1,184 research outputs found
A very faint core-collapse supernova in M85
An anomalous transient in the early Hubble-type (S0) galaxy Messier 85 (M85)
in the Virgo cluster was discovered by Kulkarni et al. (2007) on 7 January 2006
that had very low luminosity (peak absolute R-band magnitude MR of about -12)
that was constant over more than 80 days, red colour and narrow spectral lines,
which seem inconsistent with those observed in any known class of transient
events. Kulkarni et al. (2007) suggest an exotic stellar merger as the possible
origin. An alternative explanation is that the transient in M85 was a type
II-plateau supernova of extremely low luminosity, exploding in a lenticular
galaxy with residual star-forming activity. This intriguing transient might be
the faintest supernova that has ever been discovered.Comment: 7 pages, 2 figures. Submitted to Nature "Brief Communication Arising"
on 18 July 2007, Accepted on 17 August 2007. Arising from: Kulkarni et al.
2007, Nature, 447, 458-46
Characteristics and outcome of patients with newly diagnosed advanced or metastatic lung cancer admitted to intensive care units (ICUs)
BACKGROUND: Although patients with advanced or metastatic lung cancer have poor prognosis, admission to the ICU for management of life-threatening complications has increased over the years. Patients with newly diagnosed lung cancer appear as good candidates for ICU admission, but more robust information to assist decisions is lacking. The aim of our study was to evaluate the prognosis of newly diagnosed unresectable lung cancer patients. METHODS: A retrospective multicentric study analyzed the outcome of patients admitted to the ICU with a newly diagnosed lung cancer (diagnosis within the month) between 2010 and 2013. RESULTS: Out of the 100 patients, 30 had small cell lung cancer (SCLC) and 70 had non-small cell lung cancer. (Thirty patients had already been treated with oncologic treatments.) Mechanical ventilation (MV) was performed for 81 patients. Seventeen patients received emergency chemotherapy during their ICU stay. ICU, hospital, 3- and 6-month mortality were, respectively, 47, 60, 67 and 71%. Hospital mortality was 60% when invasive MV was used alone, 71% when MV and vasopressors were needed and 83% when MV, vasopressors and hemodialysis were required. In multivariate analysis, hospital mortality was associated with metastatic disease (OR 4.22 [1.4-12.4]; p = 0.008), need for invasive MV (OR 4.20 [1.11-16.2]; p = 0.030), while chemotherapy in ICU was associated with survival (OR 0.23, [0.07-0.81]; p = 0.020). CONCLUSION: This study shows that ICU management can be appropriate for selected newly diagnosed patients with advanced lung cancer, and chemotherapy might improve outcome for patients with SCLC admitted for cancer-related complications. Nevertheless, tumors' characteristics, numbers and types of organ dysfunction should be taken into account in the decisional process before admitting these patients in ICU.Peer reviewe
Phase-slip induced dissipation in an atomic Bose-Hubbard system
Phase slips play a primary role in dissipation across a wide spectrum of
bosonic systems, from determining the critical velocity of superfluid helium to
generating resistance in thin superconducting wires. This subject has also
inspired much technological interest, largely motivated by applications
involving nanoscale superconducting circuit elements, e.g., standards based on
quantum phase-slip junctions. While phase slips caused by thermal fluctuations
at high temperatures are well understood, controversy remains over the role of
phase slips in small-scale superconductors. In solids, problems such as
uncontrolled noise sources and disorder complicate the study and application of
phase slips. Here we show that phase slips can lead to dissipation for a clean
and well-characterized Bose-Hubbard (BH) system by experimentally studying
transport using ultra-cold atoms trapped in an optical lattice. In contrast to
previous work, we explore a low velocity regime described by the 3D BH model
which is not affected by instabilities, and we measure the effect of
temperature on the dissipation strength. We show that the damping rate of
atomic motion-the analogue of electrical resistance in a solid-in the confining
parabolic potential fits well to a model that includes finite damping at zero
temperature. The low-temperature behaviour is consistent with the theory of
quantum tunnelling of phase slips, while at higher temperatures a cross-over
consistent with the transition to thermal activation of phase slips is evident.
Motion-induced features reminiscent of vortices and vortex rings associated
with phase slips are also observed in time-of-flight imaging.Comment: published in Nature 453, 76 (2008
Optical Lattices: Theory
This chapter presents an overview of the properties of a Bose-Einstein
condensate (BEC) trapped in a periodic potential. This system has attracted a
wide interest in the last years, and a few excellent reviews of the field have
already appeared in the literature (see, for instance, [1-3] and references
therein). For this reason, and because of the huge amount of published results,
we do not pretend here to be comprehensive, but we will be content to provide a
flavor of the richness of this subject, together with some useful references.
On the other hand, there are good reasons for our effort. Probably, the most
significant is that BEC in periodic potentials is a truly interdisciplinary
problem, with obvious connections with electrons in crystal lattices, polarons
and photons in optical fibers. Moreover, the BEC experimentalists have reached
such a high level of accuracy to create in the lab, so to speak, paradigmatic
Hamiltonians, which were first introduced as idealized theoretical models to
study, among others, dynamical instabilities or quantum phase transitions.Comment: Chapter 13 in Part VIII: "Optical Lattices" of "Emergent Nonlinear
Phenomena in Bose-Einstein Condensates: Theory and Experiment," edited by P.
G. Kevrekidis, D. J. Frantzeskakis, and R. Carretero-Gonzalez (Springer
Series on Atomic, Optical, and Plasma Physics, 2007) - pages 247-26
Quantum magnetism and criticality
Magnetic insulators have proved to be fertile ground for studying new types
of quantum many body states, and I survey recent experimental and theoretical
examples. The insights and methods transfer also to novel superconducting and
metallic states. Of particular interest are critical quantum states, sometimes
found at quantum phase transitions, which have gapless excitations with no
particle- or wave-like interpretation, and control a significant portion of the
finite temperature phase diagram. Remarkably, their theory is connected to
holographic descriptions of Hawking radiation from black holes.Comment: 39 pages, 10 figures, review article for non-specialists; (v2) added
clarifications and references; (v3) minor corrections; (v4) added footnote on
hydrodynamic long-time tail
Bayesian analysis of cosmic structures
We revise the Bayesian inference steps required to analyse the cosmological
large-scale structure. Here we make special emphasis in the complications which
arise due to the non-Gaussian character of the galaxy and matter distribution.
In particular we investigate the advantages and limitations of the
Poisson-lognormal model and discuss how to extend this work. With the lognormal
prior using the Hamiltonian sampling technique and on scales of about 4 h^{-1}
Mpc we find that the over-dense regions are excellent reconstructed, however,
under-dense regions (void statistics) are quantitatively poorly recovered.
Contrary to the maximum a posteriori (MAP) solution which was shown to
over-estimate the density in the under-dense regions we obtain lower densities
than in N-body simulations. This is due to the fact that the MAP solution is
conservative whereas the full posterior yields samples which are consistent
with the prior statistics. The lognormal prior is not able to capture the full
non-linear regime at scales below ~ 10 h^{-1} Mpc for which higher order
correlations would be required to describe the matter statistics. However, we
confirm as it was recently shown in the context of Ly-alpha forest tomography
that the Poisson-lognormal model provides the correct two-point statistics (or
power-spectrum).Comment: 11 pages, 1 figure, report for the Astrostatistics and Data Mining
workshop, La Palma, Spain, 30 May - 3 June 2011, to appear in Springer Series
on Astrostatistic
Axillary Dissection Versus No Axillary Dissection in Elderly Patients with Breast Cancer and No Palpable Axillary Nodes: Results After 15 Years of Follow-Up
Urban-rural disparities in smoking behaviour in Germany
BACKGROUND: It is currently not clear whether individuals living in metropolitan areas differ from individuals living in rural and urban areas with respect to smoking behaviours. Therefore, we sought to explore the relation between residential area and smoking behaviours in Germany. METHODS: We used a nationwide German census representative for the general population of Germany. A number of 181,324 subjects aged 10 years or older were included. Information on the average daily usage of cigarettes that have or had been smoked formerly or currently was available in subjects who have ever smoked. A daily consumption of more than 20 cigarettes was considered heavy smoking. Logistic regression analyses were performed sex-stratified and adjusted for relevant confounders. RESULTS: Analyses revealed inhabitants of metropolitan areas to be more likely current smokers than inhabitants of rural areas (odds ratio 1.56, 95%-confidence interval 1.51; 1.62). Among current and former smokers those who lived in urban communities had also increased odds for being heavy smokers than those who lived in rural communities. CONCLUSION: We conclude that living in an urban and particularly living in a metropolitan area is a determinant of both smoking and severity of current smoking. Tobacco control programs should recognize the difference in living conditions between rural and urban areas
Aging Skin: Nourishing from the Inside Out, Effects of Good Versus Poor Nitrogen Intake on Skin Health and Healing
Skin is the outermost defense organ which protects us from the environment, constituting around 8 % of an adult’s body weight. Healthy skin contains one-eighth of the body’s total proteins. The balance of turnover and synthesis of skin proteins is primarily dependent on the availability of sufficient nitrogen-containing substrates, namely, amino acids, essential for protein metabolism in any other tissue and body organs. The turnover of skin proteins has been shown to be rapid, and the mobilization of amino acids at the expense of skin proteins is relevant in experimental models of protein malnutrition. As a result, alterations in nutritional status should be suspected, diagnosed, and eventually treated for any skin lesions. Protein malnutrition has a dramatic prevalence in patients aged >70 or more, independent of the reason for hospitalization. The quality of nutrition and content of essential amino acids are strictly connected to skin health and integrity of its protein components. Collagen fiber deposition is highly and rapidly influenced by alterations in the essential to nonessential amino acid ratios. The most relevant nutritional factor of skin health is the prevalence of essential amino acids
Psychedelic resting-state neuroimaging: a review and perspective on balancing replication and novel analyses
Clinical research into serotonergic psychedelics is expanding rapidly, showing promising efficacy across myriad disorders. Resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging (rs-fMRI) is a commonly used strategy to identify psychedelic-induced changes in neural pathways in clinical and healthy populations. Here we, a large group of psychedelic imaging researchers, review the 42 research articles published to date, based on the 17 unique studies evaluating psychedelic effects on rs-fMRI, focusing on methodological variation. Prominently, we observe that nearly all studies vary in data processing and analysis methodology, two datasets are the foundation of over half of the published literature, and there is lexical ambiguity in common outcome metric terminology. We offer guidelines for future studies that encourage coherence in the field. Psychedelic rs-fMRI will benefit from the development of novel methods that expand our understanding of the brain mechanisms mediating its intriguing effects; yet, this field is at a crossroads where we must also consider the critical importance of consistency and replicability to effectively converge on stable representations of the neural effects of psychedelics
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