ASAS/WHO ICF Core Sets for ankylosing spondylitis (AS): how to classify the impact of AS on functioning and health

Objective: To report on the results of a standardised consensus process agreeing on concepts typical and/or relevant when classifying functioning and health in patients with ankylosing spondylitis (AS) based on the International Classification of Functioning and Health (ICF).Methods: Experts in AS from different professional and geographical backgrounds attended a consensus conference and were divided into three working groups. Rheumatologists were selected from members of the Assessment of SpondyloArthritis international Society (ASAS). Other health professionals were recommended by ASAS members. The aim was to compose three working groups with five to seven participants to allow everybody's contribution in the discussions. Experts selected ICF categories that were considered typical and/or relevant for AS during a standardised consensus process by integrating evidence from preceding studies in alternating working group and plenary discussions. A Comprehensive ICF Core Set was selected for the comprehensive classification of functioning and a Brief ICF Core Set for application in trials.Results: The conference was attended by 19 experts from 12 countries. Eighty categories were included in the Comprehensive Core Set, which included 23 Body functions, 19 Body structures, 24 Activities and participation and 14 Environmental factors. Nineteen categories were selected for the Brief Core Set, which included 6 Body functions, 4 Body structures, 7 Activities and participation and 2 Environmental factors.Conclusion: The Comprehensive and Brief ICF Core Sets for AS are now available and aim to represent the external reference to define consequences of AS on functioning

The Relationship Between Psychological Distress and Physical Activity Is Non-linear and Differs by Domain: a Cross-Sectional Study

Background: There is increasing evidence for the relationship between physical activity (PA), sedentary behaviour and mental health. Limited data exists on sex-specific associations. We aimed to identify associations between PA dose and domain and television time with psychological distress, including sex-stratified models. Methods: A total of 22,176 adults from the Melbourne Collaborative Cohort Study follow-up 2 cohort (2003–2007) participated in this cross-sectional study. Occupational, household, transport, leisure PA, hours watching television and psychological distress were assessed. Restricted cubic splines were used to examine the relationships between PA domains, television viewing time and psychological distress. Results: The relationships between PA and psychological distress were non-linear (p < 0.05) and differed by PA domain. There were dose-dependent, inverse associations between distress with transport (B[95% CI] = −0.39[−0.49, −0.30]) and leisure PA (B[95% CI] = −0.35[−0.46, −0.25]). The effect estimates for transport and leisure PA with distress were larger for women. For household domain, a U-shaped curve with an elongated tail was seen. Median PA was associated with lower distress compared with lower quantities (B[95% CI] = −0.12[−0.22, −0.03]); however, this association was not evident with increasing household PA. There were no clear associations between occupational PA and distress. Higher television viewing was associated with higher distress (B[95% CI] = 0.16[0.02, 0.30]). Conclusions: Increasing PA and reducing television viewing may contribute to reduced psychological distress, particularly in women. Future interventions should incorporate leisure and transport PA and decrease television viewing to assess the impact on mental health

Depinning transition and thermal fluctuations in the random-field Ising model

We analyze the depinning transition of a driven interface in the 3d random-field Ising model (RFIM) with quenched disorder by means of Monte Carlo simulations. The interface initially built into the system is perpendicular to the [111]-direction of a simple cubic lattice. We introduce an algorithm which is capable of simulating such an interface independent of the considered dimension and time scale. This algorithm is applied to the 3d-RFIM to study both the depinning transition and the influence of thermal fluctuations on this transition. It turns out that in the RFIM characteristics of the depinning transition depend crucially on the existence of overhangs. Our analysis yields critical exponents of the interface velocity, the correlation length, and the thermal rounding of the transition. We find numerical evidence for a scaling relation for these exponents and the dimension d of the system.Comment: 6 pages, including 9 figures, submitted for publicatio

Dutch patients, retail chicken meat and poultry share the same ESBL genes, plasmids and strains

Intestinal carriage of extended-spectrum beta-lactamase (ESBL) -producing bacteria in food-producing animals and contamination of retail meat may contribute to increased incidences of infections with ESBL-producing bacteria in humans. Therefore, distribution of ESBL genes, plasmids and strain genotypes in Escherichia coli obtained from poultry and retail chicken meat in the Netherlands was determined and defined as ‘poultry-associated’ (PA). Subsequently, the proportion of E. coli isolates with PA ESBL genes, plasmids and strains was quantified in a representative sample of clinical isolates. The E. coli were derived from 98 retail chicken meat samples, a prevalence survey among poultry, and 516 human clinical samples from 31 laboratories collected during a 3-month period in 2009. Isolates were analysed using an ESBL-specific microarray, sequencing of ESBL genes, PCR-based replicon typing of plasmids, plasmid multi-locus sequence typing (pMLST) and strain genotyping (MLST). Six ESBL genes were defined as PA (blaCTX-M-1, blaCTX-M-2, blaSHV-2, blaSHV-12, blaTEM-20, blaTEM-52): 35% of the human isolates contained PA ESBL genes and 19% contained PA ESBL genes located on IncI1 plasmids that were genetically indistinguishable from those obtained from poultry (meat). Of these ESBL genes, 86% were blaCTX-M-1 and blaTEM-52 genes, which were also the predominant genes in poultry (78%) and retail chicken meat (75%). Of the retail meat samples, 94% contained ESBL-producing isolates of which 39% belonged to E. coli genotypes also present in human samples. These findings are suggestive for transmission of ESBL genes, plasmids and E. coli isolates from poultry to humans, most likely through the food chain

Angles from BB Decays with Charm

Proceedings of the CKM 2005 Workshop (WG5), UC San Diego, 15-18 March 2005.Comment: 62 pages, 55 figures. Proceedings of the CKM 2005 Workshop (WG5), UC San Diego, 15-18 March 200

Phonon-Coupled Electron Tunneling in Two and Three-Dimensional Tunneling Configurations

We treat a tunneling electron coupled to acoustical phonons through a realistic electron phonon interaction: deformation potential and piezoelectric, in two or three-dimensional tunneling configurations. Making use of slowness of the phonon system compared to electron tunneling, and using a Green function method for imaginary time, we are able to calculate the change in the transition probability due to the coupling to phonons. It is shown using standard renormalization procedure that, contrary to the one-dimensional case, second order perturbation theory is sufficient in order to treat the deformation potential coupling, which leads to a small correction to the transmission coefficient prefactor. In the case of piezoelectric coupling, which is found to be closely related to the piezoelectric polaron problem, vertex corrections need to be considered. Summing leading logarithmic terms, we show that the piezoelectric coupling leads to a significant change of the transmission coefficient.Comment: 17 pages, 4 figure

Screened and Unscreened Phases in Sedimenting Suspensions

A coarse-grained stochastic hydrodynamical description of velocity and concentration fluctuations in steadily sedimenting suspensions is constructed, and analyzed using self-consistent and renormalization group methods. We find that there exists a dynamical, non-equilibrium phase transition from an "unscreened" phase in which we recover the Caflisch-Luke (R.E. Caflisch and J.H.C. Luke, Phys. Fluids 28, 759 (1985)) divergence of the velocity variance to a "screened" phase where the velocity fluctuations have a finite correlation length growing as $\phi^{-1/3}$ where $\phi$ is the particle volume fraction, in agreement with Segr\`e et. al. (Phys. Rev. Lett. 79, 2574 (1997)) and the velocity variance is independent of system size. Detailed predictions are made for the correlation function in both phases and at the transition.Comment: 4 pages, revtex 1 figur

Shear instabilities of freely standing thermotropic smectic-A films

In this Letter we discuss theoretically the instabilities of thermotropic freely standing smectic-A films under shear flow\cite{re:wu}. We show that, in Couette geometry, the centrifugal force pushes the liquid crystal toward the outer boundary and induces smectic layer dilation close to the outer boundary. Under strong shear, this effect induces a layer buckling instability. The critical shear rate is proportional to $1/\sqrt{d}$, where $d$ is the thickness of the film.Comment: 12 pages, 2 figure

Molecular Weight Dependence of Spreading Rates of Ultrathin Polymeric Films

We study experimentally the molecular weight $M$ dependence of spreading rates of molecularly thin precursor films, growing at the bottom of droplets of polymer liquids. In accord with previous observations, we find that the radial extension R(t) of the film grows with time as R(t) = (D_{exp} t)^{1/2}. Our data substantiate the M-dependence of D_{exp}; we show that it follows D_{exp} \sim M^{-\gamma}, where the exponent \gamma is dependent on the chemical composition of the solid surface, determining its frictional properties with respect to the molecular transport. In the specific case of hydrophilic substrates, the frictional properties can be modified by the change of the relative humidity (RH). We find that \gamma \approx 1 at low RH and tends to zero when RH gets progressively increased. We propose simple theoretical arguments which explain the observed behavior in the limits of low and high RH.Comment: 4 pages, 2 figures, to appear in PR

Scaling properties of driven interfaces in disordered media

We perform a systematic study of several models that have been proposed for the purpose of understanding the motion of driven interfaces in disordered media. We identify two distinct universality classes: (i) One of these, referred to as directed percolation depinning (DPD), can be described by a Langevin equation similar to the Kardar-Parisi-Zhang equation, but with quenched disorder. (ii) The other, referred to as quenched Edwards-Wilkinson (QEW), can be described by a Langevin equation similar to the Edwards-Wilkinson equation but with quenched disorder. We find that for the DPD universality class the coefficient $\lambda$ of the nonlinear term diverges at the depinning transition, while for the QEW universality class either $\lambda = 0$ or $\lambda \to 0$ as the depinning transition is approached. The identification of the two universality classes allows us to better understand many of the results previously obtained experimentally and numerically. However, we find that some results cannot be understood in terms of the exponents obtained for the two universality classes {\it at\/} the depinning transition. In order to understand these remaining disagreements, we investigate the scaling properties of models in each of the two universality classes {\it above\/} the depinning transition. For the DPD universality class, we find for the roughness exponent $\alpha_P = 0.63 \pm 0.03$ for the pinned phase, and $\alpha_M = 0.75 \pm 0.05$ for the moving phase. For the growth exponent, we find $\beta_P = 0.67 \pm 0.05$ for the pinned phase, and $\beta_M = 0.74 \pm 0.06$ for the moving phase. Furthermore, we find an anomalous scaling of the prefactor of the width on the driving force. A new exponent $\varphi_M = -0.12 \pm 0.06$, characterizing the scaling of this prefactor, is shown to relate the values of the roughnessComment: Latex manuscript, Revtex 3.0, 15 pages, and 15 figures also available via anonymous ftp from ftp://jhilad.bu.edu/pub/abms/ (128.197.42.52