Fatty Liver Degeneration In Children: Association With Obstructive Sleep Apnea

Fatty liver degeneration, also termed hepatic steatosis, is a condition in which lipids accumulate in the hepatocytes causing cellular dysfunction and eventually cell death. Hepatic steatosis is diagnosed histologically when liver fat exceeds more than 5% of the liver weight. In adults, fatty liver degeneration is typically associated with excessive alcohol intake as in alcoholic fatty liver disease or with sedentary lifestyle and high-calorie diet as in non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD). With the rise of obesity in recent decades, fatty liver disease has become the leading cause of chronic liver disease, not only in adults but in children as well. Besides liver disease, obesity is associated with several conditions among which is obstructive sleep apnea.The aim of this article is to review the pathogenesis of fatty liver degeneration focusing on NAFLD and its relationship with obstructive sleep apnea in children

CFTR Modulator Therapy For Cystic Fibrosis

IntroductionCystic fibrosis (CF) is the most common life-limiting autosomal recessive condition in Caucasians, affecting the respiratory system, digestive tract and all exocrine glands. It is caused by a mutation in the gene encoding the cystic fibrosis transmembrane conductance regulator (CFTR) protein. The genetic analysis, in addition to diagnosis, serves to create a modern individual CFTR modulator therapy.Aim: The aim of this article is to do a presentation of products for CFTR modulator therapy, which are available worldwide; introduction to their pharmacokinetic and pharmacodynamic properties; evaluation of the effect of their application.Materials: We have conducted a study of medical literature related to the products for CFTR modulator therapy and review of information on the topic.Results: The use of approved CFTR modulator therapy products in patients suitable for their use (specific genotype) results in an improvement in FEV1 values and body mass index and a reduction in the incidence of exacerbations in these patients.Conclusion: CFTR modulator therapy significantly improves the prognosis and quality of life of cystic fibrosis patients as a result of certain mutations in the CFTR gene. Quality care for other patients with other mutations is especially important so that they can benefit from personalized treatment in the future

Born-Infeld black holes coupled to a massive scalar field

Born-Infeld black holes in the Scalar-Tensor Theories of Gravity, in the case of massless scalar field, have been recently obtained. The aim of the current paper is to study the effect from the inclusion of a potential for the scalar field in the theory, through a combination of analytical techniques and numerical methods. The black holes coupled to a massive scalar field have richer causal structure in comparison to the massless scalar field case. In the latter case, the black holes may have a second, inner horizon. The presence of potential for the scalar field allows the existence of extremal black holes for certain values of the mass of the scalar field and the magnetic (electric) charge of the black hole. The linear stability against spherically symmetric perturbations is studied. Arguments in favor of the general stability of the solutions coming from the application of the "turning point" method are also presented.Comment: 26 pages, 16 figure

Spectral and polarization effects in deterministically nonperiodic multilayers containing optically anisotropic and gyrotropic materials

Influence of material anisotropy and gyrotropy on optical properties of fractal multilayer nanostructures is theoretically investigated. Gyrotropy is found to uniformly rotate the output polarization for bi-isotropic multilayers of arbitrary geometrical structure without any changes in transmission spectra. When introduced in a polarization splitter based on a birefringent fractal multilayer, isotropic gyrotropy is found to resonantly alter output polarizations without shifting of transmission peak frequencies. The design of frequency-selective absorptionless polarizers for polarization-sensitive integrated optics is outlined

Staggering effects in nuclear and molecular spectra

It is shown that the recently observed Delta J = 2 staggering effect (i.e. the relative displacement of the levels with angular momenta J, J+4, J+8, ..., relatively to the levels with angular momenta J+2, J+6, J+10, ...) seen in superdeformed nuclear bands is also occurring in certain electronically excited rotational bands of diatomic molecules (YD, CrD, CrH, CoH), in which it is attributed to interband interactions (bandcrossings). In addition, the Delta J = 1 staggering effect (i.e. the relative displacement of the levels with even angular momentum J with respect to the levels of the same band with odd J) is studied in molecular bands free from Delta J = 2 staggering (i.e. free from interband interactions/bandcrossings). Bands of YD offer evidence for the absence of any Delta J = 1 staggering effect due to the disparity of nuclear masses, while bands of sextet electronic states of CrD demonstrate that Delta J = 1 staggering is a sensitive probe of deviations from rotational behaviour, due in this particular case to the spin-rotation and spin-spin interactions.Comment: LaTeX, 16 pages plus 30 figures given in separate .ps files. To appear in the proceedings of the 4th European Workshop on Quantum Systems in Chemistry and Physics (Marly-le-Roi, France, 1999), ed. J. Maruani et al. (Kluwer, Dordrecht

NANOSIZED Co-OXIDE SYSTEM AS EFFICIENT HETEROGENEOUS CATALYST FOR LOW-TEMPERATURE COMPLETE OXIDATION OF FORMALDEHYDE IN AQUEOUS SOLUTIONS

Abstrac

An Algebraic Pairing Model with Sp(4) Symmetry and its Deformation

A fermion realization of the compact symplectic sp(4) algebra provides a natural framework for studying isovector pairing correlations in nuclei. While these correlations manifest themselves most clearly in the binding energies of 0^+ ground states, they also have a large effect on the energies of excited states, including especially excited 0^+ states. In this article we consider non-deformed as well as deformed algebraic descriptions of pairing through the reductions of sp_{(q)}(4) to different realizations of u_{(q)}(2) for single-j and multi-j orbitals. The model yields a classification scheme for completely paired 0^{+} states of even-even and odd-odd nuclei in the 1d_{3/2}, 1f_{7/2}, and 1f_{5/2}2p_{1/2}2p_{3/2}1g_{9/2} shells. Phenomenological non-deformed and deformed isospin-breaking Hamiltonians are expressed in terms of the generators of the dynamical symmetry groups Sp(4) and Sp_{q}(4). These Hamiltonians are related to the most general microscopic pairing problem, including isovector pairing and isoscalar proton-neutron interaction along with non-linear interaction in the deformed extension. In both the non-deformed and deformed cases the eigenvalues of the Hamiltonian are fit to the relevant Coulomb corrected experimental 0^{+} energies and this, in turn, allows us to estimate the interaction strength parameters, to investigate isovector-pairing properties and symmetries breaking, and to predict the corresponding energies. While the non-deformed theory yields results that are comparable to other theories for light nuclei, the deformed extension, which takes into account higher-order interactions between the particles, gives a better fit to the data. The multi-shell applications of the model provide for reasonable predictions of energies of exotic nuclei.Comment: 19 pages, 5 figures minor changes; improvements to achieve a better and clearer presentation of our messages and idea

Approximate solutions and scaling transformations for quadratic solitons

We study quadratic solitons supported by two- and three-wave parametric interactions in chi-2 nonlinear media. Both planar and two-dimensional cases are considered. We obtain very accurate, 'almost exact', explicit analytical solutions, matching the actual bright soliton profiles, with the help of a specially-developed approach, based on analysis of the scaling properties. Additionally, we use these approximations to describe the linear tails of solitary waves which are related to the properties of the soliton bound states.Comment: 11 pages, 9 figures; submitted for publicatio