Vascular calcification (VC) is a frequent complication of chronic kidney disease (CKD) and is a predictor of cardiovascular morbidity and mortality. In the present study, we investigated the potential involvement of endothelial microparticles (MPs) and endothelial progenitor cells (EPCs) in the generation of VC in CKD patients. The number of circulating EMPs is greater in patients with VC than ...

In Germany, the national routine childhood immunization schedule comprises 12 vaccinations. Primary immunizations should be completed by 24 mo of age. However, nationwide monitoring of vaccination coverage (VC) is performed only at school entry. We utilized health insurance claims data covering ~85% of the total population with the objectives to (1) assess VC of all recommended childhood vaccin...

One of the earliest conjectures in computational learning theory—the Sample Compression conjecture—asserts that concept classes (equivalently set systems) admit compression schemes of size linear in their VC dimension. To-date this statement is known to be true for maximum classes—those that possess maximum cardinality for their VC dimension. The most promising approach to positively resolving ...

BACKGROUND: The control of coccidiosis in poultry industryis dominated by prophylactic chemotherapy; however,drug resistance is a serious problem. Alternative control methodssuch as vaccination have been accepted as a practical method forcontrolling coccidiosis in chickens. Considering the immunologicalvariation of Eimeria strains, the efficacy of live coccidiosisvaccines may be compromised. OB...

INTRODUCTION Low fetuin-A and vitamin D and high monounsaturated fatty acid (MUFA) contents are associated with vascular calcification (VC) in dialysis patients. We aimed to demonstrate the difference in fetuin-A, vitamin D, MUFA, and VC on plain radiography between patients on hemodialysis and peritoneal dialysis (PD). MATERIALS AND METHODS We recruited 31 hemodialysis and 30 PD patients. We...

We have a limited understanding of why different venture capital (VC) funds follow substantially different portfolio strategies and how these choices affect VC performance. We investigate this question by combining and extending the real options and knowledge spillover views of strategic entrepreneurship. In this approach, specialization by a VC fund implies a call option with liquidation value...

As a significant part of information security, Visual Cryptography (VC) is a secret sharing approach which has the advantage of effectively obscuring hints of original secret. In VC, a secret image is separated into partitions which are also known as VC shares. The secret is only able to be revealed by superimposing certain shares. Since Basic VC is in a structure which is similar to that of Br...