Alignment of the ALICE Inner Tracking System with cosmic-ray tracks

37 pages, 15 figures, revised version, accepted by JINSTALICE (A Large Ion Collider Experiment) is the LHC (Large Hadron Collider) experiment devoted to investigating the strongly interacting matter created in nucleus-nucleus collisions at the LHC energies. The ALICE ITS, Inner Tracking System, consists of six cylindrical layers of silicon detectors with three different technologies; in the outward direction: two layers of pixel detectors, two layers each of drift, and strip detectors. The number of parameters to be determined in the spatial alignment of the 2198 sensor modules of the ITS is about 13,000. The target alignment precision is well below 10 micron in some cases (pixels). The sources of alignment information include survey measurements, and the reconstructed tracks from cosmic rays and from proton-proton collisions. The main track-based alignment method uses the Millepede global approach. An iterative local method was developed and used as well. We present the results obtained for the ITS alignment using about 10^5 charged tracks from cosmic rays that have been collected during summer 2008, with the ALICE solenoidal magnet switched off.Peer reviewe

Casimir–Lifshitz interaction between dielectric heterostructures

The interaction between arbitrary dielectric heterostructures is studied within the framework of a recently developed dielectric contrast perturbation theory. It is shown that periodically patterned dielectric or metallic structures lead to oscillatory lateral Casimir-Lifshitz forces, as well as modulations in the normal force as they are displaced with respect to one another. The strength of these oscillatory contributions increases with decreasing gap size and increasing contrast in the dielectric properties of the materials used in the heterostructures

Medicolegal issues in labor analgesia

Within surgical disciplines, obstetrics and anesthesia carry a greater risk of medicolegal liability although with improved monitoring and practice standards issued by national scientific societies such as the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG) and the American Society of Anesthesiologists (ASA). Pain relief is becoming an area of concern. Analgesia refers to the relief of pain without the loss of consciousness. Modalities of analgesia during childbirth include regional analgesia, systemic opioid analgesia, continuous labor support, pudendal blocks, immersion in water during the first stage of labor, sterile water injections in the lumbosacral spine, hypnosis, and acupuncture [1]. Even though there are multiple options for labor pain management, women often experience pain during childbirth in accordance with their expectations. The ASA Closed Claims database [2] has shown that since the1990s the proportion of claims associated with general anesthesia has progressively declined while the proportion associated with regional analgesia has steadily increased although the majority of maternal injuries are minor (e.g., headache, back pain, pain during analgesia, neuropsychological consequences). In addition, [3] it reported that postnatal depression may be more common when analgesia is not used and pain during labor has been correlated with the development of posttraumatic stress disorder. Furthermore, men are also affected by severe labor pain. A survey of first-time fathers showed that the men whose partners received an epidural felt three times as helpful and involved during labor and delivery and had less anxiety and stress, as compared with men whose partners did not receive an epidural [3]. All these situations may reflect unrealistic expectations and dissatisfaction with parturient care, and litigation serves the purpose not only of reparation of injury and deterrence of standard of care but also of emotional vindication. This is especially true in Italy where labor analgesia is becoming an important public health issue with its introduction free of charge in SSN as LEA (Essential Levels of Assistance) (DPCM April 23, 2008, art. 37) but, at the same time, it is not performed in all hospitals [4] due to lack of funding. The problem is clear. Labor analgesia has to be considered an important aspect of the obstetric anesthesia practice, and the provision of adequate pain relief and management has foundation in the law of negligence. The law of medical negligence emphasizes taking reasonable care in all aspects of patient management and, with respect to this particular issue, doctors (the anesthetist as well as the obstetrician, midwife, neonatologist, and labor and delivery nurses) may breach their standard of care by failing to exchange information with the parturient and also with other members of the woman’s family as well as with the obstetric team; by failing to provide appropriate prenatal education and to acquire informed consent; by treating the pain inadequately or by failing to counteract adverse reaction and eventually perform acute resuscitation. © Springer International Publishing Switzerland 2015. © Springer International Publishing Switzerland 2015

Investigation of Sequential Growth Factor Delivery during Cuprizone Challenge in Mice Aimed to Enhance Oligodendrogliogenesis and Myelin Repair

Repair in multiple sclerosis involves remyelination, a process in which axons are provided with a new myelin sheath by new oligodendrocytes. Bone morphogenic proteins (BMPs) are a family of growth factors that have been shown to influence the response of oligodendrocyte progenitor cells (OPCs) in vivo during demyelination and remyelination in the adult brain. We have previously shown that BMP4 infusion increases numbers of OPCs during cuprizone-induced demyelination, while infusion of Noggin, an endogenenous antagonist of BMP4 increases numbers of mature oligodendrocytes and remyelinated axons following recovery. Additional studies have shown that insulin-like growth factor-1 (IGF-1) promotes the survival of OPCs during cuprizone-induced demyelination. Based on these data, we investigated whether myelin repair could be further enhanced by sequential infusion of these agents firstly, BMP4 to increase OPC numbers, followed by either Noggin or IGF-1 to increase the differentiation and survival of the newly generated OPCs. We identified that sequential delivery of BMP4 and IGF-1 during cuprizone challenge increased the number of mature oligodendrocytes and decreased astrocyte numbers following recovery compared with vehicle infused mice, but did not alter remyelination. However, sequential delivery of BMP4 and Noggin during cuprizone challenge did not alter numbers of oligodendrocytes or astrocytes in the corpus callosum compared with vehicle infused mice. Furthermore, electron microscopy analysis revealed no change in average myelin thickness in the corpus callosum between vehicle infused and BMP4-Noggin infused mice. Our results suggest that while single delivery of Noggin or IGF-1 increased the production of mature oligodendrocytes in vivo in the context of demyelination, only Noggin infusion promoted remyelination. Thus, sequential delivery of BMP4 and Noggin or IGF-1 does not further enhance myelin repair above what occurs with delivery of Noggin alone