Efficiency of biochar for reducing mobility of inorganic contaminants

Anthropogenic activities have produced numerous sites with extensive contamination close to residential areas. Several physicochemical and biological remediation methods exist for remediation of metal contaminated soils and lands, such as soil washing, soil flushing, phytoremediation, and electrokinetics. Biochar (biologically derived charcoal) is produced by pyrolysis of biomasses under low oxygen conditions, and it can be applied for recycling organic waste in soils. The main objectives of the present study were to determine the possible use of biochar from forest ersidues (Populus nigra) in order to achieve a stabilization of inorganic contaminants by adsorption processes. Adsorption of copper by biochar from dilute solutions showed a closer agreement with the Langmuir isotherm in a concentration range 25-500 mM. The decontamination by biochar is very suitable because the treatment is passive and does not require specialized equipment or extensive labor as compared to other remediation methods. Moreover, biochar is also a possible carbon sink due to its long term storage in environment, thereby favouring mitigation of the anthropic impact on environment

Could the use of bedside lung ultrasound reduce the number of chest x-rays in the intensive care unit?

Background: Lung ultrasound can be used as an alternative to chest radiography (CXR) for the diagnosis and follow-up of various lung diseases in the intensive care unit (ICU). Our aim was to evaluate the influence that introducing a routine daily use of lung ultrasound in critically ill patients may have on the number of CXRs and as a consequence, on medical costs and radiation exposure. Methods: Data were collected by conducting a retrospective evaluation of the medical records of adult patients who needed thoracic imaging and were admitted to our academic polyvalent ICU. We compared the number of CXRs and relative costs before and after the introduction of lung ultrasound in our ICU. Results: A total of 4134 medical records were collected from January 2010 to December 2014. We divided our population into two groups, before (Group A, 1869 patients) and after (Group B, 2265 patients) the introduction of a routine use of LUS in July 2012. Group A performed a higher number of CXRs compared to Group B (1810 vs 961, P = 0.012), at an average of 0.97 vs 0.42 exams per patient. The estimated reduction of costs between Groups A and B obtained after the introduction of LUS, was 57%. No statistically significant difference between the outcome parameters of the two groups was observed. Conclusions: Lung ultrasound was effective in reducing the number of CXRs and relative medical costs and radiation exposure in ICU, without affecting patient outcome

Emergencia de enfermedades transmitidas por garrapatas, Mendoza, Argentina. Hepatozoonosis y babesiosis canina

Las garrapatas pueden portar y transmitir gran variedad de agentes patógenos, como bacterias, espiroquetas, rickettsias, protozoos, virus, nemátodos, y toxinas, que pueden constituir importantes zoonosis, como son Enfermedad de Lyme, Ehrlichiosis Humana, Fiebre Manchada de las Montañas Rocosas, Tularemia, Fiebre Q, entre otras.Desde años recientes éstos artrópodos ocupan el segundo lugar de importancia en cuanto a vectores, después de los mosquitos, convirtiéndose las Enfermedades Transmitidas por Garrapatas en foco de interés en áreas del mundo en las que se consideraban no endémicas. Se destacan aquellas que afectan animales de compañía, debido al rol social y estrecha relación con los seres humanos. Los caninos son parasitados por gran variedad de artrópodos, pudiendo constituir reservorios de agentes patógenos y facilitando la presencia de enfermedades potencialmente zoonóticas.Algunas de las más relevantes son Hepatozoonosis y Babesiosis canina, cuyas especies confirmadas en Argentina son Hepatozoon canis y Babesia vogeli. Ambas presentan signología inespecífica y se diagnostican a través del frotis sanguíneo

Artificial intelligence for renal cancer: From imaging to histology and beyond

Artificial intelligence (AI) has made considerable progress within the last decade and is the subject of contemporary literature. This trend is driven by improved computational abilities and increasing amounts of complex data that allow for new approaches in analysis and interpretation. Renal cell carcinoma (RCC) has a rising incidence since most tumors are now detected at an earlier stage due to improved imaging. This creates considerable challenges as approximately 10%–17% of kidney tumors are designated as benign in histopathological evaluation; however, certain co-morbid populations (the obese and elderly) have an increased peri-interventional risk. AI offers an alternative solution by helping to optimize precision and guidance for diagnostic and therapeutic decisions. The narrative review introduced basic principles and provide a comprehensive overview of current AI techniques for RCC. Currently, AI applications can be found in any aspect of RCC management including diagnostics, perioperative care, pathology, and follow-up. Most commonly applied models include neural networks, random forest, support vector machines, and regression. However, for implementation in daily practice, health care providers need to develop a basic understanding and establish interdisciplinary collaborations in order to standardize datasets, define meaningful endpoints, and unify interpretation

Triggering events with GPUs at ATLAS

The growing complexity of events produced in LHC collisions demands increasing computing power both for the online selection and for the offline reconstruction of events. In recent years there have been significant advances in the performance of Graphics Processing Units (GPUs) both in terms of increased compute power and reduced power consumption that make GPUs extremely attractive for use in a complex particle physics experiments such as ATLAS. A small scale prototype of the full ATLAS High Level Trigger has been implemented that exploits reconstruction algorithms optimized for this new massively parallel paradigm. We discuss the integration procedure followed for this prototype and present the performance achieved and the prospects for the future.Peer Reviewe

Morfología de huevos de Fasciola hepatica en mulares de Mendoza, Argentina

La fascioliasis es una enfermedad que se halla en expansión, tanto la causada por Fasciola hepatica, de distribución cosmopolita, como la causada por Fasciola gigantica, de zonas tropicales de África y Asia. A pesar de estar la fascioliasis ampliamente estudiada en rumiantes, son escasos los estudios en equinos. En Mendoza la enfermedad se ha diagnosticado en caballos, mulas y asnos. La morfología del huevo ha demostrado en humanos ser una herramienta diagnostica para diferenciar entre F. gigantica y F. hepatica. Los estudios de morfología de huevos son escasos en animales y prácticamente inexistentes en equinos. El mular, dada su actividad de transporte en alta montaña, actúa como dispersor del parásito

An evaluation of GPUs for use in an upgraded ATLAS High Level Trigger

ATLAS is a general purpose particle physics experiment located on the LHC collider at CERN. The ATLAS Trigger system consists of two levels, the first level (L1) implemented in hardware and the High Level Trigger (HLT) implemented in software running on a computing cluster of commodity CPUs. The HLT reduces the trigger rate from the 100 kHz L1 accept rate to 1 kHz for recording, requiring an average per-event processing time of ~300 ms for this task. The HLT selection is based on reconstructing tracks in the Inner Detector and Muon Spectrometer and clusters of energy deposited in the calorimeters (electromagnetic and hadronic). Performing this reconstruction within the available HLT computing cluster resources presents a significant challenge. Future HLT upgrades will result in higher detector occupancies and, consequently, will harden the reconstruction constraints. General purpose Graphics Processor Units (GPGPU) are being evaluated for possible future inclusion in an upgraded HLT computing cluster. We report on a demonstrator that has been developed consisting of GPGPU implementations of the calorimeters clustering and Inner Detector and Muon tracking algorithms integrated within the HLT software framework. We give a brief overview of the algorithm implementation and present preliminary measurements comparing the performance of the GPGPU algorithms with the current CPU versions.Peer Reviewe

Two-particle azimuthal correlations in photonuclear ultraperipheral Pb+Pb collisions at 5.02 TeV with ATLAS

Two-particle long-range azimuthal correlations are measured in photonuclear collisions using 1.7 nb−1 of 5.02 TeV Pb+Pb collision data collected by the ATLAS experiment at the CERN Large Hadron Collider. Candidate events are selected using a dedicated high-multiplicity photonuclear event trigger, a combination of information from the zero-degree calorimeters and forward calorimeters, and from pseudorapidity gaps constructed using calorimeter energy clusters and charged-particle tracks. Distributions of event properties are compared between data and Monte Carlo simulations of photonuclear processes. Two-particle correlation functions are formed using charged-particle tracks in the selected events, and a template-fitting method is employed to subtract the nonflow contribution to the correlation. Significant nonzero values of the secondand third-order flow coefficients are observed and presented as a function of charged-particle multiplicity and transverse momentum. The results are compared with flow coefficients obtained in proton-proton and proton-lead collisions in similar multiplicity ranges, and with theoretical expectations. The unique initial conditions present in this measurement provide a new way to probe the origin of the collective signatures previously observed only in hadronic collisions