[De Clérambault's syndrome and transgressive behavior in the consulting room, a cross-sectional study among caregivers].

Background: De Clérambault’s syndrome (SC), a delusion that another person is in love with the patient, is associated with stalking and other dangerous behaviors. There are suspicions that caregivers are at increased risk of being victims of these behaviors in patients with SC, but little is known about them.

Method: A questionnaire survey was conducted among psychiatric and somatic caregivers to examine the occurrence and consequences of the behavior of patients with SC.

Estimating Density Dependence, Environmental Variance, and Long-Term Selection on a Stage-Structured Life History.

AbstractA method for analyzing long-term demographic data on density-dependent stage-structured populations in a stochastic environment is derived to facilitate comparison of populations and species with different life histories. We assume that a weighted sum of stage abundances, , exerts density dependence on stage-specific vital rates of survival and reproduction and that has a small or moderate coefficient of variation. The dynamics of are approximated as a univariate stochastic process governed by three key parameters: the density-independent growth rate, the net density dependence, and environmental variance in the life history.

CXCL4-RNA Complexes Circulate in Systemic Sclerosis and Amplify Inflammatory/Pro-Fibrotic Responses by Myeloid Dendritic Cells.

CXCL4 is an important biomarker of systemic sclerosis (SSc), an incurable autoimmune disease characterized by vasculopathy and skin/internal organs fibrosis. CXCL4 contributes to the type I interferon (IFN-I) signature, typical of at least half of SSc patients, and its presence is linked to an unfavorable prognosis. The mechanism implicated is CXCL4 binding to self-DNA, with the formation of complexes amplifying TLR9 stimulation in plasmacytoid dendritic cells (pDCs).

Heparin-Independent and Heparin-Dependent Anti-CXCL4 Antibodies Have a Reciprocal Expression in a Systemic Sclerosis Patients' Cohort.

Systemic sclerosis (SSc) is a chronic disease characterized by skin/internal organ fibrosis, vasculopathy and autoimmunity. Chemokine (C-X-C motif) ligand 4 (CXCL4) is an early SSc biomarker that predicts worse disease outcome. We previously reported that CXCL4 is an autoantigen in SSc, and anti-CXCL4 antibodies correlated with IFN-I and were more abundant in patients with lung fibrosis.