55 research outputs found
Holographic isotropization linearized
The holographic isotropization of a highly anisotropic, homogeneous, strongly
coupled, non-Abelian plasma was simplified in arXiv:1202.0981 by linearizing
Einstein's equations around the final, equilibrium state. This approximation
reproduces the expectation value of the boundary stress tensor with a 20%
accuracy. Here we elaborate on these results and extend them to observables
that are directly sensitive to the bulk interior, focusing for simplicity on
the entropy production on the event horizon. We also consider
next-to-leading-order corrections and show that the leading terms alone provide
a better description of the isotropization process for the states that are
furthest from equilibrium.Comment: 30 pages, 14 figures; v2: minor changes in the text, matches the
published versio
ANALYSIS OF LIFE INSURANCE INVESTMENT COMPOSITION
Economic recession and global mettle down have brought the question of insurance
company investment to the forefront. Growing attention has shifted to the pattern of investments by the
insurance and question of how to evaluate such investments. The aim of this research is to evaluate
investment compositions which are made by life insurance companies in Indonesia, as well as to know the
effects on the performance of Insurance companies
Bedside breath tests in children with abdominal pain: a prospective pilot feasibility study
Background: There is no definitive method of accurately diagnosing appendicitis before surgery. We evaluated the feasibility of collecting breath samples in children with abdominal pain and gathered preliminary data on the accuracy of breath tests.
Methods: We conducted a prospective pilot study at a large tertiary referral paediatric hospital in the UK. We recruited 50 participants with suspected appendicitis, aged between 5 and 15 years. Five had primary diagnosis of appendicitis. The primary outcome was the number of breath samples collected. We also measured the number of samples processed within 2 h and had CO2 ≥ 3.5%. Usability was assessed by patient-reported pain pre- and post-sampling and user-reported sampling difficulty. Logistic regression analysis was used to predict appendicitis and evaluated using the area under the receiver operator characteristic curve (AUROC).
Results: Samples were collected from all participants. Of the 45 samples, 36 were processed within 2 h. Of the 49 samples, 19 had %CO2 ≥ 3.5%. No difference in patient-reported pain was observed (p = 0.24). Sampling difficulty was associated with patient age (p = 0.004). The logistic regression model had AUROC = 0.86.
Conclusions: Breath tests are feasible and acceptable to patients presenting with abdominal pain in clinical settings. We demonstrated adequate data collection with no evidence of harm to patients. The AUROC was better than a random classifier; more specific sensors are likely to improve diagnostic performance.
Trial registration: ClinicalTrials.gov, NCT03248102. Registered 14 Aug 2017
Expiratory flow rate, breath hold and anatomic dead space influence electronic nose ability to detect lung cancer
BACKGROUND: Electronic noses are composites of nanosensor arrays. Numerous studies showed their potential to detect lung cancer from breath samples by analysing exhaled volatile compound pattern ("breathprint"). Expiratory flow rate, breath hold and inclusion of anatomic dead space may influence the exhaled levels of some volatile compounds; however it has not been fully addressed how these factors affect electronic nose data. Therefore, the aim of the study was to investigate these effects. METHODS: 37 healthy subjects (44 +/- 14 years) and 27 patients with lung cancer (60 +/- 10 years) participated in the study. After deep inhalation through a volatile organic compound filter, subjects exhaled at two different flow rates (50 ml/sec and 75 ml/sec) into Teflon-coated bags. The effect of breath hold was analysed after 10 seconds of deep inhalation. We also studied the effect of anatomic dead space by excluding this fraction and comparing alveolar air to mixed (alveolar + anatomic dead space) air samples. Exhaled air samples were processed with Cyranose 320 electronic nose. RESULTS: Expiratory flow rate, breath hold and the inclusion of anatomic dead space significantly altered "breathprints" in healthy individuals (p 0.05). These factors also influenced the discrimination ability of the electronic nose to detect lung cancer significantly. CONCLUSIONS: We have shown that expiratory flow, breath hold and dead space influence exhaled volatile compound pattern assessed with electronic nose. These findings suggest critical methodological recommendations to standardise sample collections for electronic nose measurements
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