Crustal Oscillations of Slowly Rotating Relativistic Stars

We study low-amplitude crustal oscillations of slowly rotating relativistic stars consisting of a central fluid core and an outer thin solid crust. We estimate the effect of rotation on the torsional toroidal modes and on the interfacial and shear spheroidal modes. The results compared against the Newtonian ones for wide range of neutron star models and equations of state.Comment: 15 page

El Parlamento Europeo como tribuna moral internacional: el caso de Venezuela

One of the main aims of the parliamentary diplomacy of the European Parliament (EP) is to safeguard democracy and human rights around the world. Venezuela is a paradigmatic case, especially since Nicolás Maduro came to power in 2013 and political repression in the country increased, leading to a social and economic crisis, as well as the worst humanitarian crisis in Latin America in recent years. Under pressure from the EP, the European Union (EU) has imposed economic sanctions on the Maduro regime since 2017. Meanwhile, the EP awarded its Sakharov Prize to the Venezuelan opposition in 2017 and was the first EU institution to recognise the opposition leader Juan Guaidó as interim president in 2019. This article examines and confirms the EP’s role (from 2014 to 2021) as an international moral platform for the case of Venezuela.Uno de los objetivos principales de la diplomacia parlamentaria del Parlamento Europeo (PE) es velar por la democracia y los derechos humanos en el mundo. El caso de Venezuela es paradigmático, especialmente desde la llegada al poder de Nicolás Maduro en 2013 y el consecuente incremento de la represión política en el país, que ha derivado en una crisis social y económica, así como en la peor crisis humanitaria de América Latina en los últimos años. La Unión Europea (UE), presionada por el PE, ha impuesto desde 2017 sanciones económicas contra el régimen de Maduro. Además, el PE otorgó su Premio Sájarov a la oposición venezolana en 2017 y fue la primera institución de la UE en reconocer al opositor Juan Guaidó como presidente interino en 2019. Este artículo examina y confirma el papel del PE de tribuna moral internacional para el caso de Venezuela

Immunoblastic morphology as a possible prognostic indicator for the outcome of the patients with diffuse large B cell lymphoma in era of the rituximab based treatment: single centre experience

Recently the results from one large prospective study indicated that immunoblastic morphology and not immunohistohemical features predict the outcome of the Diffuse large B lymphoma (DLBL). In order to investigate the prediction value of the immunoblastic morphology (IB) as a possible prognostic indicator for the outcome of our DLBL patient treated with the Rituximab (R)-CHOP regimen we conducted a retrospective study. Our study enrolled 192 DLBL patients diagnosed and treated at the University Clinic of Hematology in the period between February 2002 and December 2007. They were all treated with R-CHOP regimen and the median follow-up of the patient was 36 months. We analyzed the biopsy samples immunohistochemically for markers of germinal center (BCL6), post-germinal center (MUM1) and apoptosis (BCL2).The patients were categorized as DLBL(132; 68.7%), IB(60; 31.2). The median overall survival time (OS) were 59.3 months in DLBL group and 42.2 months in IB group, and time to treatment (TT) were 56.8 and 30.6 months respectively for the IB group. The DLBL and IB groups were comparable regarding the age, gender distributions and all others already established prognostic parameters as performance status, advanced IPI, albumin level except for the low IPI 0-2 which was statistically associated with the DLBL group (p=.024). Our results did not show any statistical survival advantage and better outcome for the patient classified as DLBL when treated with R-CHOP and indicate that immunohistohemical markers do not really reflect the molecular diversity of the tumor.  Our work shows that IB morphology is a major risk factor in DLBL patients treated with R-CHOP. Therefore this morphology appears to capture some adverse molecular events that a currently hard to detect with routine diagnostic procedures.

Hydro-without-Hydro Framework for Simulations of Black Hole-Neutron Star Binaries

We introduce a computational framework which avoids solving explicitly hydrodynamic equations and is suitable to study the pre-merger evolution of black hole-neutron star binary systems. The essence of the method consists of constructing a neutron star model with a black hole companion and freezing the internal degrees of freedom of the neutron star during the course of the evolution of the space-time geometry. We present the main ingredients of the framework, from the formulation of the problem to the appropriate computational techniques to study these binary systems. In addition, we present numerical results of the construction of initial data sets and evolutions that demonstrate the feasibility of this approach.Comment: 16 pages, 7 figures. To appear in the Classical and Quantum Gravity special issue on Numerical Relativit

The Sensitivity of the Parkes Pulsar Timing Array to Individual Sources of Gravitational Waves

We present the sensitivity of the Parkes Pulsar Timing Array to gravitational waves emitted by individual super-massive black-hole binary systems in the early phases of coalescing at the cores of merged galaxies. Our analysis includes a detailed study of the effects of fitting a pulsar timing model to non-white timing residuals. Pulsar timing is sensitive at nanoHertz frequencies and hence complementary to LIGO and LISA. We place a sky-averaged constraint on the merger rate of nearby ($z < 0.6$) black-hole binaries in the early phases of coalescence with a chirp mass of 10^{10}\,\rmn{M}_\odot of less than one merger every seven years. The prospects for future gravitational-wave astronomy of this type with the proposed Square Kilometre Array telescope are discussed.Comment: fixed error in equation (4). [13 pages, 6 figures, 1 table, published in MNRAS

Towards a European military culture?

Recent discussion of the Common Security and Foreign Policy has focussed on the international relations between European member states. Such a focus is entirely valid since the project is being driven forward by nation states. However, the success of the Common Security and Foreign Policy and especially the development of a specifically European military capability under the European Security and Defence Policy will depend not merely on the will of the participating nation-states. Above all, it will depend on the development of a common military culture at the level of weapons development and procurement and at the level of doctrine. The problem is that at neither level is the development of a European culture remotely in sight

Prostate cancer outcome in Burkina Faso

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Introduction</p> <p>African-American black men race is one of non-modifiable risk factors confirmed for prostate cancer. Many studies have been done in USA among African- American population to evaluate prostate cancer disparities. Compared to the USA very few data are available for prostate cancer in Sub-Saharan African countries. The objective of this study was to describe incident prostate cancer (PC) diagnosis characteristics in Burkina Faso (West Africa).</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>We performed a prospective non randomized patient’s cohort study of new prostate cancer cases diagnosed by histological analysis of transrectal prostate biopsies in Burkina Faso. Study participants included 166 patients recruited at the urology division of the university hospital of Ouagadougou. Age of the patients, clinical symptoms, digital rectal examination (DRE) result, serum prostate-specific antigen (PSA) level, histological characteristics and TNM classification were taking in account in this study.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>166 transrectal prostate biopsies (TRPB) were performed based on high PSA level or abnormal DRE. The prostate cancer rate on those TRPB was 63, 8 % (n=106). The mean age of the patients was 71, 5 years (52 to 86). Urinary retention was the first clinical patterns of reference in our institution (55, 7 %, n = 59). Most patients, 56, 6 % (n = 60) had a serum PSA level over than 100 ng/ml. All the patients had adenocarcinoma on histological study of prostate biopsy cores. The majority of cases (54, 7 % n = 58) had Gleason score equal or higher than 7.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>Prostate cancer is diagnosed at later stages in our country. Very high serum PSA level and poorly differentiated tumors are the two major characteristics of PC at the time of diagnosis.</p