Science with the space-based interferometer LISA. IV: probing inflation with gravitational waves

We investigate the potential for the LISA space-based interferometer to detect the stochastic gravitational wave background produced from different mechanisms during inflation. Focusing on well-motivated scenarios, we study the resulting contributions from particle production during inflation, inflationary spectator fields with varying speed of sound, effective field theories of inflation with specific patterns of symmetry breaking and models leading to the formation of primordial black holes. The projected sensitivities of LISA are used in a model-independent way for various detector designs and configurations. We demonstrate that LISA is able to probe these well-motivated inflationary scenarios beyond the irreducible vacuum tensor modes expected from any inflationary background.Comment: 53 pages, 18 figures; v2: minor changes to match published versio

Effect of angiotensin-converting enzyme inhibitor and angiotensin receptor blocker initiation on organ support-free days in patients hospitalized with COVID-19

IMPORTANCE Overactivation of the renin-angiotensin system (RAS) may contribute to poor clinical outcomes in patients with COVID-19. Objective To determine whether angiotensin-converting enzyme (ACE) inhibitor or angiotensin receptor blocker (ARB) initiation improves outcomes in patients hospitalized for COVID-19. DESIGN, SETTING, AND PARTICIPANTS In an ongoing, adaptive platform randomized clinical trial, 721 critically ill and 58 non–critically ill hospitalized adults were randomized to receive an RAS inhibitor or control between March 16, 2021, and February 25, 2022, at 69 sites in 7 countries (final follow-up on June 1, 2022). INTERVENTIONS Patients were randomized to receive open-label initiation of an ACE inhibitor (n = 257), ARB (n = 248), ARB in combination with DMX-200 (a chemokine receptor-2 inhibitor; n = 10), or no RAS inhibitor (control; n = 264) for up to 10 days. MAIN OUTCOMES AND MEASURES The primary outcome was organ support–free days, a composite of hospital survival and days alive without cardiovascular or respiratory organ support through 21 days. The primary analysis was a bayesian cumulative logistic model. Odds ratios (ORs) greater than 1 represent improved outcomes. RESULTS On February 25, 2022, enrollment was discontinued due to safety concerns. Among 679 critically ill patients with available primary outcome data, the median age was 56 years and 239 participants (35.2%) were women. Median (IQR) organ support–free days among critically ill patients was 10 (–1 to 16) in the ACE inhibitor group (n = 231), 8 (–1 to 17) in the ARB group (n = 217), and 12 (0 to 17) in the control group (n = 231) (median adjusted odds ratios of 0.77 [95% bayesian credible interval, 0.58-1.06] for improvement for ACE inhibitor and 0.76 [95% credible interval, 0.56-1.05] for ARB compared with control). The posterior probabilities that ACE inhibitors and ARBs worsened organ support–free days compared with control were 94.9% and 95.4%, respectively. Hospital survival occurred in 166 of 231 critically ill participants (71.9%) in the ACE inhibitor group, 152 of 217 (70.0%) in the ARB group, and 182 of 231 (78.8%) in the control group (posterior probabilities that ACE inhibitor and ARB worsened hospital survival compared with control were 95.3% and 98.1%, respectively). CONCLUSIONS AND RELEVANCE In this trial, among critically ill adults with COVID-19, initiation of an ACE inhibitor or ARB did not improve, and likely worsened, clinical outcomes. TRIAL REGISTRATION ClinicalTrials.gov Identifier: NCT0273570

Inflationary magnetogenesis with added helicity: constraints from non-gaussianities

International audienceIn previous work (Caprini and Sorbo 2014 J. Cosmol. Astropart. Phys. JCAP10(2014)056), two of us have proposed a model of inflationary magnetogenesis based on a rolling auxiliary field able both to account for the magnetic fields inferred by the (non) observation of gamma-rays from blazars, and to start the galactic dynamo, without incurring in any strong coupling or strong backreaction regime. Here we evaluate the correction to the scalar spectrum and bispectrum with respect to single-field slow-roll inflation generated in that scenario. The strongest constraints on the model originate from the non-observation of a scalar bispectrum. Nevertheless, even when those constraints are taken into consideration, the scenario can successfully account for the observed magnetic fields as long as the energy scale of inflation is smaller than GeV, under some conditions on the slow roll of the auxiliary scalar field

Pulmonary Hypertension in COVID-19 Pneumoniae: It Is Not Always as It Seems

A patient affected by COVID-19 pneumonia may develop pulmonary hypertension (PH) and secondary right ventricular (RV) involvement, due to lung parenchymal and interstitial damage and altered pulmonary haemodynamics, even in non-advanced phases of the disease. This is a consequence of hypoxic vasoconstriction of the pulmonary circulation, the use of positive end-expiratory pressure (PEEP) in mechanical ventilation, pulmonary endothelial injury, and local inflammatory thrombotic and/or thromboembolic processes.We report the case of a young man admitted with a diagnosis of COVID-19 pneumoniae with PH unrelated to viral infection and in whom partial anomalous pulmonary venous drainage (PAPVD) was eventually diagnosed

La valutazione delle abilità narrative nei Disturbi dello Spettro Autistico (ASD)

The paper aims to explore if mental time travel (i.e., the ability to reconstruct in one's autobiographical memory scenarios of one's past or generate plausible scenarios about one's future), islinked to difficulties in story generation in children with Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD). Forty-sixchildren with ASD and forty-sixwith typical cognitive and language development participated in the study. They wereasked to generate stories under three conditions: in a first condition they had to generate the beginning (i.e., Foreword); in a second condition they had to generate the plot (i.e., Interweaving); in a third condition they had to generate the end (i.e., Epilogue). The transcripts of these stories were analyzedaccording to the parameters established by Marini and Carlomagno (2004).To explorethe possible difference between groups and conditions these data were analyzedwith a series of mixed ANOVAs with repeated measures. These analyses showed the presence of lan-guage difficulties in children with ASD that appearedto be particularly evident in certain conditions rather than in other

La valutazione delle abilità narrative nei Disturbi dello Spettro Autistico (ASD)

The paper aims to explore if mental time travel (i.e., the ability to reconstruct in one's autobiographical memory scenarios of one's past or generate plausible scenarios about one's future), is linked to difficulties in story generation in children with Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD). Forty-six children with ASD and forty-six with typical cognitive and language development participated in the study. They were asked to generate stories under three conditions: in a first condition they had to generate the beginning (i.e., Foreword); in a second condition they had to generate the plot (i.e., Interweaving); in a third condition they had to generate the end (i.e., Epilogue). The transcripts of these stories were analyzed according to the parameters established by Marini and Carlomagno (2004). To explore the possible difference between groups and conditions these data were analyzed with a series of mixed ANOVAs with repeated measures. These analyses showed the presence of language difficulties in children with ASD that appeared to be particularly evident in certain conditions rather than in others

Prognostic value of cardiac power output to left ventricular mass in patients with left ventricular dysfunction and dobutamine stress echo negative by wall motion criteria

Cardiac power output to left ventricular mass (power/mass) is an index of myocardial efficiency reflecting the rate at which cardiac work is delivered with respect to the potential energy stored in the left ventricular mass. In the present study, we sought to investigate the capability of power/mass assessed at peak of dobutamine stress echocardiography to predict mortality in patients with ischaemic cardiomyopathy and no inducible ischaemia