Heavy Meson Description with a Screened Potential

We perform a quark model calculation of the $b\bar{b}$ and $c\bar{c}$ spectra from a screened funnel potential form suggested by unquenched lattice calculations. A connection between the lattice screening parameter and an effective gluon mass directly derived from QCD is established. Spin-spin energy splittings, leptonic widths and radiative decays are also examined providing a test for the description of the states.Comment: 17 pages, no figures, to appear in Phys. Rev.

Matter degrees of freedom and string breaking in Abelian projected quenched SU(2) QCD

In the Abelian projection the Yang--Mills theory contains Abelian gauge fields (diagonal degrees of freedom) and the Abelian matter fields (off-diagonal degrees) described by a complicated action. The matter fields are essential for the breaking of the adjoint string. We obtain numerically the effective action of the Abelian gauge and the Abelian matter fields in quenched SU(2) QCD and show that the Abelian matter fields provide an essential contribution to the total action even in the infrared region. We also observe the breaking of an Abelian analog of the adjoint string using Abelian operators. We show that the adjoint string tension is dominated by the Abelian and the monopole contributions similarly to the case of the fundamental particles. We conclude that the adjoint string breaking can successfully be described in the Abelian projection formalism.Comment: 16 pages, 10 figures, 2 table

Zero temperature string breaking in lattice quantum chromodynamics

The separation of a heavy quark and antiquark pair leads to the formation of a tube of flux, or "string", which should break in the presence of light quark-antiquark pairs. This expected zero-temperature phenomenon has proven elusive in simulations of lattice QCD. We study mixing between the string state and the two-meson decay channel in QCD with two flavors of dynamical sea quarks. We confirm that mixing is weak and find that it decreases at level crossing. While our study does not show direct effects of internal quark loops, our results, combined with unitarity, give clear confirmation of string breaking.Comment: 20 pages, 7 figures. With small clarifications and two additions to references. Submitted to Phys. Rev.

Health-related quality of life in preschool children in five health conditions

Objective: To test the responsiveness of the Infant/Toddler Quality of Life Questionnaire (ITQOL) to five health conditions. In addition, to evaluate the impact of the child's age and gender on the ITQOL domain scores. Methods: Observational study of 494 Dutch preschool-aged children with five clinical conditions and 410 healthy preschool children randomly sampled from the general population. The clinical conditions included neurofibromatosis type 1, wheezing illness, bronchiolitis, functional abdominal complaints, and burns. Health-related quality of life (HRQoL) was assessed by a mailed parent-completed ITQOL. Mean ITQOL scale scores for all conditions were compared with scores obtained from the reference sample. The effect of patient's age and gender on ITQOL scores was assessed using multi-variable regression analysis. Results: In all health conditions, substantially lower scores were found for several ITQOL scales. The conditions had a variable effect on the type of ITQOL domains and a different magnitude of effect. Scores for 'physical functioning', 'bodily pain', and 'general health perceptions' showed the greatest range. Parental impact scales were equally affected by all conditions. In addition to disease type, the child's age and gender had an impact on HRQoL. Conclusions: The five health conditions (each with a distinct clinical profile) affected the ITQOL scales differently. These results indicate that the ITQOL is sensitive to specific characteristics and symptom expression of the childhood health conditions investigated. This insight into the sensitivity of the ITQOL to health conditions with different symptom expression may help in the interpretation of HRQoL results in future applications

NfL reliability across laboratories, stage-dependent diagnostic performance and matrix comparability in genetic FTD: a large GENFI study

Supplementary Data: This web only file has been produced by the BMJ Publishing Group from an electronic file supplied by the author(s) and has not been edited for content. Data supplement 1 is available online at: https://jnnp.bmj.com/highwire/filestream/221824/field_highwire_adjunct_files/0/jnnp-2023-332464supp001_data_supplement.pdf .Background: Blood neurofilament light chain (NfL) is increasingly considered as a key trial biomarker in genetic frontotemporal dementia (gFTD). We aimed to facilitate the use of NfL in gFTD multicentre trials by testing its (1) reliability across labs; (2) reliability to stratify gFTD disease stages; (3) comparability between blood matrices and (4) stability across recruiting sites. Methods: Comparative analysis of blood NfL levels in a large gFTD cohort (GENFI) for (1)–(4), with n=344 samples (n=148 presymptomatic, n=11 converter, n=46 symptomatic subjects, with mutations in C9orf72, GRN or MAPT; and n=139 within-family controls), each measured in three different international labs by Simoa HD-1 analyzer. Results: NfL revealed an excellent consistency (intraclass correlation coefficient (ICC) 0.964) and high reliability across the three labs (maximal bias (pg/mL) in Bland-Altman analysis: 1.12±1.20). High concordance of NfL across laboratories was moreover reflected by high areas under the curve for discriminating conversion stage against the (non-converting) presymptomatic stage across all three labs. Serum and plasma NfL were largely comparable (ICC 0.967). The robustness of NfL across 13 recruiting sites was demonstrated by a linear mixed effect model. Conclusions: Our results underline the suitability of blood NfL in gFTD multicentre trials, including cross-lab reliable stratification of the highly trial-relevant conversion stage, matrix comparability and cross-site robustness.JCVS was supported by the Dioraphte Foundation grant 09-02-03-00, Association for Frontotemporal Dementias Research Grant 2009, Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research grant HCMI 056-13-018, ZonMw Memorabel (Deltaplan Dementie, project number 733051042), Alzheimer Nederland and the Bluefield Project. FM received funding from the Tau Consortium and the Center for Networked Biomedical Research on Neurodegenerative Disease. RS-V is supported by Alzheimer’s Research UK Clinical Research Training Fellowship (ARUK-CRF2017B-2) and has received funding from Fundació Marató de TV3, Spain (grant no. 20143810). DG received support from the EU Joint Programme—Neurodegenerative Disease Research and the Italian Ministry of Health (PreFrontALS) grant 733051042. CG received funding from EU Joint Programme—Neurodegenerative Disease Research-refrontals VR Dnr 529-2014-7504, VR 2015-02926 and 2018-02754, the Swedish FTD Inititative-Schörling Foundation, Alzheimer Foundation, Brain Foundation and Stockholm County Council ALF. MM has received funding from a Canadian Institute of Health Research operating grant and the Weston Brain Institute and Ontario Brain Institute. JBR has received funding from the Wellcome Trust (103838) and is supported by the Cambridge University Centre for Frontotemporal Dementia, the Medical Research Council (SUAG/051 G101400) and the National Institute for Health Research Cambridge Biomedical Research Centre (BRC-1215-20014). EF has received funding from a Canadian Institute of Health Research grant #327387. RV has received funding from the Mady Browaeys Fund for Research into Frontotemporal Dementia. JL received funding for this work by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft German Research Foundation under Germany’s Excellence Strategy within the framework of the Munich Cluster for Systems Neurology (EXC 2145 SyNergy—ID 390857198). MO has received funding from Germany’s Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF). JDR is supported by the Bluefield Project and the National Institute for Health and Care Research University College London Hospitals Biomedical Research Centre and has received funding from an MRC Clinician Scientist Fellowship (MR/M008525/1) and a Miriam Marks Brain Research UK Senior Fellowship. Several authors of this publication (JCVS, MS, RV, AdM, MO, RV and JDR) are members of the European Reference Network for Rare Neurological Diseases (ERN-RND)—Project ID No 739510. This work was also supported by the EU Joint Programme—Neurodegenerative Disease Research GENFI-PROX grant (2019-02248; to JDR, MO, BB, CG, JCVS and MS, and by the Clinician Scientist programme 'PRECISE.net' funded by the Else Kröner-Fresenius-Stiftung (to CW, DM and MS). HZ is a Wallenberg Scholar supported by grants from the Swedish Research Council (#2022-01018 and #2019-02397), the European Union’s Horizon Europe research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 101053962, Swedish State Support for Clinical Research (#ALFGBG-71320), the Alzheimer Drug Discovery Foundation (ADDF), USA (#201809-2016862), the AD Strategic Fund and the Alzheimer's Association (#ADSF-21-831376-C, #ADSF-21-831381-C, and #ADSF-21-831377-C), the Bluefield Project, the Olav Thon Foundation, the Erling-Persson Family Foundation, Stiftelsen för Gamla Tjänarinnor, Hjärnfonden, Sweden (#FO2022-0270), the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under the Marie Skłodowska-Curie grant agreement No 860197 (MIRIADE), the European Union Joint Programme—Neurodegenerative Disease Research (JPND2021-00694), the National Institute for Health and Care Research University College London Hospitals Biomedical Research Centre and the UK Dementia Research Institute at UCL (UKDRI-1003)

Use of anticoagulation during wireless capsule endoscopy for the investigation of recurrent obscure gastrointestinal bleeding

Detecting the source of obscure gastrointestinal bleeding can be difficult. Capsule endoscopy is a promising diagnostic tool for investigating patients with this condition, although identifying the source of intermittent or low-grade bleeding remains a diagnostic challenge. We present case reports of two patients with obscure gastrointestinal bleeding, in whom the source of recurrent bleeding episodes was diagnosed by capsule endoscopy while they were on anticoagulation therapy. The first patient, an 81-year-old white woman, was on long-term oral anticoagulation because she had chronic atrial fibrillation. Capsule endoscopy demonstrated a bleeding tumor in the region of the terminal ileum. The second patient, a 59-year-old white man, underwent an initial capsule endoscopy, which was negative. After initiation of anticoagulation with heparin, a second capsule endoscopy procedure in this patient revealed several small bleeding lesions in the proximal small bowel. In both cases a gastrointestinal stromal tumor was identified as the bleeding source and was resected. These two cases demonstrate that provocation of bleeding during capsule endoscopy may increase its sensitivity

A multimodal treatment approach including high-dose chemotherapy in very advanced gastric cancer: evidence for control of metastatic disease

The present multimodal treatment approach was designed to achieve prolonged tumor control in advanced gastric cancer. A total of 26 patients with stage IV gastric cancer (metastatic disease n=25), ECOG performance status 0-3 and laparoscopically evaluated peritoneal status received a modified EAP schedule to prove chemosensitivity and to mobilize autologous peripheral blood stem cells (aPBSC). Patients without progressive disease proceeded to tandem high-dose chemotherapy (HD-CT) and aPBSCT. Patients with >50% reduction of the target lesion received a second cycle of HD-CT. Responders were selected for local R0 resections (D2 resection) according clinical criteria. Of 26 patients, 20(77%) achieved partial remission after dose-intensive chemotherapy: local R0 resection was achieved in 12 out of 14 patients selected for surgery (46% of all patients). Eight of these R0-resected patients initially had peritoneal carcinomatosis. With a median follow-up of 3.2 years, four patients are still alive. The median overall survival was 8.4 months (CI 2.5-14.4 months), for histologic regression grade 3 (seven out of 25 patients, 28%) 29 months (CI 12-46 months). The combined treatment approach is tolerable and feasible in advanced disease and opens a therapeutic window for a significant proportion of patients, even in cases with histologically proven peritoneal carcinomatosis