953 research outputs found
Congenital Anomalies in Children of Mothers Taking Antiepileptic Drugs with and without Periconceptional High Dose Folic Acid Use: A Population-Based Cohort Study.
BACKGROUND: Antenatal antiepileptic drug (AED) use has been found to be associated with increased major congenital anomaly (CA) risks. However whether such AED-associated risks were different according to periconceptional high dose (5mg daily) folic acid supplementation is still unclear. METHODS: We included 258,591 singleton live-born children of mothers aged 15-44 years in 1990-2013 from The Health Improvement Network, a large UK primary care database. We identified all major CAs according to the European Surveillance of Congenital Anomalies classification. Absolute risks and adjusted odds ratios (aOR) were calculated comparing children of mothers prescribed AEDs to those without such prescriptions, stratified by folic acid prescriptions around the time of conception (one month before conception to two months post-conception). RESULTS: CA risk was 476/10,000 in children of mothers with first trimester AEDs compared with 269/10,000 in those without AEDs equating to an aOR of 1.82, 95% confidence interval 1.30-2.56. The highest system-specific risks were for heart anomalies (198/10,000 and 79/10,000 respectively, aOR 2.49,1.47-4.21). Sodium valproate and lamotrigine were both associated with increased risks of any CA (aOR 2.63,1.46-4.74 and aOR 2.01,1.12-3.59 respectively) and system-specific risks. Stratification by folic acid supplementation did not show marked reductions in AED-associated risks (e.g. for CAs overall aOR 1.75, 1.01-3.03 in the high dose folic acid group and 1.94, 95%CI 1.21-3.13 in the low dose or no folic acid group); however, the majority of mothers taking AEDs only initiated high dose folic acid from the second month of pregnancy. CONCLUSIONS: Children of mothers with AEDs in the first trimester of pregnancy have a 2-fold increased risk of major CA compared to those unexposed. We found no evidence that prescribed high dose folic acid supplementation reduced such AED-associated risks. Although statistical power was limited, prescribing of folic acid too late for it to be effective during the organogenic period or selective prescribing to those with more severe morbidity may explain these findings
Shoulder pain due to cervical radiculopathy: an underestimated long-term complication of herpes zoster virus reactivation?
Purpose
To evaluate if herpes zoster virus (HZV) reactivation may be considered in the aetiology of cervical radiculopathy.
Methods
The study group was composed of 110 patients (52 M-58F;mean age Âą SD:46.5 Âą 6.12; range:40-73) with a clinical diagnosis of cervical radiculopathy. Patients with signs of chronic damage on neurophysiological studies were submitted to an X-ray and to an MRI of the cervical spine in order to clarify the cause of the cervical radiculopathy and were investigated for a possible reactivation of HZV; HZV reactivation was considered as ârecentâ or âantiqueâ if it occurs within or after 24 months from the onset of symptoms, respectively. Data were submitted to statistics.
Results
Thirty-eight patients (34,5%,16 M-22F) had a history of HZV reactivation: four (2 M-2F) were ârecentâ and 34 (14 M-20F) were âantiqueâ. In 68 of 110 participants (61,8%,30 M-38F), pathological signs on X-ray and/or MRI of the cervical spine appeared; in the remaining 42 (38,2%,22 M-20F) X-ray and MRI resulted as negative. Among patients with HZV reactivation, seven (18,4%) had a âpositiveâ X-ray-MRI while in 31 (81,6%) the instrumental exams were considered as negative. The prevalence of âantiqueâ HZV reactivations was statistically greater in the group of patients with no pathological signs on X-ray/MRI of the cervical spine with respect to the group with a pathological instrumental exam (p < 0.01).
Conclusions
It may be useful to investigate the presence of a positive history of HZV reactivation and to consider it as a long-term complication of a cervical root inflammation especially in patients in which X-ray and MRI of the cervical spine did not show pathological findings
Adverse Pregnancy Outcomes Among Women with Inflammatory Bowel Disease: A Population-Based Study from England
BACKGROUND: There is limited contemporary population-based evidence on adverse birth outcomes and pregnancy-related complications for women with inflammatory bowel disease (IBD). This study provides such estimates of these risks and assesses variation by IBD type and surgical interventions. METHODS: We calculated the proportion of pregnancies in women with and without IBD between 1997 and 2012 throughout England using linked primary (Clinical Practice Research Datalink) and secondary care (Hospital Episode Statistics) data. Risk of pregnancy-related complications and adverse birth outcomes in women with Crohn's disease and ulcerative colitis were compared with risks in women without IBD using odds ratios (ORs). RESULTS: Of 364,363 singleton pregnancies resulting in live or stillbirths, 1969 (0.5%) were in women with IBD. Women with Crohn's disease were more likely to have preterm births (OR = 1.42; 95% confidence interval, 1.12-1.79), babies with low birth weights (OR = 1.39; 95% confidence interval, 1.05-1.83), and postpartum hemorrhage (OR = 1.27; 95% confidence interval, 1.04-1.55), whereas women with ulcerative colitis were only at increased risk of preterm births with an absolute risk difference of <2.7%. These risks remained independent of caesarean section. Prior surgery for IBD did not increase the risk of adverse birth outcomes or pregnancy-related complications compared with cases without surgery, however, women with IBD were more likely to have an elective caesarean section. CONCLUSIONS: Women with Crohn's disease have increased risks of some specific pregnancy-related complications and adverse birth outcomes which are independent of caesarean section, however, the absolute risk differences are small, indicating that most women with IBD will have an uncomplicated pregnancy
Magnetism, FeS colloids, and Origins of Life
A number of features of living systems: reversible interactions and weak
bonds underlying motor-dynamics; gel-sol transitions; cellular connected
fractal organization; asymmetry in interactions and organization; quantum
coherent phenomena; to name some, can have a natural accounting via
interactions, which we therefore seek to incorporate by expanding the horizons
of `chemistry-only' approaches to the origins of life. It is suggested that the
magnetic 'face' of the minerals from the inorganic world, recognized to have
played a pivotal role in initiating Life, may throw light on some of these
issues. A magnetic environment in the form of rocks in the Hadean Ocean could
have enabled the accretion and therefore an ordered confinement of
super-paramagnetic colloids within a structured phase. A moderate H-field can
help magnetic nano-particles to not only overcome thermal fluctuations but also
harness them. Such controlled dynamics brings in the possibility of accessing
quantum effects, which together with frustrations in magnetic ordering and
hysteresis (a natural mechanism for a primitive memory) could throw light on
the birth of biological information which, as Abel argues, requires a
combination of order and complexity. This scenario gains strength from
observations of scale-free framboidal forms of the greigite mineral, with a
magnetic basis of assembly. And greigite's metabolic potential plays a key role
in the mound scenario of Russell and coworkers-an expansion of which is
suggested for including magnetism.Comment: 42 pages, 5 figures, to be published in A.R. Memorial volume, Ed
Krishnaswami Alladi, Springer 201
Performance of CMS muon reconstruction in pp collision events at sqrt(s) = 7 TeV
The performance of muon reconstruction, identification, and triggering in CMS
has been studied using 40 inverse picobarns of data collected in pp collisions
at sqrt(s) = 7 TeV at the LHC in 2010. A few benchmark sets of selection
criteria covering a wide range of physics analysis needs have been examined.
For all considered selections, the efficiency to reconstruct and identify a
muon with a transverse momentum pT larger than a few GeV is above 95% over the
whole region of pseudorapidity covered by the CMS muon system, abs(eta) < 2.4,
while the probability to misidentify a hadron as a muon is well below 1%. The
efficiency to trigger on single muons with pT above a few GeV is higher than
90% over the full eta range, and typically substantially better. The overall
momentum scale is measured to a precision of 0.2% with muons from Z decays. The
transverse momentum resolution varies from 1% to 6% depending on pseudorapidity
for muons with pT below 100 GeV and, using cosmic rays, it is shown to be
better than 10% in the central region up to pT = 1 TeV. Observed distributions
of all quantities are well reproduced by the Monte Carlo simulation.Comment: Replaced with published version. Added journal reference and DO
Performance of CMS muon reconstruction in pp collision events at sqrt(s) = 7 TeV
The performance of muon reconstruction, identification, and triggering in CMS
has been studied using 40 inverse picobarns of data collected in pp collisions
at sqrt(s) = 7 TeV at the LHC in 2010. A few benchmark sets of selection
criteria covering a wide range of physics analysis needs have been examined.
For all considered selections, the efficiency to reconstruct and identify a
muon with a transverse momentum pT larger than a few GeV is above 95% over the
whole region of pseudorapidity covered by the CMS muon system, abs(eta) < 2.4,
while the probability to misidentify a hadron as a muon is well below 1%. The
efficiency to trigger on single muons with pT above a few GeV is higher than
90% over the full eta range, and typically substantially better. The overall
momentum scale is measured to a precision of 0.2% with muons from Z decays. The
transverse momentum resolution varies from 1% to 6% depending on pseudorapidity
for muons with pT below 100 GeV and, using cosmic rays, it is shown to be
better than 10% in the central region up to pT = 1 TeV. Observed distributions
of all quantities are well reproduced by the Monte Carlo simulation.Comment: Replaced with published version. Added journal reference and DO
Compressed representation of a partially defined integer function over multiple arguments
In OLAP (OnLine Analitical Processing) data are analysed in an n-dimensional cube. The cube may be represented as a partially defined function over n arguments. Considering that often the function is not defined everywhere, we ask: is there a known way of representing the function or the points in which it is defined, in a more compact manner than the trivial one
Prevalence of smoking during pregnancy and associated risk factors among Canadian women: a national survey
X-ray emission from the Sombrero galaxy: discrete sources
We present a study of discrete X-ray sources in and around the
bulge-dominated, massive Sa galaxy, Sombrero (M104), based on new and archival
Chandra observations with a total exposure of ~200 ks. With a detection limit
of L_X = 1E37 erg/s and a field of view covering a galactocentric radius of ~30
kpc (11.5 arcminute), 383 sources are detected. Cross-correlation with Spitler
et al.'s catalogue of Sombrero globular clusters (GCs) identified from HST/ACS
observations reveals 41 X-rays sources in GCs, presumably low-mass X-ray
binaries (LMXBs). We quantify the differential luminosity functions (LFs) for
both the detected GC and field LMXBs, whose power-low indices (~1.1 for the
GC-LF and ~1.6 for field-LF) are consistent with previous studies for
elliptical galaxies. With precise sky positions of the GCs without a detected
X-ray source, we further quantify, through a fluctuation analysis, the GC LF at
fainter luminosities down to 1E35 erg/s. The derived index rules out a
faint-end slope flatter than 1.1 at a 2 sigma significance, contrary to recent
findings in several elliptical galaxies and the bulge of M31. On the other
hand, the 2-6 keV unresolved emission places a tight constraint on the field
LF, implying a flattened index of ~1.0 below 1E37 erg/s. We also detect 101
sources in the halo of Sombrero. The presence of these sources cannot be
interpreted as galactic LMXBs whose spatial distribution empirically follows
the starlight. Their number is also higher than the expected number of cosmic
AGNs (52+/-11 [1 sigma]) whose surface density is constrained by deep X-ray
surveys. We suggest that either the cosmic X-ray background is unusually high
in the direction of Sombrero, or a distinct population of X-ray sources is
present in the halo of Sombrero.Comment: 11 figures, 5 tables, ApJ in pres
Azimuthal anisotropy of charged particles at high transverse momenta in PbPb collisions at sqrt(s[NN]) = 2.76 TeV
The azimuthal anisotropy of charged particles in PbPb collisions at
nucleon-nucleon center-of-mass energy of 2.76 TeV is measured with the CMS
detector at the LHC over an extended transverse momentum (pt) range up to
approximately 60 GeV. The data cover both the low-pt region associated with
hydrodynamic flow phenomena and the high-pt region where the anisotropies may
reflect the path-length dependence of parton energy loss in the created medium.
The anisotropy parameter (v2) of the particles is extracted by correlating
charged tracks with respect to the event-plane reconstructed by using the
energy deposited in forward-angle calorimeters. For the six bins of collision
centrality studied, spanning the range of 0-60% most-central events, the
observed v2 values are found to first increase with pt, reaching a maximum
around pt = 3 GeV, and then to gradually decrease to almost zero, with the
decline persisting up to at least pt = 40 GeV over the full centrality range
measured.Comment: Replaced with published version. Added journal reference and DO
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