The metabolic profiling of kiwifruit (
Actinidia deliciosa,
Hayward cultivar) aqueous extracts and the water status of entire kiwifruits were monitored over the season (June–December) using nuclear ...magnetic resonance (NMR) methodologies. The metabolic profiling of aqueous kiwifruit extracts was investigated by means of high field NMR spectroscopy. A large number of water-soluble metabolites were assigned by means of 1D and 2D NMR experiments. The change in the metabolic profiles monitored over the season allowed the kiwifruit development to be investigated. Specific temporal trends of aminoacids, sugars, organic acids and other metabolites were observed.
The water status of kiwifruits was monitored directly on the intact fruit measuring the
T
2 spin–spin relaxation time by means of a portable unilateral NMR instrument, fully non-invasive. Again, clear trends of the relaxation time were observed during the monitoring period.
The results show that the monitoring of the metabolic profiling and the monitoring of the water status are two complementary means suitable to have a complete view of the investigated fruit.
We report the first results of DarkSide-50, a direct search for dark matter operating in the underground Laboratori Nazionali del Gran Sasso (LNGS) and searching for the rare nuclear recoils possibly ...induced by weakly interacting massive particles (WIMPs). The dark matter detector is a Liquid Argon Time Projection Chamber with a (46.4±0.7) kg active mass, operated inside a 30 t organic liquid scintillator neutron veto, which is in turn installed at the center of a 1 kt water Cherenkov veto for the residual flux of cosmic rays. We report here the null results of a dark matter search for a (1422±67) kgd exposure with an atmospheric argon fill. This is the most sensitive dark matter search performed with an argon target, corresponding to a 90% CL upper limit on the WIMP-nucleon spin-independent cross section of 6.1×10−44 cm2 for a WIMP mass of 100 Gev/c2.
IBIS: The Imager on-board INTEGRAL Ubertini, P.; Lebrun, F.; Di Cocco, G. ...
Astronomy and astrophysics (Berlin),
11/2003, Letnik:
411, Številka:
1
Journal Article
Recenzirano
Odprti dostop
The IBIS telescope is the high angular resolution gamma-ray imager on-board the INTEGRAL Observatory, successfully launched from Baikonur (Kazakhstan) the 17th of October 2002. This medium size ESA ...project, planned for a 2 year mission with possible extension to 5, is devoted to the observation of the gamma-ray sky in the energy range from 3 keV to 10 MeV (Winkler CITE). The IBIS imaging system is based on two independent solid state detector arrays optimised for low ($15{-}1000$ keV) and high ($0.175{-}10.0$ MeV) energies surrounded by an active VETO System. This high efficiency shield is essential to minimise the background induced by high energy particles in the highly excentric out of van Allen belt orbit. A Tungsten Coded Aperture Mask, 16 mm thick and ~1 squared meter in dimension is the imaging device. The IBIS telescope will serve the scientific community at large providing a unique combination of unprecedented high energy wide field imaging capability coupled with broad band spectroscopy and high resolution timing over the energy range from X to gamma rays. To date the IBIS telescope is working nominally in orbit since more than 9 month.
IMPORTANCE: Although up to 20% of patients with multiple sclerosis (MS) experience onset before 18 years of age, it has been suggested that people with pediatric-onset MS (POMS) are protected against ...disability because of greater capacity for repair. OBJECTIVE: To assess the incidence of and factors associated with progression independent of relapse activity (PIRA) and relapse-associated worsening (RAW) in POMS compared with typical adult-onset MS (AOMS) and late-onset MS (LOMS). DESIGN, SETTING, AND PARTICIPANTS: This cohort study on prospectively acquired data from the Italian MS Register was performed from June 1, 2000, to September 30, 2021. At the time of data extraction, longitudinal data from 73 564 patients from 120 MS centers were available in the register. MAIN OUTCOMES AND MEASURES: The main outcomes included age-related cumulative incidence and adjusted hazard ratios (HRs) for PIRA and RAW and associated factors. EXPOSURES: Clinical and magnetic resonance imaging features, time receiving disease-modifying therapy (DMT), and time to first DMT. RESULTS: After applying the inclusion and exclusion criteria, the study assessed 16 130 patients with MS (median IQR age at onset, 28.7 22.8-36.2 years; 68.3% female). Compared with AOMS and LOMS, patients with POMS had less disability, exhibited more active disease, and were exposed to DMT for a longer period. A first 48-week-confirmed PIRA occurred in 7176 patients (44.5%): 558 patients with POMS (40.4%), 6258 patients with AOMS (44.3%), and 360 patients with LOMS (56.8%) (P < .001). Factors associated with PIRA were older age at onset (AOMS vs POMS HR, 1.42; 95% CI, 1.30-1.55; LOMS vs POMS HR, 2.98; 95% CI, 2.60-3.41; P < .001), longer disease duration (HR, 1.04; 95% CI, 1.04-1.05; P < .001), and shorter DMT exposure (HR, 0.69; 95% CI, 0.64-0.74; P < .001). The incidence of PIRA was 1.3% at 20 years of age, but it rapidly increased approximately 7 times between 21 and 30 years of age (9.0%) and nearly doubled for each age decade from 40 to 70 years (21.6% at 40 years, 39.0% at 50 years, 61.0% at 60 years, and 78.7% at 70 years). The cumulative incidence of RAW events followed a similar trend from 20 to 60 years (0.5% at 20 years, 3.5% at 30 years, 7.8% at 40 years, 14.4% at 50 years, and 24.1% at 60 years); no further increase was found at 70 years (27.7%). Delayed DMT initiation was associated with higher risk of PIRA (HR, 1.16; 95% CI, 1.00-1.34; P = .04) and RAW (HR, 1.75; 95% CI, 1.28-2.39; P = .001). CONCLUSIONS AND RELEVANCE: PIRA can occur at any age, and although pediatric onset is not fully protective against progression, this study’s findings suggest that patients with pediatric onset are less likely to exhibit PIRA over a decade of follow-up. However, these data also reinforce the benefit for DMT initiation in patients with POMS, as treatment was associated with reduced occurrence of both PIRA and RAW regardless of age at onset.
Introduction
Persons with haemophilia (PWH) experience recurrent joint bleeding which leads from early synovitis to irreversible joint damage. Pain strongly affects patients’ quality of life, as PWH ...suffer from acute pain associated with haemarthroses and chronic pain due to arthritic and degenerative complications.
Aim
To investigate pain issues among PWH and their treaters in Italy.
Methods
Persons with haemophilia and specialist physicians responded to a survey focused on pain characteristics, assessment, and management by phone call and online, respectively.
Results
One hundred and nineteen patients (76% severe haemophilia, 61% ≥18 years) and 44 physicians were involved. Pain was reported by 61% of PWH; among those who did not experience pain, 70% were children on prophylaxis. Patients described pain as chronic (71%), acute (69%) or postoperative (8%), and rated it as severe in 65% of cases. Clinicians reported lower percentages of patients with pain (46%), classified as chronic (58%), acute (33%) or postoperative (21%), half using specific scales. Pain was systematically investigated by treaters according to 36% of patients. Paracetamol was largely the most prescribed first‐line pain therapy (89%), as well the most employed analgesic by PWH (51%), who also used non‐steroidal anti‐inflammatory drugs (24%), cyclo‐oxygenase‐2 inhibitors (21%) or opioids (26%). To manage pain, 61% of clinicians stated to collaborate with other specialists. Physiotherapy was often suggested but less frequently used by PWH.
Conclusions
Pain is under‐recognized and unsatisfactorily addressed by haemophilia treatment centre (HTC) clinicians, with discrepant management compared to PWH responses. Education in systematic pain assessment and multidisciplinary treatment and development of management guidelines are highly needed.
The supernova remnant (SNR) IC 443 is an intermediate-age remnant well known for its radio, optical, X-ray, and gamma-ray energy emissions. In this Letter, we study the gamma-ray emission above 100 ...MeV from IC 443 as obtained by the AGILE satellite. A distinct pattern of diffuse emission in the energy range 100 MeV-3 GeV is detected across the SNR with its prominent maximum (source "A") localized in the northeastern shell with a flux F = (47 +/- 10) x 10(-8) photons cm(-2) s(-1) above 100 MeV. This location is the site of the strongest shock interaction between the SNR blast wave and the dense circumstellar medium. Source "A" is not coincident with the TeV source located 0.4. away and associated with a dense molecular cloud complex in the SNR central region. From our observations, and from the lack of detectable diffuse TeV emission from its northeastern rim, we demonstrate that electrons cannot be the main emitters of gamma rays in the range 0.1-10 GeV at the site of the strongest SNR shock. The intensity, spectral characteristics, and location of the most prominent gamma-ray emission together with the absence of cospatial detectable TeV emission are consistent only with a hadronic model of cosmic-ray acceleration in the SNR. A high-density molecular cloud (cloud "E") provides a remarkable "target" for nucleonic interactions of accelerated hadrons; our results show enhanced gamma-ray production near the molecular cloud/shocked shell interaction site. IC 443 provides the first unambiguous evidence of cosmic-ray acceleration by SNRs.
Nuclear recoil events produced by neutron scatters form one of the most important classes of background in WIMP direct detection experiments, as they may produce nuclear recoils that look exactly ...like WIMP interactions. In DarkSide-50, we both actively suppress and measure the rate of neutron-induced background events using our neutron veto, composed of a boron-loaded liquid scintillator detector within a water Cherenkov detector. This paper is devoted to the description of the neutron veto system of DarkSide-50, including the detector structure, the fundamentals of event reconstruction and data analysis, and basic performance parameters.
Super-massive black holes in active galaxies can accelerate particles to relativistic energies, producing jets with associated -ray emission. Galactic 'microquasars', which are binary systems ...consisting of a neutron star or stellar-mass black hole accreting gas from a companion star, also produce relativistic jets, generally together with radio flares. Apart from an isolated event detected in Cygnus X-1, there has hitherto been no systematic evidence for the acceleration of particles to gigaelectronvolt or higher energies in a microquasar, with the consequence that we are as yet unsure about the mechanism of jet energization. Here we report four -ray flares with energies above 100 MeV from the microquasar Cygnus X-3 (an exceptional X-ray binary that sporadically produces radio jets). There is a clear pattern of temporal correlations between the -ray flares and transitional spectral states of the radio-frequency and X-ray emission. Particle acceleration occurred a few days before radio-jet ejections for two of the four flares, meaning that the process of jet formation implies the production of very energetic particles. In Cygnus X-3, particle energies during the flares can be thousands of times higher than during quiescent states.
Celotno besedilo
Dostopno za:
DOBA, IJS, IZUM, KILJ, NUK, PILJ, PNG, SAZU, SIK, UILJ, UKNU, UL, UM, UPUK
The determination of rock friction at seismic slip rates (about 1 m s(-1)) is of paramount importance in earthquake mechanics, as fault friction controls the stress drop, the mechanical work and the ...frictional heat generated during slip. Given the difficulty in determining friction by seismological methods, elucidating constraints are derived from experimental studies. Here we review a large set of published and unpublished experiments (∼300) performed in rotary shear apparatus at slip rates of 0.1-2.6 m s(-1). The experiments indicate a significant decrease in friction (of up to one order of magnitude), which we term fault lubrication, both for cohesive (silicate-built, quartz-built and carbonate-built) rocks and non-cohesive rocks (clay-rich, anhydrite, gypsum and dolomite gouges) typical of crustal seismogenic sources. The available mechanical work and the associated temperature rise in the slipping zone trigger a number of physicochemical processes (gelification, decarbonation and dehydration reactions, melting and so on) whose products are responsible for fault lubrication. The similarity between (1) experimental and natural fault products and (2) mechanical work measures resulting from these laboratory experiments and seismological estimates suggests that it is reasonable to extrapolate experimental data to conditions typical of earthquake nucleation depths (7-15 km). It seems that faults are lubricated during earthquakes, irrespective of the fault rock composition and of the specific weakening mechanism involved.
Celotno besedilo
Dostopno za:
DOBA, IJS, IZUM, KILJ, NUK, PILJ, PNG, SAZU, SIK, UILJ, UKNU, UL, UM, UPUK