Chronic hyponatremia in a patient with renal salt wasting and without cerebral disease: relationship between RSW, risk of fractures and cognitive impairment

Renal salt wasting syndrome (RSW) is defined as a renal loss of sodium leading to hyponatremia and a decrease in extracellular fluid volume (ECV). Differentiation of this disorder from the syndrome of inappropriate antidiuretic hormone secretion (SIADH), a common cause of hyponatremia, can be difficult because both can present with hyponatremia and concentrated urine with natriuresis. Our clinical case about a 78-year-old woman with a recent fracture of the right femur not only confirms that this syndrome can occur in patients without intracranial pathologies (CT documented), but depicts how the hyponatremia caused by RSW can show a chronic, oscillating course. This is an interesting point of view because it suggests to us to consider RSW in the differential diagnosis of patients with chronic hyponatremia

The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on youth experiencing homelessness: A qualitative study

The purpose of this qualitative study was to understand how the COVID-19 pandemic impacted youth experiencing homelessness (YEH). During the coronavirus outbreak, millions of people’s health worldwide was negatively affected. In addition to poor physical health, society’s mental health was affected by political discourse, viral mitigation factors, social distancing, and distrust of both the media and government. Decades of research with those experiencing homelessness suggest that the housing insecure suffer from a litany of poor outcomes. Their physical and mental health are negatively affected by traumas and illnesses suffered prior to, and during, their transience. This study takes a phenomenological approach to examining how the COVID-19 pandemic affected YEH. Participants were screened to fit the study criteria and then they engaged in semi-structured interviews. Thematic analysis coding was used to analyze and identify themes and subthemes that developed from the interviews. Ten themes and eighteen subthemes emerged from these interviews. These themes and their respective sub themes are: Isolation (forced isolation and self isolation), Family Strife (Became homeless during COVID-19 pandemic and experienced homelessness prior to COVID-19 pandemic), Education (self educational apathy and perceived educator apathy), Loss (lost opportunities and loss of resources), mental health (suicidal ideation), catching COVID-19 (worried about contracting coronavirus and not worried about catching coronavirus), systemic failures (legal system, university, government), friendships (fading friendships and strengthened bonds), resiliency, financial insecurity (inability to obtain or sustain employment and no access to money)

Queering Performative Face Theory: Analyzing Coming Out Narratives

This thesis focuses on performativity of sexual minorities in interpersonal interactions. Specific attention is placed on concepts of privacy, performance, and face negotiation. This study not only focuses on how individuals who are open about their sexuality manage face, but also how individuals manage face while going through the process of coming out. Concepts of normative gender roles, heteronormativity, and homophobia are analyzed when considering privacy and face negotiation. Communication Privacy Management (CPM) Theory and Performative Face Theory are employed as theoretical foundations for this thesis work. I discuss how queer individuals may negotiate their face differently due to specific face-threatening acts, whether overt or covert, in interpersonal interactions. This study explains on how such interpersonal interactions affect communication and performativity of one’s identity

Characterization of the effects of the human head on communication with implanted antennas

Cranially implanted sensors and electrodes have been used in practice for several years; their applications range from the recording of neural signals for use in Brain-Computer Interfaces to help the disabled, to the treatment of diseases and conditions ranging from Parkinson\u27s disease, multiple sclerosis, depression, etc. Current communication methods with implants, however, are lacking; they run the gamut from physical, percutaneous connections that increase the risk of infection, to wireless links that are slow and uncomfortable for patients. The present work focuses on the characterization of the effects of the human head on communication with cranially implanted antennas for its eventual use in improving current communication methods. A realistic human head model with frequency dependent tissue characteristics is used to obtain a transfer function that describes the magnitude and phase of an electromagnetic wave as it propagates through the human head over both frequency and depth into the skull; this data is obtained for multiple energy entry angles. The technique used to obtain transfer function measurements consists of taking the ratio of the electric fields at the receiver and transmitter and is developed through analysis of ultra-wideband transmit/receive antenna systems; verification for this technique is provided. After the transfer function data described above is obtained, we posit a communication model to approximate the transfer function magnitude. This approximation takes the form of a modified log-distance, log-frequency path loss model and fits the data quite well. The final approximation describes the path loss of an electromagnetic wave over both frequency and distance for all simulated orientations. Lastly, simulations are presented for communication from a cranially implanted dipole antenna. The received power of an external antenna - whose position is varied in both distance (from the head), as well as location (around the head) - is captured and plotted. We finally show that the transfer function that was obtained for all perpendicular communication through the head is able to, in most cases, correctly predict the results of these received power simulations

Experimental pre-assessing entanglement in Gaussian states mixing

We suggest and demonstrate a method to assess entanglement generation schemes based on mixing of Gaussian states at a beam splitter (BS). Our method is based on the fidelity criterion and represents a tool to analyze the effect of losses and noise before the BS in both symmetric and asymmetric channels with and without thermal effects. More generally, our scheme allows one to pre-assess entanglement resources and to optimize the design of BS-based schemes for the generation of continuous variable entanglement.Comment: 10 pages, 15 figure

Continuous-Variable Entangled States of Light carrying Orbital Angular Momentum

The orbital angular momentum of light, unlike spin, is an infinite-dimensional discrete variable and may hence offer enhanced performances for encoding, transmitting, and processing information in the quantum regime. Hitherto, this degree of freedom of light has been studied mainly in the context of quantum states with definite number of photons. On the other hand, field-quadrature continuous-variable quantum states of light allow implementing many important quantum protocols not accessible with photon-number states. Here, we present the first generation and complete experimental characterization of a bipartite continuous-variable Gaussian entangled state endowed with non-zero orbital angular momentum. A q-plate is used to transfer the continuous-variable entanglement initially generated in polarization into orbital angular momentum. We then apply a reconfigurable homodyne detector to various combinations of orbital angular momentum modes in order to reconstruct the entire quantum-state covariance matrix, by directly measuring the fluctuations of quadrature operators. Our work is a step towards generating multipartite continuous-variable entanglement in a single optical beam.Comment: To appear in Phys. Rev.