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- Jaarsma, Tiny, et al.
(author)
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Self-care and quality of life in patients with advanced heart failure : the effect of a supportive educational intervention
- 2000
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In: Heart & Lung. - : Elsevier BV. - 0147-9563 .- 1527-3288. ; 29:5, s. 319-330
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- OBJECTIVE: The goal of this study was to determine the effects of a supportive educational nursing intervention on self-care abilities, self-care behavior, and quality of life of patients with advanced heart failure. DESIGN: The study design was an experimental, random assignment. SETTING: The study was located at the University Hospital in Maastricht, The Netherlands. PATIENTS: The study included 179 patients (mean age 73 years, 58% men, New York Heart Association classification III and IV) admitted to a university hospital with symptoms of heart failure. OUTCOME MEASURES: Outcome measures included self-care abilities (Appraisal of Self-care Agency Scale), self-care behavior (Heart Failure Self-care Behavior Scale), 3 dimensions of quality of life (functional capabilities, symptoms, and psychosocial adjustment to illness), and overall well-being (Cantril's ladder of life). INTERVENTION: The intervention patients received systematic education and support by a nurse in the hospital and at home. Control patients received routine care. RESULTS: Self-care abilities did not change as a result of the intervention, but the self-care behavior in the intervention group was higher than the self-care behavior in the control group during follow-up. The effect of the supportive educational intervention on quality of life was limited. The 3 dimensions of quality of life improved after hospitalization in both groups, with no differences between intervention and control group as measured at each follow-up measurement. However, there was a trend indicating differences between the 2 groups in decrease in symptom frequency and symptom distress during the 9 months of follow-up. CONCLUSION: A supportive educational nursing intervention is effective in improving self-care behavior in patients with advanced (New York Heart Association class III-IV) heart failure; however, a more intensive intervention is needed to show effectiveness in improving quality of life.
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- Lewitt, MS, et al.
(author)
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Regulation of insulin-like growth factor-binding protein-3 ternary complex in feline diabetes mellitus
- 2000
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In: The Journal of endocrinology. - : Bioscientifica. - 0022-0795 .- 1479-6805. ; 166:1, s. 21-27
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- The 140 kDa ternary complex of insulin-like growth factor-binding protein-3 (IGFBP-3), IGFs and an acid-labile subunit (ALS) has previously been shown to be decreased in diabetes mellitus in humans and rats. We have studied IGF-I levels and ternary complex formation in normal and diabetic cats. Total IGF-I concentrations, measured by RIA using des(1-3)-IGF-I as tracer were (+/-s.e.m.) 54+/-13 nmol/l in eight normal and 227+/-57 nmol/l in eight diabetic cats (P<0.01). The size-distribution of IGFBPs in the cat circulation was determined by incubation with (125)I-IGF-II and Superose 12 chromatography. In normal animals 26+/-2% of the (125)I-IGF-II were in a 140 kDa form compared with 48+/-5% in diabetic cats (P<0.01). When samples from normal and diabetic animals were co-incubated 52+/-3% were at 140 kDa. A similar shift was seen when normal cat and normal human serum were co-incubated. A 2-fold increase in the 140 kDa form in diabetic cats was confirmed first by size-fractionating samples and then performing a ligand-binding assay with (125)I-IGF-I or -II and charcoal separation. SDS-PAGE and Western ligand blotting demonstrated a 45 kDa doublet (presumably IGFBP-3) and 30-35 kDa forms. There were no apparent differences between normal and diabetic profiles on SDS-PAGE, suggesting that a proportion of IGFBP-3 which circulates 'free' in normal cats forms a ternary complex in the diabetic circulation. We conclude that (i) in contrast to humans and rats, ALS is the limiting factor for ternary complex formation in normal cats, (ii) ALS concentrations increase in feline diabetes mellitus and, by promoting ternary complex formation, this leads to an increase in total IGF-I concentrations, and (iii) total IGF-I concentrations may not be reliable in the diagnosis of acromegaly in diabetic cats.
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- Marcinkevicius, Saulius, et al.
(author)
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Influence of annealing on carrier dynamics in As ion-implanted epitaxially lifted-off GaAs layers
- 2000
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In: Applied Physics Letters. - : AIP Publishing. - 0003-6951 .- 1077-3118. ; 76:10, s. 1306-1308
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Electrical and dynamical optical characterization of As-ion implanted and annealed GaAs has been performed. Changes of physical properties induced by annealing have been studied in detail by using layers annealed in small steps in the temperature range 500-700 degrees C. The carrier trapping rate increases exponentially with increase of inverse annealing temperature indicating that in ion-implanted GaAs ultrafast carrier capture occurs to the same trapping centers as in low-temperature-grown GaAs. Relatively large resistivity and electron mobility in As-implanted GaAs have been observed after annealing, which shows that this material possesses properties required for a variety of ultrafast optoelectronic applications.
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- Matas, J., et al.
(author)
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Comparison of face verification results on the XM2VTS database
- 2000
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In: Proceedings of the 15th International Conference on Pattern Recognition (ICPR'00) - Volume 4. - 0769507506 ; , s. 858-863
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Conference paper (other academic/artistic)abstract
- The paper presents results of the face verification contest that was organized in conjunction with International Conference on Pattern Recognition 2000 [14]. Participants had to use identical data sets from a large, publicly available multimodal database XM2VTSDB. Training and evaluation was carried out according to an a priori known protocol ([7]). Verification results of all tested algorithms have been collected and made public on the XM2VTSDB website [15], facilitating large scale experiments on classifier combination and fusion. Tested methods included, among others, representatives of the most common approaches to face verification - elastic graph matching, Fisher's linear discriminant and Support vector machines.
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