A Prospective Non-Randomised Interventional Study of Goal-Directed Ultrafiltration Compared With Clinical Dry-Weight Assessment in Achieving Euvolemic Status of Patients on Maintenance Hemodialysis

An accurate assessment of intravascular volume status in hemodialysis (HD) patients presents a significant challenge. Current clinical practices to determine dry weight is flawed due to interobserver variability and nonreproducibility. This miscalculation results in either chronic hypervolemia or hypovolemia with intra or interdialytic hypotension. The quest for noninvasive volume assessment tools to aid in the estimation of dry weight still continues. This study aims at goal-directed ultrafiltration removal compared with clinical dry-weight assessment in achieving euvolemic status of patients on chronic HD. It is a prospective, single-centered, nonrandomized, noninvasive interventional study on HD patients, for 12 months. Fifty two patients participated out of which 46 completed the study. Ultrasound-guided inferior vena cava collapsing index (IVCCI) and B lines were measured at intervals along with cardiac parameters. Dry weight was first estimated clinically by trial and error method. New dry weight target was set when B-lines were less than four in the eight site lung ultrasound and IVCCI between 50 and 75%, after 30 min post dialysis. Approximately 23.9% of the patients did not require dry-weight modification throughout the study. About 19% patients did not achieve dry weight in spite of all interventions. Overall, 56.5% of the patients achieved dry weight during the study period. A total of 46.3% of patients with NYHA Grade 3 dyspnoea observed at the start of study was reduced to 2.2%, showing statistical significance. Clinical assessment when bundled with noninvasive technology of assessment of dry weight showed encouraging results. B-lines and IVCCI estimation could be additional tools to achieve target weight goals, reducing complications and increasing compliance

Production of He-4 and (4) in Pb-Pb collisions at root(NN)-N-S=2.76 TeV at the LHC

Results on the production of He-4 and (4) nuclei in Pb-Pb collisions at root(NN)-N-S = 2.76 TeV in the rapidity range vertical bar y vertical bar <1, using the ALICE detector, are presented in this paper. The rapidity densities corresponding to 0-10% central events are found to be dN/dy4(He) = (0.8 +/- 0.4 (stat) +/- 0.3 (syst)) x 10(-6) and dN/dy4 = (1.1 +/- 0.4 (stat) +/- 0.2 (syst)) x 10(-6), respectively. This is in agreement with the statistical thermal model expectation assuming the same chemical freeze-out temperature (T-chem = 156 MeV) as for light hadrons. The measured ratio of (4)/He-4 is 1.4 +/- 0.8 (stat) +/- 0.5 (syst). (C) 2018 Published by Elsevier B.V.Peer reviewe

Azimuthally-differential pion femtoscopy relative to the third harmonic event plane in Pb-Pb collisions at sNN\mathbf{\sqrt{\textit{s}_{_{\rm NN}}}} = 2.76 TeV

International audienceAzimuthally-differential femtoscopic measurements, being sensitive to spatio-temporal characteristics of the source as well as to the collective velocity fields at freeze out, provide very important information on the nature and dynamics of the system evolution. While the HBT radii oscillations relative to the second harmonic event plane measured recently reflect mostly the spatial geometry of the source, model studies have shown that the HBT radii oscillations relative to the third harmonic event plane are predominantly defined by the velocity fields. In this Letter, we present the first results on azimuthally-differential pion femtoscopy relative to the third harmonic event plane as a function of the pion pair transverse momentum kT for different collision centralities in Pb–Pb collisions at sNN=2.76 TeV . We find that the Rside and Rout radii, which characterize the pion source size in the directions perpendicular and parallel to the pion transverse momentum, oscillate in phase relative to the third harmonic event plane, similar to the results from 3+1D hydrodynamical calculations. The observed radii oscillations unambiguously signal a collective expansion and anisotropy in the velocity fields. A comparison of the measured radii oscillations with the Blast-Wave model calculations indicate that the initial state triangularity is washed-out at freeze out

Prompt and non-prompt J/ψ\hbox {J}/\psi production and nuclear modification at mid-rapidity in p–Pb collisions at sNN=5.02\mathbf{\sqrt{{ s}_{\text {NN}}}= 5.02} TeV

A measurement of beauty hadron production at mid-rapidity in proton-lead collisions at a nucleon–nucleon centre-of-mass energy $\sqrt{s_\text {NN}}=5.02$ TeV is presented. The semi-inclusive decay channel of beauty hadrons into $\hbox {J}/\psi$ is considered, where the $\hbox {J}/\psi$ mesons are reconstructed in the dielectron decay channel at mid-rapidity down to transverse momenta of 1.3 GeV/c. The $\hbox {b}\bar{\hbox {b}}$ production cross section at mid-rapidity, $\hbox {d}\sigma _{\hbox {b}\bar{\hbox {b}}}/\hbox {d}y$ , and the total cross section extrapolated over full phase space, $\sigma _{\text {b}\bar{\text {b}}}$ , are obtained. This measurement is combined with results on inclusive $\hbox {J}/\psi$ production to determine the prompt $\hbox {J}/\psi$ cross sections. The results in p–Pb collisions are then scaled to expectations from pp collisions at the same centre-of-mass energy to derive the nuclear modification factor $R_{\text {pPb}}$ , and compared to models to study possible nuclear modifications of the production induced by cold nuclear matter effects. $R_{\text {pPb}}$ is found to be smaller than unity at low $p_{\mathrm{T}}$ for both $\hbox {J}/\psi$ coming from beauty hadron decays and prompt $\hbox {J}/\psi$

π0\pi ^{0} and η\eta meson production in proton-proton collisions at s=8\sqrt{s}=8 TeV

An invariant differential cross section measurement of inclusive $\pi ^{0}$ and $\eta$ meson production at mid-rapidity in pp collisions at $\sqrt{s}=8$  TeV was carried out by the ALICE experiment at the LHC. The spectra of $\pi ^{0}$ and $\eta$ mesons were measured in transverse momentum ranges of $0.33.5$   $\text{ GeV/c }$ . However, a deviation from this empirical scaling rule is observed for transverse momenta below $p_{ \text{ T }} <3.5$   $\text{ GeV/c }$ in the $\eta /\pi ^0$ ratio with a significance of $6.2\sigma$

Evolution of the longitudinal and azimuthal structure of the near-side jet peak in Pb-Pb collisions at sNN=2.76\sqrt{s_{\rm NN}} = 2.76 TeV

In two-particle angular correlation measurements, jets give rise to a near-side peak, formed by particles associated to a higher-pT trigger particle. Measurements of these correlations as a function of pseudorapidity (Δη) and azimuthal (Δφ) differences are used to extract the centrality and pT dependence of the shape of the near-side peak in the pT range 1<pT<8 GeV/c in Pb-Pb and pp collisions at sNN = 2.76 TeV. A combined fit of the near-side peak and long-range correlations is applied to the data and the peak shape is quantified by the variance of the distributions. While the width of the peak in the Δφ direction is almost independent of centrality, a significant broadening in the Δη direction is found from peripheral to central collisions. This feature is prominent for the low-pT region and vanishes above 4 GeV/c. The widths measured in peripheral collisions are equal to those in pp collisions in the Δφ direction and above 3 GeV/c in the Δη direction. Furthermore, for the 10% most central collisions and 1<pT,assoc< 2 GeV/c, 1<pT,trig< 3 GeV/c, a departure from a Gaussian shape is found: a depletion develops around the center of the peak. The results are compared to A Multi-Phase Transport (AMPT) model simulation as well as other theoretical calculations indicating that the broadening and the development of the depletion are connected to the strength of radial and longitudinal flow

Anomalous evolution of the near-side jet peak shape in Pb-Pb collisions at sNN\sqrt{s_{\rm NN}} = 2.76 TeV

The measurement of two-particle angular correlations is a powerful tool to study jet quenching in a pT region inaccessible by direct jet identification. In these measurements pseudorapidity (Δη) and azimuthal (Δφ) differences are used to extract the shape of the near-side peak formed by particles associated with a higher pT trigger particle (1<pT,trig<8 GeV/c). A combined fit of the near-side peak and long-range correlations is applied to the data allowing the extraction of the centrality evolution of the peak shape in Pb-Pb collisions at sNN=2.76 TeV. A significant broadening of the peak in the Δη direction at low pT is found from peripheral to central collisions, which vanishes above 4 GeV/c, while in the Δφ direction the peak is almost independent of centrality. For the 10% most central collisions and 1<pT,assoc<2 GeV/c, 1<pT,trig<3 GeV/c a novel feature is observed: a depletion develops around the center of the peak. The results are compared to pp collisions at the same center of mass energy and ampt model simulations. The comparison to the investigated models suggests that the broadening and the development of the depletion is connected to the strength of radial and longitudinal flow