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Objectives An increased risk of adverse maternal and foetal pregnancy complications (including pre-eclampsia, intrauterine growth restriction, and small for gestational age) is well described in women with autoimmune rheumatic disease (ARD) compared with the general population (GenPop). It is less clear, however, whether this risk of adverse pregnancy outcome (APO) also exists in women with 'preclinical ARD' (pre-ARD) before they are diagnosed with an ARD many years post-partum. Therefore, we have undertaken a systematic review of the available evidence on APO in patients who subsequently were diagnosed with a rheumatic disease to identify whether there is an increased risk in pre-ARD. Methods The present study was reported in accordance with the guidance of the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) standard. A systematic literature review was performed using the online PubMed database. Pre-SLE and pre-RA patients were defined as those who, over the subsequent years, developed SLE or RA according to international classification criteria. Results A total of 176 articles were screened, and 27 original articles were selected for final analysis. Pre-RA was the most studied group, with 15 studies and a total of >1600 pregnancies, and pre-SLE was the second-most studied pre-ARD in pregnancy, with 14 studies and a total of >1000 pregnancies. We found that patients who subsequently developed SLE had an increased burden of poor pregnancy outcomes compared with pregnant women from the GenPop, but fewer APOs compared with pregnancies of women with SLE. In contrast, a similar rate of APOs was found when pre-RA pregnancies were compared with GenPop pregnancies. Conclusion Our findings of an increased risk of APO in certain pre-ARDs highlights the relevance of taking an obstetric history during the first rheumatology appointment and the need for novel screening strategies for the prediction of APOs. Further research is required to elucidate the immune basis of APOs in preclinical and clinical ARD. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Is Palestine a state? The International Court of Justice (ICJ) is expected to address this question in the Case concerning Relocation of the United States Embassy to Jerusalem (Palestine v. United States of America) during the preliminary objections stage. In the meanwhile, scholars have discussed possible options that international law can offer to deal with the question of Palestine's statehood. The suggestions include, for example, state recognition, the Vienna formula, etc. This article, however, envisages that in determining Palestine's statehood the ICJ is likely to adopt an objective assessment test on the basis of international legal criteria of statehood. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Not all patients fulfil criteria for specific autoimmune rheumatic diseases (ARDs) and are then defined as having non-criteria (nc)ARD. It is uncertain whether well-recognised associations with adverse pregnancy outcomes in patients with criteria ARD also exist in patients with ncARD or undifferentiated connective tissue disease (UCTD). Therefore, we undertook a systematic review of the prevalence of adverse pregnancy outcomes in various ncARD and UCTD compared with criteria ARD to identify whether there are increased risks and to examine for any benefits of treatment. Methods: This study was conducted in accordance with the guidance of the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) standard. A systematic literature review was performed using online databases including Medline and PubMed from inception to the beginning of April 2021 using appropriate keywords for various ARD and pregnancy outcomes. Results: After screening 665 articles, 36 articles were chosen for full text review and 15 selected for final analysis. There were eight studies of nc antiphospholipid syndrome (APS) of more than 7000 pregnancies and seven studies of UCTD of more than 1000 pregnancies. No studies of any other ncARD in pregnancy were identified. We found that patients with either ncAPS or UCTD seem to have an increased burden of poor pregnancy outcomes compared with the general population. Despite the heterogeneity and poor quality of the studies, we also noted that ncAPS and criteria APS patients may have similar rates of obstetric complications with standard and/or non-standard APS treatment regimens. Conclusion: Our findings of increased risks of poor pregnancy outcomes in patients with ncAPS or UCTD will be helpful for pre-pregnancy counselling and management of these patients in pregnancy and support their referral to specialist obstetric-rheumatology and obstetric-haematology clinics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Nonlinear state estimation problem is an important and complex topic, especially for real-time applications with a highly nonlinear environment. This scenario concerns most aerospace applications, including satellite trajectories, whose high standards demand methods with matching performances. A very well-known framework to deal with state estimation is the Kalman Filters algorithms, whose success in engineering applications is mostly due to the Extended Kalman Filter (EKF). Despite its popularity, the EKF presents several limitations, such as exhibiting poor convergence, erratic behaviors or even inadequate linearization when applied to highly nonlinear systems. To address those limitations, this paper suggests an improved Extended Kalman Filter (iEKF), where a new Jacobian matrix expansion point is recommended and a Frobenius norm of the cross-covariance matrix is suggested as a correction factor for the a priori estimates. The core idea is to maintain the EKF structure and simplicity but improve its accuracy. In this paper, two case studies are presented to endorse the proposed iEKF. In both case studies, the classic EKF and iEKF are implemented, and the obtained results are compared to show the performance improvement of the state estimation by the iEKF. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]