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The article discusses the potential of quartz crystal microbalance in detecting spinal ventral and dorsal roots. The study was done on 10 adult beagles aged 12 months old each, where they had their spinal canals revealed through median incisions during their surgeries to extract their ventral and dorsal roots. Results showed that the quartz crystal microbalance method can be used for searching for spinal nerve roots quickly during a surgery including the ulnar nerve and radial nerve.

Pseudotumor is an uncommon but severe complication in patients with hemophilia. To our knowledge, although China has large population of persons with hemophilia, there is rare information on the incidence, clinical feature, image finding, and management of pseudotumor among Chinese patients. This study aimed at improving our knowledge on clinical diagnosis and management of hemophiliac pseudotumor. In this retrospective study, the medical records of 1248 patients with hemophilia diagnosed between January 1983 and October 2004 at our hospital were reviewed. The clinical feature, imaging finding, management, and outcome of 14 patients with pseudotumor among these patients with hemophilia were analyzed. All patients have hemophilia A (8 severe cases and 6 moderate cases). Eight patients sustained an injury prior to the development of pseudotumor. Main image findings included osteolysis lesion, soft tissue swelling, or lump. Surgical therapy was carried out in 7 patients and 6 achieved remission, with fistula formation remaining in 1. One patient underwent radiotherapy together with replacement therapy achieved remission. Three patients accepted replacement therapy as only management and only 1 patient achieved improvement of swelling. Our study showed that the incidence of pseudotumor in our enrolled patients with hemophilia is 1.12%. Hemophilic history of patients can contribute to the right diagnosis of pseudotumor. Surgical therapy together with sufficient replacement therapy is safe and effective. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Recent evidence suggests that matrix metalloproteinases (MMPs) were involved with many kinds of kidney diseases. We investigated the roles of MMPs and its tissue inhibitors TIMPs in patients with lupus nephritis (LN). A total of 44 systemic lupus erythematosus patients and 31 healthy subjects were enrolled. The levels of total MMP-2, 9 (tMMP-2, tMMP-9) along with TIMP-1, 2 were measured in serum by ELISA. Serum tMMP-2, tMMP-9 was higher in LN patients than those non-LN patients and healthy controls. Serum tMMP-2 in patients without LN was higher than in healthy controls. TIMP-2 was higher in LN patients than healthy controls, and no significant difference in TIMP-2 was observed between LN and non-LN patients. TIMP-1 levels among LN, non-LN patients and healthy controls were comparable. The ratio of tMMP-9 to TIMP-1 in LN patients was higher than non-LN patients and healthy controls and no difference in ratio of tMMP-9 to TIMP-1 between non-LN patients and healthy subjects was observed. A negative correlation between the ratio of tMMP-9 to TIMP-1 in lupus patients and the titers of anti-dsDNA was found; whereas, no correlation between the ratio of tMMP-9 to TIMP-1 and the concentration of C3 as well 24 h urine protein was observed in LN patients. We suggest imbalance between tMMP-9 and TIMP-1 may contribute to the pathogenesis of LN. Measurement of MMPs and TIMPs may be helpful in the early identification of lupus patients with LN and may help gauge the response to treatment in patients with active LN undergoing treatment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Epigenetics may influence the expression of numerous genes, which might contribute to autoimmune diseases. DNA methylation is mediated by DNA methyltransferases, especially DNA methyltransferase 3B (DNMT3B). Polymorphisms of the DNMT3B gene may influence DNMT3B activity on DNA methylation and increase the susceptibility to several diseases. The current study investigated the association between DNMT3B 579G>T and the risk for idiopathic thrombocytopenic purpura (ITP). The DNMT3B 579G>T polymorphisms were analyzed by PCR-RFLP. There was no significant difference in genotype and allele distribution between the ITP patient and the controls (p = 0.722 and 0.667, respectively). Similar results were observed between the 2 groups when stratified by age and disease course, including acute in childhood, chronic in childhood, acute in adult and chronic in adult. Importantly, this study showed a statistical difference in the distribution of SNP of DNMT3B between Chinese and Koreans or Americans. It is shown that the SNP of DNMT3B 579G>T may not be used on its own as a marker to predict the susceptibility to ITP in a Chinese population and that DNMT3B 579G>T promoter SNP varies from one ethnic population to another. Copyright © 2009 S. Karger AG, Basel [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Polycrystalline AgSbTe2 ternary compound materials with high phase purity were fabricated using a combined process of mechanical alloying and spark plasma sintering. It was found that stoichiometric AgSbTe2 is a promising composition for low-and-mediate temperature applications, whose ZT reaches 1.59 at 673 K, benefiting from its extremely low thermal conductivity (0.30 W/mK) in addition to its low electrical resistivity (<1.1×10-4 Ω m) and large positive Seebeck coefficient (260 μV/K). On the other hand, deviating from this formula would lead to unstable phase structures and higher thermal conductivity, which make the samples less attractive as thermoelectric materials or components of thermoelectric systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract In this paper, we investigate the optical properties of a charged black hole with scalar hair (CSH) within the context of four-dimensional Einstein–Maxwell–Dilaton gravity. To achieve this, we consider three distinct toy models of thin accretion disks. The presence of dilaton coupling allows us to express both the solutions of CSH and the Reissner–Nordström (RN) black hole in terms of their mass (M) and charge (Q). Our findings reveal differences in the effective potentials $$V_{eff}$$ V eff , photon sphere radii $$r_{ph}$$ r ph , and innermost stable circular orbit $$r_{isco}$$ r isco between the CSH and RN black hole cases, which become increasingly pronounced as the charge parameter Q increases. However, no noticeable distinctions are observed concerning the critical impact parameter $$b_{ph}$$ b ph . When the ratio of the photon ring band and the lensed ring band exceeds 0.1, it may suggest the presence of a charged black hole with scalar hair. Furthermore, our results underscore the significant influence of the charge parameter Q on the brightness distributions of the direct, lensed ring, and photon ring for three standard emission functions. These findings emphasize the potential for distinguishing between CSH and RN black holes through an analysis of direct intensity and peak brightness in specific accretion disk models.

We investigate the localization of a five-dimensional vector field on a pure geometrical thick brane. By introducing two types of interactions between the vector field and the background scalar field, we obtain a typical volcano potential for the first type of coupling and a Pöschl–Teller potential for the second one. These two types of couplings guarantee that the vector zero mode can be localized on the pure geometrical thick brane under certain conditions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We present magnetotransport studies on a series of BaFe2−xNixAs2 (0.03 ≤ x ≤ 0.10) single crystals. In the underdoped (x = 0.03) non-superconducting sample, the temperature-dependent resistivity exhibits a peak at 22 K, which is associated with the onset of filamentary superconductivity (FLSC). FLSC is suppressed by an external magnetic field in a manner similar to the suppression of bulk superconductivity in an optimally-doped (x = 0.10) compound, suggesting the same possible origin as the bulk superconductivity. Our magnetoresistivity measurements reveal that FLSC persists up to the optimal doping and disappears in the overdoped regime where the long-range antiferromagnetic order is completely suppressed, pointing to a close relation between FLSC and the magnetic order. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract In this paper, we investigate the shadows and rings of the charged Horndeski black hole illuminated by accretion flow that is both geometrically and optically thin. We consider two types of accretion models: spherical and thin-disk accretion flow. We find that in both types of models, the size of the charged Horndeski black hole shadow decreases with the increase of the charge, and it decreases more slowly for the Reissner–Nordström (RN) black hole. In the spherical accretion flow model, we find that the increase of the charge of Horndeski black hole brightens the light ring around it, and it brightens more significantly in comparison with RN black hole. Due to the Doppler effect, the charged Horndeski black holes with accretion flow of radial motion have darker shadows than those with the static accretion flow, but the size of the shadow is not affected by accretion flow motion. In the thin disk-shaped accretion flow model, we find that the brightness of the light ring around the charged Horndeski black hole is dominated by the direct emission from the accretion flow, and the contribution from lensed rings is relatively small, and that from the photon rings is negligible. We also find that the ring brightness decreases as the charge of Horndeski black hole increases, and the decrease is more significant than that in the RN black hole case. Moreover, the radiation position of the accretion flow can affect the shadow size and the ring brightness of the charged Horndeski black hole.

Abstract In extra dimensional theories, the four-dimensional field theory is reduced from a fundamental field theory in the bulk spacetime by integrating the extra dimensional part. In this paper we investigate the effective action of a self-interacting scalar field on a brane in the five-dimensional thick braneworld scenario. We consider two typical thick brane solutions and obtain the Pöschl–Teller and harmonic potentials of the Kaluza–Klein (KK) modes, respectively. The analytical mass spectra and wave functions along extra dimension of the KK modes are obtained. Further, the effective coupling constant between different KK particles, cross section, and decay rate for some processes of the KK particles are related to the fundamental coupling in five dimensions and the new physics energy scale. Some interesting properties of these interactions are found with these calculations. The KK particles with higher mode have longer lifetime, and they almost do not interact with ordinary matter on the brane if their mode numbers are large enough. Thus, these KK particles with higher modes might be a candidate of dark matter.

In this paper, we study the influence of the parameters for the accelerating Kerr-Newman black hole on the shadows and the constraints, extensively. We find that the rotating parameter a, the charge parameter e, and the inclination angle θ0 affect the shadow qualitatively similar to that of Kerr-Newman black holes. The result shows that the size of the shadow will scale down with the accelerating factor A. Besides, the factor A also can affect the best viewing angles, which make the observations maximum deviate from θ0=π2, and the degree of the deviations are less than 1%. Then, we assume the M87* as an accelerating Kerr-Newman black hole with the mass M=6.5×109M⊙ and the distance r0=16.8Mpc. Combining the EHT observations, we find that neither the observations, circularity deviation ΔC or axial ratio Dx can distinguish the accelerating black hole or not. However, the characteristic areal-radius of the shadow curve Ra can give corresponding constraints on the parameters of the accelerating Kerr-Newman black hole. The result shows that the bigger accelerating factor A is, the stronger constraints on the rotating parameter a and charged parameter e. The maximum range of the accelerating factor is Ar0≤0.558 for a accelerating Schwarzschild case with (a/M=e/M=0), and for an extremely slow accelerating case (Ar0≤0.01), the ranges of rotating parameter a and charged parameter e are a/M∈(0,1) and e/M∈(0,0.9).

Abstract In this paper, thick branes generated by the mimetic scalar field with Lagrange multiplier formulation are investigated. We give three typical thick brane background solutions with different asymptotic behaviors and show that all the solutions are stable under tensor perturbations. The effective potentials of the tensor perturbations exhibit as volcano potential, Poöschl–Teller potential, and harmonic oscillator potential for the three background solutions, respectively. All the tensor zero modes (massless gravitons) of the three cases can be localized on the brane. We also calculate the corrections to the four-dimensional Newtonian potential. On a large scale, the corrections to the four-dimensional Newtonian potential can be ignored. While on a small scale, the correction from the volcano-like potential is more pronounced than the other two cases. Combining the specific corrections to the four-dimensional Newtonian potential of these three cases and the latest results of short-range gravity experiments, we get the constraint on the scale parameter as $$k > rsim 10^{-4}$$ k ≳ 10 - 4 eV, and constraint on the corresponding five-dimensional fundamental scale as $$M_* > rsim 10^5$$ M ∗ ≳ 10 5 TeV.

We apply the mimetic f(T) theory into the thick brane model. We take the Lagrange multiplier formulation of the action and get the corresponding field equations of motion. We find solutions for different kinds of f(T). Besides, we investigate the stability of the mimetic f(T) brane by considering the tensor perturbations of the vielbein. Localization problem is also studied and it is shown that the four-dimensional gravity can be recovered for all the solutions. The effects of the torsion show that for the polynomial form of f(T), the zero mode has a split compared with that of f(T)=T, but the situations for the exponential form of f(T) are similar to that of f(T)=T.

A fluidized bed enrichment technique was developed to improve sensitivity of near infrared (NIR) spectroscopy with features of rapidness and large volume solution. D301 resin was used as an adsorption material to preconcentrate β-naphthalenesulfonic acid in solutions in a concentration range of 2.0-100.0 µg/mL, and NIR spectra were measured directly relative to the β-naphthalenesulfonic acid adsorbed on the material. An improved partial least squares (PLS) model was attained with the aid of multiplicative scatter correction pretreatment and stability competitive adaptive reweighted sampling wavenumber selection method. The root mean square error of cross validation was 1.87 µg/mL at PLS factor of 7. An independent test set was used to assess the model, with the relative error (RE) in an acceptable range of 0.46 to 10.03% and mean RE of 3.72%. This study confirmed the viability of the proposed method for the measurement of a low content of β-naphthalenesulfonic acid in water. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]