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

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

Impact of the 26-30 May 2003 solar events on the earth ionosphere and thermosphere.

During the last week of May 2003, the solar active region AR 10365 produced a large number of flares, several of which were accompanied by Coronal Mass Ejections (CME). Specifically on 27 and 28 May three halo CMEs were observed which had a significant impact on geospace. On 29 May, upon their arrival at the L1 point, in front of the Earth's magnetosphere, two interplanetary shocks and two additional solar wind pressure pulses were recorded by the ACE spacecraft. The interplanetary magnetic field data showed the clear signature of a magnetic cloud passing ACE. In the wake of the successive increases in solar wind pressure, the magnetosphere became strongly compressed and the sub-solar magnetopause moved inside five Earth radii. At low altitudes the increased energy input to the magnetosphere was responsible for a substantial enhancement of Region-1 field-aligned currents. The ionospheric Hall currents also intensified and the entire high-latitude current system moved equatorward by about 10°. Several substorms occurred during this period, some of them - but not all - apparently triggered by the solar wind pressure pulses. The storm's most notable consequences on geospace, including space weather effects, were (1) the expansion of the auroral oval, and aurorae seen at mid latitudes, (2) the significant modification of the total electron content in the sunlight high-latitude ionosphere, (3) the perturbation of radio-wave propagation manifested by HF blackouts and increased GPS signal scintillation, and (4) the heating of the thermosphere, causing increased satellite drag. We discuss the reasons why the May 2003 storm is less intense than the October-November 2003 storms, although several indicators reach similar intensities

Ground states of a one-dimensional lattice-gas model with an infinite range nonconvex interaction. A numerical study

We consider a lattice-gas model with an infinite range pairwise noncovex interaction. It might be relevant, for example, for adsorption of alkaline elements on W(112) and Mo(112). We study a competition between the effective dipole-dipole and indirect interactions. The resulting ground state phase diagrams are analysed (numerically) in detail. We have found that for some model parameters the phase diagrams contain a region dominated by several phases only with periods up to nine lattice constants. The remaining phase diagrams reveal a complex structure of usually long periodic phases. We also discuss a possible role of surace states in phase transitions.Comment: 16 pages, 5 Postscript figures; Physical Review B15 (15 August 1996), in pres

Driven Depinning in Anisotropic Media

We show that the critical behavior of a driven interface, depinned from quenched random impurities, depends on the isotropy of the medium. In anisotropic media the interface is pinned by a bounding (conducting) surface characteristic of a model of mixed diodes and resistors. Different universality classes describe depinning along a hard and a generic direction. The exponents in the latter (tilted) case are highly anisotropic, and obtained exactly by a mapping to growing surfaces. Various scaling relations are proposed in the former case which explain a number of recent numerical observations.Comment: 4 pages with 2 postscript figures appended, REVTe

Stochastic kinetics of viral capsid assembly based on detailed protein structures

We present a generic computational framework for the simulation of viral capsid assembly which is quantitative and specific. Starting from PDB files containing atomic coordinates, the algorithm builds a coarse grained description of protein oligomers based on graph rigidity. These reduced protein descriptions are used in an extended Gillespie algorithm to investigate the stochastic kinetics of the assembly process. The association rates are obtained from a diffusive Smoluchowski equation for rapid coagulation, modified to account for water shielding and protein structure. The dissociation rates are derived by interpreting the splitting of oligomers as a process of graph partitioning akin to the escape from a multidimensional well. This modular framework is quantitative yet computationally tractable, with a small number of physically motivated parameters. The methodology is illustrated using two different viruses which are shown to follow quantitatively different assembly pathways. We also show how in this model the quasi-stationary kinetics of assembly can be described as a Markovian cascading process in which only a few intermediates and a small proportion of pathways are present. The observed pathways and intermediates can be related a posteriori to structural and energetic properties of the capsid oligomers