Ustekinumab treatment and improvement of physical function and health‐related quality of life in patients with psoriatic arthritis

Objective: Examine ustekinumab effects on patient-reported outcomes (PROs) in PSUMMIT-1/PSUMMIT-2 patients with active psoriatic arthritis (PsA) who were methotrexate (MTX)-naïve, MTX-experienced, or anti-tumor necrosis factor (TNF)-experienced. Methods: Patients in the Phase 3, PSUMMIT 1 (n=615) and PSUMMIT 2 (n=312) studies randomly (1:1:1) received placebo, ustekinumab 45 mg, or ustekinumab 90 mg subcutaneous injections at wk0/wk4/wk16/wk28/wk40/wk52. PROs (Health Assessment Questionnaire-Disability Index [HAQ-DI]; Dermatology Life Quality index [DLQI]; 36-item short-form health survey physical and mental component summary [SF-36 PCS/MCS] scores; patient assessments of pain and disease activity; impact of disease on productivity) were assessed at wk0/wk24/wk52. In these post-hoc analyses, outcomes were compared between the ustekinumab and placebo groups for three mutually-exclusive antecedent-exposure populations from the combined studies: MTX/anti-TNF naïve (placebo, n=56; 45 mg, n=58; 90 mg, n=66), MTX-experienced, bio-naive (placebo, n=192; 45 mg, n=190; 90 mg, n=185), and anti-TNF experienced with or without MTX (placebo, n=62; 45 mg, n=60, 90 mg, n=58). Results: At wk24, mean improvements from baseline in HAQ-DI, DLQI, and SF-36 PCS scores were significantly greater in both ustekinumab groups versus placebo across antecedent-exposure groups. Greater proportions of ustekinumab- than placebo-treated patients (all p<0.05) had clinically meaningful improvements in HAQ-DI (≥0.3), DLQI (≥5), and SF-36 (≥5) scores at wk24, irrespective of drug exposure. Improvements in pain, disease activity, and impact of disease on productivity were similar, and benefits were maintained through wk52. Conclusions: Significant improvements in PROs with ustekinumab vs. placebo were observed in three antecedent-exposure populations of PsA patients, including those with prior MTX and anti-TNF use

Possible Method for Measuring the Proton Form Factors in Processes with and without Proton Spin Flip

The ratio of the squares of the electric and magnetic proton form factors is shown to be proportional to the ratio of the cross sections for the elastic scattering of an unpolarized electron on a partially polarized proton with and without proton spin flip. The initial proton at rest should be polarized along the direction of the motion of the final proton. Similar results are valid for both radiative $ep$ scattering and the photoproduction of pairs on a proton in the Bethe--Heitler kinematics. When the initial proton is fully polarized in the direction of the motion of the final proton, the cross section for the $ep \to ep$ process, as well as for the $ep \to ep \gamma$ and $\gamma p \to e \bar e p$ processes, without (with) proton spin flip is expressed only in terms of the square of the electric (magnetic) proton form factor. Such an experiment on the measurement of the cross sections without and with proton spin flip would make it possible to acquire new independent data on the behavior of $G_E^2(Q^2)$ and $G_M^2(Q^2)$, which are necessary for resolving the contradictions appearing after the experiment of the JLab collaboration on the measurement of the proton form factors with the method of polarization transfer from the initial electron to the final proton.Comment: 7 pages, revtex

Proton Cumulants and Correlation Functions in Au + Au Collisions at sNN\sqrt{s_\mathrm{NN}}=7.7-200 GeV from UrQMD Model

We studied the acceptance dependence of proton cumulants (up to fourth order) and correlation functions in 0--5\% most central Au+Au collisions at $\sqrt{s_\text{NN}}$=7.7, 11.5, 19.6, 27, 39, 62.4 and 200 GeV from UrQMD model. We found that high order proton cumulants show suppressions at large acceptance. By decomposing the proton cumulants into linear combination of multi-proton correlation functions, we observed the two-proton correlation functions always show negative values due to the effects of baryon number conservations. The three and four-proton correlation functions are close to zero and show negligible acceptance dependence. We further observed that the proton cumulants and correlation functions follow similar trends and show a scaling behavior when plotting the results versus mean number of protons. The comparisons between experimental data and the UrQMD calculations show that the non-monotonic energy dependence of proton correlation functions measured by STAR experiment cannot be described by the UrQMD model. The UrQMD calculations can provide us baselines for the experimental studies of the proton cumulants and correlation functions. Finally, we propose to measure the rapidity dependence of the reduced proton correlation functions to search for the QCD critical point in heavy-ion collisions.Comment: 9 pages, 8 figures, Accepted by Physics Letters

Strangeness production in proton-proton and proton-nucleus collisions

In these lectures we discuss the investigation of the strange meson production in proton-proton ($pp$) and in proton-nucleus ($pA$) reactions within an effective Lagrangian model. The kaon production proceeds mainly via the excitations of $N^*$(1650), $N^*$(1710), and $N^*$(1720) resonant intermediate nucleonic states, in the collision of two initial state nucleons. Therefore, the strangeness production is expected to provide information about the resonances lying at higher excitation energies. For beam energies very close to the kaon production threshold the hyperon-proton final state interaction effects are quite important. Thus, these studies provide a check on the models of hyperon-nucleon interactions. The in-medium production of kaons show strong sensitivity to the self energies of the intermediate mesons.Comment: 16 pages, 9 figures, Talk presented in the workshop on Hadron Physics, Puri, India, March 7-17,200