Comparison of lung ultrasound with transpulmonary thermodilution in assessing extra-vascular lung water

Background: Increased extra-vascular lung water (EVLW) is common in critical care and correlates with the severity of acute lung injury, length of intensive care unit stay and mortality. Lung ultrasound (LUS) can assess EVLW by determining the amount of ‘B-lines’: artefacts signifying alveolar-interstitial oedema. This study’s aim was to determine whether EVLW estimation with the help of LUS correlates with the more accurate PiCCO2® cardiac output system utilising transpulmonary thermodilution.Methods: This prospective observational study was undertaken at Universitas Academic Hospital, Bloemfontein. Patients were scanned according to a fixed protocol, followed by transpulmonary thermodilution. The cumulative B-line count was compared with the EVLW index generated by the PiCCO2® system.Results: Four males and six females were enrolled. The mean EVLW index was 9.1 ml/kg/m2 (standard deviation 1.45), and the median cumulative B-line count was 14 (interquartile range 6–25). A positive, but not statistically significant, correlation was found (r = 0.40, p = 0.25) between the B-line count and EVLW index.Conclusion: This study investigated a possible correlation between LUS interpretation and transpulmonary thermodilution in assessing EVLW. Results seem promising, but the small sample could indicate only that LUS might be of use for the assessment of EVLW. Further studies are needed.Keywords: B-lines,critical care, extra-vascular lung water, lung ultrasound, thermodilutio

Spin Networks for Non-Compact Groups

Spin networks are natural generalization of Wilson loops functionals. They have been extensively studied in the case where the gauge group is compact and it has been shown that they naturally form a basis of gauge invariant observables. Physically the restriction to compact gauge group is enough for the study of Yang-mills theories, however it is well known that non-compact groups naturally arise as internal gauge groups for Lorentzian gravity models. In this context a proper construction of gauge invariant observables is needed. The purpose of this work is to define the notion of spin network states for non-compact groups. We first built, by a careful gauge fixing procedure, a natural measure and a Hilbert space structure on the space of gauge invariant graph connection. Spin networks are then defined as generalized eigenvectors of a complete set of hermitic commuting operators. We show how the delicate issue of taking the quotient of a space by non compact groups can be address in term of algebraic geometry. We finally construct the full Hilbert space containing all spin network states. Having in mind application to gravity we illustrate our results for the groups SL(2,R), SL(2,C).Comment: 43pages, many figures, some comments adde

Relativistic Hartree-Bogoliubov description of the deformed ground-state proton emitters

Ground-state properties of deformed proton-rich odd-Z nuclei in the region $59 \leq Z \leq 69$ are described in the framework of Relativistic Hartree Bogoliubov (RHB) theory. One-proton separation energies and ground-state quadrupole deformations that result from fully self-consistent microscopic calculations are compared with available experimental data. The model predicts the location of the proton drip-line, the properties of proton emitters beyond the drip-line, and provides information about the deformed single-particle orbitals occupied by the odd valence proton.Comment: 9 pages, RevTeX, 3 PS figures, submitted Phys. Rev. Letter

S17(0) Determined from the Coulomb Breakup of 83 MeV/nucleon 8B

A kinematically complete measurement was made of the Coulomb dissociation of 8B nuclei on a Pb target at 83 MeV/nucleon. The cross section was measured at low relative energies in order to infer the astrophysical S factor for the 7Be(p,gamma)8B reaction. A first-order perturbation theory analysis of the reaction dynamics including E1, E2, and M1 transitions was employed to extract the E1 strength relevant to neutrino-producing reactions in the solar interior. By fitting the measured cross section from Erel = 130 keV to 400 keV, we find S17(0) = 17.8 (+1.4, -1.2) eV b

Sports teams as complex adaptive systems: manipulating player numbers shapes behaviours during football small-sided games

Small-sided and conditioned games (SSCGs) in sport have been modelled as complex adaptive systems. Research has shown that the relative space per player (RSP) formulated in SSCGs can impact on emergent tactical behaviours. In this study we adopted a systems orientation to analyse how different RSP values, obtained through manipulations of player numbers, influenced four measures of interpersonal coordination observed during performance in SSCGs. For this purpose we calculated positional data (GPS 15 Hz) from ten U-15 football players performing in three SSCGs varying in player numbers (3v3, 4v4 and 5v5). Key measures of SSCG system behaviours included values of (1) players’ dispersion, (2) teams’ separateness, (3) coupling strength and time delays between participants’ emerging movements, respectively. Results showed that values of participants’ dispersion increased, but the teams’ separateness remained identical across treatments. Coupling strength and time delay also showed consistent values across SSCGs. These results exemplified how complex adaptive systems, like football teams, can harness inherent degeneracy to maintain similar team spatial–temporal relations with opponents through changes in inter-individual coordination modes (i.e., players’ dispersion). The results imply that different team behaviours might emerge at different ratios of field dimension/player numbers. Therefore, sport pedagogists should carefully evaluate the effects of changing RSP in SSCGs as a way of promoting increased or decreased pressure on players

Modal Approach to Casimir Forces in Periodic Structures

We present a modal approach to calculate finite temperature Casimir interactions between two periodically modulated surfaces. The scattering formula is used and the reflection matrices of the patterned surfaces are calculated decomposing the electromagnetic field into the natural modes of the structures. The Casimir force gradient from a deeply etched silicon grating is evaluated using the modal approach and compared to experiment for validation. The Casimir force from a two dimensional periodic structure is computed and deviations from the proximity force approximation examined.Comment: 13 pages, 7 figure

Measurement of two-halo neutron transfer reaction p(11^{11}Li,9^{9}Li)t at 3AA MeV

The p(\nuc{11}{Li},\nuc{9}{Li})t reaction has been studied for the first time at an incident energy of 3$A$ MeV delivered by the new ISAC-2 facility at TRIUMF. An active target detector MAYA, build at GANIL, was used for the measurement. The differential cross sectionshave been determined for transitions to the \nuc{9}{Li} ground andthe first excited states in a wide range of scattering angles. Multistep transfer calculations using different \nuc{11}{Li} model wave functions, shows that wave functions with strong correlations between the halo neutrons are the most successful in reproducing the observation.Comment: 6 pages, 3 figures, submitted to Physical Review Letter

A spin foam model for general Lorentzian 4-geometries

We derive simplicity constraints for the quantization of general Lorentzian 4-geometries. Our method is based on the correspondence between coherent states and classical bivectors and the minimization of associated uncertainties. For spacelike geometries, this scheme agrees with the master constraint method of the model by Engle, Pereira, Rovelli and Livine (EPRL). When it is applied to general Lorentzian geometries, we obtain new constraints that include the EPRL constraints as a special case. They imply a discrete area spectrum for both spacelike and timelike surfaces. We use these constraints to define a spin foam model for general Lorentzian 4-geometries.Comment: 27 pages, 1 figure; v4: published versio

Spectroscopy of 194^{194}Po

Prompt, in-beam $\gamma$ rays following the reaction $^{170}$Yb + 142 MeV $^{28}$Si were measured at the ATLAS facility using 10 Compton-suppressed Ge detectors and the Fragment Mass Analyzer. Transitions in $^{194}$Po were identified and placed using $\gamma$-ray singles and coincidence data gated on the mass of the evaporation residues. A level spectrum up to J$\approx$10$\hbar$ was established. The structure of $^{194}$Po is more collective than that observed in the heavier polonium isotopes and indicates that the structure has started to evolve towards the more collective nature expected for deformed nuclei.Comment: 8 pages, revtex 3.0, 4 figs. available upon reques

A Lorentzian Signature Model for Quantum General Relativity

We give a relativistic spin network model for quantum gravity based on the Lorentz group and its q-deformation, the Quantum Lorentz Algebra. We propose a combinatorial model for the path integral given by an integral over suitable representations of this algebra. This generalises the state sum models for the case of the four-dimensional rotation group previously studied in gr-qc/9709028. As a technical tool, formulae for the evaluation of relativistic spin networks for the Lorentz group are developed, with some simple examples which show that the evaluation is finite in interesting cases. We conjecture that the `10J' symbol needed in our model has a finite value.Comment: 22 pages, latex, amsfonts, Xypic. Version 3: improved presentation. Version 2 is a major revision with explicit formulae included for the evaluation of relativistic spin networks and the computation of examples which have finite value