Heat Pumping and Reversible Air Conditioning: How to make the best use of HVAC equipment ?

peer reviewedIEA-ECBCS Annex 48 - Heat Pumping and Reversible Air Conditionin

Exhaust emissions of regulated and unregulated pollutants of passenger cars

Exhaust emissions of VOC speciation, aldehydes and other carbonyl compounds, polyaromatics and regulated pollutants are measured using a vehicle bench on a sample of passenger cars. 30 diesel and gasoline cars are tested, complying with ECE 1504 to Euro 3 emission standards, according to 10 real-world driving cycles based on European driving behaviour, with some of them adapted to vehicle size. The emission results of this large-scale measurement campaign show the influence of vehicle technology and driving behaviour on the emission of 100 individual pollutants. In addition, the results are discussed per VOC group and compared with other studies. The influence of the successive emission standards on the emission factors is very positive in most of cases. However, whereas hot CO2 is almost stable, diesel hot NOx, diesel hot and cold VOC, and the 6 most carcinogenic gasoline PAH have increased with standards. Diesel vehicles are less pollutant for CO, HC, CO2, VOC, but more pollutant for NOx and PAH. The distribution of VOC species per molecular family highlights the fact that monoaromatics make up the biggest share (~88 and 62 % resp. for gasoline and diesel vehicles). The second family is the alkanes which contribute resp. 8 and 9% of the total mass of measured VOC. The majority of volatile PAH is observed in the gaseous phase, but the least volatile and the carcinogenic PAH are adsorbed more in particulate phase

Thermal modeling in composite transmission laser welding process: light scattering and absorption phenomena coupling

17th Conference of the European-Scientific-Association-on-Material-Forming (ESAFORM), Espoo, FINLAND, MAY 07-09, 2014International audienceIn previous studies [1, 2], we have presented a detailed formulation of a macroscopic analytical model of the optical propagation of laser beams in the case of unidirectional thermoplastic composites materials. This analytical model presented a first step which concerns the estimation of the laser beam intensity at the welding interface. It describes the laser light path in scattering semi-transparent composites (first component) by introducing light scattering ratio (D) and scattering standard deviation (sigma). The absorption was assumed to be negligible in regard to the scattering effect. In this current paper, in order to describe completely the laser welding process in composite materials, we introduce the absorption phenomenon in the model, in the absorbing material (second component), in order to determine the radiative heat source generated at the welding interface. Finally, we will be able to perform a three dimensional temperature field calculation using commercial FEM software. In laser welding process, the temperature distribution inside the irradiated materials is essential in order to optimize the process. Experimental measurements will be performed in order to confirm the analytical model

Disease management patterns for postmenopausal women in Europe with hormone-receptor-positive, human epidermal growth factor receptor-2 negative advanced breast cancer.

peer reviewedAbstract Background: International guidelines for hormone-receptor-positive (HR+), human epidermal growth factor receptor-2 negative (HER2-) advanced breast cancer (BC) recommend sequential lines of hormonal therapy (HT), and only recommend chemotherapy for patients with extensive visceral involvement or rapidly progressive disease. This study evaluated actual physician-reported treatments for advanced BC in Europe. Methods: We conducted a retrospective chart review of 355 postmenopausal women with HR+, HER2- advanced BC who progressed on >/=1 line of HT (adjuvant or advanced) and completed >/=1 line of chemotherapy (advanced). Treatment choice was evaluated for each line of therapy. Results: Of 355 patients, 111 (31%) received first-line chemotherapy, whereas 218 (61%) and 26 (7%) switched from HT to chemotherapy in second and third line, respectively. More patients receiving first-line HT had bone metastases (73% vs 27% chemotherapy). Patients treated with first-line chemotherapy had more brain (12% vs 3% HT) or extensive liver (13% vs 6% HT) metastases. Subgroup analysis of 188 patients who received first-line HT and had de novo advanced BC or relapsed/recurrent disease more than 1 year after adjuvant therapy found that the majority (89%; n = 167) of these patients switched to chemotherapy in second line. However, among these 167 patients, 27% had no significant changes in metastases between first and second line. Among the 73% of patients who had significant changes in metastases, 20% had no brain metastases or extensive visceral disease. Conclusions: Our study suggests that the guideline-recommended use of multiple HT lines is open to interpretation and that optimal treatment for European postmenopausal women with HR+, HER2- advanced BC who responded to HT may not be achieved

Molecular dynamics simulations of the internal mobility of Gd3+-based MRI contrast agents: consequences for water proton relaxivity

The increasing use of contrast agents in magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) for medical diagnosis is due to the ability, called relaxivity, of these paramagnetic compounds to accelerate the relaxation of the surrounding water proton spins. A new classical force field for molecular dynamics simulations of Gd3+ polyaminocarboxylates has recently been published, which allows the study of the chelate internal mobility. We present two selected examples where such motions can affect relaxivity. Knowing the relationship between the bound water proton and oxygen mobility is important for the combined analysis of multinuclear NMR studies, and we show that they differ significantly. Next, we observe symmetry changes over time in the Gd3+ coordination polyhedron of the acyclic complexes. We propose that such rearrangements can play a role in the electron spin relaxation of Gd3+ chelates, an important result considering the uncertainty still attached to this particular factor

Response rate by geographic region in patients with hormone receptor-positive, human epidermal growth factor receptor-2–negative advanced breast cancer from the SOLAR-1 trial

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Prediction of the outcome of preoperative chemotherapy in breast cancer using DNA probes that provide information on both complete and incomplete responses

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>DNA microarray technology has emerged as a major tool for exploring cancer biology and solving clinical issues. Predicting a patient's response to chemotherapy is one such issue; successful prediction would make it possible to give patients the most appropriate chemotherapy regimen. Patient response can be classified as either a pathologic complete response (PCR) or residual disease (NoPCR), and these strongly correlate with patient outcome. Microarrays can be used as multigenic predictors of patient response, but probe selection remains problematic. In this study, each probe set was considered as an elementary predictor of the response and was ranked on its ability to predict a high number of PCR and NoPCR cases in a ratio similar to that seen in the learning set. We defined a valuation function that assigned high values to probe sets according to how different the expression of the genes was and to how closely the relative proportions of PCR and NoPCR predictions to the proportions observed in the learning set was. Multigenic predictors were designed by selecting probe sets highly ranked in their predictions and tested using several validation sets.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Our method defined three types of probe sets: 71% were mono-informative probe sets (59% predicted only NoPCR, and 12% predicted only PCR), 25% were bi-informative, and 4% were non-informative. Using a valuation function to rank the probe sets allowed us to select those that correctly predicted the response of a high number of patient cases in the training set and that predicted a PCR/NoPCR ratio for validation sets that was similar to that of the whole learning set. Based on DLDA and the nearest centroid method, bi-informative probes proved more successful predictors than probes selected using a t test.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>Prediction of the response to breast cancer preoperative chemotherapy was significantly improved by selecting DNA probe sets that were successful in predicting outcomes for the entire learning set, both in terms of accurately predicting a high number of cases and in correctly predicting the ratio of PCR to NoPCR cases.</p

Use of a beta microprobe system to measure arterial input function in PET via an arteriovenous shunt in rats

Kinetic modeling of physiological function using imaging techniques requires the accurate measurement of the time-activity curve of the tracer in plasma, known as the arterial input function (IF). The measurement of IF can be achieved through manual blood sampling, the use of small counting systems such as beta microprobes, or by derivation from PET images. Previous studies using beta microprobe systems to continuously measure IF have suffered from high background counts. In the present study, a light-insensitive beta microprobe with a temporal resolution of up to 1 s was used in combination with a pump-driven femoral arteriovenous shunt to measure IF in rats. The shunt apparatus was designed such that the placement of the beta microprobe was highly reproducible. The probe-derived IF was compared to that obtained from manual sampling at 5-s intervals and IF derived from a left ventricle VOI in a dynamic PET image of the heart. Probe-derived IFs were very well matched to that obtained by "gold standard" manual blood sampling, but with an increased temporal resolution of up to 1 s. The area under the curve (AUC) ratio between probe- and manually derived IFs was 1.07 ± 0.05 with a coefficient of variation of 0.04. However, image-derived IFs were significantly underestimated compared to the manually sampled IFs, with an AUC ratio of 0.76 ± 0.24 with a coefficient of variation of 0.32. IF derived from the beta microprobe accurately represented the IF as measured by blood sampling, was reproducible, and was more accurate than an image-derived technique. The use of the shunt removed problems of tissue-background activity, and the use of a light-tight probe with minimal gamma sensitivity refined the system. The probe/shunt apparatus can be used in both microprobe and PET studies

Response rate as a potential surrogate for survival and efficacy in patients treated with novel immune checkpoint inhibitors: A meta-regression of randomised prospective studies

INTRODUCTION: To assess the role of the tumour response rate (RR) after immune checkpoint inhibitors-based therapy as a potential surrogate end-point of progression-free survival (PFS) and overall survival (OS) in patients with solid tumours, we performed a trial-based meta-regression of randomised studies comparing different immune checkpoint inhibitors-based treatments. METHODS: The systematic literature search included the electronic databases and the proceedings of oncologic meetings. Treatment effects on PFS and OS were expressed as hazard ratios (HRs); treatment effects on RR were expressed as odds ratios (ORs). A weighted regression analysis was performed on log-transformed treatment effect estimates to test the association between treatment effects on the surrogate outcome and treatment effects on the clinical outcome. RESULTS: Twenty-four trials, for a total of 11,894 patients, were included in the analysis. Using the complete set of data, the regression of either the log(HR) for PFS or the log(HR) for OS on the log(OR) for RR demonstrated weak associations (R2 = 0.47; 95% confidence interval [CI], 0.03-0.77; P = 0.001; and R2 = 0.32; 95% CI, 0.02-0.76; P = 0.01, respectively). The pre-planned analyses stratifying trials according to different type of disease and different mechanism of action of immune checkpoint inhibitors showed a very weak association of the RR with the OS for non-small cell lung cancer indicated and a modest association of the RR with the PFS for cytotoxic T lymphocyte-associated antigen 4 checkpoint inhibitors. CONCLUSION: The results of the trial-based meta-regression analysis indicated a weak correlation between RR and OS, supporting future investigations to assess the surrogacy of RR in the patient treated with immune checkpoint inhibitors