Autonomous on-board data processing and instrument calibration software for the SO/PHI

The extension of on-board data processing capabilities is an attractive option to reduce telemetry for scientific instruments on deep space missions. The challenges that this presents, however, require a comprehensive software system, which operates on the limited resources a data processing unit in space allows. We implemented such a system for the Polarimetric and Helioseismic Imager (PHI) on-board the Solar Orbiter (SO) spacecraft. It ensures autonomous operation to handle long command-response times, easy changing of the processes after new lessons have been learned and meticulous book-keeping of all operations to ensure scientific accuracy. This contribution presents the requirements and main aspects of the software implementation, followed by an example of a task implemented in the software frame, and results from running it on SO/PHI. The presented example shows that the different parts of the software framework work well together, and that the system processes data as we expect. The flexibility of the framework makes it possible to use it as a baseline for future applications with similar needs and limitations as SO/PHI.Comment: Conference: SPIE Astronomical Telescopes + Instrumentatio, Software and Cyberinfrastructure for Astronomy

Necesidades de los cuidadores de pacientes con enfermedad lateral amiotrófica: estudio piloto sobre una intervención multidisciplinar

La esclerosis lateral amiotrófica (ELA) es una enfermedad que provoca incapacidad, cronicidad y minusvalía física. La dependencia del paciente se incrementa con el paso del tiempo hasta ser total. Objetivos Valorar la eficacia de intervenciones específicas diseñadas para capacitar a los cuidadores no profesionales de pacientes con enfermedad lateral amiotrófica. Método Estudio descriptivo transversal sobre una intervención diseñada para los cuidadores no profesionales de pacientes con ELA. Estudio piloto. Se evaluaron las necesidades de los cuidadores según el cuestionario de Kreutzer. Los pacientes se agruparon según el nivel de dependencia valorado con el índice de Barthel, y específicos de esclerosis lateral amiotrófica la Escala Revisada de Valoración Funcional y Cognitive Behavoral Screen. Se diseñó una intervención multidisciplinar y se evaluó su eficacia. Resultados Finalmente se incluyeron siete cuidadores en el estudio piloto. Son mujeres, de media de edad 56 años, parejas de los pacientes, con actividad económica paralela y con nivel medio de estudios. Los pacientes, son varones con una edad media de 63 años y de uno a tres años de evolución de la enfermedad; presentaron un Barthel moderado-leve, alteración cognitiva, de la motilidad gruesa y de la función respiratoria. Las necesidades más demandadas fueron las de «información médica/sanitaria» y de «implicación en el tratamiento y cuidado». Conclusiones Las intervenciones específicas para cubrir las necesidades de los cuidadores no profesionales son altamente efectivas. Utilizar herramientas que las identifiquen contribuyen a mejorar los cuidados que prestan. Amyotrophy lateral sclerosis is a disease that causes disability, chronicity and physical handicap. Moreover, the dependence of the patient will increase. Objectives To assess the efficacy of specific interventions designed to train non-professional caregivers of patients diagnosed with amyotrophic lateral disease. Method Descriptive cross-sectional study of an intervention designed for non-professional caregivers of patients with ALS. Pilot study. The target audience of this study are non-professional caregivers of patients with ALS. The level of dependence of the patients is measured with the Barthel index, the Revised Scale of Functional Assessment of Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis and Cognitive Behavioural Screening in ALS. The needs of these patients’ caregivers were evaluated according to the Kreutzer questionnaire. A multidisciplinary intervention designed to modify this situation was designed and reevaluated. Results Finally, seven caregivers were included in the pilot study. They were women, with an average age of 56 years, partners of the patients, with parallel economic activity and with an average level of education. The patients were men with a mean age of 63 years and 1-3 years of disease duration; they presented a moderate-mild Barthel, cognitive impairment, gross motility and respiratory function. The most demanded needs were for «medical/health information» and «involvement in treatment and care». Conclusion Specific interventions to meet the needs of non-professional caregivers are highly effective. Using tools that identify them contributes to improving caregivers’ care

Survey of selected pathogens in free-ranging pinnipeds in Uruguay

Marine mammals, regarded as sentinels of aquatic ecosystem health, are exposed to different pathogens and parasites under natural conditions. We surveyed live South American fur seals Arctocephalus australis and South American sea lions Otaria flavescens in Uruguay for Leptospira spp., canine distemper virus (CDV), Mycobacterium spp., Toxoplasma gondii, and Neospora caninum. Samples were collected from 2007 to 2013. The seroprevalence of Leptospira spp. was 37.6% positive, 50.9% negative, and 11.5% suspect for A. australis (n = 61) while for O. flavescens (n = 12) it was 67% positive, 25% negative, and 8% suspect. CDV RNA was not detected in any of the analyzed samples. Most animals tested seropositive to tuberculosis antigens by WiZo ELISA (A. australis: 29/30; O. flavescens: 20/20); reactivity varied with a novel ELISA test (antigens MPB70, MPB83, ESAT6 and MPB59). Seroprevalence against N. caninum and T. gondii was 6.7 and 13.3% positive for O. flavescens and 0 and 2.2% positive for A. australis respectively. To evaluate possible sources of infection for pinnipeds, wild rats Rattus rattus and semi-feral cats Felis catus were also tested for Leptospira spp. and T. gondii respectively. Water samples tested for Leptospira revealed saprofitic L. bioflexa. Pathogenic Leptospira were detected in the kidneys of 2 rats, and cats tested positive for T. gondii (100%). These results represent a substantial contribution to the study of the health status of wild pinnipeds in Uruguay.CSIC (Council for Scientific Research) of the Universidad de la Republica.Peer reviewe

CMAG: a mission to study and monitor the inner corona magnetic field

Measuring magnetic fields in the inner corona, the interface between the solar chromosphere and outer corona, is of paramount importance if we aim to understand the energetic transformations taking place there, and because it is at the origin of processes that lead to coronal heating, solar wind acceleration, and of most of the phenomena relevant to space weather. However, these measurements are more difficult than mere imaging because polarimetry requires differential photometry. The coronal magnetograph mission (CMAG) has been designed to map the vector magnetic field, line-of-sight velocities, and plane-of-the-sky velocities of the inner corona with unprecedented spatial and temporal resolutions from space. This will be achieved through full vector spectropolarimetric observations using a coronal magnetograph as the sole instrument on board a spacecraft, combined with an external occulter installed on another spacecraft. The two spacecraft will maintain a formation flight distance of 430 m for coronagraphic observations, which requires a 2.5 m occulter disk radius. The mission will be preferentially located at the Lagrangian L5 point, offering a significant advantage for solar physics and space weather research. Existing ground-based instruments face limitations such as atmospheric turbulence, solar scattered light, and long integration times when performing coronal magnetic field measurements. CMAG overcomes these limitations by performing spectropolarimetric measurements from space with an external occulter and high-image stability maintained over time. It achieves the necessary sensitivity and offers a spatial resolution of 2.5″ and a temporal resolution of approximately one minute, in its nominal mode, covering the range from 1.02 solar radii to 2.5 radii. CMAG relies on proven European technologies and can be adapted to enhance any other solar mission, offering potential significant advancements in coronal physics and space weather modeling and monitoring

Autonomous on-board data processing and instrument calibration software for the Polarimetric and Helioseismic Imager on-board the Solar Orbiter mission

This is an open access article. Published by SPIE under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 Unported License. Distribution or reproduction of this work in whole or in part requires full attribution of the original publication, including its DOI.A frequent problem arising for deep space missions is the discrepancy between the amount of data desired to be transmitted to the ground and the available telemetry bandwidth. A part of these data consists of scientific observations, being complemented by calibration data to help remove instrumental effects. We present our solution for this discrepancy, implemented for the Polarimetric and Helioseismic Imager on-board the Solar Orbiter mission, the first solar spectropolarimeter in deep space. We implemented an on-board data reduction system that processes calibration data, applies them to the raw science observables, and derives science-ready physical parameters. This process reduces the raw data for a single measurement from 24 images to five, thus reducing the amount of downlinked data, and in addition, renders the transmission of the calibration data unnecessary. Both these on-board actions are completed autonomously. © The Authors. Published by SPIE under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 Unported License. Distribution or reproduction of this work in whole or in part requires full attribution of the original publication, including its DOI.This work was carried out in the framework of the International Max Planck Research School for Solar System Science at the Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research. Solar Orbiter is a mission led by the European Space Agency with contribution from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). The Polarimetric and Helioseismic Imager instrument is supported by the German Aerospace Center (DLR) under grant Nos. 50 OT 1201 and 50 OT 1901. The Spanish contribution has been partly funded by the Spanish Research Agency under projects under grant Nos. ESP2016-77548-C5 and RTI2018-096886-B-C5, partially including European FEDER funds. IAA-CSIC members acknowledge and funds from the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation “Centro de Excelencia Severo Ochoa” Program under grant No. SEV-2017-0709. The solar data used in the tests are the courtesy of NASA/SDO HMI science team. Parts of the work shown in this paper have been introduced at the SPIE Astronomical Telescopes + Instrumentation conference.42 EditorialPeer reviewe

The management of acute venous thromboembolism in clinical practice. Results from the European PREFER in VTE Registry

Venous thromboembolism (VTE) is a significant cause of morbidity and mortality in Europe. Data from real-world registries are necessary, as clinical trials do not represent the full spectrum of VTE patients seen in clinical practice. We aimed to document the epidemiology, management and outcomes of VTE using data from a large, observational database. PREFER in VTE was an international, non-interventional disease registry conducted between January 2013 and July 2015 in primary and secondary care across seven European countries. Consecutive patients with acute VTE were documented and followed up over 12 months. PREFER in VTE included 3,455 patients with a mean age of 60.8 ± 17.0 years. Overall, 53.0 % were male. The majority of patients were assessed in the hospital setting as inpatients or outpatients (78.5 %). The diagnosis was deep-vein thrombosis (DVT) in 59.5 % and pulmonary embolism (PE) in 40.5 %. The most common comorbidities were the various types of cardiovascular disease (excluding hypertension; 45.5 %), hypertension (42.3 %) and dyslipidaemia (21.1 %). Following the index VTE, a large proportion of patients received initial therapy with heparin (73.2 %), almost half received a vitamin K antagonist (48.7 %) and nearly a quarter received a DOAC (24.5 %). Almost a quarter of all presentations were for recurrent VTE, with >80 % of previous episodes having occurred more than 12 months prior to baseline. In conclusion, PREFER in VTE has provided contemporary insights into VTE patients and their real-world management, including their baseline characteristics, risk factors, disease history, symptoms and signs, initial therapy and outcomes

Video1_Analysis of Actomyosin Oscillatory Dynamics Using a Coarse-Grained Model.MOV [Dataset]

Autonomous oscillatory dynamics are ubiquitous at every level in Biology. At the cellular level, one of the most relevant and well characterized examples of periodic behavior is the cyclic assembly and disassembly of actomyosin networks. In Drosophila, these oscillations induce the robust contraction and expansion of individual cells required for correct dorsal closure, while in the follicular epithelium that surrounds the germline, periodic contractions of the basal actomyosin network are required for proper elongation of the egg chamber. While some studies suggest that actomyosin oscillations are driven by upstream signaling or mechanochemical features, we have recently proposed that they arise as a systems property from the competition between two well characterized features of the actomyosin machinery: 1) cooperative assembly of actin networks mediated by Actin crosslinker proteins and 2) tension-induced disassembly of actin networks mediated by myosin motors. Here, we perform experiments in amnioserosa and in the follicle cells of drosophila and simulations using a coarse-grained model of the actomyosin cortex to characterize the properties of the oscillations and how they depend on different features of the system. We also compare model and experiments to study the dynamics of actomyosin flows and the effect of mechanical coupling between cells in the tissue. In conclusion, our model is a powerful tool to study key features of actomyosin oscillations, from the effect of the individual components to network properties and finally supra-cellular organization of the oscillations at the tissue level.Peer reviewe

Analysis of actomyosin oscillatory dynamics using a coarse-grained model

Autonomous oscillatory dynamics are ubiquitous at every level in Biology. At the cellular level, one of the most relevant and well characterized examples of periodic behavior is the cyclic assembly and disassembly of actomyosin networks. In Drosophila, these oscillations induce the robust contraction and expansion of individual cells required for correct dorsal closure, while in the follicular epithelium that surrounds the germline, periodic contractions of the basal actomyosin network are required for proper elongation of the egg chamber. While some studies suggest that actomyosin oscillations are driven by upstream signaling or mechanochemical features, we have recently proposed that they arise as a systems property from the competition between two well characterized features of the actomyosin machinery: 1) cooperative assembly of actin networks mediated by Actin crosslinker proteins and 2) tension-induced disassembly of actin networks mediated by myosin motors. Here, we perform experiments in amnioserosa and in the follicle cells of drosophila and simulations using a coarse-grained model of the actomyosin cortex to characterize the properties of the oscillations and how they depend on different features of the system. We also compare model and experiments to study the dynamics of actomyosin flows and the effect of mechanical coupling between cells in the tissue. In conclusion, our model is a powerful tool to study key features of actomyosin oscillations, from the effect of the individual components to network properties and finally supra-cellular organization of the oscillations at the tissue level.DM acknowledges funding to the Spanish Ministerio de Econoíma y Competitividad (BFU2014-53299-P, RTI2018- 096953-B-I00), funding to IFIMAC-UAM, through the ‘María de Maeztu’ Programme for Units of Excellence in R&D from the Spanish Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad (CEX2018- 000805-M), and funding from Comunidad de Madrid (PEJD2018- PRE/BMD-7980). Institutional grants by Fundación Ramón Areces and Banco de Santander to the CBMSO are also acknowledged. The authors declare that this study received funding from Banco de Santander, via institutional grants. With funding from the Spanish government through the ‘Severo Ochoa Centre of Excellence’ accreditation (CEX2018-000805-M)

Video4_Analysis of Actomyosin Oscillatory Dynamics Using a Coarse-Grained Model.AVI [Dataset]

Autonomous oscillatory dynamics are ubiquitous at every level in Biology. At the cellular level, one of the most relevant and well characterized examples of periodic behavior is the cyclic assembly and disassembly of actomyosin networks. In Drosophila, these oscillations induce the robust contraction and expansion of individual cells required for correct dorsal closure, while in the follicular epithelium that surrounds the germline, periodic contractions of the basal actomyosin network are required for proper elongation of the egg chamber. While some studies suggest that actomyosin oscillations are driven by upstream signaling or mechanochemical features, we have recently proposed that they arise as a systems property from the competition between two well characterized features of the actomyosin machinery: 1) cooperative assembly of actin networks mediated by Actin crosslinker proteins and 2) tension-induced disassembly of actin networks mediated by myosin motors. Here, we perform experiments in amnioserosa and in the follicle cells of drosophila and simulations using a coarse-grained model of the actomyosin cortex to characterize the properties of the oscillations and how they depend on different features of the system. We also compare model and experiments to study the dynamics of actomyosin flows and the effect of mechanical coupling between cells in the tissue. In conclusion, our model is a powerful tool to study key features of actomyosin oscillations, from the effect of the individual components to network properties and finally supra-cellular organization of the oscillations at the tissue level.Peer reviewe