1,261 research outputs found
Pseudo-boundaries in discontinuous 2-dimensional maps
It is known that Kolmogorov-Arnold-Moser boundaries appear in sufficiently
smooth 2-dimensional area-preserving maps. When such boundaries are destroyed,
they become pseudo-boundaries. We show that pseudo-boundaries can also be found
in discontinuous maps. The origin of these pseudo-boundaries are groups of
chains of islands which separate parts of the phase space and need to be
crossed in order to move between the different sub-spaces. Trajectories,
however, do not easily cross these chains, but tend to propagate along them.
This type of behavior is demonstrated using a ``generalized'' Fermi map.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figures, Revtex, epsf, submitted to Physical Review E (as
a brief report
Larga batalla de un paciente con sida y tuberculosis recurrente: ¿reinfección o reactivación?
The advent of Mycobacterium tuberculosis strain genotyping has allowed differentiation between disease relapse and exogenous re-infection. We report here a remarkable case of multiply recurrent tuberculosis in a patient living with HIV. Between 1995 and 2009, a young HIV-infected intravenous drug user, who was reluctant to comply with anti-retroviral treatment, underwent at least five tuberculosis episodes caused by three distinct M. tuberculosis strains sharply differentiated by drug susceptibility profile, genotype and infectious source. Eventually, the patient died during a relapse of tuberculosis due to a notorious multidrug-resistant outbreak-strain, which infected him during a prolonged hospitalization in the epicentre of such outbreak. Whether recurrent tuberculosis is due to a new infection or to reactivation of a previous one is a century-long controversial question. In our patient, both conditions alternated throughout his 15 years of living with HIV. Cases such as this might not be exceptional in certain underprivileged suburban areas of Argentina and should raise concern over three pending issues in tuberculosis control policies, namely secondary preventive therapy, institutional infection control and patient follow-up throughout the health network system.La genotipificación de aislamientos clínicos de Mycobacterium tuberculosis permite diferenciar entre recaída y reinfección exógena. Presentamos un notable caso de tuberculosis recurrente asociado a sida. Entre 1995 y 2009, un usuario de drogas ilegales por vía endovenosa, con infección por el VIH pero reacio al tratamiento antirretroviral, sufrió cinco episodios de tuberculosis causados por tres cepas de M. tuberculosis. Las cepas se diferenciaron por los genotipos, los perfiles de sensibilidad a antibióticos y las fuentes de infección. El paciente murió de tuberculosis por una cepa multirresistente, responsable de un extenso brote en Argentina, que lo infectó durante una prolongada internación en el hospital que fue el epicentro de dicho brote. La controversia sobre el origen de la tuberculosis recurrente –reinfección o reactivación– lleva ya un siglo y continúa vigente. En el caso que aquí se describe, las dos situaciones se alternaron a lo largo de los 15 años de lucha contra el sida que atravesó este paciente. Esta situación puede no ser excepcional en áreas suburbanas desfavorecidas de Argentina, y pone en evidencia tres temas insuficientemente atendidos en nuestro medio: el tratamiento preventivo de la tuberculosis secundaria, el control de su transmisión en hospitales y cárceles, y el seguimiento de los pacientes a través del sistema de salud.Fil: Reniero, A.. Hospital Municipal de San Isidro; ArgentinaFil: Beltrán, M.. Hospital Municipal de San Isidro; ArgentinaFil: de Kantor, I. N.. PAHO/WHO consultant; ArgentinaFil: Ritacco, Gloria Viviana. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas; Argentina. Dirección Nacional de Institutos de Investigación. Administración Nacional de Laboratorios e Institutos de Salud. Instituto Nacional de Enfermedades Infecciosas; Argentin
Larga batalla de un paciente con sida y tuberculosis recurrente: ¿reinfección o reactivación?
The advent of Mycobacterium tuberculosis strain genotyping has allowed differentiation between disease relapse and exogenous re-infection. We report here a remarkable case of multiply recurrent tuberculosis in a patient living with HIV. Between 1995 and 2009, a young HIV-infected intravenous drug user, who was reluctant to comply with anti-retroviral treatment, underwent at least five tuberculosis episodes caused by three distinct M. tuberculosis strains sharply differentiated by drug susceptibility profile, genotype and infectious source. Eventually, the patient died during a relapse of tuberculosis due to a notorious multidrug-resistant outbreak-strain, which infected him during a prolonged hospitalization in the epicentre of such outbreak. Whether recurrent tuberculosis is due to a new infection or to reactivation of a previous one is a century-long controversial question. In our patient, both conditions alternated throughout his 15 years of living with HIV. Cases such as this might not be exceptional in certain underprivileged suburban areas of Argentina and should raise concern over three pending issues in tuberculosis control policies, namely secondary preventive therapy, institutional infection control and patient follow-up throughout the health network system.La genotipificación de aislamientos clínicos de Mycobacterium tuberculosis permite diferenciar entre recaída y reinfección exógena. Presentamos un notable caso de tuberculosis recurrente asociado a sida. Entre 1995 y 2009, un usuario de drogas ilegales por vía endovenosa, con infección por el VIH pero reacio al tratamiento antirretroviral, sufrió cinco episodios de tuberculosis causados por tres cepas de M. tuberculosis. Las cepas se diferenciaron por los genotipos, los perfiles de sensibilidad a antibióticos y las fuentes de infección. El paciente murió de tuberculosis por una cepa multirresistente, responsable de un extenso brote en Argentina, que lo infectó durante una prolongada internación en el hospital que fue el epicentro de dicho brote. La controversia sobre el origen de la tuberculosis recurrente –reinfección o reactivación– lleva ya un siglo y continúa vigente. En el caso que aquí se describe, las dos situaciones se alternaron a lo largo de los 15 años de lucha contra el sida que atravesó este paciente. Esta situación puede no ser excepcional en áreas suburbanas desfavorecidas de Argentina, y pone en evidencia tres temas insuficientemente atendidos en nuestro medio: el tratamiento preventivo de la tuberculosis secundaria, el control de su transmisión en hospitales y cárceles, y el seguimiento de los pacientes a través del sistema de salud.Fil: Reniero, A.. Hospital Municipal de San Isidro; ArgentinaFil: Beltrán, M.. Hospital Municipal de San Isidro; ArgentinaFil: de Kantor, I. N.. PAHO/WHO consultant; ArgentinaFil: Ritacco, Gloria Viviana. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas; Argentina. Dirección Nacional de Institutos de Investigación. Administración Nacional de Laboratorios e Institutos de Salud. Instituto Nacional de Enfermedades Infecciosas; Argentin
Triple Products and Yang-Baxter Equation (II): Orthogonal and Symplectic Ternary Systems
We generalize the result of the preceeding paper and solve the Yang-Baxter
equation in terms of triple systems called orthogonal and symplectic ternary
systems. In this way, we found several other new solutions.Comment: 38 page
THERMODYNAMICS OF A BROWNIAN BRIDGE POLYMER MODEL IN A RANDOM ENVIRONMENT
We consider a directed random walk making either 0 or moves and a
Brownian bridge, independent of the walk, conditioned to arrive at point on
time . The Hamiltonian is defined as the sum of the square of increments of
the bridge between the moments of jump of the random walk and interpreted as an
energy function over the bridge connfiguration; the random walk acts as the
random environment. This model provides a continuum version of a model with
some relevance to protein conformation. The thermodynamic limit of the specific
free energy is shown to exist and to be self-averaging, i.e. it is equal to a
trivial --- explicitly computed --- random variable. An estimate of the
asymptotic behaviour of the ground state energy is also obtained.Comment: 20 pages, uuencoded postscrip
Method for increasing sensitivity of shear-force distance control for scanning near-field microscopy
Scanning-near field optical microscopy requires a distance control mechanism. In most cases, it is based on the shear-force detection. In this paper we report how the performance of the shear-force detection based on the most common nonoptical approach, a Quartz tuning fork, can be improved. Our approach is based on exciting oscillations in just one arm of the fork, not two. This approach reduces the response time of the shear-force detection system. We also introduce an ultra-sensitive system with a long free fiber tip. © 1999 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved
Two-Dimensional Polymers with Random Short-Range Interactions
We use complete enumeration and Monte Carlo techniques to study
two-dimensional self-avoiding polymer chains with quenched ``charges'' .
The interaction of charges at neighboring lattice sites is described by . We find that a polymer undergoes a collapse transition at a temperature
, which decreases with increasing imbalance between charges. At the
transition point, the dependence of the radius of gyration of the polymer on
the number of monomers is characterized by an exponent , which is slightly larger than the similar exponent for homopolymers. We
find no evidence of freezing at low temperatures.Comment: 4 two-column pages, 6 eps figures, RevTex, Submitted to Phys. Rev.
On the Klein-Gordon equation and hyperbolic pseudoanalytic function theory
Elliptic pseudoanalytic function theory was considered independently by Bers
and Vekua decades ago. In this paper we develop a hyperbolic analogue of
pseudoanalytic function theory using the algebra of hyperbolic numbers. We
consider the Klein-Gordon equation with a potential. With the aid of one
particular solution we factorize the Klein-Gordon operator in terms of two
Vekua-type operators. We show that real parts of the solutions of one of these
Vekua-type operators are solutions of the considered Klein-Gordon equation.
Using hyperbolic pseudoanalytic function theory, we then obtain explicit
construction of infinite systems of solutions of the Klein-Gordon equation with
potential. Finally, we give some examples of application of the proposed
procedure
Collapse of Stiff Polyelectrolytes due to Counterion Fluctuations
The effective elasticity of highly charged stiff polyelectrolytes is studied
in the presence of counterions, with and without added salt. The rigid polymer
conformations may become unstable due to an effective attraction induced by
counterion density fluctuations. Instabilities at the longest, or intermediate
length scales may signal collapse to globule, or necklace states, respectively.
In the presence of added-salt, a generalized electrostatic persistence length
is obtained, which has a nontrivial dependence on the Debye screening length.Comment: 4 pages RevTex, 3 ps figures included using epsf, final version as
appeared in PR
First passage times and distances along critical curves
We propose a model for anomalous transport in inhomogeneous environments,
such as fractured rocks, in which particles move only along pre-existing
self-similar curves (cracks). The stochastic Loewner equation is used to
efficiently generate such curves with tunable fractal dimension . We
numerically compute the probability of first passage (in length or time) from
one point on the edge of the semi-infinite plane to any point on the
semi-circle of radius . The scaled probability distributions have a variance
which increases with , a non-monotonic skewness, and tails that decay
faster than a simple exponential. The latter is in sharp contrast to
predictions based on fractional dynamics and provides an experimental signature
for our model.Comment: 5 pages, 5 figure
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