Viscoelastic deformation of articular cartilage during impact loading

Peer reviewedPostprin

The use of tick colonies in epidemiological studies on the transmission of pathogens

The first part of the thesis describes the expansion of a small colony of Ornithodorus moubata in the laboratory and the results of feeding ticks by different methods. Ticks were fed on the blood of different vertebrates, including chickens, either through membranes or from capillary tubes or on live hosts. The numbers of ticks applied, engorged, moulted and died were recorded for each method of feeding. The ticks engorged readily on all the live hosts offered and through membranes of animal or synthetic origin, also on embryonated eggs. Although a high mortality rate was obtained after feeding on rabbits and rodents, chicken blood gave good results and it was concluded that the strain of O.moubata had come from a poultry-feeding population. The willingness of ticks to feed on many hosts and through membranes provided different ways of infecting them with pathogens. The second part of the thesis describes the propogation of a strain of Trypanosoma evansi in the laboratory and attempts to transmit the disease "surra" by means of O.moubata. Ticks were allowed to engorge on infected hosts (rodents, rabbit or chick embryo) either partially or to repletion. After intervals varying from 5 minutes up to 90 days these ticks were allowed to feed on susceptible hosts, but in no instance was the infection transmitted this way. However the gut contents of the ticks remained infective for mice (by inoculation) up to 6 hours after the feed. Trypanosomes in the gut contents became motionless and disintegrated approximately 18 hours after the feed, but a single highly motile flagellate was seen at 72 hours in the gut contents of two ticks. It was concluded that this strain of O.moubata could not transmit T.evansi mechanically nor was there any evidence of a biological cycle in the tick

Flugten til Sverige - en dokumentarfilm

Selskabet for Dansk Jødisk Historie gik sammen med Mosaisk Troessamfund, Carolineskolen og Det Jødiske Nationalfond (KKL) om at udskrive en konkurrence for unge jøder. Hensigten var at opfordre de unge til at tale med ældre familiemedlemmer om deres oplevelser under flugten samt at reflektere over, hvilken betydning begivenhederne har for dem selv i dag.Adam Aron Edelsten vandt 3. pladsen for sin film om farfar Leopold Edelstens flugt til Sverige

The mechanical and material properties of elderly human articular cartilage subject to impact and slow loading

Copyright © 2013 IPEM. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.Peer reviewedPostprin

Bone Age Corresponds With Chronological Age at Type 1 Diabetes Onset in Youth

SCOPUS: ar.jinfo:eu-repo/semantics/publishe

Morphosyntactic variation in Bantu: Focus on East Africa

Recent studies have developed a systematic approach to morphosyntactic variation among Bantu languages, taking well-known and widely attested construction types as a starting point and sketching their distribution across the family. One such approach, Guérois et al. (2017), utilises 142 morphosyntactic parameters or features, across a sample of some 50 Bantu languages (Marten et al. 2018). The present paper builds on this work and focusses on 10 parameters of variation where there is a significant difference between the values for East African Bantu languages and non-East African Bantu languages of the sample. The parameters relate to areas such as noun class morphology, agreement, and word order and so cover a wide range of morphosyntactic structures. The paper shows that the differences overall can be used for an initial characterisation of East Africa as a morphosyntactic area, with its own specific language change and language contact dynamics

Development of a nationally agreed core clinical dataset for childhood onset uveitis

BACKGROUND: Childhood onset uveitis comprises a group of rare inflammatory disorders characterized by clinical heterogeneity, chronicity, and uncertainties around long term outcomes. Standardized, detailed datasets with harmonized clinical definitions and terminology are needed to enable the clinical research necessary to stratify disease phenotype and interrogate the putative determinants of health outcomes. We aimed to develop a core routine clinical collection dataset for clinicians managing children with uveitis, suitable for multicenter and national clinical and experimental research initiatives. METHODS: Development of the dataset was undertaken in three phases: phase 1, a rapid review of published datasets used in clinical research studies; phase 2, a scoping review of disease or drug registries, national cohort studies and core outcome sets; and phase 3, a survey of members of a multicenter clinical network of specialists. Phases 1 and 2 provided candidates for a long list of variables for the dataset. In Phase 3, members of the UK's national network of stakeholder clinicians who manage childhood uveitis (the Pediatric Ocular Inflammation Group) were invited to select from this long-list their essential items for the core clinical dataset, to identify any omissions, and to support or revise the clinical definitions. Variables which met a threshold of at least 95% agreement were selected for inclusion in the core clinical dataset. RESULTS: The reviews identified 42 relevant studies, and 9 disease or drug registries. In total, 138 discrete items were identified as candidates for the long-list. Of the 41 specialists invited to take part in the survey, 31 responded (response rate 78%). The survey resulted in inclusion of 89 data items within the final core dataset: 81 items to be collected at the first visit, and 64 items at follow up visits. DISCUSSION: We report development of a novel consensus core clinical dataset for the routine collection of clinical data for children diagnosed with non-infectious uveitis. The development of the dataset will provide a standardized approach to data capture able to support observational clinical studies embedded within routine clinical care and electronic patient record capture. It will be validated through a national prospective cohort study, the Uveitis in childhood prospective national cohort study (UNICORNS)

Imaging based uveitis surveillance in juvenile idiopathic arthritis: feasibility, acceptability and diagnostic performance

OBJECTIVE: Children with juvenile idiopathic arthritis need regular examinations for uveitis to avoid visual morbidity from the most common extra-articular manifestation of disease. We investigated the feasibility, acceptability and performance of optical coherence tomography (OCT) imaging based diagnosis of uveitis. METHODS: Observational cross-sectional study involving children with and without uveitis. Children underwent routine clinical examination and acquisition of anterior segment (AS) OCT scans images of intraocular inflammatory cells. Acceptability of image acquisition was assessed using a visual analogue scale, and duration of image acquisition. Inter and intra-observer variability of manual counting of acquired images (Bland-Altman limits of agreement), correlation between imaging and routine assessment, and sensitivity and specificity of AS-OCT detection of active inflammation were assessed. RESULTS: Of 26 children aged 3yrs to 15yrs (median 8yrs) who underwent imaging, 12 had active inflammation. All patients rated acceptability of image acquisition as at least 8·5/10. Time taken to acquire images ranged from 1·5mins to 22mins (median 8mins). There was good positive correlation between clinical assessment and image based cell quantification (R2 =0·63, p=0·002). Sensitivity of AS-OCT manual image cell count for diagnosis of active inflammation was 92% (95% Confidence interval 62%-99%), specificity 86% (58%-98%), and negative predictive value ('ruling-out' uveitis) 92% (65%-99%). CONCLUSION: Non-contact, high-resolution imaging for JIA uveitis surveillance is feasible, acceptable to patients, and holds the promise of transforming paediatric practice. Further work is needed to determine the analytic and clinical validity of AS-OCT quantification of active inflammation, and the clinical and cost-effectiveness of imaging based disease monitoring