Search

Objective: The purpose of this study was to assess incidence of and risk factors for recurrent cardiovascular disease (CVD) in type 2 diabetes.Research Design and Methods: We estimated the incidence of recurrent cardiovascular events in type 2 diabetic patients, aged 40-97 years, followed by a network of diabetes clinics. The analysis was conducted separately for 2,788 patients with CVD at enrollment (cohort A) and for 844 patients developing the first episode during the observation period (cohort B).Results: During 4 years of follow-up, in cohort A the age-adjusted incidence of a recurrent event (per 1,000 person-years) was 72.7 (95% CI 58.3-87.1) in men and 32.5 (21.2-43.7) in women, whereas in cohort B it was 40.1 (17.4-62.9) in men and 22.4 (12.9-32.0) in women. After controls were included for potential predictors (familial CVD, obesity, smoking, diabetes duration, glycemic control, microvascular complications, geographic area, and antihypertensive and lipid-lowering treatment), male sex, older age, and insulin use were significant independent risk predictors (cohort A) and serum triglyceride levels >/=1.69 mmol/l emerged as the only metabolic (negative) prognostic factor (cohort B). In both cohorts, a prior CVD episode, especially myocardial infarction, was by far the strongest predictor of recurrent CVD.Conclusions: Approximately 6% of unselected diabetic patients in secondary prevention develop recurrent major CVD every year. Those with long-standing previous CVD show a higher incidence of recurrence. Male sex, age, high triglyceride levels, and insulin use are additional predictors of recurrence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

OBJECTIVE: Cardiovascular disease (CVD) is the main cause of morbidity/mortality in diabetes. We set forth to determine incidence and identify predictors (including microvascular complications and treatment) of first coronary heart disease (CHD) event in CVD-free type 2 diabetic patients. RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODS: A cohort of 6,032 women and 5,612 men, sampled from a nationwide network of hospital-based diabetes clinics, was followed up for 4 years. Baseline assessment included retinopathy, nephropathy, and foot ulcers. First CHD events (myocardial infarction, coronary artery bypass grafting, percutaneous transluminal coronary angioplasty, and electrocardiogram-proven angina) were analyzed for 29,069 person-years. RESULTS: The age-standardized incidence rate (per 1,000 person-years) of first CHD event (n = 881) was 28.8 (95% CI 5.4-32.2) in men and 23.3 (20.2-26.4) in women. Major CHD (myocardial infarction, coronary artery bypass grafting, and percutaneous transluminal coronary angioplasty) was less frequent in women (5.8 [4.3-7.2]) than in men (13.1 [10.9-15.4]; a sex ratio of 0.5 [0.4-0.6]). Incidence rates of all outcomes were higher in patients with microvascular complications (for major CHD, age-adjusted rate ratios were 1.6 [1.2-2.21] in men and 1.5 [1.0-2.2] in women). By multivariate Cox analysis, age and diabetes duration were risk predictors common in both sexes. In men, glycemic control and treated hypertension were additional independent risk factors, but residing in the south was associated with a significant 29% risk reduction. In women, higher triglycerides/lower HDL cholesterol and microvascular complications were independent risk factors. CONCLUSIONS: In CVD-free patients with type 2 diabetes, risk of first CHD event depends on sex, geographic location, and presence of microvascular disease. Hyperglycemia and hypertension, particularly in men, and diabetic dyslipidemia, especially in women, are risk factors amenable to more aggressive treatment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Type 2 diabetes is associated with at least a twofold increase in risk of coronary heart disease (CHD). We aimed to estimate the prevalence of CHD in the population of Type 2 diabetics cared for by the Italian network of outpatient diabetic units. The DAI ( Diabetes and Informatics study group, Italian Association of Diabetologists, and Italian National Institute of Health) study is a multicentre cohort study of patients with Type 2 diabetes. Patients were classified as having CHD if they had: (i) a history for hospital admission for either an acute myocardial infarction (AMI) or angina; (ii) a positive ECG for prior AMI or angina; (iii) a positive history for coronary artery bypass graft; or (iv) a positive history for percutaneous transluminal coronary angioplasty. A cohort of 19 468 patients was analysed: 3157 patients had CHD. The majority of events (80%) had occurred after the diagnosis of diabetes and were considered in the CHD prevalence estimate. The prevalence of CHD, adjusted by age and sex, was 9.9%: 11.0% male and 9.0% female. Angina without AMI occurred in 1306 patients; this condition was more frequent in females while a documented AMI was more frequent in males. Therapeutic procedures were performed more frequently in males. A positive association with CHD was found for gender, age at visit, duration of diabetes, hypertension, relatives with CHD, tryglicerides and microvascular complications. The prevalence of CHD in this cohort is lower than previously reported; nevertheless, patients attending the diabetic care units may not be fully representative of the general diabetic population in Italy. Revascularization is less frequent in females than in males; microvascular complications and a worse metabolic control are significantly associated with CHD. Diabet. Med. (2004) [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We describe the synthesis and the photophysical properties of a fullerene–azothiophene dyad, as well as the photovoltaic performance of cells incorporating the dyad and the surface morphology of the device active layer. The results have been compared with those obtained on the blend, in equimolar ratio, between the azothiophene dye and a fulleropyrrolidine. This revealed a pivotal role played by the morphology on both the photophysical behaviour and the device performance. While scanning force microscopy studies for the dyad exhibited fairly smooth surfaces, in the case of the blend they displayed a micrometre-scale phase segregation between the two components. We suggest that, in the latter case, the lack of photo-induced electron transfer evidenced by the photophysical study, and the relevant reduction of the cell performance (up to more than one order of magnitude with respect to the dyad), could be ascribed to the different morphology. Because of the strong optical absorption in the visible region, the dyad-based solar cells gave notable results if compared with those reported in the literature for other donor–acceptor linked systems. A power-conversion efficiency of 0.37% under 80-mW cm[sup -2] white-light illumination has been achieved by tuning the thickness of the dyad film, though the fullerene–azothiophene is not yet optimised in terms of photo-induced electron transfer. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We report on ultrafast dynamics in cross-linked covalent hybrids of graphene and diketopyrrolopyrrole (TDPP) oligomers. Comparisons between non-polymerizing (EXG-TDPP) and polymerizing (c-EXG-TDPP) hybrids show that charge/energy transfer occurs faster than 50 ps in EXGTDPP, while the c-EXG-TDPP system shows quenching within 18 ps. The transient response of c-EXGTDPP is completely quenched (>99%), while in EXG-TDPP full quenching occurs after 1.39 ns. Photocurrent studies of c-EXG-TDPP films show IPCE > 2%, indicating ultrafast charge transfer between TDPP and graphene.

Looks at the use of adaptive neural parsers to investigate the problem of grammatical inference, with focus on the use of a training algorithm called a hybrid finite state filter (HFF). Suggestion that recurrent neural networks processing symbolic strings can be regarded as adaptive neural parsers; Methodology used to gather the information; What are neural parsers.

We have recently described the preparation of Fpr (C60-based fulleroproline). In this paper the synthesis and a conformational characterization of heterochiral di-and tripeptides containing this new α-amino acid are reported. A folded structure, induced by the- l-Fpr- d-Ala-sequence in chloroform solution and detected by Fourier transform infrared absorption and H nuclear magnetic resonance, has been compared with the known propensity of the cognate- l-Pro- d-Ala-sequence to adopt a βII-turn conformation, which has also been confirmed in this work. The βII-turn structure is retained in the crystal state by the Pro-peptides, as shown by the X-ray diffraction structures of Ibu- l-Pro- d-Ala-NHtBu and Z- l-Pro- d-Ala- l-Ala-OtBu. © Munksgaard 1997. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]