This study aims to investigate the impact of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic on the management of rheumatic diseases (RD). An online survey included 10 questions were designed to assess potential differences in rheumatology practice. The survey was conducted between March 2021 and June 2021. Marginal homogeneity test was used to compare frequencies of outpatient clinic patients between the pre-pandemic and pandemic. Other results were analyzed by descriptive statistics. One hundred three clinicians (75.7% in rheumatology practice for at least five years) responded to the survey. Almost 70% examined < 30 patients per day during the pandemic while nearly 70% examined ≥ 30 patients per day before the pandemic (p < 0.001). They indicated following reasons for decreasing outpatient clinic activity were concerns regarding COVID-19 transmission risk of the patients (95%) and the clinicians (53%), being able to supply chronic medications directly from the pharmacy (85%), lockdown (71%), limited outpatient appointments (64%) and using telemedicine (20%). The frequencies of rheumatology daily routine procedures were decreased as follows; patient hospitalization for diagnosing (80%) and treatment (78%), labial salivary gland biopsy (63%), Schirmer's test/salivary flow rate test (56%), nail bed video-capillaroscopy (52%), musculoskeletal ultrasonography (51%) and Pathergy test (50%). Clinicians hesitated to use rituximab (63%) mostly, followed by cyclophosphamide (53%), glucocorticoids (43%), tofacitinib (41%), mycophenolate mofetil (36%), and azathioprine (33%). In this first national survey, the prominent differences in the management of RD have decreased outpatient clinic activity, reduced rheumatology daily procedures, and hesitancy to use some rheumatic drugs.
Deep learning (DL) algorithms have achieved important successes in data analysis tasks, thanks to their capability of revealing complex patterns in data. With the advance of new sensors, data storage, and processing hardware, DL algorithms start dominating various fields including neuropsychiatry. There are many types of DL algorithms for different data types from survey data to functional magnetic resonance imaging scans. Because of limitations in diagnosing, estimating prognosis and treatment response of neuropsychiatric disorders; DL algorithms are becoming promising approaches. In this review, we aim to summarize the most common DL algorithms and their applications in neuropsychiatry and also provide an overview to guide the researchers in choosing the proper DL architecture for their research.
Background: Hand osteoarthritis (HOA) is a complex disorder with various subtypes characterized with predominance of different features. It is challenging to estimate the severity of hand disability in HOA, since contribution of different disease components to clinical burden is yet to be clarified. The aim of the study is to investigate hand functions in nonerosive interphalangeal hand osteoarthritis (HOA) without inflammatory features, and search for effects of osteophyte formations detected by radiography and ultrasound on functionality. Methods: Thirty one HOA patients and 20 healthy subjects with similar age, gender, body mass index were included. Hand functions were evaluated by self-reported questionnaires and objective strength and dexterity measurements. A total of 459 interphalangeal joints were evaluated and scored by radiography and ultrasound for ostephyte formations. Results: Strength and dexterity measurements were similar between groups. Self-reported functionality was hampered in HOA group but not statistically significant. Osteophyte scores obtained by ultrasound and radiography were significantly higher in HOA group. Osteophyte scores obtained by ultrasound were higher than the scores obtained by radiography. Ultrasound scores showed no correlation with any of the parameters while osteophytes scores obtained by radiography partially showed a significant negative correlation with assembly part of dexterity testing. Conclusions: No significant difference observed in hand strength and dexterity in nonerosive interphalangeal HOA patients withouth signs of inflammation when compared to healthy subjects. Osteophyte formations prominent enough to be deteceted by radiography may have a negative effect on hand dexterity.
Background:Enthesitis is one of the key feature of psoriatic arthritis (PsA), it is usually overlooked in the asymptomatic patients. Nail disease often precedes PsA and nailfold videocapillaroscopy (NVC) is a useful technique for evaluating changes in microcirculation of nail that is considered to play an important role for early detection of enthesitis and PsA [1-4].Objectives:To investigate the link between NVC findings and severity of peripheral enthesitis scores in patients with PsA.Methods:In this cross-sectional single center study, 34 consecutive PsA patients and as control group (healthy controls - HC), 22 subjects without rheumatic diseases were involved. Psoriasis area severity index (PASI) was used to express severity of psoriasis (Ps) and percentage of affected area. Leeds enthesitis index (LEI) comprised assesment of lateral epicondyles of humerus, medial condyles of femur, and the insertion of the Achilles tendon. Madrid Sonographic Enthesitis Index (MASEI) was applied to quantify the extent of sonographic entheseal abnormalities. MASEI-inflammatory, MASEI-damage and as a sum of these MASEI-total scores were recorded. NVC was performed on eight fingers in each subject.Results:We enrolled 34 patients with PsA (median age=47.74 years, median disease duration=6.91 years) and 22 HC (median age=46.77 years). There were no significant differences between two groups concerning age, gender distribution and body mass index. Ps and PsA disease duration in terms of years were not correlated with MASEI and NVC scores. PASI score associated with MASEI-inflammatory score (r=0.40, p=0.01). There were significant correlation between the NVC score and MASEI-inflammatory (r=0.53, p=0.001) and MASEI-total scores (r=0.35, p=0.04) (Table 1). No association was found between LEI and NVC scores (p=0.34). MASEI enthesitis and NVC scores were significantly higher in the patient group (p=0.00).Table 1.Correlation between the capillaroscopy findings and MASEI- inflammatory and MASEI-total scores in patients with psoriatic arthritisMASEICapillaroscopyPsAHCMASEI-inflammatory r0.53**0.7 p0.0010.75MASEI-total r0.35*0.19 p0.040.38Spearman’s Correlation Coefficient; ** Correlation is significant at the 0.01 level (2-tailed), * Correlation is significant at the 0.05 level (2-tailed).p< 0.05 statistic significanceMASEI: Madrid Sonographic Enthesitis Index, PsA: psoriatic arthritis, HC: healthy controlsConclusion:NVC may objectively reflect the peripheric enthesopathy severity and give opportunity for early diagnosis of PsA.References:[1]Kaeley, Gurjit S., et al. “Enthesitis: a hallmark of psoriatic arthritis.” Seminars in arthritis and rheumatism. Vol. 48. No. 1. WB Saunders, 2018.[2]Ash, Zoe R., et al. “Psoriasis patients with nail disease have a greater magnitude of underlying systemic subclinical enthesopathy than those with normal nails.” Annals of the Rheumatic Diseases 71.4 (2012): 553-556.[3]Smith, Vanessa, et al. “Nailfold capillaroscopy and clinical applications in systemic sclerosis.” Microcirculation 23.5 (2016): 364-372.[4]Ribeiro, Camila Ferrari, et al. “Periungual capillaroscopy in psoriasis.” Anais brasileiros de dermatologia 87.4 (2012): 550-553.Disclosure of Interests:None declared
Absfracr-Vedor 7 .have promised an ewrmous h a w s e in Computing speed for c o m p u t a t~d y "sive and timoaiticll power system problems which require the repeated solution of sparse linear equations. Due to short vectors proassed in these applications, st.nd.rd sparsity-based a l g " s need to be rrstnrctured for efiiciard vedorization This p.pa PreMltp a novel data storage scheme and an &cieat vedorhtion algorithm that exploits the intrinsic a r c h k h d features of vedor computers such as sedioaing and chahing As the b"& the solution phase of the Fast Deooupled Load Flow algorithm is used in simulations. The relative perform~ocs of the proposed and existing vedorization schemes are evaluated, both theoretically and experimentally, on IBM 3090NF.
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