Quasars and their host galaxies

This review attempts to describe developments in the fields of quasar and quasar host galaxies in the past five. In this time period, the Sloan and 2dF quasar surveys have added several tens of thousands of quasars, with Sloan quasars being found to z>6. Obscured, or partially obscured quasars have begun to be found in significant numbers. Black hole mass estimates for quasars, and our confidence in them, have improved significantly, allowing a start on relating quasar properties such as radio jet power to fundamental parameters of the quasar such as black hole mass and accretion rate. Quasar host galaxy studies have allowed us to find and characterize the host galaxies of quasars to z>2. Despite these developments, many questions remain unresolved, in particular the origin of the close relationship between black hole mass and galaxy bulge mass/velocity dispersion seen in local galaxies.Comment: Review article, to appear in Astrophysics Update

Measurement of vector boson production cross sections and their ratios using pp collisions at √s = 13.6 TeV with the ATLAS detector

Abstract available from publisher's website

Reducing the environmental impact of surgery on a global scale: systematic review and co-prioritization with healthcare workers in 132 countries

Background Healthcare cannot achieve net-zero carbon without addressing operating theatres. The aim of this study was to prioritize feasible interventions to reduce the environmental impact of operating theatres. Methods This study adopted a four-phase Delphi consensus co-prioritization methodology. In phase 1, a systematic review of published interventions and global consultation of perioperative healthcare professionals were used to longlist interventions. In phase 2, iterative thematic analysis consolidated comparable interventions into a shortlist. In phase 3, the shortlist was co-prioritized based on patient and clinician views on acceptability, feasibility, and safety. In phase 4, ranked lists of interventions were presented by their relevance to high-income countries and low–middle-income countries. Results In phase 1, 43 interventions were identified, which had low uptake in practice according to 3042 professionals globally. In phase 2, a shortlist of 15 intervention domains was generated. In phase 3, interventions were deemed acceptable for more than 90 per cent of patients except for reducing general anaesthesia (84 per cent) and re-sterilization of ‘single-use’ consumables (86 per cent). In phase 4, the top three shortlisted interventions for high-income countries were: introducing recycling; reducing use of anaesthetic gases; and appropriate clinical waste processing. In phase 4, the top three shortlisted interventions for low–middle-income countries were: introducing reusable surgical devices; reducing use of consumables; and reducing the use of general anaesthesia. Conclusion This is a step toward environmentally sustainable operating environments with actionable interventions applicable to both high– and low–middle–income countries

Global Retinoblastoma Presentation and Analysis by National Income Level

Importance: Early diagnosis of retinoblastoma, the most common intraocular cancer, can save both a child's life and vision. However, anecdotal evidence suggests that many children across the world are diagnosed late. To our knowledge, the clinical presentation of retinoblastoma has never been assessed on a global scale. Objectives: To report the retinoblastoma stage at diagnosis in patients across the world during a single year, to investigate associations between clinical variables and national income level, and to investigate risk factors for advanced disease at diagnosis. Design, Setting, and Participants: A total of 278 retinoblastoma treatment centers were recruited from June 2017 through December 2018 to participate in a cross-sectional analysis of treatment-naive patients with retinoblastoma who were diagnosed in 2017. Main Outcomes and Measures: Age at presentation, proportion of familial history of retinoblastoma, and tumor stage and metastasis. Results: The cohort included 4351 new patients from 153 countries; the median age at diagnosis was 30.5 (interquartile range, 18.3-45.9) months, and 1976 patients (45.4) were female. Most patients (n = 3685 84.7%) were from low-and middle-income countries (LMICs). Globally, the most common indication for referral was leukocoria (n = 2638 62.8%), followed by strabismus (n = 429 10.2%) and proptosis (n = 309 7.4%). Patients from high-income countries (HICs) were diagnosed at a median age of 14.1 months, with 656 of 666 (98.5%) patients having intraocular retinoblastoma and 2 (0.3%) having metastasis. Patients from low-income countries were diagnosed at a median age of 30.5 months, with 256 of 521 (49.1%) having extraocular retinoblastoma and 94 of 498 (18.9%) having metastasis. Lower national income level was associated with older presentation age, higher proportion of locally advanced disease and distant metastasis, and smaller proportion of familial history of retinoblastoma. Advanced disease at diagnosis was more common in LMICs even after adjusting for age (odds ratio for low-income countries vs upper-middle-income countries and HICs, 17.92 95% CI, 12.94-24.80, and for lower-middle-income countries vs upper-middle-income countries and HICs, 5.74 95% CI, 4.30-7.68). Conclusions and Relevance: This study is estimated to have included more than half of all new retinoblastoma cases worldwide in 2017. Children from LMICs, where the main global retinoblastoma burden lies, presented at an older age with more advanced disease and demonstrated a smaller proportion of familial history of retinoblastoma, likely because many do not reach a childbearing age. Given that retinoblastoma is curable, these data are concerning and mandate intervention at national and international levels. Further studies are needed to investigate factors, other than age at presentation, that may be associated with advanced disease in LMICs. © 2020 American Medical Association. All rights reserved

Clinical and histopathological features of pemphigus foliaceus with and without eosinophilic infiltrates: a retrospective evaluation of 40 dogs

The importance of cellular infiltrates in tissues has been investigated as a diagnostic tool, mechanism of pathogenesis, and prognostic indicator in certain human diseases. Eosinophils, in particular, have a distinct role in the development of cutaneous lesions in human autoimmune diseases. Identification of an eosinophilic infiltrate can aid the diagnosis of immunobullous disease in the early stages of the disease process. In canine pemphigus foliaceus, eosinophils are present to a variable degree within lesional tissue. This study retrospectively evaluated 40 dogs with pemphigus foliaceus, and examined clinical and histologic features and final outcomes in cases with and without eosinophilic infiltrates. Twenty-five of 40 dogs (63%) had an eosinophilic infiltrate in either the pustules/crust, follicular infundibulum or dermis. There was no statistically significant difference in clinical distribution or appearance of dermatological lesions, response to treatment, or disease outcome in dogs with or without an eosinophilic infiltrate. However, dogs with concurrent disease were significantly more likely to have an eosinophilic infiltrate (P = 0.01). Dogs with adverse effects associated with immunosuppressive therapy were significantly more likely to have an eosinophilic infiltrate (P = 0.05). Fifteen of 40 dogs (38%) had a history of allergic disease and a significantly higher proportion of these dogs had an eosinophilic infiltrate (P = 0.04). An eosinophilic infiltrate was found in more than half of the dogs in this study. These findings justify further studies to investigate the role of eosinophils in the pathogenesis, therapy and prognosis in dogs with pemphigus foliaceus

Completeness, conservation and error in SPH for fluids

Smoothed particle hydrodynamics (SPH) is becoming increasingly common in the numerical simulation of complex fluid flows and an understanding of the errors is necessary. Recent advances have established techniques for ensuring completeness conditions (low-order polynomials are interpolated exactly) are enforced when estimating property gradients, but the consequences on errors have not been investigated. Here, we present an expression for the error in an SPH estimate, accounting for completeness, an expression that applies to SPH generally. We revisit the derivation of the SPH equations for fluids, paying particular attention to the conservation principles. We find that a common method for enforcing completeness violates a property required of the kernel gradients, namely that gradients with respect the two position variables be equal and opposite. In such models this means conservation principles are not enforced and we present results that show this. As an aside we show the summation interpolant for density is a solution of, and may be used in the place of, the discretized, symmetrized continuity equation. Finally, we examine two examples of discretization errors, namely numerical boundary layers and the existence of crystallized states. Copyright ©2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd