Sex hormones in allergic conjunctivitis: altered levels of circulating androgens and estrogens in children and adolescents with vernal keratoconjunctivitis

PURPOSE: Vernal keratoconjunctivitis (VKC) is a chronic allergic disease mainly affecting boys in prepubertal age and usually recovering after puberty. To evaluate a possible role of sex hormones in VKC, serum levels of sex hormones in children and adolescents with VKC were assessed. METHODS: 12 prepubertal and 7 early pubertal boys with active VKC and 6 male patients with VKC in remission phase at late pubertal age and 48 healthy age and sex-matched subjects were included. Serum concentration of estrone, 17 beta-estradiol, dehydroepiandrosterone-sulfate, total testosterone and free testosterone, dihydrotestosterone (DHT), cortisol, delta-4-androstenedione, follicle-stimulating hormone, luteinizing hormone, and sex-hormones binding globuline (SHBG) were evaluated. RESULTS: Serum levels of Estrone were significantly increased in all groups of patients with VKC when compared to healthy controls (P < 0.001). Prepubertal and early pubertal VKC showed a significant decrease in DHT (P = 0.007 and P = 0.028, resp.) and SHBG (P = 0.01 and P = 0.002, resp.) when compared to controls and serum levels of SHBG were increased in late pubertal VKC in remission phase (P = 0.007). CONCLUSIONS AND RELEVANCE: VKC patients have different circulating sex hormone levels in different phases of the disease and when compared to nonallergic subjects. These findings suggest a role played by sex hormones in the pathogenesis and/or activity of VKC

On-surface and Subsurface Adsorption of Oxygen on Stepped Ag(210) and Ag(410) Surfaces

The adsorption of atomic oxygen and its inclusion into subsurface sites on Ag(210) and Ag(410) surfaces have been investigated using density functional theory. We find that--in the absence of adatoms on the first metal layer--subsurface adsorption results in strong lattice distortion which makes it energetically unfavoured. However subsurface sites are significantly stabilised when a sufficient amount of O adatoms is present on the surface. At high enough O coverage on the Ag(210) surface the mixed on-surface + subsurface O adsorption is energetically favoured with respect to the on-surface only adsorption. Instead, on the Ag(410) surface, at the coverage we have considered (3/8 ML), the existence of stable terrace sites makes the subsurface O incorporation less favourable. These findings are compatible with the results of recent HREEL experiments which have actually motivated this work.Comment: 8 pages, 4 figures and 1 tabl

Periodic Instantons in SU(2) Yang-Mills-Higgs Theory

The properties of periodic instanton solutions of the classical SU(2) gauge theory with a Higgs doublet field are described analytically at low energies, and found numerically for all energies up to and beyond the sphaleron energy. Interesting new classes of bifurcating complex periodic instanton solutions to the Yang-Mills-Higgs equations are described.Comment: 11 pages, 3 figures (in 5 included eps files), ReVTeX (minor typos corrected and reference added

Effective Average Action in N=1 Super-Yang-Mills Theory

For N=1 Super-Yang-Mills theory we generalize the effective average action Gamma_k in a manifest supersymmetric way using the superspace formalism. The exact evolution equation for Gamma_k is derived and, introducing as an application a simple truncation, the standard one-loop beta-function of N=1 SYM theory is obtained.Comment: 17 pages, LaTeX, some remarks added, misprints corrected, to appear in Phys. Rev.

Time evolution of correlation functions and thermalization

We investigate the time evolution of a classical ensemble of isolated periodic chains of O(N)-symmetric anharmonic oscillators. Our method is based on an exact evolution equation for the time dependence of correlation functions. We discuss its solutions in an approximation which retains all contributions in next-to-leading order in a 1/N expansion and preserves time reflection symmetry. We observe effective irreversibility and approximate thermalization. At large time the system approaches stationary solutions in the vicinity of, but not identical to, thermal equilibrium. The ensemble therefore retains some memory of the initial condition beyond the conserved total energy. Such a behavior with incomplete thermalization is referred to as "mesoscopic dynamics". It is expected for systems in a small volume. Surprisingly, we find that the nonthermal asymptotic stationary solutions do not change for large volume. This raises questions on Boltzmann's conjecture that macroscopic isolated systems thermalize.Comment: 40 pages, 9 figure

MyAirCoach: The use of home-monitoring and mHealth systems to predict deterioration in asthma control and the occurrence of asthma exacerbations; Study protocol of an observational study

© Published by the BMJ Publishing Group Limited. Introduction Asthma is a variable lung condition whereby patients experience periods of controlled and uncontrolled asthma symptoms. Patients who experience prolonged periods of uncontrolled asthma have a higher incidence of exacerbations and increased morbidity and mortality rates. The ability to determine and to predict levels of asthma control and the occurrence of exacerbations is crucial in asthma management. Therefore, we aimed to determine to what extent physiological, behavioural and environmental data, obtained by mobile healthcare (mHealth) and home-monitoring sensors, as well as patient characteristics, can be used to predict episodes of uncontrolled asthma and the onset of asthma exacerbations. Methods and analysis In an 1-year observational study, patients will be provided with mHealth and home-monitoring systems to record daily measurements for the first-month (phase I) and weekly measurements during a follow-up period of 11 months (phase II). Our study population consists of 150 patients, aged ≥18 years, with a clinician's diagnosis of asthma, currently on controller medication, with uncontrolled asthma and/or minimally one exacerbation in the past 12 months. They will be enrolled over three participating centres, including Leiden, London and Manchester. Our main outcomes are the association between physiological, behavioural and environmental data and (1) the loss of asthma control and (2) the occurrence of asthma exacerbations. Ethics This study was approved by the Medical Ethics Committee of the Leiden University Medical Center in the Netherlands and by the NHS ethics service in the UK. Trial registration number NCT02774772

Exact Ward-Takahashi identity for the lattice N=1 Wess-Zumino model

The lattice Wess-Zumino model written in terms of the Ginsparg-Wilson relation is invariant under a generalized supersymmetry transformation which is determined by an iterative procedure in the coupling constant. By studying the associated Ward-Takahashi identity up to order $g^2$ we show that this lattice supersymmetry automatically leads to restoration of continuum supersymmetry without fine tuning. In particular, the scalar and fermion renormalization wave functions coincide.Comment: 6 pages, 5 figures, Talk given at QG05, Cala Gonone, Sardinia, Italy. 12-16 September 200

Exact Flow Equations and the U(1)-Problem

The effective action of a SU(N)-gauge theory coupled to fermions is evaluated at a large infrared cut-off scale k within the path integral approach. The gauge field measure includes topologically non-trivial configurations (instantons). Due to the explicit infrared regularisation there are no gauge field zero modes. The Dirac operator of instanton configurations shows a zero mode even after the infrared regularisation, which leads to U_A(1)-violating terms in the effective action. These terms are calculated in the limit of large scales k.Comment: 22 pages, latex, no figures, with stylistic changes and some arguments streamlined, typos corrected, References added, to appear in Phys. Rev.

Various Super Yang-Mills Theories with Exact Supersymmetry on the Lattice

We continue to construct lattice super Yang-Mills theories along the line discussed in the previous papers \cite{sugino, sugino2}. In our construction of ${\cal N}=2, 4$ theories in four dimensions, the problem of degenerate vacua seen in \cite{sugino} is resolved by extending some fields and soaking up would-be zero-modes in the continuum limit, while in the weak coupling expansion some surplus modes appear both in bosonic and fermionic sectors reflecting the exact supersymmetry. A slight modification to the models is made such that all the surplus modes are eliminated in two- and three-dimensional models obtained by dimensional reduction thereof. ${\cal N}=4, 8$ models in three dimensions need fine-tuning of three and one parameters respectively to obtain the desired continuum theories, while two-dimensional models with ${\cal N}=4, 8$ do not require any fine-tuning.Comment: 28 pages, no figure, LaTeX, JHEP style; (v2) published version to JHEP; (v3) argument on the vacuum degeneracy revised, 34 page