1,361 research outputs found
Age-Related Health Hazards in Old Patients with First-Time Referral to a Rheumatologist: A Descriptive Study
Objective. To study the prevalence of generic age-related health hazards in elderly patient referred to a rheumatologist. Methods. Patients aged 75 or older referred to a specialized gerontorheumatological outpatient service over a period of 2 years were studied prospectively to determine the prevalence of comorbidities, a history of falls, inactivity, cognitive dysfunction, loneliness, and depression in this patient group. Results. A group of 154 patients were included in the study. Comorbidities were observed in 88% of the patients. At least one fall was reported in the last year by 44% of the patients; 44% of the patients reported low levels of health-enhancing physical activity. Depressed mood and loneliness were elevated in 30% and 31% of the patients, respectively. Mild or moderate cognitive impairment was observed in 13% of the patients. Conclusion. Patients in this study were characterized by poor physical ability, high levels of pain, and high prevalence of age-related health hazards
Teleparallel Theories of Gravity: Illuminating a Fully Invariant Approach
Teleparallel gravity and its popular generalization gravity can be
formulated as fully invariant (under both coordinate transformations and local
Lorentz transformations) theories of gravity. Several misconceptions about
teleparallel gravity and its generalizations can be found in the literature,
especially regarding their local Lorentz invariance. We describe how these
misunderstandings may have arisen and attempt to clarify the situation. In
particular, the central point of confusion in the literature appears to be
related to the inertial spin connection in teleparallel gravity models. While
inertial spin connections are commonplace in special relativity, and not
something inherent to teleparallel gravity, the role of the inertial spin
connection in removing the spurious inertial effects within a given frame of
reference is emphasized here. The careful consideration of the inertial spin
connection leads to the construction of a fully invariant theory of
teleparallel gravity and its generalizations. Indeed, it is the nature of the
spin connection that differentiates the relationship between what have been
called good tetrads and bad tetrads and clearly shows that, in principle, any
tetrad can be utilized. The field equations for the fully invariant formulation
of teleparallel gravity and its generalizations are presented and a number of
examples using different assumptions on the frame and spin connection are
displayed to illustrate the covariant procedure. Various modified teleparallel
gravity models are also briefly reviewed.Comment: v2: 72 pages, revised version, references added, matches published
versio
Digital vasculitis in a patient with rheumatoid arthritis: good response on anti-TNF blockade
New possibilities on transplanting kidneys from hepatitis C virus positive donors: a Systematic Review
Brane-world Cosmologies with non-local bulk effects
It is very common to ignore the non-local bulk effects in the study of
brane-world cosmologies using the brane-world approach. However, we shall
illustrate through the use of three different scenarios, that the non-local
bulk-effect does indeed have significant impact on both the
initial and future behaviour of brane-world cosmologies.Comment: 17 pages, no figures, iopart.cls, submitted to CQ
Self-similar spherically symmetric cosmological models with a perfect fluid and a scalar field
Self-similar, spherically symmetric cosmological models with a perfect fluid
and a scalar field with an exponential potential are investigated. New
variables are defined which lead to a compact state space, and dynamical
systems methods are utilised to analyse the models. Due to the existence of
monotone functions global dynamical results can be deduced. In particular, all
of the future and past attractors for these models are obtained and the global
results are discussed. The essential physical results are that initially
expanding models always evolve away from a massless scalar field model with an
initial singularity and, depending on the parameters of the models, either
recollapse to a second singularity or expand forever towards a flat power-law
inflationary model. The special cases in which there is no barotropic fluid and
in which the scalar field is massless are considered in more detail in order to
illustrate the asymptotic results. Some phase portraits are presented and the
intermediate dynamics and hence the physical properties of the models are
discussed.Comment: 31 pages, 4 figure
Qualitative Viscous Cosmology
The Full (non--truncated) Israel--Stewart theory of bulk viscosity is applied
to dissipative FRW spacetimes. Dimensionless variables and dimensionless
equations of state are used to write the Einstein--thermodynamic equations as a
plane autonomous system and the qualitative behaviour of this system is
determined. Entropy production in these models is also discussed.Comment: 13 pages, REVTeX, accepted for publication in Physical Review
Scalar Field Cosmologies with Barotropic Matter: Models of Bianchi class B
We investigate in detail the qualitative behaviour of the class of Bianchi
type B spatially homogeneous cosmological models in which the matter content is
composed of two non-interacting components; the first component is described by
a barotropic fluid having a gamma-law equation of state, whilst the second is a
non-interacting scalar field (phi) with an exponential potential V=Lambda exp(k
phi). In particular, we study the asymptotic properties of the models both at
early and late times, paying particular attention on whether the models
isotropize (and inflate) to the future, and we discuss the genericity of the
cosmological scaling solutions.Comment: 18 pages, 1 figure, uses revtex and epsf to insert figur
Dynamics of Generalized Assisted Inflation
We study the dynamics of multiple scalar fields and a barotropic fluid in an
FLRW-universe. The scalar potential is a sum of exponentials. All critical
points are constructed and these include scaling and de Sitter solutions. A
stability analysis of the critical points is performed for generalized assisted
inflation, which is an extension of assisted inflation where the fields
mutually interact. Effects in generalized assisted inflation which differ from
assisted inflation are emphasized. One such a difference is that an
(inflationary) attractor can exist if some of the exponential terms in the
potential are negative.Comment: 27 page
The Dynamics of Multi-Scalar Field Cosmological Models and Assisted Inflation
We investigate the dynamical properties of a class of spatially homogeneous
and isotropic cosmological models containing a barotropic perfect fluid and
multiple scalar fields with independent exponential potentials. We show that
the assisted inflationary scaling solution is the global late-time attractor
for the parameter values for which the model is inflationary, even when
curvature and barotropic matter are included. For all other parameter values
the multi-field curvature scaling solution is the global late-time attractor
(in these solutions asymptotically the curvature is not dynamically
negligible). Consequently, we find that in general all of the scalar fields in
multi-field models with exponential potentials are non-negligible in late-time
behaviour, contrary to what is commonly believed. The early-time and
intermediate behaviour of the models is also studied. In particular, n-scalar
field models are investigated and the structure of the saddle equilibrium
points corresponding to inflationary m-field scaling solutions and
non-inflationary m-field matter scaling solutions are also studied (where m<n),
leading to interesting transient dynamical behaviour with new physical
scenarios of potential importance.Comment: 27 pages, uses REVTeX Added an appendix illustrating some of the
details needed to compute the stability of the assisted inflationary solutio
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