Psychometric properties of the PROMIS Preference score (PROPr) in patients with rheumatological and psychosomatic conditions

Background: The PROMIS Preference score (PROPr) is a new generic preference-based health-related quality of life (HRQoL) score that can be used as a health state utility (HSU) score for quality-adjusted life years (QALYs) in cost-utility analyses (CUAs). It is the first HSU score based on item response theory (IRT) and has demonstrated favorable psychometric properties in first analyses. The PROPr combines the seven PROMIS domains: cognition, depression, fatigue, pain, physical function, sleep disturbance, and ability to participate in social roles and activities. It was developed based on preferences of the US general population. The aim of this study was to validate the PROPr in a German inpatient sample and to compare it to the EQ-5D. Methods: We collected PROPr and EQ-5D-5L data from 141 patients undergoing inpatient treatment in the rheumatology and psychosomatic departments. We evaluated the criterion and convergent validity, and ceiling and floor effects of the PROPr and compared those characteristics to those of the EQ-5D. Results: The mean PROPr (0.26, 95% CI: 0.23; 0.29) and the mean EQ-5D (0.44, 95% CI: 0.38; 0.51) scores differed significantly (d = 0.18, p < 0.001). Compared to the EQ-5D, the PROPr scores were less scattered across the measurement range which has resulted in smaller confidence intervals of the mean scores. The Pearson correlation coefficient between the two scores was r = 0.72 (p < 0.001). Both scores showed fair agreement with an Intraclass Correlation Coefficient (ICC) of 0.48 (p < 0.05). The PROPr and EQ-5D demonstrated similar discrimination power across sex, age, and conditions. While the PROPr showed a floor effect, the EQ-5D showed a ceiling effect. Conclusion: The PROPr measures HSU considerably lower than the EQ-5D as a result of different construction, anchors and measurement ranges. Because QALYs derived with the EQ-5D are widely considered state-of-the-art, application of the PROPr for QALY measurements would be problematic

Transient versus static electron spin relaxation in Mn2+ complexes relevant as MRI contrast agents

[Abstract] The zero-field splitting (ZFS) parameters of the [Mn(EDTA)(H2O)]2–·2H2O and [Mn(MeNO2A)(H2O)]·2H2O systems were estimated by using DFT and ab initio CASSCF/NEVPT2 calculations (EDTA = 2,2′,2″,2‴-(ethane-1,2-diylbis(azanetriyl))tetraacetate; MeNO2A = 2,2′-(7-methyl-1,4,7-triazonane-1,4-diyl)diacetate). Subsequent molecular dynamics calculations performed within the atom-centered density matrix propagation (ADMP) approach provided access to the transient and static ZFS parameters, as well as to the correlation time of the transient ZFS. The calculated ZFS parameters present a reasonable agreement with the experimental values obtained from the analysis of 1H relaxation data. The correlation times calculated for the two systems investigated turned out to be very short (τc ∼ 0.02–0.05 ps), which shows that the transient ZFS is modulated by molecular vibrations. On the contrary, the static ZFS is modulated by the rotation of the complexes in solution, which for the small complexes investigated here is characterized by rotational correlation times of τR ∼ 35–60 ps. As a result, electron spin relaxation in small Mn2+complexes is dominated by the static ZFS.España. Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad; CTQ2013-43243-PEspaña. Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad; CTQ2015-71211-RED

The legacy effect of synthetic N fertiliser

Cumulative crop recovery of synthetic fertiliser nitrogen (N) over several cropping seasons (legacy effect) generally receives limited attention. The increment in crop N uptake after the first-season uptake from fertiliser can be expressed as a fraction (∆RE) of annual N application rate. This study aims to quantify ∆RE using data from nine long-term experiments (LTEs). As such, ∆RE is the difference between first season (RE1st) and long-term (RELT) recovery of synthetic fertiliser N. In this study, RE1st was assessed either by the 15N isotope method, or by a zero-N subplot freshly superimposed on a long-term fertilised LTE treatment plot. RELT was calculated by comparing N uptake in the total aboveground crop biomass between a long-term fertilised and long-term control (zero-N) treatment. Using a mixed linear effect model, the effects of climate, crop type, experiment duration, average N rate, and soil clay content on ∆RE were evaluated. Because the experimental setup required for calculation of ∆RE is relatively rare, only nine suitable LTEs were found. Across these nine LTEs in Europe and North America, mean ∆RE was 24.4% (±12.0%, 95% CI) of annual N application, with higher values for winter wheat than for maize. This result shows that fertiliser-N retained in the soil and stubble may contribute substantially to crop N uptake in subsequent years. Our results suggest that an initial recovery of 43.8% (±11%, 95% CI) of N application may increase to around 66.0% (±15%, 95% CI) on average over time. Furthermore, we found that ∆RE was not clearly related to long-term changes in topsoil total N stock. Our findings show that the - often used - first year recovery of synthetic fertiliser N application does not express the full effect of fertiliser application on crop nutrition. The fertiliser contribution to soil N supply should be accounted for when exploring future scenarios on N cycling, including crop N requirements and N balance schemes

Soft systems methodology: a context within a 50-year retrospective of OR/MS

Soft systems methodology (SSM) has been used in the practice of operations research and management science OR/MS) since the early 1970s. In the 1990s, it emerged as a viable academic discipline. Unfortunately, its proponents consider SSM and traditional systems thinking to be mutually exclusive. Despite the differences claimed by SSM proponents between the two, they have been complementary. An extensive sampling of the OR/MS literature over its entire lifetime demonstrates the richness with which the non-SSM literature has been addressing the very same issues as does SSM

Manuring and stable nitrogen isotope ratios in cereals and pulses: towards a new archaeobotanical approach to the inference of land use and dietary practices

This paper explores the impact of animal manure application on the δ15N values of a broad range of crops (cereals and pulses), under a range of manuring levels/regimes and at a series of locations extending from northwest Europe to the eastern Mediterranean. We included both agricultural field experiments and areas where ‘traditional’ farming is practised. Our aim is to ground-truth interpretation of δ15N values in archaeobotanical crop remains as evidence of past growing conditions and husbandry practices. The results confirm the potentially radical impact of manuring on δ15N values in cereals, depending on manuring level, but indicate only a slight effect on pulses, which can fix atmospheric nitrogen. The expected geographical trend towards greater δ15N with increasing climatic aridity is not apparent, probably because the growing conditions for crops are ‘buffered’ through crop management. Each of these observations has fundamental implications for archaeobotanical interpretation of δ15N values as evidence of land use practices and (together with analysis of bone collagen/tooth enamel in potential consumers) palaeodiet

The effect of rural-to-urban migration on social capital and common mental disorders: PERU MIGRANT study

OBJECTIVE: This study aims to investigate whether there are differences in the prevalence of common mental disorders and social capital between migrant and non-migrant groups in Peru. METHODOLOGY: The PERU MIGRANT study is a cross-sectional study comprising three groups: an urban group from a shanty town in Lima; a rural group from a community in Ayacucho-Peru; and a migrant group originally from Ayacucho currently living in the same urban shanty town. Common mental disorders were assessed using the General Health Questionnaire (GHQ-12), and social capital was assessed using the Short Social Capital Assessment Tool (SASCAT). Poisson regression with robust standard errors was used to estimate prevalence ratios. RESULTS: The overall prevalence of common mental disorders was 39.4%; the highest prevalence was observed in the rural group. Similar patterns were observed for cognitive social capital and structural social capital. However after adjustment for sex, age, family income and education, all but one of the significant relationships was attenuated, suggesting that in this population migration per se does not impact on common mental health disorders or social capital. CONCLUSIONS: In the PERU MIGRANT study, we did not observe a difference in the prevalence of common mental disorders, cognitive and structural social capital between migrant and urban groups. This pattern of associations was also similar in rural and urban groups, except that a higher prevalence ratio of structural social capital was observed in the rural group

The influence of external factors on bacteriophages—review

The ability of bacteriophages to survive under unfavorable conditions is highly diversified. We summarize the influence of different external physical and chemical factors, such as temperature, acidity, and ions, on phage persistence. The relationships between a phage’s morphology and its survival abilities suggested by some authors are also discussed. A better understanding of the complex problem of phage sensitivity to external factors may be useful not only for those interested in pharmaceutical and agricultural applications of bacteriophages, but also for others working with phages

Physicochemical Characterization, and Relaxometry Studies of Micro-Graphite Oxide, Graphene Nanoplatelets, and Nanoribbons

The chemistry of high-performance magnetic resonance imaging contrast agents remains an active area of research. In this work, we demonstrate that the potassium permanganate-based oxidative chemical procedures used to synthesize graphite oxide or graphene nanoparticles leads to the confinement (intercalation) of trace amounts of Mn2+ ions between the graphene sheets, and that these manganese intercalated graphitic and graphene structures show disparate structural, chemical and magnetic properties, and high relaxivity (up to 2 order) and distinctly different nuclear magnetic resonance dispersion profiles compared to paramagnetic chelate compounds. The results taken together with other published reports on confinement of paramagnetic metal ions within single-walled carbon nanotubes (a rolled up graphene sheet) show that confinement (encapsulation or intercalation) of paramagnetic metal ions within graphene sheets, and not the size, shape or architecture of the graphitic carbon particles is the key determinant for increasing relaxivity, and thus, identifies nano confinement of paramagnetic ions as novel general strategy to develop paramagnetic metal-ion graphitic-carbon complexes as high relaxivity MRI contrast agents

Clonally resolved single-cell multi-omics identifies routes of cellular differentiation in acute myeloid leukemia

Inter-patient variability and the similarity of healthy and leukemic stem cells (LSCs) have impeded the characterization of LSCs in acute myeloid leukemia (AML) and their differentiation landscape. Here, we introduce CloneTracer, a novel method that adds clonal resolution to single-cell RNA-seq datasets. Applied to samples from 19 AML patients, CloneTracer revealed routes of leukemic differentiation. Although residual healthy and preleukemic cells dominated the dormant stem cell compartment, active LSCs resembled their healthy counterpart and retained erythroid capacity. By contrast, downstream myeloid progenitors constituted a highly aberrant, disease-defining compartment: their gene expression and differentiation state affected both the chemotherapy response and leukemia's ability to differentiate into transcriptomically normal monocytes. Finally, we demonstrated the potential of CloneTracer to identify surface markers misregulated specifically in leukemic cells. Taken together, CloneTracer reveals a differentiation landscape that mimics its healthy counterpart and may determine biology and therapy response in AML