In this paper we will present an LHCb custom-made acquisition board which was developed for a continuous beam and background monitoring during LHC operations at CERN. The paper describes both the ...conceptual design and its performance, and concludes with results from the first period of beam operations at the LHC. The main purpose of the acquisition board is to process signals from a pair of beam pickups to continuously monitor the intensity of each bunch, and to monitor the phase of the arrival time of each proton bunch with respect to the LHC bunch clock. The extreme versatility of the board also allowed the LHCb experiment to build a high-speed and high-sensitivity readout system for a fast background monitor based on a pair of plastic scintillators. The board has demonstrated very good performance and proved to be conceptually valid during the first months of operations at the LHC. Connected to the beam pickups, it provides the LHCb experiment with a real-time measurement of the total intensity of each beam and of the arrival time of each beam at the LHCb Interaction Point. It also monitors the LHC filling scheme and the beam current per bunch at a continuous rate of 40 MHz, and assures a proper global timing of LHCb. The continuous readout of the scintillators at bunch clock speed provides the LHCb experiment with high-resolution information about the beam halo and fast losses during both injection and circulating beam. It has also provided valuable information to the LHC during machine commissioning with beam. Recent results also shows that it could contribute as a luminosity monitor independent from the LHCb experiment readout system. Beam, background and luminosity measurements are continuously fed back to the LHC in the data exchange framework between the experiments and the LHC machine aimed at improving efficiently the experimental conditions real-time.
Felids are important in the epidemiology of Toxoplasma gondii because they are the only hosts that can excrete the environmentally resistant oocysts in their feces. Cats acquire T. gondii infection ...in nature by ingesting tissues of small mammals and birds. Serum samples of 223 feral marsupials and 174 feral rodents captured in 7 segments of the Atlantic Forest of the State of Pernambuco, northeastern region of Brazil, and in urban areas of the municipality of Recife were examined for antibodies to T. gondii by the modified agglutination test (MAT). Antibodies (MAT ≥ 25) were found in 6.7% (15 of 223) of the marsupials and 5.7% (10 of 174) of the rodents. No association was observed between seropositivity in marsupials or rodents and sex, age, or different areas of collection (P > 0.05). This is the first study on the seroprevalence of T. gondii in marsupials and rodents performed in the Atlantic Forest of the northeastern region of Brazil. The presence of antibodies to T. gondii are reported for the first time in long-furred woolly mouse opossum (Micoureus demerarae), murine mouse opossum (Marmosa murina), brown four-eyed opossum (Metachirus nudicaudatus), and gray short-tailed opossum (Monodelphis domestica).
The addition of hydrogen in ammonia/air mixtures can lead to the onset of intrinsic flame instabilities at conditions of technical relevance. The length and time scales of intrinsic instabilities can ...be estimated by means of linear stability analysis of planar premixed flames by evaluating the dispersion relation. In this work, we perform such linear stability analysis for hydrogen-enriched ammonia/air flames (50%H2-50%NH3 by volume) using direct numerical simulation with a detailed chemical kinetic mechanism. The impact of pressure and the inclusion of the Soret effect in the governing equations is assessed by comparing the resulting dispersion relation at atmospheric pressure and 10 atm. Our data indicate that both pressure and the Soret effects promote the onset of intrinsic instabilities. Comparisons with available numerical literature data as well as theoretical models are also discussed.
Background Brazil is a developing country struggling to reduce its extreme social inequality, which is reflected on shortage of health-care infrastructure, mainly to the low-income class, which ...depends exclusively on the public health system. In Brazil, less than 1% of stroke patients have access to intravenous thrombolysis in a stroke unit, and constraints to the development of mechanical thrombectomy in the public health system increase the social burden of stroke. Objective Report the feasibility of mechanical thrombectomy as part of routine stroke care in a Brazilian public university hospital. Methods Prospective data were collected from all patients treated for acute ischemic stroke with mechanical thrombectomy from June 2011 to March 2016. Combined thrombectomy was performed in eligible patients for intravenous thrombolysis if they presented occlusion of large artery. For those patients ineligible for intravenous thrombolysis, primary thrombectomy was performed as long as there was no evidence of significant ischemia for anterior circulation stroke (Alberta Stroke Program Early CT score >6) within a 6-hour time window, and also for those patients with wake-up stroke or posterior circulation stroke, regardless of the time of symptoms onset. Results A total of 161 patients were evaluated, resulting in an overall successful recanalization rate of 76% and symptomatic intracranial hemorrhage rate of 6.8%. At 3 months, 36% of the patients had modified Rankin Scale score less than or equal to 2. The overall mortality rate was 23%. Conclusion Our study, the first ever large series of mechanical thrombectomy in Brazil, demonstrates acceptable efficacy and safety results, even under restricted conditions outside the ideal scenario of trial studies.
Vascular remodeling processes induced by acute and chronic injuries are characterized by inflammation and oxidative stress. In arteriosclerosis, atherosclerosis, and restenosis, the progression of ...neointimal hyperplasia is a key event of vascular damage.
Our study was aimed to investigate the inflammation and oxidative stress development during vascular impairment and the potential efficacy of treatment of new micro composite N-palmitoylethanolamine/Rutin at a ratio of 1:1 (PEA/RUT). The anti-inflammatory effects of Palmitoylethanolamide (PEA) are well known. Rutin has important pharmacological actions, including antioxidant and vasoprotective.
As a model of vascular injury, we used the complete ligature of the left carotid artery for fourteen days and administered PEA/RUT at the dose of 10 mg/Kg.
This study demonstrated that after fourteen days of carotid ligation, there is a substantial structural change in the vessel morphology, with inflammatory cell infiltration and reactive oxygen species production. PEA/RUT administration reduced change in vascular morphology, cytokines like monocyte chemoattractant protein-1 (MCP-1) and adhesion molecules expression like intercellular adhesion molecules-1 (ICAM-1), proinflammatory cytokines production (IL-1 β, IL-6 and TNF- α), oxidative and nitrosative stress (nitrotyrosine and PARP expression and NRF2 pathway).
Our data clearly demonstrate the beneficial effect of PEA/RUT administration in reducing inflammation, oxidative stress, and vascular damage.
The LHCb Data Acquisition during LHC Run 1 Alessio, F; Brarda, L; Bonaccorsi, E ...
Journal of physics. Conference series,
01/2014, Letnik:
513, Številka:
1
Journal Article
Recenzirano
Odprti dostop
The LHCb Data Acquisition system reads data from over 300 read-out boards and distributes them to more than 1500 event-filter servers. It uses a simple push-protocol over Gigabit Ethernet. After ...filtering, the data is consolidated into files for permanent storage using a SAN-based storage system. Since the beginning of data-taking many lessons have been learned and the reliability and robustness of the system has been greatly improved. We report on these changes and improvements, their motivation and how we intend to develop the system for Run 2. We also will report on how we try to optimise the usage of CPU resources during the running of the LHC ("deferred triggering") and the implications on the data acquisition.
Acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS) causes significant morbidity and mortality each year. There is a paucity of information regarding the mechanisms necessary for ARDS resolution. Foxp3(+) ...regulatory T cells (Foxp3(+) T(reg) cells) have been shown to be an important determinant of resolution in an experimental model of lung injury. We demonstrate that intratracheal delivery of endotoxin (lipopolysaccharide) elicits alveolar epithelial damage from which the epithelium undergoes proliferation and repair. Epithelial proliferation coincided with an increase in Foxp3(+) T(reg) cells in the lung during the course of resolution. To dissect the role that Foxp3(+) T(reg) cells exert on epithelial proliferation, we depleted Foxp3(+) T(reg) cells, which led to decreased alveolar epithelial proliferation and delayed lung injury recovery. Furthermore, antibody-mediated blockade of CD103, an integrin, which binds to epithelial expressed E-cadherin decreased Foxp3(+) T(reg) numbers and decreased rates of epithelial proliferation after injury. In a non-inflammatory model of regenerative alveologenesis, left lung pneumonectomy, we found that Foxp3(+) T(reg) cells enhanced epithelial proliferation. Moreover, Foxp3(+) T(reg) cells co-cultured with primary type II alveolar cells (AT2) directly increased AT2 cell proliferation in a CD103-dependent manner. These studies provide evidence of a new and integral role for Foxp3(+) T(reg) cells in repair of the lung epithelium.
Background
Cow's milk allergy (CMA) is one of the most common food allergies in children. Epigenetic mechanisms have been suggested to play a role in CMA pathogenesis. We have shown that DNA ...methylation of Th1/Th2 cytokine genes and FoxP3 affects CMA disease course. Preliminary evidence suggests that also the miRNome could be implicated in the pathogenesis of allergy. Main study outcome was to comparatively evaluate miRNome in children with CMA and in healthy controls.
Methods
Peripheral blood mononuclear cells were obtained from children aged 4‐18 months: 10 CMA patients, 9 CMA patients who outgrew CMA, and 11 healthy controls. Small RNA libraries were sequenced using a next‐generation sequencing‐based approach. Functional assessment of IL‐4 expression was also performed.
Results
Among the miRNAs differently expressed, 2 were upregulated and 14 were downregulated in children with active CMA compared to healthy controls. miR‐193a‐5p resulted the most downregulated miRNA in children with active CMA compared to healthy controls. The predicted targets of miR‐193a‐5p resulted upregulated in CMA patients compared to healthy controls. Peripheral blood CD4+ T cells transfected with a miR193a‐5 inhibitor showed a significant upregulation of IL‐4 mRNA and its protein expression. Children who outgrew CMA showed miRNA‐193a‐5p level, and its related targets expression, similar to that observed in healthy controls.
Conclusions
Our results suggest that miR‐193a‐5p is a post‐transcriptional regulator of IL‐4 expression and could have a role in IgE‐mediated CMA. This miRNA could be a novel diagnostic and therapeutic target for this common form of food allergy in childhood.
Acute cellular rejection (ACR) is a common and important clinical complication following lung transplantation. While there is a clinical need for the development of novel therapies to prevent ACR, ...the regulation of allospecific effector T‐cells in this process remains incompletely understood. Using the MHC‐mismatched mouse orthotopic lung transplant model, we investigated the short‐term role of anti‐CD154 mAb therapy alone on allograft pathology and alloimmune T‐cell effector responses. Untreated C57BL/6 recipients of BALB/c left lung allografts had high‐grade rejection and diminished CD4+: CD8+ graft ratios, marked by predominantly CD8+>CD4+ IFN‐γ+ allospecific effector responses at day 10, compared to isograft controls. Anti‐CD154 mAb therapy strikingly abrogated both CD8+ and CD4+ alloeffector responses and significantly increased lung allograft CD4+: CD8+ ratios. Examination of graft CD4+ T‐cells revealed significantly increased frequencies of CD4+CD25+Foxp3+ regulatory T‐cells in the lung allografts of anti‐CD154‐treated mice and was associated with significant attenuation of ACR compared to untreated controls. Together, these data show that CD154/CD40 costimulation blockade alone is sufficient to abrogate allospecific effector T‐cell responses and significantly shifts the lung allograft toward an environment predominated by CD4+ T regulatory cells in association with an attenuation of ACR.
The authors find that CD154/CD40 costimulation blockade alone in a mouse model of orthotopic lung transplant results in abrogation of allospecific T‐cell responses and increased regulatory T cells.
The LHCb Experiment is a hadronic precision experiment at the LHC accelerator aimed at mainly studying b-physics by profiting from the large b-anti-b-production at LHC. The challenge of high trigger ...efficiency has driven the choice of a readout architecture allowing the main event filtering to be performed by a software trigger with access to all detector information on a processing farm based on commercial multi-core PCs. The readout architecture therefore features only a relatively relaxed hardware trigger with a fixed and short latency accepting events at 1 MHz out of a nominal proton collision rate of 30 MHz, and high bandwidth with event fragment assembly over Gigabit Ethernet. A fast central system performs the entire synchronization, event labelling and control of the readout, as well as event management including destination control, dynamic load balancing of the readout network and the farm, and handling of special events for calibrations and luminosity measurements. The event filter farm processes the events in parallel and reduces the physics event rate to about 2 kHz which are formatted and written to disk before transfer to the offline processing. A spy mechanism allows processing and reconstructing a fraction of the events for online quality checking. In addition a 5 Hz subset of the events are sent as express stream to offline for checking calibrations and software before launching the full offline processing on the main event stream.