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Teresa Espanol,1 Johan Prevot,2 Jose Drabwell,2 Seema Sondhi,3 Laurence Olding4 1Immunology Unit, Vall d’Hebron University Hospital, Barcelona, Spain; 2International Patient Organisation for Primary Immunodeficiencies, Cornwall, UK; 3Baxter Healthcare SA, Zurich, Switzerland; 4Bryter, London, UK Background: Subcutaneous or intravenous immunoglobulin replacement is the mainstay of treatment for most patients with primary immunodeficiency disease (PID). The purpose of this study was to gain an understanding of how existing PID therapies affect patient lives and to identify desired improvements to immunoglobulin treatments. Methods: An online questionnaire was made available through the International Patient Organisation for Primary Immunodeficiencies to patients with PID and their caregivers regarding current treatment satisfaction, living with PID, and patient preferences using a conjoint approach. Health-related quality of life was canvassed via questionnaires using the Short Form 12 Health Survey and EuroQoL 5 Dimensions. Results: A total of 300 responded to the survey (72% patients with PID and 28% caregivers) from across 21 countries, mostly the UK, Sweden, Canada, France, Germany, and Spain. Fifty-three percent and 45% of patients received intravenous and subcutaneous therapy, respectively. Most respondents (76%) were satisfied with their current treatment, reflecting the benefits that immunoglobulin therapy provides for patient health and well-being. However, patients remained below the physical and mental well-being norms for health-related quality of life as determined by the questionnaire. All respondents expressed a desire for 4-weekly infusions, the ability to administer these at home, self-administration, shorter duration of administration, and fewer needle sticks. Conclusion: The results of this survey highlight the importance of providing access to different treatment options and modes of administration to ensure individual patient needs are best met. Keywords: primary immunodeficiency, immunoglobulins, quality of life, patient needs, patient satisfaction, conjoint analysis

We report a case presenting with an orthostatic headache. Brain magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) revealed typical pachymeningeal enhancement. CT myelography revealed leakage at the thoracic level. Patient was successfully treated by lumbar epidural blood patch (EBP).

Hypothyroidism is an uncommon cause of ascites. Here we describe a case of a 75 year-old female patient with spontaneous bacterial peritonitis and subclinical hypothyroidism that resolved with thyroid replacement and antibiotic therapy respectively. Ascitic fluid analysis revealed a gram-positive bacterium on gram staining. A review of the literature revealed just one other reported case of myxoedema ascites with concomitant spontaneous bacterial peritonitis and no case has till been reported of spontaneous bacterial peritonitis in subclinical hypothyroidism.

Symmetry and topology are central to understanding quantum Hall ferromagnets (QHFMs), two-dimensional electronic phases with spontaneously broken spin or pseudospin symmetry whose wavefunctions also have topological properties.sup.1,2. Domain walls between distinct broken-symmetry QHFM phases are predicted to host gapless one-dimensional modes--that is, quantum channels that emerge because of a topological change in the underlying electronic wavefunctions at such interfaces. Although various QHFMs have been identified in different materials.sup.3-8, interacting electronic modes at these domain walls have not been probed. Here we use a scanning tunnelling microscope to directly visualize the spontaneous formation of boundary modes at domain walls between QHFM phases with different valley polarization (that is, the occupation of equal-energy but quantum mechanically distinct valleys in the electronic structure) on the surface of bismuth. Spectroscopy shows that these modes occur within a topological energy gap, which closes and reopens as the valley polarization switches across the domain wall. By changing the valley flavour and the number of modes at the domain wall, we can realize different regimes in which the valley-polarized channels are either metallic or develop a spectroscopic gap. This behaviour is a consequence of Coulomb interactions constrained by the valley flavour, which determines whether electrons in the topological modes can backscatter, making these channels a unique class of interacting one-dimensional quantum wires. QHFM domain walls can be realized in different classes of two-dimensional materials, providing the opportunity to explore a rich phase space of interactions in these quantum wires. Scanning tunnelling microscopy shows that 1D channels between quantum Hall states with different valley polarization are metallic or insulating depending on constraints imposed on electron-electron interaction by valley flavour., Author(s): Mallika T. Randeria [sup.1] , Kartiek Agarwal [sup.2] , Benjamin E. Feldman [sup.1] [sup.5] [sup.6] , Hao Ding [sup.1] , Huiwen Ji [sup.3] , R. J. Cava [sup.3] , [...]

Author(s): C. Castelnovo (corresponding author) [1]; R. Moessner [1, 2]; S. L. Sondhi [3] Electrically charged particles, such as the electron, are ubiquitous. In contrast, no elementary particles with a [...]

The (111) intrinsic stacking fault energy γISF in Ni and Ni-Co alloy was calculated and compared using two different ab initio methods, viz., the supercell approach and the axial interaction model (AIM), based on density functional theory. The supercell approach uses energies of crystal structure in slab geometry with and without the stacking fault. In the AIM approach, the problem is mapped to a 1D spin-model and the interaction parameters are obtained using energies for ordered structures, thus obviating the need to handle faulted structure. For elemental Ni, the calculated values of γISF from AIM and supercell approaches differ by not more than by 2%, and compares well with experimental value. For Ni-Co alloy, AIM predicts a slightly faster decrease in γISF with increasing Co concentration compared to supercell approach and experimental data. Overall, there is good agreement between the two approaches. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We discuss the effects of a magnetic field applied parallel to the Cu–O (ab) plane of the high T[sub c] cuprate superconductors. After briefly reviewing the Zeeman effect of the field, we study the orbital effects, using the Lawrence–Doniach model for layered superconductors as a guide to the physics. We argue that the orbital effect is qualitatively different for in-plane and interlayer mechanisms for superconductivity. In the case of in-plane mechanisms, interlayer couplings may be modeled as a weak interlayer Josephson coupling, whose effects disappear as H→∞; in this case Zeeman dominates the effect of the field. In contrast, in the interlayer mechanism the Josephson coupling is the driving force of superconductivity, and we argue that the in-plane field suppresses superconductivity and provides an upper bound for H[sub c2] which we estimate very crudely. © 2000 American Institute of Physics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We generalize the recently introduced Density-Matrix Renormalization Group (DMRG-X) [Khemani et al, PRL 2016] algorithm to obtain Floquet eigenstates of one-dimensional, periodically driven many-body localized systems. This generalization is made possible by the fact that the time-evolution operator for a period can be efficiently represented using a matrix-product operator. We first benchmark the method by comparing to exact diagonalization for small systems. We then obtain Floquet eigenstates for larger systems and show unambiguously that the characteristic area-law scaling remains robust. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We examine the response of a system localized by disorder to a time-dependent local perturbation that varies smoothly with a characteristic timescale τ. We find that such a perturbation induces a nonlocal response, involving a rearrangement of conserved quantities over a length scale ∼ln τ. This effect lies beyond linear response, is absent in undisordered insulators and highlights the remarkable subtlety of localized phases. The effect is common to both single-particle and many-body localized phases. Our results have implications for numerous fields, including topological quantum computation in quantum Hall systems, quantum control in disordered environments, and time-dependent localized systems. For example, they indicate that attempts to braid quasiparticles in quantum Hall systems or Majorana nanowires will not succeed if the manipulations are performed asymptotically slowly, and thus using such platforms for topological quantum computation will require considerable engineering. They also establish that disorder-localized insulators suffer from a statistical orthogonality catastrophe. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]