Bochdalek hernia associated with intestinal malrotation as an incidental finding in an adult patient: case report

Bochdalek hernia (BH) is the most common congenital diaphragmatic hernia, however in adults the clinical presentation and diagnosis is rare. Intestinal malrotation (IM) is a congenital anomaly that results in an alteration in intestinal anatomy secondary to inadequate intestinal rotation, which occurs at the end of the first trimester of embryonic development, some digestive anomalies may be related, such as diaphragmatic hernia, its Diagnosis is made in the neonatal period although it can be diagnosed in older children and adults, debuting with symptoms of intestinal obstruction or being an incidental finding. Below we present a case report of an adult patient with a diagnosis of Bochdalek congenital diaphragmatic hernia (CDH) in whom an incidental diagnosis of IM was made, who underwent elective surgery, performing laparoscopic diaphragmatic plasty with favorable results

Coherent exciton-vibrational dynamics and energy transfer in conjugated organics

Coherence, signifying concurrent electron-vibrational dynamics in complex natural and man-made systems, is currently a subject of intense study. Understanding this phenomenon is important when designing carrier transport in optoelectronic materials. Here, excited state dynamics simulations reveal a ubiquitous pattern in the evolution of photoexcitations for a broad range of molecular systems. Symmetries of the wavefunctions define a specific form of the non-adiabatic coupling that drives quantum transitions between excited states, leading to a collective asymmetric vibrational excitation coupled to the electronic system. This promotes periodic oscillatory evolution of the wavefunctions, preserving specific phase and amplitude relations across the ensemble of trajectories. The simple model proposed here explains the appearance of coherent exciton-vibrational dynamics due to non-adiabatic transitions, which is universal across multiple molecular systems. The observed relationships between electronic wavefunctions and the resulting functionalities allows us to understand, and potentially manipulate, excited state dynamics and energy transfer in molecular materials.Fil: Nelson, Tammie R.. Los Alamos National Laboratory; Estados UnidosFil: Ondarse Alvarez, Dianelys. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas; Argentina. Universidad Nacional de Quilmes; ArgentinaFil: Oldani, Andres Nicolas. Universidad Nacional de Quilmes; Argentina. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas; ArgentinaFil: Rodríguez Hernández, Beatriz. Universidad Nacional de Quilmes; Argentina. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas; ArgentinaFil: Alfonso Hernandez, Laura. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas; Argentina. Universidad Nacional de Quilmes; ArgentinaFil: Galindo, Johan F.. Universidad Nacional de Colombia; ColombiaFil: Kleiman, Valeria D.. University of Florida; Estados UnidosFil: Fernández Alberti, Sebastián. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas; Argentina. Universidad Nacional de Quilmes; ArgentinaFil: Roitberg, Adrián. University of Florida; Estados UnidosFil: Tretiak, Sergei. Los Alamos National Laboratory; Estados Unido

Measuring High Energy Neutrino-Nucleon Cross Sections With Future Neutrino Telescopes

Next generation kilometer-scale neutrino telescopes, such as ICECUBE, can test standard model predictions for neutrino-nucleon cross sections at energies well beyond the reach of collider experiments. At energies near a PeV and higher, the Earth becomes opaque to neutrinos. At these energies, the ratio of upgoing and downgoing events can be used to measure the total neutrino-nucleon cross section given the presence of an adequate high energy neutrino flux.Comment: 4 pages, 5 figure

Inferring source attribution from a multi-year multi-source dataset of Salmonella in Minnesota

Salmonella enterica is a global health concern because of its widespread association with foodborne illness. Bayesian models have been developed to attribute the burden of human salmonellosis to specific sources with the ultimate objective of prioritizing intervention strategies. Important considerations of source attribution models include the evaluation of the quality of input data, assessment of whether attribution results logically reflect the data trends and identification of patterns within the data that might explain the detailed contribution of different sources to the disease burden. Here, more than 12,000 non-typhoidal Salmonella isolates from human, bovine, porcine, chicken and turkey sources that originated in Minnesota were analysed. A modified Bayesian source attribution model (available in a dedicated R package), accounting for non-sampled sources of infection, attributed 4,672 human cases to sources assessed here. Most (60%) cases were attributed to chicken, although there was a spike in cases attributed to a non-sampled source in the second half of the study period. Molecular epidemiological analysis methods were used to supplement risk modelling, and a visual attribution application was developed to facilitate data exploration and comprehension of the large multiyear data set assessed here. A large amount of within-source diversity and low similarity between sources was observed, and visual exploration of data provided clues into variations driving the attribution modelling results. Results from this pillared approach provided first attribution estimates for Salmonella in Minnesota and offer an understanding of current data gaps as well as key pathogen population features, such as serotype frequency, similarity and diversity across the sources. Results here will be used to inform policy and management strategies ultimately intended to prevent and control Salmonella infection in the state

Neutrinos From Individual Gamma-Ray Bursts in the BATSE Catalog

We calculate the neutrino emission from individual gamma-ray bursts observed by the BATSE detector on the Compton Gamma-Ray Observatory. Neutrinos are produced by photoproduction of pions when protons interact with photons in the region where the kinetic energy of the relativistic fireball is dissipated allowing the acceleration of electrons and protons. We also consider models where neutrinos are predominantly produced on the radiation surrounding the newly formed black hole. From the observed redshift and photon flux of each individual burst, we compute the neutrino flux in a variety of models based on the assumption that equal kinetic energy is dissipated into electrons and protons. Where not measured, the redshift is estimated by other methods. Unlike previous calculations of the universal diffuse neutrino flux produced by all gamma-ray bursts, the individual fluxes (compiled at http://www.arcetri.astro.it/~dafne/grb/) can be directly compared with coincident observations by the AMANDA telescope at the South Pole. Because of its large statistics, our predictions are likely to be representative for future observations with larger neutrino telescopes.Comment: 49 pages, 7 figures. Accepted for publication in Astroparticle Physic

Cosmic Neutrinos and the Energy Budget of Galactic and Extragalactic Cosmic Rays

Although kilometer-scale neutrino detectors such as IceCube are discovery instruments, their conceptual design is very much anchored to the observational fact that Nature produces protons and photons with energies in excess of 10^{20} eV and 10^{13} eV, respectively. The puzzle of where and how Nature accelerates the highest energy cosmic particles is unresolved almost a century after their discovery. We will discuss how the cosmic ray connection sets the scale of the anticipated cosmic neutrino fluxes. In this context, we discuss the first results of the completed AMANDA detector and the science reach of its extension, IceCube.Comment: 13 pages, Latex2e, 3 postscript figures included. Talk presented at the International Workshop on Energy Budget in the High Energy Universe, Kashiwa, Japan, February 200

Detection potential to point-like neutrino sources with the NEMO-km3 telescope

The NEMO Collaboration is conducting an R&D activity towards the construction of a Mediterranean km3 neutrino telescope. In this work, we present the results of Monte Carlo simulation studies on the capability of the proposed NEMO telescope to detect and identify point-like sources of high energy muon neutrinos.Comment: To be published on BCN06 proceedings (Barcelona, July 4-7, 2006

Neutrinos Associated With Cosmic Rays of Top-Down Origin

Top-down models of cosmic rays produce more neutrinos than photons and more photons than protons. In these models, we reevaluate the fluxes of neutrinos associated with the highest energy cosmic rays in light of mounting evidence that they are protons and not gamma rays. While proton dominance at EeV energies can possibly be achieved by efficient absorption of the dominant high-energy photon flux on universal and galactic photon and magnetic background fields, we show that the associated neutrino flux is inevitably increased to a level where it should be within reach of operating experiments such as AMANDA II, RICE and AGASA. In future neutrino telescopes, tens to a hundred, rather than a few neutrinos per kilometer squared per year, may be detected above 1 PeV.Comment: 16 pages, 4 figure

TeV Neutrinos from Successful and Choked Gamma-Ray Bursts

Core collapse of massive stars resulting in a relativistic fireball jet which breaks through the stellar envelope is a widely discussed scenario for gamma-ray burst production. For very extended or slow rotating stars, the fireball may be unable to break through the envelope. Both penetrating and choked jets will produce, by photo-meson interactions of accelerated protons, a burst of neutrinos with energies in excess of 5 TeV while propagating in the envelope. The predicted flux, from both penetrating and chocked fireballs, should be easily detectable by planned cubic kilometer neutrino telescopes.Comment: Phys.Rev.Letters, in press, final version accepted 8/31/01 (orig. 3/17/01

Detecting Microscopic Black Holes with Neutrino Telescopes

If spacetime has more than four dimensions, ultra-high energy cosmic rays may create microscopic black holes. Black holes created by cosmic neutrinos in the Earth will evaporate, and the resulting hadronic showers, muons, and taus may be detected in neutrino telescopes below the Earth's surface. We simulate such events in detail and consider black hole cross sections with and without an exponential suppression factor. We find observable rates in both cases: for conservative cosmogenic neutrino fluxes, several black hole events per year are observable at the IceCube detector; for fluxes at the Waxman-Bahcall bound, tens of events per year are possible. We also present zenith angle and energy distributions for all three channels. The ability of neutrino telescopes to differentiate hadrons, muons, and possibly taus, and to measure these distributions provides a unique opportunity to identify black holes, to experimentally constrain the form of black hole production cross sections, and to study Hawking evaporation.Comment: 20 pages, 9 figure