Pencil-Beam Surveys for Faint Trans-Neptunian Objects

We have conducted pencil-beam searches for outer solar system objects to a limiting magnitude of R ~ 26. Five new trans-neptunian objects were detected in these searches. Our combined data set provides an estimate of ~90 trans-neptunian objects per square degree brighter than ~ 25.9. This estimate is a factor of 3 above the expected number of objects based on an extrapolation of previous surveys with brighter limits, and appears consistent with the hypothesis of a single power-law luminosity function for the entire trans-neptunian region. Maximum likelihood fits to all self-consistent published surveys with published efficiency functions predicts a cumulative sky density Sigma(<R) obeying log10(Sigma) = 0.76(R-23.4) objects per square degree brighter than a given magnitude R.Comment: Accepted by AJ, 18 pages, including 6 figure

Clinical efficacy, radiographic and safety findings through 2 years of golimumab treatment in patients with active psoriatic arthritis: results from a long-term extension of the randomised, placebo-controlled GO-REVEAL study

Objectives: To assess long-term golimumab efficacy/safety in patients with active psoriatic arthritis (PsA).&lt;p&gt;&lt;/p&gt; Methods Adult PsA patients (&#8805;3 swollen, &#8805;3 tender joints, active psoriasis) were randomly assigned to subcutaneous injections of placebo, golimumab 50 mg or 100 mg every 4 weeks (q4wks) through week 20. All patients received golimumab 50 or 100 mg beginning week 24. Findings through 2 years are reported. Efficacy evaluations included &#8805;20% improvement in American College of Rheumatology (ACR20) response, good/moderate response in Disease Activity Scores incorporating 28 joints and C-reactive protein (DAS28-CRP), &#8805;75% improvement in Psoriasis Area and Severity Index (PASI75) and changes in PsA-modified Sharp/van der Heijde scores (SHS).&lt;p&gt;&lt;/p&gt; Results: Golimumab treatment through 2 years was effective in maintaining clinical response (response rates: ACR20 63%–70%, DAS28-CRP 77%–86%, PASI75 56%–72%) and inhibiting radiographic progression (mean change in PsA-modified SHS in golimumab-treated patients: −0.36), with no clear difference between doses. No new safety signals were identified through 2 years. With the study's tuberculosis screening and prophylactic measures, no patient developed active tuberculosis through 2 years.&lt;p&gt;&lt;/p&gt; Conclusions: Golimumab 50 and 100 mg for up to 2 years yielded sustained clinical and radiographic efficacy when administered to patients with active PsA. Increasing the golimumab dose from 50 to 100 mg q4wks added limited benefit. Golimumab safety through up to 2 years was consistent with other antitumour necrosis factor α agents used to treat PsA. Treatment of patients with latent tuberculosis identified at baseline appeared to be effective in inhibiting the development of active tuberculosis.&lt;p&gt;&lt;/p&gt

Kuiper Belt Object Occultations: Expected Rates, False Positives, and Survey Design

A novel method of generating artificial scintillation noise is developed and used to evaluate occultation rates and false positive rates for surveys probing the Kuiper Belt with the method of serendipitous stellar occultations. A thorough examination of survey design shows that: (1) diffraction-dominated occultations are critically (Nyquist) sampled at a rate of 2 Fsu^{-1}, corresponding to 40 s^{-1} for objects at 40 AU, (2) occultation detection rates are maximized when targets are observed at solar opposition, (3) Main Belt Asteroids will produce occultations lightcurves identical to those of Kuiper Belt Objects if target stars are observed at solar elongations of: 116 deg < epsilon < 125 deg, or 131 deg < epsilon < 141 deg, and (4) genuine KBO occultations are likely to be so rare that a detection threshold of >7-8 sigma should be adopted to ensure that viable candidate events can be disentangled from false positives.Comment: Accepted AJ, 12 pages, 12 figure

Rings of real functions in pointfree topology

AbstractThis paper deals with the algebra F(L) of real functions on a frame L and its subclasses LSC(L) and USC(L) of, respectively, lower and upper semicontinuous real functions. It is well known that F(L) is a lattice-ordered ring; this paper presents explicit formulas for its algebraic operations which allow to conclude about their behaviour in LSC(L) and USC(L).As applications, idempotent functions are characterized and previous pointfree results about strict insertion of functions are significantly improved: general pointfree formulations that correspond exactly to the classical strict insertion results of Dowker and Michael regarding, respectively, normal countably paracompact spaces and perfectly normal spaces are derived.The paper ends with a brief discussion concerning the frames in which every arbitrary real function on the α-dissolution of the frame is continuous

Cognitive function, disease burden and the structural connectome in systemic lupus erythematosus

Objective: To investigate brain structural connectivity in relation to cognitive abilities andsystemic damage in systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE). Methods: Structural and diffusionMRI data were acquired from 47 patients with SLE. Brains were segmented into 85 corticaland subcortical regions and combined with whole brain tractography to generate structuralconnectomes using graph theory. Global cognitive abilities were assessed using a compositevariable g, derived from the first principal component of three common clinical screening testsof neurological function. SLE damage (LD) was measured using a composite of a validatedSLE damage score and disease duration. Relationships between network connectivity metrics,cognitive ability and systemic damage were investigated. Hub nodes were identified. Multiplelinear regression, adjusting for covariates, was employed to model the outcomes g and LD as afunction of network metrics. Results: The network measures of density (standardisedß ¼ 0.266, p ¼ 0.025) and strength (standardised ß ¼ 0.317, p ¼ 0.022) were independentlyrelated to cognitive abilities. Strength (standardised ß ¼ –0.330, p ¼ 0.048), mean shortestpath length (standardised ß ¼ 0.401, p ¼ 0.020), global efficiency (standardised ß ¼ –0.355,p ¼ 0.041) and clustering coefficient (standardised ß ¼ –0.378, p ¼ 0.030) were independentlyrelated to systemic damage. Network metrics were not related to current diseaseactivity. Conclusion: Better cognitive abilities and more SLE damage are related to braintopological network properties in this sample of SLE patients, even those without neuropsychiatricinvolvement and after correcting for important covariates. These data show thatconnectomics might be useful for understanding and monitoring cognitive function and whitematter damage in SLE

Col-OSSOS: The Colours of the Outer Solar System Origins Survey

The Colours of the Outer Solar System Origins Survey (Col-OSSOS) is acquiring near-simultaneous $g$, $r$, and $J$ photometry of unprecedented precision with the Gemini North Telescope, targeting nearly a hundred trans-Neptunian objects (TNOs) brighter than $m_r=23.6$ mag discovered in the Outer Solar System Origins Survey. Combining the optical and near-infrared photometry with the well-characterized detection efficiency of the Col-OSSOS target sample will provide the first flux-limited compositional dynamical map of the outer Solar System. In this paper, we describe our observing strategy and detail the data reduction processes we employ, including techniques to mitigate the impact of rotational variability. We present optical and near-infrared colors for 35 TNOs. We find two taxonomic groups for the dynamically excited TNOs, the neutral and red classes, which divide at $g-r \simeq 0.75$. Based on simple albedo and orbital distribution assumptions, we find that the neutral class outnumbers the red class, with a ratio of 4:1 and potentially as high as 11:1. Including in our analysis constraints from the cold classical objects, which are known to exhibit unique albedos and $r-z$ colors, we find that within our measurement uncertainty, our observations are consistent with the primordial Solar System protoplanetesimal disk being neutral-class-dominated, with two major compositional divisions in $grJ$ color space.Comment: Accepted to ApJS; on-line supplemental files will be available with the AJS published version of the pape

Treatment recommendations for psoriatic arthritis

Objective: To develop comprehensive recommendations for the treatment of the various clinical manifestations of psoriatic arthritis (PsA) based on evidence obtained from a systematic review of the literature and from consensus opinion. Methods: Formal literature reviews of treatment for the most significant discrete clinical manifestations of PsA (skin and nails, peripheral arthritis, axial disease, dactylitis and enthesitis) were performed and published by members of the Group for Research and Assessment of Psoriasis and Psoriatic Arthritis (GRAPPA). Treatment recommendations were drafted for each of the clinical manifestations by rheumatologists, dermatologists and PsA patients based on the literature reviews and consensus opinion. The level of agreement for the individual treatment recommendations among GRAPPA members was assessed with an online questionnaire. Results: Treatment recommendations were developed for peripheral arthritis, axial disease, psoriasis, nail disease, dactylitis and enthesitis in the setting of PsA. In rotal, 19 recommendations were drafted, and over 80% agreement was obtained on 16 of them. In addition, a grid that factors disease severity into each of the different disease manifestations was developed to help the clinician with treatment decisions for the individual patient from an evidenced-based perspective. Conclusions: Treatment recommendations for the cardinal physical manifestations of PsA were developed based on a literature review and consensus between rheumatologists and dermatologists. In addition, a grid was established to assist in therapeutic reasoning and decision making for individual patients. It is anticipated that periodic updates will take place using this framework as new data become available

A New WIMP Population in the Solar System and New Signals for Dark-Matter Detectors

We describe in detail how perturbations due to the planets can cause a sub-population of WIMPs captured by scattering in surface layers of the Sun to evolve to have orbits which no longer intersect the Sun. We argue that such WIMPs, if their orbit has a semi-major axis less than 1/2 of Jupiter's, can persist in the solar system for cosmological timescales. This leads to a new, previously unanticipated WIMP population intersecting the Earth's orbit. The WIMP-nucleon cross sections required for this population to be significant are precisely those in the range predicted for SUSY dark matter, lying near the present limits obtained by direct underground dark matter searches using cyrogenic detectors. Thus, if a WIMP signal is observed in the next generation of detectors, a potentially measurable signal due to this new population must exist. This signal, lying in the keV range for Germanium detectors, would be complementary to that of galactic halo WIMPs. A comparison of event rates, anisotropies, and annual modulations would not only yield additional confirmation that any claimed signal is indeed WIMP-based, but would also allow one to gain information on the nature of the underlying dark matter model.Comment: Revtex, 37 pages including 6 figures, accepted by Phys. Rev D. (version to be published, including changes made in response to referees reports

A Motivating Exploration on Lunar Craters and Low-Energy Dynamics in the Earth -- Moon System

It is known that most of the craters on the surface of the Moon were created by the collision of minor bodies of the Solar System. Main Belt Asteroids, which can approach the terrestrial planets as a consequence of different types of resonance, are actually the main responsible for this phenomenon. Our aim is to investigate the impact distributions on the lunar surface that low-energy dynamics can provide. As a first approximation, we exploit the hyberbolic invariant manifolds associated with the central invariant manifold around the equilibrium point L_2 of the Earth - Moon system within the framework of the Circular Restricted Three - Body Problem. Taking transit trajectories at several energy levels, we look for orbits intersecting the surface of the Moon and we attempt to define a relationship between longitude and latitude of arrival and lunar craters density. Then, we add the gravitational effect of the Sun by considering the Bicircular Restricted Four - Body Problem. As further exploration, we assume an uniform density of impact on the lunar surface, looking for the regions in the Earth - Moon neighbourhood these colliding trajectories have to come from. It turns out that low-energy ejecta originated from high-energy impacts are also responsible of the phenomenon we are considering.Comment: The paper is being published in Celestial Mechanics and Dynamical Astronomy, vol. 107 (2010

REFINE (Reducing Falls in In-patient Elderly): a randomised controlled trial

Background: Falls in hospitals are common, resulting in injury and anxiety to patients, and large costs to NHS organisations. More than half of all in-patient falls in elderly people in acute care settings occur at the bedside, during transfers or whilst getting up to go to the toilet. In the majority of cases these falls are unwitnessed. There is insufficient evidence underpinning the effectiveness of interventions to guide clinical staff regarding the reduction of falls in the elderly inpatient. New patient monitoring technologies have the potential to offer advances in falls prevention. Bedside sensor equipment can alert staff, not in the immediate vicinity, to a potential problem and avert a fall. However no studies utilizing this assistive technology have demonstrated a significant reduction in falls rates in a randomised controlled trial setting. Methods/Design: The research design is an individual patient randomised controlled trial of bedside chair and bed pressure sensors, incorporating a radio-paging alerting mode to alert staff to patients rising from their bed or chair, across five acute elderly care wards in Nottingham University Hospitals NHS Trust. Participants will be randomised to bedside chair and bed sensors or to usual care (without the use of sensors). The primary outcome is the number of bedside inpatient falls. Discussion: The REFINE study is the first randomised controlled trial of bedside pressure sensors in elderly inpatients in an acute NHS Trust. We will assess whether falls can be successfully and cost effectively reduced using this technology, and report on its acceptability to both patients and staff. Trial Registration: ISRCTN trial number: ISRCTN44972300