The Cherenkov Telescope Array (CTA) is a new observatory for very high-energy (VHE) gamma rays. CTA has ambitions science goals, for which it is necessary to achieve full-sky coverage, to improve the sensitivity by about an order of magnitude, to span about four decades of energy, from a few tens of GeV to above 100 TeV with enhanced angular and energy resolutions over existing VHE gamma-ray observatories. An international collaboration has formed with more than 1000 members from 27 countries in Europe, Asia, Africa and North and South America. In 2010 the CTA Consortium completed a Design Study and started a three-year Preparatory Phase which leads to production readiness of CTA in 2014. In this paper we introduce the science goals and the concept of CTA, and provide an overview of the project. ?? 2013 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved

No abstract

Diabetes mellitus is a significant independent predictor for several postoperative outcome variables after cardiac surgery associated with higher postoperative morbidity and prolonged hospital stay.

No abstract

Pre-eclampsia (PE) is a serious disorder with high morbidity and mortality occurring during pregnancy; 3%-5% of all pregnant women are affected. Early prediction is still insufficient in clinical practice. Although most pre-eclamptic patients show pathological uterine perfusion in the second trimester, this parameter has a positive predictive accuracy of only 30%, which makes it unsuitable for early, reliable prediction. The study is based on the hypothesis that alterations in cardiovascular regulatory behavior can be used to predict PE. Ninety-six pregnant women in whom Doppler investigation detected perfusion disorders of the uterine arteries were included in the study. Twenty-four of these pregnant women developed PE after the 30th week of gestation. During pregnancy, additional several noninvasive continuous blood pressure recordings were made over 30 min under resting conditions by means of a finger cuff. The time series extracted of systolic as well as diastolic beat-to-beat pressures and the heart rate were studied by variability and coupling analysis to find predictive factors preceding genesis of the disease. In the period between the 18th and 26th weeks of pregnancy, three special variability and baroreflex parameters were able to predict PE several weeks before clinical manifestation. Discriminant function analysis of these parameters was able to predict PE with a sensitivity and specificity of 87.5% and a positive predictive value of 70%. The combined clinical assessment of uterine perfusion and cardiovascular variability demonstrates the best current prediction several weeks before clinical manifestation of PE.