Association between glucocorticoid therapy and incidence of diabetes mellitus in polymyalgia rheumatica and giant cell arteritis: a systematic review and meta-analysis

Background: Polymyalgia rheumatica (PMR) and giant cell arteritis (GCA) are almost always treated with glucocorticoids (GCs), but long-term GC use is associated with diabetes mellitus (DM). The absolute incidence of this complication in this patient group remains unclear. Objective: To quantify the absolute risk of GC-induced DM in PMR and GCA from published literature. Methods: We identified literature from inception to February 2017 reporting diabetes following exposure to oral GC in patients with PMR and/or GCA without pre-existing diabetes. A random-effects meta-analysis was performed to summarise the findings. Results: 25 eligible publications were identified. In studies of patients with GCA, mean cumulative GC dose was almost 1.5 times higher than in studies of PMR (8.2 g vs 5.6 g), with slightly longer treatment duration and longer duration of follow-up (6.4 years vs 4.4 years). The incidence proportion (cumulative incidence) of patients who developed new-onset DM was 6% (95% CI 3% to 9%) for PMR and 13% (95% CI 9% to 17%) for GCA. Based on UK data on incidence rate of DM in the general population, the expected background incidence rate of DM over 4.4 years in patients with PMR and 6.4 years in patients with GCA (follow-up duration) would be 4.8% and 7.0%, respectively. Heterogeneity between studies was high (I2=79.1%), as there were differences in study designs, patient population, geographical locations and treatment. Little information on predictors of DM was found. Conclusion: Our meta-analysis produced plausible estimates of DM incidence in patients with PMR and GCA, but there is insufficient published data to allow precise quantification of DM risk

Enucleation of painful blind eye for refractory intraocular lymphoma after dose-limiting chemotherapy and radiotherapy

published_or_final_versionSpringer Open Choice, 25 May 201

Impact of dye interlayer on the performance of organic photovoltaic devices

The influences of buffer interlayer at the donor/acceptor interface on the open circuit voltage (VOC) of typical copper phthalocyanine (CuPc) / C60 organic photovoltaic devices are studied. Six fluorescent dyes with progressively increasing ionization potentials (I P) were used to investigate the factors influencing the VOC. The short-circuit current and fill factor of CuPc/ C60 device incorporating dye interlayer are lower than those of standard bilayer device. On the other hand, the VOC increases linearly with the I P of dye material and falls off when the I P is equal to or greater than 5.6 eV, in which the energy offset between the highest occupied molecular orbitals at the interlayer/ C60 heterojunction is smaller than the C60 exciton binding energy. The findings underscore the importance of energy offsets in photovoltaic responses. © 2009 American Institute of Physics.published_or_final_versio

Factors affecting consumers' decisions on the use of nutraceuticals: a systematic review

There is a high and increasing global prevalence of nutraceuticals use. This study aims to systematically review and critically appraise all available evidence to identify the factors affecting consumers’ decisions in taking nutraceuticals. Questionnaire, interview or focus group studies which directly reported factors affecting consumers’ decisions in using nutraceuticals were included. A thematic synthesis method was employed to synthesis the findings from the included studies. Out of the 76 studies included, the key factors identified as the most important factors motivating consumers to take nutraceuticals were the perceived health benefits and safety of nutraceuticals, as well as the advice from healthcare professionals, friends and family. The identified barriers to take nutraceuticals were a lack of belief in the health benefit of nutraceuticals, the high cost of nutraceuticals and consumers’ lack of knowledge about nutraceuticals. As a chief course of recommendation for the use of nutraceuticals, healthcare professionals should strive to utilise reliable information from clinical evidence to help consumers in making an informed decision in using nutraceuticals. Future studies should explore the possible ways to improve channelling clinical evidence information of nutraceuticals to the public

On the Prior Sensitivity of Thompson Sampling

The empirically successful Thompson Sampling algorithm for stochastic bandits has drawn much interest in understanding its theoretical properties. One important benefit of the algorithm is that it allows domain knowledge to be conveniently encoded as a prior distribution to balance exploration and exploitation more effectively. While it is generally believed that the algorithm's regret is low (high) when the prior is good (bad), little is known about the exact dependence. In this paper, we fully characterize the algorithm's worst-case dependence of regret on the choice of prior, focusing on a special yet representative case. These results also provide insights into the general sensitivity of the algorithm to the choice of priors. In particular, with $p$ being the prior probability mass of the true reward-generating model, we prove $O(\sqrt{T/p})$ and $O(\sqrt{(1-p)T})$ regret upper bounds for the bad- and good-prior cases, respectively, as well as \emph{matching} lower bounds. Our proofs rely on the discovery of a fundamental property of Thompson Sampling and make heavy use of martingale theory, both of which appear novel in the literature, to the best of our knowledge.Comment: Appears in the 27th International Conference on Algorithmic Learning Theory (ALT), 201

Boosting the power conversion efficiency of organic solar cells using weakly luminescent gold(III) corrole with long-lived exciton state

Poster Session: P-69Transition metal complexes have been widely used as light-emitting and photon-absorbing materials in optoelectronic devices with diverse applications. While these complexes have been intensively studied in the field of organic light-emitting devices (OLEDs) due to their inherently high phosphorescence quantum yields …postprin

Efficient attenuation of Friedreich's ataxia (FRDA) cardiomyopathy by modulation of iron homeostasis-human induced pluripotent stem cell (hiPSC) as a drug screening platform for FRDA

Friedreich’s ataxia (FRDA), a recessive neurodegenerative disorder commonly associated with hypertrophic cardiomyopathy, is caused by silencing of the frataxin (FXN) gene encoding the mitochondrial protein involved in iron-sulfur cluster biosynthesis. We aimed to utilize our previously established FRDA human induced pluripotent stem cell (hiPSC) derived cardiomyocytes model as a platform to assess the efficacy of treatment with either the antioxidant coenzyme Q10 analog, idebenone (IDE) or the iron chelator, deferiprone (DFP), which are both under clinical trial. In fact, DFP was able to more significantly suppress synthesis of reactive oxygen species (ROS) than IDE at the dosages of 10 nM and 25 μM respectively which agreed with the reduced rate of intracellular accumulation of iron by DFP treatment from 25 to 50 µM. With regard to cardiac electrical-contraction (EC) coupling function, decay velocity of calcium handling kinetics in FRDA-hiPSC-cardiomyocytes was significantly improved by DFP treatment but not by IDE. Further mechanistic studies revealed DFP also modulated iron induced mitochondrial stress as reflected by mitochondria network disorganization and decline in level of respiratory chain protein. In addition, iron-response protein (IRP-1) regulatory loop was overridden by DFP as reflected by the attenuated transferrin receptor (TSFR) suppression thereby reducing further iron uptake.published_or_final_versio

Split-Drain Magnetic Field-Effect Transistor Channel Charge Trapping and Stress Induced Sensitivity Deterioration

Session EB: Materials for ApplicationsThis paper proposed an analytical model on the deterioration of magnetic sensitivity of sectorial split-drain magnetic field-effect transistors (SD-MAGFETs). The deterioration is governed by the trap fill rate at the channel boundary traps, which is geometric dependent. Experimental results are presented which show good consistency with the analytical derivation. The deterioration is the most severe at a sector angle of 54.6°, which shows a design tradeoff with sensing hysteresis. Design guidelines for sectorial SD-MAGFET to obtain high sensitivity hysteresis and slow sensitivity deterioration are also presented which provide important information for efficient design. © 2013 IEEE.published_or_final_versio

Anode modification of polyfluorene-based polymer light-emitting devices

A glycerol-modified poly(3,4-ethylene dioxythiophene) (PEDOT): poly(styrene sulfonate) (PSS) layer was used as an anode buffer layer in polymer light-emitting devices using poly(9,9-dioctylfluorene) (F8) as the emitter. Devices with a configuration of indium tin oxide/PEDOT:PSS (with or without glycerol)/F8/CsF/Al were fabricated. It was found that the glycerol-modified device showed a much larger current density than the unmodified device. At an operating voltage of 6 V, the glycerol-modified device showed a luminance of 1300Cd/m 2 and a current efficiency of 1.7 Cd/A compared to the corresponding values of 500Cd/m 2 and 1.3 Cd/A in the unmodified device. Analysis by ultraviolet spectroscopy suggests that the two devices have the same energy level structure and the performance improvement should not be due to change in the PEDOT/polymer interface. It was further found that incorporating a suitable amount of glycerol into the PEDOT:PSS layer can increase its conductivity by six times. This leads to a better balance in the hole and electron currents and thus improved device efficiency. © 2002 American Institute of Physics.published_or_final_versio