1,290 research outputs found
Prospective observational study of point-of-care creatinine in trauma.
Background:Patients with trauma are at risk for renal dysfunction from hypovolemia or urological injury. In austere environments, creatinine values are not available to guide resuscitation. A new portable device, the Stat Sensor Point-of-care (POC) Whole Blood Creatinine Analyzer, provides accurate results in <30 s and requires minimal training. This device has not been evaluated in trauma despite the theoretical benefit it provides. The purpose of this study is to determine the clinical impact of the POC device in trauma. Methods:40 patients with trauma were enrolled in a prospective observational study. One drop of blood was used for creatinine determination on the Statsensor POC device. POC creatinine results were compared to the laboratory. Turnaround time (TAT) for POC and laboratory methods was calculated as well as time elapsed to CT scan if applicable. Results:Patients (n=40) were enrolled between December 2014 and March 2015. POC creatinine values were similar to laboratory methods with a mean bias of 0.075±0.27 (p=0.08). Mean analytical TATs for the POC measurements were significantly faster than the laboratory method (11.6±10.0 min vs 78.1±27.9 min, n=40, p<0.0001). Mean elapsed time before arrival at the CT scanner was 52.9±34.2 min. Conclusions:The POC device reported similar creatinine values to the laboratory and provided significantly faster results. POC creatinine testing is a promising development for trauma practice in austere environments and workup of a subset of stable patients with trauma. Further study is warranted to determine clinical impact, both in hospital-based trauma and austere environments
Evolving wormhole geometries within nonlinear electrodynamics
In this work, we explore the possibility of evolving (2+1) and
(3+1)-dimensional wormhole spacetimes, conformally related to the respective
static geometries, within the context of nonlinear electrodynamics. For the
(3+1)-dimensional spacetime, it is found that the Einstein field equation
imposes a contracting wormhole solution and the obedience of the weak energy
condition. Nevertheless, in the presence of an electric field, the latter
presents a singularity at the throat, however, for a pure magnetic field the
solution is regular. For the (2+1)-dimensional case, it is also found that the
physical fields are singular at the throat. Thus, taking into account the
principle of finiteness, which states that a satisfactory theory should avoid
physical quantities becoming infinite, one may rule out evolving
(3+1)-dimensional wormhole solutions, in the presence of an electric field, and
the (2+1)-dimensional case coupled to nonlinear electrodynamics.Comment: 17 pages, 1 figure; to appear in Classical and Quantum Gravity. V2:
minor corrections, including a referenc
CP violation in the effective action of the Standard Model
Following a suggestion by Smit, the CP odd terms of the effective action of
the Standard Model, obtained by integration of quarks and leptons, are computed
to sixth order within a strict covariant derivative expansion approach. No
other approximations are made. The final result so derived includes all
Standard Model gauge fields and Higgs. Remarkably, at the order considered in
this work, all parity violating contributions turn out to be zero. Non
vanishing CP violating terms are obtained in the C-odd P-even sector. These are
several orders of magnitude larger than perturbative estimates. Various
unexpected regularities in the final result are noted.Comment: 32 pages, no figures. Section added. To appear in JHE
Traversable wormholes coupled to nonlinear electrodynamics
In this work we explore the possible existence of static, spherically
symmetric and stationary, axisymmetric traversable wormholes coupled to
nonlinear electrodynamics. Considering static and spherically symmetric (2+1)
and (3+1)-dimensional wormhole spacetimes, we verify the presence of an event
horizon and the non-violation of the null energy condition at the throat. For
the former spacetime, the principle of finiteness is imposed, in order to
obtain regular physical fields at the throat. Next, we analyze the
(2+1)-dimensional stationary and axisymmetric wormhole, and also verify the
presence of an event horizon, rendering the geometry non-traversable.
Relatively to the (3+1)-dimensional stationary and axisymmetric wormhole
geometry, we find that the field equations impose specific conditions that are
incompatible with the properties of wormholes. Thus, we prove the non-existence
of the general class of traversable wormhole solutions, outlined above, within
the context of nonlinear electrodynamics.Comment: 9 pages, Revtex4. V2: major change in title; considerable additions
in the Introduction and in the rotating solution, no physics changes;
correction of a reference, one reference added; now 10 pages. This version to
appear in Classical and Quantum Gravit
QCD equation of state in a virial expansion
We describe recent three-flavor QCD lattice data for the pressure, speed of
soun d and interaction measure at nonzero temperature and vanishing chemical
potentia l within a virial expansion. For the deconfined phase we use a
phenomenological model which includes non-pert urbative effects from dimension
two gluon condensates that reproduce the free en ergy of quenched QCD very
well. The hadronic phase is parameterized by a generalized resonance-gas model.
Furthermore, we extend this approach to finite quark densities introducing an
ex plicit -dependence of the interaction. We calculate pressure,
quark-number density, entropy and energy density and compare to results of
lattice calculatio ns. We, additionally, investigate the structure of the phase
diagram by calculating the isobaric and isentropic lines as well as the
critical endpoint in the ()-plane.Comment: 9 pages, 11 figures. Submitted to Phys. Rev.
Impediments to mixing classical and quantum dynamics
The dynamics of systems composed of a classical sector plus a quantum sector
is studied. We show that, even in the simplest cases, (i) the existence of a
consistent canonical description for such mixed systems is incompatible with
very basic requirements related to the time evolution of the two sectors when
they are decoupled. (ii) The classical sector cannot inherit quantum
fluctuations from the quantum sector. And, (iii) a coupling among the two
sectors is incompatible with the requirement of physical positivity of the
theory, i.e., there would be positive observables with a non positive
expectation value.Comment: RevTex, 21 pages. Title slightly modified and summary section adde
The thickness of HI in galactic discs under MOND: theory and application to the Galaxy
The outskirts of galaxies are a very good laboratory for testing the nature
of the gravitational field at low accelerations. By assuming that the neutral
hydrogen gas is in hydrostatic equilibrium in the gravitational potential of
the host galaxy, the observed flaring of the gas layer can be used to test
modified gravities. For the first time we construct a simple framework to
derive the scaleheight of the neutral hydrogen gas disc in the MOND scenario
and apply this to the Milky Way. It is shown that using a constant gas velocity
dispersion of ~9 km/s, MOND is able to give a very good fit to the observed HI
flaring beyond a galactocentric distance of 17 kpc up to the last measured
point (~40 kpc). Between 10 and 16 kpc, however, the observed scaleheight is
about 40% more than what MOND predicts for the standard interpolating function
and 70% for the form suggested by Famaey & Binney. Given the uncertainties in
the non-thermal pressure support by cosmic rays and magnetic fields, MOND seems
to be a plausible alternative to dark matter in explaining the Milky Way
flaring. Studying the flaring of extended HI discs in external edge-on galaxies
may be a promising approach to assess the viability of MOND.Comment: 13 pages, 4 figure
Direct construction of the effective action of chiral gauge fermions in the anomalous sector
The anomaly implies an obstruction to a fully chiral covariant calculation of
the effective action in the abnormal parity sector of chiral theories. The
standard approach then is to reconstruct the anomalous effective action from
its covariant current. In this work we use a recently introduced formulation
which allows to directly construct the non trivial chiral invariant part of the
effective action within a fully covariant formalism. To this end we develop an
appropriate version of Chan's approach to carry out the calculation within the
derivative expansion. The result to four derivatives, i.e., to leading order in
two and four dimensions and next-to-leading order in two dimensions, is
explicitly worked out. Fairly compact expressions are found for these terms.Comment: 19 pages, revtex, no figures. Writing improved. (Refers to
arXiv:0807.1696.
Gauge invariant derivative expansion of the effective action at finite temperature and density and the scalar field in 2+1 dimensions
A method is presented for the computation of the one-loop effective action at
finite temperature and density. The method is based on an expansion in the
number of spatial covariant derivatives. It applies to general background field
configurations with arbitrary internal symmetry group and space-time
dependence. Full invariance under small and large gauge transformations is
preserved without assuming stationary or Abelian fields nor fixing the gauge.
The method is applied to the computation of the effective action of spin zero
particles in 2+1 dimensions at finite temperature and density and in presence
of background gauge fields. The calculation is carried out through second order
in the number of spatial covariant derivatives. Some limiting cases are worked
out.Comment: 34 pages, REVTEX, no figures. Further comments adde
The Semileptonic to Decays in QCD Sum Rules
We analyze the semileptonic rare decays of meson to and
axial vector mesons. The
decays are significant flavor changing neutral current decays of the meson.
These decays are sensitive to the new physics beyond SM, since these processes
are forbidden at tree level at SM. These decays occurring at the quark level
via transition, also provide new opportunities for
calculating the CKM matrix elements and . In this study, the
transition form factors of the decays
are calculated using three-point QCD sum rules approach. The resulting form
factors are used to estimate the branching fractions of these decays.Comment: 18 pages, 7 figures, version to appear in JP
- …