Do temperature changes cause eczema flares? An English cohort study.

BACKGROUND: It is unclear if ambient temperature changes affect eczema. It is also unclear if people with worse disease are more susceptible to weather-related flares, or specific types of emollient offer protection. Substantiating these links may help inform action plans and patients self-management. OBJECTIVE: To investigate the effect of short-term temperature variations on eczema symptoms in children. METHODS: Data from a UK cohort of 519 children (6 months-12 years) with at least mild eczema, participating in a randomised trial comparing four types of emollients on eczema symptoms, were combined with observed temperature data from the Hadley Centre's Integrated Surface Database.Hot & cold weeks were defined by average regional temperature >75th or <25th percentile, January 2018-February 2020. Eczema flares were defined as ≥3 point change in patient-oriented eczema measure (POEM). Random effects logistic regression models were used to estimate the odds ratios of flares in hot & cold weeks (reference group: temperate weeks). The likelihood ratio test assessed for evidence of effect modification by disease severity and emollient type. RESULTS: The baseline mean age was 4.9 years (SD 3.2) and POEM score was 9.2 (SD 5.5), indicating moderate eczema. 90% of participants lived within 20 km of their nearest weather station. From the 519 participants there were 6,796 consecutively paired POEMs and 1,082 flares.Seasonal variation in POEM scores was observed, suggesting symptoms worsening with colder weather in winter and improving with warmer weather in summer. Odds ratios of flares were: 1.15 (p = 0.136, 95%CI 0.96-1.39) in cold weeks, 0.85 (p = 0.045, 95%CI 0.72-1.00) in hot weeks. Likelihood ratio test showed no evidence of this differing by disease severity (p = 0.53) or emollient type used (p = 0.55). CONCLUSIONS: Our findings are consistent with previous studies demonstrating either improvements in eczema symptoms or reduced flares in hot weather. Worse disease and different emollient types did not increase susceptibility or provide protection against temperature changes. Further work should investigate the role of sunlight, humidity, air pollution and other environmental factors

Mortality and Readmission After Cervical Fracture from a Fall in Older Adults: Comparison with Hip Fracture Using National Medicare Data

Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/115960/1/jgs13670.pdfhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/115960/2/jgs13670_am.pd

High-resolution global maps of tidal flat ecosystems from 1984 to 2019

Assessments of the status of tidal flats, one of the most extensive coastal ecosystems, have been hampered by a lack of data on their global distribution and change. Here we present globally consistent, spatially-explicit data of the occurrence of tidal flats, defined as sand, rock or mud flats that undergo regular tidal inundation. More than 1.3 million Landsat images were processed to 54 composite metrics for twelve 3-year periods, spanning four decades (1984–1986 to 2017–2019). The composite metrics were used as predictor variables in a machine-learning classification trained with more than 10,000 globally distributed training samples. We assessed accuracy of the classification with 1,348 stratified random samples across the mapped area, which indicated overall map accuracies of 82.2% (80.0–84.3%, 95% confidence interval) and 86.1% (84.2–86.8%, 95% CI) for version 1.1 and 1.2 of the data, respectively. We expect these maps will provide a means to measure and monitor a range of processes that are affecting coastal ecosystems, including the impacts of human population growth and sea level rise

Vector meson dominance and the rho meson

We discuss the properties of vector mesons, in particular the rho^0, in the context of the Hidden Local Symmetry (HLS) model. This provides a unified framework to study several aspects of the low energy QCD sector. Firstly, we show that in the HLS model the physical photon is massless, without requiring off field diagonalization. We then demonstrate the equivalence of HLS and the two existing representations of vector meson dominance, VMD1 and VMD2, at both tree level and one loop order. Finally the S matrix pole position is shown to provide a model and process independent means of specifying the rho mass and width, in contrast to the real axis prescription currently used in the Particle Data Group tables.Comment: 18 pages, REVTE

Polarised foreground removal at low radio frequencies using rotation measure synthesis: uncovering the signature of hydrogen reionisation

Measurement of redshifted 21-cm emission from neutral hydrogen promises to be the most effective method for studying the reionisation history of hydrogen and, indirectly, the first galaxies. These studies will be limited not by raw sensitivity to the signal, but rather, by bright foreground radiation from Galactic and extragalactic radio sources and the Galactic continuum. In addition, leakage due to gain errors and non-ideal feeds conspire to further contaminate low-frequency radio obsevations. This leakage leads to a portion of the complex linear polarisation signal finding its way into Stokes I, and inhibits the detection of the non-polarised cosmological signal from the epoch of reionisation. In this work, we show that rotation measure synthesis can be used to recover the signature of cosmic hydrogen reionisation in the presence of contamination by polarised foregrounds. To achieve this, we apply the rotation measure synthesis technique to the Stokes I component of a synthetic data cube containing Galactic foreground emission, the effect of instrumental polarisation leakage, and redshifted 21-cm emission by neutral hydrogen from the epoch of reionisation. This produces an effective Stokes I Faraday dispersion function for each line of sight, from which instrumental polarisation leakage can be fitted and subtracted. Our results show that it is possible to recover the signature of reionisation in its late stages (z ~ 7) by way of the 21-cm power spectrum, as well as through tomographic imaging of ionised cavities in the intergalactic medium.Comment: 22 pages including 11 figures. Minor revisions following referee's report. MNRAS, in pres

High glucose disrupts oligosaccharide recognition function via competitive inhibition : a potential mechanism for immune dysregulation in diabetes mellitus

Diabetic complications include infection and cardiovascular disease. Within the immune system, host-pathogen and regulatory host-host interactions operate through binding of oligosaccharides by C-type lectin. A number of C-type lectins recognise oligosaccharides rich in mannose and fucose – sugars with similar structures to glucose. This raises the possibility that high glucose conditions in diabetes affect protein-oligosaccharide interactions via competitive inhibition. Mannose binding lectin, soluble DC-SIGN & DC-SIGNR, and surfactant protein D, were tested for carbohydrate binding in the presence of glucose concentrations typical of diabetes, via surface plasmon resonance and affinity chromatography. Complement activation assays were performed in high glucose. DC-SIGN and DC-SIGNR expression in adipose tissues was examined via immunohistochemistry. High glucose inhibited C-type lectin binding to high-mannose glycoprotein and binding of DC-SIGN to fucosylated ligand (blood group B) was abrogated in high glucose. Complement activation via the lectin pathway was inhibited in high glucose and also in high trehalose - a nonreducing sugar with glucoside stereochemistry. DC-SIGN staining was seen on cells with DC morphology within omental and subcutaneous adipose tissues. We conclude that high glucose disrupts C-type lectin function, potentially illuminating new perspectives on susceptibility to infectious and inflammatory disease in diabetes. Mechanisms involve competitive inhibition of carbohydrate-binding within sets of defined proteins, in contrast to broadly indiscriminate, irreversible glycation of proteins

Extracting Br(omega->pi^+ pi^-) from the Time-like Pion Form-factor

We extract the G-parity-violating branching ratio Br(omega->pi^+ pi^-) from the effective rho-omega mixing matrix element Pi_{rho omega}(s), determined from e^+e^- -> pi^+ pi^- data. The omega->pi^+ pi^- partial width can be determined either from the time-like pion form factor or through the constraint that the mixed physical propagator D_{rho omega}^{mu nu}(s) possesses no poles. The two procedures are inequivalent in practice, and we show why the first is preferred, to find finally Br(omega->pi^+ pi^-) = 1.9 +/- 0.3%.Comment: 12 pages (published version

Community norms for the eating disorder examination questionnaire (EDE-Q) among cisgender bisexual plus women and men

Purpose: Cisgender bisexual plus (including bisexual, pansexual, and polysexual) women and men experience unique health concerns including eating disorders. The purpose of this study was to develop community norms for eating disorder attitudes and disordered eating behaviors in cisgender bisexual plus women and men using the Eating Disorders Examination Questionnaire (EDE-Q). Methods: Participants were cisgender bisexual plus women (n = 462) and men (n = 93) participants in The PRIDE Study, an existing study of sexual and gender minority people. Results: Mean and standard deviation of EDE-Q scores among cisgender bisexual plus women and men, respectively, were: Global (1.75 ± 1.26, 1.56 ± 1.18), Restraint (1.34 ± 1.44, 1.42 ± 1.53), Eating Concern (0.96 ± 1.13, 0.63 ± 0.96), Weight Concern 2.27 ± 1.55, 1.89 ± 1.46), and Shape Concern 42 ± 1.62, 2.30 ± 1.57). Among cisgender bisexual plus women and men, respectively, 27.5% and 22.6% scored in the clinically significant range on the Global score. Bisexual plus women and men reported any occurrence (≥ 1/28 days) of dietary restraint (19.3%, 23.7%), objective binge episodes (11.1%, 10.8%), excessive exercise (4.5%, 5.4%), self-induced vomiting (1.7%, 0.0%), and laxative misuse (0.4%, 1.1%), respectively. A lower percentage of age-matched cisgender bisexual plus women (18–25 years) reported any occurrence of objective binge episodes, self-induced vomiting, laxative misuse, and excessive exercise than previously published in young women. Age-matched cisgender bisexual plus men (18–26 years) reported higher weight concern subscale scores than previously published in young men. Conclusions: These norms should aid clinicians in applying and interpreting the EDE-Q scores of cisgender bisexual plus women and men. Level of evidence: Level V: cross-sectional descriptive stud

Eating disorder attitudes and disordered eating behaviors as measured by the Eating Disorder Examination Questionnaire (EDE-Q) among cisgender lesbian women

The Eating Disorder Examination Questionnaire (EDE-Q) is a measure of eating disorder attitudes and disordered eating behaviors. Prior descriptive studies of the EDE-Q for women either did not assess or omitted reporting sexual orientation. This study\u27s objective was to assess eating disorder attitudes and disordered eating behaviors as measured by the EDE-Q among cisgender lesbian women. We present mean scores and standard deviations for the EDE-Q among 563 self-identified cisgender lesbian women ages 18–77 who were recruited from The PRIDE Study in 2018. Among cisgender lesbian women, 3.4 % scored in the clinically significant range on the Restraint, 1.6 % on the Eating Concern, 9.1 % on the Weight Concern, 13.9 % on the Shape Concern, and 3.9 % on the Global Score scales of the EDE-Q. We found that 13.5 % of participants reported any occurrence (≥1/28 days) of dietary restriction, 8.7 % for objective binge episodes, 5.3 % for excessive exercise,.4% for self-induced vomiting, and.4% for laxative misuse. Participants reported a current (1.8 %) or lifetime (7.1 %) diagnosis of an eating disorder by a clinician. These EDE-Q descriptive data capture eating disorder attitudes and disordered eating behaviors among cisgender lesbian women and may aid clinicians and researchers in interpreting the EDE-Q in this specific population