Apparent digestibility and metabolizable energy content of lipid sources in poultry

A trial was conducted to determine the apparent digestibility (ATTD) and AME content of different lipid sources in 21d-old broilers. There were a control diet based on corn and soybean meal without any supplemental fat and 6 additional diets forming a 3x2 factorial with 3 sources of fat (soy oil, SBO; reconstituted monoglyceride oil, RMG; and reconstituted triglyceride oil, RTG) included in the diet (3 or 6%) at expenses (wt:wt) of the basal diet

CW laser operation around 2-μm in (Tm,Yb):KLu(WO4) 2

Laser generation in continuous wave (CW) regime at 1.94-μm from (Tm,Yb) codoped system has been investigated in two different hosts: KLu(WO 4)2 and KY(WO4)2. The high quality crystals were grown by the Top-Seeded Solution Growth Slow Cooling (TSSG-SC) method with doping levels of 2.5 at. %Tm and 5 at. %Yb. The active media were pumped with a diode laser at 980 nm. We demonstrated the superior performance of KLu(WO4)2 compared to that of KY(WO4) 2 and improved the results already obtained in the literature. The maximum laser output power reached was 157 mW for (Tm,Yb):KLu(WO 4)2 and 123 mW for (Tm,Yb):KY(WO4)2. © 2010 Published by Elsevier Ltd

CW laser operation around 2-μm in (Tm,Yb):KLu(WO4) 2

Laser generation in continuous wave (CW) regime at 1.94-μm from (Tm,Yb) codoped system has been investigated in two different hosts: KLu(WO 4)2 and KY(WO4)2. The high quality crystals were grown by the Top-Seeded Solution Growth Slow Cooling (TSSG-SC) method with doping levels of 2.5 at. %Tm and 5 at. %Yb. The active media were pumped with a diode laser at 980 nm. We demonstrated the superior performance of KLu(WO4)2 compared to that of KY(WO4) 2 and improved the results already obtained in the literature. The maximum laser output power reached was 157 mW for (Tm,Yb):KLu(WO 4)2 and 123 mW for (Tm,Yb):KY(WO4)2. © 2010 Published by Elsevier Ltd

Metastatic benign pleomorphic adenoma : report of a case and review of the literature

Pleomorphic adenoma (PA), originally called mixed tumour, is the most common neoplasm of the salivary glands and is generally accepted as benign biologically. Occasionally PA may give rise to metastasis. The metastasis may develop in a PA in which a malignant transformation occurs, either arising a carcinoma in the PA (carcinoma ex-mixed tumour) or as a carcinosarcoma (so?called true malignant mixed tumour). However, very rare benign PA eventually metastasise, usually after having a previous recurrence, displaying benign histological features as well in the primary tumour as in the metastasis. These tumours have been termed metastatic PA or metastatic mixed tumours. The aim of this paper is to report one case of metastatic histological benign pleomorphic adenoma, and to consider the clinical, pathological and therapeutic consequences of these rare tumours as well as its possible causes and mechanisms for its behaviour

A systematic cross-search for radio/infrared counterparts of XMM-Newton sources

We present a catalog of cross-correlated radio, infrared and X-ray sources using a very restrictive selection criteria with an IDL-based code developed by us. The significance of the observed coincidences was evaluated through Monte Carlo simulations of synthetic sources following a well-tested protocol. We found 3320 coincident radio/X-ray sources with a high statistical significance characterized by the sum of error-weighted coordinate differences. For 997 of them, 2MASS counterparts were found. The percentage of chance coincidences is less than 1%. X-ray hardness ratios of well-known populations of objects were used to provide a crude representation of their X-ray spectrum and to make a preliminary diagnosis of the possible nature of unidentified X-ray sources. The results support the fact that the X-ray sky is largely dominated by Active Galactic Nuclei at high galactic latitudes (|b| >= 10^\circ). At low galactic latitudes (|b| <= 10^\circ) most of unidentified X-ray sources (~94%) lie at |b| <= 2^\circ. This result suggests that most of the unidentified sources found toward the Milky Way plane are galactic objects. Well-known and unidentified sources were classified in different tables with their corresponding radio/infrared and X-ray properties. These tables are intended as a useful tool for researchers interested in particular identifications.Comment: Accepted for publication in Ap&SS. 47 pages, 10 figures. On-line material: figures and table

Holographic Meson Melting

The plasma phase at high temperatures of a strongly coupled gauge theory can be holographically modelled by an AdS black hole. Matter in the fundamental representation and in the quenched approximation is introduced through embedding D7-branes in the AdS-Schwarzschild background. Low spin mesons correspond to the fluctuations of the D7-brane world volume. As is well known by now, there are two different kinds of embeddings, either reaching down to the black hole horizon or staying outside of it. In the latter case the fluctuations of the D7-brane world volume represent stable low spin mesons. In the plasma phase we do not expect mesons to be stable but to melt at sufficiently high temperature. We model the late stages of this meson melting by the quasinormal modes of D7-brane fluctuations for the embeddings that do reach down to the horizon. The inverse of the imaginary part of the quasinormal frequency gives the typical relaxation time back to equilibrium of the meson perturbation in the hot plasma. We briefly comment on the possible application of our model to quarkonium suppression.Comment: 25+1 pages, 6 figures; v4: references adde

Multiple myeloma and SARS-CoV-2 infection : clinical characteristics and prognostic factors of inpatient mortality

There is limited information on the characteristics, prognostic factors, and outcomes of patients with multiple myeloma (MM) hospitalized with COVID-19. This retrospective case series investigated 167 patients reported from 73 hospitals within the Spanish Myeloma Collaborative Group network in March and April, 2020. Outcomes were compared with 167 randomly selected, contemporary, age-/sex-matched noncancer patients with COVID-19 admitted at six participating hospitals. Among MM and noncancer patients, median age was 71 years, and 57% of patients were male; 75 and 77% of patients, respectively, had at least one comorbidity. COVID-19 clinical severity was moderate-severe in 77 and 89% of patients and critical in 8 and 4%, respectively. Supplemental oxygen was required by 47 and 55% of MM and noncancer patients, respectively, and 21%/9% vs 8%/6% required noninvasive/invasive ventilation. Inpatient mortality was 34 and 23% in MM and noncancer patients, respectively. Among MM patients, inpatient mortality was 41% in males, 42% in patients aged >65 years, 49% in patients with active/progressive MM at hospitalization, and 59% in patients with comorbid renal disease at hospitalization, which were independent prognostic factors on adjusted multivariate analysis. This case series demonstrates the increased risk and identifies predictors of inpatient mortality among MM patients hospitalized with COVID-19

Pembrolizumab as Consolidation Strategy in Patients with Multiple Myeloma: Results of the GEM-Pembresid Clinical Trial

PD1 expression in CD4+ and CD8+ T cells is increased after treatment in multiple myeloma patients with persistent disease. The GEM-Pembresid trial analyzed the efficacy and safety of pembrolizumab as consolidation in patients achieving at least very good partial response but with persistent measurable disease after first- or second-line treatment. Moreover, the characteristics of the immune system were investigated to identify potential biomarkers of response to pembrolizumab. One out of the 17 evaluable patients showed a decrease in the amount of M-protein, although a potential late effect of high-dose melphalan could not be ruled out. Fourteen adverse events were considered related to pembrolizumab, two of which (G3 diarrhea and G2 pneumonitis) prompted treatment discontinuation and all resolving without sequelae. Interestingly, pembrolizumab induced a decrease in the percentage of NK cells at cycle 3, due to the reduction of the circulating and adaptive subsets (0.615 vs. 0.43, p = 0.007; 1.12 vs. 0.86, p = 0.02). In the early progressors, a significantly lower expression of PD1 in CD8+ effector memory T cells (MFI 1327 vs. 926, p = 0.03) was observed. In conclusion, pembrolizumab used as consolidation monotherapy shows an acceptable toxicity profile but did not improve responses in this MM patient population. The trial was registered at clinicaltrials.gov with identifier NCT02636010 and with EUDRACT number 2015-003359-23.This study was funded by Fundación Ramón Areces (FRA 16/003). T.P. is supported by a grant from the AECC (INVES18043PAIN). This study received financial support from Merck Sharp & Dohme of Spain, a subsidiary of Merck & Co., Inc., Whitehouse Station, New Jersey, USA

Collisions with Black Holes and Deconfined Plasmas

We use AdS/CFT to investigate i) high energy collisions with balls of deconfined plasma surrounded by a confining phase and ii) the rapid localized heating of a deconfined plasma. Both of these processes are dual to collisions with black holes, where they result in the nucleation of a new "arm" of the horizon reaching out in the direction of the incident object. We study the resulting non-equilibrium dynamics in a universal limit of the gravitational physics which may indicate universal behavior of deconfined plasmas at large N_c. Process (i) produces "virtual" arms of the plasma ball, while process (ii) can nucleate surprisingly large bubbles of a higher temperature phase.Comment: 25 pages, 9 figure