Update on duloxetine for the management of stress urinary incontinence

Duloxetine is a relatively balanced serotonin and noradrenaline reuptake inhibitor (SNRI), which is the first drug with widely proven efficacy to have been licensed for the medical treatment of women with stress urinary incontinence (SUI). Despite favorable results from randomized controlled trials, surgical management continues to be the mainstay of treatment for SUI. In this review we explore the pharmacology of duloxetine in the nervous system and lower urinary tract, and the evidence for its use in the management of women with urinary incontinence

Low temperature properties of holographic condensates

In the current work we study various models of holographic superconductors at low temperature. Generically the zero temperature limit of those models are solitonic solution with a zero sized horizon. Here we generalized simple version of those zero temperature solutions to small but non-zero temperature T. We confine ourselves to cases where near horizon geometry is AdS^4. At a non-zero temperature a small horizon would form deep inside this AdS^4 which does not disturb the UV physics. The resulting geometry may be matched with the zero temperature solution at an intermediate length scale. We understand this matching from separation of scales by setting up a perturbative expansion in gauge potential. We have a better analytic control in abelian case and quantities may be expressed in terms of hypergeometric function. From this we calculate low temperature behavior of various quatities like entropy, charge density and specific heat etc. We also calculate various energy gaps associated with p-wave holographic superconductor to understand the underlying pairing mechanism. The result deviates significantly from the corresponding weak coupling BCS counterpart.Comment: 17 Page

Prediction of Postprandial Glycemic Exposure Utility of fasting and 2-h glucose measurements alone and in combination with assessment of body composition, fitness, and strength

OBJECTIVE —To determine the best predictors of total postprandial glycemic exposure and peak glucose concentrations in nondiabetic humans. RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODS —Data from 203 nondiabetic volunteers who ingested a carbohydrate-containing mixed meal were analyzed. RESULTS —Fasting glucose and insulin concentrations were poor predictors of postprandial glucose area above basal ( R 2 = ∼0.07, P < 0.001). The correlation was stronger for 2-h glucose concentration ( R 2 = 0.55, P < 0.001) and improved slightly but significantly ( P < 0.001) with the addition of fasting glucose, insulin, age, sex, and body weight to the model ( r 2 = 0.58). The 2-h glucose concentration also predicted the peak glucose concentration ( R 2 = 0.37, P < 0.001) with strength of the prediction increasing ( P < 0.001) modestly with the addition of fasting glucose, insulin, age, sex, and body weight to the model ( R 2 = 0.48, P < 0.001). On the other hand, addition of measures of body function and composition did not improve prediction of total glycemic exposure or peak glucose concentration. CONCLUSIONS —Isolated measures of fasting or 2-h glucose concentrations alone or in combination with more complex measures of body composition and function are poor predictors of postprandial glycemic exposure or peak glucose concentration. This may explain, at least in part, the weak and at times inconsistent relationship between these parameters and cardiovascular risk

Identification of Comamonas species using 16S rRNA gene sequence

A bacterial strain Bz02 was isolated from a water sample collected from river Gomti at the Indian city of Lucknow. We characterized the strain using 16S rRNA sequence. Phylogenetic analysis showed that the strain formed a monophyletic clade with members of the genus Comamonas. The closest phylogenetic relative was Comamonas testosteroni with 95% 16S rRNA gene sequence similarity. It is proposed that the identified strain Bz02 be assigned as the type strain of a species of the genus Comamonas (Comamonas sp Bz02) based on 16S rRNA gene sequence search in Ribosomal Database Project, small subunit rRNA and large subunit rRNA databases together with the phylogenetic tree analysis. The sequence is deposted in GenBank with the accession number FJ211417

Non-equilibrium Dynamics of O(N) Nonlinear Sigma models: a Large-N approach

We study the time evolution of the mass gap of the O(N) non-linear sigma model in 2+1 dimensions due to a time-dependent coupling in the large-$N$ limit. Using the Schwinger-Keldysh approach, we derive a set of equations at large $N$ which determine the time dependent gap in terms of the coupling. These equations lead to a criterion for the breakdown of adiabaticity for slow variation of the coupling leading to a Kibble-Zurek scaling law. We describe a self-consistent numerical procedure to solve these large-$N$ equations and provide explicit numerical solutions for a coupling which starts deep in the gapped phase at early times and approaches the zero temperature equilibrium critical point $g_c$ in a linear fashion. We demonstrate that for such a protocol there is a value of the coupling $g= g_c^{\rm dyn}> g_c$ where the gap function vanishes, possibly indicating a dynamical instability. We study the dependence of $g_c^{\rm dyn}$ on both the rate of change of the coupling and the initial temperature. We also verify, by studying the evolution of the mass gap subsequent to a sudden change in $g$, that the model does not display thermalization within a finite time interval $t_0$ and discuss the implications of this observation for its conjectured gravitational dual as a higher spin theory in $AdS_4$.Comment: 22 pages, 9 figures. Typos corrected, references rearranged and added.v3 : sections rearranged, abstract modified, comment about Kibble-Zurek scaling correcte

Non-equilibrium Condensation Process in a Holographic Superconductor

We study the non-equilibrium condensation process in a holographic superconductor. When the temperature T is smaller than a critical temperature T_c, there are two black hole solutions, the Reissner-Nordstrom-AdS black hole and a black hole with a scalar hair. In the boundary theory, they can be regarded as the supercooled normal phase and the superconducting phase, respectively. We consider perturbations on supercooled Reissner-Nordstrom-AdS black holes and study their non-linear time evolution to know about physical phenomena associated with rapidly-cooled superconductors. We find that, for T<T_c, the initial perturbations grow exponentially and, eventually, spacetimes approach the hairy black holes. We also clarify how the relaxation process from a far-from-equilibrium state proceeds in the boundary theory by observing the time dependence of the superconducting order parameter. Finally, we study the time evolution of event and apparent horizons and discuss their correspondence with the entropy of the boundary theory. Our result gives a first step toward the holographic understanding of the non-equilibrium process in superconductors.Comment: 20 pages, 7 figure

Holographic Superconductors from Einstein-Maxwell-Dilaton Gravity

We construct holographic superconductors from Einstein-Maxwell-dilaton gravity in 3+1 dimensions with two adjustable couplings $\alpha$ and the charge $q$ carried by the scalar field. For the values of $\alpha$ and $q$ we consider, there is always a critical temperature at which a second order phase transition occurs between a hairy black hole and the AdS RN black hole in the canonical ensemble, which can be identified with the superconducting phase transition of the dual field theory. We calculate the electric conductivity of the dual superconductor and find that for the values of $\alpha$ and $q$ where $\alpha/q$ is small the dual superconductor has similar properties to the minimal model, while for the values of $\alpha$ and $q$ where $\alpha/q$ is large enough, the electric conductivity of the dual superconductor exhibits novel properties at low frequencies where it shows a "Drude Peak" in the real part of the conductivity.Comment: 25 pages, 13 figures; v2, typos corrected; v3, refs added, to appear in JHE

Rituximab for maintenance of remission in ANCA-associated vasculitis: expert consensus guidelines—Executive summary

[This is the executive summary of Rituximab for maintenance of remission in ANCA-associated vasculitis: expert consensus guidelines: full guideline, doi: 10.1093/rheumatology/kez640

Holographic Correlation Functions for Open Strings and Branes

In this paper, we compute holographically the two-point and three-point functions of giant gravitons with open strings. We consider the maximal giant graviton in $S^5$ and the string configurations corresponding to the ground states of Z=0 and Y=0 open spin chain, and the spinning string in AdS$_5$ corresponding to the derivative type impurities in Y=0 or Z=0 open spin chain as well. We treat the D-brane and open string contribution separately and find the corresponding D3-brane and string configurations in bulk which connect the composite operators at the AdS$_5$ boundary. We apply a new prescription to treat the string state contribution and find agreements for the two-point functions. For the three-point functions of two giant gravitons with open strings and one certain half-BPS chiral primary operator, we find that the D-brane contributions to structure constant are always vanishing and the open string contribution for the Y=0 ground state is in perfect match with the prediction in the free field limit.Comment: 25 page