13,478 research outputs found
Inclusion body myositis: therapeutic approaches.
The idiopathic inflammatory myopathies are a heterogeneous group of diseases that include dermatomyositis (DM), polymyositis (PM), inclusion body myositis (IBM) and other less common myopathies. These are clinically and histopathologically distinct diseases with many shared clinical features. IBM, the most commonly acquired inflammatory muscle disease occurs in individuals aged over 50 years, and is characterized by slowly progressive muscle weakness and atrophy affecting proximal and distal muscle groups, often asymmetrically. Unlike DM and PM, IBM is typically refractory to immunotherapy. Although corticosteroids have not been tested in randomized controlled trials, the general consensus is that they are not efficacious. There is some suggestion that intravenous immunoglobulin slows disease progression, but its long-term effectiveness is unclear. The evidence for other immunosuppressive therapies has been derived mainly from case reports and open studies and the results are discouraging. Only a few clinical trials have been conducted on IBM, making it difficult to provide clear recommendations for treatment. Moreover, IBM is a slowly progressive disease so assessment of treatment efficacy is problematic due to the longer-duration trials needed to determine treatment effects. Newer therapies may be promising, but further investigation to document efficacy would be expensive given the aforementioned need for longer trials. In this review, various treatments that have been employed in IBM will be discussed even though none of the interventions has sufficient evidence to support its routine use
Core-competitive Auctions
One of the major drawbacks of the celebrated VCG auction is its low (or zero)
revenue even when the agents have high value for the goods and a {\em
competitive} outcome could have generated a significant revenue. A competitive
outcome is one for which it is impossible for the seller and a subset of buyers
to `block' the auction by defecting and negotiating an outcome with higher
payoffs for themselves. This corresponds to the well-known concept of {\em
core} in cooperative game theory.
In particular, VCG revenue is known to be not competitive when the goods
being sold have complementarities. A bottleneck here is an impossibility result
showing that there is no auction that simultaneously achieves competitive
prices (a core outcome) and incentive-compatibility.
In this paper we try to overcome the above impossibility result by asking the
following natural question: is it possible to design an incentive-compatible
auction whose revenue is comparable (even if less) to a competitive outcome?
Towards this, we define a notion of {\em core-competitive} auctions. We say
that an incentive-compatible auction is -core-competitive if its
revenue is at least fraction of the minimum revenue of a
core-outcome. We study the Text-and-Image setting. In this setting, there is an
ad slot which can be filled with either a single image ad or text ads. We
design an core-competitive randomized auction and an
competitive deterministic auction for the Text-and-Image
setting. We also show that both factors are tight
Quantum computing on long-lived donor states of Li in Si
We predict a gigantically long lifetime of the first excited state of an
interstitial lithium donor in silicon. The nature of this effect roots in the
anomalous level structure of the {\em 1s} Li manifold under external stress.
Namely, the coupling between the lowest two states of the opposite parity is
very weak and occurs via intervalley phonon transitions only. We propose to use
these states under the controlled ac and dc stress to process quantum
information. We find an unusual form of the elastic-dipole interaction between
%the electronic transitions in different donors. This interaction scales with
the inter-donor distance as or for the transitions
between the states of the same or opposite parity, respectively. The long-range
interaction provides a high fidelity mechanism for 2-qubit operations
Adenoid Cystic Carcinoma of External Auditory Canal
Adenoid cystic carcinoma is extremely rare tumour that accounts for approximately 5% of primary malignancy of external auditory canal. These tumours are related with a high risk of recurrences and significant morbidities from surgical management and adjuvant radiotherapy. Despite the aggressive management for these tumours, many patients succumb to distant metastasis, making overall prognosis of these tumours poor. Although ACC of EAC has been reported in 5th decade, but its occurrence in young patient is very rare. We report a rare case of ACC in a young 22 years old female, who presented with ear canal mass and ear pain. Biopsy suggested mass to be ACC. Patient underwent wide local excision followed by adjuvant radiotherapy
Comparative studies of lunar, Martian, and Mercurian craters and plains
The spatial distribution of lunar smooth plains is not consistent with experimental simulations of melt rock emplacement during cratering in layered materials. Nor is it consistent with the location of melt rocks (suevite) near the Ries basin. Lunar smooth plains surrounding Imbrium are most extensive in areas where pre-existing craters are most degraded. This observation suggests that plains form by impact of basin and local primary crater ejecta, together with deposition of debris excavated by the resultant secondary cratering events. Craters within the belt of smooth plains surrounding the Caloris basin on Mercury are most degraded nearest the basin; this suggests that Mercurian smooth plains must, at least in part, be emplaced in a manner similar to plains surrounding the Imbrium basin. Mercurian uplands have a primary crater population deficient in small crater diameters (less than approximately 30 km). Lunar uplands far from major basins also have a crater population deficient in small crater sizes. Martian cratered terrain exhibits a similar crater deficiency, which was previously interpreted as due to obliteration of small craters (less than approximately 30 km) by some surface process. A crater size distribution deficient in small sizes (less than approximately 30 km) on the Mercurian, lunar, and Martian uplands has implications for the origin of debris bombarding the inner solar system during the period recorded by these surfaces. It is proposed that during late heavy bombardment, the inner solar system was inundated with bodies that broke up under tidal fission as they approached the planets. Such a mechanism would lend to production of a crater population deficient in small crater sizes, and it would also explain the large degree of spatial clustering of primary craters on Mercury, the moon, and Mars
Mechanisms of vascular smooth muscle contraction and the basis for pharmacologic treatment of smooth muscle disorders
The smooth muscle cell directly drives the contraction of the vascular wall and hence regulates the size of the blood vessel lumen. We review here the current understanding of the molecular mechanisms by which agonists, therapeutics, and diseases regulate contractility of the vascular smooth muscle cell and we place this within the context of whole body function. We also discuss the implications for personalized medicine and highlight specific potential target molecules that may provide opportunities for the future development of new therapeutics to regulate vascular function.Accepted manuscrip
Energy levels and radiative rates for transitions in Cr-like Co IV and Ni V
We report calculations of energy levels and radiative rates (-values) for
transitions in Cr-like Co IV and Ni V. The quasi-relativistic Hartree-Fock
(QRHF) code is adopted for calculating the data although GRASP (general-purpose
relativistic atomic structure package) and flexible atomic code (FAC) have also
been employed for comparison purposes. No radiative rates are available in the
literature to compare with our results, but our calculated energies are in
close agreement with those compiled by NIST for a majority of the levels.
However, there are discrepancies for a few levels of up to 3\%. The -values
are listed for all significantly contributing E1, E2 and M1 transitions, and
the corresponding lifetimes reported, although unfortunately no previous
theoretical or experimental results exist to compare with our data.Comment: The paper will appear in ADNDT (2016) and in October 2015 on the we
Performance Analysis of Banks in India - Pre and Post World Trade Organization (General Agreement on Trade in Services)
Under World Trade Organization (WTO), the opening of the Indian banking sector fully to the foreign players will pose a keen competition for the banks in India. Under Commercial presence (Mode 3) of General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS), foreign banks with branch presence were allowed Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) in private sector banks in 2005. These developments have a tremendous impact on overall functioning of Indian banks and enhancement of competition . The objective of the study was to assign ranks to different bank groups on the basis of their overall performance scores. The study concludes that although foreign banks and new private sector banks (modern) were significantly better than the public sector banks and old private banks (traditional)but the traditional banks had improved their performance post WTO. This study will hopefully claim the attention of our policy makers, bankers, corporate executives and other interested parties. Keywords: GATS, WTO, Indian banking sector, Productivity, Profitability, Efficiency, Composite Index, Intergroup variatio
Electron Impact Excitation Cross Sections for Hydrogen-Like Ions
We present cross sections for electron-impact-induced transitions n --> n' in
hydrogen-like ions C 5+, Ne 9+, Al 12+, and Ar 17+. The cross sections are
computed by Coulomb-Born with exchange and normalization (CBE) method for all
transitions with n < n' < 7 and by convergent close-coupling (CCC) method for
transitions with n 2s and 1s
--> 2p are presented as well. The CCC and CBE cross sections agree to better
than 10% with each other and with earlier close-coupling results (available for
transition 1 --> 2 only). Analytical expression for n --> n' cross sections and
semiempirical formulae are discussed.Comment: RevTeX, 5 pages, 13 PostScript figures, submitted to Phys. Rev.
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