Guidelines and the adoption of ‘lipid rescue’ therapy for local anaesthetic toxicity

Accepted versio

The Quiescent Spectrum of the AM CVn star CP Eri

We used the 6.5m MMT to obtain a spectrum of the AM CVn star CP Eri in quiescence. The spectrum is dominated by He I emission lines, which are clearly double peaked with a peak-to-peak separation of ~1900 km/s. The spectrum is similar to that of the longer period AM CVn systems GP Com and CE 315, linking the short and the long period AM CVn systems. In contrast with GP Com and CE 315, the spectrum of CP Eri does not show a central 'spike' in the line profiles, but it does show lines of SiII in emission. The presence of these lines indicates that the material being transferred is of higher metallicity than in GP Com and CE 315, which, combined with the low proper motion of the system, probably excludes a halo origin of the progenitor of CP Eri. We constrain the primary mass to M_1>0.27 M_sun and the orbital inclination to 33 degr < i < 80 degr. The presence of the He I lines in emission opens up the possibility for phase resolved spectroscopic studies which allows a determination of the system parameters and a detailed study of helium accretion disks under highly varying circumstances.Comment: 12 pages, 2 figures, accepted for publication in ApJ Letter

The LMC supersoft X-ray binary RX J0513.9-6951

A detailed analysis of simultaneous photometric and spectroscopic observations of the optical counterpart of the LMC "supersoft" X-ray source RX J0513.9-6951 (identified with HV 5682) is presented. The spectrum is dominated by He II emission lines and H + He II blends; no He I is observed but several higher ionization emission features, especially O VI (3811, 3834, and 5290A) are prominent. Radial velocity measurements suggest a binary period of 0.76 days. If the small velocity amplitude, K~11 km/s, is interpreted as orbital motion, this implies that the binary system contains a somewhat evolved star plus a relatively massive compact object, viewed nearly pole-on. No orbital photometric variations were found, although irregular brightness changes of ~0.3 mag occurred. Unusual emission lines are observed which cannot be identified except as high velocity (4000 km/s) bipolar outflows or jets. These outflows are seen in H and He II at the same positive and negative velocities. They were relatively stable for periods of ~5 days, but their velocities appear to have been ~250 km/s smaller in 1992 than in 1993 or 1994

An introduction to the New Online Journal Club - 'Surgery in Africa', and the first summary of a module - Compartment syndrome and diagnostic tests

No Abstrac

A Population of Faint Non-Transient Low Mass Black Hole Binaries

We study the thermal and viscous stability of accretion flows in Low Mass Black Hole Binaries (LMBHBs). We consider a model in which an inner advection-dominated accretion flow (ADAF) is surrounded by a geometrically thin accretion disk, the transition between the two zones occurring at a radius R_tr. In all the known LMBHBs, R_tr appears to be such that the outer disks could suffer from a global thermal-viscous instability. This instability is likely to cause the transient behavior of these systems. However, in most cases, if R_tr were slightly larger than the estimated values, the systems would be globally stable. This suggests that a population of faint persistent LMBHBs with globally stable outer disks could be present in the Galaxy. Such LMBHBs would be hard to detect because they would lack large amplitude outbursts, and because their ADAF zones would have very low radiative efficiencies, making the systems very dim. We present model spectra of such systems covering the optical and X-ray bands.Comment: LateX, 37 pages, 11 figures; Accepted for publication in The Astrophysical Journa

Phase II trial of Modified Vaccinia Ankara (MVA) virus expressing 5T4 and high dose Interleukin-2 (IL-2) in patients with metastatic renal cell carcinoma

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Interleukin-2 (IL-2) induces durable objective responses in a small cohort of patients with metastatic renal cell carcinoma (RCC) but the antigen(s) responsible for tumor rejection are not known. 5T4 is a non-secreted membrane glycoprotein expressed on clear cell and papillary RCCs. A modified vaccinia virus Ankara (MVA) encoding 5T4 was tested in combination with high-dose IL-2 to determine the safety, objective response rate and effect on humoral and cell-mediated immunity.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>25 patients with metastatic RCC who qualified for IL-2 were eligible and received three immunizations every three weeks followed by IL-2 (600,000 IU/kg) after the second and third vaccinations. Blood was collected for analysis of humoral, effector and regulatory T cell responses.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>There were no serious vaccine-related adverse events. While no objective responses were observed, three patients (12%) were rendered disease-free after nephrectomy or resection of residual metastatic disease. Twelve patients (48%) had stable disease which was associated with improved median overall survival compared to patients with progressive disease (not reached vs. 28 months, p = 0.0261). All patients developed 5T4-specific antibody responses and 13 patients had an increase in 5T4-specific T cell responses. Although the baseline frequency of Tregs was elevated in all patients, those with stable disease showed a trend toward increased effector CD8+ T cells and a decrease in Tregs.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p><b>V</b>accination with MVA-5T4 did not improve objective response rates of IL-2 therapy but did result in stable disease associated with an increase in the ratio of 5T4-specific effector to regulatory T cells in selected patients.</p> <p>Trial registration number</p> <p>ISRCTN83977250</p

Lead-Free Perovskite-Inspired Absorbers for Indoor Photovoltaics

With the exponential rise in the market value and number of devices part of the Internet of Things (IoT), the demand for indoor photovoltaics (IPV) to power autonomous devices is predicted to rapidly increase. Lead-free perov skite-inspired materials (PIMs) have recently attracted significant attention in photovoltaics research, due to the similarity of their electronic structure to high-performance lead-halide perovskites, but without the same toxicity limitations. However, the capability of PIMs for indoor light harvesting has not yet been considered. Herein, two exemplar PIMs, BiOI and CsSbClxI-x are examined. It is shown that while their bandgaps are too wide for single-junction solar cells, they are close to the optimum for indoor light harvesting. As a result, while BiOI and CsSbClxI-x devices are only circa %-ecient under -sun illumination, their eciencies increase to –% under indoor illumination. These eciencies are within the range of reported values for hydrogenated amorphous silicon, i.e., the industry standard for IPV. It is demonstrated that such performance levels are already sucient for millimeter-scale PIM devices to power thin-film-transistor circuits. Intensity-dependent and optical loss analyses show that future improvements in eciency are possible. Furthermore, calculations of the optically limited eciency of these and other low-toxicity PIMs reveal their considerable potential for IPV, thus encouraging future eorts for their exploration for powering IoT devic

Trends and Challenges in Experimental Macromolecular Crystallography

Macromolecular X-ray crystallography underpins the vigorous field of structural molecular biology having yielded many protein, nucleic acid and virus structures in fine detail. The understanding of the recognition by these macromolecules, as receptors, of their cognate ligands involves the detailed study of the structural chemistry of their molecular interactions. Also these structural details underpin the rational design of novel inhibitors in modern drug discovery in the pharmaceutical industry. Moreover, from such structures the functional details can be inferred, such as the biological chemistry of enzyme reactivity. There is then a vast number and range of types of biological macromolecules that potentially could be studied. The completion of the protein primary sequencing of the yeast genome, and the human genome sequencing project comprising some 105 proteins that is underway, raises expectations for equivalent three dimensional structural database

Conversion of descriptor representations to state-space form: an extension of the shuffle algorithm

This paper proposes a systematic procedure for the determination of state-space models from an available descriptor representation of a linear dynamic system. The goal is to determine a state equation, a set of algebraic equations and an output equation in terms of the state and input variables. It is shown that standard methods may fail to convert the descriptor representation to state-space form, even for simple electrical circuit models obtained from Kirchoff’s laws and constitutive element equations. A novel procedure to address this problem is then proposed as an extension of the classic shuffle algorithm combined with a singular value decomposition approach. In addition to an illustrative example involving a simple electrical circuit, the proposed method is employed in a case study involving the modeling of three-dimensional RLC networks with a large number of components

Uninterested youth? Young people's attitudes towards party politics in Britain

Following the outcome of the 2001 and 2005 General Elections, when the numbers of abstainers outweighed the numbers of Labour voters on both occasions, much attention has focused upon the state of British democracy and how to enthuse the electorate, especially young people. While the government is exploring ways to make the whole process of voting easier, it may be failing to tackle the real problem - that youth appear to find the business of politics uninviting and irrelevant. This paper examines data derived from a nationwide survey of over 700 young people in order to shed light on what lies at the heart of young people's apparent disengagement from formal politics in Britain - political apathy or a sense of political alienation. The findings reveal that they support the democratic process, but are sceptical of the way the British political system is organised and led, and are turned off by politicians and the political parties. However, there is no uniform youth orientation to politics, and the data indicate that views differ according to social class, educational history, and also gender. However both ethnicity and region of the country in which young people live seem to have little influence in structuring political attitudes and behaviour