Phi meson production in near threshold proton-nucleus collisions

The cross section for production of Phi mesons in proton-nucleus reactions is calculated as a function of the target mass. The decay width of the Phi meson is affected by the change of the masses of the Phi, K+ and K- mesons in the medium. A strong attractive K- potential leads to a measurable change of the behavior of the cross section as a function of of the target mass. Comparison between the kaon and electron decay modes are made.Comment: 4 pages, 1figure, new figure, new reference

The Emerging Roles of Extracellular Vesicles in Osteosarcoma

Extracellular vesicles (EVs) are heterogeneous nanosized vesicles that are constitutively released by virtually all types of cells. They have been isolated in almost all body fluids. EVs cargo consists of various molecules (nucleic acids, proteins, lipids, and metabolites), that can be found on EVs surface and/or in their lumen. EVs structure confer stability and allow the transfer of their cargo to specific cell types over a distance. EVs play a critical role in intercellular communication in physiological and pathological settings. The broadening of knowledge on EVs improved our comprehension of cancer biology as far as tumor development, growth, metastasis, chemoresistance, and treatment are concerned. Increasing evidences suggest that EVs have a significant role in osteosarcoma (OS) development, progression, and metastatic process. The modulation of inflammatory communication pathways by EVs plays a critical role in OS and in other bone-related pathological conditions such as osteoarthritis and rheumatoid arthritis. In this review we describe the emerging data on the role of extracellular vesicles in osteosarcoma and discuss the effects and function of OS-derived EVs focusing on their future applicability in clinical practice

On precipitation measurements collected by a weather radar and a rain gauge network

Many phenomena (such as attenuation and range degradation) can influence the accuracy of rainfall radar estimates. They introduce errors that increase as the distance from radar increases, thereby decreasing the reliability of radar estimates for applications that require quantitative precipitation estimation. The present paper evaluates radar error as a function of the range, in order to correct the rainfall radar estimates. The radar is calibrated utilizing data from the rain gauges. Then, the G/R ratio between the yearly rainfall amount measured in each rain gauge position during 2008 and the corresponding radar rainfall amount is calculated against the slant range. The trend of the G/R ratio shows two behaviours: a concave part due to the melting layer effect close to the radar location and an almost linear, increasing trend at greater distances. A best fitting line is used to find an adjustment factor, which estimates the radar error at a given range. The effectiveness of the methodology is verified by comparing pairs of rainfall time series that are observed simultaneously by collocated rain gauges and radar. Furthermore, the variability of the adjustment factor is investigated at the scale of event, both for convective and stratiform events. The main result is that there is not a univocal range error pattern, as it also depends on the characteristics of the considered event. On the other hand, the adjustment factor tends to stabilize itself for time aggregations of the order of one year or greater

Imputation of missing expenditure information in standard household income surveys

The aim of this paper is to present a new methodology for dealing with missing expenditure information in standard income surveys. Under given conditions, typical imputation procedures, such as statistical matching or regression-based models, can replicate well in the income survey both the unconditional density of household expenditure and its joint density with a set of socio-demographic variables that the two surveys have in common. However, standard imputation procedures may fail in capturing the overall relation between income and expenditure, especially if the common control variables used for the imputation have a weak correlation with the missing information. The paper suggests a two-step imputation procedure that allows reproducing the joint relation between income and expenditure observed from external sources, while maintaining the advantages of traditional imputation methods. The proposed methodology suits well for any empirical analysis that needs to relate income and consumption, such as the estimation of Engel curves or the evaluation of consumption taxes through micro-simulation models. An empirical application shows the makings of such a technique for the evaluation of the distributive effects of consumption taxes and proves that common imputation methods may produce significantly biased results in terms of policy recommendations when the control variables used for the imputation procedure are weakly correlated with the missing variable

Assessment of an adjustment factor to model radar range dependent error

Quantitative radar precipitation estimates are affected by errors determined by many causes such as radar miscalibration, range degradation, attenuation, ground clutter, variability of Z-R relation, variability of drop size distribution, vertical air motion, anomalous propagation and beam-blocking. Range degradation ( including beam broadening and sampling of precipitation at an increasing altitude) and signal attenuation, determine a range dependent behavior of error. The aim of this work is to model the range-dependent error through an adjustment factor derived from the G/R ratio trend against the range, where G and R are the corresponding rain gauge and radar rainfall amounts computed at each rain gauge location. Since range degradation and signal attenuation effects are negligible close to the radar, resultsshowthatwithin 40 km from radar the overall range error is independent of the distance from Polar 55C and no range-correction is needed. Nevertheless, up to this distance, the G/R ratiocan showa concave trend with the range, which is due to the melting layer interception by the radar beam during stratiform events

Comparison of different fittings of experimental DSD

Retrieval of a distribution of raindrop sizes from measured drop spectra is critically influenced by the tail of the distribution. The influence of various tail-types is studied with reference to four parameterisations fitted both to the large dropsonlyand to the entire sample of the disdrometer-measured spectra. Results of this preliminary analysis show that the Weibull distribution with a shape parameter greater than oneseems to fit the highest percentages of the measured drop spectra. © 2013 AIP Publishing LLC

Peripartum cardiomyopathy (PPCM): anesthetic and obstetric monitoring, management and medico-legal aspects

Peripartum Cardiomyopathy (PPCM): anesthetic and obstetric monitoring, management and medico-legal aspect

Rainfall estimation and ground clutter rejection with dual polarization weather radar

Conventional radars, used for atmospheric remote sensing, usually operate at a single polarization and frequency to estimate storm parameters such as rainfallrate and water content. Because of the high variability of the drop size distribution conventional radars do not succeed in obtaining detailed information because they just use horizontal reflectivity. The potentiality of the dual-polarized weather radar is investigated, in order to reject the ground-clutter, using differential reflectivity. In this light, a radar meteorology campaign was conducted over the city of Rome (Italy), collecting measurements by the polarimetric Doppler radar Polar 55C and by a raingauge network. The goodness of the results is tested by comparison of radar rainfall estimates with raingauges rainfall measurements

Long term therapeutic efficacy of a soft monobloc mandibular advancement device in adults with obstructive sleep apnea

To evaluate the long term (48 months) therapeutic efficacy of a soft monobloc mandibular advancement device in adult patients with mild or moderate obstructive sleep apnea