331 research outputs found
Unilateral Hemiparesis with Thoracic Epidural in an Adolescent
Objective. Unilateral sensory and motor blockade is known to occur with epidural anesthesia but is rarely reported in children. The differential diagnosis should include the presence of a midline epidural septum. Case Report. We describe a case of a 16-year-old adolescent who developed repeated complete unilateral extensive epidural sensory and motor blockade with Horner's syndrome after thoracic epidural catheter placement. This unusual presentation of complete hemibody neural blockade has not been reported in the pediatric population. Maneuvers to improve contralateral uniform neural blockade were unsuccessful. An epidurogram was performed to ascertain the correct location of the catheter within the epidural space and presence of sagittal compartmentalization. Conclusion. This case report highlights a less frequently reported reason for unilateral sensory and motor blockade with epidural anesthesia in children. The presence of a midline epidural septum should be considered in the differential diagnosis of unilateral epidural blockade
Effect of the reservoir size on gas adsorption in inhomogeneous porous media
We study the influence of the relative size of the reservoir on the
adsorption isotherms of a fluid in disordered or inhomogeneous mesoporous
solids. We consider both an atomistic model of a fluid in a simple, yet
structured pore, whose adsorption isotherms are computed by molecular
simulation, and a coarse-grained model for adsorption in a disordered
mesoporous material, studied by a density functional approach in a local
mean-field approximation. In both cases, the fluid inside the porous solid
exchanges matter with a reservoir of gas that is at the same temperature and
chemical potential and whose relative size can be varied, and the control
parameter is the total number of molecules present in the porous sample and in
the reservoir. Varying the relative sizes of the reservoir and the sample may
change the shape of the hysteretic isotherms, leading to a "reentrant" behavior
compared to the grand-canonical isotherm when the latter displays a jump in
density. We relate these phenomena to the organization of the metastable states
that are accessible for the adsorbed fluid at a given chemical potential or
density.Comment: 16 page
Is demagnetization an efficient optimization method?
Demagnetization, commonly employed to study ferromagnets, has been proposed
as the basis for an optimization tool, a method to find the ground state of a
disordered system. Here we present a detailed comparison between the ground
state and the demagnetized state in the random field Ising model, combing exact
results in and numerical solutions in . We show that there are
important differences between the two states that persist in the thermodynamic
limit and thus conclude that AC demagnetization is not an efficient
optimization method.Comment: 2 pages, 1 figur
Contesting the cruel treatment of abortion-seeking women
NOTICE: this is the author’s version of a work that was accepted for publication in Reproductive Health Matters. Changes resulting from the publishing process, such as peer review, editing, corrections, structural formatting, and other quality control mechanisms may not be reflected in this document. Changes may have been made to this work since it was submitted for publication. A definitive version was subsequently published in REPRODUCTIVE HEALTH MATTERS, [VOL 22, ISSUE 44, (2014)] DOI: 10.1016/S0968-8080(14)44818-
Gas adsorption/desorption in silica aerogels: a theoretical study of scattering properties
We present a numerical study of the structural correlations associated to gas
adsorption/desorption in silica aerogels in order to provide a theoretical
interpretation of scattering experiments. Following our earlier work, we use a
coarse-grained lattice-gas description and determine the nonequilibrium
behavior of the adsorbed gas within a local mean-field analysis.
We focus on the differences between the adsorption and desorption mechanisms
and their signature in the fluid-fluid and gel-fluid structure factors as a
function of temperature. At low temperature, but still in the regime where the
isotherms are continuous, we find that the adsorbed fluid density, during both
filling and draining, is correlated over distances that may be much larger than
the gel correlation length. In particular, extended fractal correlations may
occur during desorption, indicating the existence of a ramified cluster of
vapor filled cavities. This also induces an important increase of the
scattering intensity at small wave vectors. The similarity and differences with
the scattering of fluids in other porous solids such as Vycor are discussed.Comment: 16 pages, 15 figure
Dislocation Kinks in Copper: Widths, Barriers, Effective Masses, and Quantum Tunneling
We calculate the widths, migration barriers, effective masses, and quantum
tunneling rates of kinks and jogs in extended screw dislocations in copper,
using an effective medium theory interatomic potential. The energy barriers and
effective masses for moving a unit jog one lattice constant are close to
typical atomic energies and masses: tunneling will be rare. The energy barriers
and effective masses for the motion of kinks are unexpectedly small due to the
spreading of the kinks over a large number of atoms. The effective masses of
the kinks are so small that quantum fluctuations will be important. We discuss
implications for quantum creep, kink--based tunneling centers, and Kondo
resonances
Quantum Lattice Fluctuations and Luminescence in C_60
We consider luminescence in photo-excited neutral C_60 using the
Su-Schrieffer-Heeger model applied to a single C_60 molecule. To calculate the
luminescence we use a collective coordinate method where our collective
coordinate resembles the displacement of the carbon atoms of the Hg(8) phonon
mode and extrapolates between the ground state "dimerisation" and the exciton
polaron. There is good agreement for the existing luminescence peak spacing and
fair agreement for the relative intensity. We predict the existence of further
peaks not yet resolved in experiment. PACS Numbers : 78.65.Hc, 74.70.Kn,
36.90+
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