887 research outputs found
Misdiagnosis of hereditary amyloidosis as AL (Primary) amyloidosis
Background: Hereditary, autosomal dominant amyloidosis, caused by mutations in the genes encoding transthyretin, fibrinogen A -chain, lysozyme, or apolipoprotein A-I, is thought to be extremely rare and is not routinely included in the differential diagnosis of systemic amyloidosis unless there is a family history.
Methods: We studied 350 patients with systemic amyloidosis, in whom a diagnosis of the light-chain (AL) type of the disorder had been suggested by clinical and laboratory findings and by the absence of a family history, to assess whether they had amyloidogenic mutations.
Results: Amyloidogenic mutations were present in 34 of the 350 patients (9.7 percent), most often in the genes encoding fibrinogen A -chain (18 patients) and transthyretin (13 patients). In all 34 of these patients, the diagnosis of hereditary amyloidosis was confirmed by additional investigations. A low-grade monoclonal gammopathy was detected in 8 of the 34 patients (24 percent).
Conclusions: A genetic cause should be sought in all patients with amyloidosis that is not the reactive systemic amyloid A type and in whom confirmation of the AL type cannot be obtained
A quasilocal calculation of tidal heating
We present a method for computing the flux of energy through a closed surface
containing a gravitating system. This method, which is based on the quasilocal
formalism of Brown and York, is illustrated by two applications: a calculation
of (i) the energy flux, via gravitational waves, through a surface near
infinity and (ii) the tidal heating in the local asymptotic frame of a body
interacting with an external tidal field. The second application represents the
first use of the quasilocal formalism to study a non-stationary spacetime and
shows how such methods can be used to study tidal effects in isolated
gravitating systems.Comment: REVTex, 4 pages, 1 typo fixed, standard sign convention adopted for
the Newtonian potential, a couple of lines added to the discussion of gauge
dependent term
Duality of Quasilocal Gravitational Energy and Charges with Non-orthogonal Boundaries
We study the duality of quasilocal energy and charges with non-orthogonal
boundaries in the (2+1)-dimensional low-energy string theory. Quasilocal
quantities shown in the previous work and some new variables arisen from
considering the non-orthogonal boundaries as well are presented, and the boost
relations between those quantities are discussed. Moreover, we show that the
dual properties of quasilocal variables such as quasilocal energy density,
momentum densities, surface stress densities, dilaton pressure densities, and
Neuve-Schwarz(NS) charge density, are still valid in the moving observer's
frame.Comment: 19pages, 1figure, RevTe
Black hole boundaries
Classical black holes and event horizons are highly non-local objects,
defined in relation to the causal past of future null infinity. Alternative,
quasilocal characterizations of black holes are often used in mathematical,
quantum, and numerical relativity. These include apparent, killing, trapping,
isolated, dynamical, and slowly evolving horizons. All of these are closely
associated with two-surfaces of zero outward null expansion. This paper reviews
the traditional definition of black holes and provides an overview of some of
the more recent work on alternative horizons.Comment: 27 pages, 8 figures, invited Einstein Centennial Review Article for
CJP, final version to appear in journal - glossary of terms added, typos
correcte
Do we know the mass of a black hole? Mass of some cosmological black hole models
Using a cosmological black hole model proposed recently, we have calculated
the quasi-local mass of a collapsing structure within a cosmological setting
due to different definitions put forward in the last decades to see how similar
or different they are. It has been shown that the mass within the horizon
follows the familiar Brown-York behavior. It increases, however, outside the
horizon again after a short decrease, in contrast to the Schwarzschild case.
Further away, near the void, outside the collapsed region, and where the
density reaches the background minimum, all the mass definitions roughly
coincide. They differ, however, substantially far from it. Generically, we are
faced with three different Brown-York mass maxima: near the horizon, around the
void between the overdensity region and the background, and another at
cosmological distances corresponding to the cosmological horizon. While the
latter two maxima are always present, the horizon mass maxima is absent before
the onset of the central singularity.Comment: 11 pages, 8 figures, revised version, accepted in General Relativity
and Gravitatio
Pair creation of anti-de Sitter black holes on a cosmic string background
We analyze the quantum process in which a cosmic string breaks in an anti-de
Sitter (AdS) background, and a pair of charged or neutral black holes is
produced at the ends of the strings. The energy to materialize and accelerate
the pair comes from the strings tension. In an AdS background this is the only
study done in the process of production of a pair of correlated black holes
with spherical topology. The acceleration of the produced black holes is
necessarily greater than (|L|/3)^(1/2), where L<0 is the cosmological constant.
Only in this case the virtual pair of black holes can overcome the attractive
background AdS potential well and become real. The instantons that describe
this process are constructed through the analytical continuation of the AdS
C-metric. Then, we explicitly compute the pair creation rate of the process,
and we verify that (as occurs with pair creation in other backgrounds) the pair
production of nonextreme black holes is enhanced relative to the pair creation
of extreme black holes by a factor of exp(Area/4), where Area is the black hole
horizon area. We also conclude that the general behavior of the pair creation
rate with the mass and acceleration of the black holes is similar in the AdS,
flat and de Sitter cases, and our AdS results reduce to the ones of the flat
case when L=0.Comment: 13 pages, 3 figures, ReVTeX
X-ray diffraction measurements of the c-axis Debye-Waller factors of YBa2Cu3O7 and HgBa2CaCu2O6
We report the first application of x-rays to the measurement of the
temperature dependent Bragg peak intensities to obtain Debye-Waller factors on
high-temperature superconductors. Intensities of (0,0,l) peaks of YBa2Cu3O7 and
HgBa2CaCu2O6 thin films are measured to obtain the c-axis Debye-Waller factors.
While lattice constant and some Debye-Waller factor measurements on high Tc
superconductors show anomalies at the transition temperature, our measurements
by x-ray diffraction show a smooth transition of the c-axis Debye-Waller
factors through T. This suggests that the dynamic displacements of the
heavy elements along the c-axis direction in these compounds do not have
anomalies at Tc. This method in combination with measurements by other
techniques will give more details concerning dynamics of the lattice.Comment: 4 pages, 2 figures. To be published in Physical Review B (Brief
Report
On the energy-momentum tensor for a scalar field on manifolds with boundaries
We argue that already at classical level the energy-momentum tensor for a
scalar field on manifolds with boundaries in addition to the bulk part contains
a contribution located on the boundary. Using the standard variational
procedure for the action with the boundary term, the expression for the surface
energy-momentum tensor is derived for arbitrary bulk and boundary geometries.
Integral conservation laws are investigated. The corresponding conserved
charges are constructed and their relation to the proper densities is
discussed. Further we study the vacuum expectation value of the energy-momentum
tensor in the corresponding quantum field theory. It is shown that the surface
term in the energy-momentum tensor is essential to obtain the equality between
the vacuum energy, evaluated as the sum of the zero-point energies for each
normal mode of frequency, and the energy derived by the integration of the
corresponding vacuum energy density. As an application, by using the zeta
function technique, we evaluate the surface energy for a quantum scalar field
confined inside a spherical shell.Comment: 25 pages, 2 figures, section and appendix on the surface energy for a
spherical shell are added, references added, accepted for publication in
Phys. Rev.
Sulphur monoxide emission tracing an embedded planet in the HD 100546 protoplanetary disk
Stars and planetary system
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