The LHC Beam Loss Measurement System

An unprecedented amount of energy will be stored in the circulating beams of LHC. The loss of even a very small fraction of a beam may induce a quench in the superconducting magnets or cause physical damage to machine components. A fast (one turn) loss of 3 . 10-9 and a constant loss of 3 . 10-12 times the nominal beam intensity can quench a dipole magnet. A fast loss of 3 . 10-6 times nominal beam intensity can damage a magnet. The stored energy in the LHC beam is a factor of 200 (or more) higher than in existing hadron machines with superconducting magnets (HERA, TEVATRON, RHIC), while the quench levels of the LHC magnets are a factor of about 5 to 20 lower than the quench levels of these machines. To comply with these requirements the detectors, ionisation chambers and secondary emission monitors are designed very reliable with a large operational range. Several stages of the acquisition chain are doubled and frequent functionality tests are automatically executed. The failure probabilities of single components were identified and optimised. First measurements show the large dynamic range of the system

Development, Production and Testing of 4500 Beam Loss Monitors

Beam-loss monitoring (BLM) [1] is a key element in the LHC machine protection. 4250 nitrogen filled ionization chambers (IC) and 350 secondary emission monitors (SEM) have been manufactured and tested at the Institute for High Energy Physics (IHEP) in Protvino, Russia, following their development at CERN. Signal speed and robustness against aging were the main design criteria. Each monitor is permanently sealed inside a stainless-steel cylinder. The quality of the welding was a critical aspect during production. The SEMs are requested to hold a vacuum of $10^{-7}$ bar. Impurity levels from thermal and radiationinduced desorption should remain in the range of parts per million in the ICs. To avoid radiation aging (up to $2·10^{8}$ Gy in 20 years) production of the chambers followed strict UHV requirements. IHEP designed and built the UHV production stand. Due to the required dynamic range of $10^{8}$, the leakage current of the monitors has to stay below 2 pA. Several tests during and after production were performed at IHEP and CERN. A consistently high quality during the whole production period was achieved and the tight production schedule kept at the same time

Adropin and apelin fluctuations throughout a season in professional soccer players : are they related with performance?

Myokines are likely to be involved in the whole-body metabolic adaptive changes that occur in response to regular exercise. We aimed to investigate the association of the two myokines (adropin and apelin) with physical performance in professional soccer players. To this purpose, we analyzed the fluctuations of circulating levels of both adropin and apelin in professional soccer players during a season and evaluated the possible association of these myokines with the performance level. Creatine kinase (CK) and lactate dehydrogenase (LDH) activity as well as iron, transferrin and high-sensitivity C-Reactive protein (hsCRP), ferritin, soluble transferrin receptor (sTfR), free testosterone/cortisol ratio (FTCR), total iron binding capacity (TIBC) were also determined. Fifteen male professional soccer players from an Italian Serie A team were included in this study. Regarding the results of the biochemical analyses, the patterns of changes in the biomarkers of fatigue and inflammation, i.e., HsCRP, CK and LDH reflected the effects of the training throughout the season. No significant changes were observed in adropin, while apelin exhibited variations that seem not to be related with performance. In addition, both adropin and apelin did not represent valuable strategy to assist in the performance assessment of professional soccer players

Electrochemotherapy of skin metastases from malignant melanoma: a PRISMA-compliant systematic review

The main treatment of MM metastases are systemic therapies, surgery, limb perfusion, and intralesional talimogene laherparepvec. Electrochemotherapy (ECT) is potentially useful also due to the high response rates recorded in cancers of any histology. No randomized studies comparing ECT with other local therapies have been published on this topic. We analyzed the available evidence on efficacy and toxicity of ECT in this setting. PubMed, Scopus, and Cochrane databases were screened for paper about ECT on MM skin metastases. Data about tumor response, mainly in terms of overall response rate (ORR), toxicity (both for ECT alone and in combination with systemic treatments), local control (LC), and overall survival (OS) were collected. The methodological quality was assessed using a 20-item validated quality appraisal tool for case series. Overall, 18 studies were included in our analysis. In studies reporting “per patient” tumor response the pooled complete response (CR) was 35.7% (95%CI 26.0–46.0%), and the pooled ORR was 80.6% (95%CI 68.7–90.1%). Regarding “per lesion” response, the pooled CR was 53.5% (95%CI 42.1–64.7%) and the pooled ORR was 77.0% (95%CI 56.0–92.6%). One-year LC rate was 80%, and 1-year OS was 67–86.2%. Pain (24.2–92.0%) and erythema (16.6–42.0%) were the most frequent toxicities. Two studies reported 29.2% and 41.6% incidence of necrosis. ECT is effective in terms of tumor response and tolerated in patients with skin metastases from MM, albeit with a wide variability of reported results. Therefore, prospective trials in this setting are warranted

EP-1313: Short course post operative IMRT on vaginal vault of endometrial tumor at low-risk of recurrence

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Glutathione transferase-A2 S112T polymorphism predicts survival, transplant-related mortality, busulfan and bilirubin blood levels after allogeneic stem cell transplantation

Busulfan liver metabolism depends on glutathione, a crucial mediator of cellular and systemic stress. Here we investigated 40 polymorphisms at 27 loci involved in hepatic glutathione homeostasis, with the aim of testing their impact on the clinical outcome of 185 busulfan-conditioned allogeneic transplants. GSTA2 S112T serine allele homozygosity is an independent prognostic factor for poorer survival (RR=2.388), for increased any time- and 100-day transplant-related mortality (RR=4.912 and RR=5.185, respectively). The genotype also predicts a wider busulfan area under the concentration-time curve (1214.36 \ub1 570.06 vs. 838.10 \ub1 282.40 mMol*min) and higher post-transplant bilirubin serum levels (3.280 \ub1 0.422 vs. 1.874+0.197 mg/dL). In vitro, busulfan elicits pro-inflammatory activation (increased NF-KappaB activity and interleukin-8 expression) in human hepatoma cells. At the same time, the drug down-regulates a variety of genes involved in bilirubin liver clearance: constitutive androstane receptor, multidrug resistance-associated protein, solute carrier organic anion transporters, and even GSTA2. It is worthy of note that GSTA2 also acts as an intra-hepatic bilirubin binding protein. These data underline the prognostic value of GSTA2 genetic variability in busulfan-conditioned allotransplants and suggest a patho-physiological model in which busulfan-induced inflammation leads to the impairment of post-transplant bilirubin metabolis

Defects in TRPM7 channel function deregulate thrombopoiesis through altered cellular Mg2+ homeostasis and cytoskeletal architecture

Mg2+ plays a vital role in platelet function, but despite implications for life-threatening conditions such as stroke or myocardial infarction, the mechanisms controlling [Mg2+](i) in megakaryocytes (MKs) and platelets are largely unknown. Transient receptor potential melastatin-like 7 channel (TRPM7) is a ubiquitous, constitutively active cation channel with a cytosolic alpha-kinase domain that is critical for embryonic development and cell survival. Here we report that impaired channel function of TRPM7 in MKs causes macrothrombocytopenia in mice (Trpm7(fl/fl-Pf4Cre)) and likely in several members of a human pedigree that, in addition, suffer from atrial fibrillation. The defect in platelet biogenesis is mainly caused by cytoskeletal alterations resulting in impaired proplatelet formation by Trpm7(fl/fl-Pf4Cre) MKs, which is rescued by Mg2+ supplementation or chemical inhibition of non-muscle myosin IIA heavy chain activity. Collectively, our findings reveal that TRPM7 dysfunction may cause macrothrombocytopenia in humans and mice

Deflection and extraction of Pb ions up to 33 TeV/c by a bent silicon crystal

The first results from an experiment to deflect a beam of fully stripped, ulta-relativistic Pb ions of 400 GeV/c per unit of charge, equivalent to 33 TeV/c, by means of a bent crystal are reported. Deflection efficiencies are as high as 14%, in agreement with theoretical predictions. In a second experiment a bent crsytal was used to extract 270 GeV/c per charge Pb82+ (22 TeV/c) ions from a coasting beam in the CERN-SPS, and a high extraction efficiency of up to 10% was found. These represent the first measurements to demonstrate applications of bent crystals in high energy heavy ion beams

Enantioselective analyses of antihistaminic drugs by high performance liquid chromatography

High-performance liquid chromatographic methods have been developed for stereoselective separations of terfenadine and its active metabolite fexofenadine.Satisfactory enantioseparations of racemic terfenadine were achieved on a Chiralcel column by normal phase elution. Analysis of racemic fexofenadine, as such, took a very long time and achieved poor enantioselectivity on this column; nevertheless, the analyte when derivatised with diazomethane was well resolved.Racemic fexofenadine was also derivatised using a chiral agent: R-(+)-1-phenylethylisocyanate and subjected to achiral LC on a reversed-phase analytical column. Complete enantioseparations were achieved in short analysis times; excess reagent eluted before the diastereoisomeric pair and did not interfere