Athanasios Karachalios

Anxiety is associated with hormonal and metabolic profile in women with polycystic ovarian syndrome

Background  Increased prevalence of psychological morbidities, including anxiety, depression and eating disorders, has been reported in women with polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS) in comparison with normal ovulating, nonhyperandrogenemic women.

Liver failure due to antithyroid drugs: report of a case and literature review

Hyperthyroidism is a common endocrine disorder affecting 2% of females and 0.5% of males worldwide and antithyroid drugs constitute the first line of treatment in the majority of cases. These agents may cause severe adverse effects and among them liver failure, although rare, is a potential lethal one. This case illustrates the sudden and abrupt deterioration of hepatic function due to antithyroid drug administration. This case along with a concise literature review is presented aiming to increase the awareness of endocrinologists of possible fatal complications from the everyday use of common agents such as antithyroid drugs.

The effect of oral micronized progesterone on hormonal and metabolic parameters in anovulatory patients with polycystic ovary syndrome

OBJECTIVE To investigate the effects of oral natural micronized P on hormonal and metabolic parameters in patients with polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS) and to answer the clinical question whether induction of withdrawal bleeding is a necessity for the comparison of hormonal and metabolic data in subjects with PCOS. DESIGN Prospective clinical study. SETTING Academic medical center. PATIENT(S) Twenty-eight reproductive-aged women with PCOS. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURE(S) Blood sampling was collected at baseline, after 7 days of oral natural micronized P (200 mg) administration, and after withdrawal bleeding. At these three stages hormonal parameters and homeostasis assessment model (HOMA-IR) index were assessed in all patients. RESULT(S) Oral natural micronized P administration did not alter significantly insulin sensitivity index and androgen levels; however, LH was decreased when postbleeding values were compared to baseline. Nevertheless, after oral natural micronized P administration, P and 17alpha-hydroxyprogesterone (17-OHP) concentrations were increased, and HOMA-IR was decreased, whereas androgens levels were not altered, in comparison with baseline. CONCLUSION(S) The induction of withdrawal bleeding, with this regimen, does not appear to be a necessity for the assessment of hormonal and metabolic profile in anovulatory women with PCOS.

Exact Max-Log MAP Soft-Output Sphere Decoding via Approximate Schnorr–Euchner Enumeration

The complexity gains of sphere decoders (SDs) with Schnorr-Euchner enumeration and nonconstant amplitude constellations are limited by the required node ordering. Aiming at improving the implementation efficiency of SD without compromising optimality, this paper proposes a novel tree traversal for soft-output SDs providing the exact max-log MAP decoder performance. It consists of a predefined visiting order that approximates the exact Schnorr-Euchner enumeration (SEE) and a modified pruning metric that preserves the exact max-log MAP despite the approximate ordering. The proposed approach significantly improves both the computational complexity and the implementation cost of exact soft-output SDs compared with previous techniques. In particular, simulations show gains of 30%-56% in the required calculations for a 4 × 4 multiple-input multiple-output system with 16-quadrature amplitude modulation (QAM), and field-programmable gate array (FPGA) implementations show an average power reduction of 34%-50%.

Configurable baseband digital transceiver for Gbps wireless 60 GHz communications

The evolution of 60 GHz wireless networks using Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing (OFDM) technique imposed requirements of increased processing in the baseband implementations. The current paper focuses on the design of a pipelined architecture realizing the baseband functions. The design bases on using parallel paths to achieve a throughput of 1.6 Gbps. The number of paths is configured at compile time to be 4, 8 or 16, for achieving maximal throughput by either using cutting edge technology FPGA platforms or target implementations with low cost devices. FPGA implementations validate the results.