Socket interface pressure and amputee reported outcomes for comfortable and uncomfortable conditions of patellar tendon bearing socket: a pilot study

The objectives of the current study were to compare intra-socket pressure differences between comfortable and uncomfortable socket conditions, and the usefulness of subject perception of satisfaction, activity limitations, and socket comfort in distinguishing between these two socket conditions. Five unilateral trans-tibial amputees took part in the study. They answered the Socket Comfort Score (SCS) and Trinity Amputation and Prosthetic Experience Scale (TAPES) questionnaires before the interface pressure (in standing and walking) was measured for the uncomfortable socket condition at five regions of the residual limb. Participants were then provided with a comfortable socket and wore it for two weeks. Participants who were satisfied with the socket fit after two weeks repeated the SCS and TAPES questionnaires and interface pressure measurements. The differences between the test results of the two conditions were not statistically significant, except for the interface pressure at the popliteal region during the early stance phase, TAPES socket fit subscale, and the SCS. Due to large variability of the data and the lack of statistical significance, no firm conclusion can be made on the possible relationship between the interface pressure values and the patient-reported outcomes of the two socket conditions. A larger sample size and longer acclimation period are required to locate significant differences.N/

Diagnostic yield of computed tomography and densitometric measurements of the lung in thoracoscopically-defined idiopathic spontaneous pneumothorax

AbstractIn the present study, the diagnostic yield of high resolution computed tomography (HRCT) is evaluated in patients with thoracoscopically-verified idiopathic spontaneous pneumothorax (SP). Visual assessment as well as densitometry of lung parenchyma was performed. In eight of the 20 prospectively-evaluated SP patients, emphysema-like (EL) changes such as blebs and bullae could be detected. The SP patients with EL changes were significantly older and were more heavy smokers. Spirometrically-controlled CT lung densitometry showed no differences between the patient group with or without these EL changes. Comparing the densitometric measurements of the patient group with a healthy control group no significant differences in densitometry between both groups were found.In conclusion, this study confirms that HRCT is a reliable method of detecting blebs and bullae in patients with spontaneous pneumothorax. Furthermore CT lung densitometry revealed no parenchymal abnormalities or signs of air trapping in patients with spontaneous pneumothorax

Theory of coherent acoustic phonons in InGaN/GaN multi-quantum wells

A microscopic theory for the generation and propagation of coherent LA phonons in pseudomorphically strained wurzite (0001) InGaN/GaN multi-quantum well (MQW) p-i-n diodes is presented. The generation of coherent LA phonons is driven by photoexcitation of electron-hole pairs by an ultrafast Gaussian pump laser and is treated theoretically using the density matrix formalism. We use realistic wurzite bandstructures taking valence-band mixing and strain-induced piezo- electric fields into account. In addition, the many-body Coulomb ineraction is treated in the screened time-dependent Hartree-Fock approximation. We find that under typical experimental conditions, our microscopic theory can be simplified and mapped onto a loaded string problem which can be easily solved.Comment: 20 pages, 17 figure

The relativistic precession of the orbits

The relativistic precession can be quickly inferred from the nonlinear polar orbit equation without actually solving it.Comment: Accepted for publication in Astrophysics & Space Scienc

Nasopharyngeal colonization elicits antibody responses to staphylococcal and pneumococcal proteins that are not associated with a reduced risk of subsequent carriage

Knowledge of the immunological correlates of Staphylococcus aureus and Streptococcus pneumoniae colonization is required for the search for future protein vaccines. We evaluated natural antibody le

Fitting the integrated Spectral Energy Distributions of Galaxies

Fitting the spectral energy distributions (SEDs) of galaxies is an almost universally used technique that has matured significantly in the last decade. Model predictions and fitting procedures have improved significantly over this time, attempting to keep up with the vastly increased volume and quality of available data. We review here the field of SED fitting, describing the modelling of ultraviolet to infrared galaxy SEDs, the creation of multiwavelength data sets, and the methods used to fit model SEDs to observed galaxy data sets. We touch upon the achievements and challenges in the major ingredients of SED fitting, with a special emphasis on describing the interplay between the quality of the available data, the quality of the available models, and the best fitting technique to use in order to obtain a realistic measurement as well as realistic uncertainties. We conclude that SED fitting can be used effectively to derive a range of physical properties of galaxies, such as redshift, stellar masses, star formation rates, dust masses, and metallicities, with care taken not to over-interpret the available data. Yet there still exist many issues such as estimating the age of the oldest stars in a galaxy, finer details ofdust properties and dust-star geometry, and the influences of poorly understood, luminous stellar types and phases. The challenge for the coming years will be to improve both the models and the observational data sets to resolve these uncertainties. The present review will be made available on an interactive, moderated web page (sedfitting.org), where the community can access and change the text. The intention is to expand the text and keep it up to date over the coming years.Comment: 54 pages, 26 figures, Accepted for publication in Astrophysics & Space Scienc

Transcriptional programs regulating neuronal differentiation are disrupted in DLG2 knockout human embryonic stem cells and enriched for schizophrenia and related disorders risk variants

Coordinated programs of gene expression drive brain development. It is unclear which transcriptional programs, in which cell-types, are affected in neuropsychiatric disorders such as schizophrenia. Here we integrate human genetics with transcriptomic data from differentiation of human embryonic stem cells into cortical excitatory neurons. We identify transcriptional programs expressed during early neurogenesis in vitro and in human foetal cortex that are down-regulated in DLG2−/− lines. Down-regulation impacted neuronal differentiation and maturation, impairing migration, morphology and action potential generation. Genetic variation in these programs is associated with neuropsychiatric disorders and cognitive function, with associated variants predominantly concentrated in loss-of-function intolerant genes. Neurogenic programs also overlap schizophrenia GWAS enrichment previously identified in mature excitatory neurons, suggesting that pathways active during prenatal cortical development may also be associated with mature neuronal dysfunction. Our data from human embryonic stem cells, when combined with analysis of available foetal cortical gene expression data, de novo rare variants and GWAS statistics for neuropsychiatric disorders and cognition, reveal a convergence on transcriptional programs regulating excitatory cortical neurogenesis

Search for the standard model Higgs boson decaying to a bbˉb\bar{b} pair in events with no charged leptons and large missing transverse energy using the full CDF data set

We report on a search for the standard model Higgs boson produced in association with a vector boson in the full data set of proton-antiproton collisions at $\sqrt{s} = 1.96$ TeV recorded by the CDF II detector at the Tevatron, corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 9.45 fb$^{-1}$. We consider events having no identified charged lepton, a transverse energy imbalance, and two or three jets, of which at least one is consistent with originating from the decay of a $b$ quark. We place 95% credibility level upper limits on the production cross section times standard model branching fraction for several mass hypotheses between 90 and $150 \mathrm{GeV}/c^2$. For a Higgs boson mass of $125 \mathrm{GeV}/c^2$, the observed (expected) limit is 6.7 (3.6) times the standard model prediction.Comment: Accepted by Phys. Rev. Let

Search for a W' boson decaying to a bottom quark and a top quark in pp collisions at sqrt(s) = 7 TeV

Results are presented from a search for a W' boson using a dataset corresponding to 5.0 inverse femtobarns of integrated luminosity collected during 2011 by the CMS experiment at the LHC in pp collisions at sqrt(s)=7 TeV. The W' boson is modeled as a heavy W boson, but different scenarios for the couplings to fermions are considered, involving both left-handed and right-handed chiral projections of the fermions, as well as an arbitrary mixture of the two. The search is performed in the decay channel W' to t b, leading to a final state signature with a single lepton (e, mu), missing transverse energy, and jets, at least one of which is tagged as a b-jet. A W' boson that couples to fermions with the same coupling constant as the W, but to the right-handed rather than left-handed chiral projections, is excluded for masses below 1.85 TeV at the 95% confidence level. For the first time using LHC data, constraints on the W' gauge coupling for a set of left- and right-handed coupling combinations have been placed. These results represent a significant improvement over previously published limits.Comment: Submitted to Physics Letters B. Replaced with version publishe