Loss of Landau Damping in the LHC

Loss of Landau damping leading to a single bunch longitudinal instability has been observed in the LHC during the ramp and on the 3.5 TeV flat top for small injected longitudinal emittances. The first measurements are in reasonable agreement with the threshold calculated for the expected longitudinal reactive impedance budget of the LHC as well as with the threshold dependence on beam energy. The cure is a controlled longitudinal emittance blow-up during the ramp which for a constant threshold through the cycle should provide an emittance proportional to the square root of energy

Urinary MicroRNA Profiling in the Nephropathy of Type 1 Diabetes

Background: Patients with Type 1 Diabetes (T1D) are particularly vulnerable to development of Diabetic nephropathy (DN) leading to End Stage Renal Disease. Hence a better understanding of the factors affecting kidney disease progression in T1D is urgently needed. In recent years microRNAs have emerged as important post-transcriptional regulators of gene expression in many different health conditions. We hypothesized that urinary microRNA profile of patients will differ in the different stages of diabetic renal disease. Methods and Findings: We studied urine microRNA profiles with qPCR in 40 T1D with >20 year follow up 10 who never developed renal disease (N) matched against 10 patients who went on to develop overt nephropathy (DN), 10 patients with intermittent microalbuminuria (IMA) matched against 10 patients with persistent (PMA) microalbuminuria. A Bayesian procedure was used to normalize and convert raw signals to expression ratios. We applied formal statistical techniques to translate fold changes to profiles of microRNA targets which were then used to make inferences about biological pathways in the Gene Ontology and REACTOME structured vocabularies. A total of 27 microRNAs were found to be present at significantly different levels in different stages of untreated nephropathy. These microRNAs mapped to overlapping pathways pertaining to growth factor signaling and renal fibrosis known to be targeted in diabetic kidney disease. Conclusions: Urinary microRNA profiles differ across the different stages of diabetic nephropathy. Previous work using experimental, clinical chemistry or biopsy samples has demonstrated differential expression of many of these microRNAs in a variety of chronic renal conditions and diabetes. Combining expression ratios of microRNAs with formal inferences about their predicted mRNA targets and associated biological pathways may yield useful markers for early diagnosis and risk stratification of DN in T1D by inferring the alteration of renal molecular processes. © 2013 Argyropoulos et al

Early prediction of COVID-19 outcome using artificial intelligence techniques and only five laboratory indices

We aimed to develop a prediction model for intensive care unit (ICU) hospitalization of Coronavirus disease-19 (COVID-19) patients using artificial neural networks (ANN). We assessed 25 laboratory parameters at first from 248 consecutive adult COVID-19 patients for database creation, training, and development of ANN models. We developed a new alpha-index to assess association of each parameter with outcome. We used 166 records for training of computational simulations (training), 41 for documentation of computational simulations (validation), and 41 for reliability check of computational simulations (testing). The first five laboratory indices ranked by importance were Neutrophil-to-lymphocyte ratio, Lactate Dehydrogenase, Fibrinogen, Albumin, and D-Dimers. The best ANN based on these indices achieved accuracy 95.97%, precision 90.63%, sensitivity 93.55%. and F1-score 92.06%, verified in the validation cohort. Our preliminary findings reveal for the first time an ANN to predict ICU hospitalization accurately and early, using only 5 easily accessible laboratory indices

Volume reduction of caudate nucleus is associated with movement coordination deficits in patients with hippocampal atrophy due to perinatal hypoxia-ischaemia

Acute sentinel hypoxia-ischaemia in neonates can target the hippocampus, mammillary bodies, thalamus, and the basal ganglia. Our previous work with paediatric patients with a history of hypoxia-ischaemia has revealed hippocampal and diencephalic damage that impacts cognitive memory. However, the structural and functional status of other brain regions vulnerable to hypoxia-ischaemia, such as the basal ganglia, has not been investigated in these patients. Furthermore, it is not known whether there are any behavioural sequelae of such damage, especially in patients with no diagnosis of neurological disorder. Based on the established role of the basal ganglia and the thalamus in movement coordination, we studied manual motor function in 20 participants exposed to neonatal hypoxia-ischaemia, and a group of 17 healthy controls of comparable age. The patients’ handwriting speed and accuracy was within the normal range (Detailed Assessment of Speed of Handwriting), and their movement adaptation learning (Rotary Pursuit task) was comparable to the control group’s performance. However, as a group, patients showed an impairment in the Grooved Pegboard task and a trend for impairment in speed of movement while performing the Rotary Pursuit task, suggesting that some patients have subtle deficits in fine, complex hand movements. Voxel-based morphometry and volumetry showed bilateral reduction in grey matter volume of the thalamus and caudate nucleus. Reduced volumes in the caudate nucleus correlated across patients with performance on the Grooved Pegboard task. In summary, the fine movement coordination deficit affecting the hand and the wrist in patients exposed to early hypoxic-ischaemic brain injury may be related to reduced volumes of the caudate nucleus, and consistent with anecdotal parental reports of clumsiness and coordination difficulties in this cohort

Determination of hydroxyl groups in biorefinery resources via quantitative 31P NMR spectroscopy

The analysis of chemical structural characteristics of biorefinery product streams (such as lignin and tannin) has advanced substantially over the past decade, with traditional wet-chemical techniques being replaced or supplemented by NMR methodologies. Quantitative 31P NMR spectroscopy is a promising technique for the analysis of hydroxyl groups because of its unique characterization capability and broad potential applicability across the biorefinery research community. This protocol describes procedures for (i) the preparation/solubilization of lignin and tannin, (ii) the phosphitylation of their hydroxyl groups, (iii) NMR acquisition details, and (iv) the ensuing data analyses and means to precisely calculate the content of the different types of hydroxyl groups. Compared with traditional wet-chemical techniques, the technique of quantitative 31P NMR spectroscopy offers unique advantages in measuring hydroxyl groups in a single spectrum with high signal resolution. The method provides complete quantitative information about the hydroxyl groups with small amounts of sample (~30 mg) within a relatively short experimental time (~30-120 min)

Standalone vertex finding in the ATLAS muon spectrometer

A dedicated reconstruction algorithm to find decay vertices in the ATLAS muon spectrometer is presented. The algorithm searches the region just upstream of or inside the muon spectrometer volume for multi-particle vertices that originate from the decay of particles with long decay paths. The performance of the algorithm is evaluated using both a sample of simulated Higgs boson events, in which the Higgs boson decays to long-lived neutral particles that in turn decay to bbar b final states, and pp collision data at √s = 7 TeV collected with the ATLAS detector at the LHC during 2011

Measurements of Higgs boson production and couplings in diboson final states with the ATLAS detector at the LHC

Measurements are presented of production properties and couplings of the recently discovered Higgs boson using the decays into boson pairs, H →γ γ, H → Z Z∗ →4l and H →W W∗ →lνlν. The results are based on the complete pp collision data sample recorded by the ATLAS experiment at the CERN Large Hadron Collider at centre-of-mass energies of √s = 7 TeV and √s = 8 TeV, corresponding to an integrated luminosity of about 25 fb−1. Evidence for Higgs boson production through vector-boson fusion is reported. Results of combined fits probing Higgs boson couplings to fermions and bosons, as well as anomalous contributions to loop-induced production and decay modes, are presented. All measurements are consistent with expectations for the Standard Model Higgs boson

Measurement of the top quark pair cross section with ATLAS in pp collisions at √s=7 TeV using final states with an electron or a muon and a hadronically decaying τ lepton

A measurement of the cross section of top quark pair production in proton-proton collisions recorded with the ATLAS detector at the Large Hadron Collider at a centre-of-mass energy of 7 TeV is reported. The data sample used corresponds to an integrated luminosity of 2.05 fb -1. Events with an isolated electron or muon and a τ lepton decaying hadronically are used. In addition, a large missing transverse momentum and two or more energetic jets are required. At least one of the jets must be identified as originating from a b quark. The measured cross section, σtt-=186±13(stat.)±20(syst.)±7(lumi.) pb, is in good agreement with the Standard Model prediction