Biodynamics of Hepatitis C Virus in Haemodialysis Patients in Pahang

Introduction: HCV infection is frequent in patients undergoing maintenance haemodialysis, with prevalence between 8 and 10%. Hepatitis C has an adverse effect on both patient and graft survival in those who get renal transplants. There are relatively scarce reports on the natural fluctuation in viral load level in patients on chronic haemodialysis. Materials and Methods: This is a longitudinal short-term three months study, where 27 chronic haemodialysis patients infected with known HCV genotypes were recruited from seven haemodialysis centres in Pahang. Serum samples were collected monthly, both pre- and post-haemodialysis sessions, over a period of three months. Viral RNA was extracted from serum using QIAamp Viral RNA Extraction kit (Qiagen). The HCV viral load was measured using one-step reverse transcriptase qPCR (Applied Biosystems) targeting the 5`HCV non-coding region (5’UTR). The serum α-IFN level was measured using commercial ELISA kit (Amersham, UK). Six biochemical liver function tests (AST, ALP, TP, albumin, ALT and TB) were also done for all pre-haemodialysis samples. Results: All patients showed persistent low level viral load that varied significantly over the study period (p = 0.001). HCV genotype 1 viral load was significantly higher than that of genotype 3. Conclusion: No apparent correlation could be recognized between the viral loads and the corresponding interferon-alpha levels which were detectable in only a few patients during the period of study

Biodynamics of Hepatitis C Virus in Haemodialysis Patients in Pahang

Introduction: HCV infection is frequent in patients undergoing maintenance haemodialysis, with prevalence between 8 and 10%. Hepatitis C has an adverse effect on both patient and graft survival in those who get renal transplants. There are relatively scarce reports on the natural fluctuation in viral load level in patients on chronic haemodialysis. Materials and Methods: This is a longitudinal short-term three months study, where 27 chronic haemodialysis patients infected with known HCV genotypes were recruited from seven haemodialysis centres in Pahang. Serum samples were collected monthly, both pre- and post-haemodialysis sessions, over a period of three months. Viral RNA was extracted from serum using QIAamp Viral RNA Extraction kit (Qiagen). The HCV viral load was measured using one-step reverse transcriptase qPCR (Applied Biosystems) targeting the 5`HCV non-coding region (5’UTR). The serum α-IFN level was measured using commercial ELISA kit (Amersham, UK). Six biochemical liver function tests (AST, ALP, TP, albumin, ALT and TB) were also done for all pre-haemodialysis samples. Results: All patients showed persistent low level viral load that varied significantly over the study period (p = 0.001). HCV genotype 1 viral load was significantly higher than that of genotype 3. Conclusion: No apparent correlation could be recognized between the viral loads and the corresponding interferon-alpha levels which were detectable in only a few patients during the period of study.</jats:p

Strategies and performance of the CMS silicon tracker alignment during LHC Run 2

The strategies for and the performance of the CMS silicon tracking system alignment during the 2015–2018 data-taking period of the LHC are described. The alignment procedures during and after data taking are explained. Alignment scenarios are also derived for use in the simulation of the detector response. Systematic effects, related to intrinsic symmetries of the alignment task or to external constraints, are discussed and illustrated for different scenarios

Extracting the speed of sound in the strongly interacting matter created in ultrarelativistic lead-lead collisions at the LHC

International audienceUltrarelativistic nuclear collisions create a strongly interacting state of hot and dense quark-gluon matter that exhibits a remarkable collective flow behavior with minimal viscous dissipation. To gain deeper insights into its intrinsic nature and fundamental degrees of freedom, we extracted the speed of sound in this medium created using lead-lead (PbPb) collisions at a center-of-mass energy per nucleon pair of 5.02 TeV. The data were recorded by the CMS experiment at the CERN LHC and correspond to an integrated luminosity of 0.607 nb$^{-1}$. The measurement is performed by studying the multiplicity dependence of the average transverse momentum of charged particles emitted in head-on PbPb collisions. Our findings reveal that the speed of sound in this matter is nearly half the speed of light, with a squared value of 0.241 $\pm$ 0.002 (stat) $\pm$ 0.016 (syst) in natural units. The effective medium temperature, estimated using the mean transverse momentum, is 219 $\pm$ 8 (syst) MeV. The measured squared speed of sound at this temperature aligns precisely with predictions from lattice quantum chromodynamic (QCD) calculations. This result provides a stringent constraint on the equation of state of the created medium and direct evidence for a deconfined QCD phase being attained in relativistic nuclear collisions