83 research outputs found
Differences in presentation of symptoms between women and men with intermittent claudication
<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>More women than men have PAD with exception for the stage intermittent claudication (IC). The purpose of this study was to evaluate differences in disease characteristics between men and women when using current diagnostic criteria for making the diagnosis IC, defined as ABI < 0.9 and walking problems.</p> <p>Study Design</p> <p>Cohort study</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>5040 elderly (median age 71) subjects participated in a point-prevalence study 2004. They had their ABI measured and filled out questionnaires covering medical history, current medication, PAD symptoms and walking ability. The prevalence of IC was 6.5% for women and 7.2% for men (P = 0.09). A subset of subjects with IC (N = 56) was followed up four years later with the same procedures. They also performed additional tests aiming to determine all factors influencing walking ability.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Men with IC had more concomitant cardiovascular disease and a more profound smoking history than women. Women, on the other hand, reported a lower walking speed (P < 0.01) and more joint problems (P = 0.018). In the follow up cohort ABI, walking ability and amount of atherosclerosis were similar among the sexes, but women more often reported atypical IC symptoms.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>Sex differences in the description of IC symptoms may influence diagnosis even if objective features of PAD are similar. This may influence accuracy of prevalence estimates and selection to treatment.</p
Photophysical characterization of the 9,10-disubstituted anthracene chromophore and its applications in triplet-triplet annihilation photon upconversion
Molecules based on anthracene are commonly used in applications such as OLEDs and triplet-triplet annihilation upconversion. In future design of blue emitting materials it is useful to know which part of the molecule can be altered in order to obtain new physical properties without losing the inherent optical properties. We have studied the effect of substitution of 9,10-substituted anthracenes. Eight anthracenes with aromatic phenyl and thiophene substituents were synthesised, containing both electron donating and accepting groups. The substitutions were found to affect the UV/Vis absorption only to a small extent, however the fluorescence properties were more affected with the thiophene substituents that decreased the fluorescence quantum yield from unity to <10%. DFT calculations confirm the minor change in absorption and indicate that the first and second triplet state energies are also unaffected. Finally the three most fluorescent derivatives 4-(10-phenylanthracene-9-yl) pyridine, 9-phenyl-10-(4-(trifluoromethyl)phenyl) anthracene and 4-(10-phenylanthracene-9-yl) benzonitrile were successfully utilized as annihilators in a triplet-triplet annihilation upconversion (TTA-UC) system employing platinum octaethylporphyrin as the sensitizer. The observed upconversion quantum yields, phi(UC), slightly exceeded that of the benchmark annihilator 9,10-diphenylanthracene (DPA)
Report on National ICP IM activities in Sweden 2014 – 2015
The Swedish integrated monitoring programme is run on four sites distributed from south central Sweden (SE14 Aneboda) over the middle part (SE15 Kindla), to a northerly site (SE16 Gammtratten). The long-term monitoring site SE04 Gårdsjön F1 is complementary on the inland of the West Coast and has been influenced by long-term high deposition loads. The sites are well-defined catchments with mainly coniferous forest stands dominated by bilberry spruce forests on glacial till deposited above the highest coastline. Hence, there has been no water sorting of the soil material. Both climate and deposition gradients coincide with the distribution of the sites from south to nort
Report on National ICP IM activities in Sweden in 2016
The Swedish integrated monitoring programme is run on four sites distributed from south central Sweden (SE14 Aneboda), over the middle part (SE15 Kindla), to a northerly site (SE16 Gammtratten). The long-term monitoring site SE04 Gårdsjön F1 is complementary on the inland of the West Coast and has been influenced by long-term high deposition loads. The sites are well-defined catchments with mainly coniferous forest stands dominated by bilberry spruce forests on glacial till deposited above the highest coastline. Hence, there has been no water sorting of the soil material. Both climate and deposition gradients coincide with the distribution of the sites from south to north (Table 1). The forest stands are mainly over 100 years old and at least three of them have several hundred years of natural continuity. Until the 1950’s, the woodlands were lightly grazed in restricted areas. In early 2005, a heavy storm struck the IM site Aneboda, SE14. Compared with other forests in the region, however, this site managed rather well and roughly 20–30% of the trees in the area were stormfelled. In 1996, the total number of large woody debris in the form of logs was 317 in the surveyed plots, which decreased to 257 in 2001. In 2006, after the storm, the number of logs increased to 433, corresponding to 2711 logs in the whole catchment. In later years, 2007–2010, bark beetle (Ips typographus) infestation has almost totally erased the old spruce trees. In 2011 more than 80% of the trees with a breast height over 35 cm were dead (Löfgren et al. 2014) and currently almost all spruce trees with diameter of ≥20 cm are gone. In the following, climate, hydrology, water chemistry and some ongoing work at the four Swedish IM sites in 2016 are presented (Löfgren 2017)
Distribution and characteristics of overdeepenings beneath the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets: Implications for overdeepening origin and evolution
Glacier bed overdeepenings are ubiquitous in glacier systems and likely exert significant influence on ice dynamics, subglacial hydrology, and ice stability. Understanding of overdeepening formation and evolution has been hampered by an absence of quantitative empirical studies of their location and morphology, with process insights having been drawn largely from theoretical or numerical studies. To address this shortcoming, we first map the distribution of potential overdeepenings beneath the Antarctic and Greenland ice sheets using a GIS-based algorithm that identifies closed-contours in the bed topography and then describe and analyse the characteristics and metrics of a subset of overdeepenings that pass further quality control criteria. Overdeepenings are found to be widespread, but are particularly associated with areas of topographically laterally constrained ice flow, notably near the ice sheet margins where outlet systems follow deeply incised troughs. Overdeepenings also occur in regions of topographically unconstrained ice flow (for example, beneath the Siple Coast ice streams and on the Greenland continental shelf). Metrics indicate that overdeepening growth is generally allometric and that topographic confinement of ice flow in general enhances overdeepening depth. However, overdeepening depth is skewed towards shallow values – typically 200 to 300 m – indicating that the rate of deepening slows with overdeepening age. This is reflected in a decline in adverse slope steepness with increasing overdeepening planform size. Finally, overdeepening long-profiles are found to support headward quarrying as the primary factor in overdeepening development. These observations support proposed negative feedbacks related to hydrology and sediment transport that stabilise overdeepening growth through sedimentation on the adverse slope but permit continued overdeepening planform enlargement by processes of headward erosion
The Long-Baseline Neutrino Experiment: Exploring Fundamental Symmetries of the Universe
The preponderance of matter over antimatter in the early Universe, the
dynamics of the supernova bursts that produced the heavy elements necessary for
life and whether protons eventually decay --- these mysteries at the forefront
of particle physics and astrophysics are key to understanding the early
evolution of our Universe, its current state and its eventual fate. The
Long-Baseline Neutrino Experiment (LBNE) represents an extensively developed
plan for a world-class experiment dedicated to addressing these questions. LBNE
is conceived around three central components: (1) a new, high-intensity
neutrino source generated from a megawatt-class proton accelerator at Fermi
National Accelerator Laboratory, (2) a near neutrino detector just downstream
of the source, and (3) a massive liquid argon time-projection chamber deployed
as a far detector deep underground at the Sanford Underground Research
Facility. This facility, located at the site of the former Homestake Mine in
Lead, South Dakota, is approximately 1,300 km from the neutrino source at
Fermilab -- a distance (baseline) that delivers optimal sensitivity to neutrino
charge-parity symmetry violation and mass ordering effects. This ambitious yet
cost-effective design incorporates scalability and flexibility and can
accommodate a variety of upgrades and contributions. With its exceptional
combination of experimental configuration, technical capabilities, and
potential for transformative discoveries, LBNE promises to be a vital facility
for the field of particle physics worldwide, providing physicists from around
the globe with opportunities to collaborate in a twenty to thirty year program
of exciting science. In this document we provide a comprehensive overview of
LBNE's scientific objectives, its place in the landscape of neutrino physics
worldwide, the technologies it will incorporate and the capabilities it will
possess.Comment: Major update of previous version. This is the reference document for
LBNE science program and current status. Chapters 1, 3, and 9 provide a
comprehensive overview of LBNE's scientific objectives, its place in the
landscape of neutrino physics worldwide, the technologies it will incorporate
and the capabilities it will possess. 288 pages, 116 figure
Polyclonal rabbit anti-murine plasmacytoma cell globulins induce myeloma cells apoptosis and inhibit tumour growth in mice
Multiple myelomas (MMs) are etiologically heterogeneous and there are limited treatment options; indeed, current monoclonal antibody therapies have had limited success, so more effective antibodies are urgently needed. Polyclonal antibodies are a possible alternative because they target multiple antigens simultaneously. In this study, we produced polyclonal rabbit anti-murine plasmacytoma cell immunoglobulin (PAb) by immunizing rabbits with the murine plasmacytoma cell line MPC-11. The isolated PAb bound to plasma surface antigens in several MM cell lines, inhibited their proliferation as revealed by MTT assay, and induce apoptosis as indicated by flow cytometry, microscopic observation of apoptotic changes in morphology, and DNA fragmentation on agarose gels. The cytotoxicity of PAb on MPC-11 cell lines was both dose-dependent and time-dependent; PAb exerted a 50% inhibitory effect on MPC-11 cell viability at a concentration of 200 µg/ml in 48 h. Flow cytometry demonstrated that PAb treatment significantly increased the number of apoptotic cells (48.1%) compared with control IgG (8.3%). Apoptosis triggered by PAb was confirmed by activation of caspase-3, -8, and -9. Serial intravenous or intraperitoneal injections of PAb inhibited tumour growth and prolonged survival in mice bearing murine plasmacytoma, while TUNEL assay demonstrated that PAb induced statistically significant apoptosis (P < 0.05) compared to control treatments. We conclude that PAb is an effective agent for in vitro and in vivo induction of apoptosis in multiple myeloma and that exploratory clinical trials may be warranted
In-Datacenter Performance Analysis of a Tensor Processing Unit
Many architects believe that major improvements in cost-energy-performance
must now come from domain-specific hardware. This paper evaluates a custom
ASIC---called a Tensor Processing Unit (TPU)---deployed in datacenters since
2015 that accelerates the inference phase of neural networks (NN). The heart of
the TPU is a 65,536 8-bit MAC matrix multiply unit that offers a peak
throughput of 92 TeraOps/second (TOPS) and a large (28 MiB) software-managed
on-chip memory. The TPU's deterministic execution model is a better match to
the 99th-percentile response-time requirement of our NN applications than are
the time-varying optimizations of CPUs and GPUs (caches, out-of-order
execution, multithreading, multiprocessing, prefetching, ...) that help average
throughput more than guaranteed latency. The lack of such features helps
explain why, despite having myriad MACs and a big memory, the TPU is relatively
small and low power. We compare the TPU to a server-class Intel Haswell CPU and
an Nvidia K80 GPU, which are contemporaries deployed in the same datacenters.
Our workload, written in the high-level TensorFlow framework, uses production
NN applications (MLPs, CNNs, and LSTMs) that represent 95% of our datacenters'
NN inference demand. Despite low utilization for some applications, the TPU is
on average about 15X - 30X faster than its contemporary GPU or CPU, with
TOPS/Watt about 30X - 80X higher. Moreover, using the GPU's GDDR5 memory in the
TPU would triple achieved TOPS and raise TOPS/Watt to nearly 70X the GPU and
200X the CPU.Comment: 17 pages, 11 figures, 8 tables. To appear at the 44th International
Symposium on Computer Architecture (ISCA), Toronto, Canada, June 24-28, 201
Processing unit resources in a distributed computing systems
The described program is designed for collecting, storing and processing data of distributed file system
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