Explore the vast range of titles available.

The aim of this study was to investigate the prognostic value of plasma d-dimer levels in patients with community-acquired pneumonia (CAP). Prospective observational study. Hospital Lluis Alcanyis of Xativa, Spain. Consecutive adult patients admitted to the hospital with CAP from January 2000 to October 2002. A total of 302 patients were included. Plasma d-dimer was measured using an automated latex assay. The relationships between plasma d-dimer and prognostic variables included in the pneumonia severity index (PSI) were examined using univariate and multivariate linear and logistic regression analyses. d-Dimer levels were negative (ie, < 500 ng/mL) in 16.9% of the patients. In nonsurvivors, the d-dimer plasma level mean value was 3,786 ng/mL, while in survivors it was 1,609 ng/mL (p < 0.0001). A significant relationship was found between the presence of elevated d-dimer levels and the PSI and APACHE (acute physiology and chronic health evaluation) II score. Elevated d-dimer levels were associated with radiologic pneumonia extension. The d-dimer predictive value for mechanical ventilation therapy showed an area under the curve of 0.78 (95% confidence interval, 0.71 to 0.81). d-Dimer plasma levels could be useful for predicting clinical outcome in patients with CAP.

IntroductionPica is a strange eating disorder that consists of eating non-nutritive substances, inappropriate to the developmental level/ cultural normative of the individual. The prevalence is not widely studied, but might occur in the context of other mental disorders, such as schizophrenia, that hinders the management and treatment of these patients.ObjectivesTo report a severe pica in a patient with late schizophrenia, and highlight the impact this syndrome might cause on the life of these patients.MethodsWe present a case of a 65 year-old-woman with schizophrenia attended in the emergency area for dysphagia due to the intake of a metal washer. Reviewing the patient medical history, an early and severe schizophrenia was described. Within years, disorganization and residual symptoms have become the main disabilities, developing a pica eating disorder with preference in greater metal objects (images are included).ResultsThe management has been hindered due to the consequences of pica eating disorder. The patient describes an unstoppable urge to make the intake when she sights wide metallic objects (batteries, docks, washers…). Different antipsychotic drugs have been used, combined with psychotherapy and family education. Despite this, the patient has required multiple attentions in the emergency area due to esophagueal impaction, intestinal obstruction, perforation and peritonitis, that have led to countless surgeries and hospitalizations.ConclusionsPica can become a highly dysfunctional syndrome that may lead to severe organic and life impact. The comorbidity with schizophrenia is understudied, but further investigation might be useful to show up specific management strategies of these patients.DisclosureNo significant relationships.

A simple hole-type secondary scintillation structure (2 mm-hole, 5 mm-pitch, 5 mm-thickness) is introduced and its operation demonstrated in pure xenon in the pressure range 2-10 bar. The new device, characteristically translucent, has been manufactured through a collaboration between IGFAE and the CERN workshop, and relies entirely on radiopure materials (acrylic and copper), being extremely rugged in the presence of sparks, mechanically robust, and easily scalable, yet made through a relatively simple process. With an overall figure (at 10 bar) characterized by an energy resolution of 18.9%(FWHM) for 55Fe x-rays, an optical gain of mγ= 500 ph/e, and a stable operation at reduced fields more than twice those of some of the presently running experiments (EEL= 3 kV/cm/bar), this family of structures seems to show great promise for electroluminescence readouts on large scale detectors. As argued below, further improvements have the potential of bringing the energy resolution close to the Fano factor and increasing the optical gain.

This paper uses a unique data set on over 1,400 world leaders between 1848 and 2004 to investigate differences in educational qualifications between leaders who are selected in democracies and autocracies. After including country and year fixed effects, we find that democracies are around 20% more likely to select highly educated leaders. This finding is robust to a wide range of specifications, choices of subsamples, controls, and ways of measuring education and democracy.

The objective of this paper is to analyze the empirical support for the link between ethnicity and conflict. This objective is pursued by reexamining the evidence on the causes of the civil wars using alternative indices to measure ethnic diversity. In the empirical section, it is shown that the index of ethnic polarization is a significant explanatory variable for the incidence of civil wars.

The effect of ethnic division on civil war and the role of political systems in preventing these conflicts are analyzed, using the importance of religious polarization and animist diversity to explain the incidence of ethnic civil war. Findings show that religious differences are a social cleavage more important than linguistic differences in the development of civil war, and being a consociational democracy significantly reduces the incidence of ethnic civil war.

A bstract The Neutrino Experiment with a Xenon TPC (NEXT) searches for the neutrinoless double-beta (0 νββ ) decay of 136 Xe using high-pressure xenon gas TPCs with electroluminescent amplification. A scaled-up version of this technology with about 1 tonne of enriched xenon could reach in less than 5 years of operation a sensitivity to the half-life of 0 νββ decay better than 10 27 years, improving the current limits by at least one order of magnitude. This prediction is based on a well-understood background model dominated by radiogenic sources. The detector concept presented here represents a first step on a compelling path towards sensitivity to the parameter space defined by the inverted ordering of neutrino masses, and beyond.

A bstract The NEXT experiment aims at the sensitive search of the neutrinoless double beta decay in 136 Xe, using high-pressure gas electroluminescent time projection chambers. The NEXT-White detector is the first radiopure demonstrator of this technology, operated in the Laboratorio Subterráneo de Canfranc. Achieving an energy resolution of 1% FWHM at 2.6 MeV and further background rejection by means of the topology of the reconstructed tracks, NEXT-White has been exploited beyond its original goals in order to perform a neu- trinoless double beta decay search. The analysis considers the combination of 271.6 days of 136 Xe-enriched data and 208.9 days of 136 Xe-depleted data. A detailed background modeling and measurement has been developed, ensuring the time stability of the radiogenic and cosmogenic contributions across both data samples. Limits to the neutrinoless mode are obtained in two alternative analyses: a background-model-dependent approach and a novel direct background-subtraction technique, offering results with small dependence on the background model assumptions. With a fiducial mass of only 3.50 ± 0.01 kg of 136 Xe-enriched xenon, 90% C.L. lower limits to the neutrinoless double beta decay are found in the T 1 / 2 0 ν > 5 . 5 × 10 23 − 1 . 3 × 10 24 yr range, depending on the method. The presented techniques stand as a proof-of-concept for the searches to be implemented with larger NEXT detectors.

A bstract NEXT-100 is an electroluminescent high-pressure xenon gas time projection chamber that will search for the neutrinoless double beta (0 νββ ) decay of 136 Xe. The detector possesses two features of great value for 0 νββ searches: energy resolution better than 1% FWHM at the Q value of 136 Xe and track reconstruction for the discrimination of signal and background events. This combination results in excellent sensitivity, as discussed in this paper. Material-screening measurements and a detailed Monte Carlo detector simulation predict a background rate for NEXT-100 of at most 4 × 10 −4 counts keV −1 kg −1 yr −1 . Accordingly, the detector will reach a sensitivity to the 0 νββ -decay half-life of 2.8 × 10 25 years (90% CL) for an exposure of 100 kg·year, or 6.0 × 10 25 years after a run of 3 effective years.

A bstract Convolutional neural networks (CNNs) are widely used state-of-the-art computer vision tools that are becoming increasingly popular in high-energy physics. In this paper, we attempt to understand the potential of CNNs for event classification in the NEXT experiment, which will search for neutrinoless double-beta decay in 136 Xe. To do so, we demonstrate the usage of CNNs for the identification of electron-positron pair production events, which exhibit a topology similar to that of a neutrinoless double-beta decay event. These events were produced in the NEXT-White high-pressure xenon TPC using 2.6 MeV gamma rays from a 228 Th calibration source. We train a network on Monte Carlo-simulated events and show that, by applying on-the-fly data augmentation, the network can be made robust against differences between simulation and data. The use of CNNs offers significant improvement in signal efficiency and background rejection when compared to previous non-CNN-based analyses.