Complications of percutaneous endoscopic gastrostomy in dogs and cats receiving corticosteroid treatment

BACKGROUND: Corticosteroid treatment is commonly required in veterinary patients for treatment of inflammatory, immune‐mediated, neurologic, and neoplastic diseases, which also may require assisted enteral nutrition via percutaneous endoscopic gastrostomy (PEG). OBJECTIVE: To evaluate complications associated with PEG use in dogs and cats receiving corticosteroid treatment. ANIMALS: Forty‐two animals were included in the study: 12 dogs and 2 cats in the steroid group and 26 dogs and 2 cats in the control group. METHODS: Medical records, between January 2006 and March 2015, were reviewed. Patients were included if the PEG tube was in use for at least 24 hours and if complete medical records were available. Patients were assigned to the control group if they were not treated with corticosteroids during PEG use or to the steroid group if they had received corticosteroids during PEG tube use. Complications were classified as minor, moderate, and major in severity. Maximum severity complication rate was compared between groups. RESULTS: The general prevalence of complications was found to be similar between groups (P = .306), but in the steroid group, 43% of the cases developed a major severity complication compared with 18% of the control group (P = .054). CONCLUSION AND CLINICAL IMPORTANCE: Owners of dogs and cats receiving corticosteroids, in which PEG is planned, should be counseled about possible complications beyond those associated with PEG tube usage alone

Screening of pair fluctuations in superconductors with coupled shallow and deep bands: a route to higher temperature superconductivity

A combination of strong Cooper pairing and weak superconducting fluctuations is crucial to achieve and stabilize high-Tc superconductivity. We demonstrate that a coexistence of a shallow carrier band with strong pairing and a deep band with weak pairing, together with the Josephson-like pair transfer between the bands to couple the two condensates, realizes an optimal multicomponent superconductivity regime: it preserves strong pairing to generate large gaps and a very high critical temperature but screens the detrimental superconducting fluctuations, thereby suppressing the pseudogap state. Surprisingly, we find that the screening is very efficient even when the inter-band coupling is very small. Thus, a multi-band superconductor with a coherent mixture of condensates in the BCS regime (deep band) and in the BCS-BEC crossover regime (shallow band) offers a promising route to higher critical temperatures.Comment: 8 pages, 1 figure, including supplemental material

Initial value representation for the SU(n) semiclassical propagator

The semiclassical propagator in the representation of SU(n) coherent states is characterized by isolated classical trajectories subjected to boundary conditions in a doubled phase space. In this paper we recast this expression in terms of an integral over a set of initial-valued trajectories. These trajectories are monitored by a filter that collects only the appropriate contributions to the semiclassical approximation. This framework is suitable for the study of bosonic dynamics in n modes with fixed total number of particles. We exemplify the method for a Bose-Einstein condensate trapped in a triple-well potential, providing a detailed discussion on the accuracy and efficiency of the procedure.Comment: 24 pages, 6 figure

Static Output Feedback: On Essential Feasible Information Patterns

In this paper, for linear time-invariant plants, where a collection of possible inputs and outputs are known a priori, we address the problem of determining the communication between outputs and inputs, i.e., information patterns, such that desired control objectives of the closed-loop system (for instance, stabilizability) through static output feedback may be ensured. We address this problem in the structural system theoretic context. To this end, given a specified structural pattern (locations of zeros/non-zeros) of the plant matrices, we introduce the concept of essential information patterns, i.e., communication patterns between outputs and inputs that satisfy the following conditions: (i) ensure arbitrary spectrum assignment of the closed-loop system, using static output feedback constrained to the information pattern, for almost all possible plant instances with the specified structural pattern; and (ii) any communication failure precludes the resulting information pattern from attaining the pole placement objective in (i). Subsequently, we study the problem of determining essential information patterns. First, we provide several necessary and sufficient conditions to verify whether a specified information pattern is essential or not. Further, we show that such conditions can be verified by resorting to algorithms with polynomial complexity (in the dimensions of the state, input and output). Although such verification can be performed efficiently, it is shown that the problem of determining essential information patterns is in general NP-hard. The main results of the paper are illustrated through examples

Quantum Key Distribution using Continuous-variable non-Gaussian States

In this work we present a quantum key distribution protocol using continuous-variable non-Gaussian states, homodyne detection and post-selection. The employed signal states are the Photon Added then Subtracted Coherent States (PASCS) in which one photon is added and subsequently one photon is subtracted. We analyze the performance of our protocol, compared to a coherent state based protocol, for two different attacks that could be carried out by the eavesdropper (Eve). We calculate the secret key rate transmission in a lossy line for a superior channel (beam-splitter) attack, and we show that we may increase the secret key generation rate by using the non-Gaussian PASCS rather than coherent states. We also consider the simultaneous quadrature measurement (intercept-resend) attack and we show that the efficiency of Eve's attack is substantially reduced if PASCS are used as signal states.Comment: We have included an analysis of the simultaneous quadrature measurement attack plus 2 figures; we have also clarified some point

Rutherford scattering with radiation damping

We study the effect of radiation damping on the classical scattering of charged particles. Using a perturbation method based on the Runge-Lenz vector, we calculate radiative corrections to the Rutherford cross section, and the corresponding energy and angular momentum losses.Comment: Latex, 11 pages, 4 eps figure

Classroom quality and children's social skills and problem behaviors: dosage and disability status as moderators

Multiple studies have reported associations between early childhood education (ECE) quality and dosage and children’s social and behavior development, with some suggesting that this association may be stronger for specific groups of children. In this study, we examined the association between classroom quality and children’s social skills and problem behaviors, as reported by ECE teachers, as well as the moderating effects of ECE dosage and children’s disability status. Participants were 222 children (Mage = 63.75, SD = 7.77), including 180 typically developing (90 boys) and 42 children with disabilities (29 boys), from 44 inclusive classrooms in the Metropolitan Area of Lisbon, Portugal. Our results indicated that children’s social skills and behavior problems were not directly associated with observed classroom quality domains. However, lower classroom organization predicted lower social skills and higher externalizing behavior at higher number of months with the lead teacher; and instructional support predicted increased social skills for children with disabilities. Days absent from school predicted lower social skills. Overall, our results suggest that diverse types of dosage influence teacher’s reports of social and behavioral outcomes in different ways.info:eu-repo/semantics/acceptedVersio

Kondo effect in transport through molecules adsorbed on metal surfaces: from Fano dips to Kondo peaks

The Kondo effect observed in recent STM experiments on transport through CoPc and TBrPP-Co molecules adsorbed on Au(111) and Cu(111) surfaces, respectively, is discussed within the framework of a simple model (Phys. Rev. Lett. {\bf 97}, 076806 (2006)). It is shown that, in the Kondo regime and by varying the adequate model parameters, it is possible to produce a crossover from a conductance Kondo peak (CoPc) to a conductance Fano dip (TBrPP-Co). In the case of TBrPP-Co/Cu(111) we show that the model reproduces the changes in the shape of the Fano dip, the raising of the Kondo temperature and shifting to higher energies of the dip minimum when the number of nearest neighbors molecules is lowered. These features are in line with experimental observations indicating that our simple model contains the essential physics underlying the transport properties of such complex molecules.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figures, submitted to PR