Presenting signs and patient co-variables in Gaucher disease : outcome of the Gaucher Earlier Diagnosis Consensus (GED-C) Delphi initiative

© 2018 The Authors. Internal Medicine Journal by Wiley Publishing Asia Pty Ltd on behalf of Royal Australasian College of Physicians.Background: Gaucher disease (GD) presents with a range of signs and symptoms. Physicians can fail to recognise the early stages of GD owing to a lack of disease awareness, which can lead to significant diagnostic delays and sometimes irreversible but avoidable morbidities. Aim: The Gaucher Earlier Diagnosis Consensus (GED-C) initiative aimed to identify signs and co-variables considered most indicative of early type 1 and type 3 GD, to help non-specialists identify ‘at-risk’ patients who may benefit from diagnostic testing. Methods: An anonymous, three-round Delphi consensus process was deployed among a global panel of 22 specialists in GD (median experience 17.5 years, collectively managing almost 3000 patients). The rounds entailed data gathering, then importance ranking and establishment of consensus, using 5-point Likert scales and scoring thresholds defined a priori. Results: For type 1 disease, seven major signs (splenomegaly, thrombocytopenia, bone-related manifestations, anaemia, hyperferritinaemia, hepatomegaly and gammopathy) and two major co-variables (family history of GD and Ashkenazi-Jewish ancestry) were identified. For type 3 disease, nine major signs (splenomegaly, oculomotor disturbances, thrombocytopenia, epilepsy, anaemia, hepatomegaly, bone pain, motor disturbances and kyphosis) and one major co-variable (family history of GD) were identified. Lack of disease awareness, overlooking mild early signs and failure to consider GD as a diagnostic differential were considered major barriers to early diagnosis. Conclusion: The signs and co-variables identified in the GED-C initiative as potentially indicative of early GD will help to guide non-specialists and raise their index of suspicion in identifying patients potentially suitable for diagnostic testing for GD.Peer reviewedFinal Published versio

The dependence of dijet production on photon virtuality in ep collisions at HERA

The dependence of dijet production on the virtuality of the exchanged photon, Q^2, has been studied by measuring dijet cross sections in the range 0 < Q^2 < 2000 GeV^2 with the ZEUS detector at HERA using an integrated luminosity of 38.6 pb^-1. Dijet cross sections were measured for jets with transverse energy E_T^jet > 7.5 and 6.5 GeV and pseudorapidities in the photon-proton centre-of-mass frame in the range -3 < eta^jet <0. The variable xg^obs, a measure of the photon momentum entering the hard process, was used to enhance the sensitivity of the measurement to the photon structure. The Q^2 dependence of the ratio of low- to high-xg^obs events was measured. Next-to-leading-order QCD predictions were found to generally underestimate the low-xg^obs contribution relative to that at high xg^obs. Monte Carlo models based on leading-logarithmic parton-showers, using a partonic structure for the photon which falls smoothly with increasing Q^2, provide a qualitative description of the data.Comment: 35 pages, 6 eps figures, submitted to Eur.Phys.J.

Beauty photoproduction measured using decays into muons in dijet events in ep collisions at s\sqrt{s}=318 GeV

The photoproduction of beauty quarks in events with two jets and a muon has been measured with the ZEUS detector at HERA using an integrated luminosity of 110 pb$^{- 1}$. The fraction of jets containing b quarks was extracted from the transverse momentum distribution of the muon relative to the closest jet. Differential cross sections for beauty production as a function of the transverse momentum and pseudorapidity of the muon, of the associated jet and of $x_{\gamma}^{jets}$, the fraction of the photon's momentum participating in the hard process, are compared with MC models and QCD predictions made at next-to-leading order. The latter give a good description of the data.Comment: 32 pages, 6 tables, 7 figures Table 6 and Figure 7 revised September 200

Search for a narrow charmed baryonic state decaying to D^*+/- p^-/+ in ep collisions at HERA

A resonance search has been made in the D^*+/- p^-/+ invariant-mass spectrum with the ZEUS detector at HERA using an integrated luminosity of 126 pb^-1. The decay channels D^*+ -> D^0 pi^+_s -> (K^- pi^+) pi^+_s and D^*+ -> D^0 pi^+_s -> (K^- pi^+ pi^+ pi^-) pi^+_s (and the corresponding antiparticle decays) were used to identify D^*+/- mesons. No resonance structure was observed in the D^*+/- p^-/+ mass spectrum from more than 60000 reconstructed D^*+/- mesons. The results are not compatible with a report of the H1 Collaboration of a charmed pentaquark, Theta^0_c.Comment: 22 pages, 7 figures, 1 table; minor text revisions; 2 references adde

Angular and Current-Target Correlations in Deep Inelastic Scattering at HERA

Correlations between charged particles in deep inelastic ep scattering have been studied in the Breit frame with the ZEUS detector at HERA using an integrated luminosity of 6.4 pb-1. Short-range correlations are analysed in terms of the angular separation between current-region particles within a cone centred around the virtual photon axis. Long-range correlations between the current and target regions have also been measured. The data support predictions for the scaling behaviour of the angular correlations at high Q2 and for anti-correlations between the current and target regions over a large range in Q2 and in the Bjorken scaling variable x. Analytic QCD calculations and Monte Carlo models correctly describe the trends of the data at high Q2, but show quantitative discrepancies. The data show differences between the correlations in deep inelastic scattering and e+e- annihilation.Comment: 26 pages including 10 figures (submitted to Eur. J. Phys. C

Search for neutral MSSM Higgs bosons decaying to a pair of tau leptons in pp collisions

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Measurement of top quark–antiquark pair production in association with a W or Z boson in pp collisions at √s=8 TeV

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Measurement of prompt J/ψ pair production in pp collisions at √s = 7 Tev

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Study of hadronic event-shape variables in multijet final states in pp collisions at √s=7 TeV

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