The sensitivity of the Pap smear (PAP) continues to be the subject of debate. During the past several years, cervicography (CER) and HPV DNA testing have been suggested as optional tools in the ...screening of cervical cancer precursors.
The performance characteristics of PAP, CER and HPV DNA testing (hybrid capture test HCT) in all potential combinations were evaluated in a series of 1,030 women (aged 16-70, median, 33), subjected to colposcopy (COLPO) as the reference tool.
Of the 992 evaluable cases, 402/992 (41%) had positive COLPO (i.e., an abnormal transformation zone). Of them, 298 women underwent directed punch biopsy, while of the COLPO negative patients, 18/93 positive by at least one of the three tests had endocervical curettage. Of the 402 COLPO positive women, 146 (36%) remained negative on all tests, whereas 256 (64%) had at least one positive test. There were 84 cervical intraepithelial neoplasia (CIN) 2 and 3 lesions and 6 invasive carcinomas. Of the former, 10 were detected by PAP alone, 4 by CER alone and 3 by HCT alone. Three of the 6 carcinomas were HCT negative. The predictive value (PPV) of a positive test was 45% for PAP, 51% for CER and 48% for HCT. The combinations of PAP with CER (for PAP negative cases) and PAP with HCT were more sensitive for CIN 2 and 3 (95% and 94%, respectively) as compared with PAP alone but were associated with a significant decrease in specificity (44% and 46% vs. 57%, respectively). However, both combinations retained a PPV (43%) similar to that of PAP alone (45%).
The potential combinations of PAP with CER and with HCT were more sensitive in detecting CIN 2 and 3 as compared with PAP alone and retained a PPV similar to that of PAP.
The KLOE drift chamber Adinolfi, M.; Aloisio, A.; Andryakov, A. ...
Nuclear instruments & methods in physics research. Section A, Accelerators, spectrometers, detectors and associated equipment,
04/2001, Volume:
461, Issue:
1
Journal Article
Peer reviewed
The tracking detector of the KLOE experiment is 4
m diameter, 3.3
m length drift chamber, designed to contain a large fraction of the decays of low-energy K
L produced at the Frascati DAΦNE
...φ-factory. The chamber is made by a thin carbon fiber structure and operated with a helium-based gas mixture in order to minimise conversion of low-energy photons and multiple scattering inside the sensitive volume. The tracking information is provided by 58 layers of stereo wires defing 12,582 cells, 2×2
cm
2 in size in the 12 innermost layers and 3×3
cm
2 in the outer ones. Details of the chamber design, calibration procedure and tracking performances are presented.
The investigation of extracts from six species of marine invertebrates yielded one new and several known natural products. Isoptilocaulin from the sponge Monanchora aff. arbuscula displayed ...antimicrobial activity at 1.3 mg/mL against an oxacillin-resistant strain of Staphylococcus aureus. Five inactive known dibromotyrosine derivatives, 2 6, were isolated from a new species of marine sponge, Aplysina sp. The sponges Petromica ciocalyptoides and Topsentia ophiraphidites yielded the known halistanol sulfate A (7) as an inhibitor of the antileishmanial target adenosine phosphoribosyl transferase. The ascidian Didemnum ligulum yielded asterubin (10) and the new N,N-dimethyl-O-methylethanolamine (11). The octocoral Carijoa riisei yielded the known 18-acetoxypregna-1,4,20-trien-3-one (12), which displayed cytotoxic activity against the cancer cell lines SF295, MDA-MB435, HCT8 and HL60.
J. High Energ. Phys. 2020, 47 (2020) Based on an integrated luminosity of 1.61 fb$^{-1}$ $e^+e^-$ collision data
collected with the KLOE detector at DA$\Phi$NE, the Frascati $\phi$-factory, a
search ...for the $P$- and $CP$-violating decay $\eta\to\pi^{+}\pi^{-}$ has been
performed. Radiative $\phi\to\eta\gamma$ decay is exploited to access the
$\eta$ mesons. No signal is observed in the $\pi^{+}\pi^{-}$ invariant mass
spectrum, and the upper limit on the branching fraction at 90\% confidence
level is determined to be ${\mathcal
B}(\eta\to\pi^{+}\pi^{-})<4.9\times10^{-6}$, which is approximately three times
smaller than the previous KLOE result. From the combination of these two
measurements we get ${\mathcal B}(\eta\to\pi^{+}\pi^{-}) < 4.4\times10^{-6}$ at
90\% confidence level.
The muon detector of LHCb, which comprises 1368 multi-wire-proportional-chambers (MWPC) for a total area of 435 m2, is the largest instrument of its kind exposed to such a high-radiation environment. ...In nine years of operation, from 2010 until 2018, we did not observe appreciable signs of ageing of the detector in terms of reduced performance. However, during such a long period, many chamber gas gaps suffered from HV trips. Most of the trips were due to Malter-like effects, characterised by the appearance of local self-sustained high currents, presumably originating from impurities induced during chamber production. Very effective, though long, recovery procedures were implemented with a HV training of the gaps in situ while taking data. The training allowed most of the affected chambers to be returned to their full functionality and the muon detector efficiency to be kept close to 100%. The possibility of making the recovery faster and even more effective by adding a small percentage of oxygen in the gas mixture has been studied and successfully tested.
The present investigation reports the isolation of aeroplysinin-2, 2-(3,5-dibromo-4-methoxyphenyl)-N,N,N-trimethyletanamonium, ...7,9-dibromo-10-hydroxy-8-methoxy-1-oxa-2-azaspiro4.5deca-2,6,8-trien-3-carboxylic acid and its methyl ester, 11-oxoaerothionin, aerothionin, 11-keto-12-hydroxyaerothionin, 11-ketofistularin-3 and fistularin-3 from Aplysina fistularis, as well as of furodysinin lactone and 9α,11α-epoxicholest-7-en-3β,5α,6α,10-tetrol-6-acetate from Dysidea sp. Although the extracts of both sponges displayed antituberculosis activity, only 11-ketofistularin-3 isolated from A. fistularis displayed antimycobacterial activity against Mycobacterium tuberculosis H34Rv, with MIC at 16 μg/mL and SI of 40, a result that reinforce that fistularin-3 derivatives are interesting leads for the development of antituberculosis drugs.
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