Hypoglycemic events and glycosylated hemoglobin values in patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus newly initiated on insulin glargine or premixed insulin combination products.

Purpose: Rates of hypoglycemic events and their associated costs were compared among patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus newly initiated on insulin glargine or a premixed insulin fixed-combination product.

Methods: Patients newly initiated on insulin glargine or premixed insulin fixed-combination products (including pen delivery systems) between June 1, 2001, and February 29, 2004, were identified using an administrative claims database. Hypoglycemic events were identified from International Classification of Diseases, 9th Revision, Clinical Modification codes.

Health care resources and costs for treating peripheral artery disease in a managed care population: results from analysis of administrative claims data.

Objective: Peripheral arterial disease (PAD) is associated with high rates of morbidity and mortality and serves as an important marker for advanced systemic atherosclerosis accompanied by symptomatic or asymptomatic ischemia of the coronary, cerebral, and visceral vasculature. There are little published data on the use of health care resources and costs attributable to PAD. The objectives of this study were to evaluate, from a societal perspective, PAD-related health care resource utilization and to determine the total annualized costs and cost components for patients with PAD, with particular attention to the key outcomes of myocardial infarction (MI), transient ischemic attacks (TIA), stroke, and amputations.

Use of radial density plots to calibrate image magnification for frozen-hydrated specimens.

Accurate magnification calibration for transmission electron microscopy is best achieved with the use of appropriate standards and an objective calibration technique. We have developed a reliable method for calibrating the magnification of images from frozen-hydrated specimens. Invariant features in radial density plots of a standard are compared with the corresponding features in a "defocused" X-ray model of the same standard.

Analysis of the multi-channel epileptiform EEG using the Markov chains formalism.

A multi-level scheme of syntactic reduction of the epileptiform EEG data is briefly discussed and the possibilities it opens up in describing the dynamic behaviour of a multi-channel system are indicated. A new algorithm for the inference of a Markov network from finite sets of sample symbol strings is introduced. Formulae for the time-dependent state occupation probabilities, as well as joint probability functions for pairs of channels, are given.

The use of a multi-channel Kalman filter algorithm in structural analysis of the epileptic EEG.

An extension of the Kalman filter algorithm to the multi-channel case is presented and its application as a segmenting procedure in the analysis of the epileptic EEG is discussed. An analytical example of structural analysis, using the segments extracted by the proposed filter, is presented for a particular set of 4-channel EEG recordings. This analysis is shown to be especially fruitful if the autoregressive coefficients - a byproduct of the filtering procedure - are used to estimate the information flow between the channels by the calculation of partial as well as directed coherences for the representative segments.

Syntactic analysis of the epileptic electroencephalogram.

A full-scale scheme of the multi-level syntactic analysis of the epileptic EEG is presented and discussed in detail. An exhaustive description of basic procedures necessary to obtain a meaningful description of any set of epileptic EEG recordings is given; these procedures include algorithms for extraction of various elementary peaks from the EEG signal, for segmentation of the recording, for classification of the segments found into distinct groups of characteristic patterns and, finally, for calculation of the Levenshtein distance between the individual recordings, each recording regarded as a string of symbols taken to represent different classes of patterns. An example of global analysis in terms of such a distance, performed on a typical set of epileptic EEG recordings, is supplied to prove the feasibility of the scheme proposed.

Computer-aided analysis of the epileptic EEG.

An introductory review of a comprehensive approach to the problem of automatic evaluation of the epileptic EEG in the frame of syntactic analysis is presented. The aims and merits of the syntactic approach are discussed and the viability of the method is demonstrated on a few chosen examples. Working procedures for automatic segmentation and classification of patterns in single- as well as in multi-channel case of the epileptic EEG are briefly described.

Segmentation of the epileptic EEG by means of a finite state automaton.

The aims and merits of the syntactical decomposition of the epileptic EEG are discussed in some detail. General assumptions in the design of segmenting algorithm--an essential part of the reduction of data program--are considered and a working example of segmenting routine is presented. This routine is designed as a finite state automaton, equivalent to a formal regular grammar.

Application of combined median-averaging filters to scintigraphic image processing.

Statistical and deterministic properties of median filters are briefly discussed and their inherent advantages as a prospective tool in scintigraphic data processing are pointed out. The ability of median filters of suppressing impulse noise while the edge-like features of an image are preserved, is demonstrated on phantom data. The residual high-frequency noise remaining after median filtering can be subsequently reduced by standard smoothing procedures.