Migraine aura: retracting particle-like waves in weakly susceptible cortex

Cortical spreading depression (SD) has been suggested to underlie migraine aura. Despite a precise match in speed, the spatio-temporal patterns of SD and aura symptoms on the cortical surface ordinarily differ in aspects of size and shape. We show that this mismatch is reconciled by utilizing that both pattern types bifurcate from an instability point of generic reaction-diffusion models. To classify these spatio-temporal pattern we suggest a susceptibility scale having the value [sigma]=1 at the instability point. We predict that human cortex is only weakly susceptible to SD ([sigma]<1), and support this prediction by directly matching visual aura symptoms with anatomical landmarks using fMRI retinotopic mapping. We discuss the increased dynamical repertoire of cortical tissue close to [sigma]=1, in particular, the resulting implications on migraine pharmacology that is hitherto tested in the regime ([sigma]>>1), and potentially silent aura occurring below a second bifurcation point at [sigma]=0 on the susceptible scale

Estimating and projecting HIV prevalence and AIDS deaths in Tanzania using antenatal surveillance data

BACKGROUND: The Estimations and Projections Package (EPP 2005) for HIV/AIDS estimates and projects HIV prevalence, number of people living with HIV and new HIV infections and AIDS cases using antenatal clinic (ANC) surveillance data. The prevalence projection produced by EPP can be transferred to SPECTRUM, a demographic projectionmodel, to calculate the number of AIDS deaths. This paper presents estimates and projections of HIV prevalence, new cases of HIV infections and AIDS deaths in Tanzania between 2001 and 2010 using the EPP 2005 and SPECTRUM soft-wares on ANC data. METHODS: For this study we used; the 1985 – 2004 ANC data set, the 2005 UN population estimates for urban and rural adults, which is based on the 2002 population census, and results of the 2003 Tanzania HIV Indicator Survey. The ANC surveillance sites were categorized into urban and rural areas on the basis of the standard national definitions of urban and rural areas, which led to 40 urban and 35 rural clinic sites. The rural and urban epidemics were run independently by fitting the model to all data and on level fits. RESULTS: The national HIV prevalence increased from 0% in 1981 to a peak of 8.1% in 1995, and gradually decreased to 6.5% in 2004 which stabilized until 2010. The urban HIV epidemic increased from 0% in 1981 peaking at 12.6% in 1992 and leveled to between 10.9% and 11.8% from 2003 to 2010. The rural epidemic peaked in 1995 at 7.0% and gradually declined to 5.2% in 2004, and then stabilized at between 5.1% and 5.3% from 2005 to 2010. New infections are projected to rise steadily, resulting in 250,000 new cases in 2010. Deaths due to AIDS started in 1985 and rose steadily to reach 120,000 deaths in 2010, with more females dying than men. CONCLUSION: The fact that the number of new infections is projected to increase steadily to reach 250,000 per year in 2010 calls for more concerted efforts to combat the spread of HIV infection particularly in the rural areas where the infrastructure needed for prevention programmes such as counseling and testing, condom accessibility and AIDS information is less developed

Surveillance of HIV and syphilis infections among antenatal clinic attendees in Tanzania-2003/2004

BACKGROUND: This paper presents the prevalence of human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) and syphilis infections among women attending antenatal clinics (ANC) in Tanzania obtained during the 2003/2004 ANC surveillance. METHODS: Ten geographical regions; six of them were involved in a previous survey, while the remaining four were freshly selected on the basis of having the largest population among the remaining 20 regions. For each region, six ANC were selected, two from each of three strata (urban, peri-urban and rural). Three of the sites did not participate, resulting into 57 surveyed clinics. 17,813 women who were attending the chosen clinics for the first time for any pregnancy between October 2003 and January 2004. Patient particulars were obtained by interview and blood specimens were drawn for HIV and syphilis testing. HIV testing was done anonymously and the results were unlinked. RESULTS: Of the 17,813 women screened for HIV, 1,545 (8.7% (95% CI = 8.3–9.1)) tested positive with the highest prevalence in women aged 25–34 years (11%), being higher among single women (9.7%) than married women (8.6%) (p < 0.07), and increased with level of education from 5.2% among women with no education to 9.3% among those at least primary education (p < 0.001). Prevalence ranged from 4.8% (95% CI = 3.8% – 9.8%) in Kagera to 15.3% (95% CI = 13.9% – 16.8%) in Mbeya and was; 3.7%, 4.7%, 9.1%, 11.2% and 15.3% for rural, semi-urban, road side, urban and 15.3% border clinics, respectively (p < 0.001). Of the 17,323 women screened for syphilis, 1265 (7.3% (95%CI = 6.9–7.7)) were positive, with highest prevalence in the age group 35–49 yrs (10.4%) (p < 0.001), and being higher among women with no education than those with some education (9.8% versus 6.8%) (p < 0.0001), but marital status had no influence. Prevalence ranged from 2.1% (95% CI = 1.4% – 3.0%) in Kigoma to 14.9% (95% CI = 13.3%-16.6%) in Kagera and was 16.0% (95% CI = 13.3–18.9), 10.5% (95% CI = 9.5–11.5) and 5.8% (95% CI = 5.4–6.3) for roadside, rural and urban clinics, respectively. Syphilis and HIV co-infection was seen in 130/17813 (0.7%). CONCLUSION: The high HIV prevalence observed among the ANC clinic attendees in Tanzania call for expansion of current voluntary counselling and testing (VCT) services and access to antiretroviral drugs (ARV) in the clinics. There is also a need for modification of obstetric practices and infant feeding options in HIV infection in order to prevent mother to child transmission of HIV. To increase uptake to HIV testing the opt-out strategy in which all clients are offered HIV testing is recommended in order to meet the needs of as many pregnant women as possible

Azimuthal Anisotropy of Photon and Charged Particle Emission in Pb+Pb Collisions at 158 A GeV/c

The azimuthal distributions of photons and charged particles with respect to the event plane are investigated as a function of centrality in Pb + Pb collisions at 158 A GeV/c in the WA98 experiment at the CERN SPS. The anisotropy of the azimuthal distributions is characterized using a Fourier analysis. For both the photon and charged particle distributions the first two Fourier coefficients are observed to decrease with increasing centrality. The observed anisotropies of the photon distributions compare well with the expectations from the charged particle measurements for all centralities.Comment: 8 pages and 6 figures. The manuscript has undergone a major revision. The unwanted correlations were enhanced in the random subdivision method used in the earlier version. The present version uses the more established method of division into subevents separated in rapidity to minimise short range correlations. The observed results for charged particles are in agreement with results from the other experiments. The observed anisotropy in photons is explained using flow results of pions and the correlations arising due to the decay of the neutral pion

Tumor markers in breast cancer - European Group on Tumor Markers recommendations

Recommendations are presented for the routine clinical use of serum and tissue-based markers in the diagnosis and management of patients with breast cancer. Their low sensitivity and specificity preclude the use of serum markers such as the MUC-1 mucin glycoproteins ( CA 15.3, BR 27.29) and carcinoembryonic antigen in the diagnosis of early breast cancer. However, serial measurement of these markers can result in the early detection of recurrent disease as well as indicate the efficacy of therapy. Of the tissue-based markers, measurement of estrogen and progesterone receptors is mandatory in the selection of patients for treatment with hormone therapy, while HER-2 is essential in selecting patients with advanced breast cancer for treatment with Herceptin ( trastuzumab). Urokinase plasminogen activator and plasminogen activator inhibitor 1 are recently validated prognostic markers for lymph node-negative breast cancer patients and thus may be of value in selecting node-negative patients that do not require adjuvant chemotherapy. Copyright (C) 2005 S. Karger AG, Basel

Measurement of the t(t)over-bar production cross section in the dilepton channel in pp collisions at √s=8 TeV

The top-antitop quark (t (t) over bar) production cross section is measured in proton-proton collisions at root s = 8 TeV with the CMS experiment at the LHC, using a data sample corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 5.3 fb(-1). The measurement is performed by analysing events with a pair of electrons or muons, or one electron and one muon, and at least two jets, one of which is identified as originating from hadronisation of a bottom quark. The measured cross section is 239 +/- 2 (stat.) +/- 11 (syst.) +/- 6 (lum.) pb, for an assumed top-quark mass of 172.5 GeV, in agreement with the prediction of the standard model

Chronic hypothermia and energy expenditure in a neurodevelopmentally disabled patient: a case study

Hypothermia is defined as a core body temperature of \u3c35°C and results in a decrease in measured resting energy expenditure. A 51-year-old mentally disabled patient experienced chronic hypothermia from neurologic sequelae. Because of her continued weight gain and increased body fat in the presence of presumed hypocaloric nutrition, indirect calorimetry measurements were performed twice in a 3-month period. The resting energy expenditure measurements prompted a reduction of her daily caloric intake to prevent further overfeeding. Hypothermia reduces oxygen consumption and, as a consequence, decreases resting energy expenditure. In patients for whom chronic hypothermia is a problem, nutritional intake must be adjusted to prevent overfeeding, excessive weight gain, and the long-term complications of an excess of total calories

Multiplicity Distributions and Charged-neutral Fluctuations

Results from the multiplicity distributions of inclusive photons and charged particles, scaling of particle multiplicities, event-by-event multiplicity fluctuations, and charged-neutral fluctuations in 158$\cdot A$ GeV Pb+Pb collisions are presented and discussed. A scaling of charged particle multiplicity as $N_{part}^{1.07\pm 0.05}$ and photons as $N_{part}^{1.12\pm 0.03}$ have been observed, indicating violation of naive wounded nucleon model. The analysis of localized charged-neutral fluctuation indicates a model-independent demonstration of non-statistical fluctuations in both charged particles and photons in limited azimuthal regions. However, no correlated charged-neutral fluctuations are observed.Comment: Talk given at the International Symposium on Nuclear Physics (ISNP-2000), Mumbai, India, 18-22 Dec 2000, Proceedings to be published in Pramana, Journal of Physic

Azimuthal anisotropy of charged particles at high transverse momenta in PbPb collisions at sqrt(s[NN]) = 2.76 TeV

The azimuthal anisotropy of charged particles in PbPb collisions at nucleon-nucleon center-of-mass energy of 2.76 TeV is measured with the CMS detector at the LHC over an extended transverse momentum (pt) range up to approximately 60 GeV. The data cover both the low-pt region associated with hydrodynamic flow phenomena and the high-pt region where the anisotropies may reflect the path-length dependence of parton energy loss in the created medium. The anisotropy parameter (v2) of the particles is extracted by correlating charged tracks with respect to the event-plane reconstructed by using the energy deposited in forward-angle calorimeters. For the six bins of collision centrality studied, spanning the range of 0-60% most-central events, the observed v2 values are found to first increase with pt, reaching a maximum around pt = 3 GeV, and then to gradually decrease to almost zero, with the decline persisting up to at least pt = 40 GeV over the full centrality range measured.Comment: Replaced with published version. Added journal reference and DO

Search for new phenomena in final states with an energetic jet and large missing transverse momentum in pp collisions at √ s = 8 TeV with the ATLAS detector

Results of a search for new phenomena in final states with an energetic jet and large missing transverse momentum are reported. The search uses 20.3 fb−1 of √ s = 8 TeV data collected in 2012 with the ATLAS detector at the LHC. Events are required to have at least one jet with pT > 120 GeV and no leptons. Nine signal regions are considered with increasing missing transverse momentum requirements between Emiss T > 150 GeV and Emiss T > 700 GeV. Good agreement is observed between the number of events in data and Standard Model expectations. The results are translated into exclusion limits on models with either large extra spatial dimensions, pair production of weakly interacting dark matter candidates, or production of very light gravitinos in a gauge-mediated supersymmetric model. In addition, limits on the production of an invisibly decaying Higgs-like boson leading to similar topologies in the final state are presente