1,927 research outputs found
The Incidence of Gastro-Esophageal Disease for the Patients with Typical Chest Pain and a Normal Coronary Angiogram
Background : Although patients may present with typical chest pain and exhibit ischemic changes on the cardiac stress test, they are frequently found to have a normal coronary angiogram. Thus, we wanted to determine which procedures should be performed in order to make an adequate diagnosis of the cause of chest pain. Methods : 121 patients (males: 42, 34.7%) who had a normal coronary angiogram with typical chest pain were included in this study. All the patients underwent upper endoscopy, Bernstein's test and esophageal manometry. Results : Among the 121 patients, clinically stable angina was noted in 107 (88.4%). Stress testing was done in 82 (67.8%); it was positive in 52 (63.4%). Endoscopic findings were erosive gastritis in 18 (14.8%), gastric ulcer in 4 (3.3%), duodenal ulcer in 5 (4.1%), and reflux esophagitis in 16 (13.2%). Positive results were observed on Berstein's test for 68 patients (56.2%); 59 (86.8%) of them had non-erosive reflux disease. On the esophageal manometry, 35 (28.9%) of these patients had motility disorders. Nutcracker esophagus was observed in 27 patients (22.3%), nonspecific esophageal motility disorder was observed in 5 (4.1%), and hypertensive lower esophageal sphincter was observed in 3 (2.5%). Among the 52 patients with positive cardiac stress testing and a negative coronary angiogram (this clinically corresponded to microvascular angina), 46 patients (85.1%) showed abnormal findings on the gastro-esophageal studies. Conclusions : In our study, 85.1% of the patients with microvascular angina revealed positive results of gastric or esophageal disease. In spite of any existing evidence of microvascular angina or cardiac syndrome X, it would be more advisable to perform gastro-esophageal studies to adequately manage chest pain
Precise limits from lepton flavour violating processes on the Littlest Higgs model with T-parity
We recalculate the leading one-loop contributions to mu > e gamma and mu ->
eee in the Littlest Higgs model with T-parity, recovering previous results for
the former. When all the Goldstone interactions are taken into account, the
latter is also ultraviolet finite. The present experimental limits on these
processes require a somewhat heavy effective scale ~2.5 TeV, or the flavour
alignment of the Yukawa couplings of light and heavy leptons at the ~10% level,
or the splitting of heavy lepton masses to a similar precision. Present limits
on tau decays set no bounds on the corresponding parameters involving the tau
leptonComment: 41 pages, 11 figures; v3: matches published version in JHE
Magnetic Fields in the Milky Way
This chapter presents a review of observational studies to determine the
magnetic field in the Milky Way, both in the disk and in the halo, focused on
recent developments and on magnetic fields in the diffuse interstellar medium.
I discuss some terminology which is confusingly or inconsistently used and try
to summarize current status of our knowledge on magnetic field configurations
and strengths in the Milky Way. Although many open questions still exist, more
and more conclusions can be drawn on the large-scale and small-scale components
of the Galactic magnetic field. The chapter is concluded with a brief outlook
to observational projects in the near future.Comment: 22 pages, 5 figures, to appear in "Magnetic Fields in Diffuse Media",
eds. E.M. de Gouveia Dal Pino and A. Lazaria
Pyrite (FeS2)-supported ultrafiltration system for removal of mercury (II) from water
This study investigated the Hg(II) removal efficiencies of the reactive adsorbent membrane (RAM) hybrid filtration process, a removal process that produces stable final residuals. The reaction mechanism between Hg(II) and pyrite and the rejection of the solids over time were characterized with respect to flux decline, pH change, and Hg and Fe concentration in permeate water. Effects of the presence of anions (Cl−, SO42−, NO3−) or humic acid (HA) on the rejection of the Hg(II)-contacted pyrite were studied. The presence of both HA and Hg(II) increased the rate of flux decline due to the formation of irreversible gel-like compact cake layers as shown in the experimental data and modeling related to the flux decline and the SEM images. Stability experiments of the final residuals retained on the membrane using a thiosulfate solution (Na2S2O3) show that the Hg(II)-laden solids were very stable due to little or no detection of Hg(II) in the permeate water. Experiment on the possibility of continuously removing Hg(II) by reusing the Hg/pyrite-laden membrane shows that almost all Hg(II) was adsorbed onto the pyrite surface regardless of the presence of salts or HA, and the Hg(II)-contacted pyrite residuals were completely rejected by the DE/UF system. Therefore, a membrane filter containing pyrite-Hg(II) could provide another reactive cake layer capable of further removal of Hg(II) without post-chemical treatment for reuse.Qatar National Research Fund (QNRF) grant #NPRP 4–279-2–094
The Magnetic Field of the Solar Corona from Pulsar Observations
We present a novel experiment with the capacity to independently measure both
the electron density and the magnetic field of the solar corona. We achieve
this through measurement of the excess Faraday rotation due to propagation of
the polarised emission from a number of pulsars through the magnetic field of
the solar corona. This method yields independent measures of the integrated
electron density, via dispersion of the pulsed signal and the magnetic field,
via the amount of Faraday rotation. In principle this allows the determination
of the integrated magnetic field through the solar corona along many lines of
sight without any assumptions regarding the electron density distribution. We
present a detection of an increase in the rotation measure of the pulsar
J18012304 of approximately 160 \rad at an elongation of 0.95 from
the centre of the solar disk. This corresponds to a lower limit of the magnetic
field strength along this line of sight of . The lack of
precision in the integrated electron density measurement restricts this result
to a limit, but application of coronal plasma models can further constrain this
to approximately 20mG, along a path passing 2.5 solar radii from the solar
limb. Which is consistent with predictions obtained using extensions to the
Source Surface models published by Wilcox Solar ObservatoryComment: 16 pages, 4 figures (1 colour): Submitted to Solar Physic
Dirac Gauginos in General Gauge Mediation
We extend the formulation by Meade, Seiberg and Shih of general gauge
mediation of supersymmetry breaking to include Dirac masses for the gauginos.
These appear through mixing of the visible sector gauginos with additional
states in adjoint representations. We illustrate the method by reproducing the
existing results in the literature for the gaugino and sfermion masses when
preserving R-symmetry. We then explain how the generation of same sign masses
for the two propagating degrees of freedom in the adjoint scalars can be
achieved. We end by commenting on the use of the formalism for describing U(1)
mixing.Comment: 22 pages, no figures. V2: minor corrections
Edge reconstruction in the fractional quantum Hall regime
The interplay of electron-electron interaction and confining potential can
lead to the reconstruction of fractional quantum Hall edges. We have performed
exact diagonalization studies on microscopic models of fractional quantum Hall
liquids, in finite size systems with disk geometry, and found numerical
evidence of edge reconstruction under rather general conditions. In the present
work we have taken into account effects like layer thickness and Landau level
mixing, which are found to be of quantitative importance in edge physics. Due
to edge reconstruction, additional nonchiral edge modes arise for both
incompressible and compressible states. These additional modes couple to
electromagnetic fields and thus can be detected in microwave conductivity
measurements. They are also expected to affect the exponent of electron Green's
function, which has been measured in tunneling experiments. We have studied in
this work the electric dipole spectral function that is directly related to the
microwave conductivity measurement. Our results are consistent with the
enhanced microwave conductivity observed in experiments performed on samples
with an array of antidots at low temperatures, and its suppression at higher
temperatures. We also discuss the effects of the edge reconstruction on the
single electron spectral function at the edge.Comment: 19 pages, 12 figure
Magnetism in a lattice of spinor Bose condensates
We study the ground state magnetic properties of ferromagnetic spinor
Bose-Einstein condensates confined in a deep optical lattices. In the Mott
insulator regime, the ``mini-condensates'' at each lattice site behave as
mesoscopic spin magnets that can interact with neighboring sites through both
the static magnetic dipolar interaction and the light-induced dipolar
interaction. We show that such an array of spin magnets can undergo a
ferromagnetic or anti-ferromagnetic phase transition under the magnetic dipolar
interaction depending on the dimension of the confining optical lattice. The
ground-state spin configurations and related magnetic properties are
investigated in detail
Golgi Outpost Synthesis Impaired by Toxic Polyglutamine Proteins Contributes to Dendritic Pathology in Neurons
Dendrite aberration is a common feature of neurodegenerative diseases caused by protein toxicity, but the underlying mechanisms remain largely elusive. Here, we show that nuclear polyglutamine (polyQ) toxicity resulted in defective terminal dendrite elongation accompanied by a loss of Golgi outposts (GOPs) and a decreased supply of plasma membrane (PM) in Drosophila class IV dendritic arborization (da) (C4 da) neurons. mRNA sequencing revealed that genes downregulated by polyQ proteins included many secretory pathway-related genes, including COPII genes regulating GOP synthesis. Transcription factor enrichment analysis identified CREB3L1/CrebA, which regulates COPII gene expression. CrebA overexpression in C4 da neurons restores the dysregulation of COPII genes, GOP synthesis, and PM supply. Chromatin immunoprecipitation (ChIP)-PCR revealed that CrebA expression is regulated by CREB-binding protein (CBP), which is sequestered by polyQ proteins. Furthermore, co-overexpression of CrebA and Rac1 synergistically restores the polyQ-induced dendrite pathology. Collectively, our results suggest that GOPs impaired by polyQ proteins contribute to dendrite pathology through the CBP-CrebA-COPII pathway. ? 2017 The Author(s)113Ysciescopu
Quaternion-Loop Quantum Gravity
It is shown that the Riemannian curvature of the 3-dimensional hypersurfaces
in space-time, described by the Wilson loop integral, can be represented by a
quaternion quantum operator induced by the SU(2) gauge potential, thus
providing a justification for quaternion quantum gravity at the Tev energy
scale.Comment: 5 pages, latex, no figures. Improved pdf. To appear in the
Foundations of Physic
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