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Nis Andersen,1,2 Jesper Østergaard Hjortdal,1,3 Katja Christina Schielke,4 Toke Bek,3 Jakob Grauslund,5 Caroline Schmidt Laugesen,6 Henrik Lund-Andersen,7 Charlotte Cerqueira,8 Jens Andresen2 1Danish Ophthalmological Society, Copenhagen, 2Organization of Danish Ophthalmologists in Private Practice, Copenhagen, 3Department of Ophthalmology, Aarhus University Hospital, Aarhus, 4Department of Ophthalmology, Aalborg University Hospital, Aalborg, 5Department of Ophthalmology, Odense University Hospital, Odense, 6Department of Ophthalmology, Copenhagen University Hospital Roskilde, Roskilde, 7Department of Ophthalmology, Glostrup Hospital, 8Registry Support Centre (East) – Epidemiology and Biostatistics, Research Centre for Prevention and Health, Rigshospitalet – Glostrup, University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark Aim of database: To monitor the development of diabetic eye disease in Denmark and to evaluate the accessibility and effectiveness of diabetic eye screening programs with focus on interregional variations.Target population: The target population includes all patients diagnosed with diabetes. Denmark (5.5 million inhabitants) has ~320,000 diabetes patients with an annual increase of 27,000 newly diagnosed patients. The Danish Registry of Diabetic Retinopathy (DiaBase) ­collects data on all diabetes patients aged ≥18 years who attend screening for diabetic eye disease in hospital eye departments and in private ophthalmological practice. In 2014–2015, DiaBase included data collected from 77,968 diabetes patients.Main variables: The main variables provide data for calculation of performance indicators to monitor the quality of diabetic eye screening and development of diabetic retinopathy. Data with respect to age, sex, best corrected visual acuity, screening frequency, grading of diabetic retinopathy and maculopathy at each visit, progression/regression of diabetic eye disease, and prevalence of blindness were obtained. Data analysis from DiaBase’s latest annual report (2014–2015) indicates that the prevalence of no diabetic retinopathy, nonproliferative ­diabetic retinopathy, and proliferative diabetic retinopathy is 78%, 18%, and 4%, respectively. The percentage of patients without diabetic maculopathy is 97%. The proportion of patients with regression of diabetic retinopathy (20%) is greater than the proportion of patients with ­progression of diabetic retinopathy (10%).Conclusion: The collection of data from diabetic eye screening is still expanding in Denmark. Analysis of the data collected during the period 2014–2015 reveals an overall decrease of diabetic retinopathy compared to the previous year, although the number of patients newly diagnosed with diabetes has been increasing in Denmark. DiaBase is a useful tool to observe the quality of screening, prevalence, and progression/regression of diabetic eye disease. Keywords: diabetes, DiaBase, Danish Diabetes Database, national annual report, quality of care, database, registry, quality indicator

BackgroundObsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) has a complex etiology involving both genetic and environmental factors. However, the genetic causes of OCD are largely unknown, despite the identification of several promising candidate genes and linkage regions.MethodsOur objective was to conduct genetic linkage studies of the type of OCD thought to have the strongest genetic etiology (i.e., childhood-onset OCD), in 33 Caucasian families with ≥2 childhood-onset OCD-affected individuals from the United States (n = 245 individuals with genotype data). Parametric and nonparametric genome-wide linkage analyses were conducted with Morgan and Merlin in these families using a selected panel of single nucleotide repeat polymorphisms from the Illumina 610-Quad Bead Chip. The initial analyses were followed by fine-mapping analyses in genomic regions with initial heterogeneity logarithm of odds (HLOD) scores of ≥2.0.ResultsWe identified five areas of interest (HLOD score ≥2) on chromosomes 1p36, 2p14, 5q13, 6p25, and 10p13. The strongest result was on chromosome 1p36.33-p36.32 (HLOD = 3.77, suggestive evidence for linkage after fine mapping). At this location, several of the families showed haplotypes co-segregating with OCD.ConclusionsThe results of this study represent the strongest linkage finding for OCD in a primary analysis to date and suggest that chromosome 1p36, and possibly several other genomic regions, may harbor susceptibility loci for OCD. Multiple brain-expressed genes lie under the primary linkage peak (approximately 4 megabases in size). Follow-up studies, including replication in additional samples and targeted sequencing of the areas of interest, are needed to confirm these findings and to identify specific OCD risk variants.

To reduce the phenotypic heterogeneity of obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) for genetic, clinical and translational studies, numerous factor analyses of the Yale-Brown Obsessive Compulsive Scale checklist (YBOCS-CL) have been conducted. Results of these analyses have been inconsistent, likely as a consequence of small sample sizes and variable methodologies. Furthermore, data concerning the heritability of the factors are limited. Item and category-level factor analyses of YBOCS-CL items from 1224 OCD subjects were followed by heritability analyses in 52 OCD-affected multigenerational families. Item-level analyses indicated that a five factor model: (1) taboo, (2) contamination/cleaning, (3) doubts, (4) superstitions/rituals, and (5) symmetry/hoarding provided the best fit, followed by a one-factor solution. All 5 factors as well as the one-factor solution were found to be heritable. Bivariate analyses indicated that the taboo and doubts factor, and the contamination and symmetry/hoarding factor share genetic influences. Contamination and symmetry/hoarding show shared genetic variance with symptom severity. Nearly all factors showed shared environmental variance with each other and with symptom severity. These results support the utility of both OCD diagnosis and symptom dimensions in genetic research and clinical contexts. Both shared and unique genetic influences underlie susceptibility to OCD and its symptom dimensions.

Core Ideas: Rapid and accurate estimation of corn kernel moisture in‐field is critical for timely harvests.The NIRS sensor predicted corn kernel moisture with high accuracy (R2 ≥.95) across a wide moisture range (15–60%).Sensor accuracy was also consistent across multiple corn hybrids and environments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Research shows that a two-step mechanism involving an onset processing and releasing of the immature secretory granules mediates the production of processing-competent organelles from the trans-Golgi apparatus.

A test stand for the next generation of the Silicon Vertex Detector (SVX-II) of the Collider Detector Facility (CDF) at Fermilab has been developed. It is capable of performing cosmic ray, beam, and laser pulsing tests on silicon strip detectors using the new generation of SVX chips. The test stand is composed of a SGI workstation, a VME CPU, the Silicon Test Acquisition and Readout (STAR) board, the Test Fiber Interface Board (TFIB), and the Test Port Card (TPC). The STAR mediates between external stimuli for the different tests and produces appropriate high level commands which are sent to the TFIB. The TFIB, in conjunction with the TPC, translates these commands into the correct logic levels to control the SVX chips. The four modes of operation of the SVX chips are configuration, data acquisition, digitization, and data readout. The data read out from the SVX chips is transferred to the STAR. The STAR can then be accessed by the VME CPU and the SGI workstation for future analyses. The detailed description of this test stand will be given.

The Hewlett Packard HDMP-1000 G-Link transmitter and receiver chip set was tested for an event builder application. The re-lock time of the serial link when a data path is changed is less than 30 [[micro]seconds] provided fill frames are transmitted. With a 1 kHz data path switching rate, this results in less than a 3% data rate inefficiency due to re-synchronization, which makes the HP G-Link chip set effective for use in a large event builder for a hadron collider experiment.