Magnetic Order in the 2D Heavy-Fermion System CePt2In7 studied by muSR

The low-temperature microscopic magnetic properties of the quasi-2D heavyfermion compound, CePt2In7 are investigated by using a positive muon-spin rotation and relaxation (?muSR) technique. Clear evidence for the formation of a commensurate antiferromagnetic order below TN=5.40 K is presented. The magnetic order parameter is shown to fit well to a modified BSC gap-energy function in a strong-coupling scenario.Comment: Accepted in Journal of Physics: Conference Series (2014

IFC (incl. Editorial board)

We present a weak gravitational lensing measurement of the external convergence along the line of sight to the quadruply lensed quasar HE$\,$0435$-$1223. Using deep r-band images from Subaru-Suprime-Cam we observe galaxies down to a 3$\sigma$ limiting magnitude of $\sim 26$ mags resulting in a source galaxy density of 14 galaxies / arcmin$^2$ after redshift-based cuts. Using an inpainting technique and Multi-Scale Entropy filtering algorithm, we find that the region in close proximity to the lens has an estimated external convergence of $\kappa=-0.012^{+0.020}_{-0.013}$ and is hence marginally under-dense. We also rule out the presence of any halo with a mass greater than $M_{\rm vir}=1.6\times10^{14}h^{-1}M_\odot$ (68$\%$ confidence limit). Our results, consistent with previous studies of this lens, confirm that the intervening mass along the line of sight to HE$\,$0435$-$1223 does not affect significantly the cosmological results inferred from the time delay measurements of that specific object.Comment: 14 pages, 8 figures, 2 table

H∞ LIDAR odometry for spacecraft relative navigation

Current light detection and ranging (LIDAR) based odometry solutions that are used for spacecraft relative navigation suffer from quite a few deficiencies. These include an off-line training requirement and relying on the iterative closest point (ICP) that does not guarantee a globally optimum solution. To encounter this, the authors suggest a robust architecture that overcomes the problems of current proposals by combining the concepts of 3D local feature matching with an adaptive variant of the H∞ recursive filtering process. Trials on real laser scans of an EnviSat model demonstrate that the proposed architecture affords at least one order of magnitude better accuracy compared to ICP

Minimally-invasive surgical treatment of myastenia gravis

IMSP SCR, Secţia Chirurgie Toracică, RM, Chişinău, Al XI-lea Congres al Asociației Chirurgilor „Nicolae Anestiadi” din Republica Moldova și cea de-a XXXIII-a Reuniune a Chirurgilor din Moldova „Iacomi-Răzeșu” 27-30 septembrie 2011Introducere. Miastenia gravis (MG) este o patologie autoimună în care dereglările neuromusculare sunt induse de anticorpii circulanți contra receptorilor acetilcolinici (nAChR) localizați la nivelul postsinaptic al joncțiunii neuromusculare. Abordarea terapeutică a MG presupune un tratament gradual care cuprinde inhibitori de colinesterază pentru simptomatologie minoră şi avansează la medicaţie imunomodulatoare sau plasmafereza pentru situatiile de o gravitate crescută. Timectomia are un rol important în tratamentul complex al MG. Scopul lucrării. Analiza rezultatele postoperatorii ale tratamentului chirurgical videoasistat al miasteniei gravis. Materiale şi metode. În grupul de studiu au fost incluşi 63 pacienți cu MG fără timom observați postoperator mai mult de 12 luni. Repartizarea după sex a fost - 11 bărbați (17,7 %) şi 52 femei (82,5 %), cu vârsta între 18 şi 62 ani. Durata medie a afecțiunii a fost de 21,2 luni, variind mult în cadrul grupului dar fără diferență semnificativă legată de sex. Conform clasificării clinice MGFA pacienți au fost repartizaţi în următoarele stadii : I- 4 (6,3 %) , IIa - 12 (19,04 %), IIb - 17 (26,98 %), III - 13 (20,63 %), IIIb - 12 (19,04 %), IV - 5 (7,94%). Diagnosticul de MG a fost bazat pe examenul clinic neurologic, răspunsul pozitiv la testul cu prozerină sau tensilon, rezultatele tipice electromiografice şi în unele cazuri prin demonstrarea prezenței anticorpilor contra aAChR. Rezultate. Ameliorarea generală a stării pacienților (RCS + AS) a fost demonstrată la 95,23 % pacienți. Ameliorarea stării a fost înregistrată la 42 (66,67 %) pacienți. La 2 pacienți (3,17 %) conform criteriilor noastre (micşorarea scorului QMG ≥ 4 puncte) starea nu s-a modificat după timectomie şi la un pacient (1,59 %) a fost constatată agravarea simptomelor MG în perioada postintervenție. Concluzii. 1. Timectomia toracoscopica este o tehnică avansată de chirurgie miniminvazivă şi este rezervată centrelor cu experienţă atât în chirurgia toracoscopică cât şi în abilitatea de a trata bolnavul miastenic. 2. Factorii de prognostic favorabil depistati în urma analizei multivariate sunt debutul la o vârsta mai tânără a afecţiunii şi intrevenţia chirurgicală precoce faţă de momentul de debut al afecţiunii.Introduction. Myasthenia gravis (MG) is an autoimmune pathology in which neuromuscular disorders are caused by circulating antibodies against acetylcholine receptor (nAChR) located at the postsinaptic level of the neuromuscular junction. Management of MG involves a gradual treatment including cholinesterase inhibitors for minor symptoms and advances to immunomodulating medications or plasmapheresis for high gravity situations. Thymectomy has an important role in the complex treatment of MG. Goal of the study. Analysis of postoperative results of minimally-invasive surgical treatment of myasthenia gravis. Materials and methods. In the study group were included 63 patients with MG without thymoma observed more than 12 months postoperatively. Distribution by sex was - 11 men (17.7%) and 52 women (82.5%), aged between 18 and 62 years. The average duration of disease was 21.2 months, ranging a lot in the group but with no significant differences related to sex. According to clinical classification MGFA patients were divided into the following stages: I-4 (6.3%), IIa - 12 (19.04%), IIb - 17 (26.98%), III - 13 (20.63% ), IIIb - 12 (19.04%), IV - 5 (7.94%). The diagnosis of MG was based on neurological clinical examination, positive response to prozerin or tensilon test, typical electromyographic results and in some cases by demonstrating the presence of antibodies against aAChR. Results. General improvement in the patient’s condition (RCS + AS) has been demonstrated in 95.23% patients. State improvement was recorded in 42 (66.67%) patients. In 2 patients (3.17%) according to our criteria (QMG score decrease ≥ 4 points) status has not changed after thymectomy and in one patient (1.59%) was observed during postoperative period worsening of MG symptoms. Conclusions. 1. Thoracoscopic thymectomy is an advanced technique of minimally-invasive surgery and is reserved to centers with experience in both thoracoscopic surgery and the ability to treat myasthenic patients. 2. Favorable prognostic factors found in multivariate analysis are the onset of disease at a younger age and early surgical treatment from time of onset

H0LiCOW XI. A weak lensing measurement of the external convergence in the field of the lensed quasar B1608+656 using HST and Subaru deep imaging

We investigate the environment and line of sight of the H0LiCOW lens B1608+656 using Subaru Suprime-Cam and the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) to perform a weak lensing analysis. We compare three different methods to reconstruct the mass map of the field, i.e. the standard Kaiser-Squires inversion coupled with inpainting and Gaussian or wavelet filtering, and $\tt{Glimpse}$ a method based on sparse regularization of the shear field. We find no substantial difference between the 2D mass reconstructions, but we find that the ground-based data is less sensitive to small-scale structures than the space-based observations. Marginalising over the results obtained with all the reconstruction techniques applied to the two available HST filters F606W and F814W, we estimate the external convergence, $\kappa_{\rm ext}$ at the position of B1608+656 is $\kappa_{\rm ext} = 0.11^{+0.06}_{-0.04}$, where the error bars corresponds respectively to the 16th and 84th quartiles. This result is compatible with previous estimates using the number-counts technique, suggesting that B1608+656 resides in an over-dense line of sight, but with a completely different technique. Using our mass reconstructions, we also compare the convergence at the position of several groups of galaxies in the field of B1608+656 with the mass measurements using various analytical mass profiles, and find that the weak lensing results favor truncated halo models.Comment: Accepted MNRA

MSV3d: database of human MisSense variants mapped to 3D protein structure

The elucidation of the complex relationships linking genotypic and phenotypic variations to protein structure is a major challenge in the post-genomic era. We present MSV3d (Database of human MisSense Variants mapped to 3D protein structure), a new database that contains detailed annotation of missense variants of all human proteins (20 199 proteins). The multi-level characterization includes details of the physico-chemical changes induced by amino acid modification, as well as information related to the conservation of the mutated residue and its position relative to functional features in the available or predicted 3D model. Major releases of the database are automatically generated and updated regularly in line with the dbSNP (database of Single Nucleotide Polymorphism) and SwissVar releases, by exploiting the extensive Décrypthon computational grid resources. The database (http://decrypthon.igbmc.fr/msv3d) is easily accessible through a simple web interface coupled to a powerful query engine and a standard web service. The content is completely or partially downloadable in XML or flat file formats

H0LiCOW X: Spectroscopic/imaging survey and galaxy-group identification around the strong gravitational lens system WFI2033-4723

Galaxies and galaxy groups located along the line of sight towards gravitationally lensed quasars produce high-order perturbations of the gravitational potential at the lens position. When these perturbation are too large, they can induce a systematic error on $H_0$ of a few-percent if the lens system is used for cosmological inference and the perturbers are not explicitly accounted for in the lens model. In this work, we present a detailed characterization of the environment of the lens system WFI2033-4723 ($z_{\rm src} = 1.662$, $z_{\rm lens}$ = 0.6575), one of the core targets of the H0LICOW project for which we present cosmological inferences in a companion paper (Rusu et al. 2019). We use the Gemini and ESO-Very Large telescopes to measure the spectroscopic redshifts of the brightest galaxies towards the lens, and use the ESO-MUSE integral field spectrograph to measure the velocity-dispersion of the lens ($\sigma_{\rm {los}}= 250^{+15}_{-21}$ km/s) and of several nearby galaxies. In addition, we measure photometric redshifts and stellar masses of all galaxies down to $i < 23$ mag, mainly based on Dark Energy Survey imaging (DR1). Our new catalog, complemented with literature data, more than doubles the number of known galaxy spectroscopic redshifts in the direct vicinity of the lens, expanding to 116 (64) the number of spectroscopic redshifts for galaxies separated by less than 3 arcmin (2 arcmin) from the lens. Using the flexion-shift as a measure of the amplitude of the gravitational perturbation, we identify 2 galaxy groups and 3 galaxies that require specific attention in the lens models. The ESO MUSE data enable us to measure the velocity-dispersions of three of these galaxies. These results are essential for the cosmological inference analysis presented in Rusu et al. (2019).Comment: Matches the version accepted for publication by MNRAS. Note that this paper previously appeared as H0LICOW X