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Summary Health‐related quality of life (HRQoL) is a major concern for adults with chronic immune thrombocytopenic purpura (ITP) due to the symptoms associated with the disease and its treatment. This study utilized the ITP‐patient assessment questionnaire (ITP‐PAQ), a specialized HRQoL questionnaire for ITP, to investigate the humanistic burden of ITP and the impact of romiplostim therapy on HRQoL in two, placebo‐controlled, phase 3 clinical trials of splenectomized and non‐splenectomized patients. ITP‐PAQ was self‐administered to ITP patients at baseline, and weeks 4, 12 and 24 of treatment. Splenectomized patients had lower baseline HRQoL scores than non‐splenectomized patients in seven of 10 scales (P < 0·05). After 24 weeks of romiplostim therapy, splenectomized patients showed significant improvements over placebo in four of 10 ITP‐PAQ Scales (Symptoms, P = 0·0337; Bother, P = 0·0126; Social Activity, P = 0·0145; and Women’s Reproductive Health, P = 0·0184). Non‐splenectomized patients demonstrated significant improvement over placebo in the Activity Scale (P = 0·0458). Data pooled from the two trials, adjusted for splenectomy status, showed significant improvement for romiplostim‐treated patients in six scales; Symptoms, Bother, Activity, Fear, Social Activity and Women’s Reproductive Health. These results suggest that adult patients with chronic ITP have improved HRQoL following romiplostim therapy.

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OBJECTIVE—Metformin was approved by the Food and Drug Administration in 1995 subject to the conduct of a randomized trial to evaluate the risk of lactic acidosis or other serious adverse events (SAEs) with this agent, under usual care conditions. RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODS—The Comparative Outcomes Study of Metformin Intervention versus Conventional (COSMIC) Approach Study was a randomized, open-label, active-comparator, parallel-group, 1-year trial in type 2 diabetic patients suboptimally controlled on diet or sulfonylurea. Patients received metformin (n = 7,227) or other usual care treatments (n = 1,505). The primary end point was the incidence of SAEs, death, and hospitalization. RESULTS—SAEs occurred in 10.3% (95% CI 9.6–11.1%) of the metformin group and in 11.0% (9.5–12.7%) of the usual care group (P = 0.431). Lactic acidosis did not occur. All-cause mortality (1.1% [0.9–1.4%] vs. 1.3% [0.8–2.0%], P = 0.596) and hospitalization (9.4% [8.8–10.1%] vs. 10.4% [8.9–12.1%], P = 0.229) were similar between groups. CONCLUSIONS—The incidence of SAEs was similar between groups. Lactic acidosis was not observed. Metformin may be safely prescribed for type 2 diabetes if contraindications and warnings are respected. This study demonstrates the utility of large, simple trials for risk evaluation of treatments for common diseases.

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The work presented in this paper focuses on the design of robust Fault Detection and Isolation (FDI) filters for dynamic systems characterized by LPV (Linear Parameter Varying) polytopic models. A sufficient condition is established to guarantee sensitivity performance of the residual signal vector to faults. Robustness constraints against model perturbations and disturbances are also taken into account in the design method. A key feature of the proposed method is that the residual structuring matrices are optimized as an integral part of the design, together with the dynamic part (i.e. the filter). The design problem is formulated as a convex optimization problem and solved using LMI (Linear Matrix Inequalities) techniques. The proposed method is illustrated on the secondary circuit of a Nuclear Power Plant.

The problem of active fault-tolerant control with reconfiguration mechanism for uncertain linear systems with external disturbances is addressed applying the supervisory control approach. A key feature of the proposed approach is establishment of a set of conditions providing mutual performance in the sense of taking into account the interaction of the fault detection, isolation, and accommodation subsystems in order to achieve global fault-tolerance performance with guaranteed global stability. The efficiency of the approach is demonstrated in an example of computer simulation for a flight system benchmark.

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