1,263 research outputs found
A Study of Human Serum Sickness
Twelve patients with bone marrow failure, who were undergoing therapy with daily intravenous infusions of horse antithymocyte globulin, were studied for the development of serum sickness. Eleven of 12 patients developed typical signs and symptoms of serum sickness 8-13 days after the initiation of treatment. These included fever, malaise, cutaneous eruptions, arthralgias, gastrointestinal disturbances, and lymphadenopathy. Eleven of 12 patients developed high levels of circulating immune complexes during serum sickness. All 12 patients also had concomitant decreases of serum C3 and C4 levels. In addition to urticarial and/or morbilliform eruptions, 8 of 11 patients also developed a serpiginous band of erythema along the sides of the fingers, hands, toes, or feet as an early cutaneous sign of serum sickness. Direct immunofluorescence of lesional skin biopsies during serum sickness revealed deposits of immunoglobulin or complement in the walls of small cutaneous blood vessels in 3 of 5 patients. These findings indicate that circulating immune complexes play a central role in the pathophysiology of human serum sickness
Design and Vertical Tests of SPS-series Double-Quarter Wave (DQW) Cavity Prototypes for the HL-LHC Crab Cavity System
Crab crossing is essential for high-luminosity colliders. The High Luminosity
Large Hadron Collider (HL-LHC) will equip one of its Interaction Points (IP1)
with Double-Quarter Wave (DQW) crab cavities. A DQW cavity is a new generation
of deflecting RF cavities that stands out for its compactness and broad
frequency separation between fundamental and first high-order modes. The
deflecting kick is provided by its fundamental mode. Each HL-LHC DQW cavity
shall provide a nominal deflecting voltage of 3.4 MV, although up to 5.0 MV may
be required. A Proof-of-Principle (PoP) DQW cavity was limited by quench at 4.6
MV. This paper describes a new, highly optimized cavity, designated DQW
SPS-series, which satisfies dimensional, cryogenic, manufacturing and impedance
requirements for beam tests at SPS and operation in LHC. Two prototypes of this
DQW SPS-series were fabricated by US industry and cold tested after following
conventional SRF surface treatment. Both units outperformed the PoP cavity,
reaching a deflecting voltage of 5.3-5.9 MV. This voltage - the highest reached
by a DQW cavity - is well beyond the nominal voltage of 3.4 MV and may even
operate at the ultimate voltage of 5.0MVwith sufficient margin. This paper
covers fabrication, surface preparation and cryogenic RF test results and
implications
Lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD) and Psilocybin for the Management of Patients with Persistent Pain: A Potential Role?
Recently, there has been interest in lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD) and psilocybin for depression, anxiety and fear of death in terminal illness. The aim of this review is to discuss the potential use of LSD and psilocybin for patients with persistent pain. LSD and psilocybin are 5-hydroxytryptamine receptor agonists and may interact with nociceptive and antinociceptive processing. Tentative evidence from a systematic review suggests that LSD (7 studies, 323 participants) and psilocybin (3 studies, 92 participants) may be beneficial for depression and anxiety associated with distress in life-threatening diseases. LSD and psilocybin are generally safe if administered by a healthcare professional, although further investigations are needed to assess their utility for patients with persistent pain, especially associated with terminal illnes
Epiligrin, the major human keratinocyte integrin ligand, is a target in both an acquired autoimmune and an inherited subepidermal blistering skin disease.
Epiligrin, the major component of human keratinocyte extracellular matrix, serves as the preferred integrin ligand for alpha 3 beta 1 in plasma membranes and focal adhesions, and colocalizes with alpha 6 beta 4 in hemidesmosomes. In human skin, epiligrin is found in the lamina lucida subregion of epidermal basement membrane, where it is thought to be associated with anchoring filaments. We have identified three patients with an acquired mucosal predominant subepidermal blistering disease who have IgG anti-basement membrane autoantibodies that bind the lamina lucida/lamina densa interface of epidermal basement membrane, stain cultured human keratinocyte extracellular matrix, and immunoprecipitate disulfide linked polypeptides of 170, 145, 125, and 95 kD in human keratinocyte culture media in a pattern identical to that of P1E1, a murine monoclonal antiepiligrin antibody. Comparative immunoprecipitation studies of patient sera, P1E1, and GB3 monoclonal antibody show that epiligrin is identical to the antigen (i.e., BM600 or GB3 antigen) previously reported to be absent from the skin of patients with lethal junctional epidermolysis bullosa, an inherited subepidermal blistering disease. Moreover, skin from a fetus with this disease shows no evidence of reactivity to patient antiepiligrin autoantibodies or P1E1. These studies show that antiepiligrin autoantibodies are a specific marker for a novel autoimmune blistering disease and that the epidermal basement membrane antigen absent in patients with lethal junctional epidermolysis bullosa is epiligrin
Gravitational Waves From Known Pulsars: Results From The Initial Detector Era
We present the results of searches for gravitational waves from a large selection of pulsars using data from the most recent science runs (S6, VSR2 and VSR4) of the initial generation of interferometric gravitational wave detectors LIGO (Laser Interferometric Gravitational-wave Observatory) and Virgo. We do not see evidence for gravitational wave emission from any of the targeted sources but produce upper limits on the emission amplitude. We highlight the results from seven young pulsars with large spin-down luminosities. We reach within a factor of five of the canonical spin-down limit for all seven of these, whilst for the Crab and Vela pulsars we further surpass their spin-down limits. We present new or updated limits for 172 other pulsars (including both young and millisecond pulsars). Now that the detectors are undergoing major upgrades, and, for completeness, we bring together all of the most up-to-date results from all pulsars searched for during the operations of the first-generation LIGO, Virgo and GEO600 detectors. This gives a total of 195 pulsars including the most recent results described in this paper.United States National Science FoundationScience and Technology Facilities Council of the United KingdomMax-Planck-SocietyState of Niedersachsen/GermanyAustralian Research CouncilInternational Science Linkages program of the Commonwealth of AustraliaCouncil of Scientific and Industrial Research of IndiaIstituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare of ItalySpanish Ministerio de Economia y CompetitividadConselleria d'Economia Hisenda i Innovacio of the Govern de les Illes BalearsNetherlands Organisation for Scientific ResearchPolish Ministry of Science and Higher EducationFOCUS Programme of Foundation for Polish ScienceRoyal SocietyScottish Funding CouncilScottish Universities Physics AllianceNational Aeronautics and Space AdministrationOTKA of HungaryLyon Institute of Origins (LIO)National Research Foundation of KoreaIndustry CanadaProvince of Ontario through the Ministry of Economic Development and InnovationNational Science and Engineering Research Council CanadaCarnegie TrustLeverhulme TrustDavid and Lucile Packard FoundationResearch CorporationAlfred P. Sloan FoundationAstronom
First narrow-band search for continuous gravitational waves from known pulsars in advanced detector data
Spinning neutron stars asymmetric with respect to their rotation axis are potential sources of
continuous gravitational waves for ground-based interferometric detectors. In the case of known pulsars a
fully coherent search, based on matched filtering, which uses the position and rotational parameters
obtained from electromagnetic observations, can be carried out. Matched filtering maximizes the signalto-
noise (SNR) ratio, but a large sensitivity loss is expected in case of even a very small mismatch
between the assumed and the true signal parameters. For this reason, narrow-band analysis methods have
been developed, allowing a fully coherent search for gravitational waves from known pulsars over a
fraction of a hertz and several spin-down values. In this paper we describe a narrow-band search of
11 pulsars using data from Advanced LIGOâs first observing run. Although we have found several initial
outliers, further studies show no significant evidence for the presence of a gravitational wave signal.
Finally, we have placed upper limits on the signal strain amplitude lower than the spin-down limit for 5 of
the 11 targets over the bands searched; in the case of J1813-1749 the spin-down limit has been beaten for
the first time. For an additional 3 targets, the median upper limit across the search bands is below the
spin-down limit. This is the most sensitive narrow-band search for continuous gravitational waves carried
out so far
Swift follow-up observations of candidate gravitational-wave transient events
We present the first multi-wavelength follow-up observations of two candidate
gravitational-wave (GW) transient events recorded by LIGO and Virgo in their
2009-2010 science run. The events were selected with low latency by the network
of GW detectors and their candidate sky locations were observed by the Swift
observatory. Image transient detection was used to analyze the collected
electromagnetic data, which were found to be consistent with background.
Off-line analysis of the GW data alone has also established that the selected
GW events show no evidence of an astrophysical origin; one of them is
consistent with background and the other one was a test, part of a "blind
injection challenge". With this work we demonstrate the feasibility of rapid
follow-ups of GW transients and establish the sensitivity improvement joint
electromagnetic and GW observations could bring. This is a first step toward an
electromagnetic follow-up program in the regime of routine detections with the
advanced GW instruments expected within this decade. In that regime
multi-wavelength observations will play a significant role in completing the
astrophysical identification of GW sources. We present the methods and results
from this first combined analysis and discuss its implications in terms of
sensitivity for the present and future instruments.Comment: Submitted for publication 2012 May 25, accepted 2012 October 25,
published 2012 November 21, in ApJS, 203, 28 (
http://stacks.iop.org/0067-0049/203/28 ); 14 pages, 3 figures, 6 tables;
LIGO-P1100038; Science summary at
http://www.ligo.org/science/Publication-S6LVSwift/index.php ; Public access
area to figures, tables at
https://dcc.ligo.org/cgi-bin/DocDB/ShowDocument?docid=p110003
- âŠ