Short report: correlates of functional disability with disease activity in elderly patients with rheumatoid arthritis

Rheumatoid arthritis (RA) prevalence increases with age and old people are special patient population. The recognition of functional disability related to RA could be challenging in elderly patients because aging itself and potential co-morbid disease may also cause functional disability. In this study, we aimed to look at the correlation between disease activity and functional disability in elderly RA patients. Elderly RA patients, ≥65 years old at their routine visits were included in the study. The composite ‘disease activity score’ in 28 joints (DAS-28) was used to determine disease activity groups. Health assessment questionnaire (HAQ) scores were calculated to describe the functional disability and compared across the disease activity groups. Two hundred and fifty-eight RA patients with the mean age of 71 ± 5 (65–90) and a total disease duration of 8.4 ± 8.5 (.5–50) years were recruited. The proportion of patients with high and moderate disease activity was 70%. HAQ scores were significantly correlated with disease activity (p < .05). Functional disability estimated by HAQ was correlated with disease activity in elderly patients with RA     

Reduced P50 auditory sensory gating response in professional musicians

Evoked potential studies have demonstrated that musicians have the ability to distinguish musical sounds preattentively and automatically at the temporal, spectral, and spatial levels in more detail. It is however not known whether there is a difference in the early processes of auditory data processing of musicians. The most emphasized and studied early process, especially for neuropsychiatric purposes, is sensory gating. The suppression percentage of the midlatency auditory evoked potential P50, and rarely the N100, wave is used for sensory gating studies. Our aim in this study was to investigate whether there was a difference in the auditory P50 and N100 suppression of control subjects who were professional musicians with no psychiatric problems. 34 professional musicians and 19 non-musicians (the control group) were included in this study. P50 and N100 measurements were taken, the suppression percentage of P50 and N100 was calculated and the results compared. Musicians showed significantly less P50 suppression when compared to non-musicians. There was no significant difference for N100 suppression. What the decreased P50 suppression in musicians when compared to non-musician subjects means, when we also take into account that N100 suppression is not decreased, and how it may contribute to the music perception and production processes of these persons is discussed.     

Towards an understanding of science

Journal for General Philosophy of Science - In the attempt to understand science, definition is not much of a help. Due to the ever growing complexity of science, no unique and universally valid...     

Non-bayesian inference: causal structure trumps correlation

The study tests the hypothesis that conditional probability judgments can be influenced by causal links between the target event and the evidence even when the statistical relations among variables are held constant. Three experiments varied the causal structure relating three variables and found that (a) the target event was perceived as more probable when it was linked to evidence by a causal chain than when both variables shared a common cause; (b) predictive chains in which evidence is a cause of the hypothesis gave rise to higher judgments than diagnostic chains in which evidence is an effect of the hypothesis; and (c) direct chains gave rise to higher judgments than indirect chains. A Bayesian learning model was applied to our data but failed to explain them. An explanation-based hypothesis stating that statistical information will affect judgments only to the extent that it changes beliefs about causal structure is consistent with the results.     

Hydrogen-assisted damage in austenite/martensite dual-phase steel

For understanding the underlying hydrogen embrittlement mechanism in transformation-induced plasticity steels, the process of damage evolution in a model austenite/martensite dual-phase microstructure following hydrogenation was investigated through multi-scale electron channelling contrast imaging and in situ optical microscopy. Localized diffusible hydrogen in martensite causes cracking through two mechanisms: (1) interaction between {1?1?0}_M localized slip and {1?1?2}_M twin and (2) cracking of martensite–martensite grain interfaces. The former resulted in nanovoids along the {1?1?2}_M twin. The coalescence of the nanovoids generated plate-like microvoids. The latter caused shear localization on the specific plane where the crack along the martensite/martensite boundary exists, which led to additional martensite/martensite boundary cracking.     

Construction and evaluation of a self rating scale for stress‐induced Exhaustion Disorder,the Karolinska Exhaustion Disorder Scale

Prolonged stress (≥ six months) may cause a condition which has been named exhaustion disorder (ED) with ICD‐10 code F43.8. ED is characterised by exhaustion, cognitive problems, poor sleep and reduced tolerance to further stress. ED can cause long term disability and depressive symptoms may develop. The aim was to construct and evaluate a self‐rating scale, the Karolinska Exhaustion Disorder Scale (KEDS), for the assessment of ED symptoms. A second aim was to examine the relationship between self‐rated symptoms of ED, depression, and anxiety using KEDS and the Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale (HAD). Items were selected based on their correspondence to criteria for ED as formulated by the Swedish National Board of Health and Welfare (NBHW), with seven response alternatives in a Likert‐format. Self‐ratings performed by 317 clinically assessed participants were used to analyse the scale's psychometric properties. KEDS consists of nine items with a scale range of 0–54. Receiver operating characteristics analysis demonstrated that a cut‐off score of 19 was accompanied by high sensitivity and specificity (each above 95%) in the discrimination between healthy subjects and patients with ED. Reliability was satisfactory and confirmatory factor analysis revealed that ED, depression and anxiety are best regarded as different phenomena. KEDS may be a useful tool in the assessment of symptoms of Exhaustion Disorder in clinical as well as research settings. There is evidence that the symptom clusters of ED, anxiety and depression, respectively, reflect three different underlying dimensions.