Immunosuppression for interstitial lung disease in systemic sclerosis

The efficacy of immunosuppressors in the treatment of systemic sclerosis-interstitial lung disease is still matter of controversy. In this review we will analyse the evidence that immunosuppressors, despite not being able to reverse fibrotic changes, may help in slowing disease progression. Induction treatment with cyclophosphamide should be started as soon as possible in patients at risk for progression. Mycophenolate mofetil and rituximab have to be considered in patients who are unable to tolerate cyclophosphamide. After remission, maintenance treatment with mycophenolate mofetil or azathioprine should be started in order to preserve the benefits achieved during the induction treatment

Longitudinal beam dynamics in the Frascati DAΦNE e^{+}e^{-} collider with a passive third harmonic cavity in the lengthening regime

A high-harmonic rf system is going to be installed in both rings of the DAΦNE Φ-Factory collider to improve the Touschek lifetime. The main goal of this paper is to study the impact of the 3rd harmonic cavity on beam dynamics making a special emphasis on the dynamics of a bunch train with a gap. The shift of the coherent synchrotron frequencies of the coupled-bunch modes has been estimated. In the following we investigated the effect of magnification of the synchrotron phase spread and beam spectrum variation due to the gap. Besides we simulated the bunch lengthening for different bunches along the unevenly filled train and evaluated the Touschek lifetime enhancement taking into account the obtained bunch distributions. Finally, the "cavity parking" option is discussed. It can be considered as a reliable backup procedure consisting of tuning the cavity away from the 3rd harmonic frequency and in between two revolution harmonics. It allows recovering, approximately, the same operating conditions as were before the harmonic cavity installation