Neutron electric dipole moment from gauge/string duality

We compute the electric dipole moment of nucleons in the large $N_c$ QCD model by Witten, Sakai and Sugimoto with $N_f=2$ degenerate massive flavors. Baryons in the model are instantonic solitons of an effective five-dimensional action describing the whole tower of mesonic fields. We find that the dipole electromagnetic form factor of the nucleons, induced by a finite topological $\theta$ angle, exhibits complete vector meson dominance. We are able to evaluate the contribution of each vector meson to the final result - a small number of modes are relevant to obtain an accurate estimate. Extrapolating the model parameters to real QCD data, the neutron electric dipole moment is evaluated to be $d_n = 1.8 \cdot 10^{-16}\, \theta\;e\cdot \mathrm{cm}$. The electric dipole moment of the proton is exactly the opposite.Comment: Latex, 4 pages; v2: minor corrections, few comments adde

Quality of reporting on the vegetative state in Italian newspapers. The case of Eluana Englaro.

Background: Media coverage of the vegetative state (VS) includes refutations of the VS diagnosis and describes behaviors inconsistent with VS. We used a quality score to assess the reporting in articles describing the medical characteristics of VS in Italian newspapers. Methodology/Principal Findings: Our search covered a 7-month period from July 1, 2008, to February 28, 2009, using the online searchable databases of four major Italian newspapers: Corriere della Sera, La Repubblica, La Stampa, and Avvenire. Medical reporting was judged as complete if three core VS characteristics were described: patient unawareness of self and the environment, preserved wakefulness (eyes open), and spontaneous respiration (artificial ventilator not needed). We retrieved 2,099 articles, and 967 were dedicated to VS. Of these, 853 (88.2%) were non-medical and mainly focused on describing the political, legal, and ethical aspects of VS. Of the 114 (11.8%) medical articles, 53 (5.5%) discussed other medical problems such as death by dehydration, artificial nutrition, neuroimaging, brain death, or uterine hemorrhage, and 61 (6.3%) described VS. Of these 61, only 18 (1.9%) reported all three CORE characteristics and were judged complete. We found no differences among the four investigated newspapers (Fisher’s exact = 0.798), and incomplete articles were equally distributed between journalistic pieces and expert opinions (x2 = 1.8854, P = 0.170). Incorrect descriptions of VS were significantly more common among incomplete articles (13 of 43 vs. 1 of 18; Fisher’s exact P = 0.047). Conclusions/Significance: Core VS characteristics are rarely reported in Italian newspaper articles, which can alter adequate comprehension of new developments and (mis)inform political, legal, and ethical decisions

Liver injury by experimental portal bacteremia: histogenetic recovery study in the rat

Abstract - To study the histogenetic recovery of hepatic lesions due to portal bacteremia, a complication of some clinical conditions, an experimental animal model had developed. Portal bacteremia was performed in 8-week rats and the morphological recovery of liver was histologically checked 1 to 6 days after bacteria inoculation. The major injuries, such as acute inflammatory exudate of the portobiliary spaces, piecemeal necrosis of muralium, micro-abscesses and areas of hepatocyte necrosis of the liver parenchyma, and thrombosis in the centrolobular vein were recorded 1 day after inoculation. Minimal signs of vacuolar degeneration, steatosis, necrosis areas, vessel congestion and focal hemosiderosis together with a small hepatocyte proliferative activity was instead appreciable with longer time. The results seem to suggest a role of vascular structures and Kupffer cells in the morphological repair. This experimental model could serve to understand better similar clinical hepatology conditions, such as portal bacteremia.Informazioni util

Novel coal gasification process: Improvement of syngas yield and reduction of emissions

This article is intended to propose and model an innovative process layout for coal gasification that improves the production of syngas and also reduces the sulfur and CO2emissions. The typical coal gasification process uses Sulfur Recovery Units to convert H2S to sulfur, but these have some disadvantage, e.g low sulfur price, coal charge with low sulfur flow rate, use of Tail Gas Treatment unit. Compared to the Claus process, this solution converts H2S and CO2into syngas (economically appealing), reduces emission of H2S and CO2and allows the use of coal charge with high sulfur flow rate, e.g. 9.5% mol/mol. The novel process takes advantage of a double amine wash, a thermal regenerative furnace and considers the recycle of the acid gases coming from the catalytic reactor to further promote the H2S conversion. In particular, the double amine wash is useful to purify the H2S stream to be sent to the thermal furnace from the syngas and CO2, in order to reduce the reactor inlet flow rate. The regenerative furnace is simulated using a large detailed kinetic scheme to appropriately describe the minor species (among them, pollutants like CS2 and COS). As a result, the recycle appears to substantially reduce the pollutant emissions. In addition, the conversion of the Claus process into the novel process doesn't require any change in the main equipment, just needing for a variation in the layout and the operating conditions

Radioisotopic purity and imaging properties of cyclotron-produced 99mTc using direct 100Mo(p,2n) reaction

Evaluation of the radioisotopic purity of technetium-99m (99mTc) produced in GBq amounts by proton bombardment of enriched molibdenum-100 (100Mo) metallic targets at low proton energies (i.e. within 15\u201320 MeV) is conducted. This energy range was chosen since it is easily achievable by many conventional medical cyclotrons already available in the nuclear medicine departments of hospitals. The main motivation for such a study is in the framework of the research activities at the international level that have been conducted over the last few years to develop alternative production routes for the most widespread radioisotope used in medical imaging. The analysis of technetium isotopes and isomeric states (9xTc) present in the pertechnetate saline Na99mTcO4 solutions, obtained after the extraction/purification procedure, reveals radionuclidic purity levels basically in compliance with the limits recently issued by European Pharmacopoeia 9.3 (2018 Sodium pertechnetate (99mTc) injection 4801\u20133). Moreover, the impact of 9xTc contaminant nuclides on the final image quality is thoroughly evaluated, analyzing the emitted high-energy gamma rays and their influence on the image quality. The spatial resolution of images from cyclotron-produced 99mTc acquired with a mini-gamma camera was determined and compared with that obtained using technetium-99m solutions eluted from standard 99Mo/99mTc generators. The effect of the increased image background contribution due to Compton-scattered higher-energy gamma rays (E \u3b3 \u2009\u2009>\u2009\u2009200\u2009keV), which could cause image-contrast deterioration, was also studied. It is concluded that, due to the high radionuclidic purity of cyclotron-produced 99mTc using 100Mo(p,2n)99mTc reaction at a proton beam energy in the range 15.7\u201319.4 MeV, the resulting image properties are well comparable with those from the generator-eluted 99mTc

Role of combined DWIBS/3D-CE-T1w whole-body MRI in tumor staging: Comparison with PET-CT

Objectives: To assess the diagnostic performance of whole-body magnetic resonance imaging (WB-MRI) by diffusion-weighted whole-body imaging with background body signal suppression (DWIBS) in malignant tumor detection and the potential diagnostic advantages in generating fused DWIBS/3D-contrast enhanced T1w (3D-CE-T1w) images. Methods: 45 cancer patients underwent 18F-FDG PET-CT and WB-MRI for staging purpose. Fused DWIBS/3D-CE T1w images were generated off-line. 3D-CE-T1w, DWIBS images alone and fused with 3D-CE T1w were compared by two readers groups for detection of primary diseases and local/distant metastases. Diagnostic performance between the three WB-MRI data sets was assessed using receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve analysis. Imaging exams and histopathological results were used as standard of references. Results: Areas under the ROC curves of DWIBS vs. 3D-CE-T1w vs. both sequences in fused fashion were 0.97, 0.978, and 1.00, respectively. The diagnostic performance in tumor detection of fused DWIBS/3DCE- T1w images were statistically superior to DWIBS (p < 0.001) and 3D-CE-T1w (p ≤ 0.002); while the difference between DWIBS and 3D-CE-T1w did not show statistical significance difference. Detection rates of malignancy did not differ between WB-MRI with DWIBS and 18F-FDG PET-CT. Conclusion: WB-MRI with DWIBS is to be considered as alternative tool to conventional whole-body methods for tumor staging and during follow-up in cancer patients

Theta dependence in holographic QCD

We study the effects of the CP-breaking topological $\theta$-term in the large $N_c$ QCD model by Witten, Sakai and Sugimoto with $N_f$ degenerate light flavors. We first compute the ground state energy density, the topological susceptibility and the masses of the lowest lying mesons, finding agreement with expectations from the QCD chiral effective action. Then, focusing on the $N_f=2$ case, we consider the baryonic sector and determine, to leading order in the small $\theta$ regime, the related holographic instantonic soliton solutions. We find that while the baryon spectrum does not receive ${\cal O}(\theta)$ corrections, this is not the case for observables like the electromagnetic form factor of the nucleons. In particular, it exhibits a dipole term, which turns out to be vector-meson dominated. The resulting neutron electric dipole moment, which is exactly the opposite as that of the proton, is of the same order of magnitude of previous estimates in the literature. Finally, we compute the CP-violating pion-nucleon coupling constant ${\bar g}_{\pi N N}$, finding that it is zero to leading order in the large $N_c$ limit.Comment: Latex, 61 pages, 5 figures; v2: Section 8.5 with a novel analysis of the electric dipole form factor has been added; further comments and references added; typos correcte

Modelagem e controle avançado não-linear multivariável por lógica nebulosa : aplicação para um processo de copolimerização

A obtenção de um modelo matemático confiável de um dado processo é um pré-requisito fundamental para o projeto de controladores. Contudo, particularmente para sistemas poliméricos que são intrinsecamente caracterizados por dinâmicas complexas, o delineamento de uma aproximação a partir dos primeiros princípios é uma tarefa bastante árdua e, por vezes, não realizável. Logo, representações matemáticas mais simples, porém reprodutivas das principais peculiaridades do sistema, são bem-vindas. Assim sendo, este trabalho apresenta o desenvolvimento e a implementação de dois esquemas de controle preditivo não-linear multivariável baseado em modelo nebuloso para um processo de copolimerização. Modelos MISO (Multi-Input/Single-Output) lineares e exponenciais são construídos a partir da lógica nebulosa, combinados e aplicados para simulação e predição on-line. Os desempenhos das estruturas de controle propostas foram comparados ao DMC (Dynamic Matrix Control) e a um típico NMPC (Nonlinear Model-based Predictive Control) para o problema servo. Os resultados obtidos comprovaram a eficácia das configurações projetadas

FEM analysis of RF breast ablation: Multiprobe versus cool-tip electrode

Background: Radio-frequency ablation (RFA) has recently received much attention as an effective minimally invasive strategy for the local treatment of tumors. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the efficacy of single-needle cool-tip RF breast ablation in terms of temperature distribution and duration of the procedure as compared to multiprobe RF breast ablation. Materials and Methods: Two different commercially available radiofrequency ablation needle electrodes were compared. Finite-element method (FEM) models were developed to simulate the thermoablation procedures. A series of ex vivo radiofrequency thermal lesions were induced to check the response of the FEM calculations. Results: Data obtained from FEM models and from ex vivo procedures showed that cool-tip RF breast ablation assures better performances than multiprobe RF breast ablation in terms of temperature distribution and duration of the procedure. Histopathological analysis of the cool-tip RF thermoablated specimens showed successful induction of coagulation necrosis in the thermoablated specimens. Conclusion: Data obtained from FEM models and from ex vivo procedures suggest that the proposed cool-tip RF breast ablation may kill more tumor cells in vivo with a single application than the multiprobe RF breast ablation