238 research outputs found
Independent risk of mechanical ventilation for AIDS-related Pneumocystis carinii pneumonia associated with bronchoalveolar lavage neutrophilia
AbstractThe use of mechanical ventilation (MV) for AIDS-related Pneumocystis carinii pneumonia (PCP) has varied over time. The introduction of adjunctive corticosteroid therapy has changed the patophysiology of PCP. In the present study, we attempted to identify factors predictive of severe respiratory failure requiring MV amongst patients with PCP treated in the era of adjunctive corticosteroid therapy. Furthermore, we studied factors associated with survival in relation to MV. Of 170 consecutive patients with AIDS-related PCP, 18 (11%) required MV. Thirteen of 18 ventilated patients died (72%). In a logistic regression analysis, higher age, increased brnchooalveolar lavage (BAL) neutrophilia and a positive BAL cyto megalovirus CMV culture were associated with the need of MV. In multivariate analyses, only BAL neutrophilia remained independently predictive of mechanical ventilation. In conclusion, short-term mortality remained high after the introduction of adjunctive corticosteroid therapy. BAL neutrophilia may be a useful prognostic marker to identify patients at high risk of requiring mechanical ventilation
Do we know the mass of a black hole? Mass of some cosmological black hole models
Using a cosmological black hole model proposed recently, we have calculated
the quasi-local mass of a collapsing structure within a cosmological setting
due to different definitions put forward in the last decades to see how similar
or different they are. It has been shown that the mass within the horizon
follows the familiar Brown-York behavior. It increases, however, outside the
horizon again after a short decrease, in contrast to the Schwarzschild case.
Further away, near the void, outside the collapsed region, and where the
density reaches the background minimum, all the mass definitions roughly
coincide. They differ, however, substantially far from it. Generically, we are
faced with three different Brown-York mass maxima: near the horizon, around the
void between the overdensity region and the background, and another at
cosmological distances corresponding to the cosmological horizon. While the
latter two maxima are always present, the horizon mass maxima is absent before
the onset of the central singularity.Comment: 11 pages, 8 figures, revised version, accepted in General Relativity
and Gravitatio
Validation of screening questions and symptom coherence of night eating in the Swedish Twin Registry
Background Screening criteria have been used to estimate the prevalence of night eating syndrome (NES), but no validation studies have been conducted. Method We examined the validity of two screening questions for NES using a structured interview with adults enrolled in the Swedish Twin Study of Adults: Genes and Environment (STAGE) study. We also examined the coherence of the proposed diagnostic criteria for NES. A total of 416 participants (men = 179; women = 237) completed the interview and reported complete data for study inclusion. Results The following values were calculated for the screening items after confirmation by interview for men and women, respectively: Positive predictive value =.66 and.67, negative predictive value =.52 and.45, sensitivity =.62 and.63, and specificity =.56 and.50. As increasingly stringent diagnostic criteria were applied to the sample, prevalence of NES dropped. Nocturnal ingestions were more likely to co-occur with other NES symptoms than evening hyperphagia, which occurred frequently, but often in isolation; women were more likely to report a co-occurrence of symptoms than men, who were not likely to report distress related to NES symptoms. Conclusion In sum, almost two-thirds of participants were correctly identified as having NES (without considering distress or impairment) if they answered positively on the screening questions, and about half of the participants were correctly identified as not having NES when answering negatively on the screening questions. Although self-report questions are somewhat informative, a structured interview remains the gold standard for diagnosing NES
Aging without disorder on long time scales
We study the Metropolis dynamics of a simple spin system without disorder,
which exhibits glassy dynamics at low temperatures. We use an implementation of
the algorithm of Bortz, Kalos and Lebowitz \cite{bortz}. This method turns out
to be very efficient for the study of glassy systems, which get trapped in
local minima on many different time scales. We find strong evidence of aging
effects at low temperatures. We relate these effects to the distribution
function of the trapping times of single configurations.Comment: 8 pages Revtex, 7 figures uuencoded (Revised version: the figures are
now present
Lipid profiles in HIV-infected patients receiving combination antiretroviral therapy: Are different antiretroviral drugs associated with different lipid profiles?
A First Search for coincident Gravitational Waves and High Energy Neutrinos using LIGO, Virgo and ANTARES data from 2007
We present the results of the first search for gravitational wave bursts
associated with high energy neutrinos. Together, these messengers could reveal
new, hidden sources that are not observed by conventional photon astronomy,
particularly at high energy. Our search uses neutrinos detected by the
underwater neutrino telescope ANTARES in its 5 line configuration during the
period January - September 2007, which coincided with the fifth and first
science runs of LIGO and Virgo, respectively. The LIGO-Virgo data were analysed
for candidate gravitational-wave signals coincident in time and direction with
the neutrino events. No significant coincident events were observed. We place
limits on the density of joint high energy neutrino - gravitational wave
emission events in the local universe, and compare them with densities of
merger and core-collapse events.Comment: 19 pages, 8 figures, science summary page at
http://www.ligo.org/science/Publication-S5LV_ANTARES/index.php. Public access
area to figures, tables at
https://dcc.ligo.org/cgi-bin/DocDB/ShowDocument?docid=p120000
A Fermi Gamma-Ray Burst Monitor Search for Electromagnetic Signals Coincident with Gravitational-wave Candidates in Advanced LIGO's First Observing Run
We present a search for prompt gamma-ray counterparts to compact binary coalescence gravitational wave (GW) candidates from Advanced LIGO's first observing run (O1). As demonstrated by the multimessenger observations of GW170817/GRB 170817A, electromagnetic and GW observations provide complementary information about the astrophysical source, and in the case of weaker candidates, may strengthen the case for an astrophysical origin. Here we investigate low-significance GW candidates from the O1 compact binary coalescence searches using the Fermi Gamma-Ray Burst Monitor (GBM), leveraging its all sky and broad energy coverage. Candidates are ranked and compared to background to measure the significance. Those with false alarm rates (FARs) of less than 10−5 Hz (about one per day, yielding a total of 81 candidates) are used as the search sample for gamma-ray follow-up. No GW candidates were found to be coincident with gamma-ray transients independently identified by blind searches of the GBM data. In addition, GW candidate event times were followed up by a separate targeted search of GBM data. Among the resulting GBM events, the two with the lowest FARs were the gamma-ray transient GW150914-GBM presented in Connaughton et al. and a solar flare in chance coincidence with a GW candidate
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