A cloud-based Virtual Analysis Facility (VAF) for the ALICE experiment at the LHC has been deployed in Bari. Similar facilities are currently running in other Italian sites with the aim to create a ...federation of interoperating farms able to provide their computing resources for interactive distributed analysis. The use of cloud technology, along with elastic provisioning of computing resources as an alternative to the grid for running data intensive analyses, is the main challenge of these facilities. One of the crucial aspects of the user-driven analysis execution is the data access. A local storage facility has the disadvantage that the stored data can be accessed only locally, i.e. from within the single VAF. To overcome such a limitation a federated infrastructure, which provides full access to all the data belonging to the federation independently from the site where they are stored, has been set up. The federation architecture exploits both cloud computing and XRootD technologies, in order to provide a dynamic, easy-to-use and well performing solution for data handling. It should allow the users to store the files and efficiently retrieve the data, since it implements a dynamic distributed cache among many datacenters in Italy connected to one another through the high-bandwidth national network. Details on the preliminary architecture implementation and performance studies are discussed.
The present work aims at optimizing the use of computing resources available at the grid Italian Tier-2 sites of the ALICE experiment at CERN LHC by making them accessible to interactive distributed ...analysis, thanks to modern solutions based on cloud computing. The scalability and elasticity of the computing resources via dynamic ("on-demand") provisioning is essentially limited by the size of the computing site, reaching the theoretical optimum only in the asymptotic case of infinite resources. The main challenge of the project is to overcome this limitation by federating different sites through a distributed cloud facility. Storage capacities of the participating sites are seen as a single federated storage area, preventing the need of mirroring data across them: high data access efficiency is guaranteed by location-aware analysis software and storage interfaces, in a transparent way from an end-user perspective. Moreover, the interactive analysis on the federated cloud reduces the execution time with respect to grid batch jobs. The tests of the investigated solutions for both cloud computing and distributed storage on wide area network will be presented.
In 2012, 14 Italian institutions participating in LHC Experiments won a grant from the Italian Ministry of Research (MIUR), with the aim of optimising analysis activities, and in general the Tier2 ...Tier3 infrastructure. We report on the activities being researched upon, on the considerable improvement in the ease of access to resources by physicists, also those with no specific computing interests. We focused on items like distributed storage federations, access to batch-like facilities, provisioning of user interfaces on demand and cloud systems. R&D on next-generation databases, distributed analysis interfaces, and new computing architectures was also carried on. The project, ending in the first months of 2016, will produce a white paper with recommendations on best practices for data-analysis support by computing centers.
In the Puglia region (South Italy) about 200 new hospitalizations for cervical cancer are registered every year. The study investigated the frequency of Human Papillomavirus (HPV) infection and the ...genotype distribution of HPV in a sample of women with known cytology attending the outpatient clinics of four Gynecological Departments of the University of Bari over a four-year period (2005-2008).
Cervical samples from 1,168 women were analyzed for the presence of HPV-DNA through Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR) in L1 region and reverse hybridization. The cytological results were associated with HPV positivity and type-specific prevalence.
Overall, HPV infection was found in 355 (30.4%) women. HPV-DNA was found in 34.4% of women with a cytological diagnosis of ASCUS, in 46.8% of women with Low-grade Squamous Intraepithelial Lesion (LSIL) and in 87.0% of women with High-grade Squamous Intraepithelial Lesion (HSIL)/carcinoma. Also 16.0% of women with normal Pap smear were found to be HPV-DNA positive. The most common HPVgenotype was type 16 found in 27.3% of positives, followed by type 53 (11.5%), type 66 (9.2%) and type 31 (9.0%). HPV genotype 18 was found in 6.4% of positives. Types 16 or 18 were detected in about 34% (120/355) of all infected women, in about 33% of LSIL and in 60% of HSIL/ carcinoma HPV-positive women. Among low risk (LR) genotypes, type 61 was found in 10.7% of HPV positive women, type 62 in 8.4%, type 42 in 8.1% and type CP6108 in 7.8%.
The findings of the study give evidence that HPV infection is frequent in the studied cohort of women. The most widespread genotypes found were 16 and 53. These data may represent a benchmark for future evaluation after the recent introduction of vaccination against HPV in 12-year-old girls.
Background and purpose
Osteoradionecrosis (ORN) is one of the most severe adverse effects of radiotherapy (RT) to the head and neck region. Medication‐induced osteonecrosis of the jaw has been ...reported among patients using bisphosphonates. However, the impact of RT on osteonecrosis in patients using bisphosphonates has not yet been described. Therefore, the aim of this study was to compare ORN characteristics between patients who use and do not use bisphosphonates.
Materials and methods
This retrospective study evaluated 96 patients with ORN of the jaw. Patients were divided into group I (patients who did not receive bisphosphonates, n = 83) and group II (patients who did receive bisphosphonates, n = 13). Clinical data were obtained from medical charts.
Results
Osteoradionecrosis more often involved the mandibular jaw than the maxillary jaw for both patient groups. However, maxillary involvement was more common among patients who received bisphosphonates than those who did not (p = 0.014). There was also a trend toward earlier development of ORN in the group that received bisphosphonates (p = 0.21).
Conclusions
Bisphosphonate use appears to contribute to earlier development of ORN. Long‐term prospective studies are needed to understand the pathogenesis of ORN in patients treated with combined radiation and bisphosphonate therapy.
In past years prevention of emesis and nausea induced by antiblastics has been based on extremely heterogeneous protocols with little efficacy. However, by the use of selective antagonists of ...serotonin S3 receptors there has been a remarkable improvement in the control of side effects. Among these antagonists ondansetron has been till now the most studied. The dosage protocols with which it has usually been employed establish an i.v. administration of the drug of 1 mg/h for 24 hours or the repetition of ondansetron 0.15 mg/kg x 2 every 2-4 hours after the end of chemotherapy. In our study, carried out from September 1991 till September 1992, 21 patients affected by ovarian carcinoma and treated by cisplatin chemotherapy protocols were evaluated (for a total of 63 cycles). Ten patients were under first line adjuvant chemotherapy treatment, whereas 11 patients were in relapse and had already undergone previous antiblastic treatments with serious side effects. In 18 out of 21 patients cyclophosphamide which has a strong emetic factor was associated with cisplatin. According to the total quantity of cisplatin contained in each cycle (in all < or =/> 100 mg) we used ondansetron in two different dosages simplified and shortened in time. They have been illustrated with particular details in the text. The control of nausea and vomiting during the first 24 hours was similar to the controls obtained in other studies in which ondansetron was administered according to the "traditional schemes".
The Authors studied the presence of some markers in different gynaecological tumours, by radioimmunoassay. Beta-HCG, 1-alfa-FP, CA 125, GICA and TPA were assayed in 76 patients. Eight of the patients ...were affected by CIN III, 38 presented a cervical carcinoma (10 at stage I, 14 at stage II, 10 at stage III, 4 at stage IV); 14 patients had an endometrial adenocarcinoma (3 at stage I, 7 at stage II, 2 at stage III and II at stage IV); 12 cases consisted of an ovarian carcinoma with 2 patients at stage I, 5 at stage II and 5 at stage III; 2 patients had a peritoneal diffusion, whereas two women presented a vulvar carcinoma; the control group was formed by 10 patients with no malignant or benign pathology. The results show that tumoral markers, studied in the blood of patients affected by malignant gynaecological tumours, represent a great advantage in the evaluation of both the response to the therapy and of an eventual remission or tumoral recurrence.
Chemotherapy with CDDP Restaino, A; Traina, V; Putignano, G ...
European journal of gynaecological oncology,
1988, Letnik:
9, Številka:
2
Journal Article
Recenzirano
The Authors report the results obtained in 30 patients affected by ovarian carcinoma and treated with chemotherapy using the parenteral route in 27 cases and the intraperitoneal one in 3 women. ...Parenteral chemotherapy following surgical staging and extensive tumour removal with the last residual tumour, consisted of a therapeutic scheme of mono- and poli-chemotherapy. The doses of cisplatin (CDDP) in mono-chemotherapy were correlated to the intensive anatomical-radiological-surgical staging. The patients treated with poli-chemotherapy underwent cycles with CDDP + alkylating agents. Moreover, 3 of the patients received low doses of cisplatin by intraperitoneal administration. In 27 cases pre- and post-therapy enzymuria was evaluated: it represents, in fact, the most reliable laboratory test to discover an acute tubulo-toxicity and is able to reveal chronic tubular damage. Our results demonstrate that a suitable nephrologic monitoring of the patients allows a more accurate use of the cisplatin with a better cost-benefit relation.
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