We investigated the cause of skeletal deformities found in brown trout from the Aspromonte mountain area in Reggio Calabria, Italy. Toxicological, histopathological and parasitological analyses were ...carried out on 14 fish with evident macro-morphological alterations from 2 different locations in the same river, and 4 control fish without morphological alterations from a different river (far from the first river but still within the area under study). Histopathological and radiological observations confirmed severe skeletal deformities in the specimens investigated. Parasitological examinations highlighted the presence of the nematode Cystidicoloides ephemeridarum, found only within the gastrointestinal tract of specimens showing deformities. Moreover, a direct correlation between parasite number and fish size was found. Given the low heavy metal levels and the presence of a massive parasitosis in teleosts showing deformities, we postulate a correlation between skeletal deformities and nematode infestation: the parasites caused a serious vitamin and mineral deficiency in the fish, which led to a dysplastic vertebral column. The low calcium levels found in malformed specimens compared with negative controls effectively confirm this hypothesis.
•Six sheep were administered 4 and 6 mg/kg tramadol and saline intravenously.•Pharmacokinetic analysis and mechanical nociceptive threshold test were performed.•Pharmacokinetic parameters of tramadol ...were similar after the two doses.•No mechanical antinociceptive effects of tramadol were reported.•Further studies are warranted to assess the efficacy of tramadol in sheep.
Although sheep are widely used as an experimental model for various surgical procedures there is a paucity of data on the pharmacokinetics and efficacy of analgesic drugs in this species. The aims of this study were to investigate the pharmacokinetics of intravenously (IV) administered tramadol and its active metabolite O-desmethyltramadol (M1) and to assess the mechanical antinociceptive effects in sheep.
In a prospective, randomized, blinded study, six healthy adult sheep were given 4 and 6 mg/kg tramadol and saline IV in a cross-over design with a 2-week wash-out period. At predetermined time points blood samples were collected and physiological parameters and mechanical nociceptive threshold (MNT) values were recorded. The analytical determination of tramadol and M1 was performed using high performance liquid chromatography. Pharmacokinetic parameters fitted a two- and a non-compartmental model for tramadol and M1, respectively. Normally distributed data were analysed by a repeated mixed linear model.
Plasma concentration vs. time profiles of tramadol and M1 were similar after the two doses. Tramadol and M1 plasma levels decreased rapidly in the systemic circulation, with both undetectable after 6 h following drug administration. Physiological parameters did not differ between groups; MNT values were not statistically significant between groups at any time point. It was concluded that although tramadol and M1 concentrations in plasma were above the human minimum analgesic concentration after both treatments, no mechanical antinociceptive effects of tramadol were reported. Further studies are warranted to assess the analgesic efficacy of tramadol in sheep.
Web Proxy Auto Discovery for the WLCG Dykstra, D; Blomer, J; Blumenfeld, B ...
Journal of physics. Conference series,
10/2017, Letnik:
898, Številka:
5
Journal Article
Recenzirano
Odprti dostop
All four of the LHC experiments depend on web proxies (that is, squids) at each grid site to support software distribution by the CernVM FileSystem (CVMFS). CMS and ATLAS also use web proxies for ...conditions data distributed through the Frontier Distributed Database caching system. ATLAS & CMS each have their own methods for their grid jobs to find out which web proxies to use for Frontier at each site, and CVMFS has a third method. Those diverse methods limit usability and flexibility, particularly for opportunistic use cases, where an experiment's jobs are run at sites that do not primarily support that experiment. This paper describes a new Worldwide LHC Computing Grid (WLCG) system for discovering the addresses of web proxies. The system is based on an internet standard called Web Proxy Auto Discovery (WPAD). WPAD is in turn based on another standard called Proxy Auto Configuration (PAC). Both the Frontier and CVMFS clients support this standard. The input into the WLCG system comes from squids registered in the ATLAS Grid Information System (AGIS) and CMS SITECONF files, cross-checked with squids registered by sites in the Grid Configuration Database (GOCDB) and the OSG Information Management (OIM) system, and combined with some exceptions manually configured by people from ATLAS and CMS who operate WLCG Squid monitoring. WPAD servers at CERN respond to http requests from grid nodes all over the world with a PAC file that lists available web proxies, based on IP addresses matched from a database that contains the IP address ranges registered to organizations. Large grid sites are encouraged to supply their own WPAD web servers for more flexibility, to avoid being affected by short term long distance network outages, and to offload the WLCG WPAD servers at CERN. The CERN WPAD servers additionally support requests from jobs running at non-grid sites (particularly for LHC@Home) which they direct to the nearest publicly accessible web proxy servers. The responses to those requests are geographically ordered based on a separate database that maps IP addresses to longitude and latitude.
The intra‐articular administration of lidocaine is a frequent practice in human orthopaedic surgical procedures, but an eventual absorption of the drug into the bloodstream can lead to toxicity, ...mainly concerning the central nervous system and the cardiovascular systems. The purpose of this study was to determine the pharmacokinetic profile and the safety, in terms of cardiovascular and CNS toxicity, of lidocaine after intra‐articular administration to anesthetized dogs undergoing arthroscopy. Lidocaine 2% was administered to eight dogs before surgery in differing amounts, depending on the volume of the joints involved, and blood samples were taken at predetermined time points. The maximum serum concentration of lidocaine ranged from 0.50 to 3.01 μg/mL (mean ± SD: 2.18 ± 0.91 μg/mL), and the time to reach it was 28.75 ± 15.74 min. No signs of cardiac toxicity were detected during the entire procedure, and possible signs of CNS toxicity were masked by the anaesthesia. However, concentrations reported in literature as responsible for neurotoxicity in dog were achieved in three of eight investigated subjects. Pending further studies, veterinarians should consider the possibility of side effects occurring following the intra‐articular administration of local anaesthetics.
•Evaluation of the cardio-, neuro- and chondro-toxicity of intra-articular administration of lidocaine plus adrenaline in dogs.•The treatment was not found to cause adverse effects on the ...cardiovascular system.•The plasma concentrations of lidocaine did not reach neurotoxic concentrations.•Toxic effects of lidocaine on chondrocytes appeared to be reduced by adrenaline.
The aim of this study was to evaluate the safety of intra-articular (IA) lidocaine plus adrenaline for improving peri-operative analgesia in anaesthetized dogs undergoing arthroscopy of the elbow. A solution of lidocaine (L) 1.98% plus adrenaline 1:100.000 was administered via the IA route and its safety evaluated in terms of cardio-, neuro-, and chondro-toxicity.
No bradycardia or hypotension was recorded from induction to the last observational time point. Signs of toxicity of the nervous system could have been masked by the general anaesthesia but lidocaine concentrations detected in the blood were lower than those thought to be capable of producing toxicity. The assessment of in vitro chondrotoxicity showed a dose- and time-dependent effect of lidocaine on the viability of articular cells. Adrenaline appeared to reduce the chondrotoxicity of 1% lidocaine, following an exposure of up to 30 min.
Benchmarking Cloud Resources for HEP Alef, M; Cordeiro, C; De Salvo, A ...
Journal of physics. Conference series,
10/2017, Letnik:
898, Številka:
9
Journal Article
Recenzirano
Odprti dostop
In a commercial cloud environment, exhaustive resource profiling is beneficial to cope with the intrinsic variability of the virtualised environment, allowing to promptly identify performance ...degradation. In the context of its commercial cloud initiatives, CERN has acquired extensive experience in benchmarking commercial cloud resources. Ultimately, this activity provides information on the actual delivered performance of invoiced resources. In this report we discuss the experience acquired and the results collected using several fast benchmark applications adopted by the HEP community. These benchmarks span from open-source benchmarks to specific user applications and synthetic benchmarks. The workflow put in place to collect and analyse performance metrics is also described.
The ATLAS Installation System v2 is the evolution of the original system, used since 2003. The original tool has been completely re-designed in terms of database backend and components, adding ...support for submission to multiple backends, including the original Workload Management Service (WMS) and the new PanDA modules. The database engine has been changed from plain MySQL to Galera Percona and the table structure has been optimized to allow a full High-Availability (HA) solution over Wide Area Network. The servlets, running on each frontend, have been also decoupled from local settings, to allow an easy scalability of the system, including the possibility of an HA system with multiple sites. The clients can also be run in multiple copies and in different geographical locations, and take care of sending the installation and validation jobs to the target Grid or Cloud sites. Moreover, the Installation Database is used as source of parameters by the automatic agents running in CVMFS, in order to install the software and distribute it to the sites. The system is in production for ATLAS since 2013, having as main sites in HA the INFN Roma Tier 2 and the CERN Agile Infrastructure. The Light Job Submission Framework for Installation (LJSFi) v2 engine is directly interfacing with PanDA for the Job Management, the Atlas Grid Information System (AGIS) for the site parameter configurations, and CVMFS for both core components and the installation of the software itself. LJSFi2 is also able to use other plugins, and is essentially Virtual Organization (VO) agnostic, so can be directly used and extended to cope with the requirements of any Grid or Cloud enabled VO. In this work we will present the architecture, performance, status and possible evolutions to the system for the LHC Run2 and beyond.
Healthcare-associated infections (HAIs) have a significant impact on patients' morbidity and mortality, and have a detrimental financial impact on the healthcare system. Various strategies exist to ...prevent HAIs, but economic evaluations are needed to determine which are most appropriate.
To present the financial impact of a nationwide project on HAI prevention in intensive care units (ICUs) using a quality improvement (QI) approach.
A health economic evaluation assessed the financial results of the QI initiative ‘Saúde em Nossas Mãos’ (SNM), implemented in Brazil between January 2018 and December 2020. Among 116 participating institutions, 13 (11.2%) fully reported the aggregate cost and stratified patients (with vs without HAIs) in the pre-intervention and post-intervention periods. Average cost (AC) was calculated for each analysed HAI: central-line-associated bloodstream infections (CLABSIs), ventilator-associated pneumonia (VAP) and catheter-associated urinary tract infections (CAUTIs). The absorption model and time-driven activity-based costing were used for cost estimations. The numbers of infections that the project could have prevented during its implementation were estimated to demonstrate the financial impact of the SNM initiative.
The aggregated ACs calculated for each HAI from these 13 ICUs – US$8480 for CLABSIs, US$10,039 for VAP, and US$7464 for CAUTIs – were extrapolated to the total number of HAIs prevented by the project (1727 CLABSIs, 3797 VAP and 2150 CAUTIs). The overall savings of the SNM as of December 2020 were estimated at US$68.8 million, with an estimated return on investment (ROI) of 765%.
Reporting accurate financial data on HAI prevention strategies is still challenging in Brazil. These results suggest that a national QI initiative to prevent HAIs in critical care settings is a feasible and value-based approach, reducing financial waste and yielding a significant ROI for the healthcare system.
The Worldwide LHC Computing Grid relies on the network as a critical part of its infrastructure and therefore needs to guarantee effective network usage and prompt detection and resolution of any ...network issues, including connection failures, congestion, traffic routing, etc. The WLCG Network and Transfer Metrics project aims to integrate and combine all network-related monitoring data collected by the WLCG infrastructure. This includes FTS monitoring information, monitoring data from the XRootD federation, as well as results of the perfSONAR tests. The main challenge consists of further integrating and analyzing this information in order to allow the optimizing of data transfers and workload management systems of the LHC experiments. In this contribution, we present our activity in commissioning WLCG perfSONAR network and integrating network and transfer metrics: We motivate the need for the network performance monitoring, describe the main use cases of the LHC experiments as well as status and evolution in the areas of configuration and capacity management, datastore and analytics, including integration of transfer and network metrics and operations and support.
Helix Nebula - the Science Cloud Initiative - is a public-private partnership between Europe's leading scientific research organisations and European IT cloud providers. CERN contributed to this ...initiative by providing a flagship use case: the workloads from the ATLAS experiment. Aiming to gain experience in managing and monitoring large-scale deployments, as well as in benchmarking the cloud resources, a sizable Monte Carlo production was performed using the Helix Nebula platform. This contribution describes the Helix Nebula initiative and summarizes the experience and the lessons learned from deploying ATLAS experiment application within large cloud setups involving several commercial providers.
PDF
