Peripheral neutrophil functions and cell signalling in crohn's disease

The role of the innate immunity in the pathogenesis of Crohn's disease (CD), an inflammatory bowel disease, is a subject of increasing interest. Neutrophils (PMN) are key members of the innate immune system which migrate to sites of bacteria

Dutch Oncology COVID-19 consortium:Outcome of COVID-19 in patients with cancer in a nationwide cohort study

Aim of the study: Patients with cancer might have an increased risk for severe outcome of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). To identify risk factors associated with a worse outcome of COVID-19, a nationwide registry was developed for patients with cancer and COVID-19. Methods: This observational cohort study has been designed as a quality of care registry and is executed by the Dutch Oncology COVID-19 Consortium (DOCC), a nationwide collaboration of oncology physicians in the Netherlands. A questionnaire has been developed to collect pseudonymised patient data on patients' characteristics, cancer diagnosis and treatment. All patients with COVID-19 and a cancer diagnosis or treatment in the past 5 years are eligible. Results: Between March 27th and May 4th, 442 patients were registered. For this first analysis, 351 patients were included of whom 114 patients died. In multivariable analyses, age ≥65 years (p < 0.001), male gender (p = 0.035), prior or other malignancy (p = 0.045) and active diagnosis of haematological malignancy (p = 0.046) or lung cancer (p = 0.003) were independent risk factors for a fatal outcome of COVID-19. In a subgroup analysis of patients with active malignancy, the risk for a fatal outcome was mainly determined by tumour type (haematological malignancy or lung cancer) and age (≥65 years). Conclusion: The findings in this registry indicate that patients with a haematological malignancy or lung cancer have an increased risk of a worse outcome of COVID-19. During the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, these vulnerable patients should avoid exposure to severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2, whereas treatment adjustments and prioritising vaccination, when available, should also be considered

Optical boundary reconstruction of tokamak plasmas for feedback control of plasma position and shape

A new diagnostic is developed to reconstruct the plasma boundary using visible wavelength images. Exploiting the plasma\u27s edge localized and toroidally symmetric emission profile, a new coordinate transform is presented to reconstruct the plasma boundary from a poloidal view image. The plasma boundary reconstruction is implemented in MATLAB and applied to camera images of Mega-Ampere Spherical Tokamak discharges. The optically reconstructed plasma boundaries are compared to magnetic reconstructions from the offline reconstruction code EFIT, showing very good qualitative and quantitative agreement. Average errors are within 2 cm and correlation is high. In the current software implementation, plasma boundary reconstruction from a single image takes 3 ms. The applicability and system requirements of the new optical boundary reconstruction, called OFIT, for use in both feedback control of plasma position and shape and in offline reconstruction tools are discussed. (C) 2010 American Institute of Physics. [doi:10.1063/1.3499219

Optical boundary reconstruction of tokamak plasmas for feedback control of plasma position and shape

A new diagnostic is developed to reconstruct the plasma boundary using visible wavelength images. Exploiting the plasma’s edge-localized and toroidally symmetric emission profile, a new coordinate transform is presented to reconstruct the plasma boundary from a poloidal view image. The plasma boundary reconstruction is implemented in Matlab and applied to camera images of Mega-Amp Spherical Tokamak (MAST) discharges. The optically reconstructed plasma boundaries are compared to magnetic reconstructions from the offline reconstruction code EFIT, showing very good qualitative and quantitative agreement. Average errors are within 2cm and correlation is high. In the current software implementation, plasma boundary reconstruction from a single image takes 3ms. The applicability and system requirements of the new optical boundary reconstruction, called OFIT, for use in both feedback control of plasma position and shape and in offline reconstruction tools are discussed

Identification of non-linear dynamics using higher order frequency response functions

An experiment is designed to identify input-output relations of a mechanical positioning system with excitation amplitude dependent mechanical behaviour. When evaluated in the frequency domain, these relations constitute a fingerprint of the dynamical behaviour of the system. Since the commonly used FFT based techniques for Frequency Response Function (FRF) estimations require stationary signals, an alternative technique is introduced. With a digital filtering based technique fixed frequency higher order FRFs can be estimated as function of time dependent excitation levels. The paper describes the data processing techniques and shows measurement results of the higher order FRFs of a system with strong amplitude dependent mechanical behaviour caused by a friction induced resonance

Optical boundary reconstruction of tokamak plasmas for feedback control of plasma position and shape

A new diagnostic is developed to reconstruct the plasma boundary using visible wavelength images. Exploiting the plasma’s edge-localized and toroidally symmetric emission profile, a new coordinate transform is presented to reconstruct the plasma boundary from a poloidal view image. The plasma boundary reconstruction is implemented in Matlab and applied to camera images of Mega-Amp Spherical Tokamak (MAST) discharges. The optically reconstructed plasma boundaries are compared to magnetic reconstructions from the offline reconstruction code EFIT, showing very good qualitative and quantitative agreement. Average errors are within 2cm and correlation is high. In the current software implementation, plasma boundary reconstruction from a single image takes 3ms. The applicability and system requirements of the new optical boundary reconstruction, called OFIT, for use in both feedback control of plasma position and shape and in offline reconstruction tools are discussed