Moon Mapping Project Results on Solar Wind Ion Flux and Composition

The "Moon Mapping" project is a collaboration between the Italian and Chinese Governments allowing cooperation and exchange between students from both countries. The main aim of the project is to analyze remotely-sensed data collected by the Chinese space missions Chang'E-1/2 over the Moon surface. The Italian Space Agency is responsible for the Italian side and the Center of Space Exploration, while the China Ministry of Education is responsible for the Chinese side. In this article, we summarize the results of the "Moon Mappining" project topic #1: "map of the solar wind ion" using the data collected by Chang'E-1 satellite. Chang'E-1 is a lunar orbiter, its revolution period lasts 2 h, and its orbit is polar. The satellite is equipped with two Solar Wind Ion Detectors (SWIDs) that are two perpendicular electrostatic spectrometers mapping the sky with a field of view of 15° × 6.7° × 24 ch. The spectrometers can measure solar wind flux in the range 40 eV/q–17 keV/q with an energy resolution of 8% and time resolution of ∼3 s. The data collected by the two Solar Wind Ion Detectors are analyzed to characterize the solar wind flux and composition on the Moon surface and to study the time variations due to the solar activity. The data measured by Chang'E-1 compared with the one measured in the same period by the electrostatic spectrometers onboard the ACE satellite, or with another solar activity indicator as the sunspot number, enrich the multi-messenger/multi-particle view of the Sun, gathering valuable information about the space weather outside the Earth magnetosphere

A Data Driven Approach to the Measurement of 10Be/9Be in Cosmic Rays with Magnetic Spectrometers

Cosmic Rays (CRs) are powerful tools for the investigation of the structure of the magnetic fields in the galactic halo and the properties of the Inter-Stellar Medium. There are two parameters of CR propagation models: The galactic halo (half-) thickness, H, and the diffusion coefficient, D, are loosely constrained by current CR flux measurements; in particular, a large degeneracy exists, as only H/D is well measured. The 10Be/9Be isotopic flux ratio (thanks to the 2 My lifetime of 10Be) can be used as a radioactive clock that provides the measurement of the residence time of CRs in the galaxy. This is an important tool for solving the degeneracy of H/D. Past measurements of the 10Be/9Be isotopic flux ratios in CRs are scarce, limited to low energy, and affected by large uncertainties. Here, a new technique for measuring the 10Be/9Be isotopic flux ratio in magnetic spectrometers with a data-driven approach is presented. As an example, by applying the method to beryllium events that were published by the PAMELA experiment, it is now possible to determine the important 10Be/9Be measurements while avoiding the prohibitive uncertainties coming from Monte Carlo simulations. It is shown how the accuracy of the PAMELA data permits one to infer a value of the halo thickness with a precision of up to 25%

Moon Mapping project results on Solar Wind ion flux and composition.

The "Moon Mapping" project is a collaboration between the Italian and Chinese Governments allowing cooperation and exchange from students from both countries. Main aim of the project is to analyze remotely sensed data collected by the Chinese space missions Chang'E-1/2 over the Moon surface. The Italian Space Agency is responsible for the Italian side and the Center of Space Exploration, China Ministry of Education, is responsible for the Chinese side. The results of the "Moon Mapping" project topic #1: "map of the solar wind ion" using data collected by Chang'E-1 satellite are summarized. Chang'E-1 is a lunar orbiter, the revolution period is 2 h and the orbit is polar. The satellite is equipped with two Solar Wind Ion Detectors (SWIDs) that are two perpendicular electrostatic spectrometers mapping the sky with 24 channels with a field of view of 15° × 6.7° each. The spectrometers can measure solar wind flux in the range 40 eV/q–17 keV/q with an energy resolution of 8%. The data collected by the two Solar Wind Ion Detectors are analyzed to characterize the solar wind flux and composition on the Moon surface, studying the large time variation due to the solar activity. The data measured by Chang'E-1, as compared with the one measured in the same period by the electrostatic spectrometers onboard the ACE satellite, enrich the multi-messenger/multi-particle view of the Sun, gathering valuable information about the space weather outside the Earth's magnetosphere

Search for Electron Capture in 176^{176}Lu with LYSO scintillator

The nuclide $^{176}$Lu is one of the few naturally occurring isotopes that are potentially unstable with respect to electron capture (EC). Although experimental evidence for $^{176}$Lu EC decay is still missing, this isotope is instead well known to $\beta^-$ decay into $^{176}$Hf with an half-life of about 38 Gyr. The precise investigation of all $^{176}$Lu possible decay modes is interesting because the Lu/Hf ratio is adopted as an isotopic clock. Previous searches for the $^{176}$Lu EC decay were performed by using a passive Lutetium source coupled with an HP-Ge spectrometer. Our approach uses a LYSO crystal both as Lutetium source and as an active detector. Scintillation light from the LYSO crystal is acquired in coincidence with the signals from the HP-Ge detector, this allows a powerful suppression of the background sourcing from the well known $\beta^-$ decay branch. This coincidence approach led to an improvement on the $^{176}$Lu EC branching ratio limits by a factor 3 to 30, depending on the considered EC channel.Comment: 8 pages, 12 figure

The expert in hemostasis and thrombosis in the Italian health system: role and requirements for a specific clinical and laboratory expertise

Hemorrhagic and thrombotic diseases are highly heterogeneous disorders that may affect a large proportion of the population, as in the case of patients taking antithrombotic drugs. The appropriate management of such conditions requires the availability of specific diagnostic assays, together with knowledge of the possible clinical syndromes and of their appropriate treatment. This can only be achieved through second-level specialized laboratories supervised by trained personnel. Such diagnostic and therapeutic organization is not widely available in Italy except in a very limited number of those large hospitals that are centers of excellence on a national scale. Increasing the availability of such resources would be of great benefit to patients, and could also be cost-effective for the national healthcare system. This document is promoted by the Italian Society for the Study on Hemostasis and Thrombosis (SISET) and by the main Italian scientific societies involved in the field during the years 2011-2012. It aims to identify the level of scientific and professional training required to define a physician as a Hemostasis and Thrombosis Expert, graded according to the levels of skill required for different clinical settings

Pneumocystis pneumonia in HIV-negative immunocompromised patients in Internal Medicine ward

Pneumocystis jirovecii pneumonia (PJP) is an opportunistic infection typically observed in AIDS patients, for whom it represents a leading cause of death. However, its incidence among HIV-negative immunocompromised patients is progressively increasing, with a significantly higher mortality compared to that of AIDS-patients. We performed a retrospective observational study on HIV-negative patients with PJP. We aimed to determine their epidemiological features and their biohumoral and therapeutic variables, searching for a correlation between them and our patients' outcome. We included all patients admitted to our Internal Medicine ward from January 2010 to June 2015, who were immunocompromised at the time of admission and had microbiologically confirmed PJP (association between compatible clinical-radiological findings and qualitative polymerase chain reaction positivity on bronchoalveolar lavage). Their immune impairment was assessed considering both their medical history and their complete white blood cells (WBC), differential WBC and their CD4 cell count. Transfer to Intensive Care Unit (ICU) or death was considered as an unfavorable clinical outcome, while hospital discharge or transfer to a non-ICU ward was considered as a favorable outcome. We included a total of 18 patients in our statistical analysis. We used Student's t-test and Fischer's χ-square test to compare, respectively, normally distributed continuous variables and non-continuous variables. Our patients' mean age was 65±13.9 years. All of them had cancer, mostly hematological malignancies (13/18), notably non-Hodgkin lymphoma (NHL; 8/13). They were all being or had been recently treated with chemotherapy (10/18) and/or high-dose glucocorticoids, with full dose or during tapering (13/18). Statistical analysis of blood tests results showed a significant difference between mean serum lactate dehydrogenase (LDH) concentration in the group of patients with favorable vs unfavorable outcome. Also, mean serum immunoglobulins G (IgG) concentration and certain arterial blood gas findings (mean arterial paO2/FiO2, mean blood Ph and mean paCO2) at the time of admission were significantly different in the two groups of patients. 12/18 patient's outcome turned out unfavorable. Trimethoprim + sulfamethoxazole (TMP+SMX) treatment was given to all our patients, with a mean duration of 13.39±9.36 days. Patients with a favorable outcome had received TMP+SMX treatment significantly earlier than those with an unfavorable outcome. Hematological malignancies, according to literature, confer the strongest predisposition to PJP. Both chemotherapy and high-dose Glucocorticoid treatment are well known predisposing factors. A remarkable elevation of serum LDH represents both a typical clinical feature and a well-known negative prognostic factor in PJP. Low IgG levels have never been reported as a negative prognostic factor, but their role in enhancing macrophage killing of pneumocystis may account for the worst observed prognosis in the group of patients with lower mean levels. Therefore, in order to reduce the heavy mortality rate associated with PJP, an early beginning of specific treatment is of utmost importance, and even if this is certainly true for many infectious diseases, the time gap is particularly limited in the setting of this type of pneumonia. Hence, PJP should be ruled out as soon as possible and, in case of a strong clinical- radiological suspicion, therapy should be started immediately, even while waiting for microbiological confirmation (especially in critically-ill patients)