102 research outputs found
Aspergillus niger: an unusual cause of invasive pulmonary aspergillosis
Infections due to Aspergillus species cause significant morbidity and mortality. Most are attributed to Aspergillus fumigatus, followed by Aspergillus flavus and Aspergillus terreus. Aspergillus niger is a mould that is rarely reported as a cause of pneumonia. A 72-year-old female with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and temporal arteritis being treated with steroids long term presented with haemoptysis and pleuritic chest pain. Chest radiography revealed areas of heterogeneous consolidation with cavitation in the right upper lobe of the lung. Induced bacterial sputum cultures, and acid-fast smears and cultures were negative. Fungal sputum cultures grew A. niger. The patient clinically improved on a combination therapy of empiric antibacterials and voriconazole, followed by voriconazole monotherapy. After 4 weeks of voriconazole therapy, however, repeat chest computed tomography scanning showed a significant progression of the infection and near-complete necrosis of the right upper lobe of the lung. Serum voriconazole levels were low–normal (1.0 μg ml−1, normal range for the assay 0.5–6.0 μg ml−1). A. niger was again recovered from bronchoalveolar lavage specimens. A right upper lobectomy was performed, and lung tissue cultures grew A. niger. Furthermore, the lung histopathology showed acute and organizing pneumonia, fungal hyphae and oxalate crystallosis, confirming the diagnosis of invasive A. niger infection. A. niger, unlike A. fumigatus and A. flavus, is less commonly considered a cause of invasive aspergillosis (IA). The finding of calcium oxalate crystals in histopathology specimens is classic for A. niger infection and can be helpful in making a diagnosis even in the absence of conidia. Therapeutic drug monitoring may be useful in optimizing the treatment of IA given the wide variations in the oral bioavailability of voriconazole
SOXS: a wide band spectrograph to follow up transients
SOXS (Son Of X-Shooter) will be a spectrograph for the ESO NTT telescope
capable to cover the optical and NIR bands, based on the heritage of the
X-Shooter at the ESO-VLT. SOXS will be built and run by an international
consortium, carrying out rapid and longer term Target of Opportunity requests
on a variety of astronomical objects. SOXS will observe all kind of transient
and variable sources from different surveys. These will be a mixture of fast
alerts (e.g. gamma-ray bursts, gravitational waves, neutrino events), mid-term
alerts (e.g. supernovae, X-ray transients), fixed time events (e.g. close-by
passage of minor bodies). While the focus is on transients and variables, still
there is a wide range of other astrophysical targets and science topics that
will benefit from SOXS. The design foresees a spectrograph with a
Resolution-Slit product ~ 4500, capable of simultaneously observing over the
entire band the complete spectral range from the U- to the H-band. The limiting
magnitude of R~20 (1 hr at S/N~10) is suited to study transients identified
from on-going imaging surveys. Light imaging capabilities in the optical band
(grizy) are also envisaged to allow for multi-band photometry of the faintest
transients. This paper outlines the status of the project, now in Final Design
Phase.Comment: 12 pages, 14 figures, to be published in SPIE Proceedings 1070
SOXS End-to-End simulator: development and applications for pipeline design
We present the development of the End-to-End simulator for the SOXS
instrument at the ESO-NTT 3.5-m telescope. SOXS will be a spectroscopic
facility, made by two arms high efficiency spectrographs, able to cover the
spectral range 350-2000 nm with resolving power R=4500. The E2E model allows to
simulate the propagation of photons starting from the scientific target of
interest up to the detectors. The outputs of the simulator are synthetic
frames, which will be mainly exploited for optimizing the pipeline development
and possibly assisting for proper alignment and integration phases in
laboratory and at the telescope. In this paper, we will detail the architecture
of the simulator and the computational model, which are strongly characterized
by modularity and flexibility. Synthetic spectral formats, related to different
seeing and observing conditions, and calibration frames to be ingested by the
pipeline are also presented
Son of X--Shooter: a multi--band instrument for a multi--band universe
Son Of X-Shooter (SOXS) will be a new instrument designed to be mounted at
the Nasmyth--A focus of the ESO 3.5 m New Technology Telescope in La Silla site
(Chile). SOXS is composed of two high-efficiency spectrographs with a
resolution slit product 4500, working in the visible (350 -- 850 nm) and NIR
(800 -- 2000 nm) range respectively, and a light imager in the visible (the
acquisition camera usable also for scientific purposes). The science case is
very broad, it ranges from moving minor bodies in the solar system, to bursting
young stellar objects, cataclysmic variables and X-ray binary transients in our
Galaxy, supernovae and tidal disruption events in the local Universe, up to
gamma-ray bursts in the very distant and young Universe, basically encompassing
all distance scales and astronomy branches. At the moment, the instrument
passed the Preliminary Design Review by ESO (July 2017) and the Final Design
(with FDR in July 2018).Comment: 23 pages, 10 Figures, accepted to be published in Frontier Research
in Astrophysics 2018 Conference proceedings in Proceeding of Science. arXiv
admin note: text overlap with arXiv:1807.0882
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