Brazilian multicenter study on pegvisomant treatment in acromegaly

Objective Investigate the therapeutic response of acromegaly patients to pegvisomant (PEGV) in a real-life, Brazilian multicenter study. Subjects and methods Characteristics of acromegaly patients treated with PEGV were reviewed at diagnosis, just before and during treatment. All patients with at least two IGF-I measurements on PEGV were included. Efficacy was defined as any normal IGF-I measurement during treatment. Safety data were reviewed. Predictors of response were determined by comparing controlled versus uncontrolled patients. Results 109 patients [61 women; median age at diagnosis 34 years; 95.3% macroadenomas] from 10 Brazilian centers were studied. Previous treatment included surgery (89%), radiotherapy (34%), somatostatin receptor ligands (99%), and cabergoline (67%). Before PEGV, median levels of GH, IGF-I and IGF-I % of upper limit of normal were 4.3 µg/L, 613 ng/mL, and 209%, respectively. Pre-diabetes/diabetes was present in 48.6% and tumor remnant in 71% of patients. Initial dose was 10 mg/day in all except 4 cases, maximum dose was 30 mg/day, and median exposure time was 30.5 months. PEGV was used as monotherapy in 11% of cases. Normal IGF-I levels was obtained in 74.1% of patients. Glycemic control improved in 56.6% of patients with pre-diabetes/diabetes. Exposure time, pre-treatment GH and IGF-I levels were predictors of response. Tumor enlargement occurred in 6.5% and elevation of liver enzymes in 9.2%. PEGV was discontinued in 6 patients and 3 deaths unrelated to the drug were reported. Conclusions In a real-life scenario, PEGV is a highly effective and safe treatment for acromegaly patients not controlled with other therapies

Flower-insect timed counts (FIT Count): protocol adaptation and preliminary results in Brazil

FIT Count (Flower-Insect Timed Counts) is a citizen science initiative that seeks to monitor flower visitation by diverse pollinator groups, including bumblebees, stingless bees, honeybees, flies, hummingbirds, among others. The protocol entails determining a 50 x 50 cm plot area around a target plant species, photographing the plant and conducting a standardized 10-minute survey on this area to estimate the frequency of flower visits by different pollinator groups. Conducting FIT Counts in different habitats and locations produces data on the temporal and spatial dynamics of these interactions

Asteroseismology and Interferometry

Asteroseismology provides us with a unique opportunity to improve our understanding of stellar structure and evolution. Recent developments, including the first systematic studies of solar-like pulsators, have boosted the impact of this field of research within Astrophysics and have led to a significant increase in the size of the research community. In the present paper we start by reviewing the basic observational and theoretical properties of classical and solar-like pulsators and present results from some of the most recent and outstanding studies of these stars. We centre our review on those classes of pulsators for which interferometric studies are expected to provide a significant input. We discuss current limitations to asteroseismic studies, including difficulties in mode identification and in the accurate determination of global parameters of pulsating stars, and, after a brief review of those aspects of interferometry that are most relevant in this context, anticipate how interferometric observations may contribute to overcome these limitations. Moreover, we present results of recent pilot studies of pulsating stars involving both asteroseismic and interferometric constraints and look into the future, summarizing ongoing efforts concerning the development of future instruments and satellite missions which are expected to have an impact in this field of research.Comment: Version as published in The Astronomy and Astrophysics Review, Volume 14, Issue 3-4, pp. 217-36

Standalone vertex finding in the ATLAS muon spectrometer

A dedicated reconstruction algorithm to find decay vertices in the ATLAS muon spectrometer is presented. The algorithm searches the region just upstream of or inside the muon spectrometer volume for multi-particle vertices that originate from the decay of particles with long decay paths. The performance of the algorithm is evaluated using both a sample of simulated Higgs boson events, in which the Higgs boson decays to long-lived neutral particles that in turn decay to bbar b final states, and pp collision data at √s = 7 TeV collected with the ATLAS detector at the LHC during 2011

Measurements of Higgs boson production and couplings in diboson final states with the ATLAS detector at the LHC

Measurements are presented of production properties and couplings of the recently discovered Higgs boson using the decays into boson pairs, H →γ γ, H → Z Z∗ →4l and H →W W∗ →lνlν. The results are based on the complete pp collision data sample recorded by the ATLAS experiment at the CERN Large Hadron Collider at centre-of-mass energies of √s = 7 TeV and √s = 8 TeV, corresponding to an integrated luminosity of about 25 fb−1. Evidence for Higgs boson production through vector-boson fusion is reported. Results of combined fits probing Higgs boson couplings to fermions and bosons, as well as anomalous contributions to loop-induced production and decay modes, are presented. All measurements are consistent with expectations for the Standard Model Higgs boson

Measurement of the top quark-pair production cross section with ATLAS in pp collisions at \sqrt{s}=7\TeV

A measurement of the production cross-section for top quark pairs(\ttbar) in $pp$ collisions at \sqrt{s}=7 \TeV is presented using data recorded with the ATLAS detector at the Large Hadron Collider. Events are selected in two different topologies: single lepton (electron $e$ or muon $\mu$) with large missing transverse energy and at least four jets, and dilepton ($ee$, $\mu\mu$ or $e\mu$) with large missing transverse energy and at least two jets. In a data sample of 2.9 pb-1, 37 candidate events are observed in the single-lepton topology and 9 events in the dilepton topology. The corresponding expected backgrounds from non-\ttbar Standard Model processes are estimated using data-driven methods and determined to be $12.2 \pm 3.9$ events and $2.5 \pm 0.6$ events, respectively. The kinematic properties of the selected events are consistent with SM \ttbar production. The inclusive top quark pair production cross-section is measured to be \sigmattbar=145 \pm 31 ^{+42}_{-27} pb where the first uncertainty is statistical and the second systematic. The measurement agrees with perturbative QCD calculations.Comment: 30 pages plus author list (50 pages total), 9 figures, 11 tables, CERN-PH number and final journal adde