Tracker Operation and Performance at the Magnet Test and Cosmic Challenge

During summer 2006 a fraction of the CMS silicon strip tracker was operated in a comprehensive slice test called the Magnet Test and Cosmic Challenge (MTCC). At the MTCC, cosmic rays detected in the muon chambers were used to trigger the readout of all CMS sub-detectors in the general data acquisition system and in the presence of the 4 T magnetic field produced by the CMS superconducting solenoid. This document describes the operation of the Tracker hardware and software prior, during and after data taking. The performance of the detector as resulting from the MTCC data analysis is also presented

CMS physics technical design report : Addendum on high density QCD with heavy ions

Peer reviewe

Monitoring CMS tracker construction and data quality using a Grid/Web service based on a visualization tool

The complexity of the CMS tracker (more than 50 million channels to monitor) now in construction in ten laboratories worldwide with hundreds of interested people, will require new tools for monitoring both the hardware and the software. In our approach we use both visualization tools and Grid services to make this monitoring possible. The use of visualization enables us to represent in a single computer screen all those million channels at once. The Grid will make it possible to get enough data and computing power in order to check every channel and also to reach the experts everywhere in the world allowing the early discovery of problems. We report here on a first prototype developed using the Grid environment already available now in CMS i.e. LCG2. This prototype consists on a Java client which implements the GUI for tracker visualization and two data servers connected to the tracker construction database and to Grid catalogs of event datasets. All the communication between client and servers is done using data encoded in XML and standard Internet protocols

CMS Tracker Visualisation

To provide improvements in the performance of existing tracker data visualization tools in IGUANA, a 2D visualisation software has been developed, using the object oriented paradigm and software engineering techniques. We have designed 2D graphics objects and some of them have been implemented. The access to the new objects is made in ORCA plugin of IGUANA CMS. A new tracker object oriented model has been designed for developing these 2D graphics objects. The model consists of new classes which represent all its components (layers, modules, rings, petals, rods).The new classes are described here. The last part of this document contains a user manual of the software and will be updated with new releases

Preliminary antimicrobial susceptibility: possibility of early and effective therapy during treatment of septic patients

Blood cultures have the drawback of requiring long time to be carried out. Our study was designed with the aim of early reports on both causing agents and preliminary antimicrobial susceptibility. We carried out a direct antimicrobial susceptibility on 79 positive blood cultures (42 for Gram-negative bacteria of which 21 MDRO; 22 for staphylococci of which 15 S. aureus; and 15 Enterococci/Streptococci) employing E-test strips deposited on Müller-Hinton Agar for staphylococci and Gram-negative bacteria, and Müller-Hinton Agar + 5% of blood for enterococci/streptococci. MICs were compared to the antimicrobial susceptibility tests carried out using Vitek2. On the basis of the interpretative criteria (SIR), the comparison between the direct antimicrobial susceptibility and the routine antimicrobial susceptibility, showed a concordance from 92.6% up to 100% for Gram-negative bacteria; from 90.0% up to 100% for staphylococci; from 86.7% up to 100% for streptococci/enterococci, respectively. With regard to MICs comparison, good concordance was detected on the basis of ± 1 doubling dilution. Moreover, this work allowed, in the case of Gram-negative bacteria, either the early identification of multidrug-resistant organisms or providing the MIC evaluation in a broader interval than it would be possible by the reference antimicrobial susceptibility

Lemierre's syndrome complicated by cerebral venous sinus thrombosis: A life threatening and rare disease successfully treated with empiric antimicrobial therapy and conservative approach

Lemierre's syndrome (LS) is a "forgotten" condition characterized by septic thrombophlebitis of the jugular vein that follows an otolaryngological infection. Fusobacterium necrophorum is the aetiological agent responsible for the syndrome in adolescents and young adults whereas in older people even common bacteria are involved. Complications arise from spreading of septic emboli distally, i.e. to the brain, lungs, bones and internal organs everywhere in the body. We report a middle-aged woman who presented with headache and bilateral sixth cranial nerve palsy following a sphenoidal sinusitis and left mastoiditis. Imaging revealed thrombotic involvement of the left internal jugular vein as well as of several cerebral venous sinuses thrombosis (CVT). Currently, precise management protocols of LS with CVT complication do not exist although a combination of macrolides and second or third-generation cephalosporins, as well as anti-coagulants represent the mainstream of therapeutics. Surgical drainage is associated to remove septic foci but is burdened by severe complications and side effects. Complete recovery was achieved following pharmacological treatment in our patient. This report adds further evidence that LS complicated by CVT may be effectively treated adopting a conservative approach thus avoiding surgical drainage and severe complications

SVR12 rates higher than 99% after sofosbuvir/velpatasvir combination in HCV infected patients with F0-F1 fibrosis stage: A real world experience

Background and objectives The pangenotypic single tablet regimen of NS5B inhibitor sofobuvir (SOF) and NS5A inhibitor velpatasvir (VEL) is advised for 12 weeks in HCV-infected patients including those with compensated cirrhosis. Addition of ribavirin (RBV) may be considered in genotype 3 (GT3) with compensated and is recommended in decompensated cirrhosis. Real-life results with SOF/VEL are limited. To evaluate efficacy and safety in a large real-world-cohort including patients with different GTs and various fibrosis stages. Design In total, 1429 patients were treated with SOF/VEL 400/100 mg for 12 weeks in the Puglia registry between June 2017 and May 2018. 1319 (92.3%) reached week 12 post-treatment (SVR12) at the moment. Only 41 received RBV. Diagnosis of cirrhosis was based on transient elastography and/or APRI or FIB-4 scores. Sensitivity analysis in the population including all patients except non virological failure was conducted. Primary efficacy endpoint was the percentage of patients with SVR12. Results Patients’ mean age was 63.8 years, 42.3% had GT1. The majority were naïve and 735 (55.5%) F0/F2. Of the remaining 587, 282 had cirrhosis. SVR12 was 98.5%, 98.0% in GT1, 99.4% in GT2, 97.1% in GT3, 100% in GT4. Overall, SVR12 by sensitivity analysis was 99.4%; 99.7% among F0-F1. Among 218 PWID, SVR12 was 94.5%. Discontinuation rates were 3.7% among PWID and 0.7% among non-PWID (p = 0.004). Conclusions SOF/VEL treatment of chronic HCV infection reaches very high cure rates in a variety of patients; including those with F0/F1 and PWID. © 2019 Mangia et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited