226 research outputs found
Progression und Symmetrie der geographischen Atrophie bei altersabhÀngiger Makuladegeneration - Untersuchungen mittels digitaler cSLO-Fundusautofluoreszenz
Die geographische Atrophie (GA) des retinalen Pigmentepithels (RPE) im Rahmen der altersabhĂ€ngigen Makuladegeneration (AMD) stellt eine hĂ€ufige Ursache fĂŒr einen Verlust des zentralen Sehens und damit einer Erblindung nach gesetzlicher Definition dar. Bislang ist fĂŒr diese Manifestationsform der AMD noch keine wirksame Therapie verfĂŒgbar. Grundlagenwissenschaftliche und klinische Befunde sprechen dafĂŒr, dass der Akkumulation von Lipofuszingranula mit toxischen Retinoid-Derivaten wie A2-E im RPE eine relevante pathogenetische Bedeutung zukommt. Fundusautofluoreszenz(FAF)-Imaging mittels konfokaler Scanning-Laser-Ophthalmoskopie (cSLO) ermöglicht die Erfassung der topographischen Verteilung des Lipofuszins in den postmitotischen RPE-Zellen unterhalb der retinalen Photorezeptorschicht aufgrund der autofluoreszenten Eigenschaften in vivo. In der vorliegenden Arbeit erfolgten die Quantifikation der GA-Areale, die durch ein erniedrigtes FAF-Signal charakterisiert sind, sowie die Identifikation spezifischer Muster erhöhter FAF im Randbereich der GA. Die dabei eingefĂŒhrte Alignierung stellt eine methodische Weiterentwicklung zur Erfassung der GröĂenverĂ€nderung atrophischer Areale in longitudinalen Aufnahmen dar. Die Analyse von 234 Augen ergab eine mittlere Progressionsrate von 1,551 mmÂČ/Jahr. Die Progressionsrate sowie die Muster erhöhter FAF zeigten bei bilateraler Erkrankung ein hohes MaĂ an intraindividueller Symmetrie, wobei ein hohes MaĂ an interindividueller VariabiliĂ€t vorlag. DemgegenĂŒber ergab sich fĂŒr die SehschĂ€rfe ein geringes MaĂ an Symmetrie. Die AtrophiegröĂe wies ein Defizit an Ăbereinstimmung auf. Zudem konnte gezeigt werden, dass insbesondere das Vorliegen eines âdiffusenâ oder âbandförmigenâ Musters erhöhter FAF im Randbereich der GA mit einer schnelleren Progressionsrate assoziiert ist. Auch bei bilateraler Manifestation und multifokalem Auftreten der GA zeigte sich eine schnellere Progression. Neben der prognostischen Bedeutung fĂŒr die betroffenen Patienten dienen die Ergebnisse einem besseren VerstĂ€ndnis des natĂŒrlichen Verlaufs der Erkrankung. Die Ergebnisse konnten bereits wesentlich zu Fallzahlberechnungen und zum Studiendesign der ersten Interventionsstudien bei GA beitragen. Weiterhin stellt die cSLO-Fundusautofluoreszenz mittlerweile das Verfahren der Wahl zum Therapiemonitoring mit Erfassung der GA-Progression als anatomischem Hauptauswertungsparameter dar. Die EinfĂŒhrung und Weiterentwicklung der cSLO-Fundusautofluoreszenz leistet somit einen wichtigen Beitrag bei der Suche nach einer wirksamen Therapie fĂŒr die GA
Visualising the Propagation of News on the Web
Abstract When newsworthy events occur, information quickly spreads across the Web, along official news outlets as well as across social media platforms. Information diffusion models can help to uncover the path of an emerging news story across these channels, and thereby shed light on how these channels interact. The presented work enables journalists and other stakeholders to trace back the distribution process of news stories, and to identify their origin as well as central information hubs who have amplified their dissemination
Scalable Knowledge Extraction and Visualization for Web Intelligence
Understanding stakeholder perceptions and assessing the impact of campaigns are key questions of communication experts. Web intelligence platforms help to answer such questions, provided that they are scalable enough to analyze and visualize information flows from volatile online sources in real time. This paper presents a distributed architecture for aggregating Web content repositories from Web sites and social media streams, memory-efficient methods to extract factual and affective knowledge, and interactive visualization techniques to explore the extracted knowledge. The presented examples stem from the Media Watch on Climate Change, a public Web portal that aggregates environmental content from a range of online sources
Automatic Expansion of Domain-Specific Affective Models for Web Intelligence Applications
Sentic computing relies on well-defined affective models of different complexity - polarity to distinguish positive and negative sentiment, for example, or more nuanced models to capture expressions of human emotions. When used to measure communication success, even the most granular affective model combined with sophisticated machine learning approaches may not fully capture an organisation's strategic positioning goals. Such goals often deviate from the assumptions of standardised affective models. While certain emotions such as Joy and Trust typically represent desirable brand associations, specific communication goals formulated by marketing professionals often go beyond such standard dimensions. For instance, the brand manager of a television show may consider fear or sadness to be desired emotions for its audience. This article introduces expansion techniques for affective models, combining common and commonsense knowledge available in knowledge graphs with language models and affective reasoning, improving coverage and consistency as well as supporting domain-specific interpretations of emotions. An extensive evaluation compares the performance of different expansion techniques: (i) a quantitative evaluation based on the revisited Hourglass of Emotions model to assess performance on complex models that cover multiple affective categories, using manually compiled gold standard data, and (ii) a qualitative evaluation of a domain-specific affective model for television programme brands. The results of these evaluations demonstrate that the introduced techniques support a variety of embeddings and pre-trained models. The paper concludes with a discussion on applying this approach to other scenarios where affective model resources are scarce
CFH, C3 and ARMS2 Are Significant Risk Loci for Susceptibility but Not for Disease Progression of Geographic Atrophy Due to AMD
Age-related macular degeneration (AMD) is a prevalent cause of blindness in Western societies. Variants in the genes encoding complement factor H (CFH), complement component 3 (C3) and age-related maculopathy susceptibility 2 (ARMS2) have repeatedly been shown to confer significant risks for AMD; however, their role in disease progression and thus their potential relevance for interventional therapeutic approaches remains unknown. Here, we analyzed association between variants in CFH, C3 and ARMS2 and disease progression of geographic atrophy (GA) due to AMD. A quantitative phenotype of disease progression was computed based on longitudinal observations by fundus autofluorescence imaging. In a subset of 99 cases with pure bilateral GA, variants in CFH (Y402H), C3 (R102G), and ARMS2 (A69S) are associated with disease (P = 1.6x10(-9), 3.2x10(-3), and P = 2.6x10(-12), respectively) when compared to 612 unrelated healthy control individuals. In cases, median progression rate of GA over a mean follow-up period of 3.0 years was 1.61 mm(2)/year with high concordance between fellow eyes. No association between the progression rate and any of the genetic risk variants at the three loci was observed (P>0.13). This study confirms that variants at CFH, C3, and ARMS2 confer significant risks for GA due to AMD. In contrast, our data indicate no association of these variants with disease progression which may have important implications for future treatment strategies. Other, as yet unknown susceptibilities may influence disease progression
Les droits disciplinaires des fonctions publiques : « unification », « harmonisation » ou « distanciation ». A propos de la loi du 26 avril 2016 relative à la déontologie et aux droits et obligations des fonctionnaires
The production of tt⟠, W+bb⟠and W+cc⟠is studied in the forward region of protonâproton collisions collected at a centre-of-mass energy of 8 TeV by the LHCb experiment, corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 1.98±0.02 fbâ1 . The W bosons are reconstructed in the decays WââÎœ , where â denotes muon or electron, while the b and c quarks are reconstructed as jets. All measured cross-sections are in agreement with next-to-leading-order Standard Model predictions.The production of , and is studied in the forward region of proton-proton collisions collected at a centre-of-mass energy of 8 TeV by the LHCb experiment, corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 1.98 0.02 \mbox{fb}^{-1}. The bosons are reconstructed in the decays , where denotes muon or electron, while the and quarks are reconstructed as jets. All measured cross-sections are in agreement with next-to-leading-order Standard Model predictions
Prevalence of Age-Related Macular Degeneration in Europe: The Past and the Future
Purpose Age-related macular degeneration (AMD) is a frequent, complex disorder in elderly of European ancestry. Risk profiles and treatment options have changed considerably over the years, which may have affected disease prevalence and outcome. We determined the prevalence of early and late AMD in Europe from 1990 to 2013 using the European Eye Epidemiology (E3) consortium, and made projections for the future. Design Meta-analysis of prevalence data. Participants A total of 42 080 individuals 40 years of age and older participating in 14 population-based cohorts from 10 countries in Europe. Methods AMD was diagnosed based on fundus photographs using the Rotterdam Classification. Prevalence of early and late AMD was calculated using random-effects meta-analysis stratified for age, birth cohort, gender, geographic region, and time period of the study. Best-corrected visual acuity (BCVA) was compared between late AMD subtypes; geographic atrophy (GA) and choroidal neovascularization (CNV). Main Outcome Measures Prevalence of early and late AMD, BCVA, and number of AMD cases. Results Prevalence of early AMD increased from 3.5% (95% confidence interval [CI] 2.1%â5.0%) in those aged 55â59 years to 17.6% (95%
Measurement of the J/Ï pair production cross-section in pp collisions at TeV
The production cross-section of J/Ï pairs is measured using a data sample of pp collisions collected by the LHCb experiment at a centre-of-mass energy of TeV, corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 279 ±11 pb. The measurement is performed for J/Ï mesons with a transverse momentum of less than 10 GeV/c in the rapidity range 2.0 < y < 4.5. The production cross-section is measured to be 15.2 ± 1.0 ± 0.9 nb. The first uncertainty is statistical, and the second is systematic. The differential cross-sections as functions of several kinematic variables of the J/Ï pair are measured and compared to theoretical predictions.The production cross-section of pairs is measured using a data sample of collisions collected by the LHCb experiment at a centre-of-mass energy of , corresponding to an integrated luminosity of . The measurement is performed for mesons with a transverse momentum of less than in the rapidity range . The production cross-section is measured to be . The first uncertainty is statistical, and the second is systematic. The differential cross-sections as functions of several kinematic variables of the pair are measured and compared to theoretical predictions
Measurement of forward production in collisions at TeV
A measurement of the cross-section for production in collisions is presented using data corresponding to an integrated luminosity of fb collected by the LHCb experiment at a centre-of-mass energy of TeV. The electrons are required to have more than GeV of transverse momentum and to lie between 2.00 and 4.25 in pseudorapidity. The inclusive production cross-sections, where the decays to , are measured to be \begin{align*} \begin{split} \sigma_{W^{+} \to e^{+}\nu_{e}}&=1124.4\pm 2.1\pm 21.5\pm 11.2\pm 13.0\,\mathrm{pb},\\ \sigma_{W^{-} \to e^{-}\bar{\nu}_{e}}&=\,\,\,809.0\pm 1.9\pm 18.1\pm\,\,\,7.0\pm \phantom{0}9.4\,\mathrm{pb}, \end{split} \end{align*} where the first uncertainties are statistical, the second are systematic, the third are due to the knowledge of the LHC beam energy and the fourth are due to the luminosity determination. Differential cross-sections as a function of the electron pseudorapidity are measured. The cross-section ratio and production charge asymmetry are also reported. Results are compared with theoretical predictions at next-to-next-to-leading order in perturbative quantum chromodynamics. Finally, in a precise test of lepton universality, the ratio of boson branching fractions is determined to be \begin{align*} \begin{split} \mathcal{B}(W \to e\nu)/\mathcal{B}(W \to \mu\nu)=1.020\pm 0.002\pm 0.019, \end{split} \end{align*} where the first uncertainty is statistical and the second is systematic.A measurement of the cross-section for production in collisions is presented using data corresponding to an integrated luminosity of fb collected by the LHCb experiment at a centre-of-mass energy of TeV. The electrons are required to have more than GeV of transverse momentum and to lie between 2.00 and 4.25 in pseudorapidity. The inclusive production cross-sections, where the decays to , are measured to be \begin{equation*} \sigma_{W^{+} \to e^{+}\nu_{e}}=1124.4\pm 2.1\pm 21.5\pm 11.2\pm 13.0\,\mathrm{pb}, \end{equation*} \begin{equation*} \sigma_{W^{-} \to e^{-}\bar{\nu}_{e}}=\,\,\,809.0\pm 1.9\pm 18.1\pm\,\,\,7.0\pm \phantom{0}9.4\,\mathrm{pb}, \end{equation*} where the first uncertainties are statistical, the second are systematic, the third are due to the knowledge of the LHC beam energy and the fourth are due to the luminosity determination. Differential cross-sections as a function of the electron pseudorapidity are measured. The cross-section ratio and production charge asymmetry are also reported. Results are compared with theoretical predictions at next-to-next-to-leading order in perturbative quantum chromodynamics. Finally, in a precise test of lepton universality, the ratio of boson branching fractions is determined to be \begin{equation*} \mathcal{B}(W \to e\nu)/\mathcal{B}(W \to \mu\nu)=1.020\pm 0.002\pm 0.019, \end{equation*} where the first uncertainty is statistical and the second is systematic.A measurement of the cross-section for W â eÎœ production in pp collisions is presented using data corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 2 fb collected by the LHCb experiment at a centre-of-mass energy of TeV. The electrons are required to have more than 20 GeV of transverse momentum and to lie between 2.00 and 4.25 in pseudorapidity. The inclusive W production cross-sections, where the W decays to eÎœ, are measured to be where the first uncertainties are statistical, the second are systematic, the third are due to the knowledge of the LHC beam energy and the fourth are due to the luminosity determination
Measurement of the B0sâÎŒ+ÎŒâ Branching Fraction and Effective Lifetime and Search for B0âÎŒ+ÎŒâ Decays
A search for the rare decays Bs0âÎŒ+ÎŒ- and B0âÎŒ+ÎŒ- is performed at the LHCb experiment using data collected in pp collisions corresponding to a total integrated luminosity of 4.4ââfb-1. An excess of Bs0âÎŒ+ÎŒ- decays is observed with a significance of 7.8 standard deviations, representing the first observation of this decay in a single experiment. The branching fraction is measured to be B(Bs0âÎŒ+ÎŒ-)=(3.0±0.6-0.2+0.3)Ă10-9, where the first uncertainty is statistical and the second systematic. The first measurement of the Bs0âÎŒ+ÎŒ- effective lifetime, Ï(Bs0âÎŒ+ÎŒ-)=2.04±0.44±0.05ââps, is reported. No significant excess of B0âÎŒ+ÎŒ- decays is found, and a 95% confidence level upper limit, B(B0âÎŒ+ÎŒ-)<3.4Ă10-10, is determined. All results are in agreement with the standard model expectations.A search for the rare decays and is performed at the LHCb experiment using data collected in collisions corresponding to a total integrated luminosity of 4.4 fb. An excess of decays is observed with a significance of 7.8 standard deviations, representing the first observation of this decay in a single experiment. The branching fraction is measured to be , where the first uncertainty is statistical and the second systematic. The first measurement of the effective lifetime, ps, is reported. No significant excess of decays is found and a 95 % confidence level upper limit, , is determined. All results are in agreement with the Standard Model expectations
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