Goldstone Bosons in Josephson Junctions

For a microscopic model of a Josephson junction the normal coordinates of the two junction Goldstone bosons are constructed and their dynamical spectrum is computed. The explicit dependence on the phase difference of the two superconductors is calculated

Recommendations in Second Opinion Reports of Neurologic Head and Neck Imaging:Frequency, Referring Clinicians? Compliance, and Diagnostic Yield

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE: Second opinion reports of neurologic head and neck imaging are requested with increased regularity, and they may contain a recommendation to the clinician. Our aim was to investigate the frequency and determinants of the presence of a recommendation and the adherence by the referring physician to the recommendation in a second opinion neurology head and neck imaging report and the diagnostic yield of these recommendations. MATERIALS AND METHODS: This retrospective study included 994 consecutive second opinion reports of neurology head and neck imaging examinations performed at a tertiary care center. RESULTS: Of the 994 second opinion reports, 12.2% (121/994) contained a recommendation. An oncologic imaging indication was significantly (P = .030) associated with a lower chance of a recommendation in the second opinion report (OR = .67; 95% CI, 0.46?0.96). Clinicians followed 65.7% (88/134) of the recommendations. None of the investigated variables (patient age, sex, hospitalization status, indication for the second opinion report, experience of the radiologist who signed the second opinion report, strength of the recommendation, and whether the recommendation was made due to apparent quality issues of the original examination) were significantly associated with the compliance of the referring physician to this recommendation. The 134 individual recommendations eventually led to the establishment of 52 (38.2%) benign diagnoses and 28 (20.6%) malignant diagnoses, while no definitive diagnosis could be established in 56 (41.2%) cases. CONCLUSIONS: Recommendations are relatively common in second opinion reports of neurology head and neck imaging examinations, though less for oncologic indications. They are mostly followed by requesting physicians, thus affecting patient management. In most cases, they also lead to the establishment of a diagnosis, hence adding value to patient care

Shopping centre siting and modal choice in Belgium: a destination based analysis

Although modal split is only one of the elements considered in decision-making on new shopping malls, it remarkably often arises in arguments of both proponents and opponents. Today, this is also the case in the debate on the planned development of three major shopping malls in Belgium. Inspired by such debates, the present study focuses on the impact of the location of shopping centres on the travel mode choice of the customers. Our hypothesis is that destination-based variables such as embeddedness in the urban fabric, accessibility and mall size influence the travel mode choice of the visitors. Based on modal split data and location characteristics of seventeen existing shopping centres in Belgium, we develop a model for a more sustainable siting policy. The results show a major influence of the location of the shopping centre in relation to the urban form, and of the size of the mall. Shopping centres that are part of a dense urban fabric, measured through population density, are less car dependent. Smaller sites will attract more cyclists and pedestrians. Interestingly, our results deviate significantly from the figures that have been put forward in public debates on the shopping mall issue in Belgium

A light-responsive liposomal agent for MRI contrast enhancement and monitoring of cargo delivery

Medical magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) produces high-resolution anatomical images of the human body, but has limited capacity to provide useful molecular information. The light-responsive, liposomal MRI contrast agent described herein could be used to provide an intrinsic theranostic aspect to MRI and enable tracking the distribution and cargo release of drug delivery systems upon light-triggered activation

Numerical methods for the detection of phase defect structures in excitable media

Electrical waves that rotate in the heart organize dangerous cardiac arrhythmias. Finding the region around which such rotation occurs is one of the most important practical questions for arrhythmia management. For many years, the main method for finding such regions was so-called phase mapping, in which a continuous phase was assigned to points in the heart based on their excitation status and defining the rotation region as a point of phase singularity. Recent analysis, however, showed that in many rotation regimes there exist phase discontinuities and the region of rotation must be defined not as a point of phase singularity, but as a phase defect line. In this paper, we use this novel methodology and perform a comparative study of three different phase definitions applied to in silico data and to experimental data obtained from optical voltage mapping experiments on monolayers of human atrial myocytes. We introduce new phase defect detection algorithms and compare them with those that appeared in literature already. We find that the phase definition is more important than the algorithm to identify sudden spatial phase variations. Sharp phase defect lines can be obtained from a phase derived from local activation times observed during one cycle of arrhythmia. Alternatively, similar quality can be obtained from a reparameterization of the classical phase obtained from observation of a single timeframe of transmembrane potential. We found that the phase defect line length was (35.9 ± 6.2)mm in the Fenton-Karma model and (4.01 ± 0.55)mm in cardiac human atrial myocyte monolayers. As local activation times are obtained during standard clinical cardiac mapping, the methods are also suitable to be applied to clinical datasets. All studied methods are publicly available and can be downloaded from an institutional web-server. © 2022 Kabus et al. access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.Fonds Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek, FWO: 1177022N, G025820N; Ministry of Education and Science of the Russian Federation, Minobrnauka: 075-15-2020-926; KU Leuven: GPUL/20/012DK is supported by KU Leuven grant GPUL/20/012. LA was funded by a KU Leuven FLOF grant and a FWO-Flanders fellowship, grant 1177022N; LL was funded by KU Leuven and FWO-Flanders, grant G025820N. Research at Sechenov University was financed by The Ministry of Science and Higher Education of the Russian Federation within the framework of state support for the creation and development of World-Class Research Centers "Digital biodesign and personalized healthcare" 075-15-2020-926. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript. We are grateful to Sven O. Dekker, Niels Harlaar, Daniël A. Pijnappels and Antoine A.F. de Vries for providing optical voltage mapping data of cardiomyogenically differentiated hiAM monolayers. Moreover, we thank Tim De Coster for helpful comments on the analogy between a PDL and the spiral wave tip trajectory

Buckling of scroll waves

A scroll wave in a sufficiently thin layer of an excitable medium with negative filament tension can be stable nevertheless due to filament rigidity. Above a certain critical thickness of the medium, such scroll wave will have a tendency to deform into a buckled, precessing state. Experimentally this will be seen as meandering of the spiral wave on the surface, the amplitude of which grows with the thickness of the layer, until a break-up to scroll wave turbulence happens. We present a simplified theory for this phenomenon and illustrate it with numerical examples.Comment: 4 pages main text + 5 pages appendix, 4+2 figures and a movie, as accepted by Phys Rev Letters 2012/09/2

Synthesis and Evaluation of F-18-Enzalutamide, a New Radioligand for PET Imaging of Androgen Receptors:A Comparison with 16 beta-F-18-Fluoro-5 alpha-Dihydrotestosterone

16 beta-F-18-fluoro-5 alpha-dihydrotestosterone (F-18-FDHT) is a radiopharmaceutical that has been investigated as a diagnostic agent for the assessment of androgen receptor (AR) density in prostate cancer using PET. However, F-18-FDHT is rapidly metabolized in humans and excreted via the kidneys into the urine, potentially compromising the detection of tumor lesions close to the prostate. Enzalutamide is an AR signaling inhibitor currently used in different stages of prostate cancer. Enzalutamide and its primary metabolite N-desmethylenzalutamide have an AR affinity comparable to that of FDHT but are excreted mainly via the hepatic route. Radiolabeled enzalutamide could thus be a suitable candidate PET tracer for AR imaging. Here, we describe the radiolabeling of enzalutamide with F-18. Moreover, the in vitro and in vivo behavior of F-18-enzalutamide was evaluated and compared with the current standard, F-18-FDHT. Methods: F-18-enzalutamide was obtained by fluorination of the nitro precursor. In vitro cellular uptake studies with F-18-enzalutamide and F-18-FDHT were performed in LNCaP (AR-positive) and HEK293 (AR-negative) cells. Competition assays with both tracers were conducted on the LNCaP (AR-positive) cell line. In vivo PET imaging, ex vivo biodistribution, and metabolite studies with F-18-enzalutamide and F-18-FDHT were conducted on athymic nude male mice bearing an LNCaP xenograft in the shoulder. Results: F-18-enzalutamide was obtained in 1.4% +/- 0.9% radiochemical yield with an apparent molar activity of 6.2 +/- 10.3 GBq/mu mol. F-18-FDHT was obtained in 1.5% +/- 0.8% yield with a molar activity of more than 25 GBq/mu mol. Coincubation with an excess of 5 alpha-dihydrotestosterone or enzalutamide significantly reduced the cellular uptake of F-18-enzalutamide and F-18-FDHT to about 50% in AR-positive LNCaP cells but not in AR-negative HEK293 cells. PET and biodistribution studies on male mice bearing a LnCaP xenograft showed about 3 times higher tumor uptake for F-18-enzalutamide than for F-18-FDHT. Sixty minutes after tracer injection, 93% of F-18-enzalutamide in plasma was still intact, compared with only 3% of F-18-FDHT. Conclusion: Despite its lower apparent molar activity, F-18-enzalutamide shows higher tumor uptake and better metabolic stability than F-18-FDHT and thus seems to have more favorable properties for imaging of AR with PET. However, further evaluation in other oncologic animal models and patients is warranted to confirm these results