Validation of three predictive models for suboptimal cytoreductive surgery in advanced ovarian cancer

The standard treatment for advanced ovarian cancer (AOC) is cytoreduction surgery and adjuvant chemotherapy. Tumor volume after surgery is a major prognostic factor for these patients. The ability to perform complete cytoreduction depends on the extent of disease and the skills of the surgical team. Several predictive models have been proposed to evaluate the possibility of performing complete cytoreductive surgery (CCS). External validation of the prognostic value of three predictive models (Fagotti index and the R3 and R4 models) for predicting suboptimal cytoreductive surgery (SCS) in AOC was performed in this study. The scores of the 3 models were evaluated in one hundred and three consecutive patients diagnosed with AOC treated in a tertiary hospital were evaluated. Clinicopathological features were collected prospectively and analyzed retrospectively. The performance of the three models was evaluated, and calibration and discrimination were analyzed. The calibration of the Fagotti, R3 and R4 models showed odds ratios of obtaining SCSs of 1.5, 2.4 and 2.4, respectively, indicating good calibration. The discrimination of the Fagotti, R3 and R4 models showed an area under the ROC curve of 83%, 70% and 81%, respectively. The negative predictive values of the three models were higher than the positive predictive values for SCS. The three models were able to predict suboptimal cytoreductive surgery for advanced ovarian cancer, but they were more reliable for predicting CCS. The R4 model discriminated better because it includes the laparotomic evaluation of the peritoneal carcinomatosis index

A dust-enshrouded tidal disruption event with a resolved radio jet in a galaxy merger

Tidal disruption events (TDEs) are transient flares produced when a star is ripped apart by the gravitational field of a supermassive black hole (SMBH). We have observed a transient source in the western nucleus of the merging galaxy pair Arp 299 that radiated >1.5 × 1052 erg in the infrared and radio but was not luminous at optical or x-ray wavelengths. We interpret this as a TDE with much of its emission reradiated at infrared wavelengths by dust. Efficient reprocessing by dense gas and dust may explain the difference between theoretical predictions and observed luminosities of TDEs. The radio observations resolve an expanding and decelerating jet, probing the jet formation and evolution around a SMBH

Spin-state studies with XES and RIXS: From static to ultrafast

We report on extending hard X-ray emission spectroscopy (XES) along with resonant inelastic X-ray scattering (RIXS) to study ultrafast phenomena in a pump-probe scheme at MHz repetition rates. The investigated systems include low-spin (LS) Fe-II complex compounds, where optical pulses induce a spin-state transition to their (sub)nanosecond-lived high-spin (HS) state. Time-resolved XES clearly reflects the spin-state variations with very high signal-to-noise ratio, in agreement with HS-LS difference spectra measured at thermal spin crossover, and reference HS-LS systems in static experiments, next to multiplet calculations. The 1s2p RIXS, measured at the Fe Is pre-edge region, shows variations after laser excitation, which are consistent with the formation of the HS state. Our results demonstrate that X-ray spectroscopy experiments with overall rather weak signals, such as RIXS, can now be reliably exploited to study chemical and physical transformations on ultrafast time scales. (C) 2012 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved

The CARMENES search for exoplanets around M dwarfs, Wolf 1069 b: Earth-mass planet in the habitable zone of a nearby, very low-mass star

We present the discovery of an Earth-mass planet ($M_b\sin i = 1.26\pm0.21M_\oplus$) on a 15.6d orbit of a relatively nearby ($d\sim$9.6pc) and low-mass ($0.167\pm0.011 M_\odot$) M5.0V star, Wolf 1069. Sitting at a separation of $0.0672\pm0.0014$au away from the host star puts Wolf 1069b in the habitable zone (HZ), receiving an incident flux of $S=0.652\pm0.029S_\oplus$. The planetary signal was detected using telluric-corrected radial-velocity (RV) data from the CARMENES spectrograph, amounting to a total of 262 spectroscopic observations covering almost four years. There are additional long-period signals in the RVs, one of which we attribute to the stellar rotation period. This is possible thanks to our photometric analysis including new, well-sampled monitoring campaigns undergone with the OSN and TJO facilities that supplement archival photometry (i.e., from MEarth and SuperWASP), and this yielded an updated rotational period range of $P_{rot}=150-170$d, with a likely value at $169.3^{+3.7}_{-3.6}$d. The stellar activity indicators provided by the CARMENES spectra likewise demonstrate evidence for the slow rotation period, though not as accurately due to possible factors such as signal aliasing or spot evolution. Our detectability limits indicate that additional planets more massive than one Earth mass with orbital periods of less than 10 days can be ruled out, suggesting that perhaps Wolf 1069 b had a violent formation history. This planet is also the 6th closest Earth-mass planet situated in the conservative HZ, after Proxima Centauri b, GJ 1061d, Teegarden's Star c, and GJ 1002 b and c. Despite not transiting, Wolf 1069b is nonetheless a very promising target for future three-dimensional climate models to investigate various habitability cases as well as for sub-ms$^{-1}$ RV campaigns to search for potential inner sub-Earth-mass planets in order to test planet formation theories.Comment: 26 pages, 15 figure

A dust-enshrouded tidal disruption event with a resolved radio jet in a galaxy merger

Tidal disruption events (TDEs) are transient flares produced when a star is ripped apart by the gravitational field of a supermassive black hole (SMBH). We have observed a transient source in the western nucleus of the merging galaxy pair Arp 299 that radiated > 1.5 x 10(52) erg at infrared and radio wavelengths but was not luminous at optical or x-ray wavelengths. We interpret this as a TDE with much of its emission reradiated at infrared wavelengths by dust. Efficient reprocessing by dense gas and dust may explain the difference between theoretical predictions and observed luminosities of TDEs. The radio observations resolve an expanding and decelerating jet, probing the jet formation and evolution around a SMBH

First Sagittarius A* event horizon telescope results. II. EHT and multiwavelength observations, data processing, and calibration

Instrumentatio

First Sagittarius A* Event Horizon Telescope results. II. EHT and multiwavelength observations, data processing, and calibration

We present Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) 1.3 mm measurements of the radio source located at the position of the supermassive black hole Sagittarius A* (Sgr A*), collected during the 2017 April 5–11 campaign. The observations were carried out with eight facilities at six locations across the globe. Novel calibration methods are employed to account for Sgr A*'s flux variability. The majority of the 1.3 mm emission arises from horizon scales, where intrinsic structural source variability is detected on timescales of minutes to hours. The effects of interstellar scattering on the image and its variability are found to be subdominant to intrinsic source structure. The calibrated visibility amplitudes, particularly the locations of the visibility minima, are broadly consistent with a blurred ring with a diameter of ∼50 μas, as determined in later works in this series. Contemporaneous multiwavelength monitoring of Sgr A* was performed at 22, 43, and 86 GHz and at near-infrared and X-ray wavelengths. Several X-ray flares from Sgr A* are detected by Chandra, one at low significance jointly with Swift on 2017 April 7 and the other at higher significance jointly with NuSTAR on 2017 April 11. The brighter April 11 flare is not observed simultaneously by the EHT but is followed by a significant increase in millimeter flux variability immediately after the X-ray outburst, indicating a likely connection in the emission physics near the event horizon. We compare Sgr A*'s broadband flux during the EHT campaign to its historical spectral energy distribution and find that both the quiescent emission and flare emission are consistent with its long-term behavior.http://iopscience.iop.org/2041-8205Physic