27 cases of anti-TNF associated psoriasiform lesions are reported. Discontinuation of anti-TNF treatment is unnecessary in the majority. Dermatologic improvement was achieved in the majority with a subsequent anti-TNF, suggesting anti-TNF induced psoriasiform rash is not necessarily a class effect.

“A Mathematical Theory of Communication” was published in 1948 by Claude Shannon to address the problems in the field of data compression and communication over (noisy) communication channels. Since then, the concepts and ideas developed in Shannon’s work have formed the basis of information theory, a cornerstone of statistical learning and inference, and has been playing a key role in disciplines such as physics and thermodynamics, probability and statistics, computational sciences and biological sciences. In this article we review the basic information theory based concepts and describe their key applications in multiple major areas of research in computational biology—gene expression and transcriptomics, alignment-free sequence comparison, sequencing and error correction, genome-wide disease-gene association mapping, metabolic networks and metabolomics, and protein sequence, structure and interaction analysis.

Detection of gene-gene interaction has become increasingly popular over the past decade in genome wide association studies (GWAS). Besides traditional logistic regression analysis for detecting interactions between two markers, new methods have been developed in recent years such as comparing linkage disequilibrium (LD) in case and control groups. All these methods form the building blocks of most screening strategies for disease susceptibility loci in GWAS. In this paper, we are interested in comparing the competing methods and providing practical guidelines for selecting appropriate testing methods for interaction in GWAS. We first review a series of existing statistical methods to detect interactions, and then examine different definitions of interactions to gain insight into the theoretical relationship between the existing testing methods. Lastly, we perform extensive simulations to compare powers of various methods to detect either interaction between two markers at two unlinked loci or the overall association allowing for both interaction and main effects. This investigation reveals informative characteristics of various methods that are helpful to GWAS investigators.

Preoperative MTX use does not seem to be associated with early postoperative complications in IBD.

The infinite dimensional Z-estimation theorem offers a systematic approach to joint estimation of both Euclidean and non-Euclidean parameters in probabiity models for data. It is easily adapted for stratified sampling designs. This is important in applications to censored survival data because the inverse probability weights that modify the standard estimating equations often depend on the entire follow-up history. Since the weights are not predictable, they complicate the usual theory based on martingales. This paper considers joint estimation of regression coefficients and baseline hazard functions in the Cox proportional and Lin-Ying additive hazards models. Weighted likelihood equations are used for the former and weighted estimating equations for the latter. Regression coefficients and baseline hazards may be combined to estimate individual survival probabilities. Efficiency is improved by calibrating or estimating the weights using information available for all subjects. Although inefficient in comparison with likelihood inference for incomplete data, which is often difficult to implement, the approach provides consistent estimates of desired population parameters even under model misspecification.

Background: Several comparative studies have shown that endoscopic balloon dilation (EPBD) combined with endoscopic sphincterotomy (EST) may be a better choice than EPBD alone for the treatment of common bile duct stones (CBDS). However, there are limited data that can be used to compare this combination method with EST or EPBD alone in the treatment of choledocholithiasis. Therefore, this study aimed to systematically evaluate the efficacy of EPBD alone and EPBD combined with EST in the treatment of CBDS.Methods: We performed a literature search of the PubMed, Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials, Embase, Web of Science, China National Knowledge Infrastructure (CNKI), Wanfang, and Weipu databases using the following search terms: endoscopic balloon dilation, endoscopic sphincterotomy, sphincterotomy, balloon dilation, gallstones, bile duct stones, and common bile duct stones. The Cochrane risk of bias tool was used to evaluate the quality of the included studies, and the network meta-analysis was performed using RevMan 5.20.Results: A total of nine articles satisfied the inclusion criteria, involving 497 patients who received EST + EPBD and 548 patients who underwent EPBD alone. The results of the meta-analysis showed that compared with the EPBD group, the EST + EPBD group had significant differences in the stone removal time [mean difference (MD) is −1.83; 95% confidence interval (CI): (−3.57, −0.10)] and the initial stone removal rate [relative risk (RR) is 1.11; 95% CI: (1.04, 1.19)]. There were no significant differences in the rate of mechanical vibration stone crushing [RR is 0.74; 95% CI: (0.55, 1.00)], total rate of stone removal [RR is 1.01; 95% CI: (0.98, 1.04)], and complication rate [RR is 0.87; 95% CI: (0.66, 1.13)]. Discussion:The stone removal time and initial stone removal rate of patients in the EST + EPBD group were superior to those of patients in the EPBD group, and the two groups were similar in terms of total stone removal success rate, mechanical lithotripsy (ML) rate, and complication rate. Therefore, large-scale, multi-center prospective studies are needed to clarify whether EST + EPBD is superior to EPBD alone in the treatment of choledocholithiasis.

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Background: Outdoor air temperature is associated with increased morbidity and mortality. Other thermal indices theoretically confer greater physiological relevance by incorporating additional meteorological variables. However, the optimal metric for predicting excess deaths or hospitalizations owing to extreme heat among US Medicare beneficiaries remains unknown. Methods: We calculated daily maximum, minimum, and mean outdoor air temperature (T), heat index (HI), wet-bulb globe temperature (WBGT), and Universal Thermal Climate Index (UTCI) for populous US counties and linked estimates with daily all-cause mortality and heat-related hospitalizations among Medicare beneficiaries (2006–2016). We fit distributed-lag nonlinear models for each metric and compared relative risks (RRs) at the 99th percentile. Results: Across all heat metrics, extreme heat was statistically significantly associated with elevated risks of morbidity and mortality. Associations were more pronounced for maximum daily values versus the corresponding minimum for the same metric. The starkest example was between HImax (RR = 1.14; 95% confidence interval [CI] = 1.12, 1.15) and HImin (RR = 1.10; 95% CI = 1.09, 1.11) for hospitalizations. When comparing RRs across heat metrics, we found no statistically significant differences within the minimum and maximum heat values (i.e., no significant differences between Tmax/HImax/WBGTmax/UTCImax or between Tmin/HImin/WBGTmin/UTCImin). We found similar relationships across the National Climate Assessment regions. Conclusion: Among Medicare beneficiaries in populous US counties, daily maximum and mean values of outdoor heat are associated with greater RRs of heat-related morbidity and all-cause mortality versus minimum values of the same metric. The choice of heat metric (e.g., temperature versus HI) does not appear to substantively affect risk calculations in this population.