54 research outputs found
Haematogenous abdominal wall metastasis of differentiated, alpha-fetoprotein-negative hepatocellular carcinoma after previous antiandrogen therapy within a site of lipoma manifestation since childhood
How well can superconducting nanowire single-photon detectors resolve photon number?
We apply principal component analysis (PCA) to a set of electrical output
signals from a commercially available superconducting nanowire single-photon
detector (SNSPD) to investigate their photon-number-resolving capability. We
find that the rising edge as well as the amplitude of the electrical signal
have the most dependence on photon number. Accurately measuring the rising edge
while simultaneously measuring the voltage of the pulse amplitude maximizes the
photon-number resolution of SNSPDs. Using an optimal basis of principle
components, we show unambiguous discrimination between one- and two-photon
events, as well as partial resolution up to five photons. This expands the
use-case of SNSPDs to photon-counting experiments, without the need of detector
multiplexing architectures.Comment: 7 pages, 5 figure
Local energy decay of massive Dirac fields in the 5D Myers-Perry metric
We consider massive Dirac fields evolving in the exterior region of a
5-dimensional Myers-Perry black hole and study their propagation properties.
Our main result states that the local energy of such fields decays in a weak
sense at late times. We obtain this result in two steps: first, using the
separability of the Dirac equation, we prove the absence of a pure point
spectrum for the corresponding Dirac operator; second, using a new form of the
equation adapted to the local rotations of the black hole, we show by a Mourre
theory argument that the spectrum is absolutely continuous. This leads directly
to our main result.Comment: 40 page
Hyperferritinemia and hypergammaglobulinemia predict the treatment response to standard therapy in autoimmune hepatitis.
Autoimmune hepatitis (AIH) is a chronic hepatitis with an increasing incidence. The majority of patients require life-long immunosuppression and incomplete treatment response is associated with a disease progression. An abnormal iron homeostasis or hyperferritinemia is associated with worse outcome in other chronic liver diseases and after liver transplantation. We assessed the capacity of baseline parameters including the iron status to predict the treatment response upon standard therapy in 109 patients with untreated AIH type 1 (AIH-1) in a retrospective single center study. Thereby, a hyperferritinemia (> 2.09 times upper limit of normal; Odds ratio (OR) = 8.82; 95% confidence interval (CI): 2.25-34.52) and lower immunoglobulins (<1.89 times upper limit of normal; OR = 6.78; CI: 1.87-24.59) at baseline were independently associated with the achievement of complete biochemical remission upon standard therapy. The predictive value increased when both variables were combined to a single treatment response score, when the cohort was randomly split into a training (area under the curve (AUC) = 0.749; CI 0.635-0.863) and internal validation cohort (AUC = 0.741; CI 0.558-0.924). Patients with a low treatment response score (<1) had significantly higher cumulative remission rates in the training (p<0.001) and the validation cohort (p = 0.024). The baseline hyperferritinemia was accompanied by a high serum iron, elevated transferrin saturations and mild hepatic iron depositions in the majority of patients. However, the abnormal iron status was quickly reversible under therapy. Mechanistically, the iron parameters were not stringently related to a hepatocellular damage. Ferritin rather seems deregulated from the master regulator hepcidin, which was down regulated, potentially mediated by the elevated hepatocyte growth factor. In conclusion, baseline levels of serum ferritin and immunoglobulins, which are part of the diagnostic work-up of AIH, can be used to predict the treatment response upon standard therapy in AIH-1, although confirmation from larger multicenter studies is pending
Dynamics of Action Potential Initiation in the GABAergic Thalamic Reticular Nucleus In Vivo
Understanding the neural mechanisms of action potential generation is critical to establish the way neural circuits generate and coordinate activity. Accordingly, we investigated the dynamics of action potential initiation in the GABAergic thalamic reticular nucleus (TRN) using in vivo intracellular recordings in cats in order to preserve anatomically-intact axo-dendritic distributions and naturally-occurring spatiotemporal patterns of synaptic activity in this structure that regulates the thalamic relay to neocortex. We found a wide operational range of voltage thresholds for action potentials, mostly due to intrinsic voltage-gated conductances and not synaptic activity driven by network oscillations. Varying levels of synchronous synaptic inputs produced fast rates of membrane potential depolarization preceding the action potential onset that were associated with lower thresholds and increased excitability, consistent with TRN neurons performing as coincidence detectors. On the other hand the presence of action potentials preceding any given spike was associated with more depolarized thresholds. The phase-plane trajectory of the action potential showed somato-dendritic propagation, but no obvious axon initial segment component, prominent in other neuronal classes and allegedly responsible for the high onset speed. Overall, our results suggest that TRN neurons could flexibly integrate synaptic inputs to discharge action potentials over wide voltage ranges, and perform as coincidence detectors and temporal integrators, supported by a dynamic action potential threshold
Nociceptors: a phylogenetic view
The ability to react to environmental change is crucial for the survival of an organism and an essential prerequisite is the capacity to detect and respond to aversive stimuli. The importance of having an inbuilt “detect and protect” system is illustrated by the fact that most animals have dedicated sensory afferents which respond to noxious stimuli called nociceptors. Should injury occur there is often sensitization, whereby increased nociceptor sensitivity and/or plasticity of nociceptor-related neural circuits acts as a protection mechanism for the afflicted body part. Studying nociception and nociceptors in different model organisms has demonstrated that there are similarities from invertebrates right through to humans. The development of technology to genetically manipulate organisms, especially mice, has led to an understanding of some of the key molecular players in nociceptor function. This review will focus on what is known about nociceptors throughout the Animalia kingdom and what similarities exist across phyla; especially at the molecular level of ion channels
A review of a quarter century of International Workshops on Seismic Anisotropy in the crust (0IWSA–12IWSA)
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