Anti-tumour necrosis factor discontinuation in inflammatory bowel disease patients in remission: study protocol of a prospective, multicentre, randomized clinical trial

Background: Patients with inflammatory bowel disease who achieve remission with anti-tumour necrosis factor (anti-TNF) drugs may have treatment withdrawn due to safety concerns and cost considerations, but there is a lack of prospective, controlled data investigating this strategy. The primary study aim is to compare the rates of clinical remission at 1?year in patients who discontinue anti-TNF treatment versus those who continue treatment. Methods: This is an ongoing, prospective, double-blind, multicentre, randomized, placebo-controlled study in patients with Crohn?s disease or ulcerative colitis who have achieved clinical remission for ?6?months with an anti-TNF treatment and an immunosuppressant. Patients are being randomized 1:1 to discontinue anti-TNF therapy or continue therapy. Randomization stratifies patients by the type of inflammatory bowel disease and drug (infliximab versus adalimumab) at study inclusion. The primary endpoint of the study is sustained clinical remission at 1?year. Other endpoints include endoscopic and radiological activity, patient-reported outcomes (quality of life, work productivity), safety and predictive factors for relapse. The required sample size is 194 patients. In addition to the main analysis (discontinuation versus continuation), subanalyses will include stratification by type of inflammatory bowel disease, phenotype and previous treatment. Biological samples will be obtained to identify factors predictive of relapse after treatment withdrawal. Results: Enrolment began in 2016, and the study is expected to end in 2020. Conclusions: This study will contribute prospective, controlled data on outcomes and predictors of relapse in patients with inflammatory bowel disease after withdrawal of anti-TNF agents following achievement of clinical remission. Clinical trial reference number: EudraCT 2015-001410-1

Brain response to putative pheromones in lesbian women

The progesterone derivative 4,16-androstadien-3-one (AND) and the estrogen-like steroid estra-1,3,5(10),16-tetraen-3-ol (EST) are candidate compounds for human pheromones. In previous positron emission tomography studies, we found that smelling AND and EST activated regions primarily incorporating the sexually dimorphic nuclei of the anterior hypothalamus, that this activation was differentiated with respect to sex and compound, and that homosexual men processed AND congruently with heterosexual women rather than heterosexual men. These observations indicate involvement of the anterior hypothalamus in physiological processes related to sexual orientation in humans. We expand the information on this issue in the present study by performing identical positron emission tomography experiments on 12 lesbian women. In contrast to heterosexual women, lesbian women processed AND stimuli by the olfactory networks and not the anterior hypothalamus. Furthermore, when smelling EST, they partly shared activation of the anterior hypothalamus with heterosexual men. These data support our previous results about differentiated processing of pheromone-like stimuli in humans and further strengthen the notion of a coupling between hypothalamic neuronal circuits and sexual preferences

Measurement of charged particle spectra in minimum-bias events from proton-proton collisions at root s =13 TeV

Pseudorapidity, transverse momentum, and multiplicity distributions are measured in the pseudorapidity range vertical bar eta vertical bar 0.5 GeV in proton-proton collisions at a center-of-mass energy of root s = 13 TeV. Measurements are presented in three different event categories. The most inclusive of the categories corresponds to an inelastic pp data set, while the other two categories are exclusive subsets of the inelastic sample that are either enhanced or depleted in single diffractive dissociation events. The measurements are compared to predictions from Monte Carlo event generators used to describe high-energy hadronic interactions in collider and cosmic-ray physics.Peer reviewe

Measurement of the CP-violating phase phi_s in the Bs0→^0_\mathrm{s}\to J/ψ ϕ/\psi\, \phi(1020) →μ+μ−\to \mu^+\mu^-K+^+K−^- channel in proton-proton collisions at s=\sqrt{s} = 13 TeV

The CP-violating weak phase ?s and the decay width difference ??s between the light and heavy B0s mass eigenstates are measured with the CMS detector at the LHC in a sample of 48 500 reconstructed B0s? J/I) d (1020) ?11+11? K+K? events. The measurement is based on a data sample corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 96.4 fb?1, collected in proton-proton collisions at ?s = 13 TeV in 2017?2018. To extract the values of ?s and ??s, a time-dependent and flavor-tagged angular analysis of the 11+11?K+K? final state is performed. The analysis employs a dedicated tagging trigger and a novel opposite-side muon flavor tagger based on machine learning techniques. The measurement yields ?s = ?11 ?50 (stat) ? 10 (syst) mrad and ??s = 0.114 ? 0.014 (stat)? 0.007 (syst) ps?1, in agreement with the standard model predictions. When combined with the previous CMS measurement at ?s = 8 TeV, the following values are obtained: ?s = ?21 ? 44 (stat) ? 10 (syst) mrad, ??s = 0.1032 ? 0.0095 (stat) ? 0.0048 (syst) ps?1, a significant improvement over the 8 TeV result. ? 2021 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier B.V. This is an open access article under the CC BY licens

Measurement of the C P-violating phase φs in the B0 s → J/ψφ(1020) → μ+μ− K+K− channel in proton-proton collisions at √s = 13 TeV

The C P-violating weak phase φs and the decay width difference s between the light and heavy B0 s mass eigenstates are measured with the CMS detector at the LHC in a sample of 48 500 reconstructed B0 s → J/ψ φ(1020) → μ+μ− K+K− events. The measurement is based on a data sample corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 96.4 fb−1, collected in proton-proton collisions at √s = 13 TeV in 2017–2018. To extract the values of φs and s, a time-dependent and flavor-tagged angular analysis of the μ+μ−K+K− final state is performed. The analysis employs a dedicated tagging trigger and a novel opposite-side muon flavor tagger based on machine learning techniques. The measurement yields φs = −11±50 (stat)±10 (syst) mrad and s = 0.114±0.014 (stat)±0.007 (syst) ps−1, in agreement with the standard model predictions. When combined with the previous CMS measurement at √s = 8 TeV, the following values are obtained: φs = −21 ± 44 (stat) ± 10 (syst) mrad, s = 0.1032 ± 0.0095 (stat) ± 0.0048 (syst) ps−1, a significant improvement over the 8 TeV result

Fragmentation of jets containing a prompt J/psi meson in PbPb and pp collisions at root s(NN)=5.02 TeV

Jets containing a prompt J/ψ meson are studied in lead-lead collisions at a nucleon-nucleon center-ofmass energy of 5.02 TeV, using the CMS detector at the LHC. Jets are selected to be in the transverse momentum range of 30 < pT < 40 GeV. The J/ψ yield in these jets is evaluated as a function of the jet fragmentation variable z, the ratio of the J/ψ pT to the jet pT. The nuclear modification factor, RAA, is then derived by comparing the yield in lead-lead collisions to the corresponding expectation based on proton-proton data, at the same nucleon-nucleon center-of-mass energy. The suppression of the J/ψ yield shows a dependence on z, indicating that the interaction of the J/ψ with the quark-gluon plasma formed in heavy ion collisions depends on the fragmentation that gives rise to the J/ψ meson

Observation of B<inf>s</inf>⁰ mesons and measurement of the B<inf>s</inf>⁰/B⁺ yield ratio in PbPb collisions at [Formula presented] TeV

The Bs0 and B+ production yields are measured in PbPb collisions at a center-of-mass energy per nucleon pair of 5.02 TeV. The data sample, collected with the CMS detector at the LHC, corresponds to an integrated luminosity of 1.7 nb−1. The mesons are reconstructed in the exclusive decay channels B→s0J/ψ(μ+μ−)ϕ(K+K−) and B→+J/ψ(μ+μ−)K+, in the transverse momentum range 7–50 GeV/c and absolute rapidity 0–2.4. The Bs0 meson is observed with a statistical significance in excess of five standard deviations for the first time in nucleus-nucleus collisions. The measurements are performed as functions of the transverse momentum of the B mesons and of the PbPb collision centrality. The ratio of production yields of Bs0 and B+ is measured and compared to theoretical models that include quark recombination effects