Prognosis of Elevated Serum Ferritin in Allogeneic-HCT

Introduction: Serum ferritin was demonstrated to be a useful tool to predict the risk in patients who undergo hematopoietic stem cell transplantation (HCT). Still it is not clear if its predictive value solely represents iron overload (IO) and published results are sometimes contradictory. So the objective of present study was to determine relationship between elevated pre-HCT serum ferritin levels, morbidity and mortality after allogeneic hematopoietic stem cell transplantation (allo-HCT) on one side, and its correlations with various risk indexes which were developed recently to predict outcomes after allo-HCT on the other side. Patients and Methods: In this retrospective study we have reviewed medical records of one hundred six consecutive patients (52 males and 54 females), with a median age of 32 years (range, 5 to 60), who underwent allo-HCT with unmanipulated grafts between Jan 2013 and Dec2014. We retrieved pre-allo-HCT serum ferritin levels and also calculated risk indexes before HCT. The incidence of complications and outcomes after allo-HCT was assessed. The median follow-up period was 12 (range, 4-27) months after allo-HCT. Results: We have determined a cuttoff ferritin level of 500 ng/mL for early complications and 737 for outcomes. We found increased incidence of number of febrile neutropenic episodes (P =0.02), number of bacterial infection episodes (P =0.009), pneumonias (P =0.039), slower period of neutrophil engraftment (P=0.032), demand for multiple red blood cell (RBC) transfusions (P =0.002) within 100 days post transplantation. A significant association was found between pre-transplant ferritin concentrations and different risk indexes; European Group for Blood and Marrow Transplantation (EBMT) risk score (P=0.001), Hematopoietic cell transplantation comorbidity index (HCT-CI) (P=0.003), Pre-transplant Assessment of Mortality (PAM) score (P=0.007) and disease risk (DR) (P =0.037). Conclusion: On the one hand we did confirmed that even moderate serum ferritin elevation is associated with increased incidence of infections, slower period to engraftment and increasing demand of RBC units transfusions, but strong correlation with pre-transplant indexes that take into account disease risk raises the question if IO is the only factor that adversely affect the outcome of HCT in patients with increased ferritin. This should be studied in prospective trials

Global maps of soil temperature.

Research in global change ecology relies heavily on global climatic grids derived from estimates of air temperature in open areas at around 2 m above the ground. These climatic grids do not reflect conditions below vegetation canopies and near the ground surface, where critical ecosystem functions occur and most terrestrial species reside. Here, we provide global maps of soil temperature and bioclimatic variables at a 1-km <sup>2</sup> resolution for 0-5 and 5-15 cm soil depth. These maps were created by calculating the difference (i.e. offset) between in situ soil temperature measurements, based on time series from over 1200 1-km <sup>2</sup> pixels (summarized from 8519 unique temperature sensors) across all the world's major terrestrial biomes, and coarse-grained air temperature estimates from ERA5-Land (an atmospheric reanalysis by the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts). We show that mean annual soil temperature differs markedly from the corresponding gridded air temperature, by up to 10°C (mean = 3.0 ± 2.1°C), with substantial variation across biomes and seasons. Over the year, soils in cold and/or dry biomes are substantially warmer (+3.6 ± 2.3°C) than gridded air temperature, whereas soils in warm and humid environments are on average slightly cooler (-0.7 ± 2.3°C). The observed substantial and biome-specific offsets emphasize that the projected impacts of climate and climate change on near-surface biodiversity and ecosystem functioning are inaccurately assessed when air rather than soil temperature is used, especially in cold environments. The global soil-related bioclimatic variables provided here are an important step forward for any application in ecology and related disciplines. Nevertheless, we highlight the need to fill remaining geographic gaps by collecting more in situ measurements of microclimate conditions to further enhance the spatiotemporal resolution of global soil temperature products for ecological applications

Insights into the high-energy γ-ray emission of Markarian 501 from extensive multifrequency observations in the Fermi era

We report on the γ-ray activity of the blazar Mrk 501 during the first 480 days of Fermi operation. We find that the average Large Area Telescope (LAT) γ-ray spectrum of Mrk 501 can be well described by a single power-law function with a photon index of 1.78 ± 0.03. While we observe relatively mild flux variations with the Fermi-LAT (within less than a factor of two), we detect remarkable spectral variability where the hardest observed spectral index within the LAT energy range is 1.52 ± 0.14, and the softest one is 2.51 ± 0.20. These unexpected spectral changes do not correlate with the measured flux variations above 0.3 GeV. In this paper, we also present the first results from the 4.5 month long multifrequency campaign (2009 March 15-August 1) on Mrk 501, which included the Very Long Baseline Array (VLBA), Swift, RXTE, MAGIC, and VERITAS, the F-GAMMA, GASP-WEBT, and other collaborations and instruments which provided excellent temporal and energy coverage of the source throughout the entire campaign. The extensive radio to TeV data set from this campaign provides us with the most detailed spectral energy distribution yet collected for this source during its relatively low activity. The average spectral energy distribution of Mrk 501 is well described by the standard one-zone synchrotron self-Compton (SSC) model. In the framework of this model, we find that the dominant emission region is characterized by a size ≲0.1 pc (comparable within a factor of few to the size of the partially resolved VLBA core at 15-43 GHz), and that the total jet power (≃1044 erg s-1) constitutes only a small fraction (∼10-3) of the Eddington luminosity. The energy distribution of the freshly accelerated radiating electrons required to fit the time-averaged data has a broken power-law form in the energy range 0.3 GeV-10 TeV, with spectral indices 2.2 and 2.7 below and above the break energy of 20 GeV. We argue that such a form is consistent with a scenario in which the bulk of the energy dissipation within the dominant emission zone of Mrk 501 is due to relativistic, proton-mediated shocks. We find that the ultrarelativistic electrons and mildly relativistic protons within the blazar zone, if comparable in number, are in approximate energy equipartition, with their energy dominating the jet magnetic field energy by about two orders of magnitude. © 2011. The American Astronomical Society

Status of Generation-IV Lead Fast Reactor Activities

Since 2012 the Lead-cooled Fast Reactor provisional System Steering Committee (LFR-pSSC) of the Generation IV International Forum (GIF) has developed a number of top level strategic activities with the aim to assist and support development of Lead-cooled Fast Reactor technology in member countries and entities. The current full members of the GIF-LFR-pSSC (i.e., signatories of the GIF LFR Memorandum of Understanding /MoU/) are: EURATOM, JAPAN, the RUSSIAN FEDERATION, and the REPUBLIC OF KOREA. The pSSC also benefits from the active participation of its observers: the UNITED STATES and the PEOPLE’S REPUBLIC OF CHINA. The paper highlights some of the main collaborative achievements of LFR-pSSC, including the development of the LFR System Research Plan, the LFR White Paper on Safety, the LFR System Safety Assessment paper as well as the LFR Safety Design Criteria paper. The paper then presents the status of the development of LFRs in the GIF member countries and entities. The collaboration among partners of the GIF-LFR-pSSC has proven its effectiveness in assisting the development of LFRs through an open, interactive and collegial environment, developing important synergies and exchange of both technical and strategic information