Monolithic Integration of a Novel Microfluidic Device with Silicon Light Emitting Diode-Antifuse and Photodetector

Light emitting diode antifuse has been integrated into a microfluidic device that is realized with extended standard CMOS technological steps. The device comprises of a microchannel sandwiched between a photodiode detector and a nanometer-scale diode antifuse light emitter. Within this contribution, the device fabrication process, working principle and properties will be discussed. Change in the interference fringe of the antifuse spectra has been measured due to the filling of the channel. Preliminary applications are electroosmotic flow speed measurement, detection of absorptivity of liquids in the channe

Time resolution of the Atlas Tile calorimeter and its performance for a measurement of heavy stable particles

Time resolution of the Atlas Tile calorimeter modules has been measured using the test beam data. The resolution depends on an energy deposited in a given cell and is equal to about 1.5 $ns$ at $E$ = 1 $GeV$, 270 $ps$ at $E$ = 25 $GeV$ (high gain), 700 $ps$ at $E$ = 25 $GeV$ (low gain) and 170 $ps$ at $E$ = 150 $GeV$. These values have to be compared to the time of flight of relativistic particles to reach first samples of Tile calorimeter (from 8.3 $ns$ to 20 $ns$). Time of Flight measurement using Tile Calorimeter can be used to identify, and combined with momentum measurements by Atlas inner detector, to measure the mass of exotic heavy stable particles. The results are compared to previous analysis using the Atlas muon spectrometercite{KRAAN2}

A Matheuristic for the Two-Echelon Inventory-Routing Problem

Effective coordination of operational decisions in today’s global supply chains has grown increasingly important. This paper considers a two-echelon inventory-routing problem under a vendor-managed inventory system, where suppliers are responsible for fulfilling the demands of geographically scattered customers through a set of intermediate facilities over a finite planning horizon. The problem involves determining the routing and delivery decisions to minimize the total routing and inventory costs. We introduce an effective two-phase matheuristic approach that combines tabu search and mathematical programming models. Computational experiments show that our approach achieves excellent results regarding solution quality and computational time. For small instances, the matheuristic finds 99 optimal solutions out of 165 known optimal solutions and achieves an average gap of (-2.32%)over 235 instances with a known best upper bound only, improving 159 known best upper bounds. Our approach also solves larger instances within a reasonable computational time and provides upper bounds for all 400 large-sized instances for the first time in the literature. Through a comprehensive series of experiments, we provide insights into the efficacy of different components of the proposed solution method

Gene Therapy Targeting Nuclear Factor-κB: Towards Clinical Application in Inflammatory Diseases and Cancer

Nuclear factor (NF)-κB is regarded as one of the most important transcription factors and plays an essential role in the transcriptional activation of pro-inflammatory cytokines, cell proliferation and survival. NF-κB can be activated via two distinct NF-κB signal transduction pathways, the so-called canonical and non-canonical pathways, and has been demonstrated to play a key role in a wide range of inflammatory diseases and various types of cancer. Much effort has been put in strategies to inhibit NF-κB activation, for example by the development of pharmacological compounds that selectively inhibit NF-κB activity and therefore would be beneficial for immunotherapy of transplantation, autoimmune and allergic diseases, as well as an adjuvant approach in patients treated with chemotherapy for cancer. Gene therapy targeting NF-κB is a promising new strategy with the potential of long-term effects and has been explored in a wide variety of diseases, ranging from cancer to transplantation medicine and autoimmune diseases. In this review we discuss recent progress made in the development of NF-κB targeted gene therapy and the evolution towards clinical application

Electronic band structure and carrier effective mass in calcium aluminates

First-principles electronic band structure investigations of five compounds of the CaO-Al2O3 family, 3CaO.Al2O3, 12CaO.7Al2O3, CaO.Al2O3, CaO.2Al2O3 and CaO.6Al2O3, as well as CaO and alpha-, theta- and kappa-Al2O3 are performed. We find that the conduction band in the complex oxides is formed from the oxygen antibonding p-states and, although the band gap in Al2O3 is almost twice larger than in CaO, the s-states of both cations. Such a hybrid nature of the conduction band leads to isotropic electron effective masses which are nearly the same for all compounds investigated. This insensitivity of the effective mass to variations in the composition and structure suggests that upon a proper degenerate doping, both amorphous and crystalline phases of the materials will possess mobile extra electrons

Discovery of Innovative Therapies for Rare Immune-Mediated Inflammatory Diseases via Off-Label Prescription of Biologics: The Case of IL-6 Receptor Blockade in Castleman’s Disease

Biologics have revolutionized the field of clinical immunology and proven to be both effective and safe in common immune-mediated inflammatory diseases (IMIDs) such as rheumatoid arthritis, inflammatory bowel diseases, and various hematological disorders. However, in patients with rare, severe IMIDs failing on standard therapies, it is virtually impossible to conduct randomized controlled trials. Therefore, biologics are usually prescribed off-label in these often severely ill patients. Unfortunately, off-label prescription is sometimes hampered in these diseases due to a lack of reimbursement that is often based on a presumed lack of evidence for effectiveness. In the present article, we will discuss that off-label prescription of biologics can be a good way to discover new treatments for rare diseases. This will be illustrated using a case of multicentric Castleman's disease, an immune-mediated lymphoproliferative disorder, in which off-label tocilizumab (humanized anti-IL-6 receptor blocking antibody) treatment resulted in remarkable clinical improvement. Furthermore, we will give recommendations for monitoring efficacy and safety of biologic treatment in rare IMIDs, including the use of registries. In conclusion, we put forward that innovative treatments for rare IMIDs can be discovered via off-label prescription of biologicals, provided that this is based on rational arguments including knowledge of the pathophysiology of the diseas

Measurement-based modeling of bromine chemistry at the Dead Sea boundary layer ? Part 2: The influence of NO₂ on bromine chemistry at mid-latitude areas

International audienceUnderstanding the interaction between anthropogenic air pollution and Reactive Halogen Species (RHS) activity has had only limited support of direct field measurements, due to the fact that past field measurements of RHS have been mainly performed in Polar Regions. The present paper investigates the interaction between NO2 and Reactive Bromine Species (RBS) activity by model simulations based on extensive field measurements performed in the Dead Sea area, as described in a companion paper (Tas et al., 2006). The Dead Sea is an excellent natural laboratory for this investigation since elevated concentrations of BrO (up to more than 150 pptv) are frequently observed, while the average levels of NO2 are around several ppb. The results of the present study show that under the chemical mechanisms that occur at the Dead Sea, higher levels of NO2 lead to higher daily average concentrations of BrOX, as a result of an increase in the rate of the heterogeneous decomposition of BrONO2 that in turn causes an increase in the rate of the "Bromine Explosion" mechanism. The present study has shown that the influence of NO2 on BrOX production clearly reflects an enhancement of RBS activity caused by anthropogenic activity. However, above a certain threshold level of NO2 (daily average mixing ratios of 0.2 ppbv during RBS activity), the daily average concentrations of BrOX decrease for a further increase in the NO2 concentrations

Nonequilibrium Electron Interactions in Metal Films

Ultrafast relaxation dynamics of an athermal electron distribution is investigated in silver films using a femtosecond pump-probe technique with 18 fs pulses in off-resonant conditions. The results yield evidence for an increase with time of the electron-gas energy loss rate to the lattice and of the free electron damping during the early stages of the electron-gas thermalization. These effects are attributed to transient alterations of the electron average scattering processes due to the athermal nature of the electron gas, in agreement with numerical simulations