| 1. |
- Elhai, M, et al.
(author)
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Outcomes of patients with systemic sclerosis treated with rituximab in contemporary practice: a prospective cohort study
- 2019
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In: Annals of the rheumatic diseases. - : BMJ. - 1468-2060 .- 0003-4967. ; 78:7, s. 979-987
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- To assess the safety and efficacy of rituximab in systemic sclerosis (SSc) in clinical practice.MethodsWe performed a prospective study including patients with SSc from the European Scleroderma Trials and Research (EUSTAR) network treated with rituximab and matched with untreated patients with SSc. The main outcomes measures were adverse events, skin fibrosis improvement, lung fibrosis worsening and steroids use among propensity score-matched patients treated or not with rituximab.Results254 patients were treated with rituximab, in 58% for lung and in 32% for skin involvement. After a median follow-up of 2 years, about 70% of the patients had no side effect. Comparison of treated patients with 9575 propensity-score matched patients showed that patients treated with rituximab were more likely to have skin fibrosis improvement (22.7 vs 14.03 events per 100 person-years; OR: 2.79 [1.47–5.32]; p=0.002). Treated patients did not have significantly different rates of decrease in forced vital capacity (FVC)>10% (OR: 1.03 [0.55–1.94]; p=0.93) nor in carbon monoxide diffusing capacity (DLCO) decrease. Patients having received rituximab were more prone to stop or decrease steroids (OR: 2.34 [1.56–3.53], p<0.0001). Patients treated concomitantly with mycophenolate mofetil had a trend for better outcomes as compared with patients receiving rituximab alone (delta FVC: 5.22 [0.83–9.62]; p=0.019 as compared with controls vs 3 [0.66–5.35]; p=0.012).ConclusionRituximab use was associated with a good safety profile in this large SSc-cohort. Significant change was observed on skin fibrosis, but not on lung. However, the limitation is the observational design. The potential stabilisation of lung fibrosis by rituximab has to be addressed by a randomised trial.
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| 3. |
- Aprile, E., et al.
(author)
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Low-mass dark matter search using ionization signals in XENON100
- 2016
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In: Physical Review D. - 2470-0010. ; 94:9
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- We perform a low-mass dark matter search using an exposure of 30 kg x yr with the XENON100 detector. By dropping the requirement of a scintillation signal and using only the ionization signal to determine the interaction energy, we lowered the energy threshold for detection to 0.7 keV for nuclear recoils. No dark matter detection can be claimed because a complete background model cannot be constructed without a primary scintillation signal. Instead, we compute an upper limit on the WIMP-nucleon scattering cross section under the assumption that every event passing our selection criteria could be a signal event. Using an energy interval from 0.7 keV to 9.1 keV, we derive a limit on the spin-independent WIMP-nucleon cross section that excludes WIMPs with a mass of 6 GeV/c(2) above 1.4 x 10(-41) cm(2) at 90% confidence level.
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| 4. |
- Becker, M, et al.
(author)
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Predictors of disease worsening defined by progression of organ damage in diffuse systemic sclerosis: a European Scleroderma Trials and Research (EUSTAR) analysis
- 2019
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In: Annals of the rheumatic diseases. - : BMJ. - 1468-2060 .- 0003-4967. ; 78:9, s. 1242-1248
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Mortality and worsening of organ function are desirable endpoints for clinical trials in systemic sclerosis (SSc). The aim of this study was to identify factors that allow enrichment of patients with these endpoints, in a population of patients from the European Scleroderma Trials and Research group database.MethodsInclusion criteria were diagnosis of diffuse SSc and follow-up over 12±3 months. Disease worsening/organ progression was fulfilled if any of the following events occurred: new renal crisis; decrease of lung or heart function; new echocardiography-suspected pulmonary hypertension or death. In total, 42 clinical parameters were chosen as predictors for the analysis by using (1) imputation of missing data on the basis of multivariate imputation and (2) least absolute shrinkage and selection operator regression.ResultsOf 1451 patients meeting the inclusion criteria, 706 had complete data on outcome parameters and were included in the analysis. Of the 42 outcome predictors, eight remained in the final regression model. There was substantial evidence for a strong association between disease progression and age, active digital ulcer (DU), lung fibrosis, muscle weakness and elevated C-reactive protein (CRP) level. Active DU, CRP elevation, lung fibrosis and muscle weakness were also associated with a significantly shorter time to disease progression. A bootstrap validation step with 10 000 repetitions successfully validated the model.ConclusionsThe use of the predictive factors presented here could enable cohort enrichment with patients at risk for overall disease worsening in SSc clinical trials.
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| 5. |
- Czamara, D, et al.
(author)
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Integrated analysis of environmental and genetic influences on cord blood DNA methylation in new-borns
- 2019
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In: Nature communications. - : Springer Science and Business Media LLC. - 2041-1723. ; 10:1, s. 2548-
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Epigenetic processes, including DNA methylation (DNAm), are among the mechanisms allowing integration of genetic and environmental factors to shape cellular function. While many studies have investigated either environmental or genetic contributions to DNAm, few have assessed their integrated effects. Here we examine the relative contributions of prenatal environmental factors and genotype on DNA methylation in neonatal blood at variably methylated regions (VMRs) in 4 independent cohorts (overall n = 2365). We use Akaike’s information criterion to test which factors best explain variability of methylation in the cohort-specific VMRs: several prenatal environmental factors (E), genotypes in cis (G), or their additive (G + E) or interaction (GxE) effects. Genetic and environmental factors in combination best explain DNAm at the majority of VMRs. The CpGs best explained by either G, G + E or GxE are functionally distinct. The enrichment of genetic variants from GxE models in GWAS for complex disorders supports their importance for disease risk.
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| 6. |
- van Eijk-Hustings, Y, et al.
(author)
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EULAR recommendations for the role of the nurse in the management of chronic inflammatory arthritis
- 2012
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In: Annals of the rheumatic diseases. - : BMJ. - 1468-2060 .- 0003-4967. ; 71:1, s. 13-19
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- The authors aim to develop European League Against Rheumatism recommendations for the role of the nurse in the management of patients with chronic inflammatory arthritis, to identify a research agenda and to determine an educational agenda.MethodsA task force made up of a multidisciplinary expert panel including nurses, rheumatologists, occupational therapist, physiotherapist, psychologist, epidemiologist and patient representatives, representing 14 European countries, carried out the development of the recommendations, following the European League Against Rheumatism standardised operating procedures.The task force met twice. In the first meeting, the aims of the task force were defined, and eight research questions were developed. This was followed by a comprehensive, systematic literature search. In the second meeting, the results from the literature review were presented to the task force that subsequently formulated the recommendations, research agenda and educational agenda.ResultsIn total, 10 recommendations were formulated. Seven recommendations covered the contribution of nurses to care and management: education, satisfaction with care, access to care, disease management, psychosocial support, self-management and efficiency of care. Three recommendations focused on professional support for nurses: availability of guidelines or protocols, access to education and encouragement to undertake extended roles. The strength of the recommendations varied from A to C, dependent on the category of evidence (1A–3), and a high level of agreement was achieved. Additionally, the task force agreed upon 10 topics for future research and an educational agenda.Conclusion10 recommendations for the role of the nurse in the management of chronic inflammatory arthritis were developed using a combination of evidence-based and expert consensus approach.
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| 7. |
- Braud, N., et al.
(author)
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Cleaning and tailoring the Pt3Sn(111) surface for surface experiments
- 2023
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In: Surface Science. - : Elsevier. - 0039-6028 .- 1879-2758. ; 732
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- The cleaning process of the bimetallic Pt3Sn(111) surface has been studied by means of low-energy electron microscopy (LEEM), microspot low-energy electron diffraction (mu.-LEED), and X-ray photoemission electron microscopy (XPEEM). Different cleaning procedures, performed under ultra-high vacuum conditions (UHV), including sputtering with argon ions and repeated cycles of annealing up to 1500 K were investigated. In this work, we show that a clean Pt3Sn(111) surface of high structural quality with a sharp and brilliant (2 x 2) bulk reconstruction in LEED as well as a perfectly smooth surface with terraces of micron size can be achieved by sputtering, annealing at very high temperatures, followed by a subsequent slow (0.09 K/s) and careful cooling procedure. Additionally, we show the possibility of tailoring the Sn concentration in the topmost layers of Pt3Sn(111) as a function of annealing temperature and subsequent cooling rate. Structural changes of the surface are induced by Sn segregation combined with a surface order-disorder transition at 1340 K. Moreover, two new surface reconstructions depending on the cooling rate are reported.
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| 8. |
- Buss, S., et al.
(author)
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Reordering rule makes OBDD proof systems stronger
- 2018
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In: Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics, LIPIcs. - : Schloss Dagstuhl- Leibniz-Zentrum fur Informatik GmbH, Dagstuhl Publishing. - 9783959770699 ; , s. 1-24
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Conference paper (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Atserias, Kolaitis, and Vardi showed that the proof system of Ordered Binary Decision Diagrams with conjunction and weakening, OBDD(∧, weakening), simulates CP∗ (Cutting Planes with unary coefficients). We show that OBDD(∧, weakening) can give exponentially shorter proofs than dag-like cutting planes. This is proved by showing that the Clique-Coloring tautologies have polynomial size proofs in the OBDD(∧, weakening) system. The reordering rule allows changing the variable order for OBDDs. We show that OBDD (∧, weakening, reordering) is strictly stronger than OBDD(∧, weakening). This is proved using the Clique-Coloring tautologies, and by transforming tautologies using coded permutations and orification. We also give CNF formulas which have polynomial size OBDD(∧) proofs but require superpolynomial (actually, quasipolynomial size) resolution proofs, and thus we partially resolve an open question proposed by Groote and Zantema. Applying dag-like and tree-like lifting techniques to the mentioned results, we completely analyze which of the systems among CP∗, OBDD(∧), OBDD(∧, reordering), OBDD(∧, weakening) and OBDD (∧, weakening, reordering) polynomially simulate each other. For dag-like proof systems, some of our separations are quasipolynomial and some are exponential; for tree-like systems, all of our separations are exponential.
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| 9. |
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| 10. |
- Kowal, Marta, et al.
(author)
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Reasons for Facebook Usage : Data From 46 Countries
- 2020
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In: Frontiers in Psychology. - : Frontiers Media SA. - 1664-1078. ; 11
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Introduction: Seventy-nine percent of internet users use Facebook, and on average they access Facebook eight times a day (Greenwood et al., 2016). To put these numbers into perspective, according to Clement (2019), around 30% of the world's population uses this Online Social Network (OSN) site.Despite the constantly growing body of academic research on Facebook (Chou et al., 2009; Back et al., 2010; Kaplan and Haenlein, 2010; McAndrew and Jeong, 2012; Wilson et al., 2012; Krasnova et al., 2017), there remains limited research regarding the motivation behind Facebook use across different cultures. Our main goal was to collect data from a large cross-cultural sample of Facebook users to examine the roles of sex, age, and, most importantly, cultural differences underlying Facebook use.
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