Demographic, clinical and antibody characteristics of patients with digital ulcers in systemic sclerosis: data from the DUO Registry

OBJECTIVES: The Digital Ulcers Outcome (DUO) Registry was designed to describe the clinical and antibody characteristics, disease course and outcomes of patients with digital ulcers associated with systemic sclerosis (SSc). METHODS: The DUO Registry is a European, prospective, multicentre, observational, registry of SSc patients with ongoing digital ulcer disease, irrespective of treatment regimen. Data collected included demographics, SSc duration, SSc subset, internal organ manifestations, autoantibodies, previous and ongoing interventions and complications related to digital ulcers. RESULTS: Up to 19 November 2010 a total of 2439 patients had enrolled into the registry. Most were classified as either limited cutaneous SSc (lcSSc; 52.2%) or diffuse cutaneous SSc (dcSSc; 36.9%). Digital ulcers developed earlier in patients with dcSSc compared with lcSSc. Almost all patients (95.7%) tested positive for antinuclear antibodies, 45.2% for anti-scleroderma-70 and 43.6% for anticentromere antibodies (ACA). The first digital ulcer in the anti-scleroderma-70-positive patient cohort occurred approximately 5 years earlier than the ACA-positive patient group. CONCLUSIONS: This study provides data from a large cohort of SSc patients with a history of digital ulcers. The early occurrence and high frequency of digital ulcer complications are especially seen in patients with dcSSc and/or anti-scleroderma-70 antibodies

Impact of patterning and ashing on electrical properties and reliability of interconnects in a porous SiOCH ultra low-k dielectric materials

International audienc

Time frequency and array processing of non-stationary signals

The special issue of EURASIP Journal on Advances in Signal Processing 2012 focuses on the synergistic relationship between time-frequency methods and array signal processing methods and addresses recent developments. In the article 'Joint DOD/DOA estimation in MIMO radar exploiting time-frequency signal representations' Yimin Zhang and co-researchers deal with the joint estimation of direction-of-departure (DOD) and direction-of-arrival (DOA) information of maneuvering targets in a bistatic multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) radar system when exploiting spatial time-frequency distribution (STFD). In the article 'Estimating the number of components of a multicomponent nonstationary signal using the short term time-frequency Rényi entropy,' Victor Sucic and co-researchers propose a solution to the problem of detecting the local number of signal components by resorting to the short-term Rényi entropy of signals in the time-frequency plane

Forest law enforcement and rural livelihoods

International concern about illegal forestry activities has grown markedly. Asian, African, and European governments have held high-level regional conferences on Forest Law Enforcement and Governance (FLEG). Indonesia has signed path-breaking Memoranda of Understanding on illegal logging with the United Kingdom, China, and Norway. The Convention on Biological Diversity, the United Nations Forum on Forests, the International Tropical Timber Organisation, and the G8 have all issued forceful statements, and incorporated the issue in their work plans. The European Commission has committed itself to formulating a European FLEG Action Plan. Japan and Indonesia have initiated an Asian Forest Partnership, with a major focus on illegal logging. Global Witness, the Environmental Investigation Agency, Transparency International, Greenpeace, Global Forest Watch, and Friends of the Earth have raised public awareness about the problem

Robust integration of an ULK SiOCH dielectric (k=2.3) for high performance 32nm node BEOL

International audienc

Isolation and Characterization of Borrelia burgdorferi Sensu Lato Strains in an Area of Italy Where Lyme Borreliosis Is Endemic

Between 1993 and 1998, we isolated Borrelia burgdorferi sensu lato from 55 of the 119 patients with clinically diagnosed Lyme borreliosis who were admitted to “San Martino” Hospital in Belluno, Veneto, an Adriatic region in northeastern Italy where Lyme borreliosis is endemic. Upon hospitalization, all patients presented erythema migrans. Isolates were typed using ribosomal DNA PCR-restriction fragment length polymorphism (RFLP) analysis of the rrfA-rrlB intergenic spacer. Of the 41 isolates typed, 37 belonged to Borrelia afzelii, 2 to Borrelia garinii, and 2 to B. burgdorferi sensu stricto. Pulsed-field gel electrophoresis, performed on 21 strains (13 new isolates and 8 controls), revealed different RFLP patterns within the B. garinii and B. afzelii strains; among the five B. garinii strains and the 12 B. afzelii strains, three or two different RFLP patterns were identified, according to the restriction enzyme used. The protein patterns of the new isolates confirmed their genotypic classification and revealed the level of expression of some immunodominant proteins like OspA and other characteristic Osps. These findings constitute the first report of such a high recovery rate of B. burgdorferi from patients in a very restricted area in Italy; they also indicate the predominance of the genospecies B. afzelii in the study area and the heterogeneity of the circulating strains