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Artifact Subspace Reconstruction (ASR) is an adaptive method for the online or offline correction of artifacts comprising multichannel electroencephalography (EEG) recordings. It repeatedly computes a principal component analysis (PCA) on covariance matrices to detect artifacts based on their statistical properties in the component subspace. We adapted the existing ASR implementation by using Riemannian geometry for covariance matrix processing. EEG data that were recorded on smartphone in both outdoors and indoors conditions were used for evaluation ( = 27). A direct comparison between the original ASR and Riemannian ASR (rASR) was conducted for three performance measures: reduction of eye-blinks (sensitivity), improvement of visual-evoked potentials (VEPs) (specificity), and computation time (efficiency). Compared to ASR, our rASR algorithm performed favorably on all three measures. We conclude that rASR is suitable for the offline and online correction of multichannel EEG data acquired in laboratory and in field conditions.

Aims/hypothesis To investigate racial/ethnic disparities in diabetes risk after gestational diabetes mellitus (GDM). Methods This is a retrospective cohort study of women enrolled in the Kaiser Permanente Southern California health plan from 1995 to 2009. GDM status was identified on the basis of plasma glucose levels during pregnancy. The incidence of diabetes after the first delivery complicated by GDM before 31 December 2009 ( n  = 12,998) was compared with the experience for women without GDM ( n  = 64,668) matched on maternal age at delivery, race/ethnicity and year of delivery (1:5 ratio). Matched Cox regression was used to compare the RRs of diabetes associated with GDM within and across racial/ethnic groups. Results Compared with the women without GDM, the HRs (95% CI) of diabetes for women after GDM were 6.5 (5.2, 8.0) in non-Hispanic white, 7.7 (6.8, 8.7) in Hispanic, 9.9 (7.5, 13.1) in black and 6.3 (5.0, 7.9) in Asian/Pacific Islanders after adjustment for parity, maternal education, comorbidity and number of outpatient visits before the index pregnancy. The HR of diabetes for black women was significantly higher than that for non-Hispanic white women ( p  = 0.032). Further adjustment for prepregnancy BMI reduced the diabetes risk association with GDM for each racial/ethnic group, but did not explain the risk differences across groups. Conclusions/interpretations Racial/ethnic disparities exist in risk of diabetes after GDM. Black women with GDM had the highest risk of developing diabetes. This highlights the importance of developing an effective diabetes screening and prevention programme in women with GDM, particularly black women with GDM.

Objective: To compare the frequency of traditional cardiovascular (CV) risk factors in rheumatoid arthritis (RA) compared to non-RA subjects, and examine their impact on the risk of developing selected CV events (myocardial infarction (MI), heart failure (HF) and CV death) in these two groups. Methods: We examined a population-based incidence cohort of subjects with RA (defined according to the 1987 American College of Rheumatology criteria), and an age- and sex-matched non-RA cohort. All subjects were followed longitudinally through their complete community medical records, until death, migration, or 1 January 2001. Clinical CV risk factors and outcomes were defined using validated criteria. The χ2 test was used to compare the frequency of each CV risk factor at baseline. Person-years methods were used to estimate the rate of occurrence of each CV risk factor during follow-up. Cox models were used to examine the influence of CV risk factors on the development of CV outcomes. Results: A total of 603 RA and 603 non-RA subjects (73% female; mean age 58 years) were followed for a mean of 15 and 17 years (total: 8842 and 10 101 person-years), respectively. At baseline, RA subjects were significantly more likely to be former or current smokers when compared to non-RA subjects (p<0.001). Male gender, smoking, and personal cardiac history had weaker associations with CV events among RA subjects, compared to non-RA subjects. There was no significant difference between RA and non-RA subjects in the risk imparted with respect to the other CV risk factors (ie, family cardiac history, hypertension, dyslipidaemia, body mass index, or diabetes mellitus). Conclusion: While some traditional CV risk factors imparted similar risk among RA compared with non-RA subjects, others (ie, male gender, smoking and personal cardiac history) imparted significantly less risk for the development of CV disease. These differences in the overall impact of traditional CV risk factors suggest that strategies to prevent CV disease and mortality focused solely on controlling traditional CV risk factors may be relatively less beneficial in RA subjects than in the general population. Further research is needed to determine optimal approaches to reducing CV morbidity and mortality in persons with RA.

Balancing is a very important skill, supporting many daily life activities. Cognitive-motor interference (CMI) dual-tasking paradigms have been established to identify the cognitive load of complex natural motor tasks, such as running and cycling. Here we used wireless, smartphone-recorded electroencephalography (EEG) and motion sensors while participants were either standing on firm ground or on a slackline, either performing an auditory oddball task (dual-task condition) or no task simultaneously (single-task condition). We expected a reduced amplitude and increased latency of the P3 event-related potential (ERP) component to target sounds for the complex balancing compared to the standing on ground condition, and a further decrease in the dual-task compared to the single-task balancing condition. Further, we expected greater postural sway during slacklining while performing the concurrent auditory attention task. Twenty young, experienced slackliners performed an auditory oddball task, silently counting rare target tones presented in a series of frequently occurring standard tones. Results revealed similar P3 topographies and morphologies during both movement conditions. Contrary to our predictions we observed neither significantly reduced P3 amplitudes, nor significantly increased latencies during slacklining. Unexpectedly, we found greater postural sway during slacklining with no additional task compared to dual-tasking. Further, we found a significant correlation between the participant’s skill level and P3 latency, but not between skill level and P3 amplitude or postural sway. This pattern of results indicates an interference effect for less skilled individuals, whereas individuals with a high skill level may have shown a facilitation effect. Our study adds to the growing field of research demonstrating that ERPs obtained in uncontrolled, daily-life situations can provide meaningful results. We argue that the individual CMI effects on the P3 ERP reflects how demanding the balancing task is for untrained individuals, which draws on limited resources that are otherwise available for auditory attention processing. In future work, the analysis of concurrently recorded motion-sensor signals will help to identify the cognitive demands of motor tasks executed in natural, uncontrolled environments.

Objective: To examine whether inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) is associated with ischemic/inflammatory conditions during pregnancy. Study Design: A retrospective cohort study using the 2000 to 2012 Kaiser Permanente Southern California maternally-linked medical records ( n =395 781). The two major subtypes of IBD, ulcerative colitis and Crohn’s diseases were studied. Adjusted odds ratios (ORs) were used to quantify the associations. Result: A pregnancy complicated by IBD was associated with increased incidence of small-for-gestational age birth (OR=1.46, 95% confidence interval (CI)=1.14 to 1.88), spontaneous preterm birth (OR=1.32, 95% CI=1.00 to 1.76) and preterm premature rupture of membranes (OR=1.95, 95% CI=1.26 to 3.02). Further stratifying by IBD subtypes, only ulcerative colitis was significantly associated with increased incidence of ischemic placental disease, spontaneous preterm birth and preterm premature rupture of membranes. Conclusion: The findings underscore the potential impact of maternal IBD on adverse perinatal outcomes. Clinicians should be aware that the association between IBD and adverse perinatal outcome varies by IBD subtypes.

Interpersonal behavioral synchrony is defined as the temporal coordination of action between two or more individuals. Humans tend to synchronize their movements during repetitive movement tasks such as walking. Mobile EEG technology now allows us to examine how this happens during gait. 18 participants equipped with foot accelerometers and mobile EEG walked with an experimenter in three conditions: With their view of the experimenter blocked, walking naturally, and trying to synchronize their steps with the experimenter. The experimenter walked following a headphone metronome to keep their steps consistent for all conditions. Step behavior and synchronization between the experimenter and participant were compared between conditions. Additionally, event-related spectral perturbations (ERSPs) were time-warped to the gait cycle in order to analyze alpha-mu (7.5-12.5 Hz) and beta (16-32 Hz) rhythms over the whole gait cycle. Step synchronization was significantly higher in the synchrony condition than in the natural condition. Likewise regarding ERSPs, right parietal channel (C4, C6, CP4, CP6) alpha-mu and central channel (C1, Cz, C2) beta power were suppressed from baseline in the walking synchrony condition compared to the natural walking condition. The natural and blocked conditions were not found to be significantly different in behavioral or spectral comparisons. Our results are compatible with the view that intentional synchronization employs systems associated with social interaction as well as the central motor system. [Display omitted]

In real concrete structures cracks often open in mixed mode after their initiation. To capture the direct material behavior of a mixed mode crack opening a stiff biaxial testing machine, capable of imposing both normal and shear loads on a given crack area, has been applied. The opening and sliding components of the mixed mode displacement are measured using a custom made orthogonal gauge, and the measurements are used directly as the closed loop control signals. A double notch, concrete specimen is used for the crack investigation. The tests are divided into two steps, a pure Mode I opening step, where a macro crack is initiated in the specimen followed by the mixed mode opening step. The high stiffness of the set-up together with the closed control loop ensures a stable crack initiation followed by a controllable mixed mode opening. The deep notches result in a plane crack, only influenced by material aspects such as the aggregate size and concrete strength. Despite the occurrence of a few, local, secondary cracks during the mixed mode crack opening, the results can be treated as the mixed mode material point behavior of a crack in concrete. Results are reported for a range of mixed mode angles and for varying initial Mode I openings of the crack.

Background: Inflammatory markers are associated with heart failure. Patients with rheumatoid arthritis have twice the risk of heart failure compared with people without rheumatoid arthritis. Objective: To assess whether heart failure in patients with rheumatoid arthritis is preceded by an inflammatory activation as shown by erythrocyte sedimentation rate (ESR), a systemic marker of inflammation. Methods: A population-based inception cohort of 575 patients with rheumatoid arthritis, free of heart failure at their rheumatoid arthritis incidence date, was followed up longitudinally until death or 2001. During 15 years of follow-up, they had a median of 15 ESR tests, and 172 patients had new-onset heart failure (Framingham Heart Study criteria). The follow-up period, beginning with the rheumatoid arthritis incidence date and ending with date of the last follow-up, was divided into 6-month intervals. The proportions of patients with at least one ESR value ⩾40 mm/h and with anaemia (haemoglobin <11 g/dl) within each 6-month interval were plotted against time from fulfilment of heart failure criteria. A binomial test was used to compare proportions. Results: In patients with rheumatoid arthritis who developed heart failure, the proportion with ESR ⩾40 mm/h was highest (23%) during the 6-month period immediately preceding the new-onset heart failure, as compared with the average ESR during the entire remaining follow-up period, both before and after heart failure (10.6%; p<0.01). The proportion of patients with anaemia peaked (54%) during the 6-month period after heart failure. Conclusions: Inflammatory stimuli may be involved in the initiation of heart failure among patients with rheumatoid arthritis.

We report the first laboratory-documented case of herpes zoster caused by the attenuated varicella zoster virus (VZV) contained in Zostavax in a 68-year-old immunocompetent adult with strong evidence of prior wild-type VZV infection. The complete genome sequence of the isolate revealed that the strain carried 15 of 42 (36%) recognized varicella vaccine-associated single-nucleotide polymorphisms, including all 5 of the fixed vaccine markers present in nearly all of the strains in the vaccine. The case of herpes zoster was relatively mild and resolved without complications.