Use of Standardization of Uveitis Nomenclature for Reporting Clinical Data at 10 Years

© 2017 by the American Academy of Ophthalmology. This manuscript version is made available under the CC-BY-NC-ND 4.0 license: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/Uveitis is a heterogeneous group of infectious and noninfectious intraocular inflammatory diseases. Management of both subsets of uveitis is frequently challenging. Since 2000, advances in microbial diagnostics and introduction of biologic drugs, combined with the potential for electronic communication to facilitate research on diseases with low incidence, have provided uveitis specialists with unprecedented opportunities for clinical trials to establish evidence-based management algorithms. Hampering this effort, however, was lack of a common system for describing uveitis, including diagnosis, severity, and outcome. The Standardization of Uveitis Nomenclature (SUN) Project is an effort to develop “international consensus for the use of terms to report on uveitis at academic meetings and in the literature.

Current ophthalmology practice patterns for syphilitic uveitis

© Author(s) (or their employer(s)) 2019 This is the author accepted manuscript (post print) made available in accordance with publisher copyright policy.Background Syphilitic uveitis is re-emerging alongside the systemic infection. In July 2017, an international group of uveitis-specialised ophthalmologists formed the International Ocular Syphilis Study Group to define current practice patterns. Methods 103 Study Group members based in 35 countries completed a 25-item questionnaire focused on case load, clinical presentations, use and interpretation of investigations, treatment and clinical indicators of poor prognosis. Results Members managed a mean of 6.1 patients with syphilitic uveitis in clinics that averaged 707 annual cases of uveitis (0.9%); 53.2% reported increasing numbers over the past decade. Patients presented to more members (40.2%) during secondary syphilis. Uveitis was usually posterior (60.8%) or pan (22.5%); complications included optic neuropathy, macular oedema and posterior synechiae. All members diagnosed syphilitic uveitis using serological tests (simultaneous or sequential testing algorithms), and 97.0% routinely checked for HIV co-infection. Cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) analysis was ordered by 90.2% of members, and 92.7% took uveitis plus Venereal Disease Research Laboratory test (VDRL) or fluorescent treponemal antibody absorption test (FTA-ABS) to indicate neurosyphilis. Patients were commonly co-managed with infectious disease physicians, and treated with penicillin for at least 10–14 days, plus corticosteroid. Features predicting poor outcome included optic neuropathy (86.3%) and initial misdiagnosis (63.7%). Reasons for delayed diagnosis were often practitioner-related. 82.5% of members tested every patient they managed with uveitis for syphilis. Conclusion This comprehensive report by an international group of uveitis-specialised ophthalmologists provides a current approach for the management of syphilitic uveitis

State-building, war and violence : evidence from Latin America

In European history, war has played a major role in state‐building and the state monopoly on violence. But war is a very specific form of organized political violence, and it is decreasing on a global scale. Other patterns of armed violence now dominate, ones that seem to undermine state‐building, thus preventing the replication of European experiences. As a consequence, the main focus of the current state‐building debate is on fragility and a lack of violence control inside these states. Evidence from Latin American history shows that the specific patterns of the termination of both war and violence are more important than the specific patterns of their organization. Hence these patterns can be conceptualized as a critical juncture for state‐building. While military victories in war, the subordination of competing armed actors and the prosecution of perpetrators are conducive for state‐building, negotiated settlements, coexistence, and impunity produce instability due to competing patterns of authority, legitimacy, and social cohesion

Statistical Study of Bias Temperature Instabilities by Means of 3D “Atomistic” Simulation

This chapter presents a comprehensive simulation study of the reliability performance in contemporary bulk MOSFET devices. With the CMOS technology entering in the nanoscale era, the statistical variability due to random dopant fluctuations plays a critical role in determining the transistor reliability performance. As a consequence, in contemporary devices, reliability and variability cannot be considered anymore as separate concepts. The reliability has to be reinterpreted as a time-dependent form of variability. In the first part of this chapter we introduce computational models and methods for modelling the reliability phenomena in presence of statistical variability. In particular we present both a frozen-time and a dynamical approach, showing details of their implementation and verification. In the second part of the chapter we report a broad set of simulation results highlighting the importance of variability in reliability evaluation of nanoscale devices. In particular we analyse the impact of variability on the single transistor and on many different transistors in presence of a single trapped charge. Then we show the effects related to multiple trapped charges. Finally the statistical results obtained using the frozen-time and the dynamical methods are compared in terms of accuracy in predicting the statistical dispersion in threshold voltage shift

Current ophthalmology practice patterns for syphilitic uveitis

Abstract BACKGROUND: Syphilitic uveitis is re-emerging alongside the systemic infection. In July 2017, an international group of uveitis-specialised ophthalmologists formed the International Ocular Syphilis Study Group to define current practice patterns. METHODS: 103 Study Group members based in 35 countries completed a 25-item questionnaire focused on case load, clinical presentations, use and interpretation of investigations, treatment and clinical indicators of poor prognosis. RESULTS: Members managed a mean of 6.1 patients with syphilitic uveitis in clinics that averaged 707 annual cases of uveitis (0.9%); 53.2% reported increasing numbers over the past decade. Patients presented to more members (40.2%) during secondary syphilis. Uveitis was usually posterior (60.8%) or pan (22.5%); complications included optic neuropathy, macular oedema and posterior synechiae. All members diagnosed syphilitic uveitis using serological tests (simultaneous or sequential testing algorithms), and 97.0% routinely checked for HIV co-infection. Cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) analysis was ordered by 90.2% of members, and 92.7% took uveitis plus Venereal Disease Research Laboratory test (VDRL) or fluorescent treponemal antibody absorption test (FTA-ABS) to indicate neurosyphilis. Patients were commonly co-managed with infectious disease physicians, and treated with penicillin for at least 10-14 days, plus corticosteroid. Features predicting poor outcome included optic neuropathy (86.3%) and initial misdiagnosis (63.7%). Reasons for delayed diagnosis were often practitioner-related. 82.5% of members tested every patient they managed with uveitis for syphilis. CONCLUSION: This comprehensive report by an international group of uveitis-specialised ophthalmologists provides a current approach for the management of syphilitic uveitis