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Multi-cell cooperation is an effective means to improve service quality to cellular users. Existing work primarily focuses on interference cancellation using all the degrees of freedom (DoF). This leads to low service quality for some users with poor channel quality to its serving base station. This work investigates the multi-cell beamforming design for enhancing the downlink signal strength and mitigating interference simultaneously. We first consider the ideal case when perfect channel state information (CSI) is available for determining the beamforming vectors and then extend the problem to the case with imperfect CSI. For both cases, the beamforming optimization problems are non-convex. Assuming perfect CSI, we obtain the optimal JT beamforming vectors based on the uplink-downlink duality. In the presence of unknown CSI errors, we use the semidefinite relaxation (SDR) with Bernstein-type inequality to derive the robust JT beamforming. Numerical results are presented to evaluate the performance of the proposed JT beamforming schemes.

Supplemental Material, sj-pdf-1-jps-10.1177_24755303221082623 for Value of PASI90 Versus Merit-Based Incentive Payment System Efficacy Measures by Jason E. Hawkes, MD, MS, Paulo Reis, MD, Chen-Yen Lin, PhD, Talia Muram, MD, and William J. Eastman MD in Journal of Psoriasis and Psoriatic Arthritis

Supplemental Material, sj-pdf-1-jps-10.1177_24755303221082623 for Value of PASI90 Versus Merit-Based Incentive Payment System Efficacy Measures by Jason E. Hawkes, MD, MS, Paulo Reis, MD, Chen-Yen Lin, PhD, Talia Muram, MD, and William J. Eastman MD in Journal of Psoriasis and Psoriatic Arthritis

Andrew Blauvelt,1 Nianwen Shi,2 Russel Burge,3,4 William N Malatestinic,3 Chen-Yen Lin,3 Carolyn R Lew,2 Nicole M Zimmerman,2 Orin M Goldblum,3 Baojin Zhu,3 Mwangi J Murage3 1Oregon Medical Research Center, Portland, OR, USA; 2IBM Watson Health, Cambridge, MA, USA; 3Eli Lilly and Company, Indianapolis, IN, USA; 4University of Cincinnati, Cincinnati, OH, USACorrespondence: Mwangi J MurageGlobal Patient Outcomes and Real World Evidence (GPORWE), Eli Lilly and Company, LCT – South Building 171-2, Drop Code 5221, 1555 Harding St, Indianapolis, IN 46221, USATel +1-317-460-3619Email murage_mwangi_james@lilly.comBackground: There is lack of real-world treatment pattern comparison data between ixekizumab and adalimumab which are approved for the treatment of moderate-to-severe plaque psoriasis.Objective: To compare real-world treatment patterns among psoriasis patients initiating ixekizumab or adalimumab in the United States.Methods: Psoriasis patients with ≥ 1 claim for ixekizumab or adalimumab between March 1, 2016, and May 31, 2018, were identified (index date = date of first ixekizumab or adalimumab claim) from the IBM Watson Health MarketScan® databases. Patients were required to be continuously enrolled for ≥ 12 months before the index date and followed for a minimum of 6 months until inpatient death, enrollment end, or study end, whichever occurred first. Treatment persistence, adherence, discontinuation, restart, and switching were analyzed. Inverse probability of treatment weighting and multivariable regression modeling were employed to address cohort imbalances and estimate the adjusted risk of non-persistence, discontinuation, and switching, and the odds of adherence.Results: A total of 646 ixekizumab and 3668 adalimumab users were included and followed for a mean of 14.0 and 16.5 months, respectively. Compared to adalimumab, ixekizumab was associated with 19% lower risk of non-persistence (hazard ratio [HR]=0.81, 95% confidence interval [CI]: 0.69– 0.95), 26% lower risk of discontinuation (HR=0.74, 95% CI: 0.62– 0.88), and 28% lower risk of switching (HR=0.72, 95% CI: 0.57– 0.91). Ixekizumab users had higher odds of medication possession ratio ≥ 80% (odds ratio [OR]=1.36, 95% CI: 1.10– 1.69) but similar odds by proportion of days covered ≥ 80% (OR=1.22, 95% CI: 0.98– 1.53).Conclusion: Psoriasis patients treated with ixekizumab demonstrated longer persistency, higher adherence and were less likely to discontinue or switch treatment compared to adalimumab users. However, while patients achieving highly adherent threshold significantly differed by MPR ≥ 80%, it did not by PDC ≥ 80%; hence, further analysis using fixed-length follow-up is required.Keywords: ixekizumab, adalimumab, psoriasis, treatment switching, discontinuation, persistence

In this study, a simple, novel and inexpensive third generation electrochemical uric acid (UA) biosensor based on three-electrode point-of-care test strip was proposed. On the low-cost screen-printed three silver-based electrodes test strip, the Ag/AgCl reference electrode was first formed by simple electrodeposition with one silver electrode, then the working electrode was prepared by the successive coating of redox mediator, polymer hydrogel, and uricase onto the surface of another silver electrode, the third bare silver electrode was served as the counter electrode to complete the uric acid test strip, which has the advantages of lower oxidation potential, faster response time, higher sensitivity, and wider detecting range.

Point-of-care (POC) based system becomes more important for aging society and modern life. In Taiwan or globally, most of patients who have a history of urinary stone, the chance of recurrence is about 70 – 80% within 7 years. So, the cost of urinary stone treatment consumes a significant percent of health care insurance. A platform for measuring key parameters of morning spot urine (random urine) to predict the onset of urolithiasis was implemented in this study. This research presents a POC test system developed for urolithiasis recurrence prevention. The system can be used to assist a patient in assessing the condition of his urinary system through urine quality indicators pH, Ca2+, uric acid, conductivity, color and crystallization, etc. Several major types of sensors were used to monitor core parameters in human’s urine. Ion Sensitive Field Effect Transistor and Extended Gate Field Effect Transistor potentiometric-type sensors are used for pH and Ca2+ monitoring, the enzyme based two or three-electrode amperometric type sensor is used for urine’s uric acid sensing, and the self-developed electrodes are used for conductivity measuring. The wireless based prototype with these sensors and CMOS readout circuits were integrated and tested in the laboratory and clinically. In this research, the integrated circuit designs for sub-sensing system implementation were fabricated through TSMC 0.35um and 0.18um CMOS processes. The test results on key parameters monitored by the proposed prototype and fabricated integrated circuits show an acceptable and promising performance referred to corresponding commercial meters for individual parameter sensing. In addition, the prototype system with blue tooth transceiver was developed for wireless communication. Through the data analysis and risk assessment made by urologists, this system can provide a regular urine quality monitoring to patients with urinary stone, the eating and life styles can be consulted or adjusted according to the data base collected from the proposed system and patient individually. The development of this POCT platform will be also useful for improving the life quality of patient with urolithiasis, extending applications in aging societies and reducing an unnecessary cost of health care insurance. Figure 1