112 research outputs found
Comorbidity in multiple sclerosis: its temporal relationships with disease onset and dose effect on mortality
© 2019 The Authors. European Journal of Neurology published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd on behalf of European Academy of Neurology. Background and purpose: We aimed to determine the burden of comorbidities at the time of diagnosis of multiple sclerosis (MS), the risk of developing new comorbidities after diagnosis and the effect of comorbidities on mortality in patients with MS. Methods: This study used data from 2526 patients with incident MS and 9980 age-, sex- and physician-matched controls without MS identified from the UK Clinical Practice Research Datalink. Results: Before the MS diagnosis, the adjusted odds ratio for the association between MS and a Charlson comorbidity index score of 1â2, 3â4 or â„5 was 131 [95% confidence interval (CI), 1.17â1.47], 1.65 (95% CI, 1.20â2.26) or 3.26 (95% CI, 1.58â6.70), respectively. MS was associated with increased risks of cardiovascular and neurological/mental diseases. After diagnosis, the adjusted hazard ratio for the association between MS and an increased risk of developing comorbidities was 1.13 (95% CI, 1.00â1.29). The risk of developing any comorbidity in terms of neoplasms, musculoskeletal/connective tissue diseases or neurological/mental diseases was higher in MS. Patients with MS had a higher mortality risk compared with controls, with a hazard ratio of 2.29 (95% CI, 1.81â2.73) after adjusting for comorbidities. There was a dose effect of pre-existing comorbidities on mortality. Conclusions: Patients with MS have an increased risk of developing multiple comorbidities both before and after diagnosis and pre-existing comorbidities have an impact on survival
Epilepsy and associated mortality in patients with multiple sclerosis
Background and purpose: We aimed to determine the prevalence of epilepsy in patients with multiple sclerosis (MS) at diagnosis, the risk of developing epilepsy after the diagnosis of MS and the relative risk of mortality associated with epilepsy.Methods: We used the UK Clinical Practice Research Dataâlink to identify 2526 patients with incident MS and 9980 ageâ, sexâ and index yearâmatched nonâMS controls from 1997 to 2006. Logistic regression was used to estimate odds ratios [95% confidence interval (CI)] for epilepsy and Cox regression was used to estimate hazard ratios (HRs) (95% CI) for epilepsy and mortality.Results: Patients with incident MS were on average 45 years old and 70.9% were female. At diagnosis, the prevalence of epilepsy in patients with MS was 1.30% compared with 0.57% in nonâMS controls. At diagnosis, MS was associated with an adjusted odds ratio (95% CI) of 2.11 (1.36â3.27) for preâexisting epilepsy. Among epilepsyâfree patients, the cumulative probabilities of developing epilepsy, first recorded within 10 years of the index date, were 2.77% for patients with MS and 0.90% for controls. MS was associated with an adjusted HR (95% CI) of 6.01 (2.94â12.29) for epilepsy. Among patients with MS, epilepsy was associated with an HR (95% CI) of 2.23 (1.02â4.84) for allâcause mortality.Conclusions: This populationâbased study found an increased prevalence of epilepsy in patients with MS at diagnosis when compared with nonâMS controls and the risk of developing epilepsy was also higher following the MS diagnosis. Patients with MS with epilepsy had a higher risk of mortality compared with those without
Atomic Scale Structure and Chemical Composition across Order-Disorder Interfaces
Through a combination of aberration-corrected high-resolution scanning transmission electron microscopy and three-dimensional atom probe tomography, the true atomic-scale structure and change in chemical composition across the complex order-disorder interface in a metallic alloy has been determined. The study reveals the presence of two interfacial widths, one corresponding to an order-disorder transition, and the other to the compositional transition across the interface, raising fundamental questions regarding the definition of the interfacial width in such systems
Consumer vulnerability and the transformative potential of Internet shopping: An exploratory case study
Ten million individuals in the UK who suffer from long-term illness, impairments or disability can be considered as vulnerable consumers (Office for Disability Issues, 2010). Despite this, there are few studies on the use of the Internet for grocery shopping by the disabled and none which offers an understanding of the multiple facets of consumer vulnerability. The purpose of this study is to contextualise the use of the Internet for grocery shopping using an exploratory case to provide fresh insights into the 'actual' vulnerability of "Danni" – a disabled housewife and mother. The consumer focussed methods used here were combined multiple complementary approaches. The findings illustrate that whilst the use of the Internet reduces the impracticalities of shopping in-store, the normalcy afforded to Danni through shopping in-store (including her sense of self) was not met by the technological offerings. The paradoxes associated with using online provision and the strategies adopted to manage these by Danni demonstrate engagement/disengagement and assimilation/isolation. Policy implications and insights for retailers are provided
Test beam performance of a CBC3-based mini-module for the Phase-2 CMS Outer Tracker before and after neutron irradiation
The Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN will undergo major upgrades to increase the instantaneous luminosity up to 5â7.5Ă10 cms. This High Luminosity upgrade of the LHC (HL-LHC) will deliver a total of 3000â4000 fb-1 of proton-proton collisions at a center-of-mass energy of 13â14 TeV. To cope with these challenging environmental conditions, the strip tracker of the CMS experiment will be upgraded using modules with two closely-spaced silicon sensors to provide information to include tracking in the Level-1 trigger selection. This paper describes the performance, in a test beam experiment, of the first prototype module based on the final version of the CMS Binary Chip front-end ASIC before and after the module was irradiated with neutrons. Results demonstrate that the prototype module satisfies the requirements, providing efficient tracking information, after being irradiated with a total fluence comparable to the one expected through the lifetime of the experiment
COVID-19: Rapid antigen detection for SARS-CoV-2 by lateral flow assay: A national systematic evaluation of sensitivity and specificity for mass-testing
Background
Lateral flow device (LFD) viral antigen immunoassays have been developed around the world as diagnostic tests for SARS-CoV-2 infection. They have been proposed to deliver an infrastructure-light, cost-economical solution giving results within half an hour.
Methods
LFDs were initially reviewed by a Department of Health and Social Care team, part of the UK government, from which 64 were selected for further evaluation from 1st August to 15th December 2020. Standardised laboratory evaluations, and for those that met the published criteria, field testing in the Falcon-C19 research study and UK pilots were performed (UK COVID-19 testing centres, hospital, schools, armed forces).
Findings
4/64 LFDs so far have desirable performance characteristics (orient Gene, Deepblue, Abbott and Innova SARS-CoV-2 Antigen Rapid Qualitative Test). All these LFDs have a viral antigen detection of >90% at 100,000 RNA copies/ml. 8951 Innova LFD tests were performed with a kit failure rate of 5.6% (502/8951, 95% CI: 5.1â6.1), false positive rate of 0.32% (22/6954, 95% CI: 0.20â0.48). Viral antigen detection/sensitivity across the sampling cohort when performed by laboratory scientists was 78.8% (156/198, 95% CI 72.4â84.3).
Interpretation
Our results suggest LFDs have promising performance characteristics for mass population testing and can be used to identify infectious positive individuals. The Innova LFD shows good viral antigen detection/sensitivity with excellent specificity, although kit failure rates and the impact of training are potential issues. These results support the expanded evaluation of LFDs, and assessment of greater access to testing on COVID-19 transmission.
Funding
Department of Health and Social Care. University of Oxford. Public Health England Porton Down, Manchester University NHS Foundation Trust, National Institute of Health Research
Performance of the CMS High Granularity Calorimeter prototype to charged pion beams of 20300 GeV/c
The upgrade of the CMS experiment for the high luminosity operation of the
LHC comprises the replacement of the current endcap calorimeter by a high
granularity sampling calorimeter (HGCAL). The electromagnetic section of the
HGCAL is based on silicon sensors interspersed between lead and copper (or
copper tungsten) absorbers. The hadronic section uses layers of stainless steel
as an absorbing medium and silicon sensors as an active medium in the regions
of high radiation exposure, and scintillator tiles directly readout by silicon
photomultipliers in the remaining regions. As part of the development of the
detector and its readout electronic components, a section of a silicon-based
HGCAL prototype detector along with a section of the CALICE AHCAL prototype was
exposed to muons, electrons and charged pions in beam test experiments at the
H2 beamline at the CERN SPS in October 2018. The AHCAL uses the same technology
as foreseen for the HGCAL but with much finer longitudinal segmentation. The
performance of the calorimeters in terms of energy response and resolution,
longitudinal and transverse shower profiles is studied using negatively charged
pions, and is compared to GEANT4 predictions. This is the first report
summarizing results of hadronic showers measured by the HGCAL prototype using
beam test data.Comment: To be submitted to JINS
Gene-rich UV sex chromosomes harbor conserved regulators of sexual development
Centro de InvestigaciĂłn Forestal (CIFOR)Nonrecombining sex chromosomes, like the mammalian Y, often lose genes and accumulate transposable ele ments, a process termed degeneration. The correlation between suppressed recombination and degeneration is
clear in animal XY systems, but the absence of recombination is confounded with other asymmetries between the
X and Y. In contrast, UV sex chromosomes, like those found in bryophytes, experience symmetrical population
genetic conditions. Here, we generate nearly gapless female and male chromosome-scale reference genomes
of the moss Ceratodon purpureus to test for degeneration in the bryophyte UV sex chromosomes. We show that
the moss sex chromosomes evolved over 300 million years ago and expanded via two chromosomal fusions.
Although the sex chromosomes exhibit weaker purifying selection than autosomes, we find that suppressed
recombination alone is insufficient to drive degeneration. Instead, the U and V sex chromosomes harbor
thousands of broadly expressed genes, including numerous key regulators of sexual development across
land plants.This work was supported by NSF DEB-1541005 and 1542609 and start-up
funds from UF to S.F.M.; microMORPH Cross-Disciplinary Training Grant, Sigma-Xi Grant-In-Aid
of Research, and Society for the Study of Evolution Rosemary Grant Award to S.B.C.; NSF
DEB-1239992 to N.J.W.; the Emil Aaltonen Foundation and the University of Turku to S.O.; and
NSF DEB-1541506 to J.G.B. and S.F.M. The work conducted by the U.S. Department of Energy
Joint Genome Institute was supported by the Office of Science of the U.S. Department of
Energy under contract no. DE-AC02-05CH11231.Peer reviewed12 PĂĄg.
Supplementary material for this article is available at http://advances.sciencemag.org/cgi/
content/full/7/27/eabh2488/DC
One thousand plant transcriptomes and the phylogenomics of green plants
Abstract: Green plants (Viridiplantae) include around 450,000â500,000 species1, 2 of great diversity and have important roles in terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems. Here, as part of the One Thousand Plant Transcriptomes Initiative, we sequenced the vegetative transcriptomes of 1,124 species that span the diversity of plants in a broad sense (Archaeplastida), including green plants (Viridiplantae), glaucophytes (Glaucophyta) and red algae (Rhodophyta). Our analysis provides a robust phylogenomic framework for examining the evolution of green plants. Most inferred species relationships are well supported across multiple species tree and supermatrix analyses, but discordance among plastid and nuclear gene trees at a few important nodes highlights the complexity of plant genome evolution, including polyploidy, periods of rapid speciation, and extinction. Incomplete sorting of ancestral variation, polyploidization and massive expansions of gene families punctuate the evolutionary history of green plants. Notably, we find that large expansions of gene families preceded the origins of green plants, land plants and vascular plants, whereas whole-genome duplications are inferred to have occurred repeatedly throughout the evolution of flowering plants and ferns. The increasing availability of high-quality plant genome sequences and advances in functional genomics are enabling research on genome evolution across the green tree of life
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