Compact and almost compact breathers: a bridge between an anharmonic lattice and its continuum limit.

We demonstrate that certain strictly anharmonic one-dimensional FPU lattices with a suitable quartic site potential appended support almost-compact discrete breathers over a macroscopic localized domain that is essentially fixed independently of the sparseness of the lattice. Beyond that domain the discrete breather tails decay at a double-exponential rate in the lattice-cell index, becoming truly compact in the continuum limit. Furthermore, the discrete breather is stable for amplitudes below a sharp threshold that depends on the sparseness of the lattice.

Almost compact breathers in anharmonic lattices near the continuum limit.

Certain strictly anharmonic one-dimensional lattices support discrete breathers over a macroscopic localized domain that in the continuum limit becomes exactly compact. The discrete breather tails decay at a double-exponential rate, so such systems can store energy locally, especially since discrete breathers appear to be stable for amplitudes below a sharp stability threshold. The effective width of other solutions broadens over time, but, under appropriate conditions, only after a positive waiting time.

Critical illness myopathy associated with hyperthyroidism.

A 51-year-old woman was admitted to the intensive care unit for exacerbation of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. She received antibiotics, neuromuscular blocking agents, and steroids. After 8 days in the intensive care unit, she was noted to be severely weak, her serum creatine kinase had risen to 1,692 U/L (normal, 20-220 U/L), and a muscle biopsy was consistent with critical illness myopathy.

Congenital myopathies/dystrophies.

The congenital myopathies and congenital muscular dystrophies are a group of relatively infrequent neuromuscular disorders. Ultimate understanding of these disorders, however, will undoubtedly shed considerable light on skeletal muscle development and function. Three classical congenital myopathies are central core disease, nemaline myopathy, and centronuclear myopathy.

Intracranial extramedullary hematopoiesis associated with pilocytic astrocytoma: a case report.

Intracranial EMH is only occasionally found in primary brain tumors (mostly hemangioblastomas) and, to our knowledge, this is the first case of EMH associated with an astrocytoma. Intracranial extramedullary hematopoiesis (EMH) is described in a 29-year-old man with a recurrent pilocytic astrocytoma in the tectal region. Special stains confirmed the identities of erythroid, myeloid and megakaryocytic cells.