Berlin 1927: Intersections with Albert Friedlander

This article outlines intersections between Albert Friedlander and two other Berliners of the 1920s: the Sass brothers, Berlin's most daring and beloved crooks, and the Jewish crime writer Walter Serner. It attempts to read their stories as ‘prayers’ or ‘poetry’ in Friedlander's sense

Attenuation of hemodynamic responses to laryngoscopy and tracheal intubation: Propacetamol versus lidocaine - A randomized clinical trial

The purpose of this study is to assess the effects of propacetamol on attenuating hemodynamic responses subsequent laryngoscopy and tracheal intubation compared to lidocaine. In this randomized clinical trial, 62 patients with the American Anesthesiologists Society (ASA) class I/II who required laryngoscopy and tracheal intubation for elective surgery were assigned to receive propacetamol 2 g/I.V./infusion (group P) or lidocaine 1.5 mg/kg (group L) prior to laryngoscopy. Systolic and diastolic blood pressures (SBP, DBP), mean arterial pressure (MAP), and heart rate (HR) were recorded at baseline, before laryngoscopy and within nine minutes after intubation. In both groups P and L, MAP increased after laryngoscopy and the changes were statistically significant (P < 0.001). There were significant changes of HR in both groups after intubation (P < 0.02), but the trend of changes was different between two groups (P < 0.001). In group L, HR increased after intubation and its change was statistically significant within 9 minutes after intubation (P < 0.001), while in group P, HR remained stable after intubation (P = 0.8). Propacetamol 2 gr one hour prior intubation attenuates heart rate responses after laryngoscopy but is not effective to prevent acute alterations in blood pressure after intubation. © 2014 Ali Kord Valeshabad et al

Optical properties of Born-Infeld-dilaton-Lifshitz holographic superconductors

In this paper, we first study the Lifshitz-dilaton holographic superconductors with nonlinear Born-Infeld (BI) gauge field and obtain the critical temperature of the system for different values of Lifshitz dynamical exponent, $z$, and nonlinear parameter $b$. We find that for fixed value of $b$, the critical temperature decreases with increasing $z$. This indicates that the increase of anisotropy between space and time prevents the phase transition. Also, for fixed value of $z$, the critical temperature decrease with increasing $b$. Then, we investigate the optical properties of ($2+1$) and ($3+1$)-dimensional BI-Lifshitz holographic superconductors in the the presence of dilaton field. We explore the refractive index of the system. For $z=1$ and $(2+1)$-dimensional holographic superconductor, we observe negative real part for permittivity $\textrm{Re}[\epsilon]$ as frequency $\omega$ decreases. Thus, in low frequency region our superconductor exhibit metamaterial property. This behaviour is independent of the nonlinear parameter and can be seen for either linear ($b=0$) and nonlinear ($b\neq 0$) electrodynamics. Interestingly, for ($3+1$)-dimensional Lifshitz-dilaton holographic superconductors, we observe metamaterial behavior neither in the presence of linear nor nonlinear electrodynamics.Comment: 11 pages, 9 figures (including subfigures), some references added in V

Morphometric alterations to the rat spleen following formaldehyde exposure

Formaldehyde is commonly used in the production of various industrial and medical products. At room temperature formaldehyde easily evaporates. Exposure to formaldehyde can be hazardous to human health. Studies show that the vapour can be the cause of clinical symptoms such as throat, eye, skin and nasal irritation. It can also decrease the production of IgM in the spleen cells. This study was designed to determine the morphometric changes to the spleen in rats when samples were exposed to formaldehyde for 18 weeks. A total of 28 albino Wistar rats aged 6-7 postnatal weeks were divided into the following three case groups according to their exposure to formaldehyde: E1 (2 h/day, 2 days/week), E2 (2 h/day, 4 days/week), E3 (4 h/day, 4 days/week) and one control group. When the exposure period had expired the animals were anaesthetised with chloroform. After cervical dislocation, the abdomen was dissected and spleen specimens were taken. These were sectioned and stained with the haematoxylin and eosin technique for morphometric study. Data was obtained from an Olympus light microscope and then analysed with SPSS (version 11.5) and one-way ANOVA test. The white pulp area and diameter and the marginal zone diameter were greater in group E3 than those in the other groups. The germinal centre area and diameter and the diameter of the periarterial lymphoid sheaths (PALS) were greater in group E2 than in other groups, although there was no significant difference between groups in the area of white pulp and the PALS diameter (p < 0.05). This study showed that formaldehyde vapour can cause morphometric changes in the white pulp of the spleen in rats. Copyright © 2008 Via Medica

Dynamic wormhole geometries in hybrid metric-Palatini gravity

In this work, we analyse the evolution of time-dependent traversable wormhole geometries in a Friedmann-Lema\^{i}tre-Robertson-Walker background in the context of the scalar-tensor representation of hybrid metric-Palatini gravity. We deduce the energy-momentum profile of the matter threading the wormhole spacetime in terms of the background quantities, the scalar field, the scale factor and the shape function, and find specific wormhole solutions by considering a barotropic equation of state for the background matter. We find that particular cases satisfy the null and weak energy conditions for all times. In addition to the barotropic equation of state, we also explore a specific evolving wormhole spacetime, by imposing a traceless energy-momentum tensor for the matter threading the wormhole and find that this geometry also satisfies the null and weak energy conditions at all times.Comment: 9 pages, 6 figures. V2: Discussion and references added; now 11 pages, 6 figures. Accepted for publication in Eur.Phys.J.

Spatially Continuous Depletion Algorithm for Monte Carlo Simulations

To correctly predict reactor behavior during cycle operations, the evolution of nuclide number densities throughout the core must be accurately modeled. The time-varying spatial distribution of nuclide number densities is typically resolved by discretizing the Monte Carlo geometry into smaller cells over which number densities are assumed to be spatially invariant. The nuclide number densities in these smaller cells are integrated through time using reaction rate tallies on the same discretized geometry. However, detailed distributions of nuclide number densities in a full three dimensional simulation can require a prohibitive amount of tallies, and the spatial discretization of the base geometry makes coupling to external multiphysics tools difficult. In this paper a method for solving for spatially continuous number density distributions during depletion calculations will be described. The spatially continuous number densities can be used in the transport method proposed by Brown and Martin which allows for transporting neutrons through a material with continuously varying properties such as temperature and nuclide number densities. Coupled with the ability of Functional Expansion Tallies (FETs) [2] to represent tallied quantities as continuous functions, it is possible to both solve for and make use of spatially continuous nuclide number densities. The need for this capability was alluded to by Brown et. al., but no solution has yet been proposed. With a continuous depletion method, recent work which utilized FETs and continuous material tracking to incorporate multiphysics feedback in Monte Carlo simulations can be extended to simulations that include depletion analysis.United States. Department of Energy (Nuclear Energy University Programs Graduate Fellowship

Charged scalar quasi-normal modes for higher-dimensional Born-Infeld dilatonic black holes with Lifshitz scaling

We study quasi-normal modes for a higher dimensional black hole with Lifshitz scaling, as these quasi-normal modes can be used to test Lifshitz models with large extra dimensions. Furthermore, as the effective Planck scale is brought down in many models with large extra dimensions, we study these quasi-normal modes for a UV completion action. Thus, we analyze quasi-normal modes for higher dimensional dilaton-Lifshitz black hole solutions coupled to a non-linear Born-Infeld action. We will analyze the charged perturbations for such a black hole solution. We will first analyze the general conditions for stability analytically, for a positive potential. Then, we analyze this system for a charged perturbation as well as negative potential, using the asymptotic iteration method for quasi-normal modes. Thus, we analyze the behavior of these modes numerically.Comment: 9 pages (two columns), 4 figures (including subfigures