2,427 research outputs found
Intrauterine repair of gastroschisis in fetal rabbits
Objective: Infants with gastroschisis (GS) still face severe morbidity. Prenatal closure may prevent gastrointestinal organ damage, but intrauterine GS repair (GSR) has not been established yet. Methods: In New Zealand White rabbits we developed and compared GS versus GSR: creation of GS was achieved by hysterotomy, right-sided laparotomy of the fetus and pressure on the abdominal wall to provoke evisceration. GSR was accomplished by careful reposition of eviscerated organs and a running suture of the fetal abdominal wall. For study purposes, 18 animals were divided equally into 3 groups: GS, GS with GSR after 2 h, and unmanipulated controls (C). Vitality was assessed by echocardiography. After 5 h all animals were sacrificed. Results: GSR inflicted no increased mortality, because all fetuses survived GS or GS with GSR. All fetuses with GS demonstrated significant evisceration of abdominal organs. In contrast, the abdominal wall of the fetuses from GSR was intact. Conclusion:The present animal model demonstrated the technical feasibility and success of an intrauterine repair of GS for the first time. However, further long-term studies (leaving GS and GSR in utero for several days) will be necessary to compare survival rates and intestinal injury, motility or absorption. The clinical application of GSR in utero remains a vision so far. Copyright (C) 2003 S. Karger AG, Basel
Improving the drug development process by reducing the impact of adverse events:the case of cataracts considered
Cataract was used as a model for the prevalence and economic impact of adverse events during the drug development process. Meta-analysis revealed a reported prevalence of cataract at 12.0% (1.0–43.3%), 3.8% (2.4–12.5%), 1.0% (0.0–8.1%), 1.7% (0.0–34.8%) and 3.8% (2.3–5.7%) of compounds in preclinical, Phase I, II, III and IV clinical trials, respectively. Utilising a human-based in vitro screening assay to predict cataractogenic potential in human could allow better selection of novel compounds at early-stage drug development. This could significantly reduce costs and ultimately increase the probability of a drug obtaining FDA approval for a clinical application
Quasi-two-dimensional Fermi surfaces of the heavy-fermion superconductor CePdIn
We report low-temperature de Haas-van Alphen (dHvA) effect measurements in
magnetic fields up to 35 T of the heavy-fermion superconductor CePdIn.
The comparison of the experimental results with band-structure calculations
implies that the 4 electrons are itinerant rather than localized. The
cyclotron masses estimated at high field are only moderately enhanced, 8 and 14
, but are substantially larger than the corresponding band masses. The
observed angular dependence of the dHvA frequencies suggests
quasi-two-dimensional Fermi surfaces in agreement with band-structure
calculations. However, the deviation from ideal two dimensionality is larger
than in CeCoIn, with which CePdIn bears a lot of similarities. This
subtle distinction accounts for the different superconducting critical
temperatures of the two compounds.Comment: accepted to Phys. Rev.
Search for neutrinos from transient sources with the ANTARES telescope and optical follow-up observations
The ANTARES telescope has the opportunity to detect transient neutrino
sources, such as gamma-ray bursts, core-collapse supernovae, flares of active
nuclei... To enhance the sensitivity to these sources, we have developed a new
detection method based on the optical follow-up of "golden" neutrino events
such as neutrino doublets coincident in time and space or single neutrinos of
very high energy. The ANTARES Collaboration has therefore implemented a very
fast on-line reconstruction with a good angular resolution. These
characteristics allow to trigger an optical telescope network; since February
2009. ANTARES is sending alert trigger one or two times per month to the two 25
cm robotic telescope of TAROT. This follow-up of such special events would not
only give access to the nature of the sources but also improves the sensitivity
for transient neutrino sources.Comment: 3 pages, 3 figures, Proceedings of the 31st ICRC, Lodz, Polan, July
200
A multiwavelength study of Swift GRB 060111B constraining the origin of its prompt optical emission
In this work, we present the results obtained from a multi-wavelength
campaign, as well as from the public Swift/BAT, XRT, and UVOT data of GRB
060111B for which a bright optical emission was measured with good temporal
resolution during the prompt phase. We identified the host galaxy at R~25 mag;
its featureless spectral continuum and brightness, as well as the non-detection
of any associated supernova 16 days after the trigger and other independent
redshift estimates, converge to z~1-2. From the analysis of the early afterglow
SED, we find that non-negligible host galaxy dust extinction, in addition to
the Galactic one, affects the observed flux in the optical regime. The
extinction-corrected optical-to-gamma-ray spectral energy distribution during
the prompt emission shows a flux density ratio =0.01-0.0001
with spectral index , strongly suggesting a
separate origin of the optical and gamma-ray components. This result is
supported by the lack of correlated behavior in the prompt emission light
curves observed in the two energy domains. The properties of the prompt optical
emission observed during GRB 060111B favor interpretation of this optical light
as radiation from the reverse shock in a thick shell limit and in the slow
cooling regime. The expected peak flux is consistent with the observed one
corrected for the host extinction, likely indicating that the starting time of
the TAROT observations is very near to or coincident with the peak time. The
estimated fireball initial Lorentz factor is >260-360 at z=1-2, similar to the
Lorentz factors obtained from other GRBs. GRB 060111B is a rare, good test case
of the reverse shock emission mechanism in both the X-ray and optical energy
ranges.Comment: Accepted for publication in Astronomy and Astrophysics, 15 pages,10
figures and 7 table
Frustration - how it can be measured
A misfit parameter is used to characterize the degree of frustration of
ordered and disordered systems. It measures the increase of the ground-state
energy due to frustration in comparison with that of a relevant reference
state. The misfit parameter is calculated for various spin-glass models. It
allows one to compare these models with each other. The extension of this
concept to other combinatorial optimization problems with frustration, e.g.
p-state Potts glasses, graph-partitioning problems and coloring problems is
given.Comment: 10 pages, 1 table, no figures, uses revtex.st
Reverse Shock Emission Revealed in Early Photometry in the Candidate Short GRB 180418A
We present observations of the possible short GRB 180418A in -rays,
X-rays, and in the optical. Early optical photometry with the TAROT and RATIR
instruments show a bright peak ( 14.2 AB mag) between and
seconds that we interpret as the signature of a reversal shock. Later
observations can be modeled by a standard forward shock model and show no
evidence of jet break, allowing us to constrain the jet collimation to
. Using deep late-time optical observations we place an
upper limit of AB mag on any underlying host galaxy. The detection of
the afterglow in the \textit{Swift} UV filters constrains the GRB redshift to
and places an upper bound on the -ray isotropic equivalent
energy erg.
The properties of this GRB (e.g. duration, hardness ratio, energetic, and
environment) lie at the intersection between short and long bursts, and we can
not conclusively identify its type. We estimate that the probability that it is
drawn from the population of short GRBs is 10\%-30\%.Comment: Accepted por publication in Ap
Similarities between structural distortions under pressure and chemical doping in superconducting BaFe2As2
The discovery of a new family of high Tc materials, the iron arsenides
(FeAs), has led to a resurgence of interest in superconductivity. Several
important traits of these materials are now apparent, for example, layers of
iron tetrahedrally coordinated by arsenic are crucial structural ingredients.
It is also now well established that the parent non-superconducting phases are
itinerant magnets, and that superconductivity can be induced by either chemical
substitution or application of pressure, in sharp contrast to the cuprate
family of materials. The structure and properties of chemically substituted
samples are known to be intimately linked, however, remarkably little is known
about this relationship when high pressure is used to induce superconductivity
in undoped compounds. Here we show that the key structural features in
BaFe2As2, namely suppression of the tetragonal to orthorhombic phase transition
and reduction in the As-Fe-As bond angle and Fe-Fe distance, show the same
behavior under pressure as found in chemically substituted samples. Using
experimentally derived structural data, we show that the electronic structure
evolves similarly in both cases. These results suggest that modification of the
Fermi surface by structural distortions is more important than charge doping
for inducing superconductivity in BaFe2As2
Ground-state clusters of two-, three- and four-dimensional +-J Ising spin glasses
A huge number of independent true ground-state configurations is calculated
for two-, three- and four-dimensional +- J spin-glass models. Using the genetic
cluster-exact approximation method, system sizes up to N=20^2,8^3,6^4 spins are
treated. A ``ballistic-search'' algorithm is applied which allows even for
large system sizes to identify clusters of ground states which are connected by
chains of zero-energy flips of spins. The number of clusters n_C diverges with
N going to infinity. For all dimensions considered here, an exponential
increase of n_C appears to be more likely than a growth with a power of N. The
number of different ground states is found to grow clearly exponentially with
N. A zero-temperature entropy per spin of s_0=0.078(5)k_B (2d), s_0=0.051(3)k_B
(3d) respectively s_0=0.027(5)k_B (4d) is obtained.Comment: large extensions, now 12 pages, 9 figures, 27 reference
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