Self-reported Body Changes and Associated Factors in Persons Living with HIV

The study aimed at verifying the associated factors of self-perceived body changes in adults living with HIV in highly-active antiretroviral therapy (HAART) in the city of São Paulo, Brazil. This cross-sectional study was conducted among people living with HIV on HAART for at least three months. A standardized questionnaire was used for assessing self-perceived body changes. Associated factors relating to self-reported body changes in people living with HIV (PLHIV) were assessed with Student's t-test and chi-square test. In total, 507 patients were evaluated. The mean time since diagnosis was 6.6 years [standard deviation (SD)±4.1], and the mean duration of HAART was 5.1 years (SD±3.3). Self-perceived body changes were reported by 79.5% of the participants and were associated with viral load and duration of HAART. Fibre intake was lower among males who gained in abdominal fat (p=0.035). HAART-related body changes were reported by the large majority of the population and were associated with demographic and clinical variables

Improved Bounds on the Phase Transition for the Hard-Core Model in 2-Dimensions

For the hard-core lattice gas model defined on independent sets weighted by an activity $\lambda$, we study the critical activity $\lambda_c(\mathbb{Z}^2)$ for the uniqueness/non-uniqueness threshold on the 2-dimensional integer lattice $\mathbb{Z}^2$. The conjectured value of the critical activity is approximately $3.796$. Until recently, the best lower bound followed from algorithmic results of Weitz (2006). Weitz presented an FPTAS for approximating the partition function for graphs of constant maximum degree $\Delta$ when $\lambda<\lambda_c(\mathbb{T}_\Delta)$ where $\mathbb{T}_\Delta$ is the infinite, regular tree of degree $\Delta$. His result established a certain decay of correlations property called strong spatial mixing (SSM) on $\mathbb{Z}^2$ by proving that SSM holds on its self-avoiding walk tree $T_{\mathrm{saw}}^\sigma(\mathbb{Z}^2)$ where $\sigma=(\sigma_v)_{v\in \mathbb{Z}^2}$ and $\sigma_v$ is an ordering on the neighbors of vertex $v$. As a consequence he obtained that $\lambda_c(\mathbb{Z}^2)\geq\lambda_c( \mathbb{T}_4) = 1.675$. Restrepo et al. (2011) improved Weitz's approach for the particular case of $\mathbb{Z}^2$ and obtained that $\lambda_c(\mathbb{Z}^2)>2.388$. In this paper, we establish an upper bound for this approach, by showing that, for all $\sigma$, SSM does not hold on $T_{\mathrm{saw}}^\sigma(\mathbb{Z}^2)$ when $\lambda>3.4$. We also present a refinement of the approach of Restrepo et al. which improves the lower bound to $\lambda_c(\mathbb{Z}^2)>2.48$.Comment: 19 pages, 1 figure. Polished proofs and examples compared to earlier versio

A Systematic Review of Autistic People and the Criminal Justice System: An Update of King and Murphy (2014)

The purpose of this paper was to determine whether recommendations made by King & Murphy (Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders 44:2717–2733, 2014) in their review of the evidence on autistic people in contact with the criminal justice system (CJS) have been addressed. Research published since 2013 was systematically examined and synthesised. The quality of 47 papers was assessed using the Mixed Methods Appraisal Tool. Findings suggest a limited amount of good quality research has been conducted that has focused on improving our understanding of autistic people in contact with the CJS since 2013. Methodological limitations make direct comparisons between autistic and non-autistic offenders difficult. Autistic people commit a range of crimes and appear to have unique characteristics that warrant further exploration (i.e., vulnerabilities, motivations for offending)

Universality in the Screening Cloud of Dislocations Surrounding a Disclination

A detailed analytical and numerical analysis for the dislocation cloud surrounding a disclination is presented. The analytical results show that the combined system behaves as a single disclination with an effective fractional charge which can be computed from the properties of the grain boundaries forming the dislocation cloud. Expressions are also given when the crystal is subjected to an external two-dimensional pressure. The analytical results are generalized to a scaling form for the energy which up to core energies is given by the Young modulus of the crystal times a universal function. The accuracy of the universality hypothesis is numerically checked to high accuracy. The numerical approach, based on a generalization from previous work by S. Seung and D.R. Nelson ({\em Phys. Rev A 38:1005 (1988)}), is interesting on its own and allows to compute the energy for an {\em arbitrary} distribution of defects, on an {\em arbitrary geometry} with an arbitrary elastic {\em energy} with very minor additional computational effort. Some implications for recent experimental, computational and theoretical work are also discussed.Comment: 35 pages, 21 eps file

Effects of Intermittent IL-2 Alone or with Peri-Cycle Antiretroviral Therapy in Early HIV Infection: The STALWART Study

The Study of Aldesleukin with and without antiretroviral therapy (STALWART) evaluated whether intermittent interleukin-2 (IL-2) alone or with antiretroviral therapy (ART) around IL-2 cycles increased CD4+ counts compared to no therapy

RANTES/CCL5 and risk for coronary events: Results from the MONICA/KORA Augsburg case-cohort, Athero-express and CARDIoGRAM studies

Background: The chemokine RANTES (regulated on activation, normal T-cell expressed and secreted)/CCL5 is involved in the pathogenesis of cardiovascular disease in mice, whereas less is known in humans. We hypothesised that its relevance for atherosclerosis should be reflected by associations between CCL5 gene variants, RANTES serum concentrations and protein levels in atherosclerotic plaques and risk for coronary events. Methods and Findings: We conducted a case-cohort study within the population-based MONICA/KORA Augsburg studies. Baseline RANTES serum levels were measured in 363 individuals with incident coronary events and 1,908 non-cases (mean follow-up: 10.2±

Reproducibility in the absence of selective reporting : An illustration from large-scale brain asymmetry research

Altres ajuts: Max Planck Society (Germany).The problem of poor reproducibility of scientific findings has received much attention over recent years, in a variety of fields including psychology and neuroscience. The problem has been partly attributed to publication bias and unwanted practices such as p-hacking. Low statistical power in individual studies is also understood to be an important factor. In a recent multisite collaborative study, we mapped brain anatomical left-right asymmetries for regional measures of surface area and cortical thickness, in 99 MRI datasets from around the world, for a total of over 17,000 participants. In the present study, we revisited these hemispheric effects from the perspective of reproducibility. Within each dataset, we considered that an effect had been reproduced when it matched the meta-analytic effect from the 98 other datasets, in terms of effect direction and significance threshold. In this sense, the results within each dataset were viewed as coming from separate studies in an "ideal publishing environment," that is, free from selective reporting and p hacking. We found an average reproducibility rate of 63.2% (SD = 22.9%, min = 22.2%, max = 97.0%). As expected, reproducibility was higher for larger effects and in larger datasets. Reproducibility was not obviously related to the age of participants, scanner field strength, FreeSurfer software version, cortical regional measurement reliability, or regional size. These findings constitute an empirical illustration of reproducibility in the absence of publication bias or p hacking, when assessing realistic biological effects in heterogeneous neuroscience data, and given typically-used sample sizes

Variation in Structure and Process of Care in Traumatic Brain Injury: Provider Profiles of European Neurotrauma Centers Participating in the CENTER-TBI Study.

INTRODUCTION: The strength of evidence underpinning care and treatment recommendations in traumatic brain injury (TBI) is low. Comparative effectiveness research (CER) has been proposed as a framework to provide evidence for optimal care for TBI patients. The first step in CER is to map the existing variation. The aim of current study is to quantify variation in general structural and process characteristics among centers participating in the Collaborative European NeuroTrauma Effectiveness Research in Traumatic Brain Injury (CENTER-TBI) study. METHODS: We designed a set of 11 provider profiling questionnaires with 321 questions about various aspects of TBI care, chosen based on literature and expert opinion. After pilot testing, questionnaires were disseminated to 71 centers from 20 countries participating in the CENTER-TBI study. Reliability of questionnaires was estimated by calculating a concordance rate among 5% duplicate questions. RESULTS: All 71 centers completed the questionnaires. Median concordance rate among duplicate questions was 0.85. The majority of centers were academic hospitals (n = 65, 92%), designated as a level I trauma center (n = 48, 68%) and situated in an urban location (n = 70, 99%). The availability of facilities for neuro-trauma care varied across centers; e.g. 40 (57%) had a dedicated neuro-intensive care unit (ICU), 36 (51%) had an in-hospital rehabilitation unit and the organization of the ICU was closed in 64% (n = 45) of the centers. In addition, we found wide variation in processes of care, such as the ICU admission policy and intracranial pressure monitoring policy among centers. CONCLUSION: Even among high-volume, specialized neurotrauma centers there is substantial variation in structures and processes of TBI care. This variation provides an opportunity to study effectiveness of specific aspects of TBI care and to identify best practices with CER approaches

Search for a W ' boson decaying to a muon and a neutrino in pp collisions at √s =7 TeV

This is the Pre-Print version of the Article. The official published version can be accessed from the link below - Copyright @ 2011 ElsevierA new heavy gauge boson, W', decaying to a muon and a neutrino, is searched for in pp collisions at a centre-of-mass of 7 TeV. The data, collected with the CMS detector at the LHC, correspond to an integrated luminosity of 36 inverse picobarns. No significant excess of events above the standard model expectation is found in the transverse mass distribution of the muon-neutrino system. Masses below 1.40 TeV are excluded at the 95% confidence level for a sequential standard-model-like W'. The W' mass lower limit increases to 1.58 TeV when the present analysis is combined with the CMS result for the electron channel.This work is supported by the FMSR (Austria); FNRS and FWO (Belgium); CNPq, CAPES, FAPERJ, and FAPESP (Brazil); MES (Bulgaria); CERN; CAS, MoST, and NSFC (China); COLCIENCIAS (Colombia); MSES (Croatia); RPF (Cyprus); Academy of Sciences and NICPB (Estonia); Academy of Finland, ME, and HIP (Finland); CEA and CNRS/IN2P3 (France); BMBF, DFG, and HGF (Germany); GSRT (Greece); OTKA and NKTH (Hungary); DAE and DST (India); IPM (Iran); SFI (Ireland); INFN (Italy); NRF and WCU (Korea); LAS (Lithuania); CINVESTAV, CONACYT, SEP, and UASLP-FAI (Mexico); PAEC (Pakistan); SCSR (Poland); FCT (Portugal); JINR (Armenia, Belarus, Georgia, Ukraine, Uzbekistan); MST and MAE (Russia); MSTD (Serbia); MICINN and CPAN (Spain); Swiss Funding Agencies (Switzerland); NSC (Taipei); TUBITAK and TAEK (Turkey); STFC (United Kingdom); DOE and NSF (USA)