1,149 research outputs found
Aspergillus nodules; another presentation of Chronic Pulmonary Aspergillosis
BACKGROUND: There are a number of different manifestations of pulmonary aspergillosis. This study aims to review the radiology, presentation, and histological features of lung nodules caused by Aspergillus spp. METHODS: Patients were identified from a cohort attending our specialist Chronic Pulmonary Aspergillosis clinic. Patients with cavitating lung lesions, with or without fibrosis and those with aspergillomas or a diagnosis of invasive aspergillosis were excluded. Demographic, laboratory, and clinical data and radiologic findings were recorded. RESULTS: Thirty-three patients with pulmonary nodules and diagnostic features of aspergillosis (histology and/or laboratory findings) were identified. Eighteen (54.5Â %) were male, mean age 58Â years (range 27â80 years). 19 (57.6Â %) were former or current smokers. The median Charleston co-morbidity index was 3 (range 0â7). All complained of a least one of; dyspnoea, cough, haemoptysis, or weight loss. None reported fever. Ten patients (31Â %) did not have an elevated Aspergillus IgG, and only 4 patients had elevated Aspergillus precipitins. Twelve patients (36Â %) had a single nodule, six patients (18Â %) had between 2 and 5 nodules, 2 (6Â %) between 6 and 10 nodules and 13 (39Â %) had more than 10 nodules. The mean size of the nodules was 21Â mm, with a maximum size ranging between 5â50Â mm. No nodules had cavitation radiographically. The upper lobes were most commonly involved. Histology was available for 18 patients and showed evidence of granulation tissue, fibrosis, and visualisation of fungal hyphae. CONCLUSION: Pulmonary nodules are a less common manifestation of aspergillosis in immunocompetent patients. Distinguishing these nodules from other lung pathology may be difficult on CT findings alone
Semiclassical charged black holes with a quantized massive scalar field
Semiclassical perturbations to the Reissner-Nordstrom metric caused by the
presence of a quantized massive scalar field with arbitrary curvature coupling
are found to first order in \epsilon = \hbar/M^2. The DeWitt-Schwinger
approximation is used to determine the vacuum stress-energy tensor of the
massive scalar field. When the semiclassical perturbation are taken into
account, we find extreme black holes will have a charge-to-mass ratio that
exceeds unity, as measured at infinity. The effects of the perturbations on the
black hole temperature (surface gravity) are studied in detail, with particular
emphasis on near extreme ``bare'' states that might become precisely zero
temperature ``dressed'' semiclassical black hole states. We find that for
minimally or conformally coupled scalar fields there are no zero temperature
solutions among the perturbed black holes.Comment: 19 pages; 1 figure; ReVTe
Effectiveness of common household cleaning agents in reducing the viability of human influenza A/H1N1
In the event of an influenza pandemic, the majority of people infected will be nursed at home. It is therefore important to determine simple methods for limiting the spread of the virus within the home. The purpose of this work was to test a representative range of common household cleaning agents for their effectiveness at killing or reducing the viability of influenza A virus
Cooling of Dark-Matter Admixed Neutron Stars with density-dependent Equation of State
We propose a dark-matter (DM) admixed density-dependent equation of state
where the fermionic DM interacts with the nucleons via Higgs portal. Presence
of DM can hardly influence the particle distribution inside neutron star (NS)
but can significantly affect the structure as well as equation of state (EOS)
of NS. Introduction of DM inside NS softens the equation of state. We explored
the effect of variation of DM mass and DM Fermi momentum on the NS EOS.
Moreover, DM-Higgs coupling is constrained using dark matter direct detection
experiments. Then, we studied cooling of normal NSs using APR and DD2 EOSs and
DM admixed NSs using dark-matter modified DD2 with varying DM mass and Fermi
momentum. We have done our analysis by considering different NS masses. Also DM
mass and DM Fermi momentum are varied for fixed NS mass and DM-Higgs coupling.
We calculated the variations of luminosity and temperature of NS with time for
all EOSs considered in our work and then compared our calculations with the
observed astronomical cooling data of pulsars namely Cas A, RX J0822-43, 1E
1207-52, RX J0002+62, XMMU J17328, PSR B1706-44, Vela, PSR B2334+61, PSR
B0656+14, Geminga, PSR B1055-52 and RX J0720.4-3125. It is found that APR EOS
agrees well with the pulsar data for lighter and medium mass NSs but cooling is
very fast for heavier NS. For DM admixed DD2 EOS, it is found that for all
considered NS masses, all chosen DM masses and Fermi momenta agree well with
the observational data of PSR B0656+14, Geminga, Vela, PSR B1706-44 and PSR
B2334+61. Cooling becomes faster as compared to normal NSs in case of
increasing DM mass and Fermi momenta. It is infered from the calculations that
if low mass super cold NSs are observed in future that may support the fact
that heavier WIMP can be present inside neutron stars.Comment: 24 Pages, 15 Figures and 2 Tables. Version accepted in The European
Physical Journal
American Association for Public Opinion Research Constituency, Party, and Representation in Congress
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Advancing tendencies? PR leadership, general leadership, and leadership pedagogy
What are the best ways to advance PR leadership? In exploring answers, we consider the last two decades of PR literature and identify two main tendencies. We link those two with general leadership literature and practices, as well as with literature on leadership pedagogy. We conclude that, rather than recent moves to look within the field, without self-reflection, to existing PR perspectives and figures for solutions, looking outwards has greater potential to transform not only the PR leadership literature, and PR practice, but also to create less hierarchical, and more democratic and "leaderful," PR workplaces. © 2014
Standard and reference-based conditional mean imputation
Clinical trials with longitudinal outcomes typically include missing data due to missed assessments or structural missingness of outcomes after intercurrent events handled with a hypothetical strategy. Approaches based on Bayesian random multiple imputation and Rubin's rules for pooling results across multiple imputed data sets are increasingly used in order to align the analysis of these trials with the targeted estimand. We propose and justify deterministic conditional mean imputation combined with the jackknife for inference as an alternative approach. The method is applicable to imputations under a missing-at-random assumption as well as for reference-based imputation approaches. In an application and a simulation study, we demonstrate that it provides consistent treatment effect estimates with the Bayesian approach and reliable frequentist inference with accurate standard error estimation and type I error control. A further advantage of the method is that it does not rely on random sampling and is therefore replicable and unaffected by Monte Carlo error
Semiclassical effects in black hole interiors
First-order semiclassical perturbations to the Schwarzschild black hole
geometry are studied within the black hole interior. The source of the
perturbations is taken to be the vacuum stress-energy of quantized scalar,
spinor, and vector fields, evaluated using analytic approximations developed by
Page and others (for massless fields) and the DeWitt-Schwinger approximation
(for massive fields). Viewing the interior as an anisotropic collapsing
cosmology, we find that minimally or conformally coupled scalar fields, and
spinor fields, decrease the anisotropy as the singularity is approached, while
vector fields increase the anisotropy. In addition, we find that massless
fields of all spins, and massive vector fields, strengthen the singularity,
while massive scalar and spinor fields tend to slow the growth of curvature.Comment: 29 pages, ReVTeX; 4 ps figure
Update on Prevalence of Periodontitis in Adults in the United States: NHANES 2009 to 2012
Peer Reviewedhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/141963/1/jper0611.pd
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