Blood Pressure Lowering With Nilvadipine in Patients With Mild-to-Moderate Alzheimer Disease Does Not Increase the Prevalence of Orthostatic Hypotension

BACKGROUND: Hypertension is common among patients with Alzheimer disease. Because this group has been excluded from hypertension trials, evidence regarding safety of treatment is lacking. This secondary analysis of a randomized controlled trial assessed whether antihypertensive treatment increases the prevalence of orthostatic hypotension (OH) in patients with Alzheimer disease. METHODS AND RESULTS: Four hundred seventy‐seven patients with mild‐to‐moderate Alzheimer disease were randomized to the calcium‐channel blocker nilvadipine 8 mg/day or placebo for 78 weeks. Presence of OH (blood pressure drop ≥20/≥10 mm Hg after 1 minute of standing) and OH‐related adverse events (dizziness, syncope, falls, and fractures) was determined at 7 follow‐up visits. Mean age of the study population was 72.2±8.2 years and mean Mini‐Mental State Examination score was 20.4±3.8. Baseline blood pressure was 137.8±14.0/77.0±8.6 mm Hg. Grade I hypertension was present in 53.4% (n=255). After 13 weeks, blood pressure had fallen by −7.8/−3.9 mm Hg for nilvadipine and by −0.4/−0.8 mm Hg for placebo (P<0.001). Across the 78‐week intervention period, there was no difference between groups in the proportion of patients with OH at a study visit (odds ratio [95% CI]=1.1 [0.8–1.5], P=0.62), nor in the proportion of visits where a patient met criteria for OH, corrected for number of visits (7.7±13.8% versus 7.3±11.6%). OH‐related adverse events were not more often reported in the intervention group compared with placebo. Results were similar for those with baseline hypertension. CONCLUSIONS: This study suggests that initiation of a low dose of antihypertensive treatment does not significantly increase the risk of OH in patients with mild‐to‐moderate Alzheimer disease. CLINICAL TRIAL REGISTRATION: URL: https://www.clinicaltrials.gov. Unique identifier: NCT02017340

Calcium precursors for the production of CaO sorbents for multicycle CO2 capture

A screening of potential calcium precursors for the production of CaO sorbents for CO capture at high temperature was conducted in this work.The precursors studied include microsized calcium carbonate (CC-CaO), calcium hydroxide (CH-CaO), nanosized

Measurement of the W -> tau nu(tau) cross section in pp collisions at root s=7 TeV with the ATLAS experiment

The cross section for the production of W bosons with subsequent decay W -> tau nu(tau) is measured with the ATLAS detector at the LHC. The analysis is based on a data sample that was recorded in 2010 at a proton-proton center-of-mass energy of root s = 7 TeV and corresponds to an integrated luminosity of 34 pb(-1). The cross section is measured in a region of high detector acceptance and then extrapolated to the full phase space. The product of the total W production cross section and the W -> tau nu(tau) branching ratio is measured to be sigma(tot)(W -> tau nu tau) = 11.1 +/- 0.3 (stat) +/- 1.7 (syst) +/- 0.4 (lumi) nb. (C) 2011 CERN. Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved

Searches for supersymmetry with the ATLAS detector using final states with two leptons and missing transverse momentum in root s=7 TeV proton-proton collisions

Results of three searches are presented for the production of supersymmetric particles decaying into final states with missing transverse momentum and exactly two isolated leptons, e or mu. The analysis uses a data sample collected during the first half of 2011 that corresponds to a total integrated luminosity of 1 fb(-1) of root s = 7 TeV proton-proton collisions recorded with the ATLAS detector at the Large Hadron Collider. Opposite-sign and same-sign dilepton events are separately studied, with no deviations from the Standard Model expectation observed. Additionally, in opposite-sign events, a search is made for an excess of same-flavour over different-flavour lepton pairs. Effective production cross sections in excess of 9.9 fb for opposite-sign events containing supersymmetric particles with missing transverse momentum greater than 250 GeV are excluded at 95% CL For same-sign events containing supersymmetric particles with missing transverse momentum greater than 100 GeV, effective production cross sections in excess of 14.8 fb are excluded at 95% CL The latter limit is interpreted in a simplified electroweak gaugino production model excluding chargino masses up to 200 GeV, under the assumption that slepton decay is dominant. (C) 2012 CERN. Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved