2,225 research outputs found
Planet formation models: the interplay with the planetesimal disc
According to the sequential accretion model, giant planet formation is based
first on the formation of a solid core which, when massive enough, can
gravitationally bind gas from the nebula to form the envelope. In order to
trigger the accretion of gas, the core has to grow up to several Earth masses
before the gas component of the protoplanetary disc dissipates. We compute the
formation of planets, considering the oligarchic regime for the growth of the
solid core. Embryos growing in the disc stir their neighbour planetesimals,
exciting their relative velocities, which makes accretion more difficult. We
compute the excitation state of planetesimals, as a result of stirring by
forming planets, and gas-solid interactions. We find that the formation of
giant planets is favoured by the accretion of small planetesimals, as their
random velocities are more easily damped by the gas drag of the nebula.
Moreover, the capture radius of a protoplanet with a (tiny) envelope is also
larger for small planetesimals. However, planets migrate as a result of
disc-planet angular momentum exchange, with important consequences for their
survival: due to the slow growth of a protoplanet in the oligarchic regime,
rapid inward type I migration has important implications on intermediate mass
planets that have not started yet their runaway accretion phase of gas. Most of
these planets are lost in the central star. Surviving planets have either
masses below 10 ME or above several Jupiter masses. To form giant planets
before the dissipation of the disc, small planetesimals (~ 0.1 km) have to be
the major contributors of the solid accretion process. However, the combination
of oligarchic growth and fast inward migration leads to the absence of
intermediate mass planets. Other processes must therefore be at work in order
to explain the population of extrasolar planets presently known.Comment: Accepted for publication in Astronomy and Astrophysic
Theoretical models of planetary system formation: mass vs semi-major axis
Planet formation models have been developed during the last years in order to
try to reproduce the observations of both the solar system, and the extrasolar
planets. Some of these models have partially succeeded, focussing however on
massive planets, and for the sake of simplicity excluding planets belonging to
planetary systems. However, more and more planets are now found in planetary
systems. This tendency, which is a result of both radial velocity, transit and
direct imaging surveys, seems to be even more pronounced for low mass planets.
These new observations require the improvement of planet formation models,
including new physics, and considering the formation of systems. In a recent
series of papers, we have presented some improvements in the physics of our
models, focussing in particular on the internal structure of forming planets,
and on the computation of the excitation state of planetesimals, and their
resulting accretion rate. In this paper, we focus on the concurrent effect of
the formation of more than one planet in the same protoplanetary disc, and show
the effect, in terms of global architecture and composition of this
multiplicity. We use a N-body calculation including collision detection to
compute the orbital evolution of a planetary system. Moreover, we describe the
effect of competition for accretion of gas and solids, as well as the effect of
gravitational interactions between planets. We show that the masses and
semi-major axis of planets are modified by both the effect of competition and
gravitational interactions. We also present the effect of the assumed number of
forming planets in the same system (a free parameter of the model), as well as
the effect of the inclination and eccentricity damping.Comment: accepted in Astronomy and Astrophysic
Palliative care and prehospital emergency medicine: analysis of a case series.
Palliative care, which is intended to keep patients at home as long as possible, is increasingly proposed for patients who live at home, with their family, or in retirement homes. Although their condition is expected to have a lethal evolution, the patients-or more often their families or entourages-are sometimes confronted with sudden situations of respiratory distress, convulsions, hemorrhage, coma, anxiety, or pain. Prehospital emergency services are therefore often confronted with palliative care situations, situations in which medical teams are not skilled and therefore frequently feel awkward.We conducted a retrospective study about cases of palliative care situations that were managed by prehospital emergency physicians (EPs) over a period of 8 months in 2012, in the urban region of Lausanne in the State of Vaud, Switzerland.The prehospital EPs managed 1586 prehospital emergencies during the study period. We report 4 situations of respiratory distress or neurological disorders in advanced cancer patients, highlighting end-of-life and palliative care situations that may be encountered by prehospital emergency services.The similarity of the cases, the reasons leading to the involvement of prehospital EPs, and the ethical dilemma illustrated by these situations are discussed. These situations highlight the need for more formal education in palliative care for EPs and prehospital emergency teams, and the need to fully communicate the planning and implementation of palliative care with patients and patients' family members
Increasing prehospital emergency medical service interventions for nursing home residents.
QUESTION: In the ageing European population, the proportion of interventions by the emergency medical services (EMS) for elderly patients is increasing, but little is known about the recent trend of EMS interventions in nursing homes. The aim of this analysis was to describe the evolution of the incidence of requests for prehospital EMS interventions for nursing home residents aged 65 years and over between 2004 and 2013.
METHODS: A prospective population-based register of routinely collected data for each EMS intervention in the Canton of Vaud. Linear time trends of incidence of requests to the EMS in nursing homes were calculated and stratified by age categories.
RESULTS: The number of ambulance interventions in nursing homes for people aged 65 years and over (65+) increased by 68.9% (1124‒1898) between 2004 and 2013. A significant linear increase of the annual incidence of requests to EMS per 1,000 nursing home residents was found for people aged 65-79 (10.2, 95% confidence interval [CI] 6.2-14.2), 80-89 (16.5, 95% CI 14.0-19.0) and over 90 (12.1, 95% CI 5.8-18.4). EMS interventions in nursing home residents who required an emergency physician increased during the same period by 205.6% (from 106 to 324), representing an increase from 2% to 7% of all emergency physician interventions in the Canton.
CONCLUSIONS: Our results confirmed an important increase in the incidence of EMS interventions in nursing homes during the last decade, far exceeding the actual increase of the nursing home population during the same period. This evolution represents an important opportunity to reconsider the EMS missions in the context of an ageing society
Prehospital triage accuracy in a criteria based dispatch centre.
BACKGROUND: Priority dispatch accuracy is a key issue in optimizing the match between patients' medical needs and pre-hospital resources. This study measures the accuracy of a Criteria Based Dispatch (CBD) system, by evaluating discrepancies between dispatch priorities and ambulance crews' severity evaluations.
METHODS: This is a retrospective study conducted from January 2011 to December 2011. We ruled that a National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA) score > 3 (injuries/diseases which can possibly lead to deterioration of vital signs) to 7 (lethal injuries/ diseases) should require a priority dispatch with lights and siren (L&S), while NACA scores < 4 should require a priority dispatch without L&S. Over triage was defined as the proportion of L&S dispatches with a NACA score < 4, and under triage as the proportion of dispatches without L&S with a NACA score > 3.
RESULTS: There were 29,008 primary missions in 2011, 1122 were excluded. Of the 15,749 L&S missions, 12,333 patients had a NACA score < 4, leading to an over triage rate of 78 %; 561 missions out of 12,137 missions without L&S had a NACA score > 3, leading to an under triage rate of 4.6 %. Sensitivity was 86 % (95 % confidence interval: 85.6-86.4 %), specificity 48 % (47.4-48.6 %), positive predictive value 21.7 % (21.2-22.2 %), and negative predictive value 95.4 % (95.2-95.6 %).
CONCLUSION: The rates of over triage and under triage in our CBD are 78 and 4.6 % respectively. The lack of consistent or universal metrics is perhaps the most important limitation in dispatch accuracy research. This is mainly due to the large heterogeneity of dispatch systems and prehospital emergency system
Propagation of gamma rays and production of free electrons in air
A new concept of remote detection of concealed radioactive materials has been
recently proposed \cite{Gr.Nusin.2010}-\cite{NusinSprangle}. It is based on the
breakdown in air at the focal point of a high-power beam of electromagnetic
waves produced by a THz gyrotron. To initiate the avalanche breakdown, seed
free electrons should be present in this focal region during the
electromagnetic pulse. This paper is devoted to the analysis of production of
free electrons by gamma rays leaking from radioactive materials. Within a
hundred meters from the radiation source, the fluctuating free electrons appear
with the rate that may exceed significantly the natural background ionization
rate. During the gyrotron pulse of about 10 microsecond length, such electrons
may seed the electric breakdown and create sufficiently dense plasma at the
focal region to be detected as an unambiguous effect of the concealed
radioactive material.Comment: 27 pages, 10 figure
Gupta–Bleuler Quantization of the Maxwell Field in Globally Hyperbolic Space-Times
We give a complete framework for the Gupta–Bleuler quantization of the free electromagnetic field on globally hyperbolic space-times. We describe one-particle structures that give rise to states satisfying the microlocal spectrum condition. The field algebras in the so-called Gupta–Bleuler representations satisfy the time-slice axiom, and the corresponding vacuum states satisfy the microlocal spectrum condition. We also give an explicit construction of ground states on ultrastatic space-times. Unlike previous constructions, our method does not require a spectral gap or the absence of zero modes. The only requirement, the absence of zero-resonance states, is shown to be stable under compact perturbations of topology and metric. Usual deformation arguments based on the time-slice axiom then lead to a construction of Gupta–Bleuler representations on a large class of globally hyperbolic space-times. As usual, the field algebra is represented on an indefinite inner product space, in which the physical states form a positive semi-definite subspace. Gauge transformations are incorporated in such a way that the field can be coupled perturbatively to a Dirac field. Our approach does not require any topological restrictions on the underlying space-time
Prevalence and clinical significance of point of care elevated lactate at emergency admission in older patients: a prospective study.
Patients who are over 65 years old represent up to 24% of emergency department (ED) admissions. They are at increased risk of under-triage due to impaired physiological responses. The primary objective of this study was to assess the prevalence of elevated lactate by point of care testing (POCT) in this population. The secondary objective was to assess the additional value of lactate level in predicting an early poor outcome, as compared to and combined with common clinical scores and triage scales.
This monocentric prospective study recruited ED patients who were over 65 years old between July 19th 2019 and June 17th 2020. Patients consulting for seizures or needing immediate assessment were excluded. POCT lactates were considered elevated if ≥ 2.5 mmol/L. A poor outcome was defined based on certain complications or therapeutic decisions.
In total, 602 patients were included; 163 (27.1%) had elevated lactate and 44 (7.3%) had a poor outcome. There was no association between poor outcome and lactate level. Modified Early Warning Score (MEWS) was significantly associated with poor outcome, alongside National Early Warning Score (NEWS). Logistic regression also associated lactate level combined with MEWS and poor outcome.
The prevalence of elevated lactate was 27.1%. Lactate level alone or combined with different triage scales or clinical scores such as MEWS, NEWS and qSOFA was not associated with prediction of a poor outcome. MEWS alone performed best in predicting poor outcome. The usefulness of POCT lactate measurement at triage is questionable in the population of 65 and above
Dynamics of light propagation in spatiotemporal dielectric structures
Propagation, transmission and reflection properties of linearly polarized
plane waves and arbitrarily short electromagnetic pulses in one-dimensional
dispersionless dielectric media possessing an arbitrary space-time dependence
of the refractive index are studied by using a two-component, highly symmetric
version of Maxwell's equations. The use of any slow varying amplitude
approximation is avoided. Transfer matrices of sharp nonstationary interfaces
are calculated explicitly, together with the amplitudes of all secondary waves
produced in the scattering. Time-varying multilayer structures and
spatiotemporal lenses in various configurations are investigated analytically
and numerically in a unified approach. Several new effects are reported, such
as pulse compression, broadening and spectral manipulation of pulses by a
spatiotemporal lens, and the closure of the forbidden frequency gaps with the
subsequent opening of wavenumber bandgaps in a generalized Bragg reflector
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