Danube University Krems

About: Danube University Krems is a education organization based out in Krems, Niederösterreich, Austria. It is known for research contribution in the topics: Stroke & Population. The organization has 498 authors who have published 1572 publications receiving 68797 citations.

Tracking the global burden of stoke and dementia: World Stroke Day 2020.

Abstract: This World Stroke Day edition of the International Journal of Stroke (IJS) celebrates World Stroke Day, which is commemorated each year on 29th October. This annual focal point of the World Stroke Organization’s (WSO) public awareness activities was started in 2004 at the World Stroke Congress in Vancouver, Canada. On this day annually organizations around the world come together to increase visibility for stroke through community and policy events and online communication aimed at improving public awareness of stroke prevention and symptoms. World Stroke Day focuses on a particular theme each year. In 2020 the WSO’s commitment to stroke prevention continues with a campaign that builds on the momentum of 2019 #DontBeTheOne which highlighted the one in four life-time risk of stroke and the importance of addressing individual risk factors for stroke. This year, the campaign focuses on the importance of physical activity for stroke prevention. This is combined with a call to action to ‘‘Join The Movement’’ which points people to the Stroke Riskometer (https://www.strokeriskometer.com/), the WSO endorsed mobile app that supports individual risk assessment and access to information about the top 10 stroke risk factors and how these can be reduced. Despite many advances in stroke prevention and care, the most recent WSO analysis of Global Burden of Disease data found that the adult lifetime risk of stroke remains at 1 in 4 and 13.7 million people suffer stroke annually, accounting for 116 million days of healthy life lost each year. Tackling this epidemic requires national stroke prevalence, outcome and treatment data, alongside evidence-based frameworks, to guide the effective deployment of resources, workforce, and interventions. Prevention is by far the most effective strategy to reduce the global burden of stroke. While secondary prevention, or identification of highrisk groups, is effective for the individuals concerned, to have a major impact on a global basis a population-based approach is required. Studies such as INTERSTROKE suggest that 90% of stroke risk is accounted for by a limited number of potentially modifiable risk factors, and increasing evidence suggests that tackling these modifiable risk factors can result in a significant reduction in stroke incidence. The WSO recommends that primary stroke prevention interventions meet the following criteria: (a) sufficient evidence of efficacy, (b) potential population-wide coverage, (c) applicability for both stroke and dementia prevention, and (d) low cost and affordability even in lowand middle-income countries (LMIC). Of the available strategies analyzed by the WSO, only four were found to meet these criteria; population-based strategies to reduce exposure to risk factors (for example, pollution), community health worker interventions to reduce modifiable risk factors, a polypill strategy (consisting of blood pressure drugs and lipid lowering medication for adults at risk of cardiovascular disease), and a motivational e-health app. All approaches are applicable even in LMIC; for example, a study in Iran demonstrated that a polypill approach (contacting hydrochlorothiazide 12.5mg, aspirin 81mg, atorvastatin 20mg, and enalapril 5mg) was effective for both primary and secondary prevention of cardiovascular disease including stroke. Using a combination of these approaches, the WSO has adopted an ambitious plan to ‘‘cut stroke in half.’’ Responding to prevention and patient needs requires detailed knowledge on national stroke incidence and outcome, as well as data on the provision of stroke care. This month, as part of our contribution to World Stroke Day, we publish Global Stroke Statistics 2019. This provides informative data on the current incidence, mortality, and case fatality of stroke and its variation across the globe. Once again it shows striking regional differences in incidence and mortality, although also highlights that more up to date data is required from many countries. There are some striking success stories. For example, Kazakhstan has moved from worst place in terms of mortality rating, to 38th among those countries where data is available. This is a commendable improvement in stroke mortality over the 12-year period from 2003 to 2015. But such impressive declines in mortality are not consistent worldwide. The stroke unit care statistics also make interesting, and salutary reading. Although data was not available from many countries, stroke unit coverage varied widely with the proportion being treated within a stroke unit ranging between 1% and 90%, despite strong evidence that stroke units improve outcome. Papers such as this are vital and provide baseline data for countries around the world helping them better plan and track strategies to reduce the global burden of stroke.

Hemodialysis outcomes in a global sample of children and young adult hemodialysis patients: the PICCOLO MONDO cohort

Abstract: Background The aim of this study was to describe the experience of pediatric and young adult hemodialysis (HD) patients from a global cohort.

Making optical MEMS sensors more compact using organic light sources and detectors

Abstract: Vibration and displacement sensors need to be compact for many applications in automation or consumer electronics, and microelectromechanical structures are a convenient way to implement such sensors. For these MEMS devices, optical readout methods have proven to be superior to capacitive or piezoresistive strategies in terms of sensitivity as well as noise and interference immunity, however the integration of light sources and detectors is not easily possible. This paper presents an approach to use organic optoelectronic devices for the readout. OLED and OPD (organic photo detector) are structured on the glass substrate and cover encapsulating the MEMS devices, allowing for a tightly integrated sensor based on vertical light flux modulation by a horizontally moving proof mass. The paper describes the principle sensor structure as well as the fabrication of suitable organic devices. First test results show that the approach is feasible.

The Status of Metabolic Control in Patients With Type 2 Diabetes Attending Dasman Diabetes Institute, Kuwait

Abstract: Purpose: To evaluate metabolic control in patients with type 2 diabetes at Dasman Diabetes Institute (DDI, Kuwait), a specialist diabetes clinic and research center, and to investigate its association with patient demographics and clinical characteristics. Methods: Data from 963 patients with type 2 diabetes were retrospectively collected from the Knowledge Based Health Records maintained at DDI for patients who attended DDI during 2011-2014. The collected data included patient demographics, clinical characteristics, and anti-diabetic medications. Student's t-test was used to evaluate the differences in mean values between poor and good glycemic control groups. Categorical variables were assessed using chi-square analysis with Fisher's exact test for small data sets. Results: The patients' mean age was 53.0 ± 9.5 years with equal number of males and females. Females (34.4 ± 7.2 kg/m2) had a higher mean body mass index than males (32.1 ± 6.4 kg/m2). The mean fasting blood glucose and HbA1c levels were 9.6 ± 3.8 mmol/L and 8.5 ± 1.8%, respectively. Dyslipidemia (46%) and hypertension (40%) were the most common comorbidities, whereas nephropathy (36%) and neuropathy (35%) were the most common diabetic complications. The most commonly used anti-diabetic medication was metformin (55%). Factors significantly associated with poor glycemic control (HbA1c level ≥ 7%) included insulin use; neuropathy or foot ulcers as diabetic complications; and elevated systolic blood pressure and total cholesterol, low-density lipoprotein (LDL) cholesterol, triglycerides, and fasting blood glucose levels. Factors significantly associated with good glycemic control included metformin use and elevated high-density lipoprotein cholesterol level. The proportion of patients with good glycemic control (HbA1c level < 7%) was 29.5%. A large proportion of the patients with poor glycemic control were only administered monotherapy drugs, and two-thirds of the patients were obese. Further, the American Diabetes Association (ADA) recommendations for blood pressure and LDL cholesterol level were met (62 and 63%, respectively) by follow-up year 4. Conclusion: The therapeutic management of type 2 diabetes in Kuwait is suboptimal. Therapeutic strategies should ensure better adherence to ADA guidelines, evaluate the high obesity rates, and adherence to lifestyle recommendations by patients, and continually promote diabetes education and self-empowerment.

Strategies for Big Data Analytics through Lambda Architectures in Volatile Environments

Abstract: Expectations regarding the future growth of Internet of Things (IoT)-related technologies are high. These expectations require the realization of a sustainable general purpose application framework that is capable to handle these kinds of environments with their complexity in terms of heterogeneity and volatility. The paradigm of the Lambda architecture features key characteristics (such as robustness, fault tolerance, scalability, generalization, extensibility, ad-hoc queries, minimal maintenance, and low-latency reads and updates) to cope with this complexity. The paper at hand suggest a basic set of strategies to handle the arising challenges regarding the volatility, heterogeneity, and desired low latency execution by reducing the overall system timing (scheduling, execution, monitoring, and faults recovery) as well as possible faults (churn, no answers to executions). The proposed strategies make use of services such as migration, replication, MapReduce simulation, and combined processing methods (batch- and streaming-based). Via these services, a distribution of tasks for the best balance of computational resources is achieved, while monitoring and management can be performed asynchronously in the background. %An application of batch and stream-based methods are proposed to reduce the latency.