329 research outputs found
After the fall: globalizing the remnants of the Communist bloc
Globalization ; Europe, Eastern
Newer cardiac troponin I assays have similar performance to troponin T in patients with end-stage renal disease
Background: Troponin T is present in the blood of a majority of patients with end-stage renal disease (ESRD) undergoing regular dialysis and presence of troponin T is a predictor of adverse outcome in these patients. With several new formulations of troponin I assays available, this study was performed to see whether these newer assays were able to detect troponin I in these patients more effectively than the older assays. Methods: One hundred and forty-three patients undergoing regular haemodialysis or peritoneal dialysis had plasma collected and troponin T and troponin I measured by a variety of assays. Results: The newer troponin I assays (Abbott Architect, Bayer Centaur and Beckman Accu-TnI) were able to detect troponin I (>75% of samples) as effectively as the Roche assay was able to detect troponin T, while other troponin I assays had a much lower rate of detection of troponin - DPC Immulite 2000 16% and Abbott AxSYM 35%. However, the troponin T assay had more samples detected at concentrations corresponding to an assay CV of 10% (59% of samples) than did the newer troponin I assays (highest on the Bayer Centaur at 37%). Conclusions: Newer assays demonstrate that troponin I is present in a similar number of samples as is troponin T, in the blood of patients with dialysis-dependent renal failure, and these newer troponin I assays identify patients at risk of experiencing a cardiac event
Inter subject variability and reproducibility of diffusion tensor imaging within and between different imaging sessions.
The aim of these studies was to provide reference data on intersubject variability and reproducibility of diffusion tensor imaging. Healthy volunteers underwent imaging on two occasions using the same 3T Siemens Verio magnetic resonance scanner. At each session two identical diffusion tensor sequences were obtained along with standard structural imaging. Fractional anisotropy, apparent diffusion coefficient, axial and radial diffusivity maps were created and regions of interest applied in normalised space. The baseline data from all 26 volunteers were used to calculate the intersubject variability, while within session and between session reproducibility were calculated from all the available data. The reproducibility of measurements were used to calculate the overall and within session 95% prediction interval for zero change. The within and between session reproducibility data were lower than the values for intersubject variability, and were different across the brain. The regional mean (range) coefficient of variation figures for within session reproducibility were 2.1 (0.9-5.5%), 1.2 (0.4-3.9%), 1.2 (0.4-3.8%) and 1.8 (0.4-4.3%) for fractional anisotropy, apparent diffusion coefficient, axial and radial diffusivity, and were lower than between session reproducibility measurements (2.4 (1.1-5.9%), 1.9 (0.7-5.7%), 1.7 (0.7-4.7%) and 2.4 (0.9-5.8%); p<0.001). The calculated overall and within session 95% prediction intervals for zero change were similar. This study provides additional reference data concerning intersubject variability and reproducibility of diffusion tensor imaging conducted within the same imaging session and different imaging sessions. These data can be utilised in interventional studies to quantify change within a single imaging session, or to assess the significance of change in longitudinal studies of brain injury and disease.RCUK, Wellcome, OtherThis is the published version. It was originally published by PLoS in PLoS ONE here: http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0065941
Hamiltonian, Energy and Entropy in General Relativity with Non-Orthogonal Boundaries
A general recipe to define, via Noether theorem, the Hamiltonian in any
natural field theory is suggested. It is based on a Regge-Teitelboim-like
approach applied to the variation of Noether conserved quantities. The
Hamiltonian for General Relativity in presence of non-orthogonal boundaries is
analysed and the energy is defined as the on-shell value of the Hamiltonian.
The role played by boundary conditions in the formalism is outlined and the
quasilocal internal energy is defined by imposing metric Dirichlet boundary
conditions. A (conditioned) agreement with previous definitions is proved. A
correspondence with Brown-York original formulation of the first principle of
black hole thermodynamics is finally established.Comment: 29 pages with 1 figur
The effect of surveillance and appreciative inquiry on puerperal infections : a longitudinal cohort study in India
Peer reviewedPublisher PD
Comparison of inter subject variability and reproducibility of whole brain proton spectroscopy.
The aim of these studies was to provide reference data on intersubject variability and reproducibility of metabolite ratios for Choline/Creatine (Cho/Cr), N-acetyl aspartate/Choline (NAA/Cho) and N-acetyl aspartate/Creatine (NAA/Cr), and individual signal-intensity normalised metabolite concentrations of NAA, Cho and Cr. Healthy volunteers underwent imaging on two occasions using the same 3T Siemens Verio magnetic resonance scanner. At each session two identical Metabolic Imaging and Data Acquisition Software (MIDAS) sequences were obtained along with standard structural imaging. Metabolite maps were created and regions of interest applied in normalised space. The baseline data from all 32 volunteers were used to calculate the intersubject variability, while within session and between session reproducibility were calculated from all the available data. The reproducibility of measurements were used to calculate the overall and within session 95% prediction interval for zero change. The within and between session reproducibility data were lower than the values for intersubject variability, and were variable across the different brain regions. The within and between session reproducibility measurements were similar for Cho/Cr, NAA/Choline, Cho and Cr (11.8%, 11.4%, 14.3 and 10.6% vs. 11.9%, 11.4%, 13.5% and 10.5% respectively), but for NAA/Creatine and NAA between session reproducibility was lower (9.3% and 9.1% vs. 10.1% and 9.9%; p <0.05). This study provides additional reference data that can be utilised in interventional studies to quantify change within a single imaging session, or to assess the significance of change in longitudinal studies of brain injury and disease.TV Veenith was supported by clinical research training fellowship from the National Institute of Academic Anaesthesia and Raymond Beverly Sackler studentship. VFJN is supported by an NIHR academic clinical fellowship. JPC was supported by Wellcome trust project grant. DKM is supported by an NIHR Senior Investigator Award. This work was supported by a Medical Research Council (UK) Program Grant (Acute brain injury: heterogeneity of mechanisms, therapeutic targets and outcome effects (G9439390 ID 65883)), the UK National Institute of Health Research Biomedical Research Centre at Cambridge, and the Technology Platform funding provided by the UK Department of Health.This article was originally published in PLoS ONE (Veenith TV, Mada M, Carter E, Grossac J, Newcombe V, et al. (2014) Comparison of Inter Subject Variability and Reproducibility of Whole Brain Proton Spectroscopy. PLoS ONE 9(12): e115304. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0115304
Black hole uniqueness theorems and new thermodynamic identities in eleven dimensional supergravity
We consider stationary, non-extremal black holes in 11-dimensional
supergravity having isometry group . We prove that
such a black hole is uniquely specified by its angular momenta, its electric
charges associated with the various 7-cycles in the manifold, together with
certain moduli and vector valued winding numbers characterizing the topological
nature of the spacetime and group action. We furthermore establish interesting,
non-trivial, relations between the thermodynamic quantities associated with the
black hole. These relations are shown to be a consequence of the hidden
symmetry in this sector of the solution space, and are distinct
from the usual "Smarr-type" formulas that can be derived from the first law of
black hole mechanics. We also derive the "physical process" version of this
first law applicable to a general stationary black hole spacetime without any
symmetry assumptions other than stationarity, allowing in particular arbitrary
horizon topologies. The work terms in the first law exhibit the topology of the
horizon via the intersection numbers between cycles of various dimensions.Comment: 50pp, 3 figures, v2: references added, correction in appendix B,
conclusions added, v3: reference section edited, typos removed, minor changes
in appendix
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Notch Inhibition Allows Oncogene-Independent Generation of iPS Cells
The reprogramming of somatic cells to pluripotency using defined transcription factors holds great promise for biomedicine. However, human reprogramming remains inefficient and relies either on the use of the potentially dangerous oncogenes KLF4 and CMYC or the genetic inhibition of the tumor suppressor gene p53. We hypothesized that inhibition of signal transduction pathways that promote differentiation of the target somatic cells during development might relieve the requirement for non-core pluripotency factors during induced pluripotent stem cell (iPSC) reprogramming. Here, we show that inhibition of Notch greatly improves the efficiency of iPSC generation from mouse and human keratinocytes by suppressing p21 in a p53-independent manner and thereby enriching for undifferentiated cells capable of long-term self-renewal. Pharmacological inhibition of Notch enabled routine production of human iPSCs without KLF4 and CMYC while leaving p53 activity intact. Thus, restricting the development of somatic cells by altering intercellular communication enables the production of safer human iPSCs.Molecular and Cellular BiologyStem Cell and Regenerative Biolog
Shopping, sex, and lies: Mimong/Sweet Dreams (1936) and the disruptive process of colonial girlhood
In the early Korean film we follow the melodramatic life of an unfaithful housewife. Sweet Dreams situates itself at the heart of the Korean colonial experience with urban Seoul as the backdrop to a narrative of deceit, adultery and consumerism. This article will explore how Sweet Dreams functions both as a warning about the perils of modern womanhood and, simultaneous to this, a vision of consumerist pleasure and delight. This article examines how the actions of lead character Ae-soon constitute a process by which the adult women is rendered girl via her positioning at the locus of female visual pleasure. I use the term girl as a process rather than a static category since, as will be explored, the attributes of girlhood with relation to Sweet Dreams are both expansive and fluid. In this way girlhood can be appropriated for transgressive purposes, not only in terms of a visualization of a desiring femininity, but also as a marker of colonial dissent. I argue that Sweet Dreams uses the interplay between the categories of woman and girl to disrupt the colonial drive towards a productive body in favour of the delights of consumption
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