Overview of recent TJ-II stellarator results

The main results obtained in the TJ-II stellarator in the last two years are reported. The most important topics investigated have been modelling and validation of impurity transport, validation of gyrokinetic simulations, turbulence characterisation, effect of magnetic configuration on transport, fuelling with pellet injection, fast particles and liquid metal plasma facing components. As regards impurity transport research, a number of working lines exploring several recently discovered effects have been developed: the effect of tangential drifts on stellarator neoclassical transport, the impurity flux driven by electric fields tangent to magnetic surfaces and attempts of experimental validation with Doppler reflectometry of the variation of the radial electric field on the flux surface. Concerning gyrokinetic simulations, two validation activities have been performed, the comparison with measurements of zonal flow relaxation in pellet-induced fast transients and the comparison with experimental poloidal variation of fluctuations amplitude. The impact of radial electric fields on turbulence spreading in the edge and scrape-off layer has been also experimentally characterized using a 2D Langmuir probe array. Another remarkable piece of work has been the investigation of the radial propagation of small temperature perturbations using transfer entropy. Research on the physics and modelling of plasma core fuelling with pellet and tracer-encapsulated solid-pellet injection has produced also relevant results. Neutral beam injection driven Alfvénic activity and its possible control by electron cyclotron current drive has been examined as well in TJ-II. Finally, recent results on alternative plasma facing components based on liquid metals are also presentedThis work has been carried out within the framework of the EUROfusion Consortium and has received funding from the Euratom research and training programme 2014–2018 under Grant Agreement No. 633053. It has been partially funded by the Ministerio de Ciencia, Inovación y Universidades of Spain under projects ENE2013-48109-P, ENE2015-70142-P and FIS2017-88892-P. It has also received funds from the Spanish Government via mobility grant PRX17/00425. The authors thankfully acknowledge the computer resources at MareNostrum and the technical support provided by the Barcelona S.C. It has been supported as well by The Science and Technology Center in Ukraine (STCU), Project P-507F

coMpliAnce with evideNce-based cliniCal guidelines in the managemenT of acute biliaRy pancreAtitis): The MANCTRA-1 international audit

Background/objectives: Reports about the implementation of recommendations from acute pancreatitis guidelines are scant. This study aimed to evaluate, on a patient-data basis, the contemporary practice patterns of management of biliary acute pancreatitis and to compare these practices with the recommendations by the most updated guidelines. Methods: All consecutive patients admitted to any of the 150 participating general surgery (GS), hepatopancreatobiliary surgery (HPB), internal medicine (IM) and gastroenterology (GA) departments with a diagnosis of biliary acute pancreatitis between 01/01/2019 and 31/12/2020 were included in the study. Categorical data were reported as percentages representing the proportion of all study patients or different and well-defined cohorts for each variable. Continuous data were expressed as mean and standard deviation. Differences between the compliance obtained in the four different subgroups were compared using the Mann-Whitney U, Student's t, ANOVA or Kruskal-Wallis tests for continuous data, and the Chi-square test or the Fisher's exact test for categorical data. Results: Complete data were available for 5275 patients. The most commonly discordant gaps between daily clinical practice and recommendations included the optimal timing for the index CT scan (6.1%, χ2 6.71, P = 0.081), use of prophylactic antibiotics (44.2%, χ2 221.05, P < 0.00001), early enteral feeding (33.2%, χ2 11.51, P = 0.009), and the implementation of early cholecystectomy strategies (29%, χ2 354.64, P < 0.00001), with wide variability based on the admitting speciality. Conclusions: The results of this study showed an overall poor compliance with evidence-based guidelines in the management of ABP, with wide variability based on the admitting speciality. Study protocol registered in ClinicalTrials.Gov (ID Number NCT04747990)