Rosuvastatin and vascular dysfunction markers in pulmonary arterial hypertension: a placebo-controlled study

We investigated whether chronic rosuvastatin administration could improve the abnormalities of the circulating levels of vascular dysfunction markers in pulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH). Sixty patients, aged 13 to 60 years, with idiopathic (N = 14) or congenital heart disease-associated PAH (N = 46) were equally but randomly assigned to rosuvastatin treatment (10 mg a day, orally) or placebo for 6 months in a blind fashion. Plasma levels of P-selectin, tissue-plasminogen activator and its inhibitor as well as von Willebrand factor antigen were measured by enzyme-linked immunoassay before and after 1, 3, and 6 months of treatment. Baseline levels of biomarkers were elevated (68, 16, 45 and 46% increase relative to controls, for P-selectin, von Willebrand factor antigen, tissue-plasminogen activator and its inhibitor, respectively; P < 0.001). P-selectin values at baseline, 1, 3, and 6 months were 39.9 ± 18.5, 37.6 ± 14.6, 34.8 ± 14.6, and 35.4 ± 13.9 ng/mL, respectively, for the rosuvastatin group and 45.7 ± 26.8, 48.0 ± 26.9, 48.1 ± 25.7, and 45.7 ± 25.6 ng/mL for the placebo group. The P-selectin level was lower in the rosuvastatin group compared with placebo throughout treatment (P = 0.037, general linear model). A trend was observed towards a decrease in tissue-plasminogen activator in the statin group (16% reduction, P = 0.094), with no significant changes in the other markers. Since P-selectin is crucial in inflammation and thrombosis, its reduction by rosuvastatin is potentially relevant in the pathophysiological scenario of PAH.FAPES

An artificial immune system for fuzzy-rule induction in data mining

This work proposes a classification-rule discovery algorithm integrating artificial immune systems and fuzzy systems. The algorithm consists of two parts: a sequential covering procedure and a rule evolution procedure. Each antibody (candidate solution) corresponds to a classification rule. The classification of new examples (antigens) considers not only the fitness of a fuzzy rule based on the entire training set, but also the affinity between the rule and the new example. This affinity must be greater than a threshold in order for the fuzzy rule to be activated, and it is proposed an adaptive procedure for computing this threshold for each rule. This paper reports results for the proposed algorithm in several data sets. Results are analyzed with respect to both predictive accuracy and rule set simplicity, and are compared with C4.5rules, a very popular data mining algorithm

String-Loop Corrected Magnetic Black Holes

We discuss the form of the string-loop-corrected effective action obtained by compactification of the heterotic string theory on the manifold $K3\times T^2$ or on its orbifold limit and the loop-corrected magnetic black hole solutions of the equations of motion. Effective 4D theory has N=2 local supersymmetry. Using the string-loop-corrected prepotential of the N=2 supersymmetric theory, which receives corrections only from the string world sheets of torus topology, we calculate the loop corrections to the tree-level gauge couplings and solve the loop-corrected equations of motion. At the string-tree level, the effective gauge couplings decrease at small distances from the origin, and in this region string-loop corrections to the gauge couplings become important. A possibility of smearing the singularity of the tree-level supersymmetric solution with partially broken supersymmetry by quantum corrections is discussed.Comment: Improved version. Mixing of the dilaton with other moduli properly taken into account. Explanatory notes adde

A Comment on Quantum Distribution Functions and the OSV Conjecture

Using the attractor mechanism and the relation between the quantization of $H^{3}(M)$ and topological strings on a Calabi Yau threefold $M$ we define a map from BPS black holes into coherent states. This map allows us to represent the Bekenstein-Hawking-Wald entropy as a quantum distribution function on the phase space $H^{3}(M)$. This distribution function is a mixed Husimi/anti-Husimi distribution corresponding to the different normal ordering prescriptions for the string coupling and deviations of the complex structure moduli. From the integral representation of this distribution function in terms of the Wigner distribution we recover the Ooguri-Strominger-Vafa (OSV) conjecture in the region "at infinity" of the complex structure moduli space. The physical meaning of the OSV corrections are briefly discussed in this limit.Comment: 27 pages. v2:reference and footnote adde

Black hole partition functions and duality

The macroscopic entropy and the attractor equations for BPS black holes in four-dimensional N=2 supergravity theories follow from a variational principle for a certain `entropy function'. We present this function in the presence of R^2-interactions and non-holomorphic corrections. The variational principle identifies the entropy as a Legendre transform and this motivates the definition of various partition functions corresponding to different ensembles and a hierarchy of corresponding duality invariant inverse Laplace integral representations for the microscopic degeneracies. Whenever the microscopic degeneracies are known the partition functions can be evaluated directly. This is the case for N=4 heterotic CHL black holes, where we demonstrate that the partition functions are consistent with the results obtained on the macroscopic side for black holes that have a non-vanishing classical area. In this way we confirm the presence of a measure in the duality invariant inverse Laplace integrals. Most, but not all, of these results are obtained in the context of semiclassical approximations. For black holes whose area vanishes classically, there remain discrepancies at the semiclassical level and beyond, the nature of which is not fully understood at present.Comment: 36 pages, Late

Inelastic Scattering Time for Conductance Fluctuations

We revisit the problem of inelastic times governing the temperature behavior of the weak localization correction and mesoscopic fluctuations in one- and two-dimensional systems. It is shown that, for dephasing by the electron electron interaction, not only are those times identical but the scaling functions are also the same.Comment: 10 pages Revtex; 5 eps files include

Quantum Attractor Flows

Motivated by the interpretation of the Ooguri-Strominger-Vafa conjecture as a holographic correspondence in the mini-superspace approximation, we study the radial quantization of stationary, spherically symmetric black holes in four dimensions. A key ingredient is the classical equivalence between the radial evolution equation and geodesic motion of a fiducial particle on the moduli space M^*_3 of the three-dimensional theory after reduction along the time direction. In the case of N=2 supergravity, M^*_3 is a para-quaternionic-Kahler manifold; in this case, we show that BPS black holes correspond to a particular class of geodesics which lift holomorphically to the twistor space Z of M^*_3, and identify Z as the BPS phase space. We give a natural quantization of the BPS phase space in terms of the sheaf cohomology of Z, and compute the exact wave function of a BPS black hole with fixed electric and magnetic charges in this framework. We comment on the relation to the topological string amplitude, extensions to N>2 supergravity theories, and applications to automorphic black hole partition functions.Comment: 43 pages, 6 figures; v2: typos and references added; v3: published version, minor change

Associations of self-reported physical activity types and levels with quality of life, depression symptoms, and mortality in hemodialysis patients: The DOPPS

pre-printBackground and objectives Physical activity has been associated with better health status in diverse populations, but the association in patients on maintenance hemodialysis is less established. Patient-reported physical activities and associations with mortality, health-related quality of life, and depression symptoms in patients on maintenance hemodialysis in 12 countries were examined. Design, setting, participants, &measurements In total, 5763 patients enrolled in phase 4 of the Dialysis Outcomes and Practice Patterns Study (2009-2011) were classified into five aerobic physical activity categories (never/rarely active to very active) and by muscle strength/flexibility activity using the Rapid Assessment of Physical Activity questionnaire. The Kidney Disease Quality of Life scale was used for health-related quality of life. The Center for Epidemiologic Studies Depression scale was used for depression symptoms. Linear regression was used for associations of physical activity with health-related quality of life and depression symptoms scores. Cox regression was used for association of physical activity with mortality. Results The median (interquartile range) of follow-up was 1.6 (0.9-2.5) years; 29% of patients were classified as never/rarely active, 20% of patients were classified as very active, and 20.5% of patients reported strength/ flexibility activities. Percentages of very active patients were greater in clinics offering exercise programs.Aerobic activity, but not strength/flexibility activity, was associated positively with health-related quality of life and inversely with depression symptoms and mortality (adjusted hazard ratio of death for very active versus never/rarely active, 0.60; 95%confidence interval, 0.47 to 0.77). Similar associations with aerobic activity were observed in strata of age, sex, time on dialysis, and diabetes status. Conclusions The findings are consistent with the health benefits of aerobic physical activity for patients on maintenance hemodialysis. Greater physical activity was observed in facilities providing exercise programs, suggesting a possible opportunity for improving patient outcomes

Geometric Transition as a Change of Polarization

Taking the results of hep-th/0702110 we study the Dijkgraaf-Vafa open/closed topological string duality by considering the wavefunction behavior of the partition function. We find that the geometric transition associated with the duality can be seen as a change of polarization.Comment: 20 page

Brane Inflation, Solitons and Cosmological Solutions: I

In this paper we study various cosmological solutions for a D3/D7 system directly from M-theory with fluxes and M2-branes. In M-theory, these solutions exist only if we incorporate higher derivative corrections from the curvatures as well as G-fluxes. We take these corrections into account and study a number of toy cosmologies, including one with a novel background for the D3/D7 system whose supergravity solution can be completely determined. This new background preserves all the good properties of the original model and opens up avenues to investigate cosmological effects from wrapped branes and brane-antibrane annihilation, to name a few. We also discuss in some detail semilocal defects with higher global symmetries, for example exceptional ones, that could occur in a slightly different regime of our D3/D7 model. We show that the D3/D7 system does have the required ingredients to realise these configurations as non-topological solitons of the theory. These constructions also allow us to give a physical meaning to the existence of certain underlying homogeneous quaternionic Kahler manifolds.Comment: Harvmac, 115 pages, 9 .eps figures; v2: typos corrected, references added and the last section expanded; v3: Few minor typos corrected and references added. Final version to appear in JHE