Drug Induced Thrombotic Microangiopathy with Certolizumab Pegol

Background: Certolizumab pegol is used to treat ankylosing spondylitis, Crohn’s disease, psoriatic arthritis, and rheumatoid arthritis. Unlike other monoclonal antibodies such as infliximab and adalimumab, certolizumab does not contain an Fc fraction and hence does not induce complement activation. In this report, we describe the case of a patient with thrombotic microangiopathy caused due to certolizumab pegol, with a brief description about the pathophysiological approach to thrombotic microangiopathy. Case Report: A-39-year-old man suffering from ankylosing spondylitis for the past 10 years presented with fatigue. He had been on certolizumab pegol treatment for 6 months, starting with 400 and 200 mg every 2 weeks. He had significant nonimmune hemolytic anemia and thrombocytopenia without a disseminated intravascular coagulopathy. Schistocytes were observed in more than 10% of the erythrocytes per field. Plasma exchange along with corticosteroid treatment was started. There was a dramatic improvement within a week, and after 10 sessions of plasma exchange, the patient was discharged on corticosteroids with a tapering plan. ADAMTS13 enzyme activity was determined to be normal. Conclusion: The development of drug-induced thrombotic microangiopathy may be either immune-mediated or dose-dependent toxicity-mediated Anti-drug antibodies and their immunological aspects are still unclear and yet to be elucidated

Anomaly Mediation, Fayet-Iliopoulos D-terms and precision sparticle spectra

We consider the sparticle spectra that arise when anomaly mediation is the source of supersymmetry-breaking and the tachyonic slepton problem is solved by a Fayet-Iliopoulos D-term. We also show how this can lead to a minimal viable extension of anomaly mediation, in which the gauge symmetry associated with this D-term is broken at very high energies, leaving as its footprint in the low energy theory only the required D-terms and seesaw neutrino masses.Comment: 20 pages, 5 figures. Uses epsf. Minor corrections and added referenc

Highly efficient visible colloidal lead-halide perovskite nanocrystal light-emitting diodes

Lead-halide perovskites have been attracting attention for potential use in solid-state lighting. Following the footsteps of solar cells, the field of perovskite light-emitting diodes (PeLEDs) has been growing rapidly. Their application prospects in lighting, however, remain still uncertain due to a variety of shortcomings in device performance including their limited levels of luminous efficiency achievable thus far. Here we show high-efficiency PeLEDs based on colloidal perovskite nanocrystals (PeNCs) synthesized at room temperature possessing dominant first-order excitonic radiation (enabling a photoluminescence quantum yield of 71% in solid film), unlike in the case of bulk perovskites with slow electron-hole bimolecular radiative recombination (a second-order process). In these PeLEDs, by reaching charge balance in the recombination zone, we find that the Auger nonradiative recombination, with its significant role in emission quenching, is effectively suppressed in low driving current density range. In consequence, these devices reach a record high maximum external quantum efficiency of 12.9% reported to date and an unprecedentedly high power efficiency of 30.3 lm W-1 at luminance levels above 1000 cd m-2 as required for various applications. These findings suggest that, with feasible levels of device performance, the PeNCs hold great promise for their use in LED lighting and displays

Prediction of self-compacting concrete elastic modulus using two symbolic regression techniques

yesThis paper introduces a novel symbolic regression approach, namely biogeographical-based programming (BBP), for the prediction of elastic modulus of self-compacting concrete (SCC). The BBP model was constructed directly from a comprehensive dataset of experimental results of SCC available in the literature. For comparison purposes, another new symbolic regression model, namely artificial bee colony programming (ABCP), was also developed. Furthermore, several available formulas for predicting the elastic modulus of SCC were assessed using the collected database. The results show that the proposed BBP model provides slightly closer results to experiments than ABCP model and existing available formulas. A sensitivity analysis of BBP parameters also shows that the prediction by BBP model improves with the increase of habitat size, colony size and maximum tree depth. In addition, among all considered empirical and design code equations, Leemann and Hoffmann and ACI 318-08’s equations exhibit a reasonable performance but Persson and Felekoglu et al.’s equations are highly inaccurate for the prediction of SCC elastic modulus

Additive manufacturing assisted investment casting: a low-cost method to fabricate periodic metallic cellular lattices

Metallic cellular solids are a class of materials known for their high specific mechanical properties, being desirable in applications where a combination of high strength or stiffness and low density are important. These lightweight materials are often stochastic and manufactured by foaming or casting. If regular (periodic) lattice structures are desired, they may be manufactured by metallic additive manufacturing techniques. However, these have characteristic issues, such as un-melted powders, porosity and heterogeneous microstructures. This study reports a novel low-cost route for producing regular lattice structures by an additive manufacturing assisted investment casting technique. Fused filament fabrication is used to produce the lattice structure pattern which is infiltrated with plaster. The pattern is then burnt off and the aluminum is cast in vacuum. In this way we can manufacture non-stochastic metallic lattices having fine struts/ribs (0.6mm cross-section using a 0.4mm nozzle) and relative densities down to 0.036. X-ray micro computed tomography (μCT) showed that as-cast A356 Aluminium alloy frameworks have high dimensional tolerances and fine detail control. Frameworks based on units of six connected struts ranging from intruding (auxetic) to protruding (hexagonal) strut angles are studied. Vertical struts are finer than expected, reducing their moment of area which could impact their compressive strength. This new, low cost, route for producing high precision metallic cellular lattices offers an attractive alternative to other additive manufacturing techniques (e.g. selective laser and electron beam melting).European Research Council through the ERC grant CORREL-CT, number 695638 to enable VHC to visit the Henry Royce Institute to undertake the X-ray CT studies. This work was supported by the Henry Royce Institute for Advanced Materials, funded through EPSRC grants EP/R00661X/1, EP/S019367/1, EP/P025021/1 and EP/P025498/1. Also, this work was supported by Portuguese FCT, under the reference project UIDB/04436/2020. project iRAIL Innovation in Railway Systems and Technologies Doctoral Programme funds and by national funds through FCT - Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology and was developed on the aim of the Doctoral grant PD/ BD/114096/2015

Physics searches at the LHC

With the LHC up and running, the focus of experimental and theoretical high energy physics will soon turn to an interpretation of LHC data in terms of the physics of electroweak symmetry breaking and the TeV scale. We present here a broad review of models for new TeV-scale physics and their LHC signatures. In addition, we discuss possible new physics signatures and describe how they can be linked to specific models of physics beyond the Standard Model. Finally, we illustrate how the LHC era could culminate in a detailed understanding of the underlying principles of TeV-scale physics.Comment: 184 pages, 55 figures, 14 tables, hundreds of references; scientific feedback is welcome and encouraged. v2: text, references and Overview Table added; feedback still welcom

Synthesis of Aqueous CdTe/CdS/ZnS Core/shell/shell Quantum Dots by a Chemical Aerosol Flow Method

This work described a continuous method to synthesize CdTe/CdS/ZnS core/shell/shell quantum dots. In an integrated system by flawlessly combining the chemical aerosol flow system working at high temperature (200–300°C) to generate CdTe/CdS intermediate products and an additional heat-up setup at relatively low temperature to overcoat the ZnS shells, the CdTe/CdS/ZnS multishell structures were realized. The as-synthesized CdTe/CdS/ZnS core/shell/shell quantum dots are characterized by photoluminescence spectra, X-ray diffraction (XRD), energy-dispersive X-ray spectra (EDS), transmission electron microscopy (TEM), and high-resolution transmission electron microscopy (HRTEM). Fluorescence and XRD results confirm that the obtained quantum dots have a core/shell/shell structure. It shows the highest quantum yield above 45% when compared to the rhodamine 6G. The core/shell/shell QDs were more stable via the oxidation experiment by H2O2

Performance of the CMS Cathode Strip Chambers with Cosmic Rays

The Cathode Strip Chambers (CSCs) constitute the primary muon tracking device in the CMS endcaps. Their performance has been evaluated using data taken during a cosmic ray run in fall 2008. Measured noise levels are low, with the number of noisy channels well below 1%. Coordinate resolution was measured for all types of chambers, and fall in the range 47 microns to 243 microns. The efficiencies for local charged track triggers, for hit and for segments reconstruction were measured, and are above 99%. The timing resolution per layer is approximately 5 ns