Massive Necrotizing Pancreatitis in an Immunosuppressed Renal Transplant Recipient (Successful Therapy)

Severe pancreatitis may be associated with massive necrosis of the pancreas and/or retroperitoneal adipose tissue. Toxicity results from the dead tissue and secondary infection. A 45 year old patient, while fully immunosuppressed, developed this complication following cadaveric renal transplantation. He survived continued immunosuppression, 16 operative debridements of the retroperitoneum, and maintained a functioning renal transplant

Focused Local Search for Random 3-Satisfiability

A local search algorithm solving an NP-complete optimisation problem can be viewed as a stochastic process moving in an 'energy landscape' towards eventually finding an optimal solution. For the random 3-satisfiability problem, the heuristic of focusing the local moves on the presently unsatisfiedclauses is known to be very effective: the time to solution has been observed to grow only linearly in the number of variables, for a given clauses-to-variables ratio $\alpha$ sufficiently far below the critical satisfiability threshold $\alpha_c \approx 4.27$. We present numerical results on the behaviour of three focused local search algorithms for this problem, considering in particular the characteristics of a focused variant of the simple Metropolis dynamics. We estimate the optimal value for the ``temperature'' parameter $\eta$ for this algorithm, such that its linear-time regime extends as close to $\alpha_c$ as possible. Similar parameter optimisation is performed also for the well-known WalkSAT algorithm and for the less studied, but very well performing Focused Record-to-Record Travel method. We observe that with an appropriate choice of parameters, the linear time regime for each of these algorithms seems to extend well into ratios $\alpha > 4.2$ -- much further than has so far been generally assumed. We discuss the statistics of solution times for the algorithms, relate their performance to the process of ``whitening'', and present some conjectures on the shape of their computational phase diagrams.Comment: 20 pages, lots of figure

An Optical and X-ray Examination of Two Radio Supernova Remnant Candidates in 30 Doradus

The giant HII region 30 Doradus is known for its violent internal motions and bright diffuse X-ray emission, suggesting the existence of supernova remnants (SNRs), but no nonthermal radio emission has been detected. Recently, Lazendic et al. compared the H-alpha/H-beta and radio/H-alpha ratios and suggested two small radio sources to be nonthermal and thus SNR candidates; however, no optical or X-ray counterparts were detected. We have used high-resolution optical images and high-dispersion spectra to examine the morphological, spectral, and kinematic properties of these two SNR candidates, and still find no optical evidence supporting their identification as SNRs. We have also determined the X-ray luminosities of these SNR candidates, and find them 1-3 orders of magnitude lower than those commonly seen in young SNRs. High extinction can obscure optical and X-ray signatures of an SNR, but would prohibit the use of a high radio/H-alpha ratio to identify nonthermal radio emission. We suggest that the SNR candidate MCRX J053831.8-690620 is associated with a young star forming region; while the radio emission originates from the obscured star forming region, the observed optical emission is dominated by the foreground. We suggest that the SNR candidate MCRX J053838.8-690730 is associated with a dust/molecular cloud, which obscures some optical emission but not the radio emission.Comment: 13 pages, 2 figures, accepted for publication in the ApJ, Nov 10, 200

Structure and Feedback in 30 Doradus I: Observations

We have completed a a new optical imaging and spectrophotometric survey of a 140 x 80 pc$^2$ region of 30 Doradus centered on R136, covering key optical diagnostic emission lines including \Ha, \Hb, \Hg, [O III] $\lambda\lambda$4363, 4959, 5007, [N II] $\lambda\lambda$6548, 6584, [S II] $\lambda\lambda$6717, 6731 [S III] $\lambda$6312 and in some locations [S III] $\lambda$9069. We present maps of fluxes and intensity ratios for these lines, and catalogs of isolated ionizing stars, elephant-trunk pillars, and edge-on ionization fronts. The final science-quality spectroscopic data products are available to the public. Our analysis of the new data finds that, while stellar winds and supernovae undoubtedly produce shocks and are responsible for shaping the nebula, there are no global spectral signatures to indicate that shocks are currently an important source of ionization. We conclude that the considerable region covered by our survey is well described by photoionization from the central cluster where the ionizing continuum is dominated by the most massive O stars. We show that if 30 Dor were viewed at a cosmological distance, its integrated light would be dominated by its extensive regions of lower surface-brightness rather than by the bright, eye-catching arcs.Comment: 42 pages, 16 figures, Accepted for publication in ApJ

The Effect of Star Formation History on the Inferred Initial Stellar Mass Function

Peaks and lulls in the star formation rate (SFR) over the history of the Galaxy produce plateaux and declines in the present day mass function (PDMF) where the main-sequence lifetime overlaps the age and duration of the SFR variation. These PDMF features can be misinterpreted as the form of the intrinsic stellar initial mass function (IMF) if the star formation rate is assumed to be constant or slowly varying with time. This effect applies to all regions that have formed stars for longer than the age of the most massive stars, including OB associations, star complexes, and especially galactic field stars. Related problems may apply to embedded clusters. Evidence is summarized for temporal SFR variations from parsec scales to entire galaxies, all of which should contribute to inferred IMF distortions. We give examples of various star formation histories to demonstrate the types of false IMF structures that might be seen. These include short-duration bursts, stochastic histories with log-normal amplitude distributions, and oscillating histories with various periods and phases. The inferred IMF should appear steeper than the intrinsic IMF over mass ranges where the stellar lifetimes correspond to times of decreasing SFRs; shallow portions of the inferred IMF correspond to times of increasing SFRs. If field regions are populated by dispersed clusters and defined by their low current SFRs, then they should have steeper inferred IMFs than the clusters. The SFRs required to give the steep field IMFs in the LMC and SMC are determined. Structure observed in several determinations of the Milky Way field star IMF can be accounted for by a stochastic and bursty star formation history.Comment: accepted by ApJ for 1 Jan 2006, Vol 636, 12 pages + 6 figure

Palette-colouring: a belief-propagation approach

We consider a variation of the prototype combinatorial-optimisation problem known as graph-colouring. Our optimisation goal is to colour the vertices of a graph with a fixed number of colours, in a way to maximise the number of different colours present in the set of nearest neighbours of each given vertex. This problem, which we pictorially call "palette-colouring", has been recently addressed as a basic example of problem arising in the context of distributed data storage. Even though it has not been proved to be NP complete, random search algorithms find the problem hard to solve. Heuristics based on a naive belief propagation algorithm are observed to work quite well in certain conditions. In this paper, we build upon the mentioned result, working out the correct belief propagation algorithm, which needs to take into account the many-body nature of the constraints present in this problem. This method improves the naive belief propagation approach, at the cost of increased computational effort. We also investigate the emergence of a satisfiable to unsatisfiable "phase transition" as a function of the vertex mean degree, for different ensembles of sparse random graphs in the large size ("thermodynamic") limit.Comment: 22 pages, 7 figure

Theory of Scanning Tunneling Spectroscopy of a Magnetic Adatom on a Metallic Surface

A comprehensive theory is presented for the voltage, temperature, and spatial dependence of the tunneling current between a scanning tunneling microscope (STM) tip and a metallic surface with an individual magnetic adatom. Modeling the adatom by a nondegenerate Anderson impurity, a general expression is derived for a weak tunneling current in terms of the dressed impurity Green function, the impurity-free surface Green function, and the tunneling matrix elements. This generalizes Fano's analysis to the interacting case. The differential-conductance lineshapes seen in recent STM experiments with the tip directly over the magnetic adatom are reproduced within our model, as is the rapid decay, \sim 10\AA, of the low-bias structure as one moves the tip away from the adatom. With our simple model for the electronic structure of the surface, there is no dip in the differential conductance at approximately one lattice spacing from the magnetic adatom, but rather we see a resonant enhancement. The formalism for tunneling into small clusters of magnetic adatoms is developed.Comment: 12 pages, 9 figures; to appear in Phys. Rev.

Evidence of a metabolic memory to early-life dietary restriction in male C57BL/6 mice

<p>Background: Dietary restriction (DR) extends lifespan and induces beneficial metabolic effects in many animals. What is far less clear is whether animals retain a metabolic memory to previous DR exposure, that is, can early-life DR preserve beneficial metabolic effects later in life even after the resumption of ad libitum (AL) feeding. We examined a range of metabolic parameters (body mass, body composition (lean and fat mass), glucose tolerance, fed blood glucose, fasting plasma insulin and insulin-like growth factor 1 (IGF-1), insulin sensitivity) in male C57BL/6 mice dietary switched from DR to AL (DR-AL) at 11 months of age (mid life). The converse switch (AL-DR) was also undertaken at this time. We then compared metabolic parameters of the switched mice to one another and to age-matched mice maintained exclusively on an AL or DR diet from early life (3 months of age) at 1 month, 6 months or 10 months post switch.</p> <p>Results: Male mice dietary switched from AL-DR in mid life adopted the metabolic phenotype of mice exposed to DR from early life, so by the 10-month timepoint the AL-DR mice overlapped significantly with the DR mice in terms of their metabolic phenotype. Those animals switched from DR-AL in mid life showed clear evidence of a glycemic memory, with significantly improved glucose tolerance relative to mice maintained exclusively on AL feeding from early life. This difference in glucose tolerance was still apparent 10 months after the dietary switch, despite body mass, fasting insulin levels and insulin sensitivity all being similar to AL mice at this time.</p> <p>Conclusions: Male C57BL/6 mice retain a long-term glycemic memory of early-life DR, in that glucose tolerance is enhanced in mice switched from DR-AL in mid life, relative to AL mice, even 10 months following the dietary switch. These data therefore indicate that the phenotypic benefits of DR are not completely dissipated following a return to AL feeding. The challenge now is to understand the molecular mechanisms underlying these effects, the time course of these effects and whether similar interventions can confer comparable benefits in humans.</p&gt