University of Graz

About: University of Graz is a education organization based out in Graz, Steiermark, Austria. It is known for research contribution in the topics: Population & Quantum chromodynamics. The organization has 17934 authors who have published 37489 publications receiving 1110980 citations. The organization is also known as: Carolo Franciscea Graecensis & Karl Franzens Universität.

MR of cerebral abnormalities concomitant with primary intracerebral hematomas.

Abstract: PURPOSE To determine whether arteriolar vessel wall degeneration in primary intracerebral hematomas might be associated with ischemic brain lesions and clinically silent (apparently intracerebral) previous hemorrhages. METHODS The MR images of 120 consecutive patients (mean age, 60 years; age range, 22 to 84 years) with their first stroke caused by a primary intracerebral hematoma were reviewed retrospectively for coexisting ischemic damage and previous bleeds. RESULTS Early confluent to confluent white matter hyperintensities, lacunes, or infarction were present in 83 (69%) of the patients, and 39 (33%) had had previous hemorrhages consisting of microbleeds or old hematomas. Extensive white matter hyperintensities and lacunes were most frequent in patients with thalamic primary intracerebral hematomas. There was no relationship between the frequency of old hemorrhages and the location of subsequent primary intracerebral hematomas. CONCLUSION Clinically silent ischemic lesions and previous hemorrhages are a common finding on MR images of patients with primary intracerebral hematoma. They may therefore serve as evidence of diffuse microangiopathy with a possible increased risk for cerebral hemorrhage.

Effects of antenatal diet and physical activity on maternal and fetal outcomes: Individual patient data meta-analysis and health economic evaluation

Abstract: Background: Diet- and physical activity-based interventions in pregnancy have the potential to alter maternal and child outcomes. Objectives: To assess whether or not the effects of diet and lifestyle interventions vary in subgroups of women, based on maternal body mass index (BMI), age, parity, Caucasian ethnicity and underlying medical condition(s), by undertaking an individual patient data (IPD) meta-analysis. We also evaluated the association of gestational weight gain (GWG) with adverse pregnancy outcomes and assessed the cost-effectiveness of the interventions. Data sources: MEDLINE, EMBASE, Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials, Database of Abstracts of Reviews of Effects and Health Technology Assessment database were searched from October 2013 to March 2015 (to update a previous search). Review methods: Researchers from the International Weight Management in Pregnancy Collaborative Network shared the primary data. For each intervention type and outcome, we performed a two-step IPD random-effects meta-analysis, for all women (except underweight) combined and for each subgroup of interest, to obtain summary estimates of effects and 95% confidence intervals (CIs), and synthesised the differences in effects between subgroups. In the first stage, we fitted a linear regression adjusted for baseline (for continuous outcomes) or a logistic regression model (for binary outcomes) in each study separately; estimates were combined across studies using random-effects meta-analysis models. We quantified the relationship between weight gain and complications, and undertook a decision-analytic model-based economic evaluation to assess the cost-effectiveness of the interventions. Results: Diet and lifestyle interventions reduced GWG by an average of 0.70 kg (95% CI-0.92 to-0.48 kg; 33 studies, 9320 women). The effects on composite maternal outcome [summary odds ratio (OR) 0.90, 95% CI 0.79 to 1.03; 24 studies, 8852 women] and composite fetal/neonatal outcome (summary OR 0.94, 95% CI 0.83 to 1.08; 18 studies, 7981 women) were not significant. The effect did not vary with baseline BMI, age, ethnicity, parity or underlying medical conditions for GWG, and composite maternal and fetal outcomes. Lifestyle interventions reduce Caesarean sections (OR 0.91, 95% CI 0.83 to 0.99), but not other individual maternal outcomes such as gestational diabetes mellitus (OR 0.89, 95% CI 0.72 to 1.10), pre-eclampsia or pregnancy-induced hypertension (OR 0.95, 95% CI 0.78 to 1.16) and preterm birth (OR 0.94, 95% CI 0.78 to 1.13). There was no significant effect on fetal outcomes. The interventions were not cost-effective. GWG, including adherence to the Institute of Medicine-recommended targets, was not associated with a reduction in complications. Predictors of GWG were maternal age (summary estimate-0.10 kg, 95% CI-0.14 to-0.06 kg) and multiparity (summary estimate-0.73 kg, 95% CI-1.24 to-0.23 kg). Limitations: The findings were limited by the lack of standardisation in the components of intervention, residual heterogeneity in effects across studies for most analyses and the unavailability of IPD in some studies. Conclusion: Diet and lifestyle interventions in pregnancy are clinically effective in reducing GWG irrespective of risk factors, with no effects on composite maternal and fetal outcomes. Future work: The differential effects of lifestyle interventions on individual pregnancy outcomes need evaluation. Study registration: This study is registered as PROSPERO CRD42013003804.

Inverse problems in spaces of measures

Abstract: The ill-posed problem of solving linear equations in the space of vector-valued finite Radon measures with Hilbert space data is considered. Approximate solutions are obtained by minimizing the Tikhonov functional with a total variation penalty. The well-posedness of this regularization method and further regularization properties are mentioned. Furthermore, a flexible numerical minimization algorithm is proposed which converges subsequentially in the weak* sense and with rate O(n −1 )i n terms of the functional values. Finally, numerical results for sparse deconvolution demonstrate the applicability for a finite-dimensional discrete data space and infinite-dimensional solution space.