Ultrasound Imaging in Psoriatic Arthritis: What Have We Learnt in the Last Five Years?

Psoriatic arthritis (PsA) is a complex heterogeneous disease with multiple inter-related pathologies such as synovitis, enthesitis, tendinopathy, and dactylitis. Clinical assessment is limited in its detail to assess pathology, thus in recent years, ultrasound (US) has become more popular, given its high sensitivity to detect inflammatory arthritis and ability to inform clinical decisions. Although a qualitative technique, US findings can be graded semi-quantitatively for grayscale (GS) and power Doppler (PD). Synovitis is frequently present in inflammatory arthritis pathologies, and in PsA, recent evidence shows a propensity for tendon and entheseal lesions. The presence of flexor tenosynovitis and flexor tendon insertional enthesopathy at accessory pulleys is supportive of the “Deep Koebner” concept. Peri-tendinous inflammation—mutual to PsA or rheumatoid arthritis (RA), is associated with soft tissue oedema with PD signal frequently at the flexor tendon compartments in PsA. Research on enthesitis in PsA/PsO has improved understanding in subclinical and clinical PsA, explored associations with progression to PsA, and investigated links to prognosis assessment. Dactylitis is a pathognomonic PsA lesion where US has enhanced knowledge of the disease course and pathology of lesions such as: flexor tenosynovitis; synovitis; and soft tissue oedema. Increased US sensitivity has also brought innovation including promising automated ultrasound scanning techniques. So, what have we learnt in recent years and what are the unmet needs to focus future research initiatives in this disabling disease? This narrative review article assesses the neoteric evidence, bringing into context the knowledge gained and highlighting potential areas of research

The Pediatric Cell Atlas:Defining the Growth Phase of Human Development at Single-Cell Resolution

Single-cell gene expression analyses of mammalian tissues have uncovered profound stage-specific molecular regulatory phenomena that have changed the understanding of unique cell types and signaling pathways critical for lineage determination, morphogenesis, and growth. We discuss here the case for a Pediatric Cell Atlas as part of the Human Cell Atlas consortium to provide single-cell profiles and spatial characterization of gene expression across human tissues and organs. Such data will complement adult and developmentally focused HCA projects to provide a rich cytogenomic framework for understanding not only pediatric health and disease but also environmental and genetic impacts across the human lifespan

The ATLAS TRT electronics

The ATLAS inner detector consists of three sub-systems: the pixel detector spanning the radius range 4cm-20cm, the semiconductor tracker at radii from 30 to 52 cm, and the transition radiation tracker (TRT), tracking from 56 to 107 cm. The TRT provides a combination of continuous tracking with many projective measurements based on individual drift tubes (or straws) and of electron identification based on transition radiation from fibres or foils interleaved between the straws themselves. This paper describes the on and off detector electronics for the TRT as well as the TRT portion of the data acquisition (DAQ) system

The ATLAS Transition Radiation Tracker (TRT) proportional drift tube: design and performance

A straw proportional counter is the basic element of the ATLAS Transition Radiation Tracker (TRT). Its detailed properties as well as the main properties of a few TRT operating gas mixtures are described. Particular attention is paid to straw tube performance in high radiation conditions and to its operational stability

Entwicklung eines dynamischen Entry Vocabulary Moduls für die Stiftung Wissenschaft und Politik

Nicht übereinstimmendes Vokabular zwischen Anfrage und Dokumenten stellt ein Hauptproblem im Information Retrieval dar. Das Entry Vocabulary Modul hat sich in den letzten Jahren als Lösung hierfür etabliert. In diesem Beitrag wird ein dynamisches Entry Vocabulary Modul vorgestellt, das für einen Datenbestand mit mehreren inhaltsbezogenen Feldern in einem mehrstufigen Verfahren abhängig von Zwischenergebnissen die Anfrage erweitert. Das entwickelte System wurde anhand eines mehrsprachigen Datenbestands von rund 600.000 Fachtexten evaluiert und führte zu positiven Ergebnissen

Breaching Biological Barriers: Protein Translocation Domains as Tools for Molecular Imaging and Therapy

The lipid bilayer of a cell presents a significant barrier for the delivery of many molecular imaging reagents into cells at target sites in the body. Protein translocation domains (PTDs) are peptides that breach this barrier. Conjugation of PTDs to imaging agents can be utilized to facilitate the delivery of these agents through the cell wall, and in some cases, into the cell nucleus, and have potential for in vitro and in vivo applications. PTD imaging conjugates have included small molecules, peptides, proteins, DNA, metal chelates, and magnetic nanoparticles. The full potential of the use of PTDs in novel in vivo molecular probes is currently under investigation. Cells have been labeled in culture using magnetic nanoparticles derivatized with a PTD and monitored in vivo to assess trafficking patterns relative to cells expressing a target antigen. In vivo imaging of PTD-mediated gene transfer to cells of the skin has been demonstrated in living animals. Here we review several natural and synthetic PTDs that have evolved in the quest for easier translocation across biological barriers and the application of these peptide domains to in vivo delivery of imaging agents

CLEF NewsREEL 2017 Overview: Offline and Online Evaluation of Stream-based News Recommender Systems

The CLEF NewsREEL challenge allows researchers to evaluate news recommendation algorithms both online (NewsREEL Live) and offline (News-REEL Replay). Compared with the previous year NewsREEL challenged participants with a higher volume of messages and new news portals. In the 2017 edition of the CLEF NewsREEL challenge a wide variety of new approaches have been implemented ranging from the use of existing machine learning frameworks, to ensemble methods to the use of deep neural networks. This paper gives anoverview over the implemented approaches and discusses the evaluation results. In addition, the main results of Living Lab and the Replay task are explain

Using temporal context to improve biosurveillance

Current efforts to detect covert bioterrorist attacks from increases in hospital visit rates are plagued by the unpredictable nature of these rates. Although many current systems evaluate hospital visit data 1 day at a time, we investigate evaluating multiple days at once to lessen the effects of this unpredictability and to improve both the timeliness and sensitivity of detection. To test this approach, we introduce simulated disease outbreaks of varying shapes, magnitudes, and durations into 10 years of historical daily visit data from a major tertiary-care metropolitan teaching hospital. We then investigate the effectiveness of using multiday temporal filters for detecting these simulated outbreaks within the noisy environment of the historical visit data. Our results show that compared with the standard 1-day approach, the multiday detection approach significantly increases detection sensitivity and decreases latency while maintaining a high specificity. We conclude that current biosurveillance systems should incorporate a wider temporal context to improve their effectiveness. Furthermore, for increased robustness and performance, hybrid systems should be developed to capitalize on the complementary strengths of different types of temporal filters