Dipolar plasma source modeling: a first approach

International audienceThe scaling up of conventional plasmas presents limitations in terms of plasma density, limited to the critical density, and of uniformity, due to the difficulty of achieving constant amplitude standing wave patterns along linear microwave applicators in the meter range. An alternative solution lies in the concept of distribution from one- to two-dimensional networks of elementary plasma. Each elementary plasma source consists in a permanent magnet on which microwaves are applied via an independent coaxial line [1]. The plasma is produced by the electrons accelerated at ECR (Electron Cyclotron Resonance) and trapped in the dipolar magnetic field. Large-size uniform plasmas can be obtained by assembling as many such elementary plasma sources as necessary, without any physical or technical limitations [2]. Simulation of the plasma produced by a dipolar source requires a global, self consistent, modeling of its functioning. In order to obtain results to lead a first optimization of the dipolar source, magnetostatics, microwave propagation and fast electrons trajectories (Particles in Cell (PIC) and Monte-Carlo hybrid method [3]) have been performed with Comsol Multiphysics and MatLab

Lovastatin for the Treatment of Adult Patients With Dengue: A Randomized, Double-Blind, Placebo-Controlled Trial.

BACKGROUND: Dengue endangers billions of people in the tropical world, yet no therapeutic is currently available. In part, the severe manifestations of dengue reflect inflammatory processes affecting the vascular endothelium. In addition to lipid lowering, statins have pleiotropic effects that improve endothelial function, and epidemiological studies suggest that outcomes from a range of acute inflammatory syndromes are improved in patients already on statin therapy. METHODS: Following satisfactory review of a short pilot phase (40 mg lovastatin vs placebo in 30 cases), we performed a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial of 5 days of 80 mg lovastatin vs placebo in 300 Vietnamese adults with a positive dengue NS1 rapid test presenting within 72 hours of fever onset. The primary outcome was safety. Secondary outcomes included comparisons of disease progression rates, fever clearance times, and measures of plasma viremia and quality of life between the treatment arms. RESULTS: Adverse events occurred with similar frequency in both groups (97/151 [64%] placebo vs 82/149 [55%] lovastatin; P = .13), and were in keeping with the characteristic clinical and laboratory features of acute dengue. We also observed no difference in serious adverse events or any of the secondary outcome measures. CONCLUSIONS: We found lovastatin to be safe and well tolerated in adults with dengue. However, although the study was not powered to address efficacy, we found no evidence of a beneficial effect on any of the clinical manifestations or on dengue viremia. Continuing established statin therapy in patients who develop dengue is safe.Chinese Clinical Trials Registration. ISRCTN03147572

Prevalence, antimicrobial resistance and genomic comparison of non-typhoidal salmonella isolated from pig farms with different levels of intensification in Yangon Region, Myanmar

In Myanmar, where backyard, semi-intensive, and intensive pig (Sus scrofa domesticus) farming coexist, there is limited understanding of the zoonotic risks and antimicrobial resistance (AMR) associated with these farming practices. This study was conducted to investigate the prevalence, AMR and genomic features of Salmonella in pig farms in the Yangon region and the impact of farm intensification to provide evidence to support risk-based future management approaches. Twenty-three farms with different production scales were sampled for two periods with three sampling-visit each. Antimicrobial susceptibility tests and whole-genome sequencing were performed on the isolates. The prevalence of Salmonella was 44.5% in samples collected from backyard farms, followed by intensive (39.5%) and semi-intensive farms (19.5%). The prevalence of multi-drug resistant isolates from intensive farms (45/84, 53.6%) was higher than those from backyard (32/171, 18.7%) and semi-intensive farms (25/161, 15.5%). Among 28 different serovars identified, S. Weltevreden (40; 14.5%), S. Kentucky (38; 13.8%), S. Stanley (35, 12.7%), S. Typhimurium (22; 8.0%) and S. Brancaster (20; 7.3%) were the most prevalent serovars and accounted for 56.3% of the genome sequenced strains. The diversity of Salmonella serovars was highest in semi-intensive and backyard farms (21 and 19 different serovars, respectively). The high prevalence of globally emerging S. Kentucky ST198 was detected on backyard farms. The invasive-infection linked typhoid-toxin gene (cdtB) was found in the backyard farm isolated S. Typhimurium, relatively enriched in virulence and AMR genes, presented an important target for future surveillance. While intensification, in terms of semi-intensive versus backyard production, maybe a mitigator for zoonotic risk through a lower prevalence of Salmonella, intensive production appears to enhance AMR-associated risks. Therefore, it remains crucial to closely monitor the AMR and virulence potential of this pathogen at all scales of production. The results underscored the complex relationship between intensification of animal production and the prevalence, diversity and AMR of Salmonella from pig farms in Myanmar

Socializing One Health: an innovative strategy to investigate social and behavioral risks of emerging viral threats

In an effort to strengthen global capacity to prevent, detect, and control infectious diseases in animals and people, the United States Agency for International Development’s (USAID) Emerging Pandemic Threats (EPT) PREDICT project funded development of regional, national, and local One Health capacities for early disease detection, rapid response, disease control, and risk reduction. From the outset, the EPT approach was inclusive of social science research methods designed to understand the contexts and behaviors of communities living and working at human-animal-environment interfaces considered high-risk for virus emergence. Using qualitative and quantitative approaches, PREDICT behavioral research aimed to identify and assess a range of socio-cultural behaviors that could be influential in zoonotic disease emergence, amplification, and transmission. This broad approach to behavioral risk characterization enabled us to identify and characterize human activities that could be linked to the transmission dynamics of new and emerging viruses. This paper provides a discussion of implementation of a social science approach within a zoonotic surveillance framework. We conducted in-depth ethnographic interviews and focus groups to better understand the individual- and community-level knowledge, attitudes, and practices that potentially put participants at risk for zoonotic disease transmission from the animals they live and work with, across 6 interface domains. When we asked highly-exposed individuals (ie. bushmeat hunters, wildlife or guano farmers) about the risk they perceived in their occupational activities, most did not perceive it to be risky, whether because it was normalized by years (or generations) of doing such an activity, or due to lack of information about potential risks. Integrating the social sciences allows investigations of the specific human activities that are hypothesized to drive disease emergence, amplification, and transmission, in order to better substantiate behavioral disease drivers, along with the social dimensions of infection and transmission dynamics. Understanding these dynamics is critical to achieving health security--the protection from threats to health-- which requires investments in both collective and individual health security. Involving behavioral sciences into zoonotic disease surveillance allowed us to push toward fuller community integration and engagement and toward dialogue and implementation of recommendations for disease prevention and improved health security

Determinants of students’ behavior in using light rail transit in Hanoi

On November 6th, 2021, the first light rail transit (LRT) began operating in Vietnam after a decade of construction. This project aimed to alleviate traffic congestion in the road network of the Hanoi capital. However, despite the deployment of the transit service, passenger volume remains under-capacity, raising questions about how to encourage people, particularly young individuals, to use the new public transit. Hence, this study investigated students’ behavior in choosing the LRT as a means of transport. Statistical analysis of the questionnaire survey showed that the satisfaction level was the dominant factor affecting the mode choices of students. Besides, distance from home to school and LRT station accessibility significantly influenced students’ traveling behavior. These findings provide fundamental insight into young Vietnamese individuals’ behavior regarding a new transit service. We believe these outcomes would help support policy-makers and service providers in improving the LRT projects’ efficiency

Effects of Temperature and Stress on the InGaP/GaAs Heterojunction Phototransistor

Although the effects of electrical stress and temperature on the performance of the InGaP/GaAs heterojunction bipolar transistors (HBTs) have been widely studied and reported, little or none was reported for the InGaP/GaAs heterojunction phototransistors (HPTs) in the literature. In this paper, we discuss the temperature-dependent characteristic of InGaP/GaAs HPTs before and after electrical stress and assess the effectiveness of the emitter-ledge passivation, which was found to effectively keep the InGaP/GaAs HBTs from degrading at higher temperature or after an electrical stress. The emitter-ledge passivation is also effective keeping a higher optical gain even at higher temperature. An electrical stress was given to the HPTs by keeping the collector current at 60 mA for 15 min. Since the collector current density as an electrical stress is 24 A/cm2 and much smaller than the stress usually given to smaller HBTs for the stress test, the decreased optical gain was not observed when it was given at room temperature. However, when it was given at 420 K, significant decreases of the current gain and optical gain were observed at any temperature. Nevertheless, the emitter-ledge passivation was found effective in minimizing the decreases of the current gain and optical gain

Data-driven Prediction of Temperature Evolution in Metallic Additive Manufacturing Process

peer reviewedIn this study, a data-driven deep learning model for fast and accurate prediction of temperature evolution and melting pool size of metallic additive manufacturing processes are developed. The study focuses on bulk experiments of the M4 high-speed steel material powder manufactured by Direct Energy Deposition. Under non-optimized process parameters, many deposited layers (above 30) generate large changes of microstructure through the sample depth caused by the high sensitivity of the cladding material on the thermal history. A 2D finite element analysis (FEA) of the bulk sample, validated in a previous study by experimental measurements, is able to achieve numerical data defining the temperature field evolution under different process settings. A Feed-forward neural networks (FFNN) approach is trained to reproduce the temperature fields generated from FEA. Hence, the trained FFNN is used to predict the history of the temperature fields for new process parameter sets not included in the initial dataset. Besides the input energy, nodal coordinates, and time, five additional features relating layer number, laser location, and distance from the laser to sampling point are considered to enhance prediction accuracy. The results indicate that the temperature evolution is predicted well by the FFNN with an accuracy of 99% within 12 seconds.EDPOM

A randomized, double-blind placebo controlled trial of balapiravir, a polymerase inhibitor, in adult dengue patients.

BACKGROUND: Dengue is the most common arboviral infection of humans. There are currently no specific treatments for dengue. Balapiravir is a prodrug of a nucleoside analogue (called R1479) and an inhibitor of hepatitis C virus replication in vivo. METHODS: We conducted in vitro experiments to determine the potency of balapiravir against dengue viruses and then an exploratory, dose-escalating, randomized placebo-controlled trial in adult male patients with dengue with <48 hours of fever. RESULTS: The clinical and laboratory adverse event profile in patients receiving balapiravir at doses of 1500 mg (n = 10) or 3000 mg (n = 22) orally for 5 days was similar to that of patients receiving placebo (n = 32), indicating balapiravir was well tolerated. However, twice daily assessment of viremia and daily assessment of NS1 antigenemia indicated balapiravir did not measurably alter the kinetics of these virological markers, nor did it reduce the fever clearance time. The kinetics of plasma cytokine concentrations and the whole blood transcriptional profile were also not attenuated by balapiravir treatment. CONCLUSIONS: Although this trial, the first of its kind in dengue, does not support balapiravir as a candidate drug, it does establish a framework for antiviral treatment trials in dengue and provides the field with a clinically evaluated benchmark molecule. CLINICAL TRIALS REGISTRATION: NCT01096576

Genetic variants of MICB and PLCE1 and associations with non-severe dengue.

BACKGROUND: A recent genome-wide association study (GWAS) identified susceptibility loci for dengue shock syndrome (DSS) at MICB rs3132468 and PLCE1 rs3740360. The aim of this study was to define the extent to which MICB (rs3132468) and PLCE1 (rs3740360) were associated with less severe clinical phenotypes of pediatric and adult dengue. METHODS: 3961 laboratory-confirmed dengue cases and 5968 controls were genotyped at MICB rs3132468 and PLCE1 rs3740360. Per-allele odds ratios (OR) with 95% confidence intervals (CI) were calculated for each patient cohort. Pooled analyses were performed for adults and paediatrics respectively using a fixed effects model. RESULTS: Pooled analysis of the paediatric and adult cohorts indicated a significant association between MICB rs3132468 and dengue cases without shock (OR  =  1.15; 95%CI: 1.07 - 1.24; P  =  0.0012). Similarly, pooled analysis of pediatric and adult cohorts indicated a significant association between dengue cases without shock and PLCE1 rs3740360 (OR  =  0.92; 95%CI: 0.85 - 0.99; P  =  0.018). We also note significant association between both SNPs (OR  =  1.48; P  =  0.0075 for MICB rs3132468 and OR  =  0.75, P  =  0.041 for PLCE1 rs3740360) and dengue in infants. DISCUSSION: This study confirms that the MICB rs3132468 and PLCE1 rs3740360 risk genotypes are not only associated with DSS, but are also associated with less severe clinical phenotypes of dengue, as well as with dengue in infants. These findings have implications for our understanding of dengue pathogenesis