Thiazide diuretics (TD) may play a role in preventing osteoporosis. The objective was to investigate the effects of bendroflumethiazide in combination with bisphosphonates on bone mineral density, ...selected blood parameters, blood pressure, pulse, and muscle function.
Double-blinded, randomized, placebo-controlled interventional study in postmenopausal osteoporotic women over the age of 50 years consisting of four arms: 1) 24 weeks with bendroflumethiazide +24 weeks of washout, 2) 24 weeks with placebo +24 weeks of washout, 3) 48 weeks with bendroflumethiazide, or 4) 48 weeks with placebo. At inclusion, participants were on oral bisphosphonates. Intervention consisted of either bendroflumethiazide or placebo. Dual energy X-ray absorptiometry (DXA), vertebral fracture assessment (VFA), quantitative CT (QCT) and selected blood parameters were acquired at baseline and at 48 weeks and Timed-Up-and-Go, handgrip strength, blood pressure, pulse and balance additionally at 24 weeks.
139 postmenopausal Caucasian women over 50 years were randomized (mean age 64.7 years (SEM 0.6, range 51–79)). 109 (78%) completed the study. No difference in the effect of bendroflumethiazide on DXA, VFA, QCT, biochemistry or muscle function were found between the treatment arms.
Bendroflumethiazide for 24- or 48 weeks in combination with bisphosphonates does not improve bone mineral density, selected blood parameters or muscle function compared to placebo combined with bisphosphonates. Studies with longer treatment periods and more patients are needed to further characterize the effects of bendroflumethiazide on bone and subpopulations that might benefit from the treatment.
The jet energy scale (JES) uncertainty is estimated using different methods at different pT ranges. In-situ techniques exploiting the pT balance between a jet and a reference object (e.g. Z or gamma) ...are used at lower pT, but at very high pT (> 2.5 TeV) there is not enough statistics for such in-situ techniques. A low JES uncertainty at high-pT is important in several searches for new phenomena, e.g. the dijet resonance and angular searches. In the highest pT range, the JES uncertainty is estimated using the calorimeter response to single hadrons. In this method, jets are treated as a superposition of energy depositions of single particles. An uncertainty is applied to each energy deposition belonging to the particles within the jet, and propagated to the final jet energy scale. This poster presents the JES uncertainty found with this method at sqrt(s) = 8 TeV and its developments.
A dynamic model of the pesticide amount at a landscape scale (10 km x 10 km with the finest spatial resolution of 1 m
2
) is implemented in the ALMaSS (Animal, Landscape and Man Simulation System) ...framework. The spatial resolution can be configured, allowing the user to control how detailed the simulation should be according to the specific needs. Three application types, spray, seed coating treatment and granular, can be applied through the pesticide engine according to the management plan of crops in ALMaSS. A drift model is implemented for the spray application to include the effect on adjacent unsprayed areas. After applying a pesticide, the pesticide module controls transfer amongst different environmental compartments and follows the fate of up to ten different pesticides simultaneously. It enables ALMaSS to be used for complex risk assessment through impact studies of pesticides on many species, including pollinators.
Biopharmaceuticals are associated with the revolutionary treatment of various diseases, and according to the European Medicines Agency, biopharmaceuticals derived from biological sources are ...perceived to not cause significant environmental risk. However, there is currently no broadly recognized definition or categorization of biopharmaceuticals despite the fact that improved technology has made it possible to modify them to obtain more efficient medicines, thereby raising questions about their biological origins and risks. The aim of this paper, based on a literature review, is to derive a clear definition of biopharmaceuticals and evaluate the European Union's regulation and environmental risk assessment (ERA) procedures for them. Nine different definitions were identified, and it is evident that the term “biopharmaceuticals” is used ambiguously. We therefore recommend that biopharmaceuticals are defined as complex molecules derived from a biological source, with the purpose to diagnose, prevent, treat, or cure diseases or conditions of human beings. Furthermore, we recommend that biopharmaceuticals should be categorized according to their biological structure: 1) amino acids, 2) nucleic acids, and 3) vaccines. Only 11 studies were identified as being relevant to ERA, and we lack useful data for hazard identification. More research is needed to examine the ecotoxicity, fate, and stability of most biopharmaceuticals—and categorical regulatory exclusion seems unfavorable in this regard.
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•A clear definition of biopharmaceuticals is needed and is proposed.•Biopharmaceuticals have been categorized according to biological structure.•Relevant research regarding environmental risk assessment of biopharmaceuticals are scarce.•We recommend that environmental risk assessment is not based entirely on the natural origin of a product.•Categorical exclusion of biopharmaceuticals in EU guidelines for environmental risk assessment is not advantageous.
A search for heavy resonances decaying into a pair of Z bosons leading to ℓ+ℓ−ℓ′+ℓ′− and ℓ+ℓ−νν¯ final states, where ℓ stands for either an electron or a muon, is presented. The search uses ...proton–proton collision data at a centre-of-mass energy of 13 TeV collected from 2015 to 2018 that corresponds to the integrated luminosity of 139 fb−1 recorded by the ATLAS detector during Run 2 of the Large Hadron Collider. Different mass ranges spanning 200 GeV to 2000 GeV for the hypothetical resonances are considered, depending on the final state and model. In the absence of a significant observed excess, the results are interpreted as upper limits on the production cross section of a spin-0 or spin-2 resonance. The upper limits for the spin-0 resonance are translated to exclusion contours in the context of Type-I and Type-II two-Higgs-doublet models, and the limits for the spin-2 resonance are used to constrain the Randall–Sundrum model with an extra dimension giving rise to spin-2 graviton excitations.
Ultra-peripheral heavy ion collisions provide a unique opportunity to study the parton distributions in the colliding nuclei via the measurement of photo-nuclear jet production. An analysis of jet ...production in ultra-peripheral Pb+Pb collisions at sNN=5.02 TeV performed using data collected with the ATLAS detector in 2015 is described. The data set corresponds to a total Pb+Pb integrated luminosity of 0.38 nb−1. The ultra-peripheral collisions are selected using a combination of forward neutron and rapidity gap requirements. The cross-sections, not unfolded for detector response, are compared to results from Pythia Monte Carlo simulations re-weighted to match a photon spectrum obtained from the STARlight model. Qualitative agreement between data and these simulations is observed over a broad kinematic range suggesting that using these collisions to measure nuclear parton distributions is experimentally realisable.
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