Treatment with rituximab, a monoclonal antibody against the B-lymphocyte surface protein CD20, leads to the depletion of B cells. Recently, rituximab was reported to effectively prevent relapses of glucocorticoid-dependent or frequently relapsing minimal change disease (MCD). MCD is thought to be T-cell mediated; how rituximab controls MCD is not understood. In this review, we summarize key cli...

Minimal change disease (MCD) is a histopathological lesion in the kidney that is most commonly associated with nephrotic syndrome. The majority of the cases are idiopathic. Pathogenesis is not well understood, although T-cell-related mechanisms are implicated. Massive proteinuria leads to hypoalbuminemia, salt retention, disorder of hemostasis, hyperlipidemia and increased susceptibility to inf...

The Principle of Minimal Change is prevalent in various guises throughout the development of areas such as reasoning about action, belief change and nonmonotonic reasoning. Recent literature has witnessed the proposal of several theories of action that adopt an explicit representation of causality. It is claimed that an explicit notion of causality is able to deal with the frame problem in a ma...

Many economic sectors, like housing or transportation, are exposed to climate and likely to suffer efficiency losses when climate changes. The global economy is far from being sheltered from climate, these sectors represent a significant fraction of the existing capital stock. Using an optimal growth model with perfect knowledge, we examine the balance between efficiency losses and investment i...

A statistical model based on the method of variance components was applied to obtain confidence statements for single and repeat determinations of left ventricular ejection fraction by radionuclide techniques. With this approach variance caused by individual factors in the measurement procedure is estimated to allow calculation of confidence intervals based on single measurements and the detect...

BACKGROUND There is a need for better interpretation of orthopedic treatment effects. Patient-reported outcome measures (PROMs) are already commonly used for patient evaluation. PROMs can be used to determine treatment effects in research as well as in clinical settings by calculating change scores, with pre- and post-treatment evaluation. The smallest detectable change (SDC) and minimal import...

BACKGROUND Reported values of the minimal important change (MIC) and the smallest detectable change (SDC) for the neck disability index (NDI) differ strongly, raising questions about the generalizability of these parameters. The SDC and the MIC are possibly influenced by the study design or by the study population. We studied the influence of the type of anchor, the definition of improvement an...