Self-Energy Correction to the Bound-Electron g Factor of P States

The radiative self-energy correction to the bound-electron g factor of 2P_1/2 and 2P_3/2 states in one-electron ions is evaluated to order alpha (Z alpha)^2. The contribution of high-energy virtual photons is treated by means of an effective Dirac equation, and the result is verified by an approach based on long-wavelength quantum electrodynamics. The contribution of low-energy virtual photons is calculated both in the velocity and in the length gauge and gauge invariance is verified explicitly. The results compare favorably to recently available numerical data for hydrogenlike systems with low nuclear charge numbers.Comment: 8 pages, RevTe

Shape selection of surface-bound helical filaments: biopolymers on curved membranes

Motivated to understand the behavior of biological filaments interacting with membranes of various types, we study a theoretical model for the shape and thermodynamics of intrinsically-helical filaments bound to curved membranes. We show filament-surface interactions lead to a host of non-uniform shape equilibria, in which filaments progressively unwind from their native twist with increasing surface interaction and surface curvature, ultimately adopting uniform-contact curved shapes. The latter effect is due to non-linear coupling between elastic twist and bending of filaments on anisotropically-curved surfaces, such as the cylindrical surfaces considered here. Via a combination of numerical solutions and asymptotic analysis of shape equilibria we show that filament conformations are critically sensitive to the surface curvature in both the strong- and weak-binding limits. These results suggest that local structure of membrane-bound chiral filaments is generically sensitive to the curvature-radius of the surface to which it is bound, even when that radius is much larger than the filament intrinsic pitch. Typical values of elastic parameters and interaction energies for several prokaryotic and eukaryotic filaments indicate that biopolymers are inherently very sensitive to the coupling between twist, interactions and geometry and that this could be exploited for regulation of a variety of processes such as the targeted exertion of forces, signaling and self-assembly in response to geometric cues including the local mean and Gaussian curvatures

Longitudinal Intra- and Inter-individual variation in T-cell subsets of HIV-infected and uninfected men participating in the LA Multi-Center AIDS Cohort Study.

To assess the intra-individual and inter-individuals biological variation and the effect of aging on lymphocyte T-cells subsets.We assessed lymphocyte phenotypes (CD3, CD4, and CD8 T-cells) in 89 HIV-1-infected and 88 uninfected white non-Hispanic men every 6 months, to examine the biological variation for those measurements, and the average change in lymphocyte phenotype over 34 years.The markers showed significant intra-individuality in HIV-infected and uninfected individuals with index of individuality of <1.4. No mean changes were seen over the 34 years, with the exception of percentage CD4T-cells in HIV-uninfected individuals.In the pre-HAART era, HIV-infected individuals experienced an increase in mean absolute CD3 T-cell numbers (11.21 cells/μL, P = 0.02) and absolute CD8 T-cell numbers (34.57 cell/μl, P < .001), and in the percentage of CD8 T-cells (1.45%, P < .001) per year and a significant decrease in mean absolute CD4 T-cell numbers (23.68 cells/μl, P < .001) and in the percentage of CD4 T-cells (1.49%, P < .001) per year.In the post-HAART era, no changes in mean levels were observed in absolute CD3 T-cell count (P = .15) or percentage (P = .99). Significant decreases were seen in mean count (8.56 cells/μl, P < .001) and percentage (0.59%, P < .001) of CD8 T-cells, and increases in mean absolute count (10.72 cells/μl, P < .001) and percentage (0.47%, P < .001) of CD4 T-cells.With the exception of CD4 (%), no average changes per year were seen in lymphocyte phenotype of HIV-uninfected men. The results of coefficients of variation of intra and inter-individuals of this study can be useful for HIV-1 infection monitoring and in addition the observation could be a useful guide for intra- and inter-individual coefficient variations, and establishing quality goal studies of different blood biomarkers in healthy and other diseases

SAMplus: adaptive optics at optical wavelengths for SOAR

Adaptive Optics (AO) is an innovative technique that substantially improves the optical performance of ground-based telescopes. The SOAR Adaptive Module (SAM) is a laser-assisted AO instrument, designed to compensate ground-layer atmospheric turbulence in near-IR and visible wavelengths over a large Field of View. Here we detail our proposal to upgrade SAM, dubbed SAMplus, that is focused on enhancing its performance in visible wavelengths and increasing the instrument reliability. As an illustration, for a seeing of 0.62 arcsec at 500 nm and a typical turbulence profile, current SAM improves the PSF FWHM to 0.40 arcsec, and with the upgrade we expect to deliver images with a FWHM of $\approx0.34$ arcsec -- up to 0.23 arcsec FWHM PSF under good seeing conditions. Such capabilities will be fully integrated with the latest SAM instruments, putting SOAR in an unique position as observatory facility.Comment: To appear in Proc. SPIE 10703 (Ground-based and Airborne Instrumentation for Astronomy VII; SPIEastro18

Heat dissipation after nonanatomical lung resection using a laser is mainly due to emission to the environment: an experimental ex vivo study

Laser-directed resection of lung metastases is performed more frequently in recent years. The energy-loaded laser rays heat up the lung tissue, considerably. It is still unclear which mechanism is more important for tissue heat dissipation: the lung perfusion or the tissue emission. Therefore, we created a special experimental model to investigate the spontaneous heat dissipation after nonanatomical lung resection using a diode-pumped laser with a high output power. Experiments were conducted on paracardiac pig lung lobes (n = 12) freshly dissected at the slaughterhouse. Nonanatomical resection of lung parenchyma was performed without lobe perfusion in group 1 (n = 6), while group 2 (n = 6) was perfused at a physiological pressure of 25 cm H(2)O at 37 °C with saline via the pulmonary artery. For this, we used a diode-pumped neodymium-doped yttrium aluminum garnet (Nd:YAG) LIMAX® 120 laser (Gebrüder Martin GmbH & Co. KG, Tuttlingen, Germany) with a wavelength of 1,318 nm and a power output of 100 W. Immediately after completing laser resection, the lungs were monitored with an infrared camera (Type IC 120LV; Trotec, Heinsberg, Germany) while allowed to cool down. The resection surface temperature was taken at 10-s intervals and documented in a freeze-frame until a temperature of 37 °C had been reached. The temperature drop per time unit was analyzed in both groups. Immediately after laser resection, the temperature at the lung surface was 84.33 ± 8.08 °C in group 1 and 76.75 ± 5.33 °C in group 2 (p = 0.29). Group 1 attained the final temperature of 37 °C after 182.95 ± 53.76 s, and group 2 after 121.70 ± 16.02 s (p = 0.01). The temperature drop occurred exponentially in both groups. We calculated both groups’ decays using nonlinear regression, which revealed nearly identical courses. The mean time of tissue temperature of >42 °C, as a surrogate marker for tissue damage, was 97.14 ± 26.90 s in group 1 and 65.00 ± 13.78 s in group 2 (p = 0.02). Heat emission to the environment surpasses heat reduction via perfusion in nonanatomically laser-resected lung lobes. In developing a cooling strategy, a topical cooling method would be promising

Experimental access to higher-order Zeeman effects by precision spectroscopy of highly charged ions in a Penning trap

We present an experimental concept and setup for laser-microwave double-resonance spectroscopy of highly charged ions in a Penning trap. Such spectroscopy allows a highly precise measurement of the Zeeman splittings of fine- and hyperfine-structure levels due the magnetic field of the trap. We have performed detailed calculations of the Zeeman effect in the framework of quantum electrodynamics of bound states as present in such highly charged ions. We find that apart from the linear Zeeman effect, second- and third-order Zeeman effects also contribute to the splittings on a level of 10^-4 and 10^-8, respectively, and hence are accessible to a determination within the achievable spectroscopic resolution of the ARTEMIS experiment currently in preparation

Mortality in non-exacerbating COPD: a longitudinal analysis of UK primary care data

Introduction: Non-exacerbating patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) are a less studied phenotype. We investigated clinical characteristics, mortality rates and causes of death among non-exacerbating compared with exacerbating patients with COPD. Methods: We used data from the Clinical Practice Research Datalink, Hospital Episode Statistics and Office for National Statistics between 1 January 2004 and 31 December 2018. Ever smokers with a COPD diagnosis with minimum 3 years of baseline information were included. We compared overall using Cox regression and cause-specific mortality rates using competing risk analysis, adjusted for age, sex, deprivation, smoking status, body mass index, GOLD stage and comorbidities. Causes of death were identified using International Classification of Diseases-10 codes. Results: Among 67 516 patients, 17.3% did not exacerbate during the 3-year baseline period. Mean follow-up was 4 years. Non-exacerbators were more likely to be male (63.3% vs 52.4%, p<0.001) and less often had a history of asthma (33.9% vs 43.6%, p<0.001) or FEV1<50% predicted (23.7 vs 31.8%) compared with exacerbators. Adjusted HR for overall mortality in non-exacerbators compared with exacerbators was 0.62 (95% CI 0.56 to 0.70) in the first year of follow-up and 0.87 (95% CI 0.83 to 0.91) thereafter. Non-exacerbating patients with COPD died less of respiratory causes than exacerbators (29.2% vs 40.3%) and more of malignancies (29.4% vs 23.4%) and cardiovascular diseases (26.2% vs 22.9%). HRs for malignant and circulatory causes of death were increased after the first year of follow-up. Discussion: In this primary care cohort, non-exacerbators showed distinct clinical characteristics and lower mortality rates. Non-exacerbators were equally likely to die of respiratory, malignant or cardiovascular diseases

Do influenza and pneumococcal vaccines prevent community-acquired respiratory infections among older people with diabetes and does this vary by chronic kidney disease? A cohort study using electronic health records

Objective: We aimed to estimate the effectiveness of influenza and 23-valent pneumococcal polysaccharide vaccination on reducing the burden of community-acquired lower respiratory tract infection (LRTI) among older people with diabetes, and whether this varied by chronic kidney disease status. Research design and methods: We used linked UK electronic health records for a retrospective cohort study of 190,492 patients ≥65 years with diabetes mellitus and no history of renal replacement therapy, 1997–2011. We included community-acquired LRTIs managed in primary or secondary care. Infection incidence rate ratios were estimated using Poisson regression. Pneumococcal vaccine effectiveness (VE) was calculated as (1 – effect measure). To estimate influenza VE a ratio-of-ratios analysis (winter effectiveness/summer effectiveness) was used to address confounding by indication. Final VE estimates were stratified according to estimated glomerular filtration rate and proteinuria status. Results: Neither influenza nor pneumococcal vaccine uptake varied according to CKD status. Pneumococcal VE was 22% (95%CI: 11–31) against community-acquired pneumonia for the first year after vaccination, but was negligible after five years. In the ratio-of-ratios analysis, current influenza vaccination had 7% effectiveness for preventing community-acquired LRTI (95%CI: 3–12). Pneumococcal vaccine effectiveness was lower among patients with a history of proteinuria than among patients without proteinuria (p=0.04), but otherwise this study did not identify variation in pneumococcal or influenza VE by markers of CKD. Conclusions: The public health benefits of influenza vaccine may be modest among older people with diabetes. Pneumococcal vaccination protection against community-acquired pneumonia declines swiftly: alternative vaccination schedules should be investigated

External validation of ADO, DOSE, COTE and CODEX at predicting death in primary care patients with COPD using standard and machine learning approaches

Background Several models for predicting the risk of death in people with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) exist but have not undergone large scale validation in primary care. The objective of this study was to externally validate these models using statistical and machine learning approaches. Methods We used a primary care COPD cohort identified using data from the UK Clinical Practice Research Datalink. Age-standardised mortality rates were calculated for the population by gender and discrimination of ADO (age, dyspnoea, airflow obstruction), COTE (COPD-specific comorbidity test), DOSE (dyspnoea, airflow obstruction, smoking, exacerbations) and CODEX (comorbidity, dyspnoea, airflow obstruction, exacerbations) at predicting death over 1–3 years measured using logistic regression and a support vector machine learning (SVM) method of analysis. Results The age-standardised mortality rate was 32.8 (95%CI 32.5–33.1) and 25.2 (95%CI 25.4–25.7) per 1000 person years for men and women respectively. Complete data were available for 54879 patients to predict 1-year mortality. ADO performed the best (c-statistic of 0.730) compared with DOSE (c-statistic 0.645), COTE (c-statistic 0.655) and CODEX (c-statistic 0.649) at predicting 1-year mortality. Discrimination of ADO and DOSE improved at predicting 1-year mortality when combined with COTE comorbidities (c-statistic 0.780 ADO + COTE; c-statistic 0.727 DOSE + COTE). Discrimination did not change significantly over 1–3 years. Comparable results were observed using SVM. Conclusion In primary care, ADO appears superior at predicting death in COPD. Performance of ADO and DOSE improved when combined with COTE comorbidities suggesting better models may be generated with additional data facilitated using novel approaches