Brown University

About: Brown University is a education organization based out in Providence, Rhode Island, United States. It is known for research contribution in the topics: Population & Poison control. The organization has 35778 authors who have published 90896 publications receiving 4471489 citations. The organization is also known as: brown.edu & Brown.

Ten-Year Course of Borderline Personality Disorder: Psychopathology and Function From the Collaborative Longitudinal Personality Disorders Study

Abstract: Context Borderline personality disorder (BPD) is traditionally considered chronic and intractable. Objective To compare the course of BPD's psychopathology and social function with that of other personality disorders and with major depressive disorder (MDD) over 10 years. Design A collaborative study of treatment-seeking, 18- to 45-year-old patients followed up with standardized, reliable, and repeated measures of diagnostic remission and relapse and of both global social functioning and subtypes of social functioning. Setting Nineteen clinical settings (hospital and outpatient) in 4 northeastern US cities. Participants Three study groups, including 175 patients with BPD, 312 with cluster C personality disorders, and 95 with MDD but no personality disorder. Main Outcome Measures The Diagnostic Interview for DSM-IV Personality Disorders and its follow-along version (the Diagnostic Interview for DSM-IV Personality Disorders–Follow-Along Version) were used to diagnose personality disorders and assess changes in them. The Structured Clinical Interview for DSM-IV Axis I Disorders and the Longitudinal Interval Follow-up Evaluation were used to diagnose MDD and assess changes in MDD and in social function. Results Eighty-five percent of patients with BPD remitted. Remission of BPD was slower than for MDD (P Conclusions The 10-year course of BPD is characterized by high rates of remission, low rates of relapse, and severe and persistent impairment in social functioning. These results inform expectations of patients, families, and clinicians and document the severe public health burden of this disorder.

A genome-wide linkage and association scan reveals novel loci for autism

Abstract: Although autism is a highly heritable neurodevelopmental disorder, attempts to identify specific susceptibility genes have thus far met with limited success. Genome-wide association studies using half a million or more markers, particularly those with very large sample sizes achieved through meta-analysis, have shown great success in mapping genes for other complex genetic traits. Consequently, we initiated a linkage and association mapping study using half a million genome-wide single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) in a common set of 1,031 multiplex autism families (1,553 affected offspring). We identified regions of suggestive and significant linkage on chromosomes 6q27 and 20p13, respectively. Initial analysis did not yield genome-wide significant associations; however, genotyping of top hits in additional families revealed an SNP on chromosome 5p15 (between SEMA5A and TAS2R1) that was significantly associated with autism (P = 2 x 10(-7)). We also demonstrated that expression of SEMA5A is reduced in brains from autistic patients, further implicating SEMA5A as an autism susceptibility gene. The linkage regions reported here provide targets for rare variation screening whereas the discovery of a single novel association demonstrates the action of common variants.

Limitations to the small scale yielding approximation for crack tip plasticity

Abstract: Recent finite-element results by S G Larsson and A J Carlsson suggest a limited range of validity to the 'small scale yielding approximation,' whereby small crack tip plastic zones are correlated in terms of the elastic stress intensity factor It is shown with the help of a model for plane strain yielding that their results may be explained by considering the non-singular stress, acting parallel to the crack at its tip, which accompanies the inverse square-root elastic singularity Further implications of the non-singular stress term for crack tip deformations and fracturing are examined It is suggested that its effect on crack tip parameters, such as the opening displacement and J-integral, is less pronounced than its effect on the yield zone size

Standardized interpretation of paediatric chest radiographs for the diagnosis of pneumonia in epidemiological studies

Abstract: BACKGROUND: Although radiological pneumonia is used as an outcome measure in epidemiological studies, there is considerable variability in the interpretation of chest radiographs. A standardized method for identifying radiological pneumonia would facilitate comparison of the results of vaccine trials and epidemiological studies of pneumonia. METHODS: A WHO working group developed definitions for radiological pneumonia. Inter-observer variability in categorizing a set of 222 chest radiographic images was measured by comparing the readings made by 20 radiologists and clinicians with a reference reading. Intra-observer variability was measured by comparing the initial readings of a randomly chosen subset of 100 radiographs with repeat readings made 8-30 days later. FINDINGS: Of the 222 images, 208 were considered interpretable. The reference reading categorized 43% of these images as showing alveolar consolidation or pleural effusion (primary end-point pneumonia); the proportion thus categorized by each of the 20 readers ranged from 8% to 61%. Using the reference reading as the gold standard, 14 of the 20 readers had sensitivity and specificity of > 0.70 in identifying primary end-point pneumonia; 13 out of 20 readers had a kappa index of > 0.6 compared with the reference reading. For the 92 radiographs deemed to be interpretable among the 100 images used for intra-observer variability, 19 out of 20 readers had a kappa index of > 0.6. CONCLUSION: Using standardized definitions and training, it is possible to achieve agreement in identifying radiological pneumonia, thus facilitating the comparison of results of epidemiological studies that use radiological pneumonia as an outcome.