Objective: To identify factors improving symptoms and shortening duration of AA. Material and methods: The observational cohort study was performed in 111 patients with AA (>25 y.o.) in 2015–2016. Clinical manifestation, previous treatments, environmental risk factors and features of juvenile acne affecting AA were assessed. Results: The maximum severity of persistent acne was significantly lower after 25 years of age, as compared to adolescence (7.2 vs. 6.4; p = .0027). The number of acne therapies used in AA was twice as high as in juvenile acne (22 vs. 11). The severity of AA sufficient to leave scars was significantly lower than of juvenile acne (6.0 vs. 7.3; p = .0001) with 22% of patients developing scars only in adult life. Patients linked exacerbations to stress exposure (p = .09 and <.0001 for those reporting at least one stressor and all patients, respectively), finding lifestyle changes the most stressful (p = .046). Those using full-coverage foundations received significantly more acne treatments over lifetime (5.4 vs. 3.6; p = .0359) and for AA (4.4 vs. 2.8; p = .0043). Discontinuation of oral contraceptives or sensitive, erythema-prone skin also worsened the symptoms. Conclusion: Lifestyle change-related stress, sensitive skin, discontinuation of oral contraceptives and using full-coverage foundations increase severity of AA.

Background/Aim: Mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) are gaining rising interest in gynecology and obstetrics. MSCs immunomodulatory properties are suitable enough to reduce perinatal morbidity caused by inflammation in premature neonates. The aim of this study was to evaluate and compare the ability to inhibit allo-activated lymphocytes proliferation by MSCs derived from different sources: amniotic membrane (AM), umbilical cord (UC) and adipose tissue (AT). Methods: MSCs were isolated from AM (n = 7) and UC (n = 6) and AT (n = 6) of healthy women. Cells were characterized by flow cytometry and differentiation assay. To evaluate the potential of fetal and adult MSCs to diminish immunological response, mixed lymphocytes reaction (MLR) was performed. Results: Amnion and UC-derived cells displayed typical MSCs characteristics. Addition of MSCs to MLR significantly inhibited the proliferation of stimulated lymphocytes. The effect was observed regardless of the MSCs type used (p < 0.01 in all groups). Comparative analysis revealed no significant differences in this action between tested MSCs types. Additionally, no type of MSCs significantly stimulated allogeneic lymphocytes. Conclusion: The results prove the immunosuppressive capacities of fetal-derived MSCs in vitro. In the future, they may be potentially used to treat premature newborn as well as in immunomodulation in post-transplant therapy.

Secondary immunodeficiencies are frequently observed after allo-HSCT. The efficacy of subcutaneous IgG preparations in this population is unknown. A retrospective single-institution study involved 126 adult patients transplanted in 2012–2019 for hematological malignancies. Patients were tested every 2–3 weeks for plasma IgG concentration during the 1st year after transplantation and supplemented with facilitated subcutaneous immunoglobulin when they either had IgG concentration < 500 mg/dl or between 500 and 700 mg/dl and recurrent infection. The IgG concentration < 500 mg/dL was diagnosed in 41 patients, while 500–700 mg/dL in 25 and altogether 53 patients received IgG supplementation. The median number of IgG administrations was 2. The median time to the first IgG administration after allo-HSCT was 4.1 months, while to the next administration (if more than one was required) 53 days (prophylactic group) and 32 days (group with infections). We did not observe any significant toxicity. Two situations were associated with increased probability of meeting criteria for IgG supplementation: diagnosis of either acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) or chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL) (83.8% versus 39.3% for other diagnosis, p = 0.000) and the systemic use of corticosteroids (64.2% versus 31.5% for patients without systemic corticosteroids, p = 0.005). Over 40% of the adult recipients may require at least incidental immunoglobulin supplementation during the first year after allo-HSCT. Low IgG concentrations are associated with inferior outcomes. The subcutaneous route of IgG administration appeared to be safe and may allow for long persistence.

The aim of the presented study was to assess the quality of VaR forecasts in various states of the economic situation. Two approaches based on the extreme value theory were compared: Block Maxima and the Peaks Over Threshold. Forecasts were made on the daily closing prices of 10 major indices in European countries, divided into two groups: emerging countries (Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Lithuania, Latvia, Poland, Slovakia and Hungary) and developed countries (England, France and Germany). Three states of economic situation were analysed: the pre-crisis (2007), the crisis (2008) and the post-crisis (2009) period as out-of-sample. The main conclusion obtained is the too slow process of adapting static EVT-based forecasts to market movements. While in the pre-crisis period the results were satisfactory, in the period of crisis VaR forecasts were too often exceeded.

There have been numerous advances in financial time series forecasting in recent years. Most of them use deep learning techniques. We identified 15 outstanding papers that have been published in the last seven years and have tried to prove the superiority of their approach to forecasting one-dimensional financial time series using deep learning techniques. In order to objectively compare these approaches, we analysed the proposed statistical models and then reviewed and reproduced them. The models were trained to predict, one day in advance, the value of 29 indices and the stock and commodity prices over five different time periods (from 2007 to 2022), with 4 in-sample years and 1 out-of-sample year. Our findings indicated that, first of all, most of these approaches do not beat the naive approach, and only some barely beat it. Most of the researchers did not provide enough data necessary to fully replicate the approach, not to mention the codes. We provide a set of practical recommendations of when to use which models based on the data sample that we provide.

DOI: 10.20452/pamw.15185, Published online: February 11, 2020, Authors: Magdalena Walicka, Marcin Chlebus, Andrzej Śliwczyński, Melania Brzozowska, Daniel Rutkowski, Marcin Czech, Agnieszka Tuszyńska, Andrzej Jacyna, Monika Puzianowska-Kuźnicka, Edward Franek