Introduction/Background:
Activated leukocyte cell adhesion molecule (ALCAM) functions as a pattern recognition receptor and its soluble form, sALCAM, is involved in ALCAM-dependent and -independent ...immune mechanism(s). The aim of this study was to investigate the effect of a lifestyle intervention in obesity on sALCAM serum concentration and its association with metabolic parameters.
Methods:
Thirty severely obese subjects were randomly selected from the OPTIFAST®52 program. This program was divided for the purpose of this study into 2 crucial phases: an initial 12-week active weight reduction phase, followed by a 40-week weight maintenance phase. At baseline, after 12 weeks and at the end of the program, fasting glucose and insulin, total cholesterol, LDL-C, HDL-C, triglycerides, adiponectin, leptin, high sensitivity CRP, sALCAM, Homeostasis Model Assessment Index (HOMA index) and Leptin-to-Adiponectin-Ratio were determined. Oral glucose tolerance test (OGTT) was performed when indicated.
Results:
At baseline, the serum concentration of sALCAM was increased and correlated positively with HOMA index and negatively with age. At the end of the program, sALCAM concentrations decreased significantly by 11%. Multivariate analysis showed that sALCAM significantly correlated with age, glucose concentration after 2h OGTT and the HOMA index. A higher decrease of HOMA index during the study was observed in subjects with higher concentration of sALCAM at baseline.
Conclusions:
sALCAM might be a novel biomarker in obesity that correlates and predicts insulin sensitivity improvement and that can be significantly affected by lifestyle intervention.
Current research in High Energy Cosmic Ray Physics touches on fundamental questions regarding the origin of cosmic rays, their composition, the acceleration mechanisms, and their production. ...Unambiguous measurements of the energy spectra and of the composition of cosmic rays at the "knee" region could provide some of the answers to the above questions. So far only ground based observations, which rely on sophisticated models describing high energy interactions in the earth's atmosphere, have been possible due to the extremely low particle rates at these energies. A calorimetry based space experiment that could provide not only flux measurements but also energy spectra and particle identification, would certainly overcome some of the uncertainties of ground based experiments. Given the expected particle fluxes, a very large acceptance is needed to collect a sufficient quantity of data, in a time compatible with the duration of a space mission. This in turn, contrasts with the lightness and compactness requirements for space based experiments. We present a novel idea in calorimetry which addresses these issues whilst limiting the mass and volume of the detector. In this paper we report on a four year R&D program where we investigated materials, coatings, photo-sensors, Front End electronics, and mechanical structures with the aim of designing a high performance, high granularity calorimeter with the largest possible acceptance. Details are given of the design choices, component characterisation, and of the construction of a sizeable prototype (Calocube) which has been used in various tests with particle beams.
In this paper, we present a two-layered silicon sensor working in Geiger-mode avalanche regime and designed for charged particle detection. Each position-sensitive element is comprised of two ...vertically aligned pixels, exploiting the coincidence between two simultaneous avalanche events to discriminate between particle triggers and dark counts. This approach potentially offers several advantages. First, a low material budget can be achieved thanks to the thinning of the detector down to a few tens of microns (e.g. 50 \mu m) as the avalanche starts in a shallow region just a few microns deep. Operation in a regime of quenched avalanche allows for an excellent timing resolution and provides an internal gain that makes a front-end amplification stage unnecessary, thus dramatically reducing the power consumption. Fine detector segmentation is possible as the (horizontal) inter-pixel cross-talk in the detection plane can be reduced to a comfortable level while the vertical cross-talk is totally eliminated using a metal lightshield layer. The detector is also insensitive to background light. A number of applications could benefit from a detector with these characteristics, including particle tracking and vertex reconstruction in particle physics experiments at accelerators and in space, as well as ionizing radiation imaging in nuclear medicine and life-sciences.
Introduction/Background:
Cardiovascular disease is the major cause of death in patients with diabetes and atherosclerosis is exacerbated under diabetes. Atherosclerosis is an inflammatory disorder in ...which several converging immune responses induce lipid accumulation in macrophages. Activated leukocyte cell adhesion molecule (ALCAM) functions as a pattern recognition receptor and its soluble form sALCAM is involved in ALCAM-dependent and -independent immune mechanisms. The aim of this study was to investigate the role of aggressive removal of low density lipoprotein-cholesterol (LDL-C) and lipoprotein(a) (Lp a) by LDL-apheresis (LA) on sALCAM and to evaluate its association with serum markers of inflammation.
Material and methods:
A total of thirteen patients with familial hypercholesterolemia (FH) and severe atherosclerosis refractory to medication and diet were treated additionally with LA every 1 – 2 week for 3 months. Whole blood samples were taken before and after LA treatment and serum concentration of total cholesterol, LDL-C, HDL-C, non-fasting triglycerides, Lp(a), hsCRP and sALCAM were measured.
Results:
The concentration of lipoprotein profile parameters decreased after LA as expected. The concentration of sALCAM and hsCRP decreased significantly after LA by 16% and 50% respectively (105.3 ± 7.7 vs. 88.2 ± 6.4 ng/ml, P < 0.005 for sALCAM and 9.0 ± 1.3 vs. 4.5 ± 0.6 mg/l, P < 0.0001 for hsCRP). No correlation was found between the decrease of sALCAM and the decrease of hsCRP.
Conclusions:
In patients with severe hypercholesterolemia and advanced atherosclerosis, serum concentration of sALCAM and hsCRP decreased significantly by chronic LA treatment. sALCAM might be a novel marker of immune responses in atherosclerosis which can be significantly lowered by chronic LA.
The CALorimetric Electron Telescope (CALET) space experiment, which has been developed by Japan in collaboration with Italy and the United States, is a high-energy astroparticle physics mission on ...the International Space Station (ISS). The primary goals of the CALET mission include investigation of possible nearby sources of high-energy electrons, detailed study of galactic cosmic-ray acceleration and propagation, and search for dark matter signatures. With a long-term observation onboard the ISS, the CALET experiment measures the flux of cosmic-ray electrons (including positrons) up to 20 TeV, gamma-rays to 10 TeV, and nuclei up to 1,000 TeV based on its charge separation capability from Z = 1 to 40. Since the start of science operation in mid-October, 2015, a continuous observation has been maintained without any major interruptions. The number of triggered events over 10 GeV is nearly 20 million per month. By using the data obtained during the first two-years, here we present a summary of the CALET observations: 1) Electron+positron energy spectrum, 2) Nuclei analysis, 3) Gamma-ray observation with a characterization of the on-orbit performance. The search results for the electromagnetic counterparts of LIGO/Virgo gravitational wave events are also discussed.
Full text
Available for:
IZUM, KILJ, NUK, PILJ, PNG, SAZU, UL, UM, UPUK
Future space experiments dedicated to the observation of high-energy gamma and cosmic rays will increasingly rely on a highly performing calorimetry apparatus, and their physics performance will be ...primarily determined by the geometrical dimensions and the energy resolution of the calorimeter deployed. Thus it is extremely important to optimize its geometrical acceptance, the granularity, and its absorption depth for the measurement of the particle energy with respect to the total mass of the apparatus which is the most important constraint for a space launch. The proposed design tries to satisfy these criteria while staying within a total mass budget of about 1.6 tons. Calocube is a homogeneous calorimeter instrumented with Cesium iodide (CsI) crystals, whose geometry is cubic and isotropic, so as to detect particles arriving from every direction in space, thus maximizing the acceptance; granularity is obtained by filling the cubic volume with small cubic CsI crystals. The total radiation length in any direction is more than adequate for optimal electromagnetic particle identification and energy measurement, whilst the interaction length is at least suficient to allow a precise reconstruction of hadronic showers. Optimal values for the size of the crystals and spacing among them have been studied. The design forms the basis of a three-year R&D activity which has been approved and financed by INFN. An overall description of the system, as well as results from preliminary tests on particle beams will be described.
Introduction/Background:
Activated leukocyte cell adhesion molecule (ALCAM/CD166) has been shown to function as a pattern recognition receptor, analogue to the receptor of advanced glycation ...endproducts. In this study role of ALCAM in diabetic nephropathy was investigated in patients with type 2 diabetes, and further investigated
in vitro
and
in vivo
using homozygous knock-out mice for ALCAM (ALCAM
-/-
).
Materials and methods:
The serum concentration of soluble ALCAM (sALCAM), as well the expression of ALCAM and its major ligand, S100B in the kidney was determined in patients with type 2 diabetes.
In vivo
, diabetes was induced by low-dose streptozotocin in wild-type and ALCAM
-/-
mice which were assessed for symptoms of DN and expression of ALCAM.
Results:
sALCAM concentration was significantly increased in type 2 diabetes patients, and correlated positively with HbA1c, as well as the extent of chronic kidney disease and negatively correlated with estimated glomerular filtration rate. In the kidneys of type 2 diabetes patients, ALCAM was up-regulated in both the glomeruli and proximal and distal tubules. In contrast, S100B was significantly increased in the glomeruli, especially in the podocytes, but not in the tubules. In mice, ALCAM was also localized to the glomeruli and tubules, whereas S100B was only localized to the tubules. It was found that diabetic ALCAM
-/-
mice were partially protected against nephropathy.
Conclusions:
ALCAM was increased in serum and kidneys of type 2 diabetic patients and S100B-induced expression of TGF-ß
in vitro
was dependent on ALCAM under diabetes, therefore describing a novel mechanism on the late complications of diabetes in the kidney.
Detailed measurements of the spectral structure of cosmic-ray electrons and positrons from 10.6 GeV to 7.5 TeV are presented from over 7 years of observations with the CALorimetric Electron Telescope ...(CALET) on the International Space Station. Because of the excellent energy resolution (a few percent above 10 GeV) and the outstanding e/p separation (10\(^5\)), CALET provides optimal performance for a detailed search of structures in the energy spectrum. The analysis uses data up to the end of 2022, and the statistics of observed electron candidates has increased more than 3 times since the last publication in 2018. By adopting an updated boosted decision tree analysis, a sufficient proton rejection power up to 7.5 TeV is achieved, with a residual proton contamination less than 10%. The observed energy spectrum becomes gradually harder in the lower energy region from around 30 GeV, consistently with AMS-02, but from 300 to 600 GeV it is considerably softer than the spectra measured by DAMPE and Fermi-LAT. At high energies, the spectrum presents a sharp break around 1 TeV, with a spectral index change from -3.15 to -3.91, and a broken power law fitting the data in the energy range from 30 GeV to 4.8 TeV better than a single power law with 6.9 sigma significance, which is compatible with the DAMPE results. The break is consistent with the expected effects of radiation loss during the propagation from distant sources (except the highest energy bin). We have fitted the spectrum with a model consistent with the positron flux measured by AMS-02 below 1 TeV and interpreted the electron + positron spectrum with possible contributions from pulsars and nearby sources. Above 4.8 TeV, a possible contribution from known nearby supernova remnants, including Vela, is addressed by an event-by-event analysis providing a higher proton-rejection power than a purely statistical analysis.
We present the observation of a charge-sign dependent solar modulation of galactic cosmic rays (GCRs) with the CALorimetric Electron Telescope onboard the International Space Station over 6 yr, ...corresponding to the positive polarity of the solar magnetic field. The observed variation of proton count rate is consistent with the neutron monitor count rate, validating our methods for determining the proton count rate. It is observed by the CALorimetric Electron Telescope that both GCR electron and proton count rates at the same average rigidity vary in anticorrelation with the tilt angle of the heliospheric current sheet, while the amplitude of the variation is significantly larger in the electron count rate than in the proton count rate. We show that this observed charge-sign dependence is reproduced by a numerical ``drift model'' of the GCR transport in the heliosphere. This is a clear signature of the drift effect on the long-term solar modulation observed with a single detector.
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