| 1. |
- Manco-Johnson, MJ, et al.
(author)
-
Physical therapy and imaging outcome measures in a haemophilia population treated with factor prophylaxis: current status and future directions
- 2004
-
In: Haemophilia. - : Wiley. - 1351-8216 .- 1365-2516. ; 10, s. 88-93
-
Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Routine infusions of factor VIII to prevent bleeding, known as prophylaxis, and other intensive therapies are being more broadly applied to patients with haemophilia. These therapies differ widely in replacement product usage, cost, frequency of venous access and parental effort. In order to address residual issues relating to recommendations, implementation, and evaluations of prophylaxis therapy in persons with haemophila, a multinational working group was formed and called the International Prophylaxis Study Group (IPSG). The group was comprised of haemophilia treaters actively involved in studies of prophylaxis from North America and Europe. Two expert committees, the Physical Therapy (PT) Working Group and the Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) Working Group were organized to critically assess existing tools for assessment of Joint outcome. These two committees independently concluded that the WFH Physical Examination Scale (WFH PE Scale) and the WFH X-ray Scale (WFH XR Scale) were inadequately sensitive to detect early changes in Joints. New scales were developed based on suggested modifications of the existing scales and called the Haemophilia joint Health Score (HJHS) and the International MRI Scales. The new scales were piloted. Concordance was measured by the intra-class correlation coefficient of variation. Reliability of the HJHS was excellent with an inter-observer co-efficient of 0.83 and a test-retest value of 0.89. The MRI study was conducted using both Denver and European scoring approaches; inter-reader reliability using the two approaches was 0.88 and 0.87; test-retest reliability was 0.92 and 0.93. These new PT and MRI scales promise to improve outcome assessment in children on early preventive treatment regimens.
|
|
| 2. |
- Woldegiorgis, Andreas, 1968-
(author)
-
Fabrication of new silica nano structures and development of new concepts for MALDI-TOF mass spectrometry
- 2004
-
Doctoral thesis (other academic/artistic)abstract
- A technique to alter the morphology of the inner surface of fused silica capillaries has been developed. The internal surface area is enlarged by means of nano-wires of silica, which are grown from the capillary walls. The growth is initiated by the decomposition of the etchant precursor 2-chloro-1,1,2–trifluoroethylmethyl ether at elevated temperature and pressure. It is suggested that the formation of the nano-wires is a process where hydrogen fluoride is continuously consumed and re-liberated. The amorphous bulk silica wall is dissolved, vaporized and finally condensed, yielding a directional re-formation of silica into nano-wire structures. The unidirectional growth of the nano-wires seems to follow the well-known vapor-liquid-solid (VLS) mechanism since characteristic attributes of the VLS mechanism can be observed in the modified capillaries, such as spherical particles terminating each nano-wire. An alternative procedure was developed based on non-isothermal etching which enabled nano-wire outgrowth in fused silica capillaries with internal diameters exceeding 5 µm. The etched and modified capillaries are expected to be suitable for fluidic applications where a higher surface-to-volume ratio is beneficial, such as open tubular liquid chromatography as well as solid-phase micro-reactors and catalysis including enzymatic reactions. The last part of the thesis describes new techniques developed for matrix-assisted laser desorption/ionization (MALDI) mass spectrometry. A set of novel matrices based on polymers/oligomers of benzodioxins and thiophenes has been introduced. Using this approach, which has been given the name Polymer-Assisted Laser Desorption/Ionization (PALDI), the low m/z-range of the mass spectrum, from 180 to 1.000 Da, could be used without the abundant chemical noise which normally disturbs such MALDI-MS spectra. Some of the PALDI matrices also showed excellent behavior in the analysis of low molecular weight polymers. A methodology based on non-linear regression of cumulative frequency distributions in polymers has been developed to compare and evaluate different matrix/polymer/cation agent sample combinations for MALDI and PALDl-MS analyses of low molecular weight polymers.
|
|
