Laboratory tests in patients treated with isotretinoin: occurrence of liver and muscle abnormalities and failure of AST and ALT to predict liver abnormality.

Current laboratory monitoring may not be optimal. A retrospective chart review was performed on thelaboratory results of 246 patients who were treated with isotretinoin for acne over a 9-year period. Tests obtained were CBC, lipid panel, AST, ALT, CK, GGT,and C-reactive protein. Thirty-five patients had an elevated AST and 35 of these had an elevated CK; 32 had an elevated ALT and 11 of these had an elevated CK. Thirteen patients had an elevated GGT; in 5 this was the only abnormality, whereas 8 had a GGT elevation accompanied by an elevated AST or ALT. Two had an elevated GGT and an elevated CK with normal AST and ALT. Fifty-two patients had a single episode of elevated CK, of which 22 were female. However, 57 had multiple CK elevations and only one was female. Thirty-five patients had CK elevationsnormal; 38 had levels between 2 and 3 times normal, 18 had levels between 3 and 4 times normal, and 18 had levels greater than 4 times normal. We suggest that ALT and AST are not useful for monitoring isotretinoin therapy and that GGT and CK may be of greater value in managing patients

The path space of a higher-rank graph

We construct a locally compact Hausdorff topology on the path space of a finitely aligned $k$-graph $\Lambda$. We identify the boundary-path space $\partial\Lambda$ as the spectrum of a commutative $C^*$-subalgebra $D_\Lambda$ of $C^*(\Lambda)$. Then, using a construction similar to that of Farthing, we construct a finitely aligned $k$-graph \wt\Lambda with no sources in which $\Lambda$ is embedded, and show that $\partial\Lambda$ is homeomorphic to a subset of \partial\wt\Lambda . We show that when $\Lambda$ is row-finite, we can identify $C^*(\Lambda)$ with a full corner of C^*(\wt\Lambda), and deduce that $D_\Lambda$ is isomorphic to a corner of D_{\wt\Lambda}. Lastly, we show that this isomorphism implements the homeomorphism between the boundary-path spaces.Comment: 30 pages, all figures drawn with TikZ/PGF. Updated numbering and minor corrections to coincide with published version. Updated 29-Feb-2012 to fix a compiling error which resulted in the arXiv PDF output containing two copies of the articl

A direct approach to co-universal algebras associated to directed graphs

We prove directly that if E is a directed graph in which every cycle has an entrance, then there exists a C*-algebra which is co-universal for Toeplitz-Cuntz-Krieger E-families. In particular, our proof does not invoke ideal-structure theory for graph algebras, nor does it involve use of the gauge action or its fixed point algebra.Comment: 9 pages; V2: the definition of a Toeplitz-Cuntz-Krieger $E$-family has been correcte

A Dynamically Adaptive Sparse Grid Method for Quasi-Optimal Interpolation of Multidimensional Analytic Functions

In this work we develop a dynamically adaptive sparse grids (SG) method for quasi-optimal interpolation of multidimensional analytic functions defined over a product of one dimensional bounded domains. The goal of such approach is to construct an interpolant in space that corresponds to the "best $M$-terms" based on sharp a priori estimate of polynomial coefficients. In the past, SG methods have been successful in achieving this, with a traditional construction that relies on the solution to a Knapsack problem: only the most profitable hierarchical surpluses are added to the SG. However, this approach requires additional sharp estimates related to the size of the analytic region and the norm of the interpolation operator, i.e., the Lebesgue constant. Instead, we present an iterative SG procedure that adaptively refines an estimate of the region and accounts for the effects of the Lebesgue constant. Our approach does not require any a priori knowledge of the analyticity or operator norm, is easily generalized to both affine and non-affine analytic functions, and can be applied to sparse grids build from one dimensional rules with arbitrary growth of the number of nodes. In several numerical examples, we utilize our dynamically adaptive SG to interpolate quantities of interest related to the solutions of parametrized elliptic and hyperbolic PDEs, and compare the performance of our quasi-optimal interpolant to several alternative SG schemes

Urban Regeneration of Industrial Areas: Affordable Housing for Low Income Populations in Cities

The UK-China Sustainable Development Dialogue (SDD) is a partnership between the UK and Chinese Governments to promote collaboration and good practice on sustainable development. It is framed by a 2004 joint Prime Ministerial declaration and was formally established in 2005 by an agreement signed by UK Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott and State Councillor Tang. The SDD was founded on the recognition that, in an interdependent world, international co-operation is needed to ensure that learning is shared and efforts are made collectively towards achieving common goals. This report is the 13th and Final Paper in the SDD (Urban Strand. It draws together the core conclusions from the previous twelve papers and offers recommendations for taking the dialogue forward