Background: Migraine imposes significant burden on patients, their families and health care systems. In this study, we compared episodic to chronic migraine sufferers to determine if migraine status ...predicted headache-related disability, health-related quality of life (HRQoL) and health care resource utilization.
Methods: A Web-based survey was administered to panelists from nine countries. Participants were classified as having chronic migraine (CM), episodic migraine (EM) or neither using a validated questionnaire. Data collected and then analyzed included sociodemographics, clinical characteristics, Migraine Disability Assessment, Migraine-Specific Quality of Life v2.1, Patient Health Questionnaire and health care resource utilization.
Findings: Of the respondents, 5.7% had CM and 94.3% had EM, with CM patients reporting significantly more severe disability, lower HRQoL, higher levels of anxiety and depression and greater health care resource utilization compared to those with EM.
Interpretation: These results provide evidence that will enhance our understanding of the factors driving health care costs and will contribute to development of cost-effective health care strategies.
Objective
Our objective was to characterize patterns of preventive medication use in persons with episodic migraine (EM) and chronic migraine (CM).
Background
Several classes of medications are used ...both on‐ and off‐label for the prevention of migraine, including β‐blockers (eg, propranolol, timolol), tricyclic antidepressants (eg, amitriptyline), anti‐epileptic drugs (eg, topiramate, valproic acid), and neurotoxins (eg, onabotulinumtoxinA).
Methods
Preventive medication use and reasons for discontinuation were collected in an international, Web‐based, cross‐sectional survey of adults with migraine during 2010. Descriptive analyses were conducted on demographics and headache‐related disability as measured by the Migraine Disability Assessment Scale, stratified by use of preventive medication, and EM or CM. Univariate and multivariate logistic regression models were constructed to assess predictors of preventive medication use.
Results
One thousand one hundred and sixty‐five respondents completed the survey. Only 28.3% of EM and 44.8% of CM respondents were currently using preventive medication; any use of prophylaxis (prior or current) was reported by 43.4% of those with EM and 65.9% with CM. The mean number of prophylactic medications ever used was 2.92 for EM and 3.94 for CM. Antidepressants were used most frequently (EM 60.9%; CM 54.7%), followed by β‐blockers (EM 35.4%; CM 36.8%) and anti‐epileptics (EM 28.6%; CM 36.3%). Odds of preventive medication use were higher among CM than EM, adjusting for age, gender, race, years of daily headache, and country (odds ratio 2.72; 95% confidence interval 2.15 to 3.57). Greater headache‐related disability and older age were also associated with greater odds of ever having used prophylaxis, regardless of headache frequency.
Conclusions
Less than half the persons with EM and CM were currently using preventive medication for migraine, with treatment rates being higher for CM, as expected. Those with CM tried more medications than those with EM, possibly reflecting higher levels of treatment need.
We report, for the first time, the long-awaited detection of diffuse gamma rays with energies between 100 TeV and 1 PeV in the Galactic disk. Particularly, all gamma rays above 398 TeV are observed ...apart from known TeV gamma-ray sources and compatible with expectations from the hadronic emission scenario in which gamma rays originate from the decay of π^{0}'s produced through the interaction of protons with the interstellar medium in the Galaxy. This is strong evidence that cosmic rays are accelerated beyond PeV energies in our Galaxy and spread over the Galactic disk.
This study intended to examine effects of repetitive sub-concussive head impacts on ocular near point of convergence (NPC). 20 healthy young adult soccer players were assigned to either a heading or ...control group. Heading subjects completed 10 headers of soccer balls projected at a speed of 11.2 m/s. Control subjects did not perform heading. Linear head acceleration was measured with a triaxial accelerometer. The NPC assessment was performed at pre-, 0 h post-, and 24 h post-heading. During the NPC assessment participants were seated and a visual target was moved towards the eyes at 1cm/sec. The participant signaled when he/she experienced diplopia or deviation of the eye was observed, and the distance was recorded. The assessment was repeated twice and average NPC scores were used for further analysis. Soccer heading induced mean group head accelerations of 14.49±5.4 g. Mild head impacts led to an increased NPC distance, which was supported by a significant Group x Time interaction. In the heading group, 0 h post- and 24 h post-heading NPC scores were significantly receded compared to baseline. Conversely, NPC scores for the control group showed no difference over time. Our findings indicate that mild frontal head impacts affekt NPC for a minimum of 24 h-post heading, suggesting that oculomotor processes are disrupted, at least transiently, by repetitive mild head impact.
Abstract
Potential contribution from gamma-ray sources to the Galactic diffuse gamma rays observed above 100 TeV (sub-PeV energy range) by the Tibet AS
γ
experiment is an important key to ...interpreting recent multimessenger observations. This paper reveals a surprising fact: none of the 23 Tibet AS
γ
diffuse gamma-ray events above 398 TeV within the Galactic latitudinal range of ∣
b
∣ < 10° come from the 43 sub-PeV gamma-ray sources reported in the 1LHAASO catalog, which proves that these sources are not the origins of the Tibet AS
γ
diffuse gamma-ray events. No positional overlap between the Tibet AS
γ
diffuse gamma-ray events and the sub-PeV LHAASO sources currently supports the diffusive nature of the Tibet AS
γ
diffuse gamma-ray events, although their potential origin in the gamma-ray sources yet unresolved in the sub-PeV energy range cannot be ruled out.
This paper presents a particle swarm optimization (PSO) for reactive power and voltage control (volt/VAr control: VVC) considering voltage security assessment (VSA). VVC can be formulated as a ...mixed-integer nonlinear optimization problem (MINLP). The proposed method expands the original PSO to handle a MINLP and determines an online VVC strategy with continuous and discrete control variables such as automatic voltage regulator (AVR) operating values of generators, tap positions of on-load tap changer (OLTC) of transformers, and the number of reactive power compensation equipment. The method considers voltage security using a continuation power flow and a contingency analysis technique. The feasibility of the proposed method is demonstrated and compared with reactive tabu search (RTS) and the enumeration method on practical power system models with promising results.
Runx2 is required for chondrocyte proliferation and maturation. In the search of Runx2 target genes in chondrocytes, we found that Runx2 up-regulated the expression of hematopoietic cell kinase (
, ...which is a member of the Src tyrosine kinase family, in chondrocytes, that
expression was high in cartilaginous limb skeletons of wild-type mice but low in those of
mice, and that Runx2 bound the promoter region of
. To investigate the functions of Hck in chondrocytes, transgenic mice expressing a constitutively active form of
(
) were generated using the
promoter/enhancer. The hind limb skeletons were fused, the tibia became a large, round mass, and the growth plate was markedly disorganized. Chondrocyte maturation was delayed until E16.5 but accelerated thereafter. BrdU-labeled, but not terminal deoxynucleotidyl transferase-mediated dUTP nick end labeling (TUNEL)-positive, chondrocytes were increased. Furthermore,
knock-down reduced the proliferation of primary chondrocytes. In microarray and real-time RT-PCR analyses using hind limb RNA from
transgenic mice, the expression of Wnt (
,
,
,
) and hedgehog (
,
, and
) signaling pathway genes was upregulated. These findings indicated that
, whose expression is regulated by Runx2, is highly expressed in chondrocytes, and that
activates Wnt and hedgehog signaling pathways, and promotes chondrocyte proliferation without increasing apoptosis.
The aim of this review was to assess the effectiveness of different direct pulp-capping (DPC) materials for human pulp-exposed teeth. An electronic search was performed on 20 February 2018. Long-term ...clinical and radiographic evaluations of the effectiveness of different DPC materials for use on human pulp-exposed teeth were included. Risk-of-bias assessment and data extraction were performed. From the 496 identified articles, 15 met the eligibility criteria. Among the studies included in those articles, a total of 1,322 teeth were treated with 12 types of DPC materials, and 1,136 teeth were evaluated at a final follow-up examination. For mineral trioxide aggregate (MTA) and calcium hydroxide (CH), the number of included studies, the number of treated teeth, and the mean follow-up period of studies were almost equal, and the success rates of MTA was superior to CH. Therefore, MTA is likely to be a more effective and predictable material for DPC compared to CH. However, the results were based on the included studies, which were all judged to have a high risk of bias. Therefore, more long-term clinical and radiographic studies designed with lower risk of bias are needed. Moreover, the other 10 materials were only investigated by a small number of studies; therefore, further studies are required.
Antxr1/Tem8 is highly expressed in tumor endothelial cells and is a receptor for anthrax toxin. Mutation of
causes GAPO syndrome, which is characterized by growth retardation, alopecia, ...pseudo-anodontia, and optic atrophy. However, the mechanism underlying the growth retardation remains to be clarified. Runx2 is essential for osteoblast differentiation and chondrocyte maturation and regulates chondrocyte proliferation through
induction. In the search of Runx2 target genes in chondrocytes, we found that
expression is upregulated by Runx2.
was highly expressed in cartilaginous tissues and was directly regulated by Runx2. In skeletal development, the process of endochondral ossification proceeded similarly in wild-type and
mice. However, the limbs of
mice were shorter than those of wild-type mice from embryonic day 16.5 due to the reduced chondrocyte proliferation. Chondrocyte-specific
transgenic mice exhibited shortened limbs, although the process of endochondral ossification proceeded as in wild-type mice. BrdU-uptake and apoptosis were both increased in chondrocytes, and the apoptosis-high regions were mineralized. These findings indicated that Antxr1, of which the expression is regulated by Runx2, plays an important role in chondrocyte proliferation and that overexpression of
causes chondrocyte apoptosis accompanied by matrix mineralization.
Previous measurements of the composition of Ultra-High Energy Cosmic Rays (UHECRs) made by the High Resolution Fly’s Eye (HiRes) and Pierre Auger Observatory (PAO) are seemingly contradictory, but ...utilize different detection methods, as HiRes was a stereo detector and PAO is a hybrid detector. The five year Telescope Array (TA) Middle Drum hybrid composition measurement is similar in some, but not all, respects in methodology to PAO, and good agreement is evident between data and a light, largely protonic, composition when comparing the measurements to predictions obtained with the QGSJetII-03 and QGSJet-01c models. These models are also in agreement with previous HiRes stereo measurements, confirming the equivalence of the stereo and hybrid methods. The data is incompatible with a pure iron composition, for all models examined, over the available range of energies. The elongation rate and mean values of Xmax are in good agreement with Pierre Auger Observatory data. This analysis is presented using two methods: data cuts using simple geometrical variables and a new pattern recognition technique.
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