Anakinra for secondary amyloidosis in an adolescent with FMF and Behcet Disease

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Rituximab for treatment of severe lupus nephritis

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Profile of cytokines, growth factors and chemokines during attacks of FMF

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Microstructural defect properties of InGaN/GaN blue light emitting diode structures

Cataloged from PDF version of article.In this paper, we study structural and morphological properties of metal-organic chemical vapour deposition-grown InGaN/GaN light emitting diode (LED) structures with different indium (In) content by means of high-resolution X-ray diffraction, atomic force microscopy (AFM), Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), photoluminescence (PL) and current-voltage characteristic (I-V). We have found out that the tilt and twist angles, lateral and vertical coherence lengths of mosaic blocks, grain size, screw and edge dislocation densities of GaN and InGaN layers, and surface roughness monotonically vary with In content. Mosaic defects obtained due to temperature using reciprocal lattice space map has revealed optimized growth temperature for active InGaN layer of MQW LED. It has been observed in this growth temperature that according to AFM result, LED structure has high crystal dimension, and is rough whereas according to PL and FTIR results, bandgap energy shifted to blue, and energy peak half-width decreased at high values. According to I-V measurements, it was observed that LED reacted against light at optimized temperature. In conclusion, we have seen that InGaN MQW structure's structural, optical and electrical results supported one another

MEFV mutations in systemic JIA

Background: Systemic form of juvenile idiopathic arthritis (JIA) is regarded as an autoinflammatory disease. Certain genetic polymorphisms in genes coding inflammatory proteins have been associated with the disease. On the other hand mutations of the MEFV gene cause a monogenic autoinflammatory disease, Familial Mediterranean Fever (FMF). In a previous study in adult rheumatoid arthritis 3 out of the 25 British patients who developed secondary amyloidosis had a mutation/polymorphism in the MEFV gene. Aim: To analyse whether mutaions in the MEFV gene had an association with systemic JIA. Patients and methods: MEFV mutations were screened in a total of 32 systemic JIA patients. All had been classified as systemic JIA according to the Durban JIA criteria. None had disease characteristics that met the Tel Hashomer criteria for the diagnosis of FMF. Results: 2 carrier for M694V and two patients who were homozygote for MEFV mutations. Both of these patients were among the most severe patients in the group. One had an excellent response to etanercept whereas the other was resistant to anti-TNF and other conventional treatments and had only a partial response to thalidomide. Although the number of severe mutations were increased in this small group of patients with systemic JIA the difference with the Turkish population did not reach statistical significance, but the disease causing mutation (M694V) was significantly high in the patients with systemic JIA(p = 0.02). Conclusion: However, the severe disease course in the aforementioned patients suggest that MEFV mutations may be a modifying genetic factor in systemic JIA.PubMe

A safe protocol for tuberculin test assessment in a country where BCG vaccination is mandatory

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Cor triatriatum sinister: two cases diagnosed in adulthood and a review of literature

Cor triatriatum sinister is a rare condition caused by a membrane within left atrium that separates pulmonary veins from mitral valve (10). While the condition is usually diagnosed at childhood, rare presentation during adulthood is observed when the membrane is incomplete. We report two cases of incomplete cor triatriatum sinister diagnosed during adulthood and review literature for this rare anomaly

Decision making for risk evaluation: integration of prospect theory with failure modes and effects analysis (FMEA)

The aim of the present study is to overcome some of the limitations of the FMEA method by presenting a theoretical base for considering risk evaluation into its assessment methodology and proposing an approach for its implementation. Fuzzy AHP is used to calculate the weights of the likelihood of occurrence (O), severity (S) and difficulty of detection (D). Additionally, the Prospect Theory-based TODIM method was integrated with fuzzy logic. Thus, fuzzy TODIM was employed to calculate the ranking of potential failure modes according to their RPNs. In order to verify the results of the study, in-depth interviews were conducted with the participation of industry experts. The results are very much in line with Prospect Theory. Therefore, practitioners may apply the proposed method to FMEA. The most crucial failure mode for a firm’s attention is furnace failure followed by generator failure, crane failure, tank failure, kettle failure, dryer failure, and operator failure, respectively. The originality of this paper consists in integrating Prospect Theory with the FMEA method in order to overcome the limitations naturally inherent in the calculation of the FMEA’s Risk Priority Numbers (RPNs).N/