17,818 research outputs found
Current and future drugs for treatment of MS-associated bladder dysfunction
AbstractA majority of patients diagnosed with multiple sclerosis (MS) will develop lower urinary tract symptoms (LUTS) during the course of the disease. Even if antimuscarinic (anticholinergic) treatment is currently the mainstay of conservative treatment of neurogenic detrusor overactivity (NDO), including MS-induced NDO, extensive data regarding their effectiveness and safeness are lacking. When antimuscarinic medications fail to prove efficacious, a further option is intradetrusor injections of onabotulinumtoxin A. In several studies, more than half (and up 76%) of the patients treated with onabotulinumtoxin A experienced significant improvement in symptoms or even achieved complete continence. Cannabis extracts have shown some promise but has still not gained wide acceptance as an effective treatment. Over the last few years many new disease-modifying drugs that have been approved and introduced for treatment of MS. These drugs may have effects not only on the MS disease process, but also on the disease symptoms, including LUTS. However, MS is not primarily a bladder disease and treatment of the underlying pathophysiology should be the main goal of treatment. Since most of the urology drugs are targeting LUTS, these drugs should be regarded as “adds on” to treatments modifying the underlying disorder. Considering that most of these drugs have not been studied specifically with respect to efficacy on LUTS, and since they are not without significant side effects, it seems important that if and when they are going to be used for treatment of bladder symptoms should be a joint decision between the neurologist and urologist taking care of the patient
Ancilla-Driven Universal Quantum Computation
We propose a method of manipulating a quantum register remotely with the help
of a single ancilla that steers the evolution of the register. The fully
controlled ancilla qubit is coupled to the computational register solely via a
fixed unitary two-qubit interaction, E, and then measured in suitable bases. We
characterize all interactions E that induce a unitary, step-wise deterministic
measurement back-action on the register sufficient to implement any arbitrary
quantum channel. Our scheme offers significant experimental advantages for
implementing computations, preparing states and performing generalized
measurements as no direct control of the register is required.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figure
A detailed study of quasinormal frequencies of the Kerr black hole
We compute the quasinormal frequencies of the Kerr black hole using a
continued fraction method. The continued fraction method first proposed by
Leaver is still the only known method stable and accurate for the numerical
determination of the Kerr quasinormal frequencies. We numerically obtain not
only the slowly but also the rapidly damped quasinormal frequencies and analyze
the peculiar behavior of these frequencies at the Kerr limit. We also calculate
the algebraically special frequency first identified by Chandrasekhar and
confirm that it coincide with the quasinormal frequency only at the
Schwarzschild limit.Comment: REVTEX, 15 pages, 7 eps figure
Stability of the r-modes in white dwarf stars
Stability of the r-modes in rapidly rotating white dwarf stars is
investigated. Improved estimates of the growth times of the
gravitational-radiation driven instability in the r-modes of the observed DQ
Her objects are found to be longer (probably considerably longer) than 6x10^9y.
This rules out the possibility that the r-modes in these objects are emitting
gravitational radiation at levels that could be detectable by LISA. More
generally it is shown that the r-mode instability can only be excited in a very
small subset of very hot (T>10^6K), rather massive (M>0.9M_sun) and very
rapidly rotating (P_min<P<1.2P_min) white dwarf stars. Further, the growth
times of this instability are so long that these conditions must persist for a
very long time (t>10^9y) to allow the amplitude to grow to a dynamically
significant level. This makes it extremely unlikely that the r-mode instability
plays a significant role in any real white dwarf stars.Comment: 5 Pages, 5 Figures, revte
Hereditary Hair Changes Revealed by Analysis of Single Hair Fibres by Scanning Electron Microscopy
In many disorders with a genetic background the sparsity of scalp hairs may deter the clinician from trying to extract information from single hair fibres. Presenting a number of diverse conditions, we propose to show that simple measures can be taken in the doctor\u27s office which makes single fibre analysis a useful tool for assessment of factors involved in genetic disorders including the integument and its appendages. The paper is focussed on the utilization of the scanning electron microscope with the goal of demonstrating that pertinent information can be gained where information from transmission electron microscopy and other techniques are not immediately available
Advanced ceramic coating development for industrial/utility gas turbine applications
The effects of ceramic coatings on the lifetimes of metal turbine components and on the performance of a utility turbine, as well as of the turbine operational cycle on the ceramic coatings were determined. When operating the turbine under conditions of constant cooling flow, the first row blades run 55K cooler, and as a result, have 10 times the creep rupture life, 10 times the low cycle fatigue life and twice the corrosion life with only slight decreases in both specific power and efficiency. When operating the turbine at constant metal temperature and reduced cooling flow, both specific power and efficiency increases, with no change in component lifetime. The most severe thermal transient of the turbine causes the coating bond stresses to approach 60% of the bond strengths. Ceramic coating failures was studied. Analytic models based on fracture mechanics theories, combined with measured properties quantitatively assessed both single and multiple thermal cycle failures which allowed the prediction of coating lifetime. Qualitative models for corrosion failures are also presented
Delocalization power of global unitary operations on quantum information
We investigate how originally localized two pieces of quantum information
represented by a tensor product of two unknown qudit states are delocalized by
performing two-qudit global unitary operations. To characterize the
delocalization power of global unitary operations on quantum information, we
analyze the necessary and sufficient condition to deterministically relocalize
one of the two pieces of quantum information to its original Hilbert space by
using only LOCC. We prove that this LOCC one-piece relocalization is possible
if and only if the global unitary operation is local unitary equivalent to a
controlled-unitary operation. The delocalization power and the entangling power
characterize different non-local properties of global unitary operations.Comment: 14 pages, 1 figur
High-accuracy sampling of saproxylic diversity indicators at regional scales with pheromones: The case of "Elater ferrugineus" (Coleoptera, Elateridae)
The rare beetle Elater ferrugineus was sampled at 47 sites in the county of Östergötland, Sweden by means of pheromone-baited traps to assess its value as an indicator species for hollow oak stands rich in rare saproxylic beetle species. In addition, Osmoderma eremita was also sampled with pheromone baits. These data were then compared against species survey data collected at the same sites by pitfall and window traps. Both species co-occur with many Red Listed saproxylic beetles, with E. ferrugineus being a somewhat better indicator for the rarest species. The conservation value of a site (measured as Red List points or number of Red Listed species) increased with the number of specimens of E. ferrugineus and O. eremita caught. Accuracy of sampling by means of pheromone trapping turned out to be radically different for the two model species. E. ferrugineus traps put out during July obtained full accuracy after only 6 days, whereas O. eremita traps needed to be out from early July to mid-August in order to obtain full accuracy with one trap per site. By using E. ferrugineus, or preferably both species, as indicator species, accuracy would increase and costs decrease for saproxylic biodiversity sampling, monitoring and identification of hotspots
Non-adiabatic holonomic quantum computation
We develop a non-adiabatic generalization of holonomic quantum computation in
which high-speed universal quantum gates can be realized by using non-Abelian
geometric phases. We show how a set of non-adiabatic holonomic one- and
two-qubit gates can be implemented by utilizing optical transitions in a
generic three-level configuration. Our scheme opens up for universal
holonomic quantum computation on qubits characterized by short coherence times.Comment: Some changes, journal reference adde
High-Order Contamination in the Tail of Gravitational Collapse
It is well known that the late-time behaviour of gravitational collapse is
{\it dominated} by an inverse power-law decaying tail. We calculate {\it
higher-order corrections} to this power-law behaviour in a spherically
symmetric gravitational collapse. The dominant ``contamination'' is shown to
die off at late times as . This decay rate is much {\it
slower} than has been considered so far. It implies, for instance, that an
`exact' (numerical) determination of the power index to within
requires extremely long integration times of order . We show that the
leading order fingerprint of the black-hole electric {\it charge} is of order
.Comment: 12 pages, 2 figure
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