A Pilot Study: The Effects of Group Exercise On Fatigue and Quality of Life During Cancer Treatment

Fatigue affects 60-100% of all cancer patients, is difficult to manage, and can have a profound impact on everyday functioning and quality of life. Though seemingly counterintuitive, exercise has emerged as a promising intervention for the management of cancer related fatigue (CRF). Current research predominantly involves individual, home-based exercise programs with few studies exploring other modes of exercise delivery. The purpose of this pilot study was to determine if participation in a structured group exercise program (SGEP) was a feasible intervention for adult oncology patients receiving cancer treatment and to test the impact of a SGEP on reducing CRF and improving quality of life (QOL). This unique study integrated the known benefits of exercise with the powerful effects of group dynamics in a group of adult oncology patients with mixed cancers, at various stages of treatment. Using a pretest and posttest one-group design, findings showed a significant decrease in bodily pain (p=0.0118); subscale scores for physical role, vitality, and social function increased, but did not yield statistical significance. No difference was found in reported fatigue. A post-program questionnaire identified themes of support, learning from shared information, and usefulness of having an exercise program serve concurrently as an informal support group. The findings of this pilot study provide encouraging data that suggests a SGEP is feasible, safe, and well tolerated by adult oncology patients receiving cancer treatment, and may have positive effects on CRF and QOL

LEP Couplers...a Troubled Story of Success

LEP couplers were a success. 288 couplers have been used for years in LEP without even one serious failure. I will briefly resume the history of the development, the problems that appeared during tests and how all these problems were solved , turning the project into a brilliant success

Functional characterization of CRISPR-Cas interactions with DNA

The recent Nobel-prize-winning CRISPR technology has revolutionised the gene-editing field with its ability to precisely modify any target DNA sequence and its relevance in a wide range of applications, from functional characterisation of gene variants in biological sciences to mutation of plant genomes in agriculture. New prospectives for CRISPR-therapeutic applications are also rapidly advancing, particularly for the modification of disease-causing genes and ex-vivo editing of immune cells for cancer treatment. However, off-target editing exists as collateral damage and it represents a significant hurdle to realise CRISPR’s full potential. To date, the scientific community lacks extensive knowledge regarding the impact of the eukaryotic cellular context on Cas nucleases activity, and how this affects Cas efficiency and specificity on human DNA. In this thesis, I use a combination of cellular and single-molecule assays to investigate this specific topic. First, I developed a strategy to demonstrate that Cas9 specificity is diminished by a local distortion of the DNA 3D structure in human cells. Next, by using the CRISPR system as a tool for gene expression regulation, I investigated the correlation between target transcription in cells and Cas9 editing efficiency. Together this first part of my work suggests that in vivo processes, which occur in eukaryotic cells and destabilise the DNA structure, have the potential to induce off-targets. However, this effect is highly dependent on the target itself and its genomic context. Finally, I extended my study to two other CRISPR-Cas systems: Cas12a and a new engineered Cas (AZ-Cas9). By applying single-molecule technologies, I contributed to the characterization of these nucleases, and obtained new information about the mechanisms underlining the DNA target search, the binding and cleavage kinetics and the off-target discrimination. These findings fill important knowledge gaps for future applications of these variants, and will be useful for the rational design of new high-fidelity nucleases

LHC Collimators Low Level Control System

The low level control system (LLCS) of the LHC collimators is responsible for accurate synchronization of 500 axes of motion at microsecond level. Stepping motors are used in open loop ensuring a high level of repeatability of the position. In addition, a position survey system based on Resolver and LVDT sensors and operating at approximately 100 Hz, verifies in real-time the position of each axis with some tens of micrometers accuracy with respect to the expected position. The LLCS is characterized by several challenging requirements such as high reliability, redundancy, strict timing constraints and compactness of the low level hardware because of the limited space available in the racks underground. The National Instruments PXI platform has been proposed and evaluated as real-time low level hardware. In this paper the architecture of the LHC collimators LLCS is presented. The solution adopted for implementing motion control and positioning sensors reading on the PXI platform are detailed

Coupled Analysis of Electromagnetic, Thermo-mechanical Effects on RF Accelerating Structures

One of the main problems to the designer of RF structures used in particle accelerators is to estimate their sensitivity to thermo-mechanical effects. These parameters are the basis for the choice of the tuning strategy and for the determination of the feedback architecture. We explored the possibility of using ANSYS [1] to perform such simulations in a single environment. Some examples of the most common problems of interaction between electromagnetic fields and thermo-mechanical effects are presented and, when possible, compared to measurements. Problems encountered are outlined

Context factors and student achievement in the IEA studies: evidence from TIMSS

Abstract Background The present study investigates what factors related to the school context influence student achievement on TIMSS mathematics tests across countries. A systematic review of the literature on PIRLS, TIMSS, and ICCS was conducted upstream to identify those school, teacher, and classroom factors shown to be useful predictors of student performance in previous IEA studies. Data of student samples representative of grade 8 students from 28 countries who participated in TIMSS 2011 were analysed. The main aim of the present study is to verify what school and teacher characteristics are positively associated with students' mathematics achievement, mainly focusing on disadvantaged schools. Furthermore, it aims at identifying how school context variables contribute to explaining the performance of students in disadvantaged schools in comparison with more advantaged schools. Methods A separate analysis was carried out for each considered country, and the same multilevel regression model was used on the sampled schools as a whole and treating schools with high (highest tertile) and low (lowest tertile) socio-economic backgrounds as distinct groups. Results The results confirmed that a high socio-economic status has a significant and positive effect on student achievement: compared with students from socio-economic disadvantaged schools, students from advantaged schools performed better in mathematics achievement. This difference is more evident in countries where the gap between rich and poor people as measured by the Gini coefficient, which measures how much an economy deviates from perfect equality, is wider. However, this difference is restricted in countries with a smaller gap between rich and poor people. Conclusions According to the literature in the field, the results show significant differences across countries in relation to the school and teacher characteristics that have an impact on mathematics achievement of students from low and high SES schools. Different patterns were also found within countries for low and high SES schools

Physical parameters activating electrical signal distortions in polluted soils

Laboratory investigations and field measurements show that the electrical behaviour of polluted soils is strongly non-linear at low frequencies. This phenomenon can be related to the class and the amount of pollutants. To measure this non-linearity, we used only monochromatic voltage waveform as input signal and analysed the current signals at first by means of the classical spectral analysis. In particular, the Total Harmonic Distortion % (THD%) and the Harmonic Distortion %(?) measure the non-linearity level and identify the frequency interval where the non-linear electrical behaviour is activated. This frequency interval can be related to the pollutant molecular size. Open interpretative problems were the following: 1) phase localization of the signal deformation; 2) «local» amplitude of the applied signal activating the distortion, and 3) numerical fit of the distortion. We employed the wavelet analysis to study the phenomenon. The wavelet technique breaks up a signal into shifted and scaled versions of the original wavelet, which is a waveform of limited duration. These features of the wavelets allow us to obtain current components that can be interpreted on the bases of a real physical meaning. By using the wavelet analysis, we obtained the phase localization of the ‘oscillations’ of the details and consequently the phase and amplitude of the applied signal. The sum of nine details provides a good numerical fit of the distorted signal. Starting from the wavelet analysis, we determined the physical conditions activating each distortion, testing some parameters on experimental data. The parameters that resulted most significant are the phase ? of the distortion activation and the product Vin?t (Vs) (where ?t is the time interval corresponding to the said ? and Vin is the integral tension applied to the sample on ?t). The latter parameter is in a very good agreement with field data of Advanced Monochromatic Spectral Induced Polarization (AMSIP) and restricts the physical interpretative hypotheses of distorted signals that are measured in the field. Typical experimental results will be shown as examples