. Interestingly, in invasive cervical carcinoma patients with advanced tumors, nuclear TK1 expression could identify patients with significantly better survival rates (80%), while Ki-67 could not. Nuclear TK1 expression in early grade CIN predicts risk for progression to malignancy. Nuclear TK1 expression is also a prognostic factor for treatment outcome, particularly in patients with advanced cervical carcinomas. Nuclear TK1 expression is more useful than Ki-67 and pathological/FIGO stages

Requirements Flowdown for Prognostics and Health Management

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Goebel, Kai; Saxena, Abhinav; Roychoudhury, Indranil; Celaya, Jose R.; Saha, Bhaskar; Saha, Sankalita

2012-01-01

Prognostics and Health Management (PHM) principles have considerable promise to change the game of lifecycle cost of engineering systems at high safety levels by providing a reliable estimate of future system states. This estimate is a key for planning and decision making in an operational setting. While technology solutions have made considerable advances, the tie-in into the systems engineering process is lagging behind, which delays fielding of PHM-enabled systems. The derivation of specifications from high level requirements for algorithm performance to ensure quality predictions is not well developed. From an engineering perspective some key parameters driving the requirements for prognostics performance include: (1) maximum allowable Probability of Failure (PoF) of the prognostic system to bound the risk of losing an asset, (2) tolerable limits on proactive maintenance to minimize missed opportunity of asset usage, (3) lead time to specify the amount of advanced warning needed for actionable decisions, and (4) required confidence to specify when prognosis is sufficiently good to be used. This paper takes a systems engineering view towards the requirements specification process and presents a method for the flowdown process. A case study based on an electric Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (e-UAV) scenario demonstrates how top level requirements for performance, cost, and safety flow down to the health management level and specify quantitative requirements for prognostic algorithm performance.

Prognostic Utility of Vitamin D in Acute Coronary Syndrome Patients in Coastal Norway

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