3,688 research outputs found
The wisdom of crowds and the repurposing of artesunate as an anticancer drug.
Artesunate, a semi-synthetic and water-soluble artemisinin-derivative used as an anti-malarial agent, has attracted the attention of cancer researchers due to a broad range of anti-cancer activity including anti-angiogenic, immunomodulatory and treatment-sensitisation effects. In addition to pre-clinical evidence in a range of cancers, a recently completed randomised blinded trial in colorectal cancer has provided a positive signal for further clinical investigation. Used perioperatively artesunate appears to reduce the rate of disease recurrence - and the Neo-Art trial, a larger Phase II RCT, is seeking to confirm this positive effect. However, artesunate is a generic medication, and as with other trials of repurposed drugs, the Neo-Art trial does not have commercial sponsorship. In an innovative move, the trial is seeking funds directly from members of the public via a crowd-funding strategy that may have resonance beyond this single trial
Soil and Phyllosphere Microorganisms of the Rapeseed (Brassica napus L.) Holobiont Involved in Chloromethane Emissions
Brassica napus, or rapeseed, is one major oilseed crop in Europe and Germany and is used for food, feed, and Biodiesel production. Chloromethane (CH3Cl) is the most abundant halogenated organic compound in the atmosphere and triggers the chlorine-mediated destruction of the ozone layer. Anthropogenic sources became negligible because of taken measures according to the Montreal Protocol (1987) and therefore natural sources such as plants became more relevant for the global chloromethane budget. The actual global budget is imbalanced through missing sinks, which may be activities of soil and phyllosphere microbiomes which together with the plant is considered as the holobiont. The amount of CH3Cl from crops has not been addressed and might even increase under stresses such as elevated soil salinization and temperature. We proved that B. napus (rapeseed) plants emit CH3Cl. Certain methylotrophs (microorganisms that utilize one-carbon compounds) degrade CH3Cl and can gain a selective advantage while colonizing plants. Moreover, methylotrophs thrive in the rhizosphere of grassland plants. The rapeseed associated microbiome likely harbours methylotrophs that degrade CH3Cl. Therefore, we addressed in this study the rapeseed holobiont to resolve its response to stressors such as salt and temperature in regard to CH3Cl emission. We addressed in our project the following objectives: (i) To measure CH3Cl emission rates from single B. napus holobionts under different NaCl and temperature stress levels in pot experiments, (ii) to assess the B. napus microbiome and its CH3Cl degradation ability through amplicon sequencing of bacterial 16S rRNA genes and functional gene markers. The summer cultivar MAKRO was used as a model organism. We identified methylotrophs that responded to salt and temperature stress conditions in the phyllo- and rhizosphere of rapeseed and correlated those to the observed net emission rates
Irradiation study of a fully monolithic HV-CMOS pixel sensor design in AMS 180 nm
High-Voltage Monolithic Active Pixel Sensors (HV-MAPS) based on the 180 nm
HV-CMOS process have been proposed to realize thin, fast and highly integrated
pixel sensors. The MuPix7 prototype, fabricated in the commercial AMS H18
process, features a fully integrated on-chip readout, i.e. hit-digitization,
zero suppression and data serialization. It is the first fully monolithic
HV-CMOS pixel sensor that has been tested for the use in high irradiation
environments like HL-LHC. We present results from laboratory and test beam
measurements of MuPix7 prototypes irradiated with neutrons (up to
) and protons (up to ) and compare the performance with non-irradiated
sensors. Efficiencies well above 90 % at noise rates below 200 Hz per pixel are
measured. A time resolution better than 22 ns is measured for all tested
settings and sensors, even at the highest irradiation fluences. The data
transmission at 1.25 Gbit/s and the on-chip PLL remain fully functional
Signatures of quantum integrability and nonintegrability in the spectral properties of finite Hamiltonian matrices
For a two-spin model which is (classically) integrable on a five-dimensional
hypersurface in six-dimensional parameter space and for which level
degeneracies occur exclusively (with one known exception) on four-dimensional
manifolds embedded in the integrability hypersurface, we investigate the
relations between symmetry, integrability, and the assignment of quantum
numbers to eigenstates. We calculate quantum invariants in the form of
expectation values for selected operators and monitor their dependence on the
Hamiltonian parameters along loops within, without, and across the
integrability hypersurface in parameter space. We find clear-cut signatures of
integrability and nonintegrability in the observed traces of quantum invariants
evaluated in finite-dimensional invariant Hilbert subspaces, The results
support the notion that quantum integrability depends on the existence of
action operators as constituent elements of the Hamiltonian.Comment: 11 page
MuPix7 - A fast monolithic HV-CMOS pixel chip for Mu3e
The MuPix7 chip is a monolithic HV-CMOS pixel chip, thinned down to 50 \mu m.
It provides continuous self-triggered, non-shuttered readout at rates up to 30
Mhits/chip of 3x3 mm^2 active area and a pixel size of 103x80 \mu m^2. The hit
efficiency depends on the chosen working point. Settings with a power
consumption of 300 mW/cm^2 allow for a hit efficiency >99.5%. A time resolution
of 14.2 ns (Gaussian sigma) is achieved. Latest results from 2016 test beam
campaigns are shown.Comment: Proceedingsfor the PIXEL2016 conference, submitted to JINST A
dangling reference has been removed from this version, no other change
The MuPix Telescope: A Thin, high Rate Tracking Telescope
The MuPix Telescope is a particle tracking telescope, optimized for tracking
low momentum particles and high rates. It is based on the novel High-Voltage
Monolithic Active Pixel Sensors (HV-MAPS), designed for the Mu3e tracking
detector. The telescope represents a first application of the HV-MAPS
technology and also serves as test bed of the Mu3e readout chain. The telescope
consists of up to eight layers of the newest prototypes, the MuPix7 sensors,
which send data self-triggered via fast serial links to FPGAs, where the data
is time-ordered and sent to the PC. A particle hit rate of 1 MHz per layer
could be processed. Online tracking is performed with a subset of the incoming
data. The general concept of the telescope, chip architecture, readout concept
and online reconstruction are described. The performance of the sensor and of
the telescope during test beam measurements are presented.Comment: Proceedings TWEPP 2016, 8 pages, 7 figure
Magnetism in Semiconducting Molybdenum Dichalcogenides
Transition metal dichalcogenides (TMDs) are interesting for understanding
fundamental physics of two-dimensional materials (2D) as well as for many
emerging technologies, including spin electronics. Here, we report the
discovery of long-range magnetic order below TM = 40 K and 100 K in bulk
semiconducting TMDs 2H-MoTe2 and 2H-MoSe2, respectively, by means of muon
spin-rotation (muSR), scanning tunneling microscopy (STM), as well as density
functional theory (DFT) calculations. The muon spin rotation measurements show
the presence of a large and homogeneous internal magnetic fields at low
temperatures in both compounds indicative of long-range magnetic order. DFT
calculations show that this magnetism is promoted by the presence of defects in
the crystal. The STM measurements show that the vast majority of defects in
these materials are metal vacancies and chalcogen-metal antisites which are
randomly distributed in the lattice at the sub-percent level. DFT indicates
that the antisite defects are magnetic with a magnetic moment in the range of
0.9-2.8 mu_B. Further, we find that the magnetic order stabilized in 2H-MoTe2
and 2H-MoSe2 is highly sensitive to hydrostatic pressure. These observations
establish 2H-MoTe2 and 2H-MoSe2 as a new class of magnetic semiconductors and
opens a path to studying the interplay of 2D physics and magnetism in these
interesting semiconductors.Comment: 13 pages, 10 Figure
Exponential Decay of Correlations for Strongly Coupled Toom Probabilistic Cellular Automata
We investigate the low-noise regime of a large class of probabilistic
cellular automata, including the North-East-Center model of Toom. They are
defined as stochastic perturbations of cellular automata belonging to the
category of monotonic binary tessellations and possessing a property of
erosion. We prove, for a set of initial conditions, exponential convergence of
the induced processes toward an extremal invariant measure with a highly
predominant spin value. We also show that this invariant measure presents
exponential decay of correlations in space and in time and is therefore
strongly mixing.Comment: 21 pages, 0 figure, revised version including a generalization to a
larger class of models, structure of the arguments unchanged, minor changes
suggested by reviewers, added reference
HEP Applications Evaluation of the EDG Testbed and Middleware
Workpackage 8 of the European Datagrid project was formed in January 2001
with representatives from the four LHC experiments, and with experiment
independent people from five of the six main EDG partners. In September 2002
WP8 was strengthened by the addition of effort from BaBar and D0. The original
mandate of WP8 was, following the definition of short- and long-term
requirements, to port experiment software to the EDG middleware and testbed
environment. A major additional activity has been testing the basic
functionality and performance of this environment. This paper reviews
experiences and evaluations in the areas of job submission, data management,
mass storage handling, information systems and monitoring. It also comments on
the problems of remote debugging, the portability of code, and scaling problems
with increasing numbers of jobs, sites and nodes. Reference is made to the
pioneeering work of Atlas and CMS in integrating the use of the EDG Testbed
into their data challenges. A forward look is made to essential software
developments within EDG and to the necessary cooperation between EDG and LCG
for the LCG prototype due in mid 2003.Comment: Talk from the 2003 Computing in High Energy and Nuclear Physics
Conference (CHEP03), La Jolla, CA, USA, March 2003, 7 pages. PSN THCT00
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