1,787 research outputs found
Fermionic entanglement extinction in non-inertial frames
We study families of fermionic field states in non-inertial frames which show
no entanglement survival in the infinite acceleration limit. We generalise some
recent results where some particular examples of such states where found. We
analyse the abundance and characteristics of the states showing this behaviour
and discuss its relation with the statistics of the field. We also consider the
phenomenon beyond the single mode approximation.Comment: 6 pages, 4 figures, revtex4-
Metastasis of spindle cell malignant melanoma in gallbladder
Malignant melanoma is an aggressive neoplasm with a high tendency to metastasize.
Gastrointestinal metastases, although described in the literature, are infrequent. We present the case of a 51-year-old male
patient with a surfcial spreading melanoma stage IIIc with BRAF mutation who presented a gallbladder outgrowth lesion,
compatible with a polyp. A signifcant growth of the lesion was observed in subsequent TC studies and a laparoscopic
cholecystectomy was performed. The anatomopathological study of the specimen confrmed the diagnosis of gallbladder
metastasis due to epithelioid and spindle cell malignant melanoma. The presence of a gallbladder lesion in the context of a
patient diagnosed with melanoma should establish the diagnostic suspicion of metastasis, and an early extension study and
laparoscopic cholecystectomy should be considered. The palliative surgical approach to avoid hepatobiliary symptomatology can be considered
Entropy based parametrization of soils: Models and Tools
Particle-size distribution (PSD) is a fundamental soil physical property. The PSD is commonly reported in terms of the mass percentages of sand, silt and clay present
The BIDIAP index: a clinical, analytical and ultrasonographic score for the diagnosis of acute appendicitis in children
Background: Pediatric acute appendicitis (PAA) continues to be a diagnostic challenge today. The diagnostic performance of classical indices is only moderate, especially in pediatric population. This study aimed to define a clinical, radiological and analytical index for the diagnosis of PAA.
Materials and methods: This prospective study included 151 patients divided into two groups: (1) 53 patients with non-surgical abdominal pain (NSAP) and (2) 98 patients with a confirmed PAA. Sociodemographic and clinical characteristics were compared between groups using the Mann-Whitney U test and the Fisher exact test. To identify the predictors of PAA, we performed a multivariable logistic regression using a forward stepwise analysis and we assigned multiples of integer values to the selected variables. The diagnostic performance of the index was assessed by calculating the area under the receiver operating characteristic curve. Intra-cohort calibration was assessed with the Hosmer-Lemeshow test.
Results: We developed the BIDIAP index (BIomarkers for the DIagnosis of Appendicitis in Pediatrics), which included three variables that independently predicted higher odds of PAA: appendiceal caliber (≥ 6.9 mm), systemic immune-inflammation index (≥ 890) and peritoneal irritation, which scored 4, 3 and 2 points, respectively. Mean (SD) score of the participants was 2.38 (2.06) in group 1 and 7.89 (1.50) in group 2. The area under the ROC was 0.97 (95% CI 0.95-0.99). The cut-off point was established at 4 points, resulting in a sensitivity of 98.98% and a specificity of 77.78%.
Conclusions: The BIDIAP index has an exceptional diagnostic performance in PAA. The importance of these results lies in its novelty and in the simplicity of the index. Although external validation will be necessary, initial results look promising
Alterations and diagnostic performance of capillary ketonemia in pediatric acute appendicitis: a pilot study
Introduction: The diagnostic performance of capillary ketonemia (CK) has been previously evaluated in context of pediatric acute gastroenteritis. To our knowledge, there is no literature on its performance in the setting of pediatric acute appendicitis (PAA).
Materials and methods: In this study, 151 patients were prospectively included and divided into two groups: (1) patients with non-surgical abdominal pain in whom the diagnosis of PAA was excluded (n : 53) and (2) patients with a confirmed diagnosis of PAA (n : 98). In 80 patients (Group 1, n : 23 and group 2, n : 57) a CK was measured at the time of diagnosis. The PAA group was further classified into complicated (n : 18) and uncomplicated PAA (n : 39). Quantitative variables were compared between groups using the Mann-Whitney U test. Diagnostic performance of CK was evaluated with ROC curves.
Results: CK values were 0.3 [0.1-0.9] mmol/L in group 1 and 0.7 [0.4-1.4] mmol/L in group 2 (p = 0.01). Regarding the type of PAA, CK values were 0.6 [0.4-0.9] mmol/L in uncomplicated PAA and 1.2 [0.8-1.4] mmol/L in complicated PAA (p : 0.02). The AUC for the discrimination between groups 1 and 2 was 0.68 (95/100 IC 0.53-0.82) (p : 0.24) and the AUC for the discrimination between uncomplicated PAA and complicated PAA was 0.69 (95/100 IC 0.54-0.85) (p : 0.04). The best cut-off point (group 1 vs group 2) resulted in 0.4 mmol/L, with a sensitivity of 80.7/100 and a specificity of 52.2/100. The best cut-off point (non-complicated vs complicated PAA) resulted in 1.1 mmol/L, with a sensitivity of 61.1/100 and a specificity of 76.9/100.
Conclusions: This study found significantly higher levels of CK in patients with PAA than in those with NSAP. Similarly, significantly higher levels were observed in patients with complicated than in those with uncomplicated PAA. Nevertheless, the diagnostic performance of CK was only moderate in the two settings analyzed. The potential usefulness of CK determination as a tool to guide the preoperative rehydration regimen of patients with PAA to prevent postoperative hyporexia and vomiting is a promising line of research and should be evaluated in future studies
Supersymmetric One-family Model without Higgsinos
The Higgs potential and the mass spectrum of the N=1 supersymmetric extension
of a recently proposed one-family model based on the local gauge group , which is a subgroup of the electroweak-strong
unification group , is analyzed. In this model the slepton multiplets play
the role of the Higgs scalars and no Higgsinos are needed, with the consequence
that the sneutrino, the selectron and six other sleptons play the role of the
Goldstone bosons. We show how the problem is successfully addressed in
the context of this model which also predicts the existence of a light CP-odd
scalar.Comment: REVTeX 4, 10 pages. Included discussions about constraints coming
from the rho-parameter and from Muon (g-2). References added. Version to
appear in Phys. Rev.
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A specific amino acid motif of HLA-DRB1 mediates risk and interacts with smoking history in Parkinson's disease.
Parkinson's disease (PD) is a neurodegenerative disease in which genetic risk has been mapped to HLA, but precise allelic associations have been difficult to infer due to limitations in genotyping methodology. Mapping PD risk at highest possible resolution, we performed sequencing of 11 HLA genes in 1,597 PD cases and 1,606 controls. We found that susceptibility to PD can be explained by a specific combination of amino acids at positions 70-74 on the HLA-DRB1 molecule. Previously identified as the primary risk factor in rheumatoid arthritis and referred to as the "shared epitope" (SE), the residues Q/R-K/R-R-A-A at positions 70-74 in combination with valine at position 11 (11-V) is highly protective in PD, while risk is attributable to the identical epitope in the absence of 11-V. Notably, these effects are modified by history of cigarette smoking, with a strong protective effect mediated by a positive history of smoking in combination with the SE and 11-V (P = 10-4; odds ratio, 0.51; 95% confidence interval, 0.36-0.72) and risk attributable to never smoking in combination with the SE without 11-V (P = 0.01; odds ratio, 1.51; 95% confidence interval, 1.08-2.12). The association of specific combinations of amino acids that participate in critical peptide-binding pockets of the HLA class II molecule implicates antigen presentation in PD pathogenesis and provides further support for genetic control of neuroinflammation in disease. The interaction of HLA-DRB1 with smoking history in disease predisposition, along with predicted patterns of peptide binding to HLA, provide a molecular model that explains the unique epidemiology of smoking in PD
PRISM: A Non-Equilibrium, Multiphase Interstellar Medium Model for Radiation Hydrodynamics Simulations of Galaxies
We introduce the PRISM interstellar medium (ISM) model for thermochemistry
and its implementation in the RAMSES-RTZ code. The model includes a
non-equilibrium primordial, metal, and molecular chemistry network for 115
species coupled to on-the-fly multifrequency radiation transport. PRISM
accurately accounts for the dominant ISM cooling and heating processes in the
low-density regime (i.e. ), including photoheating,
photoelectric heating, H heating/cooling, cosmic-ray heating, H/He cooling,
metal-line cooling, CO cooling, and dust cooling (recombination and gas-grain
collisions). We validate the model by comparing 1D equilibrium simulations
across six dex in metallicity to existing 1D ISM models in the literature. We
apply PRISM to high-resolution (4.5 pc) isolated dwarf galaxy simulations that
include state-of-the-art models for star formation and stellar feedback to take
an inventory of which cooling and heating processes dominate each different gas
phase of a galaxy and to understand the importance of non-equilibrium effects.
We show that most of the ISM gas is either close to thermal equilibrium or
exhibits a slight cooling instability, while from a chemical perspective, the
non-equilibrium electron fraction is often more than three times higher or
lower than the equilibrium value, which impacts cooling, heating, and
observable emission lines. Electron enhancements are attributed to
recombination lags while deficits are shown to be due to rapid cosmic-ray
heating. The PRISM model and its coupling to RAMSES-RTZ is applicable to a wide
variety of astrophysical scenarios, from cosmological simulations to isolated
giant molecular clouds, and is particularly useful for understanding how
changes to ISM physics impact observable quantities such as metallic emission
lines.Comment: 21 pages, 16 figures, submitted to MNRA
Recovery of early meteorological records from Extremadura region (SW Iberia): The ''CliPastExtrem'' (v1.0) database
In this work, we provide instrumental meteorological data recovered for the Extremadura region (interior SW Iberia), from 1826 to mid-20th century. Meteorological variables such as air temperature, atmospheric pressure, precipitation, wind direction and humidity, among others, were retrieved. In total, more than 750 000 instrumental data in 157 meteorological series belonging to 131 different locations throughout Extremadura were rescued. It must be noted that daily resolution data constitutes 80% of the database. This great effort of digitization and data collection has been carried out with the aim of contributing to a significant expansion of the length of the databases with meteorological information in this region. Therefore, this database will provide a better understanding of climate variability, trends and extreme events of the Extremadura region
Leucine-Rich Alpha-2-Glycoprotein as a non-invasive biomarker for pediatric acute appendicitis: a systematic review and meta-analysis
The aim of this study was to analyze the diagnostic performance of Leucine-Rich Alpha-2-Glycoprotein (LRG1) in pediatric
acute appendicitis (PAA). We conducted a systematic review of the literature in the main databases of medical bibliography.
Two independent reviewers selected the articles and extracted relevant data. Methodological quality was assessed using
the QUADAS2 index. A synthesis of the results, standardization of the metrics and 4 random-effect meta-analyses were
performed. Eight studies with data from 712 participants (305 patients with confirmed diagnosis of PAA and 407 controls)
were included in this review. The random-effect meta-analysis of serum LRG1 (PAA vs control) resulted in a significant
mean difference (95% CI) of 46.76 μg/mL (29.26–64.26). The random-effect meta-analysis for unadjusted urinary LRG1
(PAA vs control) resulted in a significant mean difference (95% CI) of 0.61 μg/mL (0.30–0.93). The random-effect metaanalysis (PAA vs control) for urinary LRG1 adjusted for urinary creatinine resulted in a significant mean difference (95%
CI) of 0.89 g/mol (0.11–1.66).
Conlusion: Urinary LRG1 emerges as a potential non-invasive biomarker for the diagnosis of PAA. On the other hand,
due to the high between-study heterogeneity, the results on serum LRG1 should be interpreted with caution. The only study
that analyzed salivary LRG1 showed promising results. Further prospective studies are needed to confirm these findings
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