1,194 research outputs found
Quarkonium dissociation by anisotropy
We compute the screening length for quarkonium mesons moving through an
anisotropic, strongly coupled N=4 super Yang-Mills plasma by means of its
gravity dual. We present the results for arbitrary velocities and orientations
of the mesons, as well as for arbitrary values of the anisotropy. The
anisotropic screening length can be larger or smaller than the isotropic one,
and this depends on whether the comparison is made at equal temperatures or at
equal entropy densities. For generic motion we find that: (i) mesons dissociate
above a certain critical value of the anisotropy, even at zero temperature;
(ii) there is a limiting velocity for mesons in the plasma, even at zero
temperature; (iii) in the ultra-relativistic limit the screening length scales
as with \epsilon =1/2, in contrast with the isotropic result
\epsilon =1/4.Comment: 39 pages, 26 figures; v2: minor changes, added reference
Energy loss in a strongly coupled anisotropic plasma
We study the energy loss of a rotating infinitely massive quark moving, at
constant velocity, through an anisotropic strongly-coupled N=4 plasma from
holography. It is shown that, similar to the isotropic plasma, the energy loss
of the rotating quark is due to either the drag force or radiation with a
continuous crossover from drag-dominated regime to the radiation dominated
regime. We find that the anisotropy has a significant effect on the energy loss
of the heavy quark, specially in the crossover regime. We argue that the energy
loss due to radiation in anisotropic media is less than the isotropic case.
Interestingly this is similar to analogous calculations for the energy loss in
weakly coupled anisotropic plasma.Comment: 26+1 pages, 10 figures, typos fixe
Early-Time Energy Loss in a Strongly-Coupled SYM Plasma
We carry out an analytic study of the early-time motion of a quark in a
strongly-coupled maximally-supersymmetric Yang-Mills plasma, using the AdS/CFT
correspondence. Our approach extracts the first thermal effects as a small
perturbation of the known quark dynamics in vacuum, using a double expansion
that is valid for early times and for (moderately) ultrarelativistic quark
velocities. The quark is found to lose energy at a rate that differs
significantly from the previously derived stationary/late-time result: it
scales like T^4 instead of T^2, and is associated with a friction coefficient
that is not independent of the quark momentum. Under conditions representative
of the quark-gluon plasma as obtained at RHIC, the early energy loss rate is a
few times smaller than its late-time counterpart. Our analysis additionally
leads to thermally-corrected expressions for the intrinsic energy and momentum
of the quark, in which the previously discovered limiting velocity of the quark
is found to appear naturally.Comment: 39 pages, no figures. v2: Minor corrections and clarifications.
References added. Version to be published in JHE
Current use of cardiac magnetic resonance in tertiary referral centres for the diagnosis of cardiomyopathy: the ESC EORP Cardiomyopathy/Myocarditis Registry.
ims: Cardiac magnetic resonance (CMR) is recommended in the diagnosis of cardiomyopathies, but it is time-consuming, expensive, and limited in availability in some European regions. The aim of this study was to determine the use of CMR in cardiomyopathy patients enrolled into the European Society of Cardiology (ESC) cardiomyopathy registry [part of the EURObservational Research Programme (EORP)].
Methods and results: Three thousand, two hundred, and eight consecutive adult patients (34.6% female; median age: 53.0 ± 15 years) with cardiomyopathy were studied: 1260 with dilated (DCM), 1739 with hypertrophic (HCM), 66 with restrictive (RCM), and 143 with arrhythmogenic right ventricular cardiomyopathy (ARVC). CMR scans were performed at baseline in only 29.4% of patients. CMR utilization was variable according to cardiomyopathy subtypes: from 51.1% in ARVC to 36.4% in RCM, 33.8% in HCM, and 20.6% in DCM (P < 0.001). CMR use in tertiary referral centres located in different European countries varied from 1% to 63.2%. Patients undergoing CMR were younger, less symptomatic, less frequently had implantable cardioverter-defibrillator (ICD)/pacemaker implanted, had fewer cardiovascular risk factors and comorbidities (P < 0.001). In 28.6% of patients, CMR was used along with transthoracic echocardiography (TTE); 67.6% patients underwent TTE alone, and 0.9% only CMR.
Conclusion: Less than one-third of patients enrolled in the registry underwent CMR and the use varied greatly between cardiomyopathy subtypes, clinical profiles of patients, and European tertiary referral centres. This gap with current guidelines needs to be considered carefully by scientific societies to promote wider availability and use of CMR in patients with cardiomyopathies
On holographic thermalization and gravitational collapse of massless scalar fields
In this paper we study thermalization in a strongly coupled system via
AdS/CFT. Initially, the energy is injected into the system by turning on a
spatially homogenous scalar source coupled to a marginal composite operator.
The thermalization process is studied by numerically solving Einstein's
equations coupled to a massless scalar field in the Poincare patch of AdS_5. We
define a thermalization time t_T on the AdS side, which has an interpretation
in terms of a spacelike Wilson loop in CFT. Here T is the thermal
equilibrium temperature. We study both cases with the source turned on in
short(Delta t = 1/T) durations. In the former case,
the thermalization time t_T = g_t/T <= 1/T and the coefficient g_t = 0.73 in
the limit Delta t <= 0.02/T. In the latter case, we find double- and
multiple-collapse solutions, which may be interpreted as the gravity duals of
two- or multi-stage thermalization in CFT. In all the cases our results
indicate that such a strongly coupled system thermalizes in a typical time
scale t_T=O(1)/T.Comment: 25 papers, 13 figures, Minor modifications, details of numerics
added, references added, final version to appear in JHE
Current use of cardiac magnetic resonance in tertiary referral centres for the diagnosis of cardiomyopathy: the ESC EORP Cardiomyopathy/Myocarditis Registry
AIMS: Cardiac magnetic resonance (CMR) is recommended in the diagnosis of cardiomyopathies, but it is time-consuming, expensive, and limited in availability in some European regions. The aim of this study was to determine the use of CMR in cardiomyopathy patients enrolled into the European Society of Cardiology (ESC) cardiomyopathy registry [part of the EURObservational Research Programme (EORP)]. METHODS AND RESULTS: Three thousand, two hundred, and eight consecutive adult patients (34.6% female; median age: 53.0â±â15âyears) with cardiomyopathy were studied: 1260 with dilated (DCM), 1739 with hypertrophic (HCM), 66 with restrictive (RCM), and 143 with arrhythmogenic right ventricular cardiomyopathy (ARVC). CMR scans were performed at baseline in only 29.4% of patients. CMR utilization was variable according to cardiomyopathy subtypes: from 51.1% in ARVC to 36.4% in RCM, 33.8% in HCM, and 20.6% in DCM (Pâ<â0.001). CMR use in tertiary referral centres located in different European countries varied from 1% to 63.2%. Patients undergoing CMR were younger, less symptomatic, less frequently had implantable cardioverter-defibrillator (ICD)/pacemaker implanted, had fewer cardiovascular risk factors and comorbidities (Pâ<â0.001). In 28.6% of patients, CMR was used along with transthoracic echocardiography (TTE); 67.6% patients underwent TTE alone, and 0.9% only CMR. CONCLUSION: Less than one-third of patients enrolled in the registry underwent CMR and the use varied greatly between cardiomyopathy subtypes, clinical profiles of patients, and European tertiary referral centres. This gap with current guidelines needs to be considered carefully by scientific societies to promote wider availability and use of CMR in patients with cardiomyopathies
Ăndices diagnĂłsticos da ultrassonografia abdominal na apendicite aguda: influĂȘncia do gĂȘnero e constituição fĂsica, tempo evolutivo da doença e experiĂȘncia do radiologista
Whole Blood Interferon-Gamma Responses to Mycobacterium tuberculosis Antigens in Young Household Contacts of Persons with Tuberculosis in Uganda
Due to immunologic immaturity, IFN-gamma-producing T cell responses may be decreased in young children compared to adults, thus we hypothesized that IFN-gamma responses to mycobacterial antigens in household contacts exposed to Mycobacterium tuberculosis (Mtb) would be impaired in young children relative to adults. The objective of this study was to compare whole blood IFN-gamma production in response to mycobacterial antigens between children and adults in Uganda.We studied household contacts of persons with culture-positive pulmonary tuberculosis (TB) enrolled in a cohort study conducted in Kampala, Uganda. Whole blood IFN-gamma production in response to Mtb culture-filtrate antigens was measured by ELISA and compared between infants (<2 years old, n = 80), young children (2 <5 years old, n = 216), older children (5 <15 years old, n = 443) and adults (> or =15 years old, n = 528). We evaluated the relationship between IFN-gamma responses and the tuberculin skin test (TST), and between IFN-gamma responses and epidemiologic factors that reflect exposure to Mtb, and the effect of prior BCG vaccination on IFN-gamma responses. Young household contacts demonstrated robust IFN-gamma responses comparable to those of adults that were associated with TST and known risk factors for infection. There was no effect of prior BCG immunization on the IFN-gamma response.Young children in a TB endemic setting can mount robust IFN-gamma responses generally comparable to those of adults, and as in adults, these responses correlated with the TST and known epidemiologic risk factors for Mtb infection
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