Aims/hypothesis: To assess the use of paediatric continuous subcutaneous infusion (CSII) under real-life conditions by analysing data recorded for up to 90 days and relating them to outcome. Methods: Pump programming data from patients aged 0-18 years treated with CSII in 30 centres from 16 European countries and Israel were recorded during routine clinical visits. HbA 1c was measured centrally. Results: A total of 1,041 patients (age: 11.8±4.2 years, diabetes duration: 6.0±3.6 years, average CSII duration: 2.0±1.3 years, HbA1c: 8.0±1.3% [means±SD]) participated. Glycaemic control was better in preschool (n=142, 7.5±0.9%) and pre-adolescent (6-11 years, n=321, 7.7±1.0%) children than in adolescent patients (12-18 years, n=578, 8.3±1.4%). There was a significant negative correlation between HbA1c and daily bolus number, but not between HbA1c and total daily insulin dose. The use of <6.7 daily boluses was a significant predictor of an HbA1c level >7.5%. The incidence of severe hypoglycaemia and ketoacidosis was 6.63 and 6.26 events per 100 patient-years, respectively. Conclusions/ interpretation: This large paediatric survey of CSII shows that glycaemic targets can be frequently achieved, particularly in young children, and the incidence of acute complications is low. Adequate substitution of basal and prandial insulin is associated with a better HbA1c. © 2008 Springer-Verlag.
The American Association for Artificial Intelligence, in cooperation with Stanford University’s Department of Computer Science, presented the 2003 Spring Symposium Series, Monday through Wednesday, 24–26 March 2003, at Stanford University. The titles of the eight symposia were Agent-Mediated Knowledge Management, Computational Synthesis: From Basic Building Blocks to High- Level Functions, Foundations and Applications of Spatiotemporal Reasoning (FASTR), Human Interaction with Autonomous Systems in Complex Environments, Intelligent Multimedia Knowledge Management, Logical Formalization of Commonsense Reasoning, Natural Language Generation in Spoken and Written Dialogue, and New Directions in Question-Answering Motivation.
Plutonium isotopes and 241Am were studied in seawater and sediment from the East China Sea, the Yellow Sea, the East Sea/Sea of Japan, the Sea of Okhotsk, and the northwest Pacific Ocean, collected between 1993 and 1996 with the aim to contribute to better understanding the behaviour of plutonium and americium in the marine environment. 239,240Pu concentrations in surface water varied from 2.3 to 13 µBq l-1 in the East China Sea and from 3.5 to 9.4 µBq l-1 in the East Sea. The 239,240Pu vertical profiles in water showed a broad subsurface maximum between 500 and 1000 m with a range of 30-40 µBq l-1, and gradually decreased from 1000 m depth down to the seafloor. 241Am concentrations in surface water showed values from 1.1 to 2.2 µBq l -1 in the East Sea, from 1.0 to 3.1 µBq l-1 in the Sea of Okhotsk, and from 0.68 to 12.0 µBq l-1 in the northwest Pacific Ocean. The activity ratios of 241Am/239,240Pu in seawater showed values similar to the global fallout ratio, which suggests that the source of these radionuclides in the northwest Pacific Ocean is global fallout. However, the 241Am/239,240Pu activity ratios in sediment were found to be much higher (1.0-1.9) than the global fallout ratio (0.37), confirming that 241Am is scavenged from the water column more rapidly than 239,240Pu. The 239,240Pu inventories in the water column of the East Sea were from 0.98 to 93 Bq m-2 depending on water depth and sedimentation rates. The 241Am inventory in the water column east of Kamchatka was 6.3 ± 1.0 Bq m -2 and the sediment inventory in the Sea of Okhotsk was 16 ± 2 Bq m-2. 239,240Pu concentrations in sinking particles in the southwest Japan Basin were from 3.7 to 5.2 Bq kg-1 (dry weight) with fluxes of 0.19-4.50 mBq m-2 d-1 and at the Ulleung Basin from 2.4 to 3.7 Bq kg-1 (dry weight) with fluxes of 0.77-1.10 mBq m-2 d-1. The mean residence time of 239,240Pu in the water column of the East Sea derived from sediment trap data was 140 ± 20 years, 2-3 times less than in the Atlantic and Pacific oceans.