on behalf of the German Stroke Data Bank CollaboratorsBackground and Purpose-Data on risk factors for etiologic subtypes of ischemic stroke are still scant. The aim of this study was to characterize stroke subtypes regarding risk factor profile, outcome, and current treatment strategies. Methods-We analyzed data from 5017 patients with acute ischemic stroke (42.4% women, aged 65.9Ϯ14.1 years) who were enrolled in a large multicenter hospital-based stroke data bank. Standardized data assessment and stroke subtype classification were used by all centers. Results-Sex and age distribution, major risk factors and comorbidities, recurrent stroke, treatment strategies, and outcome were all unevenly distributed among stroke subtypes (PϽ0.001, respectively). Cardioembolism, the most frequent etiology of stroke (25.6%), was particularly common in the elderly (those aged Ͼ70 years) and associated with an adverse outcome, a low rate of early stroke recurrence, and frequent use of thrombolytic therapy and intravenous anticoagulation. Large-artery atherosclerosis (20.9%), the most common cause of stroke in middle-aged patients (those aged 45 to 70 years), showed the highest male preponderance, highest rate of early stroke recurrence, and highest prevalence of previous transient ischemic attack, current smoking, and daily alcohol consumption among all subtypes. The highest prevalence of hypertension, diabetes mellitus, hypercholesterolemia, and obesity was found in small-vessel disease (20.5%), which, in turn, was associated with the lowest stroke severity and mortality. Conclusions-Our results foster the concept of ischemic stroke as a polyetiologic disease with marked differences between subtypes regarding risk factors and outcome. Therefore, studies involving risk factors of ischemic stroke should differentiate between etiologic stroke subtypes. (Stroke. 2001;32:2559-2566.)

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A sensitive search of the 4-fold forbidden nonunique decay of 50 V has been performed. A total mass measuring time product of 186 kg d has been accumulated. A reliable half-life value with the highest precision so far of (2.29 ± 0.25) × 10 17 years of the electron capture decay of 50 V into the first excited state of 50 Ti could be obtained. A photon emission line following the β decay into the first excited state of 50 Cr could not be observed, resulting in a lower limit on the half-life of the β-decay branch of 1.7 × 10 18 years. This is not in good agreement with a claimed observation of this decay branch published in 1989.

In 2006, the European Radiation Dosimetry (EURADOS) Working Group on Environmental Radiation Monitoring (WG3) organised a third European intercomparison of dosimetry systems operated in national early warning networks. Similar to the intercomparisons in 1999 and 2002, the main aim of this exercise was to support the process of harmonisation of area monitoring in Europe by providing the network operators with basic information on the calibration and performance of their dosimetry systems. In order to characterise these systems, their following basic parameters were investigated: the response to terrestrial and cosmic radiation, the detectors' inherent background, the response at low dose rates, the energy dependence of the response as well as the sensitivity of the detector systems to small changes of the dose rate in a natural environmental radiation field. In the 2006 EURADOS intercomparison, scientists from seven countries participated to study the characteristics of 11 detector systems. All results are presented in terms of the operational quantity ambient dose equivalent, H*(10). The advent of this quantity has caused the development of new detector systems for area monitoring. Some of these new systems participated in a EURADOS intercomparison for the first time. The results are consistently presented together with uncertainties so that statistical effects can be distinguished from real detector features, which improves the interpretation of the results. By using the results of this intercomparison, some detectors were re-calibrated. The achievable improvements concerning harmonisation in dose-rate measurements in the natural environment are discussed.