Evaluation of the reliability and validity of the Medical Outcomes Study sleep scale in patients with painful diabetic peripheral neuropathy during an international clinical trial

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Sleep is an important element of functioning and well-being. The Medical Outcomes Study Sleep Scale (MOS-Sleep) includes 12 items assessing sleep disturbance, sleep adequacy, somnolence, quantity of sleep, snoring, and awakening short of breath or with a headache. A sleep problems index, grouping items from each of the former domains, is also available. This study evaluates the psychometric properties of MOS-Sleep Scale in a painful diabetic peripheral neuropathic population based on a clinical trial conducted in six countries.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>Clinical data and health-related quality of life data were collected at baseline and after 12 weeks of follow-up. Overall, 396 patients were included in the analysis. Psychometric properties of the MOS-Sleep were assessed in the overall population and per country when the sample size was sufficient. Internal consistency reliability was assessed by Cronbach's alpha; the structure of the instrument was assessed by verifying item convergent and discriminant criteria; construct validity was evaluated by examining the relationships between MOS-Sleep scores and sleep interference and pain scores, and SF-36 scores; effect-sizes were used to assess the MOS-Sleep responsiveness. The study was conducted in compliance with United States Food and Drug Administration regulations for informed consent and protection of patient rights.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Cronbach's alpha ranged from 0.71 to 0.81 for the multi-item dimensions and the sleep problems index. Item convergent and discriminant criteria were satisfied with item-scale correlations for hypothesized dimensions higher than 0.40 and tending to exceed the correlations of items with other dimensions, respectively. Taken individually, German, Polish and English language versions had good internal consistency reliability and dimension structure. Construct validity was supported with lower sleep adequacy score and greater sleep problems index scores associated with measures of sleep interference and pain scores. In addition, correlations between the SF-36 scores and the MOS-Sleep scores were low to moderate, ranging from -0.28 to -0.53. Responsiveness was supported by effect sizes > 0.80 for patients who improved according to the mean sleep interference and pain scores and clinician and patient global impression of change (p < 0.0001).</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>The MOS-Sleep had good psychometric properties in this painful diabetic peripheral neuropathic population.</p> <p>Trial registration</p> <p>As this study was conducted from 2000 to 2002 (i.e., before the filing requirement came out), no trial registration number is available.</p

Toeplitz Quantization of K\"ahler Manifolds and gl(N)gl(N) N→∞N\to\infty

For general compact K\"ahler manifolds it is shown that both Toeplitz quantization and geometric quantization lead to a well-defined (by operator norm estimates) classical limit. This generalizes earlier results of the authors and Klimek and Lesniewski obtained for the torus and higher genus Riemann surfaces, respectively. We thereby arrive at an approximation of the Poisson algebra by a sequence of finite-dimensional matrix algebras $gl(N)$, $N\to\infty$.Comment: 17 pages, AmsTeX 2.1, Sept. 93 (rev: only typos are corrected

Photoexcitation of a Dipole-Forbidden Resonance in Helium

We have observed photoexcitation of the dipole-forbidden 1s21S0→2p21D2 resonance in helium by measuring the nondipolar forward-backward asymmetry of photoelectron angular distributions in the 2ℓ2ℓ′ autoionizing region. By exploiting the electric dipole-quadrupole interference in the excitation of both the 2s2p1P1 and 2p21D2 levels, we have observed the quadrupole resonance in photoabsorption and extracted its Fano line shape parameters and the relative phase of the 1sEp and 1sEd continua. We find the quadrupole line profile index q2 to be markedly different from theoretical expectations

E1-E2 Interference in the VUV Photoionization of He

We have measured the forward-backward asymmetry of photoelectron angular distributions produced in the vacuum ultraviolet photoionization of helium. This asymmetry, a consequence of the breakdown of the dipole approximation, measures the real part of the ratio of the quadrupole and dipole matrix elements. In the autoionization region, the strong energy dependence of the asymmetry permits an experimental separation of the ratio of those magnitudes from their phase difference. We experimentally determined the Fano parameters of the 2p21D2 quadrupole resonance, and report improved values of the width Γ and line profile parameter q from those previously available from electron scattering. Off resonance, the smooth energy dependence of the asymmetry is found to agree well with the theoretical treatment presented here which incorporates higher multipole effects

New Waves of IoT Technologies Research – Transcending Intelligence and Senses at the Edge to Create Multi Experience Environments

The next wave of Internet of Things (IoT) and Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) brings new technological developments that incorporate radical advances in Artificial Intelligence (AI), edge computing processing, new sensing capabilities, more security protection and autonomous functions accelerating progress towards the ability for IoT systems to self-develop, self-maintain and self-optimise. The emergence of hyper autonomous IoT applications with enhanced sensing, distributed intelligence, edge processing and connectivity, combined with human augmentation, has the potential to power the transformation and optimisation of industrial sectors and to change the innovation landscape. This chapter is reviewing the most recent advances in the next wave of the IoT by looking not only at the technology enabling the IoT but also at the platforms and smart data aspects that will bring intelligence, sustainability, dependability, autonomy, and will support human-centric solutions.acceptedVersio

Severe depression is associated with increased microglial quinolinic acid in subregions of the anterior cingulate gyrus: evidence for an immune-modulated glutamatergic neurotransmission?

RIGHTS : This article is licensed under the BioMed Central licence at http://www.biomedcentral.com/about/license which is similar to the 'Creative Commons Attribution Licence'. In brief you may : copy, distribute, and display the work; make derivative works; or make commercial use of the work - under the following conditions: the original author must be given credit; for any reuse or distribution, it must be made clear to others what the license terms of this work are.BACKGROUND: Immune dysfunction, including monocytosis and increased blood levels of interleukin-1, interleukin-6 and tumour necrosis factor α has been observed during acute episodes of major depression. These peripheral immune processes may be accompanied by microglial activation in subregions of the anterior cingulate cortex where depression-associated alterations of glutamatergic neurotransmission have been described. METHODS: Microglial immunoreactivity of the N-methyl-D-aspartate (NMDA) glutamate receptor agonist quinolinic acid (QUIN) in the subgenual anterior cingulate cortex (sACC), anterior midcingulate cortex (aMCC) and pregenual anterior cingulate cortex (pACC) of 12 acutely depressed suicidal patients (major depressive disorder/MDD, n = 7; bipolar disorder/BD, n = 5) was analyzed using immunohistochemistry and compared with its expression in 10 healthy control subjects. RESULTS: Depressed patients had a significantly increased density of QUIN-positive cells in the sACC (P = 0.003) and the aMCC (P = 0.015) compared to controls. In contrast, counts of QUIN-positive cells in the pACC did not differ between the groups (P = 0.558). Post-hoc tests showed that significant findings were attributed to MDD and were absent in BD. CONCLUSIONS: These results add a novel link to the immune hypothesis of depression by providing evidence for an upregulation of microglial QUIN in brain regions known to be responsive to infusion of NMDA antagonists such as ketamine. Further work in this area could lead to a greater understanding of the pathophysiology of depressive disorders and pave the way for novel NMDA receptor therapies or immune-modulating strategies.Peer Reviewe

Severe depression is associated with increased microglial quinolinic acid in subregions of the anterior cingulate gyrus: evidence for an immune-modulated glutamatergic neurotransmission? (vol 8 pg 94, 2011)

RIGHTS : This article is licensed under the BioMed Central licence at http://www.biomedcentral.com/about/license which is similar to the 'Creative Commons Attribution Licence'. In brief you may : copy, distribute, and display the work; make derivative works; or make commercial use of the work - under the following conditions: the original author must be given credit; for any reuse or distribution, it must be made clear to others what the license terms of this work are.AbstractN/

Schwinger Terms and Cohomology of Pseudodifferential Operators

We study the cohomology of the Schwinger term arising in second quantization of the class of observables belonging to the restricted general linear algebra. We prove that, for all pseudodifferential operators in 3+1 dimensions of this type, the Schwinger term is equivalent to the ``twisted'' Radul cocycle, a modified version of the Radul cocycle arising in non-commutative differential geometry. In the process we also show how the ordinary Radul cocycle for any pair of pseudodifferential operators in any dimension can be written as the phase space integral of the star commutator of their symbols projected to the appropriate asymptotic component.Comment: 19 pages, plain te

Emission Line Abundances of Absorption Selected Galaxies at z<0.5

We have obtained optical spectra of four galaxies associated with MgII QSO absorbers at redshifts 0.10 < z < 0.45. We calculate the gas-phase oxygen abundance of these galaxies using the empirical R23 strong line method. The absolute B-band magnitudes of the galaxies span -20.6 < M_B < -18.3. If the metallicities lie on the R23 upper branch (8.4 < log (O/H) + 12 < 8.9), then the metallicities of these absorption selected galaxies span the range between 0.5--1.4 solar and would be consistent with the well-known luminosity-metallicity relation for 0.10 < z < 0.45 emission-line galaxies. However, such metallicities would be 0.5--1.0 dex higher than those observed in damped Lyman alpha systems (DLAs) via absorption line measurements at similar redshifts. Conversely, the lower R23 branch calibration yields metallicities approximately 1/7 solar, consistent with the DLA absorption metallicities at low redshifts. In this case, the absorption selected galaxies would lie significantly lower than the luminosity-metallicity relation for emission-line galaxies at z<0.5. We discuss the implications and possible solutions for each scenario.Comment: Accepted for publications in MNRA