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Background: Systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) is a chronic autoimmune disease that exhibits considerable diversity in terms of both clinical and immunological manifestations. Since its female-to-male ratio is around 9:1, it is well recognized that systemic lupus erythematosus mostly affects women, especially those of childbearing age. There is a greater susceptibility to infections in adult patients with systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) compared to the general population. However, only a small number of studies have attempted to analyze this risk using real-life data, and even fewer have successfully assessed the influence of sex. Materials and Methods: A retrospective study was conducted, enrolling patients and dividing them into two groups based on their biological sex. Infectious episodes were identified from medical records and categorized by severity. Patients were stratified according to disease duration and treatment received. Logistic regression analysis was used to calculate the odds ratio (OR), with a 95% confidence interval (CI) for the assessment of risk factors. Multivariable logistic regression was performed to adjust for potential confounders. Model fit was evaluated using the Hosmer–Lemeshow test, and interactions between variables were tested. Sensitivity analyses were conducted to assess the robustness of the findings. Results: A total of 119 patients (107 females and 12 males) were included in the analysis. No significant difference in age was found between sexes (t = −0.715, p = 0.487), but disease duration was significantly shorter in males (t = 3.35, p = 0.003). Logistic regression showed a significant association between male sex and infection risk (β = 0.9426, p = 0.05), with males having an almost sixfold higher probability of infection compared to females (OR 5.675, 95% CI: 1.4479–22.2477, p = 0.0127). Disease duration (β = 0.0250, p = 0.102) and smoking status (β = 0.4529, p = 0.078) were not statistically significant. Lastly, correlation analysis revealed a significant association between SS-A antibodies and infection rate (r = 0.291, p = 0.003). Conclusions: This study highlights a significant sex-based disparity in the risk of infections among SLE patients, with males being at a higher risk compared to females. The differences in the distribution of infections, such as the higher prevalence of pneumonia in males and urinary tract infections in females, suggest that sex-specific factors, including immunological and hormonal differences, may influence infection susceptibility. Our findings emphasize the need for tailored clinical management, with increased vigilance for infections in male patients, to improve prevention strategies and targeted therapeutic interventions in this subgroup. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Over the past two decades, ultrasound (US) has become widely accepted to guide safe and accurate insertion of vascular devices in critically ill patients. We emphasize central venous catheter insertion, given its broad application in critically ill patients, but also review the use of US for accessing peripheral veins, arteries, the medullary canal, and vessels for institution of extracorporeal life support. To ensure procedural safety and high cannulation success rates we recommend using a systematic protocolized approach for US-guided vascular access in elective clinical situations. A standardized approach minimizes variability in clinical practice, provides a framework for education and training, facilitates implementation, and enables quality analysis. This review will address the state of US-guided vascular access, including current practice and future directions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A combined objective-oriented and subjective-oriented method for evaluating accessibility and usability of web pages for students with disability was tested. The objective-oriented approach is devoted to verifying the conformity of interfaces to standard rules stated by national and international organizations responsible for web technology standardization, such as W3C. Conversely, the subjective-oriented approach allows assessing how the final users interact with the artificial system, accessing levels of user satisfaction based on personal factors and environmental barriers. Five kinds of measurements were applied as objective-oriented and subjective-oriented tests. Objective-oriented evaluations were performed on the Help Desk web page for students with disability, included in the website of a large Italian state university. Subjective-oriented tests were administered to 19 students labeled as disabled on the basis of their own declaration at the University enrolment: 13 students were tested by means of the SUMI test and six students by means of the 'Cooperative evaluation'. Objective-oriented and subjective-oriented methods highlighted different and sometimes conflicting results. Both methods have pointed out much more consistency regarding levels of accessibility than of usability. Since usability is largely affected by individual differences in user's own (dis)abilities, subjective-oriented measures underscored the fact that blind students encountered much more web surfing difficulties. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A complex relationship between arachidonic acid metabolites and nitric oxide (NO) synthesis has been reported in asthma. The effects of inhaled aspirin on fractional exhaled NO (FENO) in patients with aspirin-tolerant (ATA) and aspirin-inducible (AIA) asthma compared with normal controls have been investigated. The FENO was measured baseline, after saline and lysine-aspirin (L-ASA) bronchial challenge in 10 patients with ATA and in 10 patients with AIA [mean (PD20 FEV1 L-ASA): 14.7 ± 12.7 mg], who had comparable age and baseline FEV1. Ten healthy subjects served as controls. Sputum eosinophils were counted after saline and after L-ASA challenge in the two groups of asthmatics. Asthmatic patients had baseline FENO significantly higher than controls (29.7 ± 6.8 vs 9.8 ± 2.05 p.p.b. respectively, P < 0.0001). No difference was observed in methacholine PD20 FEV1 and baseline FENO between ATA and AIA patients. After L-ASA inhalation, FENO increased significantly only in patients with AIA, reaching the peak value 4 h after bronchoconstriction (from 31.1 ± 6 to 43 ± 4.8 p.p.b., P < 0.001), while no change was observed in patients with ATA and in controls. Sputum eosinophils increased significantly after L-ASA inhalation only in patients with AIA (from 8.1 ± 2.7 to 11.1 ± 2.8%, P < 0.005) and there was a significant relationship between the increase in sputum eosinophils and the increase in FENO after ASA challenge. Exhaled NO may indicate eosinophilic airway inflammation during ASA exposure in patients with ASA inducible asthma. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We present theoretical results on the random wavelet coefficients covariance structure. We use simple properties of the coefficients to derive a recursive way to compute the within- and across-scale covariances. We point out a useful link between the algorithm proposed and the two-dimensional discrete wavelet transform. We then focus on Bayesian wavelet shrinkage for estimating a function from noisy data. A prior distribution is imposed on the coefficients of the unknown function. We show how our findings on the covariance structure make it possible to specify priors that take into account the full correlation between coefficients through a parsimonious number of hyperparameters. We use Markov chain Monte Carlo methods to estimate the parameters and illustrate our method on bench-mark simulated signals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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