An important concern in the design of search engines is the construction of an inv erted index. An inv erted index, also called a concordance, contains a list of documents (or posting list) for every possible search term. These posting lists are usually compressed with di erence coding. Di erence coding yields the best compression when the lists to be coded hav e high locality. Coding methods h...

To the Editor: The Health Assessment Questionnaire Disability Index (HAQ-DI) is widely used for measuring functioning in patients with rheumatoid arthritis (RA), since it is a better predictor of future morbidity, mortality and work disability than other disease outcome variables.1-2 Median scores for public and private health care patients with RA in the USA range between 1 and 1.253 compared ...

OBJECTIVES To evaluate the efficacy and safety of certolizumab pegol (CZP) after 24 weeks in RAPID-PsA (NCT01087788), an ongoing Phase 3 trial in patients with psoriatic arthritis (PsA). METHODS Patients were randomised 1:1:1 to placebo, 200 mg CZP every 2 weeks (Q2W) or 400 mg CZP every 4 weeks (Q4W). Patients could have had exposure to one previous tumour necrosis factor (TNF) inhibitor the...

OBJECTIVE To evaluate radiographic and clinical outcomes up to 24 months in patients with RA enrolled in the Canadian Methotrexate and Etanercept Outcome study. METHODS In this open-label non-inferiority trial, patients with inadequate response to MTX received etanercept plus MTX for 6 months and then were randomized to either etanercept monotherapy or continued etanercept plus MTX until 24 m...

OBJECTIVES This study was designed (a) to evaluate an improved quantitative lung fibrosis score based on a computer-aided diagnosis (CaM) system in patients with systemic sclerosis (SSc),-related interstitial lung disease (SSc-ILD), (b) to investigate the relationship between physiologic parameters (forced vital capacity [FVC] and single-breath diffusing capacity for carbon monoxide [DLCO]), pa...

Objective—To assess factors associated with a poor outcome in rheumatoid arthritis (RA), a measure was developed of limited joint motion and deformity, a deformity index (DI), and correlated biochemical and genetic variables with the magnitude of the DI. Methods—Forty patients were evaluated in a cross sectional study. Clinical measures included the DI and Health Assessment Questionnaire, and d...

This review summarises most currently used indices to assess and monitor patients with systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) in clinical trials, long-term observational studies, and clinical care. Six SLE disease activity indices include the British Isles Lupus Assessment Group Index (BILAG), European Consensus Lupus Activity Measurement (ECLAM), Systemic Lupus Activity Measure (SLAM), Systemic Lu...

Objective To investigate the long-term efficacy of rehabilitation following arthroscopic synovectomy in patients with rheumatoid arthritis treated with biologic agents. Methods Arthroscopic synovectomy was performed in 29 joints of 17 patients, which were divided into two groups. Group 1 included arthroscopic synovectomy plus rehabilitation for 19 joints in 10 patients, and group 2 included a...

Let G be a simple connected graph and di be the degree of its ith vertex. In a recent paper [D. Vukičević, B. Furtula, Topological index based on the ratios of geometrical and arithmetical means of end-vertex degrees of edges, J. Math. Chem. 46 (2009) 1369–1376] the ‘‘first geometric–arithmetic index’’ of a graph Gwas defined as GA1 = − di dj (di + dj)/2 with summation going over all pairs of ...

BACKGROUND As an important outcome measure among rheumatoid arthritis (RA) patients, functional disability may contribute to unemployment, loss of work productivity, and impaired quality of life. However, little is known about the risk factors of functional disability in Chinese RA patients. This study aimed (1) to examine the prevalence of functional disability in Chinese RA patients; (2) to e...