Early versus late initiation of renal replacement therapy in critically ill patients with acute kidney injury (The ELAIN-Trial): Study protocol for a randomized controlled trial

Background: Acute kidney injury remains a common complication in critically ill patients and despite multiple trials and observational studies, the optimal timing for initiation of renal replacement therapy is still unclear. The early versus late initiation of renal replacement therapy in critically ill patients with acute kidney injury (ELAIN) study is a randomized, single-center, prospective, two-arm, parallel group trial to reduce mortality in patients with severe acute kidney injury. We describe the study design and discuss aspects of the need for a trial in this patient cohort. Methods/design: Our plan is to randomize critically ill patients with acute kidney injury to 'early' or 'late' initiation of renal replacement therapy according to stage 2 and 3 of the KDIGO classification using a specific trial protocol. We plan to guide data collection and analysis using pre-existing definitions and testing. The primary endpoint is overall survival in a 90-day follow-up period. Secondary endpoints include 28-day, 60-day, 90-day and 1-year all-cause mortality, recovery of renal function, ICU and hospital length-of-stay. The primary analysis will be an intention-to-treat analysis; secondary analyses include treated analyses. We will also specify rules for handling data and determining outcome. Discussion: Several challenges for study design and execution can be seen in our trial, and it should generate results that will inform and influence the practice of renal replacement therapy in critically ill patients with acute kidney injury. Trial registration: German Clinical Trials Register: DRKS00004367 (www.germanctr.de); 28 May 2013

A narrow band neutrino beam with high precision flux measurements

The ENUBET facility is a proposed narrow band neutrino beam where lepton production is monitored at single particle level in the instrumented decay tunnel. This facility addresses simultaneously the two most important challenges for the next generation of cross section experiments: a superior control of the flux and flavor composition at source and a high level of tunability and precision in the selection of the energy of the outcoming neutrinos. We report here the latest results in the development and test of the instrumentation for the decay tunnel. Special emphasis is given to irradiation tests of the photo-sensors performed at INFN-LNL and CERN in 2017 and to the first application of polysiloxane-based scintillators in high energy physics.Comment: Poster presented at NuPhys2017 (London, 20-22 December 2017). 5 pages, 2 figure

Shashlik calorimeters: Novel compact prototypes for the ENUBET experiment

We summarize in this paper the detector R&D performed in the framework of the ERC ENUBET Project. We discuss in particular the latest results on longitudinally segmented shashlik calorimeters and the first HEP application of polysiloxane-based scintillators

Positron identification in the ENUBET instrumented decay tunnel

The ERC granted ENUBET project aims at developing the technologies to reduce by a factor $\sim$10 the systematics in neutrino fluxes from conventional beams, allowing measuring the $\nu_e$ (and $\overline{\nu}_e$) cross section with a 1% precision, in the region of interest for future oscillation experiments looking for CP violation. This goal is accomplished by monitoring in an instrumented decay tunnel the high angle positron produced in K$_{e3}$ decays of charged kaons, in a sign and momentum selected narrow band beam. After a brief description of the proposed facility, the Monte Carlo simulation of the positron tagger in realistic conditions and a preliminary event reconstruction chain will be described, together with results on the expected signal selection efficiency