Recent glitches detected in the Crab pulsar

From 2000 to 2010, monitoring of radio emission from the Crab pulsar at Xinjiang Observatory detected a total of nine glitches. The occurrence of glitches appears to be a random process as described by previous researches. A persistent change in pulse frequency and pulse frequency derivative after each glitch was found. There is no obvious correlation between glitch sizes and the time since last glitch. For these glitches $\Delta\nu_{p}$ and $\Delta\dot{\nu}_{p}$ span two orders of magnitude. The pulsar suffered the largest frequency jump ever seen on MJD 53067.1. The size of the glitch is $\sim$ 6.8 $\times 10^{-6}$ Hz, $\sim$ 3.5 times that of the glitch occured in 1989 glitch, with a very large permanent changes in frequency and pulse frequency derivative and followed by a decay with time constant $\sim$ 21 days. The braking index presents significant changes. We attribute this variation to a varying particle wind strength which may be caused by glitch activities. We discuss the properties of detected glitches in Crab pulsar and compare them with glitches in the Vela pulsar.Comment: Accepted for publication in Astrophysics & Space Scienc

Psychometric validation of the Psoriasis Symptom Scale, Functional Assessment of Chronic Illness Therapy–Fatigue and pain‐Visual Analogue Scale in patients with generalized pustular psoriasis

Background: Generalized pustular psoriasis (GPP) is a rare, chronic, inflammatory skin disease associated with considerable patient burden. The Psoriasis Symptom Scale (PSS), Functional Assessment of Chronic Illness Therapy–Fatigue (FACIT-Fatigue) and pain-Visual Analogue Scale (pain-VAS) are patient-reported outcomes (PROs) that have not yet been validated in patients with GPP. Objectives: To evaluate the psychometric properties of the PSS, FACIT-Fatigue and pain-VAS using data from Effisayil 1, a randomised trial of spesolimab in patients with moderate-to-severe GPP. Methods: Inter-item correlations and confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) were performed using Week 1 data. Internal consistency was assessed with Cronbach's α coefficient using baseline and Week 1 data. Test–retest reliability was assessed using intraclass correlation coefficients (ICCs); change data for the GPP Physician Global Assessment total score and pustulation subscore were used to define a stable population. Convergent validity was assessed at baseline and Week 1 using Spearman's rank-order correlations. Known-groups validity was measured by analysis of variance using Week 1 data. Ability to detect change from baseline to Week 1 was evaluated by analysis of covariance. Results: Inter-item and item-to-total correlations were moderate or strong for most PSS and FACIT-Fatigue items. CFA demonstrated the unidimensionality of the PSS and FACIT-Fatigue, with high factor loadings for most items (PSS range, 0.75–0.94; FACIT-Fatigue range, 0.11–0.93) and acceptable fit statistics. Both scores demonstrated internal consistency (Cronbach's α, 0.71 and 0.95, respectively). The PSS, FACIT-Fatigue and pain-VAS demonstrated test–retest reliability (ICCs ≥0.70) and good evidence of convergent validity. Furthermore, the PROs could differentiate between known groups of varying symptom severity (range, p < 0.0001–0.0225) and detect changes in symptom severity from baseline to Week 1 (range, p < 0.0001–0.0002). Conclusions: Overall, these results support the reliability, validity and ability to detect change of the PSS, FACIT-Fatigue and pain-VAS as PROs in patients with GPP

Secular Trends in Breast Cancer Risk Among Women With HIV Initiating ART in North America

Background: Studies suggest lower risk of breast cancer in women with HIV versus without HIV. These estimates may be biased by lower life expectancy and younger age distribution of women with HIV. Our analysis evaluated this bias and characterized secular trends in breast cancer among women with HIV initiating antiretroviral therapy. We hypothesized breast cancer risk would increase over time as mortality decreased. Setting: Women with HIV prescribed antiretroviral therapy in the North American AIDS Cohort Collaboration on Research and Design (NA-ACCORD) from 1997 through 2016. Methods: We estimated breast cancer hazard (cause-specific hazard ratios) and cumulative incidence accounting for competing risks (subdistribution hazard ratios) to assess changes in breast cancer risk over time. This was assessed overall (1997-2016) and within/across calendar periods. Analyses were adjusted for race/ethnicity and inverse probability weighted for cohort. Cumulative incidence was graphically assessed by calendar period and race/ethnicity. Results: We observed 11,587 women during 1997-2016, contributing 63 incident breast cancer diagnoses and 1,353 deaths [73,445 person-years (median followup = 4.5 years)]. Breast cancer cumulative incidence was 3.2% for 1997-2016. We observed no secular trends in breast cancer hazard or cumulative incidence. There were annual declines in the hazard and cumulative incidence of death (cause-specific hazard ratios and subdistribution hazard ratios: 0.89, 95% confidence interval: 0.87 to 0.91) which remained within and across calendar periods. Conclusions: These findings contradict the hypothesis of increasing breast cancer risk with declining mortality over time among women with HIV, suggesting limited impact of changing mortality on breast cancer risk. Additional inquiry is merited as survival improves among women with HIV

Velocity-space sensitivity of the time-of-flight neutron spectrometer at JET

The velocity-space sensitivities of fast-ion diagnostics are often described by so-called weight functions. Recently, we formulated weight functions showing the velocity-space sensitivity of the often dominant beam-target part of neutron energy spectra. These weight functions for neutron emission spectrometry (NES) are independent of the particular NES diagnostic. Here we apply these NES weight functions to the time-of-flight spectrometer TOFOR at JET. By taking the instrumental response function of TOFOR into account, we calculate time-of-flight NES weight functions that enable us to directly determine the velocity-space sensitivity of a given part of a measured time-of-flight spectrum from TOFOR

Relationship of edge localized mode burst times with divertor flux loop signal phase in JET

A phase relationship is identified between sequential edge localized modes (ELMs) occurrence times in a set of H-mode tokamak plasmas to the voltage measured in full flux azimuthal loops in the divertor region. We focus on plasmas in the Joint European Torus where a steady H-mode is sustained over several seconds, during which ELMs are observed in the Be II emission at the divertor. The ELMs analysed arise from intrinsic ELMing, in that there is no deliberate intent to control the ELMing process by external means. We use ELM timings derived from the Be II signal to perform direct time domain analysis of the full flux loop VLD2 and VLD3 signals, which provide a high cadence global measurement proportional to the voltage induced by changes in poloidal magnetic flux. Specifically, we examine how the time interval between pairs of successive ELMs is linked to the time-evolving phase of the full flux loop signals. Each ELM produces a clear early pulse in the full flux loop signals, whose peak time is used to condition our analysis. The arrival time of the following ELM, relative to this pulse, is found to fall into one of two categories: (i) prompt ELMs, which are directly paced by the initial response seen in the flux loop signals; and (ii) all other ELMs, which occur after the initial response of the full flux loop signals has decayed in amplitude. The times at which ELMs in category (ii) occur, relative to the first ELM of the pair, are clustered at times when the instantaneous phase of the full flux loop signal is close to its value at the time of the first ELM

Integrated analysis of environmental and genetic influences on cord blood DNA methylation in new-borns

Epigenetic processes, including DNA methylation (DNAm), are among the mechanisms allowing integration of genetic and environmental factors to shape cellular function. While many studies have investigated either environmental or genetic contributions to DNAm, few have assessed their integrated effects. Here we examine the relative contributions of prenatal environmental factors and genotype on DNA methylation in neonatal blood at variably methylated regions (VMRs) in 4 independent cohorts (overall n = 2365). We use Akaike’s information criterion to test which factors best explain variability of methylation in the cohort-specific VMRs: several prenatal environmental factors (E), genotypes in cis (G), or their additive (G + E) or interaction (GxE) effects. Genetic and environmental factors in combination best explain DNAm at the majority of VMRs. The CpGs best explained by either G, G + E or GxE are functionally distinct. The enrichment of genetic variants from GxE models in GWAS for complex disorders supports their importance for disease risk

Opposite Effects of SiO2 Nanoparticles on the Local α and Larger-Scale α’ Segmental Relaxation Dynamics of PMMA Nanocomposites

The segmental relaxation dynamics of poly(methyl methacrylate)/silica (PMMA/SiO2) nanocomposites with different compositions ( ϕ SiO 2 ) near and above the glass transition temperature were investigated by mechanical spectroscopy. At ϕ SiO 2 ≤ 0.5%, the α peak temperature hardly changes with ϕ SiO 2 , but that of α’ relaxation composed of Rouse and sub-Rouse modes decreases by 15 °C due to the increase of free volume. At ϕ SiO 2 ≥ 0.7%, both α and α’ relaxations shift to high temperatures because of the steric hindrance introduced by nanoparticle agglomeration. On the other hand, with increasing ϕ SiO 2 , the peak height for α relaxation increases at ϕ SiO 2 ≤ 0.5% and then decreases at ϕ SiO 2 ≥ 0.7%, but that for α’ relaxation shows an opposite behavior. This is because at low ϕ SiO 2 , the short-chain segments related to α relaxation can easily bypass the particles, but the longer-chain segments related to α’ relaxation cannot. At high ϕ SiO 2 , the polymer chains were bound to the nanoparticles due to the physical adsorption effect, leading to the decrease of relaxation unit concentration involved in α relaxation. However, the dissociation of those bonds with heating and the concentration heterogeneity of polymer chains result in the increase of peak height for α’ relaxation