Background and purpose
The complexity and expense of endovascular treatment (EVT) for acute ischaemic stroke (AIS) can present difficulties in bringing this approach closer to the patients. A ...collaborative node was implemented involving three stroke centres (SCs) within the Madrid Stroke Network to provide round‐the‐clock access to EVT for AIS.
Methods
A weekly schedule was established to ensure that at least one SC was ‘on‐call’ to provide EVT for all those with moderate to severe AIS due to large vessel occlusion, >4.5 h from symptom onset, or within this time‐window but with contraindication to, or failure of, systemic thrombolysis. The time‐window for treatment was 8 h for anterior circulation stroke and <24 h in posterior stroke. Outcomes measured were re‐canalization rates, modified Rankin Scale (mRS) score at 3 months, mortality and symptomatic intra‐cranial haemorrhage (SICH).
Results
Over a 2‐year period (2012–2013), 303 candidate patients with AIS were considered for EVT as per protocol, and 196 (65%) received treatment. Reasons for non‐treatment were significant improvement (14%), spontaneous re‐canalization (26%), clinical worsening (9%) or radiological criteria of established infarction (31%). Re‐canalization rate amongst treated patients was 80%. Median delay from symptom onset to re‐canalization was 323 min (p25; p75 percentiles 255; 430). Mortality was 11%; independence (mRS 0–2) was 58%; SICH was 3%.
Conclusions
Implementation of a collaborative network to provide EVT for AIS is feasible and effective. Results are good in terms of re‐canalization rates and clinical outcomes.
Click here to view the accompanying paper in this issue.
European Directive 2002/49/EC indicates that member states must provide mappings of noise levels throughout all areas with more than 250,000 inhabitants and for all major roads with a traffic volume ...exceeding six million vehicles per year. Noise levels in regions containing major railways and airports should be mapped as well. Traditionally, noise mappings have been created using sound level meters, and the noise indicator used is the equivalent continuous sound pressure level
.
However, over the last few years, Wireless Sensor Networks have been proposed for this task, but little attention has been paid to the deployment of frequency-based algorithms adapted to resource-constrained devices to calculate the noise indicator. This work presents a new algorithm based on frequency domain, which has been implemented successfully in a resource-constrained device for calculating the noise indicator. Several experiments have been carried-out using a variety of scenarios to compare the differences between the noise indicators calculated by the sensor and those from a commercial sound level meter. The results show the effectiveness of the algorithm because the difference between our method and the traditional technique is less than 2 % (1.2 dBA). This comparison pertains to an urban area, and it demonstrates that the proposed approach can be used for noise mappings in real time and space.
A compact microstrip power splitter based on a pair of 70.71 Ω impedance inverters implemented by means of inductively loaded slow‐wave transmission lines is designed and fabricated. As a result of ...the slow‐wave effect, associated to the presence of series‐connected semi‐lumped (meandered) inductors, the length of the constitutive inverters is 41% reduced. Moreover, because of periodicity (Bragg effect), such inverters exhibit a stop band functionality useful harmonic suppression. It is demonstrated that the number of unit cells of the inverters that are necessary to achieve efficient harmonic suppression simultaneously keeping unaltered the splitter response in the region of interest should be N = 2. The proposed power splitter is compact, neither vias nor defected ground structures are used in its design, and it exhibits efficient suppression up to at least the 2nd harmonic (at 5f0, where f0 is the design frequency).
LHCb VELO fast calibration Fernández Prieto, A.
Journal of instrumentation,
02/2023, Letnik:
18, Številka:
2
Journal Article
Recenzirano
Abstract
During the long shutdown 2 of the LHC, the LHCb Experiment was upgraded to a trigger-less system reading out the full detector at 40 MHz bunch crossing rate with all selection algorithms ...executed in a CPU farm. The upgraded Vertex Locator (VELO) of the LHCb is a hybrid pixel detector read out by the “VeloPix” front-end ASIC with on-chip zero-suppression. This paper describes a novel way of calibrating the VELO detector based on dedicated threshold scan firmware. The firmware is implemented in the control and data acquisition back-end boards of the detector. This threshold scan method has multiple advantages compared with the default one: it is faster as the algorithm was moved from software to firmware, it is more deterministic by minimizing software interruptions and data transfer and it is more precise by reducing noise due to ASIC operation.
This paper is focused on the application of complementary split-ring resonators (CSRRs) to the suppression of the common (even) mode in microstrip differential transmission lines. By periodically and ...symmetrically etching CSRRs in the ground plane of microstrip differential lines, the common mode can be efficiently suppressed over a wide band whereas the differential signals are not affected. Throughout the paper, we present and discuss the principle for the selective common-mode suppression, the circuit model of the structure (including the models under even- and odd-mode excitation), the strategies for bandwidth enhancement of the rejected common mode, and a methodology for common-mode filter design. On the basis of the dispersion relation for the common mode, it is shown that the maximum achievable rejection bandwidth can be estimated. Finally, theory is validated by designing and measuring a differential line and a balanced bandpass filter with common-mode suppression, where double-slit CSRRs (DS-CSRRs) are used in order to enhance the common-mode rejection bandwidth. Due to the presence of DS-CSRRs, the balanced filter exhibits more than 40 dB of common-mode rejection within a 34% bandwidth around the filter pass band.
(Aided) phytostabilisation has been proposed as a suitable technique to decrease the environmental risks associated with metal(loid)-enriched mine tailings. Field scale evaluations are needed for ...demonstrating their effectiveness in the medium- to long-term. A field trial was implemented in spring 2011 in Cu-rich mine tailings in the NW of Spain. The tailings were amended with composted municipal solid wastes and planted with Salix spp., Populus nigra L. or Agrostis capillaris L. cv. Highland. Plant growth, nutritive status and metal accumulation, and soil physico- and bio-chemical properties, were monitored over three years (four years for plant growth). The total bacterial community, α- and β-Proteobacteria, Actinobacteria and Streptomycetaceae were studied by DGGE of 16s rDNA fragments. Compost amendment improved soil properties such as pH, CEC and fertility, and decreased soil Cu availability, leading to the establishment of a healthy vegetation cover. Both compost-amendment and plant root activity stimulated soil enzyme activities and induced important shifts in the bacterial community structure over time. The woody plant, S. viminalis, and the grassy species, A. capillaris, showed the best results in terms of plant growth and biomass production. The beneficial effects of the phytostabilisation process were maintained at least three years after treatment.
•Compost amendment reduced soil acidity, improved fertility and decreased available Cu.•Reduced phytotoxicity enabled the establishment of a grass cover and short rotation coppice system.•Soil enzyme activities increased after compost addition and were highest under Salix viminalis.•Shifts in bacterial community structure were associated with amendments and plant species.•Organic wastes can be effectively incorporated into phytostabilisation techniques.
Genista
anglica
represents a widely distributed group of shrubs in the Iberian Peninsula, as well as in the North of the Moroccan Mountains, the South of Italy and in most oceanic territories of ...Western Europe, with its northern limit in Sweden. Up to five different species within the group have been described in these territories:
Genista ancistrocarpa
,
G. acutifolia
,
G. brutia
and
G. silana
, as well as
G. anglica
sensu stricto. The diversity of
Genista anglica
sensu lato as well as the phylogenetic patterns that have generated this diversity have been analyzed through the use of nuclear (ITS, ETS) and chloroplastic (
trnL
,
trnL
-
F
,
rbcL
,
matK
) DNA sequences. Our results show that the group probably originated in the West of the Iberian Peninsula and subsequently spread to the rest of the European oceanic territories. Additionally, the results support the idea that the presence of a group of plants in the South of Italy, where
G. brutia
and
G. silana
were previously described, has been the consequence of the introduction of seeds collected in the Northwest of the Iberian Peninsula. Our results also indicate that, in contrast to some authors, the populations from the West of the Iberian Peninsula are not isolated and, consequently, they should be grouped into one species with high diversity, therefore differentiation into different taxa is no longer adequate.
The effect of wildfire on soil microbes and extractable C (Cext) and N (Next) changed with respect to the time from burning and soil depth. Initially, microbial biomass C (Cmic) and N (Nmic) were ...drastically reduced in the soil surface layer (0-5 cm) and reduced by 50% in the subsurface (5-10 cm), whereas Cext increased by 62% in the surface layer and did not significantly change in the subsurface. These parameters were affected for the following 4 years, during which the average reductions in the soil surface and subsurface layers were, respectively, 60% and 50% for Cmic, 70% and 45% for Nmic, 60% and 40% for the ratio Cmic: organic C (Corg) and 70% and 30% for the ratio Nmic: total N(tot), while for Cext the surface layer was the only zone consistently affected and Cext decreased by up to 59%. Immediately after a fire, the Cext:Corg ratio increased by 3.5-fold and 2-fold in the surface and subsurface layers, respectively; thereafter for 2 years, it decreased in the surface layer (by up to 45%) while the effect on the subsurface layer was not consistent. The effect of burning on Next lasted 1 year, in which Next increased by up to 7- and 3-fold in the surface and subsurface layers, respectively, while the average Next:Ntot ratio doubled in the surface layer and increased by 34% in the subsurface. During the time in which each parameter was affected by burning, the soil factor explained a high percentage of variance in the fluctuations of Cmic, Nmic, Cmic:Corg and Nmic:Ntot, while those of Next and Next:Ntot, but not those of Cext and Cext:Corg depended on both the soil and its depth. In the burned soils similar patterns of response were found between the following parameters listed in pairs: Cmic and Nmic; Cmic:Corg and Nmic:Ntot; Cext and Next; and Cext:Corg and Next:Ntot. However, after the fire relationships found previously between the parameters studied and many other soils properties were either no longer evident, or were inverted. Although the addition of cellulose to the burned soil favoured fungal mycelium development and increased Cmic and Cext contents, the negative effect of burning on the microbial biomass and the Cext was not counteracted even under incubation conditions suitable for both microbial growth and C mineralization.
PDF
