Power corrections in e+ e- --> pi+ pi-, K+ K- and B --> K pi, pi pi

CLEO-c measurements of the timelike form factors F_pi, F_K at \sqrt{s}=3.671 GeV provide a direct probe of power corrections (PC's) at energies near m_B. PC's in F_pi, F_K and B \to K pi, pi pi are separated into perturbative and soft parts. In F_pi, F_K the latter are \ge O(10) larger. A PC fit to the B \to K pi, pi pi data also yields a \ge O(10) soft-to-perturbative hierarchy for the QCD penguin PC's. Hence, both can be attributed to dominance of the soft-ovelap between energetic (approximately) back-to-back collinear partons, and consistency of the B\to K pi, pi pi fit with the Standard Model appears to be naturally realized. The CP asymmetries S_{K_s pi^0}, C_{K_s pi^0} are well determined, providing a clean test for new physics.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figures, version published in Eur. Phys. J. C; elaborated on the connection between power corrections in e+e- ->M1 M2 and the B-> M1 M2 QCD penguin amplitudes; removed speculation that soft-overlaps are much larger for PP than for VP and VV final states, this is not supported by a new analysis in preparatio

Aspects épidémio-clinique et évolutif de la Cirrhose du foie à Kinshasa : Etude Multicentrique: Multicentric study on epidemiological, clinical and progressive aspects of liver cirrhosis in Kinshasa

Context and objectives. Liver cirrhosis is relatively common and leads to multiple complications in developing countries where management is often late. However, data on this disease are paradoxically scarce in DR Congo. The present study was designed to describe epidemiological, clinical, therapeutic aspects as well as outcome of cirrhosis in the city of Kinshasa. Methods. In a retrospective study, 1,056 records of patients having liver cirrhosis and attending 8 hospitals over 11 years (2001-2011) in the city of Kinshasa were analyzed. The parameters of interest included sociodemographic, clinical and disease progression data. Results. Their mean age was 51 ± 16 years with a male predominance (68.8%). The etiologies of cirrhosis were dominated by alcoholism (49.6%) and viral hepatitis (22.4%). Among patients with viral hepatitis, 11.3 % were seropositive for HBsAg, 34.0% for anti-HCV and 54.7% for HBV-HCV. Almost half of the patients presented with abdominal pain (45%), physical asthenia (43%) and abdominal bloating (42%). The most common clinical signs found were ascites, hepatomegaly and lower limb edema. The outcome was marked by ascites in 64.7%, jaundice in 42.3%, malignant degeneration in 33% and digestive hemorrhage in 32%. Beside the symptomatic treatment, an etiological treatment was rarely tempted. No patient benefited from hepatic transplantation and 44.2% of patients died. Conclusion. Almost half of cirrhotic patients studied were alcoholic and the treatment still symptomatic. This study argues for a national policy for the management of liver cirrhosis and especially prevention through the fight against chronic alcoholism and vaccination campaigns against viral hepatitis B and C. Contexte et objectifs. La cirrhose est relativement fréquente et occasionne des multiples complications dans les pays en voie de développement où la prise en charge est souvent tardive. Cependant, les données y relatives sont fragmentaires en RD Congo. Les objectifs de la présente étude étaient de décrire les aspects épidémiologiques, cliniques, et évolutifs de la cirrhose hépatique dans la ville de Kinshasa. Méthodes. Il s’agissait d’une étude documentaire ayant colligé les dossiers médicaux de 1056 patients ayant présenté une cirrhose du foie dans 8 centres hospitaliers de la ville de Kinshasa entre 2001 et 2011. Les paramètres d’intérêt comprenaient les données sociodémographiques, cliniques, ainsi que l’évolution des patients sous l’attitude thérapeutique. Résultats. Leur âge moyen était de 51ans (ET=16) avec une prédominance masculine (68,8%). Les étiologies de la cirrhose étaient dominées par l’alcoolisme (49,6%) et l’hépatite virale (22,4%). Parmi les patients avec hépatite virale (22,4%), 11,3% de l’Ag HBs, 34% de l’Ac anti VHC et 54,7% de co-infection VHB-VHC étaient rencontrés. Près de la moitié des patients ont présenté à l’admission des douleurs abdominales (45%), de l’asthénie physique (43%) et un ballonnement abdominal (42%). L’ascite, l’hépatomégalie et les œdèmes des membres inférieurs étaient les signes physiques fréquemment rencontrés. L’évolution était marquée par une ascite chez 64,7%, un ictère chez 42,3%, une dégénérescence maligne chez 33% et une HD chez 32%. En dehors du traitement symptomatique, le traitement étiologique était rarement tenté. Aucun patient n’a bénéficié d’une transplantation hépatique et 44,2% des patients étaient  décédés. Conclusion. Près de la moitié des patients étudiés avait une cirrhose alcoolique dont la prise en charge reste très délicate expliquant la surmortalité. Cette étude plaide pour une politique nationale de prise en charge de la cirrhose du foie et surtout de prévention par la lutte contre l’alcoolisme chronique et les campagnes de vaccination contre l’hépatite virale B et C

The aged lymphoid tissue environment fails to support naive T cell homeostasis

Aging is associated with a gradual loss of naive T cells and a reciprocal increase in the proportion of memory T cells. While reduced thymic output is important, age-dependent changes in factors supporting naive T cells homeostasis may also be involved. Indeed, we noted a dramatic decrease in the ability of aged mice to support survival and homeostatic proliferation of naive T cells. The defect was not due to a reduction in IL-7 expression, but from a combination of changes in the secondary lymphoid environment that impaired naive T cell entry and access to key survival factors. We observed an age-related shift in the expression of homing chemokines and structural deterioration of the stromal network in T cell zones. Treatment with IL-7/mAb complexes can restore naive T cell homeostatic proliferation in aged mice. Our data suggests that homeostatic mechanisms that support the naive T cell pool deteriorate with age © The Author(s) 2016111101sciescopu

A reference case for economic evaluations in osteoarthritis: An expert consensus article from the European Society for Clinical and Economic Aspects of Osteoporosis and Osteoarthritis (ESCEO)

Background: General recommendations for a reference case for economic studies in rheumatic diseases were published in 2002 in an initiative to improve the comparability of cost-effectiveness studies in the field. Since then, economic evaluations in osteoarthritis (OA) continue to show considerable heterogeneity in methodological approach. Objectives: To develop a reference case specific for economic studies in OA, including the standard optimal care, with which to judge new pharmacologic and non-pharmacologic interventions. Methods: Four subgroups of an ESCEO expert working group on economic assessments (13 experts representing diverse aspects of clinical research and/or economic evaluations) were charged with producing lists of recommendations that would potentially improve the comparability of economic analyses in OA: outcome measures, comparators, costs and methodology. These proposals were discussed and refined during a face-to-face meeting in 2013. They are presented here in the format of the recommendations of the recently published Consolidated Health Economic Evaluation Reporting Standards (CHEERS) statement, so that an initiative on economic analysis methodology might be consolidated with an initiative on reporting standards. Results: Overall, three distinct reference cases are proposed, one for each hand, knee and hip OA; with diagnostic variations in the first two, giving rise to different treatment options: interphalangeal or thumb-based disease for hand OA and the presence or absence of joint malalignment for knee OA. A set of management strategies is proposed, which should be further evaluated to help establish a consensus on the "standard optimal care" in each proposed reference case. The recommendations on outcome measures, cost itemisation and methodological approaches are also provided. Conclusions: The ESCEO group proposes a set of disease-specific recommendations on the conduct and reporting of economic evaluations in OA that could help the standardisation and comparability of studies that evaluate therapeutic strategies of OA in terms of costs and effectiveness

The global burden of falls: Global, regional and national estimates of morbidity and mortality from the Global Burden of Disease Study 2017

Background: Falls can lead to severe health loss including death. Past research has shown that falls are an important cause of death and disability worldwide. The Global Burden of Disease Study 2017 (GBD 2017) provides a comprehensive assessment of morbidity and mortality from falls. Methods: Estimates for mortality, years of life lost (YLLs), incidence, prevalence, years lived with disability (YLDs) and disability-adjusted life years (DALYs) were produced for 195 countries and territories from 1990 to 2017 for all ages using the GBD 2017 framework. Distributions of the bodily injury (eg, hip fracture) were estimated using hospital records. Results: Globally, the age-standardised incidence of falls was 2238 (1990-2532) per 100 000 in 2017, representing a decline of 3.7% (7.4 to 0.3) from 1990 to 2017. Age-standardised prevalence w

Trust, contract and relationship development

Contains fulltext : 45386.pdf (publisher's version ) (Closed access)28 p

Large expert-curated database for benchmarking document similarity detection in biomedical literature search

Document recommendation systems for locating relevant literature have mostly relied on methods developed a decade ago. This is largely due to the lack of a large offline gold-standard benchmark of relevant documents that cover a variety of research fields such that newly developed literature search techniques can be compared, improved and translated into practice. To overcome this bottleneck, we have established the RElevant LIterature SearcH consortium consisting of more than 1500 scientists from 84 countries, who have collectively annotated the relevance of over 180 000 PubMed-listed articles with regard to their respective seed (input) article/s. The majority of annotations were contributed by highly experienced, original authors of the seed articles. The collected data cover 76% of all unique PubMed Medical Subject Headings descriptors. No systematic biases were observed across different experience levels, research fields or time spent on annotations. More importantly, annotations of the same document pairs contributed by different scientists were highly concordant. We further show that the three representative baseline methods used to generate recommended articles for evaluation (Okapi Best Matching 25, Term Frequency-Inverse Document Frequency and PubMed Related Articles) had similar overall performances. Additionally, we found that these methods each tend to produce distinct collections of recommended articles, suggesting that a hybrid method may be required to completely capture all relevant articles. The established database server located at https://relishdb.ict.griffith.edu.au is freely available for the downloading of annotation data and the blind testing of new methods. We expect that this benchmark will be useful for stimulating the development of new powerful techniques for title and title/abstract-based search engines for relevant articles in biomedical research.Peer reviewe