High Risk of Secondary Infections Following Thrombotic Complications in Patients With COVID-19

Background. This study’s primary aim was to evaluate the impact of thrombotic complications on the development of secondary infections. The secondary aim was to compare the etiology of secondary infections in patients with and without thrombotic complications. Methods. This was a cohort study (NCT04318366) of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) patients hospitalized at IRCCS San Raffaele Hospital between February 25 and June 30, 2020. Incidence rates (IRs) were calculated by univariable Poisson regression as the number of cases per 1000 person-days of follow-up (PDFU) with 95% confidence intervals. The cumulative incidence functions of secondary infections according to thrombotic complications were compared with Gray’s method accounting for competing risk of death. A multivariable Fine-Gray model was applied to assess factors associated with risk of secondary infections. Results. Overall, 109/904 patients had 176 secondary infections (IR, 10.0; 95% CI, 8.8–11.5; per 1000-PDFU). The IRs of secondary infections among patients with or without thrombotic complications were 15.0 (95% CI, 10.7–21.0) and 9.3 (95% CI, 7.9–11.0) per 1000-PDFU, respectively (P = .017). At multivariable analysis, thrombotic complications were associated with the development of secondary infections (subdistribution hazard ratio, 1.788; 95% CI, 1.018–3.140; P = .043). The etiology of secondary infections was similar in patients with and without thrombotic complications. Conclusions. In patients with COVID-19, thrombotic complications were associated with a high risk of secondary infections

Virgo gravitational wave detector: Results and perspectives

The Virgo detector reached during the past science run a sensitivity very close to the design one. During the last year the detector has been improved by suspending the main interferometer mirrors with monolithic fibers, with the goal of reducing the thermal noise contribution and testing the new technology. At the same time the design of the next detector improvements are on-going and they will be implemented during the construction of Advanced Virgo

Textes éducatifs et contextes favorisant l’apprentissage.Optimisation d’un modèle de pratique pédagogique

INTRODUCTION Nous avons consacré plus de vingt ans de notre vie de chercheuses à tenter de trouver des réponses au problème majeur de l’amélioration de l’apprentissage des élèves, particulièrement des élèves en difficulté, sans, pour autant, que soit affaibli le niveau d’exigence conceptuelle. La recherche s’est centrée sur les contextes d’apprentissage familiaux, les contextes d’apprentissage en milieu scolaire et aussi sur ceux de la construction des programmes et des manuels scolaires (voi..

Occurrence of Idiopathic Pulmonary Fibrosis in Italy: Latest Evidence from Real-World Data

The aim of the study was to evaluate the trend in the incidence of idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF) in a real-world setting of the Marche region, a region of Central Italy, between 2014 and 2019. This observational prospective study was based on administrative databases of hospital discharges and drug prescriptions. All adult residents in the Marche Region with a first prescription of antifibrotic drugs, or a first hospitalization with a diagnosis of IPF during the study period, were identified as incident cases of IPF. A multiple Poisson regression analysis was used to estimate the IPF incidence trend, adjusted for age, sex, and health conditions. The mean incidence rate was 9.8 cases per 100,000 person-years. A significant increasing trend of 6% per year was observed. The incidence rates were significantly higher in males than females, older subjects, and those with poorer health conditions. To our knowledge, this is the first study evaluating incidences of IPF over a 6-year period in Italy, combining hospital discharge and drug prescription databases. The study highlights that the combined use of two secondary sources is a reliable strategy to accurately identify new cases of IPF when the appropriate disease registry is lacking

Characterization of the Virgo seismic environment

The Virgo gravitational wave detector is an interferometer (ITF) with 3km arms located in Pisa, Italy. From July to October 2010, Virgo performed its third science run (VSR3) in coincidence with the LIGO detectors. Despite several techniques adopted to isolate the interferometer from the environment, seismic noise remains an important issue for Virgo. Vibrations produced by the detector infrastructure (such as air conditioning units, water chillers/heaters, pumps) are found to affect Virgo's sensitivity, with the main coupling mechanisms being through beam jitter and scattered light processes. The Advanced Virgo (AdV) design seeks to reduce ITF couplings to environmental noise by having most vibration-sensitive components suspended and in-vacuum, as well as muffle and relocate loud machines. During the months of June and July 2010, a Guralp-3TD seismometer was stationed at various locations around the Virgo site hosting major infrastructure machines. Seismic data were examined using spectral and coherence analysis with seismic probes close to the detector. The primary aim of this study was to identify noisy machines which seismically affect the ITF environment and thus require mitigation attention. Analyzed machines are located at various distances from the experimental halls, ranging from 10m to 100m. An attempt is made to measure the attenuation of emitted noise at the ITF and correlate it to the distance from the source and to seismic attenuation models in soil

Status of the commissioning of the Virgo interferometer

Long baseline optical interferometry is a promising technique for the detection of gravitational waves [1], [2], [3], [4]. The French-Italian detector Virgo is a Michelson interferometer with 3 km arms, equipped with high storage time Fabry-Perot cavities. In this kind of detectors, the passage of gravitational waves would be sensed as a differential length variation of the arms. After the end of the second Virgo Science Run, lasting from July 2009 to the beginning of January 2010, some important upgrades have been carried out; in particular, the mirrors of the Fabry-Perot cavities, which act as test masses of the detector, have been replaced by new ones with an higher reflectivity, which should increase by three times the finesse of the cavities; moreover the mirrors are now suspended by silica fibers in a monolithic assembly expected to significantly lower the thermal noise. Finally, the digital signal processing electronics and the global control system have been largely improved. We will present the status of the commissioning of the Virgo interferometer

Central heating radius of curvature correction (CHRoCC) for use in large scale gravitational wave interferometers

An asymmetry in radii of curvature of the mirrors in the arms of an interferometric gravitational-wave detector can degrade the performance of such a detector. In addition, the non-perfect mirror surface figures can excite higher order modes if the radii of curvature are close to higher order mode degeneracy. In this paper, we present a novel technique for changing the radii of curvature of arm cavity end mirrors by Central Heating Radius of Curvature Correction. This system was installed in the Virgo experiment in Cascina and proved to be an efficient, non-invasive solution with a large dynamic range. We present how the interferometer was tuned using such a system in order to obtain the best duty-cycles and sensitivity achieved with Virgo to date

The Advanced Virgo detector

The Advanced Virgo interferometer is the upgraded version of the Virgo detector having the goal to extend by a factor 10 the observation horizon in the universe and consequently increase the detection rate by three orders of magnitude. Its installation is in progress and is expected to be completed in late 2015. In this proceeding we will present the scheme and the main challenging technical features of the detector and we will give an outline of the installation status and the foreseen time schedule which will bring Advanced Virgo to its full operation

The NoEMi (Noise Frequency Event Miner) framework

The data collected by a gravitational wave interferometer are inevitably affected by instrumental artefacts and environmental disturbances. In particular, for continuous gravitational wave (CW) studies it is important to detect narrow-band disturbances (the so-called "noise lines") during science runs, and to help scientists to identify and possibly remove or mitigate their sources. The NoEMi (Noise Frequency Event Miner) framework exploits some of the algorithms implemented for the CW search to identify, on a daily basis, the frequency lines observed in the Virgo science data and in a subset of the environmental sensors, looking for lines that match in frequency. A line tracker algorithm reconstructs the lines over time, and stores them in a database, which is made accesible via a web interface. We describe the workflow of NoEMi, providing examples of its use for the investigation of noise lines in past Virgo runs (VSR2, VSR3) and in the most recent run (VSR4)

ADVANCED VIRGO INTERFEROMETER: A SECOND GENERATION DETECTOR FOR GRAVITATIONAL WAVES OBSERVATION

In the last ten years great improvements have been done in the development and operation of ground based detectors for Gravitational Waves direct observation and study. The second generation detectors are presently under construction in Italy, United States and Japan with a common intent to create a worldwide network of instruments able to start a new era in astronomy and astrophysics, a century after the development of the General Relativity theory predicting the existence of Gravitational Waves. The design sensitivity of the advanced detectors will be approximately ten times better with respect to the previous generation corresponding to an increment of a factor one thousand in the observational volume of the Universe where black holes, neutron stars and other enigmatic sources of these weak signals are spread around. In this paper we present a general overview of the advanced detectors with particular emphasis on Advanced VIRGO, the largest European interferometer located at the European Gravitational Observatory (EGO) site in the Pisa countryside (Italy)