An upgrade of the Near Detector of the T2K long baseline neutrino oscillation experiment, ND280, has been proposed. This upgrade will include two new Time Projection Chambers, each equipped with 16 ...resistive Micromegas modules for gas amplification. A first prototype of resistive Micromegas has been designed, built, installed in the HARP field cage, and exposed to a beam of charged particles at CERN. The data have been used to characterize the performances of the resistive Micromegas module. A spatial resolution of 300 μm and a deposited energy resolution of 9% were observed for horizontal electrons crossing the TPCs at 30 cm from the anode. Such performances fully satisfy the requirements for the upgrade of the ND280 TPC.
Prognosis in patients with locally advanced stomach cancer undergoing surgery alone is poor. High local failure rates in gastric cancer have been reported of up to 70%. When a relapse occurs, ...attempts at curative treatment are generally unsuccessful. A retrospective analysis was performed in order to determine whether post-operative radiochemotherapy improves treatment results in patients with locally advanced gastric cancer.
Between November 2004 and July 2008, 56 patients with clinical Stage IB-IV cancer of the stomach underwent curative gastrectomy and adjuvant radiochemotherapy. Patients with distant metastases were excluded from the analysis. The total radiation dose was 45.0 Gy. The chemotherapy regimen comprised a 5 day cycle of 5-fluorouracil at 425 mg m(-2) and leucovorin at 20 mg m(-2). Overall survival and disease-free survival, as well as toxicity, were estimated for all patients.
Within the study group there were 7 (13%) local recurrences, 4 (7%) distant metastases and 8 (14%) local and distant relapses. The 2 year overall survival was 48%. A total of 19 (34%) patients developed Grade 3 gastrointestinal toxicity. There were no treatment-related deaths.
Post-operative radiochemotherapy is an effective and safe regimen in patients with curatively resected locally advanced gastric cancer.
Anal and rectal cancers occupy the third position of death causes in Poland. Adenocarcinoma is the most frequent among the tumours in this group. Squamous cell carcinoma can be relatively less ...common. This kind of carcinoma may rather affect the anus than the rectum. Although the lesion is perceived as not very malignant and as such responsive to radiant energy therapy, some cases may require surgical treatment.
Within 1999-2008 (the observation period of 10 years) there were 18 patients treated for anal squamous cell carcinoma at the Department of Thoracic Surgery, General and Oncological Surgery of the Medical University of Lodz, at the Surgical Department of the Ministry of Interior and Administration Hospital in Lodz and at the Teleradiotherapy Department of Mikolaj Kopernik Voivodship Specialist Hospital in Lodz. Each patient underwent radiochemotherapy with Mitomycin and 5-Fluorouracil and Lucovorin. The applied radiation doses ranged between 45-54 Gy in eighteen 2.0 Gy fractions. The abdomino-perineal resection of the rectum (APR) was performed in 3 patients (16.5%) who did not show full regression of the carcinoma. In all three cases the histopathological diagnosis preceded the surgical procedure.
For the total number of 18 patients with anal squamous cell carcinoma the mean observation period was 5.5 years, in the group of the operated patients the mean survival rate was 48 months (the median of 14-74 months) while for the group of the patients treated conservatively the mean survival rate amounted to 55 months (the median of 17-82 months, p=0.23). The mean 5-year disease-free survival rate was rather similar to the same rate of the general group, whereas the post-operative complications occurred in 66% of surgical procedures and 27% of teleradiotherapeutic procedures.
Combined radiotherapy and chemotherapy can be the method of choice in treating anal squamous cell carcinoma. Surgery should be used in advanced cases, when complete regression on radiochemotherapy cannot be observed. The abdomino-perineal resection of the rectum is the kind of a procedure that may be accompanied with a vast number of complications. Nevertheless, it still remains a necessary therapeutic method in the described cases.
Bean (Phaseolus vulgaris L.) plants were cultured for 19 d on complete or on phosphate deficient culture media. Low inorganic phosphate concentration in the roots decreased ATP level and nitrate ...uptake rate. The mechanisms which may control nitrate uptake rate during phosphate deficiency were examined. Plasma membrane enriched fractions from phosphate sufficient and phosphate deficient plants were isolated and compared. The decrease in total phospholipid content was observed in plasma membranes from phosphate deficient roots, but phospholipid composition was similar. No changes in ATPase and proton pumping activities measured in isolated plasma membrane of phosphate sufficient and phosphate deficient bean roots were noted. The electron microscope observations carried out on cortical meristematic cells of the roots showed that active ATPases were found in plasma membrane of both phosphate sufficient and phosphate deficient plants. The decrease in inorganic phosphate concentration in roots led to increased nitrate accumulation in roots, accompanied by a corresponding alterations in NO₃ distribution between shoots and roots. Nitrate reductase activity in roots of phosphate deficient plants estimated in vivo and in vitro was reduced to 50-60% of the control. The increased NO₃ concentration in root tissue may be explained by decreased NR activity and lower transport of nitrate from roots to shoots. Therefore, the reduction of nitrate uptake during phosphate starvation is mainly a consequence of nitrate accumulation in the roots.
ECAL0 is a new electromagnetic calorimeter designed for studying generalized parton distributions at the COMPASS II experiment at CERN. It will be located next to the target and will cover larger ...photon angles (up to 30 degrees). It is a modular high-granularity Shashlyk device with total number of individual channels of approx. 1700 and readout based on wavelength shifting fibers and micropixel avalanche photodiodes. Characterization of the calorimeter includes tests of particular sub-components, tests of complete modules and module arrays, as well as a pilot run of a fully-functional, quarter-size prototype in the COMPASS experiment. The main goals of the tests on low-intensity electron beam at the ELSA accelerator in Bonn were: to provide energy calibration using electrons, to measure angular response of the calorimeter and to perform an energy scan to cross-check previously collected data. A dedicated measurement setup was prepared for the tests, including a 3x3 array of the ECAL0 modules, a scintillating-fibre hodoscope and a remotely-controlled motorized movable platform. The measurements were performed using three electron energies: 3.2 GeV, 1.6 GeV and 0.8 GeV. They include a calibration of the whole detector array with a straight beam and multiple angular scans.
An analytical model of preamplifier noise identification in a spectrometric system is presented in the article. It allows analysis of normal passive pulse shapers, general time-invariant systems as ...well as time-variant systems. An equivalent noise charge (ENC) is modeled as the sum of three components: (i) proportional to the amplifier shaping time, (ii) inversely proportional, and (iii) independent of the amplifier shaping time. The Least Squares Method for identifying the noise components of the spectrometric system was used; measured values of ENC were fitted to the theoretical dependence on peaking time τ0. Analytical formulas have been derived for the values of coefficients included in the dependence of ENC on the shaping time for CR−(RC)n shaping for any value of n. The conclusion of this analysis may be used for the optimization of spectrometric systems.
The array of 3 × 3 modules of the electromagnetic calorimeter ECAL0 of the COMPASS experiment at CERN has been tested with an electron beam of the ELSA (Germany) facility. The dependence of the ...response and the energy resolution of the calorimeter from the angle of incidence of the electron beam has been studied. A good agreement between the experimental data and the results of Monte Carlo simulation has been obtained. It will significantly expand the use of simulation to optimize event reconstruction algorithms.
Improvements in local control are required when using preoperative chemoradiation for cT4 or advanced cT3 rectal cancer. There is therefore a need to explore more effective schedules.
Patients with ...fixed cT3 or cT4 cancer were randomized either to 5 × 5 Gy and three cycles of FOLFOX4 (group A) or to 50.4 Gy in 28 fractions combined with two 5-day cycles of bolus 5-Fu 325 mg/m2/day and leucovorin 20 mg/m2/day during the first and fifth week of irradiation along with five infusions of oxaliplatin 50 mg/m2 once weekly (group B). The protocol was amended in 2012 to allow oxaliplatin to be then foregone in both groups.
Of 541 entered patients, 515 were eligible for analysis; 261 in group A and 254 in group B. Preoperative treatment acute toxicity was lower in group A than group B, P = 0.006; any toxicity being, respectively, 75% versus 83%, grade III–IV 23% versus 21% and toxic deaths 1% versus 3%. R0 resection rates (primary end point) and pathological complete response rates in groups A and B were, respectively, 77% versus 71%, P = 0.07, and 16% versus 12%, P = 0.17. The median follow-up was 35 months. At 3 years, the rates of overall survival and disease-free survival in groups A and B were, respectively, 73% versus 65%, P = 0.046, and 53% versus 52%, P = 0.85, together with the cumulative incidence of local failure and distant metastases being, respectively, 22% versus 21%, P = 0.82, and 30% versus 27%, P = 0.26. Postoperative and late complications rates in group A and group B were, respectively, 29% versus 25%, P = 0.18, and 20% versus 22%, P = 0.54.
No differences were observed in local efficacy between 5 × 5 Gy with consolidation chemotherapy and long-course chemoradiation. Nevertheless, an improved overall survival and lower acute toxicity favours the 5 × 5 Gy schedule with consolidation chemotherapy.
The trial is registered as ClinicalTrials.gov number NCT00833131.
This paper reports measurements of final-state proton multiplicity, muon and proton kinematics, and their correlations in charged-current pionless neutrino interactions, measured by the T2K ND280 ...near detector in its plastic scintillator (C8H8) target. The data were taken between years 2010 and 2013, corresponding to approximately 6×1020 protons on target. Thanks to their exploration of the proton kinematics and of imbalances between the proton and muon kinematics, the results offer a novel probe of the nuclear-medium effects most pertinent to the (sub-)GeV neutrino-nucleus interactions that are used in accelerator-based long-baseline neutrino oscillation measurements. These results are compared to many neutrino-nucleus interaction models which all fail to describe at least part of the observed phase space. In case of events without a proton above a detection threshold in the final state, a fully consistent implementation of the local Fermi gas model with multinucleon interactions gives the best description of the data. In the case of at least one proton in the final state, the spectral function model agrees well with the data, most notably when measuring the kinematic imbalance between the muon and the proton in the plane transverse to the incoming neutrino. Within the models considered, only the existence of multinucleon interactions are able to describe the extracted cross section within regions of high transverse kinematic imbalance. The effect of final-state interactions is also discussed.
The first measurement of transverse-spin-dependent azimuthal asymmetries in the pion-induced Drell-Yan (DY) process is reported. We use the CERN SPS 190 GeV/c π^{-} beam and a transversely polarized ...ammonia target. Three azimuthal asymmetries giving access to different transverse-momentum-dependent (TMD) parton distribution functions (PDFs) are extracted using dimuon events with invariant mass between 4.3 GeV/c^{2} and 8.5 GeV/c^{2}. Within the experimental uncertainties, the observed sign of the Sivers asymmetry is found to be consistent with the fundamental prediction of quantum chromodynamics (QCD) that the Sivers TMD PDFs extracted from DY have a sign opposite to the one extracted from semi-inclusive deep-inelastic scattering (SIDIS) data. We present two other asymmetries originating from the pion Boer-Mulders TMD PDFs convoluted with either the nucleon transversity or pretzelosity TMD PDFs. A recent COMPASS SIDIS measurement was obtained at a hard scale comparable to that of these DY results. This opens the way for possible tests of fundamental QCD universality predictions.
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