We propose to study atmospheric neutrino interactions with a unique event topology to distinguish neutrinos and anti-neutrinos using a liquid argon time projection chamber in an experiment such as ...DUNE. The detection of charged-current 1 proton (CC1P) and charged-current no proton (CC0P) events will allow us to access neutrino oscillation physics complementary to accelerator-based beam neutrinos. Assuming maximal CP violation (δCP= π/2) as the true hypothesis, our analysis shows that it is possible to disfavour CP conservation δCP=0 (or π) with more than 2σ (≈ 1.6σ) with a data sample of 140 kt-yr of atmospheric neutrinos in the DUNE detector. Our analysis also shows that assuming normal mass-ordering as the true hypothesis, the sensitivity to the opposite mass-ordering can be disfavoured with a significance close to 4σ and an octant of θ23 sensitivity with more than 2σ both for a true lower octant (θ23=41∘) and higher octant (θ23=49∘) value.
Summary
Background Bacterial colonization of chronic wounds slows healing. Cold atmospheric plasma has been shown in vitro to kill a wide range of pathogenic bacteria.
Objectives To examine the ...safety and efficiency of cold atmospheric argon plasma to decrease bacterial load as a new medical treatment for chronic wounds.
Patients and methods Thirty‐eight chronic infected wounds in 36 patients were treated in a prospective randomized controlled phase II study with 5 min daily cold atmospheric argon plasma in addition to standard wound care. The patient acted as his or her own control. Bacterial species were detected by standard bacterial swabs and semiquantitative changes by nitrocellulose filters. Plasma setting and safety had been determined in a preceding phase I study.
Results Analysis of 291 treatments in 38 wounds found a highly significant (34%, P < 10−6) reduction of bacterial load in treated wounds, regardless of the type of bacteria. No side‐effects occurred and the treatment was well tolerated.
Conclusions Cold atmospheric argon plasma treatment is potentially a safe and painless new technique to decrease bacterial load of chronic wounds and promote healing.
Precision spectroscopy of atomic systems
is an invaluable tool for the study of fundamental interactions and symmetries
. Recently, highly charged ions have been proposed to enable sensitive tests of ...physics beyond the standard model
and the realization of high-accuracy atomic clocks
, owing to their high sensitivity to fundamental physics and insensitivity to external perturbations, which result from the high binding energies of their outer electrons. However, the implementation of these ideas has been hindered by the low spectroscopic accuracies (of the order of parts per million) achieved so far
. Here we cool trapped, highly charged argon ions to the lowest temperature reported so far, and study them using coherent laser spectroscopy, achieving an increase in precision of eight orders of magnitude. We use quantum logic spectroscopy
to probe the forbidden optical transition in
Ar
at a wavelength of 441 nanometres and measure its excited-state lifetime and g-factor. Our work unlocks the potential of highly charged ions as ubiquitous atomic systems for use in quantum information processing, as frequency standards and in highly sensitive tests of fundamental physics, such as searches for dark-matter candidates
or violations of fundamental symmetries
.
Objective
To histologically assess the hard and soft tissue changes after insertion of cleaned and activated titanium implants using plasma of argon.
Materials and methods
Eight dogs were included in ...this study. The mandibular premolars and first molars were extracted. For each hemi‐mandible, four implants, 7 mm long and 3.3 mm of diameter, with a ZirTi surface were used. The surface of two implants was randomly treated with argon plasma (test), while the other two implants were left untreated (control). After 1 month, the same procedure was performed in the contralateral hemi‐mandible. The amount of old bone, new bone, overall value of old bone plus new bone, and soft tissue was histologically evaluated.
Results
After 1 month of healing, high percentages of new bone in close contact with the implant surface were found at both the treated (60.1% ± 15.6%; 95% CI 56.5%–78.0%) and untreated (57.2% ± 13.1%; 95% CI 49.3%–67.5%) implants. Low percentages of old bone were found at this stage of healing, at both the treated (4.4% ± 3.0%; 95% CI 1.2%–5.4%) and untreated (3.4% ± 3.1%; 95% CI 0.6%–4.9%) implants. Not statistically significant differences were found between groups (p > .05). After 2 months of healing, treated implants presented a significantly higher (p = .012) new bone formation (72.5% ± 12.4%; 95% CI 69.6%–86.8%) compared to untreated sites (64.7% ± 17.3%; 95% CI 59.4%–83.3%). Controversially, no difference (p = .270) in terms of old bone was present between treated (3.1% ± 1.7%, 95% CI 1.8%–4.2%) and untreated implants (3.8% ± 1.9%, 95% CI 3.2%–5.8%). Significant differences (p = .018) in terms of total mineralized bone were found between treated (75.6% ± 13.0%, 95% CI 73.3%–91.3%) and untreated implants (68.4% ± 16.8%; 95% CI 64.2%–87.6%).
Conclusions
Implants treated using plasma of argon was demonstrated to reach a higher bone‐to‐implant contact when compared to untreated implants.
Whilst there has been progress in supportive treatment for traumatic brain injury (TBI), specific neuroprotective interventions are lacking. Models of ischaemic heart and brain injury show the ...therapeutic potential of argon gas, but it is still not known whether inhaled argon (iAr) is protective in TBI. We tested the effects of acute administration of iAr on brain oedema, tissue micro-environmental changes, neurological functions, and structural outcome in a mouse model of TBI.
Anaesthetised adult C57BL/6J mice were subjected to severe TBI by controlled cortical impact. Ten minutes after TBI, the mice were randomised to 24 h treatments with iAr 70%/O2 30% or air (iCtr). Sensorimotor deficits were evaluated up to 6 weeks post-TBI by three independent tests. Cognitive function was evaluated by Barnes maze test at 4 weeks. MRI was done to examine brain oedema at 3 days and white matter damage at 5 weeks. Microglia/macrophages activation and functional commitment were evaluated at 1 week after TBI by immunohistochemistry.
iAr significantly accelerated sensorimotor recovery and improved cognitive deficits 1 month after TBI, with less white matter damage in the ipsilateral fimbria and body of the corpus callosum. Early changes underpinning protection included a reduction of pericontusional vasogenic oedema and of the inflammatory response. iAr significantly reduced microglial activation with increases in ramified cells and the M2-like marker YM1.
iAr accelerates recovery of sensorimotor function and improves cognitive and structural outcome 1 month after severe TBI in adult mice. Early effects include a reduction of brain oedema and neuroinflammation in the contused tissue.
Different applications require different customizations of silicon photomultiplier (SiPM) technology. We present a review on the latest SiPM technologies developed at Fondazione Bruno Kessler (FBK, ...Trento), characterized by a peak detection efficiency in the near-UV and customized according to the needs of different applications. Original near-UV sensitive, high-density SiPMs (NUV-HD), optimized for Positron Emission Tomography (PET) application, feature peak photon detection efficiency (PDE) of 63% at 420 nm with a 35 um cell size and a dark count rate (DCR) of 100 kHz/mm². Correlated noise probability is around 25% at a PDE of 50% at 420 nm. It provides a coincidence resolving time (CRT) of 100 ps FWHM (full width at half maximum) in the detection of 511 keV photons, when used for the readout of LYSO(Ce) scintillator (Cerium-doped lutetium-yttrium oxyorthosilicate) and down to 75 ps FWHM with LSO(Ce:Ca) scintillator (Cerium and Calcium-doped lutetium oxyorthosilicate). Starting from this technology, we developed three variants, optimized according to different sets of specifications. NUV-HD⁻LowCT features a 60% reduction of direct crosstalk probability, for applications such as Cherenkov telescope array (CTA). NUV-HD⁻Cryo was optimized for cryogenic operation and for large photosensitive areas. The reference application, in this case, is the readout of liquid, noble-gases scintillators, such as liquid Argon. Measurements at 77 K showed a remarkably low value of the DCR of a few mHz/mm². Finally, vacuum-UV (VUV)-HD features an increased sensitivity to VUV light, aiming at direct detection of photons below 200 nm. PDE in excess of 20% at 175 nm was measured in liquid Xenon. In the paper, we discuss the specifications on the SiPM related to different types of applications, the SiPM design challenges and process optimizations, and the results from the experimental characterization of the different, NUV-sensitive technologies developed at FBK.
Stress shielding and osseointegration are two main challenges in bone regeneration, which have been targeted successfully by chemical and physical surface modification methods. Direct irradiation ...synthesis (DIS) is an energetic ion irradiation method that generates self-organized nanopatterns conformal to the surface of materials with complex geometries (e.g., pores on a material surface). This work exposes porous titanium samples to energetic argon ions generating nanopatterning between and inside pores. The unique porous architected titanium (Ti) structure is achieved by mixing Ti powder with given amounts of spacer NaCl particles (vol % equal to 30%, 40%, 50%, 60%, and 70%), compacted and sintered, and combined with DIS to generate a porous Ti with bone-like mechanical properties and hierarchical topography to enhance Ti osseointegration. The porosity percentages range between 25% and 30% using 30 vol % NaCl space-holder (SH) volume percentages to porosity rates of 63%-68% with SH volume of 70 vol % NaCl. Stable and reproducible nanopatterning on the flat surface between pores, inside pits, and along the internal pore walls are achieved, for the first time on any porous biomaterial. Nanoscale features were observed in the form of nanowalls and nanopeaks of lengths between 100 and 500 nm, thicknesses of 35-nm and heights between 100 and 200 nm on average. Bulk mechanical properties that mimic bone-like structures were observed along with increased wettability (by reducing contact values). Nano features were cell biocompatible and enhanced in vitro pre-osteoblast differentiation and mineralization. Higher alkaline phosphatase levels and increased calcium deposits were observed on irradiated 50 vol % NaCl samples at 7 and 14 days. After 24 h, nanopatterned porous samples decreased the number of attached macrophages and the formation of foreign body giant cells, confirming nanoscale tunability of M1-M2 immuno-activation with enhanced osseointegration.
The prominent success of polycaprolactone (PCL) electrospun nanofibrous mats (ENM) has expanded the use of PCL over other polymers for tissue engineering applications. However, the major challenge in ...the design of a nanofibrous scaffold is to modify its surface properties while preserving its bulk properties. Therefore, the first part of the study is focused on the fabrication of PCL-ENMs by alternating-current electrospinning using the following solvent systems: formic acid, formic acid/acetic acid (1/1) and formic acid/acetic acid/acetone (1/1/1). While the second part is focused on an nm-thick surface chemical modification via medium pressure argon and nitrogen plasma treatment, and the third part is dedicated to investigating the morphology, wettability, surface functional groups, crystallite size, crystallinity, crystallization, and melting temperature of plasma-treated nanofibers. Samples were characterized using scanning electron microscopy (SEM), water contact angle analysis (WCA), X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), X-ray diffraction (XRD), Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR), and differential scanning calorimetry (DSC). WCA and SEM results showed that plasma treatments significantly improve the wettability of the PCL ENMs without compromising their surface morphology. XPS analysis revealed that argon and nitrogen gases are responsible for a substantial increase in polar oxygen and nitrogen functional groups respectively. Out of the six plasma-treated PCL ENMs understudy, the argon plasma-treated sample showed superior hydrophilicity (from 136° to ~35°) followed by nitrogen plasma treatment (from 136° to ~42°). It was also found from XRD that the crystallite size was not significantly affected by the conducted plasma treatments. Moreover, the degree of crystallinity was also not altered by the plasma treatments, as was observed by DSC and FTIR. The conducted experiments showed that the surface properties of the PCL ENMs could be positively affected while maintaining their beneficial bulk properties thereby making these plasma-modified ENMs excellent candidates in multiple biomedical and tissue engineering applications.
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•Nanofibrous PCL mats were created via uncommon needleless alternating current electrospinning using several solvents.•Argon and nitrogen plasma treatments strongly enhance the hydrophilicity of all nanofibrous mats.•The plasma treatments incorporate oxygen- and/or nitrogen-containing surface functionalities at the PCL surfaces.•The plasma treatments do not affect the morphology and crystallinity of the nanofibrous mats.
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