Fully integrated continuous antibody processing demonstrates improved productivity

Continuous processing has been an important topic in the biopharmaceutical industry for the past few years. However, as this technology is still at an early stage, continuous processing has remained largely siloed to individual steps with little thought towards combining each stage to create a fully continuous process. This presentation will show a fully integrated continuous process, from production bioreactor to drug substance at pilot scale, as well as touch on considerations for manufacturing costs and facility throughput. Specific emphasis will be given towards the production perfusion bioreactor, capture using multicolumn chromatography, viral inactivation, and buffer exchange

A freely accessible, evidence based, objective system of analysis of posterior capsular opacification ; Evidence for its validity and reliability

BACKGROUND: The aim of this study was to develop a system of computerised analysis of digital images of posterior capsule opacification (PCO) that is evidence based, objective and freely available. The paper will present evidence for the reliability and validity of the developed system. METHODS: The system of PCO analysis was developed considering current published evidence on visual significance of PCO and additional investigative analysis of PCO images. Details of the image processing and analysis steps are discussed and a final system that measures an entropy score weighted toward proximity to central areas is described. In order to assess validity, the systems ability to measure PCO progression is assessed along with the visual significance of its final computerised scores. Reliability of the system is also assessed. RESULTS: The final system runs successfully and is simple to use. Analyses of PCO by the system show an ability to detect early progression of PCO as well as detection of visually significant PCO. Images with no clinical PCO produce very low scores in the analysis. Reliability of the system of analysis is shown to be satisfactory. CONCLUSION: This paper presents a system of PCO analysis that is evidence based, objective and clinically useful. Substantial evidence is provided for its validity and reliability

The Search for Gravitational Waves

Experiments aimed at searching for gravitational waves from astrophysical sources have been under development for the last 40 years, but only now are sensitivities reaching the level where there is a real possibility of detections being made within the next five years. In this article a history of detector development will be followed by a description of current detectors such as LIGO, VIRGO, GEO 600, TAMA 300, Nautilus and Auriga. Preliminary results from these detectors will be discussed and related to predicted detection rates for some types of sources. Experimental challenges for detector design are introduced and discussed in the context of detector developments for the future.Comment: 21 pages, 7 figures, accepted J. Phys. B: At. Mol. Opt. Phy

Sexuality of Young Adults with Cerebral Palsy: Experienced Limitations and Needs

Objective of this study is to describe the problems young adults with Cerebral Palsy (CP) experience in the various stages of the sexual response cycle, and the physical and emotional obstacles they experience with sexuality. In this prospective cohort study 74 young adults (46 men; 28 women) with CP and average intelligence participated, aged 20–24 years. Twenty percent of these young adults with CP experienced anorgasmia, 80% reported physical problems with sex related to CP and 45% emotional inhibition to initiate sexual contact. In 90% of the participants, sexuality had not been discussed during the rehabilitation treatment. Many adolescents reported wanting information about the impact of CP on sexuality and reproduction (35%), about interventions (26%), tools and medicines (16%) and about problems with their partner (14%). Young adults with CP can experience various problems or challenges with sexuality. For preventing sexual difficulties and treating sexual problems, health care professionals need to proactively take the initiative to inform young people with CP about sexuality

Police officers and post traumatic stress disorder: discussing the deficit in research, identification and prevention in England and Wales

This article will review available literature regarding Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) within policing in England and Wales, with a particular focus on its early identification and prevention. An overview of PTSD will be given as well as an exploration of why police officers are potentially more susceptible to this mental health condition compared to other members of society. Key factors in the early identification and prevention of PTSD will be outlined, with a focus on crisis intervention techniques which have been subject to considerable academic study. There is limited research available from England and Wales that looks specifically at PTSD in policing, this research deficit will be highlighted and key areas of research which need to be explored further will be given so that this problem can be both identified and prevented in officers

Search for strong gravity in multijet final states produced in pp collisions at √s=13 TeV using the ATLAS detector at the LHC

A search is conducted for new physics in multijet final states using 3.6 inverse femtobarns of data from proton-proton collisions at √s = 13TeV taken at the CERN Large Hadron Collider with the ATLAS detector. Events are selected containing at least three jets with scalar sum of jet transverse momenta (HT) greater than 1TeV. No excess is seen at large HT and limits are presented on new physics: models which produce final states containing at least three jets and having cross sections larger than 1.6 fb with HT > 5.8 TeV are excluded. Limits are also given in terms of new physics models of strong gravity that hypothesize additional space-time dimensions

Measurement of the correlation between flow harmonics of different order in lead-lead collisions at √sNN = 2.76 TeV with the ATLAS detector

Correlations between the elliptic or triangular flow coefficients vm (m=2 or 3) and other flow harmonics vn (n=2 to 5) are measured using √sNN=2.76 TeV Pb+Pb collision data collected in 2010 by the ATLAS experiment at the LHC, corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 7 μb−1. The vm−vn correlations are measured in midrapidity as a function of centrality, and, for events within the same centrality interval, as a function of event ellipticity or triangularity defined in a forward rapidity region. For events within the same centrality interval, v3 is found to be anticorrelated with v2 and this anticorrelation is consistent with similar anticorrelations between the corresponding eccentricities, ε2 and ε3. However, it is observed that v4 increases strongly with v2, and v5 increases strongly with both v2 and v3. The trend and strength of the vm−vn correlations for n=4 and 5 are found to disagree with εm−εn correlations predicted by initial-geometry models. Instead, these correlations are found to be consistent with the combined effects of a linear contribution to vn and a nonlinear term that is a function of v22 or of v2v3, as predicted by hydrodynamic models. A simple two-component fit is used to separate these two contributions. The extracted linear and nonlinear contributions to v4 and v5 are found to be consistent with previously measured event-plane correlations

The performance of the jet trigger for the ATLAS detector during 2011 data taking

The performance of the jet trigger for the ATLAS detector at the LHC during the 2011 data taking period is described. During 2011 the LHC provided proton–proton collisions with a centre-of-mass energy of 7 TeV and heavy ion collisions with a 2.76 TeV per nucleon–nucleon collision energy. The ATLAS trigger is a three level system designed to reduce the rate of events from the 40 MHz nominal maximum bunch crossing rate to the approximate 400 Hz which can be written to offline storage. The ATLAS jet trigger is the primary means for the online selection of events containing jets. Events are accepted by the trigger if they contain one or more jets above some transverse energy threshold. During 2011 data taking the jet trigger was fully efficient for jets with transverse energy above 25 GeV for triggers seeded randomly at Level 1. For triggers which require a jet to be identified at each of the three trigger levels, full efficiency is reached for offline jets with transverse energy above 60 GeV. Jets reconstructed in the final trigger level and corresponding to offline jets with transverse energy greater than 60 GeV, are reconstructed with a resolution in transverse energy with respect to offline jets, of better than 4 % in the central region and better than 2.5 % in the forward direction

Correlated long-range mixed-harmonic fluctuations measured in pp, p+Pb and low-multiplicity Pb+Pb collisions with the ATLAS detector

For abstract see published article