6,721 research outputs found
Ureteroscopic treatment of larger renal calculi (\u3e2 cm).
OBJECTIVES: To evaluate the current status of ureteroscopic lithotripsy (UL) for treating renal calculi of \u3e2 cm, as advances in flexible ureteroscope design, accessory instrumentation and lithotrites have revolutionised the treatment of urinary calculi. While previously reserved for ureteric and small renal calculi, UL has gained an increasing role in the selective management of larger renal stone burdens.
METHODS: We searched the available databases, including PubMed, Google Scholar, and Scopus, for relevant reports in English, and the article bibliographies to identify additional relevant articles. Keywords included ureteroscopy, lithotripsy, renal calculi, and calculi \u3e2 cm. Retrieved articles were reviewed to consider the number of patients, mean stone size, success rates, indications and complications.
RESULTS: In all, nine studies (417 patients) were eligible for inclusion. After one, two or three procedures the mean (range) success rates were 68.2 (23-84)%, 87.1 (79-91)% and 94.4 (90.1-96.7)%, respectively. Overall, the success rate was \u3e90% with a mean of 1.2-2.3 procedures per patient. The overall complication rate was 10.3%, including six (1.4%) intraoperative and 37 (8.9%) postoperative complications, most of which were minor. The most common indications for UL were a failed previous treatment (46%), comorbidities (18.2%), and technical and anatomical factors (12.3%).
CONCLUSIONS: UL is safe and effective for treating large renal calculi. While several procedures might be required for total stone clearance, UL should be considered a standard approach in the urologist\u27s options treating renal calculi of \u3e2 cm
Directed polymers in random media under confining force
The scaling behavior of a directed polymer in a two-dimensional (2D) random
potential under confining force is investigated. The energy of a polymer with
configuration is given by H\big(\{y(x)\}\big) = \sum_{x=1}^N \exyx
+ \epsilon \Wa^\alpha, where is an uncorrelated random potential
and \Wa is the width of the polymer. Using an energy argument, it is
conjectured that the radius of gyration and the energy fluctuation
of the polymer of length in the ground state increase as
and respectively with and for . A
novel algorithm of finding the exact ground state, with the effective time
complexity of \cO(N^3), is introduced and used to confirm the conjecture
numerically.Comment: 9 pages, 7 figure
Permeability evolution across carbonate hosted normal fault zones
Acknowledgements: The authors would like to thank Total E&P and BG Group for project funding and support, and the Industry Technology Facilitator for facilitating the collaborative development (grant number 3322PSD). The authors would also like to express their gratitude to the Aberdeen Formation Evaluation Society and the College of Physical Sciences at the University of Aberdeen for partial financial support. Raymi Castilla (Total E&P), Fabrizio Agosta and Cathy Hollis are also thanked for their constructive comments and suggestions to improve the standard of this manuscript as are John Still and Colin Taylor (University of Aberdeen) for technical assistance in the laboratory. Piero Gianolla is thanked for his editorial handling of the manuscript.Peer reviewedPostprin
Singularities of the renormalization group flow for random elastic manifolds
We consider the singularities of the zero temperature renormalization group
flow for random elastic manifolds. When starting from small scales, this flow
goes through two particular points and , where the average value
of the random squared potential turnes negative ($l^{*}$) and where
the fourth derivative of the potential correlator becomes infinite at the
origin ($l_{c}$). The latter point sets the scale where simple perturbation
theory breaks down as a consequence of the competition between many metastable
states. We show that under physically well defined circumstances $l_{c} to negative values does not
take place.Comment: RevTeX, 3 page
Non-perturbative renormalization of the KPZ growth dynamics
We introduce a non-perturbative renormalization approach which identifies
stable fixed points in any dimension for the Kardar-Parisi-Zhang dynamics of
rough surfaces. The usual limitations of real space methods to deal with
anisotropic (self-affine) scaling are overcome with an indirect functional
renormalization. The roughness exponent is computed for dimensions
to 8 and it results to be in very good agreement with the available
simulations. No evidence is found for an upper critical dimension. We discuss
how the present approach can be extended to other self-affine problems.Comment: 4 pages, 2 figures. To appear in Phys. Rev. Let
Universality and Crossover of Directed Polymers and Growing Surfaces
We study KPZ surfaces on Euclidean lattices and directed polymers on
hierarchical lattices subject to different distributions of disorder, showing
that universality holds, at odds with recent results on Euclidean lattices.
Moreover, we find the presence of a slow (power-law) crossover toward the
universal values of the exponents and verify that the exponent governing such
crossover is universal too. In the limit of a 1+epsilon dimensional system we
obtain both numerically and analytically that the crossover exponent is 1/2.Comment: LateX file + 5 .eps figures; to appear on Phys. Rev. Let
Controlling surface statistical properties using bias voltage: Atomic force microscopy and stochastic analysis
The effect of bias voltages on the statistical properties of rough surfaces
has been studied using atomic force microscopy technique and its stochastic
analysis. We have characterized the complexity of the height fluctuation of a
rough surface by the stochastic parameters such as roughness exponent, level
crossing, and drift and diffusion coefficients as a function of the applied
bias voltage. It is shown that these statistical as well as microstructural
parameters can also explain the macroscopic property of a surface. Furthermore,
the tip convolution effect on the stochastic parameters has been examined.Comment: 8 pages, 11 figures
Hyperuricaemia, gout and allopurinol in the CKD Queensland registry
Introduction There is scant data on the role of hyperuricaemia, gout and allopurinol treatment in chronic kidney disease (CKD). Therefore, our aim is to investigate the possible associations between hyperuricaemia, gout, prescription of allopurinol and renal outcomes in patients with CKD.
Methods The retrospective cohort study involved 1123 Royal Brisbane and Womenâs Hospital (RBWH) patients, enrolled in the CKD.QLD registry from May 2011 to August 2017. Patients were divided into two uric acid categories, with uric acid †0.36 mmol/L and > 0.36 mmol/L. Association of delta estimated glomerular filtration rate (eGFR) with gout, allopurinol treatment and hyperuricaemia were analysed.
Results Patients with an entry urate > 0.36 mmol/L were older, had higher body mass index (BMI) and worse baseline kidney function. Proportion of patients with gout, hyperuricaemia and allopurinol treatment increased with advanced CKD stages. Age-adjusted analysis revealed a significant association between serum urate level and delta eGFR, with no significant association between gout, treatment with allopurinol and delta eGFR. Furthermore, neither gout nor the prescription of allopurinol had a significant effect on the time to renal death (composite end point of kidney replacement therapy or death).
Conclusion Hyperuricaemia seemed to be independently associated with faster CKD progression or renal death. This was not observed with gout or prescription of allopurinol. Furthermore, allopurinol was not associated with decreased incidence of cardiovascular events. These data suggest that hyperuricaemia is likely the effect and not the cause of CKD or CKD progression
Topological relaxation of entangled flux lattices: Single vs collective line dynamics
A symbolic language allowing to solve statistical problems for the systems
with nonabelian braid-like topology in 2+1 dimensions is developed. The
approach is based on the similarity between growing braid and "heap of colored
pieces". As an application, the problem of a vortex glass transition in
high-T_c superconductors is re-examined on microscopic levelComment: 4 pages (revtex), 4 figure
P35 INCREASED RECRUITMENT OF HUMAN LYMPHOCYTE SUBSETS IN RENAL FIBROSIS AND CHRONIC KIDNEY DISESASE
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