Optic neuropathy associated with systemic sarcoidosis

Objective: To identify and follow a series of 52 patients with optic neuropathy related to sarcoidosis. Methods: Prospective observational cohort study. Results: The disorder was more common in women and affected a wide age range. It was proportionately more common in African and Caribbean ethnic groups. Two clinical subtypes were identified: the more common was a subacute optic neuropathy resembling optic neuritis; a more slowly progressive optic neuropathy arose in the remaining 17%. Sixteen (31%) were bilateral. Concurrent intraocular inflammation was seen in 36%. Pain arose in only 27% of cases. An optic perineuritis was seen in 2 cases, and predominate involvement of the chiasm in one. MRI findings showed optic nerve involvement in 75% of cases, with adjacent and more widespread inflammation in 31%. Treatment with corticosteroids was helpful in those with an inflammatory optic neuropathy, but not those with mass lesions. Relapse of visual signs arose in 25% of cases, necessitating an increase or escalation of treatment, but relapse was not a poor prognostic factor. Conclusions: This is a large prospective study of the clinical characteristics and outcome of treatment in optic neuropathy associated with sarcoidosis. Patients who experience an inflammatory optic neuropathy respond to treatment but may relapse. Those with infiltrative or progressive optic neuropathies improve less well even though the inflammatory disorder responds to therapy

Convergence calls: multimedia storytelling at British news websites

This article uses qualitative interviews with senior editors and managers from a selection of the UK's national online news providers to describe and analyse their current experimentation with multimedia and video storytelling. The results show that, in a period of declining newspaper readership and TV news viewing, editors are keen to embrace new technologies, which are seen as being part of the future of news. At the same time, text is still reported to be the cornerstone for news websites, leading to changes in the grammar and function of news video when used online. The economic rationale for convergence is examined and the article investigates the partnerships sites have entered into in order to be able to serve their audience with video content. In-house video is complementing syndicated content, and the authors examine the resulting developments in newsroom training and recruitment practices. The article provides journalism and interactive media scholars with case studies on the changes taking place in newsrooms as a result of the shift towards multimedia, multiplatform news consumption

A mathematical model of contact tracing during the 2014-2016 west African ebola outbreak

The 2014-2016 West African outbreak of Ebola Virus Disease (EVD) was the largest and most deadly to date. Contact tracing, following up those who may have been infected through contact with an infected individual to prevent secondary spread, plays a vital role in controlling such outbreaks. Our aim in this work was to mechanistically represent the contact tracing process to illustrate potential areas of improvement in managing contact tracing efforts. We also explored the role contact tracing played in eventually ending the outbreak. We present a system of ordinary differential equations to model contact tracing in Sierra Leonne during the outbreak. Using data on cumulative cases and deaths we estimate most of the parameters in our model. We include the novel features of counting the total number of people being traced and tying this directly to the number of tracers doing this work. Our work highlights the importance of incorporatingchanging behavior into one’s model as needed when indicated by the data and reported trends. Our results show that a larger contact tracing program would have reduced the death toll of the outbreak. Counting the total number of people being traced and including changes in behavior in our model led to better understanding of disease management

Random Tilings: Concepts and Examples

We introduce a concept for random tilings which, comprising the conventional one, is also applicable to tiling ensembles without height representation. In particular, we focus on the random tiling entropy as a function of the tile densities. In this context, and under rather mild assumptions, we prove a generalization of the first random tiling hypothesis which connects the maximum of the entropy with the symmetry of the ensemble. Explicit examples are obtained through the re-interpretation of several exactly solvable models. This also leads to a counterexample to the analogue of the second random tiling hypothesis about the form of the entropy function near its maximum.Comment: 32 pages, 42 eps-figures, Latex2e updated version, minor grammatical change

Differential co-expression framework to quantify goodness of biclusters and compare biclustering algorithms

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Biclustering is an important analysis procedure to understand the biological mechanisms from microarray gene expression data. Several algorithms have been proposed to identify biclusters, but very little effort was made to compare the performance of different algorithms on real datasets and combine the resultant biclusters into one unified ranking.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>In this paper we propose differential co-expression framework and a differential co-expression scoring function to objectively quantify quality or goodness of a bicluster of genes based on the observation that genes in a bicluster are co-expressed in the conditions belonged to the bicluster and not co-expressed in the other conditions. Furthermore, we propose a scoring function to stratify biclusters into three types of co-expression. We used the proposed scoring functions to understand the performance and behavior of the four well established biclustering algorithms on six real datasets from different domains by combining their output into one unified ranking.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>Differential co-expression framework is useful to provide quantitative and objective assessment of the goodness of biclusters of co-expressed genes and performance of biclustering algorithms in identifying co-expression biclusters. It also helps to combine the biclusters output by different algorithms into one unified ranking i.e. meta-biclustering.</p

GASKAP -- The Galactic ASKAP Survey

A survey of the Milky Way disk and the Magellanic System at the wavelengths of the 21-cm atomic hydrogen (HI) line and three 18-cm lines of the OH molecule will be carried out with the Australian Square Kilometre Array Pathfinder telescope. The survey will study the distribution of HI emission and absorption with unprecedented angular and velocity resolution, as well as molecular line thermal emission, absorption, and maser lines. The area to be covered includes the Galactic plane (|b|< 10deg) at all declinations south of delta = +40deg, spanning longitudes 167deg through 360deg to 79deg at b=0deg, plus the entire area of the Magellanic Stream and Clouds, a total of 13,020 square degrees. The brightness temperature sensitivity will be very good, typically sigma_T ~ 1 K at resolution 30arcsec and 1 km/s. The survey has a wide spectrum of scientific goals, from studies of galaxy evolution to star formation, with particular contributions to understanding stellar wind kinematics, the thermal phases of the interstellar medium, the interaction between gas in the disk and halo, and the dynamical and thermal states of gas at various positions along the Magellanic Stream.Comment: 45 pages, 8 figures, Pub. Astron. Soc. Australia (in press

Erdheim-Chester Disease:Two cases from an ophthalmic perspective

Purpose: We report two patients who presented initially to ophthalmology clinics with symptoms and signs of orbital inflammation that led to a diagnosis of Erdheim-Chester Disease (ECD). Observations: ECD is a rare form of non-Langerhans cell histiocytosis (LCH) which is characterised by multi-system organ involvement and poor prognosis with standard therapies. Both patients were positive for the BRAF V600E mutation on genetic testing and were treated with the BRAF inhibitors Vemurafenib and Dabrafenib respectively. These cases highlight the variable clinical presentation and course of ECD, the classical radiological and histopathological findings, and the high degree of clinical suspicion necessary to reach this diagnosis. Conclusions and importance: The combination of xanthelasma and bilateral, diffuse intraconal orbital masses must suggest to the clinician the possibility of ECD; and consideration to arrange further investigation with a full body CT or FDG PET/CT scan should be given, even in the absence of wider systemic symptoms or signs. With the advent of targeted therapies such as BRAF inhibitors, it is of even more importance that a diagnosis of ECD is established in a timely manner in order to give these patients the best chance of reduced morbidity and increased survival

Molecular excitation in the Interstellar Medium: recent advances in collisional, radiative and chemical processes

We review the different excitation processes in the interstellar mediumComment: Accepted in Chem. Re