Background Children with cow's milk allergy (CMA) have an increased risk of other allergic manifestations (AMs). Objective We performed a parallel-arm randomized controlled trial to test whether ...administration of an extensively hydrolyzed casein formula (EHCF) containing the probiotic Lactobacillus rhamnosus GG (LGG) can reduce the occurrence of other AMs in children with CMA. Methods Children with IgE-mediated CMA were randomly allocated to the EHCF or EHCF+LGG groups and followed for 36 months. The main outcome was occurrence of at least 1 AM (eczema, urticaria, asthma, and rhinoconjunctivitis). The secondary outcome was tolerance acquisition, which was defined as the negativization of a double-blind food challenge results at 12, 24, and 36 months. AMs were diagnosed according to standardized criteria. Tolerance acquisition was evaluated every 12 months. Results A total of 220 children (147 boys 67%) with a median age of 5.0 months (interquartile range, 3.0-8.0 months) were randomized; 110 children were placed in the EHCF group, and 110 children were placed in the EHCF+LGG group. In the complete case analysis the absolute risk difference for the occurrence of at least 1 AM over 36 months was −0.23 (95% CI, −0.36 to −0.10; P < .001), and the absolute risk difference for the acquisition of cow's milk tolerance was 0.20 (95% CI, 0.05-0.35; P < .01) at 12 months, 0.24 (95% CI, 0.08-0.41; P < .01) at 24 months, and 0.27 (95% CI, 0.11-0.43; P < .001) at 36 months. In the sensitivity analysis the effect size of the main outcome was virtually unchanged when the occurrence of AMs was assigned to all 27 missing children. Conclusions EHCF+LGG reduces the incidence of other AMs and hastens the development of oral tolerance in children with IgE-mediated CMA.
Life‐long hepatitis B immunoglobulin (HBIG) administration is a main component of prophylactic strategy to prevent hepatitis B virus (HBV) reinfection after liver transplantation (LT). Long‐term ...effects of HBIG treatment are known only for intravenous (IV) and intramuscular formulations. To evaluate safety and efficacy of self‐administered SC HBIG, 135 LT patients receiving a 48‐week treatment were analyzed. The dose of HBIG was 500 IU or 1000 IU if body weight was <75 kg or ≥75 kg, respectively. Patients were switched from the monthly IV HBIG treatment to weekly SC HBIG 2–3 weeks after the last IV dosage. All patients were able to SC self‐injection after a single training. The treatment was effective in maintaining trough anti‐HBs levels >100 IU/L. No severe drug‐related side effects occurred. Fifteen injection‐site small hematomas and four cases of mild itch occurred. At the end of the study, anti‐HBs median titer was 232 IU/L (115–566 IU/L) and 97.8% of patients had an anti‐HBs level >150 IU/L. Due to high mean level of anti‐HBs titers observed during this study, individualized treatment schedules should be further investigated. In conclusion, SC HBIG for long‐term prophylaxis of post‐LT HBV reinfection resulted safe, well accepted, and effective in maintaining adequate anti‐HBs levels.
The authors demonstrate that subcutaneous hepatitis B immunoglobulin after liver transplantation is an effective delivery method for long‐term hepatitis B virus prophylaxis. See related article by Cholongitas and Papatheodoridis (page 353).
Issue Title: LANDSLIDES: FORECASTING, HAZARD EVALUATION AND RISK MITIGATION In the framework of a regional landslide susceptibility study in southern Sicily, a test has been carried out in the ...Tumarrano river basin (about 80 km^sup 2^) aimed at characterizing its landslide susceptibility conditions by exporting a "source model", defined and trained inside a limited (about 20 km^sup 2^) representative sector (the "source area"). Also, the possibility of exploiting Google Earth^sup (TM)^ software and photo-images databank to produce the landslide archives has been checked. The susceptibility model was defined, according to a multivariate geostatistic approach based on the conditional analysis, using unique condition units (UCUs), which were obtained by combining four selected controlling factors: outcropping lithology, steepness, plan curvature and topographic wetness index. The prediction skill of the exported model, trained with 206 landslides, is compared with the one estimated for the whole studied area, by using a complete landslide archive (703 landslides), to see to what extent the largest time/money costs needed are accounted for. The investigated area stretches in the fore-deep sector of southern Sicily, where clayey rocks, mainly referring to the Numidian Flysch and the Terravecchia Formations, largely crop out. The results of the study confirm both the exploitability of Google Earth^sup (TM)^ to produce landslide archive and possibility to adopt in assessing the landslide susceptibility for large basin, a strategy based on the exportation of models trained in limited representative sectors.PUBLICATION ABSTRACT
In the framework of a regional landslide susceptibility study in southern Sicily, a test has been carried out in the Tumarrano river basin (about 80 km super(2)) aimed at characterizing its landslide ...susceptibility conditions by exporting a "source model", defined and trained inside a limited (about 20 km super(2)) representative sector (the "source area"). Also, the possibility of exploiting Google Earth super((TM)) software and photo-images databank to produce the landslide archives has been checked. The susceptibility model was defined, according to a multivariate geostatistic approach based on the conditional analysis, using unique condition units (UCUs), which were obtained by combining four selected controlling factors: outcropping lithology, steepness, plan curvature and topographic wetness index. The prediction skill of the exported model, trained with 206 landslides, is compared with the one estimated for the whole studied area, by using a complete landslide archive (703 landslides), to see to what extent the largest time/money costs needed are accounted for. The investigated area stretches in the fore-deep sector of southern Sicily, where clayey rocks, mainly referring to the Numidian Flysch and the Terravecchia Formations, largely crop out. The results of the study confirm both the exploitability of Google Earth super((TM)) to produce landslide archive and possibility to adopt in assessing the landslide susceptibility for large basin, a strategy based on the exportation of models trained in limited representative sectors.
Objectives The goal of the study was to assess the effects of angiotensin-converting enzyme inhibitors (ACE-Is) and angiotensin receptor blockers (ARBs) on the composite of cardiovascular (CV) death, ...myocardial infarction (MI), and stroke, and on all-cause death, new-onset heart failure (HF), and new-onset diabetes mellitus (DM) in high-risk patients without HF. Background ACE-Is reduce CV events in high-risk patients without HF whereas the effects of ARBs are less certain. Methods Twenty-six randomized trials comparing ARBs or ACE-Is versus placebo in 108,212 patients without HF were collected in a meta-analysis and analyzed for the risk of the composite outcome, all-cause death, new-onset HF, and new-onset DM. Results ACE-Is significantly reduced the risk of the composite outcome (odds ratio OR: 0.830 95% confidence interval (CI): 0.744 to 0.927; p = 0.001), MI (OR: 0.811 95% CI: 0.748 to 0.879; p < 0.001), stroke (OR: 0.796 95% CI: 0.682 to 0.928; p < 0.004), all-cause death (OR: 0.908 95% CI: 0.845 to 0.975; p = 0.008), new-onset HF (OR: 0.789 95% CI: 0.686 to 0.908; p = 0.001), and new-onset DM (OR: 0.851 95% CI: 0.749 to 0.965; p < 0.012). ARBs significantly reduced the risk of the composite outcome (OR: 0.920 95% CI: 0.869 to 0.975, p = 0.005), stroke (OR: 0.900 95% CI: 0.830 to 0.977, p = 0.011), and new-onset DM (OR: 0.855 95% CI: 0.798 to 0.915; p < 0.001). Conclusions In patients at high CV risk without HF, ACE-Is and ARBs reduced the risk of the composite outcome of CV death, MI, and stroke. ACE-Is also reduced the risk of all-cause death, new-onset HF, and new-onset DM. Thus, ARBs represent a valuable option to reduce CV mortality and morbidity in patients in whom ACE-Is cannot be used.
The increase in the scale of LHC computing during Run 3 and Run 4 (HL-LHC) will certainly require radical changes to the computing models and the data processing of the LHC experiments. The working ...group established by WLCG and the HEP Software Foundation to investigate all aspects of the cost of computing and how to optimise them has continued producing results and improving our understanding of this process. In particular, experiments have developed more sophisticated ways to calculate their resource needs, we have a much more detailed process to calculate infrastructure costs. This includes stud-ies on the impact of HPC and GPU based resources on meeting the computing demands. We have also developed and perfected tools to quantitatively study the performance of experiments workloads and we are actively collaborating with other activities related to data access, benchmarking and technology cost evolution. In this contribution we expose our recent developments and results and outline the directions of future work.
The aim of the study was to determine whether modulation of 5-fluorouracil (FU) by methotrexate (MTX) improves survival compared to FU+6-s-leucovorin (LV) following potentially curative resection of ...stage II and III colon cancer. Within 8 weeks from surgery, 1945 patients with stage III (44%) or high-risk stage II (55%) colon cancer were randomly assigned to receive either 6 monthly cycles of FU 370 mg m(-2) i.v. bolus preceded by LV 100 mg m(-2) i.v. bolus on days 1-5, or 6 monthly cycles of sequential MTX 200 mg m(-2) i.v. days 1 and 15 and FU 600 mg m(-2) i.v. on days 2 and 16 followed by LV rescue (15 mg given p.o. q 6 h x 6 doses). Levamisole 50 mg p.o. t.i.d. on days 1-3, every 14 days for 6 months, was planned to be given in both arms. After a median follow-up of 4.2 years, 568 patients have relapsed and 403 have died. Survival was similar with MTX --> FU and FU+LV (77 vs 77% at 5 years; P = 0.90), as were 5-year disease-free survivals (67 vs 63%; P = 0.44). Efficacy results were similar for both stage III and II patients. There were two toxic deaths, two in the MTX --> FU arm (0.2%) and zero in the control arm. We conclude that biochemical modulation of FU with LV or with MTX produces similar results in the adjuvant setting of colon cancer.
A device to characterize optical fibres Bosi, F.; Burdin, S.; Cavasinni, V. ...
Nuclear instruments & methods in physics research. Section A, Accelerators, spectrometers, detectors and associated equipment,
06/2002, Letnik:
485, Številka:
3
Journal Article
Recenzirano
Odprti dostop
ATLAS is a general purpose experiment approved for the LHC collider at CERN. An important component of the detector is the central hadronic calorimeter; for its construction more than 600,000 Wave ...Length Shifting fibres (corresponding to a total length of
1120
km
) have been used. We have built and put into operation a dedicated instrument for the measurement of light yield and attenuation length over groups of 20 fibres at a time. The overall accuracy achieved in the measurement of light yield (attenuation length) is 1.5% (3%). We also report the results obtained using this method in the quality control of a large sample of fibres.
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