The James Webb Space Telescope Mission

Twenty-six years ago a small committee report, building on earlier studies, expounded a compelling and poetic vision for the future of astronomy, calling for an infrared-optimized space telescope with an aperture of at least $4m$. With the support of their governments in the US, Europe, and Canada, 20,000 people realized that vision as the $6.5m$ James Webb Space Telescope. A generation of astronomers will celebrate their accomplishments for the life of the mission, potentially as long as 20 years, and beyond. This report and the scientific discoveries that follow are extended thank-you notes to the 20,000 team members. The telescope is working perfectly, with much better image quality than expected. In this and accompanying papers, we give a brief history, describe the observatory, outline its objectives and current observing program, and discuss the inventions and people who made it possible. We cite detailed reports on the design and the measured performance on orbit.Comment: Accepted by PASP for the special issue on The James Webb Space Telescope Overview, 29 pages, 4 figure

Patient safety incidents during interhospital transport of patients : a prospective analysis

Introduction: Interhospital transport of critically ill patients is at risk of complications. The objective of the study was to prospectively record patient safety incidents that occurred during interhospital transports and to determine their risk factors. Methods: We prospectively collected data during a fifteen-month period in 2 hospitals. Patient and transport characteristics were collected using a specifically designed tool. Patient safety incidents were appraised for health-care associated harm, and categorized as technical, operational, and communication problems. Results: Our study included 688 patients who were transferred to or from one of both hospitals by physician or nurse led transport, with complete records. A patient safety incident was reported in 16.7% of transports, health-care associated harm was noted in 3.9% of cases. In multivariate analysis, three factors remained significantly associated with an increased risk of healthcare-associated harm: operational incidents (odds ratio = 144.93, 95% CI = 37.55-767.50, P < 0.001), communication incidents (odds ratio = 11.05, 95% CI = 3.02-52.99, P < 0.001) and the Modified Sequential Organ Failure Assessment (M-SOFA) score (odds ratio = 1.198, 95% CI = 1.038-1.40, P = 0.017). Conclusions: The observed rate of patient safety incidents during interhospital transfers is lower than previously reported in the literature. However, there is limited previous work done on this topic. Operational and communication incidents, and a higher M-SOFA score are significantly associated with increase odds of harmful incident. These findings call for stricter preparation of transfers, with clear and standardized communication

Combined kidney pancreas transplantation in case of terminal diabetic nephropathy: report of the first transplantation at the university of Liège, Belgium

peer reviewe

Preliminary results on an innovative plasmonic device for macromolecules analysis and sequencing

n this work we present the fabrication and theoretical simulation for a new device constituted by a on Substrate Plasmonic Antenna (SPA) combined with a bio-functionalized Atomic Force Microscopy (AFM) cantilever. This device could represent a new strategy to sequence and analyze a single protein or DNA. The idea is to use an SPA composed of an innovative “wedding cake” shaped grating (WCG), in order to excite a Surface Plasmon Polariton (SPP) mode, and a 30° tilted Plasmonic Antenna (PA), able to compress adiabatically the SPP until the tip. The Plasmonic device is placed inside an electrical contact that could be used to unfold protein molecules or DNA. A bio-functionalized AFM tip can be used to fish a single biological element and for alignment with the SPA. Then the unfolded element could be scanned close to the PA and a Tip Enhanced Raman Signal (TERS) can be recorded from the biomolecule. The spatial resolution is limited by the size of the radius of curvature of the antenna, which in this work is about 15 nm, while the vertical scanning is controlled by the piezoelectric of the AFM set up. In this work we demonstrate the possibility to fabricate this innovative plasmonic device and we report FDTD simulations of the innovative WCG. The FDTD simulations show the generation of a plasmonic mode that, coupled with the antenna, give rise to an adiabatic compression which produce an increase of the electric field of about 40 times

Drotrecogin alfa (Activated) in adults with septic shock

There have been conflicting reports on the efficacy of recombinant human activated protein C, or drotrecogin alfa (activated) (DrotAA), for the treatment of patients with septic shock.In this randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled, multicenter trial, we assigned 1697 patients with infection, systemic inflammation, and shock who were receiving fluids and vasopressors above a threshold dose for 4 hours to receive either DrotAA (at a dose of 24 μg per kilogram of body weight per hour) or placebo for 96 hours. The primary outcome was death from any cause 28 days after randomization.At 28 days, 223 of 846 patients (26.4%) in the DrotAA group and 202 of 834 (24.2%) in the placebo group had died (relative risk in the DrotAA group, 1.09; 95% confidence interval [CI], 0.92 to 1.28; P=0.31). At 90 days, 287 of 842 patients (34.1%) in the DrotAA group and 269 of 822 (32.7%) in the placebo group had died (relative risk, 1.04; 95% CI, 0.90 to 1.19; P=0.56). Among patients with severe protein C deficiency at baseline, 98 of 342 (28.7%) in the DrotAA group had died at 28 days, as compared with 102 of 331 (30.8%) in the placebo group (risk ratio, 0.93; 95% CI, 0.74 to 1.17; P=0.54). Similarly, rates of death at 28 and 90 days were not significantly different in other predefined subgroups, including patients at increased risk for death. Serious bleeding during the treatment period occurred in 10 patients in the DrotAA group and 8 in the placebo group (P=0.81).DrotAA did not significantly reduce mortality at 28 or 90 days, as compared with placebo, in patients with septic shock. (Funded by Eli Lilly; PROWESS-SHOCK ClinicalTrials.gov number, NCT00604214.)