Portal vein thrombosis (PVT) is a frequent complication of cirrhosis. Benefit, safety, and duration of anticoagulant treatment in this setting are controversial issues. The aim of this study was to ...analyze the course of PVT in a large cohort of cirrhotic patients undergoing or not anticoagulation therapy.
The data of 182 patients who presented between January 2008 and March 2016 with cirrhosis and PVT with at least 3 months of follow-up after the first PVT detection were analyzed. Eighty-one patients received anticoagulants and 101 were untreated per physician discretion.
The extension of the thrombosis decreased by >50% in 46 (56.8%, with complete recanalization in 31/46) patients under anticoagulation and in 26 (25.7%) untreated patients. Of the 46 patients who underwent recanalization, 17 (36%) suffered recurrent thrombosis after stopping anticoagulation therapy. Kaplan-Meier analysis showed a higher survival rate in the treated group (p = 0.010). At multivariate analysis, anticoagulation was an independent factor associated with longer survival (HR:0.30, CI:0.10-0.91, p = 0.014). The Child-Turcotte-Pugh classes B/C negatively influenced survival (hazard ratio, (HR):3.09, confidence interval (CI):1.14-8.36, p = 0.027 for Child-Turcotte-Pugh B and HR:9.27, CI:2.67-32.23, p < 0.001 for Child-Turcotte-Pugh C). Bleeding complications occurred in 22 (21.8%) untreated and 16 (19.7%) treated patients, but in only four cases was it judged to be related to the anticoagulant treatment. No death was reported as a consequence of the bleeding events.
Anticoagulant treatment is a safe and effective treatment leading to partial or complete recanalization of the portal venous system in 56.8% of cases, improving the survival of patients with cirrhosis and PVT. Discontinuation of the therapy is associated with a high rate of PVT recurrence.
► Description of a method development in SFC. ► Improvement of the triterpenoid separation in isocratic SFC. ► Varied and complementary selectivity are obtained with different columns. ► ELSD ...provides higher response coefficients than UV for triterpenoids. ► Analyses of bio-active compounds present in food by-products is shown by SFC-ELSD.
The screening of plant material, the chemical composition, the abundance and the biological activity of triterpenoids are of a major economical importance. The classical analytical methods, such as TLC, GC, and HPLC are either little resolutive, or require derivatization steps, or fail in sensitivity. The supercritical fluid chromatography/evaporative light scattering detector (SFC/ELSD) coupling provides high resolution, fast analysis and higher responses for the analysis of triterpenoids. After the initial screening of seven stationary phases to select the well suited one, analytical conditions (modifier percentage, from 10 to 3%; backpressure (from 12 to 18MPa) and temperature (from 15 to 25°C) were studied to improve the separation, and ELSD detection of a standard mixture composed of 8 triterpenoids (oleanolic acid, erythrodiol, β-amyrin, ursolic acid, uvaol, betulinic acid, betulin, lupeol). Applied to apple pomace extracts, this method allows the separation of about 15 triterpenoid compounds, in less than 20min, with isocratic conditions. Moreover, the ELSD response is dramatically higher than the one provided by UV detection, and avoids derivatization steps. An attempt to identify some compounds was done by collecting chromatographic peaks and further analyzing them with mass spectrometry. Complete identification or molecular formula could be proposed for 11 compounds. However, due to the presence of position and orientation isomers the absolute identification remains difficult, despite some retention rules deduced from the standard analysis.
This paper presents an experimental study carried out in order to assess the effects of the cutting parameters (cutting speed, feed and depth of cut) and also of cooling conditions on the cutting ...force and the surface quality during high speed face milling of a magnesium alloy. With its high ratio of strength to weight, good machinability and overall physico - mechanical properties magnesium has attracted a large interest upon itself, especially in fields such as automotive, aeronautics, electronics or biomaterials. On the other hand, there has been lately an increased interest for cooling techniques that are more environmentally friendly, which is why in this study two cooling systems were used: dry machining and minimum quantity lubrication (MQL). The tests have been organised according to design of experiment technique. By using the response surface methodology (RSM), a central composite experimental matrix was designed. Statistical analysis (ANOVA) has allowed to create mathematical models of the cutting force and surface roughness and to analyse the effects of the effects of the input parameters on these outcomes. It was thus revealed that the depth of cut and the feed, and the interactions feed - depth of cut and feed direction - cooling, respectively, have the most significant influence on the main cutting force, whereas when it comes to the surface roughness, the most significant factors were the feed, the feed direction and the interaction between feed direction and cooling type.
Increased reaction time intra-subject variability (RT-ISV) in fast decision tasks has been confirmed in patients with schizophrenia and has been hypothesized to result from a deficit in the control ...of attention. Here, an attentional task and functional brain imaging were used to probe the neural correlates of increased RT-ISV in schizophrenia. Thirty patients and 30 age and sex matched controls performed the Eriksen flanker spatial attention task with concurrent measurement of brain activity using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). The behavioral measures included accuracy, mean, standard deviation of RT (RTSD), coefficient of variation of RT (RTCV) and ex-Gaussian model of RT distribution parameters (mu, sigma and tau). Larger mean RT and Ex-Gaussian mu was observed for patients compared to controls. The group difference was larger for incongruent (attentionally demanding) versus congruent trials confirming a deficit in the control of spatial attention for patients. Significant increase in RT-ISV measures (RTSD, sigma and tau) for patients compared to controls was observed and was not modulated by trial congruency. Attention modulation (congruency effect) resulted in activation of bilateral frontal and parietal areas that was not different between patients and controls. Right middle frontal, right superior temporal and bilateral cingulate areas were more active in controls compared to patients independent of congruency. Activation in ROIs extracted from attention (congruency) and group related areas correlated with RT-ISV measures (especially RTCV and tau). Hypo-activation of the right middle frontal area correlated with increased tau specifically in patients. Hypo-activity of the right prefrontal cortex predicted increased RT-ISV in schizophrenia. This effect was unrelated to the effects of spatial attention and might be linked to a deficit in the inhibitory control of action for these patients.
Stretch forming is a metal forming process that implies bending and stretching a sheet of metal over a die, with the sheet being plastically deformed into the desired shape. The purpose is to obtain ...large parts. One of the main aspects is that the metal sheet is locked into position by gripping jaws. A hydraulic ram is raised into the metal sheet, therefore increasing the tensile forces. This process is used to draw intro shape materials like aluminium, magnesium, titanium alloys, stainless steel, Inconel. These materials have in common the fact that they have poor formability or the elastic spring-back has unacceptable values. Taking this into consideration, the nature of the materials along with the fact that the metal sheet can crack, due to excessive strain, we propose a self-adaptive stretch forming process. Underlining this process is the stress-strain curve, that has three inputs: force, sample section area and strain. For each of these factors, our method uses a particular approach, as in a Python-based software and Android-based IoT solution, that uses stress and strain data. Furthermore, it controls, in real-time the hydraulic press to the point at which the material is stretch close to its ultimate yield strength.
3D printing is a maturing technology, that can be used from fast prototyping to industrial scale. A key aspect of 3D printing is the ability to control the material density, thus it's hardness. This ...factor assures that 3D printing is not only economical competitive, but it also provides parts with improved mechanical properties. Furthermore, it is a good alternative for manufacturing stretch-forming dies. Implementing 3D printed dies offers an economical advantage, as cost for producing are a fraction of the cost of standard metal die, and the technology behind the process is simpler. Therefore, in this paper we have chosen to study stretch forming on a die that has components 3D printed from polylactic acid (PLA). The length and width of the punch is maintained constant while the radius varied from R180 ÷ R1080 mm, with an increment of 180 mm. A total number of 6 punches were used in these experiments to stretch sheet metal stripes made of aluminium 2024-T0, a material specific for aircraft skin. In addition to the shape of the resulted part, in the present study other process parameters have been investigated (punch force, part radius and deviation from circularity).
The formability of magnesium alloy sheets at room temperature presents anisotropy in mechanical properties and difficulties in terms of occuring cracks easily, especially in regions with bend radius. ...In addition, the elastic spring-back is significant, leading to massive deviations from the desired shape. Recent studies conducted in this field lead to stretch forming magnesium alloys sheets using thermo-mechanical treatments at temperatures up to 400°C. The present study was conducted on 1 mm thick magnesium alloy AZ31B sheet to investigate its formability when stretching at room temperature by several dies with different radius. The stretching process was conducted on a hydraulic press, using 3D printed PLA dies with the following values: R180, R320, R540, R720, R900 and R1080. The samples were stretched until fracture to highlight the fracture force, distance to fracture, deviation from the die radius and bend angle.
The MonALISA (Monitoring Agents in a Large Integrated Services Architecture) framework provides a set of distributed services for monitoring, control, management and global optimization for large ...scale distributed systems. It is based on an ensemble of autonomous, multi-threaded, agent-based subsystems which are registered as dynamic services. They can be automatically discovered and used by other services or clients. The distributed agents can collaborate and cooperate in performing a wide range of management, control and global optimization tasks using real time monitoring information.
Program title: MonALISA
Catalogue identifier: AEEZ_v1_0
Program summary URL:
http://cpc.cs.qub.ac.uk/summaries/AEEZ_v1_0.html
Program obtainable from: CPC Program Library, Queen's University, Belfast, N. Ireland
Licensing provisions: Caltech License – free for all non-commercial activities
No. of lines in distributed program, including test data, etc.: 147 802
No. of bytes in distributed program, including test data, etc.: 2 5913 689
Distribution format: tar.gz
Programming language: Java, additional APIs available in Java, C, C++, Perl and python
Computer: Computing Clusters, Network Devices, Storage Systems, Large scale data intensive applications
Operating system: The MonALISA service is mainly used in Linux, the MonALISA client runs on all major platforms (Windows, Linux, Solaris, MacOS).
Has the code been vectorized or parallelized?: It is a multithreaded application. It will efficiently use all the available processors.
RAM: for the MonALISA service the minimum required memory is 64 MB; if the JVM is started allocating more memory this will be used for internal caching. The MonALISA client requires typically 256–512 MB of memory.
Classification: 6.5
External routines: Requires Java: JRE or JDK to run. These external packages are used (they are included in the distribution): JINI, JFreeChart, PostgreSQL (optional).
Nature of problem: To monitor and control distributed computing clusters and grids, the network infrastructure, the storage systems, and the applications used on such facilities. The monitoring information gathered is used for developing the required higher level services, the components that provide decision support and some degree of automated decisions and for maintaining and optimizing workflow in large scale distributed systems.
Solution method: The MonALISA framework is designed as an ensemble of autonomous self-describing agent-based subsystems which are registered as dynamic services. These services are able to collaborate and cooperate in performing a wide range of distributed information-gathering and processing tasks.
Running time: MonALISA services are designed to run continuously to collect monitoring data and to trigger alarms or to take automatic actions in case it is necessary.
References:
1
http://monalisa.caltech.edu.
The AliEn (ALICE Environment) file catalogue is a global unique namespace providing mapping between a UNIX-like logical name structure and the corresponding physical files distributed over 80 storage ...elements worldwide. Powerful search tools and hierarchical metadata information are integral parts of the system and are used by the Grid jobs as well as local users to store and access all files on the Grid storage elements. The catalogue has been in production since 2005 and over the past 11 years has grown to more than 2 billion logical file names. The backend is a set of distributed relational databases, ensuring smooth growth and fast access. Due to the anticipated fast future growth, we are looking for ways to enhance the performance and scalability by simplifying the catalogue schema while keeping the functionality intact. We investigated different backend solutions, such as distributed key value stores, as replacement for the relational database. This contribution covers the architectural changes in the system, together with the technology evaluation, benchmark results and conclusions.
The ALICE experiment will undergo extensive hardware and software upgrades for the LHC Run3. This translates in significant increase of the CPU and storage resources required for data processing, and ...at the same time the data access rates will grow linearly with the amount of resources. JAliEn (Java ALICE Environment) is the new Grid middleware designed to scale-out horizontally to fulfil the computing needs of the upgrade, and at the same time to modernize all parts of the distributed system software. This paper will present the architecture of the JAliEn framework, the technologies used and performance measurements. This work will also describe the next generation solution that will replace our main database backend, the AliEn File Catalogue. The catalogue is an integral part of the system, containing the metadata of all files written to the distributed Grid storage and also provides powerful search and data manipulation tools. As for JAliEn, the focus has been put onto horizontal scalability, with the aim to handle near exascale data volumes and order of magnitude more workload than the currently used Grid middleware. Lastly, this contribution will present how JAliEn manages the increased complexity of the tasks associated with the new ALICE data processing and analysis framework (ALFA) and multi-core environments.
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