Comparison of Postoperative Fever and Effectiveness of Percutaneous Nephrolithotomy (PCNL) Versus Retrograde Intrarenal Surgery (RIRS) for the Treatment of Renal Stones

The aim of this study is to compare the effectiveness and the relative risk of postoperative fever between percutaneous nephrolithotomy and retrograde intrarenal surgery for the treatment of renal stones. At the Cannizzaro Hospital in Catania, a total 168 patients with one or more renal stones underwent one of more interventions, resulting in 177 independent records; 62 records related to PCNL treatment and 115 records involved RIRS treatment. To assess the relationship between patient and stone characteristics on the one hand and stone-free rate and the incidence rate of postoperative fever on the other, a generalized additive logistic models was used. We found that stone burden, defined in terms of stone diameter, the number of stones and stone density, is a significant predictor for the success of the intervention. Furthermore, PCNL treatment was significantly less successful for stone in the middle calyx, whereas RIRS obtained significantly lower success rate for stone in the lower calyx that had a sharp infundibular angle. Importantly, for renal stones with a diameter up to 2 cm, RIRS has a very similar success rate compared to PCNL. Stones with a diameter larger than 2 cm are best treated by PCNL. Across the two treatments, older patients and men have lower incidence rate of postoperative fevers. The fact that RIRS has much lower postoperative fever rates for male and younger patients compared to PCNL, means that RIRS could be the treatment of choice for small and midsized stones for such patients

Dynamical suppression of telegraph and 1/f noise due to quantum bistable fluctuator

We study dynamical decoupling of a qubit from non gaussian quantum noise due to discrete sources, as bistable fluctuators and 1/f noise. We obtain analytic and numerical results for generic operating point. For very large pulse frequency, where dynamic decoupling compensates decoherence, we found universal behavior. At intermediate frequencies noise can be compensated or enhanced, depending on the nature of the fluctuators and on the operating point. Our technique can be applied to a larger class of non-gaussian environments.Comment: Revtex 4, 5 pages, 3 figures. Title revised and some other minor changed. Final version as published in PR

Qubits as devices to detect the third moment of current fluctuations

Under appropriate conditions controllable two-level systems can be used to detect the third moment of current fluctuations. We derive a Master Equation for a quantum system coupled to a bath valid to the third order in the coupling between the system and the environment. In this approximation the reduced dynamics of the quantum system depends on the frequency dependent third moment. Specializing to the case of a controllable two-level system (a qubit) and in the limit in which the splitting between the levels is much smaller than the characteristic frequency of the third moment, it is possible to show that the decay of the qubit has additional oscillations whose amplitude is directly proportional to the value of the third moment. We discuss an experimental setup where this effect can be seen.Comment: 10 pages, 7 figure

Tree-Ring-Reconstructed Summer Temperatures from Northwestern North America during the Last Nine Centuries*

Northwestern North America has one of the highest rates of recent temperature increase in the world, but the putative “divergence problem” in dendroclimatology potentially limits the ability of tree-ring proxy data at high latitudes to provide long-term context for current anthropogenic change. Here, summer temperatures are reconstructed from a Picea glauca maximum latewood density (MXD) chronology that shows a stable relationship to regional temperatures and spans most of the last millennium at the Firth River in northeastern Alaska. The warmest epoch in the last nine centuries is estimated to have occurred during the late twentieth century, with average temperatures over the last 30 yr of the reconstruction developed for this study [1973–2002 in the Common Era (CE)] approximately 1.3° ± 0.4°C warmer than the long-term preindustrial mean (1100–1850 CE), a change associated with rapid increases in greenhouse gases. Prior to the late twentieth century, multidecadal temperature fluctuations covary broadly with changes in natural radiative forcing. The findings presented here emphasize that tree-ring proxies can provide reliable indicators of temperature variability even in a rapidly warming climate

Structural and connectivity parameters reveal spared connectivity in young patients with non-progressive compared to slow-progressive cerebellar ataxia

INTRODUCTION: Within Pediatric Cerebellar Ataxias (PCAs), patients with non-progressive ataxia (NonP) surprisingly show postural motor behavior comparable to that of healthy controls, differently to slow-progressive ataxia patients (SlowP). This difference may depend on the building of compensatory strategies of the intact areas in NonP brain network. METHODS: Eleven PCAs patients were recruited: five with NonP and six with SlowP. We assessed volumetric and axonal bundles alterations with a multimodal approach to investigate whether eventual spared connectivity between basal ganglia and cerebellum explains the different postural motor behavior of NonP and SlowP patients. RESULTS: Cerebellar lobules were smaller in SlowP patients. NonP patients showed a lower number of streamlines in the cerebello-thalamo-cortical tracts but a generalized higher integrity of white matter tracts connecting the cortex and the basal ganglia with the cerebellum. DISCUSSION: This work reveals that the axonal bundles connecting the cerebellum with basal ganglia and cortex demonstrate a higher integrity in NonP patients. This evidence highlights the importance of the cerebellum-basal ganglia connectivity to explain the different postural motor behavior of NonP and SlowP patients and support the possible compensatory role of basal ganglia in patients with stable cerebellar malformation

Investigation of the impact of neutron irradiation on SiC power MOSFETs lifetime by reliability tests

High temperature reverse-bias (HTRB), High temperature gate-bias (HTGB) tests and electrical DC characterization were performed on planar-SiC power MOSFETs which survived to accelerated neutron irradiation tests carried out at ChipIr-ISIS (Didcot, UK) facility, with terrestrial neutrons. The neutron test campaigns on the SiC power MOSFETs (manufactered by ST) were con-ducted on the same wafer lot devices by STMicroelectronics and Airbus, with different neutron tester systems. HTGB and HTRB tests, which characterise gate-oxide integrity and junction robustness, show no difference between the non irradiated devices and those which survived to the neutron irradiation tests, with neutron fluence up to 2 × 1011 (n/cm2). Electrical characterization performed pre and post-irradiation on different part number of power devices (Si, SiC MOSFETs and IGBTs) which survived to neutron irradiation tests does not show alteration of the data-sheet electrical parameters due to neutron interaction with the device

Detection of antibacterial activity of essential oil components by TLC-bioautography using luminescent bacteria

The aim of the present study was the chemical characterization of some medically relevant essential oils (tea tree, clove, cinnamon bark, thyme and eucalyptus) and the investigation of antibacterial effect of the components of these oils by use of a direct bioautographic method. Thin layer chromatography (TLC) was combined with biological detection in this process. The chemical composition of the oils was determined by gas chromatography (GC) and gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS). Eucalyptol (84.2%) was the main component of the essential oil of eucalyptus, eugenol (83.7%) of clove oil, and trans-cinnamic aldehyde (73.2%), thymol (49.9%) and terpinen-4-ol (45.8%) of cinnamon bark, thyme and tea tree oils, respectively. Antibacterial activity of the separated components of these oils, as well as their pure main components (eucalyptol, eugenol, trans-cinnamic aldehyde and thymol) was observed against the Gram-negative luminescence tagged plant pathogenic bacterium Pseudomonas syringae pv. maculicola (Psmlux) and the Gram-negative, naturally luminescent marine bacterium Vibrio fischeri. On the whole, the antibacterial activity of the essential oils could be related to their main components, but the minor constituents may be involved in this process. Trans-cinnamic aldehyde and eugenol were the most active compounds in TLC-bioautography. The sensitivity of TLC-bioautographic method can be improved with using luminescent test bacteria. This method is more cost-effective and provides more reliable results in comparison with conventional microbiological methods, e.g. disc-diffusion technique

Three-body correlations in Borromean halo nuclei

Three-body correlations in the dissociation of two-neutron halo nuclei are explored using a technique based on intensity interferometry and Dalitz plots. This provides for the combined treatment of both the n-n and core-n interactions in the exit channel. As an example, the breakup of 14Be into 12Be+n+n by Pb and C targets has been analysed and the halo n-n separation extracted. A finite delay between the emission of the neutrons in the reaction on the C target was observed and is attributed to 13Be resonances populated in sequential breakup.Comment: 5 pages, 4 figures, submitted to PR

The IPCC’s reductive Common Era temperature history

J.E. acknowledges support by the Gutenberg Research College, J.E. M.T. and U.B. by the project AdAgrif (CZ.02.01.01/00/22_008/0004635) and ERC (AdG 882727), J.E.S. by the US NSF (OISE-1743738, AGS-2101214 and AGS-2303352), K.J.A. by the US NSF (AGS-1803946 and AGS-2102993), K.A. by the ARC (FT200100102), R.D. by the US NSF (OPP-2112314, OPP-2124885, and AGS-2102759), S.G and M. Stoffel by the SNSF (Sinergia CRSII5_183571), F.C.L. by the SRC (grant no. 2018-01272), Marianne and Marcus Wallenberg Foundation (grant no. MMW 2022-0114) and Swedish Collegium for Advanced Study (Pro Futura Scientia XIII Fellow), LS by the German Research Foundation (SCHN 1645/1-1), M. Sigl by the ERC (CoG 820047), and R.W. by the NSF-NERC (NE/W007223/1).Common Era temperature variability has been a prominent component in Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change reports over the last several decades and was twice featured in their Summary for Policymakers. A single reconstruction of mean Northern Hemisphere temperature variability was first highlighted in the 2001 Summary for Policymakers, despite other estimates that existed at the time. Subsequent reports assessed many large-scale temperature reconstructions, but the entirety of Common Era temperature history in the most recent Sixth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change was restricted to a single estimate of mean annual global temperatures. We argue that this focus on a single reconstruction is an insufficient summary of our understanding of temperature variability over the Common Era. We provide a complementary perspective by offering an alternative assessment of the state of our understanding in high-resolution paleoclimatology for the Common Era and call for future reports to present a more accurate and comprehensive assessment of our knowledge about this important period of human and climate history.Peer reviewe