737 research outputs found
Comparison of three methods for measuring psoriasis severity in clinical studies (Part 1 of 2): change during therapy in Psoriasis Area and Severity Index, Static Physician's Global Assessment and Lattice System Physician's Global Assessment
BackgroundAccurate and reliable assessment of changes in psoriasis severity is critical in clinical trials of therapies.ObjectiveTo compare Psoriasis Area and Severity Index (PASI), static Physician's Global Assessment (sPGA), and the Lattice System Physician's Global Assessment (LSâPGA) in a trial of systemic treatments for plaque psoriasis vulgaris and to assess whether they measure change in psoriasis induced by therapy.MethodsPatients were randomized to voclosporin or cyclosporine for 24 weeks (the â24âweekâtreatmentâ group, n = 366), or placebo for 12 weeks followed by voclosporin for 12 weeks (the âinitialâplaceboâ group, n = 89).ResultsAll scoring systems changed in concert and were sensitive enough to detect reductions in severity during placebo therapy as well as with active therapy (P < 0.01 for each measurement). At study onset, there were poorer correlations of sPGA with PASI (r = 0.45) and LSâPGA (r = 0.39) than between PASI and LSâPGA (r = 0.68). After therapy, all correlations were stronger, but sPGA continued to be less well correlated (with PASI, r = 0.85; with LSâPGA, r = 0.79) than LSâPGA with PASI (r = 0.90). Twoâ or threeâstep improvements in LSâPGA showed very good to excellent accuracy in corresponding to PASIâ50 and PASIâ75, respectively, and were more accurate than comparable changes in sPGA.ConclusionPASI, sPGA and LSâPGA are responsive to the varying degrees of improvement in psoriasis induced by either placebo or active therapy. While the three systems capture similar information, each has different reasons for use in a clinical trial.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/111966/1/jdv13132.pd
Beyond Cervical Length: Association between Postcerclage Transvaginal Ultrasound Parameters and Preterm Birth
Objective To assess the value of transvaginal ultrasound parameters after cerclage placement in estimating the risk of spontaneous preterm birth. Study Design This is a retrospective cohort at a single tertiary care center from 2013 to 2016. Women carrying a singleton, nonanomalous fetus with cerclage in situ and at least one postcerclage transvaginal ultrasound from 16 0/7 to 25 6/7 weeks' gestation were included. In addition to abstracting maternal demographic and obstetric characteristics, two study investigators separately reviewed each of the images from the first transvaginal ultrasound after cerclage placement, masked to pregnancy outcomes. We measured the angle between the anterior uterine wall and cervical canal at the internal os and external os, closed canal length above and below the stitch, width of the anterior and posterior cervix at the level of the cerclage, and stitch distance from the cervical canal. The presence of additional ultrasound findings such as sludge and cervical funneling was also noted. The main outcomes were preterm birth < 34 weeks and preterm birth < 37 weeks. Transvaginal ultrasound parameters were compared between women with preterm birth and those without preterm birth using chi-square, Fisher's exact, and Wilcoxon's rank-sum tests, as appropriate. Log binomial regression was used to estimate the relative risk of preterm birth for all significant obstetric and ultrasound characteristics. Results A total of 102 women met inclusion criteria: 58% had history-indicated, 20% ultrasound-indicated, and 23% exam-indicated cerclages. Of these, 28 (27.5%) women delivered at < 34 weeks' gestation, and 48 (47.0%) women delivered at < 37 weeks' gestation. Preterm birth did not vary by race, maternal age, insurance, smoking, or gestational age of the earliest prior preterm birth (for multiparous women), but women who had preterm birth were more likely to have exam-indicated cerclage. There were several transvaginal ultrasound parameters associated with preterm birth < 34 weeks and preterm birth < 37 weeks. Of these, cervical length below the stitch, stitch distance from the cervical canal, straight cervical canal, funneling to or past the stitch, and presence of sludge had the greatest effect sizes. Conclusion Rates of preterm birth are high postcerclage. In addition to measuring cervical length, utilization of postcerclage transvaginal ultrasound to evaluate the location of the cerclage within the cervix, the curvature of the cervical canal, and the presence of funneling and sludge may help identify women who are at the highest risk for preterm birth
Field dynamics and kink-antikink production in rapidly expanding systems
Field dynamics in a rapidly expanding system is investigated by transforming
from space-time to the rapidity - proper-time frame. The proper-time dependence
of different contributions to the total energy is established. For systems
characterized by a finite momentum cut-off, a freeze-out time can be defined
after which the field propagation in rapidity space ends and the system decays
into decoupled solitons, antisolitons and local vacuum fluctuations. Numerical
simulations of field evolutions on a lattice for the (1+1)-dimensional
model illustrate the general results and show that the freeze-out time and
average multiplicities of kinks (plus antikinks) produced in this 'phase
transition' can be obtained from simple averages over the initial ensemble of
field configurations. An extension to explicitly include additional dissipation
is discussed. The validity of an adiabatic approximation for the case of an
overdamped system is investigated. The (3+1)-dimensional generalization may
serve as model for baryon-antibaryon production after heavy-ion collisions.Comment: 18 pages, 7 figures. Two references added. New subsection III.E
added. Final version accepted for publication in PR
Superheavy Dark Matter with Discrete Gauge Symmetries
We show that there are discrete gauge symmetries protect naturally heavy X
particles from decaying into the ordinary light particles in the supersymmetric
standard model. This makes the proposal very attractive that the superheavy X
particles constitute a part of the dark matter in the present universe. It is
more interesting that there are a class of discrete gauge symmetries which
naturally accommodate a long-lived unstable X particle. We find that in some
discrete Z_{10} models, for example, a superheavy X particle has lifetime
\tau_X \simeq 10^{11}-10^{26} years for its mass M_X \simeq 10^{13}-10^{14}
GeV. This long lifetime is guaranteed by the absence of lower dimensional
operators (of light particles) couple to the X. We briefly discuss a possible
explanation for the recently observed ultra-high-energy cosmic ray events by
the decay of this unstable X particle.Comment: 9 pages, Late
Fate of the first traversible wormhole: black-hole collapse or inflationary expansion
We study numerically the stability of Morris & Thorne's first traversible
wormhole, shown previously by Ellis to be a solution for a massless ghost
Klein-Gordon field. Our code uses a dual-null formulation for spherically
symmetric space-time integration, and the numerical range covers both universes
connected by the wormhole. We observe that the wormhole is unstable against
Gaussian pulses in either exotic or normal massless Klein-Gordon fields. The
wormhole throat suffers a bifurcation of horizons and either explodes to form
an inflationary universe or collapses to a black hole, if the total input
energy is respectively negative or positive. As the perturbations become small
in total energy, there is evidence for critical solutions with a certain
black-hole mass or Hubble constant. The collapse time is related to the initial
energy with an apparently universal critical exponent. For normal matter, such
as a traveller traversing the wormhole, collapse to a black hole always
results. However, carefully balanced additional ghost radiation can maintain
the wormhole for a limited time. The black-hole formation from a traversible
wormhole confirms the recently proposed duality between them. The inflationary
case provides a mechanism for inflating, to macroscopic size, a Planck-sized
wormhole formed in space-time foam.Comment: 10 pages, RevTeX4, 11 figures, epsf.st
Lambda polarization and single-spin left-right asymmetry in diffractive hadron-hadron collisions
We discuss Lambda polarization and single-spin left-right asymmetry in
diffractive hadron-hadron scattering at high energies. We show that the
physical picture proposed in a recent Letter is consistent with the
experimental observation that polarization in the diffractive
process, , is much higher than that in the inclusive
reaction, . We make predictions for the left-right asymmetry,
A_N, and for the spin transfer, , in the single-spin process
and suggest further experimental tests of the
proposed picture.Comment: 14 pages, 3 ps-figures. Phys. Rev. D (in press
Evolving Lorentzian Wormholes
Evolving Lorentzian wormholes with the required matter satisfying the Energy
conditions are discussed. Several different scale factors are used and the
corresponding consequences derived. The effect of extra, decaying (in time)
compact dimensions present in the wormhole metric is also explored and certain
interesting conclusions are derived for the cases of exponential and
Kaluza--Klein inflation.Comment: 10 pages( RevTex, Twocolumn format), Two figures available on request
from the first author. transmission errors corrected
DCC Dynamics in (2+1)D-O(3) model
The dynamics of symmetry-breaking after a quench is numerically simulated on
a lattice for the (2+1)-dimensional O(3) model. In addition to the standard
sigma-model with temperature-dependent Phi^4-potential the energy functional
includes a four-derivative current-current coupling to stabilize the size of
the emerging extended topological textures. The total winding number can be
conserved by constraint. As a model for the chiral phase transition during the
cooling phase after a hadronic collision this allows to investigate the
interference of 'baryon-antibaryon' production with the developing disoriented
aligned domains. The growth of angular correlations, condensate, average
orientation is studied in dependence of texture size, quench rate, symmetry
breaking. The classical dissipative dynamics determines the rate of energy
emitted from the relaxing source for each component of the 3-vector field which
provides a possible signature for domains of Disoriented Chiral Condensate. We
find that the 'pions' are emitted in two distinct pulses; for sufficiently
small lattice size the second one carries the DCC signal, but it is strongly
suppressed as compared to simultaneous 'sigma'-meson emission. We compare the
resulting anomalies in the distributions of DCC pions with probabilities
derived within the commonly used coherent state formalism.Comment: 27 pages, 17 figures; several minor insertions in the text; two
references adde
Covariance of Antiproton Yield and Source Size in Nuclear Collisions
We confront for the first time the widely-held belief that combined
event-by-event information from quark gluon plasma signals can reduce the
ambiguity of the individual signals. We illustrate specifically how the
measured antiproton yield combined with the information from pion-pion HBT
correlations can be used to identify novel event classes.Comment: 8 pages, 5 figures, improved title, references and readability;
results unchange
Formation of extended topological defects during symmetry breaking phase transitions in O(2) and O(3) models
The density of extended topological defects created during symmetry-breaking
phase transitions depends on the ratio between the correlation length in the
symmetric phase near and the winding length of the defects as determined
by the momentaneous effective action after a typical relaxation time.
Conservation of winding number in numerical simulations requires a suitable
embedding of the field variables and the appropriate geometrical implementation
of the winding density on the discrete lattice. We define a modified Kibble
limit for the square lattice and obtain defect densities as functions of
winding lengths in O(2) and O(3) models. The latter allows to observe formation
of disoriented aligned domains within the easy plane. Their extent is severely
limited by the momentaneous defect density during the course of the quench.Comment: 16 pages, 9 figure
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