48 research outputs found
Reference Process Models and Systems for Inter-Organizational Ad-Hoc Coordination - Supply Chain Management in Humanitarian Operations
International audienceIn this work we present a general framework for process-oriented coordination and collaboration in humanitarian operations. Process management has been proven useful in many business domains, but humanitarian operations and disaster response management in general require different process management approaches. Related work has only recently introduced traditional process management approaches for emergency management. These traditional approaches have several limitations with respect to the domain of humanitarian operations and disaster management. Our approach points to design, run-time and monitoring of inter-organizational humanitarian logistics processes. It consists of two parts: A reference model for humanitarian logistics tasks and a system for ad-hoc process management of these tasks. We discuss how they can be integrated to provide additional benefit
Real-Time Hardware-in-the-Loop Test Configuration: Use Case for the Fine Guidance System of PLATO
The presentation describes a real-time hardware in the loop test configuration with payload hardware units and simulators, used for the verification and validation of the Fine Guidance System of the PLATO mission. The presentation covers the motivation behind a combination of real and emulated hardware, a description of the PLATO mission and its Fine Guidance System, the test configuration, the related timing expected during tests and tools for test automation. Morover, a solution for a data archiving tool is provided
Melting, bubble-like expansion and explosion of superheated plasmonic nanoparticles
We report on time-resolved coherent diffraction imaging of gas-phase silver
nanoparticles, strongly heated via their plasmon resonance. The x-ray
diffraction images reveal a broad range of phenomena for different excitation
strengths, from simple melting over strong cavitation to explosive
disintegration. Molecular dynamics simulations fully reproduce this behavior
and show that the heating induces rather similar trajectories through the phase
diagram in all cases, with the very different outcomes being due only to
whether and where the stability limit of the metastable superheated liquid is
crossed.Comment: 17 pages, 8 figures (including supplemental material
Terrestrial Very-Long-Baseline Atom Interferometry:Workshop Summary
This document presents a summary of the 2023 Terrestrial Very-Long-Baseline Atom Interferometry Workshop hosted by CERN. The workshop brought together experts from around the world to discuss the exciting developments in large-scale atom interferometer (AI) prototypes and their potential for detecting ultralight dark matter and gravitational waves. The primary objective of the workshop was to lay the groundwork for an international TVLBAI proto-collaboration. This collaboration aims to unite researchers from different institutions to strategize and secure funding for terrestrial large-scale AI projects. The ultimate goal is to create a roadmap detailing the design and technology choices for one or more km-scale detectors, which will be operational in the mid-2030s. The key sections of this report present the physics case and technical challenges, together with a comprehensive overview of the discussions at the workshop together with the main conclusions
Peri-operative red blood cell transfusion in neonates and infants: NEonate and Children audiT of Anaesthesia pRactice IN Europe: A prospective European multicentre observational study
BACKGROUND: Little is known about current clinical practice concerning peri-operative red blood cell transfusion in neonates and small infants. Guidelines suggest transfusions based on haemoglobin thresholds ranging from 8.5 to 12 g dl-1, distinguishing between children from birth to day 7 (week 1), from day 8 to day 14 (week 2) or from day 15 (≥week 3) onwards. OBJECTIVE: To observe peri-operative red blood cell transfusion practice according to guidelines in relation to patient outcome. DESIGN: A multicentre observational study. SETTING: The NEonate-Children sTudy of Anaesthesia pRactice IN Europe (NECTARINE) trial recruited patients up to 60 weeks' postmenstrual age undergoing anaesthesia for surgical or diagnostic procedures from 165 centres in 31 European countries between March 2016 and January 2017. PATIENTS: The data included 5609 patients undergoing 6542 procedures. Inclusion criteria was a peri-operative red blood cell transfusion. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: The primary endpoint was the haemoglobin level triggering a transfusion for neonates in week 1, week 2 and week 3. Secondary endpoints were transfusion volumes, 'delta haemoglobin' (preprocedure - transfusion-triggering) and 30-day and 90-day morbidity and mortality. RESULTS: Peri-operative red blood cell transfusions were recorded during 447 procedures (6.9%). The median haemoglobin levels triggering a transfusion were 9.6 [IQR 8.7 to 10.9] g dl-1 for neonates in week 1, 9.6 [7.7 to 10.4] g dl-1 in week 2 and 8.0 [7.3 to 9.0] g dl-1 in week 3. The median transfusion volume was 17.1 [11.1 to 26.4] ml kg-1 with a median delta haemoglobin of 1.8 [0.0 to 3.6] g dl-1. Thirty-day morbidity was 47.8% with an overall mortality of 11.3%. CONCLUSIONS: Results indicate lower transfusion-triggering haemoglobin thresholds in clinical practice than suggested by current guidelines. The high morbidity and mortality of this NECTARINE sub-cohort calls for investigative action and evidence-based guidelines addressing peri-operative red blood cell transfusions strategies. TRIAL REGISTRATION: ClinicalTrials.gov, identifier: NCT02350348
Design and baseline characteristics of the finerenone in reducing cardiovascular mortality and morbidity in diabetic kidney disease trial
Background: Among people with diabetes, those with kidney disease have exceptionally high rates of cardiovascular (CV) morbidity and mortality and progression of their underlying kidney disease. Finerenone is a novel, nonsteroidal, selective mineralocorticoid receptor antagonist that has shown to reduce albuminuria in type 2 diabetes (T2D) patients with chronic kidney disease (CKD) while revealing only a low risk of hyperkalemia. However, the effect of finerenone on CV and renal outcomes has not yet been investigated in long-term trials.
Patients and Methods: The Finerenone in Reducing CV Mortality and Morbidity in Diabetic Kidney Disease (FIGARO-DKD) trial aims to assess the efficacy and safety of finerenone compared to placebo at reducing clinically important CV and renal outcomes in T2D patients with CKD. FIGARO-DKD is a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled, parallel-group, event-driven trial running in 47 countries with an expected duration of approximately 6 years. FIGARO-DKD randomized 7,437 patients with an estimated glomerular filtration rate >= 25 mL/min/1.73 m(2) and albuminuria (urinary albumin-to-creatinine ratio >= 30 to <= 5,000 mg/g). The study has at least 90% power to detect a 20% reduction in the risk of the primary outcome (overall two-sided significance level alpha = 0.05), the composite of time to first occurrence of CV death, nonfatal myocardial infarction, nonfatal stroke, or hospitalization for heart failure.
Conclusions: FIGARO-DKD will determine whether an optimally treated cohort of T2D patients with CKD at high risk of CV and renal events will experience cardiorenal benefits with the addition of finerenone to their treatment regimen.
Trial Registration: EudraCT number: 2015-000950-39; ClinicalTrials.gov identifier: NCT02545049
Two warm Neptunes transiting HIP 9618 revealed by TESS and Cheops
peer reviewedHIP 9618 (HD 12572, TOI-1471, TIC 306263608) is a bright (G = 9.0 mag) solar analogue. TESS photometry revealed the star to have two candidate planets with radii of 3.9 ± 0.044 R (HIP 9618 b) and 3.343 ± 0.039 R (HIP 9618 c). While the 20.77291 d period of HIP 9618 b was measured unambiguously, HIP 9618 c showed only two transits separated by a 680-d gap in the time series, leaving many possibilities for the period. To solve this issue, CHEOPS performed targeted photometry of period aliases to attempt to recover the true period of planet c, and successfully determined the true period to be 52.56349 d. High-resolution spectroscopy with HARPS-N, SOPHIE, and CAFE revealed a mass of 10.0 ± 3.1M for HIP 9618 b, which, according to our interior structure models, corresponds to a 6.8 ± 1.4 per cent gas fraction. HIP 9618 c appears to have a lower mass than HIP 9618 b, with a 3-sigma upper limit of 50 d, opening the door for the atmospheric characterization of warm (Teq < 750 K) sub-Neptunes
Common germline polymorphisms associated with breast cancer-specific survival
Abstract
Introduction
Previous studies have identified common germline variants nominally associated with breast cancer survival. These associations have not been widely replicated in further studies. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the association of previously reported SNPs with breast cancer-specific survival using data from a pooled analysis of eight breast cancer survival genome-wide association studies (GWAS) from the Breast Cancer Association Consortium.
Methods
A literature review was conducted of all previously published associations between common germline variants and three survival outcomes: breast cancer-specific survival, overall survival and disease-free survival. All associations that reached the nominal significance level of P value <0.05 were included. Single nucleotide polymorphisms that had been previously reported as nominally associated with at least one survival outcome were evaluated in the pooled analysis of over 37,000 breast cancer cases for association with breast cancer-specific survival. Previous associations were evaluated using a one-sided test based on the reported direction of effect.
Results
Fifty-six variants from 45 previous publications were evaluated in the meta-analysis. Fifty-four of these were evaluated in the full set of 37,954 breast cancer cases with 2,900 events and the two additional variants were evaluated in a reduced sample size of 30,000 samples in order to ensure independence from the previously published studies. Five variants reached nominal significance (P <0.05) in the pooled GWAS data compared to 2.8 expected under the null hypothesis. Seven additional variants were associated (P <0.05) with ER-positive disease.
Conclusions
Although no variants reached genome-wide significance (P <5 x 10−8), these results suggest that there is some evidence of association between candidate common germline variants and breast cancer prognosis. Larger studies from multinational collaborations are necessary to increase the power to detect associations, between common variants and prognosis, at more stringent significance levels
Genome-wide association study of germline variants and breast cancer-specific mortality
BACKGROUND: We examined the associations between germline variants and breast cancer mortality using a large meta-analysis
of women of European ancestry.
METHODS: Meta-analyses included summary estimates based on Cox models of twelve datasets using ~10
Spacewire Interface Simulation
Spacewire [1] is an interface standard for high rate
peer-to-peer intercommunication between several
nodes and routers for example between payloads and a
spacecraft on-board computer. The functionalities of
Spacewire continue to increase, mainly due to the
increase of on-board software complexity. New
facilities have to be provided to support the
development and testing of Spacewire and on-board
software applications.
This paper provides an overview of a generic
“request - action list” concept for real-time interface
simulation physically implemented as a Spacewire
Interface Simulator (SWIS).
The SWIS concept provides a means of generic
peer-to-peer interface simulations of the packet,
protocol and application layer with free user- defined
functionality for several simultaneous Spacewire links.
A payload simulation can be established by “drag and
drop” in a much shorter time than usually needed for
project specific software development.
Using the SWIS test and system engineers as well as
managers can prepare simulations without any need
for real-time software development. The effort (i.e. cost
and time) for development of the test facility is reduced
and the quality may increase significantly