Paper Session III-B - Space Station On-Orbit Assembly and Operation

The United States and its international partners are well on the way to developing Space Station Freedom which will be a very large orbiting facility with many capabilities for conducting space operations. Adjustments in the program content and station design have been implemented as a result of the recent restructure activity. This paper addresses the assembly and operations aspects of SSF. Assembly is achieved by sequential shuttle launches which carry portions of the station building the capability through the Manned Tended Capability and then on to Permanent Manned Capability. The pre-integrated truss segment resulting from the program restructure activity is shown and assembly techniques using the orbiter described. Both pay load and station operations are examined. The pay load operations include the conduct of materials processing and life science missions. These rely heavily on the microgravity capability of the Space Station. Station operations examined include EVA for assembly and maintenance and reboost techniques

Guidelines for initiation of anti-tumour necrosis factor therapy in rheumatoid arthritis: similarities and differences across Europe.

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The Role of Personality in the Adoption of Pro-Environmental Behaviors through the Lens of the Value-Belief-Norm Theory

This article belongs to the Special Issue Urbanization and Environmental Sustainability[Abstract] The present study investigated citizens’ self-reported pro-environmental behaviors by adopting a survey and bootstrapping via structural equation modeling for five different personality traits. Adopting one traditional psycho-social theory, this study investigates how motivations, values, intentions, norms, and behaviors are connected by using different constructs from the value-belief-norm theory extended with external influences and three different pro-environmental behaviors, namely, waste preventer, green consumer, and avoider, and how the connections change between different personality traits from the Big Five personality test, namely, openness, extroversion, neuroticism, agreeableness, and consciousness. According to this study, personal conscience may inspire environmentally beneficial behaviors like green purchasing and waste reduction when appealing to the emotions of the general public. As a result, strengthening the population’s subjective norms requires interventions that concentrate on communication tactics to raise knowledge of penalties and obligations for communal advantages

Development of type 1 diabetes in a patient treated with anti-TNF-α therapy for active rheumatoid arthritis

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How age and sex affect the erythrocyte sedimentation rate and C-reactive protein in early rheumatoid arthritis

BACKGROUND: The erythrocyte sedimentation rate (ESR) and C-reactive protein (CRP) are two commonly used measures of inflammation in rheumatoid arthritis (RA). As current RA treatment guidelines strongly emphasize early and aggressive treatment aiming at fast remission, optimal measurement of inflammation becomes increasingly important. Dependencies with age, sex, and body mass index have been shown for both inflammatory markers, yet it remains unclear which inflammatory marker is affected least by these effects in patients with early RA. METHODS: Baseline data from 589 patients from the DREAM registry were used for analyses. Associations between the inflammatory markers and age, sex, and BMI were evaluated first using univariate linear regression analyses. Next, it was tested whether these associations were independent of a patient's current disease activity as well as of each other using multiple linear regression analyses with backward elimination. The strengths of the associations were compared using standardized beta (beta) coefficients. The multivariate analyses were repeated after 1 year. RESULTS: At baseline, both the ESR and CRP were univariately associated with age, sex, and BMI, although the association with BMI disappeared in multivariate analyses. ESR and CRP levels significantly increased with age (beta-ESR = 0.017, p < 0.001 and beta-CRP = 0.009, p = 0.006), independent of the number of tender and swollen joints, general health, and sex. For each decade of aging, ESR and CRP levels became 1.19 and 1.09 times higher, respectively. Furthermore, women demonstrated average ESR levels that were 1.22 times higher than that of men (beta = 0.198, p = 0.007), whereas men had 1.20 times higher CRP levels (beta = -0.182, p = 0.048). Effects were strongest on the ESR. BMI became significantly associated with both inflammatory markers after 1 year, showing higher levels with increasing weight. Age continued to be significantly associated, whereas sex remained only associated with the ESR level. CONCLUSIONS: Age and sex are independently associated with the levels of both acute phase reactants in early RA, emphasizing the need to take these external factors into account when interpreting disease activity measures. BMI appears to become more relevant at later stages of the disease

Performance of the Dutch SF-36 version 2 as a measure of health-related quality of life in patients with rheumatoid arthritis

BACKGROUND: The aim of this study was to examine the measurement properties of the Dutch SF-36 version 2 (SF-36v2) health survey in patients with rheumatoid arthritis (RA). METHODS: Scaling assumptions, internal reliability, and internal construct validity were examined using available data from 1884 RA patients included in the Dutch Rheumatoid Arthritis Monitoring (DREAM) registry. External construct validity and responsiveness to change were examined using baseline and 6-month follow-up data from a subset of 387 early RA patients participating in the DREAM remission induction cohort. RESULTS: The individual items of the SF-36v2 adequately met scaling assumptions, although four items correlated too highly with items from different scales. Internal consistency was high for all eight scales and the physical and mental health components underlying the scales were replicated, supporting the use of the standard scoring algorithms. The SF-36v2 scales demonstrated minimal floor effects and ceiling effects were noteworthy only for the role-physical, social functioning, and role-emotional scales. Correlations with other core measures were as expected and the SF-36v2 showed excellent known-groups validity in distinguishing between patients with low or moderate-high disease activity. All scales related to physical health showed moderate to large responsiveness to change in patients that achieved low disease activity at six months. CONCLUSION: The SF-36v2 appears to be a psychometrically sound tool for the assessment of health-related quality of life of Dutch patients with RA

A data-driven computational model for obesity-driven diabetes onset and remission through weight loss

Obesity is a major risk factor for the development of type 2 diabetes (T2D), where a sustained weight loss may result in T2D remission in individuals with obesity. To design effective and feasible intervention strategies to prevent or reverse T2D, it is imperative to study the progression of T2D and remission together. Unfortunately, this is not possible through experimental and observational studies. To address this issue, we introduce a data-driven computational model and use human data to investigate the progression of T2D with obesity and remission through weight loss on the same timeline. We identify thresholds for the emergence of T2D and necessary conditions for remission. We explain why remission is only possible within a window of opportunity and the way that window depends on the progression history of T2D, individual’s metabolic state, and calorie restrictions. These findings can help to optimize therapeutic intervention strategies for T2D prevention or treatment

Mathematical modelling of polyamine metabolism in bloodstream-form trypanosoma brucei: An application to drug target identification

© 2013 Gu et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are creditedThis article has been made available through the Brunel Open Access Publishing Fund.We present the first computational kinetic model of polyamine metabolism in bloodstream-form Trypanosoma brucei, the causative agent of human African trypanosomiasis. We systematically extracted the polyamine pathway from the complete metabolic network while still maintaining the predictive capability of the pathway. The kinetic model is constructed on the basis of information gleaned from the experimental biology literature and defined as a set of ordinary differential equations. We applied Michaelis-Menten kinetics featuring regulatory factors to describe enzymatic activities that are well defined. Uncharacterised enzyme kinetics were approximated and justified with available physiological properties of the system. Optimisation-based dynamic simulations were performed to train the model with experimental data and inconsistent predictions prompted an iterative procedure of model refinement. Good agreement between simulation results and measured data reported in various experimental conditions shows that the model has good applicability in spite of there being gaps in the required data. With this kinetic model, the relative importance of the individual pathway enzymes was assessed. We observed that, at low-to-moderate levels of inhibition, enzymes catalysing reactions of de novo AdoMet (MAT) and ornithine production (OrnPt) have more efficient inhibitory effect on total trypanothione content in comparison to other enzymes in the pathway. In our model, prozyme and TSHSyn (the production catalyst of total trypanothione) were also found to exhibit potent control on total trypanothione content but only when they were strongly inhibited. Different chemotherapeutic strategies against T. brucei were investigated using this model and interruption of polyamine synthesis via joint inhibition of MAT or OrnPt together with other polyamine enzymes was identified as an optimal therapeutic strategy.The work was carried out under a PhD programme partly funded by Prof. Ray Welland, School of Computing Science, University of Glasgo

Validation of the 28-joint Disease Activity Score (DAS28) and European League Against Rheumatism response criteria based on C-reactive protein against disease progression in patients with rheumatoid arthritis, and comparison with the DAS28 based on erythrocyte sedimentation rate

Contains fulltext : 80996.pdf (publisher's version ) (Closed access)OBJECTIVE: To validate and compare the definition of the Disease Activity Score 28 based on C-reactive protein (DAS28 (CRP)) to the definition based on erythrocyte sedimentation rate (ESR). METHODS: Data were analysed from two randomised, double-blind, placebo-controlled trials of abatacept of 6-month and 12-month duration in patients with rheumatoid arthritis. European League Against Rheumatism (EULAR) response criteria and the proportion of patients in remission (DAS28 <2.6) based on the two DAS28 definitions were examined. Trends in radiographic progression (erosion score, joint space narrowing score and total score) and physical function (Health Assessment Questionnaire Disability Index (HAQ-DI)) across the EULAR responder states (none, moderate and good) were analysed. RESULTS: There was general agreement in determining the EULAR responder state using both DAS28 definitions (kappa = 0.80, 95% CI 0.76 to 0.83). Overall, there was 82.4% agreement on the EULAR response criteria; when disagreements occurred, the DAS28 (CRP) yielded a better EULAR response more often then DAS28 (ESR) (12.6% vs 4.9%, respectively). There was also agreement in determining remission: kappa = 0.69 (95% CI 0.60 to 0.78). Radiographic progression decreased in patients treated with abatacept across EULAR states (from none to moderate to good) based on both definitions. For patients treated with placebo, the trend was not as pronounced, with radiographic scores higher for moderate vs non-responders. For physical function, similar trends were observed across the EULAR states for both DAS28 definitions. CONCLUSIONS: The DAS28 (CRP) has been validated against radiographic progression and physical function. While the DAS28 (CRP) yielded a better EULAR response more often than the DAS28 (ESR), the validation profile was similar to the DAS28 (ESR), indicating that both measures are useful for assessing disease activity in patients with rheumatoid arthritis