The real burden of human cystic echinococcosis (CE) remains elusive, due to the peculiar characteristics of the disease and the heterogeneous and incomplete data recording of clinical cases. ...Furthermore, official notification systems do not collect pivotal clinical information, which would allow the comparison of different treatment outcomes, and thus circumvent the difficulty of implementing clinical trials for CE. The Italian Register of CE (RIEC) was launched in 2012 and expanded in 2014 into the European Register of CE (ERCE). The primary aim of the ERCE was to highlight the magnitude of CE underreporting, through the recording of cases that were not captured by official records. We present an overview of data collated in the ERCE and discuss its future, five years after its inception.
The ERCE database was explored on March 31st 2019; data concerning participating centres and registered cases were descriptively analysed.
Forty-four centres from 15 countries (7 non-European) were affiliated to the ERCE. Thirty-four centres (77%) registered at least one patient; of these, 18 (53%) recorded at least one visit within the past 18 months. A total of 2097 patients were registered, 19.9% of whom were immigrants. Cyst characteristics were reported for at least one cyst at least in one visit in 1643 (78.3%) patients, and cyst staging was used by 27 centres. In total, 3386 cysts were recorded at first registration; mostly located in the liver (75.5%). Data concerning clinical management could be analysed for 920 "cyst stage-location-management" observations, showing great heterogeneity in the implementation of the stage-specific management approach recommended by the WHO.
The ERCE achieved its goal in showing that CE is a relevant but neglected public health problem in Europe and beyond, since a proportion of patients reaching medical attention are not captured by official notification systems. The ERCE may provide a valuable starting platform to complement hospital-derived data, to obtain a better picture of the epidemiology of clinical CE, and to collect clinical data for the issue of evidence-based recommendations. The ERCE will be expanded into the International Register of CE (IRCE) and restructured aiming to overcome its current criticalities and fulfil these aims.
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IZUM, KILJ, NUK, PILJ, PNG, SAZU, UL, UM, UPUK
Drive beam stabilisation in the CLIC Test Facility 3 Malina, L.; Corsini, R.; Persson, T. ...
Nuclear instruments & methods in physics research. Section A, Accelerators, spectrometers, detectors and associated equipment,
06/2018, Volume:
894
Journal Article
Peer reviewed
Open access
The proposed Compact Linear Collider (CLIC) uses a high intensity, low energy drive beam to produce the RF power needed to accelerate a lower intensity main beam with 100 MV/m gradient. This scheme ...puts stringent requirements on drive beam stability in terms of phase, energy and current. The consequent experimental work was carried out in CLIC Test Facility CTF3. In this paper, we present a novel analysis technique in accelerator physics to find beam drifts and their sources in the vast amount of the continuously gathered signals. The instability sources are identified and adequately mitigated either by hardware improvements or by implementation and commissioning of various feedbacks, mostly beam-based. The resulting drive beam stability is of 0.2°@ 3 GHz in phase, 0.08% in relative beam energy and about 0.2% beam current. Finally, we propose a stabilisation concept for CLIC to guarantee the main beam stability.
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GEOZS, IJS, IMTLJ, KILJ, KISLJ, NUK, OILJ, PNG, SAZU, SBCE, SBJE, UL, UM, UPCLJ, UPUK
In this paper, we investigate a two-echelon, two-product Supply Chain (SC) inspired by a real-world production/distribution firm, in which the product change-over time, necessary to switch from a ...product to another, induces a variable capacity in the factory. Such a varying production capacity is further exacerbated by the machine breakdowns that may occur in the manufacturing system. Since the two products share the same production system, a production planning rule has to be executed to decide the change-over, i.e. to select the product to be manufactured over time. An extended experimental campaign has been performed to investigate how the fill rate and the standard deviation of inventories vary as a series of operational and tactical parameters changes. Several ANOVA analyses revealed a strong interaction between the production planning model and the adopted smoothing replenishment strategy, which remarkably affects the performance of the SC. Interestingly, a higher value of the proportional controller negatively affects the service levels since the adopted production planning policy, under these circumstances, tends to encourage longer production runs for a certain product and, consequently, persistent stock outs for the other one.
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BFBNIB, GIS, IJS, IZUM, KILJ, KISLJ, NUK, PILJ, PNG, SAZU, UL, UM, UPUK
In this paper the study of the mechanisms responsible for the time varying beam current losses in CTF3 (CLIC Test Facility 3), together with the feedbacks implemented to mitigate them, is presented. ...The study shows that the losses were linked mainly to the energy variation induced by the RF (Radio frequency) amplitude fluctuations. The RF-amplitude instability sources were identified. A feedback developed to mitigate this instability, acting on the RF-compression system by controlling the phase program of the klystron, is described in detail. The result is a significant improvement of the overall stability in the machine. The energy variation is reduced further with the use of an energy feedback operating on the RF-amplitude of the last klystron in the CTF3 linac. This feedback loop closes on the energy measured from a dispersive pickup after the linac. With the energy stabilized a beam current stability close to the CLIC (Compact Linear Collider) specification for a factor 4 combined beam was achieved.
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GEOZS, IJS, IMTLJ, KILJ, KISLJ, NUK, OILJ, PNG, SAZU, SBCE, SBJE, UL, UM, UPCLJ, UPUK
We report on the radiation studies performed at the CLEAR facility of CERN in the sub-THz range, exploiting picosecond ultrarelativistic electron bunches for the production of coherent radiation. The ...coherent radiation, produced by different mechanisms (in particular coherent transition radiation), has been fully characterized using different techniques and detectors. The main aim has been that to setup a new beam-based source of radiation in the mm-waves for external users, individuating the performances and the limitations. Moreover the coherent radiation has been used for longitudinal diagnostics, providing reliable bunch length values consistent with other diagnostics. Transverse shaping of the radiation source has been also demonstrated via control of the size and divergence of the electron bunch at the source plane. The mechanism yielding the highest peak-power has been the Cherenkov-Diffraction Radiation, providing∼0.1MW. The current performances of the CLEAR THz source seem to be more suitable for high-average-power than high-peak-power applications. Future plans and strategies will look toward the realization of a high-peak-power source, providing∼10–100MWTHzpulses.
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CMK, CTK, FMFMET, IJS, NUK, PNG, UL, UM, UPUK
Breast cancer (BC) is a heterogeneous disease that exhibits familial aggregation. Family linkage studies have identified high-penetrance genes, BRCA1, BRCA2, PTEN and TP53, that are responsible for ...inherited BC syndromes. Moreover, a combination of family-based and population-based approaches indicated that genes involved in DNA repair, such as CHEK2, ATM, BRIP and PALB2, are associated with moderate risk. Therefore, all of these known genes account for only 25% of the familial aggregation cases. Recently, genome wide association studies (GWAS) in BC revealed single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) in five novel genes associated to susceptibility: TNRC9, FGFR2, MAP3K1, H19 and lymphocyte-specific protein 1 (LSP1). The most strongly associated SNP was in intron 2 of the FGFR2 gene that is amplified and overexpressed in 5-10% of BC. rs3803662 of TNRC9 gene has been shown to be the SNP with the strongest association with BC, in particular, this polymorphism seems to be correlated with bone metastases and estrogen receptor positivity. Relevant data indicate that SNP rs889312 in MAP3K1 is correlated with BC susceptibility only in BRCA2 mutation carriers, but is not associated with an increased risk in BRCA1 carriers. Finally, different SNPs in LSP1 and H19 and in minor genes probably were associated with BC risk. New susceptibility allelic variants associated with BC risk were recently discovered including potential causative genes involved in regulation of cell cycle, apoptosis, metabolism and mitochondrial functions. In conclusion, the identification of disease susceptibility loci may lead to a better understanding of the biological mechanism for BC to improve prevention, early detection and treatment.
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DOBA, EMUNI, FIS, FZAB, GEOZS, GIS, IJS, IMTLJ, IZUM, KILJ, KISLJ, MFDPS, NLZOH, NUK, OILJ, PILJ, PNG, SAZU, SBCE, SBJE, SBMB, SBNM, UILJ, UKNU, UL, UM, UPUK, VKSCE, ZAGLJ
We report enhanced 10 Gb/s operation of directly modulated bandwidth-limited reflective semiconductor optical amplifiers. By using a single suitable arrayed waveguide grating we achieve ...simultaneously WDM demultiplexing and optical equalization. Compared to previous approaches, the proposed system results significantly more tolerant to seeding wavelength drifts. This removes the need for wavelength lockers, additional electronic equalization or complex digital signal processing. Uniform C-band operations are obtained experimentally with < 2 dB power penalty within a wavelength drift of 10 GHz (which doubles the ITU-T standard recommendations).
The CTF3 Two-beam Test Stand Ruber, R.; Ziemann, V.; Ekelöf, T. ...
Nuclear instruments & methods in physics research. Section A, Accelerators, spectrometers, detectors and associated equipment,
2013, Volume:
729
Journal Article
Peer reviewed
The Two-beam Test Stand (TBTS) has been constructed and operated at the CLIC test facility CTF3 at CERN. The TBTS comprises two parallel and independent electron beam lines and has been designed to ...demonstrate the feasibility of a two-beam high gradient acceleration concept as proposed for the Compact Linear Collider (CLIC). In the CLIC scheme, the RF power is extracted from a high current drive beam using RF power extraction structures while the main beam is accelerated using this RF power which is fed into high gradient high frequency normal conducting accelerating structures.
The Two-beam Test Stand is a unique facility to demonstrate the feasibility of the CLIC two-beam high gradient acceleration concept and to test the individual CLIC components and complete two-beam CLIC modules. The TBTS is particularly well suited to investigate the effects on the beam of RF breakdown in the high gradient accelerating structures. We report on the design, construction and commissioning of the Two-beam Test Stand.
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GEOZS, IJS, IMTLJ, KILJ, KISLJ, NUK, OILJ, PNG, SAZU, SBCE, SBJE, UL, UM, UPCLJ, UPUK
Introduction
Despite the availability of sophisticated devices and suitable recommendations on how to best perform insulin injections, lipohypertrophy (LH) and bruising (BR) frequently occur as a ...consequence of improper injection technique.
Aim
The purpose of this nationwide survey was to check literature-reported LH risk factors or consequences for any association with BR
Method
This was a cross-sectional, observational, multicenter study based on the identification of skin lesions at all patient-reported insulin injection sites in 790 subjects with diabetes. General and injection habit-related elements were investigated as possible BR risk factors.
Results
While confirming the close relationship existing between LH and a full series of factors including missed injection site rotation, needle reuse, long-standing insulin treatment, frequent hypoglycemic events (hypos), and great glycemic variability (GV), the observed data could find no such association with BR, which anyhow came with high HbA1c levels, missed injection site rotation, and long-standing insulin treatment.
Conclusion
BR most likely depends on the patient’s habit of pressing the injection pen hard onto the skin. Despite being worrisome and affecting quality of life, BR seems to represent a preliminary stage of LH but does not affect the rate of hypos and GV.
Trial Registration
207/19.09.2017
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