The network of photodetectors and diode lasers of the CMS Link alignment system

The central feature of the CMS Link alignment system is a network of Amorphous Silicon Position Detectors distributed throughout the muon spectrometer that are connected by multiple laser lines. The data collected during the years from 2008 to 2015 is presented confirming an outstanding performance of the photo sensors during more than seven years of operation. Details of the photo sensor readout of the laser signals are presented. The mechanical motions of the CMS detector are monitored using these photosensors and good agreement with distance sensors is obtained

Performance of the CMS Cathode Strip Chambers with Cosmic Rays

The Cathode Strip Chambers (CSCs) constitute the primary muon tracking device in the CMS endcaps. Their performance has been evaluated using data taken during a cosmic ray run in fall 2008. Measured noise levels are low, with the number of noisy channels well below 1%. Coordinate resolution was measured for all types of chambers, and fall in the range 47 microns to 243 microns. The efficiencies for local charged track triggers, for hit and for segments reconstruction were measured, and are above 99%. The timing resolution per layer is approximately 5 ns

The impact of a school-based, nurse-delivered asthma health education programme on quality of life, knowledge and attitudes of Saudi children with asthma

Background More than two million people have asthma in Saudi Arabia: 13% aged 6-10 years. Asthma is one of the most common childhood illnesses. Little has been explored about children’s ability to learn more about their own asthma in Saudi Arabia. Aims The study was designed to assess the impact of a school-based, nurse-delivered asthma health education programme on asthmatic children's knowledge and attitude towards asthma, quality of life, anxiety level, and school absenteeism. Methods A quasi-experimental, non-equivalent groups, pre-test post-test design was used. The education programme was developed from existing evidence. The Paediatric Asthma Quality of Life Questionnaire, Spence Anxiety Tool, Asthma Knowledge Questionnaire, and Asthma Attitude Questionnaire were employed for data collection. Intervention (n=130) and control (n=98) groups were drawn from 10 schools in Ha’il region, Saudi Arabia. Descriptive and inferential statistics were used to examine differences within and between groups. Results Knowledge of asthma increased significantly more in the intervention group than in the control group. Attitude toward asthma was not changed by the intervention. Anxiety scores reverted to pre-test level by post-test II. The intervention group had significantly better total quality of life scores than the control group, and school absenteeism reduced significantly after delivery of the programme. Conclusion The asthma education programme impacted positively on students' knowledge, quality of life, and school attendance. However, asthma education did not change attitudes towards the condition, and the impact on anxiety was not persistent. The results emphasise the benefits of provision of health education directly to children. Asthma education should be integrated into the Saudi national child health programme. Key words: Asthma, Children, Education programme, Self-agenc

Performance and Operation of the CMS Electromagnetic Calorimeter

The operation and general performance of the CMS electromagnetic calorimeter using cosmic-ray muons are described. These muons were recorded after the closure of the CMS detector in late 2008. The calorimeter is made of lead tungstate crystals and the overall status of the 75848 channels corresponding to the barrel and endcap detectors is reported. The stability of crucial operational parameters, such as high voltage, temperature and electronic noise, is summarised and the performance of the light monitoring system is presented

Overview of recent TJ-II stellarator results

The main results obtained in the TJ-II stellarator in the last two years are reported. The most important topics investigated have been modelling and validation of impurity transport, validation of gyrokinetic simulations, turbulence characterisation, effect of magnetic configuration on transport, fuelling with pellet injection, fast particles and liquid metal plasma facing components. As regards impurity transport research, a number of working lines exploring several recently discovered effects have been developed: the effect of tangential drifts on stellarator neoclassical transport, the impurity flux driven by electric fields tangent to magnetic surfaces and attempts of experimental validation with Doppler reflectometry of the variation of the radial electric field on the flux surface. Concerning gyrokinetic simulations, two validation activities have been performed, the comparison with measurements of zonal flow relaxation in pellet-induced fast transients and the comparison with experimental poloidal variation of fluctuations amplitude. The impact of radial electric fields on turbulence spreading in the edge and scrape-off layer has been also experimentally characterized using a 2D Langmuir probe array. Another remarkable piece of work has been the investigation of the radial propagation of small temperature perturbations using transfer entropy. Research on the physics and modelling of plasma core fuelling with pellet and tracer-encapsulated solid-pellet injection has produced also relevant results. Neutral beam injection driven Alfvénic activity and its possible control by electron cyclotron current drive has been examined as well in TJ-II. Finally, recent results on alternative plasma facing components based on liquid metals are also presentedThis work has been carried out within the framework of the EUROfusion Consortium and has received funding from the Euratom research and training programme 2014–2018 under Grant Agreement No. 633053. It has been partially funded by the Ministerio de Ciencia, Inovación y Universidades of Spain under projects ENE2013-48109-P, ENE2015-70142-P and FIS2017-88892-P. It has also received funds from the Spanish Government via mobility grant PRX17/00425. The authors thankfully acknowledge the computer resources at MareNostrum and the technical support provided by the Barcelona S.C. It has been supported as well by The Science and Technology Center in Ukraine (STCU), Project P-507F

Adrenal function recovery after durable oral corticosteroid sparing with benralizumab in the PONENTE study

Background Oral corticosteroid (OCS) dependence among patients with severe eosinophilic asthma can cause adverse outcomes, including adrenal insufficiency. PONENTE's OCS reduction phase showed that, following benralizumab initiation, 91.5% of patients eliminated corticosteroids or achieved a final dosage ≤5 mg·day-1 (median (range) 0.0 (0.0-40.0) mg). Methods The maintenance phase assessed the durability of corticosteroid reduction and further adrenal function recovery. For ~6 months, patients continued benralizumab 30 mg every 8 weeks without corticosteroids or with the final dosage achieved during the reduction phase. Investigators could prescribe corticosteroids for asthma exacerbations or increase daily dosages for asthma control deteriorations. Outcomes included changes in daily OCS dosage, Asthma Control Questionnaire (ACQ)-6 and St George's Respiratory Questionnaire (SGRQ), as well as adrenal status, asthma exacerbations and adverse events. Results 598 patients entered PONENTE; 563 (94.1%) completed the reduction phase and entered the maintenance phase. From the end of reduction to the end of maintenance, the median (range) OCS dosage was unchanged (0.0 (0.0-40.0) mg), 3.2% (n=18/563) of patients experienced daily dosage increases, the mean ACQ-6 score decreased from 1.26 to 1.18 and 84.5% (n=476/563) of patients were exacerbation free. The mean SGRQ improvement (-19.65 points) from baseline to the end of maintenance indicated substantial quality-of-life improvements. Of patients entering the maintenance phase with adrenal insufficiency, 32.4% (n=104/321) demonstrated an improvement in adrenal function. Adverse events were consistent with previous reports. Conclusions Most patients successfully maintained maximal OCS reduction while achieving improved asthma control with few exacerbations and maintaining or recovering adrenal function

Multi-ancestry genome-wide association study of asthma exacerbations

Altres ajuts: European Regional Development Fund "ERDF A way of making Europe"; Allergopharma-EAACI award 2021; SysPharmPedia grant from the ERACoSysMed 1st Joint Transnational Call from the European Union under the Horizon 2020; Sandler Family Foundation; American Asthma Foundation; RWJF Amos Medical Faculty Development Program; National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute of the National Institutes of Health (R01HL117004, R01HL128439, R01HL135156, X01HL134589, R01HL141992, R01HL141845); National Institute of Health and Environmental Health Sciences (R01ES015794, R21ES24844); National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities (NIMHD) (P60MD006902, R01MD010443, R56MD013312); National Institute of General Medical Sciences (NIGMS) (RL5GM118984); Tobacco-Related Disease Research Program (24RT-0025, 27IR-0030); National Human Genome Research Institute (NHGRI) (U01HG009080); GlaxoSmithKline and Utrecht Institute for Pharmaceutical Sciences; Slovenian Research Agency (P3-0067); SysPharmPediA grant, co-financed by the Ministry of Education, Science and Sport Slovenia (MIZS) (C3330-16-500106); NHS Research Scotland; Wellcome Trust Biomedical Resource (099177/Z/12/Z); Genotyping National Centre (CeGEN) CeGen-PRB3-ISCIII (AC15/00015); UK Medical Research Council and Wellcome (102215/2/13/2); University of Bristol; Swedish Heart-Lung Foundation, Swedish Research Council; Region Stockholm (ALF project and database maintenance); NHS Chair of Pharmacogenetics via the UK Department of Health; Innovative Medicines Initiative (IMI) (115010); European Federation of Pharmaceutical Industries and Associations (EFPIA); Spanish National Cancer Research Centre; Fundación Canaria Instituto de Investigación Sanitaria de Canarias (PIFIISC19/17); Erasmus Medical Center; Erasmus University Rotterdam; Netherlands Organization for the Health Research and Development (ZonMw); the Research Institute for Diseases in the Elderly (RIDE); Ministry of Education, Culture and Science; Ministry for Health, Welfare and Sports; European Commission (DG XII); Municipality of Rotterdam; German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (Bundesministerium für Bildung und Forschung, BMBF); U.S. National Institutes of Health (HL07966); European Social Fund "ESF Investing in your future"; Ministerio de Ciencia, Innovación y Universidades; Universidad de La Laguna (ULL); European Academy of Allergy and Clinical Immunology (EAACI); European Respiratory Society (ERS) (LTRF202101-00861); Ministry of Education, Science and Sport of the Republic of Slovenia (C3330-19-252012); Singapore Ministry of Education Academic Research Fund; Singapore Immunology Network (SIgN); National Medical Research Council (NMRC Singapore); Biomedical Research Council (BMRC Singapore); Agency for Science Technology and Research (A*STAR Singapore, N-154-000-038-001, R-154-000-191-112, R-154-000-404-112, R-154-000-553-112, R-154-000-565-112, R-154-000-630-112, R-154-000-A08-592, R-154-000-A27-597, R-154-000-A91-592, R-154-000-A95-592, R-154-000-B99-114, BMRC/01/1/21/18/077, BMRC/04/1/21/19/315, SIgN-06-006, SIgN-08-020, NMRC/1150/2008, H17/01/a0/008); Sime Darby Technology Centre; First Resources Ltd; Genting Plantation; Olam International; U.S. National Institutes of Health (HL138098).Background: Asthma exacerbations are a serious public health concern due to high healthcare resource utilization, work/school productivity loss, impact on quality of life, and risk of mortality. The genetic basis of asthma exacerbations has been studied in several populations, but no prior study has performed a multi-ancestry meta-analysis of genome-wide association studies (meta-GWAS) for this trait. We aimed to identify common genetic loci associated with asthma exacerbations across diverse populations and to assess their functional role in regulating DNA methylation and gene expression. Methods: A meta-GWAS of asthma exacerbations in 4989 Europeans, 2181 Hispanics/Latinos, 1250 Singaporean Chinese, and 972 African Americans analyzed 9.6 million genetic variants. Suggestively associated variants (p ≤ 5 × 10) were assessed for replication in 36,477 European and 1078 non-European asthma patients. Functional effects on DNA methylation were assessed in 595 Hispanic/Latino and African American asthma patients and in publicly available databases. The effect on gene expression was evaluated in silico. Results: One hundred and twenty-six independent variants were suggestively associated with asthma exacerbations in the discovery phase. Two variants independently replicated: rs12091010 located at vascular cell adhesion molecule-1/exostosin like glycosyltransferase-2 (VCAM1/EXTL2) (discovery: odds ratio (OR) = 0.82, p = 9.05 × 10 and replication: OR = 0.89, p = 5.35 × 10) and rs943126 from pantothenate kinase 1 (PANK1) (discovery: OR = 0.85, p = 3.10 × 10 and replication: OR = 0.89, p = 1.30 × 10). Both variants regulate gene expression of genes where they locate and DNA methylation levels of nearby genes in whole blood. Conclusions: This multi-ancestry study revealed novel suggestive regulatory loci for asthma exacerbations located in genomic regions participating in inflammation and host defense

Calibration of the CMS Drift Tube Chambers and Measurement of the Drift Velocity with Cosmic Rays

Peer reviewe

CMS physics technical design report : Addendum on high density QCD with heavy ions

Peer reviewe