High Body Mass Index in Adolescent Girls Precedes Psoriasis Hospitalization

Psoriasis is associated with being overweight, but the temporal relationship is not known. This historical cohort study tested whether severe psoriasis resulting in hospitalization in adulthood was preceded by excess increase in age-adjusted body mass index, a known risk factor in childhood for being overweight in adulthood. The study cohort was based on the Copenhagen School Health Records Register, birth years 1930 to 1984 (309,152 schoolchildren). Cases were found through the Danish National Patient Register for the period 1977 to 2001. A total of 1074 (0.36%) of the schoolchildren were identified as having psoriasis, with at least one hospital admission. Multivariate analysis demonstrated an association between excess increase in body mass index and psoriasis in females only. Being overweight in adolescence was the main factor behind this observation. The female group showed a significant association between psoriasis and body mass index at ages 12 (p=0.028) and 13 years (p=0.010). This was not the case for males or for body mass index measured at ages 11 years and below

Employment insecurity and life satisfaction: The moderating influence of labour market policies across Europe

This article tests whether the link between employment insecurity and life satisfaction is moderated by the generosity of labour market policies across Europe. Employment insecurity provokes anxieties about (a) the difficulties of finding a new job and (b) alternative sources of non-work income. These components can be related to active and passive labour market policies, respectively. Generous policy support is thus expected to buffer the negative consequences of employment insecurity by lowering the perceived difficulty of finding a similar job or providing income maintenance during unemployment. Based on data for 22 countries from the 2010 European Social Survey, initial support for this hypothesis is found. Perceived employment insecurity is negatively associated with life satisfaction but the strength of the relationship is inversely related to the generosity of labour market policies. Employment insecurity, in other words, is more harmful in countries where labour market policies are less generous

Computing the output distribution and selection probabilities of a stack filter from the DNF of its positive Boolean function

Many nonlinear filters used in practise are stack filters. An algorithm is presented which calculates the output distribution of an arbitrary stack filter S from the disjunctive normal form (DNF) of its underlying positive Boolean function. The so called selection probabilities can be computed along the way.Comment: This is the version published in Journal of Mathematical Imaging and Vision, online first, 1 august 201

Pulses in the Zero-Spacing Limit of the GOY Model

We study the propagation of localised disturbances in a turbulent, but momentarily quiescent and unforced shell model (an approximation of the Navier-Stokes equations on a set of exponentially spaced momentum shells). These disturbances represent bursts of turbulence travelling down the inertial range, which is thought to be responsible for the intermittency observed in turbulence. Starting from the GOY shell model, we go to the limit where the distance between succeeding shells approaches zero (``the zero spacing limit'') and helicity conservation is retained. We obtain a discrete field theory which is numerically shown to have pulse solutions travelling with constant speed and with unchanged form. We give numerical evidence that the model might even be exactly integrable, although the continuum limit seems to be singular and the pulses show an unusual super exponential decay to zero as $\exp(- \mathrm{const} \sigma^n)$ when $n \to \infty$, where $\sigma$ is the {\em golden mean}. For finite momentum shell spacing, we argue that the pulses should accelerate, moving to infinity in a finite time. Finally we show that the maximal Lyapunov exponent of the GOY model approaches zero in this limit.Comment: 27 pages, submitted for publicatio

Finite temperature scaling theory for the collapse of Bose-Einstein condensate

We show how to apply the scaling theory in an inhomogeneous system like harmonically trapped Bose condensate at finite temperatures. We calculate the temperature dependence of the critical number of particles by a scaling theory within the Hartree-Fock approximation and find that there is a dramatic increase in the critical number of particles as the condensation point is approached.Comment: Published online [6 pages, 3 figures

Predicting urinary creatinine excretion and its usefulness to identify incomplete 24h urine collections

Studies using 24 h urine collections need to incorporate ways to validate the completeness of the urine samples. Models to predict urinary creatinine excretion (UCE) have been developed for this purpose; however, information on their usefulness to identify incomplete urine collections is limited. We aimed to develop a model for predicting UCE and to assess the performance of a creatinine index using para-aminobenzoic acid (PABA) as a reference. Data were taken from the European Food Consumption Validation study comprising two non-consecutive 24 h urine collections from 600 subjects in five European countries. Data from one collection were used to build a multiple linear regression model to predict UCE, and data from the other collection were used for performance testing of a creatinine index-based strategy to identify incomplete collections. Multiple linear regression (n 458) of UCE showed a significant positive association for body weight (ß = 0·07), the interaction term sex × weight (ß = 0·09, reference women) and protein intake (ß = 0·02). A significant negative association was found for age (ß = - 0·09) and sex (ß = - 3·14, reference women). An index of observed-to-predicted creatinine resulted in a sensitivity to identify incomplete collections of 0·06 (95 % CI 0·01, 0·20) and 0·11 (95 % CI 0·03, 0·22) in men and women, respectively. Specificity was 0·97 (95 % CI 0·97, 0·98) in men and 0·98 (95 % CI 0·98, 0·99) in women. The present study shows that UCE can be predicted from weight, age and sex. However, the results revealed that a creatinine index based on these predictions is not sufficiently sensitive to exclude incomplete 24 h urine collections