Remarks on probability theory and TMJ diagnosis

On the basis of the classic concepts of events and probability theory, this article analyzes some recently introduced diagnostic probability concepts as they pertain to temporomandibular joint (TMJ) diseases and disorders.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/74644/1/j.1365-2842.1992.tb01486.x.pd

A 31-day time to surgery compliant exercise training programme improves aerobic health in the elderly

Background: Over 41,000 people were diagnosed with colorectal cancer (CRC) in the UK in 2011. The incidence of CRC increases with age. Many elderly patients undergo surgery for CRC, the only curative treatment. Such patients are exposed to risks, which increase with age and reduced physical fitness. Endurance-based exercise training programmes can improve physical fitness, but such programmes do not comply with the UK, National Cancer Action Team 31-day time-to-treatment target. High-intensity interval training (HIT) can improve physical performance within 2–4 weeks, but few studies have shown HIT to be effective in elderly individuals, and those who do employ programmes longer than 31 days. Therefore, we investigated whether HIT could improve cardiorespiratory fitness in elderly volunteers, age-matched to a CRC population, within 31 days. Methods: This observational cohort study recruited 21 healthy elderly participants (8 male and 13 female; age 67 years (range 62–73 years)) who undertook cardiopulmonary exercise testing before and after completing 12 sessions of HIT within a 31-day period. Results: Peak oxygen consumption (VO2 peak) (23.9 ± 4.7 vs. 26.2 ± 5.4 ml/kg/min, p = 0.0014) and oxygen consumption at anaerobic threshold (17.86 ± 4.45 vs. 20.21 ± 4.11 ml/kg/min, p = 0.008) increased after HIT. Conclusions: It is possible to improve cardiorespiratory fitness in 31 days in individuals of comparable age to those presenting for CRC surgery

Extracting Spooky-activation-at-a-distance from Considerations of Entanglement

Following an early claim by Nelson & McEvoy \cite{Nelson:McEvoy:2007} suggesting that word associations can display `spooky action at a distance behaviour', a serious investigation of the potentially quantum nature of such associations is currently underway. This paper presents a simple quantum model of a word association system. It is shown that a quantum model of word entanglement can recover aspects of both the Spreading Activation equation and the Spooky-activation-at-a-distance equation, both of which are used to model the activation level of words in human memory.Comment: 13 pages, 2 figures; To appear in Proceedings of the Third Quantum Interaction Symposium, Lecture Notes in Artificial Intelligence, vol 5494, Springer, 200

Open membranes, ribbons and deformed Schild strings

We analyze open membranes immersed in a magnetic three-form field-strength $C$. While cylindrical membranes in the absence of $C$ behave like tensionless strings, when the $C$ flux is present the strings polarize into thin membrane ribbons, locally orthogonal to the momentum density, thus providing the strings with an effective tension. The effective dynamics of the ribbons can be described by a simple deformation of the Schild action for null strings. Interactions become non-local due to the polarization, and lead to a deformation of the string field theory, whereby string vertices receive a phase factor proportional to the volume swept out by the ribbons. In a particular limit, this reduces to the non-commutative loop space found previously.Comment: revte

Antibacterial Use Is Associated with an Increased Risk of Hematologic and Gastrointestinal Adverse Events in Patients Treated with Gemcitabine for Stage IV Pancreatic Cancer

Background: Preclinical evidence has demonstrated that common intratumor bacteria metabolize the chemotherapeutic drug gemcitabine. The significance of this bacterial metabolism pathway, relative to the known metabolic pathways by host enzymes, is not known. We hypothesized that bacterial metabolism is clinically significant and that “knockdown” by antibacterial therapy has the unintended effect of increasing the effective dose of gemcitabine, thereby increasing the risk for gemcitabine-associated toxicities. Materials and Methods: We reanalyzed the comparator arm of the MPACT trial (NCT01442974), made available through Project Data Sphere, LLC (CEO Roundtable on Cancer's Life Sciences Consortium, Cary, NC; www.projectdatasphere.org). In this arm, 430 patients with metastatic pancreatic adenocarcinoma were treated with gemcitabine. We used the Anderson-Gill survival model to compare the risk of developing an adverse event after antibacterial prescription with time unexposed to antibacterials. Adverse events of grade 3 and greater were considered at three levels of granularity: all aggregated into one endpoint, aggregated by class, and taken individually. Antibiotic exposures were analyzed in aggregate as well as by class. Results: Antibacterial exposure was associated with an increased risk of adverse events (hazard ratio [HR]: 1.77; confidence interval [CI]: 1.46–2.14), any hematologic adverse event (HR: 1.64; CI: 1.26–2.13), and any gastrointestinal adverse event (HR: 2.14; CI: 1.12–4.10) but not a constitutional (HR: 1.33; CI: 0.611–2.90) or hepatologic adverse event (HR: 0.99; CI: 0.363–2.71). Among specific adverse events, antibacterial exposure was associated with an increased risk of anemia (HR: 3.16; CI: 1.59–6.27), thrombocytopenia (HR: 2.52; CI: 1.31–4.85), leukopenia (HR: 3.91; CI: 1.46–10.5), and neutropenia (HR: 1.53; CI: 1.07–2.17) but not any other specific adverse events. Conclusion: Antibacterial exposure was associated with an increased risk of gemcitabine-associated, dose-limiting adverse events, including aggregate hematologic and gastrointestinal events, as well as four specific hematologic adverse events, suggesting that intratumor bacteria may be responsible for a clinically significant portion of gemcitabine metabolism. Alternative avenues of evidence will be necessary to confirm this preliminary finding and assess its generalizability. There is plentiful opportunity for similar analyses on other clinical trial data sets, where gemcitabine or other biomimetic small molecules were used. Implications for Practice: Patients treated with gemcitabine for metastatic pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma have an increased rate of gemcitabine-associated toxicity during and after antibiotic therapy. This observation is consistent with preclinical evidence that intratumor bacteria metabolize gemcitabine to an inactive form. Further research is needed to determine whether this observation merits any changes in clinical practice

The Origin of Galactic Cosmic Rays

Motivated by recent measurements of the major components of the cosmic radiation around 10 TeV/nucleon and above, we discuss the phenomenology of a model in which there are two distinct kinds of cosmic ray accelerators in the galaxy. Comparison of the spectra of hydrogen and helium up to 100 TeV per nucleon suggests that these two elements do not have the same spectrum of magnetic rigidity over this entire region and that these two dominant elements therefore receive contributions from different sources.Comment: To be published in Physical Review D, 13 pages, with 3 figures, uuencode

Dislocations and the critical endpoint of the melting line of vortex line lattices

We develop a theory for dislocation-mediated structural transitions in the vortex lattice which allows for a unified description of phase transitions between the three phases, the elastic vortex glass, the amorphous vortex glass, and the vortex liquid, in terms of a free energy functional for the dislocation density. The origin of a critical endpoint of the melting line at high magnetic fields, which has been recently observed experimentally, is explained.Comment: 4 pages, 1 figur