Quantitative Cartilage Imaging in Knee Osteoarthritis

Quantitative measures of cartilage morphology (i.e., thickness) represent potentially powerful surrogate endpoints in osteoarthritis (OA). These can be used to identify risk factors of structural disease progression and can facilitate the clinical efficacy testing of structure modifying drugs in OA. This paper focuses on quantitative imaging of articular cartilage morphology in the knee, and will specifically deal with different cartilage morphology outcome variables and regions of interest, the relative performance and relationship between cartilage morphology measures, reference values for MRI-based knee cartilage morphometry, imaging protocols for measurement of cartilage morphology (including those used in the Osteoarthritis Initiative), sensitivity to change observed in knee OA, spatial patterns of cartilage loss as derived by subregional analysis, comparison of MRI changes with radiographic changes, risk factors of MRI-based cartilage loss in knee OA, the correlation of MRI-based cartilage loss with clinical outcomes, treatment response in knee OA, and future directions of the field

Impact of exercise on articular cartilage in people at risk of, or with established, knee osteoarthritis: a systematic review of randomised controlled trials

This project is supported by a European Union Seventh Framework Programme (FP7-PEOPLE-2013-ITN; KNEEMO) under grant agreement number 607510.Peer reviewedPostprin

Probability of success studies for geothermal projects in clastic reservoirs: From subsurface data to geological risk analysis

In the realisation of a geothermal project, an important step is the quantification of the geological risk of a well not achieving the economically necessary cut-off values with respect to temperature and flowrate/drawdown. In this paper, we present a new method for calculating this risk via a probability of success study by using all available types of hydraulic data, including porosity values derived from core samples or borehole logs. This method has been developed for geothermal projects in fluvial sandstones of the North German Basin but can be applied to any clastic, not fracture-dominated reservoir worldwide. © 2019 The Author

Untersuchungen zur Biogenese des Protoanemonins

Verschiedene potentielle C-14 markierte Precursor wurden an Helleborus foetidus Pflanzen appliziert. Durch Wasserdampfdestillation wurde Protoanemonin gewonnen, durch Aufarbeitung mittels verdünnter Salzsäure wurden andere Protoanemonin-verwandte Inhaltsstoffe isoliert. Die Messung der Radioaktivität der Inhaltsstoffe legte nahe, dass die 5-Hydroxylaevulinsaeure ein entscheidender Precursor bei der Biogenese des Protoanemonins ist

Duration Discrimination Predicts Delay of Gratification In Children with and without ADHD

AbstractThe ability to delay gratification, to wait for a larger but delayed reward in the presence of a smaller but constantly available reward, has been shown to be predictive for various aspects of everyday life. For instance, preschool children who were better able to delay gratification achieved better school grades, a higher education, a better ability to cope with stress, as well as a reduced risk for being overweight or consume drugs up to 30 years later (Mischel et al., 2011). However, despite the importance of delay of gratification cognitive factors underlying individual differences are only poorly understood. Wittmann and Paulus (2008) suggested that individuals who overestimate the duration of time intervals experience waiting times as more costly and are, therefore, less likely to delay gratification. Furthermore, a recent study revealed an association between less accurate internal clock speed and a behavioral choice delay task (Corvi, Juergensen, Weaver, & Demaree, 2012). Further evidence for an association between temporal processing and delay of gratification can be derived from studies using clinical samples. For instance, children with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) consistently prefer smaller, immediate rewards over larger, delayed rewards and show impaired temporal processing (Sonuga-Barke, Bitsakou, & Thompson, 2010). However, no study has directly tested an association between a measure of temporal processing and a classical delay of gratification task in children with and without ADHD so far.As part of a larger study, 64 children (29 with ADHD) aged between 8 to 12 years performed a version of an auditory duration discrimination task and a delay of gratification task. In the duration discrimination task, the children were presented with two unfilled intervals indicated by two brief tones each. The baseline interval lasted for 400ms, while the comparison interval was always longer and adjusted up or down in 10ms steps securing an accuracy of 80%. In the delay of gratification task, the children were instructed that they could either opt for one chocolate bar immediately or that they could wait to receive two chocolate bars. Unbeknownst to the children, the waiting time lasted 25minutes but children were told that they could decide for the immediate chocolate bar at any time by ringing a bell.Children with ADHD did not differ in their performance from children without ADHD in the duration discrimination task or the delay of gratification task. However, in the whole sample of children with and without ADHD, children who waited for the additional chocolate bar showed a better duration discrimination than children who failed to wait for the additional chocolate bar [t(62) = -2.52, p = .01].We demonstrated an association between temporal processing ability and the ability to delay gratification. These results need to be replicated in further studies with larger sample sizes. Moreover, different tasks measuring temporal processing and delay of gratification should be used to further clarify the relationship of temporal processing, delay of gratification, and ADHD

Characteristics of a semi-industrial downer reactor for the rounding of irregular polymer particles

In the past additive manufacturing processes such as laser beam melting (LBM) were almost exclusively applied for the generation of prototypes. In recent years, however, these methods have gradually been transferred to serial production (1). With this grown relevance on industrial applications, the demands on the powder material have increased as well. In consequence, there is a need for fine powders of different polymers showing good powder flowability and high bulk density (2) It has been shown that different polymers can be ground down to the micron size range by a wet grinding process (2). Due to the grinding process the produced particles are in a chiseled state, which leads to a bad flowability. To solve this problem the single particles are melted in a heated downer reactor and spherical particles are obtained by using the effect of the surface tension (3). The rounding process was performed in a reactor with a length of 6 m and a diameter of 0.1 m. The main focus of this work is to describe the flow characteristics of both, gas and particles in the reactor. Other influencing parameters on the outcome of the rounding such as particle load and temperature distribution will also be addressed. One major critical point, the influence of the particle and gas inlet on the flow pattern will be discussed in detail. The mechanism of the rounding process in dependence of particle size, interfacial tension and melt viscosity will be shown within a sintering model (4). Please click Additional Files below to see the full abstract

SwissBioisostere: a database of molecular replacements for ligand design

The SwissBioisostere database (http://www.swissbioisostere.ch) contains information on molecular replacements and their performance in biochemical assays. It is meant to provide researchers in drug discovery projects with ideas for bioisosteric modifications of their current lead molecule, as well as to give interested scientists access to the details on particular molecular replacements. As of August 2012, the database contains 21 293 355 datapoints corresponding to 5 586 462 unique replacements that have been measured in 35 039 assays against 1948 molecular targets representing 30 target classes. The accessible data were created through detection of matched molecular pairs and mining bioactivity data in the ChEMBL database. The SwissBioisostere database is hosted by the Swiss Institute of Bioinformatics and available via a web-based interfac

Meniscus body position and its change over four years in asymptomatic adults: a cohort study using data from the Osteoarthritis Initiative (OAI).

A high degree of meniscal body extrusion on knee magnetic resonance imaging has been shown to be strongly associated with development of knee osteoarthritis. However, very little is known about meniscal position in the asymptomatic knee and its natural history. Hence our objective was to study meniscal body position and its change over 4 years in asymptomatic adults