Search

Abstract Background Osteoporotic vertebral compression fractures (OVCF) severely affect the quality of life in the aged population. Percutaneous vertebroplasty (PVP) alleviates pain and stabilizes vertebrae, but suboptimal bone cement distribution can cause complications. Hence, this study aimed to clarify whether a new technique for PVP, using a curved guide wire, enhances the distribution of bone cement and improves clinical outcomes in patients with OVCF. Methods Patients with single-segment OVCF underwent PVP or curved guide wire percutaneous vertebroplasty (C-PVP). Propensity score matching (PSM) was employed to balanced the baseline characteristics. The primary outcomes were the visual analog scale (VAS) and Oswestry disability index (ODI) scores. The secondary outcomes included assessments of bone cement distribution, bone cement injection volume, radiological parameters, and general clinical results. Additionally, Complications and adverse events were documented. Results After PSM analysis, each group comprised 54 patients, which significantly reduced baseline differences. The C-PVP group showed better clinical outcomes compared to the traditional PVP group. One month after surgery, the C-PVP group had significantly lower VAS and ODI scores (p

Abstract Purpose Chronic intermittent hypoxia (CIH) causes lung injury but the mechanism is unclear. Ferroptosis is a novel form of programmed cell death. In this research, we attempted to explore the role of ferroptosis in CIH-induced lung injury both in vitro and in vivo. Methods Sprague-Dawley rats were randomly separated into control group, CIH group and CIH + ferrostatin-1 group (CIH + Fer-1). Rats in the CIH group and CIH + Fer-1 group were exposed to intermittent hypoxia for 12 weeks. Human bronchial epithelial cell line (BEAS-2B) was cultivated for 24 h in either conventional culture medium or under CIH conditions. Fer-1 was applied to observe its treatment effects. Histological changes were evaluated by Hematoxylin–eosin (HE) staining and masson staining. The expression levels of Acyl-CoA synthetase long-chain family member 4 (ACSL4), glutathione peroxidase 4 (GPX4), interleukin-6 (IL-6) and tumour necrosis factor α (TNFα) were detected via qRT-PCR or Western blot. Cell counting kit-8 (CCK-8) was used to assess cell viability. The apoptotic rate and reactive oxygen species (ROS) was calculated by flow cytometry. Results Histology showed that CIH treatment induced lung injury and pulmonary fibrosis in lung tissue. After Fer-1 treatment, the pathological changes caused by CIH alleviated. The mRNA and protein levels of GPX4 decreased significantly in lung tissues of CIH-treated rats and BEAS-2B, (p

The incidence of Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is increasing year by year, which brings great challenges to human health. However, the pathogenesis of AD is still unclear, and it lacks early diagnostic targets. The entorhinal cortex (EC) is a key brain region for the occurrence of AD neurodegeneration, and neuroinflammation plays a significant role in EC degeneration in AD. This study aimed to reveal the close relationship between inflammation-related genes in the EC and AD by detecting key differentially expressed genes (DEGs) via gene function enrichment pathway analysis. GSE4757 and GSE21779 gene expression profiles of AD were downloaded from the Gene Expression Omnibus (GEO) database. R language was used for the standardization and differential analysis of DEGs. Then, significantly enriched Gene Ontology (GO) terms and Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes (KEGG) pathways were analyzed to predict the potential biological functions of the DEGs. Finally, the significant expressions of identified DEGs were verified, and the therapeutic values were detected by a receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve. The results showed that eight up-regulated genes (SLC22A2, ITGB2-AS1, NIT1, FGF14-AS2, SEMA3E, PYCARD, PRORY, ADIRF) and two down-regulated genes (AKAIN1, TRMT2B) may have a potential diagnostic value for AD, and participate in inflammatory pathways. The area under curve (AUC) results of the ten genes showed that they had potential diagnostic value for AD. The AUC of PYCARD was 0.95, which had the most significant diagnostic value, and it is involved in inflammatory processes such as the inflammasome complex adaptor protein. The DEGs screened, and subsequent pathway analysis revealed a close relationship between inflammation-related PYCARD and AD, thus providing a new basis for an early diagnostic target for AD.

We prove the existence of dark monopole solutions in a recently formulated Yang–Mills–Higgs theory model with technical features similar to the classical monopole problems. The solutions are obtained as energy-minimizing static spherically symmetric field configurations of unit topological charge. We overcome the difficulty of recovering the full set of boundary conditions by a regularization method which may be applied to other more complicated problems concerning monopoles and dyons in non-Abelian gauge field theories. Furthermore we show in a critical coupling situation that an explicit BPS solution may be used to provide energy estimates for non-BPS monopole solutions. Besides, in the limit of infinite Higgs coupling parameter, although no explicit construction is available, we establish an existence and uniqueness result for a monopole solution and obtain its energy bounds.

We establish a 3-parameter family of integral identities to be used on a class of theories possessing solitons with spherical symmetry in d spatial dimensions. The construction provides five boundary charges that are related to certain integrals of the profile functions of the solitons in question. The framework is quite generic and we give examples of both topological defects (like vortices and monopoles) and topological textures (like Skyrmions) in 2 and 3 dimensions. The class of theories considered here is based on a kinetic term and three functionals often encountered in reduced Lagrangians for solitons. One particularly interesting case provides a generalization of the well-known Pohozaev identity. Our construction, however, is fundamentally different from scaling arguments behind Derrick's theorem and virial relations. For BPS vortices, we find interestingly an infinity of integrals simply related to the topological winding number.

Previous studies have indicated that social evaluations rely heavily on the outcome of an actor's behavior toward a recipient. These studies focused on interactions in which two agents are connected by an external goal (i.e., object-mediated social interaction) and revealed that the intent behind an action has a privileged role in evaluating the valence of a social interaction. The current study investigated whether the intent behind an action influences evaluation of contingent social interactions wherein one agent responds to another without referring to a specific target. To clarify this, we operationalized intent as harmful or harmless when one agent hit another (i.e., recipient), and manipulated the action's outcome by determining to what extent it changed the recipient's state (i.e., falling down or moving slightly). Results showed that in contingent interactions with both direct launching (i.e., the actor directly caused the change) and extended launching (i.e., the actor caused the change through a mediated block), when the action significantly affected the recipient, the agents were evaluated as having a more negative social interaction than when the influence was small; this effect was independent of the intent behind the action. Such findings demonstrated that evaluations of contingent social interactions are primarily influenced by an actor's causal role in the outcome, not the intent behind an action. This null effect of intent when evaluating social interaction contrasts with findings on object-mediated social interaction, which is consistent with human social evaluations relying on two dissociable systems: causal and intentional components.

An important question concerning the classical solutions of the equations of motion arising in quantum field theories at the BPS critical coupling is whether all finite-energy solutions are necessarily BPS. In this paper we present a study of this basic question in the context of the domain wall equations whose potential is induced from a superpotential so that the ground states are the critical points of the superpotential. We prove that the definiteness of the Hessian of the superpotential suffices to ensure that all finite-energy domain-wall solutions are BPS. We give several examples to show that such a BPS property may fail such that non-BPS solutions exist when the Hessian of the superpotential is indefinite.

We study a recently developed product Abelian gauge field theory by Tong and Wong hosting magnetic impurities. We first obtain a necessary and sufficient condition for the existence of a unique solution realizing such impurities in the form of multiple vortices. We next reformulate the theory into an extended model that allows the coexistence of vortices and anti-vortices. The two Abelian gauge fields in the model induce two species of magnetic vortex-lines resulting from Ns vortices and Ps anti-vortices (s=1,2) realized as the zeros and poles of two complex-valued Higgs fields, respectively. An existence theorem is established for the governing equations over a compact Riemann surface S which states that a solution with prescribed N1, N2 vortices and P1,P2 anti-vortices of two designated species exists if and only if the inequalities |N1+N2−(P1+P2)|

An existence theorem is established for the solutions to the non- Abelian relativistic Chern-Simons-Higgs vortex equations over a doubly periodic domain when the gauge group G assumes the most general and important prototype form, G = SU(N). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent work of Harland shows that the SO(3)- symmetric, dimensionally reduced, charge-N selfdual Yang-Mills calorons on the hyperbolic space H³ × S¹ may be obtained through constructing N-vortex solutions of an Abelian Higgs model as in the study of Witten on multiple instantons. In this paper, we establish the existence of such minimal action charge-N calorons by constructing arbitrarily prescribed N-vortex solutions of the Witten type equations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It is shown that multiply distributed cosmic strings arise in the product Abelian gauge field theory of Tong and Wong where vortices generated from an extra gauge sector are used to realize magnetic impurities. It is seen that, in view of the fully coupled Einstein and gauge-matter equations, the presence of such cosmic strings in the form of topological defects is essential for gravitation. Asymptotic behavior of the string solutions can be precisely described to allow the derivation of a necessary and sufficient condition for the gravitational metric to be geodesically complete and an explicit calculation of the deficit angle proportional to the string tension, both stated in terms of string numbers, energy levels of broken symmetries, and the universal gravitational constant. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Optical vortices arise as phase singularities of the light fields and are of central interest in modern optical physics. In this paper, some existence theorems are established for stationary vortex wave solutions of a general class of nonlinear Schrödinger equations. There are two types of results. The first type concerns the existence of positive-radial-profile solutions, which are obtained through a constrained minimization approach. The second type addresses the existence of saddle-point solutions through a mountain-pass theorem or min-max method so that the wave propagation constant may be arbitrarily prescribed in an open interval. Furthermore, some explicit estimates for the lower bound and sign of the wave propagation constant with respect to the light beam power and vortex winding number are also derived for the first type of solution. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We prove the existence of a continuous family of finite-energy particle-like solutions in the coupled Georgi-Glashow-Skyrme model carrying both electric and magnetic charges, known as dyons. Due to the presence of electricity and the Minkowski spacetime signature, we need to solve a variational problem with an indefinite action functional. Our results show that, while the magnetic charge is uniquely determined by the topological monopole number, the electric charge of a solution can be arbitrarily prescribed in an open interval. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent work on magnetic phase transition in nanoscale systems indicates that new physical phenomena, in particular, the Bloch wall width narrowing, arise as a consequence of geometrical confinement of magnetization and leads to the introduction of geometrically constrained domain wall models. In this paper, we present a systematic mathematical analysis on the existence of the solutions of the basic governing equations in such domain wall models. We show that, when the cross section of the geometric constriction is a simple step function, the solutions may be obtained by minimizing the domain wall energy over the constriction and solving the Bogomol’nyi equation outside the constriction. When the cross section and potential density are both even, we establish the existence of an odd domain wall solution realizing the phase transition process between two adjacent domain phases. When the cross section satisfies a certain integrability condition, we prove that a domain wall solution always exists which links two arbitrarily designated domain phases. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It is a well accepted principle that finite-energy static solutions in the classical relativistic gauge field theory over the (2 + 1)-dimensional Minkowski spacetime must be electrically neutral. We call such a statement the Julia–Zee theorem. In this paper, we present a mathematical proof of this fundamental structural property. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we use the method of calculus of variations to develop an existence theory for the steady state solutions of a nonlinear Schrödinger equation modeling light waves propagating in a photorefractive crystal. We show via direct minimization and mountain-pass argument that there exist steady state solutions realizing a continuous spectrum of energy points or wavenumbers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The nonlinear non-local elliptic equation governing the deflection of charged plates in electrostatic actuators is studied under the pinned and the clamped boundary conditions. Results concerning the existence, construction and approximation, and behaviour of classical and singular solutions with respect to the variation of physical parameters of the equation in various situations are presented. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we prove that the Faddeev energy E 1 at the unit Hopf charge is attainable. The proof is based on utilizing an important inequality called the substantial inequality in our previous paper which describes how the Faddeev energy splits into its sublevels in terms of energy and topology when compactness fails. With the help of an optimal Sobolev estimate of the Faddeev energy lower bound and an upper bound of E 1, we show that E 1 is attainable. For the two-dimensional Skyrme model, we prove that the substantial inequality is also valid, which allows us to greatly improve the range of the coupling parameters for the existence of unit-charge solitons previously guaranteed in a smaller range of the coupling parameters by the validity of the concentration-compactness method. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Studies the most general Skyrme-Sigma models in two and three Euclidean dimensions described by O(3) and O(4) fields. Analytic proofs of existence; Saturation of the topological inequalities in the models by self-duality equations; Comparison with the features of O(d+1) models in d dimensions.

The Helfrich bending energy plays an important role in providing a mechanism for the conformation of a lipid vesicle in theoretical biophysics, which is governed by the principle of energy minimization over configurations of appropriate topological characteristics. We will show that the presence of a quantity called the spontaneous curvature obstructs the existence of a minimizer of the Helfrich energy over the set of embedded ring tori. In addition, despite the well-realized knowledge that lipid vesicles may present themselves in a variety of shapes of complicated topology, there is a lack of topological bounds for the Helfrich energy. To overcome these difficulties, we consider a general scale-invariant anisotropic curvature energy that extends the Canham elastic bending energy developed in modeling a biconcave-shaped red blood cell. We will show that, up to a rescaling of the generating radii, there is a unique minimizer of the energy over the set of embedded ring tori, in the entire parameter regime, which recovers the Willmore minimizer in its Canham isotropic limit. We also show how elevated anisotropy favors energetically a clear transition from spherical-, to ellipsoidal-, and then to biconcave-shaped surfaces, for a lipid vesicle. We then establish some genus-dependent topological lower and upper bounds for the anisotropic energy. Finally, we derive the shape equation of the generalized bending energy, which extends the well-known Helfrich shape equation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper we study the Bardeen-Cooper-Schrieffer energy gap equation at finite temperatures. When the kernel is positive representing a phonon-dominant phase in a superconductor, the existence and uniqueness of a gap solution is established in a class which contains solutions obtainable from bounded domain approximations. The critical temperatures that characterize superconducting-normal phase transitions realized by bounded domain approximations and full space solutions are also investigated. It is shown under some sufficient conditions that these temperatures are identical. In this case the uniqueness of a full space solution follows directly. We will also present some examples for the nonuniqueness of solutions. The case of a kernel function with varying signs is also considered. It is shown that, at low temperatures, there exist nonzero gap solutions indicating a superconducting phase, while at high temperatures, the only solution is the zero solution, representing the dominance of the normal phase, which establishes again the existence of a transition temperature. © 2000 American Institute of Physics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]