AREVA NC is preparing to process, characterize and compact old used fuel metallic waste stored at La Hague reprocessing plant in view of their future storage (“Haute Activité Oxyde” HAO project). For ...a large part of these historical wastes, the packaging is planned in CSD-C canisters (“Colis Standard de Déchets Compacté s”) in the ACC hulls and nozzles compaction facility (“Atelier de Compactage des Coques et embouts”). . This paper presents a new method to take into account the possible presence of fissile material clusters, which may have a significant impact in the active neutron interrogation (Differential Die-away Technique) measurement of the CSD-C canisters, in the industrial neutron measurement station “P2-2”. A matrix effect correction has already been investigated to predict the prompt fission neutron calibration coefficient (which provides the fissile mass) from an internal “drum flux monitor” signal provided during the active measurement by a boron-coated proportional counter located in the measurement cavity, and from a “drum transmission signal” recorded in passive mode by the detection blocks, in presence of an AmBe point source in the measurement cell. Up to now, the relationship between the calibration coefficient and these signals was obtained from a factorial design that did not consider the potential for occurrence of fissile material clusters. The interrogative neutron self-shielding in these clusters was treated separately and resulted in a penalty coefficient larger than 20% to prevent an underestimation of the fissile mass within the drum. In this work, we have shown that the incorporation of a new parameter in the factorial design, representing the fissile mass fraction in these clusters, provides an alternative to the penalty coefficient. This new approach finally does not degrade the uncertainty of the original prediction, which was calculated without taking into consideration the possible presence of clusters. Consequently, the accuracy of the fissile mass assessment is improved by this new method, and this last should be extended to similar DDT measurement stations of larger drums, also using an internal monitor for matrix effect correction.
OBJECTIVE:The PAMELA is an epidemiological study performed on a population sample, including office, home and 24 h ambulatory blood pressure (BP) measurements. Measurements were made at baseline, ...after 11 years, and repeated in a 3rd survey 26 years later.
DESIGN AND METHOD:3200 subjects were randomly selected to represent the population of Monza (North Italy) aged 25–74 years. In each subject body mass index (BMI), office (sphygmomanometer), home (semiautomatic validated device), 24 h (validated automatic oscillometric device) systolic (S) and diastolic (D) BP measurements, heart rate (HR) and biochemical variables were obtained. All values were measured at baseline (1st survey, 1990–91), 11 years later (2nd survey, 2001–02) and after further 15 years (3rd survey, 2016–17).
RESULTS:562 subjects (279/283 males/females, mean age 41 ± 10 yrs) participated at the 3 surveys. Baseline average office, home and 24 h SBP/DBP were respectively 122/81 ± 14/9, 116/73 ± 15/10, 116/73 ± 9/7 mmHg and increased respectively of 5/1 ± 14/9, 4/1 ± 14/9 and 4/2 ± 10/7 mmHg at the 2nd survey. At the 3rd survey a further increase of 11/2 ± 7/11, 8/3 ± 16/10 and 13/2 ± 15/9 mmHg was observed in office, home and 24 h BP respectively. The baseline-3rd survey office, home and 24 h SBP difference was unrelated to age, while the DBP increase was inversely related to age (r = −0.32, −0.39 and −0.38, respectively, P < 0.0001). The baseline-3rd survey increase in office, home and 24 h DBP was significantly directly related to the concomitant BMI increase (r = 0.23, 0.17 and 0.14, respectively, P < 0.005). Office and home HR was similar in the 3 surveys. A reduction in 24 h HR was detected between the 1st and 3rd survey (−4.0 ± 8.2 b/min). At baseline hypertensive subjects were 22.2% (office BP), 19.3% (home BP) and 20.7% (24 h BP), and increased to 37.7%, 33.8% and 43.5% at the 2nd survey and to 68.7%, 65.8% and 80.8% at the 3rd survey respectively.
CONCLUSIONS:The PAMELA 26-year follow-up represents the longest survey ever done describing the long-term changes of BP measurements in general population. It shows a long-term increase in office, home and 24 h BP only partially accompanied by HR changes, and an increase in the prevalence of hypertension, particularly pronounced when defined with 24 h measurements.
The role of morphological versus physiological foliar plasticity in the capacity for, and mechanisms of, photosynthetic acclimation was assessed in Picea abies (L.) Karst. and Abies alba Mill. ...saplings in a forest gap-understory light gradient (relative irradiance, RI, ranging from 0.02 to 0.32). The species investigated showed a similar foliar morphological plasticity along the light gradient, at both the needle level (through alteration in leaf dry mass per area) and the shoot level (through alteration in the silhouette area ratio, e.g., shoot silhouette to projected needle area ratio). In both species chlorophyll (Chl) concentration on a mass basis decreased at increasing RI, but was independent of RI when expressed on an area basis. In contrast, leaf N concentration on a mass basis was independent of RI, but was positively influenced by RI when expressed on an area basis. The parameters describing photosynthetic performance at low light (dark respiration rate, apparent quantum yield and light compensation point) suggest that Abies alba was better suited to maintain a positive carbon balance in shaded conditions. By contrast, parameters describing biochemical capacity at high light (maximum electron transport rate, Jmax and maximum ribulose-1,5-biphosphate carboxylation capacity, Vcmax) indicate that only Picea abies was capable of acclimating physiologically to high photosynthetic photon flux densities (PPFDs) by increasing nitrogen partitioning to Rubisco and Vcmax/mass by increasing RI. These results support the hypothesis that interspecific differences in nitrogen partitioning within the photosynthetic apparatus may provide a mechanistic basis for species separation along a light gradient. The differences in photosynthetic plasticity observed are likely to influence regeneration patterns and habitat breadth of the species investigated. The limited ability of Abies alba saplings to exploit high-light conditions may be a competitive disadvantage in large canopy gaps and thus limit recruitment of this species to small gaps.
OBJECTIVE:Limited information is available on the association between serum uric acid (SUA) and metabolic syndrome, diabetes mellitus, renal failure, blood pressure (BP) control and cardiovascular ...(CV) risk profile in treated hypertensives of eastern European countries.
DESIGN AND METHOD:The BP-CARE study examined BP control and CV risk profile in about 8000 treated hypertensive patients followed by non-specialist or specialist physicians in Albania, Belarus, Bosnia, Czech Republic, Latvia, Romania, Serbia, Slovakia and Ukraine. In 3220 of them measurements included, along with clinic BP, 24-hour BP, metabolic and renal function variables, SUA values.
RESULTS:51% were males, while mean age (±SD) was 60.0 ± 10.9 yrs, clinic BP 147.3 ± 18/87.8 ± 10 mmHg, 24 hour BP 137.3 ± 19/81.3 ± 10 mmHg and SUA values 5.68 ± 1.9 mg/dl, with a normal distribution in the population. SUA was significantly higher in males than females (5.99 ± 1.9 vs 5.34 ± 1.9 mg/dl, P < 0.0001) and progressively and significantly greater from the low to the medium, high and very high risk patients (4.87 ± 1.38 vs 5.85 ± 2.00, P < 0.0001, ESH CV risk categories). Significant differences were also found between diabetic and non-diabetic patients (5.92 ± 2.2 vs 5.58 ± 1.8, P < 0.0001), patients with and without metabolic syndrome (5.92 ± 2.1 vs 5.43 ± 1.7, P < 0.0001) and from stage 1 to stage 5 renal insufficiency (from 5.87 ± 2.0 to 10.48 ± 3.4, P < 0.0001). No significant difference in SUA was found between patients treated and non-treated with diuretic or angiotensin II blockers or in those under antihypertensive drug combination vs monotherapy. No difference in SUA was also found when analyzing the data in relation to clinic or 24-hour BP control.
CONCLUSIONS:These data provide evidence that similarly to what described in western Europe, in central and eastern European countries SUA values are closely related to metabolic alterations, including diabetes mellitus, to renal insufficiency and CV risk profile. At variance from other studies, however, no relationship was found with BP control.
OBJECTIVE:Searching for a prognostic cut-off value of serum uric acid (SUA) for ischaemic stroke in a large regional-based Italian cohort of men and women in the frame of the URRAH study (URic Acid ...Right for heArt Health).
DESIGN AND METHOD:The large database URRAH collects data from cohorts epidemiological laboratories including subjects with at least one measure of SUA and a follow-up of ∼20 years. Incident ischaemic stroke was defined in 23,475 subjects on the basis of ICD10 codes and double-checked with general practitioners and hospital files. Multivariate Cox regression models having morbid and fatal stroke as dependent variables, adjusted for arterial hypertension (AH), age, sex, diabetes, hematocrit, LDL-Cholesterol, smoking, chronic renal disease, and haemotocrit, were preliminarily used to search for a predictive role of SUA as a continuous variable and stroke. Two prognostic cut-off values (one for morbid and one for fatal stroke), identified by means of receiver operating curves (ROC) and able to discriminate between subjects doomed to develop the event, were then used as independent predictors in further multivariate Cox models adjusted for the confounders listed above.
RESULTS:In Cox analysis, SUA was a significant predictor of morbid stroke odds ratio 1.499 (1.033–1.278), p < 0.01, but not for fatal stroke, independently of AH. ROC showed that >4.20 mg/dl (95%CI, 3.36–6.05, sensitivity 75.1, specificity 31.1, p < 0.003) was a significant univariate cut-off of SUA for morbid stroke, and >5.70 mg/dl (CI >4.40 to >6.77, sensitivity 42.67, specificity 71.15, p < 0.01) at univariate cut-off for fatal stroke. Nevertheless, only the first one was accepted as a predictor in multivariate Cox analyses adjusted for the confounders listed above (hazard ratio 1.464, CI 1.019–2.103, p = 0.038), while the second one was rejected (p = 0.2).
CONCLUSIONS:In conclusion, after adjustment for AH, age, diabetes and renal disease, a prognostic cut-off value of SUA for morbid ischaemic stroke (>4.20 mg/dl) does exist while fatal ischaemic stroke cannot be predicted by SUA.
In this work a new remotely-triggered drug delivery system based on PEG-PLGA_Au nanocomposite is proposed. Due to the optical properties of gold nanoparticles (Au NPs), the nanovector allows ...on-demand control of the dose, the timing and the duration of the drug release, upon irradiation with red laser light. The Au NPs are synthesized by laser ablation and subsequently embedded into the PEG-PLGA copolymer via a modified emulsion-diffusion method, devised in such a way that both Au NPs and silibinin (SLB), a flavonolignan with promising anti-neoplastic effects, can be co-loaded into the polymeric system in a single step procedure. A combination of analytical techniques including nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR), static and dynamic light scattering (SLS, DLS), gel permeation chromatography (GPC), thermogravimetric analysis (TGA), X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy and scanning/transmission electron microscopies (SEM/STEM/TEM), have been used to study the structural and morphological properties of the nanocomposite. The loading efficiency and the drug content, evaluated by UV-vis absorption optical spectroscopy, are 89% and 8.8%, respectively. Upon laser irradiation the system releases the encapsulated drug with a higher efficiency (∼10%) than that without irradiation. This behaviour indicates that our nanoplatform is responsive to light and it could be considered a promising new type of light-activated drug delivery carrier applicable to the biomedical field.
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