Evaluating Hepatitis B Seroprotection and Revaccination for Children with Inflammatory Bowel Disease

To the Editor: We read with interest the article entitled "Serologic Status of Routine Childhood Vaccines, Cytomegalovirus, and Epstein-Barr Virus in Children With Inflammatory Bowel Disease" by deBruyn et al., particularly the section on hepatitis B (HBV) seroprotection. We conducted a similar study in our US tertiary care center, analyzing HBV seroprotection in 159 children with inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) age 0-22 who received the three-dose HBV primary series and had been exposed to a biologic agent

Improving Quality in the Care of Patients with Inflammatory Bowel Diseases

Efforts to improve healthcare quality were firmly established before the Institute of Medicine (IOM) historic 2000 and 2001 reports, To Err is Human Building a Safer Health System and Crossing the Quality Chasm: A New Health System for the 21st Century Despite the long-standing healthcare quality improvement (QI) efforts that date back to the turn of the 20 th century, the IOM reports significantly advanced the awareness of healthcare quality deficits and the resulting risk to patients from those gaps in care. Studies immediately following the IOM reports emphasized and verified the presence of detrimental care gaps and highlighted a myriad of contributing factors. Studies focused specifically on the inflammatory bowel diseases (IBD), Crohn's disease and ulcerative colitis, demonstrated suboptimal patient outcomes stemming from, in part, system and provider variation. In the years that have followed, research studies have shown the persistence of suboptimal outcomes in IBD despite an awareness of key drivers for poor care quality and concerted efforts in advancing QI initiatives. In 2017, IBD advocacy groups and provider networks have demonstrated progress in furthering both pediatric and adult IBD outcomes through the use of QI methods and tools including collaborative learning networks. A significant amount of work lies ahead, however, to build upon these advances and improve IBD outcomes further. This article reviews the history of quality initiatives in healthcare, identifies ongoing gaps in IBD care with a review of current IBD improvement efforts taking place, and identifies several targets for improving IBD care quality moving forward into the 21st century

Collecting biospecimens from an internet-based prospective cohort study of inflammatory bowel disease (CCFA Partners): A feasibility study

Background: The Internet has successfully been used for patient-oriented survey research. Internet-based translational research may also be possible. Objective: Our aim was to study the feasibility of collecting biospecimens from CCFA Partners, an Internet-based inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) cohort. Methods: From August 20, 2013, to January 4, 2014, we randomly sampled 412 participants, plus 179 from a prior validation study, and invited them to contribute a biospecimen. Participants were randomized to type (blood, saliva), incentive (none, US $20, or US$50), and collection method for blood. The first 82 contributors were also invited to contribute stool. We used descriptive statistics and t tests for comparisons. Results: Of the 591 participants, 239 (40.4%) indicated interest and 171 (28.9%) contributed a biospecimen. Validation study participants were more likely to contribute than randomly selected participants (44% versus 23%, P<.001). The return rate for saliva was higher than blood collected by mobile phlebotomist and at doctors offices (38%, 31%, and 17% respectively, P<.001). For saliva, incentives were associated with higher return rates (43-44% versus 26%, P=.04); 61% contributed stool. Fourteen IBD-Associated single nucleotide polymorphisms were genotyped, and risk allele frequencies were comparable to other large IBD populations. Bacterial DNA was successfully extracted from stool samples and was of sufficient quality to permit quantitative polymerase chain reaction for total bacteria. Conclusions: Participants are willing to contribute and it is feasible to collect biospecimens from an Internet-based IBD cohort. Home saliva kits yielded the highest return rate, though mobile phlebotomy was also effective. All samples were sufficient for genetic testing. These data support the feasibility of developing a centralized collection of biospecimens from this cohort to facilitate IBD translational studies

Leptodora kindtii survival in the laboratory

Leptodora kindtii , a pelagic predatory cladoceran, suffers high mortality on transfer to laboratory, which makes the experimental work difficult. We investigated the causes of high mortality, using four variables: water volume, animal density, light intensity, and origin of water for culturing, i.e., water from native or a non-native lake. For the experiments we used Leptodora and water from Lake Loosdrecht and Lake Maarsseveen (The Netherlands). Water was found to be the most important factor; the animals did not necessarily do better in lake water from which they were collected. Water volume and animal density were of limited importance, and light intensity did not affect survival.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/41752/1/10452_2004_Article_DO00000328.pd

Search for gravitational waves from Scorpius X-1 in the second Advanced LIGO observing run with an improved hidden Markov model

We present results from a semicoherent search for continuous gravitational waves from the low-mass x-ray binary Scorpius X-1, using a hidden Markov model (HMM) to track spin wandering. This search improves on previous HMM-based searches of LIGO data by using an improved frequency domain matched filter, the J-statistic, and by analyzing data from Advanced LIGO's second observing run. In the frequency range searched, from 60 to 650 Hz, we find no evidence of gravitational radiation. At 194.6 Hz, the most sensitive search frequency, we report an upper limit on gravitational wave strain (at 95% confidence) of h095%=3.47×10-25 when marginalizing over source inclination angle. This is the most sensitive search for Scorpius X-1, to date, that is specifically designed to be robust in the presence of spin wandering. © 2019 American Physical Society

Search for Gravitational Waves Associated with Gamma-Ray Bursts Detected by Fermi and Swift during the LIGO-Virgo Run O3b

We search for gravitational-wave signals associated with gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) detected by the Fermi and Swift satellites during the second half of the third observing run of Advanced LIGO and Advanced Virgo (2019 November 1 15:00 UTC-2020 March 27 17:00 UTC). We conduct two independent searches: A generic gravitational-wave transients search to analyze 86 GRBs and an analysis to target binary mergers with at least one neutron star as short GRB progenitors for 17 events. We find no significant evidence for gravitational-wave signals associated with any of these GRBs. A weighted binomial test of the combined results finds no evidence for subthreshold gravitational-wave signals associated with this GRB ensemble either. We use several source types and signal morphologies during the searches, resulting in lower bounds on the estimated distance to each GRB. Finally, we constrain the population of low-luminosity short GRBs using results from the first to the third observing runs of Advanced LIGO and Advanced Virgo. The resulting population is in accordance with the local binary neutron star merger rate. © 2022. The Author(s). Published by the American Astronomical Society

Narrowband Searches for Continuous and Long-duration Transient Gravitational Waves from Known Pulsars in the LIGO-Virgo Third Observing Run

Isolated neutron stars that are asymmetric with respect to their spin axis are possible sources of detectable continuous gravitational waves. This paper presents a fully coherent search for such signals from eighteen pulsars in data from LIGO and Virgo's third observing run (O3). For known pulsars, efficient and sensitive matched-filter searches can be carried out if one assumes the gravitational radiation is phase-locked to the electromagnetic emission. In the search presented here, we relax this assumption and allow both the frequency and the time derivative of the frequency of the gravitational waves to vary in a small range around those inferred from electromagnetic observations. We find no evidence for continuous gravitational waves, and set upper limits on the strain amplitude for each target. These limits are more constraining for seven of the targets than the spin-down limit defined by ascribing all rotational energy loss to gravitational radiation. In an additional search, we look in O3 data for long-duration (hours-months) transient gravitational waves in the aftermath of pulsar glitches for six targets with a total of nine glitches. We report two marginal outliers from this search, but find no clear evidence for such emission either. The resulting duration-dependent strain upper limits do not surpass indirect energy constraints for any of these targets. © 2022. The Author(s). Published by the American Astronomical Society

Erratum: "A Gravitational-wave Measurement of the Hubble Constant Following the Second Observing Run of Advanced LIGO and Virgo" (2021, ApJ, 909, 218)

[no abstract available

Open data from the third observing run of LIGO, Virgo, KAGRA, and GEO

The global network of gravitational-wave observatories now includes five detectors, namely LIGO Hanford, LIGO Livingston, Virgo, KAGRA, and GEO 600. These detectors collected data during their third observing run, O3, composed of three phases: O3a starting in 2019 April and lasting six months, O3b starting in 2019 November and lasting five months, and O3GK starting in 2020 April and lasting two weeks. In this paper we describe these data and various other science products that can be freely accessed through the Gravitational Wave Open Science Center at https://gwosc.org. The main data set, consisting of the gravitational-wave strain time series that contains the astrophysical signals, is released together with supporting data useful for their analysis and documentation, tutorials, as well as analysis software packages