916 research outputs found
Bilateral knee dislocation with associated bilateral popliteal arterial injury
Tibiofemoral unilateral knee dislocations are uncommon, making bilateral dislocations even rarer injuries. Knee dislocation is considered one of the most serious injuries that can affect this joint. Associated complications such as popliteal artery injury are responsible for the important morbidity in these patients. The authors report the case of a 52-year-old man with a traumatic bilateral knee dislocation with associated bilateral popliteal arterial injury. His clinical presentation along with radiographic and angiographic findings are described. Surgical and non-surgical treatment and functional outcomes are also reported.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio
Pleuroamniotic shunting--case report
Fetal hydrothorax refers to a collection of fluid within the fetal thorax that may be the result of chylous leak from the thoracic duct (primary hydrothorax) or generalized fluid retention associated with immune or no immune fetal hydrops (secondary hydrothorax). The authors' presents a case report occurred in 2002, of a pregnant woman that at 25 weeks' gestation that was referred to Maternidade Bissaya-Barreto-Coimbra because of a fetal hydrothorax at left, under tension and with cardiac decompensation signs. A fetal thoracocentesis was performed and the diagnosis was chylothorax. Because of a rapid reaccumulation of fluid a pleuroamniotic shunt was placed. The effusion and the cardiac decompensation signs regressed. The delivery was at 38 weeks' gestation. The newborn had been stable. Actually he has 10 months, is healthy and has a normal grow and development
Blue pigments in XVI-XVII century glazes : a comparative study between portuguese faiences and contemporary chinese porcelains manufactured for portuguese market
General framework for estimating the ultimate precision limit in noisy quantum-enhanced metrology
The estimation of parameters characterizing dynamical processes is central to
science and technology. The estimation error changes with the number N of
resources employed in the experiment (which could quantify, for instance, the
number of probes or the probing energy). Typically, it scales as 1/N^(1/2).
Quantum strategies may improve the precision, for noiseless processes, by an
extra factor 1/N^(1/2). For noisy processes, it is not known in general if and
when this improvement can be achieved. Here we propose a general framework for
obtaining attainable and useful lower bounds for the ultimate limit of
precision in noisy systems. We apply this bound to lossy optical interferometry
and atomic spectroscopy in the presence of dephasing, showing that it captures
the main features of the transition from the 1/N to the 1/N^(1/2) behaviour as
N increases, independently of the initial state of the probes, and even with
use of adaptive feedback.Comment: Published in Nature Physics. This is the revised submitted version.
The supplementary material can be found at
http://www.nature.com/nphys/journal/v7/n5/extref/nphys1958-s1.pd
Duality covariant non-BPS first order systems
We study extremal black hole solutions to four dimensional N=2 supergravity
based on a cubic symmetric scalar manifold. Using the coset construction
available for these models, we define the first order flow equations implied by
the corresponding nilpotency conditions on the three-dimensional scalar momenta
for the composite non-BPS class of multi-centre black holes. As an application,
we directly solve these equations for the single-centre subclass, and write the
general solution in a manifestly duality covariant form. This includes all
single-centre under-rotating non-BPS solutions, as well as their
non-interacting multi-centre generalisations.Comment: 31 pages, v2: Discussion of the quadratic constraint clarified,
references added, typos corrected, published versio
Supergravity Solutions from Floating Branes
We solve the equations of motion of five-dimensional ungauged supergravity
coupled to three U(1) gauge fields using a floating-brane Ansatz in which the
electric potentials are directly related to the gravitational warp factors. We
find a new class of non-BPS solutions, that can be obtained linearly starting
from an Euclidean four-dimensional Einstein-Maxwell base. This class - the
largest known so far - reduces to the BPS and almost-BPS solutions in certain
limits. We solve the equations explicitly when the base space is given by the
Israel-Wilson metric, and obtain solutions describing non-BPS D6 and anti-D6
branes kept in equilibrium by flux. We also examine the action of spectral flow
on solutions with an Israel-Wilson base and show that it relates these
solutions to almost-BPS solutions with a Gibbons-Hawking base.Comment: 24 pages, 1 figur
First-order flows and stabilisation equations for non-BPS extremal black holes
We derive a generalised form of flow equations for extremal static and
rotating non-BPS black holes in four-dimensional ungauged N = 2 supergravity
coupled to vector multiplets. For particular charge vectors, we give
stabilisation equations for the scalars, analogous to the BPS case, describing
full known solutions. Based on this, we propose a generic ansatz for the
stabilisation equations, which surprisingly includes ratios of harmonic
functions.Comment: 27 pages; v2: presentation improved and references added as in the
published versio
Mitochondrial haplogroup H1 is protective for ischemic stroke in Portuguese patient
BACKGROUND:
The genetic contribution to stroke is well established but it has proven difficult to identify the genes and the disease-associated alleles mediating this effect, possibly because only nuclear genes have been intensely investigated so far. Mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) has been implicated in several disorders having stroke as one of its clinical manifestations. The aim of this case-control study was to assess the contribution of mtDNA polymorphisms and haplogroups to ischemic stroke risk.
METHODS:
We genotyped 19 mtDNA single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) defining the major European haplogroups in 534 ischemic stroke patients and 499 controls collected in Portugal, and tested their allelic and haplogroup association with ischemic stroke risk.
RESULTS:
Haplogroup H1 was found to be significantly less frequent in stroke patients than in controls (OR = 0.61, 95% CI = 0.45-0.83, p = 0.001), when comparing each clade against all other haplogroups pooled together. Conversely, the pre-HV/HV and U mtDNA lineages emerge as potential genetic factors conferring risk for stroke (OR = 3.14, 95% CI = 1.41-7.01, p = 0.003, and OR = 2.87, 95% CI = 1.13-7.28, p = 0.021, respectively). SNPs m.3010G>A, m.7028C>T and m.11719G>A strongly influence ischemic stroke risk, their allelic state in haplogroup H1 corroborating its protective effect.
CONCLUSION:
Our data suggests that mitochondrial haplogroup H1 has an impact on ischemic stroke risk in a Portuguese sample
Kalirin: a novel genetic risk factor for ischemic stroke
Cerebrovascular and cardiovascular diseases are the leading causes of death and disability worldwide. They are complex disorders resulting from the interplay of genetic and environmental factors, and may share several susceptibility genes. Several recent studies have implicated variants of the Kalirin (KALRN) gene with susceptibility to cardiovascular and metabolic phenotypes, but no studies have yet been performed in stroke patients. KALRN is involved, among others, in the inhibition of inducible nitric oxide synthase, in the regulation of ischemic signal transduction, and in neuronal morphogenesis, plasticity, and stability. The goal of the present study was to determine whether SNPs in the KALRN region on 3q13, which includes the Ropporin gene (ROPN1), predispose to ischemic stroke (IS) in a cohort of Portuguese patients and controls. We genotyped 34 tagging SNPs in the KALRN and ROPN1 chromosomal region on 565 IS patients and 517 unrelated controls, and performed genotype imputation for 405 markers on chromosome 3. We tested the single-marker association of these SNPs with IS. One SNP (rs4499545) in the ROPN1-KALRN intergenic region and two SNPs in KALRN (rs17286604 and rs11712619) showed significant (P < 0.05) allelic and genotypic (unadjusted and adjusted for hypertension, diabetes, and ever smoking) association with IS risk. Thirty-two imputed SNPs also showed an association at P < 0.05, and actual genotyping of three of these polymorphisms (rs7620580, rs6438833, and rs11712039) validated their association. Furthermore, rs11712039 was associated with IS (0.001 < P < 0.01) in a recent well-powered genomewide association study (Ikram et al. 2009). These studies suggest that variants in the KALRN gene region constitute risk factors for stroke and that KALRN may represent a common risk factor for vascular diseases
Combined effects of low light and water stress on Jatropha curcas L. promotes shoot growth and morphological adjustment
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