"Gastroesophageal reflux disease"

Geoffrey C. Wall is an Associate Professor of Pharmacy Practice in the College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences. He can be contacted at [email protected]: Gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD) is a pathologic condition of injury to the esophagus caused by regurgitation of gastric or gastroduodenal contents into the lumen of the esophagus. Histopathology of the esophageal mucosa may or may not be present. Gastroesophageal reflux of acid and gastric contents often causes a condition commonly referred to as heartburn. This is characterized as a retro-sternal burning sensation that radiates to the throat and interscapular region. It may be confused, even in the emergency room, with anginal pain or the onset of myocardial infarction; therefore its rapid diagnosis is important. In many patients GERD should be considered a chronic and lifelong illness and maintenance therapy is often needed. Repeated exposure of the esophagus to stomach contents leads to esophagitis. In severe cases, this can actually erode esophageal tissue (erosive esophagitis). In the last five to seven years several new treatment options for GERD have become available. These include antise-cretory agents such as the proton pump inhibitors, and new surgical techniques that have improved Nissen fundoplication safety and efficacy rates(3-4). Clinicians caring for patients with this common disorder need to understand the pathology behind GERD, its common (and uncommon) clinical manifestations, and current treatment options as recommended by the American College of Gastroenterology

Testing the binary hypothesis for the formation and shaping of planetary nebulae

There is no quantitative theory to explain why a high 80% of all planetary nebulae are non-spherical. The Binary Hypothesis states that a companion to the progenitor of a central star of planetary nebula is required to shape the nebula and even for a planetary nebula to be formed at all. A way to test this hypothesis is to estimate the binary fraction of central stars of planetary nebulae and to compare it with that of the main sequence population. Preliminary results from photometric variability and the infrared excess techniques indicate that the binary fraction of central stars of planetary nebulae is higher than that of the main sequence, implying that PNe could preferentially form via a binary channel. This article briefly reviews these results and current studies aiming to refine the binary fraction.Comment: EUROWD12 Proceeding

Planetary nebulae : getting closer to an unbiased binary fraction

Why 80% of planetary nebulae are not spherical is not yet understood. The Binary Hypothesis states that a companion to the progenitor of the central star of a planetary nebula is required to shape the nebula and even for a planetary nebula to be formed at all. A way to test this hypothesis is to estimate the binary fraction of central stars of planetary nebula and to compare it with the main sequence population. Preliminary results from photometric variability and infrared excess techniques indicate that the binary fraction of central stars of planetary nebulae is higher than that of the putative main sequence progenitor population, implying that PNe could be preferentially formed via a binary channel. This article briefly reviews these results and future studies aiming to refine the binary fraction.Comment: SF2A 2012 proceeding

A Survey for Low-Surface-Brightness Galaxies Around M31. I. The Newly Discovered Dwarf Andromeda V

We present images and a color-magnitude diagram for And V, a new dwarf spheroidal companion to M31 that was found using a digital filtering technique applied to 1550 square degrees of the second Palomar Sky Survey. And V resolves into stars easily in follow-up 4-m V- and I-band images, from which we deduce a distance of 810 +/- 45 kpc using the tip of the red giant branch method. Within the uncertainties, this distance is identical to the Population II distances for M31 and, combined with a projected separation of 112 kpc, provides strong support for a physical association between the two galaxies. There is no emission from And V detected in H alpha, 1.4 GHz radio continuum, or IRAS bandpasses, and there is no young population seen in the color-magnitude diagram that might suggest that And V is an irregular. Thus, the classification as a new dwarf spheroidal member of the Local Group seems secure. With an extinction-corrected central surface brightness of 25.2 V mag per square arcsec, a mean metal abundance of [Fe/H] approximately -1.5, and no evidence for upper AGB stars, And V resembles And I & III.Comment: Accepted for publication in The Astronomical Journal, November 1998 issue; 4 embedded PostScript figures, 4 JPEG figures; see http://aloe.tuc.noao.edu/jacoby/dwarfs.html for a complete full-resolution PostScript versio

Das Potenzial von Kokulturen aus Osteoblasten und Endothelzellen für das Bone Tissue Engineering

Für eine erfolgreiche Knochenregeneration ist ein sensibles Zusammenspiel verschiedener für die Knochenbildung verantwortlicher Zelltypen notwendig. Ziel dieser Arbeit war es, osteoblastenähnliche Zellen und Endothelzellen ex vivo in direkten 2- und 3-dimensionalen Kokultursystemen ohne Trägermaterialien zu entwickeln. Es wurden osteoblastenähnliche Zellen aus bovinen Metacarpalia und Endothelzellen aus humanen Nabelschnurvenen gewonnen, proliferiert und sowohl in Monolagen als auch in Form von 3D-Mikromassenkulturen kultiviert. In definierten Zeitabständen erfolgten histologische, immunhistochemische und TEM- Vergleiche der beiden Kultursysteme. Während in den 2-dimensionalen Kokulturen clusterartige Osteoblastenverbände im Verbund mit Endothelzellen auftreten, formieren sich in den 3 D-Kokulturen sphäritische Mikrogewebe, die mit der Ausbildung präangiogener Strukturen in Form endothelzellbegrenzter Lumina Anzeichen beginnender Neovaskularisation zeigen

PSR J1909-3744, a Binary Millisecond Pulsar with a Very Small Duty Cycle

We report the discovery of PSR J1909-3744, a 2.95 millisecond pulsar in a nearly circular 1.53 day orbit. Its narrow pulse width of 43 microseconds allows pulse arrival times to be determined with great accuracy. We have spectroscopically identified the companion as a moderately hot (T = 8500 K) white dwarf with strong absorption lines. Radial velocity measurements of the companion will yield the mass ratio of the system. Our timing data suggest the presence of Shapiro delay; we expect that further timing observations, combined with the mass ratio, will allow the first accurate determination of a millisecond pulsar mass. We have measured the timing parallax and proper motion for this pulsar which indicate a transverse velocity of 140 (+80/-40) km/s. This pulsar's stunningly narrow pulse profile makes it an excellent candidate for precision timing experiments that attempt to detect low frequency gravitational waves from coalescing supermassive black hole binaries.Comment: 12 pages, 4 figures. Accepted for publication in ApJ

Calibrating Type Ia Supernovae using the Planetary Nebula Luminosity Function I. Initial Results

We report the results of an [O III] lambda 5007 survey for planetary nebulae (PN) in five galaxies that were hosts of well-observed Type Ia supernovae: NGC 524, NGC 1316, NGC 1380, NGC 1448 and NGC 4526. The goals of this survey are to better quantify the zero-point of the maximum magnitude versus decline rate relation for supernovae Type Ia and to validate the insensitivity of Type Ia luminosity to parent stellar population using the host galaxy Hubble type as a surrogate. We detected a total of 45 planetary nebulae candidates in NGC 1316, 44 candidates in NGC 1380, and 94 candidates in NGC 4526. From these data, and the empirical planetary nebula luminosity function (PNLF), we derive distances of 17.9 +0.8/-0.9 Mpc, 16.1 +0.8/-1.1 Mpc, and 13.6 +1.3/-1.2 Mpc respectively. Our derived distance to NGC 4526 has a lower precision due to the likely presence of Virgo intracluster planetary nebulae in the foreground of this galaxy. In NGC 524 and NGC 1448 we detected no planetary nebulae candidates down to the limiting magnitudes of our observations. We present a formalism for setting realistic distance limits in these two cases, and derive robust lower limits of 20.9 Mpc and 15.8 Mpc, respectively. After combining these results with other distances from the PNLF, Cepheid, and Surface Brightness Fluctuations distance indicators, we calibrate the optical and near-infrared relations for supernovae Type Ia and we find that the Hubble constants derived from each of the three methods are broadly consistent, implying that the properties of supernovae Type Ia do not vary drastically as a function of stellar population. We determine a preliminary Hubble constant of H_0 = 77 +/- 3 (random) +/- 5 (systematic) km/s/Mpc for the PNLF, though more nearby galaxies with high-quality observations are clearly needed.Comment: 25 pages, 12 figures. Accepted for publication by the Astrophysical Journal. Figures degraded to comply with limit. Full paper is available at: http://www.as.ysu.edu/~jjfeldme/pnlf_Ia.pd

Measurement of Orbital Decay in the Double Neutron Star Binary PSR B2127+11C

We report the direct measurement of orbital period decay in the double neutron star pulsar system PSR B2127+11C in the globular cluster M15 at the rate of $(-3.95 \pm 0.13) \times 10^{-12}$, consistent with the prediction of general relativity at the $\sim 3$ level. We find the pulsar mass to be $m_p = (1.358 \pm 0.010) M_\odot$ and the companion mass $m_c = (1.354 \pm 0.010) M_\odot$. We also report long-term pulse timing results for the pulsars PSR B2127+11A and PSR B2127+11B, including confirmation of the cluster proper motion.Comment: 12 pages, 4 figures, accepted for publication in ApJ

Regulatory Control of Vehicle and Power Plant Emissions: How Effective and at What Cost?

Passenger vehicles and power plants are major sources of greenhouse gas emissions. While economic analyses generally indicate that a broader market-based approach to greenhouse gas reduction would be less costly and more effective, regulatory approaches have found greater political success. Vehicle efficiency standards have a long history in the U.S and elsewhere, and the recent success of shale gas in the U.S. leads to a focus on coal–gas fuel switching as a way to reduce power sector emissions. We evaluate a global regulatory regime that replaces coal with natural gas in the electricity sector and imposes technically achievable improvements in the efficiency of personal transport vehicles. Its performance and cost are compared with other scenarios of future policy development including a no policy world, achievements under the Copenhagen accord, and a price-based policy to reduce global emissions by 50% by 2050. The assumed regulations applied globally achieve a global emissions reduction larger than projected for the Copenhagen agreements, but they do not prevent global GHG emissions from continuing to grow, and the reduction in emissions is achieved at a high cost compared to a price-based policy. Diagnosis of the reasons for the limited yet high-cost performance reveals influences including the partial coverage of emitting sectors, small or no influence on the demand for emissions-intensive products, leakage when a reduction in fossil use in the covered sectors lowers the price to others, and the partial coverage of GHGs.We thank BP for their support of this study. The MIT Integrated Global System Model (IGSM) and its economic component used in the analysis, the Emissions Prediction and Policy Analysis (EPPA model, are supported by a consortium of government, industry and foundation sponsors of the MIT Joint Program on the Science and Policy of Global Change, including U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Science (DE-FG02-94ER61937). For a complete list of sponsors see http://globalchange.mit.edu/sponsors/current.html