Evaluation of Some Integrals Following from L1L_1, the Constant of the Asymptotic Expansion of ln⁡Γ1(x+1)\ln \Gamma_1 (x+1), Originating from Physics (QED)

Comparison of three different regularization methods of calculating the one-loop effective Heisenberg-Euler Lagrangian of quantum electro-dynamics (QED) is employed to derive some interesting integrals involving the asymptotic expansion of $\ln \Gamma_1(x+1)$, the generalized $\Gamma$ function. Here it is the constant $L_1$ that will enable us to calculate some integrals which are useful in mathematics as well as in physics.Comment: 10 page

Epidemiology of pediatric pulmonary hypertension

Pulmonary hypertension (PH) is a rare condition. Data on adult PH patients is abundant, but data on pediatric PH are scarce. Nevertheless, in the past decade, increasing data concerning pediatric PH are becoming available, enabling this review of the epidemiology, characterization, and outcome of pediatric pulmonary hypertension.PH is a condition that is associated with a variety of diseases. It is a rare condition in children with a complex and age-specific presentation. Transient forms of pulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH), i.e., potentially reversible PAH, specifically occur in children and form the largest group of pediatric PH. Advanced PAH in children is predominantly idiopathic or associated with congenital heart disease. Other forms of PAH seldom occur in children. WHO PH groups 2-5 are rare in childhood; however, they may be underreported.The clinical presentation of pediatric PH is relatively nonspecific as it is in adults, with dyspnea on exertion as the most common presenting symptom. However, the clinical presentation of pediatric PH includes symptoms specific for children such as syncope. Pediatric PH frequently co-occurs with genetic and syndromal abnormalities, including Down syndrome. Right heart failure is less common in children despite a severe hemodynamic profile.PAH is a detrimental disease with a poor prognosis. Outcome of pediatric PAH differs between patients with different types of congenital heart disease. In the last decades, new PAH-targeted therapies have been developed, which have improved outcome in pediatric pulmonary arterial hypertension. However, currently reported survival rates vary and critical appraisal of patient populations, survival data, and proposed treatment approaches is necessary.</p

What is relevant in hyperthermia treatment: heat, temperature, field or something else?

There are intensive discussions in the scientific communities on the quality-parameters of hyperthermia. Most of the parties are convinced that only the temperature decides about the optimal treatment, but strong doubts are also exists declaring the delivered heat (absorbed energy) or applied field (electro-magnetic influence) as primary effects. Strong points of the temperature-supporters are the results of all the investigations which are concentrating on the temperature-dependence and the effectivity of Arrhenius analysis showing a phase transition at about 42.5 C, (this is the basic of the step-down heating). On the other hand no doubts about the strong heat-dose dependence, which is most trivial by the treatment-time relevance in the clinical and laboratory results. The field effects in the hyperthermia does not investigated so widely, but trivial questions arise to choose the techniques, different applicators, frequencies and couplings. We had developed a set of the hyperthermia treatments applying various mixes of the heat and field effects. Four methods are applied successfully, where the heat- and field-effects are involved by different ratio for various malignant cases. Among the four methods there are a method with only electric field application (ECT, percutane, no heat), moderate heat with moderate field (PCT, cavitational), dominate local heat and electric field (EHY, loco-regional) and almost no field, only heat (WBH, whole-body application). The reached temperature in the tissue does not determined only by the absorbed heat, physically other effects have decisional role in the measured temperature. The applied power in the various methods is very different, ranging from a few watts to the few kW, while the electric field ranges from a few tens [mV/cell] to the few [nV/cell]. Due to the large and essential inhomogenities of the well-developed tumors only the average temperature could be defined in most of the cases. Same average temperature is reachable by different applied power, only depending on the power-delivery conditions. This observation strongly supports the importance of the heat (energy) absorption [W/kg] in the tumor instead of the only temperature conception. Results show the excellence of the optimizing the method to the actual case. With all the four treatment modalities we have surprisingly good results by choosing the most optimal for the given case and combining the applied methods with each other. Results by the different electro-hyperthermia applications will be shown in the presentation. The loco-regional applications are massively applied in deep-organ treatments (pancreas, liver, brain, etc.), while the cavitational is devoted for prostate, bladder and gynecological, etc. cases. The percutane local treatment is very effective for mammary-carcinomas, for head- and neck-cases, malignant melanomas, etc. The IR-A radiative whole-body hyperthermia is very useful in metastasizes, in systematic cases, etc. According to the intensive laboratory and clinical experiences and strong evidences we can conclude, that beside the temperature the heat-delivery as well as the field effects are primary important for the oncological hyperthermia

Epidemiology of pediatric pulmonary hypertension

Pulmonary hypertension (PH) is a rare condition. Data on adult PH patients is abundant, but data on pediatric PH are scarce. Nevertheless, in the past decade, increasing data concerning pediatric PH are becoming available, enabling this review of the epidemiology, characterization, and outcome of pediatric pulmonary hypertension.PH is a condition that is associated with a variety of diseases. It is a rare condition in children with a complex and age-specific presentation. Transient forms of pulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH), i.e., potentially reversible PAH, specifically occur in children and form the largest group of pediatric PH. Advanced PAH in children is predominantly idiopathic or associated with congenital heart disease. Other forms of PAH seldom occur in children. WHO PH groups 2-5 are rare in childhood; however, they may be underreported.The clinical presentation of pediatric PH is relatively nonspecific as it is in adults, with dyspnea on exertion as the most common presenting symptom. However, the clinical presentation of pediatric PH includes symptoms specific for children such as syncope. Pediatric PH frequently co-occurs with genetic and syndromal abnormalities, including Down syndrome. Right heart failure is less common in children despite a severe hemodynamic profile.PAH is a detrimental disease with a poor prognosis. Outcome of pediatric PAH differs between patients with different types of congenital heart disease. In the last decades, new PAH-targeted therapies have been developed, which have improved outcome in pediatric pulmonary arterial hypertension. However, currently reported survival rates vary and critical appraisal of patient populations, survival data, and proposed treatment approaches is necessary.</p

A Comparison between Markov Switching Zero-inflated and Hurdle Models for Spatio-temporal Infectious Disease Counts

In epidemiological studies, zero-inflated and hurdle models are commonly used to handle excess zeros in reported infectious disease cases. However, they can not model the persistence (from presence to presence) and reemergence (from absence to presence) of a disease separately. Covariates can sometimes have different effects on the reemergence and persistence of a disease. Recently, a zero-inflated Markov switching negative binomial model was proposed to accommodate this issue. We present a Markov switching negative binomial hurdle model as a competitor of that approach, as hurdle models are often also used as alternatives to zero-inflated models for accommodating excess zeroes. We begin the comparison by inspecting the underlying assumptions made by both models. Hurdle models assume perfect detection of the disease cases while zero-inflated models implicitly assume the case counts can be under-reported, thus we investigate when a negative binomial distribution can approximate the true distribution of reported counts. A comparison of the fit of the two types of Markov switching models is undertaken on chikungunya cases across the neighborhoods of Rio de Janeiro. We find that, among the fitted models, the Markov switching negative binomial zero-inflated model produces the best predictions and both Markov switching models produce remarkably better predictions than more traditional negative binomial hurdle and zero-inflated models