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The purpose of the study was to validate a recently proposed new grading system for ocular manifestations of chronic graft-versus-host disease (cGVHD). Diagnosis of cGVHD was based on the NIH consensus criteria. In addition, a grading scale was applied, which has been developed by the German-Austrian-Swiss Consensus Conference on Clinical Practice in cGVHD. Sixty-six patients (male n = 46, female n = 20, mean age 48 years) with ocular cGVHD were included. Application of the proposed Consensus Conference grading revealed inflammatory activity in all patients with mild (33 %), moderate (44 %), or severe inflammation (23 %). Clinical scoring by the NIH scoring system showed that 6 % of patients had mild symptoms; 59 % of patients had moderate dry eye symptoms partially affecting activities of daily living, without vision impairment; and 35 % of patients had severe dry eye symptoms significantly affecting daily activities. Clinical characterization and grading by the Consensus Conference grading scale revealed that ocular cGVHD (1) frequently leads to severe ocular surface disease based on impaired function of the lacrimal glands and involvement of cornea, conjunctiva, and lids; (2) is mostly associated with ongoing inflammatory activity; (3) often leads to functional impairment and reduced quality of life; and (4) is associated with an increased risk for severe, sight-threatening complications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The analysis covers 27 international organizations in the years 1950–2001. From the first to the last year, staff increased at a compound average rate of 3.2% per annum, while the number of member states rose by only 2.5%. The pooled analysis of 817 observations (including task proxies and organization dummies) reveals that (i) the elasticity of staff to membership is much larger than unity (1.36), (ii) United Nations organizations have significantly more staff, (iii) international organizations in the United States and Switzerland have significantly less staff, (iv) heterogeneity in terms of per capita income limits the size of an international organization and that (v) its staff is larger if its membership comprises many industrial or (former) communist countries. In a reduced sample, the financing share of the largest contributor in combination with the party or programmatic orientation of its government has a significantly negative effect on staff because the size of the largest financing share determines the incentive to monitor. U.S. exit from an international organization reduces its staff significantly. Most of these results depend on the condition that the non-stationary component of staff size is not taken account of by time dummies or trends. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article reports on the selection of Northwestern University senior student John Romankiewicz of Illinois and University of Texas graduate student Rejanah Steward as the Minerals, Metals and Materials Society (TMS) Student Ambassadors to the 2006 Junior Euromat Conference in Lausanne, Switzerland. They were selected by the TMS Foundation after presenting quality research at the 2006 TMS Technical Division Student Poster Contest. They presented an overview of their research at the Euromat.

Information on the XXIII Indian Colloquium on Micropaleontology and Stratigraphy (ICMS) held during December 9-11, 2011 at the Department of Geology at the Bangalore University, Bangalore is presented. The ICMS Colloquia is held every two years at universities and national institutes across India. The conference has attracted 300 delegates from different colleges and universities across India and abroad including the U.S. and Switzerland.

Information about the World Health Organization (WHO) meeting held in Geneva, Switzerland is presented. Topics include the H5N1 avian influenza virus, a recommendation from the U.S. National Science Advisory Board for Biosecurity (NSABB) and the need for virus studies to be published in full. The meeting featured several notable people including Ron Fouchier, Yoshihiro Kawaoka and Paul Keim.